30.08.2000

Factional mindsets ... and new realities

Allan Armstrong, co-editor of Republican Communist, quarterly magazine of the Republican Communist Network, and a member of the left nationalist Communist Tendency, replies to criticisms of political bias

I have to admit that a wry smile crossed my face when I read Peter Manson's critique of my role in co-editing Republican Communist No3 ('Correct the political bias' Weekly Worker July 20).

Is this the same Peter Manson who regularly suppresses or edits any comrade's letter which opposes the sectarian behaviour of the CPGB/Revolutionary Democratic Group in the RCN in England? Is this the same Peter Manson who permits Dave Craig of the RDG extensive space to personally vilify individuals he disagrees with, in a manner very hard to distinguish from that of the agent provocateur; yet as editor denies any real right of reply? Or is this merely Peter Manson doing Jack Conrad's bidding from the RCN meeting in London on June 17 and waging war on Allan Armstrong?!

Well, Allan Armstrong as an individual is fairly confident that the cause of workers' republicanism will survive the CPGB's diversionary verbal assaults on my person. Workers' republicanism is historically rooted in the most advanced revolutionary tradition in these islands, linked with both James Connolly and John Maclean. Of course, it is always possible that a future revolutionary wave may flow through different political channels. But then we will have to be presented with real arguments, which raise the level of debate, not personalised attacks, or a single quote from Engels. However, there is a political reason behind the CPGB's repeated resort to personalised politics. Reliance on an old Marxist-Leninist dogmatic template, circa 1917, no longer provides adequate guidance for the political cutting blades needed to shape the political materials found in today's new situations. This is why some in the CPGB attempt to take the blade to the person rather than deal with their real politics.

Somewhat amazingly, Peter attempts, in a manner worthy of a north Belfast loyalist, to present the CPGB's politics as a victim of my editorship! So perhaps I should draw the Weekly Worker's readers' attentions to one simple fact - every single article submitted by CPGB members has been printed with unanimous editorial agreement. Furthermore, it was at my request that two of these articles were submitted - Jack Conrad's article on the 'British-Irish' in RC No2 and the article in RC No3 on the London Socialist Alliance by Anne Murphy and a certain Peter Manson!

So let us examine Peter's complaints, beginning with my editorialising in 'Prospects for Socialist Alliances in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland'. First, it was at my request that this section and debate was put in RC No3. This followed from discussions in the RCN (Scotland) on building such unity and the idea was widely approved. Nobody up here thinks it at all odd, when I write an introductory piece, that I will present my politics in it.

What would have been strange was if I pretended this represented the politics of the whole RCN. Yet the article is quite clearly presented as my own and furthermore is finished off with the following paragraph - "This is to set the background to a wider debate ... How do we achieve the all-round unity needed to take on Blair and New Labour's attempt to maintain the union and wider British imperial power? Should this unity be achieved by an all-British/UK party, inspired by a federal republic? Or do we build 'internationalism from below', inspired by the workers' republican tradition of Connolly and Maclean? The debate commences!"

However, Peter goes further and suggests that my "left nationalist bias" is displayed in the selection of articles chosen to represent the possibilities for Socialist Alliances in these islands. Does he include under this the first article on the London Socialist Alliance (possibly an example of 'left Brit nationalism'!), or the third one on Scotland written by a federal republican, Mary Ward, or the fourth and last one on Ireland, written by Socialist Democracy member John Mc Anulty? No, Peter merely ignores all the evidence which opposes his particular prejudice and focuses on the two articles supplied by members of Cymru Goch.

Well, how were the choices of article made? Quite simply, the editors chose leading comrades associated with developing the alliances - which is why Anne Murphy (LSA), Mary Ward (Scottish Socialist Party), John Mc Anulty (Socialist Democracy) and Tim Richards (Welsh Socialist Alliance) were all approached. Cymru Goch is to the forefront of the WSA and sends us a monthly paper. Why two articles?- because there is a debate about the viability of the WSA, given the sectarianism of the Socialist Workers Party and paralysis of the Socialist Party in Wales. So we showed the debate.

