14.12.1995

The RDG’s draft minimum programme

The CPGB rapprochement process has brought a number of groups from different traditions into its orbit. The Revolutionary Democratic Group has been particularly energetic in pursuing joint work and debating a number of programmatic questions, both in meetings and in the paper. We reprint its minimum programme and its ‘Where we stand’ column, which appears in the RDG’s bulletin, Workers Republic. We hope this will inform readers of areas of agreement and disagreement and take discussions on programme forward

THE Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) considers that all communist parties (or revolutionary socialist workers’ parties) should adopt a minimum programme in non-revolutionary and pre-revolutionary periods. In the UK this is our immediate programme for the present period in the class struggle. The minimum programme is a revolutionary democratic, not a socialist programme. But it is not in opposition to an international socialist programme. It leads towards it.

The minimum programme is revolutionary in the sense that it seeks to mobilise the working class and its allies against the existing constitution - that is, the existing system of government. It is democratic because it aims to bring about a more democratic system of government, preparing the ground for a workers’ republic or workers’ state.

The minimum programme may at first sight seem like a left reformist type of ‘socialist’ programme. They have in common demands for reform. But a minimum programme rejects the existing system of government, whilst the left reformists seek to use the existing system to deliver reforms. One sees Labourism as the vehicle for reform and the other is opposed to Labourism and the constitutional monarchist system.

Here can be found our practical differences with the Socialist Workers Party. Sometimes the SWP plays the ultra-left card and rejects every type of reform in favour of a maximum or full socialist programme. The next minute the SWP is supporting the demand for a Labour government and supporting a left reformist programme, calling on Blair to put more money in the health service, etc.

The RDG wants to see the Tory government kicked out of office now. The French workers are showing us the way. But we don’t want to see Major’s Tories simply replaced by Blair’s Tory Party mark two or for that matter rotten, corrupt, ‘old’ Labour. We want the Tories replaced by a provisional republican government, whose task is to prepare for democratic elections to a constituent assembly. If Labour comes to office our demand will be the same: an end not only to anti-working class policies, but anti-working class governments and the corrupt undemocratic system of government that sustains it.

We see our draft minimum programme as a contribution to the development of the type of programme a revolutionary working class party needs to-day.

Dave Craig

The following demands are not the full version of our minimum programme, but illustrative of some of its points.

Our immediate demands include

• Abolition of the monarchy
• Abolition of the House of Lords
• Abolition of the Union of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
• British withdrawal from Ireland
• Separation of the church from the state
• Abolition of all repressive laws such as the Immigration Act, the Prevention of Terrorism Act, the Criminal Justice Act, the anti-union laws, etc

We are for

• A federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales
• A united Ireland
• Self-determination for Ireland - an all-Ireland referendum
• Self-determination for Scotland and Wales
• proportional representation
• Election of all judges and state officials
• Biannual parliaments
• A bill of rights
• The right to join a trade union and the right to strike
• The regular election of all trade union officials with the right of recall. Officials to be paid the average wage of the workers they represent
• Election of workplace councils
• Election of local, regional and national assemblies of delegates from workplace councils
  
  

Where we stand

The Revolutionary Democratic Group is the republican faction of the SWP. We stand for the building of a revolutionary socialist workers’ party. At present this aim is best advanced by building an independent faction of the Socialist Workers Party (UK) on the basis of:

Permanent revolution
The world revolution grows out of the continual outbreak of national democratic revolutions. The working class is the only class capable of transforming the world revolution into an international socialist revolution by leading democratic revolutions to workers’ power. As internationalists, the permanent revolution begins in our own state. The main enemy is at home.

Opposing the left bourgeoisie
Capitalist interests are represented by a variety of parties of the right and left. Left bourgeois or reformist parties such as the US Democrats, the French Socialists or the British Labour Party claim to represent working class interests. In reality they are always opposed to movements of the working class and seek to subordinate it to capitalist interests.

Independent working class politics
The working class can only become an independent class by opposing all bourgeois parties, whether rightwing or leftwing, and supporting its own party based on an independent programme and tactics. We fight for independent working class politics against both the conservative and the left bourgeois parties.

Neither Tory nor Labour
In the United Kingdom the Labour Party, with links to the trade union bureaucracy, expresses itself in left bourgeois politics of a cross-class character known as Labourism. Labour’s prime aim is to subordinate working class interests to the interests of the bourgeoisie and constitutional monarchist state.

Minimum programme
The minimum programme is a programme of revolutionary democratic demands which can only be won by the revolutionary mobilisation of the working class and its allies, especially amongst national and racial minorities, women, gays and disabled people. In the UK, the minimum programme combines republican demands with the building of a rank and file movement for workers’ control of the workplace. It is an essential weapon in the struggle against the liberal reform programme of the Labour Party.

United front
We need to build a united front against the capitalist class in all its guises. In the UK, we aim to build a republican united front between the radical wing of the middle class and the vanguard of the working class. We favour building the republican united front through a Minority Movement in the unions, through the struggle for British withdrawal from Ireland, against racism and fascism and through such campaigns as the poll tax and the Criminal Justice Act.

Workers’ democracy
The working class cannot control society except through the most advanced forms of democracy in the workplace, the trade unions and workers’ parties. Democratic centralism is the most democratic form of party and class organisation. It permits and encourages rigorous democratic debate, decision making, and democratic accountability and full recognition of minority rights.

Internationalism
Socialism is an international movement. We totally reject any concept of national socialism or socialism in one country. Neither the Russian revolution 1917-21 nor any national revolution can abolish capitalism or introduce socialism. We support the building of a new international working class party with an international socialist programme. Such a party must win the active support of the workers of the world.

Workers of the world unite!