16.03.2000

Second instalment

Andrew Cutting gives his views on Republican Communist No2 (spring 2000)

Republican Communist is the journal of the Republican Communist Network. As the RCN is an alliance of quite different groups and individuals, it is something of a triumph that they have managed to produce a journal which expresses united and coherent revolutionary politics.

So what exactly is this exciting new development? I would describe it as the growing together, or rapprochement, of communist tendencies that are united by radical, anti-establishment, revolutionary democratic working class politics. Set up initially here in Scotland in order to group together the left within the Scottish Socialist Party, it can perhaps be primarily defined negatively: as an alternative to the more economistic trends of the Socialist Workers Party and the Committee for a Workers International. The RCN comrades are by no means agreed on all questions - most particularly they are divided on whether the break-up of the UK is progressive; however, it is remarkable how similar the thinking is even when there is disagreement.

Issue two kicks off with a splendid article by comrade Mary Ward critiquing the politics of the SSP leadership. For anybody seriously interested in following events in the SSP the journal is worth the money for this article alone.

Next we have a couple of articles on Northern Ireland by comrades D McC Furlong and Allan Armstrong, the former exposing the Patten report and the latter attacking New Labour's constitutional reforms. Both articles are interesting and correctly side with the oppressed against the oppressors. Importantly Allan links constitutional questions to economic questions and talks about how the peace process is used to divide the working class in the interests of big business. But in my opinion his solution is dubious, offering a nationalistic republicanism as a "new internationalism from below".

Also dubious is comrade Nick Clarke's article on the communist attitude to war. He makes the important distinction between reactionary and revolutionary wars. Nick characterises the former as wars for robbery and conquest, giving the examples of those conducted by the Roman empire, feudal monarchs and capitalist colonisation. Examples of the latter are wars "fought from below" - the slave revolt against the Roman empire, the uprising against slavery in Haiti and the Vietnamese struggle for national liberation. This puts war on a class-struggle basis, but neglects any progressive content of the ruling classes, resulting in a confused position on the contemporary wars in the Balkans and against Iraq.

Crucially Iraq is considered proto-imperialist, which Nick uses to justify a mutually defeatist position. I would argue that this attacks the progressive side of Iraqi capitalism, which is trying to develop into its highest stage and thus sharpening the class struggle. Communists should be able to support neo-colonial states in so far as they fight imperialism. Likewise our task is to unite - not divide - the people of the Balkans against Nato using consistent democracy and the right of nations to self-determination. Nick's position on ancient Rome seems to champion the collapse of the empire and the barbarism of the dark ages. Likewise in modern times we cannot make things better by making them worse.

Comrade Sarah McDonald's piece on revolution and reform concisely describes the key features of revolutionary Marxism. Brian Higgins writes a good article on the history of militant trade union struggle in Britain, while making the connection with the need to generalise the fight to a republican struggle against the British state. There is also an agreeable article by Mary Ward on International Working Women's Day. For young socialists who come across Republican Communist these kind of articles will provide an excellent introduction to communist ideas and principles.

Comrade Barry Biddulph gives a left Trotskyist and somewhat scholastic critique of comrade Dave Craig's notion of the 'dual power republic'. Barry's criticisms occasionally hit home, but for the life of me I cannot see any convincing argument for restricting our programme as Barry would like. I think the problem with this long-running debate is that the question of how communists should fight for bourgeois democratic demands - and hence why it raises class consciousness - is not discussed in any depth by either Dave or Barry.

Comrade Jack Conrad also goes against the RCN grain with a far more compelling exposition of his thesis on the British-Irish. Jack's defence of the conditional right to self-determination for the British-Irish puts the whole question of the Six Counties on a firm class basis.

Comrade Dave Craig continues the debate on the RCN slogans. The most contentious slogan being the fourth. Originally it was going to be simply 'international socialism'. However, the Communist Tendency objected to this as suggesting a fixed stage and proposed the slogan 'international revolution', later compromising with 'international socialist revolution'.

In my view the slogan 'international socialism' does not merely suggest a stage, but also a goal - and a very important one at that. Socialism is the proletarian democratic negation of capitalism. It is a stage when we have achieved our goal of equal bourgeois rights. It must be international because class struggle is international. Communism (or 'world communism' - the fifth slogan) is achieved without the need for revolution because socialism is already its first global stage.

Allan Armstrong wishes to inscribe the abolition of the wages system on our banner, which is all well and good, but it provides no guide to action because it is divorced from the real class struggle. Allan may as well campaign for the abolition of trade unions. The Communist Tendency seems to me to be for promoting a subjectivist utopian vision to class and national struggle.