02.03.2000

CWI loses coherence

The Scottish Socialist Party held its conference in Edinburgh's City Chambers last weekend. Our team reports

In general the Scottish Socialist Party's conference was a rather low-key, but nevertheless interesting event. A contradiction which stems from its right centrist leadership on the one hand and on the other hand from the fact that the SSP is a real, albeit a small, part of the advanced section of the working class movement in Scotland. It is no sect, united as a condition of continued membership around a single world view, usually expounded in great detail by some all-knowing guru - Bakunin, Trotsky, Mao, Cliff, Hoxha, Healy, Taaffe, etc.

The SSP has an executive committee which, while dominated by former Scottish Militant Labour cadre - Alan McCombes, Tommy Sheridan, Richie Venton, Frances Curren, etc - also includes erstwhile Labourites Allan Green and Hugh Kerr. As a whole this bloc has neither interest nor intention of forging a revolutionary vanguard. Indeed there is a philistine denigration of serious theory, an eclectic avoidance of clearly defined principle and fear of open debate around strategy and key tactics. What pulls the SSP executive together into a functioning body is an opinion poll-led attitude towards Scottish independence and a reformist national socialism.

So, while donning the mantel of Bolshevism when convenient, the McCombes-Sheridan-Green-Kerr leadership instinctively seeks to immerse its rank and file membership in day-to-day activism and questions that are either secondary at best or involve endless speculative details about the legislation a putative SSP majority in Holyrood would introduce - everything from reducing CFC emissions to introducing a Scottish Service Tax, from nationalising North Sea oil to a sub-subsistence minimum wage, from animal 'rights' to legalising 'soft' drugs, from gender equality in parliament to fragmenting Scotland's supposedly 'feudal' landholdings into a patchwork of small and medium farms.

Though the SSP claims 2,000 members, it only mobilised 120 to 150 full participants - at present every SSP member has the right to vote at conference. However the SSP is no Potemkin village. If anything, it has similarities with Dr Who's Tardis. Membership figures are no doubt exaggerated, but it is not a Scottish version of Arthur Scargill's 'party'. From the genesis of the SSP in the Scottish Socialist Alliance, comrades McCombes, Sheridan, etc have gone to great lengths not to be seen to be directing things through bringing to bear their faction's full numerical weight.

Fearing no serious challenge to their position and the SSP's nationalist orientation, they deliberately hold back from all-out mobilisations. There is also a recognition that at present Glasgow is leagues ahead of the other areas and branches, and definite rivalries and tensions exist between Edinburgh and Dundee on the one hand and the Glasgow giant on the other. These factors combine to reduce the size of the SSP on show at conference ... and simultaneously to enhance the impact of minority factions and platforms.

Obviously the election of comrade Sheridan to the Scottish parliament has provided a tremendous boost. That and the very credible performance of the SSP list for June's EU elections - headed by comrade Kerr - has made it by far the most important organisation on the left in Scotland. The Socialist Workers Party has found itself out-manoeuvred and out in the cold due to its arrogant refusal to participate in the Scottish Socialist Alliance. The SWP is a large sect, but devoid of influence. As to the SLP in Scotland, it is now little more than an unpleasant memory.

The triumph of the SSP over its rivals was reflected in comrade Sheridan's confident opening remarks to conference and the virtual irrelevance of left factions outside the SSP in the minds of its members. It should also be added that the Scottish TV and media were there in force. Tommy's party is news.

The first debate centred on the 'Scottish economy' paper presented by leading SSP theorist Alan McCombes (editor of Scottish Socialist Voice). Unfortunately - given its thoroughly reformist premises and a nationalist commitment to weakening, not overthrowing the United Kingdom state - it did not provoke serious opposition. In part this was due to the restriction on the number of motions branches can submit. In part it was also due to the political and theoretical weakness of the main opposition platform - the Republican Communist Network, which unites a broad range of revolutionary forces (the dissolved Red Republicans, various Trotskyites and semi-Trotskyites, the Campaign for a Federal Republic and supporters of the CPGB).

Conference momentarily burst into life thanks to an anodyne and essentially liberal motion from South West Edinburgh on 'SSP inclusion'. This contained the standard, well-intentioned pledge on self-organisation and integration around issues of "race, gender, disability and gay, lesbian and bisexual rights".

A couple of vocal - and slightly unhinged - members took exception to the "homosexual agenda". To begin with, there was a muted ripple of applause. In the name of the "normal" majority they objected in particular to the abolition of the infamous section 28 - in Scotland this has cemented a holy alliance of catholic and protestant bigots. In the Ayr by-election campaign abolition of section 28 is proving highly controversial.

