07.06.2006

Ever-decreasing circles

The Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain held its biennial congress over the weekend of June 2-4 at its Croydon headquarters. Lawrence Parker reports that behind the diplomatically coded language and show of unity, the factional war between 'traditionalists' and 'innovators' is rumbling on

We have long surmised that the Morning Star's Communist Party of Britain has a decidedly dozy tempo of work. There have been signs recently that its inability to mobilise its membership is reaching crisis point. For example, this year the CPB could only muster between 16 and 17 votes (which also included a number of non-CPB allies) for its preferred list for the management committee of the Marx Memorial Library (its opponents in the Rosser-Hicks faction romped home with votes of between 65 and 67 - see Weekly Worker May 25).

At Friday evening's opening session of the CPB congress, part-time general secretary Robert Griffiths was the first speaker in a report-back from a CPB delegation that had recently visited China (Morning Star editor John Haylett unfortunately could not make it). Listening to him, you could have almost imagined that you were sitting in an 'official' CPGB meeting from 1950: that is, if you substituted 'Soviet Union' for 'China' and forgot (as 'nostalgic' CPBers do) that the Chinese Communist Party is busy building capitalism rather than the alternative tyranny of bureaucratic state socialism. Griffiths drew our attention to the "sheer scale of economic development" and construction projects, "the size of which I have never witnessed", including a "5,000-mile highway through semi-desert".

This, as you can imagine, was all very thrilling until a number of comrades from the floor spoilt the fun by posing the need not to accept glibly the stance of the Chinese "comrades" and questioning the plausibility of what one called an "escalator theory of socialism" (ie, you use capitalism to develop the productive forces to get to the first floor and then - if the Chinese communists who talk to Griffiths and co are to be believed - you start the ascent to socialism).

Only in his summing-up did Griffiths partially drop the Harry Pollitt act and state that the CPB could not defend the indefensible, as it had done in the past, and that it was important to raise criticisms. (Comrade Griffiths's speech did, though, have the merit of being better than the rambling stream of consciousness from Kevin Halpin, who, in attempting to talk about Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, referred to him as "Lulu of Brazil".)

By the time Griffiths had got to his formal address to the congress, he was no longer the dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist of the previous evening (although he did, of course, use a set of dated tropes, including "China's breathtaking pace of economic development"), finding time to hail the (partially SWP-inspired) "magnificent peace movement". He also struck an 'innovators' note by hailing his comrades in the Tudeh Party of Iran "in their steadfast opposition both to the reactionary regime in Tehran and to imperialist intervention in their country". But no such greetings for the Iraqi Communist Party, a rather suspicious entity in the lexicon of the 'innovators' because of its collaborationist stance over the US-UK occupation (see Weekly Worker March 16). So, a coded two fingers to the ICP and its 'traditionalist', 'fraternal' supporters, such as CPB international secretary John Foster.

It is obvious that these factional wars are not going to evaporate and it is also clear that the clumsy Stalinist fashion in which the CPB's leadership attempts to keep the lid on the dispute only runs the risk of further demoralisation, splits and disorganisation. But if the 'innovators' do end up winning the battle, bolting on an involvement in reformist outfits such as Respect and the Scottish Socialist Party to its own tailist, opportunist method will not solve its organisational crisis: it will merely reproduce it on another plane. Only revolutionary politics can produce an active, self-sustaining revolutionary organisation.

The CPB's problem is that has always looked to external crutches to achieve its programmatic aims (the Labour Party, the trade unions); but why then bother with a Communist Party; why even bother with a separate organisation? How exactly does being the foot soldiers of a stodgy left-leaning daily such as the Yawning Star assist in the activation of CPB comrades as communists in the movement (as opposed to trade unionists and the like)?

Two documents produced for the congress (a report by a commission on party organisation and another from the executive committee) reveal a leadership concerned over the state of its structures, activity and membership. Even though there is enough here to paint a depressing picture of the day-to-day reality of the CPB tortoise, it is possible to guess that the situation is actually even worse. The EC would be careful not to damn itself too much (the second document is, after all, a report of its own work) and, also, it would not wish for its most active and loyal members to depart from its hideaway Croydon HQ feeling too downhearted. Nevertheless, this cannot be comfortable reading for the dwindling band of comrades that the CPB relies on as cadre.

