10.07.2002

Marxism 2002: National or global socialism?

The morning session of Sunday July 7 saw a debate between the SWP's Chris Bambery and Alan McCombes of the Scottish Socialist Party on 'Internationalism and the new left'. This raised many important issues, says Sarah McDonald

Comrade McCombes stressed the need to move away from the traditional Trotskyist model of building an 'international' where there does not even exist a genuine national party. This is of course correct: the 'international sections' of some of these usually British or US-based sects often have no more than a handful of members. A genuine international must consist of parties - ie, formations which are a part of the class in the country concerned. However, the glaring weakness in comrade McCombes's version of this argument was that for him party organisation stops at the Scotland-England border. Workers need to form themselves into a party in order to take on their own ruling class, which has organised itself into a state. That is why communists work on the principle of 'one state, one party'. But for comrade McCombes it appears that the slogan should be 'one nationality, one party' (he contends that Scotland and England are completely separate nations - itself a dubious proposition). Since the SSP aims not to smash the UK state, but to withdraw from it and then fight for its "independent socialist Scotland"�, you can see why he believes an all-UK party is not only unnecessary but something to be avoided. The second point of interest is very much related. Comrade McCombes said that he regarded what was called the 'anti-capitalist' movement as more of an 'anti-globalisation' movement. This again was in line with the SSP's positive view of the breaking up of existing states into Balkanised micro-entities. In a later conversation comrade McCombes explained that he had characterised the 'anti-capitalist movement' as 'anti-globalisation' because its right wing - Attac in France or various christian or charity groups - can hardly be described as anti-capitalist. A point well made. But, equally, the left cannot (or ought not to) be placed in the 'anti-globalisation' pigeon-hole. Globalisation is a progressive thing. The world is becoming smaller; it is easy and relatively cheap to communicate and to travel across the world even for many workers. Boundaries, both physical and ideological, are being broken down. It is of course capital, not the workers' movement, that is driving this process and as such it carries with it both attacks on the working class and the potential to supersede the system that exploits us. The left must not oppose this process, but instead attempt to put a working class stamp on it. The SWP has grasped this elementary principle, as demonstrated by the aptly chosen name of its 'united front' - Globalise Resistance. Alan McCombes's comment that reformism is "in decline"� was also hotly contested by SWP comrades. Unfortunately he said this when he was running out of time and did not expand upon it. One SWP comrade retorted: "Just because the Labour Party is unpopular doesn't mean reformism is dead"� - which makes one wonder if she was referring to the Labour Party which is in government after two landslide election victories or to some other Labour Party. Another comrade warned, correctly, that revolutionaries must guard against reformism as it will constantly reinvent itself and come in different guises. The passionate opposition to reformism contained in the speeches of SWP comrades would have more credence if it was reflected in their practice in the Socialist Alliance, where, far from combating reformism, they insist that we must not overstep its limits: workers turning away from Blair are nevertheless destined to remain Labourites, it seems. As Alex Callinicos explained in a later session on 'The party and the united front', "If the Socialist Alliance adopted a full revolutionary programme, the problem would be that we would cut ourselves off from people breaking from New Labour."� As a result the politics of the Socialist Alliance are well to the right of the overwhelming majority of its members and its principal supporting organisations.