France, I Year of François Hollande, 150,000 March for Alternative Left Policies.

In Paris on Sunday up to 150,000 demonstrators marched for a  VIth Republic», and against “l’austérité et la finance”.

This was their way of marking one year of Socialist Party led-government and the election of President Hollande.

At the appeal of the Front de Gauche leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon many came to bring a “new broom” to French policies with real brooms, of all kinds.

This morning on French Radio stations supporters of the governing Parti Socialiste expressed their disdain for the sometimes colourful language used by their left critics.

But it was noted that François Holllande,elected with 51,6% of the vote Holland today gets only 25% backing in Opinion Polls.

Below are some reasons for this:

France: Unemployment Up.

Hollande stands accused of failing to offer a serious alternative to financial austerity that would change these figures.

Is there another way out?

At the Paris March  Pierre Laurent Communist Party), Eva Joly (left Wing Greens) and  Jean-Luc Mélenchon (Parti de gauche) argued for new radical left policies (Here).

As the first speaker said,

Nous sommes tous Grecs, Espagnols, Italiens, Irlandais, Portugais, Chypriotes et notre ennemi c’est la finance. La finance dehors, l’humain d’abord !

We are all Greeks. Spaniards, Italians, Irish, Portuguese and Cypriots. Our enemy is finance. Out with Finance! Put Humanity first!“

Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA): 2nd National Conference.

The psychodrama of the SWP (we still do not know what the Central Committee decided on launching a purge last Sunday) continues.

It is a relief to look at the political activity of a serious left party, the French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA).

The NPA held its 2nd National conference last weekend.

After substantial groups of NPA supporters have left the party to join the Front de gauche (FdG), they stand at 2 , 500 members (at one point a few years back, they had nearly reached 10,000). *

This is from a brief report  on the party’s site (from Agence France Presse). More information in detail begin here.

After the conference Alain Krivine said,

“”Il y a une volonté d’arriver à une recomposition et d’en finir avec les tendances”,

That there is a will to re-align inside the party, and to end the NPA’s divisions into tendencies.

This remains to be seen.

Party members had voted in advance for  the different (4) motions that were debated at the Congress.

55% backed the motion  “une orientation pour agir“ which won with  51% of the vote. Sandra Demarcq, spokesperson for the tendency said that they intended to “get the NPA moving” against the present – Socialist-led – government and its politics of austerity.  To achieve that aim the NPA intended to speak to all organisations which do not support the government, including the  Front de gauche, with a view to joint action. On one issue their position, however, remains unchanged. “We are not going to fuse with the FdG, because we have important differences. But the NPA on its own won’t win” (“On ne va pas proposer de fusion avec le FG car il y a des désaccords importants, mais le NPA seul n’y arrivera pas”)

The FdG had to recognise the need for a real left-wing opposition to  Prime Minister Ayrault’s Cabinet.

The platform, “Quelle politique d’interpellation du FG“,  from the “courant révolutionnaire” won 32% of the vote. Gaël Quirante, from the tendency asked exactly how the NPA was going to approach the FdG.

On what to do for the 2014 municipal and European elections – that is, if alliances with other left groups would be possible – this was left to an enlarged ’conseil politique national’ (national political council) to decide.

Libération has commented on the “hangover” facing the NPA , after its electoral failure, the split off by many of its tendencies, its leadership crisis and its isolation.

Le Monde cites the former NPA stalwart, and FdG supporter, Pierre-François Grond, “ ”Ce congrès, c’est la confirmation de l’échec du projet fondateur du NPA”, This conference confirms the set back faced by the founding project of the NPA.

It would seem that when the largest opposition group in the NPA, the “revolutionary” current, calls for a ‘unity’ from below (“Quelle politique d’interpellation du Front de gauche ? Par en haut ou par les luttes ?”, ignoring the FdG’s ‘leaderships’. Support for this  ’united front from below indicates that the party’s difficulties are far from over.

*Note: ”A sa création en 2009, le NPA comptait 9.000 adhérents. C’était deux anaprès qu’Olivier Besancenot eut atteint 4% à l’élection présidentielle. Ilsont aujourd’hui 2.500.”

SWP, Callinicos Wrong On Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste.

