"No vestige of social democracy left in Labour". Discuss

This letter from Gregor Gall appear in today’s Guardian. We kicked around the same idea at a meeting of Socialist Resistance the other night with most of us plumping for the “in most places you’ll have to hold your nose and vote Labour” view. The trouble with taking Gregor’s argument to its obvious conclusion is…

Liam

October 22, 2009

1–2 minutes

This letter from Gregor Gall appear in today’s Guardian. We kicked around the same idea at a meeting of Socialist Resistance the other night with most of us plumping for the “in most places you’ll have to hold your nose and vote Labour” view. The trouble with taking Gregor’s argument to its obvious conclusion is that in many constituenicies you would end up calling for abstention or spoilt ballots in the face of a Tory landslide. The other, probably academic point, is that the dynamic of strikes and defensive struggles against a newly elected Labour government is much more favourable than the same battles against a Cameron government.

The postal workers’ strike will be to Gordon Brown what the firefighters’ strike of 2002-03 was to Tony Blair, who used that strike to show that he was willing and able to defeat a well-organised group of workers that were prepared to collectively mobilise to resolve their legitimate grievances. In particular, Blair intervened to prevent a settlement on terms that the local authority employers were offering.

In the postal dispute, the same dynamic is involved, but this time there is also an extra component. As part of his public-sector reform programme, Brown is treating Royal Mail as a business, not a public service. Consequently, and as Royal Mail’s only shareholder, the government has refused to intervene in the dispute to avoid a national strike so that service delivery can be maintained.

But more than that, it has now also begun egging on Royal Mail, and providing it with overt support in what is fast becoming a set-piece showdown. This is a defining act for a Brown government, indicating that there is no vestige of social democracy left in Labour.

19 responses to “"No vestige of social democracy left in Labour". Discuss”

bill j

October 22, 2009 at 4:20 pm

I think he’s romanticising social democracy. If they can countenance the slaughter millions of workers in WWI selling out a strike isn’t really too much by comparison.

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Doug

October 22, 2009 at 6:39 pm

Yet you’d still vote for the grotesque inequality, pro-big business, privatising war-mongerers would you? Lesser evilism rears its predictable ugly head. I’d love to hear your explanation to workers about how you’ve spent 12 years tearing into these creeps then advising people to vote for them.

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Liam

October 22, 2009 at 7:50 pm

Doug I was “tearing into” these people even when I was in the Labour Party.

However you do have to accept that in terms of mass consciousness, particularly among the most active trade unionists, a Labour victory will be much less demoralising than a Tory one. This is despite the fact that both parties are already committed to big spending cuts.

A fight against the Tories in those circumstances will boost Labour whereas a fight against a Labour government wielding the axe immediately calls into question the unions’ relationships with Labour. In a timid, vacillating way the CWU’s leadership is being forced to echo some of its members disgust at giving money to Mandelson’s party.

To answer a question on an earlier post about how one defines “left” my checklist would be something along the lines of:

Opposed to cuts in public spending.
In favour of making the rich pay for the crisis
In favour of immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
A history of supporting workers and communities in struggle.

Feel free to add you own criteria.

The tricky word is “credible” but you know it when you see it – Dave Nellist, Michael Lavallette come to mind as do Greens like Andy Hewitt or Caroline Lucas.

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Padraic

October 22, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Liam,

You are right about supporting credible left candidates. I think candidates like McDonnell or Corbyn would also come within your defintion of “leftist”

However, this tactic is entirely undermined by voting Labour elsewhere, whatever you do with your nose. Are CWU members – especially if they get the FBU treatment, going to welcome the return (anyway extremely unlikely) of a “weak ” Labour Government and gain the confidence from this to continue their struggle? Or are they going to conclude from years of experience that New Labour ‘s neo-liberal agenda is no different from the Tories.

The BBC’s free publicity for Griffin has better gauged the depth of the crisis and the opinions of a substantial section of Labour’s supporters than some on the left. We need to smell the coffee!

A credible electoral platform of the left can still be put in place but only if the left lets go of its Labourist fetish.

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sandy

October 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm

I dont think the posties will win
this strike unless a rank and file opposition emerges to the present union
leadership. As to the view of Comrade Gall re “that there is no vestige of
social democracy left in Labour” it should be remembered that the labour party
has always been anti socialist and anti working class. It is the party of the
labour bureaucracy- the most counter revolutionary force in british society. It
is true that the left pole of the Labour party is much weakened since the ruling
class is not willing to make any serious concessions to the working class. This
is for two reasons- the ruling class has lost its immediate fear of the working
class and the crisis of capitalism is so deep that serious concessions could set
off a revolutionary dynamic. The working class either creates a serious
socialist party in the coming period or it will go down to historic defeat. That party can only be
built in fierce and open combat with the labour bureaucracy

sandy

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StevieB

October 23, 2009 at 12:04 pm

The letter is disgusting. Postal workers commence a national strike and, on the same day, the Professor draws a parallel to the FBU strike, which he calls a “defeat”. Strangely enough, postal workers need support not flakey, snobbish “analysis”.

