13.11.1997

Pep-talk or conference?

Around 400 people came together for the Socialist Workers Party’s three-day annual conference in London last weekend. Predictably, the conference was an anodyne affair without a hint of the real debate or controversy that would mark the gathering of a genuine workers’ party.

Cliff, despite his increasingly unsure grasp of many political issues of the day, continues to run the show with other members of the leadership vying to be seen as his most loyal lieutenants. Heading the pack at the moment seem to be Lindsey German and Chris Harman, despite the latter’s critical position on the SWP’s approach to elections. Delegates also report that some political significance was read into the fact that Harman was one of only two notable absences from Paul Foot’s 60th birthday celebrations (the other being Chris Bambery).

Of course, it is truly pathetic that SWP cadre - the backbone of this important left organisation - are reduced to a tittle-tattle analysis of perceived differences between the leaders of their own organisation. Yet the state of inner-party democracy in the SWP is such that no other avenues of political speculation are permitted for the pulverised membership.

Jack Conrad (‘Party Notes’ Weekly Worker November 6) has already commented on the peculiarly apolitical, technocratic nature of the contributions to what passed as ‘debate’ in the lead-up to conference.

Here is an organisation still formally claiming 10,000 members. Surely it should give some cause for alarm that the three pre-conference bulletins only received some 25 contributions from individual members in total. In other words, not even one percent of the membership felt itself able to contribute to the discussion concerning the fundamental direction of their own organisation.

Mark Boyan of Sheffield London Road branch (Bulletin No1), highlights this membership “passivity”, perceptively contrasting it with the statement in the SWP’s ‘welcome’ leaflet to new members, which states: “The SWP stands in and develops the revolutionary communist tradition of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky ...” Yet - as Comrade Boyan quite correctly points out with devastating implications for the current practice of the SWP - “... it was precisely the question of whether members could do as little as they felt committed to which divided Lenin from the rest of social democracy in the first place” (ibid p14).

As he also points out however, it is the leadership itself that actively promotes this approach to party membership, a method that links them explicitly with the Mensheviks of the Russian movement. The same introductory leaflet cited above tells new members that “we want everyone to feel a part of the SWP and to do as much or as little as they feel committed to” (ibid p13).

Thus, it is hardly surprising that the quality of the pitifully few contributions to the Bulletins reveals a membership almost unable to think in political terms at all. Overwhelmingly, the SWP members who do write concentrate on telling other members about the beneficial effects of bookstalls, how to sell the paper, what a good idea petitions are ...

It is incredible that, given the restricted period for inner-organisation debate (“three months before conference”, according to article 4d of the SWP’s constitution) and the fact that “permanent ... factions are not allowed” (article 9c), that SWP cadre waste their time on these inconsequential, low-level technical notes to the ‘party’.

Where does this stem from? Essentially the membership of this - the largest extra-Labour Party organisation on the British left - is atomised, befuddled and utterly confused by the jarring discrepancy between the leadership’s excited perspectives for dramatic growth and the reality of the class struggle in contemporary Britain. Given the bureaucratic regime inside the organisation, the only space available to SWPers - even if they were now capable of anything else - is to discuss the technical questions of building paper sales, events and other interventions. Rather than a conference of critically engaged working class politicians, such SWP gatherings have the character of “pep-talks for paper-selling teams”, as one delegate aptly put it.

A hint of the true situation in the group can been seen in the contribution from Keith Copley of Walthamstow branch (Bulletin No3). After a period of inactivity, the comrade rejoined the SWP shortly before Marxism ’96. His impression - in contrast to the reports in the paper of inexorable growth - was that

“core membership is, if anything, smaller than it was 10 years ago. The vast majority of new members are not integrated in any genuine sense into the routine of party work” (ibid p13).

The myth-making machine in the organisation constantly counterposes the dire 1980s to this new “exciting period”. Comrade Copley begs to differ:

“I feel that a kind of myth is being built up around this period. As someone who was very active in the party throughout that time, I must say I don’t really recognise it. Of course, it can be seen in retrospect as a decade in which the gains made by the working class tended to be drawn isolated into battle and defeated. But - and this is the difference with today - there were struggles.”

He adds:

“These days it does appear that to sell a paper we first need to corner someone with a petition, and the process usually does involve a long argument ... The relentless petitioning of the party is a symptom of how impotent socialists are at the moment. We can’t get solidarity strikes or backing for the Liverpool dockers, so let’s petition ... Yes, it’s some sort of collective act by workers to sign a petition, but probably about the lowest level I can think of” (ibid p13).

Given the distance between party perspectives and reality, “there is great pressure on the minority of active members to be hyper-optimistic”, a state of febrile anticipation which discounts critical thought. It is from this - the subordination of the fight for scientific truth and an approach that can actually service the movement as a whole to the narrow concerns of recruitment to the SWP sect - that precludes genuine working class democracy in the ranks of the organisation. The issuing of 180-degree policy turns, the need for a leadership unaccountable to an independently minded, self-activating membership - these are the fundamental characteristics of a sect.

With this in mind, it is amusing to read that the SWP central committee would like to make “our branches ... centres of debate inside the working class” for a new stratum of working class activists the organisation identifies (‘Facing up to Blair’ Bulletin No1, p4).

One thing is certain. To lead others apart from themselves, such a layer will need to think, debate and criticise. Which effectively excludes them from the SWP as currently constituted, of course.

Ian Mahoney