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The Real Issues at Stake
A REPLY TO THE EC MAJORITY by John Bulaitis, Phil Hearse and Jared Wood.
1) The EC majority reply to our document, (and to those of the Merseyside Regional Committee and Clive Heemskerk) has failed to answer the major criticisms which we made. It suffers from three faults: Firstly, its account of our actual arguments is wide of the mark. Indeed, on some issues it is so wide of the mark that it claims we are arguing the exact opposite of what we actually say (see footnote 1). Secondly, it takes the debate down a number of complete blind alleys, which are frankly irrelevant to the issues under debate. And thirdly, in this process, has obscured the real lines of the differences, giving a false impression of what the debate is all about. We point out some of the EC majority’s misrepresentations and misunderstandings below. We also make a comment about the method of the EC response to our document in an appendix at the end of this document.
2) The real debate is over what should be the orientation of the organisation and, flowing from that, what kind of organisation we can build in the next period. The EC majority think that by changing our name to Socialist Party we can qualitatively extend the influence of the organisation into sections of ‘the masses’ and recruit from them. Despite the numerous attempts to re-define what they mean by a ‘small mass party’, (which we comment on below) this phrase, which is, based on their belief that there is no significant advanced or radicalised section to which we should orientate, sums up the type of organisation they think we should try to build in the coming period. We say this is a false vision of what is possible, necessary and desirable. It will not work because it does not correspond to the objective possibilities, or the tasks, of the period.
3) In Ourselves Alone? we argued that it is possible, in this period, to build a strong revolutionary party with a strong profile, with hundreds, indeed thousands, of new recruits over the next few years. We argued that our main orientation should not be towards ‘the mass’ but towards the most advanced layers in the trade unions, amongst working-class women and amongst the radicalising youth. We argued that with such an orientation, it is possible – indeed vital – to ‘go broad’ through participation in mass campaigns, building fighting, broad-left style formations in the unions, socialist alliances, and through fighting for a new broad socialist party.
4) But the attempt to build our organisation by ‘going broader’ and orientating primarily to the mass of the class, instead of the most advanced, active layers, is both doomed to failure and will inevitably confuse and disorientate our membership. This is why the name Socialist Party must be opposed. These are the real lines of divide: They involve two sharply contrasting conceptions of party-building in the next period.
1. Party Building and Socialist Alliances: the differences in practise
5) What the EC majority say in their document about us wanting to “busy ourselves” building “phantom socialist alliances” gets to the heart qf the differences. They argue that the socialist alliances are extremely weak at the present time and they counterpose the task of building our own organisation as the Socialist Party, towards a “small mass party”. The line of the EC majority is clearly spelt out in the new article by the General Secretary in Socialism Today No 12. He argues: The task, however, is not to lament the abandonment of socialism by Blair but to look to the future, by calling for a mass party of the working class, based on socialist policies, to be prepared… It will take the experience of a Blair government and the emergence of a new generation which will be paralleled by the resurgence of a real left, particularly in the unions and factories, before a new mass party of the working class will take form. Militant Labour stands for the formation of such a party, embracing all trends within the British working class who stand for an explicitly socialist programme. But the best way to prepare for such a party is to build a powerful Marxist force now.” (Socialism Today, September 1996 p 14.)
6) That’s it as far as strategy is concerned: build a Marxist force now. But shouldn’t we also be pointing to the central need to organise broader forces on the left, in the unions, in socialist alliances and the mass campaigns; as well as intervening in radical movements and struggles, which, as we will show below, have previously been at the centre of what we have argued about what to do now to build a new socialist party.
7) What does the EC’s approach mean concretely for our work in the localities? Every time a local struggle – an industrial struggle, an environmental struggle, a cuts struggle ( and often these overlap) – breaks out, we intervene in our own name, sell our paper, attempt to recruit and advance a strategy which gives leadership to the movement. That is entirely correct. But should we not also, especially in this period, advance the position of building broader and more long-term unity among the forces that emerge in and around a struggle? We say yes. For the following reason: In this period, in the initial stages of a struggle, some individuals can be won immediately to our organisation. But there will be many others -campaign and trade union activists, others radicalised by the struggle, other socialists -who cannot be immediately won to our revolutionary organisation whatever our name -Socialist Party or Militant Socialist Party. These forces provide the basis for a longer-term groupment of activists, whether that takes the form of a Socialist Alliance or some other form of organisation.
8) Let us pose the question more concretely. In Hillingdon and Merseyside there are Socialist Alliances. Why? What have those two places got in common? The answer, of course, is a major struggle in which our comrades have played an important role. Was the task when intervening in the struggle in these two cases simply to ‘build the forces of Marxism’, or was it – while of course doing that – to try and capitalise on the dynamic of unity to organise activists, and combative and socialist forces on a longer-term basis – even if just as in Scotland) we are far and away the biggest force within these formations?
Best fighters for unity
9) Of course, such struggles will not immediately occur everywhere. We do not advocate that ‘phantom’ Socialist Alliances are set up divorced from concrete struggles developing in the localities. But we do argue that there is the possibility, and there will be increasingly so as more struggles develop, of building broader campaign alliances of militants and radical activists who are coming to the fore. Indeed, in some parts of the country we are already doing so. Do we pose to local militant activists in the FBU, in the hospitals, among local government workers simply fighting their own union struggles on one hand, and the necessity of building the revolutionary party on the other? Or do we propose the necessity and possibility of coming together to forge local alliances around cuts, local government, environmental campaigns etc. – specific local alliances which can lay the basis, at a later stage, for Socialist Alliances and, indeed, a new Socialist Party? Because comrades should be clear: the EC majority’s line cuts completely across such an orientation.
