16.05.1996
On electoral tactics: Another Leninist liquidator
Richard Brenner, a member of the central committee of Workers Power (Britain), responds to Jack Conrad’s criticisms
Jack Conrad’s article, ‘Menshevism in Microcosm’ (Weekly Worker March 21 1996), attempts a critique of Workers Power’s tactical approach to the Labour Party, the Socialist Alliances and Scargill’s SLP. But he only succeeds in proving the truth of Trotsky’s observation that opportunism and sectarianism are “two sides of the same coin”.
He demonstrates that these two deviations from Marxism can be combined in a systematic opportunism towards the confused and isolated fragments of the far left, and a hidebound sectarianism towards the mass organisations of the British working class movement. Both have the same dismal result - a failure to fight within the working class movement for a clear revolutionary transitional programme.
We stress the central importance of a revolutionary transitional programme, re-elaborated to address the international class struggle today, because the programme is the party’s own statement of what it is for - what its aims are, how they can be achieved, what practical steps it agitates for in the working class. Above all, the communist programme is for the action of millions, not for the contemplation of a small sect.
For this reason we insist that:
i) The unity of the existing groupings on the far left depends on overcoming the principal cause of their current disunity - the absence of programmatic agreement. We are entirely confident that this can be done through splits and fusions under the hammer blows of the class struggle.
But there are no short cuts. Without securing the maximum possible programmatic agreement, “revolutionary unity” will be no more than a phrase designed to obscure programmatic liquidationism.
ii) The programme must be presented to the working class as a guide to action today, not merely a promissory note for the future. Without diluting its revolutionary character, agitation for the programme must also (though not exclusively) take the form of demands on the existing leaders of the trade union and labour movement to act in the interests of the workers they claim to represent. The communist programme is the highest expression of the workers’ class interests. They should demand that their leaders carry it out.
Jack Conrad, however, is determined to stand this principled approach on its head. Thus, though he tells us that Workers Power are “quite right” to oppose some “lowest common denominator” programme, his own record shows that this is exactly what he favours. The CPGB (PCC) has recently been promoting a “non-ideological” programmatic basis on which to unite. This innovation is deeply opportunist.
Precisely what qualifies as essential to the revolutionary programme and what is declared to be “ideological”, and thus superfluous, is very revealing. It is embarrassing questions such as the character of the former USSR which fall into the latter category, (embarrassing, that is, for those like the CPGB who described these bureaucratic monstrosities as socialist).
As if such questions were not of vital significance in determining the action of revolutionary workers around the world! This is just one example of Jack Conrad’s appetite for programmatic liquidationism. The sudden adaptation to Scottish and Welsh nationalism (“For a Federal Republic of England, Scotland and Wales”) that has characterised the CPGB (PCC)’s ‘rapprochement’ with the Menshevik Revolutionary Democratic Group (RDG) is another. If this is not the politics of the lowest common denominator, what is?
What of Workers Power’s supposed “contemptuous dismissal” of the Socialist Alliances? We have done nothing of the sort. We have indicated a willingness to participate in any serious discussions of programmatic differences with Militant Labour and other forces. We have attended and addressed meetings of the Welsh, Liverpool, Hackney and Coventry Socialist Alliances, and of Militant Labour’s new youth organisation.
We do not, however, advocate that a party be founded from these discussion groups without prior agreement on a revolutionary programme. Any such party would collapse at the first major obstacle in the class struggle. Instead of having granite foundations, it would be a party built on sand. Better to continue with open ideological struggle and polemic, collaborating on practical questions wherever possible, than to blur the vital distinctions between the programmes of revolutionary Marxism and centrism.
Jack Conrad shows his sectarianism and incomprehension of Leninist electoral tactics in his attitude to the Labour Party. He has wilfully misrepresented Workers Power’s position in his article. We do not call for a critical vote for Labour because the masses have “socialist illusions” in it. Nor have we ever done so. Our position, as set out in our ‘Theses on Reformism’ (Permanent Revolution 1, Summer 1983), is that “Since the central political claim of the reformist leaders is that they can utilise bourgeois state power to satisfy the needs of the working class, it is necessary for communists to find ways of putting reformists to the test at the level of government” (my emphasis - RB).
We have never presented this “as a stage which has to be achieved and passed through if the struggle for socialism is to progress”, let alone maintained that until Labour are elected the working class “will supposedly remain incapable of politically fighting the state”. To claim that we have said this is a blatant lie. On the contrary, we have many times had cause to attack this very idea, and to agitate against the idea of the unions holding back in pre-election periods. We simply agree with Lenin that putting the reformists in power will “bring closer the moment when on the basis of the disappointment of most of the workers in the Hendersons, it will be possible, with serious chance of success, to overthrow the government of the Hendersons at once” (Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow 1966, Vol 31, p88).
