IMPOSSIBILISM
NEIL Kinnock accuses Militant of impos- sibilism'; and it is an accepted Trotskyist tactic to raise workers' expectations to dizzying heights in the hope that their subsequent collapse will bring down capi- talism too. Peter Taaffe of Militant replies in the Guardian that Labour's manifesto contains numerous impossible things that must be done before breakfast — a mini- mum wage of £115 a week for example. This is also true. The 'great advances in policy' which Taaffe claims have been made by the Labour Party over the last five years have all been huge strides towards impossibilism, and their cumulative effect has been to make almost any Labour government seem impossible. Mr Kinnock is handicapped by his need to sound high-minded, and to talk about democratic socialism when he means common decen- cy. Militant took power in Liverpool by democratic means; its programme of com- plete political control over the life of the city is impeccably socialist. What Mr Kin- flock means, as we all understand, is that Militant's style is that of totalitarian thugs, neither legal, decent, nor honest. But such accusations are the small change of fraternal discourse in the Labour Party; and they are often justified. It is possible, as Orwell showed, to combine decency and honesty with a belief in socialism. This is the trick Mr Kinnock should try to pull off. But though Mr Kinnock may now be a realist, his fight against the impossibilists will not be helped by the fact that until recently he was one of them. He should also remember that Orwell's denunciations of his enemies were not marred by being windy.
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