Why I Argue for a Low Profile'

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Gerry Byrne (SO 12.11.81) has produced a long list of crimes she claims I have committed. Many of her charges are fiction. Others have some basis in reality, though not in quite the same way as Comrade Byrne alleges.

Thus her allegation that I recommend that ...if we keep our heads down and don't antagonise the opposition (presumably the ideologically committed rightwing of the Party), then they'll accept that we're for unity too and will leave alone the democratic gains already achieved pure invention. What I argued was that the democratic gains cannot be effectively defended unless we retain majority support for them.

My concern was that we shall lose this support if we gratuitously provide our opponents with grounds for their contention that democratic reforms are undermining • Party: unity and Labour's electoral credibility.

It is important, therefore, that the electoral college should not be seen as highlighting internal party dissentions and in the present context a 'high profile' electoral campaign for leadership or deputy leadership would inevitably have this effect.

Those who doubt that the recently conducted Deputy Leadership campaign struck most ordinary Labour Party members as divisive cannot be listening to what is being said - or they are in need of hearing aids. That is, unless they do not regard ordinary members as people whose support must be won.

By contrast, a demand that leadership elections should become part of the normal routine of party and trade union business that they do not provide the media with a welcome opportunity for hostile publicity would minimise any divisive effect, and would reveal the real saboteurs of party unity to be those who oppose leadership accountability, albeit behind the smokescreen of concern for Labour's electoral prospects.

What they singled out for attack - and rightly from their point of view, since this would effectively prevent accountability - is the principle of annual leadership elections. They plus 28 Middle Lar London skillfully exploit the damage done to Labour's credibility by the 'high profile' campaign of 1981 and make out that this would be the consequence of any leadership election.

THY NUR As I have argued, the only way in which the gain of annual election can be saved is to make the procedure part of the normal; routine business of CLPs and trade unions. In this way • its divisive effects would be minimised and at the same time the involvement of ordinary trade union members in Labour Party politics would be maintained.

The real cause of party disunity would then be revealed as the MPs' opposition to sharing some of their present powers with the rank and file.

The purpose of a low profile tactic is precisely to achieve this result.

This was quite clearly stated in my first article where I said: 'The gains of thé last few years ... can only be successfully defended in the name of party unity. This means that those who are setting out to destroy them (my emphasis) must be seen as those threatening party unity.

This makes nonsense of Comrade Byrne's assertion that I credit •... the right with a gentlemanly Queensbury Rules view of politics' . A high profile tactic, however, would make the exposure of the right wing more difficult, for it is idle to pretend that it would nut accentuate open divisions and reduce the party's electoral credibility.

HE Comrade Byrne and those who think like her seem to be interested in a Labour victory only on certain conditions - that is, only if the next Labour government is elected to carry out socialist policies as determined by the Annual Conference. What differentiates them from the Pamphlet CAp 40p great majority of Labgur Party members is that the latter want to see a Labour government returned if some of those conditions are not yet present.

Hence Comrade Byrne and others who share her views seem clearly prepared to jeopardise. Labour's electoral prospects as long as they cannot have Labour Party unity on their own terms.

That is why she makes light of the serious setbacks we suffered, disregards the adverse effects of the Benn campaign, and believes that these are more than offset by the alleged great gains she believes were achieved as the result of it. ('The short term effect of losing ground on some of the constitutional issues is less of a disadvantage when seen in the light of a real advance in politicising the Labour movement.')

Her gross over-estimation of these gains (and no-one denies that there were some springs from her continued attachment to a conception based on irrational beliefs which she shares with the rest of the ultra-left.

Hence the second group of crimes she charges me with relate to the fact that I questioned the validity of these beliefs and dismissed the conception of 'political' activities. based on them. Since it is for illusions that men and women are prepared to put up the hardest fight of all, it is not surprising that Comrade Byrne, in order that she may continue to deceive herself, is compelled grossly to distort what I have said.

The trouble with the ultras (and incidentally also some of the left Tribunites)

is that they have never accepted the need to use all the opportunities available to them within the existing political framework.

Some ultras simply refuse to work within the system' - since this, they tell us, would inevitably corrupt anyone no matter how good their intentions were to begin with.

Instead they rely entirely or almost entirely for their carrian prospective political influence on their prospective involvement in the prospective 'extra-parliamentary' political structures which they expect will arise as the result of mass action, and in opposition to the present structures.

