01.08.2007

Trust and workable democracy

Steve Freeman defends his proposal to limit CPGB participation in the Campaign for a Marxist Party and denies it is anarcho-bureaucratic

On the Campaign for a Marxist Party e-list there has recently been a bit of discussion about how we could strengthen the campaign's democracy and establish more trust amongst the members. I put forward the suggestion that no one group should have an absolute majority of the total membership. For the sake of this debate I will call it the 40% rule.

Eddie Ford made this the focal point of an attack on what he believed were the undemocratic forces in the CMP. He claimed this was "by far the worst, the most thoroughly anarcho-bureaucratic, proposal" (Weekly Worker July 19). Unfortunately his analysis and conclusions were false and need correction.

I will briefly restate his argument and then examine why it was flawed. Eddie first identifies the problem: "Apparently the CPGB had the effrontery to make an indecently organised intervention." CMP members complained about the "thoughtless", "heavy-handed" and "sect-like behaviour" of the CPGB. One comrade said: "The problem with the CPGB was that it was in the majority at the conference."

Eddie brings out his ideal solution of democratic centralism. The real world has gone wrong because it does not live up to the ideal. If everybody adopted "majority rights and minority duties" and stopped whinging, it would be all right. The losers have "a responsibility not to split". It is like the responsibility not to get divorced. Only if it is necessary!

I am not sure who these comrades actually were. No names or organisations are identified. The malcontents certainly did not include me. On the contrary, I regarded the relative weight of the CPGB as generally a good thing. They intervened, for example, against the bureaucratic manoeuvring over the membership. They voted for my membership and to allow my resolutions on the agenda. Of course, there was a downside - they then voted them all down! But I was neither complaining nor protesting about that. I was not part of any 'big whinge' faction.

42-40 faction

Unfortunately into Eddie's world comes two 'anti-democratic' proposals to prevent a CPGB majority. The first proposal, from John Bridge, was that the CMP committee should have only three out of seven CPGB members on it. Instead of a CPGB majority they would only have 42%. The second - my suggestion - was the 40% rule, with no group having an absolute majority of the total membership.

Perhaps we could think of this as the '42-40' faction. Were these the anti-CPGB and anti-democratic elements that Eddie identifies as the problem? A cautionary note to this obvious conclusion is that Eddie forgets to mention John Bridge. He concentrates all his fire against the 40% rule.

This suggests some bias. Eddie has his telescope firmly pressed to his blind eye. He sees nothing, hears nothing and reports nothing about the 42%. He therefore concludes that my suggestion is "by far the worst" proposal. Sherlock Holmes would already have worked out some motive behind Eddie's analysis. Are Eddie and John friends, or next-door neighbours, or do they drink in the same pub? Did John say to Eddie, 'I'll buy you a pint if you don't mention 42%. Just say the other one is "by far the worst"'?

Eddie backs up his argument against the 42-40 'faction', or rather the 40% rule, using the theory of anarcho-bureaucracy. This argues that in the absence of democratic rules, constitutions, programmes and structures, bureaucratic power will flourish. In doing away with these "restrictions" we do not get freedom, but unaccountable, bureaucratic rule.

One example is the SWP's attitude to programme. A programme is a formal democratically agreed statement of the party's views. The SWP thinks this is oppressive and restrictive. It is seen as a rigid dogma, written on 'tablets of stone'. Therefore a programme replaces freedom of action with bureaucratic strangulation.

In freeing itself from programme the SWP creates the very conditions in which bureaucratic rule can thrive. A programme is part of the democratic process. It binds the leadership and membership together in a commonly agreed project. It is then easier for the membership to call the leadership to account. Without a programme, the leadership substitutes its own undeclared programme, which cannot be challenged because it does not officially exist.

Anarcho-bureaucracy opposes rules, constitutions, and programmes (ie, the structures of democracy) in the name of freedom. Alternatively it substitutes bureaucratic control against individual freedom. The real example of the anarcho-bureaucratic method was the attempt by the CMP committee to impose a new membership rule just before conference as a thinly disguised bureaucratic means of exclusion, without the agreement of the members.

