16.05.2007

Prepare for marathon

Phil Sharpe of the Democratic Socialist Alliance defends his advocacy of a halfway house workers' party as a means of promoting the Marxist programme

The replies by Mike Macnair ('No more freaks and halfway houses'), and Barry Biddulph ('Fence-sitter') are centred on the question of the workers' party (Weekly Worker May 3). I will address this question here and hope to address other issues in a later analysis.

Before replying to some of the specific points, it is necessary to evaluate this issue in general terms. What is contentious is the relation between means and ends. How do we most effectively build a revolutionary party? Mike and Barry seem to suggest one particular way - we proclaim the intention to develop a revolutionary party and reality will, or 'must', conform to our intention. However, this standpoint represents a schematic approach, because reality may contradict our aims and instead express characteristics that indicate the necessity of more flexible and different ways to realise our aims.

This point can be illuminated by the analogy of a marathon race. Our aim is obviously to complete the 26 miles and hopefully to win the race. We can realise this end by either trying to lead from the front and so burn off the opposition, or by keeping up with the leaders and sprinting to the finish. The tactics are different and flexible, but these differing tactics can be effective and so principled because they facilitate the realisation of the ultimate end: the possibility of winning the race. However, if we refuse to change tactics in the course of the race - for example, if it turns out we are unable to burn off the opposing runners - we will be in danger of being dropped ourselves, because we have not adapted our tactics and realised the necessity to change to the sprinting approach.

Consequently, flexibility is what often distinguishes a winner from the also-ran. Yet Mike and Barry are in danger of accepting the purity of the also-ran - the person who cannot contemplate a change of tactics because of the untarnished character of their principles. They are for the building of the revolutionary party and there is only one way to realise this aim and so win the race.

Flexibility

In contrast, Lenin had a different approach. At times of an unfavourable balance of class forces, such as before the 1905 revolution, he was for a tightly-knit, professional revolutionary party and yet during the 1905 revolution itself he was for the opening up of the party to those workers who may have had only the most loose association with support for the party programme. That is to say, he was for a workers' party, a party with different ideological tendencies, but with a revolutionary core dedicated to upholding the programme. The same could be said about 1917.

In other words, political circumstances change, and so tactics change, but this necessity for tactical flexibility is still connected to realising the strategic goals of the programme. Only when tactics are conceived in the most pragmatic manner, which means that the importance of tactics is applied in a manner that undermines the realisation of strategic aims, can they be said to be unprincipled. This is presumably the allegation being made by Mike and Barry, but obviously it is an accusation that I would deny vehemently.

What I am trying to argue is that the tactic of the workers' party - yes, tactic and not rigid dogma or necessary stage - is called for by the circumstances in which we find ourselves. The working class lacks effective political representation, and has to develop means to realise this representation. Consequently, in this situation, the demand for a workers' party can acquire popularity, and so what would be the position of the Campaign for a Marxist Party in regard to this possible development? Do we abstain from being part of this process because a workers' party is against our most cherished principles - which means turning our principles into dogma - or do we actually become part of this process and relate to it in the most principled manner?

Both Mike and Barry are silent about what might happen within reality because they can envisage only one way in which a party may be built: namely by proclamation of the revolutionary party. Thus, schematism about the realisation of our principles is justified, and the connected effective rejection of a dialectical approach that tries to understand why the contradictory character of reality may turn out to be different than what we had expected.

Yes, we all want to build the revolutionary party, but it may or may not have a workers' party stage. However, in whatever ways this process may occur, the question is to try and maintain the relationship between tactical flexibility and strategic goals. In contrast, both Mike and Barry seem to be arguing that in order to uphold our principles we should advocate tactical rigidity. This is a recipe for sectarianism and abstention rather than participation on the basis of trying to apply our principles in the context of the political conditions in which we find ourselves.

Indeed, Mike reluctantly concedes the very point I am trying to make when he comments: "If, by some contingency, a new mass workers' party based on a programme which was less than Marxist was formed, we would be arguing for fighting within it." Obviously, we could quibble about what is meant by "some contingency", but Mike is still effectively accepting the possibility that political conditions may be receptive to the formation of a workers' party, in which Marxists would form a minority.

Indeed, he is right to reach this conclusion, given important recent political developments. For example, the manifesto of John McDonnell is an indication of the massive strains affecting what had been the organic relationship between the right and left wings of the Labour Party (J McDonnell Another world is possible London 2007). This manifesto, which is not without many acute political contradictions, argues that New Labour represents the state regulation of the interests of global capital and the transnational corporations. The implication is that a principled socialist programme requires some sort of effective break with New Labour. No doubt, the Labour left are still reluctant to carry through the tactical implications of their own economic and political analysis, but do we encourage them to do so, or alternatively are we indifferent to these developments in the name of our principles?

In other words, even the generally passive Labour left are expressing the pressure for the formation of a workers' party because of the lack of political representation of the working class. Do we try and relate to this mood in the most effective and principled manner, or else ignore it because we actually counterpose principles to the actual processes within reality? The issue is between subjectivism, that tries to define reality in the manner we would like it, and attempts to get to the objective truth of a complex and dialectical situation, which - lo and behold - may not be to our liking!