Of course Blair and Henderson articulate the reformist programme in different ways. But whether the workers’ illusions are expressed in a “socialist” form is not the point. Social-democratic illusions are an expression of trade union politics - the idea that with a bourgeois workers’ party like Labour in government, the balance of forces will be shifted in the direction of the workers within capitalism. The illusion continues to exist today, in the thinking of millions of workers, that Labour in power will improve things for the workers. This is not an illusion we share. But as Trotsky pointed out: “It is argued that the Labour Party already stands exposed by its past deeds in power and its present reactionary platform . . . For us - yes! But not for the masses, the eight millions who voted Labour” (Writings, 1935-6, p199).
Even Conrad is unable to deny that there are widespread illusions in Labour, though his admission that “Conceivably plenty believe it will be better” is a rather grudging recognition of reality. We believe that this reality is the point of departure for the revolutionary application of the tactic of critical electoral support. A revolutionary party would therefore call for a vote for Labour in all constituencies where it is unable to stand.
But it is after conceding that working class illusions in Labour exist that Conrad takes us on a journey to the heart of his theoretical darkness. He asks how our tactic can be distinguished from a call to vote for Clinton’s Democrats, or to “vote Liberal but organise to fight”, telling us that to do so would be “the politics of a slave class”. Unlike the Liberals and Democrats, Labour is linked, in an organised way, to the working class through trade union affiliation, mass membership and tradition. That is a big difference. Labour is a bourgeois workers’ party. Blair clearly aims to sever this link with the working class - but it has not yet happened.
The purpose of the tactic of critical electoral support is to explode Labour’s contradiction by putting the reformists to the test of office and enabling revolutionaries to raise demands on Labour, exposing their unwillingness to do what the mass of workers expect of them. Carried through in a revolutionary fashion, it is a tactic that assists communists in rallying the workers’ movement to revolutionary action. This is not a stage that “must” be passed through before the workers can fight politically - it is part of the political class struggle today.
Should workers in the affiliated trade unions demand that Labour introduce a national minimum wage? Are revolutionaries “spreading illusions” or trying to expose them when they demand that the unions struggle to commit Labour to the highest possible figure? To refuse to carry this out, to abstain from this fight, is to let the reformist leaders off the hook. It perfectly expresses the methodological unity of sectarianism and opportunism.
As for the SLP, contrary to Conrad’s claims, we are certainly “fighting alongside them” in a number of areas. Both in the day to day class struggle and by attending their meetings we are attempting to prove “the superiority of the revolutionary programme”. When Scargill announced his intention to found a new party, we declared our willingness to participate in such a project. Unlike the desperate “rapprochement” of opportunist sects, we recognised the possibility that a serious section of the vanguard might rally to the SLP. We hoped it would be possible to engage in a political struggle to commit the new party to a revolutionary programme. Our goal was a revolutionary SLP.
The discussion in the party is continuing in the run up to the founding conference - we are trying to influence its politics as best we can. But since the national membership meeting we are excluded from joining the party by its de facto bureaucratic constitution. Every party membership card requires members to abide by the constitution. Despite our efforts, we are also realistic enough to recognise the overwhelming likelihood that the conference will adopt a reformist programme - and certainly at Hemsworth Brenda Nixon stood on just such a programme.
Conrad’s problem is that he wants to apply the tactic of critical electoral support on the basis of how leftwing the party programme is: ie, to what extent communists can endorse it. He fails to understand the purpose of the tactic - not to strengthen a nascent reformist or centrist party, but to undermine a mass reformist party. How can demands be placed on the SLP in a meaningful way? Can the trade union movement and the mass of the workers struggle for it to meet their demands? Can we really put it to the test of office?
No - the very idea is absurd, given the size and narrow basis of the party. Even Conrad argues that the SLP is only an “amorphous movement which aims to be a party”. Labour, on the other hand, is the dominant party within the British working class movement. Instead of using critical electoral support to organise the mass labour movement to fight for workers’ interests, a vote for the SLP can only mean one thing - support for its programme. And indeed the Weekly Worker declared unambiguously on the front page of its Hemsworth election issue: “Support the SLP”. Fine tactics!
We are not trapped by dogma, as Conrad seems to think. If we and others are able to influence the SLP’s membership sufficiently to make an open ideological struggle within the party a real possibility, if we find it possible to join as a revolutionary organisation with full rights, and if the party continues to grow in numbers to a substantial degree, then of course we would consider affiliating. Our aim would remain a revolutionary SLP and our attitude would then be emphatically pro-party.
Under such changed circumstances we would vote for what would then be our party’s candidates - but at the same time we would advocate a critical vote for Labour in all constituencies where our party was not standing. We would do this, not as Conrad suggests, “because Labour has an arithmetical majority in parliament”, but for the reasons we have already explained a thousand times . . . because millions of workers have real illusions in Labour.
Programmatic opportunism and tactical sectarianism will never change this. Principled Leninist tactics will.