Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 23:02:30 -0800
From: iwp.ilo-AT-ix.netcom.com (CEP )
Subject: Re: Scargill's SLP - which way for a new party?


You(Trotsky) wrote: 
>In it he posed the question "must we join the labour party or remain 
>outside?"
>
>"This is not a question of principle, but a question of circumstance 
>and possibilities. It is evident that the possibility of 
>participating in a labour party movement and of *utilising it* would 
>be greater in is period of inception: that is, in the period when the 
>party is not a party but an amorphous political mass movement. That 
>we must participate in it at that time with the greatest energy is 
>without question; not to help form a labour party will exclude us and 
>fight against us, but to push the progressive elements of the 
>movement more and more to the left by our activity and propaganda" 
>(1932).

    Carlos:

    This quote marks precisely my question: wouldn't be better to build
    the Socialist Alliances as a pressure united front of all           
    socialists and its allies in Britain to push for acceptance in the
    SLP instead of building a competitor socialist party that will
    exacerbate the party "nationalism" of Scargill's forces?

    I seems to me that Militant Labour and its allies will be better
    off if the find the way to fuse their socialist activism with the
    tradeunion forces around Scargill than competing with him purely
    on organizational grounds.  In that sense, Martin Ralph's article
    seemed a little bit too impatient, IMHO.

    My question goes precisely to the core of the needs of the general
    movement of the working class and its interests now in Britain,     
    rather than a wrestling match between Socialist Alliances and the
    SLP that, obviously, no one can win without damaging, maybe         
    mortally, itself.  As the American say is not a case "of shooting
    oneself in the foot".

    Comradely,
    cARLOS



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