07.05.1996

Open Polemic runs away

We call them back. The rapprochement process should not be jeopardised lightly

Readers will no doubt have noticed the absence of the regular Bob Smith column. It was impossible in the last edition to report the reason for this - the unwelcome decision by Open Polemic’s editorial board to “withdraw” its members from the Communist Party of Great Britain and spike its column. We were only told just before going to press.

So this article is the first opportunity available to give readers the factual background to Open Polemic’s shameful action (my more considered political comments will follow).

As will be gathered from the correspondence reproduced on this page, the initial dispute between the Provisional Central Committee and Bob Smith - one of the three-strong Open Polemic faction in the CPGB - was over our 13th Summer Offensive.

To really appreciate what it was all about we must go back to the end of last year. Over the two months, November-December 1995, Party members, Open Polemic comrades included, debated and finally agreed our perspectives for 1996. As is standard, amongst our tasks was an intense, two-month, fundraising subbotnik - the Summer Offensive campaign.

The December 1995 aggregate of Party members voted that the target we would collectively aim for this year would be £25,000. And it was at the April 7 aggregate that the final touches as to the means were put in place. Comrade Mark Fischer gave a brief report on the political need for the Summer Offensive and the responsibilities Party members individually bore in ensuring it was successfully fulfilled - in the name of the PCC he recommended a minimum target for all members.

Most years, it should be pointed out, comrades greatly over-fulfil their personal targets, let alone the Party minimum. Occasionally however, for one reason or another, it proves impossible for this or that comrade - obviously a cause for concern, but not expulsion or anything like that of course.

Comrade Smith was the only member of the Open Polemic faction to speak. Far from condemning the Summer Offensive as an ‘imposition’ or a ‘levy’ contrary to Party rules, he came with fulsome praise. Comrade Smith ostentatiously told the meeting how much he admired an organisation that could raise itself to such heights. The Summer Offensive showed our “seriousness”. Open Polemic would, he said, participate in the campaign and set a specific target after consulting, and presumably drawing in, the non-CPGB members in and around its circle. That was how I at least interpreted comrade Smith’s performance.

I assumed that by winning his other comrades to the Summer Offensive he and the two other Open Polemic CPGB members would set themselves targets well beyond the Party minimum. Therefore when this writer spoke he congratulated comrade Smith on his approach and agreed with him that the comrades should wait before setting their targets. As no points of controversy had been raised, the meeting duly moved on to the next item on the agenda.

It was only a matter of days before I found out how mistaken I had been. Comrade Smith had carefully selected his words at the aggregate in order to produce a Delphic formulation. Some of my comrades now tell me they thought something was untoward during the April aggregate. Clearly they were right. I was wrong. But it should be added that they in their turn were wrong not to openly challenge comrade Smith if they suspected he was in effect being false.

Anyway comrade Smith and myself were members of the same Party cell. It was towards the end of our first meeting after the aggregate that he dropped his bombshell. He told us that the minimum target was too high for Open Polemic. That they should have a lower target compared with other CPGB members - 50% less was later mooted.

Besides publishing Open Polemic two or three times a year, comrade Smith cited his comrades’ commitment to the Independent Working Class Association and the Socialist Labour Party (respectively £5 and £7.20 annually). His fellow CPGB members protested. This was not only an example of rather pathetic plea bargaining. It was a violation of communist morality - all members should do their utmost to successfully complete agreed actions. But I also suggested we work together. It would not take much to teach the comrades how to meet the minimum target and more. Sadly he flatly turned me down.

As was my duty, I informed the PCC of comrade Smith’s stance. Our national organiser, comrade Fischer, wrote to him immediately. Comrade Smith, along with comrade John Sandy, in turn replied to the PCC in the letter dated April 18. Contradictorily, for the first time they condemned the Summer Offensive, yet despite that by implication pleaded for “particular consideration” in carrying it out.

Comrade Fischer’s subsequent reply of April 22 on behalf of the PCC made crystal clear our position. As a faction Open Polemic not only had rights but, like the rest of us, duties. If they objected to the Summer Offensive they could put forward a resolution to the coming Party membership aggregate in May. The comrades could make the case for two classes of membership. However, in the spirit of Bolshevism the PCC would continue to resolutely insist that all members of the CPGB are obliged to work under our rules and democracy - Lenin famously fought for exactly the same principle back in 1903 against the Menshevik splitters.

Our next cell meeting was a rather tense affair. Both comrades Smith and Sandy stubbornly refused to enter into discussion with their fellow cell members on the subject of the Summer Offensive. All they would say is that the matter was no business of the cell. What was at issue was no longer the Summer Offensive. It was the whole relationship between the PCC and the Open Polemic editorial board - according to comrade Sandy, flawed from the very beginning of their “representational” entry in July 1995.

Obviously awed by the Summer Offensive, Open Polemic were in headlong retreat and heading for an unplanned and unprincipled damaging split. The PCC sought to avert this. The letter signed by comrade Ian Farrell, dated April 28, and delivered by hand on the same day, was agreed.

The PCC wanted to talk with the Open Polemic comrades face to face. We were determined to keep Open Polemic as a faction, or, failing that, fully engaged within the communist rapprochement process. Nevertheless we were equally determined not to violate democratic centralism and see the creation of a special class of membership - especially one which, like the bourgeoisie, lives off the labour of the majority.

If the comrades felt unable to take part in agreed CPGB actions, that need not lead to a break. The comrades were given the surely generous offer of making their three comrades CPGB ‘representative’ supporters with an open invitation to take part in Party aggregates. We also wanted the Bob Smith factional column maintained - as before, without our editorial interference. Everything we proposed was rejected. No PCC comrade was permitted to address the Open Polemic editorial board. Their members would be unilaterally withdrawn. Bob Smith’s column stopped.

The Open Polemic comrades did not try to convince fellow CPGB members, not in cells, seminars nor aggregates - a duty. They did not argue before the working class in their paper, the Weekly Worker - a duty. They did not even inform other groups such as the Revolutionary Democratic Group who are participating in the rapprochement process - a duty.

This is a period of reaction, liquidationism and demoralisation. Such a period imposes special and weighty responsibilities on all those who call for communist rapprochement and openness. Open Polemic’s dereliction of duty and unprincipled flight is therefore to be regretted, to say the least.

The comrades say they might come back under our banner. Discussions are envisaged which presumably are meant to repair the damage. We sincerely hope such exchanges are intended to be serious and are not a ‘clever’ cover for unprincipled retreat.

So let them be open, crucially at our seminars and in our press. Let there be open polemic, rapprochement and clarification before those who are committed in theory and practice to reforging our CPGB.

Jack Conrad