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Home , Minimum programme, Owen Jones, Reformism, United Left (Slovenia)

Understanding Left Reformism

John Molyneux

gist, Erik Olin Wright, who analysed historically, in terms of three tenden- cies - ‘ruptural’ (), ‘intersti- cial’ (anarchist/utopian) and ‘symbiotic’ (reformist) - and called for them all to work together, although he was fairly dismissive of the revolutionary tendency. In Britain, in recent months, Owen Jones (author, broadcaster and Left Labour Member), Nick Wrack (former So- cialist Party, Socialist Alliance,and SWP of member)1 and Ken Loach (socialist film director, former Respect, etc.) have all is- sued calls for a new movement/party of the There is something of a vogue for left left. Here is Owen Jones: reformism on the left at the moment. I stress ‘on the left’ because it couldn’t yet Britain urgently needs a move- be described as a societal phenomenon, ex- ment uniting all those desper- cept with Syriza in Greece. It doesn’t gen- ate for a coherent alternative erally proclaim itself as left reformism pre- to the tragedy of austerity, in- ferring to sail under such flags as ‘fresh flicted on this country without thinking’, ‘rethinking the left’ and ‘left any proper mandate. unity’. Nevertheless the trend is real and What is missing in British perceptible both in Ireland and interna- is a broad network tionally. that unites progressive oppo- In Ireland the TDs, Clare Daly and nents of the Coalition. That Joan Collins, are trying to create a new means those in Labour who political formation called and want a proper alternative to there have just recently been two forums Tory austerity, Greens, inde- of the left in Dublin devoted to this pendent lefties, but also those sort of project: the first, organised by who would not otherwise iden- Daly and Collins, featured former Social- tify as political, but who are fu- ist Party member Roger Silverman who ar- rious and frustrated.2 gued (a familiar theme this) against the way ‘Leninist/Trotskyist vanguards’ work And Ken Loach: in favour of a broad anti- capitalist coali- tion on the model of Marx’s First Interna- If the unions said we’re go- tional; the second, organised by Look Left, ing to do what we did a cen- was addressed by the American sociolo- tury ago, we’re going to found 1For Nick Wracks version see http://wigangreensocialists.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/lets- get-the-party-started/ 2http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/british-politics-urgently-needs-a-new- force--a-movement-on-the-left-to-counter--crisis-8459099.html

22 a party to represent the in- nor the traditional - terests of labour, and we will ary strategy seems adequate. only support candidates who We need, instead, a strategy will support policies of the left that seeks to combine elements then we could start again. But of both. In his book The we need a new movement and Dialectic of Change the Rus- a new party. And it needs sian theorist Boris Kagarlitsky all the people on the left of seeks to elaborate just such the Labour party who’ve spent an approach. Revolutionary their life complaining about it transformation, he argues, can to get out and start a new only emerge organically and di- one, with the unions. It needs alectically from a process of the unions because they have radical reform in motion resources. If Unite, Unison, by a socialist . He GMB, you know, said we’ve calls this approach “revolution- had enough... But they’re like ary reformism”. ... It is hard dogs, the more you kick them to see how the left in Europe the more they creep back to can avoid the problem of tak- master. And they actually ing power in a left government need to wake up and say this is if it is serious about changing not going to happen, we’re not society.4 going to reclaim the Labour party... The unions have got to Elsewhere in Europe, there are a num- cut the ties, start again, with ber of broadly similar political formations everyone on the left, with all - Melenchon’s Front de Gauche in France, the campaigns, the NHS cam- the Danish Red-Green Alliance, the Left paign, the housing campaign, Bloc in Portugal, the United Left in Spain, the community services cam- Die Linke in Germany and, above all of paigns - everybody. And let’s course, Syriza in Greece. begin again, and then we could In a sense, the reason for the emer- really move.3 gence of this trend is very straightforward. And Ed Rooksby in Why it’s time to We have had five years of deep capitalist realign the left has attempted a theoret- crisis, the painful effects of which are be- ical/strategic articulation of Loach’s call. ing felt by people more or He writes: less everywhere. During this crisis, right wing and mainstream reformism has either The major difficulty in the openly collaborated with the ruling class traditional revolutionary ap- in making working people pay (as with proach, then, is in its rejection the Labour Party in Ireland and PASOK of the very idea of taking power in Greece) or has been completely ineffec- within the political structures tual in terms of mounting any resistance of . So neither the (Labour in Britain, the centre-left in Italy traditional reformist approach etc). At the same time the revolutionary 3http://socialistresistance.org/4860/the-british-left-needs-to-start-againwe-need- a-new-party-ken-loach 4http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=12302

