Letters

Game of two halves

John Stone of the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International says most of the demands of the Communist Party of Great Britain manifesto are “supportable”. But he says that it is what is missing that is important. He claims the CPGB “are not raising anti-capitalist measures”. Obviously this depends on what John means by “anti-capitalist measures”.

At this stage we do not need to examine every single demand in a programme. We need to get down to the basic essentials of an anti-capitalist programme. As far as I can tell, John seems to consider an anti-capitalist programme to contain at least the following: (a) transfer of power to the soviets or workers councils; (b) abolition of parliamentary democracy; (c) nationalisation of the economy. If he doesn’t mean this, then no doubt he will explain further.

The national programme of the Revolutionary Democratic Group contains all these demands. None of them are missing. But for us it is a question of political priorities. Some demands should be put forward now, and are immediate demands. Other demands will become directly relevant later. Around these we make propaganda for the future.

I am sure that the CPGB, LCMRCI and the RDG are in favour of nationalisation of the major capitalist enterprises. We can only have a sensible debate on this in the context of priorities, as well as ends and means.

I will try to explain the differences from an RDG perspective. The RDG national programme comprises of two sections, which we could call transitional programme one (TP1) and transitional programme two (TP2).

TP1 calls for winning the battle of democracy: (i) a radical and republican extension of (bourgeois) democracy; (ii) building workers’ councils and workers’ control.

TP2 calls for the transfer of power to the soviets or workers’ councils: (iii) the abolition of parliamentary democracy; (iv) nationalisation of the economy.

Both TP1 and TP2 are “anti-capitalist”, but in different ways. TP1 is about building the power of the working class and weakening the political power of the capitalist class, exercised by its state. TP2 concerns the transfer of class power to the working class, abolishing their parliament and expropriating privately owned capital (even this would not constitute the abolition of capitalism, since capitalism cannot be abolished in one country).

TP1 is about political struggle: that is, preparing the working class for political power. This is necessary in a non-revolutionary or pre-revolutionary period. TP2 is about taking power during the revolution. John Stone does not make this distinction. It leads him to ultra-leftism.

It is as if we were planning a game of football. We are in a defensive position. Our opponents are on the attack. Plan l is about winning the ball, passing to the midfield players and wingers, who will put accurate crosses into our opponents’ penalty area. Plan 2 is about getting our strikers into these scoring positions and shooting on target. To win, we need both parts of this plan to work. John Stone is the type of manager who says, ‘Football is only about scoring’. He shouts, ‘shoot’ from the touchline, even when we haven’t got the ball! We are saying, scoring is all pie in the sky - unless we can get the ball, win the midfield and turn defence into attack.

The immediate programme of TP1 is about winning the midfield, not about scoring the winning goal. We do not call for the transfer of power to the (non-existent) soviets. We do not call for the nationalisation of the economy, which first requires that we transfer power to the (non-existent) soviets. But we do not hide our intention to score on these demands, when the time is ripe.

TP2 is an objectively ultra-left programme in non-revolutionary UK. Demanding nationalisation without the transfer of power to soviets is wishing the ends without the means. In reality whole-sale nationalisation is a propaganda slogan for some time in the future. In which case you might as well call for world communism as mere nationalisation.

As Lenin pointed out, ultra-leftism is a cover for reformism. In the absence of the dictatorship of the proletariat or even the prospect of it, the demand for nationalisation is placed on the capitalist Labour government. The slogan, ‘Nationalise the top 200 companies now’, is a call on the capitalist state to carry out “anti-capitalist” measures.

Orthodox Trotskyism starts out with some variation of TP2. The demand for nationalisation is placed on the Labour government. The masses are won to this idea. Labour fails to carry this out. The masses feel betrayed and flock to Workers Power, or whoever, as the only organisation that will carry it out. Dream on. This is a fantasy because TP2 is founded on a false premise about the nature of the period.

The CPGB and the RDG both agree with the need for a TP1, which we both call a minimum programme. But the title is not important. It is the content and political substance that counts.

Our immediate demands in TP1 deal with fundamental questions of bourgeois democracy, workers’ democracy and workers’ control. We agree with the CPGB that the issue of bourgeois democracy is a central political question. We do not call for the immediate abolition of parliament. We are fighting for the extension of bourgeois democracy to its breaking point (ie, the dual power republic).

However the CPGB have neglected to include the demand for workers’ councils and workers’ control in their version of TP1. This is a real weakness, which means that they are in danger of slipping back into a purely bourgeois democratic minimum. This makes them a ‘soft target’ for John Stone.

