24.10.2001

Before their eyes

Socialist Party - Resisting capitalism - the case for a new workers? party - London 2001, pp24, ?1.50

The events of September 11 plunged the world into economic and political turmoil. The need, already pressing, for the left to provide answers has now been given added urgency.

In Britain, the Socialist Alliance offers us the best opportunity for years to engage with the population - most importantly the working class - by providing answers. Despite the none too thinly veiled hostility towards the SA contained within the Socialist Party?s The case for a new workers? party, its publication (before the attacks on New York and Washington) should be welcomed as at least marking some kind of recognition of change - and perhaps representing a partial retreat from the failed ?ourselves alone?, ?small mass party? perspectives of the ?red-1990s?.

The SP/Militant Tendency/Committee for a Workers? International political tradition is one of some stature. Its roots in the working class threw up many high quality fighters, able to lead significant and often successful struggles - most noticeably the mass campaign for non-payment of the poll tax.

Militant at its height boasted some 8,500 members, including trade union general secretaries, Labour MPs and councillors throughout Britain. However, the flip side of this was a bureaucratic internal regime as bad as any on the left. Although debate was possible, the organisation did not have a lively and healthy approach to politics. It was rocked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, having dogmatically asserted that such an eventuality was impossible. Being wrong is no firing squad offence, but there was never any attempt to honestly account for mistakes in front of the rank and file, let alone the class.

Militant?s view of the Labour Party was equally dogmatic. The Labour Party, along with other mass social democrat and socialist parties, was to be the vehicle for working class power. Militant (?the Marxists?) would emerge as the leadership of Labour?s radicalised left wing at the head of an unstoppable movement for socialism. Patient entrist work seemed to be the very essence or Militant?s existence. This commitment showed a high level of seriousness, but the theory behind it was extremely wooden.

These mass parties had a deathly hold over the working class as a result of the post-war boom and it could be argued that Militant?s advance occurred partly because large sections of advanced workers were absent. In many areas the Labour Party was an empty shell. As a result Militant was able to have its supporters elected as officers in many CLPs and to take over the Labour Party Young Socialists in the early 1970s. It continued to recruit and make substantial gains into the 80s.

But by now the right wing was in full cry. Neil Kinnock launched his witch-hunt and hundreds of Militant supporters were expelled. Its recruitment farm, the LPYS, was all but destroyed and in the Labour Party as a whole was increasingly cowed and nearly ready for de-Labourisation. What Kinnock began, Tony Blair has completed.

To carry on as before was impossible. With deep divisions on the Militant leadership, those wanting to radically change course scored an important victory with an independent candidacy in the Walton by-election of 1991. Lesley Mahmood, standing on a Walton Real Labour ticket against a Labour rightwinger, scored what now seems a credible result for a socialist candidate - 2,613 votes and a saved deposit. However, Militant had hyped up its membership with tales of it being neck and neck with Labour. So much despondency followed and soon after came the split with Militant?s founding father, Ted Grant, who had, without success, argued for a continuation of the ?deep entrist? tactic. The Socialist Appeal group was born, which still maintains a lonely existence as the ?Marxist wing of the Labour Party?.

The period that followed saw a relatively healthy development of the organisation with the formation of Militant Labour. Broader initiatives such as Youth against Racism in Europe were launched. However, YRE was undoubtedly as much an attempt to fill the youth recruitment void created by the demise of the LPYS as an attempt to develop the best response in the fight against racism and fascism. Likewise discussions with other Trotskyist groupings internationally were partly an exercise in empire-building. Nevertheless, inasmuch as they represented a move away from the doctrinaire certainties of the Grant era, these initiatives were healthy. They ultimately failed because they were largely sect projects, their principal objective being to build Militant or the CWI rather than answering the needs of the period.

