27.02.1997

Opportunist name change

We have commented before on Militant Labour’s name change to the Socialist Party in this paper. But, given the published reasons for that change, it is worth looking specifically at the question of the revolutionary party’s name. It is a question which is constantly raised with our own organisation, since we have continued to organise as the Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee) after the liquidation by the majority of our Party.

The main thread of the ML/SP argument isthat socialism suffered a severe setback after the collapse of “Stalinism” in Eastern Europe and Russia. It is of course an advance that they have recognised this, since originally this period was dubbed the “Red 90s”. Whatever happened to them? It seems they will inevitably re-emerge after a Blair government.

According to the mechanical schema of ML/SP, disillusionment with a Blair government “will result in a colossal wave of enthusiasm for socialism. The name Socialist Party and our paper, The Socialist,can greatly assist in this development” (The Socialist February 7). ML/SP is confident it “can build a significant revolutionary force in the next few years”: all it has to do is have the right name (Socialism Today February 1997).

The idea that disillusionment will inevitably produce socialist ideas, a socialist party and - there we are - socialism is unfortunately sorely misguided. Disillusionment can be expressed in reactionary as well as progressive forms. Winning the battle of ideas depends on the struggle for programme, which can guide the class into action and win revolutionary hegemony over all democratic questions in society. This is by no means an automatic process, as years of class struggle - from peasants’ revolt to Chartism, the Great October revolution, the miners’ Great Strike - should teach us. A revolutionary party will not be formed simply by changing its name and appealing to a mythical “fresh layer of activists”, as ML/SP desperately wishes (ibid). As Lenin said, if necessary we could call ourselves ‘the Party of Angels’ if our programmatic basis was clear.

Yes, the name of the revolutionary organisation may change, given real historical processes. If the left had been able to put the Socialist Labour Party onto a revolutionary course, this may have been the name of a future revolutionary party. If the Party is made illegal we would have to operate under a different name. Nevertheless in principle we should adopt the most scientific name for the revolutionary Party that indicates clearly what the aim of our organisation is.

This was argued by Lenin when the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party prepared to change its name to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union:

“The name ‘Social Democracy’ is scientifically incorrect, as Marx frequently pointed out ... From capitalism mankind can pass directly only to socialism: ie, to the social ownership of the means of production and the distribution of products according to the amount of work performed by each individual. Our Party looks farther ahead: socialism must inevitably evolve gradually into communism, upon the banner of which is inscribed the motto, ‘From each according to his ability; to each according to his needs’ ... The second part of the name of our Party (Social-Democrats) is also scientifically incorrect. Democracy is a form of state, whereas we Marxists are opposed to every kind of state” (VI Lenin CW Vol 24, p84-85).

The Revolutionary Democratic Group is one that has criticised our name and has suggested that communists should call themselves Revolutionary Democrats. We, like Lenin, reject this idea because, though it may indicate the form of struggle we are engaged in, it crucially fails to indicate our aim, which is the withering away of democracy: ie, majority rule by the state, through socialism to communism. The RDG, and others of course, have also criticised us for calling our organisation the CPGB, monotonously claiming that we are under the illusion (or give the impression) that we are the Party. We are not. The name indicates our aim, the reforging of the Party that can take us to communism, as stated every week in our ‘What we fight for’ column. Like Lenin we do not surrender our Party name because the Party itself has been liquidated either by the okhrana or Euro anti-communist opportunists.

However, the ML/SP name change is not informed by any revolutionary principle. Socialist Party is not a scientific name for an organisation claiming to be Marxist and revolutionary, but is simply an opportunist stunt. Vying for position with the SLP is obviously the major motivation, as is hinted at:

“... the Socialist Labour Party launched by Scargill early in 1996 has not proved to be a step in the direction of a new mass party” (ibid).

The excuses for the name change are at best ludicrous and self-defeating, and at worst represent the opportunist logic of the organisation’s ‘programme’, its tailing rather than conscious development of spontaneous movements (described in relation to SML above).

General secretary Peter Taaffe writes: “Yet to the new generation who will emerge to political and industrial struggle, the word ‘militant’ can sometimes· sound ‘too aggressive’. The capitalist media have also quite consciously linked the name to ‘terrorism’; or ‘Islamic fundamentalists” (The Socialist February 7). Of course the bourgeoisie will tar any revolutionary name with every horror and abuse it can think of. It has done this to both socialism and communism. The way ‘social-ism’ has been used by Blair’s Labour Party would under this logic cause any genuine revolutionary organisation to ditch that name as quickly as it could.

But revolutionaries should be guided by Marxist science and not the bourgeois media. It must be our task to reclaim the revolutionary content of both socialism and communism, to bring the masses to a scientific understanding of the importance and real content of these words and in this way to start to understand why the Soviet Union has dragged the name communism through the mud and why it could not develop towards socialism or communism in isolation.

Given the contempt ML/SP shows for the working class, by carrying out debates on all such questions in private, it is clearly not up to this task and would rather forget history and scientific Marxism in order to simply attach and subsume itself into whatever movement spontaneously arises.

However, it must be said that even from an opportunist logic this name change can do ML no favours. In its paper it has gone through its history and at times undoubtedly proud militant tradition. Militant Labour is remembered for the anti-poll tax campaign, for the council struggle in Liverpool, as a militant critic and then fighter against Labour. The Socialist Party will be just another new organisation with little to distinguish it from all the others claiming to be socialist.

Linda Addison