A Statement

[p005] Statement by the Editors

PETER Cadogan, Peter Fryer and others have recently broken with the Socialist Labour League. In some cases they have resigned, in others their actions have forced the League to take disciplinary measures against them. Such a breach between individuals and the revolution- ary movement is naturally regrettable and it would have been better for both sides had these people seen their way to working within and learning from the Socialist Labour League. But the breach must be explained and the League must make its position clear.

Some (not all) of those who have left are fairly recent ex-members of the Communist Party. Along with many others, they left the Commun- ist Party after 1956 as a result of conflict with the Party over the political and organizational features of Stalinism which began to become clear after Khrushchev's 'secret' speech and the risings in Hungary and Poland. The majority of these who left the Party did not take up revolu- tionary politics; they either faded out completely or took up positions between the Communist Party and Social Democracy. The most sophisti- cated expression of this latter tendency crystal- lised around the The New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review

The Newsletter, Labour Review, and eventu- ally the foundation of the Socialist Labour League represented a different trend, the result of a fusion between the left opposition in the Communist Party and the Marxist grouping which had fought around the journal Socialist Outlook. This fusion had a firm political basis :

(i) We wanted forms of work which broke from the dogmatic theories and methods of Stalin- ism, and saw this as inseparable from participa- tion in the class struggle in Britain, learning from it, and building an organisation which welded together the working-class movement and the science of Marxism.

(ii) We saw Stalinism Lenin's and Marx's theories revolutionary party, and the ter of the revolutionary mov

as a perversion of on the State, on the international charac- ement. This revision

was accompanied by gross inhumanity and brutal- ity. A return to humanism in Socialist policies meant for us a return to the principled founda- tions of Bolshevism. We found in the writings and the actions of Trotsky and his followers the theoretical approach we were looking for. We parted from those who, either in the beginning or later, identified the crimes of Stalinism with the essence of Bolshevism.

(iii) Consequenly, we insist on organisational forms which correspond to the revolutionary aims of Marxism. Democratic Centralism as practised by the Bolshevik party is a necessity for revolutionaries who learn from the experience of the working class, and act in a disciplined, co-ordinated way. Over 50 years ago began Lenin's clarification of these organisational consequences of taking up a position of political independence of action for the working class.

The formation of the Socialist Labour League was the clearest expression of the transition be- tween two phases in the work which ex-Commun- ist Party members undertook, together with the group who had for many years worked as Marx- ists, and whom they had always been taught to regard as "Trotskyite wreckers', 'agents of the capitalists and fascists' . For a long time many continued the fight inside the Communist Party with the aim of theoretically convincing Com- munist Party members of the disastrous revision of Marxism which Stalinism entailed. This in- volved steady and thorough political explanation of the character of the USSR, the history of the international Communist movement and its be- trayals of the working class, and the distortions of democracy in the Communist Parties of Russia and other countries. But as the crisis caused in the Communist Party by the Hungarian rising faded temporarily, more and more stress had to be laid on our political tasks here in Britain. If we were serious about Stalinism as well as Social Democracy being a misleadership of the working class, and if we thought that the tradition carried on by Trotsky was the revolutionary one, then we were duty-bound, even with small beginnings, to make a determined effort to forge the link

[p006] between struggles

this of the

traditic British

In and working

the class.

NEW STRUGGLES IN INDUSTRY

It so happened that the break with the Com- munist Party coincided with the close of a rela- tively peacetul phase of the class struggle in Britain, when the work of a Marxist group was primarily of a propaganda type, explaining the significance of international affairs in the Labour Party and fighting for a Left Line on the policy decisions of Party conference. But from the autumn of 1957 onwards it became clear that the struggle in industry, set alight by the offensive of the employers, was going to force new issues on to the political scene in Britain. Only an organisation able to take part in these struggles and give them political expression in the Labour movement would serve the working class. It was still important to combat Stalinist ideas and to fill in the great gap in theoretical work left by the bankruptcy of Stalinism and Social Democracy. But this was doomed to sterility unless the core of our work was the class struggle here in Britain. It was for this reason, brought home sharply by the determination of the employers to attack working-class organisation and standards in order to compete on an increasingly difficult inter- national market, that the Socialist Labour League was founded. The election result, the developing struggle on wages and employment in mining, railways, and engineering, and the more and more openly traitorous character of the existing leader- ship in the trade unions, show that this step was certainly not, as some of our opponents argued at the time, 'premature'

