Jimmy Deane Archive | ETOL Main Page
From Socialist Fight, June–July 1960, pp. 8–9.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Readers of the Newsletter have once again been treated to a repetition of false accusations against the Marxists in the Labour Party. By their own actions the Newsletter grouping has isolated itself from the Labour Party. They endeavour to hide this fact by abusing their opponents and trying to make them responsible for what is a consequence of the policies of the people who control the Newsletter and the S.L.L.
The first set of falsehoods concerns the discussion, last summer, in the Liverpool Trades Council on the proscription of the Socialist Labour League.
The facts have already been given by Brian Deane in the August 1959 issue of the Socialist Fight. The Marxists in the Liverpool Trades Council voted for two things; they condemned the N.E.C. for having one attitude towards organisations such as the Fabian Society which peddle their views unhindered inside the Labour Party and organisations of the Left who suffer limitations and expulsions; it also condemned the adventuristic policy of forming the S.L.L. as an independent party.
This motion more clearly stated the issues than the one sponsored by the S.L.L. comrades. Contrary to the facile generalisations a la Hunter-Healy, Marxists do not support self-styled “Marxists” when they make serious mistakes. The whole policy of the S.L.L. in forming an organisation which they conceive of as an independent organisation was, and remains, adventuristic in the extreme in the present conditions in Britain. The subsequent isolation of the S.L.L. and its decomposition – the loss of Peter Fryer and many of those who founded the Newsletter – is itself a swift practical confirmation of this.
No serious Marxist can concede an inch to the twins of opportunism and sectarianism which is exactly what is contained in the industrial and political tactics of the Healy Group. If this was true yesterday, in the struggle against the mistaken policies of Stalinism it is just as true today, in the mistaken policies of some so-called Trotskyists.
For good measure, and as it were to thicken the fog, the Newsletter – whose editors are experienced in the matter of strange bed-fellows, in short, of unprincipled alliances – state that the Marxists in Liverpool voted along with Jack Braddock “the extreme right-wing member of the Council”. This nonsense is intended to impress those who may not have the means of knowing better. What the Braddocks do is for them to explain, but just to put the record straight, we will point out the following:
For many years, long before the Newsletter ever existed, the Marxists in Liverpool fought a principled struggle against the opportunist policies of Jack and Bessie Braddock, as well as some other opportunists who have, for their own reasons, found themselves “anti-Braddock.” It is interesting to note that those struggles were being fought at a time when Bessie Braddock was invited to sit on the Editorial Board of Healy’s Socialist Outlook and when they both had shares in this paper.
Jack and Bessie Braddock have not changed. They have always been a mixture of militancy and opportunism and one may now add, of machine politics. To suggest that they are “extreme right wing” is to destroy the meaning of words and to reveal a complete lack of knowledge of the situation in Liverpool. This irresponsible characterisation by the “Newsletter” is necessary in an attempt to distort the entirely correct policies of our comrades. Their unrestrained hostility to the Socialist Fight leads them to the most ridiculous of positions.
The second amalgam comes in the form of a reference, in the article mentioned above, to a tiny “tendency” producing the Socialist Current – a tendency which has nothing in common with the Socialist Fight, but, as we shall see, has something in common with the Healy Group.
The above paper called for an unprincipled alliance – with the right-wing against the Stalinist leadership of the E.T.U – a policy which is as false and as incorrect – as it is possible to conceive. But this miserable tendency in fact only put into words what the Healy Group for a time put into practice; namely, an unprincipled alliance with all and sundry against the leadership of the E.T.U. It was for this reason that the regroupment of the militants in the E.T.U., which had serious possibilities a few years ago, destroyed itself.
Supports of Socialist Fight have consistently fought for the democratisation of the E.T.U. and for a militant working-class policy. There are hundreds of active members of the E.T.U. who can bear witness to this.
Falsehoods and innuendos will not advance the movement forward one inch. The S.L.L. and the Newsletter will have to come down to serious politics some day. No matter what its organisational activity a refusal to understand and learn from experience will condemn this tendency to sterility and isolation.
The people around the Newsletter have had many favourable opportunities for carrying out important political and industrial work. Their failure to pursue a consistent Marxist policy, which presupposes a democratic life within their organisation; their refusal to reject unprincipled arguments and alliances, to steer clear of opportunism and adventurism, has unhappily resulted in the ruination of those possibilities.
We appeal to the members of the S.L.L. and the readers of the Newsletter to consider the experience of the past few years and to demand an accounting from its controllers. Let them deal with real arguments instead of inventing policies to cover their own zig-zags in policy.
Jimmy Deane Archive | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 13 April 2020