In defence of the revolutionary programme (II)

https://iclfi.org/pubs/wh/247/conference

Reprinted below are the main sections of the document unanimously adopted at the 25th National Conference of the SL/B. This historic conference marked a sharp political turn, putting forward a revolutionary programme in the pandemic for Britain and repudiating the years-long reformist course that our organisation followed under its previous leadership. Its title, “In defence of the revolutionary programme (II)”, is a direct reference to the SL/B’s founding document of the same name (printed in Spartacist Britain no 1, April 1978), embodying our commitment to reclaim the original programme of the section and defend the revolutionary continuity of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).

The publication in April 2021 of the IEC statement “Down with the lockdowns!” (reprinted on page 4) uniquely on the left put forward a class-struggle perspective in the pandemic, in opposition to lockdowns, national unity and the ruling-class assault on the international proletariat. Before the publication of this statement, the ICL had capitulated to national unity by supporting the lockdowns. In the SL/B, this capitulation was prepared by years of opportunism and the rejection of the central tenets of its revolutionary programme. This included (but was not limited to) rejecting the fight for a Leninist vanguard party by capitulating to Jeremy Corbyn throughout his leadership of the Labour Party and embracing the Labourite programme of parliamentary socialism and “little England” imperialism. The conference document is the product of a hard-fought struggle against the previous SL/B Central Committee and constitutes a decisive break with the section’s previous course. It puts forward indispensable elements for the forging of a revolutionary party in Britain against the politics of Labourism, which plague the British far left. The document was the basis to elect a new Central Committee composed of a new layer of cadres who waged this internal struggle and who are committed to forging a Trotskyist nucleus in the British Isles.

The document is dedicated to our comrade George Crawford, who died shortly before the conference and whose lifelong struggle for communism is an example and inspiration (see his obituary on page 7).

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Leninist vanguard party v Corbynite “broad church”

After Corbyn’s catastrophic showing in the 2019 elections, Sir Keir Starmer took over as Labour leader. Amidst Starmer’s campaign to break with his predecessor’s legacy, the left-Labourite swamp is mired in impotent soul-searching about “what went wrong”. By placing their hopes in a more radical version of Corbynism, in building a new mass reformist Labour party or in left-talking bureaucrats and trade union militancy, they are only recyc­ling worn-out Labourite myths. Only Leninism can provide a road forward for workers and youth disappointed and disillusioned by Corbyn. The current social crisis triggered by the pandemic and the utter subservience of the Labour Party, the trade union tops and the reformist left to the capitalists’ attacks make the task of putting forward a revolutionary programme for the British Isles ever more burning. But to do this, the SL/B needs to repudiate its ca­pitu­la­tion to the Labour Party.

The SL/B’s rejection of its strategic task

The 2015 election of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party marked a sharp turn to the left after decades of Blairite dom­in­ation of the party and represented a major change in the political landscape in Britain. In the course of his nearly five years at the head of Labour, Corbyn rendered invalu­able services to the British ruling class. He betrayed the working class by campaigning against Brexit and successfully channelled the huge social discontent caused by decades of attacks away from class struggle into the dead-end of electoralism. His leadership was characterised by continuous conciliation of the Blairites — despite their never-ending plots to overthrow him — and a repudiation of practically every position which made him popular in the first place.

The Corbyn experience was a unique opportunity for communists to demonstrate the utter bankruptcy of left Labourism and motivate the need for a Leninist party. Instead of doing this the SL/B spent five years capitulating to Corbyn. This conference repudiates every article about Jeremy Corbyn which appeared in Workers Hammer from issue numbers 232 to 246 (Autumn 2015 to Spring 2020).

Corbyn’s 2015 leadership campaign generated massive illusions by repudiating Blair’s record of austerity and imperialist war. In this context it was entirely appropriate to employ the tactic of critical support. That said, any tactic is necessarily subordinated to the overall strategy. In 1982 the SL/B retrospectively gave critical support to Tony Benn with the slogan “Labour can betray without the CIA connection.” We explained:

“The situation dictated that a Trotskyist propaganda group which seeks to split Labour’s working-class base from its pro-capitalist misleaders to a revolutionary programme should have extended critical support to Tony Benn — in order to exacerbate and follow through the split begun with the formation of the SDP, drive out the blatantly pro-imperialist CIA-connected right wing and place Benn in a position where his left-reformist politics could be more effectively exposed and combatted.”

Whereas in 1982 our tactical stance flowed from our objective of splitting Labour’s base from the tops on a revolutionary programme, the SL/B’s intervention towards Corbyn was premised on the explicit rejection of this task.

The May 2015 SL/B National Conference held a few months before Corbyn ran for leader stopped short of characterising Labour as a bourgeois party due to the International’s intervention. However, it nonetheless codified a change of programme in regard to Labour. The conference docu­ment stated: “From the time this motion [a 2002 motion characterising Blairism] was passed, our propaganda ceased calling to split the base from the top of the Labour Party — which was previously strategic to our perspective of constructing a revolutionary workers party in Britain” (published in WH no 231, Summer 2015, our emphasis).

By stating that splitting the base from the tops was “previously” strategic, the SL/B was openly rejecting the only way to build a revolutionary party in Britain. This conference repudiates this statement and reaffirms that Labour is a bourgeois workers party and that strategic to building a revolutionary party in Britain is to split the working-class base from its pro-capitalist leadership on the basis of a revolutionary programme, as codified in “Revolutionaries and the Labour Party” (Spartacist [English edition] no 33, Spring 1982).

When Corbyn came along in mid-2015, the SL/B’s “tactics” and its call to “drive the Blairite wing out” were not aimed at exacerbating the contradictions in Labour towards splitting it along class lines. The strategic perspective became to “revive” Labour as a bourgeois workers party. This was explicit in our repeated statements that driving the Blairites out would be akin to the formation of the Labour Party in the 20th century. Our mantras became that “a split with the right wing would constitute a step towards the political independence of the working class” and that “the schism within the Labour Party mirrors the two opposing classes in bourgeois society” (see all WH issues in 2015-17 starting with number 232). In other words, driving the Blairites out would mean a step towards the proletariat no longer being subordin­ated politically to the bourgeoisie.

