04.09.2002
United for tailism
Phil Hearse's reply to my take on the launch of a new paper by his Socialist Solidarity Network together with the International Socialist Group is revealing (Weekly Worker August 29). In it he does not even try to counter my criticisms that this is merely a rehashed factional project, not the "creative, inclusive, forward-looking Marxism" vehicle that the authors of the launch statement claim it to be (Weekly Worker August 22). This is par for the course for comrade Hearse. His previous failed project - the Socialist Democracy Group (a hidey hole for the disillusioned and liquidationist) - similarly promoted itself. One of its first "creative" decisions was to ban attendance by CPGB members. On the tail of that the SDG distinguished itself by the "forward-looking" attempt to drive the CPGB out of the London Socialist Alliance. "Inclusive"? The ISG-SSN statement says: "We will seek to promote "¦ a creative, inclusive and forward-looking Marxism, which implies a willingness to reach out to, learn from and engage in a dialogue with those from other traditions". Oh, except yours, says comrade Hearse. Despite being able to broadly accept such formulations, I have been told that this is not good enough to allow me to even think about standing for the editorial board. Far from "a willingness to reach out", we are informed by comrade Hearse that no one in the CPGB qualifies by definition - this is sectarianism of the old sort, not the anti-sectarianism expected in the Socialist Alliance. The comrade says that my "chances of being elected to the Resistance editorial board were 'nil'". If I agreed with the politics of Resistance I "would not be in the CPGB." So inclusive - I beg to differ. The other central part of comrade Hearse's argument is to do with the Scottish Socialist Party. Here the political method he shares with comrade Alan Thornett of the ISG is plain for all to see - if it's bigger than us, follow it! Comrade Hearse excuses the nationalism rife in the Scottish Socialist Party. He even confidently claims that the SSP is more leftwing than Rifondazione Comunista of Italy - presumably on the basis that the leadership of the SSP is full of (former?) Trotskyites, while Rifondazione emerged from 'official communism'. But this is not the point. Rifondazione attempts to organise all workers and oppressed people against the existing state. The SSP seeks to break-up the existing state and create an independent capitalist Scotland - naturally excused as a stepping stone towards a reformist socialism. Inevitably that involves the SSP fostering class disunity - it promotes the break-up of the historically established working class movement in Britain. In our concrete conditions that is reactionary and must be opposed - even at the cost of unpopularity in certain quarters. Of course, the heritage of comrades Hearse and Thornett in the United Secretariat of the Fourth International is replete with substitutionism and tailism. Witness the tailing of Titoism and various nationalist movements in Latin America. We had another pathetic version in the form of the Fourth International Supporters Caucus triumvirate of Pat Sikorski, Brian Heron and Carolyn Sikorski. For them it was not Tito or Castro who would substitute for the political independence of the working class, but the 'dear leader', Arthur Scargill. For our friends in the ISG and SSN it appears to be left nationalism. This method was exposed at last month's Communist University. There, comrade Thornett was speaking in justification of the actions of his co-thinkers in France, who called for a vote for Jacques Chirac - an out and out bourgeois reactionary - in the second round of the presidential elections. For comrade Thornett, this was the political expression and logical outcome of the mass movement against Le Pen and Front National. I call it bowing to spontaneity. This method is rife within the left. From the more familiar popular frontism of the 'official communists' to the substitutionism of the Trotskyites, we see already flawed political programmes collapse before bourgeois forces. During the debate at the CPGB's Communist University on the French presidential elections, comrade Thornett made some amazing statements about socialists advocating votes for bourgeois candidates. It is worthwhile reproducing them at some length to show the depth of the hole the comrade managed to dig himself into. For comrade Thornett it is perfectly valid to vote for bourgeois candidates - supporting the rightwinger, Jacques Chirac, thus posed no problem. He says: "If we talk about voting for the enemy, well, I assume we have all voted for the enemy. In my opinion revolutionaries need a very good reason to vote for a bourgeois candidate. The very good reason in most cases that revolutionaries vote for bourgeois candidates is because they are candidates of a bourgeois party that has a working class base. We say, this party has a working class base - therefore, because we want to relate to its base, we vote for its candidates. And therefore we