23.08.2000

Towards unity

Frank, free, and open debate at CU 2000

Our annual Communist University is now a well established part of the CPGB calendar, reflecting the importance the Party gives to developing Marxism. The 12th CU was held at Brunel University in Uxbridge from August 5 to 12. It was notable for the high proportion of new faces, not least younger comrades. In total we had 70 comrades attending throughout the week.

There were 22 sessions, 12 of which were introduced by non-CPGB speakers, who offered a diverse range of views on the challenges facing revolutionaries. Most debates focused on the tasks of communists in Britain, but there were also speakers from Iran and Turkey, and debates on Zimbabwe, Cuba, Russia and Ireland.

From outside the revolutionary mainstream, Green Party leftwinger Terry Liddle spoke on the new anti-capitalist movement, and Bob Pitt again defended his perspective of sticking within the Labour Party so as to fight for Livingstone and against Blairism. Gary O'Shea from Red Action gave what was for some a controversial presentation on anti-racism and the white working class, arguing that official anti-racism is a mask for liberal hostility towards the poor, and how the ideas of multiculturalism are used to set different groups within the working class against each other.

As always, the main focus of CPGB work is the fight for a reforged Communist Party, and over half the sessions were concerned with some aspect of the question of how to build a mass revolutionary party of the working class. Speakers from Workers Power, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, the Republican Communist Network, the Revolutionary Democratic Group, the Socialist Workers Party, the International Socialist Group, the Socialist Party in England and Wales, and the Scottish Socialist Party exchanged ideas with CPGB members and each other, clarifying their agreements and disagreements on questions such as democratic centralism, the nature of programme, and how to work in elections.

The participation of such a range of organisations was made possible by the new spirit of cooperation among the left - not least in London, thanks to joint work in the London Socialist Alliance. As comrade Marcus Larsen said, the LSA has come a long way since attempts were made to exclude the CPGB. One of the most important themes recurring during the week was the need to widen and deepen existing unity in order to move towards our aim of a strong, united and democratic Communist Party. There were a range of conflicting views about whether, to what extent, and how this should be achieved.

The school began with a roundtable debate between the CPGB, the AWL and Workers Power on 'Democratic centralism, unity and party-building'. These groups agree that the working class needs a revolutionary party. But there are significant differences between the CPGB, the AWL and WP on openness, minority rights and theoretical debate, and these were argued out.

Comrade Kirstie Paton of Workers Power insisted that, as we are at the very earliest stage of party building, and there is as yet no revolutionary movement, what is needed is programmatic homogeneity, with agreement on a revolutionary programme - which for WP includes, for example, the nature of the former USSR - as a condition of membership. This clearly means that such a 'party' will remain in the realm of abstraction, as revolutionaries will surely continue to differ on such questions. Thus, while formally claiming to stand for what is necessary, the comrades are in effect proposing that the rest of the left either join WP or continue as before.

Speaking for the CPGB, comrade Mark Fischer said that a programme is something a party member accepts, rather than agrees with. He said the detailed programmatic agreement advocated by Workers Power would leave us stranded in the world of ideologically based sects which has played no small part in preventing the formation of a democratic centralist party. Martin Thomas of the AWL presented, by contrast, a set of practical proposals for operating democratic centralism, including full factional rights.

However, comrade Fischer disagreed with the AWL's aim of a new 'labour representation committee' as a kind of halfway house. He said there is no need for us to present ourselves one way to the left and another way to the broad working class movement. We want a revolutionary party, not left reconstruction based on reformism, as if the working class had to repeat the experience of the last 100 years.

A major difference between the CPGB and the AWL remains the question of which type of programme to adopt. The CPGB upholds the Bolshevik minimum-maximum model, prioritising political demands, such as for the abolition of the constitutional monarchy system and self-determination for Scotland and Wales (encapsulated in our call for a federal republic), which the AWL regards as a diversion from the 'main' struggle around trade union-type questions. The AWL advocates Trotsky's flawed Transitional programme, which CPGB comrades argue inevitably leads to economism.

Introducing the session on 'Fighting Blairism and left unity', Chris Bambery, national secretary of the SWP, praised the "entirely positive and principled role" of the CPGB in the LSA. He also said that his organisation does not want to dominate any new Socialist Alliance formation, and warned that an alternative to the Labour Party cannot simply be proclaimed, as Arthur Scargill tried to do. It has to be built through participation in mass working class struggles, which comrade Bambery described as being more important than elections. He believed that, although most workers in Britain are to the left of New Labour politically, most LSA voters will stay loyal to their reformist roots. He said the LSA includes a large number of non-revolutionaries, such as Mike Marqusee, and we should not risk alienating these people from the LSA by turning it into a revolutionary party.

