WeeklyWorker

25.04.2007

Propaganda for a lost generation

Phil Sharpe replies to Mike Macnair on the question of the Marxist party's programme

Splitting issue?

Firstly, Mike claims that the criticism of himself, Jack Conrad and Hillel Ticktin amount to possible grounds for a split rather the basis for the political development of the CMP. Omitted from this claim is any mention of what these criticisms are about. In relation to himself and Jack Conrad, my draft programme criticises their defence of a minimum-maximum approach and argues instead for a defence of the transitional method and for a strategy of workers' control as the basis to advance the struggle for communism.

If these issues are a not a matter of legitimate debate for the CMP, could Mike tell me what the CMP can actually discuss? We know that the differences between the advocates of a minimum-maximum programme and the transitional standpoint have already been discussed between the CPGB and Gerry Downing, but what the draft programme tries to do is to connect these discussions to the elaboration of a strategy of workers' control and its connection to the realisation of communism. Surely an open and public discussion of this vitally important issue will attract rather than repel support for the CMP?

Furthermore, how can discussion of this question and its relation to programme be a splitting issue, unless it is artificially and arbitrarily turned into a question of a split in the form of ultimatums by one or more sides in this dispute?

With regards to the views of Ticktin, the draft programme considers that his conception of communism is dogmatic and anachronistic. Can Mike tell me why this issue is not another subject worthy of theoretical and political discussion? The CMP should ignore Mike's contrived and empty talk about splitting issues, and instead recognise that the criticisms of himself, Conrad and Ticktin are made in the spirit of programmatic clarification and an attempt at theoretical development. If such polemic is not possible, the CMP will be only a formal rather than an actual and dynamic organisation.

Workers' party

Secondly, the call for a workers' party in the draft programme is not made on the basis of any supposed justification of a dilution of a revolutionary programme. On the contrary, I consider any possible formation of a workers' party to be closely connected to an intensification of the struggle to gain support for a revolutionary programme. In other words, the draft programme rejects the 'either-or' standpoint of either a revolutionary party or a workers' party that would be essentially reformist.

However, it is also necessary to add that the call for a workers' party is not itself meant to be a dogma or a necessary stage in the process of the possible development of communist consciousness. Instead the perspective attempts to address the lack of political representation of the working class at this present moment in time, but what happens in empirical reality may well result in a situation that contradicts this perspective. For example, previous attempts to develop some sort of workers' party - the Socialist Labour Party, Socialist Alliance, Scottish Socialist Party - have ended in failure, and the Campaign for a New Workers' Party is floundering because of the misleadership of the Socialist Party.

On the other hand, we have established the CMP, which although small has important cadres with much political experience and theoretical knowledge. It may be possible to build a revolutionary party that is not confronted with the issue of what to do about a workers' party. In this sense reality would significantly diverge from the standpoint of the draft programme.

But such a possibility - and welcome it would be - would not make the draft programme false and invalid, because the programme is still grappling with the complex issue of what to do in the situation where the Labour Party is no longer a reformist party and the working class lacks any form of effective political representation. Consequently, whilst the impressions of present empirical reality do not seem to favour the formation of a workers' party because of the crisis of the left and the inability of the trade unions to provide an alternative to the reactionary role of the Labour Party, the potential is still evident.

In the meantime we should try and build the CMP. Hence, the perspective of a revolutionary party and the workers' party are not counterposed. What I am suggesting is that we should prepare for all eventualities tactically, but the draft programme as a guide to action tries to suggest how we should react and act if the workers' party becomes a real issue and question for the labour movement.

Engagement

Thirdly, Mike alleges that the draft programme does not engage with the dominant trends in the Labour movement.

This is the most puzzling of his criticisms. The largest section of the draft programme is about the trade unions, and there is also a section on the Labour Party, which tackles the question of the present social character of social democracy. It is true that Stalinism and anarchism have not been essentially analysed, but this is precisely because they are not considered to be dominant trends! So certainly elaboration could be considered about these trends, but none of us are perfect, are we?

Mike argues that the dominant political ideas of greenism, feminism and anti-racism have not been engaged with, but he does not provide an outline of what these ideas are, and so, sadly, his criticism is worse then useless. The lack of detail provided in his criticism means that we will never satisfy the exacting and yet imprecise standards of Mike.

Furthermore, his criticism is unfair, given that the ideas of Paul Gilroy, one of the most influential theorists on the question of racism, was engaged with. Furthermore, the section on women's oppression was never meant to engage with the existing ideas with the feminist movement: instead this section was about the role of the family. Possibly Mike disagrees with the views expressed in these sections, but he does not provide constructive criticism that would provide an alternative and improvement: rather he resorts to a crude type of intellectual snobbery that suggests I do not understand what greenism, anti-sexism and anti-racism is about. Perhaps he could tell us, and provide us with a reading list?