This presents Corbyn as having an authentic working-class programme, rejecting the Leninist understanding that the programme of both wings of the Labour Party is bourgeois. Far from maintaining at all times “strict programmatic independence from all wings of the Labour bureaucracy” (“Revolutionaries and the Labour Party”), the SL/B politically supported the programme of one wing against the other.

The reason the SL/B gave for supporting Corbyn was basically that the Blairites were qualitatively different from previous right-wing factions in the Labour Party. The SL/B presented the Blairites as if they no longer had the contradiction of having a bourgeois programme and an organic link to the working class but had a purely bourgeois class character despite being inside the Labour Party. This is simply false; Blair was not the first Labour leader wanting to separate himself from the working-class base of the party (which is different from being able to do so). The liberal bourgeois programme of Labour means that the tops are constantly driven into conflict with their working-class base, which constitutes both the source of their power and a shackle to their bourgeois ambitions.

Most importantly, this characterisation of Blairism was a theoretical justification for a permanent bloc with the left of Labour against the right. It is a classic example of the reformist programme of “making the lefts fight” and a break in the SL/B’s programmatic continuity. The 1978 founding document of the SL/B, “In defence of the revolutionary programme”, is a direct polemic against the SL/B’s approach to Corbyn:

“The central strategy of the leadership [of the Workers Socialist League (WSL)] with relation to the existing leaders of the working class is summed up by the phrase ‘Make the Lefts Fight’. The slogan derives from an ill-formed conception that the Labour Party falls into two quite distinct wings, left and right, seen by the leadership as in some way representing the proletariat and the bourgeoisie respectively. Hence the ‘critical’ support given to the ‘Lefts’. Rather than offering an alternative to the betrayals of the right, the ‘Make the Lefts Fight’ slogan only serves to lend our authority to the ‘left-wing’ credentials of the thoroughly rotten counter-revolutionary parliamentary cretins in the Tribune group and thus serves to tie the political development of the working class to a wing of social democracy.”

That the SL/B had a permanent bloc with Corbyn is most clearly shown by its support to him in the second leadership contest after he campaigned to remain in the EU (see “Let Jeremy Corbyn run the Labour Party”, WH no 236, Autumn 2016). Corbyn betrayed the working class on the decisive political question of the time, but for the SL/B support for Corbyn against the Blairites came before its “principled” opposition to imperialism. This was a total capitulation.

It is inherent in Labour that the left wing conciliates the right, and it is perfectly appropriate to expose the left when it chooses unity over its “principles”. The point of revolutionaries raising calls such as “Drive the Blairites out” and “Drive out the SDP fifth column” (Spartacist Britain no 52, September 1983) is to show concretely how the programme of left Labourism necessarily leads to conciliation and capitulation. Our aim is to expose the left Labourites, not pressure them to have better politics (“make the lefts fight”). In 1982-83 we wanted to “put the Benn/Meacher Labour ‘lefts’ in power where they can best be exposed before the workers!” (Spartacist Britain no 52, our emphasis).

It is also essential to be clear at all times that our aim is a Leninist party with a revolutionary programme, not a Labour Party without the right wing. In the 1980s the SL/B was crystal clear that a split with Denis Healey & Co “would not be our split; a Labour Party denuded of the Denis Healeys would not be our party; but it would be a good thing for the working class if the hard NATO/CIA-loving right wing was hounded from the labour movement” (Spartacist Britain no 52). But towards Corbyn the SL/B, just as the rest of the left, presented a split with the Blairites as the ultimate aim.

The SL/B was thus throwing away the Leninist conception of the vanguard party. This is clearly shown in the way the SL/B counterposed Corbyn’s “broad church” party to the type of party we fight for. The only objection put forward to the “broad church” is that it means conciliating Blairites and backward elements: “In today’s terms, re­constituting the ‘broad church’ means Corbyn’s supporters will co-exist side by side with the Blairites including Tony Blair himself, who many regard as a war criminal over Iraq” (“Corbyn landslide, Blairite backlash”, WH no 232, Autumn 2015). The SL/B in effect transformed the Leninist opposition to the party of the whole class into another version of “make the lefts fight”.

The reason Leninists oppose the “broad church” (or party of the whole class) is that the revolutionary wing is subordin­ated to the reformist wing, not that the social-democratic left is hampered by the social-democratic right. Hence for Leninists, fighting against the Labourite “broad church” does not mean fighting Corbyn’s conciliation of the Blairites. It means fighting against aspirant revolutionaries (for example, the SL/B) preaching unity with Corbyn.

Lenin’s break with the conception of the “party of the whole class” came from his understanding that the pre-WWI opportunist trend in the Second International, just as the social-chauvinists in the war, had a material basis in “the small group of labour bureaucrats, labour aristocrats and petty-bourgeois fellow-travellers” which received a “few crumbs” from the imperialists. From this Lenin drew the conclusion that “it is absurd to go on regarding opportunism as an inner-party phenomenon” and that:

“Unity with the social-chauvinists means unity with one’s ‘own’ national bourgeoisie, which exploits other nations; it means splitting the international proletariat. This does not mean that a break with the opportunists is immediately possible everywhere; it means only that historically this break is imminent; that it is necessary and inevitable for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat; that history, which has led us from ‘peaceful’ capitalism to imperialist capitalism, has paved the way for this break.”

Corbyn is a traditional parliamentary reformist and is entirely within the tradition of the opportunist wing of the Second International. The fundamental lesson of Leninism on the party question is that the revolutionary wing of the workers movement must split from the opportunist wing as a precondition for a successful revolution. This means fighting to split the Labour Party along the lines of reform v revolution, not right v left, Blair v Corbyn or backwards v progressive as argued in recent Workers Hammer articles.

