Letters

Further discussions

The Trotskyist Unity Group welcomes the recent call from the expelled comrades of the League For a Revolutionary Communist International for open discussion about the political history of the LRCI. The TUG would like to take part in these discussions.

In particular we are interested to know what the comrades mean by international democratic centralism. Do you envisage the political and organisational possibility of open platforms and factions? Furthermore, we are also keen to discuss what you mean by the healthy period of the LRCI. Does this still include the Trotskyist Manifesto? We have recently produced a critique of the Trotskyist Manifesto, and would be interested in your comments on its contents (it is available via the CPGB).

Furthermore, we hope that the former LRCI comrades will be able to attend Communist University ’96, in order to further the process of theoretical and political clarification.

Phil Sharpe
TUG

Repeating errors

A funny thing happened to me over the weekend. In the semi-clandestine world that most revolutionaries are forced to inhabit in the Socialist Labour Party, this is hardly surprising. I was having a beer with two SLP comrades, both of whom grudgingly admitted to belonging to other organisations (and no, I don’t mean the East Woking Save the Hamster Association which the current non-elected draft constitution seems to ban from the SLP). No, these comrades conceded that they were still involved in Militant Labour and a small Trotskyist organisation.

I support these comrades’ right to be members of working class organisations. I think that all SLP comrades should have the right to openly put forward their programme with other like-minded comrades, and openly publish these positions within the SLP. If trade unions can affiliate, why can’t ML and the Trotskyist organisation? The problem is that the current constitution has created a ridiculous police regime, where everyone knows who is in what, including the police, but no-one is saying anything - a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat, hey?

There are no avenues to debate these differences out in the open - familiar territory for both these comrades. Both come from organisations where internal difference is to be shielded from the working class - for ‘members’ eyes only’. This is apparently the case with the ML. It appears that there was a motion on the table for changing the name of ML to the Socialist Party at its central committee meeting. That may be fair enough, but as I look through this week’s copy of Militant, I see no mention - wait ... page 12: “Wanted - a new socialist party” catches my eye - but this is about Sweden.

When an organisation as important as ML is discussing whether to change its name, especially when it is intrinsically involved in the Scottish Socialist Alliance and the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales, it is not just the property of ML members, or even only of its central committee. It is the property of the whole class to discuss and debate, whether they are members or not.

What is tragic about this situation is that it pushes differences underground, out of the clear light of debate and struggle in front of the class. This sort of ‘politics’ is bourgeois through and through. It is the politics of the deal, the backroom and ultimately, within the workers’ movement, it can only be the politics of social democracy. Principled open debate is the method of Marxism: it is how we struggle towards the truth. Combined with disciplined organisation, in one sense it is one of the main weapons of the working class in its struggle to overthrow capitalism.

The same problems are in the SLP. Comrade Arthur Scargill has made a tremendous initiative in breaking from Labour - for this he is to be congratulated. But it is clear that he has not yet broken from Labourism. Importantly, what Arthur and the NUMist/Fisc leadership don’t realise is that the formation of the SLP represents something real in the class, and is no longer their property (if it ever was).

The leadership of the SLP may be bureaucratically trying to form a pipe dream of what they perceive the left of the Labour Party to have been like in the ‘good old days’; Fisc may be bending over backwards to maintain their alliance with Scargill and the NUMists (to the point of arguing for an immigration policy that they themselves don’t even agree with), but revolutionaries cannot just accept this situation. We must fight for what the working class needs. The SLP is as much the ‘property’ of revolutionaries in and around the SLP as it is of any other member. We must openly fight for the SLP to be a revolutionary party. We don’t need a re-run of the Labour Party.

So I say to my comrades sincerely: you are only damaging your own organisations and the SLP by not openly fighting for your position. The health of the internal regime of the SLP rests largely on the shoulders of revolutionaries. Don’t repeat the errors of other organisations - yours included - and divide the development of ‘internal’ politics and ‘external’ politics. We need to ‘come out’ and fight for the Party that the working class needs, not what we think is ‘possible’.

