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From International Socialism (1st series), No.93, March 1976, pp.20-22.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
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REVOLUTIONARY socialist politics in Britain were fundamentally influenced by the mood of “extra-parliamentary opposition” in the late 1960s, and have been defined since then in opposition to the “paliamentary road to socialism”. For practical purposes, revolutionary socialists have rejected the parliamentary and electoral arenas as fields of struggle. We have given reluctant, and often em-brarrassed, support to Labour in General Elections, and postponed to the distant future the day when we could present an electoral alternative – reassuring ourselves all along that the struggle outside parliament, in the unions, in industry, in the community, even in the family, was far more fundamental. But today the time has come when it is no longer possible to think along these lines. The absolute contrast between Labour policies and working-class interests makes the prospect of further “critical support” to Labour less credible than ever. The disillusionment with Labour on all sides makes us more than ever aware of the opportunities lost by our inability to intervene electorally independently of Labour. And finally, the relative successes of the National Front and the National Party, fascist organizations, in elections, have raised the need to offer a socialist alternative, rather than just an “anti-” campaign. And so Socialist Worker has announced its first parliamentary candidates for the Walsall, Stechford and Newcastle bye-elections. While we have stressed for a long time that we are, in principle, in favour fusing parliament and elections for propaganda purposes, and that whether or not we do so is a tactical question, there can be no disguising that this has not generally been seen as a practical option until lately. And because our whole practice has been against this option, we cannot deny that there is still a good deal of suspicion about taking it up. It will be seen as a purely tactical experiment, of fairly small importance, especially if the first results are mediocre or poor. This article argues first that this is a mistaken attitude, because it fails to understand the important changes which are taking place in the political situation, and secondly, that it is linked to distortions in our understanding of what kinds of activities socialist politics involve in an advanced capitalist “democracy”. It is inseparable from developing into a real party, that we consistently intervene in the electoral process. It is necessary to critically re-examine our politics, to see to what extent they have been influenced by the peculiar (and, I shall argue, exceptional) conditions of British politics in the historical period which is now drawing to a close. |
REVOLUTIONARY socialist politics in Britain were fundamentally influenced by the mood of “extra-parliamentary opposition” in the late 1960s, and have been defined since then in opposition to the “paliamentary road to socialism”. For practical purposes, revolutionary socialists have rejected the parliamentary and electoral arenas as fields of struggle. We have given reluctant, and often em-brarrassed, support to Labour in General Elections, and postponed to the distant future the day when we could present an electoral alternative – reassuring ourselves all along that the struggle outside parliament, in the unions, in industry, in the community, even in the family, was far more fundamental. But today the time has come when it is no longer possible to think along these lines. The absolute contrast between Labour policies and working-class interests makes the prospect of further “critical support” to Labour less credible than ever. The disillusionment with Labour on all sides makes us more than ever aware of the opportunities lost by our inability to intervene electorally independently of Labour. And finally, the relative successes of the National Front and the National Party, fascist organizations, in elections, have raised the need to offer a socialist alternative, rather than just an “anti-” campaign. And so Socialist Worker has announced its first parliamentary candidates for the Walsall, Stechford and Newcastle bye-elections.
While we have stressed for a long time that we are, in principle, in favour fusing parliament and elections for propaganda purposes, and that whether or not we do so is a tactical question, there can be no disguising that this has not generally been seen as a practical option until lately. And because our whole practice has been against this option, we cannot deny that there is still a good deal of suspicion about taking it up. It will be seen as a purely tactical experiment, of fairly small importance, especially if the first results are mediocre or poor. This article argues first that this is a mistaken attitude, because it fails to understand the important changes which are taking place in the political situation, and secondly, that it is linked to distortions in our understanding of what kinds of activities socialist politics involve in an advanced capitalist “democracy”. It is inseparable from developing into a real party, that we consistently intervene in the electoral process. It is necessary to critically re-examine our politics, to see to what extent they have been influenced by the peculiar (and, I shall argue, exceptional) conditions of British politics in the historical period which is now drawing to a close.
The most striking feature of British working class politics over the last three-quarters of a century has been the emergence, consolidation and maintenance of the Labour Party’s monopoly over mass working class political support. Labour is, so far, the only mass party the British workers have ever had. Other parties – the CP, ILP and Common Wealth in the last war – have made brief and largely localised dents in Labour’s electoral base, but generally it has reigned supreme. Correspondingly, the bourgeoisie’s political base has been consolidated in the Conservative Party.
