02.07.1998

CPB’s Rosser stands down

The factional struggle in the so-called Communist Party of Britain came to a head at the June annual general meeting of the People’s Press Printing Society (the cooperative which owns the Morning Star). Since then a messy purge has been going on, largely behind the scenes. As this is not accompanied by open debate, not least in the columns of the Star, political clarification cannot be achieved. Consequently the unity achieved against the deposed management committee majority cannot be consolidated in a positive way.

When the CPB political committee discussed the new regime at the Star on June 20, all it had to report to the paper’s readers was that “good sales ... at trade union conferences ... were no substitute for increased regular daily readers”, and that it pledged “CPB support” (Morning Star June 22). The first meeting of the new PPPS management committee warranted a similarly anodyne report in the same issue. Ken Cameron, Fire Brigades Union leader, was elected chairman, Carolyn Jones deputy chair and Ann Green fund organiser. Supporters were urged “to make a speedy success of the £120,000 special appeal to launch a daily 12-page paper at the TUC in September”.

Those who were hoping to read of the summary dismissal of chief executive Mary Rosser for sacking editor John Haylett and causing the five-week journalists’ strike were sorely disappointed. We had to wait until June 26 to learn that she had stood down as PPPS chief executive and secretary, and from the management committee - but only after a replacement had been found. (The missing sport and TV, and the black masthead on that day, were entirely unconnected, being caused by “problems at our typesetters”, we were told.)

Rosser started work on the Star as fund organiser in 1976, was appointed secretary in 1980 and chief executive in 1983, alongside then editor Tony Chater. In those days it was not the chief executive, but the editor, under the political guidance of the ‘official’ Communist Party of Great Britain political committee, who was in charge. Rosser was Chater’s subordinate, and remained loyal to him, not the Party, when he declared independence, dubbing the then Eurocommunist-led CPGB “an outside body” from which he would no longer take instructions. Most of the centrist opposition followed suit, transferring their loyalties to the section of the Party bureaucracy around Chater and Rosser, which subsequently formed the Communist Campaign Group and then the CPB.

The CPB’s manner of birth - as a support organisation for the Star - determined the inverted relationship between ‘party’ and paper. In principle, a party needs a paper as its means of expression, to “agitate, educate and organise”. In this case, the Morning Star needed an organisation of supporters, while the CPB is formally committed to not controlling it politically. The tail wags the dog.

Jenny Williams, a management committee member from 1977 to 1995, has agreed to take over as chief executive in August. Once a member of the ‘official’ CPGB executive committee, she is currently a Labour Party member, as is PPPS chairman Ken Cameron.

In Rosser’s letter of resignation, she says, “After 22 years, I remain committed to the paper and its future and will, if the committee so wishes, stay and train a successor.” Although Rosser and those who supported her against Haylett have acknowledged defeat - “the shareholders have spoken” - some semblance of unity has been maintained in front of the readers. The PPPS special general meeting for the express purpose of removing unwanted management committee members failed to materialise: less than 600 signatures were gathered, falling well short of the required 800 or so. At the AGM, Haylett shared the platform with Rosser and Pat Hicks, and spoke of unity, not vengeance.

No one on the staff has been sacked, although Rosser’s son-in-law, Paul Corry, resigned as deputy editor immediately after the AGM. The advertisement for a new deputy editor has been replaced by one for a mere news reporter, as Bill Benfield (ex-NCP and now a CPBer) and Mike Ambrose (ex-CPGB and now Labour Party) have both been promoted to the status of deputy. They are responsible for production and news respectively, on the basis of “professional merit rather than political allegiance”. Business manager Bob Newland resigned his post after the strike had won Haylett’s reinstatement.

Of the “unhealthy elements” on the management committee - those who backed Rosser’s sacking of Haylett - Joan Bellamy and Francis Wilcox, both CPB executive committee members, have resigned since the AGM. Only Terry Herbert, Kumar Murshid and Anni Marjoram remain. The latter two are said to be associated with the Socialist Action group and Ken Livingstone.

Shortly after the PPPS AGM Bob Newland also resigned his CPB membership, as his position had been “made impossible”. Veteran Peter Pink is one of many others to quit the CPB during the conflict. It remains to be seen whether Mary Rosser, Pat Hicks, Francis Wilcox and North West district secretary Peter Ritman - all suspended in May - wait around long enough for the mid-July CPB executive meeting to decide their fate.

The idea is peddled by the new leadership - both in the CPB and in the PPPS management committee - that the differences were purely personal, that there was no political cause of the Star’s recent crisis. In truth the ‘revolutionary’ reformist British road to socialism programme which worships the power of the state necessitates the bureaucratic suppression of views and generates personal cliques and fiefdoms. The revolutionary struggle for collective self-liberation, on the other hand, requires the open, public conflict of ideas and elevates principle above personal loyalties.

The denial of a political cause, unfortunately, guarantees that one will not be found. Further destructive battles between new rival leadership cliques can be expected a little further down the British road.

Ian Farrell