with the Labour left.
a united fashion can draw thousands of people into demonstrations and similar activities.
ment - activists who can play a decisive role in building any campaigns and action.
Labour leit is supposed to be 'exposed in the eyes of the masses'. This tactic is then called the 'united front'. "To fight, the proletariat must have unity in its ranks. The tactic of the united front is not something accidental and artificial — a cunning manoeuvre; it originates entirely and wholly in the objective conditions governing the development of the proletariat.' This is the attitude which Red Weekly and the IMG take, and which all revolutionaries then we support this step and want united action with the Labour left not as a trick or manaction that the working class can judge whose general policies are correct.
of the central pro-capitalist policies of Wilson which explains why the revolutionary left has not been involved in united action with the Labour left on most issues. the revolutionary left it will sort out those who are so sectarian that all they can do is shout and seream, and those who — no matter what their disagreements on full long term policies -mer out the socialist policies — against incomes policy, against expenditure cuts, for a sliding scale of wages, in defence of the right to work - around which, such united action can be achieved.
Ireland, in defence of the health service, and on Chile, but which must be extended to much wider questions — everyone must check to see which of the strategies being put forward is correct. But it is necessary to engage in the struggle and then events will be the best test of who is right. The IMG is quite clear on its position, and will unite in action with any working action not as a trick, but because it is vitally necessary for the struggle — and no-one in the socialist movement, least of all the revolutionaries, will win if the working class is defeater in the decisive struggles of the coming months.
- and The Labour Left The statement by the Tribune group of MPs calling for a campaign inside and outside Parlia ment against Wilson's coalitionist policies could, although only could, be one of the beginnings of a new relationship between the revolutionary left and sections of the Labour left. If, and we are still sceptical about this, the Tribune MPs were to move into opposition on central aspects of the Government's poliey, most notably in opposition to the new package of austerity measures which Healey is preparing, then the situation for united action between the revol utionary left and the Labour left — so far confined to individual campaigns or questions like abortion, Chile or Ireland - would be radically transformed. Because this possibility, although not at all a certainty, is beginning to open up as a result of working class pressure at the base, it is important that revolutionary socialists should clearly spell out their attitude to united action The first thing which has to be grasped, particularly by the Labour left, is that revolutionary socialists are no longer a tiny group of people who can be totally ignored. The Trotskyist org anisations alone in Britain have 6—7,000 members, and the revolutionary left as a whole influences some tens of thousands of people. Also, as it has shown in the past on issues such as Vietnam and Chile, and as it is doing at present on abortion, the revolutionary left acting in While it would be absurd to pretend that the revolutionaries influence the mass of the work.
ing class, they do contain a relatively high proportion of the activists of the socialist move But if the Labour left has to understand that the revolutionary socialists outside the Labour Party now represent some real forces, the revolutionary left also has to overcome its frequent extreme sectarianism - both to itself and to non-revolutionaries. The 'theoretical" justification given for this sectarianism is that the "Trotskyist' way to deal with anyone on the Labour left is to demand that they implement a revolutionary programme. When this is not done then the UNITED FRONT OF THE WORKING CLASS The only people who are in general 'exposed' by such goings on are the 'revolutionaries, and the general approach this leads to creates gigantic - and correct - hostility among working class militants, as they see so-called revolutionaries actually failing to engage in the united ac tion which is necessary now to take the class struggle forward. Trotsky, although he was a remorseless critic of reformism, had nothing but contempt for such antics. As he pointed out:
should take, to the Labour left. We obviously disagree with them on how to achieve socialism and on many questions of how to struggle. We never conceal our views on these questions. But when any section of the Labour left takes a step which is in the interests of the working class oeuvre but as a way of taking forward the struggle of the working class. It is through united As Trotsky put it: It is necessary to elaborate a practical system of measures not with the aim of merely "exposing" (to ourselves) the social democracy, but with the aim of actual strug gle.' That is the way we judge the Tribune group's protest, or that of any other section of the Labour left against Wilson's measures. It is the fact that the Labour left has not opposed most UNITED ACTION AROUND SOCIALIST POLICIES The coming months will see the sheep being cleared out from the goats both inside the Labour Party and on the revolutionary left. Inside the Labour Party it will show who is merely pre pared to talk againsi Wilson's policies and who will actually vote and fight against them. Inside are prepared to unite in action both with each other, with the Communist Party, and with the Labour left in a fight against Wilson's policies. A decisive task of the coming months is to hamAt every point in that united action - which already exists to some extent on abortion, on class forces which on any issue fight for the interests of the working class. It seeks such united