19.07.2006

Defending national socialism is not Marxism

Jack Conrad begins an extensive reply to Bob Goupillot with an examination of the principle of 'one state, one party' and its history

Bob Goupillot proudly calls himself a "committed Marxist". An honourable title to give oneself and a worthy aspiration for any thinking, feeling human being. Marxism is the theory and practice of working class and universal liberation. But, as well as bringing prestige and an understandable pride, being a "committed Marxist" also carries with it definite responsibilities. Not least the responsibility to treat Marxist theory and its corresponding principles with due respect and seriousness.

In claiming to be a "committed Marxist", comrade Goupillot is, of course, no different from the majority of those who at present constitute the leadership of the crisis-ridden Scottish Socialist Party. Alike the minority faction on the national executive, headed by Tommy Sheridan and Colin Fox, and the majority faction, led by Alan McCombes and Allan Green, claim to be "committed Marxists". The same goes for the SSP's warring platforms: eg, United Left, Socialist Worker platform, Committee for a Workers' International and comrade's Goupillot's own Republican Communist Network. They all call themselves "committed Marxists". Even the ultra-nationalist Scottish Republican Socialist Movement talks of "our Marxism" (http://redflag.org.uk/frontline/16/16srsm.html).

However, on consideration, I think that the Marxism of the SSP leadership and its myriad of bitterly opposed factions has to be seriously questioned. At best, I would say that they can only be called Marxist with all manner of 'ifs' and 'buts'. At worst, though, their Marxism is completely phoney - a camouflage, a cover, a sham. Leave aside the rampant economism, the ubiquitous opportunism, the creeping revisionism, the deliberate programmatic blurring between reform and revolution. The fact of the matter is that the SSP as a whole is committed to Scottish independence and a Scottish nationalist road to socialism. That is what the SSP promotes in Scottish Socialist Voice, what branch delegates raise their hands for at conferences and what its candidates advocate during elections.

Even with all my 'ifs' and 'buts', I still find it strange - indeed it is tragic too - that comrade Goupillot, as a "committed Marxist", spectacularly fails to appreciate the importance of, and is therefore incapable of standing up for, let alone militantly championing, the elementary principle of 'one party, one state' within the SSP. Here we surely have on display a monumental failure to teach the ABCs of Marxism. Instead, assuming the role of the apologist, the poor man - a "committed Marxist", remember - scrabbles about trying to prove that there is no such principle. Failing that, why it does not apply to Scotland. Comrade Goupillot parrots the SSP's absurd pretensions, along with the hoary myths of Scottish nationalism. All in all, cod politics and cod history.

Marxism and the First International

Comrade Goupillot's first line of defence is the First International. He says that I, Jack Conrad, imply that the First International, the International Workingmen's Association, operated by this principle of 'one state, one party' through its agreed rules. His aim is surely to muddy the waters, to create a smokescreen, in order to cover for the national socialism of the SSP.

Actually, I have never written or implied any such thing. I have, though, referred to the fact that Marx raised this principle of 'one state, one party', albeit not in those exact words, at the Hague conference (the First International's last) in September 1872. He successfully moved what proved to be an historic resolution which called upon the working class to organise itself for the "conquest of political power" by establishing a "political party" opposed to the "collective power of the propertied classes": ie, the state (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 23, Moscow 1985, p243). The German Social Democratic Party was to become the general model.

That Marx moved this resolution at the Hague - when the First International as a form had exhausted itself - is hardly the same thing as saying that the organisation operated according to the 'one state, one party' principle from its inception/foundation in 1865. To say, or even suggest, this is simply wrong.

The First International was not united on the basis of the explicit Marxist programme. It was, though, unmistakably influenced, guided and shaped by the Marx-Engels team. Eg, unlike today's timorous 'Marxists' the First International boldly stood for the abolition of all standing armies and the "general armament of the people and their general instruction in the use of arms" (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 20, Moscow 1985, p193).

Organisationally, its principle element was the British trade unions - which at the time constituted the biggest and most powerful detachment of the nascent global working class movement. At its peak, the British section boasted 350 branches and 95,000 members. The Proudhonists and Blanquists were particularly influential in France, the Lassalleans in Germany. In Spain, Italy and to a certain extent Switzerland the anarchists held sway. If these disparate trends were to be brought together and united into what was in effect a pan-European alliance, as Engels later explained, "it could not set out from the principles laid out in the Manifesto (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 27, London 1990. p58).

