10.01.2008
Back to the future
How do Stalinist and Trotskyist traditions influence our views about a national alternative to the Labour Party? Dave Craig of the Revolutionary Democratic Group returns to the debate with the CPGB's Mike Macnair
“Fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread”. These are the words of the giant ogre in the story of Jack and the beanstalk. As this is the pantomime season, I thought I might begin with this fable.
I was in any case reminded of this ogre when reading Mike Macnair’s series of articles criticising the theory of democratic permanent revolution and the slogan of a republican socialist party (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’ Weekly Worker March 29 2007; ‘International from the start’, April 5 2007; and ‘Putting out the trash’, April 12 2007). Mike was responding to two of my arguments.
First was that the communist party and communist programme must be based on a theory of permanent revolution, originating with Marx and Engels. This provides a revolutionary strategy which underpins the programme. Because of flaws in the theory we need a new version, which I called “democratic permanent revolution”. This in itself should be part of the process of regrouping communists internationally and laying the foundation for a new international communist party.
The second argument concerns a perspective of building up the communist forces in the specific conditions of the British working class movement today. Given the adverse circumstances facing the working class, and the weakness and disunity of the British left, militant trade unions need a party to fight against the Labour government and provide a socialist alternative. The Revolutionary Democratic Group identifies this in the slogan of a ‘republican socialist party’.
Organising communists into an international party is a matter of principle. On the other hand, the movement for a new workers’ party in the UK is a tactical problem for the British labour movement. Marx himself supported the international Communist League and the national Chartist party, especially its left wing. In identifying the communist full Monty and a halfway house, we have to fight for both at the same time. Communists can walk and chew gum!
A scientific theory of permanent revolution is essential for communist politics across the world. But the republican socialist party embodies a tactical argument for the UK. It grows out of the soil of the British labour movement. The first mass working class party in Britain organised around a democratic programme - the People’s Charter. The Chartist party disintegrated and disappeared, eventually replaced by Labour.
Labourism is in crisis and the British version of parliamentary democracy is seen to be failing. There is an opportunity to revive the militant democratic traditions of Chartism. However, it should be noted there is no suggestion that this particular tactic applies, for example, to communists in Iran, Turkey or Russia, who have to work out their own tactics in relation to their particular conditions.
In his series of articles Mike sets out to grind the bones of the RDG. He comes at it from the angle of a disillusioned ex-Trotskyist “putting out the trash”. This “trash” is supposedly Trotskyism and the RDG’s alleged version of it. He claims to have “made a mockery” of the theory of democratic permanent revolution, which he says is “nonsense” (‘Putting out the trash’). In this third article he congratulates himself for having “demolished [Dave Craig’s] argument from British labour movement history for a dialectic Chartism-Labour-new Chartism”.
Of course, it is useful for Mike to highlight any weaknesses in my arguments. But he goes further by trying to rubbish everything I said. Scientific criticism is not the same as a Stalinist hatchet job, where defending the party ‘line’ means your opponent has to be trashed lock, stock and barrel. If your line demands the grinding of bones, then misrepresenting some arguments and reinventing others is the likely result. But it is not science.
The ogre in the fairy story has a purpose. He wants to grind Jack’s bones to make bread. So what kind of bread does Mike want to make? He wants a “Marxist” party and he sees ‘Trotskyism’ as the enemy of this project. He therefore takes up cudgels against the RDG as Trotskyists, albeit inferior ones. He even praises the Spartacists and Workers Power, despite being Trotskyists, because they “are infinitely more competent Marxists than comrade Craig”.
Up the beanstalk
I will re-explain my argument by dividing the world into two parts - past/present and future. The future is the world of our communist imagination. Here we find a working class movement that is very strong, politically conscious, organised and led by a world communist party. We could call this ‘fantasy land’. It is a very different place from the present world, where the working class is weak and divided. Here there is no world communist party. Marxists are prisoners of their Stalinist and Trotskyist heritage, victims of their history and tradition.
In the fairy story Jack is living with his mother in poverty. He is unemployed. In desperation she tells him to go to market and sell their cow. He does so, but then spends the money on a few magic beans. He takes the beans home and his angry mother throws them out of the window. Next day they have grown into a giant beanstalk, which disappears up into the clouds. Jack decides to climb the beanstalk and arrives in another world.