Fryer and the others have lett the League when this side of our work has begun to develop, when an open conflict with the government, as well as with the Labour and Communist leadership, is clearly on the agenda. But Fryer presents no political criticism of the Socialist Labour League whatsoever. He even says in his 'document' (An Open Letter to Members of the Socialist Labour League and Other Marxists), that whilst he now disagrees with the method of forming the League, he accepts the need for its formation and supports its policy. Cadogan did develop a political line against the League's policy. was a line which the rest of the League had ample opportunity to study and discuss. Cadogan moved fourteen amendments at the founding con- ference. He published in the internal discussion bulletin of the League (July, 1959) a full state- ment of his position on the H-bomb, NATO and the American-European relationship. This was

W-February March, 1960

available to all members at 3d. and it included his name, address and an invitation to those in- terested to write to him with a view to joining a faction. No more was heard of this faction after the Socialist Labour League school, where Cadogan's position was discussed fully without finding any support. At this school, the main course on Marxist method was interrupted and curtailed in order to let Cadogan have a full day's discussion of his document, which every- one read and studied. The comrades argued on the issue from the economic, political and metho- dological viewpoint and dissected it very scrupu- lously. Cadogan's first reply to the discussion, of which he took not a single note, was that it was a waste of time; nobody would discuss the basic issues. He took up none of the basic argu- ments, saying that he was an experienced teacher, and knew that it took time for resistance to new ideas to be broken down. When at the end of the school comrade Healy spoke on the political position of the League on international questions, on a line completely opposed to that of Cadogan, the latter went so far as to say that we had just heard 'the most significant political statement since the death of Trotsky'!

The arrogance and inconsistency of this man in then circulating a document advocating a supra-class alliance against the H-bomb can only be described as exasperating. But to send this, along with slanders against the League's leader- ship, to enemies of the League in other group- ings, could only lead to expulsion. Cadogan used all the facilities at his disposal in the League and took advantage of the tolerance and patience of its members only to spit in their faces at the first opportunity. Such conduct is alien to all socialist values, and shows an utter disregard for the comrades who carry the programme of the League into the Labour movement every day. It was impossible for our organisation to keep such a man.

Fryer gives no indication of agreeing politi- cally with Cadogan, indeed he has expressed no explicit political difference with the League.

Binced his is at ht eas impossible ad make the

Socialist Labour League a democratic organisa- tion. The Open Letter to Peter Fryer in The Newsletter (27.11.59) points out that, despite the barbarous political record of the Communist Parties, a world-historical betrayal of the work- ing class, Fryer and others rightly aimed for some time to fight within it, hoping to transform it and remedy its organisational weaknesses, or at least to bring a number of Communist Party members to a Bolshevik position. But now, in an organisation which presumably he still agrees

