For Marxists, the crucial problem of strategy and tactics is this: How can a revolutionary minority win the support of the majority of the working class and other exploited layers, particularly given the hold of the traditional mass parties over large sections of workers? (‘For the Scottish Turn‘, paragraph 30.)

The ‘Open Turn’ debate, the documents of which we present here, took place in 1991 at first within what was then widely known as the Militant Tendency, the British section of the Committee for a Workers’ International, that published the ‘Militant’ newspaper, today called ‘The Socialist’.

Leading members of the Militant Tendency in Scotland, with the backing of the British section’s executive committee, explained that:

2. For decades the tendency has pursued the strategy of building a base within the political and industrial wings of the mass labour movement. As a result we have emerged in recent years as the main left opposition force in British politics. (‘Scotland, Perspectives and Tasks‘)

However:

4. In the recent period conditions have forced us to shift emphasis away from work in and through the Labour Party, while defending the methods that have established the organisation over the years. But those methods have never precluded new initiatives, tactical turns or new organisational forms when demanded by the objective situation and the needs of the tendency.

The ‘Open Turn’ was a debate about a most fundamental issue: how to win mass support for the ideas of Marxism within the working class in a changing objective situation.

The tactic of the British section, and in particular of its Scottish members, required a reassessment based on the then currently existing circumstances, for instance as a result of the experience of the struggle led by the Militant Tendency against Prime Minister Thatcher’s Poll Tax:

113. Ten years ago, even five years ago, Marxists wasted no opportunity to appeal to workers and youth to join the Labour Party and transform it from within. But as the poll tax campaign progressed this demand was gradually abandoned.

114. As Lenin pointed out on a number of occasions, truth is concrete. At this stage an appeal for Scottish workers and youth to join the Labour Party would be to seriously misjudge the mood of the militant sections of the working class. (‘Scotland, Perspectives and Tasks‘)

Described as “perhaps the most important debate that has ever taken place inside the tendency in Scotland” (‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks’ para 9) it had “far-reaching implications” and marked a definitive stage in the Committee for a Workers’ International’s development. The leading Scottish comrades proposed that

we should conduct bold, audacious independent work, especially in Scotland, to extend and deepen our independent work of the last few years. (‘For the Scottish Turn‘, para 3)

These old traditional reformist workers’ parties, such as the Labour Party in Britain, at that time still had their historical roots within the working class, although this was changing. From its formation, the central right-wing leadership of the Labour Party was entirely capitalist in outlook and orientation. Throughout its history, and especially from the early 1920s onwards, the Labour Party’s leadership repeatedly attempted – with varying degrees of success – to drive organised Marxist influence out of the Labour Party.

From the early 1950s onwards the Trotskyist tendency that today is the Socialist Party worked within the Labour Party, while presenting itself to workers and youth both inside and outside the Labour Party as Marxists struggling against capitalism and the reformist Labour leaders. Yet this was not the only tactic of the Committee for a Workers’ International. In fact the very success of this ‘entrist’ strategy in Britain led the leaderships of other traditional reformist workers’ parties in Europe to try to make it impossible for other sections of the Committee for a Workers International to function in the same way.

For instance, in Greece a new left party, PASOK, had emerged in 1974 in the revolutionary events surrounding the collapse of the Colonels’ seven year military dictatorship and soon gained a mass workers’ following. Yet:

Virtually all the Marxists were expelled from PASOK in 1976. While the tendency naturally orientated towards PASOK members, its work was independent, open work under its own banner. (‘For the Scottish Turn‘, paragraph 278.)

On the other hand, whilst pursuing the ‘Open Turn’ in Britain, the Committee for a Workers’ International majority simultaneously advocated that its Italian section openly join the newly formed Prc (Party of Communist Refoundation) in Italy, which had broken from the Communist Party of Italy/Democratic Left Party, and was gaining a large following amongst the most radical workers and youth. Yet the opponents of the ‘Open Turn’ actually opposed this for a combination of political and factional reasons and only some years later left the then Pds (Democratic Left Party) to join the Prc.

This debate marked an important change in the approach of the British and other sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International to the task of winning the working class to the ideas of socialism in the 1990’s and helped to drive home the need for flexible tactics, for a realistic assessment of the actually existing conditions within society at each particular period, and to not be bound by a dogmatic approach.

This introduction will discuss the relationship between Marxism and the mass workers’ parties, explaining the how it came to be that the British Trotskyists, known then as the Militant Tendency, worked as members of the Labour Party, how the Militant Tendency operated in the Labour Party, and set in context the ‘Open Turn’ debate, which began as a debate about ending this tactic.

The origins of the mass parties of the working class

Only by winning mass support, particularly amongst the working class, will the ideas of Marxism become a force capable of bringing about a socialist transformation of society. (We refer those readers who question the central role of the working class in the liberation of the oppressed masses from capitalism and landlordism to our Introduction to the Communist Manifesto, on this site, which discusses some contemporary criticisms of the basic ideas of Marxism. Opens in new window)

But the tasks facing genuine revolutionary Marxists today are complex. It is not sufficient merely to proclaim the need for a socialist transformation of society, whether in speeches, in print or on the Internet. However today the task of changing society is complicated by the fact that the parties originally built to change society have become obstacles to this objective, generally acting to prevent change or, in a very few cases, being incapable of completing the socialist transformation of society.

Even from the inception of Marxism the task of winning the support of the majority of the working class to a revolutionary party was approached in a skilful way, as the following very brief survey will confirm. We will show that the sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International continue to build on the firm foundations laid down by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky and the international experience of the workers’ movement.

The second chapter of the Communist Manifesto, begins with the question:

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians [i.e. the working class – ed] as a whole?

The immediate answer is:

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

This was in a situation when the workers’ movement was still in the process of formation and clarification of its ideas and programme. In 1848 there were many small revolutionary parties and groups, with different ideas on how to bring about change. The Communist Manifesto announced the establishment of the Communist League, a revolutionary organisation, but not one “opposed to other working-class parties”. Marx and Engels believed that the combination of the experience of struggle and debate would unite the working class around the banner of the ideas declared in the Manifesto.

Here is the method of Marxism – flexible in terms of organisational forms, never opposing the interests of the working class, while at all times openly and clearly arguing for a Marxist perspective, firm on the needs of a Marxist programme.

The first creation of parties based on the working class which could be called “mass” parties, because they commanded significant support amongst workers, were mostly influenced by the ideas of Marx and Engels. They culminated in the formation of the Second International in 1889, which brought together these growing mass working class parties and generally clarified their programmes. But, particularly because of the sustained upswing of capitalism in the last decades of the 1800s, the leaders of the parties that adhered to the Second International came to abandon the ideas of Marxism and begin to serve capitalism.

The parties of the Second International survive to this day; they are the parties which today mainly go by the name of ‘Labour’ (in Britain for instance) ‘Social Democratic’ (for instance in Germany) or ‘Socialist’ (for instance in France or Spain). Whenever they have been in government they have worked within the capitalist system and, in times of crisis, generally acted in obedience to the needs of the capitalist class.

(The Committee for a Workers’ International section in England and Wales took the name of ‘Socialist Party’ because the former traditional party of the working class in Britain was called the Labour Party, and as a result the word ‘Socialist’ is not seen in the eyes of the British working class in the same way as in some other countries.)

The Communist International and the United Front

When the leaders of nearly all the parties of the Second International supported their own national ruling class in the First World War, with for instance the German Social Democrats supporting the German ruling class’s war effort, and the French Socialist Party supporting the French ruling class’s war effort, this created an enormous crisis for the workers’ movement and genuine Marxists.

The fact that in most countries in 1914 the Second International leaders broke with the International’s previously agreed position of opposing inter-capitalist wars and supported their ‘own’ ruling class’s imperialist aims showed that these social democratic parties originally created to change society had become obstacles to socialism.

