06.09.2006
Solidarity with the SSP
Sheridan's breakaway is the wrong split, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time, writes Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group
As readers of Weekly Worker may know, I have long been a critical supporter of the Scottish Socialist Party. Any communist in Scotland worth their salt should have been a member of the SSP. This is not about opportunistically following in its slipstream, hoping to win a few recruits. It is a matter of playing a role in the formation of the SSP and then trying to build it and shape its politics.
The split in the SSP is not the time to bail out. Communists are not fair-weather friends who run for cover when the going gets tough. Neither will we suddenly 'discover' the SSP's nationalism as an excuse to leave. The SSP needs our solidarity and we should do what we can to support it.
Before this split my argument boiled down to two essentials. First we need a socialist unity party. Second this must be a republican socialist party. The latter is essential if we are to begin relating correctly to the national question. The SSP is an example of the former, but not quite the latter, although it has been moving towards it. This is partly because objective circumstances raise the republican question, and partly because the Republican Communist Network platform has been conducting republican agitation. The republican Declaration of Calton Hill promoted by the SSP is one indicator.
Why should revolutionary communists support a socialist unity party? For communists it is obviously a compromise. It is necessary because the working class is weak and divided and desperately needs greater unity to resist capital and its parties. Communists must be prepared to compromise with socialists in the interests of class struggle, provided they do not give up their own independent views and criticisms. In any socialist unity formation, communists must not hide their views. That would be fatal mistake and an unprincipled compromise.
A socialist unity party exposes ultra-leftism, which is disguised as 'true communism' opposed to all compromises. It rejects the need for a socialist unity party because it is a compromise. Either remain outside or join reluctantly and opportunistically as 'tailists'. 'Lefts' are too pure to lead. They will only follow at a safe distance! Lenin waged a fierce struggle against this infantile pseudo-leftism and revolutionary posturing. For Lenin you could not be a leader of the working class fighting within capitalist society without making compromises. This is not the same as opportunist betrayals. What kind of compromises with whom and for what aim? We have to critically examine each, case by case.
A socialist unity party is therefore a training ground and test bed for the politics and leadership of the communists, similar to the educative function that Marx ascribed to trade unions. Communists must fight to take the party in the right direction. Marx's role as a communist in the First International has much teach us. If the communists provide sound leadership, they will gain credit in the eyes of workers. Communist ideas will get a wider hearing and support for the communist wing of the party will grow.
However, revolutionary communists have no illusions in a socialist unity party. We do not promote illusions nor pretend that such a party is anything other than a compromise that will eventually fail. History provides us with examples of mass parties of socialists and communists. At some point a split between them becomes necessary and inevitable. We arrive at a fork in the road where the working class must choose between progress and reaction. Communists will have to break away in order to march with the masses down the correct road.
In the period from World War I to the 1920s the Russian Socialist Democratic Labour Party, the German Social Democratic Party, the French Socialist Party and the Italian Socialist Party all split because of the revolutionary political situation. Communists split from socialists to form the Third International. It is inconceivable that the working class could have taken power in Russia had the Bolsheviks not formed their own party.
The split between socialists and communists is a matter of timing. Too soon, and communists are artificially isolated from the masses of workers. Too late, and we will be unable to take the revolution forward, and become entangled in the counterrevolution. At the time of the Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks had already changed from a faction to an independent party. Timing is all and a test of the politics of any communist leadership. In the UK today we are in the early stages of socialist unity, not in a period when a split is necessary.
The second argument is that a socialist unity party must be republican. Over 100 years ago Engels identified the historic significance of the national question in the United Kingdom in terms of the development of democracy and republicanism. The working class is the democratic class because democracy is its means of self-organisation and self-emancipation. Communists are democrats, not nationalists.
We approach the national question from the angle of democracy and hence the democratic republic. This is what Engels recognised. Lenin endorsed Engels's observations in State and revolution. In Northern Ireland, where the national question has been posed most sharply and in the most revolutionary way, we have a mass republican party based in the working class communities of Belfast and Derry. Sinn Féin is not a result of Marxist theory - far from it. But it is a result of a long struggle over the national question.
The politics of the SSP is a fusion of economism, nationalism and republicanism. The SSP is a product of the economistic traditions of the British left, reflected in both Labourism and Trotskyism. In the SSP the economists were represented mainly by the Committee for a Workers' International and the Socialist Workers Party. By and large this trend is not interested in democracy and the national question. They consider it a diversion from the class struggle. The nationalist trend was represented by comrades McCombes and Sheridan in their 'Scottish turn', which broke from Militant Labour (now the Socialist Party in England and Wales). The republican trend is represented by the Republican Communist Network.
The SSP was founded on the formula of an "independent socialist Scotland". Both the SSP and the new Solidarity movement are signed up to this. It was something on which economists and nationalists could unite. Most obviously it is a species of socialism in one country or national socialism. Any economist can sign up for it - reasoning thus: 'Of course we want a socialist Scotland. In the meantime we will concentrate on the economic struggle' - or, as they falsely conceive it, the 'class struggle'.
If a socialist Scotland could be established, why would it want to be independent when its most important task would be to spread its socialism to England? A socialist Scotland would need to 'invade' England, not create bigger barriers. A socialist Scotland would make independence irrelevant. For economists, independence is kicked into the long grass, where it eventually disappears.