This ‘other world’ is a beautiful country. It has fine woods with lush meadows and plenty of sheep. A crystal stream winds its way through green pastures. In the distance is a fine castle. But it is occupied by a cruel, bloodthirsty ogre who grinds the bones of his victims. The ogre has taken over the castle and its lands, and stolen its treasures.
Jack finds his way to the castle. He is invited in by the ogre’s wife, who, taking pity on him, helps him to hide and avoid being eaten alive. He then steals the first of the ogre’s three golden treasures - a bag of gold. He escapes with the gold and takes it down the beanstalk, freeing himself and his mother from poverty. He goes back on two more occasions, when he steals first the hen that lays golden eggs and later a golden harp. Each time he returns, the ogre nearly captures him. On the third and final occasion the giant chases him. But Jack escapes down the beanstalk, chops it down, so that the giant falls to his death.
Golden treasures
What do these golden treasures refer to? It seems fairly obvious to me that gold refers to the potential of the working class. Japanese capitalists use a phrase about ‘mining the gold in the heads of the workers’. Here gold is the knowledge, creativity and power of the workers to innovate and change the world. But this power is only fully revealed when the working class organises itself as an international revolutionary democratic class and transforms the world.
Next is the hen which lays the golden eggs. The golden eggs are surely a reference to revolutionary science. Science is the weapon of the working class against all prejudices and superstitions. It can empower workers to change the world. The working class is the only class that can apply science to the service of humanity, rather than capital’s pursuit of profit and greed. The best science supports the development of the communist programme. This includes the scientific analysis of capitalism, permanent revolution and communism.
Finally we have the golden harp. This is without doubt a reference to the world party which plays the music of human liberation. Its melodies inspire the working class to fight for liberation. The scientific name for the golden harp is the ‘international revolutionary democratic communist party’. This party organises the advanced part of the international working class in its struggle for democracy, international socialism and world communism - the communist programme.
Present world
The golden treasures are the ABC of communism. We can and will argue about their exact nature. But in the present the working class is divided against itself. There is no world communist party, no theory of democratic permanent revolution and no communist programme. We have to climb the beanstalk, find the treasures and change the future by bringing them down to the ground.
However, let us leave the debate about the golden treasures, including permanent revolution, for another occasion. I want to concentrate on the present. Jack has not sold the cow and his mother is yet to throw the beans out of the window. This is Britain in 2008, where the working class movement has been dominated for decades by Labourism and ‘Marxism’. Both are now discredited. The working class movement has no political representation.
In Britain as it is today, permanent revolution and world communism seem completely utopian and irrelevant. The Labour Party appeals to a demoralised working class audience with the message that socialism is a utopia and capitalism the only realistic option. Mike adapts himself to the same reality when he argues that democratic revolution, or any revolution, in Britain is a “complete utopia” (‘International from the start’).
Mike, myself and many others have come to the conclusion that in Britain a new party is now necessary. But what kind of party is possible? Should it be a national Marxist party or a republican socialist party? Neither alternative is amongst the universal golden treasures to be found if we climb the beanstalk. So this is really a very British debate drawing on traditions in the British working class - the Stalinist party and the Chartist party.
In the conclusion to Mike’s second article he claims that “‘democratic permanent revolution’ as an argument for the ‘republican socialist party’ falls to the ground” (‘International from the start’). This shows he has not understood my argument. Permanent revolution is an argument for the international communist party. It is not an argument for a republican socialist party. Since I have never made the argument Mike attributes to me, it cannot ‘fall to the ground’.
The republican socialist party is like the magic beans. Nobody thinks the beans will work. They are thrown away. Yet before too long they will turn into a beanstalk and disappear into the clouds. The beanstalk is not one of the treasures. It is not derived from the theory of permanent revolution, nor is the latter an argument for such a party. It is simply a means of finding our way to the treasures. It is the link, or ‘halfway house’, between the present and the future.
Old ‘Marxism’
In Britain the Marxist movement was shaped by the Russian Revolution and the counterrevolution of 1921-23. Decades of struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism forged British Marxism as it is today. For most of the 20th century these two tendencies fought it out. From the 1950s we had the CPGB on one side, and on the other the Workers Revolutionary Party, the Militant Tendency and the International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party. This ‘Stalino-Trotskyist’ heritage forms the parameters of this debate.