Nevertheless, for the purposes of our present discussion, it is more than worthwhile noting the provisional rules of the First International from 1864. There is nothing parochial about them: eg, "The emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries" (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 20, Moscow 1985. p14). Marx-Engels certainly favoured centralism; they fought against manifestations of localism and fragmentation. Hence we read in the same document that "members of the international association shall use their utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men's societies in their respective countries into national bodies, represented by central national organs" (ibid p16). In other words 'one state, one alliance'.

So the First International was organised on the basis of uniting many different ideological trends, local bodies and national sections into a single organisation which operated under the guidance of a general council effectively headed by Marx.

Because of his loyalty to the SSP and its programme, comrade Goupillot resorts to an almost pharisaic distinction between nation, state and country. Scotland, he says, is a country, a nation, while the UK is a state. And he tortuously moulds, distorts, the First International in his mind till at last it matches his schema and therefore the petty nationalism of the SSP. He can then triumphantly write: "It is always country (nation), not state, which is referred to and nowhere in the rules [of the First International] are countries (or nations) equated with states."

In common parlance the terms 'country', 'nation' and 'state' are often used interchangeably. This is a simple statement of fact. And while 'state' and 'nation' have precise meanings/definitions for Marxism, surely the same cannot be said of country. I shall discuss, in a further article, what Scotland is and what is not, but clearly comrade Goupillot's instance that country (nation) and state "were nowhere equated in the rules" is meant to be a killer point. But anyone examining the First International without the handicap of tartan-tinted glasses will surely conclude that its rules, documents and resolutions show not a hint, not a tincture, of his 'scholastic' pedantry. Rightly, the First International was concerned with hard facts on the ground and global revolutionary perspectives.

The "collective power of the propertied classes" - ie, the state, with its borders, spies, police, courts, armies and laws - was not ignored, nor could it have been ignored by any serious working class organisation. Likewise the corresponding task of exerting the "utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men's societies in their respective countries into national bodies, represented by central national organs".

Hence while there were branches based on nation/language (French Swiss) and nationality (the Irish); the central structure, the trunk of the First International was constituted by the federal sections established within various countries or states (yes, despite comrade Goupillot's strictures we can safely use the two terms to mean the same thing here).

Eg, in 1872 the executive committee of the general council had members who acted as corresponding secretaries for Austro-Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Italy, France, America, Switzerland, Poland, Holland, Germany and Russia. Of these, Poland and Ireland (non-states) were under oppressive and widely, or almost universally, contested foreign domination. Poland officially no longer existed on the map, having been divided into three portions by the big powers at the 1815 congress of Vienna. Nonetheless it continued to live on as a nation in the minds of its people. Austro-Hungary and Russia were huge, sprawling multinational state-empires, prison houses of nations; Spain and Switzerland were smaller, more compact, multinational states; while the US, Germany, Holland, France and Italy can be called nation-states (Germany and Italy having just been united in 1870-71).

Ireland

Comrade Goupillot does not deny that the Second and Third Internationals were organised according to the 'one party, one state' principle. The evidence is too conclusive and overwhelming. So he falls back on Ireland and the First International in an attempt to generalise from what was an exception (an elementary error in logic if ever there was one). He half seriously, half naively argues that Ireland "gives a good idea of Marx's and Engel's understanding of the need for separate national (not state) sections." In fact, of course, it does no such thing.

Let us briefly set the scene. At the May 1872 meeting of the general council John Hales attempted to bring the Irish sections of the First International (both in Britain and Ireland) under the control of the British federal council (at the time, 'British' and 'English' were often used synonymously without any recognition of Scotland and Wales). Though he presented his proposal in a sugary coating of internationalism, Hales was trying to smuggle British national chauvinism into the First International and thereby carry out a counterrevolutionary coup. That was the real content of his proposal.

Comrade Goupillot quotes the report given by Engels. There is no need for me to repeat it here. Suffice to say, Engels emphasises that Ireland and England are not equals. As with Russia and Poland, the relationship is between oppressed and oppressor. But Engels is not trying to establish a general principle, as comrade Goupillot appears to suggest. What concerns him are the immediate prospects for revolution. That was what determined the constantly changing foreign policy of Marx-Engels.

