08.09.2004

Consider your tactics wisely, for yours is not an easy fight

Former Socialist Workers Party national committee member David Isaacson has joined the CPGB. Tellingly, and not without self-criticism, he details how on the one hand the SWP leadership perpetuates itself, and how, on the other, it depoliticises and demotivates. The result is a not a party but a bureaucratic sect which must be fought from the inside and the out

Many believe that the Socialist Workers Party is going through some kind of crisis. All the signs are there. Attendance at this summer’s Marxism was half that of the previous year. Membership figures cannot be great if Respect can only muster just over 3,000. Where are the 10,000 SWP members of old? East End Offset - the SWP’s printshop - has been sold off, presumably because of financial problems stemming from Respect’s election campaign. The election result itself was a disappointment.

Despite some good results in certain areas - most notably the East End of London, where Oliur Rahman has since been elected as a Respect councillor in a recent by-election - the vote did not match the high expectations generated by Respect’s leading figures, not least those in the SWP. There was no “breakthrough”. No one got elected to the European parliament or the Greater London Assembly. In some regions - including the South West, where I now live - Respect’s vote was terrible. Considering the high hopes SWP members had, and were encouraged to have, these results must have been a blow. Especially as they came at such a cost. It is not just the massive debts. From the formation of Respect onwards the SWP leadership has shown it is willing to discard principle after principle in order to “make a difference”. The failure of the SWP leadership to challenge George Galloway’s anti-abortion statement was certainly a new low point.

Yet despite all this the SWP leadership still looks well entrenched. An assessment underlined by this paper in its report of a recent national committee meeting (Weekly Worker July 1). There was no rebellion over East End Offset. No organised opposition to the junking of long established ‘shibboleths’. Nor has there been any kind of searching analysis of June’s election results in Socialist Worker.

This, however, is not how things are done in the SWP. Debate and criticism openly conducted within the party, let alone in front of the working class, just does not happen. The leadership has its disagreements and debates, but they are always hidden, always in private, never in the open. Tony Cliff himself quoted Lenin on this subject in his introduction to Badayev’s book on the role of Bolsheviks in the tsarist duma: “The party of the revolutionary working class, he said, was ‘strong enough openly to criticise itself, and unequivocally to call a mistake and a weakness by their proper names’” (AY Badayev Bolsheviks in the tsarist duma London 1987, p15). Democracy cannot live in a climate where mistakes and weaknesses are never admitted. Where there is no truth and no openness .there can be no democracy. Though the SWP claims to be a democratic centralist party, it is not. It is a bureaucratic centralist sect.

Everything in the SWP flows from the top down. Below the central committee is a layer of full-timers and party bureaucrats who are appointed by and accountable to the leadership, not the membership. Unsurprisingly they are never critical or questioning of their paymasters. It is their job to ram home the leadership’s new line and make sure that everyone is on board.

The democratic legitimacy that the central committee lays claim to comes by way of the annual conference. But there is an entirely formalistic and unsatisfactory approach to party democracy. SWP conferences, like national committee and party council meetings, are dull affairs which are totally devoid of any real debate. I remember being at an SWP conference where all the motions we voted on were proposed by the central committee. There were no amendments and no alternatives. At times I felt there was little point in raising a hand one way or the other. While leaders made lengthy introductions to sessions, the rank and file were kept to unnecessarily restrictive time limits.

Discussion from the floor was bizarre. It usually took the form of a branch activist explaining, in an over-excited manner, how brilliant the new line was and how fantastically it had gone down in their locality. This was repeated ad nauseum with long lists of comrades almost repeating word for word previous contributions. If you had concerns, were you encouraged to raise them? Certainly not. We might discuss doubts later, in a quiet corner, but that’s not the sort of thing the rest of the membership need concern themselves with. They are to be kept busy praising the leadership, of course. Such ‘democracy’ has no real content: it is worthless.

It is at these conferences that the leadership of the SWP is elected. The central committee proposes a slate, invariably consisting of the sitting incumbents and possibly with an addition or two, and conference ritualistically agrees that slate. In my time in the SWP I heard of no alternative slates being proposed, let alone one posing a real challenge to the existing leadership.

It is worth noting here how I came to be on the SWP’s national committee. I was not a delegate at conference that year but I knew that the leadership intended to revive the national committee, which had not existed for some years. When our delegate returned back from conference to Colchester (my branch at the time), I was informed that I had been elected.

I was totally surprised and rather confused by this news. Apparently I had been on the slate - the only slate, of course - proposed by the central committee. Why had I not been asked if I wanted to be on the national committee? I was not even known well enough by anyone on the central committee for them to propose me. I was a very active and enthusiastic young member and can only assume that I was recommended by the student organisers. I was pleased, but it was all very strange and certainly made me think.

For democratic structures to work a party must have a democratic culture. This means encouraging critical thought - and conducting the subsequent argument openly in front of the working class movement, as well as the membership. This is how the Bolsheviks operated, under much more restrictive circumstances than ours, with one factional battle after another. This did not weaken them: it trained them as revolutionaries and educated those who read their press. Such a democratic culture is not easy to achieve, but providing space for vigorous debate in Socialist Worker and allowing full factional rights would be a start. Unfortunately not on the cards.

Let me briefly quote section nine of the Constitution of the SWP (April 1997), which concerns factions: “(a) A faction may be formed around a political platform signed by 40 members that shows the points of agreement and disagreement with the party line. (b) A faction will be given reasonable facilities to distribute its documents and argue its point of view. These must be circulated through the national office. (c) Debate continues until the party at a special or annual conference shall reach a decision on the disputed question. (d) Permanent or secret factions are not allowed.” While this remains the position of the SWP, there can be no serious or thorough debate.