Though there were a mere two votes against and two abstentions, conference as a body gave vent to its moral indignation against the display of homophobia within its ranks. Every factional champion and gay activist got cheered. In my opinion this was not just a matter of political correctness. Given Ayr and the disgraceful economistic objections Militant once raised against fighting on or even airing such matters, it is real politics and shows moreover that there has been a major cultural shift amongst these comrades in line with society at large.

The Dundee branch motion on 'Republicanism and the SSP' illustrated the RCN's lack of clarity. It was pitted against the executive's paper on independence. Moved by Mary Ward (Campaign for a Federal Republic), the Dundee motion included much unnecessary descriptive material along with nonsense about how the republican tradition of the British Chartists, Marx, Engels and Lenin was "developed" by the anti-CPGB national separatist John Maclean. By implication it was also regretted by them that comrade Sheridan swore the oath of allegiance and took his seat in Holyrood. Equally wrong-headedly the motion called on the SSP to abolish the monarchy and all crown powers "without recourse to a referendum." A stance that comrade Ward stressed in her reply to the debate.

However, such weaknesses - along with silliness about a "genuinely democratic workers' republic" being "free from all vestiges of feudalism", as if the monarchy, etc, are feudal, not capitalist institutions - should not lead one to dismiss the positive intention and thrust of the Dundee motion. It sought to commit the SSP to actively campaign for republicanism - not only in Scotland, but throughout the UK.

In his speech Nick Clarke - also Campaign for a Federal Republic - made a powerful case for republicanism and Scottish self-determination, while as an internationalist and a communist opposing independence. The SSP, he stressed, should base itself not on the principle of nation, but class. Unfortunately he too tried to prove his militant credentials by dismissing the SSP's demand for a referendum on the monarchy. Sandy McBurney (Glasgow Marxist Forum) explained in his turn that rejecting independence did not mean commitment to a British road to socialism. Socialism has to be international. There is though, the comrade maintained, a British state and an historically constituted working class in Britain. The SSP should therefore strive, together with others in Britain, for a "British Socialist Party".

There were three main speakers against these arguments. The first was Philip Stott - Committee for a Workers International and SSP North East organiser. He claimed that the Dundee motion put campaigning on republicanism above campaigning around socialism. Conventional and misinformed fare.

Much stronger blows were delivered by comrades McCombes and Green. Comrade McCombes mercilessly hammered the Dundee stand against a referendum. He dressed this up as an example of the lack of democracy that characterised bureaucratic socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, etc. The comrade claimed that socialism would be made easier through the break-up of the UK: ie, the road advocated by John Maclean in his declining years. Opinion polls, especially the young and the poor, favour independence because this is about bringing back control over their lives. Comrade Green too found an easy target. The insistence that comrade Sheridan should have refused, like a boycottist, to take his seat was tellingly mocked as futile gesture politics. So the 35 votes gained for republicanism was credible (there were 97 votes against).

The motions and debates on students, education, children's rights and trade unions which occupied Saturday afternoon did not overly interest me. Matthew Jones (Glasgow Marxist Forum) made a routine economistic plea for campaigning around accident and emergency wards and comrade Stott talked about the struggles of students against fees and the loan culture. Comrade Armstrong did score a victory against separate religious schools and for integration - not unimportant considering the underlying sectarianism that mars life in Scotland and still cows the SSP majority, when it comes to catholic-Irish words like 'republicanism'.

There was also a 44 to 53 split over the trade union amendment from North East Edinburgh. The gist of the difference seemed to concern the attitude towards the SLP-led United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws. North East Edinburgh wanted it relaunched on an all-Britain basis, "irrespective of their political allegiances". Richie Venton for the executive placed more faith in SSP-sponsored meetings.

The first day closed with a motion on Cuba moved on behalf of Glasgow Pollok by Alice Sheridan, and fraternal greetings by a representative of the Cuban ambassador in Britain. This did provoke some debate. Besides condemning the US blockade against Cuba the motion referred to the country as "socialist" and saluted its "tremendous social advances". If this were not questionable enough, comrade Sheridan - substituting for her son - defended the lack of trade union and other freedoms in Cuba on the basis of their claimed absence in Britain.

This caused some unease. Several CWI comrades felt compelled to put on record that their defence of Cuba goes hand in hand with criticism, not least concerning its regime's attitude towards homosexuals and those suffering from Aids. A couple of SSP left comrades made clear that they did not think Cuba was socialist. There is no working class control or democracy. The wording of the motion and the enthusiasm of comrade Sheridan certainly had me wondering whether or not the SSP leadership, or key sections of it, had entered into some secret diplomatic internationalist pact with the Cuban government. Any such development would in the medium to long term have purely negative results for the SSP.