For Greg Tucker of the International Socialist Group - and LSA secretary - the coming together of left groups in a revolutionary party is a long-term aim: neither the objective nor the subjective conditions for it are right at present. The SAs cannot be transformed in such a way at present, he said, as its component parts are still divided on a large number of crucial issues.

There was also disagreement on the question of the SA challenge to Labour in the forthcoming general election. There were three areas of dispute: whether all organisations should stand as 'Socialist Alliance' or whether they should cooperate, but stand candidates under their separate names; whether or not to stand Socialist Alliance candidates against left Labourites such as Diane Abbott; and how large and dynamic an organisation there needs to be in a constituency before we can contest. The CPGB is strongly in favour of the biggest intervention, even in areas where there is as yet no alliance on the ground, not only in order to pose the working class alternative as widely as possible, but to build organisation where there was none.

Comrade Tucker frankly admitted that some of his comrades in the ISG are "conservatives" on this question, advocating standing only where there is a strong local organisation, and also refraining from challenging left Labour MPs. However, as only 10 sitting MPs at most could be considered left by any criteria, he felt this question was unlikely to cause any great difficulty.

One of the aims of the socialist alliances must be to win the support of trade unionists. The only platform speaker to dissent from this view was Bob Pitt, who stated the unions will never break from Labour or support the LSA under current circumstances, and claimed that unions see it as more worthwhile to stay inside the Labour Party in order to influence the government "in however small a way". Continuing his pessimistic assessment, comrade Pitt declared it "unrealistic" to campaign for the repeal of the anti-trade union laws, as there is no way workers will be willing to back this up with action.

There was some disagreement, including within the CPGB itself, over whether to advocate union disaffiliation from Labour now. Some comrades said it would be dangerous if unions did so in present conditions, since this was more likely to be a sign of demoralisation than a positive step forward. Comrade Derek Goodliffe reported that in his union, the RMT, left organisations work together and were disappointed when a vote for disaffiliation from the Labour Party was narrowly lost, and hope that next time the vote is put it will be won if there is somewhere else for the union to go.

However, other comrades urged that communists campaign for their trade union branches to support the LSA, etc. That did not mean disaffiliation from Labour - there were still battles to be fought in Blair's party. If a union were to discipline branches for having links with the alliance, that would reveal the reactionary nature of the incumbent bureaucracy. All comrades agreed that revolutionaries in trade unions should fight for a change in the rules on political funds, so that these can be used to support parties other than Labour.

There were two debates on Scotland: one introduced by Neil Davidson of the SWP, and the other by Sarah McDonald, a member of the SSP and a CPGB supporter. Comrade Davidson emphasised the historical reality of the British nation and how Scotland and Scottishness are part of it. He exposed the lies of left nationalists that Scotland has been colonised or dominated by an English cultural imperialism. There is one working class. He also spoke against independence for Scotland and against arguing for independence. But in his conclusion he loyally defended the SWP line that this is a question of tactics: it might campaign for independence under certain circumstances. But if the SWP in Scotland does join the Scottish Socialist Party, he will fight nationalism and for unity with English and Welsh workers.

Most CPGB comrades welcomed the report by comrade McDonald that the SSP plans to stand candidates in all 72 Scottish seats at the general election, though she herself thought it ill-advised. In England our emphasis is on campaigning for the right of Scotland to self-determination, and in Scotland it is on campaigning for the unity of the British working class - concretely, the comrade advocated that the SSP and SAs in England and Wales should work together, starting with SSP representatives attending the Coventry conference of the Socialist Alliance network on September 30.

On the final day of the school Hillel Ticktin, professor of Marxist studies at Glasgow university, introduced two sessions: 'The prospects for world capitalism', and 'Stalin and the first five-year plan'. Comrade Ticktin is an academic who at the moment declines to join any socialist organisation. Phil Sharpe said this is understandable, as intellectuals who do so end up becoming apologists for the 'party line' and so risk losing their integrity. CPGB comrades argued that this may be true for sects, but not for a genuine Communist Party, which seeks always to find the truth.

All CPGB members and supporters who attended enjoyed Communist University 2000 and gained a lot from it, and we feel sure that members of other organisations who attended will also have benefited, and noted the atmosphere of frank, free and open debate.