19.08.1999

Taaffe loses Pakistan

The disintegration of the Socialist Party in England and Wales, along with its Committee for a Workers International, continues to accelerate. We reproduce statements which have recently come into our hands from the CWI’s Special International Bulletin (October 1998): the first announcing the suspension from the CWI of the Labour Party Pakistan and the second an edited version of the LPP national committee’s response

Statement from the international Secretariat - June 18 1998

Developments in Pakistan

At the meeting on May 30 of the national committee of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), the Pakistan section of CWI, there was a decisive separation of the Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (RMT) from the party.

Comrades of the RMT had declared the formation of a tendency in opposition to the EC majority at the EC meeting on April 22. After only two hours of the meeting, eight national committee members walked out or the meeting because of the refusal of the majority to lift the suspensions of four leading minority comrades in order to allow a democratic, unprejudiced debate on serious differences over political, organisational and financial issues. The comrades of the RMT concluded that there was no longer any possibility of conducting a democratic debate within the Labour Party, which is now completely dominated by NGO (non-government organisation) projects.

These projects, which now receive between US$70-100,000 a year, have not been democratically accountable to the party and have pushed the leadership more and more in the direction of opportunist policies. Moreover the complement of about 40 project employees placed extensive, unaccountable powers of patronage in the hands of the EC majority.

Although a minority on the NC (the vote was 14 to 8), the RMT has the overwhelming support of the party’s genuine activists and its trade union cadres in Lahore and Punjab province.

In this situation, the IS had to act urgently and suspend the LPP as a section of CWI. There was no longer any possibility in our view of simply continuing a debate on political and organisational differences in the hope that they could be resolved through democratic procedures within the LPP and CWI.

The situation had reached a decisive crisis point. For a number of reasons:

1. the suspensions and sackings of members and sympathisers of the opposition tendency demonstrated that the EC majority was not prepared to allow a democratic debate over differences within the LPP;
2. the increasingly opportunist policies of the EC majority (for instance, contesting the recent local body elections on a non-political basis, making unprincipled alliances with rightwing trade union leaders in the Workers Confederation, and diluting the political content of the weekly paper following the sacking of the editor and other staff) were more and more discrediting the LPP among TU militants and left activists and were also threatening to discredit the CWI; and
3. the sharpening perception among TU militants and left activists of the LPP as an organisation dominated by NGO projects, afflicted by all the worse characteristics of NGOs (bureaucratic management of projects, non-accountability of funds, patronage and favouritism through the disposal of project jobs, subsidies, etc, and the promotion of a non-political/reformist image to impress local sponsors and overseas donors), had reached a critical level and was beginning to discredit all the Marxist cadres within LPP, as well as raising doubts about the credentials of CWI as an international revolutionary organisation.

Faced with the intransigent refusal of the EC majority and the NC majority to lift the suspensions and sackings to allow a democratic debate, comrades of the RMT concluded that there was no possibility of reversing the political degeneration of LPP. The IS agreed with their assessment. To have continued a futile battle within the undemocratic structure of LPP would have meant risking the loss of an invaluable core of genuine Marxist activists and also allowing the complete discrediting of CWI among the left in Pakistan.

Given the effective split in the LPP, and on the basis of our agreement with the political position of the opposition tendency, the IS decided that it was necessary to suspend the LPP and recognise the Revolutionary Marxist Tendency as a sympathising group of the CWI and also to declare our support for the RMT’s steps to launch a new revolutionary socialist party in Pakistan ...

The crisis in LPP was not a sudden or unexpected event. A series of sharp differences developed within the party over the last year and a half on trade union work, the national question, party building (especially the lack of internal political life, cadre development, etc), the increasingly dominant influence of the NGO projects over the party’s politics and organisational methods, and the increasingly opportunist direction of the EC majority leadership. The IS has attempted over a long period to debate these issues with the LPP representative (Farooq Tariq) on the international executive committee and with the LPP NC ...

Within a few days, even before any public announcement, the separation of the Marxists from the Labour Party was warmly welcomed by a wide variety or leading trade union militants and left activists. The Labour Party has unfortunately become discredited as an organisation dominated by NGO projects and business activities, and is now seen by many trade union activists as a ‘dummy party’ which organises ‘show business events’, such as demonstrations and press conferences, primarily in order to gain press publicity and impress foreign sponsors and local NGO leaders. In the few days after the split, in discussions with the IS representative and leading comrades of RMT, leaders of the All-Pakistan Trade Union Federation - Punjab and TU militants attending a meeting of over 150 activists in the Model Town area of Lahore (at which the IS representative was the main speaker) welcomed the formation of a genuine revolutionary Marxist party in Pakistan strongly linked to the CWI (which has never been given a high profile by the Labour Party leadership).

