Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 02:26:51 -0700 From: knightrose <knightrose-AT-geocities.com> Subject: M-I: re: Labour and Politics again! Sometimes I wonder what kind of fantasy world people are living in. It really would be useful for comrades to study the actual history of the Labour Party. have a look at what they have really done in practice, not at some idealised version of what comrades feel they should have done or maybe could do if just given the right push. Let’s go back to Labour in 1914 - joined the War Coalition, helped send millions to fight and hundreds of thousands to their death. Opposed strikes and helped smash them. Then let’s look at the first Labour Government - not in office very long, it is true, but they still managed to play a decisive role in defending British imperialism - bombing indigenous peoples from aeroplanes in this case! 1939 - supported yet another war, spent the war opposing working class militancy. 1945 - massive majority - introduced the Welfare State (in agreement with the other boureois parties, of course), send troops in to break the London Dockers Strike (within two weeks of gaining office). They maintained rationing for long after the war. Why? So they could build up capital at the expense of consumption. Nationalised failing industries to prop up capital - and in the process gave out millions in compensation to former owners .... and who paid for that? Went ahead with the programme to build the British Atom Bomb. Then we have to jump to the 1960s and a time I actually remember first hand. More money spent on nuclear weapons. Wages freezes, attacks on the rights of workers to organise. Anti-immigration laws. The 1970s? Upgrading Britain’s nuclear ‘deterent’ (that sounds a bit like a theme, doesn’t it?). More pay freezes, cuts in the social wage - education, health. Troops used to break strikes. And that’s just a sample. It doesn’t sound much like a party of the working class to me. Nor does it sound like it moved rightward after the collapse of the soviet bloc. It sounds more like a case of a party on the side of British capital. And that is exactly what the ruling class in this country think too. Which is why they were so keen to support Blair in the recent election. What was notable was the lack of opposition from the media to Blair. The Tory Sun backed him (Rupert Murdoch), the others basically kept their mouths shut. The ruling class knows it needs a new act that can impose austerity on the class, dismantle the welfare state as we know it, achieve closer integration with the EU and possibly move into a single currency. They know damn well that Labour are in the position to deliver just that. I suppose I’ll be told that it is necessary to be in the Labour party to be active and to have influence. Well, I have not found that to be the case. I’ve been active in my union and have helped instigate industrial action. I was active in the anti-poll tax movement and set up our local group, I took an active part in anti-motorway work and helped set up our local anti-JSA group. In none of these cases did not being in the Labour party hinder. In fact the reverse is true. During the Poll Tax struggle we were infested with people from Militant who took every opportunity to tell people to join Labour. Nobody did - instead they just bored the backsides of people and drove many away. After all, they could see that it was the local Labour state that was implementing the Poll Tax and taking people to court for non-payment. Standing up and saying that labour were just the same as the Tories met with considerable approval. What I do find is that people who are in the Labour party spend too much time on ‘resolutionary’ politics - arguing away within the party, while meanwhile the class struggle goes on outside - unfortunately they are too busy to have any involvement in it. Moreover, their commitment to ‘realism’ or ‘entyism’ stops them being truly outspoken! As to the SLP, all I can say is that I know little of it. I know that some of its members are playing useful parts in JSA work and Dockers Support work. However, I’ve also heard disturbing rumours of expulsions and anti-democratic practice, but they are just rumours. From what I’ve said, though, I see little to gain from them. Their is no ‘old’ labour to go back to! Serious revolutionaries should not be wasting their time in Labour - it has taken too many already and turned them into wasted cynics. Harry Roberts -------------------------------------------- Subversion Home Page including texts on the German Revolution and "Labouring in Vain, Why Labour is Not a Socialist Party" http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8195 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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