[p007] STATEMENT BY THE EDITORS represents the essence of a revolutionary struggle of the working class, Fryer cannot stay around because of the expulsion of Peter Cadogan! (Of course, since Cadogan improves on ‘the most significant political statement since the death of Trotsky’, any organisation which refuses to have him can hardly be serious.) POLITICS AND ORGANISATION This example serves to pinpoint the political essence of the recent desertions. Fryer left his post at The Newsletter, failed to fulfil any of his speaking engagements or national committee responsibilities, without sending a word of apology to anyone. Others had to deputise or share out the work at a moment’s notice. They did this and made no move against Fryer because they believed him on his own word to be very ill. The political aspects of these actions are apparently not considered by Fryer, who gave not a single thought to the hundreds who sell the paper he edited and fight for the policy he advo- cated. When he felt sufficiently tired of the whole difficult business of building a revolution- ary party he opted out on the excuse of Cado- gan’s expulsion. If he was really sincere about the change from Stalinism to revolutionary Marx- ism, could he possibly excuse his own conduct, leaving the revolutionary organisation because of factors about which he had not even the courage to open his mouth until he was safely out of the country? A revolutionary movement cannot be built with people who sacrifice the energies and resources of the working class and members of the movement to their fly-by-night feelings and actions. Revolutionary theory and practice de- mand a struggle against subjectivism and for complete identification of self-interest with the interests of the movement. These deserters are fond of saying how they vowed on leaving the Communist Party that they would never again acquiesce in practices with which they disagreed. But now they tell us they sat tight and said no- thing about all kinds of alleged practices which they now use as an excuse to desert. The trans- formation of The Newsletter grouping into an open fighting organisation in a period of class struggle brings inevitable problems of construc- ting a team of revolutionaries. Fryer solves these problems by withdrawal. We would have pre- ferred to have him alongside us, strengthened at each phase of the fight, and putting his great talents to good use, but if that is impossible then we can only say that we shall manage without him. He proved to be incapable of surviving the first shots of battle. 5 In the documents produced by Fryer (Open Letter to Members of the Soc.alist Labour League and Other Marxists), and by Cadogan (The 1959 Situation in the Socialist Labour League), certain points are made on organisation and abuses of leadership. The content of these arguments be- trays a political weakness which is in line with their whole conduct since the summer of 1959. Fryer writes in his document about “working- class democracy”, but not about “democratic centralism”. Cadogan explicitly proposes that the term ‘democratic centralism’ should be buried; this proposal is backed by a quotation from Emile Burns. Whether Cadogan and Fryer like it or not, deviations from the organisational fund- amentals of Bolshevism have always been a reflec- tion of deep political differences. Democratic centralism is not just ‘a good set of rules’ but the method of work of a party devoted wholly to the interests of the working-class and its struggle for political power. Lenin’s insistence on questions of rule in the early 1900’s was in order to forge a Socialist Party that would be a working-class party, and not a group of publicists, agitators and sympathisers. The difference with the Men- sheviks on organisation was part and parcel of Lenin’s insistence that the working class accept no leadership from the spokesmen of other classes, that the working class be recognised as the only class capable of overthrowing the State. The Mensheviks’ slogan of ‘freedom of discus-: sion’ and failure to include ‘personal participation in one of the party organisations’ as a condition of membership, reflected their basic conclusion that it was not yet time for the working class to fight for political power .This meant in practice sub- ordination to the bourgeoisie. Within a few years, the enormous political significance of Lenin’s fight on organisation became clear with the collapse of the Second International and its tragic consequences for the working class. When Fryer talks about ‘working-class democ-: racy’ rather than “democratic centralism’ he opens the door to similar political weaknesses His own method in raising his differences is itself a- political act. The comrade who lays greatest stress on the ‘humane’ treatment of members leaves them with no information about his well: being or his opinions for two months, and then announces his resignation in the columns of The: Guardian. What consideration of the members is to be found here? Cadogan similarly showed himself to have little regard for the membership. It is simply not true that these differences on organisational methods have no political roots and it is not just a question of certain individuals find- ing it difficult to subordinate themselves to the. revolutionary movement. Rather it is a failure:

