Revolution Destroyed?

Have I ensured that a world socialist revolution will never happen?

A book by Steve Wallis (www.socialiststeve.me.uk)

Chapter 14

Leaving Labour

In 1991, the year after I joined, there was a big discussion in the Militant Tendency about whether the organisation should take its first steps towards leaving the Labour Party. Militant, and the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) as it had been known before the first edition of the Militant newspaper was produced in 19XXX, had used the strategy of “entrism” within that party for about 40 years.

The entrism strategy was first proposed by Leon Trotsky in 19XXX. He advocated it as a short-term measure, in which revolutionary socialists would go in to expose Labour’s pro-capitalist leaders, quickly recruit many working class people who had joined the party and then leave – a “smash and grab” raid. He envisaged it as a measure for very small organisations, which would otherwise struggle to recruit people in ones and twos, in order to make big steps forward in terms of size and influence. He also argued that entrists should be honest about who they were and what they hoped to achieve by intervening (recruiting from and severely damaging the party).

The entrism strategy of the RSL/Militant was quite different. When the RSL initiated it, it was intended to be short term, but having taken the decision to enter Labour and achieved a certain amount of success, there wasn’t a good reason to abandon the strategy. I don’t know to what extent the RSL was honest about what they were doing, but Militant members certainly told some fibs! [Although Militant still indulged in entrism at the time I joined, I disliked these deceptions and tended to be honest.]

They said they were just supporters of the Militant newspaper rather than being in an organisation, to try to avoid being expelled.

They pretended they were in favour of reforms rather than being revolutionaries, by putting forward what they called a “transitional programme” – a set of demands, many of which couldn’t be implemented under capitalism, designed so that trying to implement them would trigger a socialist revolution. This programme was supposedly based on a pamphlet called The Transitional Programme by Trotsky, but I found that pamphlet impenetrable and some Marxists from other traditions have a different interpretation of the “transitional programme” term. Despite the fact that entrism was abandoned a long time ago, the Socialist Party (as Militant is now known) continues to include a similar set of demands in the “What we stand for” column of its newspaper The Socialist, apart from hinting that they are revolutionaries in the final paragraph: “An end to the rule of profit. For a socialist plan of production. For a socialist society and economy run to meet the needs of all whilst protecting our environment.” Organisations linked to the Socialist Party around the world by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), including CWI Scotland that now operates within Solidarity and produces the monthly newspaper International Socialist, do likewise.

Militant members also said they were trying to transform Labour into a genuine socialist party, but thought that it would be necessary at some stage to lead a left-wing breakaway from the party – I actually felt that it may be possible to transform Labour and for the right-wingers to be in a minority and the breakaway party to be a right-wing pro-capitalist one, but I don’t think that this view of mine was particularly widely held within Militant. There was, however, a precedent for such a viewpoint in the right-wing split from Labour in the 1980s known as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which formed an electoral alliance with the Liberal Party and later merged with them to become today’s Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems). Ironically, Labour has now shifted far to the right of the views held by the SDP and was, on most issues, to the right of the Lib Dems at the time of the last general election (in 2005). At that time, the Lib Dems proposed increasing the top rate of income tax to 50% for people earning over £100,000 a year, with Labour ruling out income tax rises.

There is a tendency of Marxist organisations to lag behind the commonsense views of ordinary people in their analyses of political parties, failing to recognise when parties have fundamentally changed. Political parties do sometimes change their allegiances to classes in society and relationships with each other.

A good example of this is with the two main parties in the USA. The Democrats were originally the party of the slave-owners and were to the right of the Republicans, but these parties later swapped round and the Democrats became the relatively left-wing party in that country. Marxist organisations argue that both the Republicans and Democrats are parties of big business. However, as I’ll argue in chapter YYY, the Democrats were qualitatively different at the time of the 2004 presidential election, I suspect largely due to an influx of former supporters of the Greens’ 2000 candidate Ralph Nader, having a candidate (John Kerry) who pledged to tax the rich (as Labour used to do) and close all tax loopholes (the best transitional demand Militant never had).