10) The method, the orientation, to Socialist Alliances has nothing to do with uniting the “myriad sects”, nor is it counterposed to party building. Some of the best recruits and contacts in Hillingdon, for example, have come precisely through the work around the Socialist Alliance. This will, of course, not be an universal pattern. But the attractive power of our organisation will be enhanced if we are seen to be the best fighters for left unity /around specific campaigns and struggles and ^socialist alliances.
Scotland
11) A word on Scotland is in order here (although, noticeably, the EC majority did not Attempt to answer our points on Scotland in Ourselves Alone?). In Scotland the comrades correctly built the Scottish Socialist Alliance. But why? In a situation where we were clearly the strongest single force on the left why was it necessary to build this alliance? In fact the method adopted by the comrades in Scotland is the opposite of the method of the ‘ourselves alone’ proposed by the EC for England and Wales.
12) The comrades in Scotland correctly understood the dynamic of unity on the left; that despite our numerical domination, the bringing together of other left forces, some of them quite small, would create an appeal way beyond the possibility of ourselves alone. And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The reason why the bourgeois press openly speculates about the possibility of ‘5-party polities’ in Scotland is exactly because of the dynamic, and the attractive force, of unity. Such a united force has much more authority in the eyes of the advanced and radicalising layers, and creates much better possibilities for a successful appeal to sections of the masses during elections, mass campaigns and periods of heightened struggle. Such an approach involves a much clearer conception about the role of a revolutionary party and its connection with broader movements and formations than the EC’s ‘small mass party’, ourselves alone approach.
13) The EC majority reply accuses us of a “policy of quiescence and a downplaying if not abandonment of building of the independent profile, numbers and cohesion of the revolutionary party”(para 63). They accuse us of putting ‘all our eggs’ in the basket of a new socialist party, wanting to regroup the ‘myriad sects’, and not believing we can build a big revolutionary organisation in the next period. They even say that “the authors of Ourselves Alone?” do not believe “it is possible to build a powerful revolutionary organisation..” (para 61). They quote us as saying “‘nothing can be done’ until a complete change in the objective situation” (para 61). ‘Nothing can be done’ appears in inverted commas, yet those words appear nowhere in Ourselves Alone?, nor contrary to what the EC majority claim, has this ever been said by any of us at a meeting debating this issue.
14) How does the EC rendering of our position fit in with the following passage from Ourselves Alone? ?: “With a correct orientation there is ‘no reason’ why our party cannot substantially build in the next period. We are talking about thousands of recruits, and a radical transformation of the situation in which we find ourselves now”, (para 32) Or again: “Favourable perspectives and prospects are opening up for the organisation in the next period. We can substantially build the organisation. We can become not a small mass party but a big revolutionary organisation. The organisation revitalised with new cadres from the struggles that will unfold would become a powerful factor in the struggle to build a new socialist party.” (para59) No objective reader could imagine that this is being said by people who believe it is impossible to build the organisation, who think that ‘nothing can be done’, or who are “organic sceptics”.
15) Raising our own profile is always vital to building a revolutionary organisation. But why does the EC imagine that this is counterposed to an orientation to Socialist Alliances and a new socialist party? On the contrary, an approach of fighting for unity in theory and practise will build the organisation and increase its attractiveness. It is not at all counterposed to doing work in our own name, building our paper sales, organising public meetings and campaigns, intervening in strikes and demonstrations under our own banner and to the task of recruitment. (We return to the question of a new socialist party and Socialist Alliances below.)
2 The “Small Mass Party” or the fight for a new Socialist Party?
16) In his reply to the debate (Members Bulletin 18) the General Secretary argued: “We do not intend to abandon the Socialist Alliances, but priority must be given to those tactics which can most effectively build ‘our organisation now. We do not have an ultra-left perspective of building a mass revolutionary party of millions in the coming period. But there is no reason why we cannot build a small mass party numbering tens of thousands, particularly in the next two, three or four years.”
17) Comrades will note that by quoting the whole paragraph -which we are quite happy to do – in no way alters how the last sentence should be interpreted: “there is no reason why we cannot build a small mass party numbering tens of thousands, particularly in the next two, three or four years.” You cannot get clearer than that. We commented in our document that “this is at least an exaggeration”. In reply, the EC majority tell us: “The term ‘next two, three or four years’ was not an exact arithmetical prediction but was meant precisely (sic) to be elastic. If we had merely said ‘in the future’ our critics would have accused us of lack of precision!” (para 61) Further: “We did build a ‘small mass party’ which led the Liverpool struggle and took the initiative in the poll tax battle as well. As a result of our work we achieved a membership of 8000. What is this but a ‘small mass party’ which played a role in Liverpool and in the anti-poll tax battle on an all-Britain scale.” (p60)
18) These arguments are very strange. An organisation, still largely of an entrist character in the case of the Liverpool battle, which achieves a large membership of 8,000, and leadership of the Poll Tax struggle, is obviously not a “small mass party numbering tens of thousands”. It is precisely a “large revolutionary organisation”. The “precisely”-“elastic” phrase used by Peter Taaffe about “particularly in the next two, three or four years” is now, effectively, withdrawn. But confusion is piled upon confusion here. One reading of the redefinition in the EC reply would be: ‘we can build a big revolutionary organisation in the coming period’. If that is what is meant, then obviously we agree. That is exactly what we argue in our document. But why are the comrades loath to withdraw the phrase “small mass party”? It is because it is an operative, guiding thread, for the kind of organisation they think we can build in the next period by going to the ‘mass’.
19) As we argued in Ourselves Alone?, the small mass party idea is directly linked to the issue of the abandonment of the fight for a new socialist party. If you think you can directly build a party, in the foreseeable future, of ‘tens of thousands’, then you are arguing that this party can do itself what we previously argued would be the role of a new socialist party.
