Can the forward march of Labour be restarted?

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The situation that the left finds itself in after the defeat of the McDonnell bid for the Labour leadership is a complex one. A bit of a debate has broken out about this around a statement issued by Socialist Resistance (SR) This was published on Liam Mac Uaid’s blog :

The key passage is: “McDonnell’s defeat throws the Labour left into serious crisis. No spin can hide it. The project of reclaiming the Labour or the idea that the Labour Party is a fruitful arena for the left to work in have been dealt a devastating blow.

“All this has implication for Respect, which should be taking the initiative to open or re-open a dialogue with those on the left who are currently not in Respect as to how they see the way forward.

“The Morning Star and the CPB are a case in point. They are likley to find it increasingly difficult to cling to a policy of reclaiming Labour. Apparently a new discussion has already opened up on this internally in the CPB. The Morning Star had already called a conference in June on “Politics After Blair” at which the issue will now be unavoidable.

“But Respect needs to be open and flexible in this situation to any new forces from the Morning Star or the trade union left. It should do whatever is necessary to ensure that new forces have space to make their influence felt. If it can do this it could break it out of its current impasse and open up a new stage of development.
“Respect’s task in this process is to turn the tide of politics back towards the left. Rebuild ideological and practical opposition to the market. Work with the left in the unions to build an independent pluralist left alternative alongside the struggle to regenerate the unions and rebuild trade union strength and organisation.”

To which I posted a comment to the effect that SR are making two mistakes: i) in not understanding that Respect is not a vehicle around which left unity can be built; and less explicably ii) that SR seem to completely fail to understand the political perspective of the CP.

I concluded my initial remarks by saying that currently “the building blocks for any serious alternative to Labour are utterly absent, but where the situation isn't hopeless either.”

Given the undemocratic manoeuvrings in and around Respect, the media galavanting of George Galloway, and the dispersal of the layer of left social democrats who had aggregated around the Socialist Alliance in various parts of the country, then I would characterise Respect thus: “Who is Respect? Galloway or the SWP? Anyone else? Will either of those forces play the productive role you are calling on them to play? If there is no actually existing force within Respect who will steer the organisation to play the role you think it could play, then how could it happen?

“Even were the SWP or Galloway to have a damascene conversion, would anyone on the activist left trust them? No-one is going to join Respect, or particularly want to work with them. The whole project is basically an embarrassment now.

“If we are looking for a left unity project, then we have missed the boat. The wave of left activists who left the labour party after Clause IV and over the Iraq war could have been attracted to an organisation that respected labour movement norms of behaviour. But were never going to be attracted to respect.”

SR are utterly self delusioonal if they believe that the CP or any significant left from the unions would touch Respect with a barge. Even were the Political Committee of the CP so minded, and I have no reason to think they are, then the membership would probably not agree to it.

The failure of McDonnell’s campaign has produced unhelpful knee-jerk reactions from Respect and the Socialist Party that the Labour Left should join them in their equally unsuccessful campaigns outside the Labour party. They remind me of the mayor of Amity, swearing that the water is safe. For example Thornett writes: "It¹s right to say to the Labour left, and those like the CPB (and some of the trade union left) who have clung to a Reclaim Labour policy for so long that after the McDonnell collapse the only rational conclusion in the cold light of day is that the Labour left has no useful future in the Labour party. There is no point in saying anything else."

In fact this approach is completely misguided. Instead of looking at whether we can reconstitute the greatly diminished left around already flawed projects, we need to take stock of the current political situation.

The overwhelming features are i) that the right within the Labour Party are utterly triumphant, and their victory is structurally irreversible. ii) The Labour party has failed to make the same shift to the right with its electoral base – the enduring progressive and social democratic attitudes of labour voters was well described recently on the SWP blog, Lenin’s Tomb ; iii) that the far left have failed to break that progressive base away from electoral loyalty to the Labour party; iv) the unions – on the whole - maintain ideological and political opposition to New Labour values, as can be seen by the way the unions make the running in opposing PFI, Academies and private equity. v) the structural problems of the unravelling British state.

So how can we seek to harness the positive aspects of the current situation to strengthen the left?

Alan Thornett has replied to me and asked whether I think Respect’s genuine electoral successes are the “wrong type of voters”. In a sense they are, but not in the sense he implies. Respect has done well particularly with that minority of voters for whom the war is the overriding political issue, but for the majority of the working class that is not the case, and opposition to the war has been subsumed into the general cynicism about politics.

This is where SR’s misunderstanding of the CP’s position is clear, because the CP are talking some sense over this issue:

As Robert Griffiths, the CP General Secretary: recently wrote : “But what is needed now more than ever is for the trade union movement, once again, to take on its historic responsibility to ensure the existence of a mass party of labour. For all the assistance that socialists and communists can render, the unions alone have the human, financial and organisational resources, as well as the class interest, to take the necessary steps.

“Together with the non-sectarian left, they need to work out a political strategy which takes account of current realities. For example, most major unions remain affiliated to the Labour Party and are unlikely to leave it in the near future.
“The first steps in this direction might be for all the major unions to affiliate and participate fully in the Labour Representation Committee. Deals between union leaders in smoke-free rooms to win resolutions at Labour Party conference are not enough. The active involvement of unions and their members in the LRC would be the clearest declaration of political intent.

