05.12.2013
CPGB Aggregate: Assessing the positives
CPGB comrades have been discussing Left Unitys founding conference and the deal with Iran. Michael Copestake reports
The Sunday December 1 CPGB members’ aggregate was held in London the day after the official founding conference of Left Unity as a political party. The events of the conference and the ramifications of its decisions were therefore at the top of the agenda.
Beginning the discussion was Jack Conrad of the Provisional Central Committee, who assessed the positive and the negative features of the day, both politically and organisationally for Left Unity, and the approach that the Communist Platform should be taking in the future and how we see its purpose in relation to the other political trends within LU.
A few negatives were noted to start: the agenda for the day was far too long, which also led to the squeezing out of political contributions, meaning that there was a whole pile of unfinished business. The important political debates were compressed to fit the wildly overloaded timetable, which led to the paltry and curtailed discussion around the aims and principles of the organisation, which are of the greatest importance, being compressed into little more than sound bites.
It was also concerning that the constitution adopted by Left Unity is so absurdly Byzantine that we shall see the party come more or less immediately into conflict with its own constitution as soon as it starts to operate. This is a recipe for bureaucratism, he added.
In the debate that followed Mike Macnair was of the view that this could be deliberate, and that at the end of the day the complexity of the constitutional arrangements would require the creation of an internal political equivalent of the US Supreme Court to decide whether or not certain party actions or resolutions were ‘unconstitutional’ or not, thus further empowering the bureaucracy. Ditto with the directly elected officers (elected by postal ballot!), which is simply Bonapartism.
On the same theme the victory for the resolution calling for mandatory 50:50 male-female gender balance on all party bodies will prove just as problematic, when it simply cannot be fulfilled by under-attended local branches, especially given the proliferation of committees and other elected bodies that are to be established. Commenting in the discussion, Yasamine Mather was of the view that both 50:50 and the ‘safe spaces’ ideology - neither of which originate from the working class tradition - demonstrate that the left could be said to be more brainwashed by neoliberalism than it might realise. Nonetheless, the comrade thought that CPGB needed to substantially develop its arguments in these areas, increasing their strength and clarity, so that we can attempt to neutralise the hysteria that discussion of these matters tends to throw up.
On the same subject Sarah McDonald gave comrades her experiences from the Scottish Socialist Party, where 50:50 was used to selectively promote women who were favoured by the bureaucracy, as opposed to female (or male) dissidents, but that at least the SSP, unlike Left Unity, knew that it was wise to wait until it was numerically large enough to implement such a measure.
Despite these criticisms, Jack Conrad was firmly of the view that there were a couple of positives to take away from the conference, as well as from the CPGB’s intervention in it.
Most importantly we had won political space to operate with free public criticism, thanks to the passing of the Sheffield amendment. He compared this to that other unity left-party project of years gone by, Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, where members of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus acted as gatekeepers in order to keep out CPGB members (of which there were allegedly over 800!).
That factional groupings within LU are not, after all, to be time-limited or restricted in how they operate was another small victory, and a sign that, in some ways, the left has drawn a number of lessons from the crisis in the Socialist Workers Party, with its ban on factions and public criticism.
Another victory was gained in relation to the ‘safe spaces’ document, which conference voted to remit. This “monstrous” document, said comrade Conrad, would have led to the unfettered ability of the leadership to single out and exclude dissidents on the flimsiest of pretexts - being ‘rude’ or ‘offensive’ perhaps. On these counts the comrade dryly noted that his own use of the word “madness” was picked up by one comrade at the conference as offensive (naturally this comrade was a product of the SWP’s ‘International Socialist tradition’), and Socialist Platform comrades, at its national meeting earlier in the year, had taken exception to CPGB condemnation of the “rotten method” that the SP appeared to be imitating in refusing to allow its platform to be amended. Under the proposed ‘safe spaces’ regime, which for the moment at least has been put on ice, the use of either phrase might be enough for the speaker concerned to be brought to book.
It was also positive, the comrade went on, that the proposal for meetings of LU leadership bodies tour round the country rather than being centred in London was defeated. As we have seen in both the SSP and the Labour Representation Committee, the desire to get away from political metropoles just does not work. In the first place the transport network is geared towards London, making it easier for people from any location to get there, as opposed to any other city. In the second place the increased difficulty getting to meetings in different parts of the country leads to decreased attendance and the likelihood that meetings will be inquorate - a sure recipe for demoralisation.
Also in the positive column was the fact that the Left Party Platform, despite being adopted by conference, has been forced to the left, both before conference and during, following the passing of amendments from Ken Loach.
