02.12.2004

Decline, paranoia and discontent

This year's SWP annual conference was the smallest for many, many years. Nevertheless, reports SW Kenning, its significance lies in the increasing signs of discontent and latent rebellion

Over the last few months the central committee has faced a growing chorus, initiated by a group of prominent stalwarts, to reveal membership figures and Socialist Worker circulation. Amazingly such information is not given out as a matter of course. After many refusals and much prevarication it was finally decided to give way - at least when it comes to membership. On Sunday, Susanne Jeffrey, speaking for the central committee, claimed that there were 4,240 “registered members” and 3,345 current members.

However, the delegate ratio is one for every 10 “registered members” (Pre-conference bulletin No1) and the central committee’s dozen members automatically attend. So, taking into account technical workers and the handful of invited visitors, a more accurate figure can be hazarded. The SWP is more likely to have around 1,200 members in total. Whatever the truth, there has been a sharp fall from the heady days when the comrades used to boast of having 9,000 fighters for Cliffism.

The massive anti-war upsurge in 2003, the launch of Respect in January, the Euro and London elections in June and the European Social Forum in October - nothing has stemmed the SWP’s decline. In fact such political opportunities appear to have accelerated organisational degeneration. East End Offset, built up over a generation of hard work and sacrifice, which used to print Socialist Worker, had to be sold off just to meet pressing debts. Such is the financial crisis brought about by overspending and the remorseless shrinkage of the dues-paying base.

Contributions to the Pre-conference bulletin no longer universally parrot John Rees’s heady promise of an imminent “breakthrough”. Nowadays they talk modestly, and almost forlornly, of having “started to rebuild” (Cardiff), “rejuvenating” branches and “re-establishing the routine of Socialist Worker sales” (Sheffield), being “near moribund” (Norwich) and “broken down” (Hackney) (all from Pre-conference bulletin No3, 2004).

Paranoia

Unlike the well established and familiar conferences and congresses of Britain’s trade unions and political parties, the Scottish Socialist Party included, the SWP routinely acts on these occasions as if it was illegal and operating deep underground. The date, venue and proceedings are supposed to be a closely guarded secret.

Delegates were told to meet their district organisers outside a certain specified rendezvous. Only then were they told the location of conference. They were also warned in advance not to wear political regalia or carry copies of Socialist Worker with them. Lapel badges had to be removed and delegates were told to keep toing and froing from conference to the barest minimum. As a further “security” measure, all conference documents were collected back in at the end.

Why the fostering of paranoia and a laager mentality? It might serve to create an air of mystery? Cloak and dagger stuff could possibly excite the young, impressionable and inexperienced. Fear of fascist attack is certainly used. Years ago British National Party goons managed to push past the first line of stewards before they were ejected. But nowadays none of that washes. The BNP wears suits and courts respectability. As for the delegates, they are mainly middle-aged and stopped being excitable youths long ago.

What the central committee is really frightened of is being held to account and put under the spotlight by a well informed, critical membership. That is why all requests for the SWP to have an e-caucus or even an internal discussion bulletin are aggressively rejected. Any and all excuses are used. Toy town secrecy and scaremongering does, though, serve wonderfully to justify the absence of democracy. It also creates a policeman within the heads of the SWP’s own cadre.

Certainly such measures have nothing whatsoever to with restraining the long arm of the state. Leave aside the ubiquitous bugs and other such electronic devices: MI5 and special branch have their well ensconced agents and assets, surely including in the uppermost hierarchy. Doubtless they report back in excruciating detail to their handlers. Infiltration is easy. Even a couple of raw, openly chauvinist BNP teenage moles managed to reach district level after only a couple of months of SWP membership.

The SWP’s demophobia was in the past “tolerated” by the tinkering, reformist critics, Martin Pitt (Hammersmith) and Anne Kenefeck (Action) - apparently it “worked well for us over the last 25 years” (Pre-conference bulletin No2). They slavishly reason that in the 1980s “downturn” the “party had to be ‘reined in’, bound tightly together and strictly disciplined with decision-making concentrated in the centre.” Supposedly the SWP was “fighting for nothing less” than its “very existence as the authentic Marxist tradition”. To prevent splits and a haemorrhaging of membership “any hint of division, any whisper of criticism, had to be dealt with decisively”.

The SWP was saved in the 1980s, that is true. But as what? Comrades Pitt and Kenefeck admit to systemic bullying, hectoring and the existence of a “pecking order”. Those at the bottom, the ordinary members, are seen as mere “foot soldiers”. Not surprisingly vigorous debate became “rare”, criticism of the leadership “came to feel like (and probably was) an act of betrayal” and a “rosy glow” was put on “the most meagre of successes”.