Militant was the first Marxist organisation in Britain to recognise that the Labour Party was fundamentally changing – from a party primarily of working class people but with a pro-capitalist leadership, which Militant called a “mass workers’ party” and other Marxist organisations called a “bourgeois workers’ party” (where “bourgeois” is another word for “capitalist”), to a party of big business. The main argument used by organisations that still refuse to accept that Labour has fundamentally changed, including the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), is that Labour has kept links with the trade unions. Their arguments are not consistent, however – they call the US Democrats, which also has trade union links, a party of big business, and call the German SPD, which doesn’t but like Labour is the traditional party of the working class, a bourgeois workers’ party. Admittedly, trade unions are still able to wield sizeable numbers of votes at Labour Party conferences, unlike at “conventions” of the Democrats in the USA – but votes at those conferences are completely ignored by Labour leaders if they go against their wishes.

There was a subtle change in Militant before the debate on abandoning entrism took place in 1991. The phrase “Become a Militant supporter” was replaced, in the Militant newspaper for example, by “Join with Militant”. Posters were even produced that used the new phrase and the word “with” in a very small font size! Officially, however, Militant still refused to admit that it was an organisation.

Peter Taaffe, who was editor of the Militant newspaper at the time of the 1991 debate and is now Socialist Party general secretary, led the transformation of the Militant Tendency itself and its attitude to the Labour Party. He argued that Labour would not shift to the left for a few years at least, if ever, and that Militant could grow significantly in the meantime if it became an open organisation that operated outside that party. He proposed the move in Scotland first of all on a trial basis, due to Scots tending to be more left wing and Militant being stronger north of the border, and it became known as “the Scottish turn”. The Tories introducing the poll tax in Scotland a year earlier than the rest of Britain was a factor in boosting left-wing views there and increasing the reputation of Militant and its leading members, particularly Tommy Sheridan who was the chair of the Scottish and All Britain Anti-Poll Tax Federations.

The first I heard about the Scottish turn was at a meeting open to all members of Militant in the Manchester/Lancashire region, known as a “regional aggregate”, held in a Manchester pub in early 1991. Nick Wrack, who was the member of Militant’s Executive Committee (EC) responsible for my region, addressed that meeting. The EC wanted to push through the decision by getting it approved by such aggregates held across Britain at that time. However, Max Neill from Preston proposed a resolution that the decision be deferred to a national conference of Militant, arguing that it was such a big step that a full debate should be held in the organisation and that there was no obvious reason to make the decision quickly. My initial reaction to Nick’s speech was that the Scottish turn sounded a very good idea, but I agreed with Max’s arguments and voted for his resolution, which was passed (quite convincingly) by the meeting.

I remember talking to Paula Mitchell, who had also joined Militant during the anti-poll tax campaign as a result of it leading that campaign, at about that time and both of us thought that Militant wasn’t as democratic as it should be. Decisions tended to be proposed by the leadership and simply presented for approval to the membership at meetings such as that regional aggregate, or even made without asking for approval. That feeling was exacerbated by me not being told what democratic procedures existed and there not having been a national conference in the period of several months between joining and the Scottish turn debate starting. National conferences were supposed to take place annually but had often been delayed due to the pressure of events.

The fact that Max Neill was able to put forward his resolution, and that it was acted upon unlike many resolutions passed in the Labour Party, was a sign that there were democratic procedures in the Militant Tendency. However, these procedures were not used as often as they probably should have been, highlighted by the fact that no other region objected to the Scottish turn being implemented without a full debate.

Militant was a deeply hierarchical organisation. Its branches often had branch committees and were arranged in districts with district committees, which in turn were arranged in regions with regional committees. There was also a central committee (CC) then composed entirely of full-time organisers, some of whom played leading roles in the regions with others based at the national centre in London. My region had two representatives on the CC: the regional secretary Phil Frampton (who was later the subject of a faction fight due to adopting “divide-and-rule” tactics, and whom I now consider to having been an infiltrator on the side of big business) and Phil Forrester (a very genuine person who became regional secretary for a brief period after the other Phil). Militant had democratic procedures to elect the members of the various committees, but I hadn’t been to any of the meetings/conferences (all supposed to take place annually) at which such elections took place before the Scottish turn debate. The CC was elected at national conferences, but it elected the overall leadership body of the organisation – the EC, which was able to meet much more frequently than the CC due to consisting entirely of full-timers based in London.

Incidentally, requiring that all CC members were full-timers and that EC members were based in London was bound to make those leadership bodies less representative of the membership than would otherwise be the case without such restrictions. The Socialist Party’s national committee (as the central committee became known due to the latter name’s association with Stalinism) now contains many members who are not full-timers, but Paula Mitchell, who had (and I think still has) responsibility for all London branches, became the only EC member not based at the national centre shortly before I left the party.