Let us therefore start again and consider an alternative analysis. In the same Weekly Worker there is a report on a CPGB aggregate. The headline, "CPGB unity over CMP", indicates the comrades have not been entirely united. First, according to the report, "there seemed to be a danger that the initiative was floundering" and there is "a measure of scepticism on the part of some CPGB members about the viability of the campaign as a whole". Another comrade "thought that the national campaign appeared to be going nowhere at all".

Second, "the CMP so far has been marked with general inertia, especially from the committee". The 42% proposal was addressing this. Third, "some CPGB members seem convinced the CPGB is trying to 'take over' the CMP". These comrades are rightly concerned that this would be a mistake. The 40% rule addresses this.

The CMP clearly needs a strong CPGB input. But where is the balance between too little and too much? As far as a majority takeover is concerned, the report says this is "rubbish". So at least the CPGB are agreed that 50%-plus is ruled out. If it is "rubbish" that the CPGB is trying to take over, then why would they necessarily object to the 40% rule?

Democratic centralism

Eddie's argument that democratic centralism is the answer to a lack of trust in the CMP is wide of the mark. In any case Eddie does not tell us the full story. Reading his account, we might think that democratic centralism was a 'flat' democracy. Members meet, debate and democratically decide all questions. The majority line is then put into practice, etc.

In theory democratic centralism could be a flat democracy: in practice it is a hierarchy. A leadership is elected. They will make decisions binding on the whole organisation. It is possible that in deciding how to intervene at the CMP conference all CPGB comrades met, debated and then took a majority view. A more likely scenario is that the 'central committee' met and decided how their members would vote.

If there were, for example, five present then a line could be decided by 3-2. Those three votes would be sufficient to bind 30 members voting as a block. Democratic centralism means a block vote inside the CMP. In the Socialist Labour Party, Arthur Scargill famously turned up with a block vote of 3,000 miners in his 'back pocket'. Of course, a democratic centralist block vote is different. Comrades must actually turn up, be involved and raise their own hands. We can read their differing views after in the Weekly Worker.

I have no objection to this hierarchical form of democracy. On the contrary a party cannot function with simple, flat, direct democracy. It elects those thought to be its best leaders who will make some central decisions. As long as the leadership is elected and accountable, this is a functioning democracy. Many decisions will still be taken at lower levels. The aggregate or conference remains the sovereign authority which can overrule all central committee decisions.

However, the CMP is a campaign, not a group or a party. It is not organised by democratic centralism. The leadership cannot bind its members. Indeed members are not bound by anything except that we have some limited aims we want to achieve together. The CMP is a simple democracy with 'one member, one vote' and majority decision-making. We agree that minorities should have full freedom to express their views. Beyond that there is very little.

This simple democracy is complicated by the fact that it contains within itself other pre-existing forms of democracy such as the CPGB's. We have the interplay of two or more forms of democracy with different sovereignties and accountabilities. Mix this with rival politics inside the CMP and we have a complex situation. Democratic centralism is not a magic wand that can turn broken eggs into an omelette.

The 40% rule

The 40% rule is a rule about who can join. It affects the rights of non-members. Every member continues to have full and equal democratic rights. They can move resolutions, vote, stand for office and win a majority on the same terms as any other member. With this rule any CPGB member who joins has exactly the same rights as anybody else.

The 40% rule does not demand or require the CPGB suspend the full operation of its own democratic centralism. The CPGB can fully practise democratic centralist block voting inside the CMP. I for one will expect nothing less. It does not require the CPGB to loosen its own discipline and tell its members to practise 'free' voting according to conscience.

Whose 'rights' are therefore affected by the 40% rule? It is a rule whereby the CPGB agrees not to 'send in' more than 40% of the total membership. The only rights denied are those of individual CPGB members to join the CMP if they personally fancy it. But this individual right is surrendered when you join the CPGB.

