15.01.2004

Turn unity coalition into republican movement

The best the Respect declaration can provide is that rather vague and woolly call for "a world in which the democratic demands of the people are carried out". That is why we say R is for republicanism. Let the working class find out if it is, says Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group

In a previous Weekly Worker article I had occasion to quote James Thorne, a former commander in the Royal Tank Regiment and now a member of the Stop the War Coalition, who had been interviewed in Socialist Worker. At the end of the interview he concluded that "the two main political parties in parliament are identical. Who represents the 80% of people who are opposed to war? The February 15 demonstration is more like a pro-democracy march than an anti-war one. These are dark times, but there is hope" (February 1 2003).

I thought this was an important insight. James Thorne went on to make the point that "the anti-war demonstration is a pro-democracy march, giving voice to millions of citizens, whose views are ignored. The dark days of war must indeed be matched by the hope of democracy. This war has no democratic legitimacy or democratic mandate. There has been no referendum, nor any general election, in which these life and death issues are put before the people. There has been no vote in parliament. Yet her majesty's government has dispatched 30,000 troops, a quarter of the British army, to the Middle East. The slogan 'Not in our name' sums up the mass rejection of Blair's war plans." In fact there was, subsequently, an indirect vote in parliament. Pressure from a massive popular movement forced Blair to abandon historical precedent, the royal prerogative powers, and use his control of parliament to try to wrest back some democratic authority. But it only served to highlight the fact that parliament did not represent the majority of the country opposed to war. This was not really different to the relationship between parliament and the anti-poll tax movement over a decade earlier.

In the same article I characterised the mass movement as "an emerging pro-democracy movement" (Weekly Worker February 6 2003). Perhaps it could have been called a 'very near democracy' movement or an 'almost democracy' movement. The dialectic of struggle was turning something 'anti' into something 'pro', as if war was the negation of democracy and democracy negated war. What was missing was the extra twist of democratic consciousness which would enable the movement to publicly declare its democratic aims and intentions.

The role of Marxism is not to 'invent' or 'impose' democratic aims, but rather to make clear the political path along which the movement must travel. Its job was to bring a clearer democratic consciousness to a spontaneous anti-war movement. Either the movement would 'naturally' follow the democratic path outlined by the Liberal Democrats or it would take the road of militant republicanism. We therefore seek to divert or nudge the mass movement onto the democratic republican path.

Unfortunately British Marxism, rotten to the core with economism and ultra-leftism, failed the democratic test. Instead of taking up republican cudgels against the Liberal Democrats, the so-called revolutionaries conceded hegemony to the pseudo-democratic credentials of a parliamentary monarchist, Charles Kennedy. It is the same concession to liberal democracy that forces the SWP to exclude republican demands from the Respect platform. Charles Kennedy may not want to join Respect, but the door is kept open.

Today we face the same democratic issues. We need to transform the remnants of the anti-war upsurge into a mass, democratic, republican movement. The importance of movements mobilised on the streets in the struggle for democracy should not be underestimated. History provides us with many examples, from the Chartists, the suffragettes, the peace movement (Greenham Common), the anti-internment and hunger strike movements in Ireland, and the anti-poll tax campaign.

Contradictions Mass movements arise from contradictions within society, which brings about the confrontation of social forces. I am reminded of the recent discussion with Mike Macnair, who is undoubtedly a republican. But he says: "Republicanism in this sense is "¦ an important component of Marxist politics. It is not an existing contradiction in mass politics" (Letters Weekly Worker November 12 2003). This goes to the heart of the dispute over republicanism, which divides the left and differentiates the Revolutionary Democratic Group-CPGB view from that of the liberal republicans. The implication of Mike's point is that republicanism is an issue between Marxists, but not in wider society. The Socialist Workers Party sees republicanism in this way: as a sectarian issue invented by the RDG and promoted by our partners in crime in the CPGB. Sean Matgamna, who is a better republican than the SWP, sees the question in the same way. He thinks the RDG invented republicanism and the CPGB have followed us, because of their Stalinist two-stage theory of bourgeois revolution! In other words republicanism is pie in the sky, which does not relate to anything real in wider society.