This intellectual snobbery is extended when Mike castigates the theorists utilised in the draft programme. Apparently, people like Andrew Glyn, the economist, and Michele Barratt, the feminist writer, are not distinguished enough for his liking. Consequently wider reading is required to really discuss ideas current in the labour movement. This suggestion would presumably insult Richard Price and Graham Bash, whose ideas are discussed in relation to how we understand the modern Labour Party. I plead guilty to not having read enough - we never can. But only the inexperienced put off writing an article or document because they have not read sufficiently. All of us are fallible human beings who have to select what we read in order to realise our theoretical and practical purposes: in this regard, the question of trying to construct a draft programme for the DSA and CMP.

Incidentally, the views of Mészáros are not ignored in this document, but were widely discussed in 'The principles of a programme', which is the historical basis of the draft programme. Maybe it is Mike who has not read widely enough!

Furthermore, the background material is not dated, and most of it is post-2000. For example, Rob Sewell of Socialist Appeal has written one of the few books on trade unions by a left activist, and so it was engaged with because it was contemporary and dealt with important strategic questions. Pre-2000 material was tackled because it was either path-breaking, as with Nigel Harris's work on globalisation, or else was relevant, such as the discussion of Cornforth's views on philosophy and his rejection of dialectics in favour of empirical science.

Anti-imperialism

Fourthly, Mike considers that I am not able to criticise the Socialist Workers Party effectively on issues like religion because I share their position on the anti-imperialist united front.

This criticism is once again without substance. Any supposed formal similarities are based upon a completely different and opposed methodology. The SWP, as indicated by John Rees's recent book Imperialism and resistance, connects its support for an islamic anti-imperialist revolution to a dogmatic and overextended conception of Cliff's theory of 'deflected permanent revolution'. Cliff's understanding that bureaucratic and Prussian-type bourgeois revolution can be carried out in situations as diverse as Cuba and Iran is extended and applied to an interpretation of contemporary political islam and the perspective that it represents the possibility for anti-imperialist revolutions by oppressed nations.

In contrast, I attempt, in an admittedly rudimentary manner, to argue that in the context of capitalist globalisation some 'third world' nations such as South Korea have developed their own monopoly capital and so can no longer be classified as being subordinated to imperialism in classical terms. Other nations, however, are still a peripheral and marginalised part of the world economy and so still constitute oppressed nations. Nick Rogers seems to have confirmed this point in relation to his recent Weekly Worker article, 'New scramble for Africa' (April 5).

Does this analysis suggest support for some opportunist conception of the anti-imperialist united front that is similar to that of the SWP? On the contrary, it argues that the very development of capitalism, as Nigel Harris argued in his work about nations, is making the tactic of the anti-imperialist united front outdated. It would mean in some instances the call for a united front between the working class and a capitalist class that was developing its own imperialist tendencies, as in countries like China and Brazil. However, many countries, as in Africa, remained oppressed because of chronic economic underdevelopment, and so the issue of tactics remains complex. The possibility of some form of anti-imperialist united front cannot be ruled out, but nor should it be dogmatically applied to every situation and become a consequent pretext for subordination to a reactionary and pro-imperialist national bourgeoisie.

In other words, it is important to understand that the very development of capitalist globalisation, as Harris has argued, is making national and bourgeois-led anti-imperialist revolutions a utopia in the present period. This means, whatever we may have thought about the anti-imperialist united front in the past, it essentially belongs to a period of capitalism that has been superseded by economic and social development.

However, in dialectical terms we should not reduce this perspective to that of a fetish. For example, the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua suggested that a progressive bourgeois democratic revolution was still possible in a historical period that mitigated against the possibility of a progressive role for a section of the national bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. Whilst the recent developments in Venezuela indicate that a anti-imperialist united front could be principally argued for if American intervention, or local counterrevolutionary insurgency occurred to try and topple the leftist, Bonapartist and state capitalist-inclined regime.

But these situations are exceptions, and the CPGB stance of opposition to American-based intervention in Iran, combined with support for opposition to the regime, is effectively the basis of tactics in the period of capitalist globalisation. Nevertheless, the truth is concrete, and such a tactic would not necessarily be valid in relation to any possibility of American-based intervention in Cuba, and so in such a specific situation some type of anti-imperialist united front would be necessary to protect the social gains of the Cuban revolution, regardless of whether we do or do not consider it a deformed workers' state.

