forum was the relationship between political parties and social movements. This took the form of a ban on the participation of political parties, in favour of social movements, networks and trade unions, (although this ban was later abandoned), and of a major debate between representatives of social movements and political parties over the issue. What perspective lies behind this ban (which was opposed by British representatives), and what should our attitude be towards the need for and relationship between political parties and social movements? PETE COOPER examines some of the key issues. social movements, it is a live issue in such countries as France and Italy, where there are real mass social movements and a history of competing left parties.
Social movements fall into two broad categories: movements of the oppressed (womens, black liberation, lesbian and gay, disabled, pensioners etc), and issue based movements such as the anti-globalisation movement ATTAC which to a certain extent functions as an umbrella for movements of the oppressed such as the unemployed and sans papier movements, and as a partial substitute for the absence of mass political parties which could campaign on these issues.
This latter type of social movement should not be confused with single issue campaigns such as CND or the Stop the War Coalition. They are broad movements around a set of related issues, although they may originate in single issue campaigns such as ATTAC's origin in the Tobin tax campaign.
They are also mass movements. The Italian ARCI popular cultural organisation in Italy which played such a prominent role in Florence originated in the mid 1950s and has 1.2 million members. ATTAC in France has 30,000 members, branches in every town, and is growing fast (contrast Globalise Resistance's membership of under 2,000, with no local branches).
Such mass movements inevitably mean that they are politically heterogeneous, and are in their majority reformist in the current balance of forces. This is not a criticism, but a simply a fact. This does not prèvent revolutionary socialists participating in and building and leading them any more than we do in reformist trade unions.
Opposition to the presence of political parties in social movements range from those who concede the necessity for political parties but consider that they have no role in the movements to those movement theorists and activists influenced by libertarian, syndicalist and/or anarchist thought who are opposed to the existence of political parties.
In France hostility towards the direct organised involvement of political parties in unions, social movements, and campaigns goes at least as far back as the 1906 CGT Charter of Amiens which declared the unions to be independent of all political parties.
This did not prevent a subsequent history of "manipulation" by Social Democratic and Communist Parties of unions and movements to party advantage, often at the A movement: but not as we know it. I million march in Florence against war expense of campaigning for the original aims of those movements.
The CPs manipulation of the peace movements to further the aims of Soviet foreign policy during the post war period is a case in point. In Britain the pro-Kinnock leadership of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, whose main plank was unilateral nuclear disarmament, ended up in the mid 1980s supporting the Kinnock line of a policy of multilateral - i.e. no -nuclear disarmament. The far left has been far from immune from such practices itself, frequently preferring tightly to control campaigns which they led, always at the expense of building them into vibrant mass campaigns with independent lives of their own.
Opponents of the presence or existence of political parties in social movements and campaigns argue that supporters of such parties will inevitably seek to influence movements to party advantage, and will subvert the democracy of the movement.
This can take many forms, including outright imposition of structures and leadership personnel, and/or highly organised interventions to ensure the "right" policies are adopted and the "right" people get into positions of influence and power within the movement. It can also take the form of doing policy "deals" with parties in return for giving political support to such parties.
The manipulation of these movements and campaigns into straying from their original objectives was not a result of a desire for control for the sake of it, but above all a NOSE GUERRAECIA LIRAR consequence of the reformist politics of the political parties concerned and the lack of clear alternatives to those politics within the
Compromise with the capitalist state in the pursuit and tenure of governmental office inevitably involved the "betrayal" of the objectives of the social movements whose mobilisation helped them into office In the current phase of neo-liberal capitalism whose chief characteristic is the removal of many of the historic social eco nomic and political gains of the working class and the oppressed the tensions between the traditional parties who have bought into the neo-liberal project and social movements which are seeking to resist its effects have never been so great.
In fact the platform speakers at the Florence meeting representing parties the (France), and Rifondazione Communista (Italy), and social movements including ATTAC (France) and Globalise Resistance (Britain) had no formal disagreements over the respective roles and relationships of movements and parties although their practices vary widely.
All speakers supported the autonomy of social movements from political parties in fighting for their objectives while supporting the right of and necessity for supporters of political parties to take their place within social movements.
At the same time they recognised the necessary role of parties in fighting for governmental power, however defined, which social movements by their nature cannot aspire to.
The relative absence of social movements other than the trade union movement in contemporary Britain needs to be explained. This is historically a result of Labourism's traditional division of labour; the trade unions' field of operations is the defence of workers' interests at the point of production, while the political field is delegated to the Labour Party through the pursuit of Parliamentary office
Trade union political action other thar that directed at winning policy positions and influence in the Labour Party is excluded in this model. However this system can only work insofar as the (Labour) Party can deliv er - or can credibly promise to deliver - the desired reforms, above all the welfare state and freedom of trade union action.
Independent social movements only had a role where the Labour Party would not or would not promise to deliver (eg. nuclear disarmament) and where a critical mass of activists are mobilised on the issue.
Under neo-liberalism the scope and scale of such issues reaches across the board. But consciousness lags behind reality, particularly in Britain where the defeats of the 1980s were not only defeats for the organised working class but for all the exploited and oppressed, and hence the disappearance of autonomous movements of the oppressed.
As the movements begin to recover from these defeats and from the resulting extended honeymoon with New Labour, we are likely to witness not simply a revival of traditional trade union wages struggles, but also the formation and development of mass social movements in response to the consequences of neo-liberal globalisation.
Socialists welcome the development of these social movements as an indispensable part of developing resistance to the neo-lib eral capitalist offensive and seek to build
activists learn about the nature of capitalism to debate issues such as the reformability of the institutions of world
It will also allow many of them to draw the conclusion that capitalism is unreformable, and it is necessary to replace or
A development of anti-globalisation socia movements in Britain is complementary to the necessity for a new political party but neither dependent on it nor counterposed
However, just like a new political party, they cannot be created by fiat, but out of real struggles around real issues. ATTAC in France could not have come about prior to the 1995 strike movements in defence of social gains, nor without the prior existence of movements against unemployment and exclusion, and solidarity movements with mass struggles in the third world
The existence of such social movements is probably also a precondition of the devel opment of a political trade unionism which goes qualitatively beyond Labourist economism, and which is also a necessary component of an anti-capitalist movement
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12 soclafst re sistance Winter 2002