For the SWP the French Nouveau parti anticaptialiste (NPA) has been a reference point.

While recognising its strengths there have long been criticisms of its internal regime.

This  allows ‘factions’, tendencies and ‘courants‘ to operate. This is not a grudging ‘right to dissent’.  NPA’s Conferences are organised around motions from these groups, or alliances – a practice similar to the internal functioning of the  French Parti Socialiste.

In a long article last year  analysing the marginalisation of the NPA and its coming break-up (France: anti-capitalist politics in crisis International Socialism Issue: 134  Alex Callinicos observed the problems raised by the NPA’s priorities.

Firstly, “The problem is that the NPA’s political life is centred on elections.”

Unlike the SWP whose interest in electing George Galloway in the East End was purely marginal…

Secondly, “the idea that political organisations should respect the “autonomy of the social movements”.

This contrasts with the SWP’s practice of tactical “united fronts” – that is, working with social movements (pressure groups or campaigns) for a short while to organise demonstrations and other protests, and then dropping them in an endless cycle of ‘front-recruitment-new front’. This behaviour has caused great resentment amongst other activists.

The LCR/NPA enjoys a different legacy:  enduring respect from activists and social movements.

But the worst fault of the NPA was this.

 a third weakness carried over into the NPA from the LCR, namely an internal regime of institutionalised factionalism. There are, of course, longstanding differences over how best to organise democratic centralism. The SWP has, for more than 40 years, insisted that political disagreements should be allowed to crystallise into formally organised factions only in the period of internal debate before a party conference. The LCR and its sister sections of the FI have, by contrast, long maintained the right to organise permanent tendencies. In the Ligue this meant that internal discussion was for a long period of structured by a permanent debate between a “majority” that was itself a coalition and the grouping around Picquet.

Callinicos attended the 2011 NPA Congress,

Comrades in the FI sometimes criticise the SWP internal regime for being too homogeneous and dominated by the Central Committee, but, particularly in recent years, there has often been great uncertainty about the outcome of important votes at SWP conferences.

By contrast, he argues, the NPA’s votes were known in advance.

That is because the entire membership had voted beforehand on what they supported and it was not left to the mandated delegates to decide!

At the 2011 congress the Conseil National Politique, the NPA’s leading body, was selected by representatives of the different platforms reading out lists of their supporters to occupy places allocated thanks to their share of the membership votes. At the best of times this kind of setup inhibits real debate, where minds can be changed thanks to the play of argument. But this has not been the best of times for the NPA. With no faction having a majority, the field is open for manoeuvres and bargains

Alex Callinicos now says (Socialist Review)

The New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) in France imploded in 2011-12, leading to a very serious breakaway to the Front de Gauche led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This has weakened the far left in Europe, and indeed the rest of the world. The implosion was caused by political differences and setbacks, but it was exacerbated by an internal regime very similar to the one advocated by some SWP members. All the debates within the NPA went through the filter imposed by the struggle between four permanent factions. Members’ loyalties focused on their factional alignments rather than the party itself.

In reality there has been no such things, outside of tiny irrelevant groups like Clarté, as permanent factions in the NPA with their own special interests.

The first faction to leave the old LCR, just as the NPA was founded, is best known for  Christian Picquet . In June 2006 he backed a motion in favour of uniting all candidates to the left of the Parti Socialiste. It got 40% of the votes at the Conference. This tendency received 14% at the last NPA Conference. In other words its actions and its ‘loyalties’  were always part of the flow of debate, and axed towards the general needs of the party. It is now the Gauche Unitaire (formed 2009) and an integral part of the Front de gauche.

Most importantly the former ‘majority’ exploded in 2011.

• The new majority defending the Candidature of Philippe Poutou  in the forthcoming (2012) Presidential elections.
• The other arguing in favour of the  Front de gauche.

Of the latter Convergence et Alternative joined the Front de gauche in 2011 in advance of the Presidential election in 2012.

In April 2012  for the First Round of the French Presidential election the NPA’s Phillipe Poutou got 1,15 %  of the vote (411 160).

The Front de Gauche candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon,  got 11,10 % of the vote  (3 984 822).