In the 1980s the purpose of the SL/B’s tactics was to win the base of the Labour Party to the programme of Trotskyism against Bennism. Our tactics served to illustrate that Benn’s programme was utterly incapable of addressing any of the fundamental questions which faced the workers movement and that what was necessary was a revolutionary party with a revolutionary programme. The SL/B’s rejection of the fight for a Leninist party in the Corbyn period necessarily went hand in hand with rejecting a Marxist programme on every other fundamental question for revolution in this country (imperialism, the state, the national question, oppression of minorities, etc).

The SL/B’s “criticisms” of Corbyn on these fundamental questions were entirely subordinated to the strategic aim of supporting him. Under this umbrella most of the “criticisms” are simply left-Labourite; the few points made which were more or less “orthodox” are totally meaningless given the political line of the articles. To thoroughly break with Corbynism entails reasserting every one of the key tenets of our programme in Britain, which this docu­ment begins to do. Also necessary, but beyond our current capacity for this conference, is to reassert the Marxist programme against national oppression as well as our programme against racial and immigrant oppression in Britain.

The 2017 whitewash

At the time of the 2017 international fight [see Spartacist (English edition) no 65, Summer 2017], the SL/B had gone so far on the course of political and organ­isational liquidation that it was restricting its activities (sales, polemics, subscription drive) because the leadership deemed that they would be harmful to Corbyn. Our very existence was basically treated as an obstacle to class struggle (which the Corbyn campaign was equated with). While the 2017 fight in the SL/B restrained the liquidationist course and corrected certain particularly egregious capitulations, it was premised on upholding the basic programmatic content of our revisionist orien­tation towards Corbyn. An International Executive Committee member’s 8 January 2017 letter which oriented the fight started off by stating, “In my opinion, the SL/B had generally been doing a good job in addressing Corbyn and the EU/Brexit.”

The SL/B’s January 2017 CC motion totally whitewashed the section’s opportunist Corbyn campaign, claiming it was “premised on maintaining political independence from Corbyn’s Labour Party and offering a programmatic counterposition to his left-Labourite politics”. It went on to say that the leadership “lost sight of our ultimate purpose which is not a Corbynite Labour Party but to set the base against the top in order to forge a revolutionary vanguard (Leninist) party” [our emphasis]. First, the leadership did not “lose sight” of its purpose but rejected it from the get-go. Second, the above “orthodox” reaffirmation of our programme was a centrist cover-up based on defending the thoroughly opportunist political bloc with Corbyn against the Blairites.

The article “Shame on Corbyn for supporting the EU” (WH no 238, Spring 2017) published after the fight only corrected the claim made in WH no 236 that there was a class difference between Corbyn and Owen Smith on the EU and that WH no 237 (Winter 2016-2017) buried Corbyn’s support for “remain”. However, it explicitly upheld the entire revisionist framework of the previous articles, reasserting that driving the Blairites out “would constitute a step towards the political independence of the working class”.

In autumn 2017, there was another discussion on the Labour Party. The series of motions passed at the December 2017 SL/B CC meeting stated that Labour was a bourgeois workers party, that it was no longer moribund, and reaffirmed that “our stra­tegic perspective is to win Labour’s working-class base away from the party’s leadership to the programme of revolutionary Marxism and to build a Leninist party in counterposition to the Labour Party.” This is a perfectly correct statement, which resulted in the SL/B mentioning at least twice in the last five years that it fights to split the base of Labour from the tops. But to reaffirm these correct positions while defending the SL/B’s political bloc with Corbyn against the right, its unprincipled support to him in the second leadership election, its revisionism on the “broad church”, etc was yet again a centrist cover-up.

The articles which come the closest to an assessment of Corbynism are the two articles in WH no 246 (Spring 2020), “For a multiethnic revolutionary workers party!” and “Election 2019: no choice for workers”. The central argument made in these articles is that Corbyn had an authentic working-class programme which he subsequently betrayed. This is explicit in WH no 246, which asserted that Corbyn’s unionism and his campaign for a “remain” vote “left the nearly 40 per cent of Scottish leave voters without any working-class political representation and was a gift to the SNP” [our emphasis]. According to this statement, the Labour Party would represent the interests of the working class if Corbyn kept his “little England” oppos­ition to the EU and had a less chauvinist position on Scotland. This is once more a rejection of the Leninist understanding that all wings of the Labour Party have a thoroughly bourgeois programme.

To the extent that these articles give an explanation as to why Corbyn “betrayed”, it is the circular argument that “Corbyn’s fealty to the EU stands in the long tradition of Labour’s betrayals.” A thread throughout WH no 246 is that Labour is chauvinist, pro-imperialist and always betrays. While not wrong per se, it is an utterly sterile explanation. It does not explain why Labour always betrays, nor why it sometimes strikes an apparently radical posture.

The main conclusion the reader draws from this issue of the paper is that Corbyn’s programme was initially good but the Labour Party was not the correct ve­­hicle to implement it, or that Corbyn personally bent too much to the Blairites. The other conclusion is that what is needed is trade union militancy. All of these are entirely within the framework of “make the lefts fight” and are compatible with the lessons drawn by the rest of the left on the Corbyn era. They blame Corbyn’s failure on everything except what actually counts: Corbyn’s programme.

It is Corbyn’s reformist programme which paved the way for his capitulations. Instead of exposing this, the articles embrace his reformist opposition to the EU — based on it being “neoliberal” and an obstacle to British imperialism implementing social-democratic policies [see “The SL/B’s Labourite opposition to the EU”, page 13]. In the same vein, the articles pre­sent Corbyn’s unionism as a product of the backward preju­dices of the Labour Party as opposed to making clear how the Labour Party’s chauvinism on Scotland stems from the Labour tops’ defence of British capitalism, a central component of which is to maintain national oppression within the reactionary United Kingdom. The whole framework of these articles is not what programme the working class needs for its emancipation but what programme Labour needs to win the elections.

[The section “Lessons of Corbyn” appears on page 6.]

For a revolutionary opposition to British imperialism!

At least since the election of Corbyn as Labour leader, the SL/B has consistently embraced Corbyn’s liberal pacifist programme for British imperialism as well as a Labourite framework on the EU, promoting an alternative policy for British imperialism. As part of rearming the SL/B, we need to repudiate these capitulations and put forward a proletarian, revolutionary and internationalist oppos­ition to imperialism in clear counterposition to “little England” Labourism.