On the platforms comrade Conrad stated that we are seeing hints of a rapprochement from some comrades in the SP, and it appears that further cooperation between the Communist and Socialist platforms (and perhaps even others) on some level is possible. However, it was necessary for the CP to continue as LU’s consistent and principled left.
Our effectiveness on the day, he went on, resulted from our organisation and our politics - we add up to far more than the sum of our parts. Moreover, we have real, substantial theory and politics that we can offer, especially now that we have won some degree of freedom to operate openly and democratically. He also noted that we had enough votes as a bloc to swing some tightly contested issues.
He was, however, not so upbeat about his first intervention at conference on behalf of the CP: “I fluffed it”, he admitted. Other comrades though had intervened well throughout the day to push our politics and we had, on the whole, been very effective.
In the discussion that followed comrades mostly agreed that, while we could have been slightly better organised, despite the general confusion of the day, our intervention went well.
Iran
The second part of the meeting focused on the newly brokered deal between the US and Iran over sanctions and nuclear capabilities.
Yassamine Mather provided the political introduction, noting: “How times have changed!” The “walk and chew gum” approach of Hands Off the People of Iran - that we must oppose imperialism first and foremost, but also campaign against reactionary regimes - now appears to be common sense even in Stop the War Coalition.
Comrade Mather was at pains to stress that the deal is not a victory for Iran in any sense, with only 5% of the current sanctions scheduled to be removed. The people of Iran are under no illusion that the clerical regime, the willing imposer of neoliberal policies, will deliver anything substantial for them. The regime has been driven to do a deal because sanctions have destroyed the Iranian economy to such an extent that it is becoming impossible for the government to maintain social control. Even the most recent presidential elections revolved around the issue of which carefully selected candidate was best placed for negotiations with the US. Although the US has managed to impose a deal largely on its own terms, it too has nonetheless has been under pressure given the failure of its wider strategy in the Middle East.
This failure, said comrade Mather, can be seen in the hesitancy displayed in the approach of the US towards Syria and the way it backed away from its own so-called “red lines” over the use of chemical weapons. In the wider region US operations have created a belt of Shia power - the opposite of its intentions, which were to strengthen its Sunni client regimes.
Despite the apparently historic nature of the deal we must be aware, the comrade continued, that any number of events could change the situation overnight. Israel especially is a wild card here - it may provoke some kind of ‘incident’ to once again turn the tables on Iran.
Thus, though Hopi’s tasks may change, its role remains central. The small breathing space provided by the 5% reduction in sanctions could offer some relief for the workers’ movement in Iran, the activity of which has been noted of late, as workers are having to struggle simply to survive. Already a small increase in activity can be discerned: eg, for the delivery of unpaid wages and in the anti-executions campaign.
Concluding, comrade Mather stressed that the defeat of the Arab spring has not meant a victory for the US, that the situation regarding Iran remains particularly unstable.
In the discussion that followed Mike Macnair agreed that the situation was still very unstable, and gave his opinion that no-one has yet adequately explained the back-peddling of the US in relation to Syria, though he was certain that if anything was not an explanation it was the ‘strength of the anti-war movement’ that some have been trumpeting. Two possible alternatives, he thought, were that the US is reorienting towards the Shia, given that its Sunni clients in the region have made such a hash of things; and that the deal with Iran represents the calm before the storm - it may have been set up only to be destroyed by some provocation as a pretext for deeper sanctions or even military action.
Comrade Conrad thought that Hopi could potentially find a good audience inside Left Unity despite the involvement of senior figures from STWC, such as Andrew Burgin and Kate Hudson, who were involved in the decision to deny Hopi’s affiliation. He agreed with the thrust of comrade Farzoud’s talk that the US was now engaged in “damage limitation” after the Iraq war and its unintended consequences.
A visitor, Ian Donovan, similarly attributed US actions in the region to “imperial overreach”, but criticised Hopi’s presentation of itself. Giving equal balance to an anti-imperialist, anti-regime stance could be seen as a kind of “muddled third-campism”. A characterisation hotly disputed by Weekly Worker editor Peter Manson. He emphasised that we always present imperialism as the main enemy, but at the same time it is unprincipled to ‘suspend our opposition’ to regimes that find themselves at the sharp end of imperialist action.
In her reply comrade Mather pointed out that “people aren’t daft” - they are able to see that the Islamist regime is obviously anti-working class. She added that, unlike the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, we do not put an equals sign between imperialism and anti-working class governments that find themselves in opposition to it. Nor does Hopi, unlike the AWL, support groups within Iran that are materially aided by the US - there exists no similarity whatever in the political method of social imperialists and Hopi’s.