What Programme for the Socialist Labour Party?

John Heuston

In the last issue of this journal, we printed a number of contributions from Workers Struggle (British affiliate of the Liason Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International, [LCMRCI]). This group emerged from a split in the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LRCI), whose British affiliate is Workers’ Power. Among the issues in the split were the the LRCI’s pro-Bosnian stance in the Yugoslav civil war. Among the several contributions from the LCMRCI in the last issue was "For a Revolutionary Anticapitalist Programme for the SLP". We promised to make a response to this programme in our next issue. There were no major disagreements with the LCMRCI’s text. Therefore, the following is not so much a polemic, but rather an attempt to produce a more comprehensive document for the up-coming SLP conference.

The Socialist Labour Party adopted a number of policy documents at its founding conference. Other policy documents were later adopted by the National Executive Committee because of lack of time to discuss them at the founding conference. The policies were subsequently published as Socialist Labour: Our Policies. Within the document on the Economy was a brief section entitled: "Socialist Labour’s Programme for Britain". Only two pages are devoted to this large subject and the result is completely unsatisfactory both in terms of quantity and also quality. As with all SLP documents, there is much talk about "common ownership" and "abolishing capitalism", but very little coherent explanation about how the SLP will achieve this. The documents are vague on what practical steps, what line of march, what strategy, the working class must adopt in order to achieve these objectives. In particular, SLP documents are vague about whether capitalism can be reformed or whether it must be overthrown by the revolutionary action of the masses. It is not that the SLP does not mention some militant methods of struggle, it does: "The only way we can permanently resolve our economic and political crisis is by changing that [capitalist] system. To do this, our Party must be able to galvanise opposition to injustice, inequality and environmental destruction, and build the fight for Socialism. Today, radical opposition in Britain is symbolised not by the Labour and trade union movement but by groupings such as those which defeated the Poll Tax, the anti-motorway and animal rights bodies, Greenpeace and other anti-nuclear campaigners, and those fighting against open-cast mining. These are now the voice of protest and direct action, reminding us that only through direct, including industrial action and defiance of unjust laws can we achieve real advance, whilst a moribund New Labour and trade union heirarchy pleads with citizens to accept and submit to those laws [...] Socialist Labour makes it clear that it is prepared to be at the heart of extra-parliamentary action necessary to bring about change..." Socialist Labour: Our Policies p8.

The problem with the above is not that it fails to advocate militant methods of struggle, but that it fails to outline what happens next in terms of the concrete forms of the class struggle leading to workers’ power. Is this militant activity simply limited to giving left trade union bureaucrats, or left MPs, more negotiating room, more scope, for extracting piece-meal concessions form the ruling class, as part of a strategy of reform of capitalism? In Ireland we have the opposite form of the same problematic: a guerrillaist strategy in which militant action by the masses is simply a means of aiding the guerilla struggle. In both cases the militant activity of the working class is secondary to the main strategy adopted (parliamentary reform or the guerrilla struggle). Or, is the strategy of the SLP one of working class insurrection carried out by the working class itself , to which parliamentary activity and guerrilla activity are secondary, subordinate tactics? Which is primary and which is secondary: militant working class self-activity or activity on behalf of the working class by others (MPs or guerrillas)?

These are the hard questions of strategy which the SLP fails to address and which it needs to address. Should Clause IV of the SLP Constitution say "to obtain for the working class the full fruits of its labours..." (i.e. reformism), or "the working class obtaining for itself the full fruits of its labours..."? (i.e working class insurrection?) The SLP needs to spell out unambiguously what its programme is for the working class. Until it does it will remain what it is: a muddled party with a muddled programme, a halfway house between reform and revolution, or worse, it could drift back towards reformism. What exactly do we mean by political programme? Just as a play has a programme guide listing, in order of occurrance, the acts and scenes of the play, or just as a TV channel programme guide shows the individual TV shows being presented during the day or week, so a political programme outlines the order of events in a revolutionary drama. It outlines, in a practical step by step way, how we anticipate that the class struggle will unfold, drawing on the lessons of similar struggles of the working class in the past. And it also outlines the tasks of the class conscious vanguard within this process, drawing on the successes of past victorious working class insurrections, and highlighting the mistakes made by the vanguard in past defeats, so that they are not tragically repeated. So, a very important part of a revolutionary political programme is basing present conclusions on the living history of past workers’ struggles. Behind every sentence of a truly revolutionary programme is the memory of all that has gone before applied, not in a mechanical, but in a creative way to the tasks of the present.

