03.08.1995
Leading the fight for democracy
For a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales and a united Ireland. Dave Craig from the RDG replies to Peter Manson on the national question
PETER MANSON (Weekly Worker 104) concludes his article on the national question by saying: “If the call for independence becomes so all embracing that separation appears inevitable then we should insist that the democratic right of the Scottish people must be honoured. A call for a federal republic might then be a way of starting the task of rebuilding workers’ unity.”
So Peter does not insist on the democratic right for the Scottish people for now. But if there is an overwhelming tide of opinion in favour of independence, Peter will start insisting on their democratic rights. Then he will suddenly produce a call for a federal republic, which seems something equivalent to King Canute’s last stand against the tide of history.
If this were the CPGB line, at least the Scottish people would now know how to win the Party’s support for their democratic rights. All they have to do is support the SNP in very large numbers and this will convince the CPGB to start supporting them! This is just old fashioned ‘tailism’, with a fair bit of opportunism to boot.
What I want to do is to begin by considering the UK state before looking at nationalism, self-determination and the theoretical roots of economism, which lay behind Peter’s arguments.
The United Kingdom
The RDG argues that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be replaced by a Federal Republic of England, Scotland, and Wales, and a united Ireland.
Peter says that “at the recent London seminar on the national question in Britain, several comrades proposed ... that the existing unitary state should be broken up into federal republics.”
Whether this is a spelling mistake or simply confusing the ‘independence’ (ie, separate republics) with the ‘federal republic’ argument, is not clear. But neither the RDG nor as far as I remember did anybody at that meeting advocate federal republics. So let us be absolutely clear. We are for one state, a multinational state, organised as a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales; and another separate state, a united Irish Republic.
A federal republic means that each nation will have its own parliament, as well as a central or federal parliament with representatives from all three nations. I will leave aside the question of the English regions, which the RDG does not have a position on, but needs to be considered.
State and Revolution
The origin of this position can be found in Lenin’s statement in State and Revolution. He says: “Approaching the matter from the standpoint of the proletariat and the proletarian revolution, Engels, like Marx, upheld democratic centralism, the republic, one and indivisible. He regarded the federal republic either as an exception and a hindrance to development, or as a transition from a monarchy to a centralised republic, as a ‘step forward’ under certain special conditions. And among those special conditions, he puts the national question to the fore” (Lenin CW 25, p451).
We see here that Lenin is making the connection between monarchy, the national question and a federal republic. And what example does Lenin use to illustrate his argument? He says: “Even in regard to Britain, where geographical conditions, a common language and the history of many centuries would seem to have ‘put an end’ to the national question in the various small divisions of the country - even in regard to that country, Engels reckoned with the plain fact that the national question was not yet a thing of the past, and recognised in consequence that the establishment of a federal republic would be a ‘step forward’ (ibid).
This “plain fact” is now staring us in the face. Engels and Lenin could predict this because they did not see the British state as a fixed unchanging entity. On the contrary applying Marxist dialectics to our centralised bourgeois monarchy, they saw that it was evolving and would continue to evolve into its opposite, a federal republic.
Just as small enterprises evolve in monopoly capital and multinational capital, so there is a predictable historical process.
Nobody can predict the time scale for such an evolution, or indeed exactly how it will turn out. It will depend on the class struggle and the role of the communists, etc. But we are now in the period where this transition is becoming a reality. The communist vanguard must therefore seize the historic initiative.
Peter separates republicanism from the national question. Lenin and Engels show they are connected. Indeed the sovereignty of the crown and popular sovereignty, including national self-determination, are incompatible. The very title ‘United Kingdom’ shows the link of the union and the (constitutional) monarchy.
Is it not obvious that if Scotland became independent, which at present we do not advocate, the Scottish people would be confronted directly with the question of whether their new state would be a republic? Does anybody think that the political ‘disease’ of republicanism would not spread south?
Of course a federal republic is no more than a step forward. It certainly is not socialism or even a workers’ state. But as a comrade said at a recent seminar, every long journey begins with a first step. How can we fight for communism if we are afraid to take that step? But this is really Peter’s position. He is reluctant to move from the unionist state - somebody who wants to go swimming, but refuses to get in the water.