20) In our document we argued that the EC majority has effectively abandoned the idea of fighting for a new socialist party, and has redefined it as a ‘new mass workers party’. To repeat the obvious, building a new mass workers’ party is an historic task which will take a long period to complete; the fight for a new socialist party is a fight for the here and now. Indeed we conducted such a fight with some vigour less than a year ago when we intervened around the formation of the SLP. As we pointed out in Ourselves Alone?: “Such a new socialist party would not have been a really new mass party of the working class, but only its (potential) nucleus.” (Para 12) Indeed, the conception of the sort of party we were fighting for can also be seen in the NC statement on the SLP agreed at our January conference. This speaks of the possibility of the SLP attracting “thousands of people”. (See Members Bulletin 14, page 4)
21) The response of the EC on this question is illogical. In response to our accusation that they have abandoned fighting for a new socialist party, they reply: No!, “The EC majority has not abandoned the fight for a new ‘mass workers’ party'”.(para 63) This is an obvious non sequitur. It is like replying to the accusation that beef has been deleted from the menu: “No not at all, we still defend the perspective of pork!”. Change of position
22) What is really puzzling is the EC majority’s refusal to admit that a change in position has taken place. The whole point about our “long approving quotes from the articles of Peter Taaffe and Lynn Walsh” (EC majority reply, para 11) was to show precisely that the EC majority was arguing a completely different position only 9 months or so ago. To make the issue clear we will again quote “at length” this time from a feature-length editorial by Lynn Walsh in the December 1995 issue of Socialism Today, which incidentally carried the front page banner: Time for a New Socialist Party.
23) This editorial could hardly be more explicit.” He said: “Provided the call is advanced with bold, confident arguments, a big layer of activists will respond enthusiastically to the Proposal for a new party ‘able to galvanise mass opposition to injustice, inequality and environmental destruction, and build the fight for a socialist Britain’.”(ST 4, page 8.) Further: The case for a new socialist party is clear. By campaigning for socialist policies it provide a banner behind which the Most class-conscious workers, young people and radical middle class strata could be mobilised. Far from undermining the fight to defeat the Tories, the mobilisation of the advanced layers would motivate wider sections, many of who, at this stage, will vote Labour.” (ST 4, page 9.) Again: “Moreover, a socialist party would warn of future developments, preparing the most radical layers for the inevitable crisis which will convulse the Labour Party and the unions under a Blair government.” (page 9). And: “We welcome the proposal to bring wider forces together in a new socialist formation”. (All our emphasis).
24) In the previous issue of Socialism Today, Peter Taaffe says: “There already exists a mood amongst a layer of advanced workers for a new socialist party” He goes on to argue that: “A new socialist party must represent a new point of departure for the working class. It must be an explicitly socialist party, pledged to end the rule of capital in Britain and throughout the world. Militant Labour will do all in its power, together with others on the Left, to establish such a party.” (ST3, page 13).
25) There is no ambiguity here. The argument is for a new socialist party in the foreseeable future based on the most “class-conscious workers”, “radical layers” and “advanced layers”, not a ‘mass workers’ party’ in the long-term.
26) In Ourselves Alone we argued that although the situation has been greatly complicated by the approach of the SLP leadership, that is not a reason to abandon the fight for a new socialist party. The EC majority retort: “But can our critics guarantee that there will be others, a significant left force, that will come together with us in the short term, to build such a party?…Or do the authors of Ourselves Alone? propose that we come together with the myriad of little sects to form a phantom ‘mass party’?”(Para 63).
27) Everything is wrong with this passage. We cannot ‘guarantee’ the formation of a new socialist party, any more than the EC could when they were in favour of it. But what we can guarantee is that the chances of forging a new socialist party in the next period are increased by us fighting for it. In any case what has happened to the “layer of advanced workers” who support the idea of such a party that Peter Taaffe identified last November. Have they suddenly disappeared? Has the “big layer of activists” that Lynn Walsh said would “respond enthusiastically” to a “bold, confident argument” evaporated? This is the logic of the EC majority’s argument and their conclusion that we can build a “small mass party” ourselves alone.
28) Of course we don’t have the idea of linking up with a “myriad little sects to form a phantom mass party” (para 63). Our orientation would be to the “class conscious workers, young people, radical middle class strata” that Lynn Walsh talked about – as well as women and other oppressed groups. These are precisely the “advanced layers” to which Lynn Walsh refers, to which we point in our document, and for which the EC now accuse us of ‘schematism’ for identifying!! Moreover, struggles and campaigns will ensure that additional forces will come forward who will be open to the idea of a new Socialist Party in local socialist and other alliances – particularly in the event of a Blair government. After the general election there will be more scope to develop the socialist alliances; there is the possibility of the split of individual MPs and MEPs; and the potential for a certain growth of the SLP itself. Most importantly will be the developments in the unions: we have to fight for moves like that of the FBU who are investigating political funding to non-Labour socialist movements.
29) As we have seen, the EC majority say of us: “They in effect advocate waiting for a ‘fundamental change in the objective situation’ and putting all our eggs in the ‘new socialist party’ basket. In practice their policy is one of quiescence and a downplaying if not the abandonment of the independent profile, numbers and cohesion of the revolutionary party.” (para 63). Further: Their dogmatic perspective amounts to: Struggles will take place, socialist consciousness will suddenly come back on the agenda, a new mass party will quickly arise and therefore we should busy ourselves in laying the basis for this in phantom socialist alliances. (Para 53) Clearly, this is not what we say. Why is fighting for a new socialist party equivalent to ‘putting all our eggs’ in that basket, or giving up the fight to build a revolutionary organisation? The EC could have used the same chop-logic argument in December 1995 – against itself.
