Masks: the method of the sects

James Turley and Ben Lewis argue that there can be no short cuts to building the mass, Marxist student movement we need

We would like to express our concern at the drift of some Communist Students comrades towards the highly ambiguous Anti-Capitalist Initiative project. We are both veterans of, and also members of the Communist Party of Great Britain; we have been involved with CS since the founding conference, and have played a major role in setting its political direction.

The purpose of CS, since its inception, has been to organise Marxists in the student movement as Marxists, and win progressive students to our aims in an open and honest fashion. The ACI, conversely, is a regroupment project which aims, at best, for some kind of ‘halfway house’ formation of a kind that CS has frequently criticised in the student movement, and at worst, a capitulation to unconscious ‘movementism’. Either which way, it is correctly characterised as a liquidationist project, and – as we will show – offers no answers to the burning questions facing us in the coming period.

History

Communist Students was founded, in fact, because the pseudo-naive ‘anti-capitalism’ of the existing student left was thought, by a number of student members and sympathisers of the CPGB, to be woefully inadequate. It came out of a debate as to whether these comrades should sign up to the Alliance for Workers Liberty’s then student front organisation, Education Not for Sale.

ENS was pitched as a unity initiative against the intrusion of the market into higher education, and at the time (2006) the British left as a whole had just about exhausted its various botched unity drives – a phenomenon in which the CPGB was a highly critical participant. Still, we decided then that we would not join ENS (or Student Respect, or any of its then competitors), but rather set up an openly communist student organisation on the basis, initially at least, of CPGB politics.

Why the inconsistency? The short answer is: ENS, Student Respect and so on all shared a political method – which we termed ‘student trade unionism’ – fundamentally at odds with the reality of student politics as a whole. Students are not workers; the NUS is not a trade union. These projects are hopeless on their own terms; they are attempts to summon up a mass movement out of nowhere. Where a mass movement has genuinely come into being, as one did at the tail end of 2010, such ‘broad fronts’ sometimes enjoy fleeting success by riding the wave.

Whereas the Socialist Alliance at least pointed towards serious unity between the Marxist left groups, in spite of its inadequate political basis, ENS and the like could never unite anyone – because their politics were based on a fantasy.^[1]

The prospect of ‘unity’ on this kind of fudged basis has been proffered numerous times since (normally, it should be said, by ENS and its successors). The AWL once again attempted to expand ENS into something viable in 2008 – again on a vague ‘anti-capitalism’, so as not to alienate ‘the movement’. Again, it was stillborn; and again, CS declined to join up (although there was a brief, abortive flirtation between the AWL and Revo). It is clear already that ENS’s successor, the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, is back to square one – or worse, now that it is effectively ‘owned’ by the AWL.

We have consistently argued for the unity of Marxists on the basis of Marxist politics. This is the general line of the CPGB, but it is peculiarly apposite for student politics, where the occasional mass movements are quite as likely to be driven by ideas, by international affairs, as by ‘economic’ interests. The ground is perhaps more fertile for communism than for broad frontism.

Anti-Capitalist Initiative

The questions we need to ask of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative, then, are ‘What is it?’ and ‘Is it going anywhere?’ To the first question, there is no immediately obvious answer, so it is worth looking at its political make-up.

Primarily, it consists of three fragments of Workers Power – the official group, still led by Richard Brenner and his allies; the 2006 split (primarily) of the WP ‘old guard’, now Permanent Revolution; and the ex-WP youth. These comrades are all united again, albeit on a far lower political level. So far, that political level consists of … a worthy statement on the inadvisability of privatising the NHS, and a vague commitment to ‘making radical and socialist arguments to new audiences’. In addition, there are a few hangers-on, such as CS’s very own Chris Strafford.

The appeal of the ACI seems to be twofold. Firstly, there is the absence of an obviously dominating left group, as with the SWP’s various fronts; secondly, there is the rhetoric of building from the ‘bottom up’, which has a certain superficial democratic cachet.

The truth is that the dominant faction, at this time, is the united forces of PR and the ex-WP youth. The political method at work here is that of PR – the very soggiest brand of Trotskyist centrism imaginable. The ‘bottom up’ rhetoric is no defence against this whatever, and nor is failing to nail down a serious political basis. There may be elements of the ex-WP youth that are demonstrably healthier politically than PR in its present state of hopeless disorientation. They, however, are hardly keen to shout for Marxist politics at ACI meetings. They are happy to go along with organisational measures such as setting up a website.

So what is going to appear on this website? The ACI will have to have something to say about political events. Is it going to consist of elaborate political-economic essays, cultural commentary, thought-out manifestos – or urging the broad masses into ‘action’ against the latest attempts of the government to dump on us?

To ask the question is to answer it. The extant political lines of the component organisations are all committed to broad frontism. All, furthermore, share the fetish for spontaneous ‘action’ and ‘struggle’ which has acted as an alibi for all Trotskyist and post-Trotskyist opportunisms in post-war history.

In short, the website will be like Socialist Worker, perhaps with better prose and a more open submissions policy. We are back to the beginning – what we have is Workers Power circa 2005, but on a lower level.

It will offer further proof, if any were needed, that left organisations are not built from the bottom up, but from the top down. This is as much a statement of fact as it is ‘good practice’ – the ACI will inevitably reflect not the politics of the teeming thousands ‘out there’ that the likes of Bill Jefferies imagine are chomping at the bit to sign up, but rather the moribund political method and programme of its originators. The fantasy of ‘bottom up’ organisation simply means that there can be no programmatic clarification, and what passes as a platform must inevitably remain platitudinous.

Mass action

So why is comrade Strafford so keen on it?

His article in praise of the ACI, published on the CS website, begins with a summary of the world and British situation, which is fanciful in some respects. “Movements like Los Indignados in Spain and Occupy and the student movement in Britain have, along with the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, lit the fuse of mass action against capital,” he writes – despite the fact that much of this activity was not ‘against capital’ at all.^[2]

Likewise, his assessment of the anti-cuts movement in this country – “thousands of local groups and campaigns [springing] up across the country … [acting] as the conduit for communities to highlight and resist devastating cuts to essential services and the support for the most vulnerable” – is simply absurd. Mass action against the cuts has been monopolised by the trade union movement; anti-cuts groups, where they are not the most limited of single-issue campaigns, merely regroup elements of the existing left in pursuit of a notional ‘mass’ audience.

Comrade Strafford does not provide a political assessment of the ACI at all; the most telling part of his piece is his sole criticism of the abortive unity projects of the last decade, which were – in his view – too focused on elections, and parked between them. Yet this is a symptom of the real issue, which is the proliferation of front groups – electoral, single-issue, whatever – which organise around inadequate sub-Labourite politics. (To his credit, at the ACI founding conference comrade Strafford did at least point out the fallacy of trying to create a new ‘workers’ party’ when there is one already).

From this, we may deduce that his interest in the ACI stems from its possibilities in terms of action. He writes, presumably outlining his hopes for the initiative: “We must begin to build trust through common work in fighting the cuts, the drive to war, attacks on our environment, the fascist threat and much more. Communists have a duty to be side by side with workers and youth in the heat of battle, but also to be there carrying out the less exciting work of slowly and patiently building local and national centres of working class resistance. On a higher level there has to be a re-evaluation of the theoretical underpinnings that the left is built on. There has to be open forums to clarify where we have gone wrong, and what kind of left we want and need.”

The last two sentences are correct. The problem is that the idea that mass action holds the key to building up the left, as outlined in the rest of the passage, is one of the many things the left needs to ditch. Action – for what? The desiccated reformism of the Labour Party? The sub-Keynesian politics of left union bureaucrats or UK Uncut? The Labourite politics favoured by the far left when it goes ‘to the masses’?

If one simply engages in action over this or that single issue, or for something as nebulous as ‘building trust’, the actual political result will benefit those who dominate the movement institutionally. It is the labour bureaucracy that will determine the meaning of protests against cuts, war and the rest. But the point is to overcome the dominance of the bureaucracy, which in turn requires providing a clear, communist political alternative to it. We cannot dodge this question, as comrade Stuart King does, when he laughably accuses the CPGB of “passive propagandism”.^[3] The fact is, comrade King, that at the moment we on the left primarily make propaganda. We can either attempt to make decent, Marxist propaganda on a regular basis (weekly in our case) or try and conjure up a ‘mass movement’ and limit our propaganda in the hope of making short-term sect gains.

This is the stumbling block which upended the Socialist Alliance, Respect et al, and which currently makes the likes of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition little better than a laughing stock – that their favoured form of ‘action’ is primarily electoral makes no odds. On present evidence, that stumbling block will see off the ACI in no time flat.

CS should polemicise against the liquidationism inherent in this project, and attempt to win its people to a practical adherence to Marxist politics. Throwing ourselves into building it is simply a waste of time.

Revolutionary patience

The liquidationist aspect of the ACI project is quite evidently born of frustration and disenchantment with the utterly parlous state of the far left and the enormity of the challenges thrown our way. Communist Students has not exactly been unaffected by the low level of the movement at the moment, and is experiencing several difficulties in simply continuing as an organisation aimed at promoting the ideas of Marxism amongst the student population. Just recently, comrade Strafford sought to tackle this problem by proposing that CS^[4] be ‘expanded’ in order to include university staff, cleaners, clerical workers, etc. His proposal was soundly defeated within the CPGB and he even claimed to have changed his mind after the discussion.

