Where the Labour Parties Fail. An Australian episode
In the first article we had described the organisational campaign carried on by the “Socialisation” groups inside the Australian Labour Party. They had succeeded in forming a complete organisation winch, while sketchy in parts, practically amounted to a party within a party. The leaders realised that, if such development went, on unchecked it would sooner or later challenge the existing control. This was too much, and rumbles of the approaching storm became evident.
The Socialisationists, realising that control of the Executive was essential, organised accordingly, and candidates favourable to them were supported for all districts and unions; but at the elections for the 1933 Executive they were overwhelmingly defeated, and from this date the fate of the movement was sealed. During the developments referred to above, even the leader, J. T. Lang,, had at times been forced to pay lip service to Socialism. At a public meeting at North Sydney he said : —
“The Capitalist system is responsible…… The system could not be mended. Therefore, the quicker it wa,s ended the better.” (Labour Daily, 6/12/32.)
But all this ended at the beginning of 1933 with the installation of the new Executive.
At the Goulburn Provincial Conference of Country delegates, held early in 1933, Lang laid down the policy to be pursued by the Party in the next elections, and threw down the challenge to the Socialisation section. The policy for the future was to be “Socialisation of Credit,” and Mr. Lang, true to the reformist basis of the Labour Party, concentrated his attack upon the banks as the real and only villains of the situation. The policy of Lang and the Executive was adopted at Goulburn, but the situation at the Metropolitan Provincial Conference, which followed shortly was different. Here the Socialisationists, due to their intense activity, had a majority and used it, defeating the resolutions of the Lang faction and passing a compromise resolution in which Lang’s “Socialisation of Credit” was placed as part of the question of the “Socialisation of Industry.”
Mr. Lang, in addressing the Conference, restated his policy and made some general references to the struggles of those in the movement, and said : —
“False friends will arise from your own ranks to lead you into confusion and discord. The integrity of loyal men will be challenged; traitors will be given the appearance of patriots.”
Next morning, 13/2/33, the Labour Daily, controlled by Lang and Co., issued an attack upon the majority of the Conference delegates, head-lined across the page as follows : —
“Clique organised in name of Socialisation branches attack at A.L.P. Metropolitan Conference. The capitalist Press Campaign bears fruit. Leaders grave warning becomes reality.”
This marked the beginning of an unscrupulous campaign, in which the power of the Labour Daily and the whole official machinery of the A.L.P. were used to crush the opposition within the Party. All the tricks of distortion, evasion, suppression and misrepresentation common to the gutter Press were used to assure that the delegates to the Easter Conference should be on the side of Lang and the Executive. To such effect was this done that the Easter Conference contained only a small minority of representatives of the Socialisation section, and the movement was squashed.
Defeat and Disintegration
This was done simply by resolutions declaring the Units, as separate entities, abolished, thus destroying the basis of their organisation; by electing a Socialisation Committee composed of nominees of the Executive, and by declaring that all lecturers for the A.L.P. must be endorsed by this Committee. Thus the effort of three years was destroyed in as many hours, and the “Socialisation Movement” fell; the notorious J. S. Garden, Secretary of the Labour Council of N. S. W., foundation member and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Australia, and now a member of the Labour Party, and chief organiser for J. T. Lang, acting as the stage manager for its obsequies.
The active socialisationists did not submit without a struggle; but it was in vain. In its attempt to confront the situation, all the weaknesses inherent in its composition became evident. During the tune winch elapsed between the Metropolitan and Easter Conferences the Committee and its supporters had carried on, and intensified their organisation, published special issues of the “Socialisation Call,” organised the collection of funds, printed and distributed leaflets in an endeavour to defeat the propaganda of their opponents.
Late in 1932 a split had occurred among the leaders of the Socialisation Section itself, and the breakaway faction had formed a rival organisation, called the A.L.P. Rank and File Committee, and accepting the Communist doctrine of the United Front, had set out to draw to themselves all the like-minded elements in the movement.
Despite the fact that it was outlawed, the Committee, under the guise of an Anniversary Aggregate Meeting, held a conference at the Redfern Boot Trades Hall, on April 22nd, 1933. This , meeting, though attended by over 200 delegates, representative of the Units, Group Councils, etc., was foredoomed to failure, and ended in disorder, most of the time of the meeting being wasted in a wrangle between the leaders of the two “Socialist” factions. A further conference, held on May 14th, was as futile as the first. The resolutions discussed at these “conferences” do not matter. The actual situation was, that the delegates were a group of “Socialisers” who had been shown plainly enough that the Labour Party did not want them, and they reacted to that injunction according to their understanding. Some wanted to form a separate party, some to stay in the A.L.P. and work upon a United Front Basis (i.e., be the catspaw of the Communist Party in its confusionist endeavours) some wanted to stay in the Labour Party because they believed in it, or for what they could get out of it.
Both conferences revolved around a point of no real concern to any intelligent worker, the fight between the A.L.P. and the Communist Party, and the nostrums they represent.
So ended an attempt to realise the dreams of those who think that Labour Parties can be transformed into instruments of emancipation. The words of Frederick Engels cannot be too often quoted : —
“For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing of the capitalist class.” (Origin of the Family.)
That quotation epitomises the function of the Labour Party and the political outlook of its members. For the tremendous task involved in the achievement of Socialism, nothing less than a Party firmly based and built upon clean-cut Socialist principles will serve. Don’t waste time wandering in the political wilderness of Labour politics. Realise that the achievement: of emancipation presupposes the widespread understanding of a statement no Labour Party has yet comprehended :
“Socialism is the only hope. All else, is illusion.”
While it may seem that the great membership and widespread organisation of the Labour Parties would be capable of tremendous achievement for Socialism, the facts are, that they cannot be turned to such a purpose, for Socialism is beyond the horizon for all but the insignificant minority of their members.
The futility of boring from within in such organisations can be exemplified by the statement of a Labour Party speaker in a debate at North Sydney (N.S.W.), who, while stating the ultimate object of the Labour Party to be the achievement of Socialism, said the possibility of such achievement would not arise for the next 500 years, and went on to put forward the reform policy which was, to him, all that mattered.
In a world rotten-ripe for Socialism, the true Labourite sees only the urgent necessity for his reform policy, the Socialist sees its utter futility. To attempt to organise for the achievement of Socialism in such parties is as futile as the search of the mediaeval alchemist for the Elixir of Life.
If the Socialist analysis of capitalism is correct, no reform or set of reforms can overcome the disabilities of working-class life while the system continues. The Labour Parties of the world, whatever lip-service they may pay to Socialism as an ideal, are based upon, and operate upon, the fundamental assumption that capitalism can be so reformed. The two conceptions are mutually antagonistic, and attempt to compromise between them leads inevitably away from the Socialist position, and into the morass of disillusion and despair.
Before Socialism can be achieved the majority of the people must understand the necessity for it. Once that is reached its realisation is inevitable; but no progress in this direction can be made by supporting the false doctrines preached by the reformers.
The essential pre-requisite for the achievement of Socialism is the making of Socialists. Join up and help forward this work.
F. F. W. (Socialist Party of Australia.)