Why form a faction?

Before dealing in detail with the issues raised by the launch of a faction within the Scottish section we first have to pose the question – why has a faction been established?

Most of the issues raised by the comrades are not new. The leadership in Scotland have made every attempt to reach agreement with the comrades who have signed the statement Scottish Socialist Party Conference Review and Conclusions. Our aim has not been to sweep differences under the carpet, but to find common ground in order that we can get on with the job of building and developing the International Socialist Movement and the Scottish Socialist Party, while continuing to discuss in a calm and constructive way our remaining political differences, many of which will be clarified on the basis of time and events rather than on the basis of polemics and votes.

Before the conference on February 6, a lengthy discussion took place on what was then the Scottish Militant Labour executive between Philip and the other Full-timers, around the organisational proposals which were put to that conference. The majority bent over backwards to accommodate Philip, even though he had been defeated by an overwhelming vote in the all-members meeting of November 1999.

We agreed, for example, that Philip should continue to play the key role of editing the International Socialist, even though Phil himself had repeatedly insisted that there were “fundamental political disagreements” between him and the majority. We also agreed to Philip’s amendment which deleted a statement in the organisational resolution calling on the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership to withdraw it’s opposition to the launch and building of the SSP. Incidentally, some comrades on the EC were strongly opposed to removing this perfectly reasonable demand. However, the majority were prepared to go to great lengths to arrive at a working agreement which would satisfy Philip, the other minority comrades and the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership who have clearly been involved in discussing the issues with Philip from the outset of the debate last summer.

We also did not oppose the International Executive Committee recommendation that Philip be brought on to the International Executive Committee as one of just three comrades from Scotland, even though he represents only a tiny minority of International Socialist Movement members.

The organisational resolution was agreed unanimously by the Scottish Militant Labour EC and then by the conference. We hoped that would allow us to get on with the task of putting behind us the divisions of the past and begin building and developing the International Socialist Movement. Indeed, that was the spirit of the entire meeting.

As one of the minority speakers, Harvey Duke, stated at the conference: “We have no intention of building a faction because there is no need for a faction.”

Most members of the International Socialist Movement were therefore bitterly disappointed that barely a month later when Philip, in collaboration with other comrades (and in our opinion, in collaboration also with the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership who opposed tooth and nail the launch of the Scottish Socialist Party and have since systematically denigrated the International Socialist Movement and the Scottish Socialist Party the length and breadth of the International) produced a statement, Scottish Socialist Party Conference Review and Conclusions which was clearly the prelude to the establishment of a faction.

No-one bar the seven signatories to the document and the leadership of the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party had been given any prior hint, either before, during or after the Scottish Socialist Party conference that such a statement was being considered. There was not a single telephone call, email message, informal conversation – nothing.

Yet the statement was immediately circulated the length and breadth of the International before it had been discussed in the International Socialist Movement Political Committee and before it had been seen by 95 per cent of the membership of the International Socialist Movement. It was also subsequently leaked (by whom, exactly, we do not know) to the Weekly Worker the paper of the Communist Party of Great Britain which is bitterly hostile to the Committee for a Workers’ International and the International Socialist Movement.

This haste to distribute information on the part of the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership stands in stark contrast to their refusal to report on the outstanding achievements and successes of the Scottish Socialist Party. Furthermore, the statement itself contained factual inaccuracies – as even the comrades who drew up the statement subsequently conceded – although by that time it had already been distributed internationally and reprinted in the Weekly Worker.

One key question we have to pose is – what changed between the International Socialist Movement conference on February 6 and March 12, when the statement was drawn up, to justify this U-turn by Philip and the other minority comrades?

Has there been a weakening of the structures of International Socialist Movement? No – there has been a strengthening of these structures. The International Socialist Movement political committee was established – a wider body replacing the old SML EC. It has met monthly; branches have elected their representatives to the political committee; all the existing branches continued to meet and have drawn up attractive programmes of political discussion; two new branches have been formed; a number of new recruits have joined; and a national political education programme has been launched.

This is despite the fact that, in the same short period we also fought the Ayr parliamentary by election in which the Scottish Socialist Party defeated the Lib Dems, one of Scotland’s two governing parties. We also organised, prepared for and intervened in the Scottish Socialist Party’s first policy-making conference, which resoundingly confirmed the dominant political influence of the ideas of the International Socialist Movement within the Scottish Socialist Party. The conference adopted 22 policy statements, many of which were drawn up by International Socialist Movement members, and all of which reflected our programme and analysis. All of these political statements were agreed overwhelmingly, with the sole opposition coming from the Republican Communist Network (RCN), a mish-mash of small mainly ultra-left grouplets who by no stretch of the imagination could be described as “reformist currents”.

Why then did the comrades rapidly abandon the spirit of unity expressed by both sides at the International Socialist Movement conference and rush so hastily into taking the unprecedented step of forming a faction? Why were there no attempts to raise or discuss these issues verbally before going into print and circulating a one-sided and largely inaccurate diatribe against the majority of the International Socialist Movement – which was then distributed across the world and printed in publications that are hostile to the Committee or a Workers’ International?

And why, in any case, is there a need for a faction when there has been no suggestion from any quarter that there has been any stifling of debate, or suppression in any shape or form of minority views?

Nor has there been any attempt to prevent the comrades from meeting privately as they have been doing. Every document or statement produced by the faction comrades has been distributed and discussed. To some of us, it feels like we have discussed nothing else since last June. So why form a faction?

A clue to this hasty rush to form a faction can be found in Tony Saunois’ intervention at the February 6 International Socialist Movement conference. Tony, as the Secretary of the Committee or a Workers’ International, registered the opposition of the International Secretariat to the proposal that France’s Curran resume her duties as convenor after being off on maternity leave.

Most comrades regarded this as an utterly incredible intervention and a deliberate attempt to shatter the mood of unity of the conference. Indeed there was no other candidate nominated. This was a clear statement by the International Secretariat that they were not prepared to work with Frances and that they would instead start to seek out an alternative leadership more pliable to the International Secretariat. But you cannot impose a leadership from outside.

We believe that the driving force for the setting up of a faction has been external pressure. We believe that, since the day the decision was taken to launch the Scottish Socialist Party, the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership have been determined, come hell or high water, to split the organisation in Scotland and establish a rival organisation within the Scottish Socialist Party under their direct control. Repeated visits have been made to Scotland, not in order to collaborate with the recognised leadership, but to undermine the elected leadership and find points of support within the International Socialist Movement.

We do not believe that most of the Scottish comrades involved in the faction have the same agenda. These comrades have raised some legitimate disagreements, which given the ground-breaking strategy being pursued by the International Socialist Movement are an inevitable and necessary part of mapping out a way forward.

Up until now we have deliberately refrained in any written material from attacking or condemning these comrades. Instead, we have concentrated in presenting own strategy in a positive fashion. However we believe comrades are allowing themselves to be exploited by an international leadership whose role has been to magnify differences, polarise the debate, and whip up hysteria against the Scottish leadership.

The truth is that the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership – in contrast to most of those who have signed the factional statement -have opposed our strategy from the outset and are still in complete opposition. This is why there has been a blanket of silence within the International regarding the success of the Scottish Socialist Party. The sad truth is that the success of the Scottish Socialist Party, rather than being a source of pride, has been a huge embarrassment to our international leadership

We even have the ludicrous situation that in the April issue of Socialism Today there is a four and a half page article on the need for a new workers’ party which fails to mention the Scottish Socialist Party. While every other left publication in Britain – including even the Socialist Worker – praised the success of the Scottish Socialist Party in the recent Ayr parliamentary by election in defeating one of the governing parties in Scotland, the publications – internal and external – of the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers’ International have ignored it. Material which has been sent for inclusion in the Committee for a Workers’ International newsletter has been suppressed.

The political characterisations of the Scottish section and leadership that are now doing the rounds in the meetings of the international are totally unacceptable.

We have accusations, for example, that Alan McCombes is a ‘National Trotskyist’ and believes in socialism in one country; that the Scottish Socialist Party has a programme of ‘limited nationalisation’; that the Scottish Socialist Party opposes nationalisation of the North Sea oil companies; that the International Socialist Movement leadership have “illusions in multinational capitalism”; that the Scottish Socialist Party is simply based on a few charismatic leaders and its membership is largely a paper membership; that the International Socialist Movement is “pandering to reformism”.

This is a tissue of falsifications and distortions which we would now request the right to answer in all the main sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International. There has been no attempt to constructively engage in a serious discussion on any of these issues. Instead there is a constant attempt to undermine and denigrate the work of the Scottish section.

The launch of a faction, we believe, is the culmination of a campaign by the international leadership which has the ultimate aim of splitting the International Socialist Movement and establishing a puppet organisation in Scotland

Before we even begin to answer the points raised by the comrades who have set up a faction within the Scottish organisation, it is important to look at the method they have used in this debate. The method of Marxism is critical thought. It looks at all of the evidence in a situation and then attempts to draw up an analysis based on the whole picture, taking into account all the factors involved.

The approach by the faction comrades is to begin the process the other way around. They have put forward a conclusion and are then searching around trying to find evidence to back it up. They are attempting to prove that “one trend seeks to abandon the building of an independent revolutionary organisation within the Scottish Socialist Party” and “the other trend stands for the continuation of the building of our revolutionary organisation”. (Scottish Socialist Party Conference Review and Conclusions)

As they cannot develop a coherent argument to prove their case they apply a scattergun approach in their statement, Scottish Socialist Party Conference Review and Conclusion, which jumps from one issue to another, dragging in all sorts of red herrings to try to back up their assertion.

Character of the Scottish Socialist Party

In this discussion there are two primary and many secondary issues. The primary questions under dispute are firstly, the development of the Scottish Socialist Party, its programme, its character and its likely future evolution. The other key question is the relationship of our organisation, the International Socialist Movement, to the Scottish Socialist Party.

Let’s remember, against a background of ferocious opposition of the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership both at international level and in the national sections, the Scottish organisation with a belief in the correctness of our analysis courageously decided (with other groups and individuals) to launch the Scottish Socialist Party. This decision has been completely vindicated in the objective situation in Scotland today. If we had accepted the position of the Committee for a Workers’ International World Conference, the active forces of socialism would be much weaker today.

We would not have made the electoral impact we have achieved. The influence of socialist and Marxist ideas within Scottish society would be much weaker. Concrete gains for the working class such as the abolition of poindings and warrant sales would not have been achieved.

Moreover, the active membership of the International Socialist Movement would be much smaller. In contrast to the steep decline of the active Socialist Party membership in England and Wales over the past 18 months, there are more International Socialist Movement/Committee for a Workers’ International members actively involved in politics in one form or another, fighting for the ideas of Marxism within the Scottish Socialist Party, the trade unions, the communities and the workplaces.

Let’s also clear up a myth that seems to have taken flight around the International and is repeated in the statements of the faction: at no stage has the International Socialist Movement leadership ever defined the Scottish Socialist Party as a “revolutionary party.” Our contention is – and has been all along – that the Scottish Socialist Party is a hybrid party, a party in transition, a party whose final character has not yet been settled and may not yet be settled for some time.

Whether it will develop into a revolutionary party in the future (i.e. a vehicle capable of leading the Scottish working class to power) will be determined in the course of events. Equally, whether the Socialist Party in England and Wales, or any other section of the Committee for a Workers’ International will be capable of leading the working class to power will also be determined in the course of future events.

A year after the launch of the Scottish Socialist Party we gave more detailed content to our definition of the Scottish Socialist Party on the basis of real experience. As Philip acknowledges in his August 1999 statement – (The Scottish Socialist Party One Year On): “Prior to the launching of the Scottish Socialist Party there was a lot of discussion as to the character of the party and its programme. At the time we described the party as having a hybrid character, i.e. part revolutionary and part broad. This reflected the fact that the party was still to be launched and it was not certain how it would develop or what forces it would attract. Clearly now almost one year on we are in a better position to make any adjustments to that formulation in the light of the concrete experience of our involvement in the Scottish Socialist Party”.

We agree with this statement. And last year everyone -including Philip – agreed with the characterisation of the Scottish Socialist Party stated in the same document: “The Scottish Socialist Party is a class struggle based broad socialist party with a strong revolutionary core in its leadership.”

Why then do the comrades muddy the waters by stating in the conference review statement that “the Scottish Socialist Party is not a revolutionary party” – with the clear inference that the rest of us claim that the Scottish Socialist Party is “a revolutionary party?”

Where have we said this? Please provide evidence. And why do the comrades retreat completely to the position put forward by the Socialist Party EC during the debate in 1998 and repeatedly describe the Scottish Socialist Party as “a broad party”- a definition which is so vague that it is open to almost any interpretation. The Labour Party for example could equally be described as “a broad party”. Such a description is totally inadequate because it tells us precisely nothing about the political make-up of the party the balance of forces within it, the direction in which it is travelling.

For that reason we would ask the faction comrades to clarify their position further. Do they accept our definition of the Scottish Socialist Party as a class-struggle based broad socialist party with an overwhelmingly working class composition and a strong revolutionary core in its leadership and membership? And if the comrades no longer accept this definition, what has changed?

