Discussion at the TENDENCY NCY1 TEN ENCY 2 TENDENCY 1 TION Photo: CHRIS DAVIES (Report) tionary party. What is the central task of today, of the next year or eighteen months?
The USFI theses say that it is to replace the present Labour leadership with an alternative one. The theses say that,'.... a necessary precondition for a generalised successful defence and counter-attack, reversing the limited gains scored by the bourgeoisie during the last six months, is the emergence of an alternative leadership', and that this 'cannot be created in the immediate future - the coming 12-18 months which is the time posed -outside the Labour Party ......
From this flows the central IMG slogan of Remove the Callaghan-Healey leadership'.
We think this way of posing perspectives is wrong. The working class can counter-attack even if the letts fail to challenge the Labour leadership. In our view the main slogan for today should be: Defeat the Labour Government's attacks on working people - For class struggle solutions to the capitalist crisis. We in our Action Programme, and the essence of it is the struggle to take control of the economy out of the hands of the capitalists through workers control and nationalisation of the banks and manufacturing industry.
2. CLASS STRUGGLE CURRENTS AND THE LABOUR The Labour Party's hold over the majority of the working class will only be broken during mass revolutionary mobilisations. This general historical truth is not, however, a sufficient guide to day-to-day orientation. In particular, it is wrong to think that the broad vanguard of working class militants is actively committed to the belief that if the for recruitment first. ween such caucuses think that such policies are summarised unions must be based on a coherent Party membership. come forward with a platform of class struggle demands and organise around them. The CP leadership has refused to fight for such a class struggle tendency in the unions because this would embarrass its SHIP attempt to maintain a cosy relationsup with une lent bureaucracy. Al the same time IS plays down the necessity for an adequate programme of action, and puts its own desire In our work towards building a class struggle tendency we seek to build left caucuses in individual unions, to develop existing rankand file movements to give them more adequate policies, and to establish cross-union contacts betWe consider it essential for the IMG to start a serious debate with the CP and IS militants on the need for such a class struggle tendency and on the kind of action programme tasks. required by the working class. The publications of the IMG must be geared towards the problems of this debate and our work in the trade plan of action on these policies.
Where local Labour Party organisations have turned towards the class struggle and campaigns like NAC, 02ONal Chile and Portugal solidarity, etc., this is of great assistance in developing those struggles. But Labour Party bureaucracy places very narrow limits to the scope of such activity. Where there is such a clash we consider that the urgent needs of the class struggle come before Labour The lack of flexibility of the Labour Party is most clearly shown by the emergence of the Scottish classes. Labour Party: threatened with electoral annihilation by the SNP, a section of the Labour Party bureaucracy broke to form this party. This is a potentially very positive development it the SUP Labour Government.
5. PREPARING FOR A NEW WORKING CLASS LEADERThe IMG is a revolutionary Marxist group which fights for the international needs of the working class and champions the rights of all oppressed groups: defence of the right of the Irish people to self-determination and immediate withdrawal of troops from Ireland; the fight against racialism; the struggle for the liberation of women; solidarity with the Portuguese and Spanish working class; and the fight against British imperialism's manoeuvres in Southern Africa. The British working class will never mount an effective challenge to its reformist misleaders until it has grasped the importance of these We believe that the present crisis within the revolutionary left has a potentially positive aspect: that of facilitating essential political clarification, which can both promote unity in action by the revolutionary left and regroupment on a programmatic basis with the Fourth InterAt the same time we think that through correct tactics it is possible to start the process of breaking the total domination of the Labour Party over working class politics before the onset of a revolutionary crisis, and that it is possible to build a new revolutionary socialist party with significant influence amongst the mass of the workers before a decisive confrontation between the The successful building of such 1 party able to challenge Labour's monopoly hold over working class politics would enormously strengthen the possibilities of victory in the revolutionary crisis anead
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