10.07.2002

Marxism 2002: Blustering Bambery

CPGB comrades in the audience for this rather patchily attended session cannot have been the only ones who enjoyed the irony of Chris Bambery's comment that it was a characteristic of Stalinism to "portray the Leninist party as a monolith"

But comrade Bambery did not answer the key question in his session on 'What is a Leninist party?' The comrade had already caused some gentle mirth amongst assembled SWPers with his observation that discipline in such a party was "not about shouting at people"ï¿½. Presumably he has a bit of a 'loud' reputation himself as the SWP's national organiser. However, this "monolith"ï¿½ comment seemed to be swallowed by the audience without demur - very strange. After all, as Anne Mc Shane of the CPGB commented in her intervention, the Bolsheviks were a politically transparent working class tendency. In contrast, where is the openness in today's SWP, or in its Socialist Worker? Clearly, the SWP presents itself as, yes, "a monolith"ï¿½ - so what tradition does that stand in? Comrade Mc Shane cited the recent article of Socialist Worker editor Chris Harman, where he wrote that the "heated debate"ï¿½ that often embroiled Lenin's party "took place openly in the party's newspaper, Pravda"ï¿½ (June 8). What did comrade Bambery think of this, wondered Anne? Replying to the debate, Bambery spoke a great deal, but did not directly answer this question. He implied hostility to the idea when he said that the party was a combat organisation, "not a debating chamber of the left"ï¿½. True, but irrelevant to the point being made about Bolshevism, of course. He did score some more effective points when he disparaged "permanent factions"ï¿½, however. Of course, the history of Leninism is the history of factional struggle. However, the contributions of both comrade Mc Shane and Paul Wilcox of the International Socialist Group had the taste of supporting factions for their own sake. Of course, with the cramped three-minute restrictions on interventions from the floor, it is very hard to give a rounded exposition of your views. Both comrades' contributions could be misinterpreted as advocating permanent factions for permanent factionalism's sake. This comrade Bambery energetically proceeded to do. He recalled his days in the International Marxist Group (although it did not get a name check). Permanent factions in this organisation were intrinsically "undemocratic"ï¿½, he stated. They had the effect of "polarising the debate"ï¿½ and of hardening differences of nuance into warring camps even before the debate had begun. Of course, we are not positively in favour of factions. We are for the right to form such permanent or temporary combinations, as we recognise that this freedom creates the best possible conditions in which factionalism can be overcome and the party reunited. The comrade also used his reply to vigorously remind his audience of the role of the 'Leninist' SWP in the fight against the islamophobia he saw whipped up post-September 11. As this had no connection whatsoever with the contributions made in the debate, I assume this was a reprise of his postage-stamp polemic against our organisation and others in the group's internal 'Party notes' of April 15. Writing about the April 13 Palestinian demo, comrade Bambery suggested that CPGB "support for a two-states position leads them to cross the fundamental divide. So the bizarre Weekly Worker carried the headline, 'Twins of terror: against Hamas, against Sharon' "ï¿½ the Weekly Worker has announced it will carry a denunciation of the demo as 'anti-working class' [Where did we 'announce' that, I wonder? - MF]. Their islamophobia and desperation to echo Bush, Blair and Powell in denouncing 'terrorism' is leading them across a class divide."ï¿½ If it had something to say about comrades in the movement - let alone organisations it was in a close alliance with - a genuinely Leninist party would express these criticisms openly, of course. The fact that comrade Bambery's coarse polemic against our organisation and others is behind closed doors underlines its opportunist and fundamentally dishonest nature. This adds fuel to the suspicion that, far from Chris Harman's healthy comments on Bolshevik openness marking a real shift in the culture of the SWP, they are window dressing, intended to make the rather tarnished facade of the SWP more appealing to organisations it is trying to court internationally. Concretely, the SWP's 100-strong fraternal organisation in France has applied to join the Ligue Communiste Rï¿½volutionnaire, a grouping that does allow open factional life in its ranks. Does this explain the anomaly? Certainly, comrade Bambery's sadly familiar sectarian bluster adds suspicion. * Coming too quickly * National or global socialism? * Marx and Sparks * Debate of a different kind