LPP national committee meeting, May 30-31

The RMT comrades presented a number of political statements and resolutions to the meeting. The statements outlined the position of the EC minority on perspectives, the trade unions, the national question, party building, etc, as well as giving details of the distortion of party organisation and activity due to the NGO projects...

The RMT comrades wanted to debate all the issues. However, they could not accept the political debate being reduced to a disciplinary issue: that is, whether or not the suspensions or sacking should be upheld or not. The EC majority insisted on presenting the debate as an ‘appeal’, when the suspensions had been imposed by the EC majority on the basis of a pretext (that is, their allegations about what took place at the Education Foundation board meeting on March 20) before any debate on the real political and organisational issues. The RMT comrades therefore moved resolutions at the beginning of the meeting calling for the suspensions and sackings to be lifted in order to allow a democratic debate without organisational sanctions hanging over their heads.

Clearly, it would have been open to the NC to propose disciplinary action following a debate. However, the NC voted 14 to eight against lifting the suspensions and sackings. The eight comrades supporting the RMT concluded that in the light of this decision, together with their previous experience of the EC majority’s bureaucratic conduct, there was no further possibility of democratic debate within the Labour Party. It was noteworthy that apart from the five majority EC members (five of whom are full-timers, while another receives a project sinecure), the others (with two exceptions) are either project employees or (as in the case of Karachi, Hyderabad, and Sukkor) are receiving monthly subsidies.

There was a very strong feeling amongst the RMT comrades that any further activity within the Labour Party would be futile. For a long time the activists have been in conflict with a leadership that is not interested in debating ideas or organisational issues, but is defending a material interest: its control of NGO projects, involving substantial sums of money, salaries and expenses, and extensive patronage, involving project jobs for their relatives and personal favourites. Efforts to activate branch units and develop Marxist education were obstructed by EC members, who denounced these party-building efforts as ‘factional activity’. At the same time, party activists were becoming increasingly affected by criticisms, raised by leading trade union activists, of the Labour Party’s opportunistic ‘campaigns’ and business activities. The priority of RMT comrades is to build a genuine revolutionary organisation, developing cadres, building strong links with rank-and-file trade union activists, consistently supporting workers in struggle, and developing campaigns based on clear Marxist policies.

NGO projects

Four comrades supporting the RMT were suspended by the EC on the grounds that they raised issues about the running of the projects at a meeting on March 20 of the board of the Education Foundation, the body which nominally controls all the projects, in the presence of two representatives of the Swedish donor organisations (though one of the suspended comrades, EC member Khalid B, was not present at the board meeting). Comrades raised concerns at this meeting as a last resort, because all previous calls for proper accountability of the projects and demands for regular meetings of the Education Foundation board had been ignored.

Project funding, mainly from two Swedish trade unions and from the Olaf Palme Institute in Stockholm, has grown considerably in the last few years, and probably now amounts to between US$70,000 and $100,000 a year. Comrades, including IS representatives, repeatedly asked for a full list or all current and projected projects, with details of their funding and the use or their funds for project and party activities. These details have never been provided (moreover, at an EC meeting in January Shoaib B said that the IS had no right to access to such details) ...

There is a widespread view that the Labour Party/Education Foundation projects are no different from any other NGOs, which are seen as a political device of international capitalist agencies for diverting and corrupting labour leaders. The EC majority have tried to present the Education Foundation board meeting as a public forum, whereas in reality it was a closed meeting between the board members and two representatives of the Swedish sponsor organisation There is now a general perception among trade union leaders and activists, left intellectuals, advocates, journalists, etc that the Labour Party is primarily an NGO, operating behind the facade of a ‘dummy’ political party. This reached such an extent that it was seriously discrediting the genuine Marxist activists in our organisation.

Sackings

NGO project finance accounted for at least 80% of the organisation’s financial resources. Through their control of the projects, which were not democratically accountable to the organisation, the EC majority - outside the framework of the EC and NC - decisively controlled the full-time staff of the organisation. Appointment of jobs was dominated by political favouritism and family patronage ... The EC majority’s reliance on patronage was confirmed by the fact that as soon as they were challenged politically they resorted to sackings of any full-time comrades and project workers they considered to be in opposition or ‘unreliable’.

The sackings have been justified by the EC majority by a catalogue of false allegations and character assassination ...