Consider for a moment that you are an SWP member and you disagree with the leadership over, for example, their position calling for a ‘no’ vote in a referendum on the euro. If you wanted to form a faction to enable you to have a debate within the party and try to change the leadership’s position, you would first have to find 39 other comrades who wanted to be part of your faction. However, you would be wise not to let anybody know that you were doing this in case the leadership got wind of it and accused you of organising a secret faction. Let us assume that you manage somehow to do this and you then present your political platform to the leadership. It is then up to them to decide how “reasonable” they are going to be in providing facilities for the distribution of your material. If you are not satisfied with these facilities, then tough - all material “must be circulated through the national office”; if you distribute material yourself then you break the rules and risk expulsion.

By this time, of course, the leadership is well and truly fed-up with your faction and wants to settle this question once and for all. They call a special conference to discuss the issue of Europe - not a ridiculous scenario, seeing as both the Scottish Socialist Party and Socialist Alliance held special debates on this very question. Now there are two things that could happen at this special conference. You could win the vote and change party policy or you could lose. If you lose, which I consider would be the most likely result owing to the fact that you have had very limited resources and you have been forced to conclude the debate at a time suited to the leadership and not yourselves, then what? You will be expected to hold your tongue. The party has reached a decision and you must therefore disband your faction. The matter is settled and the debate is over.

This is no way to facilitate real discussion: rather a bureaucratic mechanism to stifle it. Democratic centralism demands unity in action. Quite right. If there were about to be a referendum on the euro, then our hypothetical faction must accept the majority position and campaign and vote accordingly. However, up until that referendum and after it they must be able to openly criticise the position of the majority and try to change it. Minorities have the right to strive to become the majority.

Factions must be allowed to freely publish and circulate their own literature. There must be no ban on “permanent” factions. To insist that factions dissolve themselves as soon as a conference has taken a position on the disputed point is a recipe for splits - and the SWP has certainly had its fair share of these. The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the Revolutionary Democratic Group, Workers Power and Red Action, amongst others, all have their roots in the SWP. Arguments must be allowed to run their course and factions must be allowed to exist so long as the differences that caused them to emerge in the first place remain.

The immediate aim of communists is to reforge the Communist Party of Great Britain - the working class needs the highest level of organisation possible if it is to lead a revolution. An ambitious project. In striving towards it we must always be conscious of the role the SWP. It remains the largest and most influential revolutionary organisation in Britain and cannot be ignored or side-stepped.

It would be wrong to assume that any crisis the SWP is currently going through will necessarily change this. The SWP has gone through bad patches before. Its leadership is well versed in how to hold things together, and its cadre can be fiercely loyal. Towards the end of his autobiography Tony Cliff wrote: “Even if we face a catastrophe as terrible as the Russian workers faced in 1906, the SWP will survive. Not only is our number far greater than in the first decade of our existence, but the quality of the cadres, steeled and tried, is far superior to those we had when we started” (T Cliff A world to win London 2000, p228).

Ironically it was not a catastrophe but the massive opportunities presented by the unprecedented anti-war upsurge that is the source of the SWP’s current woes. For years the SWP has been on the back foot, sectarianly guarding its own interests. In doing so it may have helped keep alive the embers of the revolutionary Marxist tradition. However, when it comes to moving onto the front foot, it stumbles. Its whole way of operating hobbles it when it comes to giving the principled lead that revolutionaries must provide the movement.

Desperate for the ‘big time’, the SWP leadership is racing down an opportunist path to the right - there is no doubt about that. How the rest of the left responds to this is of vital importance. We could shout abuse and denunciations from the sidelines, while not getting our hands dirty, or we could work positively and constructively with the best elements in and around the SWP without pulling any punches regarding our criticism of their leadership’s opportunism. By taking the latter course we increase the chances of something positive coming out of the SWP’s crisis. This October’s Respect conference will be a key battleground in this regard. We must provide an alternative to all those who are serious about fighting for democracy and socialist principles.

It is a long time since a faction proclaimed its existence from within the ranks of the SWP. The prospect of setting one up in such hostile environment is not exactly appealing. I suppose that is the point. However, without clear factional representation where can the disaffection that so obviously exists amongst sections of the SWP membership go? For me it led to disillusionment. I became less and less involved in activity. Many others drop out of politics all together.

It is a well known joke that ex-SWP members make up the biggest revolutionary ‘party’ in the country. Yet, of course, this party does not exist and is therefore useless. The Socialist Alliance as well as a number of single-issue campaigns became the focus of my political activity after I left. Some ex-SWP members are organised around the Socialist Unity Network website. But many remain SWP members and simply hope for the best.

I regret leaving the SWP the way I did. It did nothing at all to change that organisation, which plays such a prominent role in left politics in Britain. It did not improve the position of the many sincere revolutionaries within the SWP. It would have been far better to remain a member for as long as possible, to have sought to link up with others.

Without a serious challenge from principled communists both inside and outside the SWP any crisis it suffers will simply weaken the socialist movement. SWP members must rebel against the leadership’s dramatic swing to the right. But consider your tactics wisely, for yours is not an easy fight. Publicity is the sharpest and surest weapon and remember, you have tried and tested allies with whom you share a common cause - that of communism.

To further our common cause use this paper, make it your paper.