08.01.1998

Perspectives ’98

Party notes

The December aggregate of the Communist Party had just two items on its agenda. First, the final draft of our Perspectives document for 1998; and second, and more controversially, a theses on revolutionary openness submitted by the Provisional Central Committee of the Party, which was opposed by an alternative resolution from our Manchester organisation. While the debate around our Perspectives proved to be relatively uncontentious, the debate on revolutionary openness overspilled the time available and will continue in the Party, both internally and in the pages of this paper.

Naturally, many of the central themes of Perspectives ’98 continue from the year before. The document starts with a characterisation of the period – one of “ideological and political reaction”. An amendment to the original draft underlined the fragile nature of the ‘triumph’ of the bourgeoisie, however. Given that “the organisations of the working class have not been smashed through terror” and “have, in the main, been defeated ideologically”, we believe that the “period of reaction is therefore of a special type”.

Perspectives ’98 then goes on to map out our approach to other organisations on the revolutionary left, the Socialist Labour Party, our campaigning work, rapprochement and our Party press. In terms of our own organisation, the document identifies an important problem that I have written about several times in this column. We have suffered from being “under-organised”.

Our work around the SLP and “the differing conditions facing us in Scotland have clearly exacerbated a tendency to the fraying of the organisation, certain degradation in its levels of discipline and cohesion”. The key to fighting this was identified as the institution of a culture of systematic reports flowing to and from the PCC. This is essential to ensure that the leading committee of our Party is able to exercise coherent and detailed leadership in all spheres of the Party’s work.

For the most part, amendments to the document were details rather than substantive alterations. Two changes are worthwhile singling out, however.

First, on elections to the Party leadership. A paragraph has been inserted in the section on ‘The Provisional Central Committee and cells’, which reads:

“It is over four years since our last conference and elections to the PCC. It is important we cultivate good practices now despite the fact we are small numerically. Therefore we should conduct elections to the leadership on a regular basis, every two years.”

It was pointed out in the debate around this amendment that it suffered from formalism. After all, the leadership of our organisation is in effect permanently recallable. Any Party aggregate, as well as a percentage of Party cells, have the right to call for fresh elections to the PCC at any time, not simply every two years.

However, as I pointed out in the discussion, the fact that the Party constitution still exists as a series of resolutions passed at different times, by different conferences, aggregates and Party forums is a weakness. It is quite possible for newer members of the Party not to be aware of constitutional conventions. After all, few people join an organisation because of its constitution. Once members, comrades must have a working knowledge of the statutory norms and procedures of their organisation. Thus, while the aggregate did not explicitly state this, I think it is important that we undertake to produce our working constitutional draft as soon as possible.

The amendment on elections was overwhelmingly passed, with even comrades who criticised its formalism voting in favour. Despite the criticisms that can certainly be made of the passage, I think the spirit that motivated it is a laudable one and helps us develop the collective culture of our group.

On the paper, there were similar criticisms of an amendment put forward by two comrades. This calls on the Weekly Worker team to combat a “haphazard approach” to editorial control. Concretely, “all cells and branches need to have much more input into the paper, allowing comrades to work up more feature articles and supplements. Alongside this the editorial board needs to take a more active role in commissioning individuals to write articles in advance and working on them with the author.”

Again, the spirit of the above is worthy, but some comrades were concerned that it has the taste of a formalistic approach to the problem of insufficient input from comrades into our paper. This is essentially a political problem, not a technical one. However, there is no doubt that the commissioning practices of the paper team have been poor for some time. The amendment identified this and offered a solution of sorts and as such was overwhelmingly supported by the aggregate.

The sharp debate on revolutionary openness was unfortunately cut short by time limits, but is agendaed for our first aggregate of the new year. The PCC has produced a series of theses on the question, a response to recent exchanges in the Weekly Worker. The feeling of the leadership is that some comrades have a semi-liberal/anarchistic approach to openness, a sentiment that the publication of any criticism can only do us good in the long run. The theses attempt to redress the balance by underlining the fact that openness is a weapon, that it must be employed with care and caution.

Comrades from Manchester have submitted an alternative resolution which gathered considerable - probably majority - support at this initial meeting. While the text of the resolution itself does not differ in substance to parts of the PCC theses, the preamble criticises the leadership document as a “very considerable retreat from the parameters drawn by Lenin … on the question of freedom to criticise …” In substance the comrades believe that “the theses are fundamentally flawed and represent not what their title suggests [ie: on revolutionary openness – MF], but quite the opposite. It is important that, in the face of this attack on the principles of revolutionary openness and democratic centralism, the Party reaffirms its commitment to open ideological struggle.”

As well as internal material and discussions, exchanges on this instructive debate will also be featured in the Weekly Worker.

Mark Fischer
national organiser