results were described by the Telegraph as 'disturbing' for the Tories. of support for the policies The slow but steady decline of the Thatcher government the Labour Party to rebuild to do so Labour must know It is on issues such as opposiprivatisation; defence of the trade But as the miners showed in 1972 Transport and 1974, and the POEU have shown propaganda that builds support. Thatcherism can be defeated only by mass parliament involving the trade unions, This means understanding clearly what is meant by the phrase building mon idea of a mass campaigning partwellly yeals.
Many local Labour Parties are toBut to be a real mass campaigning lives. lives.
ple are everyday threatened with being knocked down and killed.
A Labour Party which only discusses damp in council flats or the threat of dangerous traffic is no good as a fighter for socialism. But a Labour Party which does not discus. council flats and local problems -but only discusses CND - will neve win mass support for socialism.
The huge impact and popularity of Labour councils such as the GLC and Sheffield is that they have really reached out and affected ordinary people's everyday lives.
The GLC has been in the forefront of promoting struggles such as Ireland. But the GLCs reductions in public transport fares, the fact there is a massive increase in children's entertainment in the parks, the many cultural and sporting events that have taken place have reached out and made London a nicer place to live in.
For a council like Sheffield, or one like Lambeth, just go into any council office and you will feel the difference. In most boroughs you meet some naugnly bureaucral who ouviously feels that the public simply exists to fit in with his or her plans. In Lambeth or Sheffield you generally find someone who thinks their job is to help you. The difference really can be felt by ordinary people.
To emphasise that success is not to support everything that Ken Livingstone or David Blunkett have done. Far from it. All sorts of mistakes are made. But types of Labour councils such as the GLC or Shetied have done more to make socialism popular than probably anything else that has happened for Sheffield and London, whatever their shortcomings, have shown the basic truth that socialism is not about the state dominating people. It is avout the stale proviulilg bat resources that can allow people to lead richer, fuller and more individual Like the National Health Service good local councils ram home the basic truth that there is no freedom where there is disease and there is no liberty where there is poverty.
Only the massive resources of the state, democratically controlled, can provide the facilities and the base on which ordinary people can live freer The state, based on democracy in every aspect of society, is a great instrument of freedom and not of tyranny. Without those resources, which only the state can provide, the only people who are free are those who have the money to pay for their own health, who have the money to finance their children's education, and who have the money to own newspapers that slander socialists.
The words the great Russian socialist Lenin wrote about political activity in his country could well serve for the type of Labour Party that needs to be built today. 'The ideal.. should be the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppressIon, no matter woere I appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalise all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of ever! event, however small, in order to ser torth before all his socialst convic tions and his democratic demands.' A Labour Party campaigning to defend the NGA. A Labour Party campaigning to defend the National Health Service and Women's Rights. A Labour Party also campaigning on council houses and traffic. That is the type of 'mass campaigning party' Labour must become if it is to win.
That is the type of party it can become if it puts its democratic socialist ideals into practice.
Arguments fore "This is by far the best book that has been published about electoral polities for a very long time' -Tony Beni Available The Other Bookshop , 328 Upper Street, London N.1. £2.50 Socialist Action 2 December 1983
Socialist Action 2 December 1983