Revolutionary party

There is utter confusion amongst the comrades within the faction on the question of the revolutionary party. There seems to be little conception of where the International Socialist Movement and for that matter the Committee for a Workers’ International is now, and where it has to go in order to achieve the building of a mass revolutionary party.

The comrades repeatedly insist that the International Socialist Movement is a revolutionary party. They state “we are building our own revolutionary party within the Scottish Socialist Party” and castigate the majority for describing the International Socialist Movement not as a party, but as a platform or tendency. This, the comrades assert, is “liquidationism”.

But we need a serious debate on the distinction between a party and a tendency or platform. The description of the International Socialist Movement as a party within a party is a recipe for confusion. Most people would understand a party to be an organisation which directly campaigns among the working class and the wider population in its own name, leads campaigns under its own name, fights elections and exists as a separate force.

A tendency or platform, on the other hand, is part of a wider party which seeks to shape and influence that party. Under certain conditions, a tendency can become a party and vice versa.

The question at this stage is: What is the role of the International Socialist Movement now and in the immediate future? Is our primary role to lead campaigns under the name of the International Socialist Movement, intervene among the broad working class in the name of the International Socialist Movement, stand in elections under the name of the International Socialist Movement – or is our main aim to intervene, politicise and organisationally develop the Scottish Socialist Party, while expanding the membership of the International Socialist Movement itself through recruiting principally from the Scottish Socialist Party?

When the comrades lapse into hysteria over terminology, they forget the history of their own organisation. When we launched Scottish Militant Labour there was some discussion around whether we should call ourselves a party. The comrades on the Socialist Party EC (then Militant EC) were vehement in their opposition to describing Scottish Militant Labour as a party. Even in internal material, they insisted that Scottish Militant Labour was not a party.

For example, in EC Reply to the ‘Open Letter’ from the ex-minority the British Militant EC in 1993 stated: “Nowhere have we proposed ‘an open revolutionary party’. The ex-minority try to build the case on the basis of one or two isolated off-the-cuff comments. Such enthusiastic statements made at the moment of sensational victories take nothing away from what we have constantly stressed and re-stressed both in our written material and in other statements to the press which the Open Letter dishonestly ignores. We have repeatedly and specifically explained why we are NOT establishing a ‘Party’.” (Our emphasis)

The references to ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘off-the-cuff’ refer to statements in the press and elsewhere by Scottish Militant Labour members describing Scottish Militant Labour as a party. In fact, there was disagreement on this issue. The Scottish comrades were repeatedly taken to task for calling Scottish Militant Labour a party – even in election material where the British leadership insisted that we did not use the term.

The argument of the comrades then was that Scottish Militant Labour was a ‘detour’ and our long term orientation would be back towards the Labour Party as the party itself moved back to the left. This perspective was treated extremely sceptically in Scotland some years before the British and International leadership finally drew the conclusions that the Labour Party tactic was untenable.

When Scottish Militant Labour was fighting elections, campaigning among the working class, recruiting directly from the working class – in other words acting as a party – the comrades denied that we were a party. Now that we are acting as an organised tendency in a much bigger party that we lead, the comrades insist that we call our organisation “a party”. The old proverb springs to mind about someone singing a wedding song at a funeral, and a funeral dirge at a wedding.

Until relatively recently, no section of the Committee for a Workers’ International described itself as “the revolutionary party”. The reason was because the creation of a revolutionary party was seen as a long term goal rather than an accomplished fact. The sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International were – and in our opinion still are – nuclei which, providing the tactics, strategy and orientation are correct, may eventually succeed in bringing into existence genuine revolutionary parties with roots in the working class.

The accumulation of the forces which will make up the ranks of the revolutionary party will require many different orientations. In each situation the aim will be to either to win over individuals, or organisations and parties to the political analysis and programme that we advance for the taking of power.

Sometimes this will be as open independent organisations; at other times we will find ourselves working in new parties or formations. We may also find that when we are successful in reaching political agreement with other organisations this can lead to the formation of new revolutionary organisations through fusion and merger. We cannot map out the road to a mass revolutionary party at this stage with all the junctions clearly signposted.

Our orientation within the Scottish Socialist Party does not merely consist of trying to win over ones and twos, it actually consists of attempting, over a period of time, to win over the whole party to our political position. Instead of leading campaigns or standing in elections under the banner of Scottish Militant Labour we approach the class with the more effective banner of the Scottish Socialist Party. The role of the International Socialist Movement is different to the role of Scottish Militant Labour.

The International Socialist Movement is not a party in the sense of Scottish Militant Labour, which provided the entire campaigning structure for our intervention amongst the class. The International Socialist Movement plays a more ideological role within the Scottish Socialist Party, trying to develop the party in a revolutionary direction.

The recruits which we have and will attract have a much higher political level that those we attracted under Scottish Militant Labour, or those who currently are attracted to the Socialist Party in England and Wales or the Socialist Party in Ireland. Like the Socialist Party in England and Ireland, the Scottish Socialist Party – albeit on a much larger scale – attracts workers who want to fight for socialism. Those who take a further step towards joining the International Socialist Movement are, as a general rule, more politically developed.

The role of the International Socialist Movement is to develop a cadre and to promote political ideas and discussion inside the party on the philosophical, economic and the political analysis which we stand on. We also have the task of assisting the Scottish Socialist Party to become a combative party which is involved centre stage in the class struggle using the best methods of Scottish Militant Labour.

Of course a majority of our comrades are also leading the Scottish Socialist Party in terms of campaigns, elections, building the branches selling the Voice etc. So we also influence all the leading bodies of the Scottish Socialist Party on day to day propaganda, campaigning and tactical issues. Our leadership gives the Scottish Socialist Party a combative cutting edge and a far more developed Marxist political analysis than is the case with other “broad socialist parties”.

In 1934 the perspective of Trotsky was that the ILP in Britain, on the basis of events, could be won over to a revolutionary position. The ILP had come out of the Labour Party with around 15,000 members and had a sizeable apparatus and influence, including 5 MPs in Glasgow.

Nevertheless the international organisation around Trotsky advised the 40 inexperienced members in Britain to enter the ILP. The objective was not to recruit ones and twos to a separate organisation but to win over the whole party. The British group refused, but a minority split and agreed to enter, Trotsky’s advice to the organisation was this: “I am entirely in agreement with the proposal of the International Secretariat which you subject to criticism in your letter of January 5. We all agreed that after its entry into the ILP, the British section should cease its independent organisational existence”.

Was Trotsky a liquidationist? The first question most comrades will ask was: in what political context did Trotsky give this advice? And here we have the nub of the question. Organisational forms flow from political orientation – not the other way around. How you organise depends on the size of your organisation who you are orientating to, whether you are reaching the class as an independent organisation or through working in other parties and formations, and the character of these broader parties and formations.

The faction comrades and the International leadership promote the position that one size fits all. The sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International must have identikit organisational structures regardless of the conditions in which they are working. Anything less, anything different is “liquidationism.”

This has absolutely nothing in common with the experience of Marxism/Trotskyism. The whole experience of the left Opposition illustrates the consistent ability of Trotskyists in the inter war years to have the utmost flexibility in both orientation and in organisational forms as they attempted to accumulate the forces for a mass revolutionary party.

The organisational structures which we have put in place in Scotland of monthly political committees, monthly branch meetings, a public journal, a website, a newsletter/bulletin, a political committee, quarterly all members meetings – all backed up with political education programmes – are more than sufficient to attract new recruits and attend to their political education as well.

This coupled with an open profile within the Scottish Socialist Party has and will attract new members. But there are also many workers in the Scottish Socialist Party who will observe over a period of time our activity, political clarity and ability to lead the party. In the future we can expect to win over whole branches and regions to the International Socialist Movement. We could be doing with a more regular journal, but this is a question which we can address.

Will the International Socialist Movement at some stage in the future become a party like Scottish Militant Labour, standing in elections, intervening in the class struggle etc? That depends upon the development of the Scottish Socialist Party.

If the Scottish Socialist Party were to disintegrate at some stage, then in the absence of any serious socialist party in Scotland, the International Socialist Movement would have the responsibility of picking up the pieces, embarking on an Option One strategy and launching a new socialist party.

No-one can foretell exactly how events will unfold. Fortunately, however, the perspective that the Scottish Socialist Party will collapse or disintegrate is not the most likely scenario that we face, to put it mildly.

We also have to state that such a scenario would be a serious defeat for our organisation and for the Scottish working class, because the Scottish Socialist Party itself represents a historic conquest. After 18 months it now commands the support of around one in twenty of the Scottish electorate and a higher proportion still among the working class and the youth.

But what if we face exactly the opposite problem: that the Scottish Socialist Party were to be swamped with an influx of new members on an even bigger scale than we have seen up to now? What if entire trade unions moved in and effectively took over the Scottish Socialist Party? What if a number of Labour and SNP MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) defected to the Scottish Socialist Party?

In the first place, we would welcome the development of the Scottish Socialist Party into a real mass workers’ party. Undoubtedly, our tasks would become more complicated. We may find ourselves in a minority at least on certain issues.

However, the Scottish Socialist Party is not the Labour Party whose constitution even in its best days was effectively rigged in favour of the parliamentary leadership. Unless the democratic constitution was replaced by a bureaucratised regime, we would still orientate towards the Scottish Socialist Party and work through it rather than pronounce the International Socialist Movement a rival party.

We would probably adjust the organisational structures of the International Socialist Movement, for example to produce more public material presenting our ideas, if these were no longer being promoted by the Scottish Socialist Party. But while there remained a democratic structure in place, we would fight to re-establish our ideas and position. Our orientation would still be towards the Scottish Socialist Party. In other words, we would still be a tendency / platform rather than a party.

In the long term, whether our ideas prevail in the Scottish Socialist Party will be determined not by organisational forms, nor by whether we define the International Socialist Movement as a party – but by our political intervention and by events themselves.

The development of the Scottish Socialist Party into a mass workers’ party is not immediately posed. Nor is it likely to be posed in the next two to three years. Our structures and orientation have to reflect the tasks of the next period, not of the distant future.

In the meantime, the structures that have been agreed and implemented are more than adequate to intervene effectively in the Scottish Socialist Party and to build the forces of Marxism within the party.

The International Socialist Movement and the Scottish Socialist Party

We have today a double task of spreading socialist ideas and developing a Marxist cadre. In a sense we have to go back a hundred years to the period of the First or Second International, to the time of the establishment of the first mass workers’ parties. But we have to do so bearing in mind that the 20th century happened.

That means first of all that in building new workers’ parties, mass socialist traditions have to be revived, not invented from scratch, and that we can base ourselves on the best traditions of the workers’ movement in each country. Secondly, we have to take into the new parties the programmatic lessons of the last hundred years: that is the specific role of Marxism.

What we are faced with is a double task, not two separate tasks. Theoretically the two aspects can be separated. But in practice there is no Chinese wall between them. As we work to build new parties on a socialist basis we seek simultaneously to spread the influence of Marxism within these parties and not simply to build a Marxist faction. Rather than starting from a battle over definitions (party / organisation / tendency / current / platform), we have to start by posing the question: what is the role of the International Socialist Movement within the Scottish Socialist Party?

We are not building an organisation to intervene independently in the class struggle; our role is to intervene in the “class struggle based broad socialist party with a strong revolutionary core in its leadership” that is the Scottish Socialist Party. Of course we recruit to the International Socialist Movement, but recruitment is not and never has been an end in itself. We aim to recruit and train the best activists of the Scottish Socialist Party in order to assist the Scottish Socialist Party itself to evolve in a Marxist direction.

We do not content ourselves with building a broad party in which we are the revolutionary wing. We are not trying to resurrect the Labour Party pre-Kinnock and Blair. We should not, by the way, underestimate the challenge that faces us. Unlike most of the other major European countries, Marxism has never been a mass force in Britain, even if in certain areas of Scotland it had stronger roots than elsewhere.

We want the ideas of Marxism to become the ideas of the Scottish Socialist Party, but that is a process not an act. It is a question of helping the present and future members of the Scottish Socialist Party to arrive at Marxist conclusions through their own experience and through discussion. A mass party even a small mass party, based on Marxism would bear very little resemblance to the relatively small revolutionary groups who have represented Marxism over the last several decades.

In the first place it would be pluralist. One of the most telling passages in the material produced by the comrades of the faction is: “The Scottish Socialist Party is not a revolutionary party. The interviews in the SSV with some of the international visitors brought out their impressions that this was a party that involved people from different traditions.” (Review of the Scottish Socialist Party conference).

Yes, we agree the Scottish Socialist Party is not a revolutionary party. But that’s not because it involves people from different traditions. Indeed, it is unlikely that we will ever build revolutionary parties anywhere on any serious scale which do NOT involve people from different traditions.

Moreover, even a party dominated by the ideas of Marxism will at any point in time contain many people who are not Marxists. That should not pose us a serious problem. We have demonstrated in the past an ability to recruit, especially to Scottish Militant Labour, on the basis of campaigns and activity and to educate comrades in Marxism afterwards.