I will now show my prejudice - I believe the RCN in Wales is a CPGB fiction. I have not seen a single report of its activity in the Weekly Worker, nor do I believe that our RCN secretary has received any minutes, since its 'formation' last February! But if there is indeed a CPGB/RCN member in Wales with something useful to contribute, the pages of Republican Communist are open!

But Allan Armstrong is also accused of promoting a "left communist" bias in the journal. Now, the biggest weakness of the first two issues of the journal was that, although the politics of republicanism were well represented, the politics of communism were almost entirely absent. This is rather a problem in a journal calling itself Republican Communist! The RCN founding conference last October unanimously agreed (including even Jack Conrad and Dave Craig) that this year should partly be given over to a debate on the slogan 'international socialism'. It is no secret that the Communist Tendency believes this debate is intimately tied up with what constitutes genuine communism today. Already the first two issues had concentrated on the republican debate, so it is entirely appropriate that the issue of communism should be given more prominence in RC No3.

How was the balance of contributions decided? Somewhat ironically, the first wider airing of the debate took place in the Weekly Worker. The only protagonists to take up the cudgels were Dave Craig (December 16 1999), myself (January 13 2000) and Phil Sharpe (January 27 2000). Despite Peter's characterisation of Phil Sharpe as a "left communist", anybody reading his Weekly Worker critique of my article on communism will see it comes as much from a neo-Trotskyist position. As somebody who has already participated in the debate, Phil will also be asked to contribute to a future issue.

However, it is clear that the two poles of the debate on communism are represented by the revolutionary social democratic RDG and the communist CT - which is why Dave Craig's and my article were chosen to start the debate in RC No3. The reason there was no CPGB contribution specifically solicited is that no CPGB member has so far contributed, even in the pages of your own paper! Indeed, I can go further and state that, once again, a certain Peter Manson chose to cut short the debate in the Weekly Worker by refusing the second part of my article on decidedly spurious grounds!

However, Peter also happens to be an office-bearer of the RCN in London and therefore should know of the wider debate on international socialism/communism taking place. Therefore, he could have submitted, or asked another CPGB member to submit, an article on communism from a CPGB orthodox Marxist-Leninist viewpoint. Terry Liddle, another London RCN office-bearer, showed such initiative and submitted his article, independently and unsolicited. I did not choose to print Terry's article as a "left communist" contribution. Terry wrote his article and the editorial board agreed to publish it, just as we have so far been able to print all unsolicited contributions.

However, Peter is right in pointing out my role in getting the new 'Well red' reviews section established. I chose Phil Sharpe's review on Sylvia Pankhurst. If we are serious about wanting to establish a genuine communism today, we need to go to the very roots of the last attempt to build a new communist world order, during the international revolutionary wave of 1916-21. This means an ability to deal with the arguments of all tendencies within the infant Third International, and not merely fall back on attempted character assassinations so typical of orthodox Marxist-Leninism to date. Phil is an unorthodox Trotskyist prepared to address the thorny problems raised by the so-called "left communists" seriously.

I also submitted anarcho-communist Peter Principle's review of the Building Worker Group pamphlet as a last-minute replacement for a hoped for review of the People's Millennium pamphlet, produced by the South London Republican Forum, which arrived too late. Now, I happen to agree with Peter that the 'Well red' section needs a wider range of contributions and I hope these will be forthcoming. However, unlike Peter I cannot see any objections to printing contributions from an anarcho-communist view, especially since Peter seems perfectly happy at printing full-blown defences of Stalinism in the Weekly Worker.

Peter also tries to insinuate some sinister intentions behind the addresses printed in the 'Republic of Letters' section of the journal. Why "for example [are] Socialist Worker and Workers' Liberty" absent? "What is the point of this list and who decides what is included?" The answer is quite simple and does not reflect very well on the Weekly Worker. The Red Republicans, one of the two original constituents of the RCN, produced a monthly bulletin which was initially distributed to every single communist/socialist political organisation and journal we knew of, whether British, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. We asked for an exchange of journals and a mutual agreement to allow republication of attributed articles. The 'Republic of Letters' is a list of every organisation/journal which chose to reply.

