13.07.2005
Size ain't everything "¦
On the Saturday morning of this year's Marxism (July 9), Chris Harman delivered a largely uncontroversial and occasionally dull introduction on 'Revolution in the 21st century'. Only towards the end did it get interesting - when he tried to make a rather feeble connection between "the revolutionary party, without which it is impossible to deliver the final push that transforms a post-revolutionary society from a dual power situation to a workers' state" and the explicitly non-revolutionary formation, Respect. "The world is full of self-proclaimed revolutionary parties," he said. "But a real revolutionary party not only understands what needs to be done: it must be able to do it" - and went on to disparage the "tiny size" of many of the "little sects outside this building". Yes, we have to understand revolutionary theory, comrade Harman conceded, but size also mattered and therefore "the party must reach out to other sections of society who are struggling against the system. If one person in 10 is a revolutionary, then this one person can influence the others. If one in 100 is a revolutionary, then you've got no chance." He used the example of the Bolivian Trotskyist organisation, Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR), which "might have had the correct theory, but "¦ was far too small. Had it been bigger, it might have been able to make a difference. That is why Respect needs tens of thousands of members," he said. This is precisely the SWP's contradiction in this period, of course. The comrades are not reaching out to George Galloway, the anti-war movement, sections of the muslim population or the wider working class via the vehicle of "the revolutionary party" and its principled programme. Instead, an explicitly non-socialist and certainly non-revolutionary popular frontist formation is deemed to fit the bill. Comrade Harman recently wrote that Respect is "simply an electoral coalition" (Socialist Review May). Yet now he is talking of it in the same breath as explicitly revolutionary organisations and assigning to it a far more central political role than that of "an electoral coalition". Either he has really changed his mind or he was putting on a brave face for the duration of Marxism - that is, he had his mind 'changed' for him by the bureaucratic weight of the group's anti-democratic culture of (surface) unanimity. Although nobody in the audience criticised Respect (the two CPGB comrades who put in speaker's slips were not called), speaker after hand-picked speaker in the choreographed 'debate' felt the need to justify the SWP's role in this popular frontist grouping. "You can stand outside like the little sects and not work with the movements. Or you can put on a white T-shirt at last week's Make Poverty History event and work with Monbiot and other such figures," said Socialist Worker editor Chris Bambery. Oddly, the comrade also claimed, "There is no such thing as a vanguard party. There are spontaneous movements in which we fight for direction. We have created a new working class, a working class that is not yet conscious of its own power." Ian Ferguson (Socialist Worker platform in the Scottish Socialist Party) was keen to emphasise the "red thread" that apparently runs through the SWP and Respect: "We cannot stand aside - we must engage with all those fighting back." No serious socialist would dispute this, of course - the question is what this engagement should look like. Do you subordinate Marxist principles to placate the right (on the questions of immigration controls, a woman's right to choose and secularism) or do you engage with newly politicised people to win them to your revolutionary programme - the only programme, of course that makes any sense and can guide us to socialism? In his summing up, Chris Harman gave an interesting glimpse of the kind of problems the SWP is facing over its slow-motion liquidation into Respect. "Sometimes it looks quite attractive to stand outside events and shout, 'One solution - revolution'," he observed. "Often these groups outside are called ultra-left, but they are not - they are rightwing. The sects outside are not serious. Our job is to convince and argue with the young people who are attracted to those sectarian groups. If you don't engage with Galloway and the anti-war movement then you are not serious." Obviously, at the moment large numbers of SWP members are not leaving their larger sect to join one of the "tiny sects". However, it would be extremely surprising if there were not rumblings in the ranks, or at least some troubled questions, about the SWP's formal subordination to Respect. Undoubtedly, the SWP continues to lose people - be it to other groups or, more likely, private life and political passivity. Disenchantment with the Respect project could speed this up. This session at Marxism, like others at the event, was designed to reassure SWP members that Respect is a 'good thing' - although, from what we read, comrade Harman himself was struggling to be convinced before he got up onto his hind legs in this meeting l Tina Becker
Worker