14.09.1995

Unity and democracy

Chris Jones from the RDG

WEEKLY WORKER 109 carried two articles criticising the call for a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales and a united Ireland. I wish to make some specific comments on these articles in the context of a more general outline. Two main points concern me - mobilisation as the key to revolutionary change, and the notion of stages. These are important points for revolutionaries and connect the theories of past revolutionaries with the issues of today.

Dave Hulme begins his article by fudging his criticism of Dave Craig with criticism of Tom Nairn. This is unfortunate, for Dave Hulme is keen to develop a ‘concrete’ analysis of ‘specific’ situations but begins by equating one writer with another on the basis of impressions. Tom Nairn, from Dave Hulme’s account, stands for a number of key positions:

1. “The failure of socialism was seen to be the failure to modernise the British state.”
2. “Nationalism was historically stronger than socialism.”
3. “A bourgeois republic was an advance to socialism.”

I went back armed with these points to re-read Dave Craig’s original articles. I failed to find him agreeing with any one of these points. The thrust of Dave Craig’s articles was stated in the main heading, ‘Leading the fight for democracy’. This analysis rests on the simple basis that the fight for democratic reforms is part of the development of a revolutionary movement.

Reformism sees the prospect of reform as a way of transforming society incrementally without the sharp break of revolution. Revolutionaries see the struggle for reforms in a different light. Reforms can be of value in themselves - universal suffrage springs to mind.

The experience of South Africa is a recent expression of a reform that changes the balance of class forces in favour of the working class. The reform was won without revolution and without the working class mobilising for socialism. It was won with a massive mobilisation of the working class around political demands in a way that showed the revolutionary potential of the struggle for political reform. Mobilisation of the working class as a political force is the key to the demand for a federal republic. The requirement for a federal republic comes from analysis of the current historical situation within the United Kingdom and proposes political demands around which the working class can unite.

The aim of revolutionaries in the struggle for reforms is both to obtain the reform and to mobilise workers as a class. The aim of Charter 88, the Labour and Liberal parties is to obtain more or less limited reform. The methods used by revolutionaries are intended to develop workers through strikes, demonstrations and direct actions, in the exercise of political power.

The programme of revolutionaries differs from reformists not simply in its demands - these may be the same - but in the motives and methods of the tactics they pursue. It seems to me that Dave Hulme was using the arguments of Tom Nairn and others as a substitute for Dave Craig’s because they were easier to refute. Readers are best advised to re-read Dave’s original piece to disprove some of the wilder charges made by Dave Hulme: for example, on peaceful change and popular fronts.

There was a second, more substantial point concerning stages. Tom Nairn was in favour of a bourgeois republic, and by implication so was Dave Craig. This placed him in a long list of ne’er-do-wells from Mensheviks to Pabloites. Dave Hulme echoed the article by Danny Hammill (Weekly Worker 106 - ‘Stageist road to socialism’) in branding the call for a federal republic as stageist. The key to this argument rests in the concept of mobilisation. The process Dave Craig outlined was dialectical: not a linear evolution from unitary monarchy to federal republic, but one that involves consciousness and struggle.

The stageist argument attributed to Tom Nairn sees a bourgeois republic as a desirable and necessary state of affairs. Dave Craig on the contrary sees republicanism and federalism as tasks, just as Lenin saw abolition of the Tsarist regime as a task. This does not entail a sequence or a time scale. A workers’ uprising could usher in a republic and soviets on the same day, in whichever order it desired.

The Bolsheviks in 1917 rewrote their programme in the course of the revolution to take account of the task completed in February. The Bolshevik programme had guided the party in its main tasks, but it was not a tablet of stone.

There are two practical points where Peter Manson and Dave Hulme raise questions that are important to this argument. Peter Manson suggests support for a federation of Ireland and Britain, while Dave Hulme asks about a “federation of socialist states in Europe”. The question of Ireland immediately brings up issues of concrete analysis.

Dave Craig is accused of not moving on as we approach 2000, yet the call for a federation does not deal with the fragmentation of the Irish working class following partition. The call for a united Ireland is also a call for reuniting the working class. Before the Easter rising Connolly and Larkin were active in all Ireland. Partition led to the breaking of the working class into two ‘national’ communities and Connolly’s predicted carnival of reaction.

The primary national task in Ireland is reunification of the working class. Ireland and the United Kingdom are both parts of the European Union and federation of these component parts cannot be taken in isolation.

What then of a “United States of Europe”? Peter Manson uses the German example in the 19th century to argue for the completion of revolution from above by a movement from below. This he equates with the British unitary state brought by ‘revolution from above’.

Surely the more pertinent example would be the European Union. Brought about from above, socialists still stand for greater unity in Europe and hope to bring this about by a movement from below. Given existing political conditions this is not likely to be a centralised republic and is more likely to be a federation.

This is not to make federalism a principle, but to point out that the “break-up of Britain” becomes a little meaningless in the context of a uniting Europe. A step backward from the European Union would be political fragmentation exemplified by ‘little Englandism’ found across the political spectrum. The federal republic argument, applied by the Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) to the United Kingdom may well extend to the European Union.

The present phase of capital has concentrated economic power internationally to the extent that it has destabilised nation-states. It has reduced the economic power of large nation-states to something resembling local government. Large nation-states are now only as viable as small nation-states.

At the global level even super-powers such as the USA need to build blocs to compete with other economic powers and political centres. A Europe of the regions may well emerge as the preferred bourgeois option to unite the various nationalities and diminish historic rivalries. In this context the call for a movement from below to further unite European workers would be a necessary extension of the federalist argument.

The call for a federal republic is built upon a general appreciation of the working class as a democratic class, and a specific analysis of present conditions. The spontaneous democracy of the class needs to be developed into a conscious democracy by a workers’ party. To be a vanguard a party must sharpen and accentuate the democratic movements that develop in society with the aim of forging a united and politically conscious working class.

The United Kingdom is under immense strain. The job of revolutionaries is both to hasten its demise and to build the forces within the working class capable of moving forwards.