Elections for committees always took place using the slate system whereby the outgoing committee members recommended their replacements (usually themselves with perhaps the odd alteration). Although alternative slates could be proposed and voted on, this rarely happened, largely because dissenters would have little chance of success. The rationale for slates was that it prevented elections being tests of personalities as well as ensuring that people who worked well together were elected. However, using slates tends to exclude minority viewpoints, because including people with such viewpoints requires the majority’s acquiescence. The more democratic socialist organisations today, such as the Scottish Socialist Party, avoid the use of slates.

In the introduction of this book, I presented some arguments against hierarchies, particularly when used as the form of government. I made the point that they make it easier for bureaucrats (perhaps potential dictators or infiltrators on the side of big business) to rise up such hierarchies and stay in positions of influence when they are already there, due to it generally only being people on the same committees who know who is dodgy and what they are up to. In my opinion, the very hierarchical nature of Militant made it easier for infiltrators to undermine the organisation from within, leading most significantly to the organisation sending out redundancy notices to the entire Liverpool council workforce (as described in chapter 2) and the debacle around Steve Nally saying that the Anti-Poll Tax Federation would “name names” after the riot (as described in chapter 10). It would not have been feasible even with a non-hierarchical organisation to prevent a single infiltrator who had previously seemed perfectly genuine, as Nally quite possibly did, from making a damaging comment to the media. However, Militant defending him proved disastrous. Phil Frampton similarly acted in a very genuine way before exposing himself (in my view now as a big business infiltrator although I didn’t come to that conclusion at the time) and, even after the EC had been informed of his dubious actions, it took quite a long time before they took action. [I’ll describe that faction fight in chapter YYY.]

The Manchester/Lancashire region’s decision to call for a full debate and national conference precipitated a major faction fight in which “the minority”, nominally led by the organisation’s founder and then leader Ted Grant (although arguably Alan Woods was more influential), opposed the Scottish turn that was proposed by “the majority”, led by Peter Taaffe. Some may argue that my region’s decision was a mistake due to the faction fight erupting, but I think that one would have occurred sooner or later anyway and that the organisation became more democratic as a result of the full debate that took place.

At the same time that Nick Wrack on behalf of the EC proposed launching an open organisation in Scotland, he called for the Broad Left in Liverpool (which united Militant members with other left-wing activists) to stand candidates against Labour in the forthcoming local elections. Unlike the Scottish turn, this was a decision that needed to be made in a hurry and it was not opposed by the minority at this stage. It proved a very successful move with five out of six of the candidates (who stood as the name of their ward followed by “Labour” because they were supported by the majority of members of their Labour Party branches but prevented from being the party’s candidates by its bureaucracy) getting elected. Since Liverpool is near Manchester, we went over to help in that election campaign, and it was certainly uplifting to find out how popular socialist ideas were on the doorsteps in that radical city.

Shortly after the local elections, a parliamentary by-election was held due to the death of Eric Heffer, the MP for Liverpool Walton who had supported the Militant-led Labour council in the mid-80s (and had participated in a walkout at the 19XXX Labour conference when Neil Kinnock attacked Militant). The Liverpool Broad Left decided to stand Militant member Lesley Mahmood as a “Walton Real Labour” candidate. She was supported by Heffer’s widow but had not been selected by Labour in that constituency in contrast with the local election candidates. The decision to call ourselves “Real Labour” caused a large amount of confusion among Liverpool residents and was attacked in the media because we weren’t really the Labour Party. The media also went into overdrive to blame Militant’s role when it led the council for subsequent problems in that city, and we heard such arguments a fair amount on the doorsteps. Militant mobilised its members nationally for that by-election and put a huge amount of effort into canvassing Walton constituency, so much so that we annoyed quite a lot of people by knocking on their doors a few times. Our canvass returns were very good, even suggesting that we would have a chance of winning the by-election. However, on the day, we only polled 2XXX votes. This performance led to the minority faction in Militant opposing standing candidates against Labour in England (or Wales) as well as the Scottish turn.