The report of the commission on party organisation seeks to address two factors: the "current mismatch between the existing party district and nation structures, and the needs of a truly national organisation"; and a gender imbalance in the CPB. This is placed in the context of a "present relative instability" of membership that is in contradiction to a "real improvement in recent years" of activity (which, when you consider how sleepy the CPB still is, makes the reader wonder what 'activity' was like in former years).

The commission amplifies a concern we have previously heard from the CPB - that it has somehow 'missed the boat' in relation to the anti-war upsurge: "A palpable increase in interest in communist politics amongst a younger generation in recent years has not yet been translated into real party growth." Actually, as the report notes, the CPB has recruited a layer of younger comrades (clearly visible at its recent public events) that has managed to inject a modicum of life into what was a practically defunct Young Communist League, but clearly this is still unsatisfactory. "We punch well above our weight but we [are] often also seen as a fading heavyweight challenger rather than [a] promising newcomer!" In fact, the CPB has always been a fading and rather timid lightweight, comrades, but we take your point.

Congress delegates are told that around 750 "expressions of interest" in membership are received by the CPB centre every year: "Few are translated into party/YCL membership. Of those who are, many are in what might be called a 'disassociated relationship' to party structures and are often as quickly lost ... as they are gained." Apparently, there is also a perception from new members that the CPB does not listen to them. One of the questions frequently asked by such members relates to "the limited activity undertaken by many branches" and there is also an admittance that the linking up of 'disassociated members' is difficult, even where there is a branch.

Of course, inactive members and branches, dulled by years of Labourist routine, are unlikely to respond to the more urgent promptings of newer comrades. "Much of the focus of existing party organisation goes towards servicing the existing structures and not to creating politically outward-facing, fighting organisations that attract the attention of those seeking a dynamic, revolutionary alternative" ("revolutionary" and "dynamic" are not words we associate with the CPB either). The report moves on to admit an "unpalatable truth" - that the CPB's existing structures "are not attractive to many, even solid comrades".

Interestingly, the commission puts some of the blame for the CPB's lack of recruitment gains down to the infighting around whether to join the Socialist Workers Party in the ranks of Respect or continue with auto-Labourism: "It can be no accident that in recent years the most noticeable 'dip' in the level of enquiries into membership occurred at a time when the party has been focused on internal controversies about immediate political and electoral strategies."

One might have thought that your differences over this issue may have had the virtue of making the CPB more interesting, comrades, given that we can usually rely on your comrades to inject that smidgeon of dullness needed to turn a boring meeting into a truly tedious one. The issue here is that the commission appears to be suggesting that differences themselves are the problem. In reality, it is the manner in which the organisation tries to gag its minorities in public that is corrupting its work. Comrades unable to argue against 'the line' in public do not tend to become the most assiduous party-builders; this method tends to breed disaffection and an unwillingness to interface with potential recruits.

The 'innovators' in the CPB, keen to get on board with Respect, use the Morning Star, through the good offices of editor John Haylett, to regularly snipe at the auto-Labour 'traditionalists' through semi-coded messages for the initiated. Which breeds another spiral of discontent from comrades concerned about breaches of so-called democratic centralism. Yes, such factional sniping is ugly and dispiriting, but it is not a problem of differences per se. Some of the impact of this attrition could be eased by the cleansing light of openness and a more healthy idea of what democratic centralism entails.

Turning to the EC report, we essentially got a much more broader spin on the findings of the commission on party organisation. In most sections we are given a fairly humdrum exposition of a particular area of work, combined with grousing at the disorganised state of the party, some of which can be traced back to factional battles within the CPB.

Thus, the EC, in dealing with 'peace' work, says: "Andrew Murray has continued to serve as the chair of the STWC ... Unfortunately, official party representation on the STWC steering committee has not been maintained consistently ... Communists play an important role in local Stop the War Coalitions in a number of localities, although this remains patchy and uneven, indicating that EC decisions regarding the priority to be given to the anti-war movement have not been consistently implemented."

