14.12.1995

Two factions

Bob Smith - For a Permanent Party Polemic Committee

A FEW weeks before the start of the New Year, and four months into Open Polemic’s representational entry into the CPGB organisation, what should we conclude? In one very real sense our decision to send representatives to work within the CPGB has been vindicated. The CPGB/OP collaboration still represents the cutting edge of communist rapprochement in Britain.

We had our reservations at the start and these reservations were put into print and circulated to the entire revolutionary movement. We still have these same reservations, plus a few others that we have picked up along the way. But the plain fact is that the rapprochement process has begun, it is bearing fruit, and it was initiated by the PCC of the CPGB. Credit where it is due!        

For our part, the Open Polemic project since its inception was never smooth sailing - nor, by definition, could it have been. We had set our sails against the prevailing wind - that of sectarian vanguardism, and from the beginning we experienced hostile waters. Not much has changed in that respect inside the CPGB. As outlined in our Weekly Worker column, Open Polemic’s strategy for advance is largely antithetical to that of the PCC’s. Yet despite this antithesis there is some clear identity - some definite commonality. Call it ‘pro-partyism’ if you like, but it is clear that both the PCC and Open Polemic are being dragged, by the objective circumstances, in the same direction.

If the rapprochement process is somewhat blind at present, Open Polemic has sought to give it direction and consciousness. But when we have done so we have been accused of ‘formalism’. These accusations ring hollow - they are the noises of those on the PCC who are timid of rapprochement, preferring instead the certainties of their particular programme and strategy. The PCC says it is prepared to be in the minority within the CPGB but all their actions to date indicate the opposite.

What is at the root of all this? In our opinion it is the refusal of the comrades on the PCC to declare themselves a faction. They most certainly do have a particular view of the world and, in particular, the old Soviet Union. Nothing wrong with that, but when they seek to make this the general truth of the CPGB in a backdoor manner there is everything wrong with it.

The PCC also has its particular strategy for rapprochement, but again, this is not put forward in an open, honest way. No, instead the Leninist faction hides behind the collectivist banner of the Communist Party of Great Britain. What I’m suggesting is that, at present, there is not a level playing field - far from it. Incoming views are immediately enshrined as a minority view and that is the rub.

This is less critical for Open Polemic in that we don’t hold a collective view on questions like the Soviet Union, Ireland, Bosnia, et al. But for an organisation holding a state capitalist, Trotskyist or pro-Stalin perspective, the PCC’s undeclared factional behaviour is now a real impediment to communist rapprochement.

The ‘Leninists’ must relinquish their monopoly of the PCC and open it up to all organisations who are prepared to work under the banner of the CPGB. A clear distinction must now be made between the Leninist faction and the Provisional Central Committee. This is not to negate the role the Leninists have played in preserving the name of the CPGB for revolutionary politics, but rather to ensure that this invaluable work can continue. This is their stated intent as well, yet they cannot see that it is they themselves who represent the biggest stumbling block now to further communist rapprochement.