Pre-conference Bulletin

Transcription

Pre-conference Bulletin 2 l October 2013
October 2013 l Socialist Workers Party pre-conference
Bulletin 2
contents
A question of leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Hannah (Euston)
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Charlie Kimber, SWP national secretary
A response to Hannah’s article on
leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Alex Callinicos
The fever and the cure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Central Committee
Politics and the workplace. . . . . . . . . . . 11
Central Committee
Fighting women’s oppression. . . . . . . . . 18
Central Committee
Building the Party. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Central Committee
Mistakes? We’ve made a few – but then
again too few to mention . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Ian (Enfield)
Building a small party branch . . . . . . . . 52
Jac, Cath, Michael, Dave W, Dave S, Becky,
Sally and Andy (Leicester)
Political Trade Unionism . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Malcolm (Huddersfield)
So many words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Bridget (Kings Heath)
The SWP and the internet . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Gary (Swansea)
Interacting with the blogosphere . . . . . . 58
Adam (Hackney East)
Why I joined the SWP – new members
speak out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Aiden, David, Cam, Laura, Claire, Sophie,
Honor, Claire, Yasmin, Laila, Saira, and
Mark (Manchester)
On Disputes Committee reform. . . . . . . . 59
David (Euston)
Rebuilding the Party faction. . . . . . . . . . 26
Multiple authors
‘The politics of the SWP crisis’
– a response. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Jim, Hannah and Simon (Euston), Colin
(Manchester Chorlton) Louis and Alexis
(Islington) and others
A response to the Rebuilding the Party
faction document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Bobby (Southampton)
Down with the finger wagging
Jabberwockys!. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
John (Hackney East)
Women’s liberation – developing a strategy
for the 21st century. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Estelle (Brixton) and Hannah (Euston)
Our intervention in the Hovis dispute. . . 33
Wigan SWP
A reply to Andrew from Cambridge. . . . . 34
Steve (Brighton)
Which way forward? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Ian (Bury & Prestwich)
An alternative slate for the Central
Committee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Ian (Bury & Prestwich) and Pat (Euston)
Two questions and some observations . . 39
Ian (Cardiff)
Avoiding Mutually Assured Destruction. . 39
Paul (newly moved in Tower Hamlets)
A branch that’s blooming. . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Charlotte, Dick, Jan, Maureen and Mike
(Manchester Longsight/Levenshulme)
Manufacturing differences?. . . . . . . . . . 42
Colin (Manchester)
Neither factionalism nor equivalence but
the International Socialist tradition . . . . 43
Terry (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Still neither one nor t’other. . . . . . . . . . 44
Barry (Bradford) and Mick (Barnsley)
A response to ‘The question of power’ . . 45
Julie (Nottingham), Cath and Becky
(Leicester)
Why bother with Socialist Worker?. . . . . 60
Sadie (Socialist Worker and Southwark)
Moving forward means acknowledging
mistakes and holding our leadership to
account. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Simon (Small Heath), Viv and Rita
(Hackney Dalston)
Motion from Rebuilding The Party faction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Pat (Euston)
The politics of childcare. . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Angela (Dalston), Megan (Walthamstow),
and Rachel (Chelmsford)
Flipping paper sales?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Richard (Bristol South)
Why I rejoined the SWP. . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
David (Rusholme)
A devolved Wales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Tim (Swansea)
Pushing a branch outwards:
the Barnsley experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Dave (Barnsley)
For an interventionist party
– the Sheffield experience. . . . . . . . . . . 72
Dave, Bea, Jill, Sharon, Lucinda, Tom,
Maxine, Laura and Leroy (Sheffield), Jim
(Doncaster) and others
Students and the SWP – some facts and
figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Sai (Tottenham)
Secrets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Jonathan (Oxford)
A response to Jonathan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Central Committee
Learning to count properly. . . . . . . . . . . 77
Amy (Cambridge)
Building the SWP in Waltham Forest . . . 78
Alex, Dean, Gary, Jim, Joel, Mike, Roger,
Russ, Siobhan, Tash, Tony and Ursla H
(Waltham Forest)
Abolish the slate system . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Charlie (Hackney East)
Building SWSS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Lewis and Patrick (Sussex SWSS and
Brighton SWP)
John Molyneux’s comments. . . . . . . . . . 82
Nancy (Oxford)
Socialist Worker – withering or
blossoming? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Pete (Bristol South)
A way forward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Mary, Pete, Thomas and Tim (Norwich)
reBuilding the Party... fAction . . . . . . . . 85
Phil (Bristol South)
The niqab, intersectionality, gender and
transphobia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Helen and Bridget (Stirchley)
Members, democracy and accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Andy (Leicester)
Where did it all go wrong. . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Dominic (Liverpool)
Leadership and accountability in Unite
Against Fascism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Phil (Hornsey & Wood Green)
A response to Phil on UAF. . . . . . . . . . . 92
Weyman Bennett
For a better online presence . . . . . . . . . 92
John (Oxford)
The role of United East End in Tower
Hamlets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Rebecca and Anindya (Tower Hamlets)
What would a democratic party look like?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
David (Euston)
Rebuilding the party branches. . . . . . . . 94
Paul (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Why neoliberalism matters and
sectarianism must be reversed. . . . . . . . 95
Luke (Hornsey & Wood Green)
The Disputes Committee:
a call to all members. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Ana (Kingston), Francesca and Nilufer
(Kingston SWSS), Kate (Goldsmiths
SWSS), Nusrat and Saba (Ealing)
How abuse operates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Kathryn (Birmingham)
Crisis – which crisis? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Terry (Edinburgh)
No splits, no expulsions
– we need to unite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Steve (Medway)
Why stay?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Brian (Leeds City Centre)
National Committee elections. . . . . . . . 104
This bulletin is for members of the SWP only. It should not be distributed or forwarded to others.
SWP national
conference,
central London,
13-15 december 2013
Introduction
Dear Comrade,
Welcome to the SWP’s Internal Bulletin 2 for our
forthcoming conference. I hope you will read and
consider the submissions and, if you wish, send in your
own contribution.