The CPGB has limited resources. It cannot afford to let every member wander into any campaign they fancy. The CPGB makes a political decision to send Y% of its members into the CMP. This Y% will translate into X% of the CMP membership. This is not therefore a restriction on the rights of individual CPGB members to join the CMP. Rather it is a restriction on the freedom of the PCC. Instead of the PCC deciding this X% on its own, this proposal is simply saying, let's get some agreement about what the maximum X% should be.

Why would the CPGB support this? For the same reason that John Bridge proposed the 42% rule. To create more trust and confidence in the motives of the CPGB. To show that the claim the CPGB is trying to take over is "rubbish", as stated at the aggregate. Or should we simply accept the CPGB's implied 49% rule?

The 40% rule would be democratically decided constitutionally. It does not restrict the democratic rights of any member. It is not "bureaucratic", as Eddie falsely asserts. He wants the CPGB to have freedom from this particular rule in much the same way that the SWP wants freedom from programmes. This is itself an anarcho-bureaucratic argument.

Anarchists may be against all rules, but democrats are not. This does not mean that any and every rule is valid merely because it is democratically decided. We could 'democratically' decide to remove someone's democratic rights. So the political context and political objective of a democratic rule is crucial. In this case the collective would be asking the CPGB to exercise some self-restraint in how many comrades they send in.

Does the rule undermine the functioning of CMP democracy? Even with a full quota of 40% the CPGB would be the dominant, if not controlling, influence. Indeed one comrade produced some interesting maths to show a much smaller figure would still leave effective control in the hands of the CPGB. Of course the 60% could unite and thwart the CPGB. This would be exceedingly unlikely because they (or we) are not a unified bloc. They are politically all over the place. Only if the CPGB was being very silly would everybody be able to unite against it.

The CPGB would have to work to actually persuade members to support their proposals rather than simply vote through anything they wanted. This would be healthy. Conference would not be a foregone conclusion. The CMP would not function like a rotten borough, where the Labour Party is guaranteed victory whatever they do and people cannot be bothered to turn out and vote.

I did make two important qualifications. First the 40% should be seen as a temporary measure in the early stages of the campaign. Our aim would be to abolish it as soon as the CMP becomes stronger. Second, the PCC has to agree to it. If they oppose it then it would not work. It has to be a voluntary agreement. If the PCC did not agree to it they would find ways to 'cheat'.

A democratically agreed and voluntary treaty between the CMP and the PCC is not "anarcho-bureaucratic". On the contrary it replaces the present anarchy, the fear of swamping and the various bureaucratic manoeuvres of the type we saw before the last CMP conference, with an open, transparent agreement.

In summary the campaign has stagnated. There is a lack of trust amongst comrades and confidence in the project. The 42-40 'faction' addresses these issues. It is not about a perfect democracy or democratic centralism. It is about trying to create political conditions for survival.

The 40% rule affects the right to join but not the rights of members. The same is not true of the 42% proposal. Those members who might want a CPGB majority on the committee are denied that option. But this fundamentally misses the point. It was not about a perfect democracy, but about addressing the political problem of a lack of trust and confidence.

The real politics of this mythical 'faction' is to keep the CMP going. This is not so much about democracy as about the politics of unity. If we assess it from this angle then it comes from the same stable as the successful resolution to continue with the same CMP committee until the recalled constitutional conference. John Bridge's proposed committee with only three CPGB comrades is in the same vein.

The 40% rule is about building trust and the complexity of different forms of democracy interacting in one campaign. I am not going to propose a resolution. It won't work if the PCC oppose it. I merely say the CPGB has nothing to fear from this idea. It is no more anti-CPGB than the 42% proposal. If anything Eddie's big whingers will have less to whinge about.

At present the CPGB is the strongest and most organised factor in the campaign. If anything it has had insufficient influence on the committee, as shown by the dispute over membership. All we need to do is make sure the biggest bull in the china shop does not accidentally smash all the crockery.