Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Monday, June 08, 2009

Ken Loach on the need for left unity

From an interview with Martin Smith in the new Socialist Review:

"My feeling is that we need to think of the regroupment of the left in Britain in terms of the European left now. The European left is a project obviously bigger than any one group. I am very encouraged by the events in France right now and the development of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. The European left, which is so big, will just swallow up the differences between the different groups on the left over here. I've been in meetings where we've talked about this for 45 years, and organisationally are we any further forward in all that time? If you want to be depressed, that's the depressing thing. On the optimistic side the need just gets more and more intense. It was urgent after the Iraq war, but now even more urgent with the collapse of the banks and increasing unemployment, industries closing down and so on, and the environmental disaster that's awaiting the next generation. The pressure to unite just gets bigger and bigger. Every left meeting I go to is based on the fact that the crisis is about to engulf us all. It's not in the distant future. It's unfolding before us now. We've got to get together at some point. Living in separate tents isn't going to solve anything really."

Edited to add: The SWP's Open Letter to the left about the need to create a socialist alternative, with some responses here

Labels: ,

3 Comments:

At 11:05 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Totally agree with this. Check out our latest article on this matter at: http://revolutionaryireland.blogspot.com
Interesting that it's like a re-run of the 1930s.

 
At 8:12 pm, Blogger seamus macniel said...

Watched some clips on Scargill and there is a lot of sense in what the man says. Nevertheless, his is not going to be "broad church" and the evidence would appear to suggest that come the day Arthur's mob would be as willing to put the rest of the left up against a wall and shoot them as his "spiritual" brethern in the PCE were, when they followed Stalin's orders after the 16th of December 1936.(see: http://www.thediplomatabroad.blogspot.de).
And then we have George Galloway's 'Respect' and isn't that a really "broad church"? And what a name for a "party" that has a "front man" whose rhetorical "skills" consist of shouting down his opponents. Yes, would be nice to see Arthur and George getting into bed with one another and watch their very own "personality cults" gobble them up. While this is happening it would be nice to think that the left could, indeed, move to a united front. Never was it more needed.

 
At 11:58 am, Blogger Snowball said...

Cheers for comments - the only thing I slightly disagree with is the comment that 'the evidence would appear to suggest that come the day Arthur [Scargill]'s mob would be as willing to put the rest of the left up against a wall and shoot them as his "spiritual" brethern in the PCE were'
- frankly I am not sure there is much of a mob left still around Scargill - he has purged so much of the Socialist Labour Party over the last decade or so...

 

Post a Comment

<< Home