11.04.1996

The Fourth International Supporters Caucus

The Fisc operates as a secret faction inside the SLP. We defend their right to do so, but oppose their hypocritical witch-hunting of others. Below we reprint a large portion of the Fisc report to a recent meeting of the international Trotskyist grouping USFI

Information report for January/February 1996 International Executive Committee of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International

The following brief report is based on a draft document which I presented to the first national meeting of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus of January 20. While no formal vote was taken - the purpose of the document was to begin a more concrete discussion on perspectives and tasks - it was agreed that in general it reflected the views of the group. An explanation will be given during the IEC discussion as to why we have approached the International outside the organisational framework of the British section.

Macklin, January 1996

Political situation - a brief overview

... It is against this background [of the erosion of the post-1945 settlement between capital and labour, the ‘grooming’ of Blair’s party as the direct representative of the pro-European wing of British capitalism - MF] that we have argued that if the present developments undermining the very existence of class independence in Britain are not reversed a great crisis will erupt in the labour movement as a whole ... We said that our work in the unions and the Labour Party must be in preparation for that crisis, by moving towards the creation of a new party of the working class. Such a new formation would defend class independence and seek to ride the new wave of organisation of the working class which we believed to be implicit in movements and organisations as diverse as the anti-poll tax struggle, Women Against Pit Closures, the North Sea oil workers union (Oilc) and which is also an increasingly important part of the discussions within some of the left formations in the trade unions.

The necessity for such a drive towards a new, basic reorganisation of the working class was already being posed before Scargill’s call for a new party, by the preliminary defeat of class independence now apparent in the drive to destroy particular unions (the mineworkers union NUM, the rail and maritime union RMT, the building workers union Ucatt, and so forth), the defeats at Labour Party conference for union influence, the preparation for coalition government should it be required, the drive of the right wing of the union bureaucracy towards business unionism and so forth.

Let us be clear: The developments which have led to the emergence of the Socialist Labour Party, and have laid the basis for new types of trade unionism, are the result of real struggles (by a minority, yes) for political and ideological clarification within the currently existing mass organisations. The actually existing labour movement is politically shipwrecked. It will need to be rebuilt from top to bottom. The extent to which this becomes a generalised task will be premised on the success, or otherwise, of the struggles under way. In any event, the building blocks for the new mass (albeit minority) formations of the working class have already been and will continue to be created by the working class itself, as it confronts tasks and struggles for which its current leadership and/or organisation have not equipped it. The Socialist Labour Party is but the most important organisational expression of this trend thus far. We do not think it is a finished product, as we explain below.

Fourth Internationalists and the SLP

Over the last year or so we have been charting largely unknown territory. The Socialist Labour Party changes the terrain in which we work once again.

Within the Corresponding Society¹ this point has already been made. Previously we were discussing the right conditions for the launch of a new party, including initiatives and events which would begin to put this question higher on the agenda of the best militants. Now, we are centrally involved with a more concrete question: Are you for or against building a Socialist Labour Party?

We are for. Not only that but we approach this party in a very different way to which the revolutionary left has had the opportunity let alone the willingness to do so in many decades. We will not be entryists. No splitting operation. No smash ‘n’ grab.

On the contrary. We are in agreement with Scargill on the need for this party: in broad agreement about its initial action programme: on its orientation to the trade unions and, indeed, the Labour left, including left MPs. None of this should be underestimated or forgotten when we consider those aspects which we are clearly not in agreement with, or, at the very least, do not have the kind of broad agreement which we would have preferred.

Aspects of the proposed Constitution and Rule Book are a case in point and this is discussed briefly below.

However, there is another equally important question which has been discussed little outside of the Corresponding Society, that is what is the nature, or character, of this party in the immediate to short term? It is a question which has a bearing on our reasons for continuing to identify with the International and all those who have participated in Corresponding Society discussions.

We regard the SLP as transitional - over a period of years - and as the next necessary step towards the kind of new party of the working class which we think is required.

If analogies are to be made then rather than just look to the past, for example the Independent Labour Party of the 1930s, it is useful to consider how the establishment of a new party fits, today and tomorrow, into political developments in Europe as a whole. For sure, the actions of one individual and the specific forms which political developments take in this country have their own impact. But developments in Europe, even if not overtly, have clearly made an impact too, in so far as the SLP could be seen as the newest product of a generalised recomposition in the European workers’ movement which has produced the PRC in Italy, the PDS in Germany, the United Left in Spain, the Red-Green Alliance in Denmark, and so on and so forth. Obviously each of the organisations mentioned is unique, yet having said that they also share common characteristics. In short: they are parties of the recomposition, in that they defend the gains of the working class, defend an emancipatory socialist project (however incomplete), and advance a diversity of struggles on that basis. Again, this is something which needs to be discussed in greater detail.

Describing the SLP as transitional - as a party of the recomposition - does not however negate the view that, from the very beginning, it should endeavour to act as the new party of the working class.