[p008] 6 of some individuals to grasp the full depths of the meaning of the struggle of the revolutionary party to lead the working class to power. Cado- gan argues from the supreme destructive power of the H-bomb to the ‘logical’ need for a peace alliance which cuts across class barriers But this is precisely what differentiates the Socialist Labour League from all other Left tendencies, from the Communist Party to the religious paci- fists. It is not a question of what is ‘logical’ but of the class power behind the bomb. All talk of ‘neutralism’ and international agreement is nonsense and deception so long as the capitalist class remains in power. In no other way can any meaning be attached to the basic revolutionary principle: that in the present crucial phase of development of the forces of production, only the rule of the working class can save humanity and Jay the basis for Socialism BUREAUCRACY The natural accompaniment of this theme on peace is the failure to make a clear-cut division between the revolutionary movement and _ the established bureaucratic leadership of the Labour movement. The Socialist Labour League is the only group in this country to have laid down a clear class line on Summit talks, the H-bomb, and the relations between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. But also it has been alone in stressing the basic need for political independence of the working class; no confidence in either the Trade Union, Social-Democratic or Stalinist bureaucra- cies to conduct working-class struggle against monopoly capitalism. At the same time there is required the maximum flexibility in campaigning among the rank and file of all these organisations. But for Cadogan to write about the Labour Party as ‘the United Front’ is far removed from any such policy. United Front policies are made by established revolutionary groupings or parties to the masses who still follow the reformist leader- ship. They are policies which are presented to the leaders of these organisations, but presented in such a way that they go over the heads of the leaders to the masses, with the aim of unifying the whole working class and exposing the false leader- ship in the course of struggle. It is nothing to do with Marxism to give the Labour Party the name ‘United Front’ because of the composition of its membership. In his criticism of the Secretary of the Social- ist Labour League, Peter Fryer says he detects an attitude of ‘We are not worried about the final aim, but about the problems of the move- ment itself’. Fryer comments that this is re- LABOUR REVIEW —February-March, 1960 visionism of the original variety, as expressed in Bernstein’s phrase “The movement is every- thing, the aim nothing’. Now this is a real howler. Fryer should know that the context of these two statements, even assuming the first to be accurately reported, is quite different. Bern- stein was the apostle of reformism in Germany : he advocated concentration on the winning of re- forms in the day-to-day movement of the Social- Democratic Party and the Trade Unions; changes in capitalism had made this possible, and revolu- tion had become outdated, he thought. Clearly, it is quite unprincipled to equate this with the secretary's supposed attitude of ‘the revolutionary movement is our first consideration, rather than speculating about socialism in the future’. Such an attitude has its faults, but they are hardly the faults of Bernstein. The fact that this is the only directly political point made by Fryer is a sad commentary on the whole document, Once the connection between socialist convic- tion and the revolutionary organisation is lost, the way is clear for all the vulgarised criticisms of democratic centralism with which opponents of Marxism have filled their journals for the last 50 years. When Fryer invents the statement ‘I am the Party’ supposed to have been made by the League’s secretary, he is on a slippery path. Two days before Fryer wrote this (September 19th), a friend of his, John Daniels, wrote in a letter (to one of the Editors) that over-centralisa- tion of leadership produced the kind of situation where people said things like “‘I am the party” and ““The movement is everything, the aim no- thing” (4 la Bernstein). Within a couple of days of hothouse growth these had become definite statements made by particular people! It should be mentioned that Roberto Michels in 1915 pro- duced a criticism of political parties which said the same things word for word. And this is no coincidence. Michels and the bourgeois ‘‘political sociologists”” have criticised Socialism and the revolutionary movement in the same basic terms as Fryer. They see in all parties “‘oligarchical tendencies’’, i.e., tendencies towards the dictator- ship of an élite. These theories fit in very well with the line of those socialists who say that there is something wrong with democratic centralism as such, that it began with Lenin and not Stalin, that we must get back to ‘real’ democracy (or Fryer’s ‘working-class democracy’?) What all these people fail to do is analyse the historical class reasons why bureaucratic rule strangled the Communist Parties. How was it that democratic centralism did not prevent the success of the Bolsheviks (as against the Mensheviks) in 1917? What were the social foundations of the domina- tion of the party by a bureaucratic clique led by rat