Sunday morning began with international greetings from fraternal delegates. They included comrades from the left-green party in Denmark, the red front from Norway, the left bloc in Portugal, the Australian Democratic Socialist Party and an Irish comrade, Peter Haddon, representing the CWI - he meaningfully underlined the need for CWI members to cohere organisationally around a 'Marxist' programme. "Nearer home", as comrade Kerr delicately put it, Anne Murphy delivered a well received message from the London Socialist Alliance. For the executive Frances Curren looked forward to an "international socialist alliance". There was no delegate or visible presence from the Socialist Party in England and Wales.

Debate around 'Law and justice', introduced for the executive by Nicky McKerrill, proved revealing, thanks to a well aimed amendment from Aberdeen. It called for the removal of all restrictions on freedom of speech, including for those who promote racial hatred.

This outraged CWI comrades. They insisted that there could be no freedom of speech for those who would argue for mass extermination, the killing of leftists and the inequality of the races. Why, given their approach, the comrades did not extend their list to include homophobia, degrading attitudes towards women and religious intolerance I can only imagine - except if they did they would be forced, Mao-like, to call for a blanket ban on the whole heritage of mainstream literature, not least the bible - it justifies genocide, longs for god to initiate the extermination of the ungodly, brands homosexuality an abomination and proclaims women to be not only the inferior sex, but ritualistically unclean every month.

The David Irving trial was passionately fielded by them. As if the state or Penguin were attempting to suppress Irving's revisionist apologia for Hitler, not Irving using the courts to protect his 'reputation' as an historian. Claims were also made that the "indivisible" freedom of speech meant that postal workers were wrong to refuse to deliver BNP election material before the general election in May 1997 or that the communists and workers of the East End of London should have meekly let Mosley pass through Cable Street in 1936.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Freedom of speech does not equate with freedom to physically intimidate or pliantly providing racists with an election platform. However, getting the state to ban 'bad' ideas is far more dangerous than any 'bad' idea in and of itself. Such legislation invariably backfires on the left. What is obscurantist, stupid or fake is best confronted, fought and destroyed through fearless, open and rational debate. That was certainly the stated method of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. They objected to all state censorship as a matter of principle. Sad to say, there were only six votes for the Aberdeen amendment - all from Aberdeen. The RCN in the main abstained or actually voted against.

When it came to Ireland, the CWI comrades suddenly reversed their statist position. The debate took the form of a long executive motion moved by Richie Venton and an equally rambling alternative from Edinburgh South West and South Ayrshire (minority).

Speaking on behalf of the executive, comrade Venton emphasised that the peace process created new conditions in Northern Ireland. "Class and socialist politics" were now possible. The SSP executive believes that the peace process came about due to paramilitary exhaustion on the one hand and working class and trade union pressure on the other. Comrade Venton also made clear that he was committed to a united socialist Ireland - however, he correctly argued that unity had to be voluntary. Coercion of the protestants, the British-Irish, would be disastrous.

For his part comrade Armstrong (Edinburgh South West and RCN) likened the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan. The SSP should side with those "communities of resistance" who have withstood the might of British imperialism and now find themselves compromised by Sinn F"šin/IRA. The Good Friday deal institutionalises sectarianism. It strengthens British imperialism. Essentially his motion could be described as pro-Irish nationalist. He certainly has no answer to the British-Irish question apart from economism and its corollary of an abstract workers' republic. Par for the course. Most of the left are inconsistent democrats - not least the CWI.

On the Armstrong motion comrades Green, Venton, Colin Fox et al said they agreed with many of his arguments and proposals. However, comrade Armstrong did not take full account of the peace process and veered dangerously towards romantic republicanism. Some of these comrades, unabashed, declared that they opposed parades commission bans on marches because they could be turned against the working class and socialist movement. Comrade Ward eloquently sided with the catholic-Irish residents of Garvaghy Road. They have bravely stood out against Orange Order demands to be allowed to exercise their 'traditional' custom of triumphantly marching anywhere in Northern Ireland. There are two sides - one is right, the other is wrong, she rightly said. Nevertheless the three to one vote for the executive represented the victory of bland economism over bland Irish nationalism. Communist politics were absent.

The most significant debate on Sunday afternoon concerned the SSP's conference itself and minority rights. The Allan Green executive paper put the case for a delegate conference from 2001 and diminished rights for platforms and other factions. Minority motions from branches would be abolished, along with the right of factional observers on the national council.

