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LABOUR'S 'FAIR' NAME The question of revolutionary socialists' attitude to the Labour Party is being much discussed in the debate on the Socialist Labour League's draft political perspectives and elsewhere.

Ernie Roberts, noted trade union 'left' and assistant secretary of the engineers' union, also deals with this important issue in his new book 'Workers' Control.

Roberts uses the opportunity for yet another attack on Leninism and the revolutionary movement.

He writes: 'Breakaway groups of militants, forming themselves into "revolutionary parties" have gained only minimal support. The bulk ot the workers look to the Labour Party for leadership, if only by turning out to vote at general or local elections.

'It is a mistake to talk about an "alternative leadership" as if it were merely a case of installing revolutionary leaders in positions of power.

'Between 12 and 14 million people choose to "vote Labour", however misguided their selection of candidates LL may be, and these votes cannot be overridden by a revolutionary minority, however noble their motives.

The fight for an alternative leadership in the workers' movement is certainly not "merely a case of installing revolutionary leaders', nor is there any question of 12-14 million workers' votes being 'overridden by a revolutionary minority, however noble their motives' The SLL's draft perspectives quite specifically reject 'the ultra-left and adventurist argument that the Labour Party is already sufficiently discredited in the working class, thus substituting themselves for the class' Unlike those revisionistcentrist groups which oppose the fight to elect a Labour government on socialist policies, the SLL calls on the working class 'to unite behind a socialist programme to throw out the Tory government and replace it with a Labour government; to lead the struggle to expose and replace the Labour leaders who serve capitalism; to take the mass anti-Tory movement through the struggle for socialist policies under a Labour government'.

In this struggle, thousands of workers will be won to Marxism and the basis will be prepared for throwing the reformist leaders out of the trade union and labour movement. It is not a question of the revolutionaries' "noble motives' causing the working class to turn to them for leadership, but of the workers' experience in practice of what the Labour leaders are doing in the middle of the crisis. • The draft perspectives describe a Labour government being thrust into office at 'the top of a movement demanding immediate repeal of the Industrial relations Act and all anti-working class legislation'.

Such circumstances will 'provide the real conditions in which millions of workers can see the Labour leaders and break from them in struggle' The perspectives conclude: 'This demand for the election of a Labour government on socialist policies is the indispensable step in preparing the working class for state power, because it means above all the break from reformism.' Contrast this Marxist approach to winning the fight for principles within the labour movement through struggle to Robert's confused propagandist approach. He writes: 'The task of militants is not to desert the workers, but to help in the political education of both active and passive Labour Party supporters; this must be done before an election, to make sure that revolutionary candidates are chosen and elected, and after an election to ensure that the elected government carries out the wishes of its electors. "The degree of militancy shown by the electors reflects upon the government to such an extent that the real advances made by a government are always the result of rank-and-file pressure.' Roberts condemns the working class to a permanently subordinate role. By totally ignoring the question of the working, class taking the power, he reveals the actual contempt in which he holds the mass of workers.

They are consigned to a life-long exercise in futil ty, of putting pressure on the government. Their function is to imbibe political education from wise teachers like Ernie Roberts and elect him as their 'revolutionary candidate'.

To prove the need for workers to exercise this 'control by pressure', Roberts quotes, of all things, Lenin, and manages Ernie Roberts: 'It is a mistake to talk about "alternative leadership."' Above left: Lenin, who stressed the i need for an independent revolutionary party at all costs. Above right: The All Trades Union Alliance conference last year where delegates voted unanimously to build the revolutionary party.

to get the sense entirely wrong:

'Control without power is an empty phrase. How can I control England? In order to control her, I must capture her navy.

know that uneducated masses of workers and soldiers may naïvaly and unintelligently believe in control, but it is sufficient to ponder over the fundamental element of control in order to realize that this belief is a retreat from the fundamental principles of the class struggle. READ WORKERS PRESS DAILY PAPER