Three Conferences

[p004] Three Conferences HE conference of rank-and-file industrial workers Tt in London on November 16, called by the editorial board of The Newsletter, will be welcomed by every militant. There is an urgent need for discussion of the problems raised by ihe continuing employers’ offensive. This is shown by the paltry I4d. an hour offered to the gasworkers, 3 per cent. to the engineers and 7s. 6d. to the portworkers. It is shown by the shameful revelations in the report of the General Council to the 1958 Trades Union Congress about the way the busmen were stabbed in the back. It is shown by the latest provocative effusion of the “Three Wise Men’, foreseeing mcre unemployment and calling for smaller wage increases. lt is snown by the alarming extension oi ‘redundancy’ sackings; by the ugiy race riots in Nottingnam and Notting Hill; by the fall in Labour’s electoral support and the popular demand for a Left-wing policy to prove that there /s a Labour Party. Ostensibly the problems now confronting the British workers will be discussed at the two majoc working-class conferences of the year: the TUC and the Labour Party conference. But no active member of the Labour movement has any illusions about the character of these two conferences. Both are domin- ated by the platform in such a way as to minimize the expression of Left-wing opinions and to block the reflection of those opinions in the kind of resolutions and decisions that will lead to action. Both the TUC and the Labour Party conference are run by a bureau- cracy which skilfully controls the proceedings, making sure that what is decided does not overstep the limits of class collaboration, challenge the capitalist State machine or endanger the ‘gentlemanly’ conventions of parliamentary opposition. This does not mean that it is futile for militants and revolutionaries to work for the enlightenment of their fellow-trade unionists and fellow-members of the Labour Party, by pressing for- ward as energetically as possible for the ending of the present Right-wing domination of the policies and leadership of these bodies. On the contrary, patient, painstaking and consistent work within the traditional organizations of the British working class is the only way in which Marxists can effectively participate in the experience of their class and show their fellow- workers the need for a Marxist alternative to leaders who are in the last analysis agents of the employing class within the ranks of Labour. But no one who takes up this arduous task of Marxist activity in the workers’ movement should expect easy victories, even at a time of growing militancy. It is uphill work: a reader of our literature won here. a contact gained there. a discus- sion group formed. a resolution passed. a group of militants won for the Marxist conception of struggle and strategy. Before the revolutionary crisis matures, bringing over to the banner of Marxism tens and hundreds of thousands of workers, those who see the need for such a comprehensive struteey as only Marx- ism has to offer are relatively few. Though few. these are the precious cadres of the future workers’ party: on their assembly, organization and political and ideological training no care or effort is too great. ND so the forthcoming rank-and-file conference Anis a significance quite beyond the immediate problems which are the occasion of its calling. Not only will it be, as distinct from the TUC and the Labour Party conference, a purely rank-and-file gathering, dominated by no platform, run by no bureaucracy, steered by no officials; not only will provide an excellent opportunity for an exchange of opinions among ordinary workers directly elected by, and therefore directly answerable to, the lads on the jcb: not only will it permit the pooling of experience, the taking of decisions on mutual help and solidarity action; not only will it lay the foundations for a rank- and-file movement linking and co-ordinating the efforts of militants in different industries; but it will also be a milestone in the construction of a genuine Marxist movement in Britain. And what kind of a Marxist movement? Not a group of embittered doctrinaires without roots or perspectives or- the ability to learn from their mistakes; not a coterie of well-meaning universitv dons and writers who have something to say on every subject except the class struggle taking place under their noses; not a party paying lip-service to Marxism but in fact dominated by whichever faction happens to be in control in Moscow. No, the Marxist movement to whose construction Lasour REVIEW is dedicated will be rooted in the pits and workshops and on the building sites; it will unite the efforts of workers for whom ‘intellectual’ is not a dirty word and intel- lectuals who have no dearer wish than to serve the working class in struggle; it will carry forward those traditions of revolutionary ardour, discipline, stead- fastness and internationalism to which the word ‘Bolshevik’ is properly applied, and will marry them, in new conditions, to all the best traditions of our native working-class struggle. The Marxist movement in Britain will be the worthy heir to the Chartists, the Clydeside strikers, the councils of action, the Com- munist Party of 1920-24, the National Minority Move- ment, the Marxist groups of the thirties and the Revo- lutionary Communist Party of the forties. E are convinced that the bus strike was a dress WW) ccnearsa an overture during which there appeared in outline all the principal themes which will reappear, fully orchestrated, in the coming class battles—above all the theme of the bankruptcy and treacherv of the Right-wing leaders. We are con- vineed that the need of the hour is the emergence of new leaders. whose horizons are not bounded by re- forms within the framework of the canitalist order, but who are thorough-going revolutionaries. Therefore Taraur Revirw pledges full supnort for the conference celled by The Newsletter and appeals to its readers to heln the success of this conference by every means in their mower. 97

[p005] LABOUR REVIEW August-September 1958