01.02.1996

High road, low road

Bob Smith - For a Permanent Party Polemic Committee

THE TWIN processes of communist rapprochement and communist open polemic can be contradictory things. Whilst rapprochement presupposes some drawing together of communist trends and the containment of those trends within a single organisation, open polemic may have two very different outcomes. On the one hand, open polemic between communist traditions may result in the resolution or synthesis of differences but, alternatively, it may result in a sharpening of demarcations and the parting of ways, acrimoniously or otherwise. The debate last weekend between the CPGB and the IWCA contained elements of both synthesis and divergence, although in my assessment the latter was more pronounced.

From OP’s point of view it was an intriguing affair.

While the OP editorial board predicted some time ago that our representational entry into the CPGB along with our affiliation to the IWCA could create interesting dilemmas, we could not imagine the complete tapestry of intertwined threads that would emerge so early in the day. In order to illustrate the point it is useful to recap on some earlier OP developments.

The basis of our entry into the CPGB centred on the call for a non-ideological party that allowed for an open factional regime. Although not identical to OP’s call for a multanimous, historically non-specific party, there was, we believed, sufficient common ground for us to positively take up their call. Indeed we considered it would be sectarian to do otherwise. Since that time we could say that we have united around the principle of pro-partyism. Notwithstanding the usual sparrings, things were developing quite well between us, even to the point of agreeing a joint minimal statement (to be published in the Weekly Worker next week). Then the IWCA and SLP happened onto the scene and all sorts of tensions bubbled to the surface.

The OP editorial board took the decision to take out affiliation to the IWCA on the basis of their clear line of demarcation against all shades of social democracy. We envisaged the IWCA being an association that would allow action-in-common around an anti-capitalist, pro-working class agenda, while at the same time opening up further possibilities for communist rapprochement. The initial involvement of the CPGB, CAG, the RCG/Socialist Parent and Partisan, along with the anarcho-communists from Red Action, made the IWCA a promising forum for the OP project to involve itself with. Unfortunately, our partners in rapprochement, the CPGB, had other ideas, and they determined that the proposed SLP was the place for communists to be. Citing differences with the IWCA formulation over the Labour Party, the PCC determined to place all their energies and resources in and around Scargill’s SLP. The OP reps within the CPGB found themselves in an invidious position.

Regarding contradiction as the norm, the OP editorial board, faced with this real life dilemma, set about to reaffirm its principles and then to set out its strategy and tactics accordingly. Succinctly, they are as follows: firstly our continued support for the PCC’s pro-party orientation and full commitment to the processes of communist rapprochement and open polemic currently underway under the banner of the CPGB. However we continue to have clear reservations concerning the PCC’s estimation of the possibilities for communist rapprochement in and around the SLP. We welcome the contact between the CPGB and the communists in Militant Labour, and we are not opposed to communists engaging in political work with left social democratic elements, but we do not entertain the notion that the SLP has the potential to transform itself into a Communist Party. We suspect the PCC is not so clear on this.

Secondly, and in connection to the last point, we fully endorse the clear line of demarcation the IWCA has sought to make between communist and social democratic politics. While this need not rule out a tactical alliance with left social democrats some time in the future, we believe revolutionaries must define themselves in terms of other political trends that seek to give leadership to the working class. We do, however, have clear reservations (along with the CPGB) that elements within the IWCA might be wedded to the notion of building a communist party from the spontaneous struggles of the working class. Contrary to this view, OP has long held that the vanguard parry we seek to build can only, in its initial stages - ie, the establishment of a cadre centre - be constructed by drawing the most advanced elements around the most advanced theory. Theirs is a bottom-up approach; ours is essentially a top-down strategy. Or to use one comrade’s clever formulation, the IWCA are travelling the ‘low road’ and the CPGB/OP arc on the ‘high road’.

This is a useful metaphor, but we should not lose sight of the fact, despite our different strategies, that we are all revolutionaries seeking the same destination. Accordingly OP will continue to support the IWCA and we will urge the CPGB to affiliate to it. While maintaining this level of unity, OP will continue its ideological war against left social democracy to the right of Marxist-Leninism and anarcho-communism to the left.