In 2007, on the same day that postal workers commenced a 4 day strike, the Professor also got an article published in the Guardian which suggested that CWU tactics had failed.

He may think that he is serving “science”, but he surely isn’t serving the CWU.

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RobM

October 23, 2009 at 12:53 pm

“the labour bureaucracy- the most counter revolutionary force in british society”

Goodness me, Sandy- you need a lie down you old Third Periodist you!
Which sections of the Labour Party or the Unions are more reactionary than, say, the Tory Party, the military, MI5, the monarchy and House Of Lords as institutions, the police, the BNP etc. etc. etc. etc.

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sandy

October 23, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Rob

Objectively the most counter revolutionary- i.e. due to the social position of the labour bureaucracy it is best placed in normal times to suppress the self activity of the working class.
The ruling class relies on it to do so. The general strike of 1926 and the role of the TUC leadership is an obvious example but there are many many that could be given

sandy

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David Ellis

October 23, 2009 at 1:09 pm

The labour and trade union bureaucracy are indeed counter-revolutionary and an important strut of bourgeois and especially imperialist rule the crumbs from whose existence it is dependent. However, it is the most counter-revolutionary force in the workers’ movement, apart from Stalinism, not in British society. That place goes to capitalism, its elites and its open political representatives with fascism taking the gold ribband. It will smash the Labour and trade union bureaucracy as one obstacle to the rule of naked violence against the working class.

Sandy, your position is indeed third periodist. Though I do think that the New Labour clique are in the process of severing all remaining relations with the labour movement which means all sorts of possibilities may be opening up including in the Labour Party itself and people who were yesterday very conservative will be making all sorts of revolutionary noises.

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sandy

October 23, 2009 at 1:40 pm

“Objectively” the most counter revolution force in british society is the labour bureaucracy. The word “objectively” is key. Worth checking out Leon Trotsky’s writings on Britain re this.

Third periodism is something very different- i.e. a refusal to engage in united front campaigning to stop fascism. Fascism is based on the atomisation of the working class through terror
social democracy is based on the co option by capital of the labour bureaucracy in to the running of capitalism. Big difference

sandy

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David Ellis

October 23, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Sandy I agree with what you are saying mostly but without at the moment being able to check it I think Trotsky says it is objectively the most counter-revolutionary force in the workers’ movement not in British society. But he was explaining how Stalinism has usurped it. Whilst the labour and tu bureaucracies were the policemen of the working class the Stalinists had become the policemen of the police snuffing out any vestiges of radicalism whatsoever unless at some point it momentarily served the foreign policy interests of the ultra-conservative Soviet bureaucrats.

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sandy

October 23, 2009 at 2:04 pm

David

It is writings on Britain in 1924 to 1927 I am referring to. Too early to focus on Stalinsm. But Trotsky is clear that the labour bureaucracy is the most counter revolution force in british society because of its social role in suppressing or co opting working class self activity (and thus the labour bureaucracies support for capitalism and imperialism). He is attacking the CPGB for giving left cover to the labour bureaucracies counter revolutionary role in the general strike.

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RobM

October 23, 2009 at 3:17 pm

This is daft- ‘objectively’, ‘subjectively’ or otherwise, there is no way the labour bureaucracy is as counter-revolutionary as Fascism!
If it is, pleae tell me where and when this bureaucracy has taken up arms against the working class and murdered them in their millions.
The betrayal of the general strike by the TU leaders is nothing- abso-f*cking-lutely nothing compared to what Hitler did to the german working class.

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Mark Victorystooge

October 23, 2009 at 3:23 pm

Friedrich Ebert and the SPD? They allied with the Freikorps and kickstarted the beginnings of fascism, all because Ebert and those like him “hated social revolution like sin”.

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bill j

October 23, 2009 at 3:50 pm

Caroline Lucas may or may not be “left wing”. But that’s really not the point. Only the working class has both the social interest and power to decisively change society. Who you vote for therefore, depends on how you think you can best advance the class consciousness of the working class. Voting Caroline Lucas doesn’t do that.

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sandy

October 23, 2009 at 5:23 pm

RobM

What social and political force has been more responsible over the last century for preserving british capitalism- the labour bureaucracy or fascism.

the answer is obvious.

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bill j

October 23, 2009 at 6:24 pm

Actually neither. But what the hell.

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David Ellis

October 25, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Sandy: your third periodist position is the same as that which led the SWP to cheer the collapse of the Soviet Union back to a backward form of imperialist capitalism and to take a counter-revolutionary position on the deformed Chinese workers state.

Logically you and they should be hoping that the CWU is smashed by the employers as opposed to being reclaimed by its members for the serious prosecution of their struggle to defend themselves and their industry. I’m not saying that is your position just pointing out the contradictions of your stance.

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sandy

October 26, 2009 at 4:36 pm

David

You dont seem to understand what a third period position is- the refusal to promote united struggle when it is in the interests of the working class to do so eg a united struggle ball the social democrats and the communist party against fascism

The fact that Trotskyists view social democracy as counter revolutionary does not imply that “logically” we want to see it smashed by fascism or a military coup etc. We do want to see the labour bureaucracy and its party (the labour party) politically defeated by an international marxist party.

sandy

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