This undercut the original NPA view that “there is nothing on the left between us and the Parti Socialiste”

Most of the remaining opposition, in the Gauche ant,icapitaliste,   joined the Front de gauche in July  2012.

This account of voting figures from LCR/NPA Congresses do not suggest rigid ‘faction’ behaviour. They indicate a great deal of flexibility,  strategic differences and changing allegiances.

They imply a ‘loyalty’ to tendencies, a condition of developing their analyses for Conference resolutions, and deepening their views. But not blind faith in a mini-leadership.

The NPA’s tendencies and factions  act indeed as a “permanent” democratic control over the party.

The internal structure cannot be blamed when, on an important issue, participation in the Front de gauche, the minority  left.

The political disagreement was simply too great.

There have been none of the psychodramas we see in the present SWP crisis.

What Callinicos is complaining about is democracy.

 

 

SWP: ‘Dark Side of Internet” to Blame as Crisis Grows to Reach Counterfire.

Responding to the SWP crisis Alex Callinicos has just written in Socialist Review  to settle the matter once and for all.

Lenin’s Tomb responds that,

“The piece does nothing of the sort, but is rather an encapsulation of the flaws that have brought us to this pass. It is clearly intended as an opening salvo in the CC’s response to the growing opposition within the party. In particular it draws on the long tradition of dealing with dissent over particular issues by means of the absurd implication that that dissent is an attack on the heritage of the October revolution, accompanied by an airy dismissal of the actual facts.”

What does it say?

One thing the entire business has reminded us of is the dark side of the Internet. Enormously liberating though the net is, it has long been known that it allows salacious gossip to be spread and perpetuated – unless the victim has the money and the lawyers to stop it. Unlike celebrities, small revolutionary organisations don’t have these resources, and their principles stop them from trying to settle political arguments in the bourgeois courts.

The idea that you need money to settle an allegation of rape is an interesting, perhaps, curious one, certainly completely out-of-joint, and, indeed repellant.

But there is more.

Moreover, in this case a few individuals, some well known, others not, have used blogs and social media to launch a campaign within the SWP. Yet they themselves, for all their hotly proclaimed love of democracy, are accountable to no one for these actions. They offer an unappetising lesson in what happens when power is exercised without responsibility.

Power withoout  responsibility? Callinicos may dislike us harlots, and our prerogatives, but who exactly does he think we should be responsible to?

All of this would be of interest solely to the SWP and its supporters, were it not for the political conclusions that are being drawn. Both Owen Jones and “Don Mayo”, an ex-member of the SWP leadership who recently left the party, have targeted what “Mayo” calls “the orthodox Trotskyist model of Leninism”. Like Jones, he says this is “an historically outdated model”

It’s a bit more than that and as a subscriber to this Blog Callinicos is in a position to know.

Mass democratic parties of the left, neither democratic centralist nor Occupy Wall Street ‘consensus’ politics are a serious objective. WE will discuss this in more detail in the coming days.

He continues.

“Moreover, what our critics dislike most about us – how we organise ourselves – is crucial to our ability, as Jones puts it, to punch above our weight. Our version of democratic centralism comes down to two things. First, decisions must be debated fully, but once they have been taken, by majority vote, they are binding on all members. This is necessary if we are to test our ideas in action.

Secondly, to ensure that these decisions are implemented and that the SWP intervenes effectively in the struggle, a strong political leadership, directly accountable to the annual conference, campaigns within the organisation to give a clear direction to our party’s work. It is this model of democratic centralism that has allowed us to concentrate our forces on key objectives, and thereby to build so effectively the various united fronts we have supported.

The grand title, United Front, comes from a serious political critical analysis, by Trotsky, of the anti-fascist Popular Fronts of the 1930s. It meant mass workers’ parties joining together on a common objective, ‘march togteher, strike separately’.

Regardless of Trotsky’s rightness it did not mean short-term tactical alliances by small groups like the SWP designed to ‘build’ their own organisation.

Democratic Centralism in their party does not mean that issues are “debated fully”. It means that when anyone steps out of line they get sat on. Or expelled.

Callinicos evokes the Nouveau parti anticapitaliste’s recent splits.

