The Rise of Militant

Socialist Party Scotland trace our political roots back to the launch of the Militant newspaper in 1964. Our ideas, programme and policies were embodied in the work of the Militant, then the Marxist tendency in the Labour Party. Militant grew to become a household name, with thousands of members by the mid 1980’s.

We led mass campaigns, including the momentous Liverpool City Council struggle that mobilised tens of thousands in a mass movement that won major concessions for the city from the then Thatcher government.

Militant provided the leadership for that movement and as a result thousands of new homes were built, as well as schools, community centres. Thousands of jobs were also created as a result. Today, the lessons of the Liverpool struggle should be re-learned by all those workers and communities looking to fight the savage cuts in public spending planned by the new ConDem government.

Militant won a majority for our ideas in the Labour Party Young Socialists ion the 1970’s and by the 1987 three Militant supporters had been elected as Labour MPs. This led to the opening up of a witchhunt by the right wing Labour leaders, egged on by the capitalists and their hired media. They were terrified by the support our ideas were gaining in the Labour and trade union movement and the wider working class.

The expulsions of Militant supporters from the Labour Party led to even more workers and young people joining the ranks of the Militant. The attacks against the Marxists in the Labour Party, were only a prelude to the complete expulsion of socialist ideas from the Labour Party. The abandonment of the socialist clause 4 from the party’s constitution and its transformation from a bourgeois party at the top but with a working class base into an out-and -out party of capitalism was complete by the time Blair was elected as prime minister in 1997.  

Militant also formed the backbone of the heroic anti-poll tax movement – that organised 10 million people in a mass non-payment campaign that by 1990 had finished the poll tax and sunk its architect, Margaret Thatcher.

1990’s

The collapse of the Berlin Wall, and the bureaucratic, Stalinist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the early 1990’s ushered in a more complicated period for socialist and Marxists internationally.   

The tops of the labour movement abandoned any pretence of standing for an alternative to capitalism and embraced neo-liberal ideas. The traditional parties that used to represent working class people, the Labour, social democratic and communist parties, became bourgeois parties and as a result were largely empty of workers and young people. We drew the conclusion that we needed to establish Militant as an open organisation in its own right and in the early 1990’s we build Scottish Militant Labour into a powerful force in Scotland.

The political impact of the collapse of Stalinism ushered in a period of triumphalism by the bosses and their ideologues – claiming the final victory of capitalism over “socialism”. This was reinforced by the move to the right by the Labour and trade union leaders and the temporary growth in the capitalist system in the 1990’s and the era of so-called “globalisation”. These factors all helped to produce the throwing back of consciousness and the undermining of support for socialism for a time.  

The Committee for a Workers’ International however was uniquely able steer a course through these relatively difficult years. Our analysis of the collapse of Stalinism, our economic perspectives and the tasks we set ourselves of defending the programme of Marxism and advocating the building new mass workers’ parties allowed us to maintain a viable Marxist international. Even while others bent or were broken by the more complex political period.

Nevertheless, these complications did result in some loses for our movement. In Scotland a number of the leaders of Militant abandoned the perspective of building a revolutionary Marxist organisation and dissolved themselves into the Scottish Socialist Party – a politically broad socialist organisation.

Unfortunately this directly led to them abandoning ideas they once defended and moving to a reformist and left nationalist position. After initial success, including the election of six SSP MSPs in 2003, the wrong political ideas of the SSP leadership resulted in them squandering the possibility to build on that breakthrough. Today the SSP is no longer a force of significance on the left in Scotland.

However, there were a number of members of Militant who did continue to work to build on the tradition of our ideas and we organised ourselves in the International Socialists and now the Socialist Party Scotland. While building our own Marxist organisation, we will also continue to advocate the need to build a new mass workers party. We work with other socialists and the RMT trade union, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.   

Now, as we enter a more disturbed, convulsive period, one which will see mass opposition emerge to capitalism and a new generation open to the programme of international socialism. The ideas of the Socialist Party Scotland and the CWI as a whole will grow decisively. Join us today.    

Buy your copy of the Rise of Militant for £10.99.  Available from Socialist Books. PO Box 24697, London E11 1YD.  Email bookshop@socialistparty.org.uk www.socialistbooks.org.uk