November 6th, 1949
Comrades, the key fact which emerges with ever greater clarity is to be found in our relationship to the Labour Party, and our attitude toward social democracy as an historical tendency. In the past our attitude has been quite clear, the record will substantiate that prior to the twentieth Party Congress we differentiated between the Home and Foreign policy of the present Labour Government. In the main we supported the Home policy of the Government for we believed that nationalisation, even under capitalism, constituted a direct step toward socialism. The question of State Capitalism was not treated in a serious manner for we did not–nor do we now–believe in its essential fulfilment under British conditions. We fought the Government’s foreign policy under the slogan, “Get Rid of Bevin! ” utterly failing to see that a direct relationship existed between the home and foreign policy, that the one fully complemented the other. This was the period when our main political effort was directed toward aiding the Government’s plan to increase exports Hence our anxiety at that time to preserve at all costs peace in industry. All this, comrades, is written in to the records, it is quite recent history.
How did such things come about? They came about because we, as a Party, believed it possible to drive the Labour Party to the Left, to bring into being a Government of the Left. Up to a few months ago this view still prevailed and has only with great reluctance–in face of the certainty of a coming election–been put off. For we believe that there exists within the Labour Party a sufficiency of forces, if once aroused, to accomplish the dismissal of Morrison, Bevin and Co.
So much was this view of ours current that a Brother Party, one with a great deal of experience with its own particular brand of social democracy, the Australian Party, ventured to call our attention to the dangers arising from such a conception. We turned savagely upon it with name-calling and abuse. To the extent indeed of insinuating that the Australian Party were Titoists! Such an attitude, comrades, brings nothing but shame on our Party.
It is quite correct to assert that within the Labour Party there exists a left tendency, it is wrong and infinitely harmful to press forward the view that this left tendency is capable of ridding the Labour Party of the dominating influence of the right. Not until the working class itself has learned through a series of powerful mass actions–particularly on the economic front–of the nature in practice of the right-control of the Labour Party–repression of the workers through the use of troops–will it be possible to seriously challenge the power of the Bevins, the Deakins, aye, and the Figgins! For is not the power of such people but a reflection of opportunism and careerism prevalent in the minds of millions of ordinary people?
And even then, after events of a kind which has involved millions of workers in mass struggle, even then the left-wing of social democracy fails to carry the Labour Party with it; it is split into a number of factions and groupings, the genuine left working closely with the Communists. Is it not a fact that in the course of such mass struggle the Communist Party succeeds in winning over the majority of the working class? Haven’t we seen this happening before our very eyes in France, in Italy, the New Democracies? It is a far cry indeed from the belief in our Party that the left within the Labour Party will take that Party over and become a national force.
The left within the Labour Party can only strengthen itself in step with the emergence of our own Party as a national force. Until we, the Party, have succeeded in leading into struggle basic sections of the working class, and this means a break-away from the influence and control of the Deacons, Williamsons, Figgin’s of entire industries, the left within the Labour Party will remain a negligible force, with paper triumphs at the yearly Congress.
Our job is to hasten this process, our job is to break with social-democratic forms of thought, break with the idea of a ’lesser’ evil. For this is precisely our attitude to the Labour Party, and this attitude governs and controls our coming parliamentary struggle. We seem to have ignored the central thesis stressed time and again by Lenin and Stalin: socialism cannot come into being until social democracy has been destroyed. And this can be done, Comrade Pollitt to the contrary, without insulting and name-calling those workers who vote for the Labour Party.
A final word. We are still relying, as witness Figgins and the rail issue, on bringing pressure to bear via individuals, and when we are let-down by this careerist or that we energetically start a new hunt, confident this time the results will be better! In short, we reduce our problems to a study of psychology, explaining the tremendous turnover of membership to weaknesses of personal behaviour, loading the Party’s failures on to the shoulders of the lower cadres. I am of the opinion that the top Party leadership is to be blamed, for their constant refusal to break with traditional thought and action.
A. H. EVANS.