Paranoia maintains the self-perpetuating central committee and reproduces, albeit in smaller and smaller numbers, a membership of “foot soldiers”. Another associated factor which helps explain the cult of secrecy is the likelihood that the whole gamut of rival left groups would line up their phalanxes of paper-sellers outside conference - though SWP members are in public notoriously shy of buying non-approved publications. District organisers and central committee members darkly warn against reading the “sectarian press”.

Here we have damning evidence of the closed psychology of a sect. Of course, that does not stop the disaffected amongst them - a growing minority - logging onto the CPGB’s website in the privacy of their homes to read the Weekly Worker.

Anyway delegates made their way to the Islington Green school with collars turned up, hats pulled down, wearing their best non-political disguises. It would be comical if it were not so sad.

Bolshevik norms

Political parties of the working class behave very differently. Publicity is not something to be shunned, but welcomed. Even the ‘official’ Communist Party of Great Britain held its biennial congresses in the presence of a small media posse.

Apart from one special closed session, everything else could be reported by the capitalist and leftwing press. And mostly it was. Conferences of the SSP are likewise held in the open - indeed the press and media are made welcome and keynote speeches and controversial debates feature on Scottish TV news and the front page of The Herald, etc. Hopefully the gagging order just imposed by the executive committee in the wake of Tommy Sheridan’s forced resignation as convenor will not change that.

Of course, openness is how it should be for any half-substantial organisation of the working class operating in conditions of legality. True, the Bolsheviks had to hold some of their conferences and congresses abroad - London, Stockholm, Prague, Krakow, etc. Severe tsarist oppression left them no choice. Arrest, Siberian exile and even execution were the fate of far too many activists. In order to maintain organisational continuity, to protect against spies and mass round-ups by the tsarist secret police, the okhrana, Lenin argued against playing with democracy and for the defensive walls centralism.

But as soon as conditions improved and the degree of oppression lessened all that was changed. For example, in 1905 the gates of the party were flung wide open and the principle of election was put into effect from top to bottom.

According to Lenin, the Bolshevik organisation had to be built on a democratic basis: “This means that all the Party members take part in the election of officials, committee members and so forth, that all the Party members discuss and decide questions concerning the political campaigns of the proletariat, and that all the Party members determine the line of tactics of the Party organisation” (VI Lenin CW Vol 10, Moscow 1977, p503).

During periods of reaction, such as 1908-12 and 1914-17, the Bolsheviks were forced to limit certain democratic norms. However, they made every effort to fully inform the politically conscious public of all their debates and decisions. Lenin published many articles and pamphlets against the Mensheviks, the Bund, the Socialist Revolutionaries. But he also produced articles, pamphlets and even weighty tomes against internal opponents: eg, Materialism and empirico-criticism was designed to utterly destroy the left liquidationist arguments of his one time lieutenant, Bogdanov.

Members were certainly not obliged to parrot the latest central committee turn or resolution. They had the right to publicly disagree with decisions and the right to correct mistakes and shortcomings. That requires ongoing debate and the availability of political information. Yes, knowledge is power. So, far from disputes within the leadership and between factions and shades being hidden away - as if such things were signs of weakness, something to be ashamed of - they were highlighted and carefully and exhaustively explained in the Bolshevik press. Where feasible, minutes were published to encourage an exact and partisan understanding of arguments and alignments.

Of course, the SWP is legal and can operate openly. It is neither persecuted nor outlawed. No one is arrested for being a member of the SWP. No one is exiled to the Outer Hebrides. No one is hanged or shot.

Wheels and cogs

Conference was tightly regimented. This year, unlike last, delegates were instructed to sit in district blocs where a beady eye could be kept on them by their district organisers - now nothing but creatures of the leadership. According to the constitution itself, introduced last year at the initiative of John Rees, not only are “all full-time organisers” appointed by the central committee (clause 3c); district organisers “represent and are responsible” to the central committee (clause 3f).

The result of all this control-freakery is drab conformity and remorseless toadyism. Every eight-minute speech by a central committee member was dutifully applauded on cue. The five-minute speeches by the delegates themselves are not meant as an opportunity to test, scold or clash with the leadership. Rather delegates are appointed to deliver praise to the leadership: their wisdom, far-sightedness and tireless work. In other words the atmosphere is not far removed from Stalin’s USSR or the revivalist rallies staged nowadays by the Tories and New Labour. Yawn.