Other ultras accept the necessity of involvement in the existing bourgeois democratic political framework as the only way open to socialists at present under the two-party system, but such involvement on their part is strictly limited.

Like their ultra-left brethren (sic - feminist typesetter] outside the Labour Party, they rely for political influence mainly on propaganda and 'educational' activity. Hence for example their preference for the pursuit of 'issues' rather than constitutional reforms.

Even so, they are all the time looking over their shoulders for any signs of extra-parliamentary mass movement which will deliver them from their present political impotence.

They never think of putting the latter down to their own political (or more accurately, their pseudopolitical) practice. Instead they limit themselves to 'interpretative activity', ie they seek to explain that things happened as they did because of such adverse faciors as the treachery or weakness of Labour leaders, the influence of the media, the insufficiently developed consciousness of the masses, the new lease of life of capitalism.

Political changes are expected to come about largely as the result of catastrophic economic developments, with the political agencies of change being created in the process more or less on an ad hoc basis, ie without the kind of deep roots among the working class and the masses struck as the result of genuine political activity during the preceding period.

This conception ignores Lenin's observation that those incapable of taking full advantage of such political opportunities as exist during a period of reaction will be equally incapable of taking advantage of the opportunities offered during the period of revolution.

The ultra-left search for indications that would reassure them that a new mass movement is under way frequently assumes forms that verge on the pathetic. Thus Gerry Byrne sees in the Deputy Leadership campaign a sign of new extra-parliamentary movement, and a harbinger of a government based on active working class control' that would resolve the problems created by capitalism 'in the interests of the mass of the exploited and oppressed.

What this fantasy reveals is the total lack of appreciation of the relative stability of the present political framework, and a gross underestimation of the tasks which socialists must face if they wish one day to see a government acting in the interests of the mass of the exploited and oppressed. It also reveals the shallowness of the commitment of Comrade Byrne to work for socialism under the existing conditions.

The main opportunities for genuine political activity today are circumscribed by the constraints imposed by the existing political channels. For these Comrade Byrne has only undisguised contempt. When she talks of the 'previously cosy undisturbed world of committees and professional constitutional whizz-kids' she merely reveals her own ignorance.

This, by itself, is hardly surprising: the Ultra-Lefts have joined battle on the constitutional issues rather late in the day. It took in fact seven years of continuous effort and conflicts to secure the reforms which made the Benn campaign possible.

Without this effort and conflicts there would not have been what Socialist Organiser described last year as a 'half-a-revolution' and we would still be living under the conditions which enabled the Ultra-Left happily to vegetate for decades.

Their nostalgia for that blissful conditions is revealed in the eagerness with which the Labour UltraLeft now welcome the slightest sign that they may once again be able to return to the ghetto and its rich fantasy life, a world. in which circuses and jamborees can be happily mistaken for mass movements and conference fringe meetings for the intrusions of extra-parliamentary 'raucous working class politics' into estabiished political processes; a world in which defeats ar miraculously transformed into victories and retreats into advances..

Comrade Byrne takes exception to my saying that trade unions called a halt to democratic reforms already last year when there was overwhelming support for the reimposition of the three year rule.

The tact, of course, 1s that CLPD's attempts to get the 'three year rule' on the agenda of trade union conferences failed for lack of interest by the membership in this issue. Silence and disinterest means in practice connivance and a free hand for General Secretaries (as well as the union delegations, most of which actually voted for the three year rule).

All this merely demonstrates the present limits of trade union involvement in Labour Party politics.

This is the reality of the present situation, a reality which leaves further patient work through the existing channels - viz. the frequently badly attended branch meetings and union conferences - as the only alternative. This situation will not be changed by Comrade Byrne lecturing us that General Secretaries are not really identical with THE BOuR Of course the conventional Left, and the Ultra-Left in particular, were never keen on constitutional reform. They failed to recog;

nise the central political importance of democratic issues for the political class struggle until events forced them to do so. And even now, after the introduction of mandatory. reselection and the electoral college have transformed the Labour Party political scene, they are only looking for an excuse to get out of the fight.

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Socialist Organiser no.64 December 3, 1981 Page 11 Mick Liggins introduces the 'History of American Trotskyism' by James P Cannon MEMASM NANA MER DODI NTE PESAI VTNS DON'T GET too excited about it, but Thatcher was defeated last week. The evidence of this defeat however is rather unpleasant.

