04.04.1996

No SLP witch-hunts!

This paper and the organisation that sustains it has a principled position of opposition to all witch-hunts and proscriptions within the Socialist Labour Party. We argue that we must foster an attitude of harsh intolerance towards such unprincipled methods, no matter who they are directed against.

We have already clashed with revolutionary SLP elements who insist that a ‘heads-down’ approach must be pursued at present. In contrast, we have said that SLP members must be prepared now to energetically counter any attempts to witch-hunt beliefs or individuals within the organisation.

The witch-hunter generals - the “door keepers” as some comrades in Militant Labour have dubbed them - have been a small clique around Scargill composed of a group of ex-members of the Trotskyist organisation, Socialist Outlook/International Socialist Group. These comrades now constitute part of the group around Scargill - Brian Heron, Pat Sikorski and Caroline Sikorski.

Others have made the obvious point that this group - while denying the right of other political tendencies to operate as open factions or tendencies - have in practice been operating as one themselves.

Documents have now come into our hands that expose the extent of the hypocrisy of this group of SLP mandarins. In fact these comrades are themselves members of an organised faction called the Fourth International Supporters Caucus (Fisc). Fisc is a sympathising section of the international Trotskyist movement, the United Secretariat (Usec). Thus, obviously, it operates as a group with an agreed political agenda inside the SLP.

Yet - with incredible hypocrisy - they deny the same right to other organisations! Indeed, certain members of Fisc have made a name for themselves as the most energetic hounders of those they suspect of being supporters of other political organisations. They have been the most vociferous in their opposition to opening the SLP project so it can democratically engage those such as Militant Labour or the Communist Party who also stand for the creation of a mass working class party.

We publicise these documents here not to precipitate a counter-witch-hunt against Fisc. Far from it.

We will unconditionally defend the right of Fisc to openly operate as a tendency/faction within the SLP; for it to propagate its political platform and seek to win others to it. What we will not do is stand idly by while these comrades - for the most narrow of sectarian reasons - use crude organisational diktat to ‘ethnically cleanse’ every other revolutionary tendency apart from their own.

In subsequent issues of the Weekly Worker we will trace the origins of Fisc in the debates inside the Socialist Outlook group and the Socialist Movement Trade Union Committee. Of course, at every stage we will offer the right of reply/clarification to the comrades in Fisc.

This article will concentrate on a meeting of the International Executive Committee of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in Amsterdam between January 28 and February 1 1996. This international gathering was attended by representatives of ML, the minority and majority of Usec’s official British section - Socialist Outlook/International Socialist Group - and the Fourth International Supporters Caucus.

The reaction of ML comrades to their discovery of the existence of Fisc has been described to me as “dumbstruck, absolutely astounded”. This is quite understandable.

Usec in fact has an international perspective far more akin to ML’s than either its official British section or its new SLP entryist ‘sympathisers’ in Fisc.

Essentially, Usec leaders - like ML - look at Communist Refoundation in Italy or the United Left in Spain as positive models for this period of what they call “regroupment”. These political formations have open structures, with the ability for affiliated organisations or open factions and tendencies to publish their views and fight for influence.

In Britain, Usec sees the main candidates for “regroupment” as ... ML and the SLP! Yet a sympathising section of Usec - the Fourth International Supporters Caucus - is instrumental in keeping ML out of the SLP and in attempting to implement a thoroughly undemocratic constitution that bans factions, tendencies and precisely the type of structure Usec wants.

The Amsterdam Usec IEC meeting heard a Fisc report from one Roland Wood, a comrade who worked for a time on Usec’s International Viewpoint publication. We shall examine this report - titled ‘Information report for January/February 1996 IEC’ - in detail in coming issues, but it is worthwhile here drawing out some elements which explain the undemocratic manoeuvres of Fisc in the SLP.

Wood claims that of course the Fisc would have “preferred” a “structure of internal democracy” akin to Communist Refoundation or the United Left. Abstractly, it has nothing against “the right for internal currents to organise openly in support of their views ... including with publications”. All of this it recognises as “legitimate within the framework of a unitary party”.

The problem is, the report points out a little needlessly, “we are not living in Italy (or Brazil)”. What is the key difference? It is “the fact that the British revolutionary left as a whole, while cumulatively the largest in Europe, is trusted very little and is about as popular as a wet Sunday afternoon, particularly amongst many of the militants and activists for whom the SLP must become a natural home.” This, combined with the residue of “Stalinism” amongst the party’s initial key leaders, means that it was always unlikely that “we would see the kind of constitution which we would have written ourselves.”

Yet comrade Wood strongly implies that he and other Fisc members will not simply grit their teeth and ‘live with’ the constitution: they plan to implement it with gusto. This is because “Our future right to organise openly, along with others, will to a large extent be premised on our role in building the party now.”

Of course, this is highly questionable. After having helped implement a monolithic, anti-democratic structure in the SLP, the idea that the Fisc comrades will then be able to organise openly- even with a loyal and proven record of witch-hunting - is really not very likely.

We would be pleased to feature replies and contributions from Fisc, the Socialist Outlook/International Socialist Group minority or majority, or from Usec itself. We will treat this important debate on the strategy of the left in an open and democratic way, without bans, proscriptions or demands to recant one’s views as a qualification for entry into the debate.

Moreover, we insist that others do the same.

Mark Fischer