21.03.2002
Constitutional and class struggles
Should communists be indifferent to constitutions under capitalism? Examining the examples of the EU and the USA, Jack Conrad argues that they should actively intervene
Meeting in Brussels over the course of a whole year, beginning on March 1 2002, the European Union's first constitutional convention demands the closest attention of communists and revolutionary socialists - not only in Europe itself, but throughout the whole world. Set up by the EU's leaders during their 2001 Laeken summit, it is expected to pave the way for a full blown constitution and hence a European superstate of some kind. In terms of method, scale, ambition and probable consequences the only parallel under capitalism is the formation of the United States of America in 1787 out of the loose confederation of 13 states which emerged victorious from the revolutionary war against the British crown. Consisting of 113 delegates - chosen by the governments of the 15 member-states and 13 candidate states, their national parliaments, and the European parliament and commission - it has the remit of detailing various broad options and producing recommendations for the EU's inter-governmental summit in 2004. Each government has one representative, while the national parliaments have two. Europe minister Peter Hain is the voice of the UK government, while Gisela Stuart and David Heathcoat-Amory speak, respectively, for the Labour and Conservative sides of parliament. Efforts are also being made to involve non-governmental organisations, trade unions and commercial and industrial bodies. Sixty themes are set for debate. They include the future of EU policy-making; the division of powers; the legitimacy of EU institutions; institutional planning in an enlarged EU; and the role of the EU in world affairs. The need for reform is urgent. In a few years there are expected to be as many as 25 member-states, "leading to the risk of paralysis if institutions and procedures are not adapted" (European parliament press release, February 26). And expansion, and thus pressure for radical change, is set to continue. By 2010 some well placed commentators predict that the EU will contain 37 states. Compared to the US in the 18th century, European unity has evolved thus far at a much more cautious and protracted, and for our rulers an altogether safer, pace. There has been no great wave of liberation, nor the voluntary coming together of risen peoples. Nevertheless European integration has advanced markedly since the Treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in 1957. The customs union - born of the terrible slaughter and mutual destruction of World War II and then the cold war system which bifurcated the continent - has become a giant embracing 350 million people and 15 counties with free trade and movement of labour. Economically it already possesses the world's biggest home market. It has a combined GDP of about $6 trillion - as compared with $5 trillion for the US and $3 trillion for Japan. And the stated aim of the EU's leading bureaucrats and top politicians is to overtake the US by 2010 - not simply in terms of dry growth rate statistics, but as the world's principal economic powerhouse. After inching forward for decades, the unification process accelerated in the late 1980s and early 90s. The collapse of bureaucratic socialism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union over the two years 1989-91 catapulted forward the long cherished goal of monetary union. Germany's chancellor Kohl reckoned that sacrificing the D-mark was a price worth paying in return for its partners - crucially France - accepting a united Germany. The Gulf War against Iraq, Nato's air war to tame Serbia and now the Afghan intervention have also helped to consolidate the EU's embryonic common foreign and security policy (CFSP). All these wars were, in purely military terms, American. Nevertheless they were also, for the governments of the EU, an invitation to concoct a new, post-cold war, military doctrine, one which allows them to freely intervene in the affairs of small to medium countries - as long as it is for "humanitarian reasons". During the cold war the risk of a nuclear conflagration ruled out such military adventures as far too risky. Now the ice has melted. Hence the decision to give CFSP an armed wing in the form of the rapid reaction force. Politically, however, the EU punches far be low its economic weight. It still resembles something like the 13 confederated American states before 1787 - the parts are more important than the whole. The EU is an amalgam of unevenly developed state units. But the direction is clear. Wider, in the form of candidates like Poland and the Czech Republic. Deeper, in the form of a common currency and military-political-legal institutions. But how wide and how deep? That is the fundamental question being debated in Brussels by the EU's constitutional convention. Near perfect Obviously the near-perfect launch of the euro was a leap forward and underpins all efforts designed to further centralisation of internal and external relations. Incidentally those 'Marxists' - eg, Peter Taaffe and Lynn Walsh of the Socialist Party in England and Wales - who staked rather threadbare reputations as sages