It strikes us that his enthusiasm for the ACI project is once again borne of frustration, as well as a certain rapprochement with the political ideas and views of the WP youth split. We share his frustration, and quite clearly we need to put a lot more time and effort into Communist Students as a project. But we should do so on the political basis on which CS was established – including in any future unity talks with Revo or whoever else. As we put it in a polemical exchange with the comrades from Revolution back in 2009, we will argue “as we have consistently done, for the unity of the left around the acceptance (not agreement with every dot and comma, as in the Workers Power … tradition) of a Marxist programme – a crucial distinction in the history of the Marxist programme.”^[5]

This fight will be a tough one, and is not likely to win us many friends in the short term. Yet it is the only way that the left can genuinely get its act together, regroup and seriously think about reaching ‘the masses’ .

Notes

1 . The more desperate attempts to justify this liquidation of a formal adherence to Marxism came when the AWL unconvincingly passed off its practice in ENS as broadly analogous to that of Marx and Engels in the International Working Men’s Association, an organisation it deemed a “broad alliance between all sorts of anti-capitalist and at first not even anti-capitalist working-class currents”. “Only gradually”, the comrades claimed, did it move to “a more explicitly revolutionary socialist direction, and right to the end it was broad enough to accommodate all kinds of different tendencies other than Marxists”. There is a similar logic at play in the ACI, with several comrades making much out of a so-called “process” towards a higher form of revolutionary unity.

Back in 2008, CS comrades Dave Isaacson and Ben Klein were forthright in tackling this nonsense head on: “What ahistorical twaddle. Firstly, Marx and Engels (ie, the revolutionary socialist Marxists) did not set up that organisation. They were not in the driving seat when it was formed. They entered it and fought for communist politics. According to August Nimtz, “Marx had turned down apparently similar invitations” in the preceding years. What made this one different, and made it worth entering despite the awful politics of many who were involved, was that it contained real working class forces. As Marx wrote to Engels, “I knew on this occasion ‘people who really count’ were appearing, both from London and from Paris” (A Nimtz Marx and Engels: their contribution to the democratic breakthrough New York 2000, p179). See ‘Left unity not on offer’ Weekly Worker May 15 2008.

2 . http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=7354.

3 . Letters Weekly Worker May 3.

4 . See ‘Centralism and autonomy’ Weekly Worker May 8 2012.

5 . CS exec response to Revo proposal for student “coordination”: http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=2711.

First published here.

Simon Hardy and Chris Strafford

Ben Lewis’s criticism of the new Anti-Capitalist Initiative exposes not the weakness of our new project, but the problems of his own sect and its approach to politics (‘Ditch sects and fronts’, May 3).

Firstly, deriding the meeting as small is petty and misleading. The meeting was initially planned as a small get-together of people who were interested in the project. Indeed, it was an organising meeting and was never intended to be a ‘conference’. It was only after it captured some momentum on Facebook and over 100 people were down as ‘attending’, with a further thousand invited, that it became a de facto open event. Even then, not a single leaflet was given out for it – it was only advertised through Facebook – but we still got 80 people along. They were all activists, in one way or another involved in building the movement, who wanted to organise a new kind of left, people who wanted to get stuck in, not just talk.

And even though it was just an organising meeting, it was still bigger than anything the Campaign for a Marxist Party – the CPGB’s one-time ‘baby’ – was ever able to pull off, and was it as big as the initial meetings for the London Socialist Alliance back in the late 90s, an initiative which at the time the CPGB heralded as the “start of a real fightback”.

We believe, like the CPGB once did, that “what characterises the left throughout the country is a fatal lack of ambition, a timid paralysis in the face of the task of challenging Labour and bourgeois politics in general for the allegiance of our class. Organised on a militant platform of independent working class politics, the left has the possibility to start to exercise hegemony over far wider sections of society than simply itself.” Today that possibility could be realised with the Anti-Capitalist Initiative, yet the CPGB seem too bitter to take part and have absented themselves from this struggle.

Lewis goes on to bemoan that the meeting dared discuss the situation in the unions and how to organise a genuine rank-and-file initiative. No-one at the meeting claimed that “80 people are going to go off and build” such an initiative, but those involved in the conference can be part of the steps that are being taken to rebuild basic working class organisation. There is nothing “delusional” in wanting to link up existing forces fighting for this, such as Grass Roots Left or the rank-and-file committees in the building industry. This task is an immediate necessity for the working class and any revolutionary organisation of any worth or relevance would see it as a priority.

On the charge of liquidationism – let’s get real. It is true that some of us involved in the project have recently left small, narrowly defined propaganda groups to build something larger and more plural. No-one has renounced Marxist politics, but we are realistic that we cannot simply slap down a Marxist programme and rally thousands to our banner. We need to convince and be prepared to be convinced over political questions, and recognise we do not have all the answers, although we have some ideas and principles on how to proceed.

Of course, Lewis is right that liquidationism can be the reverse side of the coin to sectarianism, but he does not realise that in his accusation of us as liquidators he is simply revealing himself to be a sectarian of the highest order. The ex-Workers Power members did not want to form a new Marxist-Leninist-Trotskyist micro-grouping with their own website and regular publication. That would have been sect-building. Instead they are trying a different approach. However, the Weekly Worker has accused the ex-WP grouping of both building a sect and liquidating themselves, all within the space of a week. Our heads are spinning – we can barely keep up with the polemic!

What we defend in this new initiative is that we are launching a process of discussion, debate and united action, with the aim of launching a revolutionary organisation in the future – one which is more united and brings in wider forces of the left. Have we achieved that now? No, which is why we are taking it slowly and carefully, despite the demands of various sects that we must adopt a programme and policies and all sorts of slogans straightaway. Our answer to all the sprinters is that this is a marathon: you are welcome to come with us on this journey, but you will have to slow down your pace a little. Be more cautious and pragmatic about which political battles you pick and how you fight them.

It is a curious situation that the CPGB can find a problem with an attempt to engage the widest range of those on the left in serious discussion. Yet in almost every issue of your paper, stitched-up conferences that end up with Labourite platforms are condemned. Arguing for an open process of unity and then dismissing such a process is hypocrisy and demonstrates a lack of seriousness in approach. Amongst the British left, there is a common approach that each and every group believes and thinks it has all of the answers. In their isolation, they comfort themselves with the idea that the objective situation is awful, or the other groups are the problem, but ultimately what most left groups have in common is the belief that they are fighting for unity, but having to wait for everyone else to agree with their particular method and programme. We believe that this is a failed, self-replicating dead end and that, as communists, we need engage in a wide-ranging rethink to clarify what a revolutionary programme looks like today. That takes time, not one afternoon in London.

But for all of Lewis’s bluff and bluster, the CPGB did not submit a single resolution to the conference, let alone their much fabled Marxist programme. He urged us to adopt a Marxist programme “right away”, calling for workers’ control of production and internationalism. Yes, Lewis says the meeting was disappointingly small, implying it had no basis to really do anything. Do we really want another small left meeting declaring a revolutionary programme and party? Isn’t this what we should try and get away from? Aren’t we sick of the latest sect declaring itself, bells and all, with a new international programme without first going through the essential task of discussing and debating out what should be done with activists from across the unions and social movements? The CPGB is fond of Marxists working within the NPA in France – but that party took nine months of pre-founding meetings and discussions over policies to decide on an initial programme before it was launched. How come our French cousins have almost a year to organise their party but we have less than an afternoon before we are written off as liquidators? This is not a serious criticism.

In his previous article about the split in Workers Power, we find a similarly unserious piece of advice for us. Lewis’s suggestion to the ex-Workers Power members was that they should have stayed in our group and carried on a protracted faction fight and broken discipline in public. If they had followed his advice, it would have resulted in a demoralising year of internal struggle, as well as bitter acrimony from their former comrades, for flouting the group’s rules on public debate.

What appalling advice! If you disagree with a group’s method or line, then you have to follow the organisational principles your group lives by to try and change them; if you disagree with them fundamentally and there is no hope of reform, then you leave. Advocating breaking party rules just because you don’t agree with them strikes the ex-WP members as unprincipled. Furthermore, we are not talking about large organisations, let alone a mass party. It can sometimes be the case that the fight for unity can be better served by having the debate openly, not just within the confines of narrow Trotskyist grouping.

Finally, by cutting through the tone and ferocity of the CPGB’s criticism, we arrive at a stark truth. The CPGB is going nowhere fast, its various attempts to unite the left on their version of Marxism have failed and now they have collapsed into the Labour Representation Committee. It is not us that is moving right, comrades: it is you. We have supporters in the new initiative who are active in the anti-cuts movement and playing an important role in student struggles. We do not want to build a sterile sect fixated on reliving the glory days of Kautsky and Plekhanov. We are looking to the future and want to build a revolutionary organisation that is suited to the conditions and tasks we face today.

Those of you who want to come with us are more than welcome; to the rest, we wish you luck in the Labour Party. You are going to need it.