“The LRC could itself go the extra mile and allow full membership status to socialist organisations including the Communist Party, respecting their right to participate independently in elections in return for an agreement not to campaign for the dismantling of the Labour Party through further union disaffiliations.
“In their relations with the Labour Party, unions should stop all financial, logistical and political support for MPs who consistently vote against key union policies. “

SR are correct to highlight the Morning Star conference as important, not least because the CP still able to punch above their weight, and alongside John McDonnell, we also have Ken Livingstone and Jon Cruddas attending. At the deputy leadership hustings at GMB congress last week Cruddas came out in favour of starting to renationalise public utilities.

The Labour Left were crushingly defeated in the PLP, but the McDonnell campaign has gathered together a nucleus of activists, who are less isolated and more motivated than they were before the campaign. It is as fruitless for us to argue with then that they should leave the party as for them to argue we should join it – comrades need to come to their own conclusions.

The way forward is for all the left, inside and outside the Labour party, to promote the trade unions in exercising their own political voice. By and large, the unions will not abandon their stake in the labour party until they have exhausted its historical usefulness. But currently they are not making enough demands on the party, and so not testing the usefulness of the link.

The Labour Representation Committee could become a vehicle for the unions to exercise collective political voice and if a substantial section of organised labour is to draw the conclusion that a party of labour needs to be refounded, as they effectively did in 1931, then the LRC could be the body around which that debate tales place.

Of course there are serious obstacles, not least of which is the LRC’s requirement for Labour Party membership, which is a serious obstacle to many grassroots trade unions and community activists. But again the way forward is for local trade union bodies to affiliate and open a dialogue about being able to send delegates who are not individual LP members.

In the meantime, we have largely missed the boat in England of building an electoral alternative to New Labour. There may still be a case of standing against Labour, but this can only be done by building grassroots links first, not by building the roof before the walls like Respect and the CNWP have done.

There is serious work that can be done, but the vehicle for that work is not Respect nor the CNWP, the focus remains where it perhaps always should have been, with organised Labour in the mass organisations of our class.

Politics after Blair

Last night our local Stop the War group voted to send two delegates to the Morning Star’s conference on Politics after Blair. We decided that we should take part in as many forums as possible to discuss the changing political situation, and also agreed to send people to the SWP's marxism event.

There is an urgent need for the left to participate in a fraternal debate about the way forward after the damage that Blair has inflicted on the Labour Party.

On Monday, candidate for Deputy leader, Jon Cruddas MP, wrote how after ten years of a labour government: “people remain afraid and insecure. “They are frightened and uneasy that their jobs are not safe. They are concerned that they and their children can't afford to climb up or even get on to the housing ladder and they are fearful that, once they reach retirement, they will not be able to afford to enjoy their old age.

“People are insecure about their children's education. If they make it into higher education, they are worried that they will graduate with thousands of pounds worth of debt. They are concerned about long working hours, a lack of family time and the pressures on our health services.

“Sad to say, after 10 years of new Labour in power, Britain's working landscape is still wreaked by job insecurity, a lack of skilled work opportunities and diminishing pension returns.

“It is ironic that, at a time of record levels of employment, employment fears remain at the top of the list of concerns of working people in Britain.”

As Jon Cruddas says: “We are told that these situations are the inevitable, if unwanted and unwarranted, consequences of globalisation, the repercussions of the global forces of migration and global capital, but this is not so. We are tacitly colluding with these forces if we fail to intervene and take the necessary steps to give people the very basic protections and assurances which they so desperately need.”

And as leadership candidate John McDonnell says: “The worst thing about society at the moment is that people feel completely alienated and powerless. It results in people creating their own world through drugs or trying to satisfy themselves through consumerism or being left completely isolated. What we're saying is: 'Well, actually, you can become part of a movement that can tackle those issues and your contribution is as valuable as anyone's. Whether we win the leadership election campaign or not, whether we're on the ballot paper or not, what we've built is a movement for the next stage of our campaign.”

The occassion of Tony Blair stepping down is an opportunity for the left, whether inside or outside the Labour party, to discuss a strategy for renewal , and to assess how the small but significant progress that McDonnell has achieved in regrouping the Labour left can be built upon in the next more challenging phase of a Gordon Brown premiership, and how they can work with the left outsidie the Labour Party. The balance has changed to an unprecedented degree, so that many trade unons activists, community activists, peace campaigners, and others are deeply hostile to Labour.

The Morning Star conference has attracted support or sponsorship from a wide range of organisations, including trade unions the POA, T&G;, BECTU, CWU and FBU, the National Pensioners Convention, labour movement solicitors' firms OH Parsons and Thompsons and the Stop the War Coalition.

Panels of speakers will lead discussions on the themes of peace, public ownership, trade union freedom and social equality and multiculturalism.

Among the participants so far confirmed are Tony Benn, Institute of Employment Rights director Carolyn Jones, John McDonnell MP, CND chairwoman Kate Hudson, FBU general secretary Matt Wrack, Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths, labour lawyer John Hendy QC, POA general secretary Brian Caton and PPPS management committee chairwoman Liz Elkind.

POLITICS AFTER BLAIR: Takes place on Saturday June 16 at Mandar Hall, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, London WC1. Price £10 waged/£5 unwaged. Send cheques made payable to PPPS to William Rust House, 52 Beachy Road, London E3 2NS. Please include your name, telephone number and address.