As secretary of the Red Republicans I wrote to Socialist Worker, Workers' Liberty and the Weekly Worker. They did not bother to reply. It was unanimously agreed to carry on the feature when the new Republican Communist was set up. Co-editor Nick Clarke suggested that we add the Weekly Worker to the list. This was also unanimously agreed. For the record Red Republicans also wrote to left communist journals Aufheben and Radical Chains. They also did not reply and their addresses are not included. And isn't Peter being a bit parochial when he dismisses Class Struggle, the journal of the International Communist Union (Trotskyist) Britain, as "obscure"? This organisation has three MEPs in France!

Peter's other points are, to use his own words, even more "bizarre" and display even greater "wackiness"! He complains about the publication of the Red Republican platform, despite the fact that the Red Republicans were the largest group involved in the founding of the RCN. Apparently we even contrived to increase the size of our platform to command more space in Republican Communist! Despite the lack of reciprocity, the Weekly Worker received every copy of the Red Republican bulletin, which published our platform every month. There was no change when we joined the RCN. Both the Red Republican and Campaign for a Federal Republic (CFR) platforms are printed exactly as they were. There is no conspiracy to keep out a CPGB platform. The CPGB never asked for it to be published.

The last time we were given your leader's line at an RCN meeting, Jack Conrad thought the RCN had little role to play in England. As for Scotland, the CPGB lost its entire membership in Scotland, I would argue, largely as a result of its sectarian style of intervention around the party-frontist 'Campaign for Genuine Self-Determination'. Now, for reasons which have never been publicly stated, the CPGB has changed its line on RCN membership and decided to increase its presence. However, despite the impression Peter would like to give, the CPGB is another minority inside the RCN.

In the same vein, Peter attacks me for using my position as RCN co-editor to add a simple helpful piece of information after his own letter (published in full!) in RC No3 [the letter was actually written by Bob Paul, not Peter Manson - ed]. In his letter Peter attacks the Communist Tendency for not making our position on "internationalism" clear. His Weekly Worker critique quotes my insert - "The Communist Tendency has produced a paper explaining our position [his emphasis], and directs readers to the CT's address."

Somehow, despite all the rules of logic and English grammar, Peter is suggesting that the "our" refers to the RCN! Now the CT has made its position on "internationalism" perfectly clear, both in documents circulated within the RCN and in contributions to Weekly Worker. Yet there will indeed be readers of Republican Communist who have not seen these documents. I could have waited to RC No4 to write a letter pointing this out, but his points have already been answered previously. Therefore it is more important that Republican Communist readers are made aware of all the published contributions as quickly as possible, which is why the small insert directs them to the CT's address. If any reader's letter demonstrated that it was lacking awareness of any other republican communist organisation's political positions, I would suggest an insert to direct both them and other readers to the source of fuller information.

Lastly Peter says that the CPGB will be "proposing an expansion of the editorial team at the October AGM". At last year's RCN founding meeting the decision was taken to ensure political balance between workers' republicans and federal republicans, both in the RCN international [ie, all-Britain - ed] office-bearers and the editorial team. The current office-bearers consist of two from the Red Republicans and one from the CFR; whilst the editorial team consists of one from the Red Republicans and two from the CFR.

So far the CPGB has aided the RDG in trying to impose a single federal republican view upon the RCN in England. The political case for having CPGB representation on the editorial board of Republican Communist would be enhanced if the CPGB could rise to being "consistent democrats" and recognise the workers' republican tendency's rights in the RCN in England too.

Peter Manson responds

If it does nothing else, comrade Armstrong's reply serves to stress the correctness of the CPGB's call to expand Republican Communist's editorial team.

Allan just cannot understand what all the fuss is about. All he is doing is carrying on in the same old way as before - when he used to edit Red Republican, a left nationalist journal. Then, without anyone objecting, he could prominently display the Red Republicans' platform, advertise the journals of all the groups who replied to his request to exchange publications, write editorials from the point of view of the Red Republicans' own perspectives and answer readers' letters with the Red Republican line.