Defying state bans on Mayday

Besieged workers in Iran urgently needs our solidarity, reports Chris Strafford

Repression, economic crisis, mass unemployment, withdrawal of subsidies and the imminent threat of US led bombings have led to a great immiseration for the working class within Iran. The growth of poverty within Iran is stark, last month the cost of vegetables rose 92%, rice 29% and cooking oil 30%. In just a year commodities have rise by around 50%, the rial has fallen by around 40% and around 23% of families have nobody in work. The monthly minimum wage for working class families is now 389,754 tomans, roughly £212 which is far below the poverty line and way behind inflations. These pressures along with state repression and the threat of war is a disaster for the working class and its struggle against the theocratic regime. Despite this workers are fighting back last month over 600 workers from the Sanayeh Felezi plants protested against the non payment of wages with a picket of the Presidents office.

In spite of these pressures workers organisations and associations attempted to hold rallies and gatherings across Iran on the 1st May, International Workers’ Day. Official applications were rejected even though the application came from the legal House of Workers. Despite this workers held gatherings in several cities including Tehran where high food prices and low wages dominated placards and discussions. Outside the Shahab Khodro car plant workers demonstrated with placards saying “we are hungry”. In Sanandaj workers gathered and march carrying banners calling for “Bread! Housing! Freedom!” and the release of imprisoned trade unionists. Security forces moved in and attacked the demonstration arresting and beating some participants.

Many political prisoners remain in prison, including leading trade unionists such as Reza Shahabi, Ali Nejati,Shahrokh Zamani, Mohammad Jarrahi, Sassan Vahebivash, Behnam Ebrahimzadeh, Rassoul Bodaghi, Mohammad Hosseini, Mehdi Farahi Shandiz, Farzad Ahmadi,Mehrdad Amir-Vaziri, Pedram Nasrollahi and Ali Akhavan.

Communist Students has consistently supported the struggles of the masses against the theocratic regime and imperialist sanctions and war threats. We continue to call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and the end of bans on working class organisations.

Check out Hands Off the People Of Iran, to which CS is affiliated.

It's happening agaaaaain

Last Saturday’s launch of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative provided further evidence of an increasingly fractured, rightward-drifting left. Ben Lewis reports

As I reported in last week’s Weekly Worker, bound up with the recent decamping of 15 younger comrades from Workers Power (British Section of the League for a Fifth International) is another far-left unity drive under the title of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative. I was at its founding national conference on April 28, and was thus able to get more of an insight into the dynamics. All three recent splinters are heavily involved: Workers Power itself, Permanent Revolution and the former WP youth.^[1]

Not that the split was openly, honestly debated and accounted for from the conference floor. I think I was the only speaker to mention it at all. Most of what I was able to discover about what is actually going on came from where the politics really happens – in the café before the meeting, and in the pub following it. This is, after all, British Trotskyism, and Saturday was about talking to the ‘broader’ masses: ie, the 40 or 50 people who are not involved with Workers Power and its splits (those present from WP/ex-WP backgrounds must have numbered around 25-30).

Indeed, almost all of the ‘local anti-capitalist groups’ represented at the meeting came from areas where WP and its splinters have traditionally been organised – south London, Sussex, Manchester and Leeds. In spite of the ‘official optimism’ witnessed in several reports^[2] of the weekend, the low numbers, the low level of politics and the inability to reach out to wider forces must have been a cause for some disappointment.

Behind the scenes

More of that later. My first impressions of what was in store came when I arrived at the University of London Union early to grab a coffee and catch up with some reading. I came across the two people who had made it down from Manchester – former WP leading member John Bowman and ex-CPGB comrade Chris Strafford. We were soon joined by other members of the recent split, such as Simon Hardy and Luke Cooper, as well as Stuart King of the Permanent Revolution group.

It slowly became evident that I had inadvertently walked into some kind of organisational meeting for the day. Who was going to run registration? Who was going to chair? Etc. Indeed, in between some exchanges around my article on the WP split in the Weekly Worker, I was also asked whether I would run the registration desk (I politely declined, but comrade Chris Strafford was more than willing to carry out such a task).

I then heard something in conversation which made my ears prick up. A comrade was having a jest with Simon Hardy for not placing any demands on Permanent Revolution in relation to “a new journal”, when he quite clearly should have asked for “less on Kronstadt, and less on political economy”. I enquired as to the status of this journal, and was told it would be “announced when it is announced”. It would appear that there has been some behind-the-scenes rapprochement between PR and the WP youth. This seems to have taken place two weeks ago, when leading WP youth were seen at the ‘PR publications’ aggregate.

I later found out, again in private conversation, that this journal was going to be for “the Marxists in the Anti-Capitalist Initiative”. Only those in Permanent Revolution and the recent young split seem to be in the loop for now.

Anyway, this little organisation meeting did allow me to also get an impression of what those pulling the strings in this project understand by it. For Stuart King, whose joint resolution with Luke Cooper was later passed, the Marxists should seek to be “as minoritarian as possible” within a new formation, reaching out to “broader” forces in the Occupy movement, anarchists, autonomists, etc. Stuart took issue with my argument that the failures of the left in the last 10 years or so should be located at the level of programme and faux-attempts at unity around things like the sub-reformist, nationalist hodge-podge that was People before profit. For Stuart, however, the latter was a “good, leftwing programme” for unity.

Just before the conference, I also spoke to Richard Brenner (WP majority) , who was very friendly and forthcoming. He explained what he meant by his proposals for an anti-capitalist initiative, arguing that the ‘non-affiliated’ unions could play a role in what he saw as a kind of ‘transitional party’ on the way to the revolutionary party we need. I asked whether, as a result, he would, for example, support Unison disaffiliation from Labour, which he affirmed. When I pointed out that such a move would be likely to lead to an apolitical dead end, comrade Brenner said that I did not understand Trotsky’s workers’ party tactic of the 1930s. That we are not in America, or the 1930s, did not seem directly relevant to him.

I then made my way up to meeting room 3B, more aware of what was going on behind the scenes than many of the other comrades attending, who would be told nothing of the plans of those pulling the strings. (Indeed, Richard Brenner was also surprised to hear of the plans for a publication!)

It was quite clear, however, that both sides of the WP split were seeking to set their agenda ‘to the right’ of the Marxist politics they purportedly uphold.

Déjà-vu

In introducing the meeting, Simon Hardy talked about how the initiative had been launched last December,^[3] following a sense of “disappointment” with a situation where there are three different national anti-cuts campaigns and there has been such a weak level of resistance to austerity. While, behind the scenes at least, his plans were quite clear, he stated that “nothing was off the table” in terms of a future organisation. He wanted it to be “an open forum where people can come with their ideas”. Nick Jones of the National Union of Teachers then spoke about the mood for a fightback in the NUT, something that was being held back by the leadership and the union ‘broad left’. This necessitated a rank-and-file movement in the unions.

Quite right, and this discussion dominated the first session. Many bemoaned the fact that little was done about actually building a rank-and-file movement, despite the left constantly talking about a much needed initiative. But what politics was this movement to have? I made the point that the political basis of such a movement would have to offer a consistent, viable and inspiring alternative to the nationalist, state-loyal and anti-democratic outlook of the trade union bureaucracy, including many of the ‘broad lefts’ or ‘left bureaucrats’.

Moreover, the notion that 80 people are going to go off and build a rank-and-file movement in the unions is either cynical posturing or naive self-delusion. Rebuilding the class as a whole, not just in the unions, presupposes a partyist project that is different from, and counterposed to, Labourism. Matt Cooper from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty made the point that a rank-and-file movement is not something that is announced or built overnight: it takes long and patient work.

Little by way of programme was discussed, with most comrades content to speak about the “key points we agree on” (Andy, Leeds Workers Power), especially since “nobody on the left” was attempting rank-and-file work at the moment. The basis for this rather odd assertion was that the Socialist Workers Party’s Unite the Resistance front had cancelled its proposed conference. But is establishing another, significantly smaller, front really the answer? Comrade Barbara Dorn from the International Bolshevik Tendency did suggest that the problem was one of “programme”: ie, that we were divided on the key question of reform or revolution. Therefore, it would be better to join in common actions wherever possible and discuss such cardinal questions as honestly as possible. That is certainly preferable to setting up yet another front group.

All three strands of current/former WP cadre mainly focussed their fire on the need for grassroots organisation and rank-and-file structures in the unions, which often involved reporting on the state of basic union organisation and structure. This was not entirely without merit, but it also exposed the ‘activist/spontaneist’ limitations of the comrades. One of the WP youth splinter talked about pushing for a national demo on the national health service through an organisation similar to the Stop the War Coalition, but geared towards the NHS. He cited the “days of action” that “drew the mass” behind the student movement of 2010-11, which is hardly thinking big.

To the extent that the party question emerged at all, it mainly came from the ranks of those who saw such a formation as the last thing that was needed, given they had already spent years of their life ‘building the party’. Doubtless sincere, these comrades were obviously burnt by their experiences, and thus were content to concentrate on building ‘the movement’. This sentiment was hardly challenged by the Marxists in the room.

Resolutions

The politics of the new initiative was discussed in the second session. Comrade Brenner introduced a motion from Workers Power, which broadly sketched out a “process to develop a political programme” based on the template I critiqued in my last article: ie, “opposition to austerity, privatisation, racism, sexism, imperialist war”. Comrade Brenner said that his proposals did not mean “waiting for the unions”, but taking steps forward now (this did not mean that the programmatic proposals were not aimed at luring ‘left’ unions, of course).