There have of course been previous attempts to draw up such programmes for other parties and workers’ international organisations: Marx and Engel’s Communist Manifesto (1848), the programme of the early Communist International (early 1920s) and the Transitional Programme (1938). Any programme for the present may be seen as a development of these earlier efforts. From the Communist Manifesto we receive the idea of the need for the working class to organise itself as a new ruling class . "When in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production is concentrated in the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so-called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class." Communist Manifesto Pelican edn. p 105. From the same Manifesto, the objectives of socialism are summarised as follows: "1) abolition of property in land and application of all rents to public purposes. 2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3) Abolition of all right of inheritance 4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5) Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank. 6) Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8) Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9) Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country. 10) Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c., &c." Communist Manifesto p 105.

The International Working Men’s Association (also known as the First International) was established by Marx and Engels in the mid-nineteenth century. It organised solidarity with the Paris Commune which was the first manifestation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The workers took over Paris and ran it as an embryonic workers city-state until it was crushed by reaction. The 1905 Russian Revolution again showed the capacity of the working class to organise itself as a new embryonic ruling class. The Petrograd Soviet was a kind of workers parliament. These were formed all over Russia in 1917 and became the basis of the workers government formed during the revolution. What the 1905 revolution also demonstrated was the unwillingness of the Russian capitalists to free themselves from the constraints of the feudal, Czarist system. The experience of 1905 brought home to Trotsky, Chair of the Petrograd Soviet, the fact that the capitalists were mortally afraid of the revolutionary forces within the working class, which a real revolution would unleash against themselves. They feared the working class in a revolution against feudalism more than they hated the feudal system itself. Trotsky expressed this insight in his famous theory of permanent revolution. The bourgeoisie, which had played a revolutionary role against feudalism in the English Civil War and the French Revolution, became less revolutionary in subsequent revolutions as the working class became more developed during the industrial revolution. In 1917, the Russian bourgeois governments, which replaced Czarism immediately after the February Revolution, would not even carry out the agrarian reform necessary for the success of capitalism in Russia. And it became clear in the 1927 Chinese Revolution that the Chinese capitalist class, represented by the Guomindang party, would massacre the Chinese Communists and the working class vanguard in their efforts to oppose those who would carry out agrarian reform and other aspects of the bourgeois democratic programme. The repression of the working class by the Third World bourgeoisie which is now so familiar to us all (Chile, Indonesia etc) today, was less obvious in the early nineteenth century and the tendency of the bourgeoisie to side with feudalism and imperialism against the working class was first understood by Trotsky. The October Revolution was quickly followed by the establishment of Communist Parties in many countries and the Communist International (also known as the Third International or Comintern) was established to co-ordinate the work of the CPs on an international basis. The programme of the Comintern drew out the lessons of the victorious October Revolution for the benefit of other Communist Parties. The first period after the October Revolution was one of revolutionary struggles in eastern and central Europe. With the defeat of the German Revolution in 1923 however, the situation changed and a period of defensive struggles developed in which the bourgeoisie took the offensive throughout Europe. It was in this period that the Communist International developed the united front tactic as a means of winning the ranks of the European socialist and labour parties which became consolidated during this period of retreat. The revolutionary communist parties were to call upon the leaders of the socialist parties to enter into joint action with the communist parties in defence of workers’ interests, knowing that the right-wing leaders of these parties would be unwilling to do so. This would then have the effect of discrediting the socialist leaders in the eyes of their members, leading to defections to the communist parties. This approach is very relevant today because we are also in a period of retreat and defensive struggles.

The Comintern also developed a transitional approach to agitation and propaganda. These demands were neither restricted to piece-meal concessions within capitalism (i.e. reformist, trades union, minimum demands) nor were they calling for revolution tomorrow and to man the barricades (i.e. maximum demands) when it was obviously not a possibility. Transitional demands articulated the daily needs of workers who were not yet convinced of the need for revolution; but they also presented the solution to the needs of the working class in a form which had been adopted by the workers’ government in the period after the October Revolution. So, for example, under capitalism, workers needed their pay protected from rampant inflation. Instead of presenting the answer to this in the form of a temporary, piece-meal concession from the bosses, i.e a one-off pay rise, the Comintern programme presented it in a way that would enable workers to envisage a more lasting solution to their problems. Instead of a one-off pay rise, which would be quickly swallowed up by a new round of inflation, would it not make sense to demand a sliding-scale of wages which would rise automatically as inflation rose? Was this not the system in operation in the Soviet Union? Likewise the solution to unemployment was presented not as a temporary concession from the bosses (e.g. a few more jobs), but in away that would enable workers to visualise a system without unemployment: everybody should have the right to employment; it is necessary to share the available work between all who need to work without loss of pay; we demand a sliding scale of working hours in line with this policy. Was this also not the system in operation in the Soviet Union?

