02.05.1996

What sort of party?

Enormous potential exists in the formation of the Socialist Labour Party. These are exciting times for all who are committed to socialism and working class liberation.

The drift of mainstream politics to the right has left a huge vacuum. Politicians from all the capitalist parties now treat the working class - the overwhelming majority of people in Britain - as if they simply did not exist.

‘New’ Labour in particular simply takes the support of workers for granted. Its leaders believe it does not matter how much they are attacked, vilified, ignored or exploited: the working class has no option but to come crawling back to Labour.

The SLP initiative has shown that a layer of workers - a thin layer, but important nevertheless - has started to break from the suffocating embrace of this treacherous party. These comrades have begun to search for a viable political alternative to Blair, an alternative that can at last start to put socialism and working class power onto the agenda.

All communists and genuine partisans of our class must welcome this development warmly. The SLP could be an important moment in the fight of our working class in Britain to form itself into a class. As Marx and Engels put it, communists have no interests separate and apart from the working class. We do not have a predefined set of sectarian principles with which to judge this movement of the class. On the contrary, communists always seek to bring to the fore the general interests, the “interests of the movement as a whole” (Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, p6l).

It is in this spirit that we have greeted the SLP. Below we answer some of the most frequent questions that communists in the SLP are asked about our attitude to this important new development in our class.

Why does the Communist Party insist on open debate? ls it because you want a chatterbox party, a debating club that gets nothing done?

Hardly. The dichotomy between those organisations that ‘do things’ and those that just talk about doing things is thoroughly false.

For example, the pages of our paper contain the most wide-ranging and open debate on the British left. It would be a foolhardy opponent who accused our organisation of being all mouth and no practice, however. Equally, we could name quite a few groups that effectively allow no debate, but which at the same time are characterised by low or non-existent levels of activity.

A party that does not debate in effect has ceased to think. If you are unable to think, then you are actually unable to act in any meaningful way.

The SLP is in a state of formation: it is not a finished product. It is bringing together comrades from a wide variety of different backgrounds. Such an organisation must be allowed the space to think, to clarify and to act. The May 4 conference should be the beginning of the debate, not the end.

This would in no way hamper the party’s ability to stand in elections, make effective interventions in the trade union movement or lead campaigns. On the contrary, a thinking party would be far better placed to take the lead in these struggles.

But what about factions? Surely we do not want parties within parties? This is a recipe for confusion and paralysis.

Arthur Scargill has put the opposition to factions and the right of tendencies to organise for their views most starkly. ‘I have left the Labour Party after decades of membership in order to build the SLP,’ he has said. ‘Why can’t people from other groups do the same?’

In fact, the argument about ‘factionalism’ and internal organisation within the SLP is a little bit surreal. As we have shown in previous issues of the Weekly Worker, in truth there is at least one highly organised faction that operates at the level of the leadership of the new party. Comrades like Brian Heron, Roland Wood, Carolyn and Pat Sikorski are organised in something called the Fourth International Supporters Caucus (see back issues of the Weekly Worker from April 4), a trend that operates within the SLP with a very clear and definite agenda, a tight discipline and tactical orientation.

Our argument with these comrades is not that they organise in this way: despite our profound disagreements with much of what they would have to say, we have stated that we unconditionally defend their right to factional organisation. No, our real complaint is that Fisc has not been open about its orientation. More than that, these comrades have forced others to operate in semi-clandestine conditions. They have - rather hypocritically - been some of the most enthusiastic implementers of the bans and proscriptions on those accused of ‘factionalism’.

This is very regrettable. It does harm to the morality and esprit de corps of the party. Frankly, winning the right for trends to organise openly would simply be the recognition of the real state of affairs that exists underground at the moment in the SLP. This would give the party’s whole system a welcome burst of energy and vitality. It would start to build real comradely trust amongst SLPers and break down the atmosphere of brooding suspicion that hangs over some branches. It would clear the air and send an important message to the working class - here is an open and honest party. Unlike Blair’s bureaucratic monstrosity, this party is not afraid of airing differences and debating them in an open and honest way.

The key differentiation we must draw is between honest and dishonest factions. Writing about the situation in his own party, Lenin pointed out that “every faction is convinced that its platform and its policy are the best means of abolishing factions, for no one regards the existence of factions as ideal. The only difference is that factions with clear, consistent, integral platforms openly defend their platforms, while unprincipled factions hide behind cheap shouts about their virtue, about their non-factionalism” (Collected Works, Volume 17, p265).

Like Lenin, the Communist Party is not in favour of factions per se. We see them rather as a necessary evil, a ‘last resort’ right that party comrades should not take up casually or over trifling differences. The truth is, however, the differences in the SLP at the moment are not ‘trifling’ or secondary: they are fundamental to what sort of party we are going to build.