However, his proposals did actually have the merit of putting forward actual politics aimed at some kind of party project – Luke Cooper had defended a ‘broad network’ by pointing out that there was not agreement on the party question at this point. While he did not do so explicitly, Stuart King defended this kind of anti-party liquidationism with clarity: “Let’s not rush it,” he implored. “If we say we are for a party then UK Uncut and the anarchists will run a mile.” Toby Abse said that the forces for revolutionary regroupment were “too small” at this time. Better, he thought, to set up a broad party able to fight back by defending the NHS, etc. Things got even worse when Bill Jeffries of PR spoke. Echoing the infamous words of John Rees at the founding conference of Respect, he said: “We are building a network from the base up.” Therefore, it was not the people at this meeting who would decide our policy, but those not currently in the room – “the ones who are out there joining” the movement.

I wonder, then, just what Bill thinks the role of Marxist politicians actually is. Why bother with programmatic debates, and studying the works of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky et al? Speaking against WP’s motion, Simon Hardy said something that perhaps let slip the limited nature of the project’s aim. For him, WP’s (halfway house) proposals should be seen more as “the end of the process than the beginning”. Agitating for what she called “libertarian communism”, one comrade quite rightly made the point that this whole thing smacked of the far left once again toning down its politics in the name of a quick fix.

The first resolution from PR and the ex-WP youth was almost entirely lacking in programmatic content. It was important to search out “avenues for unity and cooperation that present radical and socialist ideas in a way that is more appealing to new layers of activists”; and to promote “activity and struggle that aims to overcome division and sectarianism and points the way to a new type of society without exploitation and oppression” (in line with the spontaneism of WP, this emphasis on ‘action’ as the main way of overcoming left divisions and sectarianism was a common one).

Given the choice between an open, unashamed halfway house party (Workers Power, motion 2) and one that left this aim unstated (motion 1), I argued that both should be opposed – it is utterly pointless setting up a network on such a basis, and much better to continue to seek further political and strategic discussions. As it was, the first part of motion 1 passed by 35 votes to 13 with 11 abstentions. The second part, establishing a steering committee etc, passed with just two votes against and a handful of abstentions. Motion 2 was fairly soundly defeated (I do not have the exact figures), so the ACI is not officially aiming for any kind of party. A third motion, aimed at establishing a campaign to defend the NHS, was unsurprisingly passed with just one recently expelled WP activist dissenting.

For all the talk of a ‘new’ initiative, on Saturday, the speeches, atmosphere and nature of the discussions reminded me of the many student ‘unity’ conferences I have attended over the years. The difference being that initiatives like Education Not for Sale, Education Activist Network, Student Respect, etc actually mobilised more numbers to their events, despite the fact that they were limited to students.

Those like Chris Strafford who walked out of the CPGB in order to pursue the “positive step” of the ACI, but who remain members of Communist Students, might do well to look back at the CS critique of these ‘broad front’, ‘anti-capitalist’ student organisations such as ENS. They apply in equal measure to the ACI. What Dave Isaacson and Ben Klein wrote after an ENS conference in 2007 could apply to 2012: “The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty is setting up this organisation – it supplies the bulk of the organised activists and has political control of ENS. Instead of looking to establishing something guided and informed by the politics of Marxism, the AWL comrades are, in the name of unity with largely imaginary forces, consciously limiting their politics.”^[4]

Comrade Strafford, unwilling to take up the argument for the ACI in the CPGB, is now concentrating his fire on getting Communist Students involved. Aware that he cannot now plausibly argue that the problems of the left in the past 20 years have stemmed from illusions in broad frontism and the conscious limiting of the Marxist programme, his recent article on the CS website offers us a new explanation: “The last two decades are littered with the corpses of failed left unity projects. One of the key errors of these attempts was the focus on or collapse into electoralism. Instead of building organisations that were in tune with the rhythm of working class struggle, the left built entities that hibernated between elections. The left must dump this approach and see elections as an occasional opportunity to spread its programme or progress a particular struggle”.^[5]

This is highly confused. It is true that the Socialist Alliance in particular “hibernated between elections” and that it was guilty of “electoralism” by opportunistically watering down its programme. But in this it is at one with the approach of the ACI. The idea is not even to “spread” a dishonest, extraordinarily limited and thoroughly incoherent programme. The idea is that action, almost in and of itself, provides the key to the future. A hopeless perspective.

Liquidation

So what about the recent split from WP? So far neither side has published the details of their disputes, but some kind of picture is starting to emerge. I agree with the WP majority (with reservations) when it describes the recent split as liquidationist: ie, that these comrades saw “the transitional organisation” (the ACI) as “an end in itself, a replacement for Workers Power in its present form and with its present politics”.^[6] The comrades of the split are clearly junking their old politics, but together with their former comrades are bent on setting something up which has nothing whatever to do with the Marxist world outlook, the Marxist programme and the Marxist method of party building: in other words all three current and former WP factions are committed to the politics of liquidationism.

It is delectably ironic that these debates are occurring around the time of the 100-year anniversary of the 1912 Prague conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The controversy surrounding liquidationism and partyism at that conference has big ramifications for today. If the newly decamped WP comrades are claiming to draw on some of the latest scholarship on Lenin and the Bolsheviks, then they are definitely drawing the wrong conclusions. Certainly not the kind of Marxist-partyist conclusions we in the CPGB draw. Rather disingenuously, a WP statement attributes the liquidationism of their former comrades to “the quasi-libertarian critiques of Leninism and Trotskyism presently fashionable on the English-speaking left: Pham Binh, Louis Proyect and the Weekly Worker”.^[7] But this paper has polemicised against the movementist and, yes, liquidationist conclusions drawn by Pham Binh.

Of course, what the young WP comrades are liquidating is not Marxism, but the sect outlook they have acquired in Workers Power. This constant flipping between sectarianism and liquidationism/opportunism has, unfortunately, been characteristic of the far left for far too long. On the one hand, Marxism for them means the ideological agreement of the tightly-knit sect around things like the first four congresses of Comintern or the nature of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the comrades constantly limit their ‘practical’ political outlook so as to ‘get an audience’, ‘catch the wind’ or provide a space to seek allies to their right. This, not “electoralism” per se, is the “key failure” of the left to make any serious moves in the direction of a united Communist Party.

Understanding the sectarian side of the coin is important, because it directly feeds into liquidationism. The former WP comrades are reacting negatively, apolitically, to the culture of their former organisation. WP states: “The public discussion of internal disputes is not a general principle of communist organisation. It is, of course, unavoidable in a mass party, whose internal life will be reported in its mass press. There is no abstract ‘right’, however, for an individual party member, or for minorities, to criticise the party in public.”^[8]

In conversation with me, comrade King accused the CPGB of operating on a similar sect basis to WP and the IBT: ie, that the CPGB is only prepared to unite with you “when you agree to our programme”.^[9] But again this is nonsense. What we say is that unless we openly commit to building a party committed to the programmatic fundamentals of Marxism, with space and room to debate tactical and indeed strategic disagreements, then we will not get anywhere at all. What do we learn from 1912? That at all times, whatever the level of the class struggle, the task of Marxists is to unite all those committed to a Marxist political party.

For us, theory and programme are not afterthoughts, or things that are abandoned for further ‘down the line’ as part of some non-defined ‘process’. Social democracy is not a signpost to Marxism.

Comrade Brenner and other speakers on Saturday quite correctly highlighted the anti-capitalist sentiment that exists in society. There is a real mood for change. But the task of Marxists is to finally break with both sides of the sect dichotomy. That requires a political fight amongst the advanced sections of the class, not walking away from big disputes like the younger comrades from WP in the name of ‘getting out there’, frustrated at the failures of the left. So now we have yet another ‘broad front’ initiative (with a behind-the-scenes regroupment project in the background), which now seems to have spilled over into the ranks of Communist Students.

If we are to live up to the great historical responsibilities thrown the way of revolutionaries, then we must foreground the creation of a political alternative that can rebuild the class, instead of merely posturing in that direction.

ben.lewis@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. There is a fourth splinter around those who were expelled at the last conference of Workers Power for breaking discipline over Libya. These comrades appear to be working closely with Gerry Downing’s Socialist Fight group.

2. ‘Building a new left: a great start’ (http://southlondonanticapitalists.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/building-a-new-left-a-great-start) includes this quote from ‘Tom’, which shows the direction in which the project is headed: “I’ve long been active in social movements and interested in Marxist ideas, but the idea of joining a top-down left party never appealed. I’m excited about this new initiative because it offers a space to discuss a range of anti-capitalist perspectives and organise action as equals.” Stuart King’s report, ‘A hopeful start’, can be read at www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/3400.

3. In reality the ‘anti-capitalist party’ tactic of Workers Power has a much longer history. See Peter Manson’s report of the (united) Workers Power advocacy of halfway-housism: ‘Rival CNWP launched’ Weekly Worker November 19 2009.

4. ‘Left unity not on offer’ Weekly Worker, May 15 2008.

5. http://communiststudents.org.uk/?p=7354. Bizarrely, given what actually happened on Saturday, his article is entitled ‘Revolutionary unity and building the fightback’.

6. ‘Statement on resignations from the British section of the League’.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Such an approach is not exclusive to the IBT. It is also that of Workers Power. In its statement WP writes, without any sense of irony or humility: “We do not present our programme as an ultimatum, in a ‘take it or leave it’, ‘all or nothing’ way. We are clear, however, that without it the new organisation would not be a fully revolutionary organisation; it would be some sort of intermediate centrist organisation.” This is all the more absurd, as it is essentially arguing that it is somehow incumbent upon Marxists to establish centrist parties!

