29.11.2007

New communism versus old Marxism

Steve Freeman of the Revolutionary Democratic Group accuses the CPGB of voting against its own politics at the CMP conference

At last we can see some light at the end of a long, dark tunnel after last weekend's Campaign for a Marxist Party conference. A new constitution was passed and a new committee elected. There was a good debate on the issues and better than most people feared. Nobody walked out. More importantly, we saw the beginnings of a reorientation of the campaign.

This note of optimism stands in stark contrast to the brief history of the campaign hitherto. The CMP is a small campaign, an ideological ragbag of assorted Marxists, some of whom had over-inflated expectations about what can be achieved. In two shakes of a lamb's tail manifestos were to be issued, programmes written, fusions negotiated and the party launched. In reality very little was achieved. Worse, the campaign degenerated into a futile struggle between the CPGB and the DSA.

Most members were disillusioned. At their recent aggregate some CPGB members described the CMP as "a waste of time" and their involvement with it "a waste of effort". The campaign suffered from inertia and a lack of direction. Comrade Becker, for example, said we should devote the talents and energy of our comrades to more worthwhile projects (Weekly Worker November 1). Critique, one of the campaign's sponsors, had threatened to pull out "unless it put its house in order". Members of the DSA were in no better frame of mind, complaining about the CPGB's methods and style of polemics.

Not much optimism can be gleaned from this. However, it looks better if the conference is seen as a transitional stage between the old campaign and a new one yet to take shape. The old argument was about the general nature of the constitution and the election of a new committee. This is now out of the way. The CPGB has a majority of the members and their constitution was duly passed and their preferred candidates elected.

However, hidden within this process were arguments for a new campaign, signalling a reorientation towards more political-ideological questions. We began to discuss what kind of Marxist or communist party we were aiming for. Now, as we move on, this is sure to become more central. It takes us back to fundamental working class principles and the need for a new communist politics.

What new direction came on the agenda? It is summarised in the first paragraph of my (unpublished) article submitted to the Weekly Worker before the conference. It began: "The Campaign for a Marxist Party is in a mess. So what is the alternative? It is to work out the correct political aims and develop a research agenda that can best mobilise our limited resources to maximum effect. The CMP should adopt the aim of promoting an international revolutionary democratic communist party. It should develop a research agenda with that aim in mind and search out international contacts or, better still, international members who want to work with us on such a project."

We can read Jack Conrad's analysis before the conference to see both arguments on display ('A rough guide', November 22). The first half of his article provides an analysis of the failure of the campaign. He confirms that "on Saturday November 24 the main items are choosing a constitution/set of rules and electing a new committee". However, there is another secondary argument that Jack addresses at some length.

It is drawn to our attention by a picture on the page. It is not a picture of the candidates for the new committee or of a group of CMP lawyers sitting round drafting a new constitution. It is a picture of Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law. So halfway through, Jack switches from the old arguments and turns his guns on a new argument that has turned up in the guise of a constitutional amendment.

This amendment sought to change our aim from "Marxist party" to "international revolutionary democratic communist party" and to open up the campaign to seek members in other countries. It is here that the spectre of Paul Lafargue is haunting the campaign. We are threatened by the argument that Marx "wasn't a Marxist". Jack explains this was a misuse of Marx's quote, "Je ne suis pas marxiste", directed against his son-in-law.

Unwary CPGB members are in danger of being misled. Jack warns them that comrade Freeman is in favour of left unity party more like the Chartists. Jack claims this is incompatible with the fight for a Marxist party. He borrows the false argument made by John Pearson at the previous conference. He says: "Formally this makes the comrade ineligible for membership of the CMP. However, the CPGB does not think anything worthwhile will be gained by expelling him at this present moment in time."

There is no political basis for such a move. It is no more than a bit of sabre rattling. I am not taking it seriously. It was like the threat to deal with the resolution by moving next business. This was obviously unsustainable. It was directed more to CPGB members, to bring them into line by telling them - don't even think about this, it is beyond the pale.

Marx, of course, did support the Chartist party as a working class party. He also supported the Communist League, as the organisation of communists. He launched the First International as a workers' organisation, not a communist party. Marx was not sectarian towards the movement of the working class. In any case we are debating the case for an international revolutionary democratic communist party. This is not any kind of half way house. It's the full monty.

Jack knows this full well. He therefore tries to close the gap between himself and the aim of a revolutionary democratic communist party. He says: "Definitionally, Marxism is internationalist, Marxism is revolutionary, Marxism is democratic, Marxism is communist, Marxism is partyist". Unfortunately not everybody defines Marxism in that way, including Mike Macnair, who has given us a different definition.

In truth the proposed amendment was not about defining Marxism. It was about describing the party we are aiming to promote. If Jack is correct, no Marxist would vote against it. This is without dwelling on the difference between an 'internationalist' ideology and an international party.

The fact that the majority of Marxists at the conference voted against this aim proves either that not everybody is signed up to Jack's definition or alternatively they are behaving like opportunists (ie, voting against something they agree with, in the hope of some petty or momentary advantage for their group). It would be worthwhile finding out why they did so and what this revealed about the current state of Marxism. For example for some of the DSA comrades, it was the words "revolutionary democratic" that they found objectionable.

Last week my article about the conference written for the Weekly Worker was initially accepted for publication. It argued for a different way forward and would have stood alongside Jack's article. In the event the editorial team decided not to publish it.