Such a near-monopoly by one party is almost unique among major European capitalist states. The reasons for it are complex – to do with the way in which the British labour movement emerged from the trade unions, the lack of serious religious divisions in the movement, even the electoral system, but most of all to do with the history of British capitalism. Its 19th-century industrial supremacy, its imperial heritage, its success in avoiding invasion and defeat in two world wars, created a favourable, climate for stable reformism.
The revolutionary movement and indeed the whole left, has lived in Labour’s shadow for as long as anyone living can remember. In fact it was not until 1945 that Labour won the majority of the manual working class away from the Tories and Liberals, and it was not until 1945-51 that the working class had real experience of majority Labour government. Until then, for the majority of workers, it was still necessary to see what Labour would do in office. Even after that, a tremendous loyalty still remained, the failures and betrayals could be explained away or forgotten, and in the lazy boom of the ‘50s and early ‘60s there was little room for a more radical alternative. Rather, in the fragmented sectional battles of the boom, and of the beginnings of its collapse, there was what IS then called a ‘shift in the locus of reforms’ – away from parliament (and centralised trade union activity) and towards the individual shop or factory.
But there was also, in the ’50s and ’60s, a long slow decline in Labour’s support. The vote fell gradually from the peak of half the total vote in the 1951 General Election, to little over one third in 1974. Party membership followed a similar pattern. When Labour in office, 1964-70, froze wages and brought in anti-union legislation, the support of active trade unionists seemed at breaking point. But paradoxically, the militants’ disaffection was expressed only in more bitter and political industrial struggle; when it came to the polls and party loyalty, the majority saw no alternative to Labour. Among the mass of workers, however, it is clear that the slow disillusion and erosion of loyalties which had been going on since 1951 began to gain momentum. In the 1974 general elections, and even more since then – as the crisis has deepened and Labour’s attacks on the working class have grown – masses of workers who had previously voted Labour have been prepared to vote for ‘new’ alternatives which in one way or another tried to exploit their despair with Labour.
What is more, it is important to recognise that it is not just Labour’s support which is in crisis, but the Conservatives’ as well (although this may be obscured by their recent byelection successes, the long-term trends are. similar to those affecting Labour). In this sense the political system, or the party system, of British capitalism and its state is itself unstable. And this, increasingly, is having an effect on the stability of the state in other ways – in particular, threatening its geographical unity. While socialist attention is focussed on the fascists in England, who are undoubtedly the much more disturbing phenomenon, the attention of the capitalists and their press is focussed on the more immediate problem (for them) of the SNP and, to a lesser extent, Plaid Cymru. We should see the relationship between these two factors - the fascists in England capitalising to a small degree on the mass disillusion with Labour (and Tory) which the Nationalists in Scotland and Wales, with the advantage of the easier argument of national culture, have mobilised to a massive extent. And we should see the importance of the Scottish and Welsh developments for politics in England as well. Not only do they show that a large part of the mass working class base of the Labour Party (and the working/middle class base of the Tories) will desert them once the semblance of a coherent alternative is developed. They may also lead, through the political upsets and constitutional crises which are inherent in the delicate devolution problems of any Labour or Tory Government at the present time, to rapid changes in the political climate, lack of a one-party majority at Westminster leading to coalitions, modifications of the electoral system, etc. Such instability in the political system, and in Labour support in particular, should make it much more possible to stake the claims of a socialist party electorally than it has ever been in the past.
This crisis of the political system should not be seen as something independent of economic developments and the industrial struggle. On the contrary, it is the deep economic crisis of British capitalism which accounts for the problems of its political system. The state, under both Labour and Tory governments, has been unable to solve this crisis. It has been unable to inflict a decisive defeat on the working class. And yet in its attempts to solve these problems, it has undermined the basis of its mass support in the population. That is to say, both the Labour and Tory parties have undermined their respective mass bases, Labour provoking disaffection among the mass of organised workers and their families, the Tories similarly stocking up a host of grievances among small businessmen, managers, etc., not to mention the more reactionary sections of the working class itself who have traditionally supported them. In particular, the period of mass industrial struggle between the late ‘60s and 1974 disturbed the decaying pattern of political allegiances and made new options necessary and possible. The problem has been that so far only nationalist and racist ideologies have seriously benefitted from this situation in the electoral arena, while socialist ideas have remained largely confined to the active minority in the unions and among marginal groups such as students.
