The politics of the anti-war movement
With the Bush hawks threatening a cycle of ‘endless war’
to pursue the interests of US imperialism, the question of how to stop war is
the most critical one facing all those striving for a better world. KEN SMITH,
the Socialist Party’s representative on the Stop The War Coalition (STWC)
steering committee, looks at the debates that took place in the movement against
the war on Iraq and what lessons can be drawn for the future.
THE HUGE MOOD of anger against the war on Iraq expressed on
15 February provoked political turmoil worldwide and, in Britain, Tony Blair’s
gravest political crisis since coming to office in 1997. Bush and Blair,
however, rode out the hurricane and proceeded to war, despite the immense
political difficulties they faced.
While the power of opposition forced Bush’s war plans to be
temporarily impeded it did not stop the war starting. Although the scale of
protest compelled the Anglo-American invasion force to tailor its planned ‘shock
and awe’ military strategy to avoid further inflaming world public opinion,
after their initial setbacks US and British imperialism ‘re-geared’ for a more
bloody campaign. For the millions who participated in the demonstrations, and
the tens of thousands who organised the anti-war activity, the question of what
could be done assumed paramount importance.
In Britain, the Stop The War Coalition (STWC) – of which the
Socialist Party is an active part – played an important role in countering
Blair’s pro-war propaganda and assisting in mobilising the mass opposition to
Bush and Blair. Undoubtedly, huge opposition would have developed against the
war with or without the existence of a national anti-war coalition. On 15
February demonstrations occurred in the most remote parts of Britain,
spontaneously organised, and in the most remote parts of the world, including
Antarctica. The crucial role of a national anti-war coalition, however, is to
help effectively channel and co-ordinate the mass movement – to raise the
consciousness of the participants, point the way forward and, if events develop
favourably, possibly stop the war. Leading figures in the Coalition realised the
huge weight of responsibility on their shoulders after the successes of the mass
demonstrations organised in the past six months – 28 September, 15 February and
22 March – and a more intense debate developed about the strategy the STWC
should adopt to halt the war.
Turning mass opposition into action
THE LEADERSHIP OF the STWC in Britain is overwhelmingly
drawn from left-wing organisations, in particular the Socialist Workers Party (SWP),
along with reps from the Communist Party of Britain and other left-wing groups.
It was the first time that most of these individuals had found themselves at the
head of a mass movement and responsible for giving a political lead to such a
movement. The Socialist Party has three party members on the 50-plus steering
committee but does not have any of the inner-core of officers who make the
day-to-day decisions and are mainly responsible for the political direction of
the Coalition.
The STWC has a wide diversity of groups and views within it,
which tended to broaden since its inception after 11 September. It would be
naďve to think that there could be any lasting political unity amongst the
various groups involved, varying from Liberal Democrats to Green Party and
direct action groups. However, there was agreement around a statement of aims to
work together to stop the war. Within that framework each affiliated group – and
individual members – were entitled to pursue their own campaigning against the
war.
The Coalition developed an authority and mass support as a
national body (though this was not necessarily reflected in mass involvement in
its local structures). The momentum developed gave a certain confidence –
amongst some at least – that Britain’s involvement in any conflict could be
stopped or even that the war itself could be stopped by linking up to the global
anti-war movement. Certainly, the potential was there in terms of the support
for the Coalition and a willingness to follow its lead. Yet the Stop The War
leadership, whilst mobilising a mass movement, still had to prove that its
strategy could successfully halt a war.
The strategy outlined in the STWC’s material placed heavy
stress on mass civil disobedience and industrial action – particularly on Day X
(20 March, the day after war started). This was a theme of the most
representative national meeting of the STWC to date, the ‘People’s Assembly for
Peace’ of 1,000 or so delegates which met in Westminster’s Central Hall on 12
March. There, calls for mass protest and industrial action in various forms –
such as non-compliance, lunchtime meetings, walkouts and strikes varying in
length from five minutes to all day – were echoed by speaker after speaker.