I felt somewhat frustrated to discover this but have resisted the temptation to shout 'Foul play'. Of course I claim no "right" to have my articles published in the Weekly Worker. It is the paper of the CPGB. Although the Revolutionary Democratic Group makes a small financial contribution, we are not buying space, or 'rights'.

The issue here is democratic centralism. This allows full freedom of criticism providing it does not disrupt the unity of a definite action. It would be in order for CPGB members to openly disagree with the party line in aggregates or in the Weekly Worker in the period both before an action and in assessing the action after the event. However, no such public criticism should be allowed during the action.

Had my article been written by a CPGB member, it would have been legitimate to suspend its publication in the issue immediately before the conference. Right or wrong, the CPGB had a line which members had to carry out in a united way. Articles undermining the line, or encouraging members to break with it, would not be allowed. Reflecting on this, I would not expect my article to be treated more favourably than a dissident CPGB member.

However, one thing is lost in this. Had my article been published, it would have been obvious that Jack was not dealing with my significant arguments. For example, whilst Jack rests the major part of his attack on the interpretation of the quote "Je ne suis pas marxiste", I did not mention it in my article at all. Of course, I could have done. But the case for a communist party does not rely on that quote. Even if Marx had never made that comment, the case would be just as valid.

My article did refer to the Weekly Worker's 'What we fight for' column, which says that "The working class must be organised globally" and identifies "a global communist party, a communist international". Later it says that "communists fight for extreme democracy in all spheres of society". This is basically the same thing as 'revolutionary democratic'. But because of their alliance with Hillel Ticktin the CPGB would vote against themselves, or fight against their own 'What we fight for'.

In doing this I said the CPGB would "have to make a great smokescreen to conceal what they are doing". Jack's article was the very smokescreen I had predicted, as would have become obvious had it sat on the same page. We were led to believe that, whatever the merits of the case for a communist party, it was Steve Freeman you had to vote against.

This reminds me of the Socialist Workers Party voting against republicanism at the Respect founding conference. They mobilised their vote by telling their members it was not republicanism, but the CPGB and the RDG they had to oppose. It is always possible to whip up a bit of sectarianism around some bad reasons to do the wrong thing.

The futility of this approach was revealed at the conference when Moshé Machover got up to second the resolution. He has no connection with the RDG and no record of "halfway housism". He simply supported it as any communist should - on the political merits of the case. It was the same reason that Gerry Downing also voted for it. It is after all the interests of the working class we are dealing with, not the vagaries of this or that individual. The fear that if you voted for this you would have no choice but to support the call for a Chartist-type workers' party, or you would have to agree with Gerry on the Labour Party, is nonsense.

What is the basic case for the aim of an international revolutionary democratic communist party? It starts with Marx, who first made the case for communism. He was a communist who wrote the Communist manifesto and set up the Communist League. It was an international organisation, not a British one.

Of course, we live in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, and the expropriation of the aim of communism by Stalinism. After 86 years of counterrevolution, we cannot simply speak as if we are blind to the massive crimes carried out in the name of communism. If we are to reclaim communism by creating a new version for the 21st century, we have to get back to Marx and the working class.

First, the working class is an international class and can only become self-conscious of this through the formation of an international party. An international party is not an optional extra, but fundamental to the working class becoming a class for itself. This point is nothing new and has been made many times before by past leaders of the communist movement.

The same argument about the nature of the working class applies to the term 'revolutionary democratic'. The working class is both a revolutionary and a democratic class. The working class is the only class whose liberation involves the fight for democracy in the here and now and which constitutes itself as a class for itself through its own democratic self-organisation.

None of this depends on whether Marx was a 'Marxist' or is better described as a communist. The fact is that by describing the party in the way we are proposing it makes it abundantly clear what we are talking about. Marx will forever be associated with the idea of an international party, a revolutionary democratic approach to politics and the aim of communism.

In this Marx was representing in a more profound way the character of the working class, as it would become through the class struggle. The struggle for an international revolutionary democratic communist party is about finally freeing ourselves from the legacy of Stalinism and British Trotskyism. That should be the real aim of the CMP.

I called the proposed party aim as 'new communist', as opposed to the old Marxism of Stalinism or Trotskyism. On the one hand, it takes from Trotskyism the emphasis on an international (or world) party. On the other hand, it takes the term 'communist', usually associated with Stalinism. However, this synthesis is not simply a summation. It includes the key words, 'revolutionary democratic' - associated with the Revolutionary Democratic Group and the CPGB - as a break with orthodox Trotskyism and any kind of Stalinism.

The conference settled the dispute between the CPGB and the DSA. However, I think it will prove to be more significant than that. We have ended the first stage of the campaign by surviving it. All the debris from the previous stage was in effect cleared away. The manifestos and programmes were voted down. Although the attempt to withdraw the call for fusion was defeated by the CPGB, it is dead in the water, at least for now.

The new - an international communist party and the need for a research agenda - are up and running. On the international communist party question the vote for it was 300% higher than predicted. Hillel himself endorsed the need for a research agenda in the conference and ten comrades backed it as well. In addition Hillel said he was not necessarily against the formulation on the party. When the dust has settled, the merits of both these arguments will become more obvious.

The CMP was launched on a rocket of hype and high expectations. To survive we now have to wake up, and more importantly sober up. John Pearson, famous for doggedly sticking to what we agreed no matter how disastrous, spotted that we had retreated from the original positions adopted by the campaign. Of course, he is right. Only John would have spotted it. In truth we have gone backwards to save the campaign from the consequences of its own inflated expectations. We retreated to a better position from which we can now advance. This is why the conference was also a small step forward.