on the prediction that "it is almost certain that the euro will break down before completion of the final stage, the replacement of domestic currencies by euro notes and coins planned for 2002", have been disproved by life itself ('Socialist Party conference resolution' Members Bulletin No35, January 1999, p5). Evidently the EU is more than an ephemeral collection of nation-states doomed to fly apart with the first seismic tremors of an economic downturn. The Brussels constitutional convention will reportedly witness a "battle between pro- and anti-federalists". However, the pro-federalists have the "biggest firepower" and count France and Germany among their number (BBC News Online, February 27). They favour pressing ahead with a constitution, curbing veto powers and putting in place a strong foreign and security policy. Europe might then match the US as a force in world affairs. The minority, which includes the UK, wants to keep intact the rights of national governments through the council of ministers. Both sides of the argument favour continued expansion - though in France there has been talk from within influential Socialist Party circles of a 'hard-core' Europe, consisting of those countries committed to the deepest unity. Outside the crème de la crème, there would be the others - possibly Britain, but above all those in eastern and central Europe - ie, countries not capable yet of "developing the political will or the mechanisms that stronger social, industrial and foreign policies will require" (Le Monde June 20 2001). Such a scenario could serve in the short term. After all, as allowed for under the provisions of the Nice treaty, neither the UK nor Denmark nor Sweden have adopted the euro - so far. However, in the medium to longer term such a two-speed Europe is in all probability unworkable. For a start, most EU members - and all prospective members - are against the idea. So France and Germany could not proceed unless they acted outside the scope of EU treaties, creating a new and separate organisational framework. The result would be a huge divide between two groups of member-states and Germany is unlikely to risk such a schism. Suffice to say, whether European unity is federal or confederal, it is not being brought about under the direct or indirect impact of working class self-activity - as envisaged by left socialists in the late 19th century and communists in the early 20th century. EU unity is proceeding fitfully through a whole series of tortuous, behind-the-scenes compromises and makeshift deals, hatched between member governments - all presided over by the unelected EU bureaucratic elite. Indeed there can be no doubt that the whole project is moving according to the rhythm, requirements and restrictions imposed by capital. So the working class has no reason whatsoever to endorse, applaud or join with either the federalist majority or the confederal minority. Nevertheless communists seek in general to bring about the closest voluntary unity of peoples - and in the biggest state units at that. All the better to conduct the struggle of class against class and prepare the ground for revolutionary socialism. Hence we are far from indifferent about the EU constitutional convention and the bureaucratic-bourgeois project of unifying Europe. The call from left nationalist reformists, 'official communists' and various Trotskyites and sub-Trotskyites to get the UK out of the EU because it is a "bosses' club" or it is not "socialist" is a blundering mix of political illiteracy and political bankruptcy. One might just as well propose pulling the working class out of Britain. Capitalism is attempting to organise Europe into a bloodbank - a huge source of surplus value, ever ready to meet its vampirish needs. That must, and will, call forth a working class alternative. The working class has never been simply a passive victim. The power of capital has always been confronted by the power of labour. Moreover, since World War I capital as a system has entered its period of decline. To save itself fascist counterrevolution was employed. But, no matter how brutal the iron heel, the working class continually gains strength. Our class is ascendant. After World War II capital could only maintain itself through a far-reaching historical compromise - the social democratic state. However, with each year that passes capitalism becomes ever more impossible and riven with contradictions. Hence, where bourgeois politicians and EU institutions are proceeding with their various constitutional half-measures and palliatives, we require our alternative which helps to create the objective and subjective preconditions for the epochal transition from capitalism to communism. Social Europe With this in mind the CPGB argues for a social Europe, within which the political power and economic interests of the broad masses, albeit still under capitalism, are qualitatively advanced to the point where an historical rupture becomes the order of the day. To bring forward these immediate ends the following constitutional demands, specifically concerning the EU, are presented: for the right to organise and the right to strike; for top quality healthcare, housing and social provision on demand; for the abolition of the commission and the council of