The deadline for IB3 is 9am Monday 11 November. This
is also the deadline for motions and National Committee
nominations.
Please keep contributions as short as possible and
send them to [email protected] (please do not send
contributions to other email addresses). Comrades who
send a contribution will receive an acknowledgement
from the National Office within three working days. If
the National Office has not acknowledged your
contribution please contact us as soon as possible.
Conference procedures
We want the greatest possible democracy and
participation in the conference. The main method of
discussion is though what we call commissions. These
are documents drawn up at the end of conference
sessions which summarise the main strands of discussion
and action to be taken. These can be amended. And if
there is more than one view in the discussion then there
can be alternative commissions which are then voted on.
This method is democratic, transparent, flexible and open
to the input of delegates. It means that the very latest
developments and the insights and arguments that appear
in the debate can be reflected in the party’s decisions.
Commissions allow delegates to listen to the experiences
from the rest of the country, consider the arguments put
forwards and then make decisions about what they think.
However it is not a method that people are used to for
trade union or student union conferences. We will make
sure it is fully and repeatedly explained at the conference.
We also want districts to hold meetings after delegates
are elected to introduce them to the way conference
works and to deal with any questions in an unhurried
atmosphere.
Take part!
We want conference to be a democratic event in which
comrades can fully participate. Branches should make
arrangements now to enable all members to be part of the
conference discussion, and to make it possible for any
member to put themselves forward as a delegate.
Sometimes there’s a need for more specific debates.
These can usually take the form of commissions or
amendments to commissions. But recently both the CC
and other party bodies have submitted motions. These
can be useful but should not be the main method of
discussion. That should stay as the commissions.
Every registered member with an email address on our
system receives this and subsequent bulletins by email.
But branches should also think about those comrades
who do not have email, or require a printed copy. Printed
versions of this bulletin can be ordered from the National
Office at £1.50 each (the price rise is due to the size of
recent IBs). Email your order to [email protected]
or ring 020 7819 1170. Payment needs to be made in
advance by card or cheque.
The procedure for motions is:
Aggregates
These meetings, open to every member in a district,
are where delegates to SWP Conference are elected.
They are also a chance for every member to discuss our
perspectives.
The only members who can be elected as delegates and
take part in voting in aggregates are those who join
before 16 September, the closing date for IB1. Anyone
who joins after that is welcome to attend the aggregates
and speak, but they can’t vote or be a delegate.
Aggregate dates will be circulated in Party Notes. In
addition each registered member will receive notification
of their aggregate.
The Central Committee and the Rebuilding the Party
faction have agreed a set of rules for speaking times etc
at aggregates.
• All motions must be passed in time for them to appear
in one of the Internal Bulletins so that everyone is aware
of them in advance. That means the final date for the
submission of motions is the closing date for IB3 - 9am,
Monday 11 November 2013. They must be passed by at
least one properly-organised meeting of an SWP branch,
or fraction, or district, or aggregate or the NC or the CC.
Motions must be circulated well in advance (at least
seven days) to allow comrades time to consider them.
• All amendments to motions must be in two weeks
before conference - 9am on Friday 29 November 2013.
They must go through the same process as for motions
- passed by a properly organised meeting and with
sufficient notice given.
• The fact that a branch or district or fraction passes a
motion for debate at conference does not in any way
mandate delegates who are part of that branch or district
or fraction. Delegates are not mandated and have a free
hand as to how they vote. It is perfectly possible to
change your mind after hearing the debate: this is the
strength of the commissions system.
• All motions and amendments should be sent to
[email protected] (please do not send contributions
to other email addresses). Comrades who send a motion
or amendment will receive an acknowledgement from
the National Office within three working days. If the
National Office has not acknowledged your contribution
please contact us as soon as possible.
The Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) will
receive the motions as they come in, and suggest in
which section of the agenda they should be taken. Similar
motions may be taken together (“composited”). The CAC
proposals will be discussed at the start of conference.
They can be challenged in the normal manner.
The CAC will also deal with objections such as “Fort
William branch did not properly discuss this motion
that has been submitted in our name” or “Maesteg
branch submitted a motion but the national secretary has
repressed it because it was critical of him” and report
their decisions to conference – which can be challenged
in the normal manner.
Childcare
The question of childcare is an important one for all
comrades, but particularly for women. Given we live
in a society where the ruling ideas say that women
are expected to bear the main burden of looking after
children, it is women who are hit hardest when there is
no consideration of this issue.
It is very difficult to provide a full crèche on the Marxism
model for conference. At Marxism we use a combination
of the (legally required) trained childcare workers and
volunteers. It’s hugely expensive but we do it because we
recognise that it’s necessary.
The cost is simply too high for us to provide that level of
crèche for every party event.
But depending on the age/situation of the child involved,
the delegate’s district could make provision to help, or
a comrade could bring a friend to look after the child
and be provided with a room at the event and some
assistance, or the child could stay with someone else in
London.
None of this is ideal, but it’s possible to sort out such
issues. They have worked at recent conferences. Access
The conference venue is fully accessible. If there are
any other needs that delegates require, please contact the
National Office and we will seek to help.
If you have any questions about conference please
contact [email protected] or phone 020 7819 1170 or
write to PO Box 42184, London SW8 2WD.
Charlie Kimber, SWP national secretary
The bulletin contains a series of articles
which make accusations about comrades’
alleged behaviour, views and actions. The
articles are the responsibility of the authors
and publication does not imply agreement
by the SWP. There are many allegations
about what the CC did or did not do. We
contest many of these and in some very
specific cases where leaving the allegation unanswered might have immediate
consequences we have offered responses.
Central Committee
The fever and
the cure
Central Committee
The Socialist Workers Party is facing the
deepest crisis in its history. The crisis
emerged with last year’s disputes committee (DC) report into a rape allegation
against a leading party member, a second
DC case alleging harassment by the same
member, and claims that in the wake of a
close vote at the January 2013 conference
the leadership failed to win people to the
agreed position of the party. The contention
here is that these cases, however difficult,
cannot be the ultimate source of the party
crisis. Why not?
