By S Butler The Militant group is in the firing line of a ferocious witchhunt. Every socialist has the alementary duty to defend it against the right wing.
This said and acted onl), politics bear scrutiny. Its new pamphlet Militant; Stand Fo: gives its own account of itself.
Militant takes pride in its Marxism and its proGOETTE. But a Marxist programme, to paraphrase Lenin, is always concrete. It should show the labour movement how, starting from today's struggles, its actions can transform society The neposite ans proach permeates it begins trom Militant's idea of how it deception with deflectres determined prean attack from the bureaucracy, and demands that everyone should adapt themselves to it Demands the crest odd and shoppi ing list of demands whenever any of these demands touches real we are sternly warned that La socialist transformation CEN guarantee .етс.
This attitude has walled off sections of the real mass actions of youth. LESE VEERS LPYS ference decided to affiliate. to CND - but the Militant nave made no move to out this mandate into practice.
The -TOT IMES sterile dogmatism is the focus of Militant's programme the demand or 'Labour to Power on a Socialist Programme.
Power its strategy hinges on Labour abolishing capital. I5m through parliamentary legislation, completely ignores the role of revolu tionary parliamentarians in focussing the the masses on the state. It remains silent about, passively accepts, the existing Tory state as chosen instrument.
How will Labour 'take power through parliament? By an *Enabling Act. but even were cabinet committed to such an Act miraculously allow La battle for power would then rage in WARTS WROM WITH THE LOT YOUVE GOT? every department of society.
Any government wanting to carry throuch mild reforms, let alone socialist programme, take its authority and legitimacy from the organisation and actions workers, because this the only way its policies could be carried out.
A Marxist programme should explain how to ad dress these tasks.
Militant's failure to adopt such a proHOOVE ailure to fight the labour bureaucracy I DOU WE party titanions.
Militant, EVERY thing is subordinated to its principle of staying in the party. This elevation of a tactic into a principle leads to its political adaptation. mation responsibility is to De Manage over Labour Party which, can be transformed into an adesocialism.
This flies in the face of reality. Even the small gains of the last period have produced a furious bureaucratic onslaught and a deliberate drive to use the SDP to block the IOS HIHO of radical Labour government.
In the 1920s the Labour leadership closed down half the party rather thar permit support for the Marxist programme of the National Left Wing Moveinspired by the In the 1930s the InParty today's labour leadership Nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in "Socialism' they tell us 'is nothing' In a pamphlet TRET does not mention their policy on Ireland, on El Salvador or on Poland, and whose only reference the war drive is solemn affirmation that only socialism brings peace, this is a hollow joke The crises that produc ed the Polish and Saivadorian SEVENTS NEVE put ten million youth on the streets of Europe in the year against the missiles.
This is a vast repository tain's labour bureaucracy. tant