ministers; for a democratic constitutional convention, directly elected on the basis of universal suffrage; no to the rapid reaction force and all standing armies, yes to a popular militia; end the rotating presidency; no to a second chamber, no to the EU senate proposed by Tony Blair in his Warsaw speech; for a federal EU and a single-chamber executive and legislative continental congress of the peoples of Europe. To put this programme of extreme democracy firmly into the realm of practice the CPGB works tirelessly for the closest coordination of all working class forces in the EU. "To the extent the EU becomes a superstate, the working class must unify its resistance and organisation across Europe" (J Conrad Towards a Socialist Alliance party London 2001, p152). Use every relevant opportunity to promote EU-wide industrial unions - eg, railways, mines, engineering, civil service, print. Likewise aim for an authoritative and effective EU Trade Union Congress. More is required than defensive formations though - trade unions at the end of the day can only hope to limit the competition between wage slaves. The EU of capital calls for an EU Socialist Alliance as part of the vital process of establishing a single, centralised revolutionary party: ie, a Communist Party of the European Union. Armed with such a continental-wide combat organisation, the United Socialist States of Europe comes within the grasp of a self-liberating working class. America first Together, the 13 American states fought as one against the Hanoverian crown from 1775 to 1783. However, they could not to begin with put in place even a customs union of the type that later laid the foundations for the timid unification of Germany. Nor was there a single foreign or domestic policy. The revolution cut the link with Britain, but did not put in place any other unifying authority. The promise to nationalise state debts accumulated during the revolutionary war, the mutual advantages offered by protection of nascent industries and the prospect of lucrative trade deals with overseas powers were all factors that encouraged the jealous states to overcome their parochial concerns. The danger of war with France and restive Indian tribes were important factors too. The US nation arose from the flames of an epoch-making revolutionary war, but was unmistakably shaped by a combination of mass democratic sentiments below, and rival state and exploitative interests above. In point of fact, it was the challenge presented by the 'mobocracy' that more than anything else brought together the northern merchants and industrialists and the southern slavocracy in a keen realisation of the inadequacies of a loose confederation. Having unleashed a revolution, the problem that confronted the constitution-makers in 1787 was how to curb the masses and how to harness them behind one or the other of the exploitative systems - labour or slavery. Tom Paine The 1786 Sharp rebellion in Massachusetts and the seizure of the Rhode Island government by indebted small farmers "served notice on the ruling classes of the precariousness of their position in face of the rising popular clamour" (H Frankel, 'How the constitution was written', in G Novack America's revolutionary heritage New York 1993, p128). Confronted by a population who had flintlock muskets in their hands and Tom Paine's great revolutionary manifesto Common sense in their heads - published in January 1776, it advocated independence, republicanism, egalitarian democracy and inter-colonial unity - the drafters of the constitution had to tread a careful line between the interests of the northern capitalists and southern planters on the one hand, and, on the other, gaining acquiescence from the great mass of the people whom they feared with a passion. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that the ruling principle that guided the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention - all from the propertied classes - lay in keeping political power as far removed as possible from the control or influence of the urban and rural masses. It is therefore one of those historical tragedies that the Committees of Correspondence, Sons and Daughters of Liberty and the so-called 'Mohawks' (led by the great revolutionary, Sam Adams) who, taken together, were the American equivalent of the English Levellers and the French Enragés, failed to transform themselves into a programmatically coherent national party completely separate the men of property. The constitution that emerged under the post-revolutionary conditions was a multi-layered compromise. A compromise between rival states; a compromise between two contradictory social systems - the slave system of the southern plantation owners and the wage-labour system of the budding northern industrialists; and most fundamentally a compromise between the aristocratic and democratic principles of government. The US constitution, in fact, exists as a system of checks and balances against democracy. It has an indirectly elected monarch, who exercises enormous executive powers. The president is head of state, chief administrator and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He appoints all secretaries of state (ministers) and members of the supreme court - who serve for life. The two houses