Lenin and Trotsky, who were soon to lead the Russian Revolution, and a few others, were forced to break from the Second International. After the Russian Revolution of October 1917, Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolshevik party helped found the Third ‘Communist’ International in 1919, with a call to arms to the revolutionary workers of the world. The most politically advanced workers established Communist Parties across the globe.

The Communist International was established because it was necessary to build new workers’ organisations dedicated to fighting capitalism and changing society.

This was a life and death matter for the Russian Revolution. The end of the First World War saw a wave of revolutions sweep Europe, especially in Germany and Italy. Yet in Germany it was the leaders of the Social Democratic Party like Noske who saved capitalism by crushing workers’ struggles in blood in 1919 and 1920. In Italy the Socialist Party leaders were incapable of using the revolutionary mass factory occupations in 1920 as the basis for a socialist revolution, thereby allowing Mussolini’s fascists to seize the initiative.

Lenin and Trotsky understood that, unless the working class of the advanced capitalist countries of the West in particular, developed a genuinely internationalist Marxist leadership which could successfully overthrow capitalism in Europe and worldwide, the Russian revolution could not survive. The leaders of the parties of the Second International were now a conscious barrier to socialism.

However Lenin and Trotsky’s Communist International did not turn its back on the ordinary members and supporters of the parties of the Second International. They understood that many workers would initially retain a loyally to the old organisations that they had built and that the supporters of the Communist International had to be able win these workers to the new parties that genuinely were fighting for socialism.

In policies declared most clearly at the Third Congress of the Communist International, the Communist International developed conscious policy of developing joint campaigning work and struggles with the ordinary members of the Second International, called the policy of the United Front.

While conducting joint United Front work with the ordinary members of these parties the Communists openly declared their opposition to the leaders of the reformist parties. They had a duty to clearly and fraternally explain the mistaken leadership of those parties to the working class.

This policy has to be distinguished from the Stalinist distortion of this policy that developed in the mid-1920s and was, from the 1930s onwards, often called the ‘Popular Front’ tactic adopted by the Communist Parties, which made unprincipled deals and alliances with the leadership of other parties (including capitalist ones), usually holding back workers’ struggles so that their alliances would not be threatened and justified participating in capitalist governments on the grounds that they were ‘progressive’.

Stalinism, ‘Reformism’, and Trotskyism

The Russian Revolution of 1917 inspired revolutions and uprisings throughout Europe, and in other areas of the world like China, in the first years after the First World War. But unfortunately, in contrast with Russia, these revolutions suffered from an unprepared, inexperienced leadership, and failed to overthrow capitalism. As explained in more detail in ‘What About Russia?‘ on this site (opens in new window), the continued isolation of the revolution to the economically backward territories of the Soviet Union led to the inevitable overthrow of the workers’ democracy and genuine socialist ideals of the Russian revolution.

The ‘Communist’ regimes that ruled the Soviet Union from the late 1920s onwards and then, after 1945, in Central and Eastern Europe, China and a few other countries represented a grotesque caricature of the genuine ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin. They were a collection of ruthless dictatorships ruled by a privileged bureaucratic elite denying democratic rights while running, in an arbitrary top-down fashion, planned nationalised economies.

Fearful of losing their power, the clique around Stalin increasingly consciously opposed working class revolutions in other countries that could inspire the Soviet workers to threaten the ruling elite. Starting from the idea that they were defending the Russian revolution, the Communist Parties throughout the world changed their character in the 1920s and 1930s, slavishly following this debasement of Marxism, which became known by the name of its foremost representative – Stalinism.

Thus from this period at least until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of Stalinism, the working classes of most countries of the world had a choice of two mass parties, both with hopelessly compromised leadership: firstly the ‘reformist’ parties of the Second International, mainly going by the names of ‘Labour’ ‘Socialist’ or ‘Social Democratic’ parties (Marxists sometimes apply the term “Social Democracy” to all the parties of the Second International) and secondly the Stalinist Communist Parties.

After the First World War the parties of the Second International were termed ‘Reformist’ by Marxists, because – in words if not in actions – they argued that life under capitalism for the working class could be continually improved by gradual reforms of the iniquities of capitalism, until (perhaps) socialism was achieved in the distant future.

However, by the very nature of capitalism, which competitively accumulates capital by robbing the working class of the fruits of its labour, the capitalists are repeatedly forced by the periodic crises of their system to undermine reforms, and if their rule is threatened are capable of resorting to force of arms, as they did for instance in the 1973 coup in Chile against both the reformist government of Allende and the large number of workers who were moving in revolutionary direction.

In the course of repeated capitalist crises during the last century, the ‘reformist’ parties moved from reform to counter-reform, particularly as they generally became completely bourgoisified in the 1990s. As a general, broad characterisation – with various exceptions – these parties in the past had a dual character, particularly the parties of the Second International. On the one hand, they had a genuine working class base, and carried the aspirations of the working class for a socialist future. On the other hand their leadership was welded to the fortunes of the capitalist class, and acted as an instrument to prevent socialist change, sometimes quite brutally as in the 1918-20 German revolution.

After Lenin’s death in 1924, Trotsky fought to keep the genuine ideas of Marxism alive against the growing onslaught of the rising bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and Stalin’s murderous secret police, the GPU (see Leon Trotsky’s Assassination on our site.) Trotskyists internationally first worked, often in secret and against immense persecution, within the Communist Parties, in an attempt to win the ranks of courageous Communist Party workers to the genuine ideas of Marxism.

When the threat of fascism loomed in Germany, Trotskyists proposed an alliance of the Communist Party of Germany with the German Social Democrats. This United Front policy, which was no more than the application of the policy of the Communist International before its Stalinist degeneration, would have united workers against Hitler’s forces and had the potential to stop Hitler coming to power. However Stalin and the bureaucracy gathering around him opposed this policy, instead leading the German Communist Party to attack the German Social Democrats, which insanity inevitably aided Hitler’s victory in 1933.

After Hitler came to power, it became clear that the Communist Parties of the world could not learn from this tragic mistake – there was no discussion, no pause for thought, amongst its ranks. But Hitler’s coming to power meant that a crushing defeat for both the German working class and the Communist Party of Germany, at that time the second biggest Communist Party in the world.

The fact that there was no open discussion within the Communist International or any of its parties on this huge defeat meant that they had ceased to living, democratic workers’ organisations. The Communist International had become an instrument of Stalin’s foreign policy and Trotsky concluded that, like in 1914, the task facing Marxists was to start to lay the basis for a new, genuinely Marxist International. (During the Second World War Stalin shut down the Communist International in 1943 as a favour to the world capitalist leaders, and the Communist Parties on the whole became no different, in practice, from the ‘reformist’ parties.)

So in 1938 Trotsky and his small bands of adherents across the globe founded the Fourth International, in a time when the dark shadow of fascism and the approaching Second World War was cast over Europe. The Committee for a Workers International can trace its roots to the work of Trotsky and the Fourth International. (This story is told in the “History of the CWI“)

Trotsky anticipated a revolutionary wave spreading across Europe as a result of the coming Second World War, just as a revolutionary wave resulted from workers’ experience of the horrors of the First World War of 1914 – 1918 (including in Russia 1917).

Trotsky’s perspective was that, just as the events after the First World War led to the creation of the Communist International and mass Communist Parties, so the Second World war would give the same opportunity to the Fourth International.

An important part of this perspective was that Trotsky did not expect Stalin’s regime to survive, foreseeing either a workers’ revolution in the Soviet Union or the victory of capitalist counter-revolution there. But Trotsky was assassinated by one of Stalin’s agents in 1940 and had not foreseen the precise events that would unfold.

The end of the Second World War did indeed see a revolutionary wave throughout the world. But Stalin’s regime also emerged strengthened, as the Soviet Union’s economy and the determination of the Soviet people to resist Nazism resulted in a tremendous military victory over Hitler.

