WeeklyWorker

12.02.1998

Communist rapprochement: Breaking new ground

Dave Craig examines the formation of the Revolutionary Democratic Communist Tendency

During the 1980s, The Leninist, faction of the CPGB, and the Revolutionary Democratic Group, faction of the SWP, were like moons orbiting around the central planets of their respective tendencies. The break-up of the USSR changed all that. Planet ‘CPGB’ imploded. In the aftermath, the surviving Leninist moon was renamed after its old planet. But, try as you might, you cannot be­come a planet merely by changing your name.

Much more significant was the fact that these events shook the whole planetary system. They produced their opposite. Moons and asteroids from different planets began moving into the same orbit. The process of communist rapprochement pulled the fragments towards each other. Now the possible fusion of two or more moons and asteroids can begin to create an alternative centre of grav­ity, and change the map of the plan­etary system forever.

On January 31 1998, a small step was taken in the process of commu­nist rapprochement. As a result of the meeting at Conway Hall, a new tendency began to emerge within the communist movement. Members of the CPGB and the RDG are now part of the same tendency.

I described the new tendency as the fourth. This was not a description of its size or relative importance, but merely the order in which it was born. Significantly it is the first new ten­dency to emerge after the collapse of the USSR. It contains comrades who were members of the old Stalinist CPGB and others who were originally in the Socialist Workers Party. After their work together over the past two or three years, nobody finds this line­-up of ex-members of the Stalinist CPGB and ex-SWPers particularly sur­prising any more. But a few years ago it would have been unimaginable.

There are important differences be­tween us, not least over our views on the former USSR. But the length of time we have worked together is one of our strengths. We have had open debates over Scotland, for example, and disagreements over tactics. Yet nobody has managed to prise us apart. The alignment of the CPGB and the RDG is, at present, the rock upon which the rapprochement process is founded.

While this rock remains solid, the criticism of cynics and sectarians will flounder. They will expose their own sectarianism in the eyes of every hon­est socialist and communist. Of course they will try to dismiss the al­liance between the CPGB and the RDG as an unprincipled lash-up. Yet with every step we have taken, we have explained fully the political ba­sis for our unity in the Weekly Worker. In passing unanimously, with minor amendments, the three founding documents on revolutionary demo­cratic communism, rapprochement and faction rights, we have further cemented our relations.

The new tendency is as yet only in embryonic form. It is far too early to see which communist organisations, apart from the RDG and CPGB, are objectively within the new tendency. But it would be wrong to think of the new tendency as something we just invented at the beginning of 1998. It must be understood as a process, going on throughout the communist movement, whenever comrades are struggling, as revolutionaries and democrats, against economism, cen­trism and ultra-leftism.

The new tendency is emerging from the wreckage and failures of the old tendencies. By holding the Janu­ary meeting and giving it publicity, we have merely given conscious ex­pression to what was already coming into being. The new tendency is a product of the class struggle, in its ideological form, within our move­ment. This is why we can only under­stand this in an historical context.

Since the 1950s the communist movement in the UK has been divided into three basic tendencies: Stalinist, Trotskyist and state capitalist. These were a product of major political disa­greement over the nature of the USSR. In 1950, the Stalinists, organised in the CPGB, were by far the strongest tendency. Stalin himself was at the height of his prestige. The state caps were tiny. Tony Cliff had about 30 sup­porters (see Jim Higgins More years of the locust).

Today the situation is almost the opposite. The state caps are the strongest and the most centralised. The vast majority operate under the leadership of the SWP central com­mittee. Contrast the position of the Stalinist tendency. It has disinte­grated and fragmented. They are now represented in the CPB, New Com­munist Party, Lalkar, Economic Philosophic and Science Review, Partisan, Communist Action Group, etc. The Militant group, now the So­cialist Party, has been the most sig­nificant organisation of Trotskyists. But the Trotskyist tendency has also fragmented into autonomous groups. We can add Scottish Militant Labour, Workers Power, the Workers Revolu­tionary Party, Socialist Outlook and Socialist Action, to name but a few.

Tendencies can clearly exist in a fragmented form, as autonomous groups, or highly centralised under one leadership. The lowest form of a tendency is as autonomous groups. Separate organisations identify with common politics: for example, total adherence to the life and works of Stalin or Trotsky. But each group has a different interpretation of the afore­mentioned. With similar programmes, they act independently. For example, the Socialist Party and Workers Power are both part of the Trotskyist tendency. They both adhere to their own version of Trotsky’s Transi­tional programme. Yet they operate quite independently. A tendency of autonomous groups is the result ei­ther of the break-up of a previously more centralised tendency, or in the formative stages of separate groups coming together.

A higher level would be the coor­dinated tendency, in which some or all of the groups begin to meet to­gether, discuss their differences and coordinate their work to the general advantage of the tendency as a whole, and those within it. The RDG and CPGB, for example, have now identified themselves as part of the same tendency, and through their joint work and joint aggregates are seeking to coordinate their activity. This is a step towards more centrali­sation. Finally we have the central­ised tendency, which has a common programme, perspective and leader­ship. If this is democratically central­ised, then the existence of minorities and factions is accepted as a legiti­mate part of the centralised tendency. The state capitalist tendency is largely centralised through the SWP and its leadership. In the case of the SWP, centralisation has been main­tained by bureaucratic rather than democratic methods.

The new tendency has begun life as a tendency of autonomous groups, each with its own programme or semi­-programme and perspective. Until there is a common programme and perspective for groups that are iden­tified with the tendency, there will be no centralisation or genuine democracy. The problems of democracy are tied up with those of centralism.

The fourth tendency must in the first instance identify all the revolu­tionary democratic communist organi­sations. Apart from the CPGB and RDG, we have yet to find out which other groups are part of the new tendency. This is why the organising committee has written to ascertain the views of Open Polemic, the RWT, Socialist Democracy Group, Socialist Perspectives and Marxist Bulletin. There are other organisations that we need to be in contact with. The Organising Committee will be looking at that very soon.

The struggle for the new tendency is an ideological struggle and must be conducted openly. The movement needs to get a clear view of which groups are tending towards revolutionary democratic communism, and which are veering towards anarchism and ultra-leftism, bureaucratic centrism and sectarian methods. I hear that Workers Power are making bloodcurdling noises against the new tendency. It will be interesting to see where they stand in relation to our basic politics.