13.07.2005
No short cuts
Tokenising the ex-leaders of a workers' struggle in one small part of Britain is no way to rebuild working class organisation, argues Alan Stevens
Martin Ralph of the International Socialist League writes in the Weekly Worker (June 16) what purports to be a reply to my criticism of Bill Hunter and the United Socialist Party (Weekly Worker May 19). He tries to argue that I, and presumably the CPGB, do not understand mass movements of the working class. Instead he reveals his own wilful ignorance and narrow, backward-looking perspectives. Comrade Ralph's article epitomises so much of what is wrong with the British left. Firstly, I should comment on Martin's obscurantist method. He completely ignores substantial areas of criticism. He does not tackle my comments on subservience to spontaneity and lack of a conscious approach. Neither does he deal with the criticism that comrade Bill Hunter's perspective (and his own) is for a "Labour Party mark II" and that this is "repeating the failures of 20th century social democracy". He does not answer my questions, "Where is Marxism? Where is the perspective beyond capitalism? That is, where are the independent political interests of the working class?" In addition to ignoring these and many other issues comrade Martin's article is littered with ad hominem arguments to try and discredit those doing the criticising - as though that deals with the criticism. So, for example, comrade Ralph, like his ISL comrade Bill Hunter before him, does not deal with Iain Hunter's catalogue of accusations about democratic accountability within the USP (Weekly Worker April 14). Instead he ducks and merely lists a counter-catalogue. Even if the counter-crimes were true, it is no different in quality to a child caught in the act of bullying saying, 'Well, he pulled my hair, mum!' See the letter from comrade Phyllis Starkey (who, like Iain Hunter, was one of the USP complainants who subsequently resigned), which challenges this diversion (Weekly Worker June 30). However, our two ISL comrades are logically consistent in their ad hominem approach. When it comes to their idols, this is inverted to laud and mystify the Liverpool dockers to the point where they can do no wrong - because they are Liverpool dockers. So comrade Martin Ralph, faced with criticism of his perspective and practice, merely projects them back onto the accusers, misrepresents their views and engages in diversions and excuses - all presumably in the hope that we will get as lost as he is. He says I create a smokescreen by "reinforcing a subjective and psychological take on the Workers Revolutionary Party". Not a smokescreen, comrade. Martin's co-thinker, Bill Hunter, referred to the wariness that workers have towards "competing revolutionary socialist groups" - but it was something that Bill did not link to their actual experience of, say, the WRP. Workers' impressions of the WRP were not just subjective: they had an objective basis - which, as I said in my last article, is why the Monty Python sketch was so funny. I merely illustrated the point with one fairly typical example from my own experience. Comrade Ralph's reply is based on the irresponsible method of academic point-scoring by fair means or foul - the selection of only fragmentary aspects of history in support of a religious ideal. This is symptomatic of the individualist intellectual, disconnected from the working class, but desperate to be taken seriously. To the main point. Martin begins by reminding readers that one of the central issues raised by Bill Hunter was "the lessons of the dockworkers' history of struggle and the importance of the USP being armed with those experiences". He means only the Liverpool dockers - this is one of the comrades' fundamental errors and they seem determined to miss the point. We need a conscious programme to build a party on the basis of the lessons of a comprehensive working class history: a global history that also critically examines the old 'official' communist movement; the history of the left sects and opportunism generally. A history that includes a critical analysis and determines trends and movements in the class - for example, the decline of traditional industries like mining and the docks and the growth of the public sector and services. The comrades will have none of this. Instead of such a conscious, critical-analytical approach, they start from the fact of the United Socialist Party, which is centred on the Liverpool dockers - or rather a few leaders of the ex-Liverpool dockers - and attempt to rationalise it as some sort of movement of the class. It is as though the comrades have subordinated all working class history and experience to that of the Liverpool dockers in isolation. The comrades are wilfully blind to any other history that might detract from this rationalisation - even putting the Liverpool dockers' history in its national context. That is, the comrades take what is good and heroic from the Liverpool dockers' struggle and turn it into myth to justify a cult. The USP is not a fresh and dynamic movement of workers ready to fight on the basis of ongoing struggles. There are no more than a few dozen people actively involved in the whole footdragging venture. It is the last gasp from a few old heroes who fought and lost a decade ago and who have now been colonised by a handful of ex-WRP parasites. To flatter these ex-dockers and fail to confront their social democratic illusions or bureaucratic methods, failing to learn from what was negative as well as positive in their struggles (or, more important, everyone else's) - to pander to and to tail behind these tried and tested, but now mostly atomised, working class fighters is to perform a disservice to our class and to the former Liverpool dockers themselves. Ultimatums In order to dodge the thorny problem of democratic accountability comrade Ralph resorts to a lie. He claims that I accept "unreservedly the assertions, and contradictions held in those assertions", made by Iain Hunter, the former USP organiser who led the split from it. Not true. For a start I pointed out that Iain's "criticisms and statements of fact go unchallenged by Bill Hunter" - therefore it is reasonable to assume they are true. Elsewhere I say: "Comrade Iain does, in my view, have some badly wrong ideas "¦ however, he does rightly emphasise the cardinal importance of democracy and debate." There are other examples and in one area (the nature of the Labour Party) I agreed that Bill Hunter was right and Iain wrong. To suggest that I unreservedly accept Iain's assertions is simply dishonest. When it actually comes to the democratic question itself, Martin not only side-tracks with his juvenile, ad hominem, 'they are bad too' accusations - he goes into overdrive and discovers that the democrats are guilty of a new crime not mentioned anywhere in Bill Hunter's reply to Iain - ultimatism. That is, we are presented with the sublime argument that 'they are even worse'. Martin asserts that Iain's group "was unable to immediately have their positions and their leadership accepted, so they left the USP". Also new here is Martin Ralph's claim that Iain (and 'his group') were demanding recognition of their leadership. Slipping in this accusation allows Martin to go on a long and irrelevant ramble, enlisting the sensible advice of Trotsky and Lenin inappropriately against Iain's supposed ultimatism. It is a red herring. An ultimatum demanding recognition of leadership did not figure anywhere in Iain's own account, which went into some detail. Neither was it mentioned at all by Bill Hunter. Indeed one of Iain's complaints was that the leadership of the USP, of which he was part, had within it a guiding clique - in effect a leadership faction - that conducted business as though it were the leadership. We could ask some questions about ultimatums. Did the demands put on the Socialist Party that caused its departure and the demand generally that organisations dissolve themselves constitute an ultimatum? Was comrade Nolan's pronouncement from the chair that there will be no platforms an ultimatum? Was the imposition of a very limited constitution (pending a conference next year) an ultimatum? Was Eric McIntosh's threat to Iain to withdraw his amendment or leave the party an ultimatum? (see Phyllis Starkey's letter, Weekly Worker June 30). Were these not all ultimatums to accept the leadership of the ex-dockers and a few hangers-on? Comrade Ralph quotes Trotsky, who argued for "the need to fight the trends of ultimatists". He remarks how important this is in the struggle today and says that Iain's group "have learnt nothing from this history: for them it appears that they have done nothing wrong and that they have made no mistakes". Well, this strikes me as a projection of his own faults onto others. "To achieve a democratic discussion and to persuade others of your viewpoint means giving time and space for debate," says comrade Ralph. It sounds good, but when used to sidetrack calls for a democratic constitution, it turns into its opposite. The last thing that the working class needs is another bureaucratic sect - or in this case a bureaucratic cult. In Britain, Europe, the world we need a party of democracy with rights to openly express differences - not as an exception, but as the norm. Democratic centralism has nothing in common with the bureaucratic centralism that dominates the left and whose backwardness is excused by comrades Bill and Martin. Dockers In my last article I did not intend or attempt to give a history of the dockers. I do not hold to the narrow perspective of the ISL comrades. I merely made the point that comrade Bill Hunter idealises the dockers' struggle in Liverpool and isolates it from its historical and national context - except where differences can be elevated to portray Liverpool as something separate, unique and wonderful. So, even from his own narrow viewpoint, Bill (and Martin) cannot fully understand the Liverpool dockers' struggle. It is wholly disingenuous of Martin to say that the dockers' history was far more complex than I suggest - that was exactly my point. Comrade Martin Ralph gives a history of the more militant 'blue union', but his purpose is to emphasise differences between London and Liverpool in order to mark out Liverpool in the manner of a token. He neglects to mention that the blue union had a significant membership in London, that both unions were on the unofficial committees and that the blue union eventually folded and we were then all in one union anyway. It was not as black and white (or in this case as blue and white) as the comrade suggests. The comrade cannot learn from history by separating and elevating Liverpool and denigrating London (what about all the other ports or indeed the rest of the working class?), nor by selecting, bending and diminishing that complex history to suit his current fad. In a particularly supercilious remark comrade Ralph says of me: "One thing that he does not appear to understand is that by attacking the dockers and lending support to Iain and his group he is also attacking the accumulated bitter experience and struggle that moulded the relationship among dockers, their families and the communities in which they lived." How typical this is of a purely academic understanding of such struggles. So, tied to his fantasy about Liverpool, he accuses a former London shop steward, victimised in the 1989 strike and with a family history in the docks at least as far back as my great grandfather, of not understanding the "accumulated bitter experience and struggle that moulded the relationship among dockers". Phyllis Starkey also took "deep offence" at this: "I am the daughter, the sister, the sister-in-law and the ex-wife of a docker!" (Letters, June 30). It is Martin that does not understand. It is Martin that denigrates working class experience, not only of all those outside his narrow focus, but also of the Liverpool dockers themselves - they are not a mythical entity and the sort of public arse-licking that Martin and Bill engage in is not what workers need. Internationalism and party Of course the defeat of the Liverpool dockers' is highly problematic for comrade Ralph - so he does not mention it. Instead comrade Ralph refers to specific features of the 1995-97 dispute, in particular international work. Comrade Ralph, as usual, does not answer my criticism that this work was elevated in importance to compensate for lack of support at home. Ignoring the fundamental weakness nationally which ultimately led to their defeat, comrade Ralph lamely says: "The dockers' dispute arose on national soil, but they were determined to develop international support." The dockers did achieve a degree of international liaison and organisation and a number of international days of action. Comrade Ralph says of this support: "On what this means for a new party Alan is completely wrong - he says: 'These battles not only ended in defeat, but are history'". But Martin cut me short. I continued: "The USP is not led by Liverpool dockers flushed with anger, confidently breaking with Labour and ready for mass action. The USP has a handful of ex-leaders of the Liverpool dockers who, after quietly leaving Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party in the 1990s, decided to form their own version of the SLP in 2004. So this is not 'party' building: rather a hollow echo of industrial and political defeat." Martin adds: "It is impossible for the working class to build a mass revolutionary party other than building on the lessons of history." If only comrade Ralph would follow his own advice. To draw "lessons" only from selective fragments of struggle (and perceived through rosy-tinted spectacles at that) is totally inadequate. To chase after tokenised heroes of yesteryear may be easy and comfortable, but we need to get beyond the gaggles of left groupies. The adoption of a conscious analytical and strategic approach to overcome the multitude of errors and weaknesses that have afflicted our movement is a far more difficult, but necessary, task. There is no short cut. Uncritically attaching yourself to this or that spontaneous movement and accommodating to existing illusions and unnecessary repeats of a failed history is a strategy for going nowhere. Comrade Ralph stupidly asserts that, whereas "Marx called for workers of the world to unite", I only talk of "a revolutionary party in Britain". Comrades Martin and Bill pander to what remains of ex-dockers leaders, with all their weaknesses as well as strengths, in order to recreate a failed social democracy in one small part of Britain. Their sectarian, anti-democratic practice strips their fine phrases about an international of all revolutionary meaning. We are entitled to ask just what type of international these comrades aspire to - another sect? l
Worker