Of course, Murray is widely considered inside CPB ranks as having 'gone native' with the SWP (he has not recently been a member of the CPB EC and neither does he appear on the list of accepted nominees in the EC's report to this year's congress) and so it is probably not that wise, even for the 'innovators', to be seen too closely in his orbit if you wish to retain influence in the CPB. But we can well imagine the 'traditionalist' wing, which sees the STWC as territory marked out by the 'Trot' SWP (busily trying to undermine its beloved Labour Party via Respect), wanting to put two fingers up at the 'innovators' on the leadership by not bothering to implement decisions around the coalition.

Other areas of the report tend to merely add to the impression of an inactive, docile membership. Thus in relation to the CPB's few electoral ventures (an arena of diminishing returns if ever there was one): "One problem that we clearly face is finding candidates - either because comrades are not willing, or because they feel it would compromise their employment situation or labour movement standing."

You have to feel a tiny bit sorry for an organisation that has comrades who feel so compromised by being members of it. Similarly, in relation to Communist Review, its theoretical journal, the EC makes the pointed remark that: "Distribution difficulties will always be a problem unless and until comrades take a more active role in selling the journal, persuading local bookshops or libraries to take copies or at the very least subscribing to it themselves." CPB comrades really ought to give their journal a try. Even CPGB supporters have been known to find an interesting article in it once every couple of years.

The Morning Star is one area in which there is evidence of some relative dynamism in the CPB's work, which is unsurprising in that the CPB was initially set up to facilitate the production and distribution of this plodding, reformist publication: in other words, the 'party' belongs to the paper.

Even here though, the leadership is obviously unsure to what extent its membership is involved in the paper. "A questionnaire compiled by the EC Morning Star committee in conjunction with the paper's circulation department has been circulated in Communist News [the CPB internal bulletin] - the objective being to gain a more detailed understanding of the level of active support for the Morning Star among party members "¦ ." This is presumably what lies behind Anita Halpin's warning at the congress "that there is still a tendency for the labour movement [ie, the CPB] to take the Morning Star for granted" (Morning Star June 5). It seems as if some CPB members take the Star so much for granted that they don't bother to buy or read it at all.

At this point it is perhaps unsurprising to be told that "many branches have low attendances at meetings" (currently, "about 46" of 63 branches are classed as "active") and that "the crisis of organisation at district level has continued and even intensified". London, Yorkshire, the North, Scotland and Wales appear to be the CPB's strong areas (although one must wonder how well the CPB manages to cover, for example, Scotland and Wales outside a small number of conurbations). However, its West Midlands and North West district committees have "ceased to function", while CPB structures elsewhere appear to be haphazard or non-existent.

In the circumstances of its profoundly disorganised state, it is hard to know how much weight to attach to the CPB's membership and recruitment figures, although the number of cards issued seems to indicate some shrinkage. In 2000, cards were issued to 1,040 comrades, but in 2005 this had fallen to 894, rising slightly so far this year to 907 by last month. However, in terms of "current membership" (by which I presume the EC means those whose cards are actually stamped up), there appears to be an increase. The only comparative figures available are: 2004 (end) 818; 2005 (end) 859; and 2006 (May) 902. However, in the context of reams of dead, inactive wood, a figure of around 200-250 members doing CPB work at any level seems about right.

The proportion of waged comrades stands at around 42% (a rise from 33% in 2001); I would hazard a guess that a fair wedge of the remainder are pensioners. Not necessarily a complete disaster, but the CPB still has an age profile in the upper reaches. Again, it is hard to know what to make of the CPB's recruitment figures, as it readily admits that it loses many new members to the wasteland of 'disassociation' inhabited by many of its more-established members. In 2004 it recruited 55 newcomers, in 2005 64, and to date for 2006 it has gained 39. All in all, it is safe to conclude that talk of a "significant increase in recruitment and membership" is a little exaggerated (press release, May 16, www.communist-party.org.uk/index.php?file=newsTemplate&story=163).