Hales, a leading British trade union official, is rapidly moving towards overt reformism, significantly along with the bulk of the trade union bureaucracy in Britain. There was soon to be an irreparable split in the British section. Trade union officialdom was about to join the camp of William Ewart Gladstone and his great Liberal Party. That would bring the prospect of becoming MPs and with it parliamentary influence over the high and mighty of the land.

On the other hand, the Irish had the appearance of being determinedly, stubbornly rebellious. Fenian rather than home rule. To overthrow British capitalism, a key strategic aim of Marx-Engels, the first blow could therefore be struck in Ireland. According to this plan and under these concrete circumstances, Marx-Engels demanded, and secured, the organisational separateness of the Irish from the British federal section.

That is why Engels writes: "In a case like that of the Irish, true internationalism must necessarily be based upon a distinctly national organisation; the Irish, as well as other oppressed nationalities, could enter the association only as equals with members of the conquering nation, and under protest at the conquest" (K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 23, London 1988, p155).

Marx-Engels applied similar concrete reasoning to Poland. The Polish peasantry, the Polish middle classes, even the Polish aristocracy were revolutionary - as proven by numerous, heroic, though ultimately doomed, national uprisings. Meanwhile, Russia lay frozen, static, beneath the ice sheet of tsarism. The freeing of the serfs in 1861 had not triggered a 1789. Russia remained an Asiatic despotism and because of its awesome size and unmatched ability to field army divisions, it acted as the mainstay of reaction in Europe. St Petersburg was ever willing, ever eager and ever ready to intervene to the west in order to extinguish the flame of revolution and extend its suffocating power - as it had done in 1848.

To smash tsarism, another key strategic goal, Marx-Engels advocated the reconstitution of Poland and war. Their red Germany would put itself at the head of the whole of European democracy and launch a revolutionary blitzkrieg to free the Russian peoples from their chains.

Anyway, according to our comrade Goupillot, the exception of Ireland "goes some way to removing Jack's shield of Marxist orthodoxy". Obvious self-delusion, an example of nationalist wishful thinking. It does no such thing, of course. Exceptions are "¦ well "¦ exceptions. The Second International was explicitly organised on the basis of 'one party, one state', and yet had a separate Irish section (a position upheld by Lenin). Ditto the Third International.

However, it should be pointed out, in part for the sake of accuracy and in part to show that things are often complex, that in the 30s there was a separate communist organisation in the north of Ireland - the Revolutionary Workers' Groups. Moreover, when I joined the CPGB, we had what amounted to a Northern Ireland district, the Communist Party of Northern Ireland, which sold the Daily Worker/Morning Star, as opposed to any Dublin-based publication such as the Irish Workers' Voice. Hence, in effect, the CPGB was at that time the Communist Party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - the official name of the state. Either way, the general principle remains. The shield of Marxist orthodoxy remains undented.

Move to the rhythm

Like any "committed Marxist", comrade Goupillot wants to be associated with the "most effective unity of the working class". He is bound to say that, though, isn't he? It's like standing outside a church on a Sunday morning and asking the aged trickle of outgoing parishioners whether they want to be associated with god the father, god the son and god the holy spirit. Demonstrably, they do. Unfortunately, comrade Goupillot's internationalism is found wanting though, as soon as he comes up against the actually existing state that stands over him and me. Here, faced with the United Kingdom state - ie, the "collective power of the propertied classes" - he recoils, retreats and seeks refuge in petty nationalism.

At branch meetings, at the SSP's national council and annual conferences doubtless he will speak sincerely, earnestly, perhaps even passionately in favour of internationalism. Yet he is a tolerated, embedded, not to say smug, member of the SSP, and as such he feels obliged to act as an unpaid defence attorney for its left nationalism in the pages of the Weekly Worker.

Comrade Goupillot says he "wholeheartedly" agrees with the unity of the working class on an international scale, and most importantly, in the first instance, unity "against our 'own' ruling class". But - there was always going to be a 'but' - he contradictorily wants to achieve this unity through disunity. Instead of a red-blooded Communist Party he wants the anaemic, halfway-house SSP to lead the way globally through achieving an "independent socialist Scotland" (an absurd, nationalist position, shared by his platform, the RCN).