Next spring council tenants will see a bill for an extra £2.50 per week pop through their letter boxes: rates will go up yet again; national insurance contributions will go up; TV licences will go up by £10; prescription and dental charges are to go even higher; and unemployment benefit will fall in value by 1',%: scarcely signs of a change of heart by the Thatcher government!

Opposition

But the wets' will argue that it could have been worse: Chancellor Howe wanted a £4.50 rise in rents and a 5 per cent cut in the value of benefits.

In fact Howe was forced to backtrack on his initial draconian package of cuts, and to agree to spend £5 billion more than his target figure. Rigid monetarism. has come to the end of Les AMONG the acres of newsprint dealing with the Dr Leonard Arthur case, I came across a little piece in the Guardian dealing with research into how people with Downs Syndrome (DS)

are disabled and how the disability may be reduced.

. DS sufferers have an extra chromosome, due to a mistake in the sharing out of chromosomes when eggs or sperm are made.

Chromosomes carry the code for making proteins, the chemical compounds that provide structure for the body, carry oxygen around, break things down and build things up, etc. If you've got an extra chromosome, then the body will produce too much of those proteins coded for by that chromosome. Since the body is a linely balanced system.

too much of a particular protein can cause all sorts of upsets.

A French paediatrician and geneticist, Prof. Jerome Lejeune (he discovered the extra chromosome in DS)

has discovered some of the functions of the extra chromosome, and one of tem has a direct effect on the brain's working. Lejeunc thinks a cure for DS may bo possible within ten years.

One treatment suggested is extra doses •Of vitamins to the line. If not a U-turn, Thatcher has at least been forced into a sharp swerve to avoid a growing wall of opposition within the Tory Party itself - opposition which despite her autumn purge of wets remains a vocal force in her own Cabinet.

That opposition must be further strengthened by the wipe-out of Tory supHeath counteract premature ageing of cells.

I can think of no reason why this research could not have been done years ago -except that disability cones pretty low down on capitalism's list of priorities.

Meanwhile, others have found that 'massive sensory input' for DS children from birth can raise their ability considerably, bringing them into the category of 'mild to moderate handicap or even into the 'normal' ability range.

Time

'Massive sensory input means giving the children lots of love and attention, and taking more time to teach them to talk etc. It takes up a lot of someone's time - in our society, that means the parents, who already have their hands full caring for a child who may be physically handicapped to some degree (as well as working to support their families.)

A socialist society would care enough about all its members to give sufficient support to parents of children with handicaps, as well as providing the necessary education and medical care.

It would also see research into the nature of those handicaps as a priority.

By John Lister port in Crosby byWhile the rise of the SDP increases rightward pressures in the Labour Party, it is creating similar pressures from the 'centre' politicians in the Tory Party for a softening of Thatcher's confrontationist policies.

Such criticisms emerged into the open at the time of the Tory Party conference: and despite the failure of her opponents to mount any serious challenge for the leadership of the parliamentary party, they remain a headache for Thatcher.

Alienated

She knows that many Tory MPs must share the views of Edward Heath in the wake of the Crosby by-election. Pointing out that the government had alienated many people -as many as ten million in the families of the unemployed - he warned that:

"If you go on with FOLLOWING an "incident' at Holy Loch when a Poserdon nuclear missile was dropped, information about the chemical explosive ((E)

used to detonate the Poscidon warhead has come 10 light.

First, why is Cl necessary to explode a nuclear warhead?

Plutonium and uranium will spontaneously break down slowly, releasing heat and radiation, but if you have more than a certain amount of it in a lump (i.e.

more than the critical mass)

the radiation released by one atom will hit other atoms nearby, causing them 1o break down.

Those will set off more and more - a chain reaction is started, which rapidly becomes a nuclear explosion.

You can't have the plutFrankly, Lois. next to a cher Thatcher: waving or drowning? Crosby after Crosby after Crosby until a general election you will have another sort of government"

And to indicate that he is in favour of a sort of government very different from Thatcher's, Heath went on to spell vut his willingness to contempiate a coalition involving himself and. like-thinking Tories together with the SDP.

His reservations over joining the SDP were restricted to the fact that he still considers it to be a "socialist" party.