Clearly comrade Armstrong has not yet cottoned on to the fact that RC is not the same as Red Republican (in the article opposite, as originally submitted to the Weekly Worker before editing, he accidentally referred to Republican Communist as Red Republican - talk about a Freudian slip). Let me explain the difference for him. Red Republican was the journal of a group of people who agreed on a particular, narrowly defined viewpoint - the break-up of the UK state and the achievement of a Scottish workers' republic. Similarly, the rather more regular and influential Weekly Worker bases itself on the perspectives of the CPGB - centrally workers' unity in the shape of a reforged Communist Party of Great Britain and in time a new Communist International and a World Union of Socialist Republics.

Yet members of both trends find themselves together in the RCN despite their diametrically opposed positions, not least on this one key aspect of their politics. We are able to do this because the RCN is, as its name suggests, a network, containing within it republican communists who are, however, not able to accept the kind of common discipline that comes with closer ideological unity. Our journal must reflect that. The reader must not be led to believe - whether by accident or design - that RC is in fact the organ of one particular RCN trend (particularly when, in the case of comrade Armstrong's Communist Tendency, it happens to be an extreme minority. Ironically, he is insistent that those who constitute this nano-grouplet are the only communists in the RCN). The editors must bend over backwards to ensure that there can be no misunderstanding on this score.

So, to return to my original comments, may I suggest that editorial interventions should not be made in a partisan manner to the advantage of one RCN component or another? For example, if comrade Armstrong wants to put forward his own particular nationalist twist on the Socialist Alliances, he should do so as a separate feature, not by way of introduction to articles by comrades who are actually putting forward the opposite argument in favour of all-Britain working class unity. An editorial ought to express the broadly agreed positions of the all-Britain RCN itself, not the individual views of one member of the editorial team - whatever comrade Armstrong believes everybody 'up there' thinks.

Secondly, if the co-editor wishes to insert "a simple helpful piece of information" on behalf of one of the RCN's components (his own), he should not make it appear that the politics of the component and that of RC itself are one and the same. In general, responses from groups which have been the butt of polemical attack can wait until the next issue, but if there really is an urgent need to answer a reader's question (I do not believe there was in this case), the reply should be phrased neutrally so as to cause no confusion.

Thirdly, it is not sufficient to say that the Red Republicans were involved in the founding of the RCN and therefore they should be entitled to have their platform published in every issue. Today the RCN consists of supporters of several groups, as well as unattached individuals - who all finance Republican Communist through their membership subscriptions. As I understand it, the Red Republicans no longer exist. We do not want either the platform of the Red Republicans or the Campaign for a Federal Republic to be presented in such a way as to make it appear that the RCN is an alliance between these groups only - it is not.

Nor will it do to state that if other groups want their platforms published they should submit them. Part of the editorial remit should be to ensure rationality - if two platforms are published, then logically the editors should ensure that they are all published. That way madness lies.

I am sorry if I have had to labour the point, but clearly comrade Armstrong is having some difficulty in grasping what it means to edit the journal of an inclusive network, as opposed to an exclusive group, in an unbiased fashion.

To be honest, much of his article misfires splendidly on all cylinders. Why does he consistently misinterpret what I wrote? I did not imply that he had rejected CPGB contributions, or, to use comrade Armstrong's words, "present the CPGB's politics as a victim" of his editorship. Nor did I object to the publication of any of the articles on the Socialist Alliances. I did not "insinuate some sinister intentions" in the list of addresses which appear on the back page under the heading 'Republic of Letters'. I asked, with some justification, what the point of it was. Obviously, judging from comrade Armstrong's reply, there is none - all they have in common is that the groups in question once wrote to his journal Red Republican!

I did not raise any objection to the fact that one of the writers featured in RC No3 is an anarcho-communist, nor did I seek to give the impression that the CPGB is more than a minority inside the RCN. I did not complain that there was no "CPGB contribution specifically solicited" on communism. At the risk of further trying readers' patience, let me repeat what I wrote in my original review:

"I am not objecting to any one article as such: all are interesting in their own way as expressions of minority viewpoints. But I am objecting to the overall balance, resulting in an end-product that is hardly an accurate reflection of the contending trends to be found within the RCN."

