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International Socialism, April 1973

 

Notes of the Month

Two Conferences

 

From International Socialism, No.57, April 1973, p.2.
Transcribed by Mike Pearn.
Marked up by by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

 

We have in the past been modest to the point of reticence in commenting on the conferences of our organization. And we have had reason for modesty until recently it remained true, as it had been for four decades, that the revolutionary movement existed largely outside the working class movement, or at best, on its fringes. While that situation persisted the deliberation of revolutionaries had no effect on the course of events.

For some, adaption to this isolation became a way of life. The less the contact with the actual class struggle, the grander and more all embracing the resolutions, the greater the pretensions. Those who had not the slightest influence on the British or French or German or any working class felt fully competent to issue manifestos to the workers of the world. Theses were debated with passion and venom. Storms, not so much in tea cups as in thimbles, produced factions, splits and even new ‘world leadership’.

IS has resisted such sterility from its inception. It has always tried to relate to the real world. But to convert this orientation into an actual and sustained base in the working class is a difficult and complex process.

The IS National Conference held in March marked a real advance in this process. The number of worker-delegates, the number of participants who could relate the discussions to struggles they had actually led, the sobriety, seriousness and concreteness of most of the debates – all represented a vast improvement. Certainly the conference also showed big areas of weakness in our work – for example amongst youth and students. But in the main field of concentration – industrial and trade union work – the conference showed gains over the last twelve months that can be truly said to represent a transformation.

The conference adopted the general line of the programmatic document, which has been discussed over the last year, by an overwhelming majority. It voted to shift the basis of the organisation to workshop units whoever possible and instructed the national committee to appoint a commission to prepare a complete re-structuring of IS as a working class combat organisation.

Of course in terms of the working class movement as a whole IS is still tiny. It has only one tenth the membership of the Communist Party – but this modest figure is itself a great advance on the past and this membership is incomparably more active and increasingly rooted in the working class. The task of building the revolutionary party in Britain is still ahead of us, the task of creating the nucleus of that party has been achieved.

Not only in Britain. Also in march, our representatives attended a small conference of delegates of revolutionary organisations from a number of European countries, organisations that share our basic orientation of the workers’ movement. Apart from Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece and Italy were represented. Some of the reports, notably those of the French Lutte Ouvrière and the Italian Avanguardia Operaia, indicated a progress similar to, or greater than, our own. The discussion indicated both the need and the possibility for greater international co-operation. For all participants recognised that progress to meaningful international collaboration depends on progress in achieving influence in the national workers’ movements. In a small but very significant degree that progress is being made.

 
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