In the mid-90s Peter Taaffe issued his call for a new socialist party. This was envisaged as a new reformist grouping in which Militant Labour would comprise the revolutionary wing: much like the old times, we were reassured. But the call soon became one for a new ?workers? party?, since Taaffe believed that Militant itself could be transformed into a ?small mass party? - hence the name change to today?s Socialist Party. To this day the SP formally advocates a new workers? party, whilst in practice doing nothing to help make it a reality. Not surprising, since it sees itself as constituting the natural leadership of such a formation. So, when the possibility arises that it will actually come into being without comrade Taaffe and co at the helm, the SP leadership does everything to stop it, sabotaging real moves towards a new party in the shape of the Socialist Alliance.

Resisting capitalism - the case for a new workers? party certainly raises this as a more central question (certain SP comrades unsuccessfully called for such a discussion and pamphlet on this subject a few years ago). The urgency surely arises in view of the SA?s continuing development and the need for the SP to position itself against ?the sects? (the SP and its forebears has always seen itself as apart from and above other tendencies).

The pamphlet is full of the usual facts and figures charting the ascendancy of the New Labour clique: rule changes, links with big business, clause four, etc. However it is vague, if not misleading, on several points.

Take the analysis of what kind of party Labour was and is. The SP pictures the pre-Blair Labour Party as if it was actually capable of implementing the ?socialist transformation of society?. Nonsense. Clause four, for example, was not the socialist heart beating within a workers? party, but mere window dressing put together by the anti-socialist and Fabian Sydney Webb. His concern was to tap into the enormous sympathy felt for the Russian Revolution and keep militant workers tied to Labour. The Labour Party had previously explicitly rejected socialism as an aim. Only in the aftermath of October did it begin to use socialist rhetoric.

The pamphlet charts the decreasing enthusiasm for Labour, and indeed official politics. The 2001 general election saw a record-breaking low turnout, particularly in inner city areas. Areas which in the past the joke was that Labour votes had to be weighed not counted. Millions of traditional Labour voters went on vote strike on June 7. It is, as a result, generally agreed that a vacuum exists in British politics, where class needs to assert itself. Unfortunately, however, the authors go only so far in pointing the way to how a workers? party could be built and do not really get to grips with what a workers? party actually ought to be.

The SP says that the Labour Party is now a wholly capitalist party, despite continuing trade union affiliation, despite its left wing, despite its working class support, and despite the continuing effect it has on left politics. Defining Labour as a bourgeois party pure and simple sounds very radical, but what it means in practice is the abandonment of any struggle in relation to its working class base. It means that the absence of any strategy towards Labour is excused, since all that is necessary is an appeal to Labour voters over the heads of the Labour left.

Yet the SP recently lost a leading RMT activist back to Labour during the general election, while Dennis Canavan, who won a seat in the Scottish parliament as an independent and worked closely with Tommy Sheridan, has let it be known he would welcome being let back into the Labour fold. Mick Rix, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers? union, who was one of Arthur Scargill?s prize catches in the Socialist Labour Party, has recently quietly slipped back into Labour Party. All this demonstrates that we need far more skilful tactics than those advocated by the SP comrades, who, after years of condemning the rest of the left as ?sectarians? for not putting work inside the party at the very top of their agenda, now fail to even countenance such work. But 100 years of Labourism cannot be wished away. The Labour tradition continues to have a material hold over the general consciousness of the working class.

The pamphlet states: ?A new workers? party could politically channel the anger and discontent which working class people feel towards New Labour? (p5). True, but this formulation gives the impression that the SP does not see such a party as actually leading the class. Rather it is depressingly envisaged as a vehicle for the SP - ?the Marxists? within it - to feed on.

Why not work to make the SA such a channel? For this the SP has a ready-made answer: the SA is not much more than the left groups with no real roots, whereas what we need is a ?mass? workers? party. None of us are opposed to the idea of a mass party, of course, which would certainly be preferable to a small one. However, it is as if one must jump from having no workers? party to a mass one overnight. And here is the rub: the pamphlet?s dismissal of the real existing processes taking place at the moment that make the creation of a workers? party more likely: namely the Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party.

