10.09.2008
Beginning a necessary debate
Jean-Michel Edwin of the French communist group, Promethee, calls for a serious discussion on revolutionary strategy in relation to Europe
Three years ago we published in Prométhée a translation of ‘Lenin and the United States of Europe slogan’ and ‘Trotsky and the United States of Europe slogan’ - two appendices in Jack Conrad’s book Remaking Europe.
Members of the Prométhée communist group, currently involved in the construction of the new anti-capitalist party (NPA) initiated by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire, have also long been convinced that the Europe being built in Brussels and Strasbourg under the colours of the European Union must indeed be remade. And the contributions of Lenin and Trotsky to the debate on Europe (what about the slogan, ‘For a socialist United States of Europe’?) must be considered in the historical context in which they were drawn up.
However, the historical aspect of the European question, seen through the debates among Russian revolutionaries at the beginning of the 20th century, does not detract from the contemporary interest in the book published by the CPGB, of which a French translation would be of great value - quite the opposite.
How can one do justice to such a complex and crucial question for the European working class by contenting oneself with answers as facile as a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’? How can one do so without going into the details of the contradictions which the construction of the EU entails? Military threat or guarantee of peace? Site for emancipatory struggle or horrific bureaucratic machine in the service of capital and reaction?
Such questions are covered in a profound manner in Remaking Europe, which certainly marks a contribution to the tracing of a route other than either submission to the marching orders of the states and bourgeoisies of our continent or the more or less chauvinist defence of the ‘national interests’ of the French, British, German, etc proletariat.
The slogan which appears under the Weekly Worker masthead, ‘Towards a Communist Party of the European Union’, has provoked some debate within Prométhée, as it has elsewhere: the enthusiasm of a minority of members (of which I am one), who believe it necessary and desirable to take the struggle for a new party for our class to at least a continental level, has been met with an understandably critical questioning from a majority of the comrades of our communist collective on the European Union structure as such, which the slogan might seem to legitimate.
Would the new EU party in effect select the ‘national sections’ it invites to participate according to whether or not the country in question is a member of the EU’s pre- or parastatal transnational structure? Would it, for example, subordinate its own decision on whether an eventual ‘Turkish section’ were admitted to that of Brussels on the admission of Turkey into the ‘club of 25’? Or would a unified political fight by members in several EU states be undermined by the absence of participating forces in, say, a majority of member-states?
Perhaps the LCR will oblige us to reach agreement in practice: recently Olivier Besançenot announced that the NPA would take part in the construction of a new anti-capitalist party on a European level, once it is established in France in December or January, alongside forces interested in the here and now “in Denmark, Portugal, Italy and even Turkey”. Treating the question in a practical way has its advantages, of course, even if the debate continues in the meantime.
Mike Macnair’s Revolutionary strategy: Marxism and the challenge of left unity, published by the CPGB in August, develops questions of great importance for communists, be they in France, Britain, elsewhere in Europe or in other parts of the world. The purpose of the book is to begin to “re-examine critically the strategic ideas of socialists since Marx and Engels’ time” in order to emerge from the impasse resulting from the disastrous failures of the 20th century, in which all the ‘centrist’ and left tendencies claiming to stand for communism have in one way or another been confined.
This contribution by a British militant opens up a debate in which it seems to me important - urgent rather - that our comrades in France and other countries engage. That is why, having returned from the stimulating experience of Communist University 2008, organised by the CPGB in London in August, we aim to get down to the immediate priority of translating and disseminating at least large extracts of Revolutionary strategy.
What is the connection with Europe? Simply that Mike Macnair’s book takes as a given the conclusions of Remaking Europe, and any attempt to bat aside the question of Europe will result in it making a reappearance sooner or later. That is why I look forward to a debate (a public one, of course, in view of its general interest) and polemic in the best sense of the word between my Prométhée comrades and the CPGB on the matter.
Such a debate would certainly be a good introduction to the fundamental discussion needed on our strategic tasks. It would represent a broaching of the subject, indeed its preliminary.