Embracing Corbyn’s Labourite pacifism

Starting with issue no 232, Workers Hammer consistently presented Corbyn’s opposition to NATO, to Trident, to British and US military interventions as if they were principled stances against imperialism instead of what they really were: Labourite pacifism promoting an alternative policy for the management of British imperialism. WH articles uncritically praised Corbyn for his “history of opposing the US-led NATO military alliance” (WH no 232), for being “not convinced that a bombing campaign will actually solve anything” (WH no 233, Winter 2015-2016) and for not wishing “to go to war” (WH no 236). Instead of doing the elementary revolutionary duty of exposing Corbyn’s programme as totally utopian and reactionary — which is central to a critical support campaign — the SL/B gutted Marxism in order to promote Corbynism.

When WH did make criticisms of Corbyn’s foreign policy, it often repeated that Corbyn wants British imperialism to adopt a “more ‘rational’ strategy”. But never did WH explain what is wrong with wanting a “more rational strategy” for British imperialism. In other instances, WH made pacifist criticisms of Corbyn. In “Banana monarchy” (WH no 234, Spring 2016) his plan to scrap Trident but to maintain the submarines without the nuclear warheads was criticised by saying that “the working class has no interest in maintaining capitalist Britain’s military capacity or its army”, ie, Corbyn’s disarmament policy simply does not go far enough and should extend to the whole armed forces.

Such capitulations stand in sharp contrast with the SL/B’s powerful exposure during the 1970s and 1980s of the Labour lefts’ foreign policies. We wrote at the time:

“A ‘non-nuclear defence policy’ is still a policy to defend British imperialism, as [Michael] Meacher has made all too clear. Our watchword must be: The main enemy is at home — the British capitalist class! Not a penny, not a man for the bosses’ army! Down with NATO and its economic adjunct, the EEC! Defend the Soviet Union against the imperialist war drive!”

During this period, the SL/B exposed the foreign policies of the Labour lefts as being pro-imperialist, anti-Communist and thoroughly counterposed to the interests of the working class. The elementary point that Corbyn’s “non-nuclear” policy was a pro-imperialist policy was never even made in the pages of WH. Instead, WH’s superficial and often buried “criticisms” of Corbyn’s foreign policy served as a left cover to the central illusions he and his Labourite supporters fuelled: that British imperialism can act as a peaceful force in the world and that economic pillage and wars are Blairite and Tory policies which could be changed if Corbyn were in No 10.

Imperialism is not a policy. It is the highest stage of capitalism defined by the domination of monopolies and finance capital, by the centrality of the export of capital, and in which the division of the world among monopolies and a handful of cap­italist powers has been completed. In search of new investments, new markets and new sources of raw materials, as well as to secure and defend its existing ones, British finance capital — the City of London, British banks, trusts and monopolies — enters into struggle against other national state groups of financiers for the redivision of the world. This struggle alternates between “peaceful” and non-peaceful forms. Under imperialism, the government is the executive committee of finance capital and the state is its armed fist. Therefore, British imperialism cannot be administered in a progressive or peaceful manner and cannot be anything but a force for reaction, pillage, economic asphyxia and imperialist wars.

Corbyn and the Labour lefts’ “peaceful” and unilateral policy is rooted in the tradition of “little England” socialism, whose concern for capitalist Britain is that it should play more of an independent role internationally and that some of its spending on nuclear warheads should instead go to social services, ie an alternative programme for managing British capitalism and its defence budget. It deceives workers with the idea that wars can be eliminated through different policies and that Britain can play a peaceful role through UN missions or “aid” to poorer countries. This only seeks to give a “humanitarian” cover to the plunder by British finance capital. The Labour lefts’ foreign policies are simply the continuation abroad of their domestic programme of “parliamentary socialism”, based on the illusion that the capitalist state can be taken over and made to serve workers and the oppressed. Lenin explained in Socialism and war (1915):

“The temper of the masses in favour of peace often expresses the beginning of protest, anger and a realisation of the reactionary nature of the war. It is the duty of all Social-Democrats [as Marxists then referred to themselves] to utilise that temper. They will take a most ardent part in any movement and in any demonstration motiv­ated by that sentiment, but they will not deceive the people with admitting the idea that a peace without annexations, without oppression of nations, without plunder, and without the embryo of new wars among the present governments and ruling classes, is possible in the absence of a revolutionary movement. Such deception of the people would merely mean playing into the hands of the secret diplomacy of the belligerent governments and facilitating their counter-revolutionary plans. Whoever wants a lasting and democratic peace must stand for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie.”

The pious wishes of Corbyn and left-Labour pacifists for a foreign policy of non-aggression serve as a cover for the rape and economic pillage of billions of people, which is the daily reality of imperialism in times of “peace”. The imperialist bourgeoisies need the armies of their national capitalist states to secure their interests at home and abroad. Talk of lasting peace and disarmament without a series of victorious socialist revolutions in the imperialist centres is nothing but a lie to deceive workers and the oppressed. The Labourite pacifists’ promotion of disarmament and their condemnations of militarism, violence and nuclear weapons necessarily amount to a defence of the imperialist status quo. Against such bourgeois deception, Trotsky wrote in the Transitional Programme (1938):

“‘Disarmament’? — But the entire question revolves around who will disarm whom. The only disarmament which can avert or end war is the disarmament of the bourgeoisie by the workers. But to disarm the bourgeoisie, the workers must arm themselves.”

Pacifism directs its fire not so much towards the armed apparatus of the cap­italist state as towards the working masses; it is the violence of the oppressed against their oppressors that the pacifists revile. They will never take a side for the defeat of their “own” imperialist government in armed conflicts. Preaching the harmfulness of arms and of violence to those who are disarmed and victims of the bourgeoisie’s violence is thoroughly reactionary from the standpoint of the working class. Thanks to the pacifism of Lansbury, Bevan, Foot, Benn, Corbyn & Co, Britain has both one of the most powerful armies on earth and some of the strictest gun control laws in the world.

