05.02.1998

One step forward

Party notes

On Saturday January 31 the fight for communist rapprochement took a small but very important step forward. In an aggregate convened under the auspices of the Revolutionary Democratic Communist Tendency, members of the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Revolutionary Democratic Group debated and passed unanimously - after minor amendments - three resolutions (see Weekly Worker January 22 and 29 for the unamended texts).

This aggregate is the first in a series intended to draw together all revolutionary democratic communists. While I am sure that this process will not be without its controversies and arguments, this first joint meeting was marked by a high degree of agreement and common approach. Indeed, the sharpest notes of discord were introduced by the observers from the Open Polemic group.

The meeting started with apologies from a number of organisations and individuals that represent a diversity of approaches to this question of revolutionary unity. The presence of these comrades at future aggregates as at least observers will ensure that the meetings will be lively. However, characteristic of these potential participants - whether from a Trotskyist background, or like OP from the detritus of ‘official communism’ - is the abject failure of their method of winning revolutionary unity.

Of course, the fact that the January 31 meeting was marked by a degree of unanimity on the three resolutions on the table indicates a degree of programmatic convergence between ourselves and the RDG. In contrast to what various philistines charge against the CPGB, we believe that this is an entirely healthy process. We welcome the fact that the majority of comrades from our organisations share a similar approach to communist politics. This stands in vivid contradicts to the dull-witted economism that dominates the majority of the British revolutionary left and we welcome the fact that our two organisations are merging on solid political foundations.

There are two processes taking place here, however. The particular political parameters of the fusion between the RDG and the CPGB are one thing; the more general question of principled revolutionary unity, the fight for Partyism and democratic centralism is another part of the equation.

While we welcome the points of political commonality between our two organisations, we have stressed over and over again that there are no ideological passports that other organisations and individuals must have stamped before comrades or organisations are granted access to the process. Other comrades interested in the project of principled communist unity are welcome to participate.

Thus, there remain many important theoretical disagreements between the two organisations now moving closer to unity. Indeed, many others would call our points of contention “programmatic” (although this in my view displays a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes a ‘programmatic’ question). That said, they certainly are important questions - for example, on the nature of the USSR and Eastern Europe, on the united front in practice, perhaps even on the nature and structure of the revolutionary Party itself.

In most other sections of the revolutionary left, any one of these differences would be sufficient to either keep organisations apart or perhaps even - farcically - to provoke a split. The latest micro-products of this fatally fractious method are the contending sides resulting from the split in the already nano-Workers International League.

I note from the first issue of Workers Action (December 1997-January 1998) - the new journal of the former majority - the frivolous reasons cited for adding to the myriad sects cluttering the left. The “political differences” that “threatened the group with paralysis” developed over the course of a year, we are told (although - typically - no one outside the ranks of the WIL knew anything about them). These “centre on interpretation of the united front and the transitional method, and regroupment orientation.”

It continues: “While both sides are in favour of relating to left-moving currents and individuals critical of the existing centrist tendencies, the minority emphasised the need to engage in detailed programmatic discussions with such elements and establish a liaison committee for international regroupment at the earliest opportunity. This led to a dispute over how much time and energy a small group could afford to commit to such a project without jeopardising the development of its own politics in struggle alongside other militants in the mass organisations of the working class.”

I have quoted this at length because I find it such a breathtakingly dizzy excuse for forming yet another tiny revolutionary sect. The comrades appear to agree on everything apart from pace of work and nuance of emphasis. Ostensibly, they have formed two new organisations less on profound and irreconcilable political disagreements, more on the basis of personal temperament.

We hope that the serious-minded fight for unity between the RDG and the CPGB and the process of the Revolutionary Democratic Communist Tendency both are fighting to build will play a part in ending this type of giddy sectarian method.

The minutes of this first joint aggregate will soon be available to interested comrades. We call on others to join us in the project of principled communist unity.

Mark Fischer
national organiser