23 left has nowhere succeeded in making a suf- cially is attached to various institutional ficient breakthrough to pose a credible al- and personal privileges (political career, ternative to more than a small minority of parliamentary seat, office etc.) workers. In these circumstances a certain which give its bearers a certain vested in- turn to left reformism is anything but sur- terest in the existing system. prising. Historically, the main political expres- sion of reformism has been the Labour, so- Reformism and Left Re- cial democratic and socialist parties orig- inally associated with the Second (or So- formism cialist) International, founded in 1889 and To understand this phenomenon further, dominated by German Social it is necessary to begin with a few remarks (SPD), and usually closely linked to their about reformism in general. Most of the respective national trade union bureaucra- time under capitalism, the consciousness cies.5 The British Labour Party, the Irish of most working class people is reformist: Labour Party, the French , they object to many of the effects of capi- the Swedish Social , the talism - this cut, this tax, this policy, this Portuguese Socialist Party, and the Span- government etc - without rejecting the sys- ish Socialist Workers Party are all exam- tem as a whole. Alternatively, they dislike ples of this kind of party. the system as a whole but do not believe However, these are by no means the they, i.e. the mass of working people, have only political expressions of reformism6. the ability to change it. In either case, they Next in importance historically are the look to someone else to do the job for them. Communist Parties which started moving Corresponding to this reformist con- towards reformism in the Popular Front sciousness, there are reformist politicians, period of the mid-1930s and completed the parties and organisations who step for- journey in the post-war period and espe- ward with the message that they are the cially with what became known as Euro- ones who will deliver the desired change or . But there are many other changes on behalf of the masses. A dis- forms ranging from various reform cam- tinction must, of course, be made between paigns and NGOs, to Green Parties, to workers with reformist consciousness and some left nationalist parties. Sinn Fein leaders or organisations engaged in a re- in Ireland and the Scottish National Party formist political project. With the former both present themselves to the electorate their ‘reformism’ tends to be relatively un- as parties of reform and rest to some extent formed and fluid; it can easily be a bridge on reformist consciousness in the working to (a campaign, trade union strug- class. gle, etc.) which in turn can lead to the de- Reformism also, by its nature, covers velopment of revolutionary consciousness. a wide from right to With the latter, it is usually more coher- left. On its right flank (and usually con- ent, more set against revolution, and cru- fined to its top leaders) there is a wing of 5 For a recent analysis of the reformist role of the trade union see John Molyneux, ‘Marx- ism and trade unionism, Irish Marxist Review 1. http://www.irishmarxistreview.net/index.php/ imr/article/view/5/ 6It should be noted in passing that the idea, sometimes canvassed on the left, that reformism has ceased or is ceasing to be a problem either because capitalism can no longer grant reforms or because the Social Democratic Parties have become pro- capitalist parties, is thoroughly mistaken. Reformism will be with us as long as we have capitalism.

24 reformism which is closely linked to the tion by means of a series of ‘strategic’ re- ruling class and often accepted by it as forms. Hence the key role in left reformist a recognised ally. These leaders usually thinking of a ‘Left Government’ - to which take some care to maintain a certain ver- I shall return. bal distance between themselves and the main right wing capitalist parties (Tories, and Left Reformism Christian Democrats etc) but it is a very thin line and, mostly, just for public con- Historically, the main current of left re- sumption. is probably the out- formism grew up alongside and to some standing recent example of this type but extent within the Marxist movement. The Eamon Gilmore and Pat Rabbitte also be- parties of the in the long to this category. On the left flank of period 1889- 1914 were broad workers’ par- reformism there are both leaders and sup- ties which contained, nationally and inter- porters who border on the revolutionary nationally, a right wing, a left wing, and left and are willing, on particular issues a centre. The right, such as Eduard Bern- and campaigns, to work with revolutionar- stein in Germany, Turati in Italy and the ies. For various historical reasons - primar- Fabians in Britain, were reformists. The ily the role of and the Work- left, Lenin and the and Trot- ers Party - the Irish Labour Party barely sky in Russia, Luxemburg and Liebknecht has a left-wing but in Britain , in Germany etc, were revolutionary social- John McDonnell and are ists. Between theses two poles was a large obvious examples. centre, led and epitomised by Kautsky in Germany, that often used the language of There is seldom a clear boundary be- , but in practice always tween right and left reformism with many conciliated the right and focused on the intermediate stopping points and the jour- gradual organisational and parliamentary ney from left (at the beginning of a polit- accumulation of forces.7 ical career) to right (as a position in gov- ernment gets closer or is achieved) is a very familiar one: Eamon Gilmore, Harold Wil- son, Lionel Jospin are examples. However, at the risk of being schematic, the distinc- tion between right/moderate reformism and left reformism can be formulated as follows: right/moderate reformism more or less openly accepts and supports the continuation of capitalism, while present- ing itself to working people as being able to improve it, and run it better - more in working class interests - than the party or parties of the rich; left reformism is anti- capitalist but suggests that capitalism can At first this was not well understood be changed or moved in a socialist direc- by almost any of the participants. Marx 7Because Kautsky and his followers stood in the centre of the SPD they, and the phenomenon they represented, became known in the Leninist-Trotskyist tradition as centrists. refers to political tendencies that vacillate between revolution and reformism but in practice most of the Kautskyites were left reformists.