Capitalism lost Eastern Europe and China to regimes modelled on Stalin’s; the colonial empires of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Italy began to crumble; whilst in Western Europe the capitalist class were forced to rely on the reformist parties and the Communist Parties to keep capitalism from being overthrown.

The Labour Party was elected to power in Britain with a large majority, but whilst carrying out reforms, made no attempt to carry out a socialist transformation of society. Immediately after 1945, in many European countries including France, Italy and even most of western Germany, the Communist Parties were included in coalition governments that helped stabilise capitalism.

The tasks of a small group

All this meant that the post 1945 west European situation was soon to be characterised by a stabilisation of capitalist rule, a strengthening of Stalinism, the granting of some reforms in many countries and the beginning of the long post-war economic upswing.

This meant that, in Western Europe, the tasks for Trotsky’s supporters were quite different from the post 1918 period. Unlike the Communist International’s mass parties that were quite quickly formed from 1919 onwards, the Trotskyists had to cope with a further period of being relatively small groupings and parties.

To a certain extent, Lenin had already anticipated these problems in 1920, when dealing with then newly formed British Communist Party, which at that time was very small, and by no means a mass party.

Lenin …in 1920 urged the affiliation of the British Communist Party to the Labour Party. While it is necessary for the revolutionary party to maintain its independence at all times, a revolutionary group of a few hundred comrades is not a revolutionary party, and can work most effectively at present by opposition to the social patriots within the mass parties. (Trotsky, Writings 1935-36, p382)

(See for instance Lenin’s Speech On Affiliation To The British Labour Party)

At the time that Lenin was writing the Labour Party still had a federal character and Communist Party members could be Labour Party members, and the Communist Party had the possibility of becoming one of the Labour Party’s affiliates. Indeed one of the first Communist Party Members of Parliament in Britain, Saklatvala, was elected as a Labour Party candidate.

But from 1922 onwards the right-wing Labour Party leadership introduced measures first of all to limit the rights of Communist Party members within the Labour Party, then from 1924 to not allow Communist Party members to be Labour Party members any longer. These were the first steps on the long road that has led to New Labour, a bureaucratically centralised capitalist party.

Some time later, in 1932, a Trotskyist opposition group was expelled from the British Communist Party for advocating that the German Communist Party adopt the United Front tactic in Germany to unite in action with Social Democratic workers to stop Hitler, which Trotsky had proposed. Then, looking at what a small group could do, Trotsky in 1933 urged the forty or so British Trotskyists to join the Independent Labour Party, a party which had disaffiliated from the Labour Party the previous year with 17,000 members, although this had fallen by 1933 to 11,000 members.

Then the Independent Labour Party was moving in a more leftward direction as a response to the collapse of the second Labour Government. The Independent Labour Party became a “centrist” party (or “left-centrist” party, as Trotsky called it in ‘Principled Considerations On Entry‘ in 1933), meaning that its policies swung between reformist positions and a revolutionary position.

Trotsky’s tactic was primarily one of winning the most left-leaning workers to the ideas of Marxism, over a short period of time, in the pre-war period of turmoil during which crises wracked the traditional mass parties and new left political formations developed in a number of countries.

Trotsky argued:

A Marxist party should, of course, strive to full independence and to the highest homogeneity. But in the process of its formation, a Marxist party often has to act as a faction of a centrist and even a reformist party. (‘Principled Considerations On Entry‘, 1933)

Trotsky further gave this advice:

It is worth entering the Independent Labour Party only if we make it our purpose to help this party, that is, its revolutionary majority, to transform it into a truly Marxist party. Of course, such an entry would be inadmissible if the Central Committee of the Independent Labour Party should demand from our friends that they renounce their ideas, or the open struggle for those ideas in the party. But it is absolutely admissible to take upon oneself the obligation to fight for one’s views on the basis of the party statutes and within the limits of party discipline. (ibid)

In 1959 the forebears of the Socialist Party in England and Wales produced a document called ‘Problems of Entrism‘ which summarised almost three decades of historical experience of work in the mass parties of the British Marxists, from 1932 to 1959.

‘Problems of Entrism‘ shows the flexible approach that brought a measure of success to the Trotskyists in Britain during this period and of course subsequently. It is recommended background reading to the ‘Open Turn’ debate of 1991, and is referred or alluded to a number of times in the main documents produced during the ‘Open Turn’ debate.

Acting as a faction of a centrist and even a reformist party was not a “once-and-for-all fetish” as the document ‘Problems of Entrism’ demonstrates, because by 1935, after less than two years of work in the Independent Labour Party (which was by then in rapid decline),

Comrade Trotsky suggested bringing the experience of entry into the ILP to a close, and conducting work in the Labour Party…

Furthermore, the document continues:

But the outbreak of the war in 1939 … gave a different turn to events.

And here the problem of tactics as tactics, and not as once-and-for-all fetishes, shows its real importance. The Labour and TU leaders entered a coalition with the capitalist class, and at a later stage, entered government under Churchill. The Labour organisations declined in activity and as live, functioning organisations. The youth was in the armed forces. Later, the Communist Party with the entry of Russia into the war, became the most zealous strike-breaking organisation.

This gave tremendous opportunities for ‘independent’ work. The biggest successes of Trotskyism in Britain were obtained during this period.

(‘Problems of Entrism‘)

Thus, assessing the situation realistically, the Trotskyists of the Workers International League in Britain, which was founded in 1937 and is the fore bearer of the Socialist Party, generally left the Labour Party during the Second World War (1939 – 1945) and grew by conducting open, independent work. Another group of Trotskyists (the Revolutionary Socialist League) remained in the Labour Party and did not make gains similar to those of the Workers International League.

‘Problems of Entrism’ drew up a summary of the circumstances in which Trotsky had advocated entry into the reformist or centrist parties:

These conditions can be summarised as:

(a) Pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation.

(b) Ferment in Social Democracy.

(c) Development of a Left Wing.

(d) The possibility of the rapid crystallisation of the revolutionary tendency.

(‘Problems of Entrism‘)

But these conditions were not present in society or in the Labour Party during the Second World War, and they were not present after the war either.

The Labour Party

In 1944 the British Trotskyist groups the Workers International League and the Revolutionary Socialist League formed the Revolutionary Communist Party.

‘Problems of Entrism’ makes clear that after the Second World War:

…illusions in Reformism were strengthened within the organised working class. Thus the opposite condition prevailed than had prevailed with a Labour Government working under conditions of slump.

Under such conditions, the revolutionary tendency tended to become isolated. This is not the time nor the place for an analysis of the mistakes of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Movement generally at that time. But one thing has been demonstrated by historical events; the conditions for entry, as worked out by Trotsky in the past, did not apply.

(‘Problems of Entrism‘)

One of the mistakes of a section of the Revolutionary Communist Party alluded to here was that they argued for immediate entry into the Labour Party, despite the fact that none of the conditions summarised above for entry into a reformist or centrist party existed at that time. Supported by the leadership of the Fourth International this grouping, led by Gerry Healy, left the Revolutionary Communist Party in October 1947 in order to carry out this tactic.

This decision, which was opposed by the majority of RCP members, was based on a false perspective. Healy argued that a “Pre-revolutionary or revolutionary situation” and “the possibility of the rapid crystallisation of the revolutionary tendency” was imminent. In reality this perspective was based on a mechanical interpretation of Trotsky’s pre-war prognosis – of a rapidly developing revolutionary wave – in total disregard of the actually existing circumstances developing then in post-war Britain.

Those opposing entry into the Labour Party argued that there was no short-cut to quick growth at that time and that, in those circumstances, the open party should be maintained as there were no better prospects inside the Labour Party than outside it. However the general difficulties of that period, combined with tiredness, led, in 1949, to the majority of the Revolutionary Communist Party leadership recommending entering the Labour Party.