The first piece of evidence is that there
has been general agreement that the first
case is closed and that the second case was
ultimately heard in an acceptable manner. Certainly the founding statement of
the faction, though criticising much of
the subsequent line of march of the party,
does not call for either case to be reopened.
Overwhelmingly comrades accept the constitutional legitimacy of the vote taken at
the January conference, which, however
narrowly, endorsed the DC report into the
first case.
Not only that, but strenuous efforts have
been made by a range of comrades to take
the issue of the DC out of contention. A
review body was elected to consider the
process and propose changes—and the
thrust of their recommendations seems to
have quite wide support, even among the
opposition. The draft report has been put
on the party website as part of our efforts
to indicate to those beyond our ranks the
action we are taking to strengthen our DC
processes. The outcome of the second
disputes committee case will go before conference for ratification but seems to have
been broadly welcomed. The comrade who
faced the accusations has left the party, so
there can be no concern over the role he is
playing. The leadership has acknowledged
that there are lessons to learn from all this.
Such moves have been grudgingly welcomed by the opposition, yet rather than
seek to use this as a basis to wind down
their faction and unite the party, they have
continued to agitate, in particular over the
question of the DC. The degree of agitation
is remarkable. Over the past year a faction
has formed and persisted in violation of
party rules through successive conferences,
party councils and national committees,
with its own internal structure, website,
email list and bank account. It organised its
own “intervention” into a list of this year’s
Marxism meetings—essentially treating
the event like that of an alien organisation.
This brings us to the second point—that
members of the opposition itself have
indentified wider areas of disagreement.
This comes, despite the official position
of the opposition, which is that the only
broader issues relate to the party’s internal regime. Some of the recommendations
of the Democracy Commission that took
place a few years ago have not, they say,
been properly implemented (they don’t
say which ones). They have called for “a
serious examination of the party’s internal
culture”, though, rather remarkably, they
don’t say what the outcome might be. Aside
from these questions, the current leaders of
the opposition have a narrow focus.
Their central goal is to obtain an apology to the two women who brought cases
to the DC. What exactly do they mean by
this? An apology issued solely to those two
comrades would effectively mean reopening their cases and would imply a reversal
of the verdicts. If that is what the opposition desire, they should say so. Perhaps the
opposition are simply asking that we make
a blanket apology to all those involved in
the cases for the processes, while defending the outcomes, but that would do little
to satisfy the two women who brought the
complaints. Either way, to elevate the question of an apology to a point of principle,
and to suggest that the majority of comrades
who have defended the party have fundamentally broken with our politics on the
question of women’s oppression, is reckless. What will the opposition do if they fail
to extract an apology? Incidentally, does
anyone believe that such an apology would
lead to the faction dissolving itself?
However, many in the opposition reject
this narrow focus. One group of opposition comrades, in the document “The Party
We Need”, set out a broad series of issues,
ranging from the impact of neoliberalism
on the working class through to the use
of the Internet as causes of contention. A
number of opposition members have produced interventions on the state of the
unions, mostly by presenting a welter of
statistics that are presumably designed to
shock readers—though the basic facts have
appeared regularly in our publications.
Another piece criticises Socialist Worker
for not exploiting the full potential of social
networking sites. Yet another attacks us for
downplaying the People’s Assembly and
being too critical of some of its leaders.
And so it goes on.
Now, it may simply be the case that
individual members of the opposition,
or in some cases groupings within the
opposition, are raising these points. But
the opposition in its official statements is
silent on these questions. We don’t know
what Hannah D, Pat S, Mike G or Ian B
think about these questions because they
don’t deign to comment on such matters.
For a group who are presumably now fighting for the leadership of the party, this is a
strange omission. Where do they plan to
lead the party? What do they think about
the arguments raging about the nature of
the contemporary working class; do they
accept the criticisms of our work in Unite
Against Fascism or Unite the Resistance or
in the People’s Assembly; do they accept
any responsibility whatsoever for the party’s work in these areas?
The third, and most compelling, piece of
evidence that the party crisis is shaped by
broader political forces is simply that this
is the latest, and worst, in a succession of
internal crises. The events triggering them
have differed, but the result has been, so
far, four splits in six years. For the preceding two decades splits were relatively
unknown.
It is essential that we understand the
crisis in the context of the political pressures impacting on the SWP and shaping
the party struggle.
As Lenin wrote of a very different crisis
that engulfed the Communist Party in Russia in 1921,
“The party is down with the fever…
What is it that needs to be done for a
rapid and certain cure? All members of
the party must make a calm and painstaking study of (1) the essence of the
disagreements and (2) the development
of the party struggle.
A study must be made of both,
because the essence of the disagreements is revealed, clarified and specified
(and very often transformed as well) in
the course of the struggle, which, passing through its various stages, always
shows, at every stage, a different lineup and number of combatants, different
positions in the struggle, etc.”
Entering a new period
Most serious organisations of the far left
have in the years since 1999 and the Seattle
protest against the World Trade Organisation been forced to make profound shifts
in their orientation. Many subsequently
faced internal crises. Why were these shifts
necessary?
The emergence of a substantial anti-capitalist milieu from 1999, and the subsequent
development of a mass anti-war movement
in many countries, created an opportunity
for the far left to seek to overcome the relative isolation it had faced since the global
downturn in struggle in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. Although, with some exceptions, the level of workers’ struggle has
not reached the pitch of the late 1960s and
the 1970s, there were large protest move-
ments and widespread radicalisation. For
instance, there were the demonstrations
of the early anti-capitalist movement—in
Seattle in 1999, Washington and Prague in
2000, and Gothenburg and Genoa in 2001.