It is important that we as revolutionary socialists grasp the change in the situation. The subsiding of mass industrial struggle in the last two years – although only relative, and still permitting important industrial and union work – leaves the mass of organised workers (let alone the unorganised, and the middle strata of society) more atomised, without focal points for their allegiances. And yet all the changes in economic conditions, all the experience and results of class struggle, have had their effects on consciousness. The conditions are much more developed for radical changes of political allegiance, which will make sense of what has happened. The electoral arena is of course only one way in which new political allegiances can be crystallised and expressed. Others, such as the campaigns over the Right to Work, over cuts, etc., which mobilise trade union support and involve individuals in activity, may well be more important at many points in time. But we incline more naturally towards these forms of action. We have all kinds of barriers against significant electoral involvement. I want to look at some of these barriers, and put forward the political basis for arguing that IS should have an electoral arm to its strategy in the coming period.
Revolutionary socialists since Lenin at least have always distinguished between the need to smash the state, and the possibility and even necessity of using parliament, elections etc. as a means of carrying on that struggle. The goal of destroying the bourgeois state machine Hows from the basic marxist concept of the state as an instrument by which one class imposes its will on another. A parliamentary road to socialism is thus out of the question: this is so basic to Lenin’s position, and has been confirmed so many times by experience (e.g. Chile) that it should not need further elaboration here. Equally basic, however, is Lenin’s argument against the true ‘ultra-lefts’, that revolutionaries should use any and every means of advancing the struggle of the working class and the strength of socialist ideas, quite including the parliamentary system.
Although these positions are well known and widely held, little thought has been given to their practical implications in Britain today. The concept of a revolutionary party which is generally advocated is one which poses the problem of working-class consciousness almost exclusively at the level of industrial struggle and organisation. Of course it is elementary that it is at that the point of production that the most decisive locus of working-class unity, struggle, organisation and consciousness exists. Bui it is equally important, and basic, that workers’ ideas are not just a product of their immediate work-situation, but interact with ideas and experience which are formed through home and family, education and the media, chinches and political parties, etc., etc. And it is fairly obvious that in an old, complex and mature capitalist democracy. the idea that political choices are presented and fought over within the electoral system relating to parliament and councils, is very deeply ingrained in the minds of working people. It is in this context that most people see their ultimate political allegiance and not only people marginally involved in struggle, but militants too. And so our job, while trying to break down this narrow concept of politics, is also to intervene and offer a choice at the level which most people think of as politics parliament, elections, etc. If we are seriously concerned to influence the political allegiances of masses of workers – including many unorganised workers who are marginal to the class, and also ‘middle strata’ of the population who may be inactive now but form a potential basis for reaction then we have to deal with this level.
This may seem rather obvious and laboured, but it is the kind of point Lenin had to argue with many British and other Western European Communists of his own day, and it still seems necessary now. Why? Perhaps because in Britain above all, our models of revolutionary organisation do not really include this experience, and this is because of the unique hegemony of Labour in the last 50 years, to which we have already referred. In other countries of Europe, after all, where the Communists were quite strong in the 1920s, electoral activity formed a substantial and obviously necessary part of the activity of the Communist Party. Gramsci, the Italian Communist leader, even remained a deputy in parliament after the Fascist seizure of power. The German Communists, a strong mass party competing for leadership of the working class with the Social Democrats, regularly polled several million votes in elections throughout the 1920s. And indeed, if we are looking for precedents, it may come as a slight surprise to comrades to realise that the Bolsheviks were still contesting municipal elections in Russia up to the October Revolution – and indeed winning majorities on many of them in the last few months – as a casual reading of either Trotsky’s History or Tony Cliff’s Lenin (Vol.2) will make very clear. This was, of course, well after the formation of Soviets throughout the land.
