Militant Labour and the Committe for a workers’ international : a lost opportunity

PART ONE

By Raymond Debord

Translation by Julian Silverman (Movements for socialism)

1. Nowadays, who has heard of the (UK)“Socialist Party” or the “Committee for a Workers’ International”? Scarcely anyone on this side of the channel, and ever fewer people on the other side. Things were very different in the mid-‘80s, when what was then knows as “Militant” – the name of its weekly paper – resisted Margaret Thatcher and launched a mass movement of civil disobedience against the Poll Tax.

2. This is certainly not the first time that a revolutionary group fizzles out after having been number one in the news for some time. But this group is of special interest to us in so far as it had particularly strong features compared with what one usually sees on the extreme left.

3. At the beginning of the ‘80s, the Militant tendency became the most important revolutionary group in Britain. This was the result of decades of patient effort: Militant had held itself studiously aloof from student left circles to concentrate on the trade unions and the Labour Party. This long-term “entrism” within the labour movement is the trademark of Militant, which considered that the rest of the left had completely failed and had degenerated into “sects on the fringe of the workers’ movement”.

4. Furthermore, Militant did not neglect youth. On the contrary: it gained a majority in the Labour Party Young Socialists, which it used to spread its influence generally. Using the same method, international work was undertaken among socialist currents, which led them to recruit many radicalised youth. This allowed them to form a certain number of groups of lesser and greater significance in countries such as Spain, Italy, South Africa, Sweden, Ireland….. In 1974 they set up the Committee for a Workers’ international, which created bridgeheads in South Africa to Nigeria, to Pakistan, and which was joined by a relatively significant party in Sri Lanka etc.

5. Even if Militant supporters no doubt thought of themselves as the authentic continuation of the 4th International, their approach was much more open as is shown by the name they chose: Committee for a Workers’ International.

6. Militant was notable for its serious attitude to organisation but also for the importance it gave to the theoretical education of its members. Its main leader, Ted Grant belonged to that tiny group of activists capable of analysing correctly the processes at work at the end of the second world war. At a time when almost the whole of the revolutionary left expected an immanent revolution (as Trotsky had predicted), Grant and his colleagues quickly understood that Stalinism was undergoing considerable reinforcement and that economic growth was going to confirm the power of the reformist parties for a whole historical period.

7. Later, Grant and the Militant tendency were the only ones capable of creating an analytical model which could offer an explanation for how and why petty bourgeois nationalist regimes in former colonies, while remaining hostile to the labour movement, were becoming perfectly capable of expropriating the capitalists and constructing a state modelled on the Soviet Union or China. That is what happened in Cuba, but also in Syria and Iraq and as far as Yemen, Angola, Mozambique, Burma…..

8. In a period when the main revolutionary groupings claiming to be Trotskyist were sailing on a high wind (membership of the Fourth International increased tenfold between 1968 and 1975) it took quite a nerve – a great deal of nerve for a small group to claim that the others had it all wrong. Nevertheless this is just what Militant did, with arguments that have all unfortunately since been confirmed by events.

9. After having been marginalized during the ‘60s and ‘70s by the stronger expansion of the vague ‘left’, based, essentially on students, the Militant Tendency became the main revolutionary force in Britain. Their decision to root themselves in the Labour Party at last bore fruit. Three of its members were elected as MPs, clearly stating their allegiance to the paper. On the trade union level, Militant gained control of the CPSA, the most important trade union for public service employees.

10. Militant supporters always rudely claimed to have constructed the most important Trotskyist force since the Russian Revolution and the Left Opposition. This was wrong of course: Trotskyism had already gained a significant foothold among the working class in countries like Bolivia or Sri Lanka. But it is undeniable that the forces gathered around the Militant tendency had a social weight without parallel among comparable groups in the rest of Europe.

11. Usually, supporters and opponents of Militant both based their arguments on economic analyses or general theoretical questions. But, in the end, the success of Militant, like the failure of its successor, the Socialist Party were much more bound up with questions of political method: how far they were able to link up with the labour movement or focus practically on the lowest paid workers.

12. After a decade of more or less steady growth, by the start of the ‘80s, the Militant Tendency had to face the return to an economic and social situation which had the effect of encouraging a rightward movement among the tops of the labour movement. They decided to get rid of the troublemakers who were being given such importance. In 1983 members of the Militant editorial board were expelled from the Labour Party. Following on from that hundreds of rank-and-file members were also expelled.

13. In the first instance, this new situation did not noticeably affect the general orientation of the tendency. In 1984-85 Militant intervened energetically in the great miners’ strike and recruited several hundred of them.

14. Above all, in the mid-80s Militant led a team of working class militants which became a majority on the Liverpool City Council. This unprecedented victory (still unrivalled anywhere in Europe) led to social consequences, which were extraordinary for one municipality. Thatcher reacted in a totally brutal manner, launching a bitter five-year siege against the council, punctuated by general strikes directed by Militant, involving more than 30,000 council workers. The central government, which for a time considered calling in the troops, had to use every legal trick possible to get rid of the Liverpool councillors and put an end to this affront.

15. But in the end it was Militant who brought the war to Thatcher. The anti-poll-tax campaign remains the chief battle of the tendency – they being the ones who had the extraordinarily audacious idea of launching a campaign of civil disobedience, inciting people to refuse to pay the new tax. In Scotland the campaign became a massive affair, the main role being played by Tommy Sheridan, a particularly charismatic and combative militant, who was thrown in prison for refusing to pay the poll tax. He was far from being the only one: while 18 million Britons followed the call for non-payment, dozens of Militant supporters were jailed.