The Stalinists described themselves as ‘communists’, whereas the Trotskyists tended to call themselves ‘revolutionary Marxists’. This battle reappeared in the recent polemic between the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and the CPGB. The AWL saw its fight with the CPGB as a continuation of the struggle against Stalinism. The CPGB’s views on the republic were presented as a variant of Stalinist stagism, in contrast to the AWL’s theory of permanent revolution.
Just as the AWL :’s Sean Matgamna set about bashing the CPGB as “Stalinist”, so Mike sets out to grind the RDG as “Trotskyist”. He says that “the whole of comrade Craig’s argument is transparently within the political framework of post-war Trotskyism. The expression ‘revolutionary Marxist’ is no more than the Mandelites’ (Fourth International) and Cliffites’ (International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party) expression, used since the 1970s, for what they saw as their common ground (but without using the obnoxious word ‘Trotskyist’)” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’).
He continues his theme: “The substance of the problem with comrade Craig’s arguments is simple. In spite of the Revolutionary Democratic Group’s break with Trotskyist economism (worship of the trade union struggle, refusal to address the question of the political order of the state) in all other respects comrade Craig clings to Trotskyist, and indeed post-war Trotskyist, and in particular Cliffite, pieties.”
He then claims we are like the “Sparts”. He says: “Spartacist stuff is, of course, a negation-caricature of ‘Pabloism’ within the frame of 1970s new left Trotskyism. For the new left Trotskyists the main danger was ‘propagandism’. That meant that their papers became - as Socialist Worker, The Socialist and Solidarity still are - dominated by fake agitation which purported to address the masses, though in fact very few people bought (buy) the papers in question. It also meant that programmatic ideas which they thought could not be the subject of immediate agitation got dropped” (‘Putting out the trash’).
He explains that “the Spartacists and similar groups responded within the same frame: to attempt agitation around a full Trotskyist programme, with a long list of demands at the end of every leaflet. The RDG is firmly in this mould: for example, issuing a leaflet to the spring 2003 anti-war demonstrations which contained a long list of demands, including the idea of a ‘provisional republican government’.”
Thus Mike tries to nail the RDG to his Trotskyist cross, symbolised by what he sees as the unrealistic slogan of a ‘provisional republican government’. But in truth he has to scrape the barrel for any real evidence. I quoted Cliff on the Labour Party, which made me a Cliffite. I quoted Trotsky on Chartism, which proved my Trotskyism. He says the fact “that [Dave Craig] chooses instead to use Cliff and Gluckstein reveals that behind the supposed break with ‘economism’ he is still mired in Marxism-Trotskyism-Tony Cliff Thought” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’). The ‘proof’ is very thin. I could have quoted other sources, but did not. Don’t quote the New testament or Mike will claim you are a christian!
Trotsky made a major contribution to communist politics which is still relevant today. But the RDG is not a Trotskyist group, either subjectively (we do not call ourselves Trotskyists) or objectively (measured against its key defining characteristics). But Mike places us in the Trotskyist camp, “clinging to Trotskyist pieties”.
Stalinism
It is tempting to dismiss Mike’s allegations about “Trotskyism” as nonsense. But it occurred to me that we can discover more by going with the flow. Does Mike’s irrational hostility to ‘Trotskyism’ tell us something about his and the CPGB’s politics? If the RDG is “Trotskyist”, then surely the CPGB is Stalinist. It makes equal sense to investigate whether Mike and CPGB are clinging to Stalinist pieties. If we must conduct the fight as ‘Trotskyism versus Stalinism’, then let us do it and see where it takes us.
These days Stalinism has gone underground. It is so discredited that no self-respecting communist would call themselves by that name. If Stalinism is understood simply as those organisations which idealise Stalin, there are very few in that category. It does not include the CPGB, despite the fact they are clinging to the name of the Stalinist party. Perhaps this is Mike’s own piety.
But Stalinism is a more extensive and complex set of ideas than simply the religious worship of one man. First there is national socialism, or socialism in one country. This was equated with state ownership and planning through a national, one-party dictatorship. The ‘socialist’ countries included Cuba, China, Yugoslavia and North Korea. Many who reject Stalin’s crimes still supported various ‘anti-imperialist’ socialist dictators, such as Milosevic, Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Kim il Sung and Castro.