Specifically, Mike is critical of what he calls my adherence to the "sect plus halfway house" approach. But my starting point is not the supposed failed approach of starting from the needs of the sect. For what is being justified is not the dogmatic perspective of trying to transform a tactical schema into reality. This schematic standpoint has actually been about consciously hiding the 'full' revolutionary programme from the masses in order to deliberately build a left reformist or centrist workers' party. In this opportunist manner, the sect gets built and opportunist relations are cultivated with the leaders of the workers' party.

In contrast, I am aware that a workers' party with a revolutionary minority should not be about accepting a process of ideological conciliation. This really would be the rejection of principles in favour of the 'tactical' requirements of immediate advantage. Instead what is envisaged is the development of the most favourable conditions for ideological struggle, and expressing the possibility for the revolutionary minority to become the revolutionary majority. Such a process cannot be realised by narrow forms of organisational advantage, the usual tactic of the so-called revolutionary left, but instead by a consistent attempt to win the reformists and centrists to a revolutionary programme.

Only when we listen to others will they listen to us. This is precisely why we must take the ideas of centrists and reformists seriously - not because we want to conciliate them, but because we are attempting to indicate their logical inconsistencies in order to show why their ideas can best be realised within a revolutionary programme. Lack of confidence in this complex process leads to rejection of the necessity of this ideological dialogue in the name of the party and principles. Barry and Mike seem to represent this type of dilemma.

Ultimatum

Mike says that to actually campaign for the workers' party in the manner of Phil Sharpe means: "We would certainly regard this as a split question: it would be to go back on the original decision to launch the [CMP]." This comment is the most serious, because it attempts to replace theoretical and political clarification with ultimatum. What is also blurred over is the distinction between positively advocating and striving for a workers' party and alternatively relating flexibly to given and changing political circumstances (this point will be elaborated shortly).

Furthermore, Mike's comments seem to be at odds with the very decision of the CMP to affiliate to the Campaign for a New Workers' Party, which means in terms of both organisational and political principle we do not necessarily consider the possible development of a workers' party to be in conflict with what the CMP is trying to achieve. Indeed, in practice if not in theory, the flexible approach I have advocated is what is being expressed by this decision. It is the CPGB who are apparently the reluctant partners in this regard.

In other words, the CMP has accepted that we have to relate to developments as they arise and that they might not be in the 'perfect' form we would like them to be. This does not mean that we would have actually advocated the CNWP in its present form, which is precisely why we are in favour of it adopting our organisational and political proposals. However, we are not against the development of the CNWP because of the reluctance of the Socialist Party-led majority to support revolutionary principles as the basis to build a workers' party. Thus, we accept the necessity of ideological struggle in order to promote the most principled political formation possible.

I would argue that this is precisely the standpoint of the proposed draft programme of the Democratic Socialist Alliance. Obviously, if the CMP was bigger and the question was starkly posed of acute political competition with the CNWP, then different tactics would be called for. This is exactly the point: the challenges of empirical reality will mean that how we raise the question of the workers' party cannot be abstracted from the conditions in which we find ourselves. At present, building the CMP means confronting issues such as the role of the CNWP, and we all accept it would be sectarian error to repudiate any relation to the CNWP. Does this mean that we consider the CNWP a necessary stage of party-building? Certainly not.

Hence, present political circumstances - and this is what the draft programme tried to express - seem to generate developments that are connected to the possibility of a workers' party. The alternatives we have are either abstention or trying to maximise their potential. The draft programme tries to elaborate what would be the most principled stance to have in relation to these developments.

Nor can it be excluded that we should possibly initiate these developments, such as making the call that the Labour left should carry out the organisational implications of their manifesto and make a break with New Labour. For the practice of the Labour left is at odds with their theory, and so it is totally unprincipled for them to remain with New Labour and not break to help found a workers' party.

However, does this mean that calling for a workers' party is a tactic that is actually preferable to developing a revolutionary party? No, because a 'yes' answer to this question would imply that a given tactic always and under every condition realises the strategic end. In other words, a schema would then be advocated, and this would be as dogmatic as saying that under all conditions we should advocate a revolutionary party and dismiss the question of a workers' party. Consequently, it would be as rigid and dogmatic to actually advocate under most general conditions a workers' party. Only the approach of flexibility can avoid it being reduced to a fetish.

Mike also argues that the CPGB is in favour of building the CMP and fighting for Marxist principles within the existing organisations of the labour movement. This is well and good, and the principles he considers will realise this aim, such as the political independence of the working class, extreme democracy and the international unity of the working class, are obviously supportable. But he then argues that there is only one way to realise these principles, because campaigning for a workers' party based on the "sect-front, two-track approach" is "non-negotiable".

Marx

Presumably, Mike is arguing that the political independence of the working class can only be upheld in a revolutionary party. That is to say, it is the particular organisational form that facilitates the realisation of such a principle. But the question of organisation is surely secondary to the programme that sustains Marxist principles. Why else was Marx willing to work with explicit reformists in the First International, which was surely one of the first examples of a workers' party? Marx was not against a united front with reformists within what could essentially be defined as a workers' party. Indeed, the trade unionists that he worked with could never be defined as revolutionary.

