23.09.1999

SLP - the nine errors

Delphi reflects on the failure of Scargill’s former close courtiers, the shadowy Fourth International Supporters Caucus (Fisc)

Simon Harvey is at it again. Instead of real analysis of ‘Fisc’, Brar, the Scargill phenomenon and the decline of the SLP we have yet another superficial report on personalities and organisational intrigue, much of it repeated from earlier material in the Weekly Worker. Simon is not so well informed as he makes out, otherwise his ‘revelations’ would be more up to date and informative (Weekly Worker September 16).

While the Weekly Worker printed a document entitled a ‘Fisc manifesto’, there has been no comment on the actual (and, as it transpired, valedictory) discussion document circulated by Pat Sikorski, for the ‘invitation only’ meeting of disgruntled SLPers in July. Obviously Simon was not invited, as we would have expected a full analysis of the real Fisc manifesto and a report on the meeting.

Delphi (who, to reiterate, is not of ‘Fisc’ and genuinely knows not if such a group exists, other than a body of co-thinkers out of the Socialist Outlook stable) can assure the Weekly Worker that the published, so-called, ‘Fisc manifesto’ in fact emanated from a group of branches in the SLP which have no allegiance to Fisc, nor do they constitute a faction in the SLP. The real Fisc manifesto has apparently fallen on deaf ears, since the ‘invitation only’ meeting, like Carolyn Sikorski’s attempts to found an alternative SLP womens’ section, was a complete flop. In this document (which was intended to be circulated as a pamphlet after the meeting) the disillusionment and demoralisation felt by Sikorski and his followers is almost palpable.

This signals the end not only of a faction in the SLP (for as such they ended up operating, even if they did not constitute one from the start), but of one of the hitherto healthier currents in British Trotskyism. In the process they have laid the SLP on a plate before some of the most loopy Stalinists ever to gnaw at the fringes of the British labour movement, and have let down all the SLP members who looked to them for leadership. As such the failure of ‘Fisc’ is worth analysing in more detail than the Weekly Worker has so far attempted.

Delphi would like to contribute to this analysis by outlining some of the errors made by Fisc.

Error one is referred to in comrade Harvey’s article. Support at the founding congress from Brian Heron and Trevor Wongsam for the infamous formulation on ‘non-racist immigration controls’ to be drawn up “in the cold light of day”! This seriously undermined the SLP’s credibility as an internationalist, anti-racist party.

Error two The failure of Pat Sikorski to carry out his job as general secretary and use it to maintain contact with members. This both undermined his credibility with the membership and aroused the ire of Arthur, himself a ‘workaholic’ and ‘slavedriver’ when it comes to even the detailed organisational tasks. Stalin used his position as general secretary to build a power base in the provinces. It seemed that Sikorski was not interested in courting branches outside London. The way he posed his resignation was seen as a form of blackmail and by taking his bat home he handed the post to Arthur. His reasons - pressure of trade union activity and work - may have been valid. If so, why did he not request the help of London comrades and run a de facto secretariat - one of the suggestions he later proposed for curbing Arthur’s control?!

Error three Despite a high-profile black member in Imran Khan there was little real effort made to build a black section. For example, despite requests, no foreign language texts were produced for the 1997 general election leaflets. And only a few meetings were called for a handful of members. This fuelled the suspicion that the main interest was black section seats on the NEC.

Error four On being defeated over black sections at the 1997 congress again the ‘Fisc’ delegates took home their collective bat - an action which, howbeit short-lived, demonstrated their unreliability and did not go down well with non-aligned members. It overshadowed the 3,000 votes issue.

Error five The Fisc members on the NEC failed to carry out their duties, including producing the NEC bulletin, and undermined arrangements for the 1998 congress, diverting their energies to attacking the Scargill leadership, in what was regarded by members as an underhand way through the ‘Appeal’ circulated to selected members. Pat Sikorski dug his own political grave by being seen to challenge Arthur, when, in reality, he had not done the groundwork in the party to mount such a challenge.