The theory of national socialism has long influenced the left of the Labour Party. When George Galloway saluted Saddam’s indefatigability he was indicating the affect of Stalinism on his own political development. The same could be seen in Arthur Scargill and his Socialist Labour Party. The idea of a minimum-maximum programme, expressed in the British road to socialism, had an enduring influence on the left. It did much to influence the Labour left view of the relationship between democracy and socialism.
The Stalinist British road was a product of the counterrevolution in Russia, which stripped the revolutionary essence out of Marxism. It produced a non-revolutionary trend in Marxism organised as a national Marxist party. The British road linked its brand of non-revolutionary ‘Marxism’ to a broad left strategy. This emphasised the importance of a left Labour government supported by the CPGB with its own communist MPs. The CPGB thus sought an alliance with the Labour Party.
The Stalinist CPGB thus created a peculiar kind of national Marxism. It stood against revolutionary Marxism, permanent revolution, the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the world party - all identified with Trotskyism.
Revolutionary Marxism
Mike’s polemic against the RDG is thus a mirror to his own politics. Through his three articles, one theme emerges. He rejects revolutionary Marxism, national revolution, permanent revolution and the revolutionary party. The common thread is rejection of the words ‘revolution’ and ‘revolutionary’, which he seems to equate with Trotskyism.
Mike says: “I think that a party, faction or tendency based on ‘revolutionary Marxism’ is a complete waste of space” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’). In a subsequent article he complains that “comrade Craig argues for a revolutionary Marxist faction”. He is critical of my claim that “without a theory of revolution there can be no revolutionary programme” (‘Putting out the trash’). He does not support Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution, but is equally dismissive of the argument that we need a new theory of permanent revolution. He says: “I similarly critiqued the more general argument for ‘democratic permanent revolution’” (‘Putting out the trash’).
It is well understood that reformism is opposed to revolutionary Marxism. So it comes as a surprise to find Mike opposes it as well. But he does so in the name of ‘Marxism’. This is an uncomfortable parallel with the classic role of Stalinism in the workers’ movement. For over 60 years the CPGB and its Stalinist co-thinkers stood against workers’ revolutions in Spain, Italy, Greece, Vietnam, East Germany and Hungary.
If Mike views revolutionary Marxism as a “complete waste of space”, he thinks national democratic revolution is “a complete utopia” (‘International from the start’). He goes further and argues against any national revolution. He says: “It is best to start with the practical strategic politics, because this in a sense reduces Craig’s variant of a ‘national revolution’ to absurdity - and does so for all the other variants, too, from the British road to socialism to the Trotskyist versions” (‘International from the start’).
It is not just that national revolution is difficult or dangerous or its benefits limited because socialism is one country is not possible. For Mike it is a “complete utopia”. The capitalists would not allow it. Capital would flee the country. The revolution would be sabotaged and the people would be starved out. The seizure of power by the working class in one country must not therefore be attempted.
Of course, Mike is not alone in claiming that national revolution is absurd and utopian. It is not just reformists that agree. He says: “Parties in the ‘official communist’ tradition in practice recognise that the dictatorship of the proletariat in a single country is unfeasible … Trotskyists more orthodox than comrade Craig half-recognise that the dictatorship of the proletariat in a single country is unfeasible” (‘International from the start’). No wonder Mike opposes the revolutionary slogan of a ‘provisional republican government’.
This argument is then extended to the revolutionary party. Mike says the existing far left should be “persuaded to abandon their sect concept of the ‘revolutionary party’” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’). He says: “The Trotskyists in Britain and elsewhere, and the Maoists in several other countries, have run the far left into a blind alley by clinging to an idea of a ‘revolutionary’ party.”
Mike criticises me for using the term “‘Marxist party’ to mean a ‘revolutionary Marxist party’”. He wants “enough of the existing far left should be persuaded to abandon their (sect) concept of the ‘revolutionary party or ‘revolutionary Marxist faction’” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’).
From a Stalinist perspective the ‘revolutionary Marxist party’ is simply a variant of Trotskyism. Separating the Marxist party from the revolutionary party was the essence of the old Stalinist, centrist CPGB. If this is “clinging to Trotskyist pieties”, then of course I plead guilty. But the obvious riposte is that by identifying the revolutionary party exclusively as “Trotskyism” Mike lands himself in the swamp of Stalinism.