The Dundee minority (and RCN) sought to protect minority rights, fended off moves towards a delegate conference as premature and retaliated with a proposal to restrict the conference remit of individual executive members. Without safeguards revolutionaries in the SSP would definitely find their presence much reduced - and comrade Green was proposing no safeguards: eg, proportional representation of factions. He called for a "gender balance" in delegations, not political balance.

Showing the democratic spirit which underpins the SSP, the executive actually suffered a 45 to 56 defeat. This is excellent and we must hope that the leadership comrades take on board the lesson that minority rights might sometimes be a nuisance, but they bring great political strength for the SSP as a whole. Without the minority, the debates would have been far less sharp, far less informed and altogether dull.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the conference overall was the growing incoherence of the CWI faction - officially known as the International Socialist Movement. As we have reported in the Weekly Worker, there exists a bitter split between a pro-Taaffeite minority headed by comrade Stott and the majority around comrades McCombes, Sheridan, etc.

The majority see little need for a tight CWI faction inside the SSP. Indeed it is viewed as something to be guarded against. Comrades Green and Kerr and future social democratic recruits would understandably fear a party within a party. Tensions are palpable, but not honestly expressed or thrashed out. That the ISM's quarterly journal International Socialist is edited by comrade Stott therefore carries significance. After some hesitation the majority decided to leave the CWI to comrade Stott and his small band of allies. Frances Curren acts as the convenor - so the majority can intervene and take the wheel if need be. There was the suggestion a couple of months ago at the height of the Taaffe-McCombes dispute that the majority ought to put the squeeze on Taaffe's remaining loyalists and semi-loyalists. Now they seem content to let the CWI in Scotland slowly wither on the vine.

CPGB literature sold well, even if it did not meet with universal warmth. Our little posse from London, along with supporters in Scotland, sold over 50 copies of the Weekly Worker. Not at all bad, given the size of the conference and the relatively large subscription base we possess in Scotland.

Ireland debate

Eclectic mish-mash

The draft paper on Ireland, moved by comrades Allan Green and Richie Venton, provides a particularly clear demonstration of how to be socialist in word, while in effect giving support to British imperialism in deed.

It is clear that comrades from the CWI tradition have had to do some serious thinking on this issue. In view of their opportunistic conversion to full blown nationalism at home, their previous line of calling on Irish workers to forget their nationality, and unite around trade union-type questions, would seem more than a little out of place. The Green-Venton draft does recognise the right of Ireland to democratically unite - on the basis of consent "without external impediment". However, it gives critical support to the imperialist-sponsored peace process and welcomes moves to "demilitarise the republican and loyalist paramilitaries". The implication is clear - Blair, Clinton and Mitchell may be "bourgeois through and through", but the deal they have attempted to broker is somehow a step towards a "socialist united Ireland".

Richie Venton opened the debate and gave a good exposition of this dire mish-mash of economism and constitutional nationalism. He declared himself a consistent democrat who approaches the questions on Ireland like other questions. He is right on one score. Comrades from CWI-Scotland do indeed approach this question as they do others - from the point of view of inconsistent democrats. Frankly Richie's position on the Good Friday agreement is anything but consistent: he attacks it for institutionalising sectarianism and using the communities as bargaining chips on the one hand, while welcoming "class politics" and the devolution of powers to the parties in Northern Ireland on the other.

Allan Armstrong, moving the Edinburgh South West and South Ayrshire (minority) alternative paper, had a different perspective. He spoke of the "pacification process", "reorganising partition" and condemned the platform given to Billy Hutchinson by the SSP last year. However, despite comrade Armstrong's opposition to the reformism of the Green-Venton draft, he commented that he had "a lot of agreement with Richie" even though "not enough was said". Moreover he seemed to imply that, at the end of the day, protestants and catholics could be united on bread and butter issues. It seems that reformism and left nationalism can find common ground when it comes to economism. Yes, workers must first fight for higher wages, better healthcare, etc, but they can only realise their potential as a future ruling class if they are armed with answers on questions of the state and democracy. Class unity has to be consistently democratic.

Comrade Green said that he agreed with some points in the alternative paper, but found it "vague" and complained that it did not address immediate issues. Mary Ward gave a rousing speech in defence of the Garvaghy Road residents and against British interference in Ireland. However, Colin Fox condemned the "romantic nationalism" of Sinn F"šin and their "supporters in the James Connolly Society" and made sickening pro-Orange jokes. Without any hint of irony the comrade declared there was strong class consciousness in Northern Ireland and that he was all for James Connolly.