Getting rid of Trident or opting out of NATO are avenues that the British imperialist bourgeoisie refuses to even discuss. As a declining imperialist power, British imperialism has had no choice since the end of the Second World War but to rely on its alliance with the US to maintain its status, thus supporting most of the US mili­tary interventions abroad. Any prime minister who implemented policies that would endanger Britain’s foreign investments, its nuclear deterrent or its alignment with the US and NATO would in all likelihood be overthrown through parliamentary or extra-parliamentary means. Even Corbyn’s timid programme to get rid of Trident and to question Britain’s commitment to NATO was met by the open threat of removal by top generals of the British armed forces. While it was necessary to defend Corbyn against such threats, WH did so by essentially endorsing Corbyn’s politics.

The SL/B’s Labourite opposition to the EU

Up until the pandemic, the issue of Brexit had dominated British politics for years. The SL/B’s position to vote “leave” in the 2016 Brexit referendum was absolutely correct as a concrete expression of our opposition to the EU and the only principled position for revolutionaries. That said, the arguments used by the SL/B to support “leave” and to oppose the EU were not based on a Marxist opposition to imperialism and all imperialist alliances. Instead, the SL/B opposed the EU on a “little England” Labourite basis, ie an opposition to the EU based on its particular anti-worker policies and promoting an alternative strategy for British imperialism.

Over 100 years ago, Lenin defined the Marxist basis upon which we must oppose the EU:

“Of course, temporary agreements are possible between capitalists and between states. In this sense a United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists…but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe, of jointly protecting colonial booty against Japan and America.”

Lenin’s basic principle here is the one that WH disappeared and rejected: we oppose the EU because we are opposed to imperialism. While it is certainly correct to point to the EU’s pillage of the European proletariat, the defining principle for communists — why we say that we oppose the EU “on principle” — is based not on the particular policies of the EU but on the fact that the EU is an alliance of imperialists and their victims, and for communists opposition to all imperialist alliances is a question of principle. Coalitions of imperialist powers are nothing but truces in between wars. “Peaceful” imperialist alliances grow out of wars and prepare new ones. The elementary statement that we oppose the EU because we oppose British imperialism and all its alliances never appeared in recent issues of WH.

The SL/B often stated that it opposes the EU “on principle”, but the “prin­ciple” invoked was basically that the EU’s “founding commitments” and its policies since its inception have been anti-worker. WH explained that the EU is an “enemy of workers and immigrants”, that it “strangles Greece” and that its “free movement” is a lie (WH no 243, Autumn 2018); that it “attack[s] the jobs, wages and conditions of workers throughout Europe” (WH no 244, Winter 2018-2019); that it was “founded on the commitments to privatise nationalised industries and to reduce government spending on social services” (WH no 246). While all this is true, it is not a principled revolutionary opposition to imperialism. It does not distinguish ourselves from the Labour lefts, who might oppose the EU based on its anti-worker policies but are not opposed on principle to imperialist alliances.

The SL/B’s treatment of the EU stands in sharp contrast to the founding articles of our movement like “Labor and the Common Market” (Workers Vanguard no 15, January 1973) and “Britain and the Common Market” (Workers Vanguard no 71, 20 June 1975). Both of these articles were written to counterpose a Leninist op­pos­ition to the EEC (the EU’s predecessor) and all imperialist powers and alliances to the bankrupt reformist opposition to the EEC. “Britain and the Common Market” opens with what reads like a polemic against the recent issues of WH:

“It is important that revolutionaries oppose British membership in the Common Market, but no less vital that they do so for the right reasons. It is not enough to condemn the chauvinist opposition to ‘Europe,’ and it is necessary to go beyond the Labour lefts’ argument based on the immediate economic disadvantages for British workers. For communists, opposition to the Common Market is a principled, not a conditional or empirical, question. We are no less opposed to German or French membership than to Britain’s joining.” [our emphasis]

Our recent articles condemned the chauvinist opposition to the EU and opposed the EU because of its immediate economic disadvantages for British workers. But going beyond these and presenting a principled opposition to all imperialist alliances is precisely what WH hasn’t been doing.

A clear example of this is seen in the fact that throughout the Brexit years, WH never connected opposition to the EU with oppos­ition to NATO. A key axis of our polemics against the Labour lefts and the trade union bureaucracy in the 1970s was precisely their refusal to do this. Then and now, the Labour left campaign against Britain’s membership in the Common Market was premised on accepting the framework of US-designed imperialist cartels, shown either in their refusal to oppose NATO or their promoting alternative “progressive” imperialist alliances like a “social Europe”. In “Britain and the Common Market” we noted:

“A genuinely revolutionary anti-Market campaign must aggressively link opposition to the EEC and all other imperialist alliances and expose the impotent reformism of the Labour left: ‘Out of the Common Market — Out of NATO! Expropriate the Bourgeoisie — For a Workers Government!’”

Instead, recent WH issues focused their fire uniquely on the EU and its reactionary policies while disappearing the question of opposition to all imperialist alliances and opposition to British imperialism.

A non-Leninist basis to oppose the EU is not merely a problem of “incorrect formulations”. It means adapting to Labourism and burying the class line between revolutionary opposition to imperialism and promoting an alternative policy for British imperialism. This adaptation is clearly seen in the SL/B’s giving “critical” support to Corbyn in the second leadership election of the Labour Party right after he had campaigned in favour of the EU imperialist cartel. At the time, WH went as far as to claim that fighting imperialism required supporting Corbyn in order to defeat the “warmongering Blairite hawks in the upcoming leadership election” (WH no 236).

Adaptation to Labourism is also clearly seen in WH’s treatment of the Labour lefts’ long-standing opposition to the EU. While WH criticised Corbyn for campaigning for “remain”, it frequently and uncritically referred to “his lifelong opposition to the EU project” (WH no 244). Never once did recent issues explain that the Labour lefts’ opposition to the EU has always been reformist, ie based on nationalism and opposition to the Common Market limiting state interventions and social policies. WH never exposed that at the heart of “little England” hostility to the EU has always been the class-collaborationist idea that if British imperialism pursues a path outside of the Common Market, British workers would be better off.

