with violent condemnation of the national struggle in Ireland, support for strikes, a militant struggle by Liverpool city council last year, capitulation to British imperialism over issues such Malvinas (Falklands) war. All these positons are acmoace or continual rhetoric presenting socialsm as the "nationalisation of the top 250 monopolies'.
appears by turns, and sometimes at sectarian, ultra-left, and exThe apparent inconof Militant's stences positions however rapidly OCCOnIC Clear willer positions are considered in terms of the tundamental categories of Marxism.
Militant's politics sent what Lenin termed "imperialist economism' lial is a current in the workers' movement which apparently radical even ultra-left, realitv represents an adan. tation and capitulation to imperialism within the working class movement.
Lenin in his famous book What is to be done stresses that by itself even Ine most economic struggle of LACI type etTHE CHALLENGE of the black sections to the right wing leadership of the NEC is becoming more Party. The new loyalty oath to be imposed on the London CLPs will not allow black sections to take part in the selection process. If the CLPs allow black sections to take part, then their parliamentary candidates will not receive official support and recognition.
This is a clear message to tie black community by the Labour leadership: we UNC deny you your rights in the you your own representation. The duty of socialists in such a situation is a simple URC• fight this witchhunt tactic. It is to launch a campaign for the CLPs to give black people rights to participate through the hack sections in the selection No loyalty oaths must be imposed to break the movement for black sections.
A major question in all this is stance will working class' and 'working class trade unionist politics is precisely workpolitics Glass bourgeois precise formula: economic struggle of the workers is very often conLICCLCU.. with bourgeois politics,' and even, in certain circumstances. 'trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of Ine workers by the bourgeoisie.
Ine laci lnal ll supports or pursues militant economic struggles would not in itself rule out Milicarl cvel Delng bourgeois reformist current — although for other reasons is obvious v not a capitalist cur. rent within the working In order for a current represent really revolutionary force within the labour movement must serene are mered of all the exploited and optional and international of the class struggle.
In Lenin's words, Marxism: the working class in its relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an organised political force. Hence it follows that not only must democrats (the the political consciousness of the workers to the level SOCa (Marxist - JR) political within the frame work of within the framework the economic struggle for that framework is too narlOW This tendency reduce the struggle of the working to the economic struggle, and its placing within a primarily economic framework, was JLCEHI omism' or 'strikism' In the epoch of imperialism however, Lenin noted, economism takes on the specific and virulent IorI of imperialist economism Lenin examined for example in his article The nascent trend of imperialist economism. This is a current with longer in any other society in the Imperialist economism, the reflection of the weight of imperalism within the working class movement, takes the form not simply of an emphasis primarily economic struggles but also of utilising rhetoric around these to adapt to imperialism. Imperialist economism, as Lenin put it, is 'persistent y "sliding"' from recogni tion of imperialism This would allow the right wing to increase their atthe rank and file of the movement. sectarian to the height of folly.
I ne line or Millant nas failed in Liverpool, where struggle against manifestations of the im- COnCIeLe perialist system. Trotsky outlined a typical example of imperialist in the 1930s when various organisations refused to support Ethiopia, under Haile Selassie, in its war WIld Italian imperialism under Mussolini on the grounds that this was war between two diclalulsi Opportunist Similar types of al guments were used by Militant to refuse, for example, to support Argentina in its war with Britain second teristic feature Militant's politic also to imperialism. As Trotsky put it in The Transitional Programme of the Fourt nternational 'Oppororganisations by their very nature concentrate their attention on the hostility Militant towards black self organisation, the women's liberation movement, gay liberation and other forms of social oppression is all of a piece with its adaptation to imperialism on international politics.
Militant's adaptation to imperialism, finally, determines sectarianism. Militant hates and loathes all that is most in developments within the workers' movement precisely because these forces represent a break with Militant's imperialist, labourist framework This is why Ted Grant decided at the LPYS conference to so firmly ciose the door against the of the miners' Because the entire dynamic ot that SUnKe began to take it outside a labourist framework.
The mass social alliances created in strike in particular, were completely in contradic. tion to Militant's entire political framework. The dynamic the deepened, did bypass, woners self-organisation, black selfrallying of every section of the rs. The NUM itself the miners. in turn, began to politically reach out to these layers - both in the struggle and the role the NUM played at the Labour Party conference in supporting black sections the demands of the Women' Action Committee, sup porting the fight to defend local establishing contact with gay and lesbian organisa ions inside the Labou Militant was faced with the choice of either break ing with its imperialist framework or turning it sectarian back on the dynamic and lessons of the miners' its leadership. It deepen this sectarian and imperialist course, , and to blot out the infection of miners' that Ted Grant set out achieve at this years LPYS conterence.
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explosive every day. Black sections are really testing out how far the leadership, will go in order to exclude black people from having their rights in the Labour