The New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) in France imploded in 2011-12, leading to a very serious breakaway to the Front de Gauche led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This has weakened the far left in Europe, and indeed the rest of the world. The implosion was caused by political differences and setbacks, but it was exacerbated by an internal regime very similar to the one advocated by some SWP members. All the debates within the NPA went through the filter imposed by the struggle between four permanent factions. Members’ loyalties focused on their factional alignments rather than the party itself.

The NPA’s split was caused by two things.

Firstly, the majority’s dogmatic insistence that “between the Socialist Party and ourselves there is nothing.” That is, they claimed to be the only group to the left of the French Parti Socialiste.

This was clearly not the case.

Secondly, the refusal of the leadership to join the new alliance that was created in this “nothing”, the Front de Gauche.

The SWP would naturally be hard pressed to join the FdG, led as it is, as they would say, by the ‘Islamophobe’ Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The NPA democratic structure allowed ideas expression, and for them to be put into practice without the hysterical attempt to shore up The Party that the SWP is now seeing.

Callinicos ends with some wishful thinking.

I am confident that the SWP is politically strong enough to overcome its internal differences. Our theoretical tradition and our democratic structures will allow us to arrive at the necessary political clarity and to learn the lessons of the disciplinary case. But if I am wrong and the SWP did collapse, this would not solve the political problem that it exists to address. The anti-capitalist struggle won’t be advanced by relying on Labourism and the trade union leaders or by uncritical worship of the movements. If the SWP didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

Meanwhile the Bloggers haven’t let go.

There is a groundswell of opposition to his Central Committee.

A new controversy has opened up with the revelation of the close relation between anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon and SWP “comrade Delta”, Martin Smith, who is still formally at the top of Unite Against Fascism.

Meanwhile we are still playing on the “dark side”.

Socialist Unity reports today on widespread sexism in the SWP.

There is also is this  scandal (actually one that went the rounds some time back), hat-tip Harry’s Place.

“…Counterfire, a splinter group from the SWP whose leading members have been associated in the past with the so-called “fuck circuit”, where patronage has been exercised by charismatic male leaders in favour of their sexual partners, at the expense of talented women who were known to be sexually unavailable to them… “

Owen Jones, the SWP and Networks.

End of an Era for SWP?

Owen Jones, the SWP and Networks.

The SWP is “imploding”. The fall out from the Martin Smith affair, and perceived hostility to women’s rights has been devastating. “Activists are reported to be in open rebellion at their autocratic leadership, or are simply deserting en masse,” writes Owen Jones in the Independent. This, he continues, is of importance to the whole left. Not only has the SWP been behind political movements, such as the Stop the War Coalition’s giant marches against the Iraq war, but that many, “thousands” have passed through its ranks over the years, “only to end up burnt out and demoralised”.

Intellectuals such as China Mièville and Richard Seymour, and grass-roots activists, are now publicly challenging their party’s leadership. It would seem that the days of the SWP as Britain’s largest “Leninist sect” are drawing to an end.

There are some similarities with the late 1970s dissolution of European far-left groups. The much more intensely “revolutionary” French Gauche Prolétarienne (GP) wound itself up in 1973. Tales of arbitrary central rule, the domineering ways of Benny Lévy, bullying and personal traumas emerged later, which resemble some of the stories emerging from the SWP. The Italian Lotta Continua (LC) broke up by the late 1970s over the avant-garde role of any ‘party’, and issues of personal politics and feminism.

But these groups were ideologically fluid. Their ideas were part of a world of unsettled alignments and doubts, fuelled by the changes in mid-1970s China and the horrors of Cambodia, or, in Italy, with the emerging ‘armed struggle’, about the nature of ‘revolution’ and Marxism.

Supporters and opponents in the SWP by contrast look to the ‘IS tradition’ that held them together for decades. Solidarity and the Weekly Worker report a continuing battle by opponents of the Central Committee’s “bureaucratic centralism”. Their objections are framed within a common set of assumptions.

