Newspaper sponsored by the Socialist League, British section of the Fourth International. Published weekly in London.
The January 7 issue of Socialist Challenge includes a report by Steve Roberts on the December 18-21 national conference of the British section of the Fourth International, which voted to change its name from the International Marxist Group to the Socialist League.
More than 400 delegates and guests attended the conference.
"By a small overall majority," Roberts reported, "the conference adopted the following major points of policy:
" to campaign against the war-drive of Reagan and Thatcher; in particular through building the present movement for unilateral disarmament and supporting those fighting against imperialist intervention in Central America and the Caribbean
" to campaign for the release of all the heroic Polish fighters imprisoned by the present regime
*• to build mass action around the slogan "jobs not bombs' as the best way to kick out the Tories and gain a Labour [Party] victory
" to work in the labour movement to oppose witch-hunts and defend the progressive policies of the TUC [Trades Union Congress], Labour Party and Labour Party Young Socialists congresses being junked by the right wing leaders
"• to support the fight of women in the labour movement for an effective say at all levels of the labour movement and for policies like affirmative action for jobs and a woman's right to choose
" to help build Revolution Youth, the youth organisation in solidarity with the Fourth International in Britain
" to be in favour of unity with other far left organisations in Britain which have broadly the same approach as our own, such as the Workers Socialist League
"• to strengthen our links with the Fourth International and particularly with its Irish section, People's Democracy."
Roberts then quoted the reporter speaking for the outgoing Central Committee, who declared:
"The world today is dominated by the rise of world revolution and the workers struggles on the one side and the unleashing of a brutal imperialist counter-offensive against that struggle on the other.
"The most advanced points of this sharpening class struggle have been the revolutionary struggles in Central America and Poland. These combine with the rise of the mass antinuclear-weapons movements in the imperialist heartlands and the struggle for class independence in the semi-colonial countries to bring to the fore the unity of the world revolution in the struggle against the capitalist class and all its allies — particularly the bureaucrats of Moscow and Peking.
Within Britain, the reporter said, there is "the deepest political polarisation of the British labour movement for fifty years.
"The decisive task of revolutionary Marxists is to shake off all sectarian prejudices and participate in the coming political battles. . . .
"For this new methods of work are necessary. Workers and youth today increasingly look to the Labour Party and its left wing for political solutions to the crisis of British society. For this reason a revolutionary socialist newspaper is needed within the Labour Party to give a voice and political direction to their struggles."
Roberts continued: "The attitude of the Socialist League towards the Labour Party is that it would like to be able to affiliate..• • But it believes that in the current climate of the witch-hunt against socialists that this would be rejected by the Labour Party.
"The Socialist League therefore organises separately from the Labour Party. . . .
"The conference was . . happy to record a rise in the proportion of its membership in such decisive unions as transport, rail, engineering, electrical and telecommunications. Over 26 percent of its members are in the industrial unions, five percent in manual unions such as NUPE and COHSE and 15 percent are looking for industrial jobs."