Fighting back

The left must begin a process of rebuilding the movement and discussing how to create a revolutionary alternative, argues Chris Strafford

The economic crisis and the austerity agenda has thrown the working class into largely defensive actions. The trade union leadership has crucially undermined any serious fightback and is offering only token resistance. We have a Labour Party that refuses to even consider an economic alternative to austerity whilst it abolishes the remnants of democratic participation. The revolutionary left is fractured, politically disorientated and crippled by opportunism. Petty sect regimes reign over most of the left based on a stalinised version of Bolshevism. In short the left isn’t fit for purpose.

The response to the crisis by thousands of workers and youth across the world has been to fight back with movements from below. Movements like Los Indignados in Spain and Occupy and the student movement in Britain have, along with the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, lit the fuse of mass action against capital. Movements of resistance and change are hitting back against capital’s dictatorship on a variety of fronts, such as the student strike in Quebec, working class action in Greece and the uprising against Assad’s gangster regime.

The fight in Britain has been aided by the actions of the students against the introduction of fees and the abolition of EMA. The students were the first to give us mass resistance against the new attacks. The victory of the electricians through direct action and rank-and-file organisation has reminded the working class movement that it does not have to wait for the trade union leadership to fight back. The anti-cuts movement has seen thousands of local groups and campaigns spring up across the country. These groups have acted as the conduit for communities to highlight and resist devastating cuts to essential services and the support for the most vulnerable. Building these groups, connecting them with other struggles and fighting for an approach that goes beyond Keynesianism is essential. A positive step that could be achieved almost instantly is the formation of a single united anti-cuts federation. Instead of the competing projects of Coalition of Resistance, Unite the Resistance and the National Shop Steward Network, we need a single national body that is run democratically. Such a step would give our movement the credibility and organisational muscle needed to see off some of the attacks and strengthen working class opposition.

Steps towards unity are self-evidently a material necessity for the revolutionary left. The last two decades are littered with the corpses of failed left unity projects. One of the key errors of these attempts was the focus on or collapse into electoralism. Instead of building organisations that were in tune with the rhythm of working class struggle, the left built entities that hibernated between elections. The left must dump this approach and see elections as an occasional opportunity to spread its programme or progress a particular struggle.

One promising development over the last few months has been the creation of anti-capitalist groups in a number of cities connected to a national call for a new anti-capitalist initiative in Britain. This call came from Workers Power and has the support of Permanent Revolution, the Committee for Marxist Renewal and anti-cuts activists looking for political solutions not provided for in the broad anti-cuts movement. In Manchester, Communist Students has been actively supporting the initiative and has found a healthy space for discussion and action.

The task of communists in this period is to build a thinking and active revolutionary movement that can begin the process of reconstituting the left: a left that can become an emancipatory tool for the working class. We must begin to build trust through common work in fighting the cuts, the drive to war, attacks on our environment, the fascist threat and much more. Communists have a duty to be side by side with workers and youth in the heat of battle but also to be there carrying out the less exciting working of slowly and patiently building local and national centres of working class resistance. On a higher level there has to be a re-evaluation of the theoretical underpinnings that the left is built on. There has to be open forums to clarify where we have gone wrong, and what kind of left do we want and need?

The coming together of some small revolutionary groups, trade union activists and those brought into struggle through Occupy or the student movement has to be welcomed. There are no short-cuts to the revolutionary party and communists can’t simply opt out of building the movement. The hard work to create a revolutionary alternative has to be carried out within the movement and amongst the left.

Think big

Politics is becoming polarised in austerity Europe. We must empower the working class with a revolutionary perspective, says Callum Williamson

The results from the first round of voting in the French presidential elections were another indication of a growing rage against the liberal-capitalist political establishment, a rage which the populist right has been the most successful at galvanising. Marine Le Pen’s Front National is now going to be a key player in French politics (both in the run-up to the second round of voting and in the period of political and economic upheaval to come).

Whilst the campaign of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Front de Gauche was successful in creating widespread enthusiasm, pushing Hollande’s rhetoric to the left and drawing in thousands, the inescapable fact is that ultimately the far right won the battle for the hearts and minds of the young and disenfranchised. Polls before the election demonstrated how FN is the most popular party amongst the French youth and it is clear that in recent years they have established a solid base amongst young working class people. For a youth who have had their dignity robbed by mass unemployment, Le Pen’s nationalist rhetoric offers a sense of pride and belonging (one based on vicious exclusionary nationalism).

Equally Le Pen’s noises on the economy – at a time of crisis throughout Europe that has cast doubt amongst the masses as to the merits of globalisation – have made it easy for her to tap into this discontent. The success of Le Pen (and to an extent Hollande and Mélenchon) is largely due to the rejection of neoliberalism and the tyranny of ‘finance’.

Bourgeois analysts have already started arguing that the election result demonstrates the similarities between far right and far left: Dominic Lawson argued in The Independent, for example, that these ‘protectionist’ ‘totalitarianisms’ should be counterposed to liberal democracy and economic ‘freedom’, which, of course, has resulted in a perfect and wholly self-regulating socio-economic system. This argument from liberals is to be expected: capitalism and its accompanying liberal politics go into crisis; the class struggle intensifies; and resistance to capital takes different, ‘illiberal’ forms which hegemonic forces within society must absorb or defeat. The anger that fuels the radical left also has the potential to fuel the populist right, and unfortunately this is what has occurred in Europe since the financial crisis hit in 2008.

The rise of the English Defence League; the 500,000 votes for the British National Party in the last general election; and the UK Independence Party’s current performance in the opinion polls – all indicate a similar rise of right-populist sentiment in the UK. Large sections of the capitalist media have played their part in fuelling this (whipping up anti-intellectualist feeling in response to the resistance of students and lecturers to the government’s education reforms; framing the August riots as down to ethno-cultural problems; attacking public sector unions for not accepting austerity for the good of the nation; treating the Muslim community with suspicion, etc). It is likely that if this trend continues there will be an attempt by the capitalist class to usurp leadership of the populist movement in order to maintain social relations within society as they are in the politically turbulent years to come. What this means is the inevitable betrayal of the class by the right, as the populists become the willing servants of capital, and so the popularity of the right must falter sooner or later.

If the left internationally is going to combat the rise of the right it must do so by addressing the systemic causes of the crisis we are currently facing. Capitalism itself is falling to pieces – no government intervention, cliques of bankers or low-paid migrant worker have caused the crisis. We must rearticulate problems perceived as ethnic and cultural, in terms of class and the functioning of global capitalism in the 21st century. In doing so, we strive to unify all workers, students and unemployed people.

Communists must address the rise of rightwing populism and halt its further development by winning back the workers. This can be done if the left achieves meaningful unity around a programme for an alternative to crisis, war and poverty – intervening in the workers’ struggles, as the capitalists try and rob from our class the concessions gained after World War II, and challenging the ‘progressive’ credentials of the populists (Mélenchon did well in exposing how Le Pen’s plan to end state “refunds” for abortion will be a serious attack of women’s rights). Winning those frustrated with the status quo is possible for the left even in its current state, as George Galloway’s election in Bradford West demonstrated. However, there is a world to win and establishing unity on the left is going to be a vital precondition.

Why go, when you can stay a while?

The left must organise on the basis of genuine democratic centralism, argues Ben Lewis

Readers might be aware that Workers Power, the organisation which heads the League for a Fifth International (LFI), has recently suffered yet another split – its second haemorrhaging of cadre in the last six years. Around 15, predominantly younger comrades departed, reducing WP’s forces by about a third.

The 2006 split came as a bolt out of the blue, when a substantial number of the predominantly more experienced members were expelled, after a protracted period of internal argument, and then proceeded to form the Permanent Revolution grouping. While the latest parting of the ways also results from the usual tale of comrades being prevented from openly expressing tactical and strategic differences, it has been subject to dynamics that have led to some strange results. For example, the combined forces of Workers Power, the recent split and the Permanent Revolution group are – irony of ironies – the current main players in another far-left unity drive, the Anti-Capitalist Initiative. The ACI has some meetings in places where WP and PR have cadre, like Manchester and London.

It is worth looking at the split in closer detail to establish what it means for the current state of the left.

No public dissent

In this instance, the dispute played out around the question of ‘party’ building, democracy and the lessons of Bolshevism. On the one hand, the ‘old guard’ of Workers Power, led by Richard Brenner and David Stockton, defended the typical conception of the Trotskyist ‘propaganda group’, according to which, in order not to inhibit effective intervention in the class struggle, there must be no public dissent from, or expressions of disagreement with, the majority ‘line’ worked out behind closed doors.

The dissenters initially formed a majority of the WP political committee. Thus, when it came to publishing articles written by dissenting comrades, the bureaucratic centralist ‘discipline’ of the LFI ‘international committee’ was invoked in order to doctor articles and make official statements fit the ‘line’ of what was, after all, the British leadership minority.

Not only is the whole idea of treating political ideas in such a way absurd, but when this is excused by falling back on some vacuous references to an ‘international’ that is to all intents and purposes run and staffed from London, tragedy becomes farce.