This is the essence of the soft liberal republican case. They may pay brief homage to the god of republicanism, before going back to the fields to plough the barren furrows of economism. Republicanism can and should be ignored. There is no purpose in it, unless the SWP wants to have 'sectarian' debates with the RDG - which of course it does not.

The opposite is true. Republicanism is on the rise because of contradictions within British capitalist society. The post-war 'social monarchy' (constitutional monarchist state plus extended state capitalism and welfare state) has moved into a period of crisis. From the late 1970s, Thatcherism, the defeat of the miners and the trade union movement, we have evolved into a crisis-prone 'degenerate social monarchy'. Blair's constitutional reforms are an attempt to bale out the sinking ship. The national question is a political reaction to this, as people seek their own democratic answers. Irish, Scottish and Welsh nationalists appeal for an opt-out from the rotting UK state. The situation in Northern Ireland shows the issues most clearly in a part of the kingdom in which the form of democracy was already corrupt and degenerate in the 1960s.

At the start of the Irish crisis, republicanism was marginal, if not irrelevant. The civil rights movement wanted to reform the Orange (protestant monarchist) statelet. Republicanism emerged from the armed nationalist resistance to the British army. But it only evolved into a mass republican party in the early 1980s in response to Thatcher's attempt to crush the hunger-strikers. There is a tendency on the left to ignore Ireland as if it is now 'problem solved'. Northern Ireland is still 'our' country. And in part of 'our country' there is in Sinn Féin, a mass republican socialist party. Comrades may want to argue about the precise meaning of Sinn Féin's 'socialism' or whether SF should be called socialist at all. Either way, the main point holds firm.

If we want to see a crisis-ridden and degenerate social monarchy, we need look no further than Northern Ireland. Here could be found militarism, war on 'terrorism', armed fascist gangs, suspension of civil liberties, internment without trial as well as popular republican resistance. The US-inspired 'war on terrorism' is pushing the rest of British social monarchy in the same direction, stoking up a reactionary climate of fear and bringing further restrictions on civil liberties.

George Galloway MP is right to say that there is a "crisis of bourgeois democracy" in Britain. It is not restricted to Northern Ireland. Blair's constitutional reforms have not settled matters. The national question in Scotland and Wales is not solved, nor is the problem of the House of Lords sorted. What about proportional representation and the range of voting systems? The failure of parliament to call the executive to account now awaits with the Hutton inquiry. Low voter turnouts, restrictions on civil liberties and the renewed growth of fascism indicate how dangerous this situation is. We therefore face a whole series of unresolved democratic political questions. But to call it a "crisis of bourgeois democracy" is an abstraction. In Britain bourgeois democracy takes the concrete form of a constitutional monarchy. Blair's reforms can only exacerbate the crisis and ultimately draw more people into active politics. Republicanism is emerging as a democratic reaction to this situation. The "crisis of bourgeois democracy" means that the left cannot continue to avoid the republican question for ever. Our task is to bring it to the fore.

Support We therefore need a dual perspective of building a mass republican movement alongside the organisation of a republican socialist workers' party. We need to think clearly about the relationship between them. Mao Zedong made the point that a guerrilla army depends on the support and sympathy of the surrounding peasantry. A workers' party needs the support of sympathetic movements. The party builds the movement. The movement builds the party. There must be interplay between these two legs, if we are to succeed in walking.

