22.08.2001

Communist Party of Britain clings to Labour Left unity rejected

The Morning Star?s Communist Party of Britain continues to reject left unity with the Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party. The reasons offered by CPB international secretary Kenny Coyle betray a sect mentality

As a rule, the art of reading between the lines is an essential requirement for the enlightened Morning Star reader. In the bureaucratic centralist tradition, ?ordinary workers? (including readers of socialist newspapers) should not be ?confused? by being told about political differences between political trends. All that loyal footsoldiers ?need to know? is the ?correct? line, handed down by those who ?know better?.

Criticism of those to the CPB?s right is, of course, normal, but usually takes the obsequious form of grovelling advice to trade union bureaucrats and government ministers. ?The Labour government should ??, ?trade union leaders should ??, and so on. Openly naming and critiquing trends to one?s left, however, as the CPB?s Kenny Coyle did in the Morning Star (July 30), is indeed as rare as it is welcome.

His attempt at polemic is certainly a healthy step away from the cheap red-baiting to which the Socialist Alliance and Scottish Socialist Party have been treated by Star columnists hitherto, even if it was forced out of a reluctant CPB leadership by growing pressure from below. A bemused rank and file is naturally receptive to the left unity it has been led to believe in for so long, and which has now materialised in the form of the SA and SSP.

?Decades of division and wrangling among the left have inevitably instilled a weariness and a desire to put past differences behind us,? writes comrade Coyle. And, tacitly admitting rank and file discontent with the CPB?s refusal to participate in the SA and SSP: ?Some critics [read: members] of the Communist Party of Britain cannot understand why the party should be so cautious of a formation that is apparently so focused on left unity.? Quite so.

Warning his readers that the ?main core? of the SA is ?far left? groups, comrade Coyle breaks a longstanding taboo by naming - among the ?more exotic flora and fauna of the British ultra-left? - the ?Provisional Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain?. This surely marks the definitive end of the 1992 ban placed on printing the name of our organisation in the Star?s columns.

The other organisations on comrade Coyle?s ?more exotic? ?ultra-left? list - names undoubtedly new and shocking to a readership not normally exposed to such dangerous substances - are the Alliance for Workers? Liberty, International Socialist League, Red Action, Revolutionary Democratic Group, Workers International and Workers Power.

Three other groups in the SA - the Socialist Workers Party (?the largest left group outside the Labour Party?, but with ?routinely inflated? membership figures), the Socialist Party, and the International Socialist Group (?the skeletal remains of the British section of the largest of the Trotskyist Fourth Internationals?) - while honoured with the description ?far left?, enjoy the dubious benefit of the CPB?s faint praise for possessing at least an ?uneven record? of ?participating in broader movements such as the poll-tax protests and anti-war movements on the Gulf and the Balkans?.

The self-styled ?daily paper of the left? and champion of left unity played no role in the early struggles to give birth to the Socialist Alliance, keeping its name off the Star?s pages for as long as possible. But after giving way first in its letters, the paper then allowed some of its columnists free rein to display their ?anti-Trotskyism? - impotent since the Soviet bureaucracy renounced its allegiance to communism. Now the presentation of the CPB viewpoint by comrade Coyle at least affords the opportunity of real debate.

Besides damning the components of the SA and SSP as ?ultra-left?, comrade Coyle gives another reason why the CPB should not get involved. He pretends to believe that steps towards unity will fail: we are only a ?far left non-aggression pact? with ?self-deluding analyses? and ?naive platitudes?. Not recognising the revolutionary potential unleashed by combining ?freedom of criticism? with ?unity in action?, comrade Coyle lamely concentrates his efforts on ?exposing? the differences of viewpoint between SA and SSP components, especially on international questions. But coming together organisationally for combined action, while debating differences, is precisely our strength, and shows the way out of the sectarian wilderness - towards higher levels of common understanding and deeper unity.

Claiming that CPB criticisms of SA and SSP policies are ?at the cutting edge of world politics?, comrade Coyle charges us all with ?undisguised hostility toward the remaining socialist states?. Although the only state mentioned is Cuba, the CPB view is well known that ?living socialism? can also be witnessed today in Vietnam, China and even in North Korea.

Despite such perverse beliefs we still invite the CPB to come into the SA, of course. And an excellent corrective to comrade Coyle?s ?sadly sectarian? views came in the Star?s letters column from veteran Eurocommunist Monty Johnstone, one of those who have been ?most critical of the policies and perspectives of Trotskyist groups? (August 11). Comrade Johnstone ?can only rejoice that the pressure of events has led organisations such as the SWP to work for a programme broad enough to unite a significant number of left activists and supporters.?

Taking issue with the CPB?s international secretary, he continues: ?If the basis for left unity is to be, as Coyle implies, agreement on the characterisation, as socialist, of the former Soviet Union and east European states or, on a ?call for withdrawal or abolition? of the EU, then no significant unity will be achieved.?

Rather than ?standing aside and criticising policies?, argues comrade Johnstone, the CPB should consider ?widening such unity and influencing the direction in which it develops?, and - hitting the nail on the head - developing the SA ?as an important influence on increasingly critical members of the Labour Party and trade unions?.

Stan Keable

What?s in a name?

The CPGB and the CPB have in the past clashed over our right to use the name ?Daily Worker?, a title the Morning Star claimed to ?own?. The Star carried - and still carries - a subtitle: ?Incorporating the Daily Worker?. Our Weekly Worker sometimes carries the subtitle: ?Towards the Daily Worker? - an objective to which we still hold. During the 1992 general election campaign we raised our tempo of publication and, for a few weeks, produced a Daily Worker. The Morning Star?s solicitors ordered us to cease publication immediately on pain of court action which could have led to heavy fines and imprisonment. We called their bluff and carried on publishing, welcoming the prospect of publicity and public debate over who were the genuine communists. And as a protest against their threat to use the bourgeois courts to settle a dispute in the workers? movement, we carried out a brief, symbolic occupation of the Morning Star offices. The management committee retaliated by banning any mention of the CPGB and its Provisional Central Committee from its paper.