26.02.1998

The sound of silence

Party notes

The Communist Party school on the federal republic over the weekend of February 21-22 noted a sad affliction which seems to impede the work of comrade Peter Taaffe, leader of the Socialist Party. We sincerely hope he recovers.

The comrade appears at home speaking about events in almost any part of the world: Pakistan, South Africa, Germany or Sweden - everywhere the comrade is happy to draw parallels, glean lessons, to offer advice and prescriptive analysis. But then we wondered, does comrade Taaffe’s world atlas perhaps have a missing page? If not, why does he appear to become so tongue-tied when it comes to events in Scotland? After all, there are some quite interesting developments there, not least in the ranks of the organisation that Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party remains formally united with, Scottish Militant Labour.

For example, our school in Scotland spent some time during its various sessions dissecting a new document by comrade Alan McCombes, the leading SMLer (see ‘Party Notes’, February 19). Despite its scrappiness, the new position outlined in the paper - Scottish independence and the struggle for socialism - is likely to be an influential one. At the least, debate around it will bring into sharp focus some key differences between the approach of Leninists to the national question and that of national socialists like McCombes.

The document as adopted by the national executive of SML (reported in Scottish Socialist Voice February 5) is recommended to the forthcoming SML conference to become the policy of the organisation as a whole and then, presuming a smooth ride there, the comrades want to push for it be accepted by the Scottish Socialist Alliance at its June 20 conference.

McCombes’ thrust “is to argue that national independence should now be explicitly incorporated into our overall socialist programme … we should now state clearly that we are in favour of an independent socialist Scotland, as a step towards a wider socialist federation or confederation of European states” (Scottish independence and the struggle for socialism p12).

In the Weekly Worker, we will build on the work begun at our federal republic school and develop a comprehensive Marxist critique of this disgraceful capitulation to nationalism. McCombes has already anticipated this and tried to dismiss the arguments of the “small, pseudo-internationalist” Communist Party. He attacks arguments in Jack Conrad’s Blair’s rigged referendum and Scotland’s right to self-determination (typically, he does not reference these quotes, a dishonest tactic he employs throughout the document).

But we are intrigued - will we be the only serious political force fighting SML’s slide towards the abyss? In particular, where is its fraternal organisation in England and Wales, the Socialist Party, headed by Peter Taaffe? Is this comrade - who has proved so sanguine and theoretically inert as his organisation disappears from under him - resigned to the Scottish split? Undoubtedly, if SML is allowed to simply drift away, this will be a potentially fatal blow to the political and organisational integrity of the group as a whole. After Scotland, who will be next?

Of course, Peter Taaffe has become synonymous with what we have called mechanical determinism. Taaffe is only the latest incarnation of this hopeless method, however. This technique, which sees in each and every eventuality a striking confirmation of inevitable progress towards socialism, is intrinsic to the organisation. It is perhaps personified most perfectly not in Taaffe, but by his long-time mentor, the figure of Ted Grant, a man who has left a powerful after-image on the screen of the Socialist Party despite them flicking the switch on him in 1992.

Before he was expelled from the organisation - perhaps the one event in all the many decades of political life that he could not put a positive spin on - Grant became notorious for criminally complacent observations such as this:

“The objective situation is moving in the direction of Marxism and the subjective situation as well … If the Tories win [the election] … Marxism will gain. But if Labour wins Marxism will gain even more” (Militant British perspectives 1983).

Not surprisingly - despite his caution that “events rarely unfold in … a linear fashion” - McCombes’ document is saturated with the same ponderous non-Marxist logic. We will look in detail at this in forthcoming issues of the Weekly Worker. But Taaffe’s position is the most untenable. Does he really think that what is happening before his eyes in Scotland is a healthy development? Perhaps the comrade sees the fact that his Scottish organisation is set on a course of UDI as a striking confirmation of what he wrote in January of this year: “1998 promises even more favourable opportunities for the genuine forces of socialism and Marxism in Britain and worldwide” (The Socialist January 9). As we commented at the time, this was a statement of “pure faith, not science” (Weekly Worker January 15).

In all truth, there seems no way that Taaffe cannot take up the cudgels against this divisive new development. And not before time. Both he and the central SP apparatus have already made important concessions to the growing nationalism in Scotland. Most outrageously, they have justified moves for SML’s growing detachment from the national organisation is the most opportunist fashion:

“The decision to go for autonomy in Scotland on financial matters, but also on other organisational issues, arose from the objective situation in Scotland itself. The growth of a distinct national consciousness requires a change in the form of organisation adopted by Militant [Socialist Party] with regard to Scotland. Scotland is not in the position of a separate section of the Committee for a Workers International. The workers of Scotland still confront not a Scottish, but the British state. This requires that the revolutionary organisation in Scotland should be part of an all-British organisation …” (Members Bulletin No16, March 18 1996 - my emphasis).

It is now clear - just as we warned at the time - that these soothing words were meaningless. The national leadership was simply bottling out of a sharp political fight against the poisonous sectionalism infecting its Scottish ranks. Far from ‘autonomy’ being confined to “organisational issues”, this concession reflected a far deeper political malaise, now manifesting itself in moves to essentially position SML as the left wing of the Scottish National Party.

Before last year’s general election, Taaffe was reiterating that independence “is not on our programme at this point in time. We stand for the right of self-determination, but we also stand for a socialist federation of Britain …” (Links No9, November 1997-February 1998, p112). Yet this position is now characterised by McCombes and the national executive of SML as “contradictory and confused and would provide the SNP with a stick to beat us” (Scottish independence and the struggle for socialism … p12).

When exactly did the Socialist Party as a whole discuss this line change? Does the leadership in England and Wales agree? Has a meeting of the organisation nationally - let alone internationally - endorsed this fundamental shift? Where has been the debate in the pages of The Socialist or Socialism Today?

Are we in fact witnessing the nationalist disintegration of the Socialist Party without a peep of protest or hint of a fight from the organisation’s leadership?

It can only be a matter of time before the ‘Scottish disease’ mutates and infects other component parts of the SP. As leading SP comrades themselves warned back in 1996, if similar moves to ‘autonomy’ in other sections were “accepted and implemented … it will lead to the dissipation and eventual break-up of what is at the moment a successful democratic centralist organisation” (Members Bulletin No16, March 18 1996).

So can we expect a fight? The disease of nationalism in the ranks of the workers’ movement must be beaten wherever it raises its head. It is a threat to us all. We trust the leadership of SP will now - at last - take up its responsibilities.

Mark Fischer
national organiser