CP on TV - You've waited 37 years!

For the first time since 1970, the Communist Party have this week had a party political broadcast, which had five slots on TV, and two on radio. It was broadcast on HTV last Sunday and on all other channels on Wednesday.

This is becasue the CP are standing in all regional list seats for the Welsh assembly. I have to say, it is quite a good broadcast. If I was in Wales I would vote for them.

This is the English language version.



You can watch it in Welsh here:



(Actually it is not exactly the same, perhaps becasue Angharad Halpin doesn't speak Welsh?)

The left's long journey

One of the best sources for informed debate in the labour movement is often overlooked. The Morning Star (requires subscription – well worth just £40 for a year) has opened its pages to a diverse set of voices in recent years, and for example provides a regular column for Gregor Gall I am a bit slow of the mark commenting on a column Gregor wrote ten days ago, that was particularly interesting, not least because it received a thought provoking reply by Jim Addington in the following Saturday’s paper.

Gregor argues an interesting point that part of the failures of the left have been inability to work upon tasks within their grasp. This is perhaps complementary to my habitual argument that the ostensible difference between “reformist” socialists and “revolutionary” socialists, at a time when neither reform or revolution are actually on the historical agenda is irrelevant. The real distinctions are between those serious about rebuilding class confidence and organisation (the class struggle left) and those who capitulate to neo-liberalism and the myths of humanitarian wars. Anyway, this is what Gregor argues:

“Other than one or two exceptions at certain points in history, the far left has always been far, far smaller than the numbers needed to achieve the historic project that it has set itself. And, again, you might say that the far left has to aim high and then "go forth and multiply." Former fellow travellers of the far left would castigate the lofty ambition as laudable but naive and unrealistic. But the point is that the gap between the aspiration and the forces to hand has had, more often than not, a detrimental and distorting impact on the far left. This distortion has further compounded the far left's weaknesses.

“The roots of this distortion have been the general inability to relate the far left's political credo to workers' everyday concerns in a way which draws masses of workers to-wards the left, making the far left more credible and respected. In turn, the consequences of the isolation and marginalisation of the far left have been frustration, sectarianism and impatience.

“The frustration felt by the far left at being utterly convinced of the "rightness" and "correctness" of its views, perspectives and beliefs, which are rejected or ignored by the mass of workers, has meant that, every time an opportunity for making headway arises, it is vastly blown out of proportion. Every new opportunity is the next big thing. Every new period is more favourable and exciting than the last. The size and strength of the opportunities, especially for party building, are exaggerated to motivate members and supporters.

“Then exhortation to members and supporters to go all-out in their efforts to take advantage of the opportunity outweighs reasoned analysis and reasoned actions. So desperate and so keen is the left to realise the next opportunity that it forgets that you need the numbers on the ground to do so. But the other side of the far left's myopia here is that it never stops to look back at why it did not connect with the masses of workers in the way that it wanted and in the numbers that it wanted to. Seldom looking back, seldom engaging in critical self-appraisal or self-reflection, the far left is always looking forward to the next campaign and next battle. Consequently, lessons are not learnt and the same ill-thought-out approaches are used the next time round, with the same predictable and poor results.“

As a useful partial corrective, Jim Addington, points to the success of the Stop the war Coalition: “This campaign came to a head … with the largest anti-war march numbering over a million people. … That event drew hundreds of thousands who were not aware that the anti-war coalition was supported by left-wing groups”. Jim then goes on to argue that the greatest problem for the left are the lack of money and power of the mainstream media in marginalising the left.

Generally I don’t think Jim’s analysis stacks up, because the left have always lacked money, and the media have always been dominated by the rich and powerful, yet the left has been stronger in that past. However, it is useful to point out that in campaigns like the Stop the War Coalition the resources of the left groups, the infrastructure, publications, people and ideas, can be used as cogs that can move much larger forces into action.

Does this mean Gregor is wrong? No, I think it actually vindicates him still further, because the left over estimated the potential and depth of the anti-war movement, just as we overestimated the Poll Tax campaign, or other campaigns. Had we concentrated thorough all these campaigns on the steady. patient and long term tasks of networking the activists, building participation in the unions and mass membership campaigns, and promoting broad based socialist organisations then we would be in a much stronger position now.

The alternative of building idelogically pure "Bolshevik parties", in preparation for a British version of the Russian revolution (that will surley never come) has been an utter failure, being totally unrealistic in the traditions and history of the british Labour movement - it is the long term failure of this model of organisation to prosper that has led the left groups into one get rich quick scheme after another.

yet neither should we make the opposite mistake of assuming that the left groups are simply a hinderence and an obstacle. The Stop the War Coalition could not have been built without the left groups, and it has been a major acheivement, but it is an organisation that shares both the weaknesses and strengths of its genesis.

Correction

...

It seems that even as world weary an observer of the left as I am can be bewildered by the number of different organizations, and when I reported below that the CP was supporting the SSP for the Hollyrood elections it was an error - it is not in fact the CPB Scottish region, but the rather less significant Communist Party of Scotland who have recommended the vote for the SSP. Oh well.

Thanks to Cameron for correcting me.

Boosts for SSP

Scottish Socialists gained two boosts recently.