Instead of being regarded as the highest decision-making body, conference is treated instrumentally, as part of a series of wheels and cogs. The central committee and its inner constellation of chosen ‘stars’ - Michael Lavalette, Jonathan Neale, Colin Barker, Julie Waterson, Dave Sherry, etc - have already decided everything. Conference exists not as a forum where leading comrades honestly and fearlessly thrash out burning differences, where trusted representatives of the membership have their say and finally decide matters through a series of often hotly contested votes. Instead conference is designed to operate as an echo chamber. The leadership line is announced beforehand from on high and is then loyally confirmed and endlessly repeated by the carefully vetted delegates. Only then is it spoon-fed back to the membership in the branches.

Such a bureaucratic centralist regime can only but engender cynicism above and passivity below. Something which at last has caused pained calls for change in this year’s Pre-conference bulletin and even at conference itself.

Discontent

The most notable feature of the three issues of the Pre-conference bulletin were the two short articles by John Molyneux. Since September he, and a small group around him, have been circulating what amounts to an opposition manifesto. Presumably he did not manage to get together the necessary 30 members required under the SWP’s constitution to formally establish a pre-conference faction.
His first article, ‘Some thoughts on Respect’, was rather Aesopian in language. Basically he is uncomfortable with the SWP operating as the rightwing, conservative majority in Respect. Not that he is boldly raising the flag of revolt against the central committee’s popular frontist tactics and strategy. He even kids himself that Respect is “to the left” of the old Socialist Alliance.

Nevertheless comrade Molyneux earnestly, desperately, looks forward to the glorious day when as a minority the SWP can once again come out in its full revolutionary colours. He certainly fears that if Respect enjoys any serious electoral success then that will carry with it the danger that the left reformist “element” will be greatly strengthened (Pre-conference bulletin No1).

Comrade Molyneux’s other article was more blunt, though hardly far-reaching in its proposals. He complains that the SWP councils and national conferences are lifeless. The central committee ensures that even the merest hint of opposition is crushed and kept safely isolated. Unanimity has been the rule for at least the last 15 years. Elections to the central committee have been uncontested. The central committee nominates itself.

This bureaucratic centralism is contrasted with the vibrant tradition of the Bolsheviks and the Communist International before the triumph of Stalinism. Comrade Molyneux also points to the more democratic practices that characterised the Trotskyite movement during the 1930s and 40s and indeed the Labour Party before the “Blairite stranglehold was established” (Pre-conference bulletin No2).

He concludes by asking for speakers to have the right of reply at conference and the national committee; for contested elections to the central committee; and for branches to have the right to submit motions to conference once again. Hardly a revolution. But then revolutions always begin at the top and with calls for tiny, seemingly inconsequential changes.

In Pre-conference bulletin a number of voices were directly or indirectly raised in support. Nick Bird of Lowestoft SWP could not understand why the SWP voted against the abolition of the monarchy in Respect. He wants a lively internal democracy and platforms on the “model of the SSP” (Pre-conference bulletin No1). Scarborough SWP branch came out with similar proposals, including “debates and disagreements” being carried out openly (Pre-conference bulletin No2).

Conference

What of conference? Sadly nothing dramatic happened. John Molyneux was allowed to speak - and got applause. However, the central committee of John Rees, Alex Callinicos, Lindsey German, Chris Bambery, Martin Smith, Dave Hayes, Suzanne Jeffrey, Chris Nineham, etc remains in total control. They and their minions conceded that the SWP was “not perfect”, that there was “room for improvement”. Alex Callinicos even admitted that it was “hard to argue against more democracy”. But, presumably liking a challenge, he proceeded to do just that.

Chosen members of the central committee are each given a session to introduce and then oversee the drafting of a suitably anodyne motion which supposedly sums up what passed for debate. Eg, John Rees spoke in the first session on Respect and the anti-war movement. Amongst the stunning initiatives announced in his agreed motion were building the March 19 demonstration called by the European Social Forum, preparations for the general election and plans for the anti-G8 meeting in Scotland. And that was about it.

The SWP still places much emphasis on Respect - though assurances of an imminent breakthrough now seem to have been punctured by disappointment. In the May 2004 general election Respect is going to stand no more than 20 to 30 candidates.

Anyway, as an aside, it is worth noting that conference agreed that Respect “has been formed as a response to the demands of the mass anti-war movement and has drawn in significant numbers of new activists”. The Muslim Association of Britain, the Muslim Council of Britain and Daymar (Enverist migrants from Turkey) are specifically mentioned.

This was contrasted to the Socialist Alliance - which is now viewed within top SWP circles as a dreadful experience. Apparently the SA “was broken by its sectarian attitude to the anti-war movement”. As if the SWP were not dominant in the leadership and responsible for turning the SA on and off like a tap. No one ‘broke’ the SA apart from the SWP.

Elections

Sunday morning began with elections to the central committee, the disputes committee and the national committee. Candy Udwin was nominated by the central committee to join its exalted ranks. She will serve as treasurer (a poisoned chalice). Once again these elections were uncontested. That despite Chris Bambery, Socialist Worker editor, taunting comrade Molyneux, daring him to present an alternative slate. He did not rise to the bait.