25 and Engels themselves had barely writ- the Russian Revolution Lenin argued that ten anything about organized reformism this would be a state of workers’ councils because, by and large, the phenomenon or ‘soviets’ (the Russian word for council). and its effects only started to emerge at ...only workers’ Soviets, and the end of their lives and took clear shape not parliament, can be the only after their deaths (though Marx’s Cri- instrument whereby the aims tique of the Gotha Programme in 1875, of the proletariat will be and his and Engels’ ‘Circular Letter’ in achieved. And, of course, 1879 show that they were picking up dan- those who have failed to under- ger signals). Lenin and Luxemburg (and stand this up to now are in- Plekhanov, Trotsky and others) came out veterate , even if clearly against Bernstein’s open revision- they are the most highly edu- ism but, while Luxemburg sensed Kaut- cated people, most experienced sky’s (and Bebel’s) , none of politicians, most sincere So- the Marxist broke with him cialists, most erudite Marxists, or with the rest of the left reformist Social and most honest citizens and Democrats, until 1914 and their support family men.9 for the imperialist war. When Lenin did break from Kautsky This point is of huge theoretical impor- after August 1914 he carried out a root and tance because it makes concrete in rela- branch critique of the Marxism of the Sec- tion to the process of revolution the funda- ond International including its mental Marxist principle of working class (in his Philosophical Notebooks, Vol .38 of self emancipation.10 Strategies for the tak- his Collected Works), it’s economics, espe- ing over of the existing state are, by their cially in Imperialism - the Highest Stage nature, ones in which the pre-eminent ac- of Capitalism, and its politics in The State tive role is played by parliamentary lead- and Revolution.8 In this last book, Lenin ers, and other notables, who assume con- identified and emphasized that the key the- trol of government ministries, the police, oretical and practical distinction between the armed forces etc., while the role of the left reformists and revolutionary Marxists masses is to provide support for this pro- on the question of the state was that the cess at the top. Strategies for the smashing former aimed to take over and transform of the existing state are ones in which the the existing state machine, hoping to use workers themselves actually confront and it for socialist or working class purposes defeat the state, city by city, town hall by whereas the latter, following Marx on the town hall, police station by police station, , held that the working and themselves create the new state work- class would not be able to use the existing ers’ council by workers council. capitalist state but would have to ‘smash’ Another theoretical implication is for it and replace it with its own, new work- the understanding of nationalisation and ers’ state. On the basis of the experience of - always emphasised by 8The State and Revolution was written in 1917 in the midst of the revolution but it is worth noting that its key ideas were already present in his notebooks of 1916. See V.I.Lenin, Marxism on the State, Moscow 1976. 9V.I. Lenin, Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder, Peking 1965, p.80. It should be noted that this is written in a book in which Lenin is arguing in favour of revolutionary participation in parliament. 10See James O’Toole, ‘The principle of self emancipation’, Irish Marxist Review 2, www. irishmarxistreview.net

26 left reformists. Nationalisation by the cap- chance of succeeding in an advanced cap- italist state is not but state cap- italist country. But winning a parliamen- italism. As Engels said in Anti-Duhring: tary majority clearly requires as broad a party as possible that is also compatible The modern state, no matter with a left programme i.e. it certainly what its form, is essentially a requires a party that contains both re- capitalist machine, the state of formists (albeit left reformists) and revo- the capitalists, the ideal per- lutionaries like the parties of the Second sonification of the total na- International and like Syriza today. This tional capital. The more it is especially the case given that it is highly proceeds to the taking over unlikely that the majority of working class of productive forces, the more people will achieve fully revolutionary con- does it actually become the na- sciousness other than in and through a rev- tional capitalist, the more citi- olution. zens does it exploit. The work- ers remain wage-workers - pro- If, on the other hand, the goal is to letarians. The capitalist rela- smash the state then what is needed is a tion is not done away with. It revolutionary combat party capable of act- is rather brought to a head.11 ing in a decisive way to lead the masses in an insurrection. This cannot be done by a But whether the goal is to take over party that is fifty-fifty, or some other bal- or smash the capitalist state also has huge ance, of reformist and revolutionary since practical implications for socialists in the the reformist wing would be able to paral- day-to-day struggle long before we arrive yse the party at the crucial moment and at a revolutionary situation. For example, prevent it taking decisive action. it shapes our attitude to the police, the courts, and the armed forces. Our attitude to the police is not based on an assessment Lenin said, ‘Political questions cannot of the character of all, or most, individual be mechanically separated from organisa- cops, but on an understanding that this tional ones and anybody who accepts or re- is a capitalist institution which our class jects the Bolshevik party organisation in- will need to defeat and dismantle. Conse- dependently of whether or not we live at quently, we do not call for the strengthen- a time of has com- ing of the police or the state generally to pletely misunderstood it’ 12. With equal deal, for example, with crime or anti-social truth, we can say that the question of what behaviour. form party organisation should take can- Most importantly, it has implications not be separated from our understanding for how socialists should organise. If the of the nature of the capitalist state. (It is perspective is to take over the state ma- important to grasp this connection because chine, then the most obvious way to do some people on the left are currently re- that is to win a parliamentary majority jecting ‘Leninist’ organisation as if it were at a general election - indeed it is the simply an organisational question, without only way to do it short of some kind of considering its relationship to the tasks of revolutionary coup d’etat which has zero socialists in relation to the state.) 11 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm 12Lenin, quoted in G. Lukacs, Lenin A Study on the Unity in his Thought, London 1970, p.26.