30) Scargill’s original call for a Socialist Labour Party created an excitement and ferment, not least in our own ranks, precisely because it corresponded to an objective need in the situation. The passages we quote above from the editorial in Socialism Today no 3 show why this is the case. The editorial saw how a new, broad socialist party could act as a focus which would give a focus for the more advanced layers, and widen and deepen their ability to reach out beyond their own ranks, especially into the wider labour movement. The possibilities for a new socialist party obviously reflect the advantages of unifying and coordinating efforts on the left. That’s what creates the dynamic behind the Scottish Socialist Alliance; that’s the potential that Scargill has wasted. The SLP was an enormous wasted opportunity for the development of a new socialist party, but it was never the case that it was the only route to such a development. Given the process of bourgeoisification of the Labour Party, the objective need in the situation still exists, irrespective of what Scargill has done; even if his actions have made the process more complicated.
3 Socialist consciousness and the advanced sections
31) The EC majority accuse us of having a “rigid” and “schematic” view of the relationship between socialists, the more advanced layers of the working class and the oppressed, and the mass of the class. They say:- “They divide the working class into three layers now; the advanced, which they concede is small, apparently accepting the EC’s formula of a “very thin layer” with a socialist consciousness; then a broader radicalised section; and then the broad mass. We do not believe that in this period reality corresponds to this rigid schema and categorisation of the working class. There is, as far as we have consistently argued, a layer of advanced workers and youth who can even now draw revolutionary conclusions. But this is a very small layer…. As far as other layers are concerned the difference between a ‘radicalised’ section, which the EC alluded to first in the discussion -involved in the environmental movement and other single-issue campaigns – their consciousness is not that far removed from the broad mass “.(para 71)
32) This account is not only confused, its last sentence is a complete challenge to what the organisation has argued until now. Marxists have always distinguished, in classical terms, between the socialist vanguard, the advanced workers, and the mass of the class. The EC utilised this obvious framework themselves in the arguments in favour of a new socialist Party (see quotes from Lynn Walsh and Peter Taaffe above). This was also the whole point about our quote from Trotsky (See Ourselves Alone? para 27) in which he differentiates between “a vanguard”, the “active layers” and “the millions”. Of course, these camps are not static, the whole process is fluid and dynamic, with struggles, both victories and defeats, and the intervention of the subjective factor combining to transform consciousness of the working class in all it multifarious layers.
33) The following passage from the interview in Socialism Today No 8 about the new youth organisation also clearly shows how this has been our framework.
“Question: Scepticism about the traditional labour movement translates, surely into a reduced consciousness about socialism – with a negative impact on the far left as well. A consciousness about animal rights or the environment doesn’t automatically translate into support for socialism.
Answer (Naomi Byron) That’s true; but you have to distinguish between the mass of youth and those who are becoming active around specific issues. Those who get active, whether it’s against road building, against racism or even as hunt sabs, rapidly come up against the capitalist state, and they are shown in practice that it’s a whole system they’re fighting. That’s the role of the new socialist youth organisation. To spread the ideas of socialism, on the basis of radical activism, to put socialism on the agenda.” Lois Austin said “Youth without a job don’t join unions; they don’t join the traditional social democratic or communist parties because they don’t offer any radicalism or way forward for youth or anyone else. Young people in their thousands, by contrast, do join environmental organisations or single issue campaigns. Those people will be the basis for the new socialist youth organisation.” It is self evident that the operative conceptual framework here is again a) the mass b) the active and radical layers c) the socialist vanguard.
EC’s
two-tier concept
34) Now the EC majority falsely attack this classical Marxist approach as “schematic”. Yet the irony is that they have devised a new schema for themselves: They divide the working class not into three layers, but two! They counterpose a ‘layer with a socialist consciousness’ (which they sometimes describe as an advanced layer – and which they describe as “very thin”) to the mass of the class who at this stage lack a socialist consciousness. It is this second that layer they are arguing we should ‘reach out’ to in the next period and for who the name Socialist Party has been designed.
35) We have reached an issue here which is, in our view, at the crux of this debate: That is to what layers of society do we orientate, out of which forces will we primarily build? In
Ourselves Alone? we are perfectly clear that: “The most dynamic and combative forces will be found among radical, mainly younger, trade unionists, the youth and some of the most exploited and oppressed groups in society – especially sections of black youth and working class women. It is to these layers that the revolutionary organisation must orientate.” (Ourselves Alone? para 23) These ‘advanced layers’ do not necessarily have a socialist consciousness but the combination of struggle and our intervention can lead them to rapidly gain one. They are the forces amongst which a revolutionary party can build in the next period.
36) The EC majority’s two-tier conception of working-class consciousness leads them to adopt an entirely opposite approach. Let us return to the above passage quoted from the EC majority document (para 71). In this passage the EC majority are arguing that the “broader radicalised section” – what we termed the “advanced” section – of the working class has a level of consciousness that “is not that far removed from the broad mass” (our emphasis).
37) As comrades know from their own experience to argue in this way is totally false. In essence the EC majority are failing to make any distinction between those who are radicalising and those who are not. This approach – which is the essence of their Socialist Party orientation – will create enormous obstacles and problems when determining our orientation and intervention amongst the most advance and active layers. As we explained in a Ourselves Alone?, the different layers, developing a radical consciousness at different rates, are not fixed in stone. New sections come forward, under the impact of events. But it defies all logic to pretend that those involved in struggle have a consciousness “not that different from the mass”.
38) As we have argued, consciousness develops primarily through experience, and particularly the experience of struggle. That it why “radical, mainly younger trade unionists” -even if they do not have a socialist consciousness – do not have a consciousness that is close to the mass. The same is true of road protesters battling with the police, youth fighting the CJA, women fighting domestic violence, youth involved in the environmental struggles, lesbian and gays fighting discrimination, disabled people fighting for their rights, black people fighting police brutality etc. etc. etc… As Naomi Byron correctly said in May (in the passage quoted above) these layers “rapidly come up against the capitalist state”. Yet now the EC argue their consciousness is at the level of the “broad mass”. That is not only wrong, it is an insult to these sections engaged in struggle.
How consciousness develops
39) The EC majority accuse of believing that a mass socialist consciousness will emerge ‘automatically’ as a result of big struggles and argue that big struggles in France, Italy and Germany have not led to such a development (paras 17-20 of reply). This is another misrepresentation of our position (See footnote 3).