After comrade Armstrong compared the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan, comrade Venton warned him not to call for the state to suppress Orange marches, because the powers of the state could be turned against us. Not only was this a piece of mischief - Allan Armstrong did not call for new powers for the state - but ironically this point was missed spectacularly in the debate on free speech and the suppression of racist literature. Comrade Venton also wanted to reclaim Connolly from "romantic nationalism" and presumably for the CWI instead.

The draft paper was passed with reasonable ease. However, Republican Communist Network comrades can surely capitalise on the confused, eclectic CWI-Scotland position if they harden and sharpen their polemic, taking a communist stand for consistent democracy.

'Socialist' Cuba

On the Sunday, the editor of Scottish Socialist Voice made reference to Jack Conrad's article, 'Comrade McCombes and his Lilliputian Dystopia' (Weekly Worker February 24). Condescendingly, he implied that workers were too stupid to understand what this term meant, and too lazy to look it up in a dictionary. Anyone with a passing acquaintance with the titles of Lenin's articles will note that he had a rather higher opinion of our class.

Alan also argued that writing 5,000 words on an individual socialist displayed a skewed sense of priorities. I do not doubt that Eugen Dhring was of the same opinion when Engels devoted 500 pages to exposing his anti-Marxist drivel. Far from being a colossal waste of time, this work, Anti-Dühring, was later distilled into Socialism, utopian and scientific, which, for a time, became the standard introductory textbook on Marxism, more popular even than the Communist manifesto. If Alan cannot spare the time to study the full text, then he ought at least to check out the 'Marxism for beginners' version. He could learn a lot.

The actual ideas contained in Conrad's article are no blinding innovation. They are, in fact, identical to those developed by Trotsky between 1924 and 1928 during his struggle for the soul of the CPSU. But, whereas Stalin kicked all genuine Marxists out of the CPSU, and the Communist International, for writing literally hundreds of pages on why you cannot build socialism in one country, Alan seeks to frighten SSP members away from reading a mere two pages on the subject! And I thought Stalin was a philistine.

It became abundantly clear from the conference motion on Cuba that by 'socialism' even the most leftwing component of the existing SSP leadership mean something vastly different from what Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky meant. While Bill Bonnar's model of socialism is France under Jospin, while Hugh Kerr thinks that Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson got it just about right, the CWI opts for a more glamorous set of heroes. A large number of members voted for the motion on Cuba because they did not want to be seen voting against an expression of solidarity with the Cuban people against the US imperialist blockade. While I myself voted for it for this very reason, I now recognise that this was a mistake.

I should have stuck to my principles and abstained. The motion contained not one, but three separate references to Cuba being socialist, which can only serve to confuse the SSP rank and file as to what socialism is. The 'Marxists' who drafted this motion seem not to have noticed that there has never been any workers' revolution in Cuba. Therefore, not only is it no longer a workers' state; it could never have been one in the first place. As for it being "socialist" ... well, you cannot have socialism in one country.

While it is true that both Lenin and Trotsky justified Russia's transformation into a one-party state, this was a case of them making a virtue out of necessity. Trotsky eventually recognised that when the dictatorship of the proletariat degenerates into a one-party state, it has become seriously diseased. Also, while it is true that Trotsky did once try to argue that workers had no need for independent trade unions under a workers' state, he was wrong, as Lenin pointed out in speeches and articles too full of big words for comrade McCombes' taste.

Yet, in a truly awful speech, Alice Sheridan, in proposing the motion, said: "Perhaps the Cuban people don't want pluralism! Perhaps they don't want free trade unions!" She did not actually say, 'Perhaps they think that gays should suffer brutal repression.' That, though, would be the only logical defence of this aspect of 'socialist' Cuba.

While Nicky McKerrill, Martin Gardner and other CWI members managed to straighten Alice out to the extent of criticising these "shortcomings" of "socialist" Cuba, they were at pains to make clear that they were doing so as "friends". Friends not of the Cuban people in general, nor the Cuban workers in particular, but of the Cuban rulers!

Although the regime in question is not, and never has been, among the most repressive of the Stalinist monstrosities (it has in fact enjoyed considerable popularity for its role in leading the struggle against US imperialism and for introducing many progressive social reforms), it is what it always has been since the 1959 revolution: a Stalinist state which cannot even begin to move in the direction of socialism until Cuba's workers take power into their own hands. And that will require a revolution, comrades.

And even after workers do take power in Cuba, they will not long be able to hold it if the revolution does not spread across the entire globe. The reason for this, Alan, is that you can no more have an independent socialist Cuba than you can have an independent socialist Scotland.