These included union leaders like Bob Crow of the RMT railworkers’ union and
Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) – which
earlier in the month had passed a resolution moved by Socialist Party member
Bernard Roome "to campaign for all members to take protest action on the day
that war is officially declared".
The crucial issue posed was how to turn mass demonstrations
into an effective mass anti-war movement, which could deliver such action. To
achieve this a serious attempt was needed to involve, as far as possible, the
majority of those who marched on 15 February into representative, democratic and
effective coalitions at local town, city and regional level and sink deep roots
in the workplaces, colleges and communities. School student walkouts and
protests, initiated by International Socialist Resistance (ISR – an affiliate of
the STWC) and other groups, that took place in early March, were an important
preparatory test for action and inspired many workers. But the most crucial
aspect of delivering a body blow to the war would have had to be organising
effective and sustained action in the workplaces. Strikes demonstrate that it is
working-class people who have the real power in society to bring everything to a
halt.
The STWC, through the support of left trade union general
secretaries – like Bob Crow of RMT, Mick Rix of the train drivers union, ASLEF,
and Mark Serwotka of the PCS civil service union – also campaigned for a
reconvened Trades Union Congress (TUC) to declare opposition to war and possibly
organise industrial action for Day X.
Whilst collective strike action organised through trade
unions at national and local level is the best way to concretely mobilise
millions of workers against war, it needs to be vigorously campaigned for within
the unions. It was wrong to invest much hope in the TUC leaders taking this step
– as was subsequently shown when a second TUC general council meeting declined
to convene an emergency TUC congress (although it did state, in an otherwise
anodyne resolution, that it was against the war). But in terms of concrete
action, the TUC leaders and leaders of the biggest unions did nothing.
Unfortunately, the left union leaders on the TUC general council did not push
the issue of taking action to a vote, nor did they campaign effectively enough
for pressure from below to be applied.
The left trade union leaders and the STWC leaders, knowing
what the likely actions of the TUC leaders would be, needed to argue and
campaign for effective industrial action to be built for from below. Such a call
would have fallen on fertile ground amongst a significant layer of workers who,
in many workplaces and trade unions, were demanding a clear lead.
Had widespread industrial action been taken by workers on
Day X, this could have built into a movement to make British military action
unsustainable. Even though that did not happen, the STWC and supportive union
leaders still faced the task as the war progressed of instilling confidence that
in any action workers would be defended by the union leaders and that it would
lead to further escalation, along with other workers, in a 24-hour general
strike at least.
Building for industrial action
UNFORTUNATELY, BEHIND the rhetorical calls for action, the
specific detail of organising action in the workplaces was limited. Socialist
Party members consistently argued inside the Coalition that calls for action
could not be left to calls from the top but needed to be built for from below.
In the build-up to a war the mobilisation of mass public
opinion in the form of demonstrations, rallies, public meetings and mass civil
disobedience, can have an effect in staying the hand of governments preparing
for military action. The situation is different, however, once a war gets
underway. Defeat on the issue of war, far more than a setback in partial
struggles over wages, working hours, public spending cuts, environmental
controls and so on, places the very rule of a capitalist government at risk.
Once war starts it is only either the power of the organised working class
mobilised effectively in strike action or the fact that the war has become
untenable for a ruling class that can stop a conflict. Unless their rule is put
at greater risk from a movement at home than it would be by withdrawal from a
war, the government is unlikely to be deflected.
The orientation of the STWC was broadly correct – towards
the organised trade union movement. However, whilst having the support of seven
national trade unions and left general secretaries, the Coalition’s roots in the
workplace were not sufficient for it to mobilise generalised industrial action.
