WeeklyWorker

05.06.1997

Boycotting the republic?

After a debate at the CPGB’s London seminar last Saturday, Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) responds to criticisms

We should separate our discussion on programme questions from those of tactics. On tactics we can be quite flexible, but on principles and programme we should be solid, indeed inflexible. We cannot discuss tactics without first being absolutely clear about the programme we are fighting for. For example if we are for a devolved Scottish assembly, then a boycott of Blair’s referendum is a silly tactic. We would urge a ‘yes’ vote. But if you are fighting for a republic then ‘no’ or ‘abstain’ might be correct. The tactic of voting ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘abstain’ makes no sense separate from the programme you are fighting for.

In 1905-6 in very different circumstances to today, there was a revolution taking place in Russia. The tsar set up the duma, a parliament with less than full powers. The Bolsheviks were fighting for a republic. They understood the tsar’s tactics of trying to take the heat out of the situation and divert the revolution into a constitutional monarchist dead end. The Bolsheviks argued for a boycott of the Duma in order to win the masses away from this counterrevolutionary concession. The Mensheviks, arguing “for a Duma with full powers” (quoted in Jack Conrad’s In the enemy camp p27), were in practice abandoning the struggle for a republic, compromising with tsarism. Later, when the duma was established, the Bolsheviks dropped their boycott and participated in elections.

On their demand for a republic, the Bolsheviks were inflexible, but on the tactics of boycott or participation, they were flexible. Scotland today is not 1905 or anything like it. But the method of the Bolsheviks can nevertheless teach us useful lessons. First, a line was drawn between the constitutional monarchist parliament with “full powers” and a republic. Second, the boycott tactic was related to the fight for a republic.

We must start by getting our programmatic demands absolutely clear. The CPGB and the RDG are for a federal republic of England, Scotland, and Wales and a united Ireland. This is a central demand of the minimum programme. We must not fudge this or water it down. If it is ambiguous we have a duty to explain it and make a better formulation so that we are precise. Lenin considered that formulating your programme was a science. The best formulation was that which was clear and exact. Ambiguous formulations, once exposed, should be shredded and chucked in the bin.

A federal republic provides a democratic answer to the problems of national unity and self-determination, which the constitutional monarchy with or without “full powers” cannot provide. A federal republic is not a token addition to our programme. It is a guide to action now. It is an immediate demand. How we advance it, in concrete circumstances, is a tactical question. But as I argued before, we cannot discuss tactics unless it is tactics tied to a definite programmatic aim. Should we adopt a boycott in order to distance ourselves from Blair’s proposals? No - not in itself. Or should we adopt a boycott because we are fighting for a federal republic and united Ireland? Yes.

We are living today at the end of an epoch in British history which goes back to the l7th century and the beginning of the unionist constitutional monarchy. This constitutional system, for which the queen is merely the figurehead, is bankrupt. The Labour Party is hoping to patch it up and give it a modem image. This reformist project is doomed to failure. When this rotten old constitutional house falls down, we will not be tinkering with it on the inside. We will be standing clear of the falling debris, pointing out the democratic republican alternative.

The present version of the constitutional monarchy goes back to World War II, when it was given a new lease of life. It became the “social monarchy”, that is, the Elizabethan welfare state. The social contract, which underpinned this, has been destroyed by a combination of factors.

First, there is the world crisis of capitalism from the mid-1970s and the globalization of capitalism in the 1980s. Second, we have had the Thatcherite so-called ‘free market’ revolution. This depended absolutely on the defeat of the miners in 1984. Third there has been the integration with Europe which is also forcing change on our system.

If, in 1950, we had argued for a federal republic, it would have been fringe politics. It would have remained a fringe slogan because the constitutional system was being socially and politically stabilised. It remained so for nearly 30 years. Today in the 1990s the demand for a federal republic is still fringe politics. But now the objective circumstances exist for it to become mass politics. For that, it needs a historical agent, the Party and through it a class. The historical agent of republicanism in the UK is not the bourgeoisie, or even the petty bourgeoisie, it is the working class.

Working class republicans now have for the first time real opportunities to advance republican politics on a mass scale. On one hand we have the situation in Scotland and Wales. On the other hand we have the developing Socialist Labour Party. Whether the SLP will become the midwife of republicanism in Britain remains to be seen, but certainly Arthur Scargill called for the abolition of the monarchy during the election campaign, which is at least a start.

It needs to be stated that the Socialist Workers Party, Workers Power group and the Socialist Party/Scottish Militant Labour are in favour of a devolved assembly for now and a socialist republic in the future. Both the SWP and WP are in favour of a Labour government. These organisations are not fighting for a republic now. They are critically supporting Blair’s assembly on the basis that they want ‘full powers’. To fight for a federal republic is to fight against the slogan of a “parliament with full powers” which is a leftwing version of Blair’s plan to reform the constitutional monarchy.

On the programme question, the debate is essentially over whether a “parliament with full powers” is a republican slogan or not. Some comrades think it is and others, including myself, think it is not. A republic is a clear slogan. At least we should be able to agree that a “parliament with full powers” is ambiguous. Whose interests does such ambiguity serve? Certainly it does not serve the republican interest. I would argue that it serves the interests of the constitutional monarchy that republican slogans are omitted, watered down into something acceptable to non-republican devolutionists like the SWP. SML is not republican. It is not fighting for a republic in Scotland, and that is why, as soon as the pressure mounts, it lines up behind Blair.

Once we are agreed we are fighting for a federal republic, then we can usefully discuss the tactics we should use for that aim. I advocated a republican united front. We should seek unity with all active republicans, regardless of whether they wanted an independent republic, federal republic, Scottish workers’ republic, or whatever. We would urge republicans in Scotland to unite and campaign to boycott Blair’s referendum. The reason for the boycott is clear. We are republicans fighting for a republic, and we are using this opportunity to put a republican message to the Scottish people.

It was agreed at the end of the meeting that the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB would make a statement about the meaning of the slogan “for a parliament with full powers” and whether this is a republican slogan or not, for publication in Weekly Worker. I would like to ask whether the PCC agrees with these three points of programme and tactics: