27.07.2005

Fischer defects

In a grievous blow to the CPGB, national organiser Mark Fischer has decided to bail out and apply for the vacant post of national administrative secretary of the Morning Star's CPB - one of history's few examples of a rat joining a sinking ship. To expose the wretched treachery of this perfidious viper we once held to our breast, we reprint his application letter below

Comrades! It has just been drawn to my attention that the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain finds itself - once again - with a vacancy for a national official. I humbly submit my application for the post of national admin secretary of the CPB, at a frugal starting salary of £18,000 per annum, as advertised in the Morning Star of July 20. Let me explain my motivations. After decades of plugging away in a small organisation with a pretty stable leadership, how could I not be attracted to a group with such a dynamically democratic culture of rotation of its top officials? Clearly, there are real chances for advancement in the CPB for those who are a little patient. For instance, as I understand it, an important vacancy opened up after your January 2004 special congress that voted against participation in the SWP-Respect party. The general secretary, Robert Griffiths, heroically offered to step aside to offer someone else a 'go' after the proposals from his wing of the party for effective liquidation into Respect were defeated. Oddly enough, nobody felt particularly keen to take on the job at the time and comrade Griffiths was re-elected. But, clearly, this enthusiasm on the part of CPB full-timers to vacate office - even when there is no one else willing to do the job - is a sign of an organisation that is really going places. So, the dynamism of the CPB is a given. But what really swung it for me was an email from your Steffen Lippert, a comrade in the CPB's 'administrative department' - a suite of offices at your central Croydon HQ that must buzz most days. Steffen was replying to a comrade who - like many - had encountered the CPGB and CPB on the web and written to both asking for clarification of our differences. Comrade Lippert's pithy summary of the CPB's stance put my nagging doubts to rest. He summarised the "main differences" between the CPB and the "self-styled" CPGB as follows (all Lippert quotes from email dated December 11 2004): l "The 'CPGB' specialises in rumour-mongering and 'entryism' (into the Socialist Labour Party, the Socialist Alliance and now Respect) in order to invent and sow divisions within and between other socialist organisations." Perhaps after I have settled into my new job, comrade Lippert could take a moment (or a month) to explain to me how it is possible to be an 'entryist' group into either an open alliance which encourages organisational affiliation (the SA) or a formation (Respect) that accepts as individual members comrades who are (openly) affiliated to other political groups. (Perhaps I'm slow, comrade, but is the SWP also an 'entryist' organisation into Respect? Did it sneakily infiltrate the Socialist Alliance by "¦ er "¦ affiliating to it?) Elsewhere in his email, comrade Lippert describes the CPGB as "a faction of the New Communist Party [that] hijacked the name of the CPGB", which is a refreshingly innovative take on history. But clearly the comrade's real objection is to the idea of factions in general - the practice of operating in a larger organisation with your own discipline and tactical orientation in order to promote a particular political agenda. This caused me some concern for a time - the CPGB has a rather more tolerant attitude to factions and organised trends. That is, until I again perceived the ground-breaking thinking that lay behind comrade Lippert's remarks. The CPB - as the smaller organisation - does not organise as a faction of the larger Respect; instead, it allows a more or less open Respect faction to operate inside it! As soon as this basic idea is grasped, it is possible to see the 'footprints' of this faction all over the pages of the Morning Star itself. For instance, in the paper's editorial of July 8, we are told that in the aftermath of the London bombing atrocities, the British people must "demand that our troops be immediately withdrawn" (my emphasis) - a variant on the 'troops out now' position of Respect and the SWP, so bitterly opposed by the CPB's fraternal organisation, the Iraqi Communist Party, as well as the CPB majority itself. How refreshing to see an organisation like the CPB not simply tolerating members holding different views, but even allowing them to be openly flaunted in the Star. Bravo, comrades! Despite being decisively rejected at the