La meeting of London busmen mic situation is such to maintain mass working class involvement in the constituency parties. Once this position is understood, then we can understand both the conditions for the periods of Importance of the Labour left, and for its periods of decay and insignificance. The stability of the old set up we have described is based on the two conditions that the political focus of the life of the wor king class remains within the constituency parties, and that the Labour Party keeps out of the affairs of the trade unions. If either of these two breaks down, then the whole structure becomes completely unstable. If the constituency parties cannot channel the political energies of the working class, then the trade union bureaucrats come under intense pressure from below and are forced for their own self protection, into conflict with the leaders of the Labour Party, thus breaking one of the agreements on which the stability of the political system is based. If, to take the other premise, the Labour Party leadership interferes in the affairs of the trade unions then again the political system breaks down. To defend themselves the trade union bureaucrats are forced to fight politically against the Labour leaders. In so doing however they create an alternative, and in fact far more powerful, focus for the political struggles of the working class than that to be found in the constituency Labour parties. Quite obviously even in terms of the struggle inside the Labour party the weight of the unions is far greater than that of the constituency parties (as the experience of Bevanism showed only too clearly). In addition the trade unions can carry on the struggle in a period which extends outside the activity around elections. Once, however, the political struggle begins to flow through the trade unions then the Labour left finds itself isolated and helpless precisely because, as we discussed earlier, it is forced by its whole ideology of Labourism not to organise directly in the trade unions. What in fact characterises the present period is precisely the simultaneous ending for interrelated reasons of both the premises on which the old Labour political order was based. Firstly, and most obviously, the crises of British capitalism, with its consequent need to clobber the trade unions, has led the Labour Party to be forced directly to attack the trade unions. This process began on a small scale in the 1945-51 Labour government, and government. the seamen, and 'In Place of Strife' anti-union Aneurin Bevan proposals all directly affected the trade union bureaucrats. Slowly but surely, from being the main pillars of support of the Labour leadership, the trade union bureaucrats have been driven, usually against their will, into being the main enemy of the Labour leaders.
Secondly, the constituency parties have completely collapsed as a political focus for the political activities of the working class. We have already dealt with the extent of this collapse in a previous article so we do not need to recap again. It is sufficient to note that even according to the official figures one sixth (17 per cent) of the already depleted ranks of individual members of the Labour party left between the years 1965 and 1969.
The decline in membership of the largest parties in this period was a staggering 30 per cent. Furthermore, the drop in activities was even more marked, the fall was greatest in working class wards, and the wards in middie class areas increased in size (The Decline in Working Class Politics' B. Hindess). This collapse is not accidental but is determined by the whole interaction of the decline in British capitalism since 1945 and the position of the labour left. As this point is extremely important we will deal with it separately. reasons for collapse The possible range of politics of the Labour left has always been defined by its acceptance of the division of politics and trade unionism on the basis of where they occur, and therefore by the fact that it has, no or. ganised base inside the trade unions. These factors cut out any politics based on the intervention in the factory struggle and the political activity of the 'left' must therefore be concentrated on issues outside the eco. nomic struggle. The two most obvious are the welfare state and foreign affirs. The latter has however been excluded in the past period because of the Cold War. This prevented the 'left' taking up any real position, and when an issue did come along in the shape of Vietnam the skilful intervention of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign took it in far too revolutionary a direction for the Labour left to make any capital out of. In any case the constituencies cannot sustain themselves on moral protest. They need a "bread and butter" welfare issue to sustain their base amongst the working class. Hence the fact that prescription charges, false teeth, glasses, etc., have always been the great crusading points and touch stones of the Labour left. However, the way in which British capitalism has declined since 1945 has meant that although it has been able to make some concessions in the field of wages, it has been completely unable to make any in the field of social expenditure. (For details see The Red Mole, Vol. 2, No. 4). In fact the whole situation with regard to the welfare state has deteriorated and got worse. In thirteen years of opposition and six years of government the Labour left was totally unable to prevent the systematic abandonment by Labour of its commitment to welfarism, let alone actually gain anything for the working class. (The measures of 1945-51 would probably have also been introduced by the Tories anyway so we may extend the period if we wish). In short all the struggles of last 20 years inside the constituency parties on this issue has been banging the head against a brick wall.
Finally, the position of British capitalism in this area is now so bad that not even the most unrealistic of the lefts can seriously put forward any suggestions in this area. As Lenin frequently remarked, the working class is an exceedingly realistic class, and after 20 years it has got tired of bashing its head when the trade unions seem to offer a perspective for struggle which the constituency left is completely incapable of giving. Therefore simultaneously with the great exodus of the working class from the constituency sections of the Labour Party, there has been a tremendous increase in the social weight and organisation of the rank and file of the trade unions. While the 1950s saw the slow crumbling of welfarism, they were also the golden days of wage drift when local agreements relentlessly leap-frogged the national agreements (which in any case were themselves definitely superior to the pathetic promises of the Labour left). As the constituencies emptied, so the shop stewards committees filled up. Thus, for example the number of A.E.U. stewards increased by 50% between 1947 and 1961 (Marsh and Coker in British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol.1, No.2). This was three times the increase in the number of manual workers in these factories. Furthermore the process was accelerating during the 1950s and the growth in the number of stewards between 1957 and 1961 was twice that in the period 194756. In consequence of the increased power, work stoppages increased 23 per cent and days 'lost' by 82 per cent between 1947 and 1961. Even the since departed News Chronicle was forced to admit in 1959 that if Gallup Polls were to be believed then, "in 22 years of polling the British public have never found higher acclaim for trade unionism amongst union members than exist today".
