17.08.1995

Leading the fight for self-determination

Continuing the debate on the national question

THE headline writer of the Weekly Worker quite rightly summed up the theoretical debate on the national question as between “leading the struggle for democracy” versus “the stageist road to socialism”. Danny Hammill extends the previous debate by raising the spectre of the bourgeois democratic revolution.

Apart from that, I think Danny’s contribution fails to deal with my main points. All polemics contain substance and polemical froth. Unfortunately Danny shoots holes in the froth not the substance. He says my arguments “offered little of substance”. Yet he fails either to identify or answer the main points. So let me restate the points Danny ignores.

1. State and Revolution

Engels and Lenin predict that the UK will evolve into a federal republic, which would be a democratic “step forward”. They point to a connection between the monarchy, the national question and republicanism (Peter argued that they are totally separate questions).

The RDG does not think Engels and Lenin are right just because they said it. But equally it would be wrong to ignore it. We cannot dismiss their opinions as being of no account just because they are only Engels and Lenin.

The RDG has given our interpretation of their prediction. We believe that they were basically correct and that what they predicted is now on the political agenda. Danny says nothing about this. He doesn’t explain his interpretation of their prediction. He doesn’t explain why he thinks they were wrong. Danny seems intent on shooting the RDG messenger because he has nothing to say about the Engels-Lenin message.

2. Mixing independence and federalism

Federalism is about reuniting a divided working class. I ‘scolded’ Peter Manson for mixing up the case for federalism with that for independence. I did not do this to cause offence, but so that Peter would not do it again and we could deal with the real argument and not waste time on debating red herrings. Unfortunately Danny does the same thing. He says “it seems absurd to advance the idea that a separate Scotland is a historic necessity, without which socialism is impossible”. I agree it is absurd. But then I have never said that or implied it. So please accept the same ‘scolding’ I gave Peter. Let’s not keep repeating it, every week - the RDG does not advocate independence for Scotland now. We do not rule out that it might be a correct policy in a different set of circumstances. Nobody who supports self-determination can disagree with that.

3. Exercising self-determination

My third argument was that neither Scotland nor Wales have a means to exercise the right to self-determination. The principle of national self-determination is ambiguous. For some, it was a statement of belief. I believe in self-determination. Even if it does not exist you can still believe in it, as you might believe in Santa Claus. Others see that the important thing is that this right does not exist. Therefore we will fight for it by exercising the right.

Take the example of the right and freedom to strike. In Tory Britain there is the right to strike. You are permitted to strike under the most restrictive conditions. What is the point in proclaiming that we believe in the right to strike if we are not prepared to fight for it. And what is the best way to win this right? By taking strike action in defiance of Tory laws. Is self-determination a statement about our beliefs or a call to the people to take mass action? This point is not addressed. So whilst the Tories and Labour claim to ‘believe’ in self-determination, we have to fight to exercise this right. In fact we aim to lead this struggle.

4. Vanguard democrats

I argued that there is a revolutionary democratic road to socialism. The working class is spontaneously democratic. Of all social classes, the working class is the best fighter for democracy. It is the vanguard of the struggle for democracy. Communists are not spontaneous democrats, we are class conscious democrats armed with revolutionary theory and programme. Hence the Party is the democratic vanguard of the democratic class. We approach the national question from this perspective. Again this argument is not identified or opposed, except indirectly.

Of these four arguments, one arises from the failure of my opponents to recognise that the issue is federalism not independence. But the other three are substantial in that they are rooted in Lenin’s arguments in State and Revolution, The Rights of Nations to Self Determination and What is to be Done?

Danny however does have one new argument to mount against a Leninist revolutionary democratic road to socialism, and that is the Menshevik-Stalinist theory of stageism.

Danny says that “David clearly believes that the bourgeois democratic tasks have yet to be completed. The role of communists, presumably, is to complete the last lap of this historic race and abolish the ‘feudalistic’ UK state”. I did not say that nor do I believe that at all. But it requires a fuller discussion than space or time allows now. With the permission of the editor, I will answer this next week.

Let me end by saying, this is only a repeat of our differences with the SWP Central Committee, with Peter and Danny acting as a substitute. We put forward Leninist arguments which the SWP claims are not relevant to Britain because of the Stalinist theory of bourgeois democratic revolution. In my opinion this theory is rubbish and not unconnected to the SWP internal regime. It does not understand the democracy question, whether it is federalism for England, Scotland and Wales or a fair trial for their own dissidents and democratic rights for all their own members.

David Craig
RDG (Faction of the SWP)