While Ted Grant, one of the founders of the Militant, opposed this policy he refused to campaign against it amongst the RCP members. This was a mistake. Grant argued at that time that it would not make much difference whether or not the Trotskyists were inside or outside the Labour Party, and that furthermore he did not wish to lead a struggle against his fellow Revolutionary Communist Party leaders. Really this was a rationalisation of Ted Grant’s reluctance to struggle on this issue. It would have better at that time for the Trotskyists to have remained as an independent organisation outside the Labour Party and working towards the trade unions.

In reality, there was nothing to gain by entering the Labour Party at that stage. Just over forty years later Ted Grant would be one of the leaders of the opposition to the ‘Open Turn’ (the ‘turn’ to work ‘openly as an independent party’ outside the Labour Party) and the subsequent split in the Militant and CWI.

After the Revolutionary Communist Party decided, in June 1949, to dissolve itself, practically all the Trotskyists in Britain were in the Labour Party.

As one of the main Majority documents (presented on this website) commented in 1991:

How did entrism come about in 1949? …because of the disintegration of the Revolutionary Communist Part, and because the majority of the Revolutionary Communist Party leaders went over to Labour Party entry under the pressure of the strengthening of reformism and Stalinism which took place at the beginning of the post-war period. (For the Scottish Turn para 40.)

Nevertheless, starting out by necessity rather than by design, entry into the Labour Party became a tactic which lasted for four decades.

The ‘Open Turn’ debate of 1991 was a debate about ending this latter period of entrism. In 1991 a minority opposed the ‘Open Turn’ for reasons explained later.

Up to the period of the ‘Open Turn’ in 1991 the parties or sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International largely orientated to the traditional workers’ parties of the Second International or Communist Parties where they existed because they carried the aspirations of the working class, and had significant working class roots, despite their bourgeois or reformist leaderships. 

This did not mean that it was possible or appropriate for the various sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International to pursue the same entrist tactic: for example in the early 1970’s

…the Swedish Social Democratic Youth [the SSU] was a large organisation and the bureaucracy had learned from the experience of Britain. They, therefore, very quickly moved to expel us from the SSU …In effect, we could not pursue effective entry work as most of our forces were outside the SSU and, subsequently, outside the Social Democratic Party. (Comment from Arne Johansson of the Swedish section of the CWI in ‘History of the CWI‘)

The Militant and the tactic of ‘Entrism’

In 1964 the forebears of the Socialist Party began publishing a four page monthly newspaper called the Militant, with a carefully crafted appeal to both Labour Party members and the working class and youth in general, with a uniquely formulated programme, which was consequently highly recognisable – in particular the formulation of its call for the nationalisation of the 400 monopolies which dominated the economy at that time. This was no more than an expression in quantitative terms of the aims of the Labour Party as stated on every member’s party card.

The sellers of this paper and its policies became collectively known as the Militant Tendency, or simply the Militant. However it was widely recognised within the Militant that in the 1950’s and a large part of the 1960’s it was not tactically significant whether the Militant was in the Labour Party or outside. This was re-emphasised with the publication of a document called ‘Entrism’ in 1973, which incorporated the ‘Problems of Entrism’ of 1959 quoted from above, and appended a collection of articles written by Trotsky addressed to the British and French Trotskyists, some of which we have included on this site.

Entrism, as applied by the forebears of the Socialist Party since 1932, was not a policy applied uniformly and without exception in all circumstances, nor was it applied without considerable skill, discussion of tactics, and an account or estimation of the results at every juncture. In particular, it was a matter of extreme importance that members of the Militant clearly identified themselves as a separate trend or ‘tendency’ by selling the Militant newspaper, which in a fraternal way exposed the failings of the current reformist leadership, and also all other trends within and without the party.

At the same time Militant comrades did not confine their activities to Labour Party meetings or members. We were involved in the everyday class struggle and sought to approach workers and youth who were only starting to become active in their trade unions or politically.

This was not ‘deep entrism’, a tactic in which a group hides its separate political identity, and in particular hides its Marxist criticism of the methods of reformism. Such a tactic is called “opportunist” and breaks the first rule of engagement: ‘always tell the working class the truth.’

Membership of the Militant was an open secret. The Militant was organised, and so was the right wing of the Labour Party, the latter with impunity.

The Militant drew a distinction between an uncompromising position on its programme and policies, which it would never relinquish the right to promulgate, and on the other hand flexibility in organisational forms or methods, so as to offer no grounds for expulsion.

The Labour Party leadership acted, in the words of the US Marxist Daniel De Leon, as the “Labour Lieutenants of Capital”, seeking to keep the Labour Party safe for capitalism, both in the sense of posing no threat to the capitalist system, but also in the sense of being directly usable by the capitalists, as and when required, to protect their system. That is why they started to restrict Party democracy from the 1920’s onwards. At the same time it is not accidental the Labour Party leadership never even threatened to expel the organised right wing groups that existed within the Party.

It is not an exaggeration to say that in a period of profound crisis, a reformist leadership can, on behalf of its masters, pass beyond the use of weapons such as resolutions at executive meetings to the use of the hangman and the assassin. This was, after all, the experience of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who were murdered at the behest of the leadership of the German Social Democracy.

Yet the dual character of the Labour Party in the decades after the Second World War could hardly be demonstrated more clearly than by the Labour Party’s own magazine in 1982. The ‘New Socialist’ (September-October 1982) carried an editorial which clearly outlined the situation as it pertained in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but was being reversed in the 1980’s. It denounced the witch-hunt that was then being carried out against the Militant:

The Labour Party always has been a broad collection that includes Marxists amongst its ranks. The Militant Tendency, drawing as it does upon Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism, belongs to this Marxist tradition, and has a legitimate place within the Labour Party.

The charges being levelled against Militant that it is ‘a party within a party’ is one that can be levelled with equal justification against any other groups within the Labour Party on both the left and right…

The very existence of Militant and other groups within the Labour Party is a source of strength rather than a weakness. By working for the adoption of alternative policies and candidates, they assist the democratic functioning of the party.

(Quoted in ‘Liverpool, a City that Dared to Fight‘)

Indeed, organisations which had the blessing of the Labour Party bureaucracy, were quite open about building their group’s membership within the Labour Party.

The Labour Party was a ‘bourgeois workers party’ – a workers’ party with a bourgeois leadership. So while the Labour Party bureaucracy enacted a ban on the Communist Party in 1924, and subsequently banned other groups, the Labour Party right wing MPs met no objection from the Labour Party head office (then in ‘Transport House’) when they formed semi-secret groupings, some financed by various shadowy anti-working class organisations, such as the “Bilderberg Group, the International Institute of Strategic Studies and other bodies backed directly or indirectly by the CIA or the US government.” (See ‘The Rise of Militant’ p206).

Until the early 1980’s, the Labour Party bureaucracy was forced to tolerate the Militant partly because of the sympathy which it built amongst many ordinary members, who opposed witch hunts and expulsions, but also because particularly in a period when the Party was moving leftwards ‘bans and proscriptions’ were seen for what they were by the majority of the Labour Party rank and file – an attempt to crush discussion and debate of a ‘dangerous’ left wing character, help the right wing leaders and extinguish the influence of genuine Marxism in the Labour Party.

Various groups existed in the reformist parties, and for the most part members of the Committee for a Workers’ International were able to openly argue for a Marxist perspective, and raise ‘transitional’ demands – demands which attempted to act as a bridge between the day to day demands of the working class, such as for higher wages and a shorter working week, and the demand for a socialist society.

The Militant, for example, championing the call for the nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy at every Labour Party annual conference, (which would indeed act as a bridge to a socialist society, but is not in itself the establishment of a socialist society) actually won the vote one year.

‘The Rise of Militant’ explains:

In Britain, the Labour Party conference in October 1972, reflecting the huge shift towards the left in the trade unions and the Labour Party, passed a Militant resolution.

By 3.5 million votes to less than 2.5 million, the conference voted for a programme which included the demand for ‘an enabling bill to secure the public ownership of the major monopolies’. The conference called on the executive to

“formulate a socialist plan of production based on public ownership, with minimum compensation, of the commanding heights of the economy”.