Democratic Centralism

The question has been put to us by the comrades in the faction: Do you support democratic centralism, yes or no? Our reply to this is – that depends on what the comrades mean.

In this debate comrades have asked us to define democratic centralism in a kind of ten easy-to-remember points. The question however is not that simple. The character of democratic centralism within an organisation is determined by the living struggle of the working class and the dynamic development of the revolutionary organisation.

The same questions regarding a simple definition were put to Trotsky. He said: “Neither do I think that I can give such a formula on democratic centralism that once and for all would eliminate misunderstandings and false interpretations.” He continues. “The regime of a party does not fall ready made from the sky but is formed gradually in the struggle. First of all it is necessary to define strategic problems and tactical methods correctly in order to solve them. The organisational forms should correspond to the strategy and the tactic. Only a correct policy can guarantee a healthy party regime. This it is understood does not mean that the development of the party does not raise organisational problems as such. But it means that the formula for democratic centralism must inevitably find a different expression in the parties of different countries and at different stages of development of one and the some party.”

The relationship of democracy and centralism is determined by concrete circumstances. When an organisation is working in illegal conditions either underground by force of the state or is working in political illegality within another organisation – which was the case with entrism within the Labour Party – then there will be a tendency to centralism.

In illegality under the capitalist state it would risk security to hold a public conference, or unnecessarily circulate organisational information. Not all members of the party would be told of what was happening with other comrades in other areas because of security reasons, severely limiting internal democracy.

When we were working within the Labour Party, in illegal political conditions where we denied the existence of an organisation, it was difficult to publicly display the open structures of the organisation, or to freely circulate written political material. Even the language used was coded.

In these conditions we were working against a hostile bureaucracy who wished to expel us. There was an agreed strategy and comrades were not free to stand up at Labour Party meetings if they disagreed with the strategy and declare that we were an organisation as this would have led to reprisals. This is not the situation within the Scottish Socialist Party where we are the leadership.

Again back to Trotsky: “Democracy and centralism do not find themselves in an invariable ratio to one another. Everything depends on the concrete circumstances or the political situation in the country, on the strength of the party and it’s experience, on the general level of it’s members on the authority its leadership has succeeded in winning.”

In this period, especially within a working class socialist party like the Scottish Socialist Party, the emphasis has to be on openness, transparency and democracy. The comrades in the faction appear to believe that we should go to the branches and structures of the Scottish Socialist Party having previously worked out a position which we would then vote for en masse.

Ironically, the comrades from Dundee who make up the majority of the faction have not acted in this way themselves. At the founding conference of the Scottish Socialist Party, the comrades from Dundee voted against the general position of Scottish Militant Labour (as it was then) on various constitutional amendments moved by our opponents. And at least one comrade who is associated with the faction recently broke ranks at a Dundee branch meeting to support a resolution from the Republican Communist Network on republicanism.

On another occasion, Philip voted against the majority of International Socialist Movement comrades and along with the Republican Communist Network in favour of inviting John McNulty of the sectarian-republican Socialist Democracy organisation in Belfast to speak at the Socialism 2000 event.

We have no problem with Philip and other comrades voting in different ways. When we are intervening in the Scottish Socialist Party, we are not confronting an open class enemy in the shape of the bosses, or a disguised class enemy in the shape of the trade union bureaucracy. Therefore it is unnecessary to operate as a tightly-knit caucus.

Moreover, if we did operate in this way our influence would not be enhanced within the Scottish Socialist Party: it would be diminished. Any suggestion that meetings of the Scottish Socialist Party are rubber stamps for decisions taken elsewhere will arouse hostility even among those workers in the Scottish Socialist Party who are most sympathetic to the International Socialist Movement.

We obviously expect all International Socialist Movement comrades to defend the basic ideas and principles of Marxism. We are in favour of discussing and where possible reaching agreement within the International Socialist Movement on key issues that will be of major importance to the party. However if we cannot convince comrades on a particular issue we are not in favour of coercing them to support that position.

The discussion on drugs policy is a concrete example of this approach. Not surprisingly, some comrades were uneasy with the policy being proposed. The fact that those comrades were free to put their point of view at the Scottish Socialist Party day school on an issue which is now of critical importance in Scotland added to the discussion and helped clarify some issues.

Genuine political unity cannot be achieved by mind control. We are totally opposed to any suggestion that an International Socialist Movement comrades expressing different positions within the Scottish Socialist Party would be subjected to disciplinary action – and we would ask the comrades in the faction to clarify their position on this question.

Neither are we in favour of caucusing before every Scottish Socialist Party branch meeting or National Council. Comrades should have the opportunity to discuss with other Scottish Socialist Party members tactical and strategic and programmatic issues without having to phone up a member of the Political committee to “get the line”.

Also, the International Socialist Movement does not need to have a cut and dried position on every issue that arises. At the recent conference policy papers were passed on issues as diverse as animal rights, prison reform and children’s rights which we have never really discussed before within Scottish Militant Labour or the International Socialist Movement.

This boils down to a question of confidence in our own membership. If you have a membership who are politically, developed, can think independently, and can apply the method of Marxism to contemporary, political, strategic and tactical issues then you can have the confidence that they are distilling these ideas and approach in the Scottish Socialist Party branches and meetings.

In a recent Socialism Today article on the case for a new workers party Peter Taaffe, the general secretary of the Socialist Party of England and Wales, criticises the Socialist Workers Party for using strength of numbers to railroad through their position at a meeting of the Lewisham London Socialist Alliance. We can only conclude that Peter thinks that this is an inappropriate form of democratic centralism for the Socialist Workers Party to adhere to under the concrete circumstances of leading and intervening in the London Socialist Alliance.

If the Socialist Workers Party joined the Scottish Socialist Party and were coming to every branch meeting or National Council with pre-prepared resolutions then we may have to modify our approach. As Trotsky says: “Everything depends on concrete circumstances.”

A key aspect of democratic centralism is control over the leadership by the rank and file. It is particularly relevant when it comes to action, especially of public leaders. If the International Socialist Movement conference agrees a policy then the members of the political committee would be expected to fully implement it.

However given that the Scottish Socialist Party does and will have public leaders, many elements of democratic centralism are more relevant at this stage to the development of the Scottish Socialist Party than the International Socialist Movement.

Indeed, the constitution of the Scottish Socialist Party itself upholds this key ingredient of democratic centralism. For example, the constitution states that “all elected Scottish Socialist Party members must be prepared to represent local/area/national policy and be accountable to the appropriate body; accept personal pay no more than the average skilled workers wage; participate in non-violent direct action campaigns and activities in pursuit of the aims and objectives of the Scottish Socialist Party.”

Reformist tendencies in Scottish Socialist Party?

The minority faction we believe approaches the Scottish Socialist Party with a defeatist mentality. It conjures up spectres of ‘reformist tendencies” which are pure imagination.

The comrades state explicitly that there “is a significant left reformist tendency within the Scottish Socialist Party”. The evidence provided to justify this remarkable statement is that the Scottish Socialist Party candidate in the Ayr by election was endorsed by ex-Labour MEP’s (Member of the European Parliament) Alex Smith and Henry McCubbin.

The comrades have got the argument mixed up: had the Scottish Socialist Party been supporting them, standing on their programme, then the comrades may have some cause for concern. But they were supporting the Scottish Socialist Party, on our programme.

Rather than the Scottish Socialist Party making concessions to reformism, we have here an example of reformists supporting a working class socialist party with a strong revolutionary core in its leadership.

That is a big step forward for these individuals – but it does not alter the character of the Scottish Socialist Party one iota. The comrades “evidence” is even further undermined by the fact that neither Alex Smith nor Henry McCubbin have even joined the Scottish Socialist Party at this stage. Ironically, the reason they give for refusing to join is that it is “hard left” and not sufficiently “broad”!

This argument, which cites the support of two ex-Labour Euro MPs for the Scottish Socialist Party as evidence of the Scottish Socialist Party’s reformism, is quite absurd. It illustrates once again that the comrades are unaware of the history of their own organisation.

When Alan McCombes stood in a high profile regional council by election in Govan in 1992 under the banner of Scottish Militant Labour he was supported by the former Labour MP for Govan, Andy McMahon, whose background was in the Communist Party.

Unlike Henry McCubbins and Alex Smith, Andy even went on to join Scottish Militant Labour. He spoke at Scottish Militant Labour public meetings, calling not only for people to vote for Scottish Militant Labour but for people to join. Reports of his joining and the meetings he spoke at were carried in the Militant and in internal Militant circulars without a shred of criticism. Does this mean that there was a significant Stalinist/reformist trend within Scottish Militant Labour?

If there is now “significant reformist tendencies” within the Scottish Socialist Party then why were there no resolutions presenting a reformist alternative at the Scottish Socialist Party conference -especially given that the Scottish Socialist Party constitution allows each branch to submit one ‘minority resolution’ to ensure that all shades of opinion are heard at the conference? Why was there no concerted reformist opposition to our political position on the floor of conference? Where was this reformist trend? Hiding in the coffee bar?

Of course, there are individual members of the Scottish Socialist Party who have reformist ideas. That is completely different from suggesting that “there is a significant left reformist tendency within the Scottish Socialist Party”.

In an article in the Scottish Socialist Voice at the time of the initial launch of the Scottish Socialist Party, Philip wrote: “All socialists in Scotland, irrespective of their party political allegiance should now consider joining us in building the Scottish Socialist Party. Whatever your traditions or views, if you are prepared to fight the chaos of the free market and help promote the ideas of socialism, you will be welcome in the new party. “

As these points illustrate neither Philip, nor anyone else, expected that the new party would only attract ready made revolutionaries. Any party which grows in such a rapid fashion, from a few hundred to a few thousand members (and it should be remembered that pro rata to the population the Scottish Socialist Party is the equivalent of a 20,000 strong party in England and Wales), no matter its ideological starting point, will attract a whole range of people not just with reformist ideas, but with sexist, homophobic, xenophobic and all sorts of other prejudices.

The vast bulk of the membership of the Scottish Socialist Party are not ex-Labour or ex-SNP activists. For every Scottish Socialist Party recruit from the Labour Party or the SNP, there have has been another 10 or 20 who were not previously active politically.

If you were to ask all 2,000 members of the Scottish Socialist Party if they regarded themselves as revolutionaries most would probably say that they don’t know. They may not define themselves as revolutionaries at this stage; but neither would they say they were opposed to revolution. Most people joining the Scottish Socialist Party are working class socialists who are wide open to discussion on how exactly socialism will be achieved.

The reason many do not yet define themselves as revolutionaries is because they are not at this stage forced to decide exactly where they stand on questions such as parliament and the state, which in turn is a reflection of the wider objective situation, the low level of class struggle, etc.

The development of a movement such as the miners strike in 1984-85 which brought a key section of the working class into direct collision with the state allowed many of these questions to surface in a more concrete fashion than was the case before this struggle developed. The miners and their families quickly grasped an understanding of the nature of the capitalist state, not by reading Lenin, but in the course of the struggle itself. If the Scottish Socialist Party had been launched under these conditions, there would already be a more clear cut consciousness and a more developed programmatic position on the role of the state,

Unfortunately, the comrades approach the characterisation of the Scottish Socialist Party and its membership not in a dialectical fashion, but in a metaphysical fashion.

Formal logic, which breaks down everything into fixed categories was a big step forward in its time and can be a useful rough and ready day-to-day method of thought. For example, in the world of natural science it is important to distinguish and categorise different species. Rather than lumping all four-legged animals into a single category, naturalists began to separate and differentiate between dogs, horses, cats etc and award them the appropriate labels.

But formal logic has its limitations. For example, there are hundreds of different breeds of dogs. One breed can turn into another. One species can turn into another.

Dialectical analysis is a much more sophisticated method of thought which goes beyond the simple labelling of things into rigidly defined categories. Especially when it comes to analysing complex political processes, simply pigeon-holing people into crude categories is not good enough. People’s ideas change and develop, especially when they begin to become active in politics.

Today’s so called “reformists” can be tomorrow’s revolutionaries. Equally, some of today’s so-called “revolutionaries” can be tomorrow’s reformists and even reactionaries. In the long term, how individuals, organisations and parties will develop will be determined by events. But in the short-to-medium term the conscious intervention of Marxist forces in a party like the Scottish Socialist Party, provided it is carried in an open, non-sectarian, and constructive fashion, can be decisive in shaping people’s political outlook.

Already in the first year or so of the Scottish Socialist Party’s existence, the intervention of Scottish Militant Labour (now International Socialist Movement) has had a profound impact on the political understanding of the active membership of the Scottish Socialist Party.

It is without foundation to suggest that the Scottish Socialist Party has become “broader” politically. Indeed, the position of the Socialist Party/Committee for a Workers’ International leadership was constructed to ensure that if the Scottish Socialist Party failed to develop, they could claim that they were right in predicting that there were no forces to justify the launch of the party; while on the other hand, if the Scottish Socialist Party did develop and grow, they could claim that they were right all along: what was being proposed was ‘a broad party’. Heads, we win, tails you lose.