What then does the future hold for the CPB? Unfortunately, for an organisation that frowns on differences as somehow inimical to its very existence (although the reality is that its ignoble history has been punctuated by a series of factional wars, not least the Morning Star strike and the removal of the clique around Mary Rosser and Mike Hicks in 1998), the dispute between the 'innovators' and 'traditionalists' as to the desirability of further diluting its loyalty to New Labour looks set to rumble on.

For example, Carol Stavris of Oxford rejected the idea that a reformed Labour Party was the way forward: "We should concentrate on uniting the left and projecting the 'Leftwing programme' [a repackaging of the CPB's usual brand of reformist, economistic waffle, agreed at the 2004 congress]." This was in response to Scot Notman of Paisley, who put forward a more traditionalist line: "The Labour Party must not just reclaim the Labour Party, but transform it."

Susan Galloway of the Scottish committee also took exception to the EC's main political resolution, which talks of the CPB's participation in elections, "including through a people's unity alliance with domiciled communists from overseas and with socialists who broadly share the strategic perspectives set out in our programme". Comrade Galloway said that the attitude to a common left electoral strategy of the Scottish Socialist Party, which she characterised as "join us or don't stand", made this approach difficult. In any case, she argued, there was a need to stand communist candidates in the name of the Communist Party, since there was a risk of the party losing its identity in a coalition [unlike automatically voting for Labour for decades, presumably]. Comrade Griffiths referred to the red herring of supporting "domiciled communists", but this debate is clearly about relations with the SSP and Respect.

Despite containing the usual British road to socialism guff about reclaiming the Labour Party and producing a Labour government that could be held to progressive policies, the EC's main political resolution (as the Scottish CPB delegates quickly discovered) has some other rather large 'innovationist' footprints: "A strategy for left unity should not preclude working in alliances with others in our campaigning work ... Such alliances can also include those on the left who do not share our strategic vision. Some of these left organisations, for example, do not share our view that socialists and trades unions affiliated to the Labour Party should continue to fight to reclaim that party for the labour movement, but this should not prevent alliances with them on matters of common agreement."

Despite losing a special congress on the issue of engaging with Respect in 2004 (see Weekly Worker January 22 2004), the 'innovators' have kept up their struggle on the EC and other leading bodies. Indeed the report of the EC makes it clear how far the old line of auto-Labourism was stretched by the EC itself during the general election of 2005. Its "general political stance" was for a Labour victory; no votes for members of the 'war cabinet'; building the biggest possible vote for CPB candidates; canvassing Labour candidates on key issues; the return to parliament of Labour MPs who voted against the Iraq war; and "where party organisations believe they should not support a pro-war, pro-New Labour candidate, they can make their case for supporting an alternative to the EC or [political committee] ...". Despite having the appearance of being 'all things to all people', this is some distance from auto-Labourism.

The 'innovators', however, are obviously aware that if they wage an all-out, open war on the 'traditionalists' then they would be risking another damaging split with the auto-Labourite wing. This cannot be risked in the context of the CPB's current disorganisation. Thus, John Haylett soft-pedals and writes in coded language about internal differences in the Morning Star, while general secretary Rob Griffiths is increasingly playing a centrist role in attempting to keep the two wings together. This was amply in evidence during last weekend's congress.

The report of the commission on party organisation I quoted from earlier is sensible enough not to mechanically separate organisational issues from political ones: "If this [organisational] call is not clearly linked to the fundamental appeal of communism ... it will fail." But of course, the comrades are utterly unable to link this glimmer of an idea with any revolutionary principles, so they are ultimately reliant on a set of technical remedies (email networks, an expanded organisational department and so on), which will obviously not work.

The years have not been kind to the CPB. There are clearly individuals and groups on its leadership who are beginning to despair at their organisation's slovenly state. However, the real tragedy of the CPB is its bone-headed nostalgia for the past, which means that even key figures among the 'innovators' have to pay their respects to yesterday, leaving the organisation practically rudderless in the post-Soviet world. One therefore suspects that the CPB only has a future as a set of ever-decreasing circles.