12.10.1995

The clash of ideas

Communist Party School

PARTICIPATION in the school was not as wide as we had hoped for. Representatives from four other organisations attended - Open Polemic (a comrade who is a Party member anyway), the Revolutionary Democratic Group, the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran and, from Australia, the Communist Party Advocates.

Some organisations cited the financial and logistical difficulties of getting to Bulgaria for non-attendance. True for some but not for others, I suggest. The consensus of the school remained that the advantages of holding the event abroad outweighed the problems. That said, we should certainly keep it under review - if there are political problems why organisations and individuals will not speak to us, let them appear openly as political problems, not organisational ones.

Fraternal sharpness there certainly was at this year’s school. Comrades set about opposing views with polemical gusto. And why not? Our class needs the truth.

Communist truth results from clashes, from jarring collision between juxtaposed political positions. As long as light results from the struggle as well as some heat, we should not worry. It was an entirely healthy thing that our school again this year was characterised by a no-nonsense, blunt approach to political debate among comrades - communists with thick proletarian skins when it comes to receiving criticism and dishing it out.

Two central questions emerged - the debate on a federal republic and the Party question.

The major criticism of the anti-federalists seemed to be the absence of “meat on the bones” of the pro-federal solution - what would be the constitutional make-up of any ‘parliament’ or ‘constituent assembly’ that resulted from the struggle? How would this demand in itself aid the struggle for working class state power, they asked?

Other comrades - including myself - argued that this was a static, mechanical and unMarxist approach. Comrade Manson and others scrutinise the problem in the manner of constitutional lawyers rather than proletarian politicians. The working class champions the fight for democracy precisely in order to take it beyond the limits acceptable to the bourgeoisie, not to be caged in advance by legalistic constitutional parameters. In itself, no democratic demand per se is revolutionary. The key question is under whose hegemony it is won.

At the moment, there is no agreed Party ‘line’ on the federal question. There is plenty more debate and controversy to be had. At some point however, we must move to resolution and a line put into concrete practice. In fact, this practice will be precisely a continuation of our exploration of the question. It will allow reality to inform our understanding, to perhaps provide more depth to the pro- or anti-federalist positions in the Party.

The other theme of the school I would pinpoint in this short article is the centrality of the Party question - not simply as a parochial ‘British’ issue, but one of key importance for the world’s working class movement.

 For example, the presentation by the comrades from Australia was followed by a discussion during which they were urged by Open Polemic and others to come to Britain to join the CPGB. As world revolutionaries, we have to seize the answer whenever and wherever it appears. The example was cited of the comrades who began the struggle of The Leninist. They spent an important formative period inside the Leninist wing of the Communist Party of Turkey, undertaking work in this country and internationally, even preparing to learn the language and move to Turkey.

The importance of the advance made by the Provisional Central Committee was underlined, even though it remains a ‘toe-hold’. The comrades from Australia were told (with fraternal bluntness) that “the CP will survive without you; you may not survive without the CPGB”. The best place to aid the struggle for a reforged Communist Party of Australia was in Britain.

Open Polemic’s contribution to the school was the most directly ‘Party-centric’, although its approach suffers from abstraction. Essentially, it believes that while the PCC has taken a correct and even “courageous” step by initiating communist rapprochement, we must be on guard against “impatience”.

Thus, we should take “one step back”. For instance, we should not have publicised Jack Conrad’s draft Party programme, as this invents artificial programmatic barriers to unity. In the same spirit, we should effectively turn the Weekly Worker into a version of the Open Polemic journal.         

OP’s approach to such forces is prompted by its formal agreement with abstract canons of ‘Marxist-Leninist’ orthodoxy - the leading role of the Party, proletarian internationalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, and so on. But there is no content in its adherence to these principles - they are dead, sectarian mantras for it.

The process of communist rapprochement cannot be aided by organised genuine communist forces retreating into an agnostic limbo to facilitate unity with incorrigible sectarians and eccentrics. The draft programme’s publication actually facilitates the coming together of real communist forces - it does not erect barriers.

 Ironically in this context, OP’s contribution on the key question of the Party is valuable not only for what it said but for what it has done. Despite our openly expressed political differences, it has put its money where its mouth is - it has joined the PCC in the fight for a reforged Communist Party.

Finally, while the debate at this year’s school was at a higher level than previous years, the general quality of openings was not. More work, more thought, more time needs to be put into the preparation of this high point of the Party’s annual political schedule. This is certainly a collective responsibility of us all, but can be facilitated more consciously by the leadership in coming years.

Mark Fischer