Firstly, the Scottish executive announced that all parents on Working Tax Credit would receive free school meals for their children, this is a tremendous gain for low income families.

This action was clearly the result of the exemplary campaign led by the SSP to give free nutritious school meals to all Scottish children. Not content with merely presenting a parliamentary bill, they assembled an impressive coalition of supporters for the initiative, including trade unions, health professionals, child poverty campaigns and single parent groups. They presented a reasoned case, for example comparing the experience of Finland which used to have a health record as bad as Scotland’s , and which has turned it around with free nutritious school meals. The SSP also took to the streets with petitions, information stalls and posters to publicise the campaign. A national consultation received one of the highest responses ever for a Scottish parliamentary bill, with over 500 submissions, 97% on favour. It is this pressure which has forced the executive to act, although scandalously the bill istelf was blocked by a parliamantary committee of the main parties.

The original version of this post reported that the the Communist Party is recommending people vote for either the SNP or SSP in May’s Hollyrood elections, in the hope of achieving a pro-Independence majority. (The d’Hondt system of proportional representation used in Scotland is a gift for armchair strategists of tactical voting as you have two votes, and a vote for the SNP in the first past the post contest and the SSP in the top up list is a defensible option).

However it seems that even as world weary an observer of the left as I can be bewilderd by the number of differnt organisations, and it was not the CPB Scottish region, but the rather less significant Communist Party of Scotland who have recommended the vote for the SSP. Oh well.

The CPB SCottish region is - I beleive - one of the firmest parts of the CP in supporting a vote Labour line, but really should reconsider that situation given the support of labour for the Union with Westminster, and the prospect of rebuilding left politics around the inclusive traditions of the SSP

Left Unity at the crossroads

The two most advanced broad left projects in Europe are the PRC in Italy, and the alliance between the WASG and PDS in Germany. The last few weeks have seen parallel developments in both projects, relating to the degree to which left parties can participate in government.

I have argued before that the fundamental division in the left at the moment is not between reform and revolution, but between the class-struggle left and those who accept the given constraints of capitalism, and therefore bow to the logic of neo-liberalism. There is a parallel but not entirely the same division between those who are prepared to enter coalition governments, and those who do not.

In Italy, Senator Franco Turigliatto has been threatened with expulsion from the PRC for voting against the l’Unione Coalition’s plans to commit Italian troops to the Afghan war, and for the massive expansion of a US military base in Italy at Vicenza. His vote threw Prodi’s centre-left government into crisis, but as Turigliatto says in his open letter: “The main responsibility lies with the government itself and the policies which it adopted during all these months, and which has gradually moved away from all those who voted for it. This crisis emerged partly for obscure reasons and partly because the reformist wing of the Unione wanted to dramatise the situation, in order to force the alternative left to keep silent on the most important questions. A crisis which was used to stop any demands at all and to establish the “neoliberal” trajectory of governmental action. In that sense the debate in the Senate was blackmail, in particular on Vicenza.”

Given the overwhelming urge in Italy to get rid of the far-right buffoon Berlusconi, and his post-fascist allies, the PRC were under tremendous pressure, including from their own members to join the coalition, but to make their participation work they had to be prepare to turn to the mass movement to strengthen their hand in arguing the terms of their participation. Instead Bertinotti's leadership was been dragged to the right to accomodate to the neo-liberal Prodi.

In Germany, the merger of the WASG and PDS is gathering pace. The WASG is a significant development, with former SPD leader Oskar Lafontaine, and several trade union and social movement activists. The PDS Left Party has evolved out of the remains of the former ruling SED in the DDR, but has significantly altered since 1990, most of the careerists and bureaucrats have left, and the ideology has become more social democratic.

As Volkhard Mosler of the SWP’s sister party, Linksruck argues (in German – all the translations are my own so I apologise for any inaccuracies): ”The unification process of the two left parties in Germany, the WASG and the Left Party PDS has entered its decisive phase, and with that has shifted the focus of the debate. It is no longer a question of whether there will be a new party, but rather what the new party will look like. The future battlelines are also taking shape. Oskar Lafontane has demanded that the Left Party in Berlin should leave the coalition with the SPD, should the privatisation of the Berlin Savings bank takes place. As a result of which the leaders of the Left Party parliamentary factions in the East German state parliaments have come out on the side of their under-pressure Berlin comrades." (see below)

Lafontaine is exactly right, there is no problem with the class struggle left being prepared to enter coalition governments, and thus deprive the right wing of office, provided it uses it position in order to strengthen the real class struggle outside parliament, and is prepared to resign rather than permit anti-working class legislation. Over the imposition by the EU of bank privatisation, the PDS could use their governing role as authority to lead a militant mass movement, and i so doing they will either drag the SPD behind them or break a considerable part of the SPD's support towards them

Volkhard Mosler explains what is at stake very well, in his article “Who doesn’t fight has already lost” – There will be difficulties in bringing together the PDS and WASG, but “the conclusion cannot be “better smaller but purer” and turn back to what is commonly regarded as a purer WASG. Instead of that we should start a Western party building campaign and in the Autumn this year recruit new members with the goal of strengthening the class struggle and movement oriented wing of the new party. In addition, we must cooperate with all our strength in the organisations in the East German states, with those who don’t want to follow the vacillating course of their leadership. The pessimists claim that the struggle over the character of the new party is already lost. In reality, for the first time since the 1968-movement, socialists stand a chance of becomming a mass movement. Provised we keep our eye on the ball".

