be rooted in the labour movement - above all, in the industrial unions. It might appear strange that socialists should have to pose this as a precondition but, allowing for the uneven development of the class struggle over the past twenty years, it becomes a vital one.
The ending of the post-war boom years was heralded, in the late '60s, by the radicalisation of layers outside the labour movement - mainly student youth - who were to the fore in defending the colonial revolution and in pioneering the rights of doubly-oppressed layers such as women or Blacks.
While it was correct for socialists to participate among these layers -winning the best elements to a working class perspective - it was important, at all times, to be aware of the limitations of these petty-bourgeois layers in terms of their social weight.
As the capitalist crisis has deepened - and the labour movement has become increasingly the key factor in defending the rights of all the oppressed - these limitations have become glaringly obvious.
Divorced from the workers' movement, what was previously the "vanguard" of the radicalisation process has been thrown into a crisis endemic to their social origins. Some have opted out of politics altogether, moving towards alternative forms of "lifestyle", and others have abandonned marxism for a retormist strategy. The Beyond the Fragments current represented aspects of both.
PRESSURE Unfortunately, many of the left tendencies who grew during the late 'sixties and early 'seventies, drew their forces from such a milieu and are, therefore, deeply susceptible to pressures from it. The only way socialists can break out of the impotence and hostile class pressures such a milieu today represents is by making a decisive turn towards the labour movement - particularly its industrial wing. Such a turn is vital for three interrelated reasons:
1. First of all, it is only the labour movement - or, more precisely, its industrial base - which today has the power to stop the ruling class offensive against its living standards and democratic rights. It is only the muscle of the industrial workers - of the miners, engineers and transport workers -which is capable of reversing the tide.
This was revealed dramatically in the past few months. Whereas the civil servants were defeated by the Tories after months of industrial action, the miners had only to threaten strike action to bring the government to its knees.
2. Secondly, not only are the industrial unions key to beating back the Tory offensive on wages, jobs and anti-union laws but they are vital in defending the interests of any oppressed layer.
Neither women, Blacks or any other social layer today has the power to stop the Tory onslaught in isolation. It is only by winning the decisive social weight of the industrial working class - and getting them to pioneer the rights of all the oppressed - that the democratic rights of any layer can be protected. This was shown most clearly in the campaign against Corrie's anti-abortion bill when it was the intervention of the TUC - mobilising thousands on the streets - which ensured that this piece of anti-women legislation was thrown into the rhubbish bin unions which alone have the power not only to stop the Tories in their tracks but to decisively influence and which have supported it ever become possible to ensure that rial workers who will increasingly rate of profit - and who alone have ruling class offensive.
for building a class-struggle leftprogramme of action, of a series of for them - can lead ever-wider lay. ers to see the importance of a of the Stalinists or reformists, starts from two basic premises. The first is that, in the fight for jobs and wages, workers did not create the present crisis and should in no way bear responsibility for it. This means, concretely, opposing all forms of pay restraint or "phased" redundancies and advancing demands which can lead workers to see, more and more, that wages and jobs can only be protected by the overthrow of the profit system itself.
Calling for work-sharing when redundancies are announced - a demand already popularised in the call for the 35-hour week -and for index-linked pay increases are cases in point.
The second premise is that, in the fight against the Tory offensive, the maximum unity is needed. This means leading a concerted struggle, on the shop-floor, against Tory attempts to divide the labour movement by spreading racist, sexist or chauvinist poisen.
Such a struggle involves not only opposing attempts to erode still further the limited rights of the doubly oppressed (as in the Tory government's attempts to ram through the racist Nationality Act). It also means fighting for positive discrimination in favour of the doubly-oppressed since this is the only way to destroy the caste prejudices that have been built up over centuries and ensure maximum unity in action.
The unions - and Labour Party - have to be turned into organisations that will lead the fight for all the oppressed and exploited against this decaying system. "An injury to one is an Struggling to build a classaction programme is not merely a propagandistic task. The demands of the general labour movementthem that growing layers will ands that growing layers will not system but also their present leadLABOUR PARTY - particularly the industrial unions The present shift left in the party - which has pushed the right onto the defensive - is not, as the to the activity of small groups of to the growing radicalisation amhas pushed the block vote to the ions on unilateralism or withdrawal from the EEC - not to speak of La clear case in point.
