27.02.1997

No unity without democracy

The Weekly Worker criticised for open debate

The Communist Party and the Weekly Worker, having long fought for a genuine, working class alternative to bankrupt Labourism, encouraged and enthusiastically participated in the Socialist Labour Party’s formation.

“Inevitably,” we wrote,

“Blair’s Labour has begun to create its opposition. The working class must find expression for its anger if it is going to become a powerful force for positive change.

“The Socialist Labour Party is the beginning of this expression. A section of workers, still small but nevertheless significant, are not content with grumbling as they put a cross in the Labour box. They are starting to organise themselves to provide the solution” (Weekly Worker May 2 1996).

We committed our Party and paper to helping the development of this process in any way we could. Unfortunately Arthur Scargill’s draft constitution excludes “members or supporters” of other political organisations. So, despite being amongst the most hard working and dedicated SLP members, our comrades have not been able to reveal their relationship to the CPGB.

Why don’t we simply dissolve our organisation and close down the Weekly Worker? Surely the circulation of alternative, even dissenting ideas causes nothing but disunity. Wouldn’t the liquidation of dissent lead to a stronger, more unified SLP? Not at all. Such ‘unity’ would be at such a low level that nothing worthwhile would come of it. Ideas, no matter how contentious, how controversial, are the lifeblood of any organisation. Without them there is no chance of arriving at the correct way forward, let alone the truth.

The idea that the SLP would be a stronger organisation without the existence of the Weekly Worker is absurd. It is read by hundreds of SLP members, including most of the activists and many NEC members. Where else can you find out what is going on in the party, what the members are thinking? Naturally we receive fresh subscriptions from SLP members regularly.

We hope that Socialist News can develop into a lively, stimulating newspaper, but at the moment it is sadly lacking. Despite the cost of the December/January issue being met in full through union advertisements, the February edition has not yet appeared. Socialist News carries no genuine debate, no letters column. In its present form it is unable to provide little in the way of factual information concerning the party’s activities, let alone discussion of the urgent tasks facing the movement.

How should we advise workers to vote where no SLP candidate is standing? Should the SLP be like the old Labour Party, or should we be aiming at something better? What should be our attitude to national demands in Scotland and Wales?

These and other vital questions cannot be settled in an hour or two on the NEC. Socialists stand for the whole class itself taking every decision concerning the entire running of society at all levels. If genuine discussion and decision making is seen as the preserve of a few leaders within a working class party, how can a democratic socialist culture develop in the class as a whole?

Yet some comrades insist that the promotion of opposing or conflicting ideas is negative and undesirable. Mick Cullen, the SLP candidate in the Wirral South by-election, told the Weekly Worker: “All the fringe parties are doing the working class a disservice. Most average people are not interested in Marx, Lenin, Trotsky or Mao. What they want is a better lifestyle” (Weekly Worker February 13).

Comrade Cullen has now told us he no longer wishes to speak to our paper. He was upset by the contents of last week’s edition (February 20), in which he states we are attacking the SLP itself. In particular he disapproved of the statement we published by John Pearson, whose SLP membership was ‘voided’ by January’s NEC. It was alleged that comrade Pearson’s (unspecified) “activities” and “actions” were “incompatible with the constitution of the party”.

You would think that any socialist would support the idea that an accused person should be informed as to the charges against them and be given the opportunity to defend themselves. But comrade Cullen latches onto John Pearson’s remarks about “professed revolutionaries” in the SLP “keeping their heads down” rather than protesting against anti-democratic practices, thus “leaving the field open to the Stalinists and Labourites”. Mick Cullen interprets this as the Weekly Worker “having a go” at those trends.

The first thing to say about this is that we do not necessarily agree with all the statements we publish. In order to encourage discussion of political ideas we aim to present them in our paper as accurately as possible. For example we found points of disagreement as well as agreement in the remarks of comrade Cullen himself (interview, February 13).

However, we would certainly agree with comrade Pearson’s remarks about “professed revolutionaries”. But, far from opposing the SLP membership of “Stalinists and Labourites”, we have encouraged all partisans of the working class to join. We are not afraid of debating our ideas with anyone. Yet when such elements join the anti-democratic witch hunt, and indeed are seen to instigate examples of it, we have no hesitation in exposing them.

Comrades who view any criticism of individual members as “an attack on the SLP” are clearly mistaken. Does comrade Cullen agree that actions such as those taken by the NEC against comrade Pearson and others fly in the face of working class democratic practice? Or does he think that we should not ‘hang out our dirty washing in public’?

Calls for the suppression of criticism in the interests of ‘unity’ have always been used by those who want to cover up their own shortcomings. Far from being undesirable, the guarantee of full and open criticism is the only way to ensure that malpractices are ended and not repeated.

There should be no doubt that comrade Scargill has done us a great service in breaking from Labour and demonstrating that it is possible to build a working class alternative. But, despite the best of intentions, his tendency towards autocratic and arbitrary methods is holding back, not developing, the tremendous potential of our movement.

This week we report further examples of this undemocratic tendency. It is not too late to call a halt and infuse this movement with democracy and courage in the self-activity of the whole class.

Peter Manson