It is worth reading the following article about the PDS leadership, recently published by Linksruck:

The bankrupt Dessau Declaration
by Volkhard Mosler
(again my translation and my German isn't perfect!)

The leaders of the Left Party parliamentary factions in the East German states have issued a “Dessau Declaration” as the conclusion of a joint conference. In it they explain that for “left politics” to progress a “political majority is always necessary” in both “society and parliament”. They are right to observe that without a left majority in parliament no left government can come about. But then they leap to a false conclusion that without left governments no political progress is possible. That is a mistake, and several examples from history tell differently.

The state accident, health and pension provisions that exist today were introduced at the end of the nineteenth century by the arch-conservative Chancellor Bismarck. Bismarck was no friend of the “common people”. The “dangerous” Social Democratic Party (SPD) was persecuted by him under the anti-socialist laws. What drove him was the fear of revolution. He wrote to Kaiser Wilhelm after a strike of 90000 workers in the Ruhr in 1889, advising that he should consider “that almost all revolutions are brought about by the absence of timely reforms”

The social improvements which were anchored in law, whether under Bismarck, during the German revolution of 1918-1920, or after 1968, were all driven by class struggle. It was a minor issue which party was in office, compared to the pressure from the industrial struggle and the streets.

The faction leaders further write that the left gains “credibility” through programmes and proposals that are achievable within the given political space. They celebrate the government polices of the Berlin Left Party as a successful example of this. By so doing they gloss over the fact that since joining the government the polls show a drop for the Berlin Left Party from 26% to just 12%.

The leaders see the “given space” as unchangeable. In so doing they resemble the so called political realism of the other parties. The Greens call themselves Realists, and the SPD boast about their pragmatism, as they orient themselves on the achievable.

The lawyer, Wolfgang Heine, who was a spokesperson for what was at that time the “reformist left” in the SPD wrote in 1898 that the party should follow the direction of “struggling for what is possible in the given circumstances”. And he added “I ask all rational people, should our politics strive for what is impossible in the given circumstances”. To which Rosa Luxemburg answered: “Certainly our politics should and can struggle for what is possible under the given circumstances.”, but with that “it is emphatically not decided, how and in what way we struggle for that possibility”. That is exactly the correct question, and it remains so to this day.

The Dessau Declaration states that “compromise is a necessary commodity” for achieving the goals of the left. In the debate with the “realists” of her own time, Rosa Luxemburg emphasised that it would be a mistake to believe “that one can achieve the best results through the path of concessions (compromise)”. Those who would push through improvements for the working masses and the socially disadvantaged only by negotiation with the powerful, without building political pressure from below, will never achieve their aims. By way of such parliamentary “exchanges .. we arrive in exactly the same position as a hunter who does not shoot game, and at the same time gives up his shotgun”: no reforms will be achieved that way, and the left will lose the trust of its supporters, as it will sell them one worsening of conditions after another as necessary compromise.

Realistic socialism doesn’t mean accepting the existing conditions as simply given. Whoever does that will find themselves continually on the retreat, as others define the conditions.

The dockers have brought the EU’s so called “Bolkenstein directive” to a halt through a Europe-wide strike. By so doing they have defended their jobs and working conditions from a major offensive from the European bosses. Had they followed the authors of the Dessau Declaration they would have bowed down to the wishes of the EU commission as the “given conditions”. Then in turn today [the Bolkenstein] guidelines would be the “given conditions”.

The Faction leaders [of the Left Party] should learn from the dockers how to build a fight-back and resistance. The EU is again the opposition in the dispute about the privatisation of the Berlin Savings Bank. Instead of turning themselves into the long arm of the EU, the Berlin Left party should mobilise the Berlin people against Brussels instructions, and put themselves at the forefront of the protests. If they don't first do that, they cannot dismiss the alternative left as unrealistic.

Why the left should back Jon Cruddas

I want to return to the issue of whether the left should support Jon Cruddas for deputy leader of the Labour Party. Not only is it increasingly likely that there will be no left challenge to Gordon Brown for leader, but as I have argued before, the dynamic of the Labour Party means that Cruddas’s candidature for deputy leader actually makes it less likely that McDonnell (or Meacher) will get support from the 44 MPs that they need.

Unfortunately, the forthcoming leadership election and deputy leadership contest has generated as much heat as light in blogland, about the relative merits of being in the Labour Party as an individual member. This is largely a futile argument, as we are not going to convince each other, and the key issue is how the left can work together and support each other.

I think the correct position was very well expressed by Rob Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party (CPB), in a debate with me two years ago: “As far as we are concerned we will do all we can to support those in the Labour Party, and do everything we can to give unity and to help to give clarity to that fight within the Labour party and the affiliated trade unions against New Labour. There is also the important area as well of the left outside the Labour party. We will certainly be committed … to contributing as much as we can, not to the point where we will attack those in the Labour party who continue to work for left policies and socialist polices in the Labour party - we will be in solidarity with them. We won't join in any attack on those, but we will work with others on the left to try to build as much unity as we can in the left outside the Labour party. … And we would argue to both sets, we have good friends in the Labour party, we have good friends and allies outside the Labour Party, and we think, by and large, while we will continue to debate our differences of course, we believe it is futile to attack one another and say you shouldn't be over there you should be over here. We will be arguing that the left outside the Labour party should be showing as much solidarity as they can with the left inside the Labour party, and we will be arguing with our friends inside the Labour Party that they should be as much joint work, and common work and unity as possible with those outside the Labour party.”