Error six On the ousting of Sikorski by Bull Fisc went into overdrive demanding Bull’s expulsion, despite the presence of EPSR supporters in the party having gone unchallenged before. Instead they should have bitten the bullet, demanded the muzzling of Bull (which he would not have consented to), exposed his politics before the membership and then moved to his expulsion, even being prepared to wait until the next congress to remove him. The excuse that his presence as vice-president was damaging to the party paled besides the sad reality that the Fisc response proved even more damaging.

Error seven Carolyn Sikorski’s cancelling of the women’s section conference, in the fear that it was being packed by ‘Scargillite’ supporters, and her boycott of the reconvened conference, which left herself and a handful of perceived party dis-loyalists literally standing on the doorstep and voluntarily excluded from the debate. It was only thanks to non-aligned women present that the Stalinists who had been handed, again on a plate, the ‘leadership’ of the women’s section did not there and then initiate expulsion proceedings. Instead of trying to regain lost ground Sikorski went ahead with a doomed attempt to set up an alternative women’s section, thus alienating even those women who had supported her.

Error eight This needs no elaboration, as the Weekly Worker has described the whole sorry farce. The taking the bat home experience par excellence The refusal to play during the Euro elections. London region is handed to the Stalinists on another plate with heaps of garnishing and an apple in its mouth.

Error nine Carolyn and Brian falling in arrears of subs. Voided on their own petard.

Perhaps other instances can be added to the nine errors of Fisc. They led inexorably to Fisc not only putting itself out on a limb, but helping the Stalinists saw it off. What are they due to? Sheer incompetence and amateurism? A total lack of a sense of tactics and patience to achieve what can only be approached as a long-term objective - the creation of a new party?

The root of the problem resides in the factionalist, sectarian mentality inherent in Trotskyism and the ‘Bolshevik’ left in general, to some degree or another. At the root is fetishism of the programme, which stems from a failure to realise the primacy of praxis, practical revolutionary action. The sect attempts to assert its authority and legitimacy, not through involving itself in the struggle of the oppressed, but by perfecting a programme wherein lies all the answers to the class struggle. The task of the sect and of the party it tries, but inevitably fails, to create is to present the programme to the class and win adherents to the revolution on the basis of acceptance of the programme.

Those who depart from the programme are anathematised as intractable opponents, leading to the perennial factionalism and splitting which afflicts the left. Despite their proclaimed intention of building a broad-based party of left refoundation, ‘Fisc’ has proved unable to work with those with whom it has disagreements - not only ideological Stalinists, but those employing ‘Stalinist’ organisational methods drawn from the trade union bureaucracy. This is despite that fact that they ostensibly shared the same programme as embodied in the SLP constitution. The only erosion of this agreed platform has been the loss of black sections. But that in itself should not have led to Fisc’s retreat. If the real issue is that of self-organisation, then despite the abolition of black sections, there was nothing to stop them pursuing a campaign of recruiting and organising black people within the party, ultimately leading to the restoration of black sections. But no. A shibboleth of the programme had been defiled and it was time to get Scargill. Foolishly they decided to fight him on his own ground - organisation - and not exploit his weakness - theory.

At no time has Fisc posed a theoretical alternative to Scargillism or Stalinism which can form the guidelines for the creation of the type of party they claimed to be striving for. They could argue that the internal regime in the party prohibiting the circulation of documents prevented this, but there are ways this can be circumvented (Harpal Brar has no problem doing this!) and platforms outside the party (such as, no doubt, the Weekly Worker) which could be used to generate real debate about the way forward for the SLP.

The departure of Fisc now means that the opposition to Stalinism in the SLP has been severely, though not yet mortally, wounded. Harpal Brar is now the leading active intellectual in the party with several regions under his belt, as far as place-men and women on committees goes. However, his ideology has not permeated to the remaining rank and file of the party and is more likely to alienate members than win them over if it does.