In fact the estimation of the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership was doubly wrong. Their repeated insistence that no new forces would be attracted to the Scottish Socialist Party has proven to be a spectacular misjudgement. At the same time, the numerical growth and geographical expansion of the Scottish Socialist Party has been accompanied by a strengthening of the influence and authority of Marxism within the party largely as a result of the role of the International Socialist Movement, the Scottish Socialist Party has a more developed, coherent and potentially revolutionary set of policies than when it was founded.

The only organised opposition we face in the Scottish Socialist Party at this point in time is not from any imaginary reformist current, but from ideas that we could characterise as ultra-left (i.e. that run too far ahead of consciousness; that pose socialist and revolutionary ideas in a way that tends to alienate rather than attract ordinary working class people).

If anything, the general membership of the Scottish Socialist Party is probably at a much higher level of political consciousness about the tasks that lie ahead than the membership of the old Militant Tendency when we operated within the Labour Party.

In the mid 1980s in particular, many workers joined Militant under the impression that it was the left wing of the Labour Party. This impression was if anything reinforced by aspects of the Militant programme at that stage – for example the insistence that the nationalisation of the top 200 monopolies could be achieved by a Labour government introducing an enabling act through parliament. (“Militant has put forward the demand for nationalisation of the 200 monopolies, including the banks and insurance companies, with minimum compensation on the basis of proven need. At the same time the monarchy and the House of Lords should be abolished … These measures would be carried through in Parliament by means of an Enabling Bill.” – Militant: What We Stand For, by Peter Taaffe, December 1987).

If at the recent Scottish Socialist Party conference the leadership had put forward a resolution which contained such a clause, there would have been mutiny among the rank and file – and not just from the Republican Communist Network, but from International Socialist Movement members and non-aligned members.

Reformist ideology

However, over and above the issue of whether a significant reformist tendency exists today is the comrades’ affirmation that reformist trends will exist in the future. This perspective can be discussed on its merits, but there is behind it another idea which is thoroughly false. That is that reformist consciousness is a necessary stage which the working class has to go through. “The ideas of left reformism are an inevitable stage in the consciousness of a big section of the working class” (Reply to “Marxism in the New Millennium”).

This idea is often repeated as if it were a truism. However it is not a scientific approach to try and impose such “inevitable stages” on the development of working class consciousness. Reformist ideas, like any other ideas, have material roots. Like any other ideological or political phenomenon, reformism arose in certain historical circumstances and its origins and subsequent evolution must be understood in relation to economic, social and political developments.

Reformism, which has many variants, can be defined as the idea that socialism can be achieved via an accumulation of reforms, usually through the conquest of a parliamentary majority. Such ideas developed in the 25 years before the First World War (earlier in Britain, see Engels’ writings on the question). They flowed from the strength and wealth of first of all British capitalism and then other imperialisms, which enabled them to grant concessions to the working class.

Reformism was much weaker in the inter-war period, when capitalism was unable to grant concessions and on the contrary had to savagely attack the working class. Indeed in this period not only could capitalism not afford reforms but it could not even afford bourgeois democracy. In 1939 of the major European powers only France and Britain were still democracies.

Revolution was on the agenda on several occasions in several countries. “The masses again and again enter the road of revolution. But each time they are blocked by their own conservative bureaucratic machines” , wrote Trotsky in 1938. Were they blocked by the need to go through a stage of reformist consciousness? In 1936 French workers voted for the Popular Front but what did they do then? Wait for the new government to bring in reforms? No, they occupied the factories, prompting Trotsky to declare: “The French revolution has begun”. Precisely, they “entered the road of revolution”.

What stopped the revolution from being victorious in France in 1936 and also in Spain was not the fact that the masses had to go through a stage of reformism. It was above all the role of the Communist Parties (only secondarily of the Social Democracy) which were able to play this role because the workers saw them as revolutionary parties, followed them as revolutionary parties and accepted their explanation that the time was not yet ripe for revolution.

Again in the 1944-47 period, before the stabilisation of capitalism and the post-war boom, socialist revolution was possible in the short term in at least France, Italy and Greece and in each case was blocked by the role of the Communist Parties. Again in 1968-75, (and we can now see that it was for the last time), the Communist Parties were able to block the danger of revolution in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal because large sections of the working class followed them in the belief that they were revolutionary parties.

The working class does of course pass through periods when its consciousness is reformist. But it also passes through stages when it is ready to take the road of revolution, and the passage from one to the other can take place with lightning speed, as in France in 1968. We should avoid like the plague trying to impose preconceived “stages” on to a living and volatile reality.

The conditions for reformist illusions existed during the post war boom, but since the mid 1970’s we are operating in a dramatically different climate which involves capitalism red in tooth and claw waging war against the working class and its organisations. In the pamphlet on globalisation and new technology (in reply to a statement from Merseyside), Peter Taaffe repeatedly approvingly quotes the left bourgeois economist, John Gray, in his book False Dawn: Delusions in Global Capitalism. But Gray, a fierce critic of unregulated free market capitalism, also makes the point that “Social democracy has been removed from the agenda of history.” He argues that “many of the changes produced, accelerated or reinforced by New Right policies are irreversible … Those who imagine that there can be a return to the ‘normal politics’ of post-war economic management are deluding themselves and others … Global mobility of capitalism has made the central policies of European social democracy unworkable.”

Of course that does not exhaust the question. Particularly in Britain, where the workers’ movement has always been dominated by reformism, reformist illusions can arise again. In a context of economic crisis and big class struggles various political forces will undertake to propose reformist solutions in order to defend the system. But since the situation of capitalism rules out any stable reformist solution, such forces will not be on firm ground. One of the key factors in such a situation will be the strength of those forces which are seeking not to reform capitalism but to overthrow it.

The problem is not whether those joining the Scottish Socialist Party today have some reformist ideas in their heads: the problem is what kind of party they come into. As the Swedish section of the Committee for a Workers’ International wrote in 1996 (“The crisis of capitalism and the question of a new workers’ party”): “A new workers’ party will not mean the re-establishment of Social Democracy. Even if reformist ideas, probably expressed in the form of ‘real’ social democracy predominate in the first stages, this will be on an entirely different basis from the past. The only way to defend even the old reforms is through militant struggle and the socialist transformation of society”.

Note that the comrades say “even if” not “when” reformist ideas predominate in the first stage. That was written in relation to the perspective of a new workers’ party in Sweden that didn’t yet exist, and unfortunately still doesn’t. But it is entirely applicable to our own situation today. The Scottish Socialist Party is precisely committed to “militant struggle and the socialist transformation of society”.

If that is the kind of party we build and if we simultaneously through the International Socialist Movement build a Marxist core and systematically take the ideas of Marxism into the party, then the Scottish Socialist Party will be a very infertile terrain for reformist ideas. There will even be a context in which those who do join wanting to “defend the old reforms” can be convinced that it can only be done by breaking with capitalism in a revolutionary way.

Serious reformist trends are more likely to develop in the Labour Party, the SNP and the unions and around individuals like Ken Livingstone in London rather than within the Scottish Socialist Party. But reformism will exert a pressure on the Scottish Socialist Party from the outside. This would be the case even if the Scottish Socialist Party was a 22-carat revolutionary party, even if it was affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International.

For as the Scottish Socialist Party grows, becomes a force in Parliament and in local councils, the pressures on it to be “realistic” will grow. That is what happened to social democracy before the First World War, though in an altogether different phase of capitalist development. We will come under pressure to co-operate with other parties to get things done, to get concrete results. Sometimes we will do so, as Tommy has quite correctly collaborated with Alex Neil and John McAllion on the warrant sales bill.

We will have to learn to know when and how to engage in limited actions with people who are reformists without subordinating our political line to theirs, or give critical support to measures proposed by others which are insufficient but which are of some help to the working class.

No doubt sometimes we will make mistakes under pressure. We may be confronted by these kinds of problems sooner than we think. Those are the real reformist pressures that we will have to confront, and there is no revolutionary magic charm to ward them off. The only way to prepare for such a situation is to politically develop the Scottish Socialist Party as a whole and to use the International Socialist Movement as a lever to do that.

Scottish Socialist Party programme

The faction comrades make the preposterous claim that the Scottish section has “abandoned the historic programme of Marxism.” The comrades also state that “the overall programme of the Scottish Socialist Party is not and cannot be a revolutionary programme.” This is a dogmatic assertion which flies in the face of history. The reality is that the comrades have swallowed, hook, line and sinker the sterile argument presented by the British EC during the debate on whether to launch the Scottish Socialist Party.

The Socialist Party EC then solemnly insisted that the only revolutionary programme was “a body of ideas based on the first four congresses of the Communist International, the founding documents of the Fourth International and the accumulated experience of the Committee or a Workers’ International’. (Letter from Socialist Party EC to Scottish Militant Labour EC April 1998)

This of course rules out a priori any possibility of the Scottish Socialist Party ever developing a revolutionary programme. No-one has seriously suggested that the Scottish Socialist Party should formally adopt the statutes of the first four congresses of the Communist International, or the programme of the Fourth International. For that matter, how many members, even leaders of the sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International are familiar with these documents?

A programme, as Leon Trotsky once pointed out, is not formulated for discussion groups, but for the broad mass of the working class. The Scottish Socialist Party programme has not been modified to accommodate some mythical “reformist tendency” but is designed to appeal to the working class right now.

Could anyone seriously argue that if millions of Scottish workers were to be mobilised behind the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party, which includes democratic public ownership of the financial institutions, the oil industry, land, construction, energy, large scale industry; redistribution of wealth including a maximum income differential of ten to one; and workers control of industry that would not have revolutionary implications?

It is true that the Scottish Socialist Party programme does not deal in detail with the task of the transition from capitalism to a workers state and how exactly that will be achieved. At this stage, given the level of struggle, political consciousness and so on, to formulate such policies in any detail at Scottish Socialist Party conferences would be to run too far ahead of events. These debates will develop naturally as the class struggle itself intensifies.

In a polemical pamphlet directed against the Socialist Workers Party in Ireland, Peter Hadden makes some pertinent points. He quotes the Socialist Workers Party’s programme which states “The present system cannot be reformed out of existence. Parliament cannot be used to end the system. The courts, army and police are there to defend the interests of the capitalist class, not to run society in a neutral fashion. To destroy capitalism, workers need to smash the state, and create a workers state based on workers councils.” Peter Hadden retorts: ‘This is true, but it is a theoretical position, not a programme. Under today’s conditions your call for the smashing of the state and workers councils, when not oven the faintest outline of these exist in reality, is abstract propaganda, ultra left musing, nothing more, nothing less.”

In the same pamphlet, Peter later states: “This programme is modest – for a decent standard of living to be guaranteed for all – but the fight to achieve it raises the question of where the resources to meet these needs will come from. This inability of the market to deliver poses the need for an alternative, for public ownership of the wealth-producing industries so that additional wealth can be generated to cater for human need. That is why this programme is ‘transitional’- the struggle to achieve these demands brings the working class up against the limitations of capitalism, or in Trotsky’s words, to the doorstep of the socialist revolution. “

We agree – and that is exactly the way in which the Scottish Socialist Party programme has been formulated. That is not to suggest that the Scottish Socialist Party programme is fully rounded-out. This is a brand new party which is in the process of development. Programme and ideology takes shape over many years and are developed not just in resolutions and conferences, but in the white hot furnace of class struggle itself.

A genuinely revolutionary programme for the 21st century will not be a regurgitation of statements drawn up at specific periods in history such as the programme of the Comintern or the Fourth International. We would suggest it would encompass the following points:

A clear statement in favour of socialism which clarifies that our aim is not to humanise or improve capitalism but to replace it with a new social and economic system.

An understanding that socialism is not simply counterposed in an abstract way to capitalism but is presented concretely, transitionally by relating the struggle for socialism to the day to day problems that working class people face.

An understanding that capitalism cannot be reformed out of existence or smuggled in through parliament but that it can only be achieved by the mass action of the working class, which in turn has to create its own forms of organisation in the course of the struggle which will become the embryo of a new form of state. That does not mean that we do not take full advantage of capitalist democratic institutions, we obviously do. It simply means that in the final analysis we subordinate the struggle inside these institutions to the struggle outside.

A preparedness to fight and struggle to defend and improve the day-to-day conditions of working class people. To fight for reforms does not make you a reformist. It all depends within what overall framework the reforms are fought for. In fact it is no accident that today the wing of the workers’ movement which has traditionally been called reformist, with a few honourable exceptions, no longer fights for reforms.

A striving to unify the working class, to overcome divisions within it and to maintain its class independence and clear demarcation from all bourgeois parties. In the struggles of today and tomorrow, our aim is to unify the working class to defend and advance its own class interests.

A defence of the principles of socialist democracy. We are for the self-organisation of working people, whether in the workplace or in the communities, for them to democratically take charge of their own struggles and their own lives. Within that framework we defend the right of all currents of opinion to be expressed. Based on historical experience, we seek to counteract bureaucratic tendencies by the widest possible democracy and by strict refusal of material privileges. We apply this within our own parties.