In some ways, the recent misfortunes of Workers Power and its dwindling numbers reflect the very difficult history that the far left has experienced. However, given the challenges ahead, we need to break from the irresponsible propensity to split and split again – seemingly located in the very DNA of ‘fighting propaganda groups’ like WP.

Those in WP questioning the ‘keep polemics private’ dogma emerged gradually, and found support amongst the group’s younger members. Some of them are very inexperienced, having joined during the student demonstrations of the last few years. But others have been around for a lot longer, and were leading cadre (eg, Simon Hardy and John Bowman). These comrades presented a number of oppositional documents to the WP conference in London over the weekend of March 24-25, which called for a change in direction, and sought to correct the erroneous WP conception of democratic centralism (in reality bureaucratic centralism). This change, so they argued, would allow the group to positively intervene in the ‘new anti-capitalist project’ established by the (then united) WP, rather than seeing it as a ‘bigger wheel’ to simply be manipulated by the ‘small cog’ of an artificially homogeneous WP.

As it was, the majority on the PC did not translate into a majority of the membership as a whole, and their perspectives were soundly defeated. However, some of the minority members did get re-elected onto the leadership. But after their proposals were defeated at the LFI international council in Berlin on April 8, they resigned from the organisation and were followed by a number of supporters (mainly from Britain, but also from Austria and the Czech Republic). Apparently there were no hard feelings, and comrades who had gone separate ways were able to go for a drink together afterwards.

Open struggle

No harm in being civil, of course. Yet the minority comrades must surely be criticised for simply ‘walking’, rather than staying and fighting. Of course, the bastardised version of Bolshevism that informs the practice of those like Workers Power, Counterfire, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party in England and Wales, etc means that dissenters have no option but to keep their heads down and pretend to the outside world that they are in total agreement. But the comrades should have defied this gagging-order, openly rebelling against such a farcical conception of working class democracy. They could, and should, have published and spoken out openly, all the while maintaining their commitment to the transformation of their organisation.

This might have inevitably resulted in expulsion. So be it. Bureaucratic methods need to be exposed for what they are. Moreover, an open fight would then have brought the whole controversy into the light of day, allowing militant workers to follow and learn from the disputes. As it is, the only public expression of their opposition thus far is a short statement signed by the former Workers Power editor, Simon Hardy.

The fact that this has not happened is more than a shame, because the minority comrades have actually spent some time reading, writing and criticising some aspects of the past. I have been able to access some of the documents they have worked on, and it is encouraging to find that they are engaging with the better historical scholarship on Lenin, including that produced by Lars T Lih. They are attempting to show, as this paper has been for years, that the public airing of differences was a healthy, normal characteristic of Bolshevism from its inception.

It is here that the new split contrasts favourably with that of Permanent Revolution in 2006. While making some nods towards interrogating Bolshevik history, the PR group has, debates about Kronstadt notwithstanding, actually done very little in this regard. It has firmly established itself as simply another Trot group, albeit with particular quirks about ongoing upswing of the world economy and the long wave, etc.

In contrast, the former WP minority seems more willing to think. As they have argued in one of the documents they presented to the March conference, WP should be willing to show that it is a “vibrant and critically minded organisation rethinking the ‘big questions’ … prepared to listen, to learn and to be open to new ideas, as well as to teach others what we ourselves already know. In the best spirit of the revolutionary tradition our debates should be open and fraternal.”

For the time being, the recently decamped WP comrades do not seem to be interested in forming a separate organisation. They seem to be throwing their entire weight into the project of the ACI. As I will briefly discuss below, however, the political approach and the method informing the ACI appear to be seriously flawed, and there is a real risk that they will simply dissolve into it, and the ‘movement’ more generally, without taking the time to crystallise the lessons of their experience in WP and move forward positively in a partyist way.^[1]

‘Anti-capitalism’

So where are the minority WP comrades going? There are certainly some healthy signs of a rethink. Yet there is also the danger that they will simply break with Trotskyism’s conception of Bolshevism without fundamentally challenging the false dichotomy it draws between the tightly-knit propaganda group (sect) on the one hand, and the ‘mass’, ‘broad front’ on the other. As Simon Hardy puts it in his statement, “We came to the conclusion that a method of organising exclusively focused on building specifically Leninist-Trotskyist groups prevents the socialist left from creating the kind of broad anti-capitalist organisations which can present a credible alternative to the mainstream parties”.^[2]

Given its jaundiced understanding of both Bolshevism and mass, revolutionary social democracy, the WP school of Trotskyism tends to view everything ‘mass’ or ‘broad’ as non-Marxist. A good example is the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, which the WP younger comrades helped to establish on an explicitly non-revolutionary basis. The NCAFC has rapidly become a safe haven for left-talking bureaucrats in the student movement and has not helped to propagate the fundamentals of Marxism amongst students one bit. It would be a real shame if, as a result of the bad experience of so-called ‘Bolshevism’ in Workers Power, the comrades junk sectarianism and go on to throw themselves into a liquidationist Anti-Capitalist Initiative.

Mike Macnair neatly sums up this problem, one which the far left as a whole faces: “The curious paradox about 1912 and 2012 is … that the large majority of today’s far left, while defending Stalinist organisational norms on the basis of variant forms of the myth of Bolshevik history created in 1920, defend the actual politics of the liquidators: the abandonment of any practical struggle for the fundamentals of Marxism in favour of the constitution of one or another sort of broad-front party. We have to get beyond both sides of this politics.”^[3]

For far too long much of the left has laboured under two main illusions. That the Labour Party has ceased to be a workers’ party in any sense, and that consequently the left can, and must, establish itself as the ‘Marxist wing’ of a broader, explicitly non-Marxist alternative.^[4]This alternative is often conceived as resting on the need to win the trade union bureaucracy to break with the Labour Party and fund instead a Labour Party mark two. But this is hopeless. Bitter experience shows that we cannot simply ‘outdo’ the Labour Party by luring the labour bureaucracy. We have to create an alternative to Labourism itself, based on radical democracy, internationalism and the idea that the working class majority must take over the running of society to initiate a new period in human history.

Some months ago, the CPGB wrote to (the still united) Workers Power to ask what its intentions were behind the ACI project. We did not get a response. Yet reading WP’s suggestions for this weekend’s conference, we see the same tired, tried-and-failed exhortations to establish a (politically undefined) ‘mass working class alternative’ to Labour. While some of the WP proposals floating around the internet have a slightly more radical edge to them than formations like the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition or Respect, ultimately the same political method is in operation.

In his official WP response to Simon Hardy’s ‘A simple proposal for a new anti-capitalist left’, comrade Richard Brenner is clear: “In Britain we are campaigning for a rank and file movement in the trade unions, for the unification of the anti-cuts campaigns, for a new mass working class party based on the unions and the left”.^[5] Both sides of the split seem to agree that the new formation must be “opposed to austerity, privatisation, racism, sexism, imperialist war …” Fine. But what are we actually for? What do we want to achieve? Should we limit ourselves to Britain? What about the question of Europe? What about the question of the state? What about the unions? The Labour Party? These are the kind of strategic questions that must come to the fore. For all the excitement and hype about the creation of a so-called ‘new’ left through the ACI, its outlook and modus operandi thus far appears to consist of distinctly old, recycled variants of previous far-left electoral campaigns.

We cannot avoid these strategic questions, nor can we simply rely on the ‘logic of struggle’ to clarify matters. Political unity springs from serious programmatic discussion, and in the first instance is built at the top, not ‘from below’.

We in the CPGB have always been amongst the most consistent champions of revolutionary political unity on the British left. We are willing to engage with all comrades addressing this question, no matter how confused or incoherent their current position. But we should be under no illusions: democratic unity around the acceptance, not (à la Brenner) complete agreement with every detail, of the revolutionary Marxist programme is the only way to lastingly and effectively regroup the left and the class more generally.

Anything short of that can only lead (no doubt after a brief flurry of excitement) to generalised disillusionment, as proved by the electoral disasters of the 1990s and 2000s, or for that matter by the decline of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste ‘model’ in France.

Notes

1. However, there is potentially a willingness to engage in discussion on Marxist unity. The Workers Power youth group, Revolution, has also recently written to Communist Students to look to establish “more formal discussions … about closer unity” (email, April 20). Hopefully, these talks can also be made public and initiate the kind of strategic debate on the ‘big questions’ that our side so urgently needs.

2. http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/a-simple-proposal-for-a-new-anticapitalist-left.

3. M Macnair, ‘Both Pham Binh and Paul Le Blanc are wrong’ Weekly Worker April 5.

4. This is true as much of the Socialist Alliance, Respect, Tusc et al as it is of the long list of failed ‘united fronts’ that have been established in student politics.

5. http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/a-simple-proposal-for-a-new-anticapitalist-left (Comment 4, emphasis added).

Free Shahabi!

Vahed bus drivers’ union executive member Reza Shahabi has been sentenced to 6 years in prison and a further five year ban from trade union activism. He has also been ordered to return around secen million Toman’s which had been raised in solidarity to help imprisoned trade union activists. This is after two and a half years in prison for being arrested on charges of  “propaganda activities against the regime” and another five years for “collusion to act against national security.” These are the typical charges activists face for standing up against oppression and fighting for the working class.