The LCMRCI’s immediate programme (which they call the transitional programme) is a combination of TP1 and TP2. This means that the RDG and the LCMRCI both support the immediate demand for workers’ councils and workers’ control, and both disagree with the CPGB. But whether they want to abolish bourgeois democracy now or extend it, is confused. They are opposed to a republic in England, for example, but would support a united Irish republic, and the abolition of the House of Lords.

I am not sure that I have portrayed the LCMRCI position correctly. But no doubt further debate will clarify this. It is no good claiming that the RDG or the CPGB don’t support anti-capitalist measures like nationalisation. The real issue is how, when and by whom this can be carried out.

Dave Craig
RDG (faction of the SWP)

Confused

I find the positions on Scotland held by your paper somewhat odd, especially in the light of the general election results. These showed quite clearly that the core sections of the working class in Scotland rejected parties advocating full independence.

Where support for self-determination was expressed, it was in the form of a Scottish National Party vote in rural areas. However the SNP only gained one percent in this election. The vote for the Scottish Socialist Alliance was largely insignificant.

To suggest that there is some groundswell in Scotland for self-determination is therefore somewhat incredible. How can the promotion of this slogan then advance the class struggle in Scotland or the rest of Britain? You yourselves admit that the SNP is a pro-monarchy, big-business party. If they came to power would this in any way further the breakup of the state and open the road to socialism?

Some confused people believe that a republic in Britain is an essential prerequisite for socialism, as if Britain was still a feudal society. This is obvious nonsense. The British monarchy has been the ornamental poodle of the capitalist class for 200 years. Dispensing with them will be an afterthought to any socialist revolution rather than an essential precondition of one. Either way the SNP will not abolish the monarchy and it will be the SNP which monopolises the independence vote, not socialists, because quite simply the working class reject independence as a slogan.

Of course, should the Scottish population as a whole vote for full independence, we should not stand in their way and the English workers’ movement should oppose any attempts to coerce Scotland into remaining inside the UK. However to promote separation, especially separation of the organisations of the labour movement is not a progressive socialist demand; it is a reactionary one.

Even more dangerous is providing some kind of Marxist tint to Scottish nationalism, which has never been a radical democratic movement. This is clearly in distinction to the situation in Ireland, which has always had a revolutionary-nationalist movement, which has substantial working class support.

Scotland and especially its capitalist class were co-beneficiaries of the age of imperialism with their allies in England. While the Scottish capitalists sacrificed local independence to London, they gained enormous benefits from their position in the British state. Now that those benefits are less obvious, the demands of the SNP are purely about carving out a niche for the local bourgeoisie within the EC.

The traditions of the Scottish working class are those of a unitary labour movement and of socialism. There is no evidence at all, other than the delusions of a few ultra-left sectarians in the SSA, that this situation has changed. Rather than making self-determination an issue within the working class, as your interview with Mary Ward suggests, you should be arguing for the revival of the socialist traditions of the Scottish labour movement and drawing a sharp distinction with the nationalist phrasemongers who would bury this tradition.

John Laurence
London

Sore heads

Anti-Fascist Action claims full responsibility for disrupting the general election count in Glasgow on May l. Around 25 members of the fascist British National Party were inside the Exhibition Centre and were intent on a flag-waving, sieg-heiling publicity stunt when the votes of their candidates in Govan and Shettleston were announced. AFA members infiltrated the count and we physically ensured that the BNP did not achieve their aims. Some of the BNP members ended up nursing sore heads as a result of our activities.

AFA will not tolerate fascists in our communities. They use racism, bigotry and sectarianism as a means of dividing working class people. During the general election campaign, AFA members were involved in clashes with the BNP in the Penilee area of Glasgow, where they have apparently established a strong base of support. We are giving the BNP notice that we intend to seek out every nest of fascist activity in Scotland and destroy it.

AFA would like to express our thanks to our comrades from the SSA who assisted members of AFA in gaining entry to the count. We would also like to express our appreciation of those SSA members who assisted us in our activity against the BNP inside the count.

With Labour now in government, the fascists, as they have stated in their own pre-election publications, will expect to build on the disillusionment that will inevitably set in later when Labour fails to deliver. Hopefully, in Scotland, there will emerge a strong and progressive working class movement that can provide an alternative to the anti-working class politics of fascism.

Hugh Mackie
AFA, Scotland