THE SPLIT in the Communist Party has speeded up dramatically ever the last few weeks. dovember the Communist Party crecutive ruled that the London Party congress was not entitled to dect a new district committee. On 4 December Gordon Communist Secretary, attempted to close the London congress and then led a walk out.
On 30 November 22 leading Communist members London were suspended three full time workers sacked. All ad supported the line of the Morning Star against the Eurocommunists of Marxism Today and the party executive.
But the divisions within Communist Party have been immediately caught up in, and mirтог, much wider process alignment. and recomposition which is taking place in the labour movement. JOHN ROSS looks at one of the fundamental process taking place: the emergence of a current which now itself the 'broad left'.
Apart from Marxism Today it is the lew Statesman which is the most widein the Communist Party for the labour movement as a whole.
the Statesman's editor, Sarah Benton, has been attempting to forge an explicit alliance between the Eurocommunist wing of the Communist Party and Neil Kinnock's supporters In ordinating Committee.
Writing following a public debate berween Marxism Today and the LCC in London in the 10 February issue of New Statesman Benton wrote that:
the purpose of the debate was to wheel into public view the new axis that has formed Organisationally, the axis runs from the Labour Co-ordinating Committee (a soft left grouping Labour Party) to the middle of the Communist Party. This is not a very great distance. But such an axis puts both the LCC and the munists' in a stronger position for their separate fights for dominance in their own parties.
Supporters of this Today/LCC : axis have since christened temselves the "broad left'. Major articles which outline the self views of this current are, for example, field's "Crossed lines:
search of an identity' in Marxism Today for April 1984, Sarah *The left re-aligns' in New Statesman 30 November, and Beatrix Campbell's 'Politics, pyramids - and people' in Marxism Today for December 1984.
Benton wrote what she considered to be the defining features 'broad left' her Statesman article of 10 February. She stated that Marxism LCC, in contrast to others on the left, were agreed that:
1. suffered defeat at the which it will recover. women pose an pol cal Bronn is.
Tony Benn is no longer the standardbearer of the Left, keyword than 'equality'.
Any political strategy must continue to acknowledge the centrality of the Labour Party as the mass party of the working class.
Winning popular
basic socialist policies is more important than winning a party branch On McLennan, for women's liberation.
General automatically recover' etc.
taken himself political influence.
'fundamentalist the bellon as. "stalinists"
Tra no al Left, including group around Labour Herald (l.e.
Wharburton).' likes to term men coe l should be achieved.
The crudest, in a series ol ardeputy Statesman. prepared LO movement Coeliminated.
Labour's leadership is Scargill', Kellner concludes:
now pointing out the Iell. damental within the ultimately incompatible.
'eurocomMarxism Jon BioomCommunists in Benton's this original Today and the crushing automatically unavoidable majority for more esoteric ones.
A large part of this list is of course fake. There are far greater forces on the left than the LCC/Marxism Today (tc say the least!) who believe that 'women pose an unavoidable political problem' - which is a very curious way of stating the decisive importance of the struggle It would also be an idiot who failed to realise that 'Labour suffered a crushing defeat at the last election from which it will not But behind the smokescreens the operative part of Benton's list was clear - namely that "Tony Benn is no longer the standardbearer of the Left, and has beyond Ine pale of The counterposition which Benton und mermiti len ak a actied defined erstwhile of the CP, various grouping from the old Trotskyist Left ... and fundamentalist lony benl ana ine Ted Knight, Ken Livingstone, and Matthew This view that what used to be termed the 'Bennite' left must be eliminated or margınalisea in ine labour movefact unite the Marxism Today/LCC/New Statesman axis. The difference between the forces involved is simply on how this marginalisation and most explicitly right wing version has come from Peter Kellner, the political editor of the New Kelner perfectly necessary crushing defeats of the working class provided this will enable forcés of the 'fundamentalist left' to be Thus writing in the New Statesman of 16 November, under the title 'why wrong about as some sectarian Left papers are - there is a fundifference between the positions of the NUM leadership and that of the Labour Party leadership... Mr Kinnock and Mr Scargill represent political positions that are For those day COMMITTEE COUNCIL LOCAL 10 SKA0p -RATE CAPPING:
The DayAft Liberals, position to Common Market membership. It draws its forces from the same milieu as the Gurdian, sections of the the SDP and those who basically think Britain should be moved in the direction of a modern capitalist state on the model of West Germany or
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ty read journal which has completely understood the significance of the crisis
taken himself beyond the pale of political infaen is a more potent
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