A recognition of the importance of internationalism. We stress the international nature of the struggle and our solidarity with all workers in struggle anywhere and all peoples oppressed by imperialism. We see the highest point of internationalism as the building of a workers’ International.

A preparedness to take up those questions that have arisen in the course of the 20th century that do not directly flow from the exploitation of the working class. Issues such as the oppression of women, national oppression, racism, homophobia, and the environment have assumed greater importance not just in the struggle to overthrow capitalism but in the way we conceive socialism. These questions therefore form an essential part of a socialist programme today.

If we look at the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party in the light of these points, we can see that a number of them have already been adopted. There is no objective reason why we cannot continue to make the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party evolve. It is therefore wrong for the comrades of the faction to say that “the overall programme of the Scottish Socialist Party, while clearly an explicit socialist one, is not and cannot be a revolutionary or transitional programme” (our emphasis). Simply, we have to make the party’s programme evolve in line with the political situation and the concrete experience of the party and not to force things along artificially.

It is incumbent on the comrades of the faction not to simply state baldly that the Scottish Socialist Party is a non-revolutionary party, but to explain in what way the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party is insufficient for the tasks of today and to propose ways of improving it.

For example it is certainly true that the Scottish Socialist Party does not have a position on the revolutionary destruction of the bourgeois state. How can we pose this question concretely today?

The answer is that we cannot. We can do two things: educate the party to have no reliance on the state and educate the cadres of the party as to the nature of the capitalist state, the inevitable resistance of the ruling classes and the need for the working class to create its own alternative state. That is precisely one of the roles of the International Socialist Movement, not just on this question but on others: to provide the theoretical grounding which underlies the programme.

Of course, in order to have a serious discussion on the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party it would be necessary to abandon the methods of the present campaign in the Committee for a Workers’ International of what could be politely called disinformation concerning the economic programme of the Scottish Socialist Party.

The Scottish economy

As already explained, the statement on the Scottish economy which was accepted unanimously by the Scottish Socialist Party conference calls for sweeping social/public ownership of finance, large scale industry, construction, energy and land under democratic control and management.

We were therefore astounded to learn that sections of the international were told that the Scottish Socialist Party opposed the nationalisation of the North Sea oil companies (which in fact is one of the central demands of the Scottish Socialist Party which had been highlighted in election material as well as in the party programme).

We also hear reports that “the Scottish Socialist Party has a limited nationalisation programme” and – from a member of the International Secretariat at the women’s school in Cologne – “the Scottish comrades have illusions in multinational capitalism.” These statements are quite frankly grotesque falsifications which have nothing in common with the traditions of genuine Marxism.

The basis for these ludicrous allegations is that the original draft included a section on call centres and branch assembly plants for products originating outside of Scotland. The draft pointed out that it “may not be practical in the short term at least to take these into public ownership.” But that “we would, nonetheless, enforce certain basic standards of wages and conditions, including a 7 an hour minimum wage; trade union rights; a 35 hour week moving towards a four day week; and workers control.”

We went on to state that those companies who attempted to pull out to seek more profitable environments would forfeit their assets without compensation and would be forced to pay the equivalent of three years wages in redundancy to each worker made redundant.

Prior to the conference, Philip sent an email to Alan suggesting that ‘The question of not nationalising ‘branch assembly plants’ or call centres maybe needs more discussion.” Fair enough. In discussions that involved Philip, and other Dundee comrades there was agreement that we should remit this point for further discussion, but that it was a tactical question.

There was no question of denouncing this statement as in any way reformist. So why do the comrades now say that this shows “how rapidly the economic programme of the Scottish Socialist Party could move in a reformist direction”. Why does it show that?

The companies involved actually employ a tiny fraction of the Scottish workforce – around three per cent. But there are localised concentrations of call centres and electronic plants that are part of a chain of production stretching across various countries. How do we explain our programme to workers in these areas?

For Scotland’s 30,000 call centre workers – who are almost all employed by external employers to answer phones and deal with enquiries – what do we say we will do in power? Nationalise their call centre which may, for example, deal with enquiries for a mobile phone company or software company based outside Scotland?

But the company will simply change its number, will be the reply. Therefore what we are proposing is to nationalise banks of silent telephones. How do we win call centre workers to the banner of socialist change – that is the question that is posed. Exactly the same points apply to some branch assembly plant.

At the International Socialist Movement conference, Tony Saunois and Hannah Sell said we would issue an international appeal for the working class across the world to follow suit and take over multinationals. Of course we would do that. But the suggestion that the working class internationally will rise up simultaneously against capitalism is to substitute naive idealism for a concrete and rigorous analysis of the class struggle and an honest perspective of how it is likely to unfold.

Our slogan in favour of an independent socialist Scotland precisely flows from our understanding that the international struggle will not unfold uniformly and simultaneously. There are huge variations from one country in conditions, traditions, the state of the workers’ movement, the level of consciousness of socialism etc.

To pretend that the Scottish Socialist Party could simply issue an appeal to workers in Silicon Valley, California, for example, and wait for them to seize their companies can only disorientate, miseducate and disarm the working class in Scotland.

What we are fighting for in Scotland is a transitional state in which for a temporary period the economy will not be fully socialised because it is impossible to create a fully socialised economy in a small country like Scotland.

In the meantime how do we galvanise support for socialism within that section of the working class who work in call centres or branch assemble plants? Although a small minority of the overall workforce, there are huge concentrations of these types of workforces in certain regions such as West Lothian, Inverclyde, parts of Lanarkshire and to some extent Glasgow where there is a burgeoning call centre industry. Answer their fears with visionary references to world revolution is not a serious programme for mobilising workers behind our banner.

In any case, the hysteria that has been whipped up on this issue by the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership is dishonest. These issues are not entirely new. In the early 1980s, the Marxist economist and member of Militant, Andrew Glynn wrote a pamphlet, (probably the best selling pamphlet ever produced by Militant) entitled ‘Capitalist Crisis – Tribune’s Alternative Strategy or Socialist Plan’.

In the final chapter, What a Socialist Plan Could Achieve, he argues for the nationalisation of the top 200 monopolies and states: “26 of the top 200 companies are foreign owned – depending on the particular situation it might he expedient to leave some of them unnationalised, but the nationalisation of others would probably be indispensable.” (Our emphasis).

Those of is who were around at that time have racked our memories, but cannot recall an international campaign within the Committee for a Workers’ International to denounce Andrew Glyn as a reformist, let alone a defender of multinational capitalism.

In Scotland the Scottish Socialist Party is a serious factor in politics. Academics have been commissioned by serious TV current affairs programmes to scrutinise our manifesto and to cost it in detail. Workers and trade unionists are increasingly demanding to know exactly what policies we will implement in power. As a result, we have to go much further in developing our programme than simply recite a few slogans about nationalising the top 150 monopolies.

In fact, we believe that the What We Stand For programme of the Socialist Party of England and Wales as spelled out in The Socialist newspaper every week is totally inadequate to deal with the developing political situation.

There is, for example no reference whatsoever to the national question, one of the key features of British politics in the 21st century. Instead, The Socialist calls for public ownership of the top 150 monopolies, presumably on an all Britain-basis, because it does not raise elsewhere the revolutionary demand for the break up of the British state and the establishment of a socialist Scotland, a socialist Wales, a socialist Ireland and a socialist England, within a wider European socialist alliance.

The failure of the Socialist Party of England and Wales to deal with the national question is in our opinion an astonishing omission given the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly and the rising national consciousness and support for independence in both countries. This is an issue that we would like to debate elsewhere, not with the faction in Scotland who we understand support our analysis on this issue, but with the leadership of the Socialist Party of England and Wales.

In the meantime we will simply make the point that the demand for the nationalisation of the top 150 British monopolies would leave most of the Scottish economy in private hands. Only one Scottish company, Scottish Power, and a couple of Scottish banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland, would be taken into public ownership.

Only some North Sea Oil companies would be nationalised. There is no reference either to land ownership in the What We Stand For programme of the Socialist Party – a key question in Scotland. As applied to Scotland, the What We Stand For programme outlined every week in The Socialist is actually a timid, reformist, left social democratic programme. In contrast, the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party confronts all of the major power structures in Scotland and is 1000 times more revolutionary in content.

At the Scottish Socialist Party conference the proposal for a Scottish Service Tax was agreed unanimously and welcomed enthusiastically by all trends within the party. There was not so much as a hint of criticism from any of the comrades who have signed the factional statement – before during or after the conference- that they had any criticisms of this policy.

Once again, we suspect that the leadership of the faction has succumbed to pressure from the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership who now seem obsessed with “proving” that the Scottish Socialist Party is in the process of degenerating into a reformist party. According to an editorial in the paper of the Socialist Party, The Socialist (14 April), the Scottish Service Tax “is in effect a mildly redistributive, reformist measure. “

This editorial was dishonest because it failed to explain that the Scottish Service Tax is a specific policy which we are fighting for within the Scottish Parliament which does not have the powers to impose a general wealth tax or take industry and finance into public ownership, the measures which The Socialist counterpose to the Scottish Service Tax.

The Scottish Parliament does have the power to change local authority funding; this policy is a specific demand which we are placing on the parliament.

Do the comrades seriously suggest that within bodies with limited powers such as the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the London Assembly and local councils that we should confine ourselves to general propaganda for socialism and ignore the fight for specific policies which would improve the lives of the working class? This is not a secondary point; it is fundamental to the type of parties and organisations that we are trying to build.

At the most recent Scottish Socialist Party National Council meeting, when we specifically answered this criticism in advance of the discussion, not one person argued against our assessment of the importance of launching a campaign on this issue. Republican Communist Network members rightly made the point that revolutionaries have to be seen to be fighting for reforms The International Socialist Movement comrade from Dundee who is also a signatory to the factional statement did not attempt to defend the position of either The Socialist or the statement of the minority faction.

The comrades are becoming hopelessly confused between reformism and the fight for reforms. Let’s be clear on this point: any revolutionary who refuses to fight for reforms is not a revolutionary. The difference between revolutionaries and reformists is not that revolutionaries don’t fight for reforms; it is that revolutionaries don’t confine themselves to fighting for reforms.

In fact, revolutionaries are the strongest and most committed fighters for reforms. If we were to stand aloof from the fight for reforms then we would have no credibility to raise our general socialist vision. By fighting for and achieving reforms, we will be in a much stronger position to convince working class people to join the longer term fight for socialism.

What else was the fight to overthrow the Poll Tax but a fight for a reform under capitalism? What was the fight to restore free education, which was given massive and uncritical coverage in The Socialist, but a fight for a reform under capitalism? We do not recall The Socialist dismissing the demand for the abolition of tuition fees as a mild, reformist measure.

The Dundee comrades have put resources into campaigning for the repeal of Clause 28, the legislation introduced by Thatcher banning the promotion of homosexuality in schools. We wholeheartedly agree with campaigning on that issue – but this is indeed a mild reform supported by New Labour, the lib Dems, the SNP, and big sections of the media.

In contrast, when Tommy spoke in favour of the Scottish Service Tax at a recent session of the Scottish Parliament there was furious opposition , not just from the Tories, but from the Lib Dems and New Labour who denounced it as “too radical”. New Labour has even produced its own briefing document attacking the idea of the Scottish Service Tax, claiming that it “will drive business out of Scotland”. The SNP also criticised the proposal, albeit in a more restrained fashion.

Yet the faction statement says: “on the economy and the approach to the Scottish Service Tax we see an increasing tendency to reinforce reformist ideas within the Scottish Socialist Party i.e. the idea that significant and lasting reforms can be achieved within the framework of capitalism or on a Scottish basis alone.”

What does this mean? The comrades really do have to be more specific rather than indulge in innuendo. What evidence do the comrades have that “there has been a tendency to reinforce reformist ideas”? They provide no evidence because there is no evidence.

Let’s spell out what the statement on the Scottish Service Tax agreed at the Scottish Socialist Party conference actually says right from the start: “Such grotesque disparities of wealth cannot be rectified within the existing political, economic and constitutional framework. The Scottish Parliament has no serious fiscal or economic powers. It does, however, have control over local government taxation. While fighting for radical socialist change nationally and globally, the Scottish Socialist Party will also campaign for the Scottish Parliament to use its limited powers to begin to challenge inequality. “

In moving the statement at the conference, Alan McCombes repeatedly emphasised that this was not a blueprint for socialism, that it was a limited measure, but that it was achievable within the framework of the limited powers allocated to the Scottish Parliament. We also pointed out that it would be opposed tooth and nail by big business and the rich. Of course it is a partial measure that will not eradicate poverty or inequality, as the policy statement itself stresses. But it does open up in a concrete way, the whole question of wealth redistribution and exposes the big parties in Scotland who can’t evade this issue by claiming they don’t have the powers to act.

