27.03.1997

Open debate

Party notes

I must respond to the reply to my ‘Party notes’ from the CPGB Scottish Committee (Weekly Worker March 20).

First, it is a little disingenuous of the comrades to suggest that the column simply constitutes my personal “comments” on their work in Scotland. Both this column and the previous one the comrades took objection to were reports of the content of membership aggregates of the entire Party. Of course, I am sure that I inadvertently put my own personal slant on the proceedings - that is inevitable.

But if the comrades believe that I have fundamentally distorted the discussion at either of these meetings, that these are in fact false reports, then they should say so. To my mind, I gave an accurate and fair account of the debates at these aggregates and the criticisms raised of our work in Scotland. Indeed, the only thing missing from them was some of the more florid language and intemperate expressions.

Second, there has quite clearly been a difference in emphasis between the Party majority and the majority of comrades in Scotland on the question of the boycott campaign - a development almost to be expected, given the very different environments the Party works in. Thus, talk of the collective responsibility of the Party for weaknesses in our work there is not really relevant. Agreement between Centre and Scotland on resolutions, the general form of interventions and the slogans we advance is one thing - what comrades on the ground push or put particular emphasis on within the broad parameters of the Party’s politics is another.

And we are talking about emphasis here, comrades. Our organisation in Scotland has autonomy and a wide degree of initiative. Centre and the Party majority is thus disagreeing with the weight you are putting on particular aspects of our collectively agreed work, nothing more.

This difference is neither a phantom of my imagination nor something to be overly worried about. It was once again explored at great length at the London seminar on March 23, given by a leading comrade from Scotland. While he put stress on a campaign which would currently emphasise the fight for “genuine self-determination” and a multi-option referendum, comrades present underlined that our call for a boycott of Blair’s referendum precisely is the form this fight should currently take. It must be the main slogan, the cutting edge of our politics now. As such it also has the advantage of drawing a very clear line of demarcation between us and the Scottish Militant Labour reformists.

Then there is the question of Mary Ward’s position on Scottish nationhood. I wrote that this - ie, comrade Mary’s definite defence of the idea of a long history of Scottish nationhood - did not make an “explicit appearance at our recent school in Scotland” (Weekly Worker March 13, emphasis added). “Bullshit,” the comrades suggest (Weekly Worker March 20). In fact, the “bulk of Mary Ward’s intervention at the very first session of the school was around this very question”.

Yes comrades, “around it”. Mary Ward did not explicitly state that there had been a Scottish nation stretching back into antiquity, although the comrade clearly was leaning that way in her thinking. Rather, she raised some ideas about it based on her reading so far. These initially tentative ideas were pretty comprehensively answered, as far as I remember, and subsequently the school “appeared to concur” on the myth of Scottish nationhood (Weekly Worker March 13, my emphasis).

This is not a worthwhile squabble to pursue, anyway. I was hardly trying to suggest either that Mary was hiding her views from us, or that we should hide her views from our readers and comrades. This is not really our style, is it? However, if comrades in Scotland have managed to interpret my words this way, I apologise. Now let’s move on to the more substantive matter.

The point I was actually making was that such an idea would need “far more debate and discussion in our ranks” (March 13) and that it had been touched upon, but not explored in depth at the Scottish school. Thus Mary’s floated amendment (referring to a “mythologised” rather than a “mythical” Scottish nationhood) was the first explicit attempt to include it in a collective Party document, an amendment that unfortunately could not be delved into - still less voted on - given her “unavoidable absence”, but which would have changed the meaning of that particular point in the draft thesis “to its exact opposite” (ibid).

I’m sure Mary would agree. If the comrade is now more convinced of this position and eager to defend it, good. Let’s do as I originally suggested and “carry [the debate] into the pages of the paper” (ibid) rather than have a fruitless exchange about when it first announced itself to the world.

It is entirely healthy that the comrades have let off steam in this way and express the fact that they are “frustrated” that Centre appears to be “not listening”. On the contrary, I can assure them that the leadership is paying very close attention to the development of our work in Scotland and has repeatedly underlined in internal documents, as well as publicly, that the situation there “remains dynamic and exciting and the work of our comrades has positioned us well to make tremendous progress”, whatever detailed criticisms we have to make (Weekly Worker March 13).

I cannot help but feel that the comrades have responded in an overly sensitive way to the collective criticisms advanced. Perhaps this too is understandable. As they write, in Scotland our proletarian politics “are swimming against the stream” of nationalism, a poisonous tide that SML is already drowning in, of course. We are a small organisation, subject to all sorts of pressures nationally. For instance, I understand that some comrades have been quite harshly ridiculed by SML members about our relative size and the fact that there has been a critical exchange between Scotland and Centre.

In fact, comrades, this openness is precisely our strength and we should snap back at SMLers or anyone else who attempt to make political capital out of our problems of growth. We know - for a fact - that organisations like SML and the Socialist Party are fraught with unexplored differences and lines of fissures. Let’s see them be brave enough to openly explore in front of the class the centrifugal difficulties and differences we know are building in their organisations. As Lenin so succinctly puts it,

“A political party’s attitude towards its own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how earnest the party is and how it fulfils in practice its obligations towards its class and the working people” (Collected Works Vol 31, p57).

I’m sure differences continue, but I am gratified that on both sides of the exchange there is an understanding of our Leninist “duty to point out” errors (Scottish Committee statement, Weekly Worker March 20, my emphasis), whoever is making them in the Party. SML and others may gloat and target us for some puerile ridicule. In fact, it is precisely through this type of honest process that our Party gathers strength.

The fact that SMLers take our disagreements as an opportunity for some foolish taunting of our comrades tells us just how much they have to learn about revolutionary politics.

Mark Fischer,
national organiser