Some of the eight employees who were sacked were not party members or active supporters of RMT; but they had all clashed with members of the EC majority over the running of the projects and were arbitrarily sacked without any proper procedure ... While nine workers have been sacked, other workers who supported the EC majority were given pay increases and others have been offered jobs and other favours.

Balance of forces

The Revolutionary Marxist Tendency, which was formed as an opposition Tendency inside the LPP on May 7, now has the support of the overwhelming majority of party activists in Lahore. The tendency meeting for Lahore comrades held on May 23 was attended (despite the hot weather - 47C/117F) by 52 party members, with apologies from 20 other comrades ... All the comrades present support the political position of the EC minority: the claim from Farooq that most of those present were sent by the EC majority is ridiculous and insulting to the comrades attending.

At an earlier meeting called by the EC majority there were 44 attending. The breakdown of those attending was as follows: four were supporters of the EC minority; two were children, non-party members; 16 were project employees; five consisted of the EC majority members; and there were also 20 rank-and-file party members (plus Simon K) ...

Outside the Labour Party, there are several groups and individual activists who are hostile to the opportunist politics and NGO methods of the EC majority, who have expressed support for the RMT activists and are interested in the formation of a new working class, Marxist organisation.

CWI

Most of the political activists who joined the Labour Party Pakistan in the recent period joined because of its connection to the CWI and in spite of reservations about the leadership’s political methods. The EC majority, however, has never tried to raise the public profile of the international in Pakistan. Very little information about debates and developments in CWI were transmitted to the rank-and-file membership. Comrades of the RMT, on the other hand, believe that full participation in CWI is the key to building a revolutionary organisation in Pakistan. In recent discussions with SK and LW from the IS, a number of left trade union organisations and political activists have expressed their interest in joining CWI through participation in a new, genuinely revolutionary organisation in Pakistan.

The majority of the Labour Party EC have declared an international minority faction to fight the alleged ‘degeneration’ of the IS, but at the same time they have already taken steps to set up a new NGO, a South Asia Study Institute, comprising the Labour Party Pakistan, NSSP (expelled from CWI in 1989) in Sri Lanka, and the CPI (ML) - ‘Liberation’ in India, under the auspices of the Australian Democratic Socialist Party’s Asia-Pacific network organisation This plan was publicly announced in the DSP’s Green Left Weekly, following the Asia-Pacific Forum in May. The plan, however, has never been discussed with the IS or with the CWI sections in Sri Lanka and India, and was not discussed with the IS representative who attended the Asia-Pacific Forum.

A new revolutionary party

The comrades of the RMT are now urgently discussing plans for a new revolutionary party, to be launched as soon as possible. Following the LPP NC on May 30, RMT comrades met to elect an organising committee and a finance committee to prepare for the setting up of a new revolutionary party, with a launching conference to be within a few months. The discussion has started on a new party name, which should reflect its commitment to socialism and to the revolutionary unity of Pakistan’s different nationalities and ethnic minorities. The comrades have acquired an office ... and are preparing to produce a monthly paper. A financial appeal to members and sympathisers is already underway, and the comrades (learning from the bad example of the Labour Party Pakistan) are emphasising the need for a rigorous approach to the collection of subs and fighting fund ...

Protest against the suspension of the Labour Party from CWI - July 10 1998

The International Secretariat of CWI has suspended the affiliation of the Labour Party Pakistan, the Pakistan Section of CWI. The reasons given for this one-sided, undemocratic action are that the Labour Party is involved in projects which are undemocratically run and have reduced the revolutionary identity of the party; that it has suspended and removed the leading comrades without democratic debates; that it has stopped democratic discussions on differences of perspectives in the sections. We reject the allegations. This is just one-sided propaganda against the largest section of CWI in a colonial country.

We would like the comrades of this international to read our point of view and then make up your mind. The IS have printed selected correspondence between the two sections and proportionally it has printed 10 times more propaganda material to strengthen its position.

Even before a discussion on the IEC on the suspension of the Labour Party, it has created and recognised the Marxist Workers Tendency as its affiliated group in Pakistan. This is in violation of the CWI constitution.

Projects

Labour Party supporters had a political discussion in 1994, if we should start some community-based projects that will give us a chance to prove in practice that we are different and that we can run and manage things better than others. In the last three years, we have organised four projects.

The projects have given us an opportunity to do some community work and they have given us a special respect in the trade union movement that we are doing something practical for them. All the propaganda, that the reliance of the organisation is too much on the projects and so on, are to deviate the real intention of the IS towards its hidden agenda to change the leadership of the party. Once they failed in this process miserably, they provoked a split.

