A SOCIALIST PRINCIPLE

Strengthen the working class as a class in its fight against the capitalist class. Divisions of opinion in the Labour movement can only produce fruitful results when those who hold them constantly strive to oppose the main class enemy and at the same time test out their different opinions in practice. The struggle against witch-hunts which set out to destroy this possibility is an extremely important principle for socialists.

Since the early days of the struggle against Stalinism in the Soviet Union, the Marxist movement (Trotskyists) has insisted that despite its sharp and fundamental differences with Stalinism it is necessary to defend the Stalinist movement against the attack of the capitalist class. Such a defence does not carry with it the qualification that it must be reciprocated by the Stalinists; we know only too well how they persecuted the Marxists and in many cases denounced them to the capitalist enemy, especially during World War II. If the main enemy can be defeated in struggle against a witchhunt then conditions favourable for struggle against Stalinism will arise, because the strengthening of the working class in action tends more and more to weaken the bureaucratic base upon which Stalinism rests.

In the years when fascism was gaining ground in Germany the Marxists constantly defended the democratic rights of both the Stalinists and the right-wing social democrats against fascist attack. The problems and differences of the Labour movement can never be resolved by the opposing class and its political institutions.

Recently, the witch-hunt has taken the form of the film ‘The Angry Silence’. This film has earned the praise of right-wing trade union and Labour leaders who rely upon the capitalist witch-hunter to strengthen and maintain their positions in their organizations in a period when they are losing support.

The press informs us that the story was based in part on the series of articles by Roy Nash in the News Chronicle on the so-called ‘Red Club’. It will be recalled that Mr. Nash referred in these articles to certain leading members of the Socialist Labour League. The film is directed against the Socialist Labour League and at the same time it manages to attack the Communist Party.

Readers of The Newsletter will recall that Mr. Roy Nash’s ‘Red Club’ articles sparked off a witch-hunt in the Labour Party. The right-wing at Transport House endeavoured to use his concoctions in an effort to denounce the Marxists in the Labour Party as a conspiracy. We, on the other hand, requested Transport House to allow us similar facilities to those afforded to the Fabian Society, that is, the right to organize as Marxists inside the Labour Party under the banner of the Socialist Labour League.

If we were forced to work in the Labour Party for a long period without an open organization it was because of the bans and proscriptions imposed in that party by the police minds at the top. ul people were expelled. It is a principle, therefore, for all those who claim to be Marxists and sincere socialists to defend the right of the Socialist Labour League to have the same organizational facilities as the Fabian Society and Victory for Socialism in the Labour Party. Those who refuse to do this violate an important socialist principle. This is especially true of people who ciaim that they stand against bans and proscriptions inside the Labour Party. If they do not oppose the proscription of the Socialist Labour League then all their claims to be against bans amount to nothing.

There are two main groups who fall into this category. Firstly, there are the Communist Party leaders who try to avoid defending the democratic rights to which the League is entitled by constantly posing vague resolutions which talk about the need to end all bans and proscriptions, but which carefully ignore the real ban which is placed upon the Socialist Labour League. Like all revisionists and opportunists, the King Street leaders are opposed to all bans but the ban on their opponents. .

The second group of people, a much smaller one of course, live in the city of Liverpool and produce a duplicated paper called ‘Socialist Fight’. Last summer, during the discussion on the Liverpool Trades Council on a motion to oppose the proscription of the Socialist Labour League, they voted with Mr. John Braddock, the extreme right-wing member of that council, against this proposal and submitted instead the formula of the Communist Party about being opposed to bans and proscriptions in general. Representatives of this tendency have publicly declared that they are embarrassed by the Socialist Labour League. At the same time their actions make it clear that they are not embarrassed by association with right-wingers such as Mr. Braddock. Here we have an example of what queer bedfellows one acquires when principles are thrown overboard.

Another tendency, a splinter break-away from the ‘Socialist Fight’ group produces a duplicated monthly bulletin known as ‘Socialist Current’. The people who write in this paper declare that it is permissible to unite with the right wing inside the Electrical Trades Union against the Stalinists. There is nothing permissible about this at all. The right wing in the ETU are sponsored by the most reactionary forces, whereas the Stalinists have still the support of the best militants in that union. To permit the rank and file of the union to manage its own affairs and deal with Haxell and Foulkes if they want to, it is necessary to oppose the right-wing witch-hunters. Unless this principle is maintained no real struggle can be waged against Stalinism. Unity with the right would allow the Stalinists to masquerade as lefts and drive all the best elements towards them. A defeat for the right wing of the ETU, under conditions where the Marxists resolutely opposed witch-hunting, would weaken the bureaucratic base upon which Haxell and Foulkes rest.

The Newsletter will continue to fight for this point

of view, irrespective of what reactionary alignments may arise inside the Labour movement. All those who avoid the defence of the right of the Socialist Labour League to be an organization of Marxists inside the Labour Party willy-nilly surrender to the pressure of the witch-hunters. That goes for the Liverpool ‘lefts’ no less than for the leadership of the Week : Longer Life’; and then two directed at the Victorian attitude of the boss: ‘Please, sir, may I leave the room’ and “Your whipcracking days are over’.

And right in the middle, stretched across this parade of young girls dressed in modern teenage fashions in the middle of an old mining town ‘More Nationalization, Less Compensation’

Where some ‘modern’ socialists get their ideas of the youth ~ from we don’t quite know, but the television screen and West End coffee-houses are not the best places. This strike in Pontefract showed how hundreds of quite typical working-