There are other differences. Britain is, to say the least, is also not a natural home for ‘revolutionaries’. Yassamine Mather in the Weekly Worker describes the dedication and stringent organisation of the Iranian left in the wake of the Khomeini Islamist take-over and the contrast with the SWP’s centrally directed, but less welded together membership. Those familiar with the Continental European left, where violent clashes with the state and mass movements on a scale unknown in the United Kingdom are not unknown even today, find the SWP’s ‘revolutionary’ claims, for all of the legacy on the 1980s miners’ strike, hard to swallow.

Bolshevisation.

Owen Jones observes, rightly, that the ‘Leninism’ of the SWP is “obsessed with replicating a revolution that took places in a semi-feudal country nearly a century ago”. Yet the SWP emerged from the post-1968 events, not the foundation of the Third International. That is, like the Gauche Prolétarienne and LC, and the whole “new vanguard” (as the International Secretariat of the Fourth International called it), they were shaped by mass strikes and student movements, dividing the left, and without any clear central leadership, that did not resemble 1917. Close to the GP André Glucksman argued in 1968 that there was not a Bolshevik” model for the “party”, in the widest sense, of the revolutionary left to adopt (Stratégie et revolution en France 1968. 1968). The forerunner of the SWP, the International Socialists, was of a similar mind.

It was only during the 1970s that a wide section of the post-68 European left began to ‘Bolshevise’. Tony Cliff’s biography of Lenin is said to mark a key moment in this process. It was resisted by important a section of the old IS, who broke away as the SWP was founded in 1976. Lars T. Lih, has argued that for Lenin the proletariat was ready for Marxism, that there would be no division between teachers and taught, and that socialism and the working class would ‘merge’ (Lenin. 2011) For the IS there was always a distrust of “substitutionism”, that the party would suddenly announce that it was the unique bearer of Marxist truth. Critics (including former members) of the new SWP were not slow to say that this was exactly what it was doing.

The SWP theoretical view of the ‘party’ resembles that out forward by the Fourth International’s (FI) Ernest Mandel, that it “proves its right to exist only through it connection to the real class struggle and by its capacity to transform potentially revolutionary class consciousness into actual revolutionary class consciousness of broad layers of workers.”(The Leninist Theory of Organisation 1975) The party is linked to these conflicts and interests by a wide network of activists, through listening to people’s grievances, to discussions, through participation in self-organised revolts. In Leninist terms the party then organises during a revolutionary situation, or “dual power”, to conquer power and ‘smash’ the existing bourgeois state.

Sometimes the SWP’s role as a ‘Leninist organisation’ can almost seem to disappear. You would be hard pressed to find any reference to the Party in SWP leader Alex Callinicos’ Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (2003). Callinicos addresses the ‘anti-capitalist movement’ (which he prefers to alter-globalisation and other expressions). He offers a defence of the critique of capitalism based on justice, efficiency democracy and sustainability and a “transitional programme’ to pave the way for a democratically planned socialist economy, without mentioning the Party’s role. The “revolutionary process” he outlines, that might lead to this end, does not even include the words ‘dual power’.

Bureaucratic Centralism.

The SWP can tolerate a wide range of theoretical diversity, as Callinicos’ often brilliant writing illustrates. But rather than waste time looking for references to the party in the writings of SWP intellectuals (which would include Chris Harman, John Rees’ appropriation of Lukács, and many others) it is their practice that is most relevant. The SWP operates what it would no doubt call “revolutionary centralism”  Barry Biddulph goes back to the pre-1914 Marxist left to find the origins of what is widely called, rather differently, ‘bureaucratic centralism”. (2)  He asserts, correctly in our opinion, that ‘democratic centralism’ is always centralist never democratic. Certainly the SWP does not prove the contrary. Their organisation if marked by the following: the Central Committee’s (CC) debates are not revealed to the members, only its decisions are, the CC is elected at the annual conference by the ‘slate’ system (similar to the old Communist Party of Great Britain’s ‘panel system’), which offers delegates a list of candidates which cannot be a amended, all party members are bound by the decisions of the CC, internal party factions, or groupings, are only permitted, within defined limits, during the run up to the conference, members can be expelled for breaking these conditions. This ensures “unity in action”, or more accurately, “doing what you’re told.”