These movements often involved the
radicalisation of large numbers of younger
activists, often with little prior experience
of politics, but the shift in mood was not
restricted to these layers. Rejection of
certain aspects of global capitalism—for
instance, privatisation of public services
or the increase in corporate power—was
a widespread phenomenon. In part this
explains the election of a Labour government in 1997 as a reaction to years of Tory
rule.
From 2001 in Britain, the mass anti-war
movement provided further opportunities
for the SWP to engage in struggle with
large numbers beyond our ranks. We
were centrally involved in shaping a mass
movement involving tens of thousands
of activists and hundreds of thousands of
people who regularly attended events and
supported the movement, with millions on
the biggest marches.
Along with these large movements there
was pressure on revolutionary parties to
do something about the political representation of workers. Throughout the period
there was a growing strain between traditional social democratic parties and the
mass of people who had historically voted
for them. It is overstatement to say that
reformist organisations no longer have any
capacity to offer reforms or are identical to
openly conservative parties, but most such
parties, and certainly Labour in Britain,
adapted themselves to neoliberal ideology and policies. This created a space for
a political alternative to the left of social
democratic organisations.
Recognising a space is one thing; filling it quite another. Across Europe we saw
various kinds of left formations, generally
with a reformist programme, but often
involving the participation of revolutionary currents.
For instance, in former West Germany, a
section of the traditional social democratic
party, the SPD, broke away. This fused
with the remnants of the Communists in
the East to form Die Linke, an organisation with real social roots in the unions and
working class, which revolutionaries also
participate in.
In Italy, Rifondazione, which emerged
out of the decline of the Italian Communist
Party, found that it could relate to the new
audience in the country’s anti-capitalist
movement. For a time Rifondazione was
an important reference point for the far left
globally—before it joined a centre-left coalition government and supported an Italian
military presence in Afghanistan, dismaying many of its supporters and leading to a
series of splits.
In France, the Trotskyist LCR launched
the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) on
the back of some strong election perform-
ances for its presidential candidate and a
rising tide of struggle by workers and students. This remained a party committed to
a “rupture with capitalism”, but nonetheless drew in disparate elements from the
broader radical left. The NPA in turn was
overcome by an internal crisis exacerbated,
in part, by its eclipse in the electoral field
by the Front de Gauche, a left reformist
organisation combining the Communists,
a breakaway from the Socialist Party and
some revolutionary currents.
In Britain, efforts were more modest,
consisting first of the Socialist Alliance and
then, with the anti-war movement and the
expulsion of George Galloway from the
Labour Party, the formation of Respect in
England and Wales; in Scotland we joined
the Scottish Socialist Party. These were
avowedly reformist electoral projects.
They reflected our recognition that a mass
revolutionary party could not be forged in
Britain simply through the gradual accumulation of members of the SWP; that
this would take place through splits and
fusions involving mass workers’ organisations. The aim was to break the hold of
Labourism over the most advanced workers and to create a broad, left organisation
in which revolutionaries could participate
as an independent force.
By 2007 Respect had split. There were
three issues that came to the fore in the
Respect crisis. First, in a general sense
electoral work is the most punishing terrain
for revolutionaries. The tactic of the united
front, on which our approach to these wider
formations was premised, involves common struggles involving reformists and
revolutionaries.
Part of the logic of the united front is that
in such struggles revolutionaries prove the
superiority of their methods. So, in Leon
Trotsky’s elaboration of the united front
in the context of the fight against Nazism
in Germany, he advocated that the Communists argue for militant tactics of mass
mobilisation, helping to win over social
democratic workers who would be convinced that the Communists were best able
to counter the threat of fascism.
The problem with elections is that the
reformists are often rather better at them
than we are (the CC will put forward a document on election work in IB3). Elections
involve the passive involvement of most
workers and necessarily involve presenting a programme and candidates to voters.
Often outside periods of mass workers’
struggle, more moderate programmes and
candidates have wider appeal.
This became a concrete issue in Tower
Hamlets, where the SWP rightly tried to
put forwards explicitly socialist and unionbased candidates for council seats, only to
receive the reply that far less radical candidates who were well-placed in networks in
the local Bangladeshi community would be
more likely to actually win the seats.
Second, problems emerged with our
party structures. Issues that should have
been brought to the attention of and debated
in the party were not. Not only that, but
for a number of comrades particular united
fronts seemed to have become permanent
projects, rather than tactics we were pursuing for a period of time.
The decision to periodically close
down branches of the party during election campaigns (memorably described by
one former central committee member, no
longer in the party, as “taking the toys away
from the children”) and to downgrade the
role of the party in educating, training and
organising members, is now almost universally regarded as a mistake.
Third, and most crucially, Respect never
made the breakthrough that we had hoped.
The project was a gamble; that didn’t make
it a wrong decision but in this case the gamble failed. True, Galloway was elected in
Tower Hamlets as an MP—an astonishing
achievement. True, a number of councillors
were elected in Birmingham, East London
and elsewhere. But, unlike in Germany,
British social democracy held firm. There
was no sizeable break from Labourism
either by MPs or by major trade unions. In
this context Respect lacked a broad social
base.
When Galloway challenged the role of
the SWP things rapidly became sharply
polarised between the party, which formed
the main activist base in most areas, and
Galloway along with his own personal
following. The split that followed was
damaging both for the project and the
SWP. The fact that it was not fatal reflected
both the quality of the membership we had
forged in the preceding years who, along
with a section of the leadership, at crucial
moments intervened to correct the line of
march of the party, and the fact that we had
never sacrificed our independence within
the Respect coalition. In Scotland the same
factors helped us survive the catastrophic
breakup of the Scottish Socialist Party.
Movements and parties
The story of Respect illustrates a more general set of problems we face. In the years
leading up to Seattle the SWP was characterised by a high degree of ideological
homogeneity and consensus on the tasks
facing us.
There was a basic routine for branch
members and a “party calendar” of a few
big mobilisations along with annual party
events. We also sought to involve ourselves
in whatever struggles were taking place in
particular areas or unions—and were often
very effective in doing so. We had a core
leadership—Tony Cliff, Chris Harman and
others—who were highly regarded in the
party and who had been trained in an earlier period of mass struggle. The strength
of our theory also helped, notably our state
capitalist analysis of the Stalinist regimes,
which protected us from the despair that
overcame much of the left with the collapse
of the Eastern Bloc.