Or, put another way, Arthur and others may have left the Labour Party behind. They are yet to ditch Labourism, however. While comrade Scargill now calls himself a “revolutionary”, a “Marxist”, there are clearly many differences as to what exactly that means. There is still a great deal of debate and ideological clarification required before we should have the confidence to dub ourselves a genuine ‘revolutionary’ ‘Marxist’ party of the working class. These words have real meaning: they are not casual rhetorical devices.

But won’t factions put the working class off? After all, we are trying to win the trust of the class. How can they have confidence in us if we present them with a multitude of different voices all squawking at them together? Surely it is better to speak with one voice?

The word ‘faction’ carries an enormous amount of negative baggage. It is worthwhile therefore asking some more basic questions before we discuss it further.

Firstly, the point about being a socialist or a communist is surely our belief in the ability of the working class to rule society. If this is not true, then the best we can hope for is some form of enlightened and benign dictatorship over our class. Call that what you like; it is not socialism.

In order to be the ruling class, to exercise hegemony over the whole of society, the working class must raise itself to a level of understanding many questions that today appear to it irrelevant or ‘not for the likes of us’. Our class must be able to understand politics.

The idea therefore that the party of this class must always and everywhere present one idea to the workers for fear of ‘confusing’ them is deeply patronising. It perhaps says something by implication about the type of ‘socialism’ envisaged by people who hold such an insulting view of the class.

One of the best examples I can think of in this context is the response of Brenda Nixon - now a leading SLPer, of course - to the launch of an expanded Weekly Worker in December 1993. Our paper and organisation had fought for generalised strike action alongside the miners’ fight against pit closures. In this, we had encountered stiff opposition from elements within the movement (including comrades who today are in the Fourth International Supporters Caucus! - see Weekly Worker April 18). Throughout the struggle, we told the miners and their supporters the truth. Brenda - then a leading activist in Women Against Pit Closures - recognised this and said about our paper:

“The Weekly Worker has been so important to our action ... Much of the left does not tell the truth in the same way that the Weekly Worker does. They seem to write what their readers want to hear, rather than what is really happening or what is really said. It is essential that we have a paper that can organise the class, let people know what is going on and tell the truth” (quoted in Weekly Worker December 1993).

More than this, it is impossible to even build that party of the working class without allowing for the facility of factions.

Why? First of all because of what a party actually is. The word party comes from the Latin pars or ‘part of’. A party is a part of the class in the case of a revolutionary socialist or communist party, the most advanced, clear-sighted, militant part. It is that part of the class that understands with most clarity what needs to be done in order to bring socialism, to advance the cause of the working class and then organises in order to translate that understanding into concrete reality.

As an active, thinking layer of the class, the revolutionary Party will be subject to all sorts of different experiences, pressures and influences. The class struggle will produce unevenness. One part of the country may be boiling with unrest, others relatively quiet. The essential point is that an organised part of the class, with living and organic links to the complex and shifting reality of social life and struggle, will inevitably produce different ideas about a myriad of different questions. These include issues of more abstract theory as well as practical issues of the day. It is unavoidable that if these differences are serious ones, and are not quickly resolved by the normal operation of party debate, factions will form.

One of history’s most famous factional leaders - Lenin - gives us a concise definition of a faction. It is “an organisation within a party, united, not by its place of work, language or other objective conditions, but by a particular platform of views on party questions” (Collected Works, Vol 17, p265).

Obviously, it is impossible - not to mention unhealthy - to attempt to prevent different views on party questions. Try that, and you end up with the monstrous bureaucratic machine that is today’s Socialist Workers Party, an organisation so frightened of its members forming ideas that it bans them from the Internet.

Wherever even two people agree over something they think important, they will tend to group together, to start to organise through publications and argument to win others to their point of view.

If this is done openly, in a disciplined way that does not injure the agreed actions of the party, then it represents the best conditions for overcoming factions. Either the ‘dissenting two’ will be taught by practice and debate that their views were wrong; or they will become the majority of the party. Unity is a constant process, something that has to be won and then re-won.

Why have you called on your supporters to join the SLP? Isn’t that like calling on people to support Celtic and Rangers at the same time?

This analogy - which I think originates with Bob Crow - appears logical on the surface, but it really does not work. Indeed, take this method further and you could end up being a sectarian despite your best intentions.

Both the SLP and the Communist Party, for instance, have the same enemy - the British capitalist state. Comrades are members and supporters of these organisations not because of blind, prejudiced and irrational sentiments that lead people to support different football teams.

We have already seen too much of this sort of unthinking ‘loyalty’ on the British left. The SLP should not add to it. Our purpose in supporting the SLP or the Communist Party is not to be loyal for the sake of loyalty. It is to further the interests of our class, the ‘team’ that we are all meant to be playing for.