Bill STRUGGLE and support it. oral base. class-struggle left-wing in the unions - that the fight for socialist policies the conference vote.
DANGER continued from page 1 and their press spokespeople. Behind their cries of jubilation lies the knowledge that the support for these policies will grow - and not diminish - in the years ahead.
They know that the mass base behind Benn is not confined to small groups of "activists" in the CLPs but represents a shift left by thousands of workers looking for a class-struggle lead against the Tories. The endorsement of Benn by unions such as the NUM, which ballotted its members, is They also know that, as the Tory government deepens its attacks, more and more workers will be drawn to the radical alternative Benn represents and will teeth. question the right-wing bureaucrats who dominate their unions and the Labour Party.
ПОРТ MACIS Demonstration Against Nationality This is the process that is really opening up in the party and which was registered at conference.
What is at stake - and the ruling class know it - is a fight for the very heart of the party: a fight to determine whether it will continue to implement pro-capitalist policies (under the guise of the "national interest") or whether it will implement policies in the class interests of those workers who built While that fight has not yet been the line. resolved - and while the right-wing, backed by the Tory press, are digging in for a fight-to-the death finish - the ruling class know that the trend of history is against them.
This is why, of course, while slandering the Bennite left, they are busy promoting the SDP-Lib. eral alliance. Faced with the prospect of the return of a left-wing Labour government, under greater rank-and-file control, they are busy seeking an alternative which can bite into the Labour Party's electThe only way to defeat the ruling ent.
the unions which, in the past, represented about 90 per cent of The only way of ensuring that this turn to the left is deepened - and that the right-wing gathered around Healey and Foot is defeated - is to build a solid base in the unions. It is, in the long term, only the power of the rank-and-file of the industrial unions which can ensure real control over the Labour leaders and their implementation of party policy.
There is the danger that many socialist currents - particularly class plans is to push resolutely ahead with the fight for socialist policies which can help millions of workers to see in Labour a real defender of their class interests. This means continuing the fight against the right-wing - against the Hattersleys and Healeys - who have no intention of implementing conference decisions.
Defeating the right cannot be achieved, however, by the CLPs alone. As conference showed, with dramatic clarity, the real power in the Labour Party is rooted in its industrial base. It was the block votes of the right-wing union bureaucrats, such as Duffy of the AUEW, which kept Healey in power by the skin of his If the right-wing are to be decisiv. ely defeated, the struggle for socialist policies must be increasingly taken into the unions - above all, into the industrial unions - to chailenge the stranglehold grip bureaucrats like Duffy continue to exert.
The decision by conference by an almost two to one majority to set up industrial branches of the Labour Party will be an important means , of carrying the debate into the union rank-and-file and calling the man• oeuvres of the right-wing bureaucrats to order.
FIGHTBACKR There can be little doubt that the narrowness of Healey's victory will encourage the Labour right - backed by the Tory press shrill attacks on the growing radic. alisation, Already, signs have emerged of attempts to witch-hunt socialists in the unions and CLPs. Weighall of the NUR, for example, has called for the expulsion of tendencies such as Militant and the re-introduction of the bans and proscriptions list.
These moves have to be fought tooth and nail. Although, in the longer term, the moves from the right are doomed to impotence, they can in the shorter term gain important tactical advantages unless they are combatted right down This means: * calling to account those MPs and union bureaucrats who oppos ed the election of Benn against their members' wishes; * taking the struggle into the unions - mainly through the setting up of industrial branches - to build growing support for socialist policies against the pro-capitalist ones of their leaders; * turning the Labour Party more and more into a campaigning party which can champion, on the streets, the demands of workers and their allies, from the question of unemployment to unilateral disarmamthose who, until recently, were hostile to the Labour Party - will join it without any clear understanding of the processes that are underway.
Many will see the struggle for socialist policies - and the building of a left opposition - as getting involved in small caucuses trying to out-manoeuvre the right, seizing "positions" or passing pious resolutions. Such views can be dangerous because, instead of seeking to win over the rank-and-file of the labour movement who wield the continued on page -Socialist Action
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