20.06.1996

Our backyard

Party notes

The Socialist Labour Party’s coalescence as a left social democratic political formation has been given a powerful impulse by Brian Heron’s hymn of praise to the British Road to Socialism (see SL Kenning’s article, page 6).

On one level, comrades around the Communist Party should be mightily pleased by Heron’s confession. The labourites of the SLP have chosen ground on which our organisation has already fought and registered victories. Heron is playing in our backyard. There are other points to note, however.

Clearly, Fisc members are paying a heavy theoretical and political price for their unprincipled alliance with Scargill - they are becoming left reformists, not simply talking like them.

That is their affair. More important for us, this development poses a strategically important challenge to the revolutionary left in the new organisation. The majority of these comrades - the SLP’s very best elements - joined the initiative with the expectation of building a revolutionary party. They did not anticipate long-term deep entry into left reformism. They key question now is how should these forces fight?

One thing is sure, the ‘heads down’, liquidationist approach of some small Trotskyite organisations stands starkly exposed as worse than useless as the leadership shifts the struggle onto an explicitly programmatic basis. Unconsciously, these Trotskyite comrades replicate the hopeless perspective of the centrist opposition within the Communist Party in the 1970s and ’80s. The Leninist - forerunner of the Weekly Worker - dubbed these comrades the “troglodytes” because of the dismal, underground political life they led. In the twilight world of their subterranean branch or district fiefdoms, these comrades plotted their eventual victory over the Euro-opportunists.

Theoretical development or an open defence of Marxist principle was not necessary. All that was required was to maintain their politics intact, keep their Party cards and eventual victory would flop into their laps. Their dank underground habitats meant that rather than break the mould, these comrades grew it. They became encrusted with decades of opportunist filth. As The Leninist patiently illustrated, their modus operandi became defending last year’s revisionism against this year’s. This is the historical fate of political forces who deny themselves the opportunity for open programmatic elaboration and re-elaboration.

Without the open fight for principle, the same fate threatens the left of the SLP. We ask these comrades - how do you propose to do battle with the British Road? Through pub room chats? The occasional branch bulletin? The ‘SLP paper’ - when and if it ever sees the light of day, and presuming that the leadership allow dissenting voices to be represented in it (some hope!)? In the confused chatter of individual SLP branch meetings?

Comrades should take themselves - and the working class - a little more seriously.

The BRS has enormously deep roots in the opportunist degeneration of the world communist movement and its progressive adaptation to social democracy. In terms of its reformist coherence, the Labour left has produced nothing like it. It is a document that in its time exerted huge influence, both in this country and internationally.

Its importance for us was pivotal. The failure of the CPGB was fundamentally a failure of this opportunist programme. Our fight against the liquidation of our party was thus a struggle to re-equip the advanced section of our class with a genuine Leninist programme. Yet, the ‘BRS’ clearly lives to fight another day: Scargill is trapped in its opportunist coil. Heron is mesmerised by it.

A member of a gone-to-earth SLP Trotskyite organisation - when asked, “So, where’s your programme, comrade?” - pointed, with utter seriousness, at his head! Such clowning is simply not adequate. The defeat of opportunism in the workers’ movement - particularly in its most coherent and influential manifestation in the form of the BRS - requires methodically patient, scientific investigation and exposure.

The question is posed starkly, comrade SLPers - what sort of party? The programme is a manual for the construction of the organisation, so Brian Heron has already implicitly given his answer to this. Now, what about those comrades who dub themselves revolutionaries and communists? A serious question, comrades: it needs a serious answer.

Mark Fischer
national organiser