The regime is desperate to warn workers off taking up militant action in defense of their conditions. Sanctions, economic crisis and repression has saw living standards fall dramatically with close to a third of the population living in poverty. Millions are unemployed, especially the youth who along with women, national minorities and the working class have been at the forefront of struggle against the Islamic Republic.

Get that monkey off your back

I must begin by thanking Platypus for hosting this debate. It is a shame that Pham Binh cannot be present to put forward his views, but the debate he has initiated on Lenin and his legacy is, in my opinion, of great import to our movement today. We in the CPGB certainly want to see this debate widened, deepened and raised to a higher level. Personally speaking, I cannot lay any claim to expertise in Bolshevik or even Russian history more generally. My interests primarily revolve around Germany, not Russia. Much of what I am going to argue is based on the latest theoretical and historical insights of my good friend and collaborator, Lars T Lih.

I would like to preface my remarks with a quote that neatly sums up where we currently are in terms of the debate around the 1912 Prague conference, the 6th Conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party: “Prague party conference. Bolsheviks constitute themselves an independent Marxist party … The party strengthens itself by purging its ranks of opportunist elements – that is one of the maxims of the Bolshevik Party, which is a party of a new type fundamentally different from the social democratic parties of the Second International.”^[1]

Stalin and Zinoviev

Many on today’s far left share this view. Worryingly, however, the quote is from Joseph Stalin. Moreover, this is not the Stalin of 1912, when, like all other leading Bolsheviks, he vehemently denied that they were out to constitute themselves as a single party. No, it is Stalin from his Short course of 1938, a text in which he is quite patently rewriting and falsifying the history of the RSDLP for his own particular purposes. Of course, the reason Stalin has to reinvent party history is to justify his monolithic party regime: in 1912 the Bolsheviks created a party of one faction, ie, a party of no factions at all. Further, Stalin argues that creating such a single-faction party had always been Lenin’s plan since the RSDLP’s 2nd Congress in 1903. While on occasion the Bolsheviks had sought rapprochement and even unity with the Mensheviks and others, essentially this was a kind of trick, a concealment of the Bolsheviks’ true aims and a way of influencing (duping?) the supporters of such groups – or at least that was what this version drives us to conclude.

Lars Lih has also dug up an extremely revealing comment by Zinoviev a few years earlier. In 1933, looking back to 1912, Zinoviev wrote: “I don’t know why the records of the Prague conference have not yet been published. I think they’ve survived and, I’m pretty sure, in quite detailed form.”^[2] (These comments were not published at the time.)

The records of the Prague conference of 1912 did not emerge until 1982, when the academic historian, Carter Elwood, discussed them in an article entitled ‘The art of calling a party conference’. Looking back, we can obviously answer Zinoviev’s question: publishing the records would have completely undermined the Stalinist myth. And we all know what informed these attempts to reinvent Bolshevik history: three years later Zinoviev was murdered in cold blood.

Interestingly, according to Lars Lih, Elwood’s 1982 analysis, as well as that of his recent book, The non-geometric Lenin, overlap with the Stalinist falsification thesis. Perhaps this should be of little surprise. For Elwood, after all, there are two kinds of Lenin: the human being who liked hiking through the mountains and enjoying a glass of beer afterwards, and the geometric Lenin – that is to say, the cold, factional operator, calculator and political manipulator. Thus, as is often the case with Lenin studies, a cosy consensus emerges between bourgeois academic historians and the far left: what Lars Lih has deemed the ‘academic’ and activist’ interpretations of Lenin.

For academic historians, many of whom were nicely funded by the Hoover Institute for their troubles, this interpretation of events proves that Lenin was a liar and manipulator. For the left – particularly the Stalinists – it proves that Lenin was an unrivalled leader and skilled ‘stick-bender’, as Tony Cliff might have put it. I think that recent scholarship, not just from Lars, but from others locating Lenin’s views in the context of Second International Marxism, is helping us to move beyond such a cultish Lenin. But, as I shall argue, I also think that the left has not quite taken on board some of the new insights and understandings. This is also true of 1912, although it would seem that the ball has started to roll …

Why does this matter?

Some might think that agonising over the exact course of events at a conference that took place just over a century ago is of little relevance to the tasks of the left today. Fiddling while Rome, or Athens, burns. But Marxism is, or should be, deeply historical. Getting out of the mess the far left is currently in, or at least thinking about how to get out of that mess, requires a rigorous interpretation of our own history – warts and all.

It is undoubtedly the case that we still live in the gloomy shadow of what passed itself off as ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ in the 20th century. This is not only true of how the majority of people perceive our movement today, but also of our own ideas and alternatives. The 20th century saw an enormous defeat for the working class movement internationally, and this has manifested itself in a crisis of working class politics. We must confront this crisis openly, boldly and honestly – the only way we can seek to rearticulate the political project of Marxism as a viable alternative to capitalist decline.

Yet some of the material that is being uncovered in the course of the discussion on 1912 is revealing how in many ways those of us who call ourselves ‘Bolsheviks’, ‘Leninists’ and ‘Trotskyists’ do so on the basis of a cold war caricature, a Stalinoid misrepresentation of the organisation that was able to lead the masses to power in 1917. Given the subordinate position of the working class in society, and the general confusion that surrounds us as a result of our defeats and setbacks, perhaps this is no surprise.

Yet such a conception of ‘Bolshevism’ directly feeds into some of the real, concrete problems we face today, not least in the proliferation of competing sect regimes and outfits. Stalinists and Maoists, for example, can justify the existence of their monolithic organisations on the basis of Stalin’s arguments about 1903 and 1912. Similarly, many Trotskyist groups will deploy such arguments as a way of clamping down on public dissent and factionalising – witness, for example, how comrades on the left usually refer to internal discussion and debate. Apparently, most left groups have a very healthy internal regime. But how would anybody on the left, let alone in the working class more generally, know unless they join?

The necessary concomitant of this form of so-called ‘Bolshevik’ organisation is splits, disillusionment and fragmentation, not partyist unity. Moreover, the slight resurgence in anarcho-libertarian ideas recently can be partly explained by the existence of bureaucratic centralist regimes claiming the mantle of ‘Bolshevism’. If that is ‘Bolshevism’, so many anarchists reason, then we want nothing to do with it. Again, the result is further fragmentation and strategic disorientation/valorisation of spontaneous struggle, as opposed to political strategy.

Basing ourselves on this kind of toy-town Bolshevism, the left today is rendered near impotent in the face of enormous historical tasks and challenges. We cannot seriously unite anyone because we cannot unite ourselves. There are various forms of latent and actual resistance against the effects of the capitalist crisis, but at present we are collectively failing to offer anything viable, practical or inspirational.

More fundamentally, the question of the party form, the kind of party regimes we fight for and organise around today, cannot be separated from the kind of society we are trying to build, the way we conceive working class rule. For us in the CPGB, revolution must be the conscious act of the majority of the population, aware of what they are doing, why they are doing it and able to organise if that plan is not sufficiently being carried out or being undermined. The degeneration of the Bolshevik Party, along with the retreat and defeat of the Russian Revolution itself, underlines this basic point. In order to rule, the working class needs democracy at all levels of society. It certainly could not exercise political power through the kind of bureaucratic centralist regimes that are features of the left and held up as ‘Bolshevism’. Hence the importance of this discussion: it is certainly not a “waste of ink”.

Moving forward

As I mentioned before, recent scholarship has taken some great strides in terms of understanding the history and evolution of Lenin and the Bolsheviks: firstly with 1903 and now with 1912. Many on the left have quite rightly applauded the efforts of those like Lars Lih, but I think we have not taken on board what implications these insights have for our own practice. For example, when I watched the Socialist Workers Party’s John Molyneux debate Lars at Marxism back in 2008, I heard Molyneux say something along the lines of ‘This is a great book for students of Russian history who want to prove that Lenin does not lead to Stalin, but cannot quote a non-academic source like Tony Cliff …’^[3]

But, while Molyneux may not think so, we are gradually beginning to understand the context of the emergence of Bolshevism – namely in the Second International – and we are beginning to see that Bolshevism was a mass phenomenon, aimed at merging the workers’ movement with a programme for society as a whole, not just for issues directly affecting the working class. Fundamentally, this meant fighting for the ‘light and air’ of political freedom, leading other classes to challenge for state power. The class unity required for such a momentous task was based around the acceptance of a Marxist programme, not agreement. This was a crucial distinction, and informed the partyist democracy which the Bolsheviks upheld. Unity did not, as in many left groups today, revolve around philosophical or historical agreement, but political commitment: unity in action and freedom of discussion.

This led to robust political debate and discussion both between the competing factions of the RSDLP and within the Bolshevik faction itself: electoral tactics, the national question, the question of a second revolution in April 1917 etc, are all noteworthy examples. This conception of the party is often portrayed as one ‘of the whole class’, but this is just a tired repetition of arguments made back in 1977-78 by Joseph Seymour in his Lenin and the vanguard party. This view implies that anybody could be allowed into a revolutionary party, and that this was the major flaw of so-called ‘Second International Marxism’.

But this is simply untenable – it was the programme that decided. For example, the Second International was formed on the basis that all those who rejected class political action, like the syndicalists, were automatically ruled out. Moreover, those who broke with the basic programmatic outlook of the Second International were expelled: eg, the ‘governmental socialist’, Alexandre Millerand. The Bund was excluded from the RSDLP, etc, etc. Membership of the party was not open to everyone. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that we wish to win as many to our banner as possible. But the problem is that it is simply impossible to unite millions in the kind of bureaucratic centralist organisations that characterise most left groups – where membership is often predicated on particular historical positions, like the class nature of the USSR, etc.