[p009] ae rrp ene pv ENE ate STATEMENT BY THE EDITORS. Stalin in the 1920’s? If you neglect the precise social reasons why the working class and its party were defeated by a bureaucracy poised between them and the petit-bourgeoisie, then you can only seek the reasons for bureaucratic degeneration in the mythology of power, theories of the élite, the ‘iron law of oligarchy’, and all the other trappings of those whose approach is ‘anti-totalitarian’ and who usually end up as ‘State-Department Social- ists’. {n the Socialist Labour League, if there were a system of dictatorship from the top, a system where members’ rights and opinions were trampled on, the Marxist would (a) show this to be the result of some alien class pressure in the move- ment, a set of material interests opposed to those of the working-class movement, and (b) expect such domination to hold back and cut across the working-class orientation of the League. Indeed Trotsky’s analysis of the Soviet bureaucracy’s conquest of the Bolshevik party, via the faction of Stalin, proceeds along precisely such lines. But the critics of the S.L.L. do not suggest any- thing beyond personal characteristics as the source of such ‘degeneration’, and when Fryer says he agrees wholeheartedly with the policy and programme of the League, he suggests that somehow bureaucratic dictatorship has managed to achieve a correct political line! We would not take Fryer’s word for it, of course, but we believe the facts do show that in the last year the League has_ successfully turned towards working-class struggle in a way that no other organisation in this country has done. Peter Cadogan’s political criticism only con- firms this conclusion. He takes us to task for not realising that the main struggle is against Ameri- can imperialism, along with all sorts of allies for ‘independence’ and ‘peace’. He calls the Labour Party a ‘United Front’. He calls our activity of ast summer, which resulted in the gains reflected in the National Assembly of Labour, ‘sectarian’ and ‘inward-turning’, confirming this by noting the absence of any S.L.L. adverts in Tribune! - All of these are attempts to find slogans and methods stripped of militant class content, and listing heavily towards the reformists and the Stalinists. It is Cadogan, not the S.L.L., who is drifting away from a working-class line. This would not be so if the League was dominated by a dictatorial clique, as Fryer and Cadogan sug- gest. The deserters have found friends in the various discussion groups (Fourth International, New Left Review, Socialist Review, etc.) which infest the backwaters of the Labour movement. Strange that at a time when the growing intensity of the industrial struggle and the treachery of the Right- 7 wing exposes more and more clearly the political inadequacy of these prolific writers, Daniels, Coates, Cadogan and others are drawn towards them, so that S.L.L. members are confronted with rumours in the hands of people whose only common platform is hatred of the Socialist Labour League and refusal to build anything in the working class. (Incidentally, Fryer’s docu- ment makes great play of who is supposed to have. said what nasty things about whom. We hate to think what a rummage through the quotation book would unearth as between some of these newly-weds! ) POLITICAL BACKGROUND OF THE DEFECTIONS Politically, this is not as difficult to explain as it looks. As the Right Wing exposes itself more. and more, all sorts of people begin to talk Left. Their political sense, developed in the ripe British’ atmosphere of Parliament, club, negotiating room, Lord Mayor’s dinner and New Statesman recep- tion, tells them that the band-wagon of the Left may be more profitable in the coming years than’ that of Jay and Gaitskell. And so the New Sta‘es- man and Tribune find the bright young men of the New Left Review suddenly very congenial.’ They will sit on ‘Brains Trusts’ together and write articles for one another and drink coffee together. Together they will suggest a new ‘public image”. for the Labour Party. The New Lefters, not wanting to miss their chance, unite (!) in the New Left Review, a unity which is neither ‘from the bottom’ nor ‘from the top’ but is possible’ because neither group has any policy and there- fore can find no point of contradiction with the other! . In this mess, characteristic of the aftermath of. political defeats for the traditional leadership in periods of struggle, where is there room for revolu- tionaries? Naturally we want to work with all. those who are moving towards an independent. policy and organisation. Cadogan and others. refuse to work from these basic class foundations. Thus Cadogan says we are ‘inward-turning’ and sectarian because we didn’t have an advertisement in Tribune throughout the summer! He says (and probably knows) nothing about the work done among miners, dockers and engineers in London, the northern towns and Scotland during the sum- mer and the basic character of the delegations’ brought from Glasgow and other industrial centres to the National Assembly of Labour. What these people mean by ‘sectarian’ is ‘giving a bad im- pression’ in certain middle-class circles. What we’ mean by sectarian is clinging to policies and

