04.07.2001

Republican socialism Connolly versus Cliff

Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group criticises the Socialist Workers Party for its economism and tailing of spontaneity

At the Alliance for Workers' Liberty weekend school (June 30-July 1), Sean Matgamna presented a session on the Irish revolutionary, James Connolly.

In an interesting talk he posed the question of whether Connolly should be considered a Marxist. In examining his life, activity and writings, Sean concluded that he was indeed a revolutionary Marxist. A discussion ensued about Connolly's attitude to catholicism. He was given the last rites by a priest before his execution by a British firing squad. Was this a major or minor weakness?

Generally speaking, both Sean and the audience took a positive attitude to Connolly. But for me the real question was not really dealt with. Do Connolly's ideas and political activity speak to us today? Does he have a message for working class revolutionaries in the UK in 2001? Or was his politics just an Irish phenomenon, relevant only to the Ireland of the early 20th century?

I would want to argue that Connolly's political strategy was not only relevant, but far superior to 'Cliffism', the political ideas that have shaped the British Socialist Workers Party. Tony Cliff was the founder of the SWP, now the main trend in British Marxism and the dominant political force in the Socialist Alliance. It is also the main barrier to a republican socialist party.

What marks out Connolly was his revolutionary republicanism. He combined republicanism and socialism in a practical application of the idea of permanent revolution. Connolly was, Sean argued, the central figure in the Easter republican uprising in 1916. His name appears on the declaration of the Irish republic, read on the steps of the Dublin post office.

The attempt to establish a provisional republican government was not Connolly's ultimate aim. As he said to his own forces in the Citizens Army, if the uprising succeeds the working class forces must 'hold on to their guns'. The Irish republican uprising was the means of destroying the old British political and constitutional order. But this would not solve the question of what came next. It would simply open the door to an Irish workers' republic.

Petty bourgeois Irish nationalism looked to the bourgeoisie in France, Germany or Ireland to help free the country. But Connolly sought a united front between the working class and petty bourgeois nationalism against the British and Irish bourgeoisie. For Connolly, the only class that could provide the leadership for Irish democracy was the working class.

This was a close parallel to Lenin's revolutionary republican strategy of permanent revolution in Russia. There is no record of Connolly being a 'Leninist' nor of Lenin making any reference to Connolly. But it is no coincidence that Lenin came out in complete solidarity with the Easter uprising and recognised its international significance.

A revolutionary republican strategy does not mean we should occupy the nearest post office. But it does mean that we should apply this line of march to British politics with due regard to historical conditions and the real balance of class forces today. It does mean standing the Cliffite and Taaffeite politics of British Marxism on their head. The strategy of permanent revolution begins with a democratic republic opening the door to the workers' republic.

Cliffism means a rejection of this, sinking to the lowest level of reformism. Since a workers' republic in not possible in the current climate, the SWP must stimulate the workers with economic and social reforms. Cliffism is a variation on what Lenin called economism, or reformism. Yes, the SWP wants a workers' republic in the future. But for now we must ditch any strategic plan for reaching that end and content ourselves with the daily struggle for a penny on the pay.

The SWP has no strategy of permanent revolution and consequently has no revolutionary programme, nor even sees the need for one. All we need is a pocket calculator to work out the new rates of pay. The SWP will 'carry on campaigning' so it can 'lend the economic struggle itself a political character'. The politics of the SWP is not vanguardism, but 'tailism'. It means a party following every spontaneous trend, trying to catch up.

Let us go back to the two major struggles of the 1980s: the miners' strike 1984-85, and the anti-poll tax movement. The miners' strike produced support committees in which communists and left Labour workers campaigned across the country for the miners. It is a matter of record that the SWP did not join these committees until four months into the strike. The reason is now recognised as Cliff's theory of the 'downturn'. The verdict on the SWP involvement in the miners' support committees - turned up late and underestimated the movement.

The anti-poll tax movement is the same story. The SWP was slow to get involved and was bypassed by the Militant Tendency. Especially in Scotland, the SWP screwed up. They vacillated over whether and how to get involved. SWP internal bulletins recognised that mistakes had been made. Verdict - turned up late and underestimated the movement.

In the 1990s these struggles produced their own political reflection. In Scotland Tommy Sheridan and Scottish Militant Labour, along with other activists, built on them in order to develop the Scottish Socialist Alliance. The SSA became the Scottish Socialist Party. Where was the SWP? Verdict - turned up late and underestimated the movement. SWP members should ask themselves why they had not been in the forefront of forming this party instead of being the last people to join.

In England, the miners' support committees had their echo in the formation of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. Those of us who joined this party, despite our reservations, are well aware of the importance of the SLP in bringing together, amongst others, comrades from the National Union of Mineworkers. Miners who had fought in the most important battle 10 years previously were looking for new politics - beyond Labourism. The significance of Scargill was that he had the bottle to challenge the Labour Party at the 1997 general election. The so-called revolutionary SWP tamely followed Blair to the polls, simply confirming the illusions that many had in Blair. If a revolutionary party like the SWP could back Blair, surely he could not be that bad?

When Scargill called on the left to fight Blair where was the SWP? Certainly Tommy Sheridan and the Socialist Party joined the negotiations over the new party. In fact the failure to make a deal with Scargill was probably a fatal blow to the whole project. Verdict on the SWP? Didn't turn up at all. The SWP underestimated the importance of the shifts in working class politics that the SLP represented.

The SWP leadership had to respond to these shifts or become even more marginalised. If the SLP achieved anything, it has been to force the SWP to come to terms with the real world. The Socialist Alliance provide the SWP with a route back to reality from sectarian isolation. It had involved mainly the Socialist Party, local activists and some smaller left groups. The SP was not entirely convinced what to do with it, although some like Dave Nellist had played a consistently positive role. Verdict on the SWP? Eventually turned up, late as usual, having underestimated what could or should be done.

Of course it is better late than never. I would be among the first to acknowledge that the SWP's involvement has been the major factor in qualitatively changing the SA. It is now a significantly different organisation than it was even two years ago. The problem is that the SWP controls the majority of left forces currently opposing Blair. In the past the SWP simply lagged behind itself. Now they are in a position to hold the SA movement back. Today their political backwardness is in charge of the SA movement.

Let us return to the question of republicanism. In this James Connolly outshines Tony Cliff in revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice. The SWP has no republican strategy. They view the issue through the narrow tunnel vision of economism and spontaneity. If there was a mass republican movement on the streets, the SWP would 'recognise' this and join in. They will follow any popular campaign and try to catch up with it.

Thirty percent of the electorate are passive republicans, according to opinion polls. Should the SWP try to stir this up into an active movement, or stir up more passivity? The SWP has no political theory to point to a different way. If there is a theory, it is the bourgeois democratic revolution. In the 1640s Britain apparently had such a revolution. End of story.

Without Lenin's or Connolly's theories of permanent revolution, the SWP has no strategy. It can do nothing except tail behind popular passive republicanism. The SWP simply reflects the popular mood. In their theory, getting rid of the monarchy is a job for the bourgeoisie, not the working class. The working class should confine themselves to social reforms and concentrate on economic struggles. The working class is not seen as the vanguard of the struggle for democracy.

So when the British constitutional monarchy is eventually abolished what will be history's verdict on Cliff's politics as represented in the SWP? Turned up late and underestimated the significance of the movement! Not something you could say about James Connolly.