What's so new about a new workers' party?

[Revy]

I'm posting this in Politics, because this is really the issue confounding the British left in particular, and to a much lesser extent, the American left, and the left in general worldwide.

In Britain a great swath of the left seems to agree with the idea of building a "new workers' party", but what they really mean is a "New Old Labour", a "reclamation" of the heritage Labour represented. And what "new workers' party" means is: a reformist party, with the support of trade unions, organized completely around the idea of winning elections and introducing socialism through a majority in Parliament. How novel...

The message is, do not learn from history. Repeat the same mistakes. After time and time we have been shown that the trade union bureaucracy, even if it makes smatterings about socialism, can't be trusted to really stay true to socialism. But the labor party of the trade unions has continued to be the golden cow of certain groups on the left.

Abandoning the labor movement means abandoning socialism. But only a reformist sees the unions as a major means of struggle in changing capitalism. That is really just the economic side of reformism. Unions have a purpose, and that purpose is often to bring forth better conditions in the immediate term. The point I am making: the revolutionary struggle of the workers should be left to the revolutionary workers. And we certainly can't expect the trade union bureaucracy to be revolutionary.

Who were the social forces behind the creation of the Labour Party 109 years ago? Let's read:


In 1899 a Doncaster member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, Thomas R. Steels, proposed in his union branch that the Trade Union Congress call a special conference to bring together all left-wing organisations and form them into a single body that would sponsor Parliamentary candidates. The motion was passed at all stages by the TUC and the proposed conference was held at the Memorial Hall on Farringdon Street on 26 and 27 February 1900. The meeting was attended by a broad spectrum of working-class and left-wing organisations - trades unions represented about one third of the membership of the TUC delegates.This sounds awfully familiar. :tt2: in fact a similar conference (http://cpgb.org.uk/worker/793/towards.php) happened recently....you may recall hearing about it. It was also attended by a broad spectrum of left groups. In 1899, there was a hope that they were building a socialist alternative, similar to 2009's great hope.

I agree with the CPGB's use of the phrase "Labour Party mark two" and it would be prophetic, if it weren't so obvious. The truth is, Labour was born out of the same idea, so what's to prevent all this from happening again?

I might come across as too cynical. I just don't think that a more broad mass revolutionary party can be created without a change in the politics of most parties. I would say that about my own party in the US as well.

What I know is that the labor unions here are incredibly reformist, and that unionized workers are only a small percentage of workers. There needs to be less of a focus on unions and more on organizing the working class as a class. And that requires revolutionaries, not high-profile union leaders, who may not have the revolutionary interests of the working class really at heart.

Yes, a new party in Britain would be great. But it should learn from the mistakes of the past, or be doomed to repeat them.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You forgot to add one more class-collaborationist dynamic of so-called "labour parties": their tendencies to subordinate themselves towards existing liberal parties unless pushed to do otherwise. The Labour party subordinated itself to the Liberals until the latter were sidelined; so too does the "Working Families Party" in New York subordinate itself to the "Democratic Party" there.


Abandoning the labor movement means abandoning socialism.

Abandoning the worker-class movement means abandoning communism. I don't know if abandoning the "labour movement" produces the same result, since the two are quite different. One is a "politico-political" movement, even if it starts out to be not communist; the other is a purely economistic movement.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

The origins of the 'labour' (NOT socialist) movement in this country strike me as being inherently defensive and undeniably reformist. Not once was there any serious consideration within the TU movement (of which, in Britain, I am not a fan of the early TU structures) of true socialism.

The name 'Labour' Party was preceded by such names as the ILP, specifically to exclude the possibility of socialism, of any kind, being introduced.

However, it should be recognised that the left consists of many sectarian groups, ranging from revolutionary to reformist social democrats. The labour movement in this country, under the guidance of the Labour Party, did perform, until the 1990s, a useful function of defending workers from the very worst excesses of Capitalism. Not always did it succeed, but it showed resistance (the miners' strike is one of the better examples of failed movements that still proved useful).

I agree that many SWP and SPEW initiatives strike me as inherently reformist and 'old labour.'

We, as revolutionary socialists of all ilks, must unite to reclaim the left and build a new party which is socialist and revolutionary in nature, not parliamentary.

Only a mass movement comprising the majority of the exploited class can succeed - a party intent on winning elections to then build mass support will ultimately fail to bring about revolution; thus failing by our standards.

[Crux]

Well, I believe that a mass worker's party on a revolutionary socialist program is the way forward, the problem however is that neither a worker's party in tiself or a revolutionary program is something that you can just will into existence. So when we call for a New Worker's Party, we are not talking about a Labour mark two. Reformism has proved itself to be a failure, as I am sure most here are aware. However this does not means that reforms or parliamentary work, in itself is something that should be tarred with the same brush. Reforms have historically been pushed through by the weight of the workingclass, not by the clever arguments of social reformators, something which I think is sometimes forgotten on both sides of the argument. When the workingclass push through reforms they are strengthened and if they do so through an organized manner, like political parties or unions, potentially, even more so. So to be revolutionary means, in many instances, pushing for reforms.

However the delineation between reformists and revolutionaries ultmalty falls on to what ends these reforms are pushed through, to strengthen the workingclass in the fight against the bourguise or just to make capitalism more bearable? Reformism within the worker's movement did not fallf rom the sky it grew out of a section of priviliged worker's, usually called the labour aristocracy, who came to their conclusions not by mistake but from their relatively priviliged positions, akin to how stalinism grew out of the revolutionary movement in the soviet union.

This is why we champion internal democracy, worker's representatives on worker's wages and the right to recall said representatives. No system is fail-safe but this is our key tool to oppose any such progress.

But the key ingredient we are looking for in a new worker's party is not a party that has the revolutionary program ready from the very begining (although that would be nice of ocurse) but, unsuprisingly, the worker's.

A worker's party, a party of worker's, supported by democratic unions, provides the workingclass with an enormous potential strength.
Our goal would be to win that party, to win the worker's, to a revolutionary program.

As for the unions, the fight for democratic and radical unions is also a keyprocess in strengthening thw workingclass for it's historical mission. Even in reformist unions (or parties for that matter) a revolutionary opposition can make a crucial difference.

[Josef Balin]

You forgot to add one more class-collaborationist dynamic of so-called "labour parties": their tendencies to subordinate themselves towards existing liberal parties unless pushed to do otherwise. The Labour party subordinated itself to the Liberals until the latter were sidelined; so too does the "Working Families Party" in New York subordinate itself to the "Democratic Party" there.



Abandoning the worker-class movement means abandoning communism. I don't know if abandoning the "labour movement" produces the same result, since the two are quite different. One is a "politico-political" movement, even if it starts out to be not communist; the other is a purely economistic movement.
"Politico-political" movement? Why would you put some of your own, and quite possibly silliest, crazy "words" (read: gibberish that no one else understands and thus could not possibly be a word and thus not what goes in to a correct English sentence without it being considered a fragment) when no one could possibly know what they mean?

[Crux]

"Politico-political" movement? Why would you put some of your own, and quite possibly silliest, crazy "words" (read: gibberish that no one else understands and thus could not possibly be a word and thus not what goes in to a correct English sentence without it being considered a fragment) when no one could possibly know what they mean?
Because that's his "thing"?

[Die Neue Zeit]

That terms, which does exist, refers to demands raised which don't have an economic impact on the working class, such as the recall of all public officials, the formation of workers' militias, etc.