WeeklyWorker

26.09.1996

Towards communist rapprochement and a new Communist Party

Communist Party Advocates of Australia analyse the political situation there and their tasks in the struggle to reforge the Party. As part of the international task they discuss how the CPGB and CPA can strengthen that work together

Communist Party Advocates was formed earlier this year in order to begin the process leading to the rebuilding of a mass-based Communist Party in Australia. We started with a strong awareness of our predecessors (the old Communist Party of Australia; the Socialist Party of Australia) and were also aware of the problems of the Stalinist and liquidationist nature of the old CPA. We had no wish to repeat the form of the Party which may have contributed to its demise. Let it be said though, these objections aside, many of us would have preferred being part of an imperfect CPA than to have witnessed the victory of the liquidationist forces within the CPA.

Since the late 1980s there has been no other organisation of the CPA’s size or influence, even though in its dying years the CPA’s membership dropped dramatically through both splits and lack of interest. After the CPA’s collapse, there have been sporadic attempts at setting up various broad left/social democratic organisations. However, all of these have either collapsed within a year or remained small and ineffectual.

Our task therefore is to raise the necessity of rebuilding a CP and to eventually embark on its refoundation, and all our work is therefore oriented around these aims.

The working class needs its own effective organ of struggle and social transformation. At the moment there is no political alternative for people who want to put their energies into something other than social democratic reformist parties or small Trotskyite organisations. The communist forces in Australia do exist, but there is nowhere for comrades to work collectively, and nowhere to even begin discussions towards reforging a CP.

Although at present our role is very much one of propaganda within leftist circles, we want to reach a situation where we can facilitate a process by which communist forces gather to discuss on what basis a new CP can be constituted. This process will take a long time and we are prepared for many years of work which will involve not only a repoliticisation of the Australian left, a recomposition of the class, but also an overcoming of the short-sighted sectarian attitudes of many socialist and communist groups who at present refuse to countenance even the idea of fusing themselves into a mass-based CP. We would support a new CP having factions.

Organisational structure

We support building our organisation along a cell structure. We also meet as an aggregate from time to time and in educational sessions. We have elected a leading committee who steer the overall work of the organisation from day to day. Many of the CP Advocates, although not all, have been involved in socialist or communist organisations before. Our membership is open to anyone who shares our aims and objectives, and accepts our conditions of membership. These are quite specific and involve being financially committed to collective activity, having membership of a cell, and participating in all aspects of our theoretical and practical activities. We are selective insofar as we have a specific project: to advocate the reformation of a CP in Australia.

Areas of work

Political Education - the Party question and our reading groups

Because we have identified the Party question as our priority, our praxis is oriented towards that. Hence when we select readings and discuss theoretical issues, we do so within the context of our overarching concern: how to rebuild a CP. This is what we keep in mind when debating and theorising.

We emphasise critical debate, as communists have to be constantly challenging their own thinking, lest analysis become dogmatic and mechanistic. CP Advocates believes that open polemic and critical discussion are vital for any communist group and Party. We want to foster well-informed, thoughtful cadre who are capable of participating in the debates within the Party, and are able to convince people of why a communist society is necessary.

Our readings are wide and varied, ranging across the full spectrum of the communist tradition. However, we will not stick to one tradition or one period in history. Marxism is a living theory, and contemporary Marxist writers are of just as great interest to us as the writings of the ‘classical nature’ (ie, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Luxemburg, etc).

As well as our collective intellectual activities, we encourage comrades to develop their own areas of interest and encourage self-education. We discuss the latest political developments in political reports and how we could intervene into particular areas.

We also support the principle of openness when assessing our own work, and eventually will carry any internal debates in our publications. Secrecy of debate only stands in the way of coming to the best position. When a position is adopted after in-depth debate - hopefully involving every comrade - the position is binding on every member.

Maritime Defence Committee

In light of the coming attacks on trade unionism, and the historically important role maritime workers have played in Australia’s union movement, we decided to put some energy into defending that section of the militant working class from the attempts of the new conservative Liberal/National coalition government to gain what would be a symbolic victory by trying to smash the power of organised labour in the industry.

We initiated the formation of the Maritime Defence Committee through a series of meetings - which were attended by members of other left organisations, trade unionists and some people working in the industry. We also contacted the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and told them what we were doing, and sought to work with them.

We organised two public meetings, both reasonably well attended, although with a preponderance of MUA officials rather than rank and filers, and one member of the MDC spoke to a mass meeting of maritime workers.