The conflict between the two currents of the Bolshevik tradition has brought the SLP to the verge of disaster, despite the objective historical basis for Bolshevism having long since disappeared. Another example of - as your ‘Fisc manifesto’ said, quoting Marx - “the traditions of past generations [that] weigh like a nightmare on the brain of the living”. Does this mean that there is no hope for a revolutionary socialist party of a new type? Does it mean that the SLP and the Socialist Alliances, as I have previously said, will remain towers of Babel, with everyone reaching for the socialist heavens but cursed to speak mutually unintelligible languages - if often using the same words?

The key lies in the left gaining an understanding of revolutionary praxis. The fault of both the Trotskyist and Stalinist left stems from the adoption of a false dichotomy between theory and practice, between subject and object in history. Thought is seen, on the one hand, purely in terms of reflecting the material world. On the other it becomes a body of theory, abstracted from those reflections, to be mechanically applied to change class consciousness to correspond to political and social change which is attributed primarily to predetermined, historical laws. This is most apparent in the pseudo-scientific, millenarianist outpourings of Royston Bull, but it afflicts to varying degrees all the ‘Marxist’ left. Far from actually reflecting objectivity, left theory has developed an autonomy from the real world with its own values, points of reference and rules. It has become a fantasy land of ideal types - ‘the proletariat’, ‘imperialism’, ‘revolution’, etc.

Instead, thought itself must be understood as a form of praxis. Even the most sacrosanct precepts of theory must be constantly tested in the cauldron of real life practical struggles. The reality must be faced that the left globally is in a weaker position than any time in the past century, that the industrial proletariat is not straining at the leash to fulfil its historical mission of carrying forward the productive forces and that imperialism is not on the eve of imminent catastrophic collapse. This is the real world which has to be analysed if we are to devise new tactics and strategy of socialist revolution. It does not allow for nit-picking perfectionism about details of abstract party programmes or correct organisational forms. This time and intellectual energy should be devoted to refining a critique of 21st century imperialism as it is - its dynamics, the new class formations it is creating, how it exerts its ideological hegemony. We cannot defeat the beast we do not know - especially with weapons the left has mainly devised to tilt at windmills.

The divorce of thought/subject and theory/matter has also obscured the left’s vision of the basic contradiction of imperialism - the conflict between human society and the natural world. The misapprehension that human thought is separate from, and not a property of, nature has reinforced the technocratic, scientistic view of socialism as primarily about the development of productive forces. In turn this has abandoned whole fields of struggle (including literal fields of GM crops) to environmentalists who often fail to challenge the fallacy that an ecologically sustainable economy and capitalism are reconcilable. It has prevented the left from combating consumerism and the myth of capitalist ‘wealth’. Above all it has prevented the left infusing socialism with a true humanist perspective which envisages humankind as the material world becoming aware of itself, utilising that awareness consciously to develop as a species-being in harmony with other species.

Delphi was gratified to see Gerry Downing’s tribute to John Toland (Weekly Worker July 8), who in the early 18th century grasped the unity of the material world in a way that many 20th century ‘Marxists’ have proved incapable of comprehending. They have replaced the duality of spirit (emanating from god) and matter, which Tolund and Spinoza refuted, with the duality of matter and theory (emanating from Marx/Lenin/Stalin, etc). Socialism should be the contemporary realisation of the pantheism of Tolund and of the monists who have succeeded him, including Marx, synthesised with all those other philosophers and revolutionaries who understand that there is more to socialism than carrying forward the productive forces to provide a world of abundant commodities and a classless but goalless society.

This realisation should also provide an ethical underpinning to socialism which it currently lacks. The cold, soulless, joyless version of socialism currently on offer has no attraction for the oppressed, even those starving on the margins of existence. In practice in the 20th century it has only delivered new ruling classes and forms of exploitation. Socialists need to emphasise the creation of new, non-exploitative, relationships between people - not only after the revolution, but in the process of struggle. This requires a whole new culture on the left. To get back to the origin of the article, it needs a type of approach which Fisc showed itself incapable of delivering. Despite the subjective impulse to build a new party, Fisc proved in practice as conservative and impervious to concrete realities as its opponents.

The experience of the SLP provides vital lessons for all socialists. It deserves a bit more searching analysis from comrade Harvey.