13.02.1997

Why change?

Party notes

Militant Labour’s decision to repackage itself as the ‘Socialist Party’ appears on the surface to be a rather odd one.

After all, as ML this organisation had won itself a definite audience. Through its leaderships of mass struggles, such as the anti-poll tax movement, it had achieved both a wide respect amongst advanced elements of the class and been able to train organic working class leaders, people who were identified in the mind of the political public as ‘Militant members’.

So why the change?

Fundamentally, it expresses a disorientation in the ranks of ML, and a sectarian response by the leadership of the organisation to the crisis of perspective.

Since decanting from the Labour Party in the late 1980s/early 1990s, Militant Labour has certainly suffered a dramatic membership loss. However, more importantly its programme was compromised by the move to open work. Life outside Labour posed far more profound challenges to ML’s essentially reformist perspectives, resulting in both a membership haemorrhage and organisational fractures, such as the Panther split and the recent de facto declaration of UDI by Scotland.

Thus, in one way the birth of the ‘Socialist Party’ is a partial relaunch of the ‘open turn’, a move that first time around did not produce the expected growth or carve ML out a stable niche in British left politics. The new name thus comes complete with a slightly revised analysis of the contemporary period that poses the possibility of ML becoming a “small mass party” (Socialism Today February 1997). This will be achieved by seeking out that minority of workers and campaigners who are thinking, that “fresh layer of activists [beginning] to develop in the unions and among young people” (ibid) and drawing them into the party.

Of course, there are dangers associated with such an orientation. It is true that any working class organisation worth its salt should be seeking ways to intersect with the small numbers of politically conscious elements spontaneously produced by today’s society. But to currently talk about “mass party” building - even with the formal qualification about its size - actually betrays a thoroughly incorrect and sectarian approach to building a revolutionary organisation.

First, given the levels of consciousness prevailing amongst such sections, this turn almost inevitably will entail a watering down of commitments of party membership. Instead of fighting to raise these layers to the standards of party membership required, the general discipline of the party is taken down to what such sections will find acceptable. At the same time, the advanced sections of the party - the core cadre - shoulder ever greater burdens of work and in effect find themselves servicing a passive paper membership.

Inevitably, such inert layers constitute voting fodder for the right or for any leadership set on an opportunist course. This was the experience of the Communist Party in the post-war period and reflects itself in other organisations, ML included.

Second, the turn expresses a sectarian drift in the leadership of the organisation. Nationally at least, ML has in effect turned its backs on the Socialist Alliances and will now increasing treat the Socialist Labour Party as a direct rival.

When the idea of the change of name was first mooted, the fault lines of different political shadings started to appear in the organisation. However, at that time, the left seemed to have little substance to it and existed far more as a mood of disquiet rather than a definite trend organised around definite programmatic conclusions.

The fact that the leadership was able to win such an overwhelming majority for the change indicates the extent to which the struggle was narrow in focus and ill-defined for the left. The battle needs to be given far more definite shape and political homogeneity by those who consider themselves revolutionaries in the organisation.

This should find expression openly over the coming months.

The key question facing all partisans of the working class is the fight for a genuine mass party of the proletariat, not the clumsy repackaging of the existing groups.

Mark Fischer
national organiser