The Scottish Socialist Party did not emerge out of thin air. It came from the massive anti-poll tax movement, which both produced the Scottish Socialist Alliance and pushed the Scottish parliament higher up Labour's political agenda. This helped to create the political conditions for the launch of the SSP. Similarly it was the hunger strikes and the mass protests in Ireland which produced Sinn Féin's first MP and set the scene for SF's transformation into a mass republican socialist party. The revamped Socialist Alliance was not part of any mass movement. At best it was a movement towards left unity. With the departure of the Socialist Party and Workers Power, even that modest aim has come undone. But in terms of a mass movement, the SA is more like a beached whale. With no sea to swim in and no fish to eat, it is now starving to death. Had there been a significant strike movement, the prospects for the SA would have been much better. Instead the world of imperialism produced a mass political movement against the Iraq war. Even here the alliance was unable to intervene effectively - neither campaigning for democracy, nor for a workers' party. There was a failure of politics and perspective. But we have to learn the lessons and fight to put it right. Running away from the SA is not the answer.

Let us turn to the question of the Respect Unity Coalition, which currently exercises the minds of most SA members. Respect is a product of the mass anti-war movement organised by the Stop the War Coalition. The Galloway-SWP bloc is trying to resurrect it and build it into something positive. This can only succeed if it completes the dialectical process, which James Thorne pointed to in Socialist Worker. It must be fully transformed into a democratic and social movement. That means not avoiding or ducking the republican question. The stronger and bigger that movement, the greater will be the real possibility of launching a new workers' party.

Respect is not a republican socialist party. It is not a workers' or indeed any type of party. It is a movement or it is nothing. I do not have a crystal ball to predict whether it will be something or nothing. Can it attract mass support to its rallies and, far more importantly, on the streets? If we ask whether Respect is a republican movement, the honest answer is equally negative.

For Marxists it is not simply a question of describing what it is, but understanding what it can become. The answer is not anything you fancy, but is to be found within the movement and the society from which it springs with all its contradictions. Respect is not a republican movement, but it could become one. That should be the basis of our intervention.

We have to be aware of the danger of a sectarian attitude towards the movement. We should not focus on the need for party, but the politics necessary to build the movement. This is the only way to engage with the audience, addressing their concerns about how we can go forward. If we just turn up to lecture them on the party question, it will be seen as sectarian point-scoring.

There is no problem with making propaganda for a republican socialist party. We need such a party to represent the working class. But if we are walking on two legs, it is the movement leg that we have to put forward at this time. The main thrust of our agitation should be about building a mass democratic and social movement, which addresses some of the important questions facing the people on democracy, equality, Europe and a wide range of social issues.

At present there seem to be three trends around the Respect movement. First, there is the liberal democratic platform, supported by George Galloway, George Monbiot, Salma Yaqoob and the SWP. Second, there are republican socialists coalescing around the SA Democracy Platform and defence of the SA programme People before profit. Third are those who are developing a left sectarian line. I want to comment on the latter grouping, which is presently a minority in the Democracy Platform.

This bloc is presenting itself as hard-line. Its adherents ask themselves whether Respect is a workers' party aiming for workers' MPs on a workers' wages fighting for socialism. The answer is of course a resounding 'no'. Add to that a 'maverick' rebel Gorgeous George and his alleged misdemeanours, and Christmas dinners with Tariq Aziz, and that is enough to oppose the whole show. But we could interrogate the Labour Party or the Transport and General Workers Union about socialism and a workers' wage and come up with the same answers. We have a strong moral tradition in Britain, which leads to boycotts. Lenin took up his pen against this in Leftwing communism.

This is the wrong method. We have to ask not only what is, but what such a movement can become. The left usually answers this pessimistically. It cannot become anything because of SWP control. What is is what is - and ever more shall be so. Such an answer does not come from any understanding of the dialectic. Is Respect a republican movement? No. Could it become a republican movement? Possibly. It all depends on the class struggle.

What we do know is that there is a contradiction, which the Respect declaration shares with liberal democrats. This tells us "there is a crisis of representation, a democratic deficit at the heart of politics in Britain. We aim to offer a solution to this crisis". Thus the draft poses the question of democracy, but no serious answer is given. The best the Respect declaration can provide is that rather vague and woolly call for "a world in which the democratic demands of the people are carried out". That is why we say R is for republicanism. Let the working class find out if it is. Dave Craig Revolutionary Democratic Group