The point being made is that it is not possible to consider the question of tactics in abstract from the elaboration of an understanding of what world capitalism is and what its main tendencies of development are. Hence, the conclusion being made is that the very internationalisation of production is making national-based, so-called anti-imperialist regimes an illusion. Politically we cannot rule out the possibility of such regimes, and in reality they have occurred, as has recently been shown by Venezuela, but the overall tendency of development is against these possibilities, as has been demonstrated by how quickly the political regime of the Workers Party in Brazil has adapted to the structural constraints of global capital.

Lenin's differentiation of the world into oppressor and oppressed nations is not totally false, but it is no longer sufficient in relation to the attempt to explain the economic and political relations between the dominant and less dominant parts of the world economy. Indeed, it has been possible for countries of the so-called third world to become part of the manufacturing sector of the world economy, as the recent rise of China has shown. But relations of hierarchy and subordination are still present in the world economy, and this means that, whilst the anti-imperialist united front with the national bourgeoisie is essentially and generally outdated, it cannot be ruled out in all situations. It would be sectarian and economic determinist to make this absolutist claim.

However, one aspect of the anti-imperialist is still relevant - that between the workers and peasants. The peasantry is increasingly proletarianised and an important ally of the possibility of class struggle in the cities, as Mexico has recently indicated. In Mexico, the problem has not been the passivity of a section of the peasantry, but the lack of support from the urban working class.

Peaceful road?

Fifthly, the issue of the relation between peace and the struggle for communism. I must make clear that I am not arguing for some peaceful road to socialism. Instead what I am trying to suggest is that the struggle for communism will be advanced if we make as effective as possible any anti-war movement that develops against the war plans of the major capitalist powers. If war develops, the working class is divided between an open social chauvinist section and those that are more opposed to war, and therefore the balance of class forces favours capitalism and the movement for communism is on the retreat.

Remember that the Falklands war resulted in a small minority of people opposed to it, while the majority of the working class supported the imperial imagery of nation that was used to justify the war. The left was on the retreat for a decade, and the ideology of nation was used against the miners in 1984-85. But a successful struggle for peace can create the conditions for unity within the working class, develops self-confidence and facilitates a balance of class forces that can advance the struggle or communism. This is all the draft programme claims - it does not advocate some type of illusory peaceful stage of socialist transition.

Furthermore, if war breaks out, the draft programme advocates revolutionary defeatism, but such a situation is not favourable for the revolutionary transformation of society. Historically, with the exception of the Russian Revolution, war does not advance the struggle for socialism, and can only dislocate and disorganise the economy and so undermine the objective conditions for communist transition. In contrast, Mike seems to be advocating revolutionary defeatism in the subjective terms of some type of political purity, a dogma to be applied to all situations of impending war. Far better to win the battle for peace by building an effective anti-war movement than to have to face the harsh political decisions created by war. Does Mike really disagree? If he does he has learnt only selectively from Kautsky!

What's missing

Sixthly, Mike complains that the programme leaves out various important issues. This is true, and is an unavoidable fact of any programme. What the draft programme concentrates on are matters of immediate concern to the DSA and the CMP. Primarily how do we develop a communist consciousness in the working class in the contemporary era? In other words, issues directly concerned with party-building and developing a relation between party and class.

Hence the propaganda programme is very practical and relevant, while the purely action programme is abstract because it is a totally subjective and inaccurate estimation of class-consciousness - what is presumed is that the working class is merely waiting to be mobilised in the class struggle. Such subjectivism is the problem not just of a dogmatic type of transitional programme, but also of the activist-orientated minimum-maximum programme. What is missing from both types of programme is an objective attempt to accurately estimate the balance of class forces, which can then indicate the enormity of the tasks we are presented with.

For not only are we faced with a question of mobilisation, but the very issue of a relation between party and class is presently problematic. This is primarily because at the moment we do not have a revolutionary party in existence in Britain and most of the world! How can we expect workers to support the communist alternative when we have not got our own house in order? Yet many on the left try to forget this problem, and instead substitute action programmes in wish-fulfilment fantasies.

The draft programme is not meant to be that type of programme, and instead tries to truthfully ask what has to be done at point A in order to get to point B. This means we have to make propaganda for communism, which has been the most distorted idea of the 20th century.

Seventh, Mike claims that the section on philosophy is Healyism. But he does not explain what this means and why it applies to the analysis of dialectical philosophy. What was attempted in this section was to defend the dialectical method against those that seek to reject dialectics and replace it with empiricism. Where does Mike stand on this question? He provides no answers, and instead the use of labels are once again substituted for serious analysis.

