CP affiliation¶
Core Argument¶
Here, the author delivers a polemical post-mortem of a Labour Party conference vote on Communist Party (CP) affiliation. The core argument is that the overwhelming majority of Labour delegates, buoyed by the Labour government’s implementation of its election programme, remain thoroughly wedded to parliamentary methods and hostile to the idea of “red revolution.” The vote’s result—a decisive rejection of CP affiliation, met with applause for Herbert Morrison’s call for individual CP members to join Labour—is presented not as a tactical setback but as a confirmation of the current political conjuncture. The author insists that no genuine left wing exists within the Labour Party at this stage; the old left has fused with the right, and the delegates, far from being disillusioned, express confidence in the leadership.
The chapter’s narrative thrust is a sustained rebuttal of “Comrade DO” and the “Minority” faction, who advocate for an immediate entry into the Labour Party to organise and lead an emergent left opposition. The author dismantles this position with scorn. The key claim is that discontent alone is insufficient to produce a left wing; special objective conditions—specifically, the economic convulsions of an impending slump—are necessary to shatter Labour’s parliamentary illusions and provoke fissures within the leadership. Until then, any leftward movement will be “left reformist” or “centrist,” not revolutionary. The author draws on Trotsky’s historical lessons on entry work, contrasting them with the Minority’s “new conceptions.” Trotsky taught that entry is appropriate when the left wing is at loggerheads with the leadership, not when it has confidence in it. The evidence marshalled is damning: the “Victory for Socialism” group is a “complete flop” with only 200 inactive members; DO himself reports that every critical delegate he spoke to expressed confidence in the present leadership. The polemic is directed squarely at this “pitifully weak” Minority, accusing them of repeating past errors that cost the Trotskyist movement dearly, and of basing their strategy on the same centrist illusions as Brockway rather than on a serious Marxist analysis of the situation. The chapter’s conclusion is a warning: the left wing, when it does emerge, will not coalesce around the revolutionary programme, and the Minority’s fantasy of leading it is a dangerous self-deception.