16.03.2000

Party notes

Old habits

Between 90 to 100 comrades attended the Socialist Workers Party's 'Socialism in Wales' event over the weekend of March 10-12 in Cardiff. The Communist Party and the Republican Communist Network hosted a fringe meeting during the Saturday lunch hour, with London Socialist Alliance candidate and CPGB member Anne Murphy. She spoke on the subject of 'Building left unity against Blair'.

Unfortunately, we were prevented from advertising this meeting by the SWP comrades. Initially, we were barred from distributing leaflets and selling papers by the management (as were SWPers themselves). We were then refused the right to sell papers on the inside of the building by the main SWP organiser. We were not allowed to put leaflets on the seats of chairs and the leaders of the various sessions would not announce the fringe meetings, she informed us.

A compromise was struck whereby we were permitted to distribute our leaflets (the Weekly Worker remained banned) outside the doors of the three rooms where the sessions were being held. After a few minutes, we were again confronted by the chief steward and told that there had been "complaints" about us and so we were now not even allowed to hand out leaflets.

I really am intrigued by the idea that there are prissy people out there who - for some strange reason - find themselves attending SWP events, then 'complain' to the conference management when they are given a leaflet advertising a political meeting. Frankly, it is not credible. Clearly, after some hurried consultation, the organisers decided to backtrack and impose a political ban on us. It is a sad measure of the control freakery that still pervades layers of the SWP that they felt compelled to attempt to kill a meeting on the LSA - an initiative that they support and they have hegemony over - simply because it features one of the few candidates who is not an SWP member.

Despite the worst efforts of the conference stewards, the fringe meeting went ahead, and a credible nine comrades - roughly half the number of the privileged few who managed to see our leaflets - turned out to listen to comrade Murphy.

Clearly, the SWP's 'open turn' in London is still reflected unevenly throughout the rest of the organisation. For me, the surly attitude of some SWP cadre in Wales - a wearily familiar pose that stops just short of physical intimidation - is in marked contrast to the way its leadership is presently dealing with the left in London. In general, the line coming from the top is that SWP comrades in the capital should bend over backwards to accommodate the rest of the left on the ground. True, some of the more foam-flecked loyalists in the lower ranks are interpreting this in intriguing ways - paraphrased entertainingly for me by one comrade along the lines of 'Look, we're the SWP, we set up the LSA - if the rest of you don't like it, you can fuck off'. Our comrades have gently pointed out that, while dealing with other trends can be annoying, it is nothing compared to the problems the SWP might encounter in an 'alliance' exclusively with itself.

Culturally, the SWP is bound to change during the course of its engagement with the LSA, whether the change is immediately apparent or not. Thus, while various SWPers have vented their sectarian rage in letters to the Weekly Worker, the very fact that they felt compelled to write it is not without importance. It is indicative of the way the SWP is starting to open up.

For example Lucy Grantz taunts us - "Why are you so shy?" - even though unbeknown to her we have provided a systematic critique of the politics of her group, from democratic centralism to state capitalism, from economism to programme, and from general election to general strike slogans and tactics (Weekly Worker March 9). In fact, it is the SWP that has the universal and well-deserved reputation for theoretical monasticism, for avoiding serious polemical clashes with other political opinions on the revolutionary left that run counter to its own. Everything in its culture, from the way it writes its newspaper to the way it organises educational events such as 'Socialism in Wales', stems from this.

For example, the sessions in Cardiff followed the familiar SWP format. First, a speaker gives the line for three-quarters of an hour. Then, selected SWPers chip in with a five-minute (or less) anecdotal corroboration. Finally, we go back to the speaker who sums up. Thank you and end of session. It does not matter if there are 10 or 15 minutes formally remaining on the clock (as happened in Wales in at least one opening): the session stops - dead.

Critical opinions that do manage to get a hearing in such a format are 'answered' once and once only. There is no opportunity for a real clash of ideas and the development of an argument. Without such conflict, genuine education - in the revolutionary Marxist sense of the word - is simply impossible. Which is precisely why the CPGB actively promotes controversy at our educational events, not least at our annual Communist University.