09.01.2025

It’s good to do more than talk

We need to unite, not when it comes to the long term, but in the here and now and in a disciplined, principled, programmatically anchored organisation. Jack Conrad reports on some recent meetings and developments

Our CPGB members’ aggregate on January 5 had two items on the agenda. Israel-Palestine and the situation in the Middle East was introduced by Moshé Machover (see pages 4-5). The other item concerned communist unity. I reported back on the first meeting, on December 14, between the CPGB, RS21, Talking About Socialism, Why Marx? and the Prometheus editorial board. I also dealt with our past experiences, explained our hopes and expectations, and suggested the general approach that we should take.

In terms of origins our December 14 meeting can be traced back to the Prometheus online journal and its call for contributions from a wide range of individuals and organisations on the party question (Mike Macnair and Why Marx? submitted articles). But our actual December 14 meeting and its agenda was very much the initiative of CPGB members Tina Becker and Ian Spencer operating under the Why Marx? banner.

Basically, what they proposed was an extended series of public seminars around the party question based on the induction material used by the Marxist Unity Group (a faction in the Democratic Socialists of America which has much in common with the CPGB).

Pleasingly, this was rejected by Nick Wrack of TAS. We need to be both more serious and more ambitious, he argued. Others, including myself, concurred. As it turned out the only comrade who did not want to be more serious and more ambitious, well not yet anyway, was the official RS21 representative (but members of RS21 on the Prometheus editorial board, thankfully, take a different position).

My own view is that what is needed are immediate moves towards fusion talks. Not immediate fusion, of course, but a process with that aim in mind. That means drawing clear lines of demarcation and thereby excluding time wasters, fly-by-nights and odd‑ball groups and individuals.

We should not, therefore, issue a general invitation. There can doubtless be a public, educational, aspect to any fusion process, but the key question always has to be the unity of definite groups around a definite programme.

We finished our unexpectedly positive December 14 meeting agreeing to the suggestion that comrades should consult with their respective organisations and report back to our next meeting on January 11.

I can say that the Provisional Central Committee is entirely in favour of fusion talks and is looking forward to negotiating details. So too was the January 5 aggregate of CPGB members.

After all, we are committed, as an organisation, to militantly engaging with the existing left and bringing about principled unity through a series of splits and fusions. I not only reported on the positive spirit of the December 14 meeting,

I also offered my thoughts on the three organisations involved and their leading personalities. Past disagreements and misunderstandings should not be allowed to constitute a barrier to unity. We are all on a journey.

Comrades had two documents before them. The first, which we received the day prior to the aggregate, came from the TAS steering group (see below). The other was authored by comrade Becker and still very much inhabited the frame of public seminars and, indeed, verged on conciliating phantoms.

The aggregate saw an extensive discussion which included some useful corrections of false misconceptions, and ended with a definite understanding: we should push fusion talks forward using both open and private, bilateral, channels.

Obviously, we still await to hear what the Prometheus editorial board has to say … RS21 too. It should, however, be pointed out that the aggregate was attended by a number of invitees, including a member of the Prometheus editorial board.

It is, of course, incumbent on us to undeviatingly defend our political tradition, programme and insistence on frank and open polemics. When it comes to this present juncture, numbers are, therefore, entirely secondary. Nonetheless, the beginning of serious fusion talks would be a very welcome development. If successful, and there is every reason to be optimistic, it would send out a vitally important message to the rest of the left.

There has to be a break with the dual curse of sectism and broad frontism. Unity around firm principle, unity around a clear communist programme, unity around building a mass Communist Party - that is exactly what is needed.