The debate on the Scottish turn lasted several months and culminated in a conference at which I was one of the delegates from my Militant branch (then called Gorton branch, based on parliamentary constituencies, but later called Rusholme & Longsight branch which better described the area of Manchester in which we were based). I had some sympathy with the “minority” at an early point in the debate, particularly when they were making points about the low level of democracy in the organisation, but I quickly made my mind up to support the “majority” who were supporting the Scottish turn and a more gradual shift away from Labour in England. At the conference, over 90% of the delegates supported the majority position, and Scottish Militant Labour (SML) was launched in the autumn of 1991.

Soon after the conference, the minority made moves towards establishing a separate organisation, such as cancelling or reducing their levels of subs and planning to launch a new publication, and they were (correctly in my view) expelled from Militant. They went on to launch a new organisation and journal, Socialist Appeal, which stayed in the Labour Party and still continues with its entrism strategy. I now take the viewpoint that it is useful to have some socialists plugging away in the Labour Party, and I have a strong ally in Manchester called Angela Mugan who is acting in a similar manner (though not part of an infiltrating organisation). However, there is much more to be gained from operating outside Labour, especially now when it has become so right-wing, and I am not at all tempted to get involved in that party myself.

Militant’s two MPs, Terry Fields in Liverpool and Dave Nellist in Coventry, were suspended from Labour Party membership and were therefore banned from standing for Labour in the 1992 general election. They stood as independent socialist candidates in those two cities, and Tommy Sheridan represented SML in the Glasgow Pollok constituency.

Dave Nellist came very close to retaining his seat in Coventry, gaining over 10,000 votes. He would have won if it wasn’t for the fact that many voters saw it as a two-way struggle between Labour and the Tories, both of whom narrowly beat him (by less than 1,000 votes). Dave has gone on to become a Socialist Party councillor, followed in the council by other Socialist Party members in the same ward. However, they have not built on that support by gaining seats in the rest of Coventry, which in view is largely due to their sectarian attitude to other socialists.

Terry Fields faced a much harder struggle in Liverpool, due to many blaming Militant for the city’s problems and people thinking he didn’t stand a chance after the low vote for Lesley Mahmood. I went over to help canvass for him on a number of occasions, and we were certainly able to win quite a lot of people round on the doorsteps. In the end, he polled a credible vote of just under 6,000.

Tommy Sheridan’s candidature in Glasgow Pollok was arguably the most important of Militant’s three forays into electoral politics in that general election. Unlike the other two candidates, Tommy was open about his Militant politics, and in an interview with him in a free four-page newspaper delivered to every household, he mentioned being a revolutionary socialist. This received some criticism by the overall British leadership, but was a much better move in my opinion than merely hinting at it as Militant’s candidates generally did.

What made Tommy’s candidature particularly significant was the fact that he was serving a six-month jail sentence at the time for defying a court order banning him from attending the first attempted “warrant sale” on the street of the goods of somebody who had not paid the poll tax (as I mentioned in chapter 11).

Tommy stood in the general election from his prison cell for SML and got 6,287 votes, coming second to Labour. He stood again from his cell, in the local elections for Glasgow City Council a month later. Because Tommy was seen as the main opposition to Labour and had an excellent reputation as an activist, he was elected this time, becoming the SML councillor for Glasgow Pollok (a ward with the same name as the much larger constituency). It proved to be the springboard for further excellent election results including some additional victories, and set the ball rolling for the establishment of the Scottish Socialist Alliance and later the Scottish Socialist Party for which Tommy became the first member of the Scottish Parliament. The formation, successes and setbacks of those organisations will be the subject of further chapters of this book.

The remarkable success of the Scottish turn led to a proposal for a similar move in England and Wales about a year later. Support for this proposal was virtually unanimous, although a former Kent full-timer who had moved to Manchester, called John Heddon, opposed it – so there was a further faction fight in my region of Militant. This was quite damaging for morale, and ended in John and a friend of his from Blackpool, Andy Sinclair, leaving the organisation.

The Militant Tendency in England and Wales became known as Militant Labour, and the new honesty with which we carried out our activities was a good breath of fresh air. However, the “open turn” as it was dubbed had the drawback of making Militant easier to infiltrate by conspiratorial organisations on the side of big business. We had some successes in terms of good votes in elections and good interventions in struggles, but insufficient to stop a gradual decline in membership which ultimately led to the infiltrators gaining an upper hand, by the time discussions around the formation of the Scottish Socialist Party took place. I will describe that debate and my important role in it in chapter YYY.

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