It was no paradise. Often branch meetings in the late 1990s were small and could
be quite stale and routinised. The level of
internal debate was, understandably given
the nature of the period, quite low and
mostly centred on ideological questions.
Nonetheless, we held the organisation
together through a difficult period, when
many other organisations globally suffered
terminal decline.
Eventually, though, as the structures and
culture built up over the preceding period
came into conflict with the new reality of
high levels of engagement in the broader
movements, a succession of problems
emerged. This should surprise nobody.
As Leon Trotsky wrote in his Lessons of
October,
“Generally speaking, crises arise in the
party at every serious turn in the party’s
course, either as a prelude to the turn or
as a consequence of it.
“The explanation for this lies in the
fact that every period in the development of the party has special features of
its own and calls for specific habits and
methods of work. A tactical turn implies
a greater or lesser break in these habits
and methods. Herein lies the direct and
most immediate root of internal party
frictions and crises…
“A revolutionary party is subjected
to the pressure of other political forces.
At every given stage of its development
the party elaborates its own methods of
counteracting and resisting this pressure. During a tactical turn and the
resulting internal regroupments and
frictions, the party’s power of resistance
becomes weakened.
“From this the possibility always
arises that the internal groupings in the
party, which originate from the necessity of a turn in tactics, may develop far
beyond the original controversial points
of departure and serve as a support for
various class tendencies.”
What were the external pressures impacting on the party in the new period?
For one thing, radicalisation was taking place in the context of a continued low
level of class struggle. There were strikes
through the whole period, but often they
took the form of one-day bureaucratic
actions centred on public sector unions.
The level of self-organisation in the class
remained relatively low. Not only was this
extremely frustrating, but it also created
a danger of voluntarism—the search for
alternatives, short-cuts, that could by-pass
the need for workers’ self-activity.
This problem was compounded by
another. The ideas that informed the movements, especially those of newly radicalised
activists, were quite different to those that
radicalising elements would look to for
much of the 20th century.
The combination of the discrediting
(and subsequent collapse) of the Stalinist
regimes of Eastern Europe, the betrayals
and decline of social democratic organisation, and the retreat of the Trotskyist
left through the 1980s and 1990s, meant
that neither socialism nor even a politics
orientated on workers was a point of reference among the new radicals. Naturally,
we were always critical of both Stalinism
and reformism, and for that matter orthodox Trotskyism, but the question posed in
the title of a well-known article by John
Molyneux from 1983—“What is the Real
Marxist Tradition?”—was now only a relevant starting point for a very small minority
of those entering the struggle.
In the early anti-capitalist movement,
variants of autonomism, often in quite
diluted form, were an important alternative. At its most rarefied, this meant works
such as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s
Empire became a reference point. But more
prosaically, the movement’s common sense
was scepticism about the potential of workers’ struggle and hostility to Leninism, and
often to parties more generally. As with
anarchism such ideas can easily flip over
into concessions to reformism.
Movements that reject engagement with
politics and parties tend to leave the field
open to reformists. Sometimes movementists themselves become reformists. This
seems to have been the case with some of
the student activists, who were influenced
by the movementist common sense when
the student movement of 2010 erupted and
who were later to seek to entrench themselves within the bureaucracy of student
unions bodies. More recently, Len McCluskey, leader of the Unite union has become
adept at adopting some of the language of
anti-capitalism to bolster support for positions that essentially rely on the election of
a Labour government to fight austerity.
It is also the case that once people lose
the compass of workers’ struggle they can
move in different directions—shifting to
ultraleft positions and not just rightist ones,
or vacillating between the two. Consider
the Tute Bianche (“White Overalls”) group,
which was part of the revival of anti-capitalism in Italy in the late 1990s and early
2000s.
They followed a movementist logic
that stressed the importance of street
mobilisations along with the formation of
squatted, autonomous “social centres”. By
the time of the 2001 Genoa mobilisation,
they could form a thousands-strong “padded
bloc”, which engaged in set-piece confrontations with riot police. Such methods had
a short-lived resonance in the movement
abroad (there was even, briefly, a small
British variant, “The Wombles”—effectively the Tute Bianche with added pathos).
But they proved incapable of finding a way
of relating to the mass of ordinary workers
who had the potential to transform society.
The Tute Bianche themselves dissolved
into networks know as the Disobbedienti
after Genoa, with many activists flipping over towards reformist solutions, for
instance through participation in or support
for electoral lists submitted by the Greens
or Rifondazione.
The pressure of what we have termed
movementism—the substitution of movements for the role traditionally accorded by
Marxists to the struggles of workers—along
with voluntarism more generally, soon
came to be felt inside the SWP. Consider
the three splits we faced prior to 2013.
The first involved a handful of comrades
who sided with George Galloway during
the break-up of Respect. For them, any step
away from the electoral project was a sectarian shift to be resisted. In reality, by the
time they broke, sticking with the project
would have compromised the continued
viability of the SWP itself. Essentially it
would have involved liquidating entirely
into a Respect led by Galloway.
The second split involved a grouping of
60 comrades around John Rees and Lindsey
German who went on to found Counterfire.
The immediate trigger was the attempt to
remove Rees from his responsibility for
electoral work on the SWP central committee. But as the crisis developed, several
issues were raised that ultimately foreshadowed the spilt.
The first was the grouping’s claim about
the continued vitality of the Stop the War
movement, which had, in reality, been in
pretty steep decline since 2005.
The second was the question of party
building and ideological branch meetings,
which they sought to downplay in favour of
“activist meetings”.
The third and most serious issue
involved how to respond to the economic
crisis. They envisaged a movement over
austerity patterned on the Stop the War coalition—what became known in the debate
as the “overarching united front”. The position adopted by the majority in the party,
by contrast, was that such a movement
would be problematic, primarily because
workers’ struggle, necessary to fight austerity effectively, would involve tensions
between the union bureaucracy and rank
and file workers.