"I don't believe in socialism. If the SDP is going to remain literally a Sucialist SCIENCE WELL OF COURSE, THAT WAS ALL PRE-BOMB SCIENCE YOU KNOW! onium in a warhead in one lump or it will go off, so you have in two pieces, and 1o detonate it you set off a charge of CE. This hurls one piece of plutonium into the other, and it goes off.

Unfortunately, the Cl: in Poscidon missiles (LX-09) IN a bit over-sensitive. Dropping a picce of it 15 inches will set it off. Dropping a Poscidon on its nose from one inch would be sufficient to explode the 1. X-09.

The authorities say this would not cause a nuclear explosion, but it would scatter plutonium over a pills much longer l party, then 1 am not sympathy with it"

But the main content of Heath's message is the extent tu which he is out of sympathy with the Tory leadership and openly contemplating moves to split the Party.

So the Tories, behind a discrete veil of Fleet Street silence, are "tearing themselves apart. But for workers to wait for Heath or the SDP to bring down Thatcher would be a disaster.

A fight for action against Howe's latest attacks, on the other hand, could drive the vital nail into Thatcher's political coffin. wide area.

With a total of 448 Poscidons in the world, it seems only a matter of time before another one gets dropped and goes off.

Incidentally, these properties have been known for four years, since three Us explosives workers were killed after one of them had struck some 1.X-09 with a rubber mallet in the approved manner.

But never fear! The US government is coming to the rescue. LX-09 will be replaced in Poseidon over the nodd three to live years"!

First of a new series ALL TOO often when new comrades come into movement, their educational problems are 'solved' by asking them to read 'classic' Marxist texts - like the Communist Manifesto which they often don't understand.

While I agree these must be read and explained, I would say that in terms of inspiring them, the "HistVI y of American Trotskyism' by James P Cannon is just as important.

The book is a series of lectures by Cannon, one of the founders of the Trotskyist movement. It gives an account of American TrotSKyISm right from the founding of the Communist Party in 1919, up to the founding of the American Socialist Workers' Party in 1938.

It's certainly one of the most inspiring books that I've read.

It shows the tremendous problems that the early Trotskyists suffered in their split from the Communist Party. They faced attacks irom Stalin's gangs; they were labelled 'splitters' and 'wreckers'; and they went through profound internal struggles in the formation of their movement, as well as big financial difficulties.

The book also has an educational value, and doesn't require much background reading.

It gives an account of the break in 1933-4 from the Third International, by then totally dominated by Stalin.

And it tells of the founding of the Fourth International, led Leon Trotsky.

The main message of the book, I think, is showing that Trotskyist movement can be built in the •working - a love® • ment that shows workers "Trotskyism means business' They certainly did that in the great lorry drivers' strikes Minneapolis, which Cannon describes in the book.

The Trotskyists had turned from propaganda (trying to win people from other groups, and in partiJames P Cannon cular to win the best forces from the American CP), to mass work, directing and fighting for strike action and bringing workers into their organisation.

By making sure the strikes Minneapolis were well organised, they were able to lead them to victory and 'put Trotskyism on the map' They organised a daily bulletin - the Daily Organiser - to combat the lies of the bosses. They also organised 'educational' committees. (The difference 'education, education and Cannon says, is that "The one arranges lectures for the education of the membership, and the other provides for the "education" of scabs who won't listen to lectures' .)

They also challenged the 'labour fakers' who wanted to sell the struggles out. They did this despite having the whole of the police in the town continually harassing them. (Cannon himself was on one occasion lifted).

And they managed to mobilise the whole labour movement in supporting the strike.

The end of the book shows how following Trotsky's advice they joined the American Socialist Party and attempted to win the leftward forces that were turning to it, particularly the youth.

It explains the political struggle against sectarians among the Trotskyists who made it a matter of principle to have an 'independent party' and wouldn't join the Socialist Party.

'After two years they had not won a single socialist youth or worker' ', while the Trotskyists, despite eventually being expelled from the SP, had doubled their forces.

The whole of the book is very valuable to read. It certainly makes you want to go out and show both the workers in Britain and Michael Foot and his cronies chat 'the Trotskyist mean businesy, Trotskyists won't be shoved around. Read it!

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Socialist Organiser no 64 December 3, 1981 Page 12 Writebac

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KICK OUT THE TORTE Labour democracy fight for a WORKERS Socialist GOVERNMENT

ocialist ooksheli

nly a matter of time