28.08.2002
Resistance and class independence
Last week we reported on the launch of a new paper by the comrades of the International Socialist Group and the Socialist Solidarity Network. Phil Hearse responds to the criticisms
Marcus Ström's article on the launch of the new socialist paper Resistance is typical CPGB fare: 25% speculation, 25% pure fantasy, 25% gossip and 25% rank sectarianism ('Paper thin unity' Weekly Worker August 22). This unsavoury dish is then packaged as "robust democratic debate"; only consumers with morbidly factional taste buds will mistake it for the real thing. Despite saying that he agrees with the "thrust" of the Resistance appeal, Marcus shows that he really does not. Discussing our view that the Socialist Alliance should move towards being a broad socialist party, and our reference to the examples of the Scottish Socialist Party and Rifondazione Comunista in Italy, he says that Resistance "want to promote 'a creative, inclusive and forward-looking Marxism' and even 'fight for the Socialist Alliance to become a broad socialist party'. The comrades have in mind something akin to the Scottish Socialist Party or Rifondazione Comunista. Who could deny that the formation of a party committed to refounding communist politics in Britain à la Rifondazione would be a tremendous step forward? (The SSP's national reformism would be much more problematic, of course.)" The Scottish Socialist Party is not a 'national reformist' party: it is a militant socialist party with a Marxist leadership, and it is profoundly internationalist. Comrade Ström's reasons for preferring Rifondazione Comunista are revealing - it is an attempt to refound 'communism'. But it would be difficult to sustain the idea that Rifondazione is globally to the left of the SSP: if anything it is the other way around. The CPGB has a fetish about the word 'communism', which contains two elements. The first is a fetish about the name 'communist'; but in Britain there are many good reasons for using the word 'socialist' as against 'communist'. This is for cultural and historical reasons and nothing to do with political rightism - in Britain 'communist' is too easily associated with 'Stalinist'. The second reason for the fetish about 'communist' is more important: ultra-leftism about what a new socialist party should look like. A new socialist party cannot be based on a full Marxist programme, as is proposed for example by Workers Power, nor can it be a cartel of small left groups. When you talk about a new socialist party, based on militant class struggle politics, you inevitably talk about engaging forces which are to the right of the presently organised revolutionary groups: ie, people who identify with socialism, oppose neoliberalism, are opposed to capitalism but who do not yet necessarily subscribe to the Marxist position on the revolutionary overthrow of the state. The position of the founders of Resistance on this point conditions everything about our politics. As our statement makes clear, we consider that Marxists worldwide have to address several complementary tasks. The first and most basic is to participate in and promote the rebuilding of the workers' movement and the movements of the oppressed. Despite the surge of the left and global justice movement since Seattle, the organisational and political setbacks of the 1980s and early 90s have not yet been fully overcome - far from it. Second, in the process of helping to rebuild the workers' movement, to promote and participate in political recomposition to the left with the aim of building political parties and organisations which can begin to solve the crisis of political representation of the working class, which the collapse of Stalinism and the total capitulation of social democracy to neoliberalism have gravely worsened. The political axis we propose for this is not 'Leninism' or a 'revolutionary party', but class independence and class struggle - organisations which stand resolutely with the exploited and oppressed on the key divides in the class struggle. And of course the SSP is an organisation of this type. This process of political recomposition on the left is not a fantasy or a schema, but a worldwide reality. Every day brings news of the formation of new political parties and fronts, of mass mobilisations and of course of harsh struggles which involve defeats as well as victories, from the Philippines to Argentina, from Korea to France. In very many places a new political space to the left of the social democrats, bourgeois nationalists and sometimes Stalinists is opening up. In this situation it is vital to fight for the strongest possible organisation which can begin to give a voice to the workers and the oppressed at the level of mass politics. Clearly, the SSP in Scotland and Rifondazione in Italy are doing this: they are organisations which are recognised as an alternative by at least a section, albeit a small one, of the masses. At a European level, the successive Conferences of the European Left have precisely attempted to coordinate and promote these organisations. In an interesting interview a couple of years ago Jaime Pastor, a key leader of the left in the Spanish Izquierda Unida, was asked whether he thought that organisations like the IU in Spain and Rifondazione in Italy were the modern form of revolutionary party: ie, parties which at a later stage might lead the struggle for power. His answer was "absolutely not". He argued that these were transitional parties which could begin to solve the crisis of political representation of the working class, but not at all finished political formations. They would be tested by future developments in the national and international class struggle and their evolution could not be guaranteed. They are vehicles for the development and rebuilding of mass socialist consciousness; each decisive turn of the class struggle would pose their evolution anew. It has to be said that in this context the fact that the leadership of the SSP is a revolutionary Marxist one gives one much better guarantees, but even here they are not absolute. In any case, as far as the two organisations taking the initiative for Resistance are concerned, building revolutionary organisations, building a revolutionary Marxist nucleus, is not counterposed to rebuilding the mass workers' movement, nor to building broad socialist parties; the strongest possible Marxist nucleus now is mandatory for revolutionaries winning a majority among the left and the whole working class in the future. Leninism of course is based on total organisational flexibility. In Lenin's writing you find programmatic and strategic continuity, but nowhere do you find a once-and-for all recipe for how the revolutionary Marxist nucleus should be organised, which is totally dependent on circumstances. Operating in a broader socialist party as an open and democratic current involves many complex questions, especially if, like the ISM in the SSP, you are central to the leadership. But Marxists cannot solve the many dilemmas involved by opting for glorious isolation, away from the real process of political recomposition of the left, or by simply dissolving themselves into broader organisations and parties. So how does the far left measure up to the tasks of the period in relation to the above criteria? The British far left has been characterised by its propagandistic routinism and the absolute paucity of its strategic thinking. To its credit, the leadership of the SWP has in the last couple of years begun to think strategically: ie, beyond the next increase in papers sales and the next recruits. It is unlikely that this strategic rethink is finished, but so far it represents only a partial break from the 'build the party' propaganda routine which sustained the organisation in the period 1980-2000. As Murray Smith says in an important article (Where is the SWP going?) to be published in the next issue of Frontline, "The SWP do not have a clear understanding of this crucial aspect of the tasks of Marxists today [ie, political recomposition and the building of broad left parties - PH]. They are trying to grapple with the reality of the SSP and the Socialist Alliance and developments in other countries. But they are trying to do so using concepts that are inadequate." For the moment the Marxist trends which are launching Resistance have a quite distinct strategic position from the SWP - and even more so from organisations like Workers Power, the AWL and the CPGB. In this context, Marcus Ström's suggestion that Resistance is or should be an 'unofficial' Socialist Alliance paper is absurd. Both the ISG and SSN voted for a Socialist Alliance paper at the December national conference; and we regret that the SWP voted against. But the only organisation which can launch an alliance paper is the alliance itself: ie, its democratically elected structures or, more likely in this case, its national conference. Nobody can posture as the 'unofficial' paper of the alliance, which would be undemocratic and disruptive. Democracy, alas, is for when you are in a minority as well as when you are in the majority. It is a good sign that an alliance broadsheet is being published; coincidentally, both it and Resistance will be available for the first time on the September 28 Stop the War Coalition demonstration. Neither will Resistance posture as a paper of the SA 'independents', which it is evidently not - we are a paper which expresses a distinct political position, although we shall provide a platform for different voices from within the alliance and the wider left. I hope that the considerations above will help Marcus to understand why John Bulaitis told him informally that his chances of being elected to the Resistance editorial board were "nil". If Marcus agreed with our politics he would not be in the CPGB. * 'Youth conference' stitch-up * Reviewing our constitution
Worker