Now of course the Labour Party leadership, and deputy leadership, contests are an issue for both those with individual Labour Party membership, and also for those of us in the affiliated trade unions.

In January there was an important article in the Morning Star, by editor, John Haylett, that described the situation we are in very well. “The trade unions, which remain the largest storehouse of pro-Labour sentiment, personnel and finance, bear key responsibility for what happens to the party that they created. They have already been conned once by the Warwick agreement, of which Hans Christian Andersen must have seen an early draft and based his Emperor's New Clothes on it. It delivered nothing for working people other than an increased level of disappointment and alienation. Today, for the labour movement, the status quo is definitely not an option. Change must come or, as Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas suggests, we could see the demise of Labour, leaving the field to barely distinguishable pro-business parties funded by the rich and by taxation. Indeed, it is difficult even to find evidence that a party of labour - rather than a neoliberal imposter party that bears the name Labour - still exists. The unions have links with most Labour MPs. Those links must be activated to let these MPs, half of whom have never broken ranks to speak out against new Labour's pro-business, pro-war agenda, know what is expected of them.”

Haylett puts it very well: “Unless Labour changes course, adopting a political approach such as that put forward by left leadership challenger John McDonnell, the future is bleak not only for Labour's short-term electoral hopes but for its very future. ”

I am sure we would all like to wake up the day after the labour leadership result is announced and find that John McDonnell is Prime Minister. But if we look at the actually existing possibilities and ask ourselves what would be the most progressive outcome and context for the continuing struggle against New Labour’s neo-liberalism, then that is probably a Gordon Brown victory, with Jon Cruddas elected deputy leader, or at least securing a very credible vote. (And make no mistake Gordon Brown PM is a preferable option to David MiniBlair PM). Of course if McDonnell does manage to get on the ballot for leader and secures a creditable vote, then that is even better still - but we all know he cannot win.

As I have argued before, “The union leaders want influence, and also want a change of direction. They will reason that backing Brown keeps them close to him, and they could maximise pressure on the new PM by backing a deputy leader closer to the unions’ agenda. As has been shown at the last two party conferences, the union leaders are very disciplined (or spineless, depending on your perspective) at sticking to their own agenda, and not supporting left initiatives over Iraq, etc. Cruddas himself has a good prospect of being not the “left candidate” but the “unions’ candidate”, in the same way that Callaghan was for leader. I think those union leaders wanting to pull Labour towards their own agenda may back Brown and Cruddas.”

So why does Cruddas suit the union leaders' agenda? It seems many on the left have missed the fundamental dynamic. The Labour Party has institutionally embedded neo-liberalism into its DNA, yet this places the Parliamentary Labour Party in a prolonged structural antagonism with the Party’s base of support within the Trade Unions. Triangulation also means that Labour Policies are not engaged with the priorities of working class voters in safe seats, which leads to apathy, disengagement and even some voting for the BNP.

Despite his background as a Blaitite, Cruddas does understand this dynamic, and has spoken against it. In his epilogue to the Rowntree Trust’s report (PDF) on the far right Cruddas wrote: “The originality of New Labour lies in the method by which policy is not deductively produced from a series of core economic or philosophical assumptions or even a body of ideas, but rather, is scientifically constructed out of the preferences and prejudices of the swing voter in the swing seat. It is a brilliant political movement whose primary objective is to reproduce itself – to achieve this it must dominate the politics of Middle England. The government is not a coalition of traditions and interests who initiate policy and debate; rather it is a power elite whose modus operandi is the retention of power. … … At root the gearing of the electoral system empties out opportunities for a radical policy agenda. On the one hand, policy is constructed on the basis of scientific analysis of the preferences of key voters; on the other, difficult issues and the prejudices of the swing voter are neutralised. Labour have become efficient at winning elections and being in government yet within a calibrated politics where tenure is inversely proportionate to change. As a politician for what is regarded as a safe working class seat the implications of this political calibration are immense. The system acts at the expense of communities like these – arguably those most in need. The science of key seat organisation and policy formation acts as a barrier to a radical emancipatory programme of economic and social change.”

Get that: “a radical emancipatory programme of economic and social change” It doesn’t matter whether or not Cruddas is sincere, or whether he will deliver. A vote for him is a vote for a change of direction from New Labour towards: “a radical emancipatory programme of economic and social change”

He may or may not be a socialist, but he is attuned to the broad social democratic agenda of the trade union leadership. If Cruddas wins, then that is a much better context for the unions to exercise influence over the direction of the Labour Party, or if they fail in that to develop alternative avenues of influence. It is my firm view that the Labour Party cannot be rescued, but whether or not I am right, the best outcome will be a result in the leadership and deputy leadership elections that demonstrates that we want to see a change of direction.

The forward march of Labour halted?

