27.08.2008

Sharp debate and comradeship

Sessions on fascism, feminism, and 1968, and openly expressed differences between CPGBers, were some of the many aspects of this year's Communist University, writes Mary Godwin

Communist University 2008 represented another small step in the long fight to build the sort of Marxist party the working class in Britain needs. Around 200 comrades attended over the week with between 30 and 60 at each of the 22 sessions.

Party

This year the CPGB was pleased to welcome two comrades from the Prométhée group in France, who are participating in the process initiated by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire to form a new anti-capitalist party. Opening the session entitled ‘What sort of party are we fighting for?’, they reported on the current state of play in the hundreds of committees set up to campaign for the new party, whose founding conference is expected in January 2009.

Although the LCR has called for a party resolutely opposed to class collaboration, and for the revolutionary transformation of society, the Prométhée comrades are concerned that the LCR might steer the new party in the direction of a more vague anti-capitalist populism. They intend to be part of a tendency that insists on Marxism.

The need for a Marxist party, rather than a halfway house reformist organisation, was dramatically illustrated by the sorry fate of the Scottish Socialist Party. In his opening on the lessons of the SSP, comrade Sandy McBurney described how it has been reduced to less than 200 active members. The party had been set up on the explicit basis of a split in the British working class movement, and it certainly succeeded in splitting the left, with the then Socialist Alliance covering only England and Wales. CPGB comrades made the point, however, that even if an all-Britain Socialist Alliance had been set up, it would have been at most merely a step towards the party we need - or else would have come to the same farcical end.

Equally useless for the task of making revolution are the multitude of ‘confessional sects’ which infested the workers’ movement in the 20th century. To one extent or another, Trotskyist organisations adopted undemocratic, bureaucratic centralist (even semi-military) regimes, which made disagreement with the leadership line a breach of discipline and sometimes an expellable offence. That in turn led to split after split. As the Prométhée comrades pointed out, this was also the situation in France and indeed across the globe.

In his talk on ‘Why I am not a Trotskyist’, the CPGB’s Jack Conrad outlined four defining features of what had come to be known as ‘Trotskyism’, each of which he disagreed with. One of these, the ‘transitional method’, typified the way in which undemocratic internal regimes were reflected in the attitude of the sects to the wider working class. It suggests that a Trotskyist minority could trick the working class into making revolution. Comrade Conrad insisted that revolution has to be a conscious act of millions, rather than a conspiracy.

Comrade Gerry Downing, convenor of the Campaign for a Marxist Party’s Trotskyist Tendency, said comrade Conrad misunderstood the Trotskyist method of intersecting with workers’ struggles with demands which lead them forward to revolution. Several times during the week comrade Downing intervened to defend the goal of becoming “implanted” in the workers’ movement for this purpose. CPGB comrades argued that the ‘transitional method’ had often provided a cover for reformism, because of the claim that the granting of even a minor reform might push capital to the brink and spontaneously lead to revolution.

The party question was examined from a historical angle in the session, ‘The failure of the revolutionary oppositions in the CPGB and the rise of The Leninist’. Comrade Lawrence Parker sketched the various revolutionary oppositions in the ‘official’ CPGB from 1960 to 1991, as described in his book The kick inside. Comrade Alan Stevens gave a first-hand account of the rise and fall of the various CPGB left factions in the 1970s, and comrade Conrad described how and why The Leninist was first published in 1981.

Programme

Closely linked with the structure and organisation of the Marxist party is its programme and strategy, and this was another major theme of Communist University 2008.

A highlight of the week was the official launch of Mike Macnair’s book Revolutionary strategy - Marxism and the challenge of left unity (reviewed in Weekly Worker August 7). The book was available on the CPGB bookstall at CU and around 80 were sold. Comrade Jean-Michel Edwin of Prométhée joked that his only criticism was that it had not been published in French. However, he hoped to translate at least parts of it, as he was sure it would aid the struggle to establish a genuine Communist Party in France.