Given that the level of industrial action
surrounding the Stop the War movement
had been minimal, this tension had not been
an issue in forging that coalition. Again, the
underlying issue in the split was adaptation
to movements.
The third split, involving about 50 comrades including Chris Bambery, which later
became the International Socialist Group in
Scotland, followed similar claims that the
party was moving in a sectarian direction
and had abstained from building anti-cuts
movements.
The small grouping in Scotland, formed
mostly of students and recent ex-students,
quickly moved to differentiate itself from
the SWP, in particular by emphasising the
impact of neoliberalism on the working
class, which, it was argued, fundamentally
changed how the left had to organise. In
practice, this involved an appeal to “casu-
alised” and “precarious” youth as a new
vanguard. Today the group’s members are
embedded firmly in the Radical Independence Campaign, which, for them, appears
to have become the “overarching united
front”.
The splits were all regrettable, and
each led to talented individuals leaving
the party. But they were also reflections of
deeper pressures on the party—indeed the
calibre of some of the individuals breaking
with the SWP shows the strength of these
pressures.
One result of the new period, along with
a degree of introspection after the various crises, was that the SWP changed in
important ways. For instance, the extent
of debate within the party is currently far
higher than at any time in our recent past.
The challenges of engaging with a rather
complicated period and navigating the
various pressures on us necessitate tactical
arguments.
Far from there being a “democratic deficit” in the party, we have shifted from a
situation in which there was quite a low
level of debate and discussion, to a situation in which there is a great deal. How
we conduct those debates without simply
collapsing into paralysing factionalism and
a succession of splits is more of a problem,
and one that we return to below.
The pressures today
The pressures on the party considered
above have intensified during the course
of the economic crisis. Take the frustration
over the state of workers’ struggle reflected
in many of the pieces in the first Internal
Bulletin.
The frustration is compounded by
the height the struggle briefly reached in
November 2011. It is true that the oneday strike on 30 November 2011 was a
“bureaucratic mass strike” in that it was
called by union leaders as a set-piece action
to put pressure on the government. But it
was nonetheless an extremely large action,
greeted with enthusiasm by workers and
with a good deal of activity from below,
creating the possibility both of dealing a
powerful blow to austerity and beginning
to give workers more confidence to start to
organise more independently of the union
leaders.
The calling off of the struggle a few
weeks later, in conditions in which most
workers in the unions did not have the
confidence to move independently of the
union leaders, reinforced cynicism in some
quarters about the potential for workers’
self-activity.
In this context, the struggle moved onto
other terrain. The most important expression of this was the People’s Assembly.
This “overarching united front” against
austerity was made possible by the involvement of the very union leaders who closed
down the struggle in late 2011, coming
together with the genuine enthusiasm felt
by many workers for any kind of fight-back
over austerity.
But precisely because of these tensions, the Assembly, though popular, will
involve sharp debates about the best way
forwards.
This does not mean that the SWP should
abstain from it; far from it. We should be
central to building the project. But while
building Assemblies, we should not make
the mistake of downplaying the importance
of the debates we will necessarily have to
engage in.
Another factor helping to intensify the
pressure on the party since 2008 has been
the revival of left reformism. Abroad, there
are powerful left reformist forces emerging, notably Syriza in Greece, the Front de
Gauche in France, the Bloco de Esquerda
in Portugal and Izquierda Unida in Spain.
The revival in Britain is reflected both in
the forces and figures that have supported
the People’s Assembly—Unite leader Len
McCluskey, for instance—and in the emergence of Left Unity.
The latter is an attempt to build a left
alternative to Labourism, combining nostalgia for old Labour with a desire to bring
to these shores the kind of left alternative
that is resurgent on the continent. In principle we would happily be involved in such a
project, though there are currently barriers
to the SWP participating as an independent,
organised force.
But it remains to be seen whether Left
Unity can attract sufficient real social
weight in order to overcome the considerable centrifugal force created by the various
“platforms” developing internally, each
with their own vision of where the project
should go.
There are four possible responses
to the pressure of left reformism and
movementism.
(1) Accommodation
By the time of the January 2013 conference
and especially at the special conference
held in spring this year, it was clear that a
section of the membership was developing
a politics quite different to that of the wider
party. The figure most associated with this
current, because of his public profile, was
Richard Seymour who writes for the Lenin’s Tomb blog.
Seymour had already attacked our
Greek sister organisation, SEK, which he
denounced as sectarian for its refusal to join
the left reformist Syriza. By spring 2013
he was expounding a deeply pessimistic
vision in which the “capitalist offensive”
was successful, the ruling coalition in Britain “strong” rather than “weak”, the SWP
was fixated on an aging layer of public
sector workers whereas the “unorganised
working class” was the key to resistance,
and we were sectarian towards the need for
a “unified anti-cuts movement”. “Many of
the most effective challenges to the government were coming, not from the industrial
coalface, but from the social movements,”
he wrote.
Alongside this, a challenge to Labourism
was to be forged through “realignment
of the left-of-labour left”. The problems
with this were brushed aside with the
strange tautology “whatever stable political forces can be forged now are likely to
last”. Finally, he sought “realignment of the
revolutionary left”, regardless of its particular position on the questions posed by
the movement, but based instead on mutual
recognition of the failure of their various
organisations: “Every participant, particularly if they come from an existing sect,
would have to be capable of a minimum
of honesty about why their own political
tradition did at best no better in practical
terms than the SWP.”
Seymour went on to help found the
International Socialist Network (ISN),
created in the wake of the SWP’s special
conference. Two things are worth noting.
First, that beneath all the bluster, the split
drew on and was bolstered by deeper and
quite long-standing political differences.
As in the previous three splits, movementism was the main pull—combined
now with the attraction of left reformism.
