17.12.1998

Perspectives ’99

Party notes

December’s aggregate of the Communist Party looked at the question of our organisational and political perspectives for next year. Primarily this took the form of reports and discussions around the recent negotiations on united left electoral slates for the forthcoming European elections. A Perspectives ’99 document was also introduced to the meeting, but will be finalised at our first meeting in 1999 itself.

While there will be disagreements over details, the leadership of our Party - the Provisional Central Committee - does not anticipate controversy around the main ideas contained in this document. Comrades should take care to read, think about and discuss its central points in their cells before the next aggregate debates and votes.

The subtitle of Perspectives ’99 is ‘A year of change?’ Certainly, the terrain on which we fight for working class politics has shifted since the election of Blair’s Labour. In the arena of bourgeois politics, there is a great deal happening. Nothing dramatic has yet moved in working class politics, however.

Certainly, the justification of practically every section of the left for a vote for Labour in 1997 - that it would very quickly precipitate a “crisis of expectations” - has definitely been confirmed as claptrap. Any sudden upsurge of class struggle - 18 months in power - cannot be attributed to high expectations supposedly existent at the time of the May 1997 general election. Such a development would be new, would have its own distinct causes and would represent a break with exceedingly low expectations that produced the Blair parliamentary landslide - and the most rightwing Labour government ever.

Similarly, sections of the left are now writing extravagantly of the looming world crisis of capitalism and its beneficial effects for socialist ideas. The notion that any prolonged downturn in the world economy will automatically translate into advances for the left is inane. It reflects precisely the same mechanical methodology as the ‘expectations’ crowd: a failure to fundamentally link theory and practice, a hope that someone, something else will intervene to rescue us.

Thus, while the political and economic scene is characterised by fluidity and change, we would be foolish to predict a dramatic breakthrough for the forces of the working class over the coming 12 months. Crisis could overwhelm British and world capitalism. The left could make dramatic advances. Society certainly contains sufficient combustible material for explosion. However, surveying the political scene now, it is impossible for us to predict in what form and according to what timetable change will come.

For the past period, the emphasis within our organisation has been on cadre and organisational preservation. Despite the volubility of the world situation and how it manifests itself in Britain, this should continue to be reflected in our work as we begin 1999. We must remain alive to the possibilities for dramatic change and be prepared to totally transform our tempo and form of work. However, our world view will not go into crisis if at the end of the year the situation is broadly the same (or worse). In the absence of a crystal ball, continuity and preservation remain important watchwords for us. Essential in this will be systematic education for all our comrades and overcoming the theoretical passivity we have identified as a problem of Party members at all levels of the organisation.

This question of Party education has sparked a small debate over the past few months in cells and aggregates. While the PCC remains open to suggestions and advice over the content and form of this important area of Party work, the source of our problems is not technical. The key problem of Party education as well as its culture more generally (such as our ongoing casual attitude to recruitment) is the fact that our comrades are relatively isolated.

That is, what are the contact points of our comrades with the real world? Who are they talking to, in what forums, leading to what action? Who do they lead or influence, even in the most general sort of way?

If our comrades operated as more rounded politicians in more challenging forums, they would need to use theory more and to take a more critical attitude to ideas - including the dominant ideas of the Party itself. This is the only way that education in our ranks will strike home.

It is in this context that we have started to look at the question of systematic work in the trade unions - it is certainly not viewed as a ‘get rich quick’ exercise.  We have consistently pointed to the self-evident truth that trade unions in Britain currently operate at a very low level and to the fact that the left makes such a fetish of them because of its much deeper political problems. This should not, however, be interpreted as a sectarian dismissal of what are, after all, mass organs of our class.

Like much else in Perspectives ’99, our plans in this field remain tentative and premised on the political and economic situation that faces us in the here and now. If 1999 does indeed turn out to be the ‘year of change’, then perhaps everything will be up for grabs.

Mark Fischer
national organiser