Again Brenda Nixon displayed this non-sectarian sentiment well in a recent interview with the Weekly Worker. She said: “If it hadn’t been for the SLP I would have joined the Communist Party ... true socialism is represented by the Communist Party. If it can fuse with sections of the Labour Party that break away, this to me would be the beginnings of the perfect party (Weekly Worker January 11).

This ‘fusion’ is not a swapping of membership cards, let alone a transfer from one ‘team’ to another. It is a political process that transforms both, it makes something new and - hopefully - of greater use to our class as a whole.

In British conditions, we should not build a small ‘cadre’ party as you advocate - we should build a mass party.

Leading SLPers like Pat Sikorski have suggested that communists are somehow obsessed with keeping the party small and ‘tight’. We should make it clear - as communists we are for the creation of a revolutionary party in this country that is millions strong.

It is a parody of the position of communists that we are somehow against mass parties. The key question is again about the party’s relationship to the class and to the struggle.

The party exists to tell the class the truth, no matter how unpalatable that truth may be at any one particular moment. If this is not the purpose of the party, then we can simply tell people what we think they want to hear in a search to pile up members. This would be the method of a sect. Look at the SWP for an example of such an organisation. Sure, it is relatively large in relation to the rest of the left at the moment - but what use is it?

The mass of workers at the moment believe that Blair and Labour will ‘at least be better than the Tories’. They are wrong and it is the job of revolutionaries to speak the truth, even if it may for a time mean that fewer workers will join us. If what we say is true, then millions will eventually learn it on the basis of their own - perhaps grim - experience.

In 1917, the year of revolution in Russia, the Bolshevik Party - supposedly the archetypal tight-knit ‘cadre party’ - went from under 20,000 to nearly a quarter of a million. It became in a full sense the Party of the working class - indeed, given the relatively small number of workers in Russia of the time, a large percentage of workers as a whole were in the Party.

Let’s be clear - we are for a mass party of the working class, millions strong. Communists are today and always have been.

Revolution versus reform - isn’t this a little academic? Can’t we see how the struggle turns out and then decide?

Leading members of the SLP like Brian Heron have put forward this ‘wait and see’ idea. It is an odd view, particularly for someone like Brian who regards himself as a revolutionary and an orthodox Trotskyist, I believe.

I am not a follower of Trotsky, but in this great man’s defence I must say I have never encountered an idea like this in his work!

The great Rosa Luxemburg put it well when she pointed out to the revisionists in her own party that reformism and revolution are not different paths to the same goal: they are opposites that actually end up in totally different places.

The struggle for a clear revolutionary orientation for the SLP is not one that should be put off till the future. Look at it this way. Are we supposed to create another party to imbue our class and its advanced elements with the notions that somehow socialism can be the product of reforms? Then when revolution looms on one side - and counterrevolution on the other, of course - we are meant to ask people to unlearn everything we have taught them and start acting as revolutionaries.

This is not serious.

We should tell the truth now and fight for what is necessary.

Isn’t the SLP the only chance we will have to get it right? Shouldn’t we put up with the problems and deficiencies just to have a go at Blair?

The SLP has not been thrown up arbitrarily. There is a definite space in British politics to be filled not simply during the current period, but more generally.

The working class needs a Party. If communists, socialists or revolutionaries had never existed, if Marx had never lived, our class would still fight as a class in itself within capitalist society. It would strike, fight the police, form unions, perhaps even launch insurrections and uprisings.

The Party of the class is its highest form of organisation. It is the tangible embodiment of working class consciousness, of the fight for a communist society.

As such, it does not arise spontaneously in the same way as trade unions, for example. No class spontaneously produces the party that corresponds to its interests. Social life is complex and full of contradictions. For example, individuals can belong to one class and take a political stand that means in effect they belong to another.

Only through the tangle of economic and social struggle do classes begin to form a collective consciousness of themselves. As they do, groupings, factions and trends of these classes shift, merge and manoeuvre around definite ideas and programmes.

The SLP is not born in a period of revolution, when millions are drawn into the resolution of society’s key contradictions and when “basic questions powerfully emerge and divisions are finally created which really correspond to a given class” (Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party, p8).

No party - particularly a party of the working class - can be born overnight. Political questions that have been posed over and over again in the workers’ movement will recur in different forms. Individuals and groupings may fall in and out of it as the struggle and society develops. The SLP is an important window of opportunity in the process of forming our class into a class for itself. The key question is struggle.

The Communist Party sends its greetings to all comrades in the May 4 SLP conference. Whatever the logistical problems and organisational limitations on the day, we hope the day will be remembered as an important one in the momentous struggle that confronts all of us in the movement.

Mark Fischer