Ernest Mandel’s model of democratic two-way party process between members and leaders left the way open for party ‘factions’. This has been the practice in the Fourth International he was part of. It may be compared to the French Parti Socialiste, which is made up of a permanent, and shifting, set of tendencies, or ‘courants’ whose views are put to the party conference and form the basis of a proportionally elected leadership. In the FI aligned International Marxist Group, which also underwent 1970s ‘Bolshevisation’, this was the norm. It remains the case in the French Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA). The NPA has been criticised by the SWP for this democratic system. ‘Permanent factions’ Callinicos has frequently observed, waste party energy, and turn it inwards.

Factions can also lead to splits – as the NPA has recently experienced. Nevertheless it could be argued that it was the inability of the NPA to adapt flexibly to the new conditions – the formation of the Front de gauche (FdG) which its former tendencies have joined up with – that casts doubt even on this more open ‘Leninist’ model. The French FI hearkened back to their Trotskyist origins and simply refused to join up with the FdG “reformists”.

However, factions, tendencies and other aspects of permanent democratic debate have roots in the nature of politics, particularly important for the left. The left works within ‘stasis’, that is the upsetting of existing political arrangements. It is a means to break up the consensus – today around neo-liberalism – and, as Owen Jones notes, the “crisis” of capitalism.

Jacques Rancière argues that it is only through “dissensus” (Dissensus 2010). This has many aspects but one is relevant to this debate, “Political struggle proper is therefore not a matter of rational debate between multiple interests; it is above all, a struggle to have one’s voice heard and oneself recognised as a legitimate partner in debate.” Denying members of a political party this “right to be heard” as a partner, is to “police” them, to make them less than equal. It is dissensus which enables new issues to be raised, to make a party a place where people do not just exchange their experiences while the carry out orders, but somewhere where people come out with new ideas, ‘outside the box’. Bureaucratic centralism is not just bad practice; it is an attempt to wipe out politics itself.

The SWP operates on the assumption that people radicalised ‘by the struggle’ will turn towards it. Its own activity with other groups, unions, campaigns, political parties, is directed on this basis. Its vehicles are no secret. Vargas Llosa once described Trotskyists in South America as all about standing around selling papers. Apart from Socialist Worker the SWP organises meetings, preferably large public ones. It’s what they do. They then recruit, and if people get sucked in they can enjoy the life of a party run by bureaucratic centralism. And have their activities on Facebook overseen.

The End of an Era?

The SWP since the 1970s has been one of the factors that has prevented the British left from offering a coherent challenge to capitalism. Beginning from the late 1970s, when it tried to impose the Anti Nazi League over a network of local anti-racist and anti-fascist groups, it participated in another network, the Socialist Movement, (the Chesterfield Conference) with the intention of ‘exposing’ the ‘left reformists’ of the Labour left. It joined in, but can hardly be said to have shaped the strategies (never put into effect) that emerged, which combined democratic reforms, green policies, and a pan-European version of the 1970s Alternative Economic Programme.

After that it was back to the usual round of campaigns, frenetically taken up, and then dropped, opposing. The most successful were on international issues, the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia and the first Gulf War. Following the electoral successes of French Trotskyists in the 1990s and the emergence of the Scottish Socialist party, the SWP looked more favourably on ‘electoralism’. It came to dominated the late 1990s electoral front, the Socialist Alliance, operated without regard for democratic norms inside it, and then dumped it in favour of a hook-up with George Galloway in the communalist Respect. An attempt to capitalise on the successes of the Stop the War Coalition’s marches was the foundation. The SWP then left Respect (No doubt largely because large egos couldn’t stand Galloway’s even bigger one) , got rid of its most Islamophile ‘anti-imperialist’ wing around Lindsey German and John Rees, and, cutting a long story short, is now trying to split the anti-cuts movement with the…Unite the Resistance campaign.

SWP campaigns work in a cycle. There is intense effort made to build then – or to take over existing bodies – there are meetings, demonstrations, and, they hope recruitment. A hysteria takes hold. Then they largely disappear, or are shunted aside for future use. This is somes called the ‘united front as tactic’.  Each intervention has left casualties in the party and outside of it. Once they have secured support the SWP goes on its way without bothering too much about what anybody else thinks. This leaves casualties, or, more often, just distrust and indifference to the next all-important mobilisation. People are wary of co-operating not just with the sellers of Socialist Worker but with other activists, divided against each other in each successive wave of ‘unity’ and then, ‘dis-unity’.