40) What we in fact argue is the following:-
a) The emergence of mass struggles is the precondition for the (re)emergence of a more generalised socialist consciousness.
b) There is always an interaction between the activities of socialists and the workers’ organisations, and the way in which the struggles unfold. The role of the subjective factor is absolutely crucial. For example, it is impossible to understand the dynamic of the struggle in Italy in the autumn of 1994 without understanding the role played by Communist Refoundation in initiating the mobilisations. Radicalisation does not just proceed through the development of the consciousness (ideas) of individuals, but through a recomposition of the labour movement and the movements of the oppressed. We pointed out in detail how this was occurring in the trade unions in France, partially as a result of last December’s struggle. The EC majority are again wrong in their approach to these events. They ask: “But what was the broad character of the movement? Did the mass of those involved in the struggle draw or express broad socialist conclusion? The answer is no!” (para 23) That, of course, is obvious. But for Marxists it is only half the picture. What is vital for the prospects of building the revolutionary organisation is the effect such events have on the most advanced, active layers who participate in them.
c) The prospects for rapid growth of a revolutionary organisation are – obviously – linked to the level of struggles, the developments in the labour movement and the movements of the oppressed, and the speed of the radicalisation. It is the intervention of Marxists within these processes that is the key to building a large revolutionary organisation. This is a very different approach to party building than going boldly forth to ‘the mass’ to explain socialism.
d) Whereas the EC argued in their first document on the name (commenting on our work in the Scottish Socialist Alliance): “Our tactics n this issue are determined by the need to develop a basic socialist consciousness amongst the mass, a precondition for the development of the revolutionary tendency.” (ur emphasis) (EC document on the Name of the Organisation para 41) We argue, on the contrary that mass struggles and the radicalisation which flows from them, however partial hesitant, create the preconditions for the building of a revolutionary organisation irrespective of whether there is a ‘mass socialist consciousness’.
41) In passing, we should note that the emergence of mass revolutionary parties, small or large, is always linked to a mass revolutionary current in the working class. To imagine one without the other is false. This is another inherent contradiction in the EC majority’s position. They argue on one hand that it is possible to build a “small mass party”, yet at the same time they quite correctly point out that big movement in the next period will not “necessarily lead….to a mass revival of socialist consciousness.” (para 20)
42) What is posed in the next period, especially in the event of a Blair government, is the development of struggles, the development of radicalisation, significant clashes within the existing labour movement, especially the unions, and on the basis of that the prospect of significantly building our organisation. None of this amounts to, as the EC falsely accuse us of believing, that there will be an ‘automatic’ development of mass socialist consciousness. A mass socialist consciousness will only occur over time; and it will take stormy struggles, massive developments in the labour movement, and the intervention of Marxists.
4. The working class, socialism and the struggles of the oppressed
43) The EC majority quote a section of our document about the recomposition of the working class, and then a short piece on a similar topic from an article by John Bulaitis’ article in Socialism Today issue 11 and declare: “Comrades should think clearly about the implications of these statements.” (para 31.) However the quotes which the EC seek to question (and which we repeat below), are 100% orthodox from a revolutionary Marxist point of view, and we completely defend them. Moreover, far from being questionable, we think they are self-evident.
44) Ourselves Alone? said (para 24): “Capitalist restructuring and decline in traditional manufacturing industry has rendered obsolete the old traditional view of the ‘advanced worker’. In this period we must ditch any stereotype of the ‘advanced worker’ as simply a mainly male activist of the industrial working class”. John Bulaitis said: “The character of this consciousness (of the working class) will be different from that in the past. The old stereotype of the working class as male, manual workers is over. Clinging to this idea will be a barrier to rebuilding the socialist movement. Struggles, such as those for women’s’ liberation, over the environment, and lesbian and gay liberation, must be linked to class politics and an anti-capitalist programme.” (Socialism Today 11, Page 28)
45) In response the EC majority declare: “Are the authors of Ourselves Alone? abandoning the perspective of the working class, and above all the industrial working class, being the central force which will gather behind itself environmental activists, those involved in the lesbian and gay liberation movement? They should clarify their ambiguous statements on this issue.” (para 34) Further: “We must fully intervene in the struggles amongst working class women, continue with our work around CADV, over the environment, as we have done with the CJA, the justice movement etc, as well as in the lesbian and gay movements. But it’s not just a question of linking these movements to “class politics and an anti-capitalist programme”. It is also necessary for a Marxist organisation to recognise that it will be a mass movement of the working class, within which the industrial working class will play a key role, which will draw behind it those youth, blacks and Asians, lesbians and gay activists who are presently scattered in single-issue campaigns.” (para 32)
Abandoning the working class?
46) We find it extremely disturbing that the EC have chosen to question the ideas in the John Bulaitis article. He was precisely defending the centrality of class identity in the struggle for socialism against the positions in the book One hundred years of socialism by Donald Sassoon. (see footnote 2 for a comment on the EC’s method of quotation from JB’s article.) The latter’s ideas on this are in a direct line of “post-Marxist” (and post-Fordist and post-modernist) thinking which finds its most complete expression in the book by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe entitled Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (Verso 1986). They argue that the working class is not the privileged agency of radical social change, and that diverse social movements (what Sassoon calls ‘new issues and new polities’) must coalesce into an alliance for ‘radical democracy’ – campaigning for what they call a ‘new social imaginary’. John Bulaitis’ article is a polemic against these kind of ideas. He explicitly says “Modern socialism would have been unthinkable without the development of a distinct class with a specific relationship to the means of production, that is the modern proletariat. Socialist ideology was not ‘invented’ but stemmed from the contradiction between this class and the dominant class in society – the capitalist – and the contradictions within capitalism itself. Modem socialism was rooted in the class struggle.” (Socialism Today 11 p27) He goes on to argue that despite the fact that “working class consciousness has been pushed back” it is nevertheless the case that “class identity will again become central in the upheavals impending in Europe and Britain”.