(‘The Rise of Militant‘, Chapter 7)

The Growth of Militant

The ‘History of the CWI’ comments that while Trotsky did anticipate the revolutionary wave which followed the Second World War, he could not have anticipated that Stalinism and Social Democracy would emerge strengthened (as discussed above). This disorientated the leadership of Trotsky’s Fourth International. A GPU agent of Stalin had assassinated Trotsky in 1940, and these leaders could not understand the character and dynamics of the new post-war period. Without a clear analysis of the new period, disagreement, manoeuvring and splits characterised the remnants of the Fourth International.

At their 1965 international congress the leadership of the largest remnant of Fourth International (the USFI) demonstrated that they were not interested in discussing the analysis offered by the leaders of what was to become known as the Militant Tendency. At the end of that congress the Militant had effectively been expelled. As a result, the ‘History of the CWI’ explains: “We tried to follow the advice of Marx and Engels” and face up to the task of

reaching those workers, particularly young workers, who had an interest in left politics and could be won to a Marxist and Trotskyist position. (‘A History of the CWI‘)

In Britain no other group from a Trotskyist background has demonstrated Militant’s ability to explain the ideas of Marxism to the working class, and to win the leadership and lead the working class, not just in demonstrations, but also in battles such as those in Liverpool in the mid 1980’s and against the Poll Tax, which we will discuss later. The Militant, like the Committee for a Workers International today, was a thoroughly working class organisation. Undoubtedly an element in this unique ability to act as the voice and highest expression of the working class in struggle was the tactic of entrism.

Entrism in this post-war period clearly exposed Trotskyists to the dangers of opportunistically adopting to the Labour Party bureaucracy. There is no doubt that the minority which opposed the ‘Open Turn’ and which now goes by the name of the International Marxist or Ted Grant tendency, had become opportunistically adapted to the Labour Party, describing work in the Labour Party as an “umbilical cord” and refusing to see the changes that were occurring.

But on the other hand, entrism set an invaluable practical task to the Militant supporters: to express their ideas in ways which were capable of winning support from the ordinary rank and file of the Labour Party in debate with other, usually reformist, ideas.

Militant won the leadership of the Labour Party Young Socialists, the youth section of the Labour Party, in 1970 / 1971. Capitalism’s post-war upswing came to a grinding halt in the mid 1970’s, and reforms won from capitalism began to be outweighed by counter-reforms, attacks on the working class. It was during this period, particularly with the wave of militancy during the 1970’s and early 1980’s, that the Militant made considerable gains.

The Liverpool District Labour Party adopted the programme proposed by the Militant to fight the Tory government’s cuts to the Rate Support Grant – to set an illegal ‘deficit budget’ – and as a result Liverpool City Council joined a momentous battle with Thatcher’s Tory government in 1984 -1987. Militant gained three members of Parliament, in two cases winning seats that were not considered winnable to Labour, standing recognised Militant supporters albeit Labour Party members, one of them in Liverpool Broadgreen. During this period working within the Labour Party was indeed justified.

The first document presented in this section of Marxist.net, ‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks‘, written in 1991, attempts to make an accurate account of what was gained by the Militant Tendency during its period of ‘entrism’. It begins:

1. The task of creating a powerful Marxist movement capable of leading the working class to power demands clear perspectives and a coherent strategy.

2. For decades the tendency has pursued the strategy of building a base within the political and industrial wings of the mass labour movement. As a result we have emerged in recent years as the main left opposition force in British politics. While our rivals on the left, particularly the pseudo-Leninist and Stalinist sects, have floundered and frequently perished, we have succeeded, even in this relatively difficult historical period, in building a solid network of thousands of working-class activists in Britain and thousands more internationally.

3. This has not been an accidental fact of history. The achievement of the tendency can be directly attributed to our long-term political strategy of orientating towards, and working within, the official labour movement. Without the painstaking work of decades within the mass labour movement, we would never have been capable of playing the leading role in the victorious anti-poll tax movement, or in the struggle waged by Liverpool City Council in the 1980’s, nor would we have been in a position to challenge official Labour candidates in the Liverpool local elections or in the Walton by-election.

However, in a reference to the Anti-Poll Tax Unions, which we will comment on later, it continues:

4. In the recent period conditions have forced us to shift emphasis away from work in and through the Labour Party, while defending the methods that have established the organisation over the years. But those methods have never precluded new initiatives, tactical turns or new organisational forms when demanded by the objective situation and the needs of the tendency.

(‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks‘)

How did the Militant ‘build a base’ in the mass labour movement, working under conditions of entrism? The example of the Labour Party Young Socialists (LPYS) is instructive. Both before and after the Militant won a majority in the Labour Party youth organisation, the branches led by the Militant were campaigning amongst ordinary youth and workers, who were at first overwhelmingly not members of any party.

In the late 1960’s the Labour Party Young Socialists was largely an inactive shell of an organisation. The Militant, and the LPYS nationally as it came under the influence of the Militant, initiated many campaigns on all the issues affecting young people, and recruited these non-party youth and workers from these campaigns directly to both Marxism and, in joining the Labour Party, to the struggle within the Labour Party for socialist policies.

In this process the LPYS expanded rapidly and the narrow majority the Militant won in the LPYS in 1971 in time became an overwhelming majority. The biggest annual LPYS conferences in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s had very nearly 2,000 young people in attendance. The LPYS’s last big period of growth was during the 1984/5 miners’ strike and the mass school students’ strikes of March 1985 when the number of local branches grew from 495 in 1983 to 581 in 1985.

The Militant became the majority in the youth section of the traditional mass party of Britain, and then built it as a vibrant campaigning organisation, because we orientated ourselves to the youth and working class as a whole, not just to those we found within the party. Militant supporters were always open about their support for the Militant: any new young people were immediately approached to buy a copy of the Militant and asked whether they would like to discuss our ideas – there was never any doubt in the LPYS about an individual’s political affiliation.

Most of the growth of the Militant tendency came about because of its flexible orientation towards the Labour Party, yet at the same time to the wider working class, who may have regarded the Labour Party as their party, but perhaps were not inspired to join the Labour Party because of its reformist, bourgeois orientated leadership.

The Limits of Entrism

But this period came to an end. Both the beginning of a right turn within the Labour Party and Militant’s own rapid growth meant that the old methods could not simply continue without change.

By the first half of the 1980s the Militant tendency in Britain had become a significant factor in British society. The Militant was rarely out of the news, and by the mid 1980s one would occasionally find three separate articles in a single day in a national daily newspaper such as ‘The Guardian’ relating to the activities of the Militant, for instance in relation to Liverpool City Council, expulsions in the Labour Party, and some trade union activity, particularly in the civil servants union the CPSA in which members of the Militant had a leading role. (In 2003-4 Socialist Party members regained this position in this sector, now organised in the PCS, which was formed from a merger of the CPSA and other civil servants’ unions.)

The tactic of entrism, in the form of a long term orientation to the traditional mass workers’ party from within, no longer applied. The document ‘For the Scottish Turn‘ explains:

76. However, conditions have changed from the time that Problems of entrism was written, both objectively and subjectively. The situation internationally and in Britain has changed. The position within the Labour Party has changed. The Labour leaders have moved far to the right, and the left within the party has been routed for the time being. But at the same time, we are no longer at the stage of purely preparatory work.

77. We should not exaggerate our strength. Our primary task is still to educate and train cadres. Nevertheless, our tendency is a factor in the political situation, which both the capitalists and the Labour leaders are forced to take account of. We are no longer a small tendency which can work inconspicuously within the Labour Party. We have led mass struggles in Liverpool and, above all, against the poll tax. Our strategy and tactics have to take account of all these factors.