We are still assessing our involvement in the MDC. The MUA is fully prepared for the fight that may eventuate, and may have little need of us. However, having contacts now means that we could mobilise support from our networks should a strike or other industrial action in the maritime industry eventuate. Needless to say, we learnt a lot through setting up the Defence Committee.

Proposed Journal - the Communist Party Advocate

We intend to produce a quarterly journal, which will encourage debate amoung communist forces about the need to reforge a Communist Party. We do not want to set up yet another journal which has a smorgasbord of items and issues or one that endlessly debates what happened in 1917 - where the Soviet Union went wrong, etc. Although we understand the importance of studying history, we also know that economically and socially, the world has changed, and we need an analysis which is both Marxist and contemporary.

We want to make our journal the place of debate about the future of the Australian left and prospects for a greater level of organisation amongst communists, in Australia and internationally.

We will approach other groups and solicit articles or position papers from them and hopefully in a spirit of open polemic, move towards greater rapprochement. Our funds raised will be given to this project.

Involvement in a new social-democratic party to the left of the ALP

There have been recent discussions on the setting up of a new party to the left of the Australian Labour Party. The main proponents of this are individuals and forces linked to the old CPA. We will shortly be contacting the organisers with the aim of involving ourselves and participating as an open communist faction (whilst maintaining our own organisation externally). The initial conference was in the industrial city of Newcastle on August 10 and 11. Our tactics towards this formation are still in the process of being formulated and certainly we are aware that the social democratic party form is not our final goal.

For the purposes of opening up the political stage to make room for more minor parties (including a future Communist Party), we are at present supportive of the process of forming a New Zealand-style ‘Alliance’ group of minor left/social democratic parties, or a ‘New Labour’ party. We have approached the organisers openly, and the name of our organisation did not seem to raise too much concern. We are of the opinion that this would be an important forum to involve ourselves in - not because we think such a party could lead to the emancipation of the working class, but through the process, provided our polemic is tempered with subtlety, we may find some allies in the process of reforging a Communist Party. We suspect that the process may fizzle out, meeting the same fate of the other new left parties/rainbow-type coalitions that have come and gone in the past few years. Certainly the involvement of the CPGB in the Socialist Labour Party’s birth and future life is of ongoing interest to us, and we will be following this closely. We will be reading the accounts in past Weekly Workers and request an evaluation from CPGB comrades.

The potential forces for communist rapprochement in Australia - brief summary of the major organised groups

Apart from the isolated individuals who are inclined towards communist ideas, but are not part of any organisation, the following forces have been considered by us as objects of, in the first instance, dialogue; and, in the second, as part of a process towards reforging a Party:

The International Socialist Organisation (ISO)

Linked to Britain’s Socialist Workers Party, the ISO is the largest socialist organisation in Australia. The membership seems to the CP Advocates to be individualised and composed mainly of university students and white-collar workers, some of whom are involved in student unions or trade union delegate positions. The National Committee hands down decisions to the membership which it then carries out. Much activity is geared around the selling of the paper and hopping between campaigns, recruiting and then moving on to the next opportunity. This group is therefore not consistent in its work.

The structure of the ISO is undemocratic, and does not allow the existence of factions. Over the past two years there have been fractious internal debates which have been kept internal, and the existence of a ‘faction’ which was apparently undermining the leadership resulted in large purges and the formation of Socialist Alternative, whose line on many issues is virtually the same as the ISO.

The politics of the ISO are highly inconsistent: a mixture of Cliffite state capitalist theory, vague Trotskyism, support for social democratic parties electorally (the ALP), and a spontaneity akin to anarchism, although less so in recent years. Its publication, Socialist Worker, fits in with its perception of populism. However it is simplistic and patronising towards its supposed audience. Its internal educative processes too seem lacking in any complexity and result in a low level of critical thought and cadre who are theoretically dogmatic. This lowest-common-denominator approach is apparently chosen because ‘people only understand things in simple terms’ - a position which we find insulting to the class.

Our approach to the ISO will be one from below, as members within the ISO can sometimes be open to dialogue. In practice, we cooperate in struggle with the ISO. We would encourage the more communist forces within the ISO to form a faction. However we do not expect that this will happen in the near future.

We hold little hope of entering into any productive dialogue with the National Committee, although we would still attempt this in future, and attempt to draw the ISO into any public debate between organisations as to the refoundation of a CP. We would then criticise their position.

Democratic Socialist Party (DSP)

This group was set up during the Vietnam war as the United Secretariat SWP in Australia. The DSP is composed of students and white-collar workers in the main. Also similar to the ISO in that it is opportunist and geared towards recruiting, the DSP however stands candidates in elections and has a more coherent Leninist programme. However, the exterior face of the DSP is of a trendy, green social democratic party.