47) However, John Bulaitis also makes some entirely correct points about the changed composition of the working class, and the relationship of various liberation movements and radical struggles to class politics and the struggle for socialism. He argues that Sassoon’s ‘new politics,’ by which Sassoon means the “struggle for women’s liberation, over the environment, and lesbian and gay liberation”, should not be counterposed to class politics, as he suggests, but that they “must be linked to class politics and an anti-capitalist programme.” Far from being a problem, the ideas advanced on this question in Ourselves Alone? and by John Bulaitis are vital for the struggle for socialism today.
48) The problem in the EC’s position can be seen from the way they pose it. For them, the ‘working class’, especially the ‘industrial working class’, will “draw behind it those youth, blacks and Asians, lesbians and gay activists who are presently scattered in single-issue campaigns”. (our emphasis) It is distinctly strange to imagine ‘the working class’, on the one hand, and counterpose to it such huge sections of the working-class population as youth and blacks and Asians who are “scattered in single issue campaigns”! What kind of vision of the working class underlies that statement?
49) In any case, let us state absolutely plainly, the points we were trying to make. They are, firstly: There has been a massive change in the composition of the workforce, both in terms of its gender composition and occupational structure. Thus ‘blue collar’ manufacturing industry has declined rapidly, especially in Britain, but also in other advanced capitalist countries. This has involved a rapid decline of mining, engineering, cars, ship-building, dock-labour etc. etc. In their place has arisen, especially, an array of service industries; and in the post-war period as a whole, there has been a big rise in the public sector – despite recent cuts – which makes the NHS and local government the biggest employers in Britain today.
50) Does this mean the decline of the objective basis for class politics? Not at all! As Phil Hearse explained in his polemic against Anthony Giddens in Socialism Today.-“The point is that within capitalism, new arenas of the generation of class consciousness are, over time, created. For example, local government workers, hospital workers, public sector workers in general, are at the forefront of class movements in many countries today, whereas in the past they were relatively quiescent. New traditions of militancy and consciousness emerge. For class consciousness is not based fundamentally on living in a stable working class community or working in a factory – although millions of workers of course do both…. “Class consciousness is fundamentally based on the experience of exploitation and oppression on the basis of selling one’s labour power. Which is why all theories of the ‘decline of class’, either as an objective factor or an element of consciousness, will prove futile and disorientating.” (Socialism Today 6, p.30). Interacting with the massive changes in the occupational structure of the working class are of course huge social changes, especially the decline of the nuclear family, and an increase in the number of single person households, single-parent households etc. All this means that the social ‘profile’ of the working class has changed dramatically.
51) Secondly, the struggles of women, black people, lesbians and gay men, the disabled and other social groups have to be linked politically with the working-class struggle for power. But the reverse is also true, and this has big implications for the programme and political ‘profile’ of revolutionary socialism. It isn’t just that those groups specially oppressed within capitalism (in fact covering a majority of society) will be dragged ‘behind’ the industrial working class. Overwhelmingly these groups are part of the working class. Moreover, the programme of revolutionary socialism has to integrate thoroughly the demands and struggles of the oppressed. Is this not in fact precisely one of the central lessons of the Grunwick strike? (referred to by the EC majority para 31). This battle involved predominantly Asian women workers. As workers they were fighting class oppression but -what the EC majority ignore – is that integrated in their struggle were demands against the racial and sexual oppression they faced.
52) Do not the EC majority realise that it is impossible to imagine a successful revolution in an advanced capitalist country in the future in which the demands of women, immigrants, disabled people, black people and lesbians and gay men are not a central component. This is precisely why we say “the character of the radicalisation will be different from that of the past” (John Bulaitis in Socialism Today 11, page 28). This is not just an assertion but the obvious conclusion from the experience of all our work in these areas. Campaigns like the CADV, for example, are not waiting to be “draw(n) behind” the working class. It is an integral part of the working class movement, winning affiliation and active support from important sections of the trade union movement, and successfully fighting for trade union branches to negotiate domestic violence guidelines. It has helped to raise the consciousness of the working-class movement on the whole question of women’s oppression.
53) Thirdly, big struggles, and the re-emergence of socialist consciousness on a wider scale, will help propel the self-organisation of the oppressed, which will be an essential part of the struggle for socialism, and which we should support.
54) These developments have profound strategic implications for building our organisation, which is why we raised them in our document. They underlay two of the positions that we argued: a) the character of our political profile in the next period; and b) the character of the struggles which are likely to unfold. On the first we said: “…the organisation has to be at the cutting edge of the liberation struggles of disabled people, lesbians and gay men and of course black people. It has to be the most intransigent and determined of all the left organisations on these questions.” (Ourselves Alone? para 44.) Further: “We have to be militantly anti-capitalist as well as radical on all the key social issues”.(0urselves Alone? para 39.)
55) On the issue of how struggles are likely to unfold we argued: “We cannot have a 1930s image of how the future unfolding radicalisation will take place. We can expect and must prepare for struggles over cuts, services, pay redundancies etc. New fresh layers will come forward in these struggles; indeed the recent strikes and many trade union conferences have shown that there is already a new militant layer beginning to be formed in the workplaces. In addition to this, the social and political radicalisation in the next period will, indeed already is to some extent, give rise to a very complex series of movements and campaigns, involving women’s struggles, anti-racist movements, environmental, housing, disabled people, lesbian and gay, youth and other movements. “(Ourselves Alone? para 24)
56) It is amazing that the EC majority choose to raise, on the basis of nil evidence, the idea that we are abandoning the leading role of the working class. Not at all. But we are in favour of recognising the real, not mythical, character of the working class; and understanding the centrality of the demands of those in capitalist society who suffer special oppression – the vast majority of whom are part of our class. It is not us, but the EC majority, who need to urgently clarify their views on these questions.