In his opening, comrade Macnair said Lenin should have included a fourth “source and component part” of Marxism: Chartism. He criticised the notion that the 1917 slogan, ‘All power to the soviets’, was applicable to all revolutions - indeed, although in his view Lenin and Trotsky were correct to “gamble” on the German revolution when they led the October uprising, the left had been wrong to treat the 1917 revolution in peasant-dominated Russia as the universal model for workers’ revolutions across the globe. We have to go back to the ideas of Marx and Engels, he concluded.

In the session on ‘Bolshevik reality and its lessons’, Simon Pirani, whose book The Russian revolution in retreat 1920-24 is based on his extensive research in the archives in Moscow, agreed that the 1917 revolution should be seen as a part of our past rather than a guide for the future. He described as a “dangerous illusion” the idea that the seizure of power by dedicated revolutionaries can create a workers’ state against the wishes of the majority.

Speaking in the same session, Hillel Ticktin took a different view, stating that the Bolsheviks had no alternative but to end soviet democracy and impose all manner of emergency measures in order to defend the revolution. However, in view of the horrors of Stalinism that were to come, he stated that it would have been better for the world if the Bolshevik revolution had been defeated between 1917 and 1921. This caused some controversy in the debate.

As in previous years, comrade Ticktin gave three talks on successive mornings on the subject of political economy. The first, ‘The current downturn: is it a turning point for world capitalism?’, is obviously an important question for the left at a time when recession looms. Comrade Ticktin said bourgeois economists who know what they are talking about say we could be faced with another 1929, although unlike in 1929 governments will intervene to minimise disruption to the capitalist system. Sections of the ruling class will be willing to make concessions, while others will look for authoritarian solutions. Unfortunately, the working class, for its part, is confused and ill-prepared.

In his second talk comrade Ticktin addressed the question, ‘China: will it be a part of the downturn or a source of strength for world capitalism?’ He described how the Chinese economy is inextricably linked to the US-led world system and argued that China can never become competitive with the US or Europe. Comrade Ticktin’s thesis was hotly contested by Stuart King of Permanent Revolution.

Comrade Ticktin’s third opening was on ‘The anticipations of socialism in today’s world’. He said that only ‘pure capitalism’ and ‘pure socialism’ can exist as stable forms, and described how finance capital, which is non-productive and parasitic, dominates in the current period, exacerbating the imminent crisis. Comrade Ticktin’s talks will be among those the Weekly Worker will publish later in 2008.

RAG day

For the last three years members of the Radical Anthropology Group have participated in what has become Communist University’s ‘RAG day’, introducing three sessions.

In the morning session Chris Knight spoke on ‘Primitive communism: myth or reality?’ In a stimulating talk he covered a broad range of subjects, from the function of religion in different social formations to the difference between ‘brute facts’ and ‘institutional’ facts (those which are only true so long as they are generally accepted). He claimed that hunter-gatherer societies could accurately be described as communism because they enjoyed a condition of abundance.

In past years RAG speakers have explained the theory of the human revolution through female solidarity. This year Camilla Power spoke about a link with the Neanderthals, discussing their language, culture and mode of life. Then Socialist Workers Party member Lionel Sims, also of RAG, spoke on ‘Stonehenge, Engels and the neolithic counterrevolution’. He demonstrated that the construction of Stonehenge proves that the neolithic inhabitants of Britain had an extraordinarily complete understanding not only of the annual cycle of the changing position of the sun’s rising and setting on the horizon, but also of the 19-year cycle of the movement of the moon’s position relative to the ecliptic.

While some sessions were opened by CPGB members, a number of guest speakers presented a wide range of valuable openings during the week.

Moshé Machover spoke on ‘Palestine and completing the Arab revolution’. He said that until the Arab revolution is completed there can be no solution to the Palestinian problem. Different answers to the problem of how to ensure democratic rights for all national groups in the area, including the Israeli Jews, were put forward in the discussion following comrade Machover’s opening.