Respect and the SSP
Let us go back the actual movement of the left over the last decade. We began with the Socialist Labour Party, the Scottish Socialist Party, the Socialist Alliance and Respect. None of these parties are among the golden treasures. They are not found by climbing up the beanstalk. They are messy, ill thought out, rotten compromises made in this world.
The slogan of a republican socialist party relates to the emergence of these parties. It is directed at them. The socialist movement needs to unite its limited forces. To do so requires compromise. Communists must play a leading role in this process, but cannot do so without the correct politics. Take, for example, Respect. It could have organised itself as a republican socialist party. Instead it rejected democratic republicanism at its founding conference. It is not republican and secular. It is hardly socialist and is not a workers’ party. It was certain to fail.
The SSP took its political characteristics from Scottish Militant Labour. SML’s old economism was spiced up with Scottish nationalism. The SSP became tangled up in nationalism rather than working class republicanism. It cut itself off from its natural class allies in England and drifted towards the Scottish National Party.
Despite the machinations of the state, the Murdoch press and the split, the SSP has survived. Communists within the SSP have continued to push the party in a republican socialist direction. The last SSP conference agreed to take the initiative in organising a conference in 2008 to discuss a republican socialist strategy with socialists in England, Wales and Ireland.
Despite Mike’s claim, I have never seen the SSP as a “model”. It was an example, not a model. It showed what was achievable in Scotland when the left united. It showed what was possible in England before the SA split. The defeats suffered by the Scottish left were a setback for the working class across Britain and for those more militant trade unions that were looking to break from Labour. It undermined the struggle for a communist party. The road to recovery for the SSP is to become more militant in its republicanism and more vigorous in its orientation to the working class in England.
The new party
Mike and I both believe a new workers’ party is necessary and possible today. To clarify our differences I will invent names for two fictitious parties. It is logical to name my proposal as the ‘Republican Socialist Party’. I will name Mike’s party the ‘National Marxist Party’.
Mike says: “We need a party with three very general principles. First, it stands for the idea that the working class ... should run society.” This is surely a reference to the aim of socialism and common ownership. “Second, it stands for extreme democracy or democratic republicanism, both in the state and the workers’ movement.” And “Third, it stands for international working class solidarity” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’).
As far as I can tell, the Republican Socialist Party and the National Marxist Party would have a large measure of agreement on democratic republicanism, socialism and internationalism. In noting that our views seem to coincide, I argued that Mike wanted an additional condition to these three principles. The National Marxist Party would also endorse Marxism. But he rejects this.
He says: “Comrade Craig falsifies my argument, because I have said in earlier articles that ‘Marxist’ is shorthand for a party which fights openly for the three principles, and nothing more.” The words “and nothing more” are therefore critical. I did not deliberately falsify his argument. I simply made the mistake of thinking the National Marxist Party would be Marxist.
Mike then provides an estimate of the potential size of the new party. He says: “Such a party could in the present dynamics hope to be on approximately the scale of the old Communist Party or of the Greens: ie, with a membership between 10,000 and 30,000 and electoral support in the 5%-10% range, with some local strongholds” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’). Again, this estimate coincides with my own view.
So on the face of it we are describing approximately the same national party but with different names. Neither the Republican Socialist Party nor the National Marxist Party is proposed as a revolutionary party in the Trotskyist sense. So what are the differences?
Labour Party
The main difference concerns the Labour Party. I will use the terms ‘Stalinist’ and ‘Trotskyist’ to identify different strategies towards the Labour Party. The ‘Trotskyists’ want to win the Labour left away from the Labour Party. Therefore they argue for socialist or left unity. Both the Socialist Alliance and Respect have had this orientation. Galloway was the first Labour MP prepared to break, or be expelled, from the Labour Party because of the Iraq war.
By contrast the ‘Stalinist’ strategy supports the unity of the Labour Party and hence an all-class popular front. Broad leftism was based on an alliance between the Labour left and the Marxist party. This still marks out the approach of the Communist Party of Britain. The ‘Stalinist’ strategy considers the ‘Trotskyist’ attitude to Labour as sectarian and opportunist. The Trotskyists want to split the Labour Party.
Hence the ‘Stalinist’ strategy is for a popular front with Labour, whereas the ‘Trotskyist’ strategy seeks to break the Labour left and the trade unions from the party. The ‘Trotskyist’ united front faces the ‘Stalinist’ broad left popular front. In broad-brush terms the RDG approach is ‘Trotskyist’ and the CPGB’s is ‘Stalinist’. Hence the Republican Socialist Party is a version of the Trotskyist strategy. The National Marxist Party is a version of the broad left Stalinist strategy.