78. We will maintain an orientation towards the Labour Party and the trade unions, which must be fundamental to our strategy. We will also maintain a long-term tactic of entry work within the Labour Party. But we have to apply the entry tactic flexibly, and not as a once-and-for-all fetish. The Minority have ossified our rich experience of the entry tactic into “forty years’ work”. They are defending not the genuine method of our tendency, but a one-sided, dogmatic distortion of our strategy and tactics…

90…The reality is that wherever comrades are effective within the party, they are expelled or their parties are suspended. The Marxists are tolerated within the party only where they do not pose a threat at the moment. Moreover, comrades are also expelled for their activities outside the party…

143. [The Poll Tax] struggle has been almost entirely outside the Labour Party. The forces we used to launch the struggle were previously accumulated within the Labour Party and the trade unions. But our involvement in the struggle has led to many of our most active comrades being driven out of the [Labour] party.

Let us examine these points in detail. In paragraph 76 there are some comparisons to the period of the Second World War when the Workers International League left the Labour Party to do independent, open work. By the late 1980’s the Labour Party was changing; for example the Labour Party Young Socialists had been severely restricted and finally completely closed down in 1988. It was no longer possible to simply continue working in the same way that Militant had done in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.

But just as important, as explained in paragraph 77, in the 1980’s the Militant had become an ‘objective factor’ in society, a recognised independent, albeit small, factor in the working class movement – a factor for instance in the considerations of the ruling class. The right turn in the Labour Party meant that it had become very difficult to operate as a clearly identified ‘Militant supporter’ in the Labour Party without being expelled. The Labour Party bureaucracy could no longer be fobbed off. The left pressure on the Party leadership from the Labour Party membership – what was left of it – had lessened to a considerable degree: Labour Party members were either inactive or had changed in character. Sympathetic workers, who predominated before, were now replaced with antagonistic careerists. At the same time the pressure from the ruling class on the Labour Party bureaucracy had increased enormously.

The Labour Party bureaucracy had implemented a ‘register of non-affiliated groups’ in 1982, i.e. unofficial groups ‘allowed’ to be active inside the Party, and Militant was not on it, meaning that the door was opened to action being taken against Militant supporters. The leadership of Militant – Ted Grant, Peter Taaffe, Clare Doyle, Lynn Walsh and Keith Dickinson – was expelled early in 1983, eight years before the ‘Open Turn’!

By the end of the 1980’s it was generally only possible to remain in the Labour Party if one did not seriously clash with the pro-capitalist Labour Party bureaucracy, in other words, if one did not come to the effective defence of the interests of the working class. Militant supporters did not do this, and so were continually being expelled. In this sense, at no time did the Militant misunderstand the principles involved irrespective of the tactic of entrism – to tell the working class the truth. As Marx put it in the Communist Manifesto: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.”

The Labour Party was moving to an historic break with the past, in which, alongside the other parties of the Second International, by the mid-1990’s it was to change its character and sever its link to the working class, a process now complete, and almost certainly irreversible. (See the CWI Seventh World Congress ‘Thesis on the former workers’ parties and our tactics‘ on this website) As a result it is no longer the case that the Socialist Party has a “long-term tactic of entry work” in the Labour Party as stated in the paragraph 78 above.

Nevertheless, although ‘Problems of Entrism’ gives a very dynamic and useful guide to the correct Marxist approach to entrism, it was incorrect to argue that, should the Trotskyists leave the Labour Party,

It will not be possible to re-enter easily under conditions of ferment in the Labour Party, as Transport House would have a list of all prominent Trotskyists in the past period. (‘Problems of Entrism‘)

In fact ‘Problems of Entrism’ was originally written in response to the ‘Club’ group of Trotskyists led by the late Gerry Healy leaving the Labour Party in 1959 to form the Socialist Labour League (the ‘SLL’, which later became the Workers’ Revolutionary Party until it disintegrated and collapsed in 1985). However leaving the Labour Party in 1959 did not prevent the SLL winning a majority in the Labour Party’s then newly formed Young Socialists in the early 1960s, a position they held until they again decided to leave in 1964.

The idea that it would not be possible to easily re-enter the Labour Party is carried further in the documents of the ‘Minority’, the minority faction within the Militant that opposed the ‘Open Turn’ in 1991:

184 …The workers regarded us as an integral part of the Labour Party. But once the umbilical cord is broken, we cannot expect the trade unionists to see us in the same light. It will do us colossal damage. (‘The New Turn: A Threat to 40 years work‘)

Like many other points made by the minority opposed to the ‘Open Turn’ this prognosis has not stood the test of time. Subsequent developments have shown that Militant (now the Socialist Party) is far from being isolated from trade unionists. At the time of writing this introduction (July 2004) there are 19 members of the Socialist Party who have been elected to membership of the National Executives of different British trade unions.

In regard to this “umbilical cord” argument the Majority document ‘For the Scottish Turn’ comments:

We are an independent, revolutionary tendency, whether inside or outside the Labour Party. Our orientation is a question of the most favourable tactics for building the tendency. There can be no “umbilical cord” (The New Turn – a threat 184) between a revolutionary tendency and a mass reformist organisation. It is false to claim that we have established “Trotskyism [as] a recognised legitimate section of the Labour movement” (The New Turn – a threat 13, 25) purely on the basis of our position within the Labour Party. How many sectarian organisations have there been in the Labour Party and yet never established their “legitimacy” in the eyes of workers? (‘For the Scottish Turn’ para 252)

Furthermore, the document ‘For the Scottish Turn’ replies to the arguments of the Minority quoted above by citing a report by Alan Woods (‘Spanish report’, of 28 February-9 March, 1991, p4). Alan Woods became a prominent opponent of the ‘Open Turn’ later the same year. However, prior to this, in his February 1991 report he wrote

When the masses turn back to the PSOE [Spanish Socialist Party, equivalent to the Labour Party in Britain] it will not be possible for the bureaucracy to exclude us. The leading comrades may be kept out, but that is not an insurmountable obstacle. (Quoted in ‘For the Scottish Turn’, para 276)

The years since the ‘Open Turn’ have seen a qualitative change in the Labour Party. There are few expectations amongst workers that the Labour Party can be ‘reclaimed’ by the working class and increasing demands within the trade unions for breaking the link with Labour.

But if in the future there were circumstances in which the masses turn back into the Labour Party and it was to some considerable degree ‘reclaimed’ by the working class, then the Trotskyists would be seen as some of the most principled fighters against the ‘New Labour’ takeover. A successful battle to reclaim the Labour Party would require ‘conditions of ferment’ – to say the least – and would re-open debate on all questions, including that of the implementation of prescriptions and bans on Trotskyists. Then “We will be applauded,” says ‘For the Scottish turn’

for keeping the banner of socialism flying during a difficult period. We will gain credit from having warned in advance of the course to be taken by a right-wing Labour government and the consequences of its policies under conditions of crisis. (para 240)

In a period of ferment the usual checks by the bureaucracy would become increasingly difficult to implement, due to objections from the rank and file.

But there are other considerations here. Whilst large, semi-mass or even mass left or centrist groupings may well arise in Britain in the future – even later in this decade – the Socialist Party would be unlikely to return to entrism as practiced in the post-war period.

After the experiences of Stalinism and the collapse of the old parties right from the beginning there will be huge demands for openness and democracy inside new parties. A large Trotskyist organisation is not the same as the group of forty that Trotsky was discussing with in Britain in 1933. Open affiliation or united front joint activities on concrete issues would be far more preferable – and that is if the Socialist Party is not an organic part of a future mass broad left wing grouping from the start.

This is indeed the case recently in Brazil, where Socialismo Revolucionario, the Brazilian section of the CWI, played a significant role in helping to establish the “Party of Socialism and Liberty” (P-SOL) in Braslia on 5-6 June 2004, and is free to act as an open grouping within it.

The need for an ‘Open Turn’

It is important to record here that the process of bourgeoisification of the Labour Party went much further than anticipated in the documents presented in this section. The perspectives for the Labour Party continued to be discussed and reassessed through the 1990s.