Elections to the national committee are now a much reduced, pinched, affair. Last year conference elected 50 members, while the central committee nominated the other 50. In terms of the Bolshevik tradition, conference should, of course, elect 100% of the national committee, which in turn would elect the central committee and hold it accountable to the point where individual members or the whole lot can be recalled by a simple majority vote. But that is not how the SWP operates.

This year a still cowed conference agreed to reduce its already limited powers. Instead of electing half the national committee, now it elects only a quarter. They were 31 nominations. Due to time restraints the results were not announced. But why worry? After all the national committee is little more than a talking shop.

Anyway, I cannot tell you which 25 comrades were elected to the national committee and which six comrades failed to get on. Who failed and who succeeded is a story that remains to be told. Nonetheless, it should be put on record that the central committee nominated John Molyneux. In other words he was automatically ‘elected’ and is therefore the leader of the officially appointed opposition.
There was something of an administrative cock-up in this year’s national committee elections. One of the comrades nominated by the central committee had already announced that they were unwilling to stand. Despite that they were still included on the central committee slate. The final vote therefore had to be postponed. The whole thing in fact was a bit of a farce.

Support

The rest of Sunday was taken up with reports on industrial struggles, Socialist Worker, plans for the anti-war movement and an appeal for funds.

Dave Hayes more or less repeated the central committee article in Pre-conference bulletin No3. The comrade bragged that the SWP now holds positions on national and regional committees in a range of unions - PCS, Amicus, Unison, CWU and Natfhe. Moreover, a differentiation is taking place within the so-called awkward squad and hence there are supposedly ample opportunities to build the SWP’s fronts around ‘rank and file’ papers such as Post Worker and Red Watch. He did, though, complain about lack of consistent work and urged branches to stop flip-flopping from one dispute to another.

This was followed by ‘Where next for the anti-war movement?’, introduced by a rather puffed-up Lindsey German. She began with the obvious. Especially with the military assault on Fallujah and the continued flare-up of resistance Iraq remains a key issue in British politics. There is a wide body of opinion which is “strongly anti-war and anti-occupation”. This goes to the “heart” of the labour and trade union movement.

She congratulated herself that the Stop the War Coalition is “by far the largest” political movement in Britain today. Even when the movement is in one of its “quieter periods”, such as it was over the summer, it still mobilises “large numbers”. The SWP will therefore continue to prioritise - and strive to dominate - STWC activity in schools, colleges, the unions and in localities.

Comrade German went on to state that “some organisations have never supported the STWC.” Her naming of the Blairites is hardly a matter of controversy or dispute. Nor the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, nor the autonomists. But what of the CPGB? Has it really “tried to wreck the STWC because of the SWP’s role in it”?

Comrade German briefly touched upon the thorny question of the armed groups in Iraq and their campaign against US-UK imperialism. Not surprisingly she gingerly steered round the kidnappings and videoed beheadings. The SWP, should, she insisted, call for troops out and the end of the occupation as the “main slogans” of the STWC. However, the resistance has “every right to resist”. There are admittedly “different attitudes” towards this. A recent example being Mick Rix, who resigned in high dudgeon from the STWC’s steering committee in protest against the criticisms directed against the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions by STWC officers. Despite such instances, the SWP will “argue this position” within the STWC.

The penultimate session was comrade Bambery on his revamped Socialist Worker. No circulation figures, but apart from that everything is splendid and bound to get better and better. If only.
The central committee wants Socialist Worker to be the “paper of the movement”. In practice what that really means is that the content is destined to become ever more bland, boring and banal. Comrade Bambery aspires to hold up a mirror which flatters and deceives. He instinctively recoils from anything that smacks of serious and sustained debate and controversy - crucially from the left.
What is the movement for him? It is what is controlled or controllable by the SWP. In truth then, not very much. Has the real movement got any decision-making powers over Socialist Worker’s content? Or who its editor is? The answer, is, of course, no.

The end

Conference was rounded off by an unimpressive appeal for funds delivered by the newly elevated comrade Udwin. It fell rather flat.

There was, however, no time for the debriefing session. This is the agendaed final session during which delegates are told by a selected central committee member what should and should not be reported back to the branches.

But then all of that is becoming a bit outdated. SWP members increasingly rely on the Weekly Worker for information. The lies, half-truths and control-freakery of the central committee carry less and less weight.

There was no rebellion at the 2004 conference. Fear still rules. Nevertheless from what I gather at least half the delegates are at some level in sympathy with comrade Molyneux and his plea for “more” democracy.

Something is changing.