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.A socialist party could, in the coming years, give it more effective meaning than it has ever had in the past.* This is a much-revised version of the Second Fred Tonge Memorial Lecture given under the auspices of the Holborn and St.Pancras Constituency Labour Party on 29 June 1983.I am grateful to Monty Johnstone and John Saville for their comments on an early version of the text.1.The Communist Party, with twenty-one candidates in the field, polled just over 100,000 votes and had two seats, which they lost in the General Election of 1950.Over 100,000 votes were also cast for the Commonwealth Party and under 50,000 for the Independent Labour Party.2.See, for example, Stuart MacIntyre, A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain 1917-1933, London 1980, ch.2.3.See, for example, L.Panitch, Social Democracy and Industrial Militancy, 1976; D.Coates, Labour in Power?, London 1980; and K.Coates, ed., What Went Wrong?, Nottingham 1979.4.See ‘Moving On’, in The Socialist Register 1976, and ‘The Future of Socialism in England’, in The Socialist Register 1977.5.R.Miliband, ‘A State of Desubordination’, British Journal of Sociology, Vol.XXIX, no.4, December 1978, p.402.IVAfter 198917Freedom, Democracy andthe American Alliance*1987IThe American alliance has been at the very core of the political life of all major capitalist countries (and of many minor ones as well) ever since the end of World War II, and has served as a crucial element of agreement between conservative, liberal and social democratic leaderships in the realm of defence and foreign policy.Even to raise the question of the desirability of the alliance, and of possible alternatives to it, such as some form of ‘non-alignment’, was until quite recently, in countries such as Britain, to infringe a very powerful taboo, and was certain to invite accusations of naivety or eccentricity, or of harbouring perverse and sinister predilections for Soviet Communism.Of course, many organisations and movements have come into being over the years whose purpose was to oppose American interventionism, or to oppose the defence and foreign policies of countries allied to the United States as well as those of the United States itself – the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in the sixties and early seventies, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign today, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the movement for European Nuclear Disarmament, the campaign against the installation of cruise missiles in various European countries, etc.However, no such organisation or movement has made the ending of the American alliance its main focus and purpose.One reason for this is that many of the people involved in these campaigns and movements have felt that, even though they might want to see this come about, an explicit commitment to such an aim, given its very radical and controversial nature, must jeopardise the immediate task at hand.There are cases where this seems reasonable – for instance Solidarity Campaigns.In others, however, the question of the alliance impinges directly upon the immediate aims, and cannot realistically be eluded.It is not realistic, for instance, to demand unilateral nuclear disarmament, and the closing down of nuclear and other American bases in Britain, and remain committed to the NATO alliance, which makes nuclear ‘deterrence’ the central element of its defence strategy, and whose principal member has so far rejected even the ‘no first strike’ pledge to which the Soviet Union has long been committed.But be that as it may, there are many powerful reasons for seeking an end to the American alliance for a country such as Britain.It is this which I propose to argue in this article.The idea of independence and ‘non-alignment’ has begun to make its way in political life; and what had until a short time ago been virtually unsayable outside the revolutionary Left (where the idea had been current since the last stages of World War II) is now said by many people who are made apprehensive and are repelled by American policies and actions.1 It is for many reasons of the utmost importance that this should be encouraged and strengthened, and that a movement should be built up which is sufficiently strong to make the ending of the American alliance a central issue in political life, and eventually an attainable goal.Nothing less than a strong movement could advance an enterprise which is bound by its very nature to be exceedingly fraught and arduous.Its development requires among other things, the deployment of a reasoned case for independence and ‘non-alignment’.The present article is conceived as a contribution to the making of such a case.IIThe first and perhaps the most basic question to be asked about the alliance is what purpose it is intended to serve.Ever since the end of World War II, a deafening chorus of American and European voices, speaking through very conceivable means of communication, has given an answer to that question which has been made so familiar by dint of constant reiteration as to seem to be expressing an incontrovertible truth: the purpose of the alliance is to deter Soviet expansionism and Soviet-sponsored Communist subversion.I will presently argue that, far from expressing an incontrovertible truth, the proposition is essentially false [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]