Second, for a whole period in the run-up
to the special conference those who went
on to make up the ISN coexisted in a joint
opposition with many of those making up
the current opposition. The latter do not,
generally, accept the kind of analysis laid
down by Seymour and the ISN. Yet in
order to hold together an opposition they
equivocated or remained silent on these
positions.
(2) Equivocation
The problem with the equivocal stance
taken by the opposition is that comrades
with a strong grasp of our politics end
up downplaying tremendously important
questions.
Factionalism of this kind is not a sign of
high principle; it is the opposite. Sharp tensions are subsumed into a false unity. Sadly,
this has continued to be the pattern for the
past nine months. Leaders of the opposition
forge a bloc with those with more extreme
political positions, ostensibly in order to
stop people, usually younger and less experienced comrades sympathetic to the more
extreme positions, leaving the party.
But the best way to prevent people leaving the party when they are drawn towards
such positions is to challenge and debate
those ideas—and not behind closed doors,
but openly, across all forums of the party.
Whatever the narrow differences over the
DC, which could have been debated in
party forums without forming a permanent
faction, the leaders of the opposition should
have blocked with the majority in the party
over the central political issues.
Instead, they accommodated to the
accommodators. And some figures in the
opposition go further, openly arguing for a
more movementist approach. So, Rob from
Croydon branch claims in the Internal Bul-
letin that we misunderstood the relationship
between the economic crisis and its “political dimension” and thus downplayed the
importance of the People’s Assembly.
For him, this consists of two forces,
“left reformism” that seeks to push Labour
left and “a more radical left”, and, he says,
we must throw our weight “unequivocally”
behind the latter. Unequivocal support presumably means dropping any criticism of
radical left figures in the People’s Assembly, even if they happen to give cover
to reformist leaders who seek to contain
workers’ struggle at critical moments.
Some of the arguments coming from
members of the opposition suggest a far
more serious misunderstanding of our politics. It is hard to imagine that the most
experienced comrades thought it wise for a
small group of members and ex-members
to go off and organise a women-only group
in order to bring a couple of dozen activists to attend the anti-EDL demonstration
in Tower Hamlets as “Sisters Against the
EDL”.
They did so without the agreement of
the party members at the centre of the
Unite Against Fascism mobilisation, and
in the context of a mosque committee in
East London that has sought to move away
from gender-segregated meetings.
Yet the initiative is praised and celebrated by leading opposition members.
Shouldn’t they instead be patiently
explaining some of the problems with this
approach, which actually made it harder for
those in the party trying to hold together a
broad coalition to oppose the EDL?
Of course, there are moments when
the SWP will have to break with those we
work with in united fronts, but no group
of members should be able to unilaterally
decide to break. One of the achievements
of the Democracy Commission that followed the Respect crisis was to reassert
that our members in united fronts had to be
subject to the discipline of the wider party
and its leading bodies.
When a small group of comrades within
the opposition organised a secret bank
account explicitly to fund a split from the
SWP, the central committee temporarily suspended them until they closed the
account and undertook not to agitate for
a split. Shouldn’t the more serious members of the opposition have criticised them
openly, even if they did so without dropping their criticism of the leadership?
Instead they threatened to withdraw from
speaking at Marxism en masse.
Or take some of the theoretical questions being raised. One author, writing
on the opposition’s blog in a piece on
“intersectionality”, notes Marx’s comment to the effect that science is necessary
because “appearance” and “essence” don’t
coincide.
She takes this as a licence to develop
a theory of oppression that remains at the
level of appearance, considering the particular experiences of oppression rather
than the underlying causes. Shouldn’t this
method be challenged? When it is claimed
that we don’t retain black women in the
party because we don’t deal with their
particular experience (rather than not winning them to Marxist politics and activity),
is it taking the comrade who claims this
seriously to simply post their piece on
Facebook with a comment to the effect
that it is very thought-provoking? Might
it not be better to explain what thoughts it
provokes?
We should not, of course, practice
abstract denunciation of newer members
for trying to develop their ideas, but we
do have to engage with concepts such as
intersectionality in a critical way. If we fail
to take up these arguments, we are not taking our members or our politics seriously.
But on the opposition’s blog, such ideas go
unchallenged.
The approach to opposition adopted by
the faction is catastrophic. Every initiative of the party is greeted with cynicism.
Comrades from different sides find it ever
harder to work together.
Chris Harman warned in 1978, “Few
things are more stultifying for debate in a
revolutionary organisation than a ‘government-opposition’ arrangement by which
one section of the organisation feels that
it is compelled as a matter of principle to
oppose the elected leadership on every
issue: this makes it extremely difficult for
either the leadership or the opposition to
learn from the concrete development of the
class struggle.” Sadly, that is the reality of
the SWP today.
(3) Sectarianism
The pressure of movementism poses
another danger, that of a sectarian retreat
from the movements or a focus solely on
those movements that we can control. This
is all the more dangerous given the attacks
the party has faced in some quarters.
We have resisted and are committed to continue to resist any pressure to
“batten down the hatches” and engage in
party building in isolation from broader
movements, whether it is the anti-fascist
movement or the People’s Assembly, or the
various workplace struggles taking place.
The turn towards the movements from
1999 was not without its challenges, and
clearly we can identify particular errors
made along the way, but the shift itself was
correct. We reject any attempt to retreat
into isolation but we would be foolish were
we to ignore the pull in this direction or fail
to recognise its dangers.
(4) Critical engagement
This leads to the fourth possibility:
involvement with these broader struggles
and movements while maintaining our
independence as a revolutionary force and
developing our ideas in order to critical
engage with those around us. This is the
path that the central committee plans to
fight for in the months ahead. It is, as it
happens, the most difficult path, but it is
also the right one.
That means continuing our attempt creatively to apply the tactic of the united front
to build movements against fascism and
campaigns such as that over the bedroom
tax. It means engagement in movements
such as the People’s Assembly, and a flexible approach to attempts to create left
of Labour political alternatives. It means
attempting to use initiatives such as Unite
the Resistance to pull together those in the
unions and wider working class who share
our frustration at the low level of struggle
and want to do something about it.