Why do the comrades now, after agreeing without a word of dissent to the statement at the Scottish Socialist Party conference, then at further meetings – including a subsequent Scottish Socialist Party executive attended by Philip which discussed fully the campaign around the Scottish Service Tax – do the comrades now come forward in writing with an insinuation that there is some hidden reformist agenda being smuggled into the Scottish Socialist Party?

The comrades are hopelessly muddled on this issue. They state in Scottish Socialist Party Conference Review that “in general we would not oppose such a tax reform but it would be largely ineffective in combating poverty and deprivation.” They then say that “the demand will be fiercely resisted by the political establishment who will not want the idea even of a limited wealth redistribution to become something that the parliament gets an appetite for.” But if it was such a mild and ineffective reformist measure, why should there be resistance?

The reason it will be resisted is because it would represent the beginning of a turning of the tide. A victory for the working class on this issue would pave the way for further struggles and further victories and would begin to alter the balance of forces. Which is precisely why we should be promoting and fighting for this demand.

The comrades then say “We have always argued that these sort of tax-reforms which in the past were the demands of the reformist left – had to be linked to the nationalisation of wealth, the banks, business etc. “

This seemingly radical-sounding formulation is actually conservative to the core. What it says, in reality, is: “There’s no point in fighting for the Scottish Parliament to use its powers to challenge the wealth of the rich because they will resist it. So let’s just confine ourselves to abstract propaganda in favour of socialism.”

Such arguments stray dangerously close to the approach of the fundamentalist sect, the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB) which used to oppose strikes for higher wages because they did not challenge the system of exploitation.

Far from defending a revolutionary position, as the faction comrades and the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership like to portray themselves, they are actually promoting a form of resolutionary socialism. This passive, academic approach would be disastrous if adopted by the Scottish Socialist Party, and flies in the face of the fighting, combative tradition of our organisation in Scotland.

We are all in favour of anti-capitalist, pro-socialist propaganda. We are currently working on a book which will advance in a popular form the case for the socialist transformation of society in Scotland and internationally. But we do not counterpose that to the fight for day-to-day reforms and improvements, or suggest that these have to wait until sometime in the mists of future when socialism is posed.

The comrades state that under the Scottish Service Tax low paid workers would only benefit by a maximum of 15 a week. We can hardly believe that this argument is seriously being raised. Under the Poll Tax, workers were asked to pay 6 to 8 a week (depending on their local authority area). Even allowing for inflation this is still less than 15 a week. Yet the Poll Tax sparked off the biggest mass movements seen in Britain for generations and toppled Margaret Thatcher.

Let’s look it another way. Fifteen pounds a week is 50 per cent more than the Scottish Local Government Staff pay claim submitted by Unison this year on behalf of low paid workers. The Unison claim is for an increase of 5 per cent or 500 a year (i.e. 10 a week). For low paid workers, 15 a week represents a substantial improvement in living standards.

The comrades also seem to be hinting that the rich will find ways around paying extra taxation, including moving across the border. This is the same argument that was put to us by a journalist with links to New Labour – that there would be an exodus of the rich from Scotland. But you cannot have it both ways. If this is only a “mildly redistributive reformist measure” why should wealthy individuals uproot themselves and families and go to live in England or abroad?

Maybe Brian Soutar, with hundreds of millions of pounds of personal wealth will move out of Scotland because he faces a bill for an extra 87,000. Maybe – but unfortunately, highly unlikely.

On this issue, the comrades zig-zag from one extreme to another without any sense of balance or proportion. The Scottish Service Tax would in effect increase the top rate of taxation from 40 per cent to 52 per cent. This would be resisted ferociously by the rich. But if implemented, they would still be paying much lower rates of taxation than was the case before Thatcher came to power.

On the other hand, it would be equally wrong to play down the significance of such a measure. The comrades say “it is incomparable to the transfer of wealth to the social wage of the working class in the 60s and 70s through the NHS, the modern welfare state and free education.”

That is indisputable – but that was then and this is now. Context is everything. The last 20 years has been a period of vicious counter-reforms. Internationally the rich have waged war against the poor with little or no resistance from the workers organisations.

If a measure such as this were to be implemented by the Scottish Parliament as a result of a campaign of mass action by the Scottish Socialist Party, it would mark a significant turning of the tide, a key psychological victory and would have profound repercussions outside of Scotland, not least in England and Wales.

Of course it would not eradicate poverty and inequality as the Scottish Socialist Party statement makes clear. But it would precipitate an important shift in the balance of class forces in Scotland.

Is such a victory possible? From where we stand today, that may seem unlikely. On the other hand who could have imagined when the Scottish Socialist Party was set up that within 18 months, the new party would have succeeded in scrapping warrant sales and poindings – which has been Labour’s policy for 100 years. The reason for that was not just because of the eloquence and skill of our parliamentary representative and his assistants, but because of the electoral success of the Scottish Socialist Party in working class areas and the fear that has instilled into Labour backbenchers.

If there was a massive campaign in favour of redistributing wealth in the run up to the 2003 elections; if the Scottish Socialist Party succeeded in gaining a large group of MSPs and councillors; if there was a hung parliament; and especially if all this was set against a background of a recession and swingeing central government cuts in local authority funding, it is not ruled out that mass pressure including a council tax non-payment campaign could lead to a victory.

Even if we do not ultimately succeed with this campaign, the fact that we are seen to be prepared to fight for practical, short term improvements in the living standards and conditions of the working class will assist us build support for our longer term vision of an independent socialist Scotland. Revolutionaries have always put forward immediate demands and slogans around which the working class can be mobilised. Take the struggle of Liverpool City Council under the leadership of Militant in the 1980s. The main demand which mobilised the entire city, including a one day general strike was “Return the 30 million stolen from Liverpool by Thatcher”.

In the book The Rise of Militant, Peter Taaffe approvingly quotes the Militant of 16/4/84: “The council was only asking for 30 million from the Government’s contingency funds. In the recent budget the Tories had given 35 million to 650,000 already earning 750,000 a year.

The Scottish Service Tax would involve removing around 250 million from those earning over 70,000, which would then be redistributed to those on low incomes. Again, even allowing for inflation, the Scottish Service Tax involves a battle for much more resources -and from a much narrower strata of the population because it would be confined to Scotland – than was demanded by Liverpool City Council.

Did the Liverpool struggle pose the question of the socialist transformation of society? Of course not. In fact, it was conceded by a Tory government under pressure from a mass movement in Liverpool. So was this a mildly reformist demand? Were we sowing reformist illusions that if only Liverpool could get back the 30 million the problems of the working class would be solved?

As part of the campaign comrades did raise the idea of the need for socialism – but they did so in a very general way. Ninety per cent of the material produced concentrated on conditions in Liverpool and the need to win 30 million from the Thatcher government. The climbdown of the Tories on this issue was a huge victory. And it revealed that reforms can be won under capitalism if they are fought for in a militant fashion.

Moreover, because of the conditions at that stage, the leaders of this struggle in the form of Derek Hatton and Tony Mulhearn and others did not proclaim themselves to be members of a revolutionary organisation – indeed they denied it.

And because of the orientation at that time to the Labour Party the entire struggle and our strategy was carried out in the name of the District Labour Party and the Council Labour Group (where only 13 out of the 47 councillors were members of Militant).

The council won a 95 per cent victory. Isn’t it ironic that at the time the Socialist Worker described it as a “sell-out”. The victory wasn’t revolutionary enough for them. We would ask the comrades to ponder these points carefully.

Cuba

The comrades of the faction raise a number of points in relation to Cuba. If we look at the resolution passed by the Scottish Socialist Party conference it takes a correct position of support for the Cuban Revolution and defence of Cuba against imperialism. It does not give uncritical support to the Cuban regime but states explicitly that we reserve the right to criticise Cuba.

What do the comrades say? First, they criticise the resolution for describing Cuba as a “socialist republic”. The comrades then say: “Socialism as we know would require an international overturn of capitalism in at least a significant number of countries in the advanced capitalist world for socialism to begin to take root … this applies as much to Scotland as to Cuba in 1956. ” (sic).

But we do call for an independent socialist Scotland as a step towards a wider socialist alliance. Are the comrades proposing that we change the wording of that part of our programme on the grounds that you can’t have socialism in one country?

Of course, socialism as we know cannot be built in a single country. Lenin knew that too, he explained it many times. The constitution of 1918 nevertheless defined Russia as a “soviet federative socialist republic” and the constitution of the Soviet Union four years later spoke of a union of socialist republics.

The comrades also say: “This is not the position of the Committee for a Workers’ International who describe the Cuban regime as a deformed workers state.” That is true – although there has been no discussion within the Committee for a Workers’ International involving the individual sections on the class nature of Cuba in the light of the experience of the past ten years.

In the late 1970s we understand that Peter Taaffe described Cuba as a ‘workers state with bureaucratic deformations’ – a formula that was opposed by Ted Grant then withdrawn. Instead Cuba was lumped together in the same bag and under the same label as Stalin’s Russia, Ceaussescu’s Rumania, Honecker’s East Germany, Jaruzelski’s Poland etc.

We believe that there is a genuine discussion to be had on the character of Cuba, given that it has stood against the tide of capitalist restoration over the past ten years, despite losing the mammoth subsidies from the Soviet Union.

There are clearly deformations as was acknowledged in the speeches and in the content of the resolution carried at the Scottish Socialist Party conference which explicitly stated that we reserve the right to raise our criticisms of Cuba.

Incidentally, the faction comrades say that “it was not acceptable that the comrade who moved the resolution said it was unimportant how we characterise Cuba and that it should be supported uncritically. ” However, as the comrades know, the mover of the resolution, Alice Sheridan, stepped in to move the resolution at the last moment because Tommy was called away. Alice is well known as a very passionate and long standing comrade who has always expressed her views strongly, even where they have not corresponded with the views of Scottish Militant Labour.

When the comrades say this is “unacceptable” what do they mean? Are they implying that disciplinary action should be taken, and if not, what are they saying?

Moreover, Alice was taken up strongly, not by members of the faction all of whom who remained silent, but by Martin Gardner and Nicky McKerrell, International Socialist Movement members who support the majority position. When the statement then criticises these comrades for failing “to deal with the character of the Cuban state or call for workers democracy or socialism” they are simply trying to score cheap points. In a two minute contribution in the course of an extremely short debate it is not possible to deal with all of the issues. However some of the key points concerning repression and lack of democratic rights were brought out.

But there are other issues at stake here. In this period of capitalist triumphalism, the “end of socialism and communism”, the march of globalisation, surely the main emphasis of a socialist conference has to be to come out clearly on the side of the tiny, isolated and impoverished Cuban state?

Whatever its deformations, it continues to command mass support within the country even after 40 years, and has valiantly protected the gains of the revolution in contrast to those former Stalinists who have switched sides to become capitalists.

The comrades fleetingly refer to “the conference correctly calling for the defence of Cuba from the embargo by US imperialism” then go on to make lengthy criticisms of the Cuban state. We believe that the emphasis should be the other way round. Especially in the present international climate, this is a basic class question, like supporting the NUM during the miners’ strike – despite the bureaucratic authoritarianism of the NUM leadership under Arthur Scargill.

Moreover it is a mistake to baldly state that “a new revolution is essential in Cuba” as the comrades present it. Our central demand should not be for ‘a new revolution in Cuba’, but for revolution based on socialist democracy in the capitalist states of Latin America, which would then have repercussions in Cuba itself. To pose the tasks the other way around is – to turn once again to the analogy of workers in struggle – like calling for the removal of Arthur Scargill from the leadership of the NUM during the miners strike.

We have no definitive position on the nature of the Cuban state, our exact demands etc. These are issues that have not been discussed in the recent period, but should be discussed in a calm fashion rather than in a fashion designed purely to discredit the International Socialist Movement majority in the eyes of the International.

Ireland

The discussion on adopting a position on Ireland within first the Scottish Socialist Alliance and then the Scottish Socialist Party has been an ongoing and evolving one. When we first launched the Scottish Socialist Alliance we were surprised at the degree of programmatic agreement, especially as most of it originated with the programme.

The exception to this was the question of Ireland. When we launched the Scottish Socialist Alliance in 1996, we could have railroaded our position through the Scottish Socialist Alliance conference by force of numbers. We chose not to. Instead we proposed that the Scottish Socialist Alliance should position on Ireland at its founding conference and that should take the chance to hold a full discussion.

This meant that Scottish Socialist Alliance had no policy from the February 1996 founding conference until the special one-day conference on Ireland eventually took place in November 1997. We fought the 1997 general election without a policy on Ireland, so contentious is this issue within the Left in Scotland

At the one day conference, there were a number of motions submitted including a motion from Scottish Militant Labour. We then negotiated a statement with some other groups who were closer to our analysis, and while putting up and moving our own analysis we remitted our resolution in favour of the statement. At the time this was discussed with Peter Hadden in Northern Ireland.

Since then Alan McCombes and Allan Green visited Belfast and discussed with different groups including the Socialist Party. A full page article with Peter Hadden was carried in the Scottish Socialist Party paper the Socialist Voice. This was followed by a debate at the Socialism 2000 event attended by 500, where Peter Hadden was invited to speak on behalf of the Socialist Party in Ireland. Incidentally Joe Higgins was also invited to speak at the international Rally.

