Lynn Walsh: A Reply to Tribune’s Editor

[Militant 497, 4th April 1980, p. 2]

By Lynn Walsh

“Tribune” (28^th March) published an extraordinary editorial, “Underhill, the Militant Tendency and the fight for democratic socialism,” which demands an answer. While purporting to oppose the right wing’s attempts to launch a witch-hunt against the Militant, the editorial in fact launches into a vitriolic attack on this paper.

Firstly, we must make it clear that left MPs like Tony Benn, Dennis Skinner, Eric Heffer, Joan Maynard, and others associated with the Tribune Group have taken a principled stand against the witch-hunt. They understand that any attack on the Militant, if successful, would very soon spill over into an attack on the left as a whole.

Many members of the Labour Party who generally identify with the ideas of “Tribune” have also defended the “Militant” against attack, and support the right of all left-wingers to campaign for their ideas within the party.

This approach, however, is in marked contrast to the abusive tone adopted by Tribune’s editor, Richard Clements. Those who read ‘Tribune’ regularly will be aware that it is part of a continuing campaign against the ‘Militant’ based on scurrilous gossip and slanders picked up from both the right wing and from the very ultra-left sects whom Richard Clements claims to despise so much. Even a ‘Tribune’ reporter commented to ‘Militant’ supporters on the paranoic attitude of Richard Clements towards the ‘Militant’.

Previously, we have not responded to Clement’s attempts to goad us, or to his efforts to embroil us in a futile wrangle with the sects (with whom he seems to be pre-occupied). But enough is enough, and we feel that the great majority of Tribunites will want to disassociate themselves from the serious, but totally unsubstantiated, allegations made in his editorial.

It is necessary, moreover, to take up this latest attack in the pages of ‘Militant’ because our experience has been that we have been denied the right of reply in ‘Tribune’. In the past (including in the last two weeks), letters from ‘Militant’ supporters have either been cut out of all recognition or completely suppressed.

The tone of this latest editorial can be judged by the following: “If there were a political Trades Description Act, the Militant Tendency would be sued for false pretences for its claim that it is ‘Marxist’. Its policies are a mish-mash of Leninist slogans combined with a few selected quotations from some of the most uninspired of Trotsky’s thoughts, and it has a Stalinist organisation which makes the British Communist Party look like the Liberal Party at prayer…”.

What justification or evidence has Tribune’s editor got for implying (and in the past asserting on the basis of malicious gossip) that ‘Militant’ supporters use Stalinist methods? ‘Militant’ supporters have always scrupulously avoided the use of underhand manoeuvres and subterfuge in their work in the labour movement.

But ‘Stalinist’ is not simply a term of political abuse. It is an exact term for the character and methods of the totalitarian bureaucracy which dominates the planned economies of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and a number of other states, and for the policies and methods of its supporters in the Communist Parties of the capitalist states.

‘Militant’ has always fundamentally opposed the totalitarian methods of these regimes and their apologists, and advocated a revolutionary struggle for the restoration of workers’ democracy.

The accusation of Stalinism, however, is somewhat surprising coming from ‘Tribune’. In its 40^th anniversary issue, ‘Tribune’ reprinted an obituary of Stalin printed at his death in 1953. “Of course,” it said, “the achievements of the Stalin era were monumental in scale.” After cataloguing a number of “monumental achievements,” ‘Tribune’ went on to ask: “Who, in the face of these colossal events, will dare to question Stalin’s greatness? How super-human must be the mind which resided over these world-shattering developments?”

‘Militant’, on the other hand, has always shown that Stalinism was a perversion of the genuine socialist ideas of the October revolution, and has never for a moment given credence to the dictatorial role of Stalin or his successors

Regrettably, it is the editor of ‘Tribune’ who has resorted to the dishonest Stalinist method of amalgam, of trying to lump ‘Militant’ together with the ultra-left sects on the fringes of the labour movement in order to smear us with their crazy ideas and alien methods.

‘Tribune’s’ editor also attempts to taunt ‘Militant’ with the spurious allegation, borrowed from the various despised sects, that ‘Militant’ is purely a reformist tendency. In support of this, he says that the ‘Militant’ “espouses … what is clearly a ‘reformist’ trade union demand for a reduction in the working week to 35 hours.”

Does the ‘Tribune’ not support this demand? More to the point, does ‘Tribune’ believe that this vital demand will be painlessly achieved as a reform graciously conceded by the bosses in the present period of economic crisis? Does he see no connection between a fight for this immediate, necessary measure and a struggle for a fundamental socialist change in society?

Turning in the opposite direction, ‘Tribune’s’ editor also echoes the organisational allegations of the ring wing, implying that the Militant Tendency is “a closed conspiracy.” He repudiates any idea that the ‘Tribune’ is a tendency: “We will make one thing clear; ‘Tribune’ does not ‘organise’ within the labour movement. This newspaper has no organic links with the Tribune Group in the House of Commons or with the Tribune Groups which have formed themselves in the constituencies. ‘Tribune’ was, is, and will remain an independent socialist newspaper which argues out the major issues of the day.”

Is the editor of ‘Tribune’ saying that his paper is incapable of effectively organising support for its ideas? Is that his real objection to the ‘Militant’, that it is effective in organising and mobilising a left wing around a clear socialist programme within the Labour Party and the trade unions?

It is certainly clear from this editorial and from Richard Clements’ previous articles, that he is completely incapable of taking up and answering the arguments of ‘Militant’. He vainly hopes that the ‘Militant’ will just fade away, as a number of the sects drifted out of the Labour Party in the past.

But he will be disappointed. As the overwhelming support for the ‘Militant’ against the recent attempts at a witch-hunt shows, ‘Militant’ now has an enormous layer of support within the rank and file of the Labour Party and the trade unions. This will not be undermined by scurrilous attacks and smears.

In the past, Richard Clements has refused to debate with ‘Militant’ (or he has agreed and then failed to turn up!). But we would new challenge Richard Clements: if he feels so strongly against ‘Militant’ and the ideas that it puts forward, let him debate in public with the representatives of this paper – not on the basis of trivial gossip and hearsay accusations, but on the key issues of programme, policy and tactics facing the labour movement today.