09.05.2001

SWP confusion

Looking ahead

Lindsey German?s full-page article, ?The future of the Socialist Alliance?, ought to be studied and fully debated throughout the Socialist Alliance in England and Wales and the Scottish Socialist Party (Socialist Worker May 5).

Far from being a diversion from the general election campaign, a serious discussion and full exchange of views - not least at constituency meetings - would undoubtedly enhance our collective understanding and combativity. After all, we need to know why such heroic efforts are being put into standing our record number of leftwing candidates. What is the aim? Certainly not votes for the sake of votes.

As Liz Davies vividly describes in her book Through the looking glass, the Labour Party bureaucracy goes to great lengths to shut down debate. A definite technocratic danger inhabits our ranks too. Something our executive committee freely admits and recognises as a problem needing to be overcome.

Socialist Alliance meetings often concern purely routine matters - finances, leaflet drops, Saturday stalls, etc. Dull, uninspiring and unattractive. So there is every reason to ensure that political debate is included on every agenda as a matter of course. Comrade German has afforded us an excellent opportunity. Her article is full of ideas and suggestions and is bound to stimulate many thoughtful contributions.

The comrade starts out by praising the ?take-off? made by the Socialist Alliance (implicitly in England alone; unfortunately Wales and Scotland do not rate even a passing mention). A significant minority of former Labour activists have switched to the Socialist Alliance. Blair - supposedly - betrayed them and his 1997 election promises. Incidentally that still does not stop the SWP giving Labour an automatic vote in 2001 where there is no socialist standing.

Anyway, independent socialists and trade union militants have come to us too because, says comrade German, the Socialist Alliance is ?not simply an electoral machine, but a campaigning, activist organisation?. As for the revolutionary left, it has achieved a level of ?unprecedented? unity. She surely forgets the first two congresses of the Communist Party of Great Britain - over the years 1920 and 1921 virtually all revolutionaries in Britain entered its ranks.

Caveats aside, the comrade is surely right when she declares that we are witnessing the ?first significant break with Labourism?, certainly since World War II. Socialism is making a comeback. Credit where credit is due. The SWP and its cadre have done sterling work helping to bring this about.

Naturally the bulk of Socialist Alliance recruits - in particular former Labour Party activists, militant trade unionists and independent socialists - envisage an alternative to the Labour Party. The SWP - being a confessional sect - is totally off-putting. Most want to see the Socialist Alliance transform itself into a multi-tendency party. The Weekly Worker has provided an unequalled platform for these comrades, and our writers have in turn raised the prospect of an all-Britain party based on the twin pillars of democracy and centralism.

Comrade German recognises that, given the momentum, the Socialist Alliance cannot be held back. A loose, purely electoralist non-aggression pact - favoured by the Socialist Party in England and Wales - is not a serious option: ?It would represent,? she writes, ?an abandonment of a highly successful movement? which the SWP has played a prominent part in building. Returning to isolation is therefore ruled out. Good.

So what about the Socialist Alliance moving towards a party? At this present moment in time such an outcome is not to the liking of the SWP leadership. Augmenting their sect still rules. Unfortunately, instead of squaring up to the many-headed calls for a Socialist Alliance party and honestly dealing with the challenge, the comrade resorts to the most tortured subterfuges. Frankly comrade German verges on the disingenuous.

She maintains that SPEW favours the party option. In fact Peter Taaffe and co have cloaked their barely concealed hostility to the Socialist Alliance by counterpoising it to an abstract ?new mass workers? party? which they hypocritically promote. But what about comrade German? Why her objection?

The working class ?has sustained some of the worst ? defeats? over the last two decades. Remember, this from a prominent leader of an organisation which has - for its own reasons - been banging on about the supposed ?upturn? in the class struggle since the late 1980s.

No doubt in part due to the period of defeats Labourism still holds the allegiance of the ?bulk of the organised working class?. Nothing new here though. Throughout the 20th century Labourism occupied that dominant position. But how to bring about change? Not in my opinion by perpetuating our sect primitivism or quietly keeping auto-Labourism in reserve.

Lenin in his day famously urged communists and revolutionary socialists in Britain - despite bitter divisions on key questions and meagre numbers - to forge a united party. The CPGB in 1920-21 did not exceed the 2,000 mark. Suffice to say, by forming a party the comparatively tiny vanguard could simultaneously engage with the Labour left in a united front and begin to break strategic sections of the masses from Labourism.

In the early 1920s the CPGB successfully got members elected into the Westminster parliament, made great headway in the trade unions and took the lead in forming the National Leftwing Movement inside the Labour Party. Only a democratic and centralist party, guided by high theory, could carry out such a series of bold initiatives and complex manoeuvres. The lesson is obvious.

Comrade German has another objection. Our degree of support is ?still relatively small?. Yes, a five percent vote is celebrated as good news. Consequently the creation of a Socialist Alliance party means ?that the SWP would dominate?. The result could not be the sort of ?mass? party the SWP would like to see. There would inevitably be countless factional disputes.