Another aspect of the Labour left’s op­pos­ition to the EU which was never exposed in the pages of WH is its conjunctural nature. For back-bench MPs or when Labour is in opposition, it has always been quite cheap to oppose the EU. However, it is something else to do so as head of the Labour Party seeking to administer British imperialism, ie when it concretely involves responsibility. Corbyn repudiated his “lifelong op­pos­ition” to the EU as soon as he became head of Labour because that represented a “red line” for the Blairites that he could not cross without provoking a split. This is nothing new for the Labour tops: Harold Wilson, Labour leader in the 1960s and 1970s, literally changed position “for” and “against” the EEC three times, depending on whether he was in power or in opposition.

While capitulating to Labourite oppos­ition to the EU, WH also adapted to liberal pro-EU pressure by its repeated use of the slogan “For a workers Europe!” This is a slogan used by all sorts of reformists who are both anti- and pro-EU, like the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty or No2EU. In popular understanding, there is no difference between being for a “social Europe” and for a “workers Europe”, which fuels illusions that the EU could somehow be reformed into a more “progressive” alliance or that it should be replaced by a new, “pro-worker” imperialist alliance. This conference rejects the slogan “For a workers Europe” as an opportunist capitulation to these illusions.

This conference adopts the revolutionary Comintern’s historic slogan for the “Soviet United States of Europe”, to which we should add “united on a voluntary basis”. This slogan, which should be coupled with a clear opposition to the EU, explicitly underlines that a progressive unification of Europe can only be based on a succession of victorious socialist revolutions. By explicitly referencing soviets, this slogan also draws a line against pro-EU liberals as well as against anti-communist Labourites who might oppose the EU. This slogan does not replace our historic call “For a Socialist United States of Europe, united on a voluntary basis!” The two slogans can be used interchangeably.

Brexit: Wanting a better deal for British imperialism

The fervent debate that raged for years over Brexit reflected a disagreement in the British bourgeoisie over which path is best for the future of British imperialism. One wing of the imperialists wanted to maintain membership in the EU, another wanted to leave it. Because the SL/B did not draw a clear line against British imperialism, against all its alliances and all wings of the British imperialists, it ended up simply taking a side with the pro-Brexit wing of the bourgeoisie.

This is most explicit in the article “Brexit now!” in WH no 245 (Summer 2019), where WH equated opposing the Tories’ Brexit deal with opposing Brexit. The polemic of this article against the Socialist Party is quite explicit:

“The March 2018 editorial in Socialism Today insists: ‘The workers’ movement must maintain an independent class opposition to a Tory Brexit, “soft”, “hard” or “no deal”.’ All this comes down to opposing Brexit when it’s actually posed. To paraphrase Lewis Carroll’s White Queen, it’s Brexit tomorrow and Brexit yesterday — but never Brexit today.”

This is a polemic from the right. The implicit position defended here by WH is that Marxists must support whatever Brexit deal the Tories will cut in the name of “Brexit today”, which amounts to political support to the Tories.

This support to a “hard” Tory Brexit against Labour and its hangers-on who were committed to “remain” mirrored a shift happening in society, particularly in the electoral base of the Labour Party. In the absence of an independent working-class pole against the EU, the 2019 elections saw over a million ex-Labour voters (particularly in the “red wall”) voting for the Tories because they saw this as the only way to get out of the EU.

The Socialist Party was not wrong to say that workers must maintain an “independent class opposition to a Tory Brexit, ‘soft’, ‘hard’ or ‘no deal’”. But they advocated a “left exit” negotiated by Corbyn, which is also a total betrayal of the proletariat. Any Brexit deal, “soft” or “hard”, Tory or Labour, can only be a deal reflecting the balance of power between the imperialists, setting the terms of their competition and spheres of influence and dividing their shares of the spoils from the exploitation of the proletariat in Europe and Britain.

From the standpoint of the working class, supporting any Brexit deal is utterly reactionary and pro-imperialist. Equally reactionary is to put conditions on Britain immediately getting out of the EU, which amounts to a rejection of unconditional opposition to imperialist alliances. Against the Tories’ anti-worker agenda, against Labour’s betrayal and against the fake socialists promoting an alternative policy in support of British imperialism, the obvious counterposition revolution­aries should have made was to put forward a programme for working-class struggle to force Britain to get out of the EU now and utilise the government crisis over Brexit to advance proletarian revolution.

The SL/B’s capitulation to the Tory Brexit also shows the logic of abandoning a revolutionary opposition to imperialism. The article “Brexit now!” notes: “The prolonged crisis of the Tory government has created an advantageous situation for working-class struggle, which could also drive Britain out of the EU” [our emphasis]. Mobilising workers in struggle against the British bourgeoisie and all its imperialist alliances is presented in WH as an abstract hypothesis. But this was the burning task posed for revolutionaries!

We should have fought to cancel the debts of oppressed countries, reverse privatisations, scrap all anti-union laws, for good and sufficient pensions at a decent age to counter destruction of pension plans across Europe, etc. On all these questions, the British bourgeoisie has worked hand in hand with the EU. Such a perspective, linked with the demands for a workers government and a Soviet United States of Europe united on a voluntary basis, would have connected the immediate economic needs of workers — in Britain and in all of Europe — with the burning need for a struggle against imperialism. While Britain is now formally out of the EU, such a revolutionary perspective is still urgently needed.

A very British reformism

Parliamentary socialism

A central aspect of the SL/B’s capitulation to Corbyn was the conciliation of his reformist programme of parliamentary socialism. The main criticism made of Corbyn was that “while the demands posed by the Corbyn campaign are supportable, they cannot be achieved through old Labour parliamentarism” (WH no 232). This presents the difference between reform and revolution as a simple difference over the means to achieve the same goal. Workers Hammer never made clear that Corbyn’s programme wasn’t just ill-advised or mistaken but was a pro-capitalist programme which serves to deceive the working class and maintain bourgeois class rule. As Rosa Luxemburg explained:

“People who pronounce themselves in favor of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modification of the old society.”