Politics throughout Britain clearly moves according to broadly the same tempo or rhythm: ie, general elections, prime ministerial lies, foreign wars, interest rates, the de-Labourisation of Labour, the 'war on terrorism', etc. Why? Britain has a single, long established state machine, a homogenous capitalist class, a fully integrated economy, country-wide political parties - eg, Tory, Liberal Democrat and Labour - the TUC and unified trade unions, and the English language as the mother tongue. Hence, surely, the validity of applying the principle of 'one party, one state'.

Petty nationalists, localists, kailyard socialists will always emphasise difference, will inevitably discover this or that unique feature or particular grievance. Yet no genuine Marxist claims, or would dream of claiming that things are uniform, completely smooth or undifferentiated throughout Britain. That would be stupid. Very stupid. The class struggle is by definition uneven. Liverpool was once a hotbed; now it is sullen; London elected the rebel candidate, the anti-Blairite 'red Ken'; now Mr Livingstone has gone respectable; Tower Hamlets once voted Liberal, now Respect. And - compared to Glasgow - Eastbourne, Hertford, Aberdeen, Bath, Guilford and Cardiff are sleepy backwaters. But there is a commonality. The same cannot be said for Northern Ireland.

It is not that I am against communists in the six counties joining us in the fight to reforge the CPGB, or a CPUK, but the political tempo, the political conditions in that province are clearly significantly different from that which exists here in Britain. Irish politics, especially in the north, still revolve around an unresolved national question: ie, British oppression and the division of the island of Ireland and the presence of a reactionary, million-strong British-Irish population in the north-east.

In short, objective conditions necessitate that as a first task we communists in Britain organise into a single party in order to confront the "collective power of the propertied classes".

A first step. The CPGB wants the unity of the communist forces in/against the European Union. Hence our call for a Communist Party of the EU. The material fact of the EU dictates this, as does our strategic analysis of the needs and likely course of the world revolution. To decisively move forward the working class must of necessity conquer power at the level of the EU. Without that there can be no hope, no prospect of facing down US superimperialism, let alone spreading the flame to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In that light, pursuing the "independent socialist Scotland" road - which begins with a Scottish National Party government - is either suicidal or well-intentioned sabotage.

It is in the context of strategy that we must approach left nationalist claims that Scotland is so much more advanced than the rest of the UK in terms of the intensity of struggle and class consciousness. The poll tax is typically cited. It was introduced a year earlier than in the rest of the country and met with a determined resistance that elevated Tommy Sheridan into a household name, not only in Scotland, but throughout Britain. However, no one should forget the March 1990 Trafalgar Square riot in London which finally saw off the hated poll tax, and with it the loathsome Margaret Thatcher.

Yes, the poll tax struggle in Scotland "led to a rise in national consciousness", which among other things raised issues around democracy and self-determination. It is also true that the space carved out through the anti-poll tax struggle created the possibility of left unity in Scotland. Given its relative successes, Scottish Militant Labour was prepared to split from Peter Taaffe and make a partial break from bureaucratic centralism. This was to be welcomed.

However, what was definitely not welcome was SML's overt nationalism. Swapping the mechanical materialism, the ponderous control freakery and crass reformism of the CWI for the SSP's "independent socialist Scotland" was a case of trading in a broken leg for cancer. Unity in Scotland went hand in hand with division at a British level. The formal commitment to overthrow the British state was replaced by a bid to weaken the British state through a breakaway. Moreover, given the SSP's rejection of/hostility to any serious EU strategy involving unity, we therefore have a classic case of one step forward, two steps back. Given the bigger picture - ie, British/European/world politics - clearly the SSP is part of the problem, not the solution.

Comrade Goupillot writes glowingly of "street-level" organisation. True, doubtless, of the anti-poll tax movement, but not the SSP. The SSP is still small beer and could be set to get a lot smaller soon. It has just six MSPs, all elected through the PR list, and nowadays they are at each others' throats over the Tommy Sheridan affair. It has a couple of thousand paper members who because of the low level of political education/training could easily go the way of the four winds after this October's showdown conference.

That would not be a good thing. We would not welcome that sort of death for the SSP. Unity is needed. Communists should consistently promote it "¦ in Scotland, in Britain, in the EU and, of course, globally.