Is it possible to salvage anything from the Corbyn Project or is the socialist left destined to talk to itself?
Tonight we had the launch meeting of the new
Socialist Labour Network (LAW/LIEN) and 150 people attended. Ian Hodson,
President of the Bakers Union was the guest speaker.
The process of forming a new organisation began at the end of November when All Members Meetings of Labour-in-Exile-Network and Labour Against the Witchhunt voted to merge into a single organisation. Both LAW and LIEN had been proscribed by Labour’s National Executive Committee last July 20th.
Orgreave when the Police were used as Thatcher's cavalry to destroy the strike
The
decision of the 2 organisations to merge was taken in the teeth of opposition
from Labour
Party Marxism which is the Communist Party of Great Britain in the Labour
Party. 5 of the 6 members of LAW’s Steering Committee were also opposed to
the merger and 4 of them explained their reasons in a statement Why we resigned.
This was accompanied by an article both in Weekly Worker and on
the LPM website Something
serious is needed: confronting Tony Greenstein and Merging into a cul-de-sac. I replied with Not a liquidation? and Self-declared
heretic replies.
The
fact that the CPGB and its leading theoretician Jack Conrad felt the need to
personalise a political disagreement suggests that the CPGB is finding it
difficult to mount a sustainable argument.
LPM
insisted, contrary to all the evidence, that what was being proposed was not a
merger but a liquidation and notwithstanding the evidence they have continued
to insist that this is the case.
My article, for which I had provided a heading ‘Why the merger of LAW and LIEN is
not a liquidation’ was retitled Not a
liquidation? It was also accompanied by a subheadline ‘Abandoning any pretence of class politics, Tony Greenstein defends what
he calls the ‘merger’ of LAW and LIEN and advocates yet another ‘transitional’
halfway-house broad front’
Despite
Conrad admitting that ‘LAW has done very
little, has been paralysed even’ my argument that LAW had not been
liquidated was described as ‘clearly a
pedantic attempt to pull wool over eyes.’ Conrad continues to argue that
‘while the words ‘liquidation’ and
‘closing down’ did not appear in motion 1, only someone who wants to cover up,
to obfuscate, to hoodwink, would object to such an assessment.’
Such an unnecessary expenditure of verbs! To allege that your political
opponents are, effectively, lying is not the way to conduct a comradely debate.
And the evidence for such an assertion?
Zilch.
Black Lives Matter demonstration in Brighton
As far as the CPGB and other far-left groups are concerned the key task
is to form a revolutionary socialist or communist party with which capitalism
can be brought to an end. And suffice to say they have the key to the holy
grail.
Many of us saw the Corbyn movement as a quite momentous political event.
Hundreds of thousands of people joined the Labour Party. It made a profound
effect politically and at the 2017 General Election, millions of people voted
for a radical, not revolutionary, manifesto.
But for the sabotage of Labour’s right-wing, Corbyn could have won. As
it is he obtained the largest swing since 1945 for Labour. One thing is for certain. It put the frighteners on the British establishment. It also showed the potential for radicalism in Britain.
Elbit's factory in Oldham - they've had enough and are closing
But to the CPGB what happened under Corbyn Project was merely a
diversion. An inevitable failure. Jack lays
out his stall thus:
‘What needs to
be understood is that socialist - ie, Marxist - parties, are built top-down,
not bottom-up. What is primary is the programme: ie, theory. It is from there
to the masses and in the process, of course, theory is enriched, concretised,
taken to new heights. It should also be understood that Marxist parties do not require
revolutionary conditions in order to grow. They can grow in peaceful, seemingly
almost uneventful, conditions.’
The idea of even thinking about building
a socialist movement outside the Labour Party is given short shrift. It is what
they call a half way house, a Labour Party Mark II. What is needed in their eyes
is to jump from a small revolutionary group to a mass revolutionary Communist Party without even pausing for breath.
Labour
needs be refounded as a united front of a special kind and politically armed
with a Marxist programme and put under a tried and tested Marxist leadership.
BLM demo in Chichester, a town 30 miles from Brighton
What
then of the Corbyn movement itself? Jack
doesn’t pull his punches.
what
was notable about them - especially, sad to say, the younger generation - is
that they were not politically determined, not politically educated and
therefore did not fully engage. They voted Jeremy Corbyn against Owen Smith,
but had not much of a clue when it came to national executive elections.
My
own view is that we are not in revolutionary conditions or a pre-revolutionary
period. On the contrary we are in a period of deep reaction, symbolised by
Brexit, which was a project of the Right and far-Right.
Black Lives Matter demonstration in Brighton
We
need to look to our strengths and weaknesses. Trade union strike action has
been at an all time low. Unions today are half the size they were under
Thatcher. Yet at the same time we have
seen the rise of social movements like Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion
and direct action groups like Palestine Action. The question for socialists is
how we can relate to and generalise from the specific. We need to be able to
make the connection between climate change and environmental destruction and
the nature of capitalism and how it operates. In other words socialism needs to
be made relevant.
Only
this week we learnt that Palestine Action had chalked up its first victory, the
closure of
Elbit’s factory in Oldham. I have a personal investment in this campaign as I’m
presently out on bail for taking part in an action. It demonstrates that direct
action can work. It is no accident that Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which is
controlled by the former Trotskyist Socialist Action denounced Palestine Action
in the strongest terms.
Black Lives Matter demonstration in Brighton
Other
issues include a theoretical assessment of the period we are in, the decline of
trade union power, the conservatism of a working class that is supposed to be the
agent of revolutionary change and asking questions such as whether revolution
is even possible in the heart of the imperialist beast.
Come
to the debate and take part!
Tony
Greenstein