vote for social democracy, we vote for Harold Wilson, we vote for James Callaghan, and now we vote for Tony Blair - they are all bourgeois candidates." Yes, we can in certain cases vote for the candidates of bourgeois workers' parties - they are based on and in some refracted way express the political level and aspirations of the organised working class. Comrade Thornett continues: "What happened on this occasion was a particular situation thrown up by the French electoral system that gave people the choice between a fascist and a bourgeois candidate. And in my opinion it is absolutely right to vote for the bourgeois candidate against the fascist." Comrade Thornett accuses the CPGB of failing to distinguish between 'normal' bourgeois candidates and fascist candidates. The reality is that he fails to distinguish between bourgeois parties and bourgeois workers' parties. He says: "The Labour Party is a thoroughly bourgeois party with a working class base. Therefore it could be called a bourgeois workers' party. But it is a thoroughly bourgeois party, and the governments it creates are thoroughly, totally, absolutely bourgeois governments. The prime ministers it creates are thoroughly and absolutely bourgeois. We vote for them under certain circumstances ... In general the left votes for bourgeois candidates of the Labour Party, and of social democratic parties across Europe. And those are bourgeois candidates. And there is a very good reason for it. And a legitimate reason for it." We do not agree that it is correct to vote for bourgeois candidates who stand on an openly neoliberal capitalist programme of attacking the working class. Chirac was the candidate of the Union for a Presidential Majority - a coalition of power-brokers, bourgeois interests and bureaucrats. He was not the candidate of a section of the organised working class. To vote for Chirac is to revert to the 'lesser of two evils' argument - choose between Liberal and Tory, Democrat or Republican - and to abandon independent working class politics. Communists understand why masses of people voted for Chirac. But to call for a vote for him is in some way to take responsibility for the consequences - in the long-term interests of the working class movement this is something we cannot do. But there is a principled line separating voting Labour and voting for a Chirac, a Duncan Smith or a Stoiber - it is called class. For some time it has been apparent that one of the Socialist Alliance's weaknesses has been its inability to develop a coherent strategy with regard to the Labour Party. Standing socialist candidates is a tremendous step forward, but having nothing to say about divisions in Labour, being incapable of distinguishing between Jeremy Corbyn and Jack Straw, leaves the Socialist Alliance disarmed. For a long time, the majority of the SA principal components were reliable satellites of Labourism - SWP, ISG, AWL, Workers Power. Post-war British politics saw the various grouplets of Trotskyism - whether as entrists or representatives of the external 'Vote Labour, but "¦' variety - backing imperialist Labour governments unconditionally come election time. This substituted for an independent working class programme. Blair's project has thrown them into some disarray and seen a poorly theorised entry into the electoral field in the form of the Socialist Alliance. Socialists and communists need to be able to engage with the mass of the working class that still votes Labour - despite the growing disillusionment with the political process as a whole. The basis upon which the various Trotskyite groups voted Labour in the past has not fundamentally changed - the mass of workers, especially class conscious workers still loyally vote Labour. But we have seen in many cases a 180° flip from auto-Labourism to auto-anti-Labourism. Finally, in his speech at Communist University, comrade Thornett made the ridiculous claim that the tactic of calling for an active boycott was an invention of the CPGB. He said: "Comrades are absolutely right - I don't understand the active boycott thing: I think it is a ridiculous shibboleth of the CPGB. What do you do in the end? You have a few demonstrations outside polling stations and then you abstain. It "¦ seems to come up on every occasion, so you are right: I am completely confused as far as an active boycott is concerned. I think it makes little sense." I cannot believe comrade Thornett is really so ignorant. I prefer to think he is just dishonest. I am sure comrade Thornett has read his Lenin, who went to great lengths to explain just what an active boycott was. And there are plenty of other examples of such campaigns within our political heritage. As I say, comrade Thornett shares a political method with comrade Hearse - that of substituting the political independence of the working class for any force that happens to be moving. Thus the nationalism of the SSP and voting for Chirac. Comrade Thornett is in dangerous waters. Let us hope that a serious corrective takes place before it is too late. Marcus Ström
Worker