The SWP, like all political parties, treats people as instruments, means to an end, not ends in themselves. It is distinguished from most political bodies nevertheless by the degree to which it does this, casting people aside – expelling them if they are members – and acquiring a cadre prepared to carry out this with ‘Bolshevik ‘ ruthlessness. Towards those they don’t have a direct grip on they can be alternatively charming, glacial or hectoring. The threat of violence is not unknown.

Owen notes that the failings of the SWP are not unique. Nor is its lack of success. Members of his family have participated in previous ‘party-building’ attempts.

Is, as he argues, the Labour Party offers a way of connecting with the working class and ordinary people? There are doubts on this. Labour is a professionalised party, with links to voters that are pretty obvious, as we have ballots to show them, and ties to trade unions which are less secure. There are strong arguments to be involved in the Party, though its internal structure offer little way of influencing policy in depth. . The serious left does not want to be an “echo chamber” – talking to itself alone, as Luke Akehurst argues. In the meantime we are not likely to stop criticising the Labour Party, not least because it fails to live up to being even a social democratic party.

If it is so far from being a socialist organisation what do we do? New left parties seem, as Owen says, to be a non-starter. Jones argues that the left, labour and non-labour, should get together in networks. Toby Young in the Daily Telegraph ironically states that Jones want to “his fellow travellers to form a new political movement – a sort of non-sexist version of the Socialist Workers’ Party.” It is indeed tempting to be ironical about the SWP but I doubt if even Young  laughs much when we have an effect, in anti-cuts groups, or in trade unions. Because, as Owen  knows, we already have our networks, established by a degree of trust and respect, including his own umbrella group, the Labour Representation Committee (of which I am a card member). These are ‘broad networks’ dealing with bread and butter politics.

The ‘Bolshevisation’ of the 1970s was followed by successive waves of activists leaving parties like the SWP, or fragmenting, as happened with the IMG, into a variety of small tendencies. A majority of the erstwhile ‘far-left’  operates in flexible networks and journals, like Chartist, the Commune, and Labour Briefing, or small Marxist groups like the Weekly Worker or the Alliance for Workers Liberty. Red Pepper, the descendent of the Socialist Movement, offers reports on networking campaigns, most recently on the Indignados and the small American movement, Occupy Wall Street. Although we may differ on many things a democratic commitment perhaps marks us off from the SWP. It would not be too much to say that this is reinforced by the possibilities offered by the new information technologies, technologies which appear to drive the SWP to distraction.

Owen concludes, “The era of the SWP and its kind is over; a new movement is waiting to be born.” Perhaps we should be thinking of organising something like the May Day Manifesto, the Beyond the Fragments conference, or the Socialist Movement. This will be hard, there is a lot to overcome. But please, this time, SWP Central Committee – stay away!

(1) “Revolutionary centralism is a harsh, imperative and exacting principle. It often takes the guise of absolute ruthlessness in its relation to individual members, to whole groups of former associates. It is not without significance that the words ‘irreconcilable’ and ‘relentless’ are among Lenin’s favourites. It is only the most impassioned, revolutionary striving for a definite end – a striving that is utterly free from anything base or personal – that can justify such a personal ruthlessness.” Page 167 My Life. Leon Trotsky. An Attempt at an Autobiography. Penguin 1975.

Barry Biddulp states, “Democratic Centralism is not democratic; leaders decide on how much democracy there should be, depending on their interpretation of the circumstances.  The concept has been compatible with authoritarian personalities and top down undemocratic parties. Simon wants to fill an undemocratic form with a democratic content, but the usual undemocratic content was demonstrated recently in a scandal in the British SWP.  The content is tied to the form of a small central leadership mimicking the centralization of state decision-making.  A post capitalist society can only be established by the self emancipation of the working class, not a handful of leaders invoking the values of so-called democratic centralism and substituting for the class.

 

Update: This post, from the dissident SWP site Interrnational Socialism (Hat-Tip Shiraz) , about how the ‘party’ cadres moan about people writing on the Internet is worth looking at for amusement value alone.