Methodology

The most serious of Mike's criticisms concern methodology. He comments: "The fact is that the method by which the draft has been constructed inevitably produces, not a programme which could politically orient a party in relation to the underlying dynamics of the political situation globally, its local features and the flashpoint issues which might trigger political crises or broad mass movements, but a set of ad hoc reflections of a theoretical character, on what the author perceives as current controversies."

Note the wish-fulfilment of this commentary by Mike: we need a programme for situations of crisis for capitalism and the development of corresponding mass movements, etc. All this is abstract because it does not address where we are now and the actual political situation of which we are a part.

What was one of the important reasons why the recent anti-war movement did not generate the overthrow of New Labour and the creation of a genuinely radical situation? The answer is, after we have analysed the role of the SWP, is the lack of any consistent anti-capitalist and left-inclined trend within the mass movement, which was limited to ethical and moral protests about war. This was the ideological effect of Thatcherism, serious defeats of the working class and the absence of any effective revolutionary party.

In general people have great difficulty in grasping the communist alternative because their present ideological and political horizon is limited to capitalism. Hence they can be anti-war yet still accept capitalism as a naturally given fact. Consequently, what could have been a genuine political crisis becomes no more than a crisis for Blairism rather than of the capitalist system.

So any worthwhile programme has to address these uncomfortable facts rather than live in the ideological world of a mythical past of a imminently mobilised working class. We have to seriously put the arguments for communism to a generation that has lost any political relation to the potential for an alternative society. We have to put forward a strategy for change and why this strategy can result, if applied successfully, to the realisation of a communist and classless future.

So the method of the programme is not that of an abstract propaganda tract, and nor is it merely a collection of ad hoc reflections on society. On the contrary, it is concrete because it recognises what has to be done in the here and now if progress is to be made towards the communist goal. So first and foremost it is propaganda for communism to a lost generation - the postmodern generation - who have no effective knowledge of what communism is, even within the so-called militant minority of workers. Only in this context is the strategy of workers' control outlined.

For what is being elaborated is propaganda for workers' control in order to make propaganda for communism. The question of the role of workers' control only becomes meaningful if a theoretical attempt is made to indicate why it can be the mediating mechanism between overcoming the limitations of the present and the promoter of an alternative historical future, a future known as communism.

In the 1970s, in the work of Ken Coates and others, it was assumed that strong trade unions with leftwing leaders would strive for workers' control and so establish a dynamic for communism. This approach represented syndicalist illusions, but it was understandable because it was connected to the militant and often successful struggles of the period. The ideas of communism seemed to be practical because of the very advances of the working class. Hence it seemed to be understandable that left groups would construct their own version of an action programme as an approach that would both complement and rival that of Coates and his Institute of Workers' Control.

But this period has gone, and can never be reproduced, because social conditions have changed. The working class has not ended, but the very process of structural transformation of the working class has created a political situation in which the arguments for communism need to be rethought. For the new working class has been created in conditions of defeat, and all that implies. In other words, this new situation has certainly created the political necessity to rework the arguments for communism, and we can assume no ready audience for our endeavours - a situation radically different to that of Coates, Thornett, etc, in the early 1970s.

So, instead of assuming a ready and receptive mass audience for our ideas, what is initially required is the re-equipping of ourselves with a communist programme that can address the issues of a new and changing globalised capitalism. Only with this theoretical development can we begin to promote the political and ideological conditions to recreate what had already been a tenuous, fragile and often peripheral relation between revolutionary Marxism and the class.

Mike cannot recognise the methodological consistency in what I am proposing, and instead defines the draft programme as a collection of ad hoc reflections, because he is still romantically connected to the old style of action programme - a programme that reached its apparent pinnacle in the period of militant struggles from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. But this type of action programme will not get to the historical truth of the most crucial contemporary problem: namely that class-consciousness is presently mired at the level of the class in itself because it lacks the hope of a communist future.

The question of whether the class in itself can become a class for itself is connected to the vision of communism, a vision that has been obscured firstly by the counterrevolutionary role of social democracy and Stalinism and secondly by the postmodern condition of the rejection of utopia for the worship of the alienating limitations of the present.

Yet ironically, the very theoretical work being done by Mike and the CPGB about imperialism is an implicit recognition of the points I am making. This work is an effective acknowledgement that in order to change society we need to know it at the highest theoretical level. Consequently, it is only party dogma, the rigid adherence to the virtues of the traditional party programme, that refuses to accept what is complementary and similar about the draft programme I am proposing and important aspects of what could become part of the CPGB draft programme.

Rather than facilitating a possible split, the draft programme I have elaborated and the process of programmatic development by the CPGB may show points of similarity within the context of continued differences.