[p010] 8 LABOUR REVIEW —February-March, 1960 methods which separate you from the working - class, and on this count we know that we do not compare unfavourably with our critics! This development of the industrial struggle and the coming together, under the impact of the ac- celerated decay of the Labour Right wing, of all sorts of people who claim to be spokesmen of the ‘united’ Left, brings. to the surface the political ‘weakness of those who came in a Left direction from the Communist Party but who had not fully accepted the consequences of that move. Con- fronted with the enormous practical tasks of build- ing the League, and with the need for adopting an uncompromising position against Fabians and neo-Fabians among the intellectuals—who of course never cease their barrage against us, for they consider us at least as bad as the Stalinists (‘Lenin started it all’)—these people desert. This shows in our opinion that although they were capable of trenchantly criticising Stalinism in a period when that was a popular pursuit, and of going beyond that to the need to learn from Trotsky, they could not face the hard road of struggle that this eventually implied. British im- perialism is a formidable enemy; it covers every class issue with the formulae of compromise worked out over generations, it offers a thousand partial solutions to. individuals and to sections of the working class and the middle classes. This makes the ideological struggle a very difficult one in which to keep Marxist bearings. Only by devoted revolutionary practice can Marxist intel- Jectuals develop in this atmosphere. Only by closeness to the movement can they set their course, a movement devoted to the mobilisation and heightened consciousness of the working class through struggle. Fryer, Cadogan and their friends have failed to do this. Under the pressure of the new situation, they conduct political struggle against the League in alliance with its sworn enemies, without a com- mon political platform, without agreement even on the necessity to be in the League. They carry internal questions to the capitalist press despite the facilities given by the movement. They abuse the discipline, tolerance and trust of the member- ship. We therefore consider that they represent a middle-class tendency in the movement and will tend to move further in that direction, just as the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Re- view have done. We say this not about their class origins or social position, but about their politics, which have led them, at this particular stage of development of the relationship between industrial struggle and political campaigning, to desertion. It is not beyond explanation that people who held to their rights to fight inside the Commun- ist Party in 1956-7, despite Hungary and the ex- posure of Stalinism, should now quit the Marxist movement on issues like the expulsion of Cado- gan, and behave in the irresponsible and destruc- tive way that the ‘Stamford’ faction has done. Stalinism relied on the accomplished facts of Russia, China and mass Communist Parties all over the world to anchor its members in the absence of a firm revolutionary policy. This is why education and theory are so stultified in the Communist Party. The Marxist movement offers much less cover to the superficial observer. It takes a full and developed confidence in the his- torical role of the working class, independent of all other social strata and of the bureaucracies that have encrusted upon it, to achieve true loyalty to the Marxist movement. As the memory of Hungary fades, as Khrush- chev woos the West in a way that Stalin never did,. and ‘public opinion’ (even as far up as Eisen- hower) relaxes towards the Soviet bureaucracy, the exposure of the role of the CP becomes much less ‘popular’ than it was, it becomes much more difficult, in petit-bourgeois intellectual and journalistic circles, to take a principled stand. As the contradictions intensify in the underlying economic situation, bringing sharper struggles in industry, all those political forces which fear a regeneration of the working class movement, the American imperialists and the Soviet bureaucracy above all, come together temporarily. The sud- den wooings of the Communist Parties, the con- viction of many who two or three years ago were Cold War Socialists that here in Khrushchev is a man with whom we can deal reasonably, the grow- ing popularity of ‘disengagement’, ‘disarmament’ and ‘co-existence’ talk, all this looks like the left- ward tendency, the basis of unity, that has been missing for so long. In all this ‘only’ one factor is left out, the working class and its needs in the struggle. It is in periods like this that Marxists are criticised bitterly for their ‘sectarianism’ and ‘rigidity’ while the class-collaborationist policies of ‘allies’ to the Right are tactfully ignored. In the name of flexibility and ‘diplomacy’, principles are blurred. The ‘Fourth International’ group of Pablo’s followers in Britain have asserted that these defec- tions will definitely mean the departure of all those who entered the League from the Commun- ist Party. This unprincipled attempt to play on what they hope are the weak sides of the ex-CP members makes nonsense of the ‘revolutionary’ claims of this group, but makes sense of the spread of sympathy for Fryer and Cadogan, from Pablo to the New Reasoner. There will be no such split.

