On Thursday March 31st the Socialist Workers Party held a public meeting in the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield, to lay out their perspectives for the direction of the workers’ movement in the aftermath of the massive TUC-organised protest against cuts in London on March 26th. Around fifty people attended, about half of whom were evidently members of the SWP. There were other familiar faces from the left, and a fair smattering of students and young people. The meeting was chaired by SWP member Max Brophy, who recently received an impressive 1,600 votes in the University of Sheffield student officer elections. The speakers were preceded by a striking and competently edited video- not, sadly, on one of the cinema screens, but it was big enough. This consisted of clips from the TUC march mixed with a speech by left Labour MP John McDonnell and music. Dotted around the room were posters bearing the now familiar SWP demand ‘TUC: Call a General Strike!’. Perhaps somewhat ironic given the disastrous CPGB slogan of the 1926 General Strike was ‘All Power to the TUC General Council!’

On the panel were two members of the SWP; Jim Board, also branch secretary of Doncaster Unison, and Maxine Bowler, who will be running in council elections under the TUSC (Trade Union and Socialist Coalition) banner as an anti-cuts candidate. Jim Board began by contrasting the success of the TUC march in terms of its size, and wide-ranging composition which extended beyond the ‘usual suspects’ with the historical treachery of the TUC in its role as a mediator “between labour and capital”. The TUC was pressured into holding the demo, he said, by the pressure building up at the grass roots forcing the bureaucracy to act, and the idea of co-ordinated or even general strike action was taking root amongst the working class as a whole. What is more, the time to strike is sooner rather than later, before the cuts really hit and the movement risks losing momentum and becoming demoralised. In what CPGB comrades noted as a departure from usual SWP fare in a public setting, both speakers did call for socialist politics and the creation of a new society. The vision of this new society set out was one “for ordinary people” with “wealth distribution”, the end of the profit motive and of super rich bosses and elites. This vision was linked with the demand for a general strike, and the SWP theory of ‘agitate, agitate, agitate’, insofar as they believe that pushing the masses into action raises class consciousness to a sufficient degree, at which point, presumably, ‘spontaneity’ solves all problems. What happens next is anyone’s guess and was left completely unmentioned.

Comrade Bowler illustrated the fruits of a strategy of constant agitation with the example of newly radicalised students, who in their confrontation with the forces of the state had come to understand that it was not their friend. And no communist would be found denying that workers and students learn with incredible speed in the process of the class struggle, and that in revolutionary situations the class has achieved near miracles. But outside of such apocalyptic struggles this leaves next to nothing, and neither does it provide a political solution to revolutionary crisis in one country -never mind internationally, across an area where revolution could survive to survive for any length of time, such as the EU. The apotheosis of spontaneity avoids the patient, difficult task of building the new society within the old, relying instead on the objective workings of capitalism -the increased socialisation of labour, negation of private property in the corporate form and so on- to achieve these mass, subjective tasks. The building up of class strength prior to confrontations is limited to ‘build our own sect’ type activity and trade union struggle. Or as Lenin called it ‘economism’. Similarly to comrade Board, Maxine Bowler did not claim that the SWP was the revolutionary party, but that they were the party of ‘united revolutionaries’. Both herself and Jim Board made confident and impassioned speeches about the horrors of capitalism and the potential existing already within capitalism for a better society.

Contributions from the floor were largely SWP members testifying to the wonderfulness of the SWP, and how it had allowed them to be more effective activists, passing resolutions in union branches (including, they hoped, on a general strike), organising strikes in workplaces, and so on. The ability to do such things is of course, in no way dependent on membership in the SWP or indeed any revolutionary organisation. One member argued that the absolute success or failure of the general strike was neither here nor there; what was important was that it would push people into action and radicalise them, which would leave a class memory for the next round of the struggle. Next time comrades, next time…

Two CPGB members spoke in the discussion, though one supporter was acknowledged by the chair and then ignored. Comrade Laurie Smith made the point that the withdrawal of labour provides no positive alternative to capitalism, the existence of which is particularly pressing in a general strike situation when the question of political power is posed. Smith also pointed out that in current circumstances the political consequence of a crisis of the coalition would be a Labour government likewise committed to cuts, and not the new society that SWP comrades had been hinting towards in their panel speeches. Comrade Lee Rock gave his opinion that there is “no chance, even in a month of Sundays” that the TUC will call a general strike, irking several SWP’ers in the room. He said that quite in spite of any radicalisation that occurred on the TUC march and the like, the majority of those people will still have a reformist perspective on politics and vote to return a Labour government, not have a revolution. As he moved onto the question of the organised left and its disunity, his mentioning of the SWP by name appeared to prompt the chair bringing a swift end to his allotted speaking time. Members of the SWP later spoke for considerably longer about the virtues of ‘the party’ without interruption.