It is hardly controversial to state: ?It?s clear that at this stage the Socialist Alliance has not yet been able to establish itself as an authoritative force electorally, capable of channelling the anger that clearly exists against New Labour? (p14). The phrase ?at this stage? implies that things could change, but in fact the SP views the alliance more as an obstacle to its own schema than as a positive example of how we can struggle now to create a workers? party. After all, just a couple of years ago the SSP could hardly have been regarded as an ?authoritative force?. Whatever our views on its left nationalist politics, surely even the SP must admit that the SSP has the potential to mount a real challenge as a result of its transformation from the Scottish Socialist Alliance. But the SSP is virtually ignored by the writers of this pamphlet. Peter Taaffe is obviously still steaming over the loss of the Scottish section of the CWI.

Another reason, for the SP, why the SA cannot be the basis for a new workers? party is that such a formation must by its very nature be reformist, whereas the alliance is dominated by the SWP. This reveals a deep scepticism about the ability of the advanced layers of workers who presumably would build a new party to be won over to revolutionary ideas. We are told that the SP is not after a Labour Party mark two. However, its vision is exactly that: a reformist party with the SP making up its ?revolutionary wing? and recruiting to itself in ones and twos.

But a party led by reformists - ie, those in league politically with the ruling class - which was threatened by an effective revolutionary opposition would cull that opposition at the earliest opportunity. The reformist wing has several advantages: the prevailing ideas of society; the media, which will undoubtedly support it - influencing the party?s membership.

Revolutionaries are not sectarians. Should a left reformist workers? party come into existence, we must energetically intervene, attempting to win the hearts and minds of at least its most advanced members. However, a revolutionary wing within a reformist party is unlikely to have any kind of prolonged existence. To take the contrary view, ie, to envisage the unity of reformists and revolutionaries as a long-term project or a necessary stage, is foolish in the extreme. Yet the current SP leadership has such a simplistic schema: effectively repeating the experience of Militant in the Labour Party.

What is significant about the SA and SSP is that they are the attempt at unity of comrades from different leftwing traditions. Such unity cannot be deepened by demanding adherence to a particular world view - say, what type of state the USSR was - but on the basis of the acceptance of a programme and what is necessary for the class rather than any individual group. Most socialists today are of the view that they are more effective united and that the way we described and behaved towards one another in the past was frankly ridiculous. The SSP has got Tommy Sheridan elected to the Scottish parliament and has built up a significant organisational base in a very short time. Likewise the SA has fought a general election and developed promisingly in less than two years. To more or less ignore all this indicates a SP leadership that is putting its own sect interests before those of the class.

The excuse given is that capitalism cannot be overthrown by elite bands of dedicated revolutionaries, and that this has to be the task of the working class itself. That is correct, of course, but the SP goes on from here to, illogically, downplay the SA. What will really get the ball rolling, says the SP, is the introduction into the political equation of single-issue groups, anti-cuts campaigns and other spontaneous movements into the equation. The Campaign Against Tube Privatisation and the independent challenge of Unison stewards independent challenge in a local by-election in Hackney are actually used as examples.

But the pamphlet fails to tell the whole story. The CATP was presented as a slate, including an SP member, on the PR list for the elections to the Greater London Assembly in 2000. But CATP hardly had the active backing of the mass of tubeworkers. Although it had been set up by the RMT union in London, it was run by a handful of leftists. The SP at first called for the London Socialist Alliance to stand down in favour of CATP and only when it became clear that the LSA was building up momentum did it change its tune and advocate an LSA vote for the PR top-up list. In Hackney the SP stood its own comrade against the SA as he was supposed to represent a workers? movement fighting back.

The pamphlet describes the recent independent candidacies of Ken Livingstone for London mayor and Ralph Nader for US president as two lost opportunities for the creation of workers? parties. In both cases the method appears to be that the candidate should have called a conference of labour movement bodies to discuss the formation of new parties. Such a call may be valid in attempting to expose the individuals concerned for the opportunists they are. But criticising them as if they shared an interest with us in furthering independent class politics is misplaced. In the case of Livingstone, the left (including the CPGB) saw a mass split from Labour on the cards.

