07.03.1996

Metamorphosis

Bob Smith - For a Permanent Party Polemic Committee

The communist movement in Britain is littered with Marxist circles and organisational sects. Ironically Open Polemic, which began its life as a strategy in opposition to these vanguardist grouplets, was itself in danger of becoming just another such circle (Oh yes, and then there’s the comrades from Open Polemic). We recognised the dangers and made the appropriate response.

Despite our detractors, who have never tired of labelling us ‘theorists divorced from practice’, the Open Polemic project has always been and still is a practical project - namely that of developing the theoretical and organisational parameters of the future Party of a new type. We have not lost our way! On the contrary, the Open Polemic project has been advanced considerably by our representational entry into the CPGB organisation and our affiliation to the IWCA. And therein lies the moral: small is not beautiful. It is to the CPGB with its avowedly pro-Party orientation that I wish now to turn.

Let us be perfectly honest. The CPGB, formally the tiny Leninist faction of the old Eurocommunist CPGB, is itself, in nearly all respects, just another Marxist circle. Yet in one significant respect it is qualitatively different. It, along with the Open Polemic editorial board, envisages a future Communist Party as something other than a large monolithic sect where all divergent views are deemed anti-Party. It, along with the OPED, has a vision of majorities and minorities competing in open struggle - and this as the norm of Party life. It, along with OP, has a vision of democratic centralism that is neither ‘bureaucratic centralist’ nor ‘leader centralist’. We both share the vision that the Party should not be based on one theoretician’s view of the former Soviet Union or any other revolutionary phenomena. We both hold to the notion that the Party must look forward towards future revolutionary tasks rather than be unduly weighed down by the impotence of conflicting interpretations of the past.

This is the common vision but the vision is not necessarily the reality. Some within the CPGB still hanker for the certainties of the ‘Leninist’ faction. Some feel uncomfortable with the principle of multanimity. Despite the obvious advances in the Weekly Worker the shadow of conservatism still lingers. A ‘conservative communist’ - it sounds ridiculous - but a fair formulation, I would argue.

So what is the reality? The Leninist faction metamorphosing into the CPGB organisation, as yet neither one nor the other: ‘in the process of becoming’, to use the category of dialectical materialism. The self-declared Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB makes a call for communist rapprochement. They are joined by representatives from the Open Polemic editorial board. The Revolutionary Democratic Group engages in serious programmatic discussions with the PCC. The Trotskyist Unity Group makes a representational entry. Other organisations attend the seminars and day schools. The Weekly Worker becomes a paper aimed at the advanced workers and sheds its economistic orientation. The metamorphosis gathers pace. Neither the Leninist faction, OP, the RDG nor TUG, are required to surrender one ounce of their dearly held principles. Yet the communist collective is undoubtedly strengthened.

And now? Other circles should constructively engage. There is nothing inherently praiseworthy about the Marxist circle. Although their proliferation in the second half of the 20th century can be historically explained they are per se ineffective and have become a barrier to reforging a Communist Party. The myriad journals and newsletters, the countless backroom meetings and the never ending pronouncements to the class no longer serve to advance the class struggle; they retard it. They were the inevitable corollary of the demise of the revolutionary wave of the 20th century, but their time is now up. Their particular contribution can be best enhanced by joining the larger communist collective. The circle mentality needs to be smashed - by the end of the century. The CPGB/OP collaboration offers a viable strategy for this task.