Comrade Armstrong has now explained that he has simply published everything received. Clearly then, what is called for is a more determined attempt to fill RC's pages with commissioned articles - taking into account the need for the necessary balance, of course. Comrade Armstrong should therefore welcome the additional help and advice on how this might be achieved in the form of an expansion of the editorial team, as we propose. By the way, we are not launching a "London-chauvinist takeover" of Republican Communist, as one rather hysterical Weekly Worker correspondent alleged recently. However, since comrade Armstrong is evidently either unable or unwilling to correct his own excesses, the election of additional comrades would provide a much needed counterbalance.

At present, as well as himself, the editorial team consists of one supporter of the Campaign for a Federal Republic (not two, as he says), who plays a largely technical role, and an independent comrade with Stalinite sympathies who now has little active involvement with the RCN. The October AGM ought to consider making changes in order to reflect the growth of the RCN - critically the fact that the CPGB plays an important part and that the majority of members are no longer in Scotland, but in England and Wales.

I will now turn to comrade Armstrong's accusations against the Weekly Worker and the CPGB. Please note that, although he criticises me as an individual, I do not cry "personalised attacks" or claim that he wants to "take the blade to the person". Comrade Armstrong is perfectly entitled to make political comments on my editing of the Weekly Worker.

As I have already intimated, the Weekly Worker is rather different from Republican Communist. I, as editor, am answerable only to the CPGB and its Provisional Central Committee. I am judged on the degree to which our paper conducts open ideological polemic in the service of furthering our aim - the establishment of a united, Britain-wide, democratic centralist Communist Party, as part of the struggle for international socialism and world communism.

The Weekly Worker is backed financially and politically controlled by CPGB members, and nobody - least of all comrades who do not include themselves in any of that category - has the right to demand that their submissions to the paper be published. Each article, each letter, is considered on the above basis, and on that basis alone. Thus a contribution, however well written, will not be published if in the opinion of the editorial team it does not serve our project.

For example, when the RCN England was set up, there was an awful lot of hot air generated over who had the right to call meetings in the first place. Hardly a constructive debate. Several comrades wrote us letters along the lines of 'who said what to whom and when'. The silliness escalated when a self-righteous minority sent a letter to the Weekly Worker declaring their intention to ignore the democratic decisions of the founding meeting and to call a rival one. The minuscule RDG wrote an open letter to the minuscule Trotskyist Unity Group, etc. None of this was published. We did not "suppress" anything. The comrades are free to print, pay for and circulate their own publications. That is their right ... but they have no rights over the CPGB or the Weekly Worker. Rights go with duties.

On another occasion I refused an article from comrade Armstrong, which consisted almost exclusively of a regurgitation of the history of the pre-split RDG and point-scoring remarks about the role of certain individuals within it 15 years ago. My total lack of interest in his desire to settle dusty old scores is dubbed "decidedly spurious grounds". What effrontery. Publish it yourself, comrade!

On the other hand, badly written, hostile and downright venomous pieces directed against the CPGB may well reach our pages if it is thought that they do aid what we are trying to achieve - perhaps by enabling us to expose the weaknesses of our opponents or to make a necessary response to a widely held misconception. Similarly we may, if it suits our purpose, publish "full-blown defences of Stalinism", even contributions from anarcho-communists.

Finally, comrade Armstrong makes completely unsubstantiated remarks about the alleged "sectarian behaviour" of the CPGB within the RCN England. He claims that we, along with the RDG, tried to "impose a single federal republican view" on it. That is just fantasy. All that has happened is that the RCN took a vote calling for working class unity and opposition to all forms of nationalism and separatism - there was only one dissenting voice. That, comrade Armstrong, is democracy, not imposition. More to the point, we have not opposed the membership of anyone - not even an ally of comrade Armstrong who insisted that he does not support republicanism.