CONCLUSION: THE REAL STAKES IN THE DEBATE
57) As this debate has continued, confusion has been increasingly imported into the perspectives of the EC majority itself – both their written statements and in their speeches around the country. Comrades must ask themselves exactly what the perspectives of the EC actually amount to. In reality they amount to nothing more than changing the name, and through this “raising the profile of the organisation” and in doing that being able to recruit from the “broader mass”.
58) What began as a debate about our name is now a debate about perspectives and, above all, how we will build our revolutionary organisation in the next period. Although this discussion has continued for five months, we believe it is crucial process in the clarification of our perspectives and methods, which are a guide to all our activity.
59) If we accept the idea that the level of consciousness of the radicalised layers moving into struggle is “not that far removed from the broad mass”; and that the potential for the development of alliance work is minimal; then the organisation conclusions are obvious: a drive to recruit a layer of the “broad masses”. Such an outcome would be an adventure which would swamp the rest of our work. The results, in terms of real new members, would be very limited. Enormous amounts of energy would be expended in turning up, and following up, new paper members, most of whom would never attend a meeting or pay subs.
60) You could only attempt such an orientation by throwing the membership into it. The detailed attention to our trade union work, youth work, work amongst women and other areas would be undermined – whether intended or not.
61) The EC majority has chosen a name guaranteed to cause confusion in the organisation and the rest of the left about the nature of our political aims and tasks in the next period. The best that can be said for the proposal to adopt Socialist Party is that it is an electoral orientation, designed to maximise our votes. Election work is an important part of our orientation in the present period; but it is not the bedrock of our intervention. Although, as we have explained, no name will counter the fact that in the next election many of the most class conscious workers will vote Labour to get rid of the Tories, and this instinct is based on a class logic -the idea that the situation can change if the Tories are defeated, not any great confidence in Blair.
62) What is posed is what type of organisation we can expect to build in the present period. In contrast to the EC’s orientation to the ‘mass’, we argue that we can build in this period a large revolutionary organisation based on the most advanced, active, radical sections of our class.
63) We can raise our profile by engaging in struggles and campaigns, energetically intervening in the industrial battles that have and are developing, and building Young Socialist Resistance. We can recruit significantly in the period up to and around the general election. There is no contradiction between aiming to recruit the most politically advanced layers while engaging in ‘broader’, mass work – in fact to do one without the other is impossible.
64) Our priority is the building of a revolutionary party. A serious approach to left unity; a serious attempt to build alliances and other such formations; continuing to fight for a new socialist party will not be an obstacle but will enormously enhance the attraction of our organisation.
65) We should orientate the organisation towards the most militant layers in the trade unions, towards working class women, toward the radicalising sectors amongst the youth, towards the struggles, towards the real lines of political divide inside the labour movement and among the oppressed. The EC’s orientation is entirely different. The orientation of the EC majority- and the Socialist Party name that symbolises it – must be rejected.
Footnotes
Footnote 1.
Fl) The arguments about a ‘vertical split’ in existing mass workers’ parties are an obvious example of the misrepresentation in the EC majority reply. We argued: “Building a new mass working class party -with hundreds of thousands of members and millions of voters – is a task of historic proportions, unlikely to be fully achieved within a few years. Only where a mass reformist or centrist organisation suffers a vertical split – such as the Communist Refoundation split from the PDS in Italy – can a new mass party of the working class be so rapidly assembled.” (Ourselves Alone?, para 12)
F2) The EC’s response (For the Socialist Party Proposal, paras 38-42) is to point out that where a fascist or military dictatorship rapidly collapses, new mass parties of the working class can rapidly emerge. This is a correct point, but as it happens, totally irrelevant to this discussion. They then say that we are repeating the “big bang” vertical split theory of the emergence of mass parties, implying that we think that’s the only way a new mass party will emerge in Britain! – ie through a split in the Labour Party. On the contrary, we said that only with a vertical split (outside of course the collapse of a fascist dictatorship) could a new mass party emerge rapidly. How is it possible for the EC majority to so completely misunderstand our arguments?
F3) Equally the section on our journals (EC majority reply, paras 75-6) which accuses us of wanting to take our journals out of the control of the organisation, or not to have a political line, is yet another obvious misrepresentation of what we argued in our document (ie that our journals had to be open to discussion and debate). These are just two of many such misrepresentations in the EC majority reply.
Footnote 2.
F4) In para 31 of the EC majority document it is argued that we are implying that the “industrial working class, and the advanced workers….. will not play a decisive role” in the struggle for socialism. The document says: “John Bulaitis seems to imply that such a role is ruled out in the future”, and then it immediately quotes him as saying: ‘Clinging to this idea will be a barrier to the rebuilding of the socialist movement…..'” etc. But by not quoting JB’s preceding sentence the EC majority have managed to completely misrepresent what he was in fact arguing. Any objective person who goes back and reads the original article will see that the idea that John Bulaitis is referring to as a barrier is not the role of the working class as the agent for social change but the “old stereotype of the working class as male manual workers”.
Footnote 3 – The debate on France
F5) The EC reply to the points we made on France is so wide of the mark that they have totally confused the issue. In Ourselves Alone? we argued that the December 1995 mass strikes could not be analysed simply in terms of the emergence, or non-emergence, of a new mass socialist consciousness; but that the events had a radicalising impact which has been expressed in the speeding up of the political recomposition of the French workers’ movement. The nub of what we argued was that this radicalisation, part of a long drawn-out and complex process, would strengthen the radical forces. Obviously, our argument is within the framework, reiterated above, of distinguishing between i) the socialist vanguard, ii) the radicalising layers and iii) the broad mass of the class. It is no answer to the the points we raised to simply repeat, once more and yet again, that a mass socialist consciousness did not emerge.
