06.07.1995

For communist unity

Open letter to the SWP central committee

Comrades!

THE TORY government is in crisis and seems doomed to defeat at the next general election. A rightwing Labour government is in prospect which will continue the attacks on the working class. Working people face real economic and social problems with no prospect of real change. There is now a widespread disillusion with the system of government. Circumstances are ripe for the growth of fascism.

Therefore we desperately need a Communist Party to fill the political vacuum from the left. We need a Communist Party that can attract all revolutionary Marxists into its ranks. We need a united Communist Party.

Ideological and political differences which inevitably arise in the course of the class struggle should not be the basis for separate Marxist parties. Such differences are a normal, necessary and healthy feature of any real workers’ party. Democratic centralism enables us to combine unity in action with full freedom for criticism and debate.

The SWP is now the largest organisation on the revolutionary left. You are in a position to play a very important role in uniting our movement into a Communist Party.

In 1987 you took the initiative for unity with your appeal to the Militant Tendency and the rest of the left. This appeal failed. Today the situation is far more urgent. We must again step up the struggle for unity. To fight Blair’s Labour Party we need a united Communist Party that can become a significant pole of attraction and a weapon of class struggle.

We call on you to begin discussions with us in the context of a broader struggle for communist unity. Let us begin to work towards this most urgent of tasks.

With communist greetings.

Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP)
Provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain