19.10.1995

Have your cake and eat it too

A reply to the RWT, Bob Smith - for the establishment of a permanent Party Polemic Committee

THE PCC of the CPGB was correct to publish the Republican Worker Tendency’s reply to Jack Conrad’s ‘Party, Non-Ideology and Faction’. Questions of ideology, of strategy, of tactics, are not the property of a handful of learned priests. Such questions, no matter how complex, belong to our class and in particular are the immediate business of the most conscious elements of our class.

While open polemic should be the norm of a communist party, at this point of political and ideological fragmentation communist open polemic is the sharpest and perhaps the best weapon that we communists have. Let the movement know everything!

This said, what should be the response to the RWT? We at Open Polemic share your conclusion that “the Party does not exist”. We also share your conclusion that the unity question is “... really one of the unity of tendencies”. And no one would disagree with you when you argue that “... there can be no separation between communist organisation today and the goal of communism”. Certainly no one would dispute your statement that, “The tasks of today cannot be reduced to the organisation of ‘the Party’ alone.” The task of “working out and restating Marx’s vision of communism” is most definitely part of the task of communist open polemic. All this we can agree on. So let us move on.

It is clear from your article, ‘Communism yesterday, today and tomorrow’, that the RWT has a very particular view of what communism is, what the transition should look like, and what the tasks of communists should be. You draw the line of demarcation between “genuine communism” and what you term “revolutionary social democracy”. You cite 1921 as the defining year in the fortunes of the world revolutionary movement. You outline clearly the political economy behind your argument - the law of value must go!

For your tendency, it is not merely an organisational question but a fundamental clash of programmes - a fundamental schism between ‘their’ communism and yours. From all this you conclude that until this demarcation has been resolved (in your favour) the best we communists can do is to create some sort of communist league. Any attempts to reforge or re-establish a party would, in your view, be hopelessly premature.

Well, you may be surprised to know that on the question of reforging the Communist Party the Open Polemic editorial board has argued much the same case. We insisted that the ‘Leninist’ organisation was incorrect to call for the reforging of the CPGB around their PCC. We argued that this was a sectarian and short-sighted act. We pointed out that an enormous amount of ideological and political groundwork would have to be done prior to the call for the Party.

Therefore we agree with you that some sort of communist united front would be more productive than moving directly to a party situation. Indeed we did attempt to establish such a united front for anti-imperialist work. We were met, with a few honourable exceptions, with a wall of sectarian silence (including the self-declared CPGB). Your reservations about the CPGB and your strategy for advance are shared by others. 

But life continually refuses to conform to one’s own wishes. At the end of the day it was not to be a communist united front, a communist league or an Open Polemic-sponsored initiative that presented itself, but the CPGB’s call for communist rapprochement.

This call did not require the dissolving of tendencies, nor the dampening of ideological polemic. It did not call for the supremacy of one tendency over another. It simply called for communists to come together under the banner of the CPGB in order to more effectively carry out communist polemic and day-to-day communist tasks.

As for the programme and the ideology that underpins it - all is up for grabs, so to speak. All views will contend on an equal footing. They may emerge as the majority view or continue in the movement as a coherent minority view. So we say to you quite honestly that the RWT has absolutely nothing to lose by continuing its work under the banner of the CPGB. On the contrary, your voice will be enhanced, as will “... the political weight of a specifically communist pole of attraction”.  Communist tendencies need each other if we are to make our voice heard above the chatter of the left social democrats.

If you think a communist league is the appropriate form of organisation then fight to make the communist rapprochement initiative just such a league. You will get no opposition from Open Polemic on that front. As an intermediate step you might consider the approach adopted by the Open Polemic editorial board - that of representational entry. This allows us to effectively fight for our strategy alongside other communists while at the same time preserving the independence of the Open Polemic project.

Here is a case of having our cake and eating it too. And what’s wrong with that!