John Haylett, editor of the Morning Star, wrote a very useful political analysis in last Saturday’s paper. (It is worth noting in passing the degree to which the Communist Party’s paper has broadened its role to carry serious debate from non-party members, it is a paper that all socialists should read and support)

Haylett rehearses the familiar arguments about Tony Blair’s legacy in Iraq, but then turns his fire onto Blair’s likely successor: “it is noteworthy that it was Chancellor Gordon Brown who was first out of the traps to declare to a gathering of City big-wigs that the government would proceed with an upgraded submarine-based nuclear weapons system. As with the billions of pounds wasted on the illegal invasion of Iraq, Mr Brown foresees no difficulty in finding adequate cash to devote to such a grotesque potential for mass murder.”

Haylett then catalogues the crimes of New Labour:
“More than a thousand compulsory redundancies [in the NHS], over 22,000 jobs slashed and 2,500 beds closed tell their own story, as does the escalating tendency of the government to hand over vast sums of public money to big business in the form of PFI and a guaranteed share of NHS operations farmed out to the private sector.
“And it is the same across the public services, from education to prisons, from the probation service to Royal Mail.
“[New Labour’s] gossip machine hints at the possibility of a true Blairite candidate standing against Gordon Brown for the party leadership when Mr Blair steps down, encouraging the nonsensical view, entertained by some in the trade union movement, that, deep down, beneath the Chancellor's new Labour exterior, there beats an old Labour, real Labour or even simply Labour heart.
“To accept this requires a stupefying suspension of belief and a refusal to look at all that Mr Brown has said and done over the past dozen years or so.
“His commitment to big business, to neoliberal economics and so-called "flexibility," to the transatlantic alliance, to imperialist military domination and to its economic expression - globalisation - is total.
“How any trade unionist could see a Brown-led Labour government as representing an alternative to the anti-working-class administration led by Mr Blair defies reason.
“New Labour's economic policies are the Chancellor's economic policies.
“They have resulted in record corporate profits and obscene rewards for a tiny minority of the population, together with redundancies, especially in manufacturing, and worsened pension provision for the vast majority.
“The public sector has been hacked and eroded, while its workforce has been derided and attacked.”

Yes indeed – but where does this lead us? During the 2005 general election I had a public debate with Rob Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party. The strongest part of Griffith’s argument was that socialists should orientate themselves on the most progressive outcomes of the actually existing circumstances, which in the 2005 election was an overall Labour victory. In contrast, for example, many of the left groups orientate not on the actually existing arguments and possibilities for advance within the movement now, but are fixated on the question of state power, a distinction between reform and revolution frankly irrelevant to our current circumstances.

Of course, there may still be debate about what the most progressive outcome would be – and in the 2007 Hollyrood elections in Scotland the CP are likely to argue for Labour vote, when in my opinion the best outcome would be a defeat for all the unionist parties, with the largest possible vote for the SSP.

Nevertheless, the CP has consistently and correctly argued that the millions of Labour voters, and the structural links between the Labour party and the trade unions are gains that should not be lightly abandoned. Nor indeed have the political left outside the Labour party (certainly in England and Wales) sufficient weight or authority to represent any alternative. But we do need to recognise that there is a considerable progressive constituency who reject Labour, not only in the environmental and peace movements, but even among trade union activists.

And the relationship between the Labour party and its historical base has changed. Back in June I attended a workshop for Labour Party activists at the Stop the War Coalition conference. The discussion gave no hope of any prospect of socialist activists making progress in the CLPs, and in my observation the relatively high votes for Grassroots Alliance candidates for the NEC, and membership of the Labour Representation Committee, reveal only a legacy rather than a strategy for advance. The consequences of losing over Clause IV, Blair’s reforms of the party constitution, and the reduction of the powers of local government (which prevent the left consolidating local bases), have delivered a crushing and irreversible victory for the right within the party superstructure and CLPs.

John Haylett instead addressed the other major historical legacy of labour. “The trade unions, which remain the largest storehouse of pro-Labour sentiment, personnel and finance, bear key responsibility for what happens to the party that they created. They have already been conned once by the Warwick agreement, of which Hans Christian Andersen must have seen an early draft and based his Emperor's New Clothes on it. It delivered nothing for working people other than an increased level of disappointment and alienation.”
“Today, for the labour movement, the status quo is definitely not an option. Change must come or, as Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas suggests, we could see the demise of Labour, leaving the field to barely distinguishable pro-business parties funded by the rich and by taxation.
“Indeed, it is difficult even to find evidence that a party of labour - rather than a neoliberal imposter party that bears the name Labour - still exists.
“The unions have links with most Labour MPs. Those links must be activated to let these MPs, half of whom have never broken ranks to speak out against new Labour's pro-business, pro-war agenda, know what is expected of them.”

He puts it very well: “Unless Labour changes course, adopting a political approach such as that put forward by left leadership challenger John McDonnell, the future is bleak not only for Labour's short-term electoral hopes but for its very future. ”

The battle ground in not in the moribund and abandoned CLPs. Individual membership of the Labour Party is now a useless dead end, impeding socialists with the albatross of Blair’s legacy round their necks. The battle is in the unions.

In those unions affiliated to the party we have a brief window to raise the question of supporting McDonnell, on the straightforward basis that McDonnell supports policies in the interests of union members, and Brown’s policies are against our interests.. The bigger reservoir of support that McDonnell can demonstrate, the better the terrain that the left will be operating upon after the leadership elections.