27 A Government of the Left? anating from the system. It would also be a reasonable minimum expectation of such As we have noted, the question of a ‘left a government that its foreign policy, if not government’ is of central importance for based on militant anti-imperialism and so- the left reformist project. For most left cialist internationalism, would at least re- reformists it is seen the principle means frain from outright support for and collu- of achieving their political goals and as sion with imperialism and imperialist wars. such tends to become the overriding pri- At the higher end of the scale, a left ority to which most day-to-day political government would be one that does the activity and campaigning is subordinate. above and seriously attempts to erode However, pinning down what exactly de- capitalist power by, for example, gradu- fines a ‘left government’ is by no means ally bringing ever greater sections of the straightforward and left reformists them- economy into public ownership and, cru- selves would generally prefer the matter to cially, initiating more democratic forms remain rather fuzzy. It is easier to say what of management and beginning the process a left government is not. of bringing the state apparatuses (police, It is not a typical social democratic army etc.) under democratic control. In or Labour government of the kind which foreign policy, it would not only shun di- has become extremely familiar in Europe rect collusion with imperialism but also over the last fifty years or so; it is not actively support and build alliances with a Blair- Brown British Labour govern- anti-imperialist liberation movements and ment, or a Franois Hollande French social- anti-war movements internationally. In ist government, or PASOK in Greece or this way, such a government might prepare Gerhard Schr¨oderSPD government or an the ground for or ‘open the way’ to a thor- Irish Labour government (should such a ough socialist transformation of society af- thing come to pass). It is not, in other ter, say, a five or ten year period and a words, a pro- free market, pro- US, pro- fresh mandate from the electorate. imperialist business-as-usual government The key question is, of course, is such with perhaps a slight inflection towards a government possible? It is not so much moderate Keynesianism and the whether or not it could be elected - clearly, state. Nor, obviously, is it full blown work- in certain circumstances it could - Syriza ers’ power with the takeover of banks and could easily be elected in Greece - but major corporations under workers’ control, whether or not it would be able to gov- directly initiating the abolition of capital- ern in an ‘anti-capitalist’ way in either the ism and the transition to socialism. It is weaker or the stronger sense of the term? somewhere in between. At a minimum a left government is The historical experience one that, while operating within a capital- ist framework, would nevertheless governs Ireland has never had a left government; against the capitalist grain; i.e. it would however, there exists a considerable inter- implement a series of reforms to which national experience on which we can draw the capitalist class would be opposed and and from which we can learn. which would benefit working class people One of the administrations most fre- and the oppressed and it would fairly con- quently cited as an example of what can sistently try to defend working class people be achieved by a left government is the and attacks on their living standards em- British Labour Government of 1945-51 un-

