14.11.1996

Unity in one party

The Communist Party of Great Britain has applied for affiliation to the Socialist Labour Party. We reproduce here the letter agreed at a recent aggregate of the CPGB

Provisional Central Committee
Communist Party of Great Britain

National Executive Committee
Socialist Labour Party

Dear comrades,

The Socialist Labour Party has been established with the intention of becoming a federal party of the working class. Besides individual membership comrade Scargill’s latest version of the Constitution/rule book (May 1996) makes provision for affiliation. We note the small steps toward gaining trade union affiliations announced at the SLP’s founding conference.

To strengthen the fight for socialism and to truly break from the rotten tradition of Labourism it is necessary in our considered view that the SLP, because of its federal project, should facilitate the coming together of all trends and groups in the workers’ movement. Affiliation to the SLP must be open to every organisation committed to securing working class control over the means of production and exchange.

The Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB has never hidden its belief that socialism must and can only be the self-liberation of the working class. It is to further that struggle that the CPGB formally applies to affiliate to the SLP.

Naturally, the CPGB and the organisations which accept its leadership will constitute a definite tendency within the SLP. We will continue to publish the Weekly Worker and operate according to the principles of democratic centralism. In such a way the theoretical clarity and unity in action of the SLP can be greatly enhanced. Only the capitalist state and the ruling class can benefit from the silence and disorganisation of communists.

Obviously, to facilitate affiliation to the SLP it will be necessary to discuss and change clause 2, subsections 3 and 4 in comrade Scargill’s Constitution/rule book. To that end, we propose to the SLP a meeting between representatives of the CPGB’s PCC and the SLP’s NEC at the earliest possible opportunity.

We await your reply,

Mark Fischer
On behalf of the Provisional Central Committee,
Communist Party of Great Britain