Responses from the panel speakers helped illuminate the degree of political confusion in the SWP which results from the fact that they have begun with a tactic, the general strike, linked it to the ‘new society’ in a nebulous fashion, and everything else they say is based around a defence of that tactic. This rapidly fell apart as panel speaker Comrade Board acknowledged that a general strike may well result in a Labour government, but stressed that it would be a “different labour government”, i.e. a left Labour government, ‘held hostage’ by the radicalised masses and unable to implement a cuts programme. Of course, it is just as easy to make a case that a left-talking Labour government -in cahoots with the union bureaucracy- would use such a mandate to get away with implementing the same scale of cuts we are facing now (if not harder ones to reassure global capital), but with a friendly face. This, in fact, seems a more likely scenario.

Concretely then, the SWP programme (or, at least, Board’s version) appears to boil down to the election of a left Labour government, en route acknowledging that Labour remains a bourgeois-workers party- something the SWP has been at pains to deny for years. The theory of the left sometimes appears to be catching up with its practice (Board had said earlier that workers would ‘never trust Labour again’). Now that Labour is out of power, in the absence of any alternative to its left, workers are once more looking to the party, and Lenin’s formulation of Labour’s real role in capitalism is being rehabilitated. It doesn’t hurt that the SWP leadership is seeking to present itself to Labour as a safe ally. But this U-turn is not in itself a bad development; a policy of targetted engagement with Labour is just what communists need. There is a risk, however that instead of anti-Labour opportunism, the SWP may seek opportunist alliances with the party. Certainly pursuing a strategy of strike-ism while operating with the unspoken belief that a Labour government would necessarily be under enough pressure from the working class to make any difference to our situation is dangerous enough in itself.

Maxine Bowler struck a different note in her response, emphasising that we had to win the battle of ideas and achieve a hegemonic position in society. Part of this battle involved her standing to be a TUSC councillor so that she could propagandise for socialist politics and a socialist society, quite what this means given the dreadful national-reformist outlook of the TUSC is anyone’s guess, given that SWP members are unlikely to criticise such a programme openly and certainly not to argue for a proletarian-internationalist alternative within it. She also bigged up the Right to Work campaign, and encouraged the audience to join the SWP.

Repeated often at the meeting was the orthodox SWP belief that the working class is strongest when it withdraws its labour. The problem here is firstly, that the flip side of the withdrawal of labour is a management lockout, the second and far more important point is that it is a bogus perspective because the working class is most powerful when it asserts its class character positively, by organising in its own interests, pursuing programme that can lead it to a position of political and economic dominance in society. This involves mass organisations of the working class and forms of workers’ own socially owned, democratically controlled property. It presupposes a high degree of political unity and education and it means the working class forming itself into a political party, a communist party. Such a movement would require an open, critical culture to accompany its radical Marxist politics if bureaucratic degeneration were to be prevented, and give a real role to ‘the masses’ under capitalism.

The unity of the existing revolutionary Left on this basis would be a first step in this direction but, sadly, such perspectives were not on show tonight from the SWP. Even the role of their own organisation, should their strategy come to fruition, was unclear. Perhaps this information is restricted to ‘members only’. Or perhaps their perspective for the anti-cuts movement really does end with more spontaneity, and ‘there is always next time’. Or, if you want a political programme, with their TUSC (Respect, Left List, etc.) hat on there is always nationalistic-reformism. Pick your poison. Despite TUSC’s huge political shortcomings, the coalition represents a not insignificant part of the left of the working class movement, and Maxine is a Marxist. Two CPGB comrades gave our details to help out with her election campaign. We hope sectarianism will not trump unity in action -repeatedly invoked at the meeting as a good thing- around such a basic task.

Michael Copestake