28 der . Left reformists, like ized and 1,062 privately owned and munici- Tony Benn, have always pointed to the pal gas companies were merged into twelve Attlee government as epitomising the ‘old area gas boards and, in 1951, the govern- Labour’ to which they wanted to return ment nationalized the Iron and Steel in- and recently the socialist film director, Ken dustry. Loach, has released The Spirit of 45 - a To these achievements it should be film devoted to evoking and celebrating added that these were years of more or that moment in British history - to coin- less full employment (unemployment never cide with his call for the formation of a rose above 3%) and consistently rising liv- wing party to resist the current ing standards (by about 10% per year). Tory Government’s massive onslaught on Moreover, between August 1945 and De- the . What earned this gov- cember 1951, over a million new homes ernment its reputation on the left was its were completed in England, Scotland, and development of the welfare state, above all Wales. the creation of the National Health Ser- Clearly this is impressive but when one vice, and its substantial programme of na- looks at the overall record of the govern- tionalisation. ment the picture is less rosy, especially The 1945 Government did not start the when it is viewed in its wider historical British welfare state from nothing -its ori- context. First of all it is clear that the gins go back to the Liberal Government of Attlee government in no way ‘opened the 1906-14 which brought in old age pensions, road’ to socialism in that it was followed unemployment and health insurance - but by 13 years of Tory rule in which capital- the three acts it introduced in 1946 (the ism enjoyed the largest boom in its history, National Health Act, and two National In- without any wholesale reversal of Labour’s surance Acts) and the National Assistance policies. This was possible because the Act of 1948 were reforms of major impor- carried out by the govern- tance. There is no gainsaying the fact that ment was state capitalist not socialist na- these measures, and especially the estab- tionalization. It was the taking over of a lishment of the NHS - free to all at the segment of the productive forces by the point of provision- made for a significant existing capitalist state with no element improvement in the lives of British work- of workers’ control or workers’ power in- ing class people. volved. As Engels put it: In terms of public ownership, 1946 saw the nationalisation of the mines with the The modern state, no matter formation of the National Coal Board and what its form, is essentially a the nationalisation of the Bank of England. capitalist machine, the state of This was followed, in 1947, by the estab- the capitalists, the ideal per- lishment of the Central Electricity Gener- sonification of the total na- ating Board and in 1948 with the national- tional capital. The more it isation of the railways, inland water trans- proceeds to the taking over port, some road haulage and road passen- of productive forces, the more ger transport plus Thomas Cook & Son un- does it actually become the na- der the British Transport Commission. In tional capitalist, the more citi- 1949, the UK gas industry was national- zens does it exploit. The work- 13 F.Engels, Anti-Duhring, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ ch24.htm

29 ers remain wage-workers pro- This unusual mixture of reforms that letarians.13 benefited working people with strike- breaking and support for imperialism was And as far as the capitalist state was the product of an exceptional combination concerned, the government touched not a of circumstances. On the one hand the hair on its head. There was not a hint government won a landslide election vic- of abolishing or even reforming the anti- tory on the basis of a wide radicalization democratic House of Lords or the monar- among working people during the war, but chy - no question of anything but complete because the war had popular support it ‘loyalty’ to ‘King and Country’. However was a relatively passive radicalization that the government had no qualms about us- took the form of voting Labour rather than ing this state against workers’ taking in- the form of mass strikes, anti-government dustrial action. demonstrations, anti-war mutinies and so on. On the other hand, the government co- Striking dockers, gas work- incided with a period of full employment ers, miners and lorry drivers (established during the war) and the be- were denounced, spied upon ginning of the post-war economic boom. and prosecuted. Two States This made the ruling class willing and able of Emergency were proclaimed to make concessions (allow reforms) and to against them and two more go along with a Keynesian economic policy were narrowly averted. Above and a degree of (national- all, the government used black- ization). Here it is crucial to grasp: a) that legs against these strikes... On the boom and the full employment were 18 different occasions between not the result of Labour’s economic policy 1945 and 1951, the government or wisdom, rather it was international cap- sent troops, sometimes 20,000 italist expansion created by the war and of them, across picket lines to maintained after the war by the perma- take over strikers’jobs.14 nent arms economy; b) that this particular combination of circumstances is highly un- Also, in terms of its foreign policy, the likely to recur, especially in Europe at the government was thoroughly present time. There are, however, certain and imperialist. It deployed troops in parallels with the Hugo Chavez govern- Greece to crush the Greek resistance, ment in Venezuela. The legacy of Chavez waged a brutal war of counter-insurgency is discussed elsewhere in this journal by in Malaysia, used British troops to help Peadar O’Grady so I will make only very restore French colonial rule in Vietnam, brief comments here. Like the Atlee gov- reinforced British rule and the Orange ernment that of Chavez was able to achieve supremacy in Northern Ireland, backed the a number of significant reforms. Under formation of Zionist Israel, crushed a gen- Chavez unemployment fell from 14.5% in eral strike in Kenya, and supported the 1999 to 7.8% in 2011, the percentage liv- South African annexation of Namibia. It ing in poverty fell from 62.1 to 31.9, child also sided unequivocally with the US in the malnutrition fell from 4.7% to 2.9%, So- cold war, manufactured the atom bomb cial spending rose from 11.3% of GDP and joined NATO in 1949. to 22.8%, enrollment in secondary edu- 14Geoff Ellen, ‘Labour and strike-breaking, 1945-51,’ International Socialism 24, Summer 1984, p.45 15Figures from Links, International Journal of Socialist Renewal http://links.org.au/node/3246

