14.08.1997

Revolutionary weapon or liberal rag?

Around the left

Issue number two of Red, the journal of the Scottish Socialist Alliance, has been out now for a few weeks. It arrives after a somewhat lengthy break, and the editorial is full of apologies for the delay, complaining of staff shortages. It also apologises for the clumsy editing of articles in the last issue. Unfortunately there is little improvement in this edition, so it is quite hard to comment on some of the articles which have obviously been ‘hacked to death’.

It has to be said that this issue is a bit more eclectic than the last one, which had a nationalist thread running through many of the submissions. I do not know if it is by accident or design but this thread is less obvious, with articles covering a range of issues, from the general election to the Brian Higgins defence campaign, to abortion rights.

It has to be said that this eclecticism does leave the journal a little barren. It lacks any distinctive project and can come across like any other bad leftwing paper, which ventures no further than acting as a bulletin board.

The eclecticism is perhaps most noticeable in Bill Bonnar’s article. Bonnar is a member of the Communist Party of Scotland and in the post-election issue of Red, while welcoming the achievement of SSA candidates he also argues that: “The defeat of the Tories was the central priority for the labour and progressive movement and now this has been achieved.”

This may be a view held by Scottish Militant Labour and other members of the SSA, but it can hardly be reconciled with the standing of SSA candidates in the general election in order to build an alternative socialist voice. Presumably we want this voice to become the dominant one for the working class, rather than being a permanent Labour opposition - or do we? Not even this is clear from the journal.

Its magazine format has the advantage of publishing slightly longer articles than most of the tabloid left, which sadly thinks the future ruling class cannot possibly raise itself to finish an article any longer than the standard 250 words. That said, Red falls between two stools, with most of the articles only a snapshot of the writer’s views or the issues involved in a campaign. They are far too short to develop complex socialist ideas which go against the grain of bourgeois ideology in any depth.

Nevertheless the journal has already made great strides in cohering a political culture in Scotland, a positive feature being the interviews. This issue features Paul Laverty, who plays the male lead in Ken Loach’s film about the Sandinistas’ struggle in Nicaragua, Carla’s song. Both Red and Scottish Militant Labour’s paper, Socialist Voice, have begun to give the radical cultural movement in Scotland a political voice, albeit not a very sophisticated one, given the small amount of space given over to interviews as well as articles. This positive feature could be developed much more significantly with a little more political confidence and faith in an educated (or ready to be educated) working class vanguard.

Though the journal has the aim of political openness, the debate articles are as short as the various campaign agitational pieces and become lost amongst them. Thus you get very little sense of the key debates taking place in the Alliance, the differences between the political forces that have come together, or indeed precisely what the aim of the Alliance is. Noticeably the journal has never published the Alliance’s founding statement or draft ‘Charter for socialist change’.

The lack of political strategy evident from Red is unfortunately a reflection of the reality of the SSA, rather than simply lazy editorship. It was set up primarily to unite the left in the struggle for a “sovereign Scottish parliament”, but just as the battle begins the majority has caved in under the weight of the hegemony bourgeois ideology asserts over our class.

The editorial brazenly announces: “In the battles ahead, on poverty, on workers’ rights, on Scottish self-determination, the Alliance will take the support it has gained so far onto the battlefield.” But curiously the editorial fails to mention that the majority of the SSA has committed itself to fighting to maximise support for Labour’s sop parliament by campaigning for a double ‘yes’ vote. It would take a very elaborate polemic to describe this position as taking the support the SSA has gained onto the battlefield for self-determination.

You can imagine why the editors of Red might be less than confident about blowing the SSA’s trumpet in terms of the political perspective and action the organisation will be taking for the coming period. After all, in the lead-up to the referendum on September 11, it has dropped its founding demand for a parliament with full powers and subsumed itself within the establishment campaign, Scotland Forward. There is little therefore for Red to say on the question that dominates every aspect of political life in Scotland at the moment, which actually distinguishes the SSA from the Labour Democrats, the Liberal Party, or the Scottish National Party.

The debate which must surely go to the heart of politics in Scotland and the SSA, over the tactics toward the referendum is only given two pages and two alternate views: Mary Ward of the CPGB and George Mackin of the SNP and an ex-Liberation member. It is difficult to comment on George Mackin’s article because it either lacks a politically coherent thread, or, more probably, is very badly edited so it reads like a list of old and hackneyed soundbites, such as labelling the CPGB “ultra-left wreckers” and equating the struggle for self-determination with the referendum for Labour’s sop so that “If Scotland loses the vote, there will be widespread disillusionment and Scottish self-determination may be lost for a generation”, an argument I need not dwell on here since it is dealt with in detail in Mary Ward’s article on page 6 of this issue.

Red has clearly made welcome steps forward in its bringing together of different political ideas and trends in one journal. However, if the journal and the SSA are to develop, these ideas need to be given room to be argued out with much more rigour and depth. After all, the SSA was split down the middle over the question of joining Scotland Forward, and has seen sharp differences over the minority CPGB position of boycotting the referendum.

As revolutionaries we must be interested in winning the mass to a revolutionary perspective. That process, however painful and threatening to a more stable and self-assured political life style, must begin now amongst the many left trends through sharp theoretical struggle, as well as united action. Only in that way can we more fully develop that unity in action. Otherwise the journal will never be a weapon for revolution, but only a liberal, opinion-sharing, coffee table glossy.

Linda Addison