Labourism
For us, the case for a federal republic is not a policy thought up primarily to oppose the SNP or Plaid Cymru. It is about uniting the English, Scottish and Welsh working class against the Tories and Labour. Republicanism is a threat to the monarchical Tory-Labour state. Most of the left think that a Labour government is a ‘step forward’. It is not. But in terms of the historic interests of the working class, a federal republic would be a real ‘step forward’, an historic break with past tradition.
We want a mass mobilisation to kick out the Tories and replace them with a federal republic. We are not waiting for a general election. If a Labour government comes to power our position remains the same, to replace them with a federal republic.
Nationalism
Communists must oppose both British nationalism and Scottish and Welsh nationalism. But in his fear of Scottish nationalism, Peter has failed to notice the dominant, all pervasive and most reactionary variety. British nationalism and hiding within it, English chauvinism, is the greatest danger. Yet when Peter speaks of fighting “divisive nationalism” he is thinking exclusively of the Scottish and Welsh variety. It is too crude to simply equate all types of nationalism. British nationalism is the nationalism of a ruling class, whose ability to divide is backed up with state power. Neither Scottish nor Welsh nationalism have that kind of power and indeed are a threat to that power.
Multinational states
Nationalists want one state for one nation. Independence is a principle for them. Marxists have no automatic preference. We can see that multinational states can be progressive and help to strengthen organised links between workers of different nationalities. So can the break-up of states serve a progressive role? Sometimes it may be correct to support a multinational state and at others to support secession.
We examine each on a case-by-case basis. But our preference is for a peaceful democratic solution like the recent break-up of Czechoslovakia into Czech and Slovak republics instead of a Yugoslavian civil war.
Separatist Strawpeople
It has to be emphasised that we are advocating a multinational republican state with self-determination guaranteed in the constitution. Peter has to tell us why he is specifically against this. In fact his whole argument doesn’t deal with this at all. He is really arguing against separate republics. Yet neither Labour, the SNP nor the RDG is arguing for this! So really Peter is engaging in a furious attack on a strawman.
And Irish red herrings
Peter throws out a red herring on Ireland. The position of Ireland is different from Scotland and Wales. This is recognised by the fact that we advocate national independence for Ireland.
Yet Peter says: “Several comparisons were made with our [CPGB] position on Ireland. Comrades, the situation is totally different.” Peter is trying to discredit our policy by suggesting that we cannot tell the difference between the situation in Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
More significant is the question that Peter fails to ask. Can we learn anything from the history of Ireland? Surely it is the tragedy that can befall the working class if the national question is not resolved democratically, speedily and therefore peacefully. Ireland never had a right to self-determination and has had to fight for it every bloody inch of the way. The federal republic is about mobilising the working class to solve the problem now, before history repeats itself. Surely the lesson is what can happen if socialists and the working class are so tied to unionism that they have a ‘do nothing until it gets nasty’ policy, followed by ‘do nothing now that it’s got nasty’. It is precisely because Scotland and Wales are different from Ireland that we have to act now.
Peter thinks recognising a different situation means we should do nothing.
Self-determination
Let us now consider the argument, not from the angle of the historical development of the whole country, but specifically from the angle of national self-determination. Our argument can be summed up using the, albeit imperfect, analogy of marriage.
The marriage of England, Scotland and Wales was not a democratic, voluntary union. It was forced on the people of Wales and Scotland. They have never been equal partners. England is the dominant partner. Furthermore there is no right to divorce. There is no democratic mechanism to allow divorce at the request of one of the junior or subordinate partners. National self-determination does not exist.
Because of the British Empire, the marriage was relatively prosperous and relatively peaceful. Now the long-run decline of the economy and the world crisis of capitalism has led to dissatisfaction, bickering and growing resentment. Especially under the very English middle class style of Thatcher, who implemented the poll tax first in Scotland.
Prison
The marriage has become more like a prison with no way out. If we do not break down the prison bars, the growing resentment between the married inmates could lead to violence. This is especially true because the jailers will only be able to maintain their authority by deliberately setting one partner against the other. Alongside the ‘race card’, there is also an ‘English card’ to be played by the ruling class. The big danger is not Scottish or Welsh nationalism, but English chauvinism, a genie as yet to be let out of the bottle.
Peter’s policy is to say: ‘One day you will be free (communism), but for now stay imprisoned in this marriage (loyalism); and don’t be nasty or fight each other (moralism), but demand an extra portion of prison food (economism)’. This will not stop the anger and frustration from eventually boiling over. This is the kind of politics that Militant applied to Ireland. Angry prisoners will not only ignore our priestly appeals for good behaviour, but more likely tell us to eff off.
Our answer is clear. First we recognise the marriage was not democratic in the first place. It was illegitimate. The Acts of Union are null and void. We want to knock down the walls of our constitutional prison. If the jailers interfere, as we expect, we should unite against them and not against each other.
In forging this new unity, we should propose a new, voluntary, democratic marriage. The new marriage contract will have the right to divorce at any time, at the behest of any partner, written into it. The practical mechanism for self-determination was spelled out at the 13th Conference of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in 1913 as “the constitutional guarantee of an absolutely free and democratic method of deciding the question of secession.”
This application of the principle of national self-determination is about reuniting an already divided working class. It is not about dividing an already united working class. The underlying principles are democratic and internationalist. At present the official position of the CPGB is for national self-determination. But it seems to me that some CPGB comrades, and I include Peter in this, haven’t really thought through what self-determination means.
Peter supports self-determination in the same way as the SWP. When somebody asks about the national question, SWP members say “self-determination”. It is a meaningless phrase, a cover up for a lack of a policy. Under the present constitution, national self-determination does not exist. It would be like saying, we have a right to free abortion on demand on paper, but there are no abortion clinics. In fact the right to self-determination does not exist even on paper.
Surely you must take the obvious next step and say we will lead the people in the fight to win this right, by exercising it. We will not wait for decades, whilst bourgeois politicians consider whether to grant this right or not. We will take matters into our own hands. Clearly some members of the CPGB take this more revolutionary interpretation of self-determination as a call to mass action. Others take the SWP reformist, pacifist, do-nothing interpretation.
Self-determination can be exercised either by independence or through the reconstitution of the state as a federal republic. Labour’s devolution under the crown is not self-determination. It is the last ditch attempt by the bourgeoisie to prevent the exercise of self-determination.
If a worker in Scotland comes to the CPGB and says, ‘I want to fight for my right to self-determination. Should I support the SNP policy for independence or support the RDG demand for a federal republic, both of which are based on the exercise of self-determination?’ At present the official answer is that the CPGB is indifferent between these two options. The CPGB prefers neither one nor the other. This rules out any possibility of the CPGB playing a leading role on the national question. You cannot lead if you do not know where you want to go.
This is why I think it is fair to say that a majority of comrades, who want to build a ‘vanguard’ party, are in favour of changing the CPGB line to a federal republic.
There is another objection to Peter’s argument. If self-determination was implemented now, then a voluntary remarriage would still be possible and perhaps appealing to a majority of the Scottish working class. But every month or year of delay means that the current undemocratic marriage is more likely to end in violence and separation. By opposing the mobilisation of the working class for the most progressive democratic solution, he is leaving the battleground of self-determination open for the nationalists. Far from combating nationalism, his policy is making more likely the very situation which he fears most, the separation of the nations.
Democratic roots of the debate
Peter is putting forward pseudo-communist arguments, helping to maintain the existing unionist state, leaving the democratic aspirations of the Scottish working class to be stirred up by the SNP. I say pseudo-communist because the root of the theoretical problem is a failure to understand the fundamental importance of the struggle for democracy in the movement for communism. Perhaps this is not surprising after years of the domination of our movement by Stalinism. Democracy was an optional extra to be used or ditched according to what was thought expedient.