The main illusion in Jeremy Corbyn was that if elected prime minister he would enact major reforms in the interest of the working class. The pseudo-Marxist left pushed that while Corbyn’s election would probably not lead immediately to socialism, he could be pressured to transform Labour into a “genuine socialist party” and to enact “socialist policies”. Against this, the task of revolutionaries was to expose that no matter the pressure applied, Corbyn’s pro-capitalist programme would necessarily lead him to do the bidding of the capitalists and betray the interests of the working class. WH never made this elementary point. The aim of the critical support tactic is precisely to prove the correctness of the Bolshevik programme by warning at all times “of the inevitable betrayals and counterposing our programme for proletarian power” (“Revolutionaries and the Labour Party”). But while WH wrote about the crimes of “all previous Labour governments”, it always kept the door open for the illusion that under Jeremy it could be different.

The capitalist state consists of special bodies of armed men whose purpose is to defend through violence the domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. The British capitalist state — its cops, army, prisons and courts — can only be wielded to defend the interests of British finance capital: increasing its profits, defending its borders, securing its foreign interests, repressing strikes and pitting the oppressed against each other. The necessary Leninist point to make against Corbyn and his left cheerleaders is that no matter how “left” the election platform of a workers party elected to govern the capitalist state happens to be, it is not a workers government. It is a workers party administering the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which will necessarily attack the working class and defend the bourgeoisie. WH capitulated to Labour Party lesser evilism by never making this elementary argument, instead criticising Labour because it does not give enough reforms and “contains” the struggle for such reforms. Thus, its assertions that running the capitalist state in the interest of the working class is “impossible” and a “losing strategy” are window-dressing for promoting the illusion that the Labour Party running the capitalist state can be pressured to advance the interests of the working class.

WH’s references to Marx that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made State machinery, and wield it for its own purposes” (The civil war in France, 1871) are rendered moot given that the whole framework of the SL/B’s propa­ganda was based on fostering lesser-evil illusions in Corbyn. For Marxists, the only reason it would be preferable that the capitalist state be run by a left-Labourite government is that it would be an opportunity to expose the bankruptcy of parliamentary reformism.

The central illusion of the British reformist left is that it is possible to bring about socialism peacefully through Parliament. In the early days of Corbyn’s leadership WH responded to these illusions by making a purely liberal critique of bourgeois democracy:

“The idea that socialism can be achieved through Parliament rests on the illusion that exploiter and exploited, rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed, all have an equal vote in how society is run. But it is not the working people and minorities who control the mass media, the economy, or for that matter the cops, courts and military.”

More recently, SL/B propaganda has covered up this liberalism with statements about “breaking the power of the bourgeoisie” and the need to “sweep away the repressive ap­­paratus of the capitalist state and establish a workers state” (WH no 246). However, at no point did WH make the most basic Marxist point that the bourgeoisie will not let itself be peacefully voted out of power. As Trotsky explained, “The workers’ majority in parliament can be destroyed if armed force is in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Whoever does not understand this is not a socialist but a numbskull” (25 December 1925, see page 17). Against the reformist programme for a Labour majority in Parliament, communists fight for a workers government based on soviets, ie the armed proletariat organised as the ruling class.

From its most liberal expressions to its most centrist ones, a constant thread throughout all recent WH propaganda is to disappear that the bourgeoisie will use violence to defend its class rule and that the working class must use force to defend itself and establish its own rule. In The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky (1918), Lenin explained that:

“If we argue in a Marxist way, we must say: the exploiters inevitably transform the state (and we are speaking of democracy, i.e., one of the forms of the state) into an instrument of the rule of their class, the exploiters, over the exploited. Hence, as long as there are exploiters who rule the majority, the exploited, the democratic state must inev­itably be a democracy for the exploiters. A state of the exploited must fundamentally differ from such a state; it must be a democracy for the exploited, and a means of suppressing the exploiters; and the suppression of a class means inequality for that class, its exclusion from ‘democracy’.”

WH explained repeatedly that the parliamentary system is a democratic facade for the dictatorship of the capitalist class and that a workers state based on soviet democracy is necessary. However, only one art­icle — which isn’t about Corbyn (“Britain’s prison hell”, WH no 244) — explains the fundamental reason revolution requires the establishment of a workers state: to suppress the resistance of the bourgeoisie. To omit the key programmatic points that the bourgeoisie will not let itself be peacefully voted out of power and that the purpose of a workers state is to break the resistance of the bourgeoisie means not exposing but in fact capitulating to illusions that socialism can be achieved peacefully through Parliament.

Trade union reformism

The SL/B’s capitulation to parliamentary socialism and left-Labour lesser evilism necessarily went hand in hand with capitulation to the classic British reformist programme of pressuring the Labour Party through trade union militancy. WH criticised the current leadership of the unions for having “spent decades isolating and containing strikes while diverting workers’ anger into illusions in the EU and the losing strategy of electing a Labour government” (WH no 246), for keeping struggles “limited to demonstrations and local, time-limited strikes” (WH no 242, Summer 2018) and for pushing the illusion of “class peace with the bosses” (WH no 238). However, on each of these questions WH did not counterpose a programme based on Marxist principles on the state, imperialism and class independence, but simply advocated more militant trade unionism.

Put simply, WH abandoned the construction of a revolutionary opposition within the trade unions, a necessary task to split the Labour Party. As “Revolutionaries and the Labour Party” argued: “Given its organic base in the trade unions, ultimately Labour cannot be split without a successful political struggle against the pro-capitalist trade union bureaucracy.”

Deindustrialisation, capitalist attacks and decades of backstabbing by the trade union leadership have left the British working class weakened and demoralised. In this context the SL/B reduced its perspective towards the unions to simply fighting for more trade union struggle. In What is to be done? (1902) Lenin pointed out that one does not need to be a communist to advocate more militant economic struggles — to lend “the economic struggle itself a political character”. The crucial point is to link the struggle for the most immediate economic needs of the working class to the necessity of overthrowing capitalist class rule. As he explained:

“Social-Democracy leads the struggle of the working class, not only for better terms for the sale of labour-power, but for the abolition of the social system that compels the property­less to sell themselves to the rich. Social-Democracy represents the working class, not in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an organised political force. Hence, it follows that not only must Social-Democrats not confine themselves exclusively to the economic struggle, but that they must not allow the organisation of economic expos­ures to become the predominant part of their activities. We must take up actively the political education of the working class and the development of its political consciousness.”