of congress - the House of Representative and the Senate - exist to ratify presidential proposals. If, for one reason or another, such proposals are met by stubborn refusal, the president is entitled to veto congress and try again. Either way, popular initiatives and pressures from below can be held back and frustrated - by either the presidency, the congress or the supreme court. Democratic forces in America - including popular leaders such as Mercy Otis Warren, James Warren and Eldridge Garry - had little trouble in recognising the constitution for what it was - a victory for the Tories (as the country's rightwing establishment were then called). They opposed not unity, but unity without liberty. In her Observations on the new constitution Mercy Otis Warren objected to the absence of democratic guarantees - no press freedom, no right of conscience, no right to trial by jury. In addition she lambasted the standing army as "the nursery of vice and the bane of liberty". Furthermore, she criticised representatives setting their own salaries and called for annual elections. The college of state delegates - which to this day elects the president - was branded by her as an "aristocratic junta" (quoted by D Feeley, 'Mercy Otis Warren - mother of the American revolution', in G Novack America's revolutionary heritage New York 1993, p111). The democratic left rallied around the demand for a Bill of Rights - which became for them a condition for the adoption of the constitution and was finally enshrined in its first 10 amendments. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison took the initiative here, so reconciling the anti-federalist left to the constitution. Not that these rights were realised in practice. The practical fight to achive them devolved to each separate state. Two great parties arose from the fierce arguments around the US constitution. Through a complex interchange of splits and fusions the pro-federalist and anti-federalist camps coagulated into the Federal Party on one side and the Republican Party on the other. Essentially, the Federal Party - led by Alexander Hamilton - articulated the interests of the northern merchant class and the up-and-coming industrial capitalists. The Republican Party - under Jefferson - defended the south and the plantation system. After a bitter struggle within George Washington's cabinet, the Federal Party secured undisputed hegemony. Taking over the reigns of government, it embarked on a bold programme of primitive capitalist accumulation. A national bank, common finances and a system of industrial protection against British competition were put in place. Tough restrictions were also imposed on sales of frontier land. Labour power had to be retained and kept cheap by preventing, or at least curbing, the metamorphosis of eastern proletarians into western small farmers. Funding for the nationalised debts came from taxation - primarily on land-owners and the rural masses (90% of the population). This programme stimulated overseas trade and allowed self-generating capitalist accumulation to take off. However, it provoked stiff opposition from the southern slavocracy. Wasteful and ecologically unsustainable plantation agriculture - tobacco, sugar and especially cotton - quickly exhausted the land. Virgin land was therefore vital for the continued health of the system. Yet the great plantation-owners found their 'natural' route to the west blocked by the Federal Party administration. Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and similar figures from amongst the slavocracy moved into opposition and sought to assemble the majority of the population behind them through an overlapping series of political and class alignments. Their main slogans concentrated on championing state rights and western expansionism. The industrial bourgeoisie found support draining away. Isolated and desperate, it enacted the draconian Alien and Sedition Act in order to scapegoat the democratic clubs founded in the wake of the French Revolution. There was much vitriolic talk of "French gold" and outside subversives. But the tide moved inexorably against the Federal Party. The slavocracy had the whole countryside backing its programme. Doubtless that is why in the mid 1930s the Communist Party of the USA attempted to claim Jefferson as a representative of "peasant democracy". He was, of course, no such thing. Jefferson and his party captured both the presidency and congress in 1801. However, the Federal Party, in a pre-emptive move, had stacked the courts - especially the Supreme Court - with their chosen men. Jefferson's two administrations were characterised by a constant to-and-fro struggle with the judiciary. Under John Marshall, a prominent Federalist, the Supreme Court tried to impose a judicial dictatorship. Marshall issued a courtroom decree, which declared that some piece of obscure legislation passed by congress was unconstitutional and therefore void. This highly controversial precedent was kept in reserve - they had no stomach for a popular explosion - till the notorious Dred Scott case in 1857 ... and a then revolutionary civil war was necessary to expunge that decision and its consequences. Treason and plot Federalist minds turned to out-and-out treason. They plotted with Britain to