In the three years since the launch of the Scottish Socialist Alliance we have come a long way in terms of the understanding within the Scottish Socialist Party of the position in Ireland. Sections of what is now the Scottish Socialist Party have moved much closer to our position through patient discussion and argument. This current position is an advance on the position initially adopted at the one day conference on Ireland two years ago.

The statement incorporates all of our main analysis. The statement is a class analysis and a socialist programme on the very complex national question in Ireland, the Peace Process, repression, policing the development of class politics and a united socialist alternative.

That programme can of course evolve and develop over time, as we continue the ongoing discussion within the Scottish Socialist Party. These issues form part of an ongoing discussion within the Scottish Socialist Party. We do not accept that the statement makes unprincipled concessions to left republicanism/reformism.

It stands up as a far better and clearer statement of a working class socialist position on Ireland than the manifesto drawn up by the Labour Coalition [in Northern Ireland] in which we formed a majority and fought elections in 1996. This manifesto did not deal at all with the national question, for example. Nor did it even mention the word socialism anywhere in the text.

One headline calls for “a return to traditional Labour values”. Its list of demands a call for “the European Convention of Human Rights to be enacted into law in Northern Ireland”. Another demand calls for “adequate resources for the Fair Employment and Equal Opportunity Commissions.” That is not to criticise the compromise programme of the Labour Coalition, which of course was a politically much broader formation than the Scottish Socialist Party.

However it is blatantly inconsistent to support and campaign around such a weak manifesto which puts mild demands on the state, then attack the Scottish Socialist Party’s much more far reaching programme as “making concessions to reformism”. The comparisons from the faction between our recent handling of Scottish Socialist Party policy on Ireland and that of the Scottish Socialist Alliance over two years ago are limp, belated and entirely false.

After almost two years without a policy on Ireland because of the difficulties of achieving we did finally agree on a policy position which was much weaker and more vague than the new policy of the Scottish Socialist Party. Yet it was praised by Peter Hadden and the leadership of the Irish section. The fact we could negotiate and win a much more advanced policy through the Scottish Socialist Party (see attachment) without the same delays in itself demonstrates the success of the approach adopted by the International Socialist Movement majority on this vexed issue over several years.

Two approaches (at least) are always available: the easier road of remaining ‘pure’ on every formulation but isolated from any real audience; or the rockier road to a far-reaching socialist, class-based programme that brings bigger forces along with us. The Scottish Socialist Party policy on the national question guarantees the rights of all minorities in Ireland; promotes class and socialist politics; calls for a socialist Ireland.

The comrades seem to want to have their cake and eat it. They insist that the Scottish Socialist Party is a broad, heterogeneous party with diverse currents (which is a gross exaggeration as we have explained). Yet simultaneously they insist that we railroad through a policy on Ireland with every nuance straightened out to the satisfaction of the Irish leadership.

It is disappointing that the comrades in Ireland refuse to acknowledge the level of achievement in conquering such a policy on Ireland through the Scottish Socialist Party. Neither the Scottish Socialist Alliance [Scottish Socialist Alliance], nor especially the Labour Coalition developed a policy which remotely matches the policy now agreed by the Scottish Socialist Party.

The comrades fail or refuse to grasp that the discussion at Scottish Socialist Party conference – including the case put by speakers from the International Socialist Movement majority that swung the conference behind the statement ‘For a Socialist Ireland’- was a milestone event in an ongoing, unfinished process of clarification on this issue in the ranks of the Scottish Socialist Party. Of course the Scottish Socialist Party policy on Ireland may be open to slightly different nuances of interpretation by different people on some issues. But those who round on us are blinded to the dialectic of winning a powerful statement of class-based socialist analysis and programme – skilfully worded and negotiated to bring people from different traditions with us – whilst sharpening up the clarity of thought in the Scottish Socialist Party with the help of the verbal explanations behind the policy document .

It is frankly childish and churlish of the faction and their international supporters to repeatedly condemn the policy document on the basis of the bullet points at the end of it.

Firstly these points are lifted directly from the 1997 Scottish Socialist Alliance policy, which was praised not condemned by the Irish leadership. Secondly they focus on demands on the British government on repression, surely a legitimate part of any programme for socialists operating in the imperialist country?

Thirdly, they form a minor part of the overall policy statement. It is ludicrous and dishonest to pretend that these seven demands against repression are all the Scottish Socialist Party will campaign around.

What about the rest of the policy document? What about, for example, its pledge to “develop solidarity links with all those in Ireland campaigning in the interests of working-class people in all communities, North and South”?

Or the Scottish Socialist Party offer of “solidarity to any moves towards communities, trade unionists, women’s and youth organisations coming together at ground level to seek cooperation on a way forward”. Surely that skilfully advocates the class unity in action that has been the touchstone of Committee for a Workers’ International policy for 30 years?

And do the comrades not recognise the essence of the call from the Scottish Socialist Party to “actively encourage the development of cross-community class politics and any steps towards new working class initiatives helping to mount a united socialist challenge”?

This is a far more concrete expression of the age-old Committee for a Workers’ International call for ‘workers’ unity and socialism’, but posed in a fashion that does not appear to dictate action from across Irish Sea, and also takes account of the polarisation between the communities in recent years.

The demand for ‘a united socialist challenge’ may not fit the identikit slogans that the International leadership seem to insist upon, but surely it is an invaluable campaigning weapon for the Committee for a Workers’ International in N Ireland, who could exploit the growing authority of the Scottish Socialist Party to be at the heart of such initiatives?

It is not a question of surrendering on principles, but of the presentation of ideas in a fashion that chimes with the consciousness of the best of the working class that we seek to influence and lead. The opposite choice is to remain a permanent sect, albeit ‘pure’.

We would appreciate a genuine discussion in that context on how we present our analysis of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) – not just in Scotland/Britain but in Ireland itself.

We could have adopted an entirely one-sided critique of this capitalist agreement – with justification. That after all is the position of the most militarist republicans, and the thinly disguised approach of the Republican Communist Network, many of whom in reality are opposed to the ceasefires, as Richie Venton brought out during the Scottish Socialist Party conference debate.

But to merely restrict our position on the Good Friday Agreement to a negative expose of its aims would fly in the face of the profound desires – and yes illusions – for it to succeed that exists in both working class communities in Northern Ireland. And such yearnings and illusions are even more prevalent in Scotland, where distance lends enchantment to the Peace Process.

Why did the Irish Socialist Party call for a YES vote in the referendum if not to ‘adapt’ to the real consciousness of workers whilst seeking to dispel their illusions?. Certainly what is of no use to the situation for the forces of Marxism and socialism is for the Scottish Socialist Party’s position on the Good Friday Agreement to be distorted.

In fact the Scottish Socialist Party statement says: “We do not believe the Good Friday Agreement provides any lasting resolution of the conflicting, contradictory demands on the national question, policing, parades and other issues” and goes on to recognise serious shortcomings and dangers in the agreement”, including how it was reached without any direct input by working class organisations; its institutionalised sectarianism and its failure to resolve the contradictory demands on the national question.

It is sophistry and distortion to say the document refers to “the positive features of the GFA”, when in fact it refers to the positive features “arising from the GFA” (our emphasis). In other words it does not seek to reinforce illusions in an Agreement cobbled together by bourgeois politicians, but seeks to exploit the openings at least temporarily emerging from it, in particular to put politicians on the spot and create openings for class and socialist politics. The International Socialist Movement faction, in ‘Review of Scottish Socialist Party Conference’, state that “Our position on the North is one of the most attractive for people looking for answers to the sectarian nightmare of politics in Ireland” and condemns the International Socialist Movement majority for “adapting our Marxist programme to the broad Scottish Socialist Party i.e. a non-revolutionary party”.

This is a crass over-simplification. If life was so simple why do the faction not win a clear political majority in Dundee Scottish Socialist Party on Ireland? It is true that the consistent thread of our analysis has stood up to the test of time over 30 years. It is also true that a very advanced minority find it overpoweringly convincing. But for other layers, including many who joined Militant and SML since the early 1970s, Ireland has often been the most difficult stumbling block.

A potent cocktail of romantic republicanism and downright sectarianism especially in the West of Scotland has meant that Ireland has always been a complex and difficult issue for us – even when we were recruiting to Militant / Scottish Militant Labour. Surely the experience of the Northern Ireland CWI comrades themselves testify to the fact that we can be a thousand times correct in our general explanations, but still be forced to remain a small, relatively isolated group, swimming against the stream of bigger political currents?

The whole purpose of Marxism is to weld correct generalisations to living movements and real consciousness in a way that helps to alter the balance of forces in society.

Hence the ‘adaptation’ of slogans like ‘a socialist united Ireland’ to ‘a socialist Ireland’ (which remains a real source of debate in the Scottish Socialist Party). Hence the Labour Coalition phase in Northern Ireland, surely an attempt to inch forward consciousness by agreeing a programme that looks like that of the most primitive early social democracy by comparison with the far-reaching socialist demands of the Scottish Socialist Party document on Ireland.

International Socialist Movement intervention at Scottish Socialist Party conference

In the document Scottish Socialist Party Conference and Conclusions, the faction comrades claim that we have had the atomisation of our forces within a broad party.

But yet again they cannot come up with any evidence. There was much greater political preparation for this conference than for any previous Scottish Socialist Party or Scottish Socialist Alliance conference or event. In fact, the political intervention of the International Socialist Movement comrades on a whole range issues was outstanding. The political positions we argued for were all carried overwhelmingly – by much greater margins incidentally than was the case in the old Scottish Socialist Alliance.

The comrades claimed that only the Dundee comrades sold the International Socialist. This is untrue. Ally Black has explained that the new members from Edinburgh as well as other comrades were selling the journal. Ally also explained the work that was done by the Edinburgh comrades in advertising and building the fringe meeting. The Committee for a Workers’ International had a bookstall where the material from the comrades in Northern Ireland was also sold.

The statement complains about the lack of attendance at the fringe meeting of a number of leading comrades. But as Frances Curran explained in a letter to Niall Mulholland and Peter Hadden which raised exactly the same points, our leading comrades are also leading members of the Scottish Socialist Party.

In the lunch hour the Full-timers were all tied up with organising the conference, dealing with the press, being interviewed for TV, getting interviews for the Socialist Voice, or using the lunch hour to discuss with Scottish Socialist Party members about campaigning in the imminent by-election campaign in Ayr.

As Frances also explained, all of these comrades are involved in political discussions within the International Socialist Movement and in building the International Socialist Movement. Incidentally Ally reported that when he was trawling the coffee bars to get comrades to attend the fringe meeting some of those he had problems persuading were the comrades from the Dundee branch of International Socialist Movement, most of whom have signed the faction statement.

Comrades did vote different ways on the constitutional amendments. This was a debate which unfolded on the conference floor and it was clear that some of the points put forward required further consideration. Any leadership worth its salt would take these points on board rather than ramming through an organisational measure that Scottish Socialist Party members – including some of our comrades – were unhappy about.

These points only came to light in the discussion. As the debate developed it was obvious that real issues had arisen. How do the comrades suggest we should have responded? Should we have run round our comrades on the conference floor demanding that they support the constitutional amendments?

Such an approach would be sterile and would not increase our influence in the Scottish Socialist Party; it would lead to a backlash, particularly among the non-aligned members who will not take kindly to decisions being railroaded through by force of numbers rather than convincing people through argument and debate.

In any case, the issues raised on the constitution are not political issues, they are organisational issues. The International Socialist Movement majority are completely relaxed about these decisions. We believe that it is healthy that the leadership of any party are kept on their toes by the rank and file.

But we are concerned about the hypocrisy and double standards of some of the faction comrades. For example, at last year’s Scottish Socialist Party conference, the comrades from Dundee voted with the Red Republicans (i.e. the Republican Communist Network) on various constitutional amendments against the majority of the Scottish Militant Labour comrades.

We had no problems with that. But neither do we have any problem with comrades voting in different ways on constitutional detail at this conference either. In general the International Socialist Movement acted in unison at the Scottish Socialist Party conference, not because discipline was imposed but because of political clarity.

After much huffing and puffing about atomisation and disintegration of our forces all that the faction comrades are left with to back up their argument is that; “No one identified themselves as members of the International Socialist Movement / Committee for a Workers’ International”

In the first place, that is not true. Frances Curran and Murray Smith both said they were members of the Committee for a Workers’ International when they stood for election as international organisers. And both were subsequently elected overwhelmingly in the ballot.

Other comrades wove it naturally into their contribution. But we are opposed to the method which is being proposed here: that comrades every time they reach the rostrum give their name, branch and International Socialist Movement membership.

The Dundee comrades themselves did not approach the conference in that manner. Nor have they approached other Scottish Socialist Party or Scottish Socialist Alliance conferences in that way – and they are right not to adopt that approach. That is not the way we intervened in the anti-Poll Tax campaign, the Hands Off Our Water campaign, the Save Our Services campaigns or the various workers’ solidarity campaigns we have been involved in.