This development has carried over even into the present period, with the galloping increase in white collar unionisation. This must be the first time since the 1900s that an increase in unemployment has been accompanied hot by a fall, but by an increase in unionisation. transformation This whole process caused profound changes within the trade union movement. Those bureaucrats who wished to make gains in militant sections such as cars were forced to take up more radical and left positions. It may have been an act of God that caused the deaths in rapid succession of Deakin and Tiffin and therefore allowed Cousins to be come leader of the TGWU, but there was a material pressure on the T & G to move it to the left even before that. The election of Scanlon in the AUEW was a real indication of the way the wind was blowing. A remarkable transformation was taking place. Faced with no perspective for struggle whatsoever inside the constituency labour parties, the industrial upsurge sucked the working class out of the individual membership organisations of the Labour Party. This tendency was increased by the heightening clashes between the trade union bureaucracy and the Labour leadership. Thus, was created a situation whereby the mass base was lost by the constituency left, so that they moved further and further to the right, while the trade union bureaucrats were under greater and greater pressure to move to the left. Under Wilson the underlying processes came to a head, and the quantitative change became a qualitative one. The constituencies, traditional stronghold of the left became the main supporters of the leader. ship, and the trade unions, traditional allies of the Parliamentary leadership, became the main force of the left. This dramatic change can be illustrated most vividly by simply com paring the votes on key issues at Labour Party conferences at the beginning and end of this period. In 1953 and 1954 the Bevanites managed to pull roughly three quarters of the constituency votes on the key issue of German re-armament. The leadership only won the issue because of the block votes of the TGWU, NUGWU, and NUM. Even by 1960 the situation had been remarkably changed. Then the left on the issue of unilateralism only received 33% of the constituency votes (Hindell and Williams, Political Quarterly, 1952). The 'victory' was won only because of the vote of the trade unions. By the time we come to 1969 and 1970 we find it is from the constituency parties that the support for incomes policy and In Place of Strife' comes almost exclusively, and even the most moderate of unions are in opposition to the Parliamentary leadership. The reversal of positions is now complete. With no mass constituency base behind it, and no credible issue on which it can counterpose itself to the trade union leadership as the champion of real struggle, the labour left has become a pathetic onlooker of a combat all of whose real actors it is helpless to influence.
limitations This article has confined itself to discussing one very small, but extremely important point.
What it aims to show is that the decline of the constituency left cannt be interpreted as a purely temporary phenomena. This decline on the contrary represents an extremely pro found interrelation of the nature of a Social Democratic organisation, and the process of the decline of the British capitalism since 1945. It must be noted however, what are the limitations of the way in which this must be understood.
Firstly, what has been argued in this article does not rule out temporary increases in the size and involvement inside the constituency labour parties in the future. What it does however argue is that without a profound change in the entire economic, social and political situa tion, the constituency left cannot regain its position as the political focus of the working class. Any increase in size and activity of the constituency left would occur in a situation in which the trade unions still had by far the greatest political weight within the working class. Any revolutionary activity would have to be based on this situation. Only a complete economic collapse which made trade union activity impossible, or an absolutely decisive defeat in struggle for the trade union movement would change this situation. Secondly, and this is the most important point of all, it must be realised that the situation we are now seeing in the Labour Party is not a unique one. It existed for twenty years in the period prior to the General Strike. Then too the trade unions were the dominant elements in the struggle of the work. ing class, and the struggle within the constituency Labour parties was almost entirely a reflection of the struggle that was going on outside. However, this did not mean then as it does not mean now, that the working class had escaped from the ideological hold of Labou ism, simply because it was not under the Labour Party's organisational hold. On the contrary. precisely because the trade union militancy is carried on in isolation from the Labour Party not in a way directed against it, this activity also accepts the fundamental division between politics and the factory struggle which is at the heart of the Labour Party. In other words 'pure' industrial action is merely the other side of the coin of left Labourism. A working class merely ignoring the Labour party is dominated by Social Democratic ideology just as much, although in a different way, to one which is actively involved in the organisations of the constituency Labour parties. All we have so far shown is that it is necessary to separate the ideas of the ideological hold of Labourism from the idea of the organisational hold of the Labour Party. Once this is done then the demise of the Labour left in a period of increased class struggle becomes perfectly explicable. It does not alter the aim of revolutionaries however. That remains to destroy the hold of Labourism in all its forms whether they be in the constituency parties, or in pure trade union action.
A. Jenkins Marcholl
IN