This transitional methodology maximised the impact of the Communist Parties in a period of relative retreat during the mid-1920s when it was applied to the international workers movement. From the late 1920s however, this method was discarded by the then Stalinist dominated Comintern. A new "Third Period" of imaginary revolutionary advance was announced. The united front and the transitional approach were junked overnight as the Communist parties were urged into ridiculous ultra-left adventures. The united front tactic was replaced with a policy in Germany characterised the SPD as "social fascist". Flowing from this absurd line went the policy of not allying with the socialists in the SPD against the then rapidly growing threat from Hitler’s Nazi party. The SPD was worse than the Nazis according to the new line of the Comintern. The transitional method was rejected also in favour of crazy adventurist revolutionary demands and an equally lunatic policy of self-isolation of the vanguard through splitting the reformist unions and setting up tiny "red unions". Trotsky and his co-thinkers had consistently opposed this disastrous line within the Comintern. The result of the refusal to form a united front against Hitler, and the division and isolation of the vanguard, was the victory of Hitler and the smashing of the most powerful workers’ movement in Europe. The Third International’s largest national section, the German Communist Party, was crushed without a struggle being carried out to resist it. After a period of waiting (in vain) to see if an opposition would develop in response to this disaster within the ranks of the Comintern, Trotsky and his followers, decided that the Third International was "dead for the purposes of revolution". It was necessary to build a new International. Over the next period Trotsky and his co-thinkers tried to create the basis for a new Fourth International by intervening in the newly formed left splits from the socialist and labour parties throughout Europe (e.g. in Britain the Trotskyists formed an opposition within the Independent Labour Party). But it was a difficult period for the workers movement and the left and this attempt did not bring significant forces over to the project of building the new International. The Fourth International therefore had to be formed with very few forces in 1938 as World War II loomed.

The Comintern’s transitional approach was later presented again in a more developed form in the programme of the Fourth International The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International. The demands in this programme are still very relevant to socialists today and, despite the fact that much water has flowed under the bridge since it was written, it is a document which is essential reading for socialists today. In drawing up a programme for the SLP, there is much that we can adopt from the Communist Manifesto, the programmatic documents of the early Comintern and the Fourth International and many of the demands have their origin in these earlier programmes. The draft programme submitted by Workers Struggle/LCMRCI , which we printed in our last issue is set out again below with some proposed additions which are printed in square brackets to indicate where they are in the text.

A Draft Programme

for the SLP

[For the protection of workers’ pay from inflation through a sliding scale of wages based on a cost of living index determined by workers’ price monitoring commissions.]

For a full-scale attack on the scourge of unemployment via work-sharing with no loss of pay, workers' control over work conditions and hiring and firing.

[At a certain point in the struggle Factory Committees will be established representing all workers in a given factory. Existing shop stewards committees will take on a wider role of counterposing themselves as an alternative management in the factory/firm and become a workplace parliament from which representation

to city-wide workers councils will be elected.]

[End the bosses’ monopoly of secret commercial information! In order to exercise workers’ control over the management it is necessary to compel it to open the firms’ books to inspection by Factory Committees and their financial advisors.]

[Individual firms which cannot guarantee adequate pay or employment or which are bancrupt must be nationalised without compensation under workers management.]

[The expropriation of banks and other financial institutions and their merger into a single state bank is essential to enable state planning under workers’ management.]

Abolish all anti-union and anti-labour laws. For the right to strike won and defended by strike action.

[For a sliding scale of public spending determined by committees of public service workers and users to protect services from inflation.]

For a massive programme of socially-useful public works [to be drawn-up and managed by the unemployed] and overseen by unemployed associations and democratically-elected trade union and working class

committees, and funded by a steep wealth tax on the rich.

For a minimum living wage, the level to be set by democratically-elected workers price commissions who also determine the cost of living index.

For the right to work, or full pay - if the bosses say work at decent levels is not available - make them pay!

For comprehensive and living state benefits to be determined by workers. Abolish the Child Support Agency. Abolish the Jobseekers' Allowance and end the degradation of means-tested benefits.

End private pension schemes. Renationalise the insurance industry without compensation. For index-linked pensions for all as of right, determined by workers' and pensioners' committees

For free and fully-accessible public health care for all. Renationalise all private health care facilities [and private medical equipment suppliers of the NHS] and put them all under the control of health workers.

For a comprehensive state-funded research programme into prevention and treatment of diseases which affect working-class people [including an immediate, massive injection of funding into research into a cure

for AIDS].

For [free] state provision of all pharmaceutical products made accessible to all who need them. For free drug-dependency rehabilitation programmes for all who need them.

For fully-funded professional psychiatric care for all who need it. For free abortion and contraception on demand. For free and safe dental treatment for all. [For free provision of technological aids of all kinds for

the disabled.]