Neither does this view in any way negate the new approach we take to being members of the SLP. Yet, while the name could remain the same, it cannot be denied that if the best elements of the revolutionary left can for once get their bearings right there is enormous future potential for making a significant leap on the overall political character of a unitary party of the working class.

Beyond identifying the “best elements of the revolutionary left” and bearing in mind the approach to membership of the SLP which it is suggested we should take, realising the future potential of the party implies that the revolutionary left should organise, constructively, for that purpose. Does the SLP’s constitution, even with the democratic guarantees which have been incorporated, at present allow for such organisation?

Let us think first about what we might have preferred: a structure of internal democracy - a constitution - more akin to parties such as the Italian PRC (or Brazilian PT) where the right for internal currents to organise openly in support of their views (on questions of building the party, policy, strategy and so forth), including with publications, is recognised as legitimate within the framework of a unitary party.

However, we are not living in Italy (or Brazil). And while individual comrades have thus far played a role in launching the SLP not so different to the role played by the Italian section in respect of the PRC, and the Brazilian section in respect of the PT, the analogy cannot be taken any further. The fact that we, specifically, are tiny is in many respects beside the point. Rather, it is the fact that the British revolutionary left as a whole, while cumulatively the largest in Europe, is trusted very little and about as popular as a wet Sunday afternoon, particularly amongst many of the militants and activists for whom the SLP must become a natural home. Combined with a residue of Stalinism on the part of at least some of the party’s initial supporters and potential leaders, it was always unlikely that at this stage we would see the kind of constitution which we would have written ourselves.

Nonetheless, taken as a whole, the constitution is still an advance on the Labour Party’s. The absence of a positive right to open internal organisation, the limits and ambiguities of Clause II, pars (4) and (5) which forbid the affiliation of individuals and organisations with their own programme and so forth, or who support a political organisation other than the party - all the new party’s shortcomings will be tested, squeezed, poked about, and then improved upon not by any manufactured campaign but real events, and by real experience in building the party.

Moreover, our future right to organise openly, along with others, will to a large extent be premised on our role in building the party now. It is this task, above all, which will preoccupy us in the months to come.

For the time being then, we are posed with a delicate balancing act. Let us be clear. We have no interest in any stupid and irresponsible provocation and we should work within and respect the existing Constitution. We should investigate forms of organisation which both reflect that approach and are suited to our present needs.

Report presented to Usec

This ponderous document has little intrinsic theoretical interest. Regular readers will know that its significance lies in who it is by rather than what it says.

The Fourth International Supporters Caucus is a grouping of leading members of the SLP including Pat and Caroline Sikorski, Roland Wood and Brian Heron. It has been clear for some time that these comrades have formed a cohesive group around Scargill with a definite agenda of their own. This much has been obvious.

The documents coming into the hands of the Communist Party from a variety of sources now prove that these comrades have in fact acted as an organised entryist faction into the SLP, guided by a programme that is their own and cohered by a distinct organisational discipline.

And so what? The Communist Party makes it crystal clear once again that we will unconditionally defend the right of the Fisc to operate in the SLP in an organisational form they think appropriate, yet in the Roland Wood presented report above, the comrades made a remarkable admission for a group of people who have made their name as the “doorkeepers” in the SLP, the most vociferous hounders of anyone they suspect of being supporters of other political tendencies.

In the very last paragraph of the report, they inform us that they intend to “investigate forms of organisation” which are appropriate to ‘working with’ and ‘respecting’ a constitution which explicitly bans those who “support a political organisation other than the party”. Coming from this political organisation, that is a remarkable admission.

In fact, the SLP has no constitution. It has a number of contributions on the constitution question, including a model for a bureaucratic monstrosity from Arthur Scargill. The Fisc has been instrumental in attempting to implement in practice the Scargill monolith and proscribe other political trends under the provision of its phantom clauses. The ‘appropriate’ form for the Fisc therefore has been - and is - an underground, secret faction, organised in blatant violation of the constitution they themselves are trying to shackle everyone else with.

Despite our defence of the Fisc against any threats of disciplinary action, it would be hard to think of an act of more monumental hypocrisy.

Our discussion of the Fisc needs to move on. We have shown that they exist, who they are and what they are trying to do inside the SLP. Next it is worthwhile examining the origins of this faction.

In the coming issue of the Weekly Worker we will reproduce a document from these same comrades in one of their pre-Fisc manifestations as ‘Faction 1’ of the Socialist Outlook (International Socialist Group) and review the context in which it was produced.

This will illustrate the political understanding that underpins Fisc’s uncritical subordination to left reformism, its bureaucratic contempt for democracy in the movement and willingness to wreck political initiatives rather than lose its sectarian grip.

Mark Fischer

1. The Corresponding Society was established by former members of the International Socialist Group along with others, as a Marxist forum for the specific purpose of furthering the discussion on a new party. With the launch of the SLP the Society has dissolved. It was never conceived of as a USFI organisation in waiting, which is why a caucus was organised specifically for USFI supporters.↩︎