I HAVE been distressed to read vour report the roundation Conference of the Socialist Society by Phil Hearse in your issue SC 230. No doubt the inaccuracies of this piece reflect the fact that Phil, who did not attend the conference, has had to rely on misleading press reports.
To write that Eric Heffer was booed and hissed when he sugoested that the Labour Party was the place to fight or when he urged the Socialist Society to AS the Socialist Socialist Society's conference 1 can agree with most of Robin's factual corrections, and hope this will ease his distress. But l also think Robin has missed the points Phil makes.
Firstly. on afiliation.
The by anyone in the Labour Party who wants to fight its present leadership li.e. about 90 per cent of its members) пО! just whether to be in the Labour Party but how to tight.
Socialist Society merely puts its services or the disposal of the Labour is that the right wing, with their control of the apparatus, will more efectively than the join the Labour Party' as VOLT COOLIO gives quite the 817153301 In fact Eric Heffer was Labour Party there were TEnE COOUL IVO Party. This session was he would be only too Challenge delegate -to There are many and ound to use this Dower for their own ends. as the sad history of Fabianism shows. Not the smallest of these devices is the subtle abuse of the intellectuals' own desires to reshape the own perfect ideals.
will Socialist Society party? Will it find ways putting its services at the lisposal of those fighting oppression, inan those promoting or conis now the fight for the right to organise, centring on the witch-hunt.
How Socialist Society make a clear state.
memberg want, not merely to be in rany DuE to take sides and cor nduct an organised battler and 17 what is at stake: Labour Party members shy away from this issue, it indicates only their lack of a strategy for dealing with it. more instance of st But this is La more Socialist Society has adopted a quite restrictive programme which excludes, for example, the Communist Party) and a individual membership structure. rejected a Conference Socialist Economists motion that strengthen the role of affiliated bodies. It is putting resources definite political campaigns, implies definite system of priorities.
This forces it to make choices And these choices ficult. Would anone or simply the steering committee care to tell us whether the society will offering publication facilities Foot? To the Cambodian government in exile? To Colonel Ghad dafy? And if not, why not? Such questions can't be settled by waving a pro gramme - least of all the Socialist Society's.
There is no way around by vowing be friendly, and certainly not by brushing debates under the table. A proper system for debate is essential including the tolerance of opposition, facilities for circulation of discussion, rights of tendency, and so on.
What is alarming abou he decision on affiliatio is that the defeated motion was not even a motion to affiliate. It was a motion to discuss affiliating. It was the steering committee s own resolution which it withdrew and which I ther moved. In short, faced with a division on the only DIECECa question confronting it, the SiBering Conminea decided just against affiliation but against discussing it.
This highlight the danger to which Phil was rightly pointing: that of building a new ghetto for the left intelligentsia -very comfortable one no COUDE - by trying to close ranks uncomfortable difficulties might provake dissension, but which millions of people have to face daily because their lives depend on it There is much which is smug in the British left intelligentsia, and if Socialist Society wants to create a popula its first step must trary / to the implications of Phil's report, there was no time to discuss it properly.
Achieving vital COHTECLO! the labour movement will certain be a priority for the Socialist Society and we know there are easy formulas for this But 13 of the 30 peo ple (excluding Tarig) who were elected to the steering committee members Labour Party. We were also heartened by fact that the first person who applied to join the society was Lou Adams of the ASLEF executive STEVE TO conditions for a struggle those from which membership is drawn, instead of accepting it as the only light and truth.
Socialist Society can't have it both ways. Either it has ranks everyone in the Labour movement, genuinely putai the service of the entie labour movement Or it can set about building a new party, , in which case if it wishes to contribute con sectarian and reines revolu tionary party, rather than the left's answer to the SDP - it must confront the practical issues facing the labour movement, and