Socialist Party members successfully moved a resolution at
the People’s Assembly calling upon the Coalition to "popularise the slogan ‘stop
work to stop the war’" including specifically appealing to supportive union
general secretaries and trade union executive members of trade unions to finance
and organise the publication of millions of leaflets, outlining the case against
war, explaining how to organise workplace protests, and pledging solidarity
action against any threat of victimisation. This was subsequently followed up at
the STWC steering committee by getting agreed a Socialist Party proposal to
organise a planning meeting of workplace union reps, executive members and
general secretaries to popularise and plan industrial action against the war –
specifically organising for action on May Day. Had the war progressed and this
initiative been enthusiastically built for it could have created a network to
counter propaganda and build for action. In particular, it needed to link the
anger that exists against New Labour over privatisation, low pay and
public-service cuts with the anger against the war. Slogans such as ‘not a penny
for the war, defend education, defend pensions, defend public services’ could
help mobilise workers to take action.
At the People’s Assembly, RMT general secretary Bob Crow
correctly called for widespread action on Day X including stopping transport.
However, to stop the transport he proposed occupying the roads rather than
having the confidence to call on rail workers, underground workers and other
transport workers to take strike action on that day. And, unfortunately, it was
only a few days before Day X when the RMT issued any leaflets to its members
arguing very guardedly for action.
‘Regime change’ at home
OTHER SPEAKERS AT the Stop The War People’s Assembly (mainly
leading SWP figures in the anti-war movement) went further than arguing for just
industrial action and declared that "when they start the war, we stop the
world". The Assembly also committed itself to regime change in the form of
demanding that "in the event of war starting, the prime minister should resign".
These were worthy aims but there was not an explanation of
how they could be delivered – giving rise to the possibility of confusion and
disillusionment setting in amongst anti-war activists. The lessons now being
drawn from the huge global demonstrations on 15 February and since is that such
mass mobilisations in themselves were not enough to stop political leaders whose
power, prestige and ultimately political survival are at stake.
Also the STWC’s leadership did not sufficiently develop a
national structure for the anti-war campaign with the deep roots in every
community, college, school and workplace necessary to deliver sustained mass
civil disobedience. These measures – of sinking deep roots to build mass civil
disobedience – are absolutely crucial if pledges were to be delivered. Socialist
Party members raised in the Coalition the example of the two-year long anti-poll
tax campaign in 1989-91 which not only mobilised massive numbers on protest
demonstrations but also successfully organised 18 million non-payers of the tax
to make it unworkable and, ultimately, forced Thatcher to resign. To stop a war
is more difficult but the numbers that at least passively supported the
Coalition could have made mass civil disobedience of this scale a distinct
reality.
‘Fair-weather friends’
SUCH A STRUGGLE – to ensure regime change in Britain and
stop the war – requires a determination to see things through and mobilise the
organised working class. But, despite the words about industrial action and mass
civil disobedience at the People’s Assembly, at that stage – a critical moment
in maintaining mass opposition to war – some of the Coalition’s officers were in
practice moving to the right. In particular they were laying stress on
orientating towards the Liberals, rebel Labour MPs and even rebel Tories who had
just recently found their consciences, when they felt the hot breath of the mass
movement on their necks.
As the Coalition grew it provided a platform that these new
rebels wanted to utilise. A broad anti-war movement would obviously welcome
Liberals and Tories breaking from their previous support for capitalist wars –
if belatedly. However, this should be done on the basis of them joining the mass
movement and putting themselves at its service rather than them dictating the
political direction of the movement. The volte-face of Labour ‘rebel’ Mo Mowlam,
promoted by the STWC officers as a speaker at the February 15 demonstration but
who, six weeks later, called in The Mirror for ‘more bombing’ to win the war,
shows how wrong it was to place any hope in the new-found ‘friends’ of the
anti-war movement.
Generally, statements and resolutions passed at previous
STWC conferences pointed in the right direction for developing the anti-war
movement – even if lacking the specifics on how to achieve the Coalition’s aims.
But as the critical decision loomed on whether the government would take Britain
to war or not, the Coalition’s leading group (including the SWP) were advancing
a programme which made large concessions to the Labour, Liberal and Tory MPs – a
right-wing tail wagging a more left-wing dog. Thus, at the STWC’s People’s
Assembly a declaration for peace was proposed which – had it gone unchallenged –
would have been a backward step in the anti-war movement’s policy. The
declaration was aimed exclusively at politically accommodating the potential new
recruits from Liberals, Labour and Tories rather than pointing a clear way
forward to the broader anti-war movement.