Chris Neal
Staffordshire

Making a contribution

Thank you for your letter, the draft programme discussion document and the Weekly Worker. I have been a communist since I was a young student, when I joined the Young Communists (Communist Party of Portugal), and for this I was put in jail for a few months in October 1968. I was politically active in the PCP until 1989. In September 1989 I came to England and I decided to stay here, so my relation with the PCP finished.

I am very limited in my political activity in Britain, but I am a communist and I want to make my contribution to an international socialist revolution.

I have decided to join the CPGB because I am a communist who lives in Britain and, essentially, because I agree with the literature you sent me. I have been studying the problems in the workers’ movement, such as the CP diaspora (Democratic Left, etc) and the CPGB - a working class party that did not believe that socialism was dead.

Until 1989/90 I did not want to believe in the errors and faults of the CPSU. I now understand the errors and faults and still believe that “there are no national roads to communism ... socialism is international and democratic or it is nothing” (Draft Programme discussion document, Weekly Worker).

Manuel Cristiano
South London

The real stuff

I read your Weekly Worker and find it more realistic than the New Worker and much more interesting than the Morning Star. Your party has impressed me the most. The CPGB appears to me the most revolutionary, truthful communist party in Britain.

Raymond Hancock
Berks

Liaison committee

The Weekly Worker (May 30) published the constitutive declaration of the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International (LCMRCI). Because of our mistake the document that was published was not the very last adopted version. In the last sentence instead of the final call “To all those militants in the various opportunists and sectarian fragments of degenerated Trotskyism we extend our welcome...”, it now reads as follows:

“To all those militants that are fighting for a revolutionary communist international against opportunism and centrism we extend our welcome, and call on you to work with us in the vital task of regenerating Marxism in the wake of the collapse of the degenerated workers’ states.”

LCMRCI

Not enough

Is our reforging efforts within the working class in Britain - for one main Communist Party - ever to come into vision? From what we see, there is still bad feeling, and no talking at all, between the CPB, NCP and smaller groups linking together in true communist action for maximum gain. Yes, the CPGB has started to work with others through a communist press in the Weekly Worker, but much more should be happening from all sides

The first action by communists must be to demand a ‘Communist Conference’ this year as a positive arena for debate, voting and action to organise, as the SLP has done in recent months.

The relationships between the RCP/CPB/NCP and CPGB must be built up at national, regional and branch level, with leaders pushing forward their views on behalf of members through the communist press, including the Weekly Worker, each week. There must be a change in attitude now, and no more leaving it till tomorrow, when we only number a few - and not thousands, as we should be. From a (new) ‘communist movement’ for communist action we can forward our aims and work into a European Communist Party in the years ahead. We should not sit on the fence and let the working class and the bosses fight it out!

Too long have we sat in our own corners, and now we must start a regular dialogue on joint action (demos/rallies), the election strategy for communists and the political work of making a British CP a much larger party very soon.

The various CPs in Britain must take stock of their numbers and immediate financial position and ask serious questions, such as: what have we gained by being a ‘splinter’ party and what can we gain by joining up with the other CPs in Britain? Hopefully, we will gain more from positive communist work now, and see some amalgamations soon, to become a stronger, larger and effective active ‘CP’ for Britain’s working class.

If we don’t create the right climate for unity we will throw away an opportunity, and see the the SLP and new Labour take over the role as the vanguard parties. What is stopping the CPB and RCP talking to other parties about working together in one organisation? The CPB and the NCP get along OK, so why not bring other groups and factions from the communist left - see how they feel about it?

The CPGB is only one part of our future Party and can use the Weekly Worker to push the others to commit themselves - at least to a minimum of a yearly ‘unity’ conference, a new communist organisation for joint work around Britain, and a closer view to, one CP in the coming years.

John Logan
North London