Yet he was also against the dilution of the revolutionary programme in order to work with the reformists, which was why he was against the unification document of German Social Democracy and adaptation to the state socialism of the followers of Lassalle. Nor did Marx's work with the trade unionists undermine his ability to develop the revolutionary programme, as with his analysis of the Paris Commune, because he insisted on the political freedom to be able to propagate the standpoint of communism.

Implicitly he was aware that what made the workers' party tactic principled was the ability to combine a flexible organisational form with programmatic intransigence. In contrast, Mike insists that only one organisational form can uphold a revolutionary programme: the Leninist party, like the CPGB of 1920. Thus the real tension is between adherence to the Marxist party of Marx and Engels and the dogmatic insistence that what we need is another Leninist party form. It would be a pity if disputes over organisational forms should obscure arriving at consent about the programme of revolutionary Marxism.

Barry argues even more intransigently then Mike. He claims that that I do not even support the aim of a Marxist party, because this would be "premature" and an "ultimatum" to the working class. Hence, Barry is also arguing that there is only one way to realise an ultimate end: if the means is not the Marxist party, the end of communism cannot be arrived at. Consequently, Barry cannot envisage a situation where the process of facilitating the building of a Marxist party occurs within the context of the development of a workers' party.

Engels

The key word here is flexibility. This was how Engels addressed the situation in the 1890s. On the one hand, in Britain, the agitation for the creation of the Independent Labour Party was indicating the necessity for the small Social Democratic Federation and Socialist League to respond. A situation was developing where a mass audience for Marxist ideas could develop if the existing Marxist organisations responded sensitively. Unfortunately, the Socialist League disintegrated, and the SDF put its own sect interests before the needs of the working class. The objective result was that a workers' party was formed with a reformist leadership because the Marxists refrained from the necessary political struggle to relate to the ILP. They maintained organisational independence, but the cost was reformist hegemony over the working class movement.

On the other hand, when the opportunity occurred for the development of a mass Marxist party within the working class, Engels considered his task was to promote the elaboration of a revolutionary programme for this organisation - the result was the Erfurt platform.

Different tactics, and yet both correct because they were a flexible response to divergent conditions, and yet only in Germany were the tactics successful because of the sectarian errors of the SDF. However, the principled character of the workers' party tactic was shown by the ability of the Socialist Party of 1915-20 to combine a relation with the ILP and Labour Party with adherence to a Marxist programme. Presumably, Barry would only consider the SDF dominated by Hyndman to have the correct approach!

Barry argues that I sit on the fence "when it comes to the choice of a reformist workers' party or revolutionary party". But what I stand for is not based on a strategic vacillation or an inability to choose between different political options. Instead the question of what a reformist workers' party could become is decided by the balance of political forces, which is in turn related to the outcome of ideological struggle. Can the revolutionaries bring about the transformation of the workers' party by successfully developing support for a revolutionary programme? The outcome of this struggle is not predetermined, but obviously the level of organisation, principles and coherence of their programme will help to facilitate the prospect of a revolutionary outcome.

Consequently, this standpoint is the opposite of what Barry is claiming it represents - namely 'organisational independence' at the expense of revolutionary principles. Instead the question of what a workers' party politically represents is connected to the capacity and willingness of revolutionary Marxists to strive to achieve their aims. This does not mean in a voluntarist sense that willpower will be sufficient to realise revolutionary goals, but a lack of willpower and clear principles will definitely ensure that the workers' party remains reformist.

Influence

What we have to remember is that in the present situation few workers' parties are in existence, and so the question of the political character of any emerging ones will be fluid and open to change. Do we want to influence any possible political developments in a revolutionary direction or abstain? These are the two main choices we are faced with. However, in the absence of the emergence of a workers' party we have to build a revolutionary party. This is not vacillation: rather the recognition of flexibility in a fluid situation.

Lastly, Barry argues: "For Phil, a workers' party cannot be revolutionary from the outset. The political character or programme of the workers' party should be left open to spontaneous developments in the class struggle." This comment represents the suggestion that I am in favour of developing a workers' party based on adapting to the spontaneous limitations of militant class struggle, or accepting a reformist party because of similar illusions within the working class.

But the argument of the draft programme is somewhat different. On the one hand, we should encourage a situation where the working class has the possibility of fullest political expression. This will obviously result in a diversity of ideas, including reformist trends. The point is to create a situation where working people consider that the party created is their party, whether it be a workers' party or a revolutionary party! On the other hand, the revolutionary Marxists will retain their political independence and not dilute their revolutionary programme in order to opportunistically relate to the influx of new members within either the workers' party or revolutionary party.

Can this apparent contradiction between a flourishing of ideas, including reformist ones, be reconciled with the conscious struggle to develop support for a revolutionary programme? I would argue it can be. As Rosa Luxemburg commented, the mistakes of the working class are more fruitful than the policy of the infallible central committee.