F6) We argued (Ourselves Alone?, para 55): “The December 1995 revolt gave a shot-in-the-arm to the on-going process of trade union recomposition – the building and strengthening of independent trade union federations like SUD and the FSU, as well as the various oppositions inside the CFDT, together with formations like the AC! campaign against unemployment. At the same time, the events strengthened the impact and recomposition of the left. Following the events, the Communist Party launched a series of rallies open to the whole left, where Trotskyist speakers, including our comrades, got a good reception from even sections of the CP faithful.” We then pointed out that attendance at the events of the far left had increased significantly.
F7) The EC’s reply is entirely at cross-purposes to the points we made. They argue: “The careful, sober assessment of the situation undertaken by the EC majority is foreign to them (eg JB, PH and JW). We have pointed to a certain growth in the French trade unions as an important development arising out of this movement. Attendance at far-left ‘fetes’ is no indication of a mass revival of socialist consciousness as our authors seem to indicate (our emphasis). A certain radicalisation has taken place, as well as a growth in the trade unions, but the idea of a mass revival of socialism resulting from the events is greatly removed from reality.”(EC Reply, para 25, Bulletin 19).
F8) But we never said that there was a mass revival of socialist consciousness; we said that attempting to analyse events like the December 1995 strikes, in the way the EC do, in a simplistic “fashion by putting a socialist plus or a non-socialist minus against them is a futile exercise”, and doesn’t tell you anything of practical use.
F9 One of the fundamental lines of argument we have put forward in this document is that the development of mass struggle inevitably leads to a differentiation of the consciousness of the working class, and to an uneven development of more radical layers. It is from these layers that the basic forces that can be won to revolutionary marxism will come from. That is true in France, and is also true in Britain. It’s the experience of struggle which propels the development of more radical layers, and it’s the development of these layers which provides the objective basis for the growth and development of the revolutionary marxist forces, even without the development of a ‘mass socialist consciousness’.
F10) The whole point of our raising the issue of France was to illustrate the complexity and unevenness of the development of the consciousness of the working class, as counterposed to the EC’s undialectical framework which counterposes, on the one hand the “advanced layer” with a socialist consciousness which is “very thin”, to “the mass”. But it was also to show that the development of the consciousness of the class is not the abstract acceptance or non-acceptance of socialist propaganda, but the result of the experience of struggle and the political recomposition of the workers’ movement (and other radical movements).
F11) The building of the revolutionary party cannot take place in abstraction from the real course of the radicalisation, and removed and counterposed to the real recomposition of the workers’ movement On the contrary the Marxists always have to engage with, promote, develop and politically clarify the forces coming out of the political recomposition and the mass struggles. To repeat: mass struggle in and of itself will not promote revolutionary socialist consciousness Only the combination, the interaction of the mass struggle and the intervention of the socialist forces will bring this about.
F12) In general, the EC’s simplistic ‘yes/no’ theoretical position on consciousness is extremely one-dimensional. What exactly do they mean by socialist consciousness? On the one hand they argue (correctly) that there is a smaller layer of militants with an explicitly socialist consciousness than existed in the early 1970s. This is true, but what happens when you compare the situation with the 1950s and early 1960s – at the height of the long capitalist boom. Then, the revolutionary and militant socialist forces were very weak compared with today. But, on the other hand, there was a mass social democratic consciousness (in Britain), and a mass Stalinist consciousness in other countries.
F13) It is, of course, correct to argue that this mass social democratic and Stalinist support embodied an attachment to ideas – of planning and social equality, for example – which are a massive advance over Blairism and neo-liberal ideas .today, or a collapse into political apathy. On the other hand, the very dominance of these ideas, and the near-complete marginalisation of militant socialist and revolutionary ideas in the 1950s and 1960s, indicated that this mass social democratic and Stalinist consciousness rested on the ability of capitalism to grants reforms in a period of boom, and the .international relationship of forces with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
F14) From this angle, it was historically inevitable that this mass consciousness would go into crisis and semi-collapse, with the break-up of its material underpinnings. Only with the regrowth of struggle, in an uneven way, will a new consciousness, fundamentally different from the mass social democratic and Stalinist consciousness of the past, be born. But, it is crucial that we recognise that, despite the semi-collapse of this mass consciousness, the number and social weight of the more advanced and militant socialist forces is nowhere near back to the position of the 1950s and early 1960s.
Appendix
The method of the debate
Al) Despite the withdrawal of more extreme formulations in the first version of the EC document sent to NC members and others, the EC persist in their call for comrades to “reject the fundamentally false method, tone and approach of the authors of the document entitled Ourselves Alone.”(para 103)
A2) Why is it necessary for the EC to characterise the debate in this way? In Members Bulletin 18, the General Secretary expressed the hope that the debate would continue with further verbal, and if necessary, written contributions. This indeed turned out to be the case. And far from being a problem, this debate is an opportunity to clarify perspectives in a manner which is entirely normal within a democratic centralist organisation. Our document, Ourselves Alone? was a polemical document, but it was a political document which never at any point sunk to the level of personal abuse or vilification.
A3) The character of the EC response to our document raises important questions about the role of debate and discussion within the organisation. In our opinion, not only differences of opinion, but sharp differences, and at certain points counter-posed political lines are inevitable within a revolutionary organisation. We will not get from here to being a mass revolutionary party without sharp differences coming up periodically. Indeed a really mass revolutionary party would contain political differences much wider than any expressed in the current debate. A mass party will never be built, especially in the post-Stallnist period, without being able to contain differences of a tactical, strategic and even programmatic character.
A4) Internal democracy cannot be limited to asking questions of, or making small amendments to, what is proposed by the EC. On the contrary, there must be an internal atmosphere conducive to the free and forthright expression of political opinion.
This is not reducible to formal rights, it is above all a question of the manner in which the leadership deals with differences.