Here is what the SWP really fears. Perhaps the comrades instinctively recognise that under party conditions - where many views contend - fragile bureaucratic unity would rapidly dissolve. Yet, coming from those who claim to stand in the tradition of Bolshevism, this fear is strange. Even someone with only the haziest knowledge of the Russian Revolution will instantly recall the fierce clashes that characterised relations - not only between the various factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, but within the Bolsheviks themselves. Far from being a weakness, that proved to be an invaluable strength. It trained a revolutionary working class.

Nor did that culture depend on crude membership figures or even organic connections with left-moving workers, as comrade German hints. From crouched beginnings under conditions of extreme illegality to the heights of state power the Bolsheviks fought one factional battle after another. And, though comrade German might now object, invariably arguments were conducted openly - in books and pamphlets and in the party and factional press.

Does permanent debate drive away advanced workers? No, on the contrary, it is the bureaucratic regime, which stultifies the intellectual life of most sects, that does that. The Bolsheviks did not win the loyalty of virtually the entire working class despite their factional struggles, but because of their confidence and willingness to engage in them.

At the root of comrade German?s profoundly mistaken approach is her belief that there must be ideological ?agreement?. She says: ?Socialists should be for the maximum unity on the left where it is possible to reach agreement.? By this she explicitly means the ?unity of ideas?. The Socialist Alliance is though an ?inclusive organisation?. It does ?not demand the adoption of a full revolutionary programme for people to join?. A hopelessly muddled formulation. Nonetheless the message is clear.

The comrade?s approach is totally alien to authentic Leninism. The Bolsheviks only required members to accept the party programme as the basis of joint activity. There was no demand to agree.

Eg, there was a sustained tug of war between Lenin and Bukharin over the crucial issue of national self-determination. Lenin fought doggedly for it to be retained in the party programme. Bukharin - when he was a ?left? communist - tried to replace it with an economistic phrase about the self-determination of working class people. Despite Lenin?s authority the ?left? communists did score congress victories. It hardly needs pointing out that Lenin?s disagreement with the resulting programmatic resolutions did not make him ineligible for membership. He fought on to correct things.

Unless a party adopts a ?full revolutionary programme?, the danger is that it will ?fudge? or ?divide down the middle? every time it is faced with a war or even a controversial strike or racist backlash, reckons comrade German. Though the SWP has itself made a virtue of its programmelessness, she is quite right, of course. Not that a ?full revolutionary programme? guarantees anything. But it does equip the membership as a whole with a democratically honed, long-term vision and an ability to combine foresight with the swiftest tactical shifts.

The programme acts as both the compass and the road map. That is why - against opposition from our SWP allies - the CPGB fights to equip the Socialist Alliance party with a ?full revolutionary programme?.

What comrade German proposes instead of a party is a ?serious? alliance. ?Full-time staff?, a ?system of affiliations?, a ?national steering committee?, ?delegate meetings?, a regular ?newsletter?, campaigning, etc.

CPGB comrades have consistently advocated such transitional measures on the executive and Liaison committees. But we must go further. Let us finally leave behind the sect mentality. Why not a Socialist Alliance weekly political paper? A collective organiser and educator, in which airing different opinions is considered normal and healthy. Why not a Socialist Alliance party in which our present-day ?parties? and groups reconstitute themselves as factions or mere shades of opinion, which might or might not publish their own ?newsletters??

Even now we are palpably heading in that direction. There exists a common leadership, common finances, a common set of election candidates, a common manifesto. Unity of ideas will come in due course, as we work alongside each other ... but the unity of ideas should not be erected as a precondition, an artificial barrier against our ongoing process of organisational unification.

Finally, there exists a deep irony. The very issue of Socialist Worker which carries comrade German?s article reports the splendid news that SWP members in Scotland have at last joined the SSP. As is their right, they have constituted themselves as a platform: ie, a recognised faction. If comrade German?s restrictive criteria had been applied in Scotland, there would have been no merger. Does the SSP exhibit a ?unity of ideas?? Has it mass support in the working class? Has it a ?full revolutionary programme?? The answer is thrice ?no?.

The SSP began essentially as the organisational merger of what was then Scottish Militant Labour with a disparate range of leftwing grouplets and freelance socialists who operated under the Scottish Socialist Alliance banner. SML constituted the ?overwhelming majority? incidentally. As its conferences continue to show, there remain profound differences of principle. Eg, Scottish independence, an independent socialist Scotland, working class unity and a federal republic.

Far from ending that situation, the SWP has qualitatively complicated the factional picture. Its platform - which now has the support of some 40% of SSP activists - is based on the ?Where we stand? column carried in Socialist Worker every week.

There is also an important addendum: ?We support the right of self-determination for the Scottish people and extension of the powers of the Scottish parliament. Scotland remains, however, part of the UK imperialist state. Together with English and Welsh workers we face a common enemy. Scottish workers remain part of British-wide trade unions. We stand for a united fightback by Scottish, English and Welsh workers.?

Especially after the general election I am sure the SWP will again rethink things through. What works in Scotland can work in England and Wales ... and for that matter in Britain as a whole. We face a common enemy. We need a single party.

Jack Conrad