Doubting entrism

Where I live (Flanders) the prominent party represented in parliament (besides the greens) is the SP.a (Socialist Party Different). The IMT has a section here, VONK ("spark"). It supports SP.a-ROOD (SP.a-Red), a left-wing faction within the sp.a.

However, I think the SP.a is far too neoliberal in order to be "won back". Ever. A lot of the working class votes went to the far-right (Vlaams Belang - Flemish "Interest"), and the SP.a doesn't have the right answers. On the contrary, when they were in government from ages ago until 2007, they supported every conservative and neoliberal plan: they even invented some themselves.

All I'm asking is: I like the idea of the IMT. An educated, well organized tendency represented in a (centre-)left party is a good thing in many countries that have a large (former) socialist party but no radical revolutionaries. It's also good to educate and win the interest of comrades. But over here, I really don't see the point anymore. It's a lost cause.

Hi Comrade,

thanks for posting in the IMT group. I'm a member of the IMT in Britain so I don't know a huge amount about the situation in Belgium. I as I understang it things are a bit more complicated in Belgium because the Socialist Party is tragically divided along linguistic lines. Can I ask, do the unions tend to be divided along similar lines?

The things that you say about the Flemish SP.a though sounds like they can be applied equally fairly to the British Labour Party. In government Labour has been completely neo-liberal. In fact Blairism has become more or less synonymous with neo-liberalism in the workers' parties. No doubt Labour will soon be kicked out of government by the working class which is revolted by the Blair/Brown clique at the top of the party. We even have the rise in some areas of far-right nationalist groups like the BNP. Fortunately they haven't done as well as the Vlaams Block but where they have had success it is for a similar reason: usually poor workers in traditionally Labour voting areas facing high levels of unemployment and the betrayal of Labour. To be honest, if the SP.a is as bad as our LP and you're initial reaction to it WASN'T disgust I'd think you were a little bit strange!

All that said, in Britain, the Labour Party has been strongly on the right in the past and has never really challenged the capitalist system even when "left" governments have been in power. That said, the working class has time and again returned to the LP even after kicking them out of government. Can the Labour Party actually be reclaimed for the working class? Perhaps not but there will be great opportunities opening up for marxists.

In the late 60's for instance Britain had a right-wing Labour government which had attacked the unions. In 1970 they were kicked out of office and a lot of people thought they were doomed as a party of the working class. In fact the 70's saw massive radicalisation and the Militant (a forerunner of the British section of the IMT) boomed into an organisation of thousands by the 80's. In many respects the defeat of Labour had the effect of discrediting the right-wing policies they had followed before.

I think there's no reason why we can't see similar things happening again in the future in Britain and Belgium. I remember reading last year about the elections for the leadership of the SP.a and Erik de Bruyn's candidacy. I think he did really well to get more than a third of the vote. Surely then there are workers in the SP.a who can be won over to socialism? The first article below is really good, I've just re-read it. What strikes me as most important is not the result in itself though but the fact that because our comrades were in the national spotlight we were invited to speak at a number of factories and anti-war meetings. In this way our work allows us to connect with a broader layer. Likewise in France our comrades put forward a document for the Communist Party conference. The CP was totally smashed in elections because many workers can't tell the difference between them and the Socialist Party. In spite of that our comrades got 5000 votes for their document. In itself that is good, it shows that even in a "dead" party there are workers to be won, but more important is the fact that so many people have been exposed to our ideas.

http://www.marxist.com/belgium-socia...ions140907.htm
http://www.marxist.com/belgium-socia...e-de-bruyn.htm

I am interested to know what the industrial situation is like in Belgium. I have read about very militant strikes but we don't hear much about Belgium in the British media.

Ben

I personally have similar doubts about the Labour Party in Ireland. Unlike the LP in Great Britain they've never led a government of their own. Here Labour have always played second string to either Fine Gael (who have fascist roots!) or Fianna Fáil in a coalition. Even in the last general election Labour allied themselves with FG who are a consistently right-wing party with no working class base whatsoever (their supporters are generally large farmers and small business owners).

Fianna Fáil, since their inception, have played the 'Republican card', that is to say they've exploited the Irish people's natural anti-imperialist/sense of social justice sentiment for decades and it has worked. They're monolithic in terms of members and supporters. They've only been out of office about four or five times since 1932. And while they too are a 'party of the right' they have considerable working class support. There is no question that the vast majority of trade union members would vote FF consistently. People tend be very slow to change who they vote for in Ireland (an issue that has its roots in the so-called 'civil war' divisions).