halt US expansionism. The old colonial power stood to regain the west and New England. Plans were also discovered to hive off the newly acquired Louisiana Territory. Justice Marshall, presiding over the trial of the chief conspirators, ruled administration evidence out of order. He thus saved their necks. Though the Federalist Party quickly collapsed, never to rise again under that name, none of the administrations that followed touched the foundations of American capitalism laid down over the years 1789 to 1800. Indeed Jefferson knew that the slavcoracy had no long-term future - he actually prohibited the importation of slaves in his second term as president. The slavocracy willingly cemented an historic compromise with the northern industrialists and the small family farmers - it held fast till the constitutional crisis that led to the civil war of 1861-65. America spread to the west through a series of mammoth purchases, violent land grabs and peaceful absorptions of frontier states - all at the expense of the native Indian tribes. Each successive enlargement benefited the slavocracy and the small farmers. However, industry found itself more than compensated for the loss of eastern proletarians to the lure of the west by the huge surge in demand for its commodities and the encouragement of mass migration from Europe. The civil war was America's second revolution. National rights and union authority triumphed over state rights; the north over the south; the system of wage labour over slave labour. After the war the banking and industrial bourgeoisie stood alone as the sole ruling class in the US. The slavocracy and the southern secession was crushed, using the plebeian methods favoured by the extreme wing of democracy. War excluded any middle course. Having taken up the struggle against the slave states, the northern bourgeoisie and their working class and rural allies were forced to resort to increasingly audacious revolutionary measures. However, following the civil war, the northern bourgeoisie recoiled from any thorough-going and permanent democratic transformation in the south. Most Republican leaders - now the industrial bourgeois party - were unenthusiastic about freeing the slaves. Lincoln hesitated time and time against before finally announcing abolition. After the Confederacy had been defeated, they feared that the poor - especially the doubly oppressed blacks - would push democracy far beyond the limits imposed upon it by property. Black soldiers kept their guns and the freed slaves organised action committees and defence squads. There was a series of splits in the Republican Party. What had been a military dictatorship over the south with the support of the poor and black masses gave way in 1876 to a squalid deal between the managers of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Rutherford B Hayes was allowed to assume the post of president in return for the restoration of white supremacy in the south. Looking at the USA of today, it is clear that, whether the Republicans or the Democrats hold the presidency or have a majority in the congress, it is the plutocracy which wields real power. Elections are about money and buying politicians from either persuasion. Meanwhile the gulf separating the rich from the poor has never been greater. Blacks remain the poorest of the poor. For the vast mass of the US population democracy is purely formal. They have, as Karl Marx famously said, "the right" every two or four years to "choose who will misrepresent them". No wonder millions abstain and only a minority vote in presidential elections. In envisaging a third - workers' - revolution, socialists and communists in the US will, of course, learn from the Patriots of 1776 and the Radicals of the Civil War. What these revolutions began in terms of democracy the third revolution must complete. The third revolution must indeed begin with a programme for the complete overhaul of the 1787 constitution. In their own self-interest and as is their "inalienable right", the American people should demand abolition of the monarchical presidency. It is an oppressive system of government. No one should forget that George W Bush was elected indirectly and secured less popular votes than his Democratic Party opponent, Al Gore. The Senate and life-long appointments to the Supreme Court must also be abolished and "new guards" to secure the well-being and happiness of the people put in their place. All judges must be elected and subject to instant recall. A single chamber of congress elected annually, which has full legislative and executive powers, is what is needed. Congress delegates, or representatives, should get their democratic mandate from an equal constituency basis. The democratic case against the standing armed forces - grown to the point of hypertrophy since World War II - is surely unanswerable. A system of popular militias must be instiuted. Technically none of these demands in themselves go beyond the limits of capitalism as an exploitative metabolism. However, they do, taken together, provide the necessary salient from which the battle for democracy can be fought and won. Then the rule of the majority can be realised - not merely in form, but in substance. That is a truth we communists hold to be self-evident.
Worker