Boris Kagarlitsky, who first came across the CPGB at a European Social Forum planning meeting, has been a regular CU speaker for the last few years. His subject this time was ‘The crisis of the social forum movement’. He concluded that, while the social forum movement had been flawed from the beginning, it had been worth getting involved in it, not least for the contacts it had been possible to make through it. The discussion following this opening explored further the themes of party, programme and democracy.

Comrades from Ireland participated in Communist University, including John McAnulty, a leading activist in People’s Democracy. There was thought-provoking talk on ‘Ireland and the evolution of Sinn Féin’s politics’ by Kevin Bean, author of The new politics of Sinn Féin, which was on sale at CU (see Weekly Worker August 7 for an interview and review).

Comrades from the Permanent Revolution group were present for a number of sessions through the week and made a lot of interesting and useful contributions. The first session was a debate between leading Hands Off the People of Iran activist Yassamine Mather and George Binette of Permanent Revolution: ‘Iran, fighting on two fronts’.

Comrade Binette was honest enough to admit that he had no facile answers to the problem of how to link the struggles of the workers and the dispossessed in an economically backward country such as Iran, how to successfully fight not only against the existing regime but also against the pro-imperialist regime the US military wants to impose through a ‘velvet revolution’, and how to internationalise revolution to achieve a united socialist Middle East. But he was willing to debate with CPGB members and others present, such as the International Bolshevik Tendency comrades in the audience.

This attitude was in marked contrast to that of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, whose leading members had been repeatedly invited to come to Communist University but refused, being unwilling or afraid to debate with the CPGB.

In the absence of the AWL, comrade Jack Conrad gave a talk on AWL leader Sean Matgamna’s shameful article in Solidarity, in which he had attempted to excuse and justify in advance a ‘pre-emptive’ strike by Israel against Iranian nuclear facilities. Comrade Conrad said that Matgamna, and any AWL members who fail to disassociate themselves from his position, could no longer be regarded as part of the left or be described as comrades.

CPGB differences

Interestingly, discussion of the nuclear question threw up some theoretical differences in the CPGB, with some members thinking a future socialist government in Europe should get rid of nuclear weapons and call on the working class in the US to make revolution, while others said it would be prudent to retain them as a deterrent. Unlike other groups on the left, we in the CPGB do not suppress differences or insist on agreement with a leadership line, but debate them fully and openly.

One well known difference in the ranks of the CPGB is on the question of fascism, its definition and how it should be fought. This was fully debated in the session, ‘Fascism and fighting ghosts’, with Ben Lewis speaking for the CPGB majority on the question, David Isaacson representing the CPGB minority and Dave Esterson giving the Permanent Revolution point of view. This produced a fruitful debate which helped clarify opinions but most certainly did not settle the matter.

Another theme of CU was 1968 (and particularly the events in France). Four sessions were built around this theme. Comrade Anne McShane opened the session on ‘Second wave feminism and its contradictions’. Comrade James Turley spoke on Louis Althusser and comrades David Broder (who had just resigned from the AWL) and Mike Macnair debated ‘Could the working class have come to power in France?’ Prométhée comrades made useful contributions to this session and, alongside comrade Conrad, opened the final session of Communist University on ‘1968: why it still matters’.

This session was followed by an evaluation of CU 2008, at which all present were invited to give their comments and criticisms. Comrades agreed it had been a successful and useful event, with a good, comradely atmosphere enhanced by the system of collective meals organised by small teams - although this did mean comrades missed part of some sessions while cooking.

Some comrades mentioned areas they felt should have been covered in more depth - the environment and Latin America, for example. The positive contributions made by Permanent Revolution comrades were noted and a joint school is mooted for later in the year. The Prométhée comrades said it had been a very useful experience for them and they look forward to coming to Communist University 2009.