24.10.1996

Unresolved questions

Readers who have been following the ‘open’ correspondence in the Workers Revolutionary Party’s Workers Press on their proposal for the formation of a new party may be interested in the following letter, which was refused publication

In the September 28 issue Simon Pirani raises important questions about the style and structure of the proposed new party. It is dangerously late in the process for these matters to be unresolved, and Simon is not alone in being concerned about them.

Don Cuckson has been raising questions about the ‘Workers International’ at meetings of the Steering Committee over recent months, and has not been able to get this question addressed. I wrote about this, and several other questions about the new party proposal, over a year ago, in a document which many WRP members have seen, and which I have several times been told is to be published (at least in part) in the International.

Now anybody considering joining the proposed new organisation is, it seems to me, entitled to know whether they will be joining a section of the Workers International. What is the answer to this simple question? What positions have been taken by other sections of the WI? Will they be undergoing comparable or parallel transformations? And what is the status of the WI-LIT discussions? Has the LIT expressed any view on the ‘new party’ idea?

International links are of great importance of course, and the WRP’s access to insights from South Africa and Russia has been extremely valuable. If the WI is to be wound up, how will these contacts, and especially the solidarity and defence work in South Africa, be maintained? Simon is right to imply that these small links do not constitute a new Fourth International, but surely it is not proposed that they be abandoned?

Simon hedges his position on crucial questions by referring to “old-style ‘democratic centralism’ and ‘inner-party struggle’”. Is there a ‘new style’ and if so, how is its adoption to be promulgated? How will we notice the difference? Did the ‘new style’ take effect before or after Geoff Barr’s exclusion from the WRP’s recent Congress?

J Plant
London