CPB's special congress in 2004, a pro-Respect 'innovator' minority actively pursues its agenda in this way. This is grouped around comrades Griffiths (general secretary), John Haylett (Morning Star editor), Andrew Murray (ex-Straight Leftist and now SWP-lite) and Nick Wright (ditto). And so - to the consternation of the CPB's fraternal organisations and the majority of its membership - the party members who work on the Star feel entitled to operate free of collective discipline. Perhaps, in the spirit of that political giant, Tony Chater, they even regard the party as an "outside body". I take back everything I ever said, wrote or chanted about comrade Chater, the one-time editor of the Star ("Tony Chater, class traitor!" was one of mine, I must confess). Clearly the inspiration of the man burns bright for the more or less autonomous CPBers at the Star. l "The CPB represents the outlook, policy and theory of the original, genuine Communist Party of Great Britain which was founded in 1920. When the CPB re-established the party in Britain in 1988, we did so on the basis of the "¦ rules, principles and programme of the original Communist Party of Great Britain." Comrades, this is fantastic! When you 're-established' the party in 1988, it was widely misreported you did so on the basis on a defence of the 1978 British road to socialism, the programme of the opportunists in the party. Instead, I discover to my joy that you actually adhere to the politics of The Call - paper of the British Socialist Party, the main constituent element of the new party of 1920. It outlined the essential principles of the soon-to-be-born CPGB in this way: "(a) Communism, as against capitalism "¦ (b) The soviet idea, as against parliamentary democracy "¦ (c) The dictatorship of the proletariat" (see J Klugmann History of the CPGB: formation and early years London 1968, pp36-37). This also must mean you are for the politics promoted by comrade Tom Bell in his speech moving the resolution on parliament at the CPGB's first congress (July 31-August 1 1920): "[the CPGB's] point of view was common to communist parties internationally "¦ He "¦ did not believe that it was possible to effect a peaceful transformation in the parliamentary bourgeois democracy as understood today "¦ [parliament] was entirely foreign to the purpose of the communist state of society "¦ [the role of communists in parliament was] all the time "¦ a critical, destructive one, exposing the fraudulent character of our modern parliamentary democracy" (quoted in J Conrad In the enemy camp London 1993, pp83-85). And the "original, genuine" CPGB naturally agreed with Lenin's characterisation of Labour as "a thoroughly bourgeois party" (VI Lenin CW Moscow 1977, Vol 22, p347). Not the sort of politics that are to be found in any of the versions of the British road to socialism, of course. But then perhaps this explains why your Robert Griffiths - an avowed anti-BRSer back in the mid-1980s - has been able to become general secretary of the organisation without publicly renouncing his former views. The comrade once damned the "long-running right opportunism" of "all editions of the British road", even those drafted under the guidance of such luminaries as Harry Pollitt. As he correctly wrote, absent from all was "any Marxist-Leninist analysis of the bourgeois state, of social democracy, of the leading role of the Communist Party "¦ The only path to socialism that is mapped out is a peaceful, gradual and constitutional one "¦ the necessity for the working class and its allies to create their own organs of state power in order to suppress the capitalist class in the face of near certain subversion and counterrevolution, is unmentioned" (quoted in Weekly Worker March 19 1998). That's the sort of "original" thinking that convinces me that the CPB is the place for me! l "Having considered evidence from the two organisations "¦ the electoral commission and its advisory committee of MPs did not hesitate to authorise the CPB's exclusive claim to the title 'communist' for all electoral purposes." This is another killer argument from comrade Lippert. It refers to the 1999 decision of the registrar of political parties - based in Companies House in Cardiff - to disbar the CPGB from using its name for the purposes of fighting elections and to grant the exclusive 'franchise' to the CPB. As comrades Lippert reminds us, this apolitical pen-pusher was 'advised' at the time by a parliamentary committee composed of nine MPs. In their wisdom, this group also granted the 'Socialist Party' franchise to the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the harmlessly eccentric and profoundly inert educational sect that dates its origins to a split from the Social Democratic Federation in 1904. The comrades from the Socialist Party in England and Wales - the ex-Militant group - were, alongside the CPGB, denied the right to stand under their own name. And who could quibble? The fact that, as the comrades from the SP pointed out, five out of the nine 'advisory' MPs were rightwing wretches who "voted for or supported the witch-hunt against Militant" is surely just churlish carping (The Socialist March 12 1999). How can any reasonable person dispute the credentials of Labour MPs of the calibre of Gerald Kaufman, Gwyneth Dunwoody or Barry Jones to decide who are the legitimate inheritors of the revolutionary politics of Lenin's Communist International in today's Britain? You must be the genuine communists in Britain - comrades Kaufman and Dunwoody think so! l "The CPB "¦ has relations with more than 60 communist and workers' parties and national liberation movements around the world, including of course the governing parties in Cuba, Vietnam, China and South Africa." Again, compelling arguments. Take the South African Communist Party, the organisation that has done so much to prevent post-apartheid South Africa descending into what such respectable publications as the Financial Times called "anarchy". Here is an organisation that includes in its ranks people of the calibre of Alec Erwin and Jeff Radebe. The role of these two comrades as government ministers was extravagantly praised in the April 15 2003 issue of South Africa's Business Report. Comrade Erwin (then trade and industry minister) was extensively and approvingly quoted for his rejection of any measures leading to the stimulation of demand and his commitment to "promote existing competitive industries". Similarly, comrade Radebe was praised for his promise to push ahead with "vigorous restructuring activity" - ie: privatisations. "There is a high level of interest from the business community in the opportunities that this programme presents," he commented. Well fancy that! This is how the SACP regretfully described the government's decision to attempt to raise R40 billion (£3.6 billion) from privatisation sales over three years from 2001, despite the fierce resistance of the unions and thousands of jobs losses: "This was not an irrational decision, or a sell-out, or a betrayal of the "¦ objectives that hold us together. It was a prioritisation that was based on the conviction that there were no other feasible options "¦ rational but inappropriate economic policy choices have been made" (my emphasis African Communist 1st quarter, 2002). I also note the June 27 "high-level meeting" between the CPB and the Communist Party of China, another one of comrade Lippert fraternal "governing parties". Comrade Zhang - the leader of the CPC delegation - paid tribute to the CPB as "a party of hope, which stands by the principles of Marxism-Leninism applied to Britain's conditions", which was nice (Morning Star June 29). Indeed, I believe that the recent acquisition of MG Rover by the Chinese carmaker, Nanjing Automotive, offers a unique opportunity to the CPC's fraternal party here in Britain. After all, comrade Zhang told the CPB delegation of his party's concern that recent successes on the economic front had not only produced higher living standards, but also "problems of unequal wealth distribution and corruption, which the party is now tackling with confidence" (ibid). If Nanjing's proposed long-term plans come to fruition, they could create 2,000 jobs in the UK - perhaps a unique opportunity for UK workers to have the benefit of exactly the same sort of advantages of socialist management as workers in China. In fact, one of my first tasks as a full-timer for the CPB will be to push for us to launch a campaign along these lines. I'm convinced that if only the proletarians of Birmingham had the chance to experience commensurate living standards, working conditions and democratic rights that socialism in China has delivered to the working masses, they would soon be banging down the door of the CPB offices in Croydon. To join, I mean "¦ In short, count me in. I am, frankly, thrilled that I may soon be working daily in an environment where I encounter the quality of arguments put forward by comrade Lippert in his email. This will be very challenging intellectually - indeed, if I really work at it, I hope one day to be as intellectually challenged as comrade Lippert himself. Yours in certain knowledge that - under the inspired and united leadership of comrades Haylett, Griffiths and, er, Foster - my place is with the CPB fighting to lead the present generation to national socialism! Mark Fischer PS: What's the pension plan like"¦? l