[p011] aie nee eee ee a STATEMENT BY THE EDITORS Our intention is to build and strengthen the SLL in all aspects of its work, theoretical, indus- trial and political. In this work we shall defend the ideas and the organisation of Marxism, for this is the only way for the working-class. The miners are cut down by the government, the en- gineering employers prepare to defeat the en- gineers, and the dockers and railwaymen and aircraft workers face large scale redundancy as a result of mechanisation. The leaders of the Unions concentrate their attention on preparing the ground for Tory legislation against ‘unofficial’ P.S. As we go to press, the atmosphere of the ‘left? circles we have been discussing suddenly becomes feverishly excited. Little men run from one to another with heavy manuscripts under their arms, as though in a Kafka novel: they are in- censed, nay, outraged! Great crimes have been committed against the working class, and new tyrants, worse than Stalin, have appeared on the historical scene; they must be immediately ex- posed. Open letters, bitter condemnation, the weapon of ridicule, all must be utilised, for they are dealing with a vicious and formidable enemy. Cadogan and Fryer are taken up by Kendall in the Socialist Leader (sic), by the Pablo group in their highly exotic ‘internal bulletin’, by Coates in the Socialist Review, and .by the New Reasoner. Clearly a new revolutionary unity is emerging But wait! There are yet more recruits who wish to smoke out this scourge of the working-class movement. And they are all agreed on the enemy; it is the Socialist Labour League, and especially its General Secretary. The News Chronicle de- 9 strikes and shop stewards ‘The political wing of the movement stands paralysed by its piddling parliamentarism. We believe that only the ideas of Marxism, as continued by Lenin and Trotsky, can find a road to working-class unity in action in Britain today. We believe that the SLL is the means to put these ideas into practice, and that its members will use all the resources of democracy, as well as the sinews of action pro- vided by our press and our organisation, to carry the struggle through to the end. lightedly quotes Fryer to the effect that Healy is a dictator, which after all is only what it had said itself at the time of the General Election, John Bull is anxious (now) to write a feature article on the Socialist Labour League, and IRIS, the employers’ propaganda organisation, joins this most popular of all popular fronts, giving its readers an up-to-minute service on Fryer’s move- ments and future prospects. It is interesting that the small groupings on the left—ILP, Pablo’s International, and Socialist Re- view—concentrate all their fire and energy on writing articles (mainly for each others’ consump- tion) condemning the only revolutionary organ- isation in the British Labour Movement. Fryer and Cadogan should take a very close look at those who take up their documents. Cadogan writes and speaks at length about broad alliances, but his words are bearing fruit not in the struggle for peace or for socialism but in a united cam- paign of hate against the Socialist Labour League.

[p012] 10 LABOUR REVIEW—February-March, 1960