11.01.1996

Not the Stalin Society ...

Bob Smith - For a Permanent Party Polemic Committee

THE Leninists of the CPGB and Militant Labour are talking to each other. That can’t be a bad thing. Just five years ago the two organisations would have dismissed each other as Stalinists and Trotskyists respectively, but with the twin processes of communist open polemic and communist rapprochement forcing themselves onto the revolutionary agenda, this communication is a natural development.

Why so? Firstly, both sets of comrades support the concept of the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, although their interpretation of what this might mean in practice is likely to be different. Secondly, both organisations adhere to what they understand as ‘proletarian internationalism’, although again in practice they are just as likely to support differing sides in any particular instance. Their respective views on Bosnia and Ireland bear this out. Thirdly both organisations profess allegiance to the notion of the ‘leading role of the revolutionary party prior to and during the dictatorship of the proletariat’, although it remains to be seen if the control of this ‘truth’ is the same for both. Fourthly, both organisations support the political and organisational principles of democratic centralism within the revolutionary party, but it is certain that the Militants have a different conception to the Leninists of what this means in practice. The Leninists, for example, call for an open factual struggle of tendencies and shades within the party - ML do not. And finally both organisations are for a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society on a global scale.

So it is clear to the Open Polemic comrades operating under the banner of the CPGB, that both ML and the Leninists are, at least formally, what we describe as Marxist-Leninists. Both organisations adhere to what we consider to be the basic tenets of the scientific ideology of Marxism-Leninism. So, notwithstanding their particular historical interpretations of the development of the Soviet Union during its seventy odd years of existence, fundamentally they have a great deal in common.

Communist rapprochement and communist open polemic have to start somewhere, and they must have some parameters. Open Polemic has argued since its inception in 1990 that support for the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism is the dialectically logical point of departure for the 21st century, given our history of ideological and political fragmentation since 1917. What we have sought to do is advance the universal while relegating the historically particular to its appropriate place and perspective. This is what Open Polemic means when it refers to the process of communist open polemic being historically non-specific. We are not, and never have been, for the blurring of historical differences. But we do insist that continued political separation purely on the basis of historical interpretations is ludicrous.

Our friends in and around the Stalin Society would no doubt vehemently object. They prefer their religious certainties of this or that particular date, this or that general secretary, this or that key historical moment. Their historical interpretation becomes cast in a tablet of stone. To these comrades we are agnostic idealists, conciliators, revisionists, Trotskyists. So be it.

Our support for an historically non-specific communist rapprochement has never required these comrades or the pro-Trotsky comrades to abandon their dearly held views - on the contrary, these views are an integral part of the open polemic. No one can wish the Trotsky/Stalin divide away any more than we can ignore the Stalin/Khrushchev schism.

All this is advanced not so much for the benefit of the Stalin Society, who have long thrown up their hands in exasperation at the Open Polemic project, but rather to the Leninists and ML who, in their discussions around the proposed SLP, should seek maximum unity in action. But more importantly, as their discussions inevitably move towards the party question, they ought not allow historical shibboleths to derail a possible rapprochement between the descendants of Marx and Lenin. Draw a line under the decades of party liquidationism. Start to reverse the process. Seek a rapprochement for all those who are for Marx and Lenin. Polemicise without sectarian bigotries. Make the revolutionary party the centre of everything.