28.11.1996

Moving on

Party notes

Our organisation issued the explicit call for communist rapprochement almost two years ago now. In the Weekly Worker supplement of December 15 1994, we called “the pro-Party diaspora back to the Party”. We urged them to “unite with the continuation of the Party represented by the Provisional Central Committee and the Party organisations which accept its leadership” (Jack Conrad, ‘Party, non-ideology and faction’).

As the Party debates its perspectives for 1997, it is worthwhile assessing the progress that has been made in the ongoing fight to bring together “all communist forces ... for broader, higher and more disciplined communist work”.

While the process has not produced scores of eager-beaver new cadre, it has been successful and a source of real strength. Firstly, it has clarified admirably the question of pro-Partyism with some of the detritus of official communism, elements which previously might have regarded themselves as rivals of some sort for the heritage of the Communist Party of Great Britain. The early exchanges with the likes of the Communist Action Group, Open Polemic and the so-called Independent Communists exposed those who “by lack of courage put themselves in the anti-Party camp” (ibid).

As regular readers will be aware, OP was a partial exception to this for a short period of time (see the supplement in this issue). Despite the many differences between it and the Party majority, our call for rapprochement prompted its courageous decision to join. As members of the Party, organised as an open faction, OPers made a real contribution to the fight for the Party principle against liquidationism. It is a pity - mostly for OP - that it has now run away from the battle for narrow, petty personal reasons. Nevertheless, OPers’ brief membership of the Party brought a concreteness to the call for rapprochement. This is a strength, something openly recognised even by people who today categorise themselves as ‘enemies’ of our Party. While their flight from the organisation is a shame, the very fact that they for a time constituted a faction of the Party is a solid achievement of communist rapprochement.

Even OP’s position as an organisation now positioning itself as “an opponent of the fight for a reforged Communist Party” (see supplement) is useful in clarifying the terms of debate and the increasingly sharp lines of demarcation.

What about the others? In 1994, we sketched four successive stages of rapprochement involving forces who could be said to be progressively more distant from us in terms of political theory or organisational history. Not unnaturally, we started with “stage one”, comprising mainly of “elements scattered by the collapse of ‘official communism’” (Conrad, ‘Party’). However, others have presented themselves for inclusion in this process, notably the Revolutionary Democratic Group and the International Socialist Group.

Yet for both groups, the idea, let alone the practice, of communist rapprochement in abstract has posed crises - in the case of the ISG, of a terminal nature. The RDG also seems racked by problems as it faces up to the painful task of overcoming sectarianism and orientating cowards a Party project. We are seeing common opportunist stigmata appear on the skins of these groups - an allergy to democratic centralism, irritations with our abrasive levels of discipline ... and a quite dramatic reaction to the Summer Offensive, of course.

No Party members should be surprised or disheartened by any of this. Communist rapprochement is not about “an establishment or renewal of cordial relations between communists” (Open Polemic update, conference papers p12 - undated, my emphasis). In fact, rapprochement is an integral part of the fight to “make the CPGB into a mass vanguard Party together with those who want to help and against those who are incapable” (Conrad, ‘Party’). It most certainly is not a social club convened for us to get ‘cordial’ with each other. Thus, despite the lack of appreciable numbers coming towards the fight for Partyism, it has made real progress over the last two years.

Lenin’s comment, that revolutionary communist unity is possible only with serious working class organisations, is important. The initial stage of rapprochement has - and is - decisively clarifying which organisations fail the test. Comrades must bear this in mind when debating the question of communist rapprochement, our perspectives for 1997 and how we now move on.

Mark Fischer
national organiser