30 cation went from 44% to 73.3% and the took office on 16 February 1936, as a re- number of Venezuelans with pensions rose sult of its general election victory. This from 500,000 to 2 million.15 An impres- took place on the basis of six years of in- sive record. At the same, as with Labour tense class struggle which include the over- in 1945-51, the apparatus of the capital- throw of the Spanish monarchy in 1931 ist state has been left intact and, after and the uprising of the Asturian miners in thirteen years in power, there has been 1934 (brutally crushed by General Franco no assault on the wealth or economic po- with 5000 deaths). The Popular Front sition of the Venezuelan capitalist class. comprised two liberal (bourgeois) Repub- As Owen Jones, in a pro-Chavez article, lican parties, the Spanish Socialist Party has observed, ‘Venezuela’s oligarchs froth (a far left ), the at the mouth with their hatred of Chavez, Spanish , a section of but the truth is his government has barely the anarcho-syndicalist CNT and the for- touched them. The top rate of tax is just merly Trotskyist and avowedly revolution- 34 per cent, and tax evasion is rampant.’16 ary Marxist, POUM. In July 1936 the Nor is this about to change. President Spanish ruling class reacted by backing Nicolas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, has a Fascist coup led by Franco. The coup recently called for ‘more foreign investment succeeded in about half of Spain, while and a better relationship with the busi- in the other half it was resisted by mass ness community.’17 What has made possi- workers action from below with the work- ble this combination of substantial reform ers effectively taking power in Barcelona without an assault on the power of cap- and elsewhere. The country was thus split italism was the boom in the Venezuelan in two and the Spanish Civil War began. economy and massive oil revenues - an av- The Popular Front government played a erage growth in GDP of about 4% in the lamentable role in this titanic struggle. In Chavez years. Here again, there is a par- such circumstances there was no possibil- allel with Labour in 1945-51 and the post- ity of a gradual programme of progressive war economic boom. Thus what has been reforms. The need to win the win the achieved in Venezuela is not an ‘opening war - literally a matter of life or death of the way’ to socialism but a reformed for all on the left - dominated everything. capitalism with better conditions for the But how to win it - that was the cen- workers and without a revolutionary mo- tral question. In purely military terms, bilization of the working class from below Franco’s forces, massively armed and as- those gains may well be eroded in the years sisted by Hitler and Mussolini, inevitably to come, especially if the economic boom had the advantage. On the side of the Re- comes to an end. public, lay the revolutionary enthusiasm and heroism of the masses and the pos- Unfortunately the outcomes of three sibility of undermining Franco behind his other left in the 20th century own lines by revolutionary measures such were much worse. as land seizures and factory occupations The Spanish Popular Front government 16Owen Jones, ‘Hugo Chavez proves you can lead a progressive, popular government that says no to neo-’ , Monday 8 October 2012. 17http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/8858 18Franco launched his coup from Morocco and 80,000 Moroccan troops fought on his side. If the Re- public had made Morocco independent this would have hugely weakened the fascists. See Andy Durgan, The Spanish Civil War, New York 2007, p.33.

31 and granting independence to Morocco.18 the Popular Front election victory with a In the event, the government did none of massive wave of strikes and factory occupa- these things, indeed it positively opposed. tions which produced a near revolutionary Obviously the bourgeois republican parties situation. In June 1936 there were nearly would not countenance inroads on capital- 9,000 occupied workplaces! The reaction ist property and the capitalist state. But of the government of the left and its sup- neither would the Communist Party; its porters - the decisive role was played by line, and the line of CPs internationally - the Communist Party- was to offer conces- on orders from Moscow - was that in or- sions so as to bring the strikes to an end der to win the war the broadest possible as soon as possible. The concessions were unity was required, including unity with considerable: pay rises of 7 to 15%, a 40 ‘democratic’ capitalist parties and even the hour week (reduced from 48), two weeks British and French governments and that paid holidays, and recognition of therefore the spontaneous workers’ revolu- bargaining. However they fell far short of tion that had developed in Barcelona and any structural or strategic change to the elsewhere had to be first restrained and system and it is important to remember then liquidated. To enforce this policy that these reforms were rung from the gov- GPU agents and methods were imported ernment by workers’ action from below not into Spain with the consequent murder of pushed through by the government at the POUM leader, Andreu Nin, and others19. top. This strategy proved disastrous. Unsur- Over the next couple of years the com- prisingly, no support was forthcoming from bination of serious inflation and the eco- Britain or France, while the working class nomic policies of the government rapidly and revolutionary forces were demobilized eroded many of the workers’ gains. By and demoralized. As a result the fascist mid-1937, the Popular Front government victory, which came in 1939, was more or had started to disintegrate, without any less inevitable .The fascists took the most substantial working class fight back- both terrible revenge on their opponents with the Socialist and the Communist Parties approximately 200,000 loyalists being exe- actively opposed resistance to the ‘Peo- cuted and Franco maintained his dictator- ple’s’ government, and in November 1938 ship until his death in 1975. the Popular Front experiment came to an Running parallel to the terrible events ignominious end . Within two years the in Spain was the Popular Front govern- Nazis were in Paris and the French parlia- ment in France. If its outcome was not as ment had voted for Vichy and collabora- immediately catastrophic it was nonethe- tion. less deeply disappointing. The French A third example of a Popular Front Popular Front was an alliance between the government is ’s Popular Communists, the Socialists and the main- Unity government in Chile 1970-73. Popu- stream Radical Party. It took office in lar Unity resembled the Popular Fronts of May 1936, headed by Socialist leader, Leon the thirties in that its core consisted of an Blum, in a landslide victory on the basis alliance between the CP and the Socialist of a mass anti-fascist upsurge and a rising Party (Allende was from the SP) with lib- tide of strikes. eral Radicals. In office, Allende and Pop- The French working class responded to ular Unity pursued policies of limited na- 19 ‘Nearly 4000 anti-fascists are known to have been imprisoned in Catalonia up until the end of the war. Most were CNT members.’ Andy Durgan, as above, p. 99.