The propaganda that we have hidden information from the IS and from the leading comrades is incorrect. What we have not allowed is to take the project proposals out of the building, but any leading comrade can have access to all the documents of the projects.

To start the projects, in the initial period, comrade Farooq Tariq spent a lot of time on the preparations of these proposals. But from January 1997 party work has been completely separated from project work and this year is the last year of the projects. A committee was elected by the June 1997 NC meeting to supervise and guide the work of the projects. This committee has done its work successfully for the last year. Each project has a separate committee to guide the work. On top of that the project committee which is responsible to the EC is looking after the projects.

The present crisis

The IS and Pakistan had a very good relationship till comrade Farooq Tariq voted in abstention on the American debate. It was clear that in 1997 the IS took a decision to make inroads in the Pakistan section to create a new leadership which is submissive to the international on every subject.

The difference of approach on different issues with the present IS goes a long way. The IS ignored the differences in the last few years, but the vote on America was too much for the international.

IS visit to Pakistan

Comrade Farooq abstained from voting at the IEC in November 96, and voted against the IS in November 97. During this period comrades from the IS made conscious efforts to have a base in Pakistan apart from the section.

Comrade Simon and Siritunga from Sri Lanka came to Pakistan in January 97, a few days before the general elections, where three of the leading comrades were participating in the elections. Both comrades attended some of our public meetings and were inspired by the support of the party among the working class, particularly among the railway workers. They did not say anything of difference before election day. Just after the election, in the EC meeting, comrade Siri and Simon attacked comrade Farooq for not predicting the actual results and tried to show to the EC that the Pakistan section has an ideologically very weak leadership.

This was the first incident where the IS consciously started to find and investigate the weaknesses of the leadership.

In the meantime, comrade Simon developed his personal and political relationship with Khalid Bhatti, who had only a year before joined the organisation. Simon remained in Pakistan for four months. In that period, we held our national conference in May 97. It was our suggestions and not of the IS, but Simon agreed about the proposal. Before the conference, we had disagreements about the role of the Pakistan Workers Confederation and our work in the trade unions. Simon raised it in the EC and in the NC before the conference and he also wanted to raise the differences in the conference. We did not want to go to the conference with a difference of opinion as this would have very bad effects on the newer comrades who had never been in the socialist movement. Simon agreed to this after a strong hesitation, only after we agreed that we take back the section on the working class from our conference. So the show of differences at the conference was avoided with that agreement.

On the name debate, the IS proposed that we should name ourselves the Justice Party or something similar. But the overwhelming majority of the comrades were in favour of naming ourselves the Labour Party. That is nothing to do with the betrayals of the Labour Party in Europe, but purely due to the objective realities in Pakistan, where this name was never used, was easy and a class-based name. It was agreed by all the comrades that the objective conditions in Pakistan do not allow us to use the words ‘socialist’, ‘Marxist’ or ‘revolutionary’. It is ironic that the supporters of the IS who agreed with full enthusiasm on the above proposals have now called themselves the Marxist Workers Tendency.

On the name change, the IS document in Pakistan was translated in Urdu and was distributed among all the comrades of the party. It was printed in the internal bulletin. Not a single comrade voted for the IS document so with a unanimous decision at the June 97 NC the new party was named the Labour Party. The IS did not accept this and did not print in any of the publications of the CWI even eight months after we had named the party. This was their Stalinist attitude to censor opposite ideas. When the Scottish comrades interviewed comrade Farooq and they printed the name of the party it was a big problem for the British section.

The second visit of the IS was not even consulted with the section. They were told a day before that they are landing. In this visit, Simon came only twice to the centre and Lynn three times. It was mainly to inform us about their position and not to discuss with us. They used the second visit to form the group and discussed with every single comrade they could find in Lahore. They went around in the trade unions to explain their position and to say that the CWI is not with the Labour Party. Trade union leaders listened to them with patience as we had built the respect of the IS and CWI, and later came to us in surprise, asking why the IS is trying to divide the section.

Why expulsions?

The organisation set up a registered non-government organisation to run the projects. In 1994, members of the NC were to become board members of the Education Foundation ... It was decided by our conference constitution that the NC members would be the board members of this organisation ... These six and some of the trade unions leaders were normally invited to attend the meeting whenever the donor unions were coming to Pakistan. It was agreed that the projects would be run not by this board, but by the project committee, which is elected by the NC and responsible to the EC and NC.