Although the dating and particular motives vary depending on the particular organisation and dogma, most of today’s far left is convinced that Lenin and his comrades ultimately broke with the guiding programmatic and strategic pillars of the Second International. But – and it gets a little tiresome to repeat this – it was Kautsky and his supporters who broke with, reneged on, the outlook they had helped to shape (note the linguistic connection between ‘renegade’ and ‘renege’).

I will finish with another Zinoviev quote which might help to clear things up for those who are still in doubt. The quote comes following the ignominious collapse of the Second International: “We are not renouncing the entire history of the Second International. We are not renouncing what was Marxist in it … In the last years of the Second International’s existence, the opportunists and the ‘centre’ obtained a majority over the Marxists. But, in spite of everything, a revolutionary Marxist tendency always existed in the Second International. And we are not renouncing its legacy for one minute.”^[4]

Nor should we. Moreover, we should note that the attempt to create a gulf between the Second International and the later ‘party of a new type’ is something that sets in later, with the retreat of the Russian Revolution and the attendant problems – not exclusively, but primarily, with the Stalin school of falsification on party history. To the best of my knowledge, the concept of a ‘party of a new type’ is not Lenin’s. Fundamentally, such a perspective bears the fingerprints of Stalin, as does the common interpretation of Prague 1912. If Stalinism was one of the key subjective obstacles to the formation of working class politics in the 20th century, then similar perspectives cannot exactly provide a strong starting point for working class politics in the 21st.

ben.lewis@weeklyworker.org.uk

Notes

1. JV Stalin Kraktii kurs 1938 (emphasis added). Quoted in LT Lih, ‘The non-geometric Elwood’ (forthcoming).

2. G Zinoviev Izvestiia TsK KPSS, 1989, No5, p196.

3. To be fair to comrade Molyneux, he did at least review Lars’s Lenin rediscovered: ‘What is to be done?’ in context: http://johnmolyneux.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/lihs-lenin-review-of-lars-t-lih-lenin.html.

4. Quoted in J Riddell (ed) Lenin’s struggle for a revolutionary International New York, p105.

Solidarity!

Below is a statement organised by Iranian left activists. The Farsi version is linked at the bottom of this piece

Following the recent rumours of a military attack on Iran, several Israeli citizens have initiated a campaign, opposing the probable war of the American and Israeli states against Iran. In doing so, they are sending messages of friendship and respect to the Iranian people such as the message that “We won’t ever attack Iran.” Some of the Iranians, have reciprocated with the same messages of friendship and respect for the Israelis. Some of the early organizers of this movement on the Iranian side belong to the right wing political activists who had not shown any opposition to military attack or economic sanction against Iran in the past. In the mass media, they had called such economic sanctions and wars as a “Humanitarian Intervention”. A section of this Iranian neo-liberal army were even siding with the super powers in the “Humanitarian Intervention” against Iran. This friendship and anti-war campaign by the citizens of two countries in these critical conditions of verbal war and the thirst of both sides for a crisis is a positive step. But it should not overshadow the agony of Iranians in the past thirty-three years and the problem of the Palestinian people amidst of this campaign.

In our opinion, the anti-war popular movements should symbolically remove the borders among the countries and strive towards more solidarity among the people of the countries in crisis. “The Anti-War Campaign” in Israel has to start its existence with the criticism and negation of the “Barrier Wall” that is an obstacle between the Israeli people and rest the world. No anti-war campaign can ever send the genuine friendship and peace messages to any part of the world, while ignoring the Palestinians who are facing the poverty. The Israelis cannot oppose the war against Iran without understanding that such a war is not detached from the war against the people Palestine which are caused by the political and economical injustice of Israel and its allies in other parts of the world.

The threat of a military intervention and the risk of a war against Iran have escalated at a time when attention of Iranian people and many political activists has shifted from the nuclear case to the economic and political demands of the Iranian people. These demands are continuation of their combat and resistance in the past three years. While the government is under huge pressure of due to political and economic dissatisfaction, the threat of war has come has been a blessing for the Iranian government. They use it to deviate the attention from the internal problems and postpone the achievement of historical and political demands of equality and liberty by the people. These all happen when many Iranians are jailed for these demands or are forced to leave the country. Similar conditions were also present at the beginning of 1979 revolution, when Saddam Hussain initiated a was against Iran with active support by the United States and Europe countries. The Iraq war against Iran made the people defend their lives and nation, instead of stopping the deviation of their revolution and resisting its confiscation by the anti-revolutionaries. That’s why many Iranians see the threat of war against their country as an effort of other states to keep the Islamic Republic in place when it is going through its weakest condition in years.

For more than thirty years, the Iranians have not only suffered from the constant threat of war against their country but have also been the victim of one-sided sanctions. A huge number of them have been killed in aerial accidents caused indirectly by these sanctions. The undeniable effects of the sanctions on the health services has put the medical and sanitary sectors in a deep crisis. These sanctions and threats have led to the establishment of underground markets and have increased corruption by sections of the government. It is obvious that the economic sanctions and the threats of war do not just cause problems for the government, but they deteriorate the economic and political status of Iran and its people and diminish their resistance and hope to achieve a better future. People who had suffered from an American-English Coup d’etat, are still paying for its consequences up to today. And now their resistance is severely hit by the war threats of the world super powers. They have numerous reasons to feel frustrated politically about deciding their own destiny. The doubt for these people is not a “Conspiracy Theory” but a logical conclusion of their history.

Additionally, we believe that this anti-war campaign by including the Palestinian people can announce its independence and convince others to strive for justice irrespective of races and nations, In this way it can show its understanding of the relation between the Palestinians and the war threat against Iran. The discourse of Palestine is not just limited to Palestinians. Palestine is a global concept that goes beyond borders. The solidarity among the oppressed nations is crucial in order to avoid the problem of one nation exploiting others. Meanwhile the labor activists such as “Reza Shahabi”, “Shahrokh Zamani”, “Behnam Ebrahim Zade”, “Mohammad Jarahi”, “Ebrahim Madadi”, “Alireza Akhavan”, “Pedram Nasrollahi” and many others are jailed for years because of their deeds to defend the rights of the diligent. The support of Palestine by the Islamic Republic is just a form of stupid exploitation of the states to show themselves as a symbol of defending the oppressed. The Turkish government as well suppresses the Kurds who were celebrating their new year feasts and jails a student because of using a Palestinian shawl, is using the Palestine cause in another from in order to be named as a defender of the oppressed people.

Contrary to what the powers want us to believe, the Israeli, Iranian and Syrian states do not basically have any hatred towards one another. On the other hand, they act as a complementary force to meet each others’ needs in this anti-popular cycle. For instance, how could the Israeli government, without instrumental use of the Iranian government to distract the global public and media, alongside the systematic oppression of the Palestinian and the hunger strike of “Hana Al Shalabi”, withstand the massive popular demonstration against the unjust methods of the finance processes? How can the Iranian government; while trying its best to suppress the resistance of the workers, social activists, students, and journalists, withstand the popular resistance of the Iranians without the aid of Israeli government in creating a war risk and expanding the verbal war?

In our opinion, in such a background where the anti-war campaign and the mutual respect among the Iranian and Israeli citizens has formed up, denouncing war and the imperialistic violation of Israel and its allies has to be in close relationship with the defense of Palestinians’ rights, and battling the non-popular governments in the region such as Israel, Syria, Turkey and Iran who use the Palestine cause to cover their own dictatorship and restriction over their own people. As well, the Palestinians have to be aware that justice and emancipation won’t occur through the aids of dictator governments, because these governments have stood up alongside the avant-guard forces of the world, supporting Palestine in order to cover their internal systematic oppressions and their political deals with imperialism.

Amir Abbas Azarmvand
Soheil Asefi
Asal Akhavan
Marjan Eftekhari
Maryam Afshari
Babak Akbari Farahani
Amir Amirgholi
Behdad Bordbar
Hazhir Pelaschi
Arezoo poor Esmaeili
Zahra Poor Azizi
Abed Tavanche
Mansoor Teifoori
Esmaeil Jalilvand
Iranian left students in Tabriz
Amin Hosuri
Mina Khanlarzadeh
Mina Khani
Ashkan Khorasani
Golnaz Khaje giri
Sara Dehkordi
Valiasr Fotoblog
Ata Rahmati
Pezhman Rahimi
Rezvan Zandieh
Taha Zeinali
Robert Sepanian
Mohsen Sohrabi
Saman Shah Moradi
Messi Shirvani
Setareh Saboor
Mohsen Emadi
Meisam Farhang
Ali Kalaei
Arash Kia
Amir Mohsen Mohammadi
Ghader Mohammadi
Sepehr Masakeni
Amir Mehrzad
Younes Mirhosseini
Parisa Nasrabadi
Pouya Nodehi
Bahador Nikfar
Armin Niknam
Vahid Valizadeh
Adnan Hamghabileh
Sahar Yazdani pour

you can send your name to iraninanleft[at]gmail.com to sign this manifesto.

In farsi:
http://www.akhbar-rooz.com/article.jsp?essayId=44657