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From Socialist Fight, Vol. 4 No. 4, June 1962, p. 4.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The decision of the N.E.C. of the Labour Party to proscribe the youth paper Keep Left, to make an inquiry into Young Guard, with a view to measures against it, represents a serious blow to the Young Socialist organisation and to the Labour movement as a whole.
This decision, forced through by the Rightwing, must be linked to its measures against the C.N.D. and the Committee of 100, and the tide of tales and allegations about “Communist” influence in the Ban the Bomb movement, and as part of the attempt by a section of the leadership to bring the whole movement to heel, its heel, whilst itself refusing to carry out the policy of the movement officially established since 1957.
It is in this light that one must look at the hullabaloo about the demonstrations made during the May Day meetings in Hyde Park and Glasgow. Gaitskell and Brown seized upon these incidents in an attempt to create the conception, which they must know to be false, of organised attempts by “Communists” and Fellow-travellers who had, they said, infiltrated the C.N.D. in large numbers and influenced its policy and work. It could not occur to them that serious minded young Socialists, as well as many other loyal Party members, felt indignant with the refusal of a section of the leadership to carry out the Conference decisions, and to openly flaunt this defiance at every opportunity.
Most members of the Labour Movement, we included, find that these demonstrations at a Labour meeting and on May Day were mistaken. One must see what really happened and why. In the first place these demonstrations against a section of the leadership – not against the Labour Party, for those concerned are active and loyal members – were entirely spontaneous, unorganised, uninfluenced by any political tendency. Secondly, when the Young Socialists and CNDers chanted anti-Bomb slogans the platform, particularly Gaitskell, Brown and Padley (this new and odious recruit), replied with provocative jibes on the level of the “shut yer gob” episode of some years ago. Thirdly, that Gaitskell chose not only to ignore but to contradict the anti-Polaris theme of the Glasgow meeting as decided by the official Labour Movement of that area. Who provoked whom?
The truth is, and it is already clear that many C.L.P’s and Union branches feel the same way, that these incidents were partly provoked by the platforms themselves and, in any case, have been blown-up, out of all proportions, as a very convenient pretext to take measures against the C.N.D. and against the Young Socialists.
As the Times rather naively remarked the Labour youth movement is always in opposition and on many occasions has been disbanded by the N.E.C. The Labour youth movement has always been, and will always be in opposition to the policy of the Right-wing leadership of the Labour Party. Youth rebels against their unimaginative, capitulationary, and thoroughly class collaborationist section of the Labour movement.
This year’s conference of the Young Socialists revealed not only this rebellion against the dead-hand of Right-wingism, but a new and higher level of political responsibility and understanding, as witnessed by the decisions of that conference and above all the carrying by an overwhelming majority of the resolution on the United Socialist States of Europe moved by Birkenhead Y.S. Further it elected a National Committee which, all things considered, is far to the Left of those of the past.
And this is at an early stage in the life of the Young Socialist Movement, for, thanks to the policy of the leadership tens of thousands of active, enthusiastic and sacrificing young people are kept away from the Y.S. Instead of welcoming these tens of thousands of young men and women who want to end tests, ban bombs and stop war, the Right-wing meets them with intrigue, suppression and proscription!
The whole Labour Movement must say: Hands off the Young Socialists. They must fight for the freedom of youth and this means above all freedom within the Labour movement itself, freedom to express its rebellion against capitalism and its ills. The Young Socialists must have the right to produce their own papers, to elaborate their own policies within the framework of the general aims of the movement. Lift the proscriptions! Fight the Tories and not the militant Socialists!
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Last updated: 13 April 2020