On the other hand Alan McCombes recognised that an "independent socialist Scotland" only makes sense if it means 'independence leading to socialism' in Scotland. Then presumably a socialist Scotland would invade or spread into England. It would be fatal not to do so. 'Independence leading to socialism' is the only serious meaning of a formula which everybody has signed up to. But - put in this bold, stark way - it meets with shock and horror. Is this what it really means? An independent capitalist Scotland won in a popular front with the SNP?
Of course, Scotland may achieve independence 'under capitalism'. We can equally win wage increases, universal suffrage, better housing, a Scottish parliament or even a republic while capitalism is yet to be abolished. It is a piece of leftist nonsense to claim that there is some special moral approbation against national independence if capitalism is not first abolished. This type of non-political thinking is typical of economists.
The objection to nationalism is not because it is political. We start from the working class and its revolutionary interest in democracy. How do we raise and develop the democratic and internationalist consciousness of the Scottish, and for that matter the English, working class? The central question for Scottish democracy is the Scottish republic and its relationship to England, Wales and Europe and the world. That is the road towards socialism. A republican-internationalist strategy starts from the universal interest of the working class, not its sectional interests.
Why should communists critically defend the SSP at a time of crisis? Communists in Scotland have rightly done so in the past. This is what the RCN and Workers' Unity have been doing. But it is not a special policy for 'Scottish' communists. The attitude of communists in England should not differ. If it is right to defend the SSP in Scotland, it is equally necessary to do so in England. Indeed, if we are to combat nationalism, it is even more important to defend the SSP in England.
First, we should defend the positive achievements of the SSP. It was a socialist unity party which brought together virtually all the socialists outside New Labour into one organisation. Only the most rabid sectarian would fail to recognise the advantage of that. It has helped build a more effective working class opposition to Labour. The gains were real enough in terms of MSPs elected, campaigns organised, strikes supported. The fact that the RMT affiliated to the SSP indicates its relative success.
Second, the SSP raised the red flag of socialism in a period of retreat. Thatcher and Blair declared socialism outdated and liquidated. State capitalist 'socialism' in the USSR had ended. Ideological disorientation was the order of the day. Against this the SSP was a beacon of hope - a party committed to socialism and the working class; a cause for optimism and moderate success in a world of setbacks.
The third reason was that it stood for more inner-party democracy compared to most of the left. Whilst the SSP is not perfect, it positively recognises the existence of platforms and the open expression of differences.
The fourth reason to value the SSP was its recognition that the national question exists. The SSP was a turn to constitutional and democratic politics, compared to the normal economism of the SWP and the SP. The SSP was grappling with the vital question of strategy. The fact that it has so far drawn the wrong conclusions remains its most serious weakness.
Should the split change our attitude to the SSP? We can examine the issues on three levels: the split with Sheridan and the News of the World case; the national question; and the unity of communists and socialists.
Most obviously we have a split in the leadership over the court case and the subsequent power struggle. There is no valid political basis for a parting of the ways over this. Given the SSP's democracy, the membership can decide how to handle matters at conference. The Sheridan faction has to be condemned for walking out and setting up a rival organisation before the SSP conference can make its decisions. It shows unwarranted contempt for the membership.
It is the wrong split, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong time. It must inevitably weaken and divide our movement. It is not based on a political clarification of the real strategic issues. Comrades may find themselves on the wrong side of the divide, in the wrong camp, for the wrong reasons. It is a tragedy and a farce.
Then there are budding differences over the national question. But to claim the split is over this, as the CWI seems to do, is a piece of post hoc self-justification. The CWI says: "As well as their conduct over Tommy Sheridan's resignation and subsequent court action against the NotW, this process was also illustrated by the SSP leadership's turn to left nationalism. The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) leadership promoted support for Scottish independence on a capitalist basis."
It continues: "It was the International Socialists [CWI] who opposed the move away from the SSP's founding policy, which was for an independent socialist Scotland. The false idea, that independence on its own would offer a route out of continued attacks on working class people's rights and living standards - which is the norm under capitalism - led the SSP to propose the launch of the cross-party 'Independence Convention' with the pro-capitalist Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP). It may also lead to the SSP advocating a vote for the SNP at next year's Scottish elections, in the seats the SSP does not contest" (www.solidarityscotland.org).
The fact is, both the SSP and Solidarity remain committed to the ambiguous formula of an "independent socialist Scotland". The more obviously nationalist version proposed by Alan McCombes was defeated at the last conference. There was every possibility of it being defeated again. It is therefore a premature split and one which only helps the very politics it claims to oppose. SSP members will be amused to find out this was the reason for the split after the CWI had left. This is not serious. It is an attempt to rationalise their splitting action, not the real motive.
Finally this split is nothing whatsoever to do with the progressive split that will eventually occur between communists and socialists. Communists should therefore stay exactly where they are - in the SSP. However, now the war in the SSP has occurred, the bigger strategic debate between nationalism and republican internationalism will become sharper and hopefully clearer. Since republican communists rightly remain in the SSP, we must do what we can to support them.
The SSP has suffered a major setback. The ship has been holed below the waterline and may eventually sink. Do we behave like rats and scurry away, or do we fight our way onto the bridge and do our best to save the ship from sinking? The honour of communism depends on us not panicking, or behaving like traitors and political cowards.
The big iceberg in all this is nationalism. If the current leadership of the SSP mistakes this for dry land and turns the ship more firmly towards it and goes flat out to get there, then of course the ship is doomed. But we are not there yet. We may be at the 11th hour, but it is not yet midnight.