As the Labour Party became a totally bourgeois party in the 1990s, new tasks confronted Marxists: especially popularising the idea of the need to form a new workers’ party as well as defending and arguing for the basic ideas of socialism. As part of this process, and as part of the break from the entrist tactic of the past, the Militant changed its name, first to Militant Labour in 1993 after the ‘Open Turn’ and then later, in 1997, to the Socialist Party and launched a new weekly paper, ‘The Socialist‘.

By the late 1990s there were generally no longer any mass traditional parties of the working class in most countries around the world, both in the advanced capitalist countries, and the neo-colonial world. The former bourgeois-worker parties of the Second International had become purely bourgeois formations, emptied out of working class members, socialist content, and meaningful democratic rank and file input. The Communist Parties had all but collapsed in many cases, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and those which remained had moved sharply rightwards.

However in 1991 this was not clear, and ‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks’ paragraph 4, quoted above, concludes:

In the long term, especially in Britain, where there exists an unbreakable link between the Labour Party and the trade unions, entrism will remain a central plank in our strategy to build a powerful revolutionary party.

It is no longer the case that there is an unbreakable link between the Labour Party and the Trade Unions. At this stage the ‘Open Turn’ was seen as a “tactical improvisation” (para 5.) The Militant had to “make any detours necessary” (para 6) and yet retain a “stubborn orientation to the labour movement.” (para 6.)

Nevertheless, the significance of the ‘Open Turn’ was not underestimated:

9. Hence the discussion on the ‘open turn’ is perhaps the most important debate that has ever taken place inside the tendency in Scotland. The outcome of this discussion will also have far-reaching implications for the tendency elsewhere in Britain and even internationally. (‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks’)

The ‘Open Turn’ debate did indeed rapidly proceed throughout the sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International. There was indeed a reassessment of the orientation to the traditional mass parties of the working class.

Nevertheless, it is important to emphasise again that the Committee for a Workers’ International did not pursue only one tactic, entrism, and neither did it then turn from this one tactic to open work. On the contrary, the example of the Prc (Party of Communist Refoundation) in Italy given above indicates that the Committee for a Workers’ International pursues a multitude of tactics.

Later, as it became clear that the parties of the Second International were ceasing to be working class parties, a dual tactic developed in Britain and elsewhere – to build the revolutionary party independently, and at the same time to work for the formation of new mass parties of the working class, based on class struggle. These new mass workers’ parties were seen as the first political step for the mass of workers, something Trotsky spoke about in the late 1930s in relation to using the slogan of a “labor party” in the USA, and within them or alongside them Marxists would campaign openly for Marxist policies.

When the Majority document ‘For the Scottish turn’ was written in 1991, it could still – at a stretch – be argued that the Labour Party “remains the traditional party of the working class in Britain.” (para 3.) Today, however, the possibility of reclaiming the Labour Party for the working class remains very remote. The path to reclaiming the Labour Party is blocked, and the working class will most likely take a different route, building a new class-based mass party through which to struggle to gain representation and change society, and within which genuine revolutionary Marxists will represent a trend fighting for socialist policies.

If the trade union leaders were to be really serious about ‘reclaiming’ the Labour Party that task would involve a complete purging of both the Blairite tendency and of the Party apparatus, in effect the creation of a new party albeit under the old Labour Party banner.

‘Scotland: Perspectives and Tasks‘ outlines the processes in the early 1990s causing this change in the Labour Party, and also in the ‘reformist’ parties in Europe and elsewhere:

14. The last five years have seen remarkable developments in world politics and economics which have had an important effect in reshaping the face of the European labour movement, not least in Britain. The prolonged economic upswing of the 1980s, which has only now come to an end, and the disintegration of Stalinism, have combined to help shift the balance of forces within the labour movement decisively in favour of the openly pro-capitalist right wing. Left reformism, which for decades commanded considerable support within the labour movement, has for now been routed.

The Majority document ‘For the Scottish turn‘ gives a fuller description of the processes at work. For instance:

11. As compared to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, we face a profoundly changed situation. The long post-war economic upswing came to an end with the slump of 1974. The relatively stable relationships which prevailed during the boom period began to break down. During the 1980s, there was a catastrophic decline in the under-developed countries, giving rise to sharpened social crisis and creating the conditions for tumultuous revolutionary upheavals in the next period.

12. In the West, however, for a number of reasons, the advanced capitalist countries experienced boom from 1981 until the present. It has been a distorted, lopsided boom, accompanied by a polarisation of the classes, the growth of mass unemployment and poverty, and the beginning of the breakdown of society. Moreover, the boom is beginning to exhaust itself, and all the conditions of a new period of crisis and upheaval are being prepared beneath the surface.

13. However, on the basis of the Thatcher-Reagan boom, the Labour leaders have swung even further to the right, repudiating socialism, abandoning even the reform policies of the past, and openly embracing the market, that is, capitalism. Kinnockism developed as the counterpart of Thatcherism. The Labour leaders are no longer prepared to defend even basic trade union rights and have in many cases openly opposed workers’ struggles, as in the miners’ strike and in Liverpool. This is an international trend, with the Labour leaders in Spain, France, Germany and elsewhere moving in a similar direction.

An ounce of experience: the Poll Tax battle

The “shift in the balance of forces within the labour movement” was nowhere more clearly demonstrated than in the battle against the Poll Tax (‘Community Charge’) in Britain.

The ‘Open Turn’ debate followed the successful defeat of the Poll Tax, a punitive tax, levied equally on each adult irrespective of their income or wealth, introduced by the then Thatcher led British government. The Militant played the leading political and strategic role in achieving this defeat, through the strategy of non-payment in defiance of the law, and in the development of Anti-Poll Tax Unions, usually entirely independent of the Labour Party, comprised of thousands of ordinary working class people.

It is a matter of public record that both the old Communist Party (which subsequently broke up into fragments) and the Socialist Workers Party initially opposed the tactic of non-payment, which they considered would fail. But more importantly this struggle was conducted in opposition to Labour Party led city and county councils that were aggressively collecting the tax and increasingly Militant supporters were being expelled from the Labour Party for organising the resistance to the Poll Tax. This ‘ounce of experience’ demonstrated more clearly to active members of the Militant the need to take the ‘Open Turn’ than a ‘ton of theory’ could do, to use Lenin’s phrase.

The campaign against Thatcher’s Poll Tax began in Scotland in earnest in 1998, and resulted in Thatcher’s downfall in November 1990. It was an epic, seminal struggle involving 18 million people who were more than three months behind in their Poll Tax payments, and therefore facing court action.

The campaign was more advanced in Scotland due to the fact it was introduced a year earlier than in England and Wales, and because of the significant role of the Militant in Scotland. At an April 1998 conference in Scotland Militant agreed a strategy of illegal non-payment, and began establishing the Anti-Poll Tax Unions, which became mass or semi-mass bodies that defended working class people from ‘Poindings’ (seizures of goods) by the ‘Sheriffs’ (bailiffs) as a result of non-payment.

But the Anti-Poll Tax Unions were not Labour Party bodies. There was no way of working through the Labour Party to oppose the tax, despite Labour being in opposition to a most vicious Tory government. The Labour Party, which led most of the big city councils at the time, was intent on collecting the tax, and the threat of expulsion hung over anyone associating themselves with policies which opposed the Labour Party leadership, due to the continuing witch hunt against the left and the Militant in particular.

The Poll Tax was defeated as it became uncollectable due to mass non-payment. The Tory Party unceremoniously removed Margaret Thatcher as a result of her defeat at the hands of the Anti-Poll Tax Unions under the leadership of the Militant (whatever excuse they use as a cover, Thatcher herself as much as admits to this.)

Yet within the Labour Party Militant was “marginalised by suppression and expulsions” and “an open turn is now imperative” if Militant was to take advantage of its enormous success. (‘Scotland, Perspectives and Tasks 1991’) The vast majority of Militant members active in opposing the Poll Tax and those who had attempted work in the Labour Party, agreed.