We have all had experience of this approach with the Socialist Workers Party in the anti-poll tax campaign, at union conferences and in many other situations. It completely grates on workers and we do not believe that it is the correct way to intervene.

International

The Conference Review Statement from the faction comrades claims that for Frances Curran and Murray Smith (who were elected as the two International Officers of the Scottish Socialist Party) “as with other comrades, there is only one tactic; that of developing broad formations in which we act as a loose ideological current.”

Again we have to ask: where is the evidence to back up this assertion? And again, the comrades have no evidence because there is no evidence. It is, in fact, a gross falsification of our position.

Let us quote from the draft statement that we submitted to the International Executive Committee as a basis for further discussion. The statement argues that the key strategic task of the Committee for a Workers’ International in Europe should be to attempt “to regroup all those who refuse to accept that there is no alternative to capitalism and are prepared to fight for socialism”. But where in the statement does it argue that our only tactic is “developing broad formations in which we act as a loose ideological current”?

In fact, the forms of organisation that will be necessary for sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International within broad formations would vary, depending on the character of these formations, our influence within them, which other forces were involved and other concrete conditions. Let us quote what the document actually says, rather than what the comrades would like it to say: ‘There is not one tactic… In some countries, the regroupment of existing Trotskyist organisations will be the core of any new party. Elsewhere the forces for new parties will include those who have emerged from the wreckage of Stalinism. The majority of forces for new parties will come from a new younger generation…

“The exact political character of these new parties will depend on the dominant forces within them. In Scotland the situation has been extremely favourable for us because of the dominance of Scottish Militant Labour -a Marxist organisation – in the creation of the Scottish Socialist Party. We therefore have a clearly socialist party with quite an advanced programme.

We will have to intervene in parties or pre-parties whose programmes are weak or are confused … Our ability to intervene will depend on many factors but particularly the strength and clarity of our own sections…

“To say that the creation of new workers parties is the key task therefore we should dissolve themselves into them would be a huge error … The question is how to get these parties to absorb the lessons of the past 150 years of Marxism. We should promote our basic programmatic demands while seeking patiently … to advance our full programme. Until such time as this is accepted we need to organise openly within these parties to promote and defend the ideas of Marxism. Exactly what forms that organisation will take will depend on the concrete circumstances. We are in the process of solving this question at the present stage in Scotland. The question will be posed differently in different countries. “(New emphasis added)

If that is not sufficient to lay to rest the crude distortion of our position which states that we want to apply one strategy right across the world let’s quote from the second last paragraph: “We are not suggesting that the Scottish experience should be mechanically applied across Europe. Each section has to intervene in the working class movement relevant to the specific form of the movement in each country.“

We would ask the comrades in this as in all other questions to deal with our real position and not a parody of our position. Indeed it is ironic that these criticisms should be levelled at the International Socialist Movement majority who have argued for the past two years precisely against the attempt by the International to regiment the sections without reference to the concrete conditions in each country.

Two years ago an international delegation from sections of the Committee for a Workers’ International arrived in Scotland to convince us where we were going wrong (fortunately we convinced one of these comrades that we were not going wrong; and at least one other comrade from that delegation now accepts, in the light of experience that our assessment of the forces that could be generated through transforming the Scottish Socialist Alliance into a new party has been proven correct).

However the main speaker on behalf of the delegation at a debate at the Scottish Militant Labour National Committee spent most of his contribution explaining that it was impossible to work in the same formation as non-members of the Committee for a Workers’ International because that had been the experience of the Swedish section. The same points were repeated to us over and over again, notably at the Euopean School in Leuven, that the Swedish model was the model to follow.

At the same Scottish Militant Labour National Committee, Committee for a Workers’ International Secretary, Tony Saunois argued that the forces of socialism and Marxism internationally were facing a period of retreat and disintegration and therefore the Scottish Socialist Party project was doomed to fail. At a British National Committee we were repeatedly told that because Socialist Alliances had been unsuccessful in various regions in England, that our strategy in Scotland was therefore wrong.

One of our main arguments was that the comrades outside Scotland were indulging in abstract generalisations rather than examining the specific conditions on the ground. Indeed, one of the problems in our opinion with the methodology of the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership is that it is over-centralised and seeks to impose strategy and tactics upon individual sections when these decisions have to be worked out concretely at national level. In the case of Scotland, the assessment of the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership – which was unfortunately was accepted by the 1998 World Congress – has proven disastrously mistaken.

We would not dream of attempting to impose exactly the same strategy we have developed in Scotland within other European countries where conditions are clearly different. However we are internationalists, we have experience in the mass movement, we have conducted a strategy which is acknowledged as a resounding success by the vast mass of Committee for a Workers’ International members in Scotland and by the vast mass of non-Committee for a Workers’ International socialist activists outside Scotland. Consequently we have a right to express our views about the general strategy of the international without the sneering misrepresentation of our position sketched out in the faction’s conference review statement.

Unfortunately, the Committee or a Workers’ International / Socialist Party leadership seem to be so blinded by hostility to the Scottish Socialist Party and to the International Socialist Movement majority that they have refused to draw any positive lessons from the experience of the Scottish Socialist Party. Sadly, it has been other rival organisations that have at least drawn some of the lessons of Scottish Militant Labour, the Scottish Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party.

In particular, the Socialist Workers Party, following the attendance by national Socialist Workers Party leaders at the Scottish Socialist Party Socialism 2000 event made an abrupt turn to the London Socialist Alliance, part of a movement initiated by the Socialist Party (then Militant Labour) in England and Wales following on from the successful launch of the Scottish Socialist Alliance.

From all accounts, this turn by the Socialist Workers Party has breathed new life into the LSA and allowed it to attract new fresh forces to the fight for socialism. The LSA was able to achieve an impressive vote in the London Assembly elections, including 7 per cent of first-past-the-post votes cast in the Euro constituency covering North East London and over 6 per cent in the Euro constituency covering South West London.

Yet the Socialist Party, with the exception of individuals such as Ian Page and Dave Nellist, has played little or no part in this development. As a result, the Socialist Party has been left marginalized in London, with the Socialist Workers Party allowed to grab the leadership of a movement which is now attracting the support of a significant minority of the working class and the youth.

We recognise that London is not Scotland. Nor does the Socialist Party in London have anything approaching the strength and influence that Scottish Militant Labour accumulated in ten years of high profile campaigning.

Nor would we suggest that the Socialist Party should have “put all its eggs in one basket” as Philip recently claimed we were suggesting. You can put all your eggs in one basket; or you can put in none. Or you can put in some.

It is not a question of ‘all or nothing’ but of recognising the mood for left unity that extends far beyond the existing members of left organisations, the dynamic of unity which can attract fresh forces and fresh support. We would contend that if the Socialist Party had put even some limited resources into the LSA over a period of time we would be today be in a much stronger position in London.

Recently, there has been a welcome change in attitude towards the LSA by the Socialist Party leadership, although there is a danger even here that it could be too little too late. Unfortunately, it looks to us as though the Socialist Party has already ceded a lot of ground to the Socialist Workers Party as a result of mistaken strategy and some tactical blunders.

We believe that there is an important regroupment process taking place now on an all-European scale as witnessed by developments such as the Left Bloc in Portugal, developments in some Scandinavian countries, the electoral alliance between the LCR and LO in France and other shifts. We hope that whatever other differences we may have, that Committee for a Workers’ International will add its weight to this development, and participate positively in this process.

The faction comrades repeat some false accusations regarding the treatment of representatives of the Committee for a Workers’ International at the Scottish Socialist Party conference. The first is that Peter and Niall were deliberately excluded from international discussions. That is not the case: they were explicitly invited to have a meal and discussion with the international representatives on Saturday evening and unfortunately declined. There was no question that these comrades were deliberately excluded.

It is true that, initially, no-one from the Committee for a Workers’ International was called to speak at the conference until a Dundee comrade intervened. However, there was no “list of speakers”. There had been no provision for any international speakers apart from the Cuban ambassador. This was agreed unanimously, without dissent, at an Scottish Socialist Party EC attended by Philip.

However there was a gap in the agenda caused by movers of resolutions failing to appear on Sunday morning; the chair of that session (not a member of the International Socialist Movement), in order to fill that gap, took it on himself to invite some international speakers. He accidentally overlooked the Committee for a Workers’ International representative, an oversight that was immediately rectified when it was pointed out. To suggest that this was a deliberate manoeuvre is to invent a conspiracy.

The truth is that, contrary to mythology that is circulating around the international, the Committee for a Workers’ International has been a given a platform within the Scottish Socialist Party over a number of events. At the Socialism 2000 event, as well as various Scottish Committee for a Workers’ International speakers, Joe Higgins and Peter Hadden both addressed full plenary sessions, while the founding conference of the Scottish Socialist Party last year was addressed by a Chilean comrade.

However, the comrades pose the question: do we consider the Committee for a Workers’ International “not worth a candle … sectarian…undemocratic… a burden on our work in Scotland.” They ask us to make clear our attitude to the Committee for a Workers’ International.

We have to be honest and state that while we would not necessarily use the same terminology, yes – we have serious criticisms. Not, we would add, of the Committee for a Workers’ International – but of the central leadership of the Committee for a Workers’ International who have undermined their own authority within the International Socialist Movement and within the wider Scottish Socialist Party as a result of their hostility towards the whole Scottish Socialist Party project. We have already cited examples. We could cite many more. The opposition of the Socialist Party / Committee for a Workers’ International leadership is public knowledge, not just in Scotland but right across the world. Some people have point blank refused to join the International Socialist Movement because they do not understand why they should join an International which they know is implacably opposed to everything they are doing.

That is a problem not of our making. Until recently, we have concentrated almost entirely on developing our work in Scotland. But we have had no support whatsoever, not one iota of assistance from the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership.

The Committee for a Workers’ International leadership in effect refuse to recognise the acknowledged, elected leadership of the Scottish section. Their role has from the outset been to seek points of support within Scotland and to whip up hysteria the length and breadth of the International against the leadership in Scotland by providing a selective, one-sided and sometimes falsified account of what is taking place within the Scottish Socialist Party and International Socialist Movement. We believe that we are regarded as an ‘enemy within’ rather than as a section of the International which has legitimate political differences with the leadership.

The comrades have a right to their opinion and to their criticisms. But we would have expected critical support, rather than outright, unbridled opposition from Committee for a Workers’ International leadership. Even at this stage we ask the comrades the Committee or a Workers’ International/Socialist Party leadership to retrace their steps and withdraw their opposition to the Scottish Socialist Party project. On that basis, we believe that it is possible for constructive discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of Scotland, the strengths and weaknesses of England, the strengths and weaknesses of the International to take place.

We hope this clarifies our attitude to the Committee for a Workers’ International. But we would also ask these questions to the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership: What is your attitude towards the International Socialist Movement majority? We have no problem accommodating differences of opinion within our ranks. We have no problem collaborating with the comrades of the minority faction while debating out our differences. But does the Committee for a Workers’ International leadership have a problem accommodating the Scottish section?

Finally we ask the comrades who have joined the faction to ponder this statement made by Leon Trotsky written in October 1934: “Psychology, ideas and customs usually lag behind the developments of objective relations in society and in the class, even in the revolutionary organisations, the dead lay their hands upon the living. The preparatory period of propaganda has given us the cadres without which we could not make one step forward, but the same period, has, as a heritage, permitted the expression within the organisation of extremely abstract concepts of the construction of a new party and a new International.

In their chemically pure form these conceptions are expressed in the most complete manner by the dead sect of Bordigists, who hope that the proletarian vanguard will convince itself, by means of a hardly readable literature, of the correctness of their position and sooner or later will correctly gather around their sect.

“Often these sectarians add that revolutionary events inevitably push the working class towards us. This passive expectancy, under a cover of idealistic messianism, has nothing in common with Marxism. Revolutionary events always and inevitably pass over the heads of every sect. By means of propagandistic literature, if it is good, one can educate the first cadres, but one cannot rally the proletarian vanguard which lives neither in a circle nor in a schoolroom, but in a class society, in a factory, in the organisations of the mosses, a vanguard to whom one must know how to speak in the language of its experiences.

“The best-prepared propagandist cadres must inevitably disintegrate if they do not find contact with the daily struggle of the masses. The expectation of the Bordigists that revolutionary events will of themselves push the masses to them as a reward for their `correct’ ideas represents the crudest of illusions. During revolutionary events, the masses do not inquire for the address of this or that sect, but leap over it.

“To grow more rapidly during the period of flux, during the preparatory period, one must know how to find points of contact in the consciousness of wide circles of workers. It is necessary to establish proper relations with the moss organisations. It is necessary to find the correct point of departure corresponding to the concrete conditions of the proletarian vanguard in the person of its various groupings.

“And for this it is necessary to see oneself not as a makeshift for the new party, but only as an instrument for its creation. In other words, while preserving in its totality an intransigence on principle, it is necessary to free oneself radically from sectarian hangovers which subsist as a heritage from a purely propagandist period.”

May 2000