Mike provides some evidence for this thesis. He points out that my comments about Chartism are taken from Trotsky and Cliff. He notices some common ground across the ‘Trotskyists’, such as the SWP, Socialist Party, the International Socialist Group and the RDG. He says about the CPGB position: “We have some common ground with both the Morning Star’s CPB and with the far left within the Labour Party” (‘End bureaucratic centralism’, June 7 2007). He goes on to explain the difference between the CPGB and the CPB is not principle, but realism. The CPGB is more realistic by not believing that “the old Labour-trade union ‘broad left’ can be recreated on the basis of a politics of nostalgia for the 1950s-70s”.
Mike explains the political conditions required to create the National Marxist Party. First he says: “It is, of course, a condition for the creation of such a party that enough of the existing far left should be persuaded to abandon their sect concept of the ‘revolutionary party’ or ‘revolutionary Marxist faction’ to give the new party a unitary character.” The second condition is that “the Trotskyists, including for this purpose the Revolutionary Democratic Group, are prepared to face up to the objective dynamics and to the failure of their policies” (‘Clinging to Trotskyist pieties’). We only have to admit we are wrong and recognise in effect that the Stalinist broad left strategy is correct!
The Republican Socialist Party requires two political conditions. First, the Labour left have to conclude that the Labour Party is bankrupt and unreformable. This is difficult, but not impossible, since there is plenty of hard evidence. Already left trade union leaders like Bob Crow have come to that conclusion. Brown’s government will provide more evidence. The second condition is that the new party must be republican and socialist rather than old Labourite.
Conclusion
Jack and the beanstalk is not only a pantomime story, but an allegory about the journey for human liberation. Our vision and strategy should not be limited to conditions on the ground. We need to climb the beanstalk and find the golden treasures of communism. This article is not primarily about the treasures, and so a full response to Mike on permanent revolution is for another occasion.
The focus here is the political vacuum created by the crisis of Labourism and the need for a new workers’ party. With some magic beans we can grow a beanstalk and find the portal to the other world. But will the beans grow us a Republican Socialist Party or National Marxist Party? Which is the transitional form, or halfway house, that will take us to the future world communist party?
The Republican Socialist Party and National Marxist Party are thus two halfway house projects - respectively versions of Trotskyist and Stalinist strategies. The former is for a united front with the Labour left against the Labour leadership. The aim is to win the Labour left and the trade unions to form an independent workers’ party. The latter broad left strategy is about maintaining the Labour Party intact, alongside a newly formed non-revolutionary national Marxist party. The major difference is about the Labour Party, as Mike himself has said. Are we trying to unite it or divided it?
The slogan of a republican socialist party is a variation of the Trotskyist approach. It is the most consistent version, because it does not compromise with Labourism. It does not pander to the idea of another economistic Labour Party. It draws on Trotsky’s writings on Britain, which identify Cromwell and the Chartists as part of our home-grown revolutionary and democratic tradition.
CPGB demagogy against halfway houses is nothing less than a smokescreen to deflect attention from their own halfway house, the National Marxist Party. There will be no real progress until the CPGB examine their own halfway house position with more honesty. Physician, heal thyself.
Mike set out to grind the bones of the RDG by conducting this debate on the terrain of Stalinism versus Trotskyism. He claimed the RDG was really Trotskyist and “clinging to Trotskyistpieties”. But what is sauce for the Christmas goose surely applies to the gander. If it is pieties we are looking for, then clinging to the name of the Stalinist party of “Great Britain” is an obvious riposte. But there is more to it than that.
The RDG rejects Trotskyism as the CPGB does Stalinism. The real problem is not piety. It is more to do with a Stalinist and Trotskyist attitude to the Labour Party. When push comes to shove, is the Labour Party a bourgeois party or a workers’ party? Are we opposing it or critically supporting it? Should we vote for it or organise to vote against it?
If in 2008 we are to put communist politics on a sound footing, we must go back to the future. We have to climb the beanstalk, find the golden treasures and bring them back down to the ground. The task for the Campaign for a Marxist Party is to concentrate on finding the treasures rather than promoting various Trotskyist or Stalinist halfway houses.
Best wishes and communist greetings for 2008.