Vanguard democrats
We need to go back to Lenin and the argument in What is to be done? The Bolsheviks called themselves revolutionary social democrats. It meant they were revolutionary working class democrats, as opposed to bourgeois democrats. The struggle for democracy was central to Lenin’s politics. The national question is one of many general democratic issues and problems for communists to deal with.
A fully democratic society is only achievable under the dictatorship of the working class. Whilst this would not be socialism, it would be the nearest thing to it. The working class, an oppressed class without political power, has always fought to extend democracy. When workers go on strike they create their own democratic organisations - strike committees and mass meetings, etc. Indeed we could argue that the working class only becomes a class for itself by democratic organisation. Through democratic organisation (party, trade union, workplace) millions of individual workers begin to assert themselves as a collective body.
Internationally the working class has always been at the heart of democratic movements to overthrow Tsars and Kaisers or oppose fascism and dictatorship. The working class is the only truly democratic class in society. Lenin captured this idea in What is to be done? when he called the working class the “vanguard fighter for democracy”.
The working class is ‘spontaneously democratic’. It will spontaneously move in a democratic direction. But Marxists are not ‘spontaneous democrats’. We are ‘conscious democrats’ (ie, class conscious) or ‘vanguard’ or ‘advanced’ democrats - or, as I would prefer, ‘revolutionary democrats’. Our view of the struggle for democracy is informed by the scientific method of Marxism and the entire history of working class struggle. It is crystallised in conscious revolutionary theory and the revolutionary programme.
Lenin argues that the spontaneous democratic movement of the working class, which includes the trade union struggle, does not automatically lead to communism. On the contrary it can easily lead to liberal democracy and nationalism. The spontaneous movement does not by itself go beyond bourgeois reformism.
The task of class ‘conscious democrats’ (ie, the Party) is to combat the limited horizons and perspectives of spontaneous democracy by ‘diverting’ the spontaneous (reformist) democracy onto a revolutionary democratic path. Lenin reminds us of the role of the ‘vanguard’ when he argues that “He [she] is no social democrat who forgets in practice his [her] obligation to be ahead of all in raising, accentuating and solving every general democratic question”.
This general idea about democracy is applied in the Bolsheviks’ Theses on the national question (1913), when we are told that “The slogans of consistent democracy unite in a single whole the proletariat and the advanced democrats of all nations” (CW19, p248).
The Scottish working class is spontaneously seeking greater democracy, wanting a measure of self-government. This is an expression of its dissatisfaction with the present system of government. This democratic impulse has not led it to the Communist Party. Instead Labour and the SNP are deceiving the working class with empty promises of devolution under the British crown or independence under a Scottish crown.
Our task as communists is not to tell workers to abandon their democratic aspirations and confine themselves to trade unionism and wages issues. On the contrary our task as a vanguard is to “raise, accentuate and solve this democratic question”. We seek to ‘divert’ the spontaneous democratic impulse of our class, a healthy impulse, away from Labourism and the SNP.
Peter does not approach the question as a vanguard democrat. He has no democratic perspective. He comes to the question as an economist who wants to concentrate on wage struggle, “for a weekly income of £275”. He has not really noticed the democratic aspirations of the Scottish working class - although if they really demand their rights, he promises to follow them. Not a vanguard but a rearguard. Instead of confidence in the democratic aspirations of our class, his driving emotion is fear of petty bourgeois nationalism.
His real position is conservative, dressed up as communism. Workers do not need more democracy: they need communism! His message to Scottish workers is, ‘Don’t go down the democratic road. Have a wage increase instead.’ Just as the Tories are promising lower taxes if the Scottish people do not press their democratic demands, Peter is offering us £275 a week now and communism later. This sounds suspiciously like ‘bread and butter’ economics plus ‘jam tomorrow’.
This only goes to prove how right we are. More democracy builds our power and threatens their power. The more we step up the fight, the more they will try to buy us off. If we mobilise the working class and step up the struggle for democracy, we can look forward to the Tories offering zero taxes and Peter offering £400 a week. Shall we take the money or shall we take the power?