But it also means clarifying our own
political positions and, where necessary,
fighting for these in the movement.
Discipline and factionalism in
the Party
There is a substantial layer of comrades,
notably the 100 or so who signed the
“Statement for our Revolutionary Party”
document in the first Internal Bulletin, who
believe the central committee has been
“soft” in defending the party against the
opposition.
However, it is not sufficient to simply
set out the need for a revolutionary party
without setting it in the context of real
arguments taking place in the SWP and on
the left more generally. We believe in this
context it is necessary to continue to persist
in political debate to try to win people to
our understanding of the tasks facing us.
It is also clear that some members would
prefer that we took disciplinary action prior
to the national conference in December.
Certainly, the behaviour of the opposition
violates our constitution and would allow
us, in principle, to take such action. But we
have resisted such calls.
Generally speaking, we are not inclined
to take disciplinary action where it can be
avoided, and nor should we be.
Our main focus is on winning people
politically to our position and holding them
in the organisation on that basis. Ultimately,
on specific questions, we will take votes
at the conference that we expect every
member to abide by, preferably through
conviction or, failing that, grudging acquiescence to the will of the majority.
Clearly that basic tenet of democratic
centralism cannot be taken for granted
today, especially in those layers newly won
to the party; it is something we will have
to fight for.
Tragically, some comrades may leave
the SWP. If this is the case, we would far
rather it came after all of the possibilities
for debate and discussion are exhausted—
and recognised by comrades even in those
areas least affected by the crisis to be
exhausted.
By December, after three conferences
in 2013, it would be difficult to claim that
the SWP does not tolerate internal dissent
10
or that we discourage argument. We intend
to enter into the pre-conference period and
the aggregates in that spirit.
An additional reason for resisting disciplinary action is that given the nature of
the crisis in the party, and in particular its
deeper roots, removing the opposition from
membership would not resolve the underlying tensions.
Short of retreating into sect-like sterility, it is inevitable that many of our new
recruits in future will carry much of the
same politics with them. Political debate
that seeks clarity over these questions is
vital to the continued viability of the SWP
and our future growth. If we do not learn
lessons from the current struggle in the
party, we doom ourselves to repeat it.
Building the cadre
One of the weaknesses revealed by the crisis
is the extent to which we have neglected
some aspects of developing a revolutionary cadre. This is not simply a question of
formal education, though it was a mistake
not to offer material and encouragement to
branches to organise party educationals until
2011. More generally we have to seek to
train a new generation of leaders within the
class.
Although we recruited plenty of people
during, say, the high points of the anti-war
movement, the level of retention of subspaying, active members from the whole
period from 1995-2004 was low, probably
lower than in any other period in our history.
In part this was due to the mistakes made in
de-prioritising the party’s structures and, in
rightly turning out the movement, placing
less emphasis on winning members to our
theory and tradition. In part it was a reflection of the nature of the period.
In truth we paid a high price for the
partial break in the ongoing process of
recruitment and development of the party
cadre. Much of our work relied on a layer of
experienced members recruited in an earlier
period, who often had to deal with heavy
union responsibilities and work within the
wider movements, alongside the routine of
party activity. The gap between these party
members and the newer recruits we gained
more recently helps explain some of the
“generational” tensions expressed in the
recent crisis.
By 2004-5 the party was beginning to
overcome some of the problems, placing
greater emphasis of party organisation, for
example. But just as we drew in a bigger
layer of new members, the succession of
party crises began.
This meant that many of our new recruits
were socialised into party life in a period of
intense factional divisions. Not only that,
but naturally the new members brought with
them many common sense ideas drawn from
the movements they participated in.
Debates that might previously have
taken place between the party and the wider
movement now became internal to the SWP.
At Marxism it was not uncommon to hear
members, sometimes even those wearing
Team T-shirts, defend “horizontal organisation”, Guevarism, or even, on one occasion
at Marxism 2012, the methods of the Ukrainian anarchist Nestor Makhno! It is a truism
to say that this is a good problem to have. It
is only a good problem if it is dealt with correctly. Our record though is mixed.
Many of our newer recruits were never
fully integrated into the party—its theory,
its methods or its organisational structures.
This is something we have to correct. The
temptation for a party that is growing after
a long period of difficulties and adverse
conditions is to duck difficult questions in
order to hold people, but we do ourselves
no favours by doing so. Nothing we do
can entirely prevent the tensions we have
seen from reasserting themselves, but in the
long run we will hold more people in the
party if we are prepared to conduct sharp
but calm and patient arguments among our
new recruits.
In a sense, this is not a new problem for
parties operating in a period of radicalisation.
Duncan Hallas wrote many years ago:
“In 1966, at the height if the campaign
against the Vietnam War and after working class demonstrations in favour of
Enoch Powell, the International Socialists (IS) issued a call for the unity of the
left on a four point basic programme.
“All the revolutionary groups at that
time, with the possible exception of the
Socialist Labour League, were very
small. There was a big movement of
youth, especially student youth, towards
socialist politics and it seemed that, if a
united revolutionary socialist organisation could be established, it would be
possible to draw in several thousands of
anti-Vietnam war demonstrators.
“In particular it was hoped that the
International Marxist Group (then only
two years old) would agree to unite
with IS. These two organisations had
between them the dominant position
in the leadership of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and, if united, could
reasonably hope to convert it into revolutionary socialist organisation of some
substance.
“It was recognised that such an
organisation, overwhelmingly student in
composition, would have strong ultraleft tendencies and that there would
have to be a long and hard fight inside
it for Marxist politics and an orientation
towards the working class.
“The possible gains seemed to outweigh the risks and of course it was also
hoped to draw in various ‘New Left’
and CP ‘periphery’ people as well as
unattached left wingers. The four point
programme was written with this perspective in mind.”
Today, in a period in which Marxist and
Leninist ideas are far more marginal, we
have drawn into our midst large numbers
of newer members. But do we expect that
anything other than a “long hard