06.12.2001

SSP's Socialism 2001

Bigger and better

Over the weekend of December 1-2 the Scottish Socialist Party held its annual educational event, Socialism 2001. In fact the event was cancelled last year - in favour of spending resources on fighting a by-election. So the only precedent for Socialism 2001 was actually two years ago when, strangely enough, it was called Socialism 2000. Millennial fever started early.

Last weekend's event was far superior - not least because in 1999 most of the sessions were held in the main hall, allowing little opportunity for comrades to enter into debate. Socialism 2001 was obviously modelled in part on the SWP's Marxism school - several session took place simultaneously, permitting comrades to pick and choose what they wanted.

Not that there were no negative features. For the first time that I know the SSP enforced its guidelines in a draconian manner. Platforms constitutionally recognised within the SSP were unable to have stalls - groups outside the SSP could purchase them for £25.

In effect what that meant was that the Socialist Worker's Platform had three stalls - under the names of Bookmarks, Globalise Resistance and the Anti-Nazi League. Other factional literature was officially off limits. A very worrying development and obviously a taste of things to come. Democrats beware: the bureaucrats of mind control are on the move again.

The weekend was well attended, especially on the Saturday. Over 300 people turned up although only half that number were present for Sunday's sessions.

The weekend had a big John Maclean theme to it - ushered in with the rally on Friday night in his honour. Many sessions were dedicated to his life. Maclean has now been enshrined as the sanctified hero for the SSP - one of the few honourable figures in the history of the working class movement who can be used to justify the SSP's nationalist position for an independent Scotland. It was just about possible to attend one of the weekend's sessions without hearing John Maclean's name but it was impossible to escape the overarching nationalist sentiment.

Inevitably some sessions proved more interesting than others. The one entitled 'Imagine a socialist Scotland' was where the main clash on the national question took place, although naturally the question was raised in many other sessions.

Edinburgh and Lothians area organiser Colin Fox coherently argued the case for independence, but along the lines that our parliamentary version of independence is better than the SNP's. To many in the dominant faction an independent socialist Scotland is a dream ending with the working class in the rest of Britain being inspired by the incredible successes that will be witnessed in Scotland. Scotland is almost thought of as the world's revolutionary centre.

Perversely the comrades see the emergence of a myriad of ineffective states in the former USSR and the collapsed Yugoslavia as some kind of evidence that independence is but a short step away for Scotland, a land overflowing with natural resources and abundant talented individuals ready and willing to lead their country to a socialist paradise, free from the shackles imposed by the British state.

When some comrades dared argue against him the majority seemed outraged. The idea that a leftwing government isolated in Scotland would be crushed by the might of global capital seemed incomprehensible. Remember Allende, Chile and 1973. The idea that an impoverished Scotland - ripped away from the world division of labour - would certainly face a mass exodus and perhaps a democratic internal counterrevolution certainly has not occurred to them.

Marx's profound concept of simultaneous revolution and the necessity of overcoming capital universally now appears totally alien. The general level of debate was actually quite low, sometimes frighteningly backward - epitomised by the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement's anti-English diatribes, which sadly were received with enthusiasm in some quarters.

The session on the anti-capitalist movement was interesting. It was led off by Angela McCormick from Globalise Resistance and Philip Stott, north east area organiser and leading member of what remains of Peter Taaffe's Committee for a Workers' International. This brought into sharp relief the differences between the SWP and the CWI - especially those on the anti-capitalist and the anti-war movements. Comrades in the SWP were accused, quite rightly, of trying to dissolve themselves into the movement without engaging with it critically.

The weekend concluded with a good line-up of speakers for a final rally, including Aamer Anwar, Mike Gonzales, John McAllion, a delegate from Communist Refondation in Italy and Tommy Sheridan.

Sarah McDonald