32 tionalization, social reform and Keynesian these examples, nor in any other instance, economic expansion. They did not, how- did left reformism succeed in ‘opening the ever, challenge the Chilean state appara- way to socialism’ or initiating any transi- tus or military, hoping instead to win their tion to a post- capitalist society. Nor in- support or at least to neutralize them. For deed could any of these governments be a year or so the government’s economic said to have launched a serious assault, strategy seemed to be working - the econ- successful or otherwise, on the institutional omy grew and working class living stan- power of the capitalist class or its state. dards were raised - but, in 1972, Chile went The most that has been achieved by any into economic crisis and experienced rag- of these governments is a series of social ing inflation. The Chilean working class reforms which improved the living stan- responded to this with mass resistance dards of working class people within capi- in the form of major strikes and demon- talism and that was only possible in very strations and the organization of cordones favourable economic circumstances, as in (industrial coordinating networks) which post 1945 Britain, Venezuela’s oil boom, were embryonic workers’ councils, com- and Chile 1970-1. In circumstances of eco- bined with demands that the pace of nomic crisis - in Europe of the 1930s and change should be speeded up. At the same Chile in 1972-3 - even these limited reforms time, the right increased their mobiliza- were unacceptable to their respective rul- tion against the movement and the govern- ing classes which were able to use their eco- ment and began preparations for a coup. nomic and political power, especially their Allende temporized, with the Chilean CP power in the state machine, to undermine proving to be one of the most cautious and destroy the left government. elements in the UP coalition. 1973 saw There is, however, a notable exception two unsuccessful coup attempts but Al- to this depressing historical record - the lende still would not break with the mil- Provisional Government that ruled Rus- itary, or arm the workers. On 11 Septem- sia between February and October 1917. ber the infamous General Pinochet19, with Because of its peculiar fate it not usually the backing of the US, staged a success- thought of in retrospect as a ‘left govern- ful coup which claimed the lives of Allende ment’ but it was very much thought of as himself and 30,000 Chileans, establishing a that at the time. It was brought to power 20 brutal military dictatorship which ruled by a great popular revolution from below Chile for seventeen years. which overthrew Tsarism and comprised a coalition of , Socialist Rev- A Balance Sheet olutionaries (SRs), non-party leftists and bourgeois liberals (the Cadets). The lead- This by no means exhausts the list of ‘left ers of the Provisional government did not governments’ (others that could be consid- make the revolution but they had all been ered include Hungary in 1919, the Sandin- long standing opponents of Tsarism and, istas in Nicaragua, and in Bo- initially, had mass popular support - in- livia, and perhaps many more) but enough cluding, until Lenin’s return from exile in examples have been presented to draw up April, from the Bolsheviks. Morover, the a certain balance sheet. The first point ‘left’ character of the government seemed that has to be made is that in none of reinforced when , a 20It is a bitter irony that Pinochet was promoted to Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army by Allende on 23 August, just two weeks prior to the coup.