For example, until then the STWC had a position of opposing
a war in any guise whether conducted in the name of the US and Britain or the
UN. Yet, this new declaration – drafted by the officers but which had not been
circulated in advance to the steering committee, the elected activists who
should lead the Coalition – talked only of declaring itself against attacks by
the US and Britain and omitted any mention of the UN. Responding to criticism
from the Socialist Party and others, the STWC convenor Lindsey German (a leading
SWP member) said that this was ‘nit picking’, as ‘everybody knew’ that the
Coalition opposed a war under UN auspices. However, Socialist Party members
persisted in moving a resolution making it crystal clear that opposing a war in
the name of the UN was the Assembly’s policy as well as that of the Coalition.
This was carried overwhelmingly.
Even more significant, however, was the passage in the
STWC’s officers’ original declaration that "holds it is possible to resolve the
present international crisis by exclusively peaceful means in line with
proposals made by many states and eminent personalities around the world". The
reference to ‘states and eminent personalities’ was later deleted after
objections from the floor, but a number of Labour and Liberal MPs at the
Assembly applauded ‘the fine stand’ made by world leaders like Chirac and Putin.
A Socialist Party speaker reminded the Assembly of the brutal role of these two
individuals in other wars, in Africa and Chechnya for example, stressing that we
could place no reliance on these capitalist politicians with their own interests
in this conflict.
The drift towards establishing a form of ‘popular front’
with establishment political leaders and moving away from mobilising mass action
was clearly shown when the Declaration invited "all the British people and their
organisations to express their support for this declaration and take whatever
action may be required to ensure its adoption as the policy of our country".
This trend was even more explicitly spelt out in a report by
the Coalition chairperson, Andrew Murray, to the Communist Party of Britain’s
executive committee in March: "The character of that (anti-war) movement is
changing and developing. Prior to February 15, it was a very large anti-war
movement. From February 15, I believe it has extended still further into a broad
people’s movement for peace, of course, but also as an extension of that, for
democracy and for popular sovereignty, against a government which is denying the
people’s will...
"Historical analogies are necessarily imperfect, but this
movement has similarities in its aim and scope with the classic ideas of the
popular front. The anti-war movement has the greatest political potential of any
I have encountered… It reaches out into the Liberal Democrats in a serious way,
and even into the ranks of Conservatives… It is just about as broad as the
country itself… it is not just a movement against war, but it also feels like a
movement for democracy, for popular control, a movement that believes the rights
of the British people are being traduced by government".
We are in favour of building a broad movement against war on
the basis of clear anti-war aims. All those participating in the STWC should
have the right to argue the case for their own policies and perspectives. In
other words, it should be a ‘united front’. But we oppose the dilution of the
Coalition’s policies to the lowest common denominator to try to accommodate
people like Charles Kennedy, Ken Clark and Mo Mowlam, who do not share the
Coalition’s principled opposition to the war. Adopting a ‘classic’ popular front
approach we would, in reality, be accepting that the anti-war movement’s
fair-weather friends would be the ones determining our policy. Instead we strove
to orientate the Coalition towards the forces that were most determined in their
opposition to war, above all the class-conscious sections of the working class
and radicalised young people.
After the onset of conflict the hoped for Liberal and Labour
rebel backing ebbed away. And, as things were posed more sharply, with a greater
debate about many elements of the Coalition’s strategy, many activists felt it
needed a more concrete plan of action than simply calling demonstrations –
important as they were – protesting harder or shouting louder. In particular,
the specific issue of delivering strike action through the left trade union
leaders and activists who support the STWC was the crucial issue that needed to
be successfully addressed.
The STWC’s initial development benefited from the huge anger
generated against US imperialism and its main representative in Britain, Tony
Blair. But for the Coalition to have brought down Blair and stopped the war it
needed to turn its promise of mass civil disobedience into a reality.
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