The story is best told in The Rise of Militant, which has been serialised on the Socialist Party website (opens in new window). But in view of the debate which is presented here, we highlight the following. In April 1991

The national [Militant] leadership unanimously decided to support the setting up of an independent organisation in Scotland to take account of the extremely favourable situation which had developed for us there. 

In view of the fact that a minority, led by Ted Grant and Rob Sewell, subsequently used this decision as the main reason to split away from Militant, it is important to record that both Ted Grant and Rob Sewell voted in favour of this decision. (Chapter 44)

Cautiously then the Militant began discussing making an ‘Open Turn’ in Scotland in April 1991. But in May 1991 the Left Labour MP Eric Heffer died, and a by-election was called in his Liverpool, Walton constituency. Militant had a very long history and a solid basis of support in this area, but because of the witch-hunt inside the Labour Party it was impossible for a Militant supporter to win the nomination to stand in the election.

Therefore the question was whether Militant would support a right wing Labour candidate in the election or stand our own candidate, aiming to mobilise our local support. This required an immediate decision and immediate action from the National Editorial Board, which was the National Committee of the Militant, and which usually met several times a year, and was elected and comprised of members from around the country.

This National Committee, which met in Merseyside mainly to facilitate the Merseyside National Committee members, decided overwhelmingly to stand Leslie Mahmood in Walton independently as ‘Real Labour’, and the Militant membership as a whole largely supported this decision.

The input of the Merseyside members, in the light of the epic struggle of the Militant-led Liverpool City Council in 1983-1987 was an important part of the decision to stand Leslie Mahmood as an open ‘Real Labour’ candidate. (‘Liverpool – A City that Dared to Fight,’ a Militant publication which records the battle in great detail, is published on the Socialist Party website. Opens in new window.)

The ‘Open Turn’ debate

By this time the internal debate within the Militant was in full swing and soon would spread into the entire Committee for a Workers’ International. ‘Scotland, Perspectives and Tasks 1991‘ was not produced until after the by-election, in July 1991.

In August 1991 the Ted Grant and Alan Woods led Minority who opposed the new policy produced ‘The New Turn – A Threat To Forty Years Work.’ The reply to this by the Majority, ‘For The Scottish Turn: Against Dogmatic Methods In Thought And Action’, was produced in September 1991. Both the Majority and Minority documents were circulated and then debated at special meetings, at branch, regional and national level, including a full delegate conference in October 1991.

In October 1991 the Minority produced ‘The New Turn – What Is the Alternative?‘ which was marked by its ill-tempered tone. The Majority felt that the points it raised had been answered in the existing documents, and no further reply was necessary. However, a Members Bulletin was produced (The Marxist, issue no.4, October, 1991), concentrating mainly on the ‘Open Turn’, and open to both the Minority and the Majority, from which we have selected three significant additions to this debate for this website section, (under the heading ‘The Experience of Entrism‘).

By this time a debate on these issues was well under way throughout the Committee for a Workers’ International. This international debate widen to include issues should as the collapse of the Soviet Union and tactics in Italy towards the newly formed Prc. The CWI International Majority produced ‘Revolution and Counter Revolution in the Soviet Union’ also in October 1991, which dealt with the prospects for the Soviet Union after the fall of the bureaucracy.

This issue, one of the seminal ones of the decade, also differentiated the Majority from the Minority. Among a number of misjudgements in relation to these events, capitalist restoration had been ruled out by the Minority. The document could make no direct reference to the well-known, but essentially unwritten, position of the Minority and the Minority did not reply in print.

In addition, in January 1992, after the departure of the Minority, ‘Two trends: The Political Roots of the Breakaway‘ was produced by Peter Taaffe, the Militant’s General Secretary and leading member of the Majority, revealing for the first time to the wider membership the difficulties and frustrations that had besieged the leadership of the Militant during the period preceding the ‘Open Turn’ debate.

Note on the Militant Tendency

The Militant was unique of all groups on the far left during the late 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. It did not suffer any major splits in its ranks from the birth of the Militant newspaper in 1964 until the ‘Open Turn’ of 1991. How did it remain so cohesive, when the parties from the Trotskyist tradition were renown for splits, mergers, and more splits, as a result of false policies and personality clashes? And what brought about the departure of Ted Grant and his group, who now refer to themselves as the Ted Grant tendency (www.marxist.com)?

The later chapters of ‘The Rise of Militant’ indicate from time to time how Ted Grant failed to grasp the new world situation as it developed through the 1980s. It is instructive to quote this summary from Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party, writing in 1995:

Differences in approach toward strategy and tactics are common in the Marxist movement. Everybody puts forward erroneous points at some time, particularly when not all the facts are known.

But Ted Grant’s approach was distinguished by a dogmatic and stubborn adherence to a point of view when it was clear that he did not have the necessary feel of how a struggle was developing on the ground. Moreover, he attempted to exercise a political veto over differing views and more accurate assessments of a situation.

In the past he had made a big contribution in terms of Marxist theory, particularly in defending the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, both against opportunism and ultra-leftism. But a correct theory in itself is not enough.

It is necessary to translate this into programme, strategy and tactics, and relate these to the real movement of the working class. It is this which distinguished Militant from all other “Marxist” groups, during the course of the Liverpool struggle and also in the poll tax battle.

Despite his past achievements, Ted Grant was sometimes found wanting, particularly in the rapidly changing situation of the 1980s. His lack of tactical awareness and flair was a source of irritation and conflict with some of the main figures in the Liverpool drama.

While Ted Grant was respected by the supporters and leadership of Militant it had been evident for some time that his best days, particularly on the public platform, were behind him. (‘The Rise of Militant’ Chapter 45)

The Militant Tendency’s orientation within the British Labour Party provided revolutionary socialists with a whole range of tools with which to “translate” Marxist theory into “programme, strategy and tactics” in a way which related to ordinary working class people in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. But the profound change during the 1980’s disorientated those who became the Minority. Their claim that the ‘Open Turn’ was a “threat to forty years work” summarised an ossified approach, an inability to adjust to the reality on the ground, a fear of change.

The Militant had remained a remarkably cohesive party, avoiding the splits which plagued other far left groups, due to a combination of a clear understanding of events, and an ability to “translate” this understanding into action alongside the “real movement of the working class.”

No organisation with a clear revolutionary Marxist outlook can gain such mass support as was shown in Liverpool in 1983-1987 and in the battle against the Poll Tax in 1988-1990 without a healthy internal atmosphere and democracy, and a skilful, detailed, realistic political orientation which it can readily negotiate with the working class.

A careful political orientation brought confidence in the leadership of the party, and provided the basis for the unique atmosphere of honest, fraternal debate and exchange at all levels on all subjects, which remains the hallmark of the Committee for a Workers’ International. And this constant exchange within the party ensured that the Militant remained finely attuned to the “feel” of developing struggles in which its largely working class membership were involved.

Nevertheless, important turns in policy are rarely achieved without loss, and the fundamental realignment of the ‘Open Turn’ resulted in the loss of a mainly inactive, out of touch layer from the Militant Tendency.

“Every political turn poses a certain element of danger,” wrote Trotsky (Writings: Supplement, 1929-33, p229). “However, it is much more dangerous to repeat old by-passed formulas in a new situation because of fear of such dangers.”

(‘For the Scottish Turn’, para 28.)

The period of the 1990’s was difficult for Marxists. But the ‘Open Turn’ began a period of re-orientation and re-arming which prepared the Committee for a Workers’ International for the 1990s and now for the growth of new forces during a new millennium, a millennium that has already been marked by decisive events such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, and will see in the near future mighty calls struggles developing in different countries.

This period promises to be a very fruitful one for Marxists in the task of creating the forces that can liberate mankind once and for all from the horrors of capitalism.