Fanatically secretive, members are inducted and restricted from debating with other leftists, so it is virtually impossible to engage an individual member of the DSP in political conversation; in that sense the DSP can be described as akin to a sect. Its organisation is undemocratic. Its internal debates are kept secret. Its leadership would therefore be the ones to approach in any process of rapprochement.

The DSP has tried to position itself as the heir to the CPA, especially during the 75th anniversary of the CPA last year. However, it does not call itself communist. In practice, the DSP works only with forces it believes are not threatening to its political position, and its political lines have ranged from being pro-Yeltsin and Gorbachev to the warm and fuzzy politics of social movements. It is very hard to work with the DSP in campaigns, as it is very closed and tends to shy away from engaging politically in a broader forum, preferring instead to set up its own groups, or only entering those organisations that it knows it will be able to control.

Our attitude to the DSP is that we will enter into dialogue with the leadership and attempt to engage the DSP in public debate over the need for a mass-based CPA.

Spartacists

Treated by the rest of the left as ‘crazies’, the Sparticists nevertheless have ‘communist’ in their name. Politically, their analyses are quite in-depth and often CP Advocates may agree with them. In practice they are difficult to work with because of their virulent sectarianism towards all other left groups. Unfortunately the external criticism of other groups is not applied to their own organisation, which they present publicly as completely ‘true’, and as the only genuine Trotskyite viewpoint in Australia.

Extremely collectivised, the Spartacists are composed of mainly workers from different sectors, who operate as a tight propaganda group. They are strict in membership criteria, unlike the DSP and ISO who will basically take nearly anyone. In many ways politically they are allies. However, because of their extreme sectarianism we do not expect much success in engaging them in the process of reforging a mass-based CP, since the Spartacists already claim themselves to be the vanguard of the working class. However we will attempt dialogue.

Militant Labour

Much the same as in Britain, Militant Labour is composed of workers from different sectors with some of its membership working in trade unions. In practice, this is the group we have worked closest with, although it did accuse our group of being Stalinist and anti-Trotskyite, which is on both counts untrue.

ML has strong workers’ links and organises the Rank and File group with the ‘official communist’ Socialist Party of Australia. It is consistent in their approach to issues and campaigns, and hence not opportunist. However, it maintains the opportunist distinction between what it tells its membership and what it tells the class. Its What we stand for pamphlet includes the same reformist formulations as the British section - a socialist Enabling Bill in parliament and nationalisation of the top 200 companies. We believe that ML should be approached and that a process of rapprochement should definitely include item, even though it can tend towards supporting the ALP.

Other groups of note are the CPA (Marxist-Leninist), a 1963 pro-Beijing split from the old CPA; and the SPA, a 1971 pro-Moscow split from the CPA. Both of these groups have ageing memberships, but we will probably work closest with the SPA which is probably the most integrated into the class of all groups in Australia (especially in blue-collar industries) and whose members hold some trade union positions. They are presently focusing their work on the union movement and the attacks of the new Coalition government, and the nuclear disarmament issue.

On the question of moving to one location, raised by the CPGB

The view of the CP Advocates is that this position is nonsensical. The CPGB’s description of Britain as the epicentre of communist activity is flawed. Communists are internationalists, and hence we are able to link our work with other parties and organisations residing in other nation-states.

We do not believe that moving to Britain would be the only form of useful political education. We have contacts here in the trade union movement, we have contacts which have been built up over time, and we think that there is potential here to rebuild a CP. We are also about to enter a period of industrial turmoil, similar to that provoked by the Thatcher government in Britain, and we will be a part of the ensuing struggles by the class.

We recognise that the lessons of the CPGB are of interest to us and we are open to strengthening our links. But we do not agree with the CPGB’s conviction that the only useful place for a communist to be is concentrated in London, Britain. We are not convinced by the arguments the CPGB has forwarded to the CP Advocates that Britain is somehow the place to be. We think we have the capacity within our organisation and the links here to do useful work towards building a CP here in Australia. Uprooting the lives of a small group of people would make little difference in our view to the rebuilding of a worldwide communist movement.

In conclusion

There are objective reasons as to why the reforging of a mass-based CP may take 10 to 20 years. We see the historical necessity for this and want to set up the conditions whereby this could occur. We do not want to see more social democratic and reformist parties which cannot be the class’s organs of struggle and social transformation. We need to return to the basics of Marxism which are:

And we need to create a contemporary communism which can overcome contemporary capitalism.