The post-Soviet reaction and the low level of class struggle in Britain do not change the fundamental tasks of communists in regard to the trade unions.

Only leaderships in the unions built on a revolutionary programme can transcend the narrow sectoral interests of a particular industry, union or country and lead fights which will advance the interests of the working class as a whole. This requires exposing the class-collaborationist programme of the current leadership of the unions and the more militant version of this same programme pushed by the reformist left. A programme limited to trade union demands, however “militant”, is based on upholding capitalist class rule and is thus necessarily reformist, seeking solely to negotiate “better terms for the sale of labour-power”. Furthermore, as Trotsky explained, in the epoch of imperialist decay:

“[The trade unions] can no longer be reformist, because the objective conditions leave no room for any serious and lasting reforms. The trade unions of our time can either serve as secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination and disciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution, or, on the contrary, the trade unions can become the instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat.”

Opposition to the trade union bureaucracy based solely on its lack of militancy oblit­er­ates the fundamental dividing line be­­tween revolutionary and reformist pol­itics and thus inevitably leads to a political bloc with one wing or another of the union bureaucracy. Such an opposition immediately collapses when the union tops lead militant actions — which they will be compelled to do, as seen in the 1984-85 British miners strike. The trade union bureaucracy can be pressured to struggle, but no amount of pressure can change its pro-capitalist programme and reactionary role as agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class. Against the reformist programme of pressuring the existing leadership of the unions, Trotskyists fight to replace it with a revolutionary leadership. Our perspective to do so is through the building of fractions based on the full transitional programme, including the call for a workers government.

Minimum/maximum programme: burning the bridge

Revolutionaries must show concretely that fulfilling the needs of working people is possible only with the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and expose reformist deceptions which suggest the contrary. The SL/B has done neither of these and at times explicitly promoted the notion that decaying capitalism can provide decent healthcare and fulfil the needs of workers if enough pressure is applied. The article “Capitalism: danger to your health” (WH no 242) is a particularly explicit example of the SL/B’s reformism:

“Quality healthcare, free at the point of delivery; top-class government-provided care for children and the elderly; excellent schools, job training programmes and housing — fulfilling the basic needs of the popu­lation requires massive investment. The bourgeoisie has racked up enormous wealth from the exploitation of workers. But the ruling class never gives anything up without a fight. Sharp class struggle, not pleading to Westminster, could convince the ruling class to fund the NHS.”

Workers can obtain partial and reversible gains under capitalism. However, “fulfilling the basic needs of the population” is not a matter of pressuring the decaying British capitalist class to pump more money into the healthcare system but requires proletarian revolution.

Sharp class struggle could convince the bourgeoisie to invest more in public services. Like any ruling class faced with a workers upsurge, they might resort to concessions under pressure as a “lesser evil” to social revolution. In The lessons of October (1924), Trotsky explained the attitude of revolutionaries towards pressuring the bourgeoisie:

“Ought a revolutionary party to refuse to ‘exercise pressure’ on the bourgeoisie and its government? Certainly not. The exercise of pressure on a bourgeois government is the road of reform. A revolutionary Marxist party does not reject reforms. But the road of reform serves a useful purpose in subsidiary and not in fundamental questions. State power cannot be obtained by reforms. ‘Pressure’ can never induce the bourgeoisie to change its policy on a question that involves its whole fate.”

The problem with the SL/B’s recent propaganda, just like the British reformist left, is that it advocated only and exclusively pres­suring the bourgeoisie in order to secure such concessions. This is a rejection of the Transitional Programme and an embrace of the minimum programme of the Second International.

When WH does mention socialism (the maximum programme), it is either to pre­sent it as an abstract and distant prospect or to openly capitulate to the “parliamentary socialist” programme of the British left. For example, in “Capitalism: danger to your health”:

“The pharmaceutical giants make a mint by using their monopolistic patents to demand extortionate prices. Such blackmail poses the urgent need to expropriate the pharmaceutical industry as a step towards overturning the profit-driven capitalist system as a whole.” [our emphasis]

This presents the expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a gradual process. It mirrors the programme of British reformism: socialism through step-by-step nationalisations of the “commanding heights of the economy” by Her Majesty’s Parliament. Revolutionaries are not opposed to calling for the expropriation of specific industries. However, in doing so, as Trotsky explained in the Transitional Programme, 1) we reject indemnification; 2) we do so while exposing reformists and Labourites who claim to be for the nationalisation of the economy, but are in fact defenders of capitalist rule; 3) we do not rely on achieving a majority in the bourgeois talk-shop of Westminster but on the revolutionary mobilisation of the proletariat; 4) we link the question of expropriations with that of seizure of power by the workers.

Against the minimum programme restricting the aims and activities of the working class to the winning of reforms, the founding of the Third International (Comintern) decisively broke with the div­ision of the minimum and maximum programme, establishing the task of the Communist vanguard as being to fight for the overthrow of the capitalist class through the mobilisation of the proletariat for its most basic interests. Transitional demands need to be used as tools to mobilise the working class in revolutionary struggle, expose the bankruptcy of social democracy and motivate the need for a workers revolution. The Transitional Programme of the Fourth International represented this con­tinu­ity against the Stalinised Comintern.

The substitution of the minimum/max­imum programme for the transitional programme, as the SL/B did, is the essence of reformism. In the period of imperialist decay, where there can be no discussion of systematic social reforms and the raising of the masses’ living standards, putting forward a programme to fulfil the burning needs of the masses divorced from the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat is not only impossible, it is reactionary. The SL/B was founded in defence of the Transitional Programme against its opportunist deformation by the WSL and the rest of the pseudo-Trotskyists in Britain. It is vital to defend and reclaim this programmatic continuity.