Paper for the hard Left in the broad movement

Scan page 11

CONGRATULATIONS to all involved in the last six months' issues of Socialist The paper has been the only journal on the Left that genuinely and consistently takes up and links the internal Labour Party fight and the direct struggles of workers against the Tories.

The last two issues have been jampacked with reports of ongoing struggles. This is a sign of health and vitality in an interventionist paper, but over the longer term reviews and longer articles analysing developments must not be allowed to suffer.

Going weekly will hopetully help here. It may be useful to plan the weekiy paper in terms of design so that there are regular features and regular pages dealing with particular areas such as international matters, the Labour Party, industrial struggles, reviews of books, music and films, middle pages for longer analysis, etc.

I also hope that the additional support for the paper which will enable it to go weekly will not change its broad orientation. The times require a paper which can organise the hard Left in the Labour Party and unions as part of a broad Left. It is important that we continue to relate to the broader Left, while never subordinating politics to it, and that the paper's style should therefore be open, argumentative and fraternal, rather than narrow, assertive and tubthumping.

Without failing to put across our own analysis, we need to take up in greater detail issues such as the Alternative Economic Strategy and the policies of the next Labour government. We need to debate the concerns of the rank and file in the Party who are looking to Benn, as well as encouraging direct action and appealing directly to the workers not under the influence of Abs-type ideas.

We should try to get more contributions and diacussion with the broad Left. They are often attracted by our activism. We must make sure that they are not repelled by any narrowness or dogma. This is why so many are repelled by the Militant, for example.

Finally, hasn't enough space been devoted to the WRP? It is important to deal with the polities of particular groupings from time to time, particularly when, as with the Healy group, they represent open violations of socialist principle. The coverage of the WRP recently has been more than it merits.

I would suggest a short leaflet, simply written, to explain the WRP's behaviour towards Socialist. Organiser, in the context of its politics, should be produced for mass distribution to workers, and the subject should rest for the moment in Socialist Organiser.

What do other readers think?

GARY OWEN, Manchester. cently, several gays were hela, three tor 24 hours and one for 48 hours, the latter being charged with possession of petrol. Feminist photographer Pam Isherwood, who spent several hours photographing the events, has been charged with running a Molotov cocktail production line!

As for cutting ourselves off from those who believe in the impartiality of judges I believe we could reach many of these via a labour movement/black community inquiry. The purpose of it would not be to tell the youth in Brixton what happened in the riots, as some on the left have said, but to present an indictment of the system and show that the uprising was an inevitable consequence of the treatment meted out to Brixton by capitalism.

It should also produce some suggestions of how working class communities could maintain their own law and order, and some idea of how the problems of Brixton and places like it can be overcome by the revolutionary action of workers and unemployed, black and white.

If we follow Comrade Finnegan's advice we will find ourselves marching away from the youth, away from the working class, black and white, who are sick of the police, with some pretty unsavoury companions.

STEWART THOMAS