An important reason why we do not see the need for consistent, widespread electoral activity by revolutionary socialists as an essential part of the activity of a revolutionary party is that our immediate historical model, the early Communist Party of Great Britain, provides little example of success with such tactics. What has seemed to us to provide the most useful experience has been the industrial organisation of the party, its factory cells and the Minority Movement. But then CPGB in the 1920s was working in very different political conditions from those of today. It had to swim alongside a rising Labour Party, not seriously tried in Government, still battling to win a majority of organised workers to some form of class-based politics, and still commanding enormous enthusiasm and loyalty from many of the best socialists. Thus for Britain Lenin had coupled his general warning against an ultra-left rejection of Parliament with a recommendation that the CP should actually affiliate to the Labour Party. An interesting example of a failure to see the importance of this in the early CP is Hinton and Hyman’s book Trade Unions and Revolution (Pluto 1975). where it is argued that the CP could not become a real mass party because of the economic situation and the ebb of industrial struggle. In glossing over the general political and ideological problems of the Labour Party and reformism, a very substantial obstacle to the early CP and a major difference from the current situation, is overlooked. The problem today is one of a declining Labour Party, whose mass base has weakened even if its attachment to the trade union machine is still strong. Those who bury themselves in the Labour Party wards, and in a different way those who want to build a movement in industry without linking it to the wider political opportunities, are both ignoring this changed political situation.
Of course, the more recent experience of the reformist, British-Road Communist Party will also be cited and it is important to come to terms with it. The CP has experienced a pretty continuous decline in its vote in General Elections since 1945, until areas like Fife and the East End, which then returned Communist MPs now record pitiful votes in the hundreds. It is interesting that the CP’s vote ‘peaked’ in the same period as the Labour Party’s, and has declined (more catastrophically) with it. For the CP never made a successful general challenge to Labour; it had its biggest triumphs more or less on the upsurge of a general social-democratic wave. Its decline in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s reflected the ebbing of that tide and the shift in the locus of reforms. Its failure to revive significantly in the current period reflects the stateness of its politics rather than the impossibility of any successful intervention by socialists in elections today. It is significant that even the small-scale electoral campaigns of the sectarian Workers Revolutionary Party attracted about as many votes (per candidate) as did those of the CP in 1974 – although the CP had the enormous advantage of being at least a well-known, recognised (if not, as it likes to think, established) political party. It should be possible for consistent, imaginative and non-sectarian campaigns to establish, over a period of time, a viable alternative at an electoral level – especially if these are linked through and through to an active participation in struggles that are going on.
Ultimately this electoral alternative cannot develop far beyond the capacity of the revolutionary party to influence the class struggle in industry and other areas. An electoral base should be seen as one part of the overall development of a party. It is one way in which the allegiance of masses outside the actual membership of the party is gained and consolidated. It expresses the influence of the party in other fields, and feeds into it too. Electoral activity cannot be undertaken greatly out of proportion to the resources devoted to other activity, or the party’s basic goals will be deformed. But it also requires adequate resources and like other forms of activity, it must generate them, too.
Electoral activity by itself certainly will not make IS or SW a “party” in the full sense which revolutionary socialists use the term, to refer to an organisation rooted in and belonging to the mass of the working class. The decision to embark on such activity is a sign that IS has developed something of the base necessary for a party; it is also a part of the process whereby we become accepted by the working class as a party, a political orgnaisation claiming their allegiance. But it still needs to be recognised that our current influence is small, our potential vote (which is, when all is said and done, one indicator of the success of a campaign) small, especially compared to the Labour Party and probably compared to that of the National Front. What is more, the electoral system is unfavourable to us as to all small parties; unlike our comrades in the Proletarian Democracy in Italy, we cannot hope to win seats under proportional representation. There is certainly.a danger of demoralising members and supporters alike by indiscriminate electioneering. On the other hand, electoral action needs to be consistent, and on a serious scale. Our intervention will not be seen as serious if we drop it at the first setback, and it will take time to establish that we are serious. And while parliamentary and council by-elections are probably ideal for the first initiatives, allowing us to concentrate resources and gain more national and local publicity in proportion to the expenditure of time and money involved, intervention in General Elections is by far the most serious test of our credibility.
Only in General Elections does a majority of the electorate vote across the whole country, and the political argument (if such it can be called) become all-pervasive. Because General Elections are the most serious test, they are also the most difficult. As they are national contests between parties, isolated interventions in a few constituencies are hardly here or there. General Elections are largely fought out on television and radio, and it is necessary to stand enough candidates to ensure coverage as a serious party – otherwise all the hard work at the grass roots is likely to be undermined. The next General Election, which does not need to take place before 1979, but could well occur in 1977 and probably in 1978, requires serious long-term preparation, starting as soon as possible. Otherwise the revolutionary left will again have no answer, on a national scale, except “Vote Labour ... without illusions”. And that, in the maturing political crisis of capitalist Britain, is no answer at all.
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