In March 98, there was a visit from a donor trade union. We called the board meeting to welcome the guests. In the meeting, the supporters of the IS levelled charges of corruption and of undemocratic behaviour. They told the guests that we don’t know how many projects we are running, they were never asked to attend the meetings and so on. These were complete lies. It was clear that in the presence of the donor union these comrades raised these issues only with one intention: that they should stop the donations to us.

They had every chance to raise these issues within the organisation. Comrade Khalid had raised the issue in the EC meeting and it was agreed that we should discuss these issues in the national committee. So without raising it in the organisation they tried to reach a solution by raising it outside the organisation. It was a clear violation of party discipline. It was an effort to cut the economic lifeline of the organisation. It was the worst sort of betrayal against the organisation. The EC issued a statement on the subject and sent it to all the NC members for their recommendations. We also asked the comrades who had raised these allegations that they should come and check the finances of the projects to clarify the position. We also said if we are not guilty, they should accept the mistake. But these comrades had made their minds to separate themselves from the party on the instruction of the IS, so they refused any of our offers. Comrade Khalid refused several times to check the finances and he wanted to take the project proposals and the finance reports out of the office, which we refused. After three weeks, when it was clear that these comrades did not want to remain in the organisation, the EC decided to suspend the comrades.

The IS supporters formed a minority faction and moved a resolution to call an NC meeting. We called the meeting on May 30. The minority comrades alongside with Lynn came to the meeting. They wanted the NC to decide on the suspensions before the discussion started, which was rejected by 14 to eight. Lynn Walsh made a provocative statement, announcing the suspension of the Labour Party and telling us that we are finished and then boycotted the meeting. One of the eight has now announced his support for Labour Party.

It is clear from all the circumstances that the IS had decided in advance to split the section and to form a group of loyal comrades in Pakistan. They have done so, but the proposed ‘split’ could not take place, as only a handful of comrades have left the organisation. The Labour Party has remained intact. It is not a “dummy” party, as the IS has tried to label us. The ‘dummies’ are the most active left activists in Pakistan whose number is growing every day. The ‘dummies’ have won most of the trade union leaders to their ranks and, apart from one, not a single trade union comrade has gone with them.

Political differences

The IS tried to create some political differences. These differences are mainly on tactics in the field of trade unions, the national question, fundamentalism and on projects.

In the trade union field, we think the main priority of the organisation should be to bring all organised workers to one platform. For that we have been practically active for the last few years. In 1993, on our suggestions, most of the unions in Pakistan got together in one platform called the Pakistan Trade Unions Action Committee. We were the only political group on the executive body of this committee ... In 1995, seven large trade union federations who were part of the committee decided to form a different platform called the Pakistan Workers Confederation. We gave critical support to this platform. The confederation is not exactly like the British Trade Union Congress. But it is a step towards that. This constitutes the unity of the organised workers although they are in a small numbers ... We do not give any concession to any trade union leader, particularly to the left leaders. But our criticism is not like criticising them as our class enemies. This has been turned into our ‘concessions’ to the leaders.

Every year one section

Comrade Lynn Walsh on behalf of the IS has butchered every year one section in the last few years. India, America and now Pakistan. He is now trying in his own section in Britain. He has brought a very peculiar approach to CWI. The present IS have failed to make progress internationally. They have a twist and turn policy on every aspect. Growth in Pakistan does not owe much to the international, but the ‘split’ has been seen by every single member of our party and our sympathisers as brilliant work done by the IS of CWI. We had built CWI and will do so in future, but also we will expose the wrong methods of the present IS. Section after section is facing crisis because of the unwanted interventions of the IS.

The members of CWI should take action. They should protest the suspension of the Labour Party from CWI and of comrade Farooq as IEC member ... Lynn Walsh and co are finished as genuine Marxists. They have become conspirators, manoeuvrers and all the other illnesses of degenerated socialists. They have forgotten to grow. Growth is something alien for them now. In the colonial world they wanted small groups who would be heavily dependent on them financially and politically. They don’t want equal partners: they want submissive leadership. We have refused to become like that, so we are ‘finished revolutionaries’.

They don’t have any strategy for those sections that are not growing, but they have good strategies of stopping and dividing the growing sections.

We declare that we will fight these illnesses within the CWI. The IS is now claiming that recent recruits to the Labour Party joined because of the authority of the CWI. It is not the angels who have built the respect of the CWI in Pakistan. It is the hard, self-sacrificing work of the Labour Party comrades. Now the IS wants to enjoy the fruits of our hard labour by creating a new group, thus splitting the tiny forces of Marxism in Pakistan. They will not go very far.

Long live socialist revolutionaries internationally!