However, all the evidence suggested that ?Red Ken? would do all in his power to avoid such a split and indeed any association with the left. Consequently there was little hope of this happening; the possibility for an independent SA candidate was lost. In my opinion the SA should have stood a candidate for mayor itself. Indeed, given the vagaries of the electoral procedure for mayor, a second preference vote for Livingstone could have been given alongside a campaign for our candidacy and our politics.

In Ralph Nader, there was the possibility of a new party, but it would never have been a workers? party. The SP believes that what was on the cards was a fantasy ?conference of all radical forces, unions, women?s groups, community and minority organisations, socialists, etc to discuss the formation of a broad independent, radical, left party? (p6). Nader, the pamphlet agrees, even after a few doubles, ?is not a socialist? (ibid). He has organised a series of coalitions around himself, on the back of his campaign, but this is not a step forward for the working class and represents nothing more than an extension of Nader?s sub-reformist, pressure group politics.

However, it would appear that the SP is waiting for heroes on white chargers to fulfil its perspectives. The formations of parties built around the likes of Livingstone and Nader are likely to be top-down, undemocratic and any role for the working class will be of a ?walk on, walk off? type. Of course, we would need to intervene in such formations - independently and with our eyes wide open - but, again, we do not aim for them, still less call on the likes of Livingstone or Nader to do it for us.

We are correctly told that the formation of the SLP in 1995 failed because of ?restrictive, undemocratic structures? (p13). Arthur Scargill launched discussions about the formation of a new socialist party, and a coterie of Scargill loyalists met secretly and planned its establishment. CWI comrades Tommy Sheridan and Kevin Miles both took part in the discussions (Dave Nellist was kept out). Conditions of membership stink, to say the least, and comrade Scargill has at least done the working class a big favour in demonstrating how not to build a workers? party. Even as a sect the SLP is a failure.

Once the terms of membership became clear the SP (then Militant Labour/Scottish Militant Labour) went cold on the project and hoped the SLP would simply go away. There was a virtual ignoring of the reverberations triggered by Scargill?s initiative and consequently there was no engaging with the opportunities that opened up. A layer of militants were in the most part left to their fate - only a minority of the old SLP have survived as activists and those who have are in the Socialist Alliance. Where was the reporting on the struggles in Scargill?s party? Where was the solidarity with the fighters for democracy and those desperate for Militant Labour?s ?new socialist party?? The invaluable chronicling of events can be found in the Weekly Worker archives, not those of The Socialist or its predecessor, Militant.

It was in response to their exclusion by Scargill that the Militant Labour comrades, circa 1996, for a brief period acted as sperm donor rather than parent to the Socialist Alliance.

The SP continues to play an effective, if much reduced and increasingly Machiavellian role in the trade unions. SP comrades Glenn Kelly and Matt Wrack proposed resolutions at Unison and FBU conferences calling for renegotiation of the link with Labour. And of course SP comrades could, if they wished, exert considerable influence in the SA - Dave Nellist is widely viewed as a key figure. So the ghost of Militant past clings on, and I am not one of those who will slate Peter Taaffe as some kind of mono-dimensional ogre nor write off the SP as a doomed cult. However, the organisation cannot live off its past for ever. Comrades from that tradition will have to learn that no-one has the sole understanding of the truth: the CWI are not the holders of a Marxist holy grail.

The Socialist Party/CWI ought to have been well placed to address the new political situation that arose with the collapse of Stalinism and the consequent crisis of social democracy and Labourism. Their comrades had roots in the class, were dedicated and committed, possessed a more revolutionary attitude towards finance, etc, than many other tendencies, and they lived and breathed the struggles of the left.

The CWI tradition contains much that is valuable and the collective experience of its comrades ought to be viewed as an asset for the workers? movement as a whole - not least within the movement for a workers? party that is taking place before their eyes around the Socialist Alliance.

The creation of a new party should be seen as a living process within which the SP comrades can play their part. We need a party that aims to change the world. A party that is the most advanced, free thinking, militant, creative section of the class. A party that acts as a spur to workers in community organisations, in trades unions and in progressive struggles. We should not aim for a halfway house reformist party, but the kind of party the working class needs: a revolutionary socialist party, a communist party.

Lawrie Coombs