For free fully state-funded quality education for all throughout life. The age of compulsory schooling, content of curriculum, and qualifications system to be determined by committees of education sector workers, students and trade unions. Nationalise all non-state educational institutions.

For full state funding of educational programmes for mass literacy, numeracy and English for speakers of other languages. [For the integration of education and labour under workers management and directed to purposes in the interests of

the working class].

For workers control of broadcasting and the media. For fully state-funded, decent, affordable housing for all, under the control of workers and tenants committees. Expropriate all vacant housing stock. End the blight of homelessness. For a massive public house building and refurbishment programme utilising labour from among redundant construction workers.

.

For workers defence committees against [violence motivated by anti-working class interests,] racism, sexism and homophobia. No tolerance of fascist organisations [and no platform for fascists].

For real equality of [pay,] employment, housing and health care rights for all ethnic groups under control of workers committees. For the right to education and other public services in the mother tongue and the right

to freedom of cultural expression.

Abolish all immigration controls and the racist Asylum Bill. [For open borders.] Close 'reception' centers.

For automatic citizenship rights and provision of housing, employment, welfare, education facilities for migrant workers. For [labour movement support, including physical support, for] self-defence [bodies] of

blacks, Asians and immigrants.

For the fully publicly funded socialisation of domestic labour. For state subsidised, locally controlled provision of public eating and laundry facilities.

For the decriminalisation of prostitution, unionisation of sex workers and the availability of regular state-funded health checks.

Equal rights for all - end discrimination in health, housing, employment and the law [including the age of consent], based on sexual orientation.

[For the gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country. For the creation of a safe working environment which meets the need of working people for cheap, high quality housing, employment, easy access to services, cultural and recreational facilities, and appreciation and respect for the natural environment ]

Re-nationalise privatised transport facilities without compensation under workers control.

For a fully-integrated public transport system paid for via taxes on the rich under the control of transport workers.

Against the social austerity attacks of the Maastricht Treaty on the working class. [For withdrawal by a workers’ government in Britain from the reactionary, imperialist socio-political institutions of the EU, the IMF, the World Bank and GATT. For withdrawal from the institutions of the European Union not "Europe". For open European borders internal and external. No pandering to chauvinist prejudices for withdrawal from the EU. For a Europe of the workers; for the establishment of pan-European and global institutions of the workers. For a Socialist United States of Europe; an International Commonwealth of Socialist Nations; and international financial institutions of the workers to oversee a massive aid programme,

given unconditionally, for the ending of global poverty].

For the abolition of the Monarchy and House of Lords. No electoral fees. For the recall of parliamentarians.

For the immediate [and unconditional] withdrawal of all troops from Ireland. For self determination for the Irish people as a whole. For unconditional but critical support for the Irish Republican struggle. [In Britain, the emphasis is on solidarity and criticisms must not be presented in a form which can be interpreted as sitting on the fence when republicans are under reactionary attack.]

For the right to self-determination of Scotland and Wales. For a sovereign Scottish Assembly. [For an Independent Scottish Workers’ Republic].

For an end to militarism. Not one penny or one man or woman to Britain's imperialist war machine. Abolish the professional armed forces. No to state gun control laws. Disband the police and replace with workers militias [accountable to elected workers’ bodies].

Abolish the United Nations and its military operations. Put humanitarian operations under workers’ control [exercised through global workers institutions established for this purpose]. For the disbanding of NATO and all other military treaties to which British imperialism is a part. For working class mobilisation against British militarism.

Defend oppressed nations against imperialist aggression. Support the right of oppressed nations to take up arms against imperialism. Cancel the debts of all colonies and semi-colonies. Expropriation of the IMF, the World Bank and all the imperialist banks [and their replacement by international financial institutions of the working class dedicated to ending global poverty].

Defend the remaining bureaucratic workers' states. For political revolution not capitalist restoration in [ex-Soviet Union, Eastern Europe,] Cuba, China, Vietnam and North Korea.

We acknowledge that these demands will be incompatible with the capitalists need for profits and that the struggle for workers control of production and distribution will form the basis for the creation of Workers

Councils and Workers Militias.

For a Workers' Government pledged to expropriate the capitalist enterprises and banks, and to put them under the democratic control of those who work in them. For a planned economy under the democratic control of the working class.

[At a certain point in the class struggle, Factory Committees will set up city-wide Workers Councils (soviets). These bodies will be an alternative form of local government and signal the beginning of dual power. From them, a national congress of soviets will be established, which will become the basis of an

alternative national government.]

For a Socialist Republic as part of a Federated United Socialist States of Europe.

[Reconstruct the Fourth International!]