33 member of the Socialist Revolutionaries, made October possible was the existence succeeded Prince Lvov as Prime Minister of the Bolsheviks as an independent rev- in July 1917. olutionary party which had been built in the years running up to the revolution. Immediately, on foot of the February insurrection the Provisional Government proclaimed a series of important reforms Revolutionaries and left re- such as an amnesty for all political prison- ers, freedom of speech, of the press and of formism assembly, abolition of hereditary privileges Marxists are revolutionaries not because and local government on the basis of uni- they are impatient or prefer revolution to versal suffrage. But these reforms, like the gradual reform but because both theory workers gains in France in 1936, were really and experience demonstrate that the road won by the masses in the revolution, than of reform does not work. As Marx put it in handed down from above. Thereafter, the The German , ‘revolution is neces- Provisional government achieved little, re- sary, therefore, not only because the ruling maining locked into the disastrous World class cannot be overthrown in any other War and unable to implement even its own way, but also because the class overthrow- minimum programme of convening a Con- ing it can only in a revolution succeed in stituent Assembly or granting land to the ridding itself of all the muck of ages and peasants. become fitted to found society anew.’21 What distinguished the Provisional This does not mean, however, that we Government from other left governments can simply adopt a negative attitude to the was neither its achievements nor its lack of phenomenon of reformism in general or left them but the fact that, in October 1917, reformism in particular. Rather, we have it was overthrown from the left in a so- to be both for it and against it, support it cialist revolution. Had this not happened and criticize it, work with it and indepen- there is little doubt that the Provisional dently of it, at the same time - with dif- Government would have met the fate of ferent emphases at different points in the the Chilean or Spanish Popular Fronts. struggle. The counter revolution made an attempt Marx and Engels supported the for- at a coup under the leadership of General mation and development of the German Kornilov in August 1917 and it was the Social Democratic Party (SPD) but crit- Bolsheviks not the government itself that icized the Gotha Programme on which it played the key role in defeating it. It is was founded22 and warned against early overwhelmingly likely that the Tsarist gen- tendencies to reformism in their ‘Circular erals, given time to regroup, would have Letter’ to SPD leaders.23 Rosa Luxem- struck again, perhaps successfully. Trot- burg worked within the SPD until 1915 sky used to say that without the October but polemicized fiercely against the revi- Revolution would have carried a sionist (reformist) in her Russian not an Italian name. But what 1900 book Social Reform or Revolution24, 21 K.Marx, The German Ideology, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german- ideology/ch01d.htm#d4 22K.Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ 1875/gotha/ 23 See http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ 24 See http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/index.htm

34 opposed Karl Kautsky and the SPD union we need to continue this dialectical ap- leaders over the mass strike and denounced proach. Whenever the radicalization of the party as a whole as ‘a stinking corpse’ working people expresses itself in a move for its support for imperialist war. from the right, or from mainstream re- The Bolsheviks worked with the Men- formism, to left reformism, as with Syriza sheviks in the Russian Social Democratic or the Front de Gauche, we welcome and Labour Party (RSDLP) after the split of encourage it. But when that left reformism 1903 but maintained their separate faction is counter-posed to building revolutionary until it developed into a fully independent organisation we criticize it. When workers party from 1912 onwards. At the begin- vote for candidates of the ULA rather than ning of the Comintern Lenin argued first Labour (or Sinn Fein) we are delighted but for breaking from the reformist Second In- if we are asked to dissolve our organization ternational and the formation of indepen- or hide our distinctive revolutionary poli- dent revolutionary communist parties and tics we decline. then for supporting the reformist parties We work with other working people against the right in elections and finally and other reformist political forces in cam- for a united front with the reformists in de- paigns in defence of working class inter- fence of basic working class interests. Trot- ests. We support the left against the sky continued this approach in the 1930s, right or far left against the moderate left especially in relation to the fight against in the trade unions - Jimmy Kelly ver- fascism. In the development of the In- sus Jack O’Connor, Jerry Hicks versus Len ternational Socialist Tendency in Britain McCluskey - but retain our understand- in the 1950s and 60s the forerunners of ing that the most important division in the SWP worked inside the Labour Party the unions is between the rank-and-file and to gain an initial audience but then orga- the bureaucracy.25 We would support the nized separately as soon as an audience formation of a ‘government of the left’ for revolutionary politics emerged to the but we would not join it, i.e. we would left of Labour. They continued to sup- vote for it or transfer to it as appropriate port Labour (‘without illusions’) against and our elected representatives would sus- the Tories in elections and also supported tain it against the right in the D´ail. But the Labour Lefts (Tony Benn etc.) against we would not assume responsibility for it the Labour Right, When the possibility of or be bound by it or vote with it if in- developing a left alternative to Labour at troduced cuts or other anti-working class the ballot box opened up the SWP worked measures. And at no point in the whole with left reformists, such as George Gal- process should we abandon the Marxist loway, to try to build it, but without giv- critique of the left reformist perspective ing up its critique of bourgeois democracy or the project of building a revolutionary or electoralism. party. Today, internationally and in Ireland,

25 See John Molyneux, ‘Marxism and Trade Unionism’, as above.

35