Yet McDonnell will not win the leadership, and Gordon Brown will. The party will continue on a neo-liberal course that simultaneously undermines the foundations for working class politics, and also threatens electoral defeat for Labour itself. If Labour loses the next general election then the most likely outcome will be a further consolidation of the right, with the union leaders being even more uncritical to provide a united front against a tory Government.

The task facing the left is a very difficult one. Firstly, we must do all we can to strengthen McDonnell’s campaign, to put ourselves in the best tactical position. But we also need to further the debate within the unions that New Labour is now a different creature, and one no longer deserving the support of organised workers.

Have things got worse in Russia?

In a recent comment to the posting about Cuba, SWP member Redaspie, queried whether there had been a drop in the standards of living in the former USSR, and the other Comecon countries. This is an interesting question, because whether or not there has been a social collapse in Russia is relevant to the debate of whether or not Russia was indeed state capitalist. It is also pertinent to Dave Broder' of the AWL who is arguing in the same thread of comments that he wouldn't be upset if the Cuban government was replaced by free market capitalism.

Using as sources those well known apologists for Stalinism, Unicef, the World Bank and the BBC, we find that the world bank reported in 2000 that in the USSR overall incomes have dropped by 50%. In some regions, such as the Caucasus and central Asia, over half the population now live in absolute poverty - defined as living on an income of $2 per day or less.

Unicef report 18 million children on less than $2 per day, 60 million children in poverty.
Unicef reports; "In Central Asian countries less than half of 15-to-18-year-olds now attend secondary school. Ten years ago more than two-thirds attended. " There were also at least one million displaced as refugess by war within the borders of the former USSR.

World bank: "Since the poverty levels peaked in 1999 at 41.5%, poverty was cut in half by 2002 to 19.6%. About 30 million people have improved their financial standing, however the number of people in poverty is still high - every fifth Russian lives well below the official poverty line. According to the World Bank, the most vulnerable group was the rural population. About 30.4% of the rural population lives in poverty, while 15.7% of the urban population is poor. Children under 16 have a higher incidence of poverty, about 25%. According to the report, the North Caucasus, South Siberia and parts of Central Russia are the poorest regions in Russia."

Recently, Alexandra Ochirova, the chairperson of the Chamber’s committee (A Kremlin initiated committee) on social development said 20 million Russians live below the subsistence level, and this accounts for 15 or more percent the population. More specifically, one Russian in seven cannot meet even his or her basic demands for food and clothing.
“Poverty in Russia is very special for the fact it embraces not only separate sections of the able-bodied population, but more importantly, the ones who have employment,” Ochirova said. “These are mostly workers on government payroll, as well as children aged younger than 16 years old, the disabled and pensioners,” she said. But the most dangerous type of impoverishment is poverty among single mothers. “It’s neediness reproducing neediness,” Ochirova said. A gap in population’s earnings remains huge, too, as the incomes of 80% population decrease all the time while those of the remaining 20% continue growing"

"Russia is a unique country where poverty strikes the working population,” says Mikhail Shmakov, the president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions. “Poverty is multiplying since the government, the country’s biggest employer, curbs a growth of wages,”

In a report to US Congress on economic state of Russia; “In January 2005, the Russian government monetized many previously in-kind social benefits for retirees, military personnel, and state employees. The cash payments, however, only partly compensated for the lost benefits. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia experienced widespread economic dislocation and a drop of close to 50% in GDP. Conditions worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States impoverished much of the population, some 15% of which is still living below the government’s official (very low) poverty level. Russia is also plagued by environmental degradation and ecological catastrophes of staggering proportions; the near-collapse of the health system; sharp declines in life expectancy and the birth rate; and widespread organized crime and corruption. The population has fallen by over 5 million in the past decade, despite net in-migration of 5 million from other former Soviet republics.”

Another interesting source is the U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration: “Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, that country’s economic and social system worked in a practical sense — meaning most people had a place to live and food to eat. Although standards of living were below those in the West, particularly in housing, daily life was predictable. The Soviet leadership was legitimately able to say that their form of socialism had succeeded in virtually eliminating the kind of poverty that existed in Czarist Russia. Russian citizens now live in different times. The country’s transformation to a more open economic system has created, temporarily at least, a large, new group of people in poverty.”

The recent TV series following 21 year olds from the former USSR (you know one of those progs that follow people every 7 years) was heartbreaking. Whole towns that previously had viable industries now at a subsistence level. There was an interesting report recently on the BBC about how there has been a disastrous collapse of bio-diversity in Siberia, as in eastern Russia people have had to return to hunting for basic subsistence.

In the former DDR, comprehenisve education lost, rent controlled apartments lost, full employment lost. abortion rights reduced, full employment lost. Former citizens of the DDR discriminated against as their academic qualifications not recognised, paid lower wages than Wessies, etc. Yugoslavia has been consumed by ethnic conflict.

Even if we take one of the economic success stories, Lithuania, we find that country is the biggest source of women traded as slaves into prostitution, according to the International labour organisation. Hungary has become a centre for exploitation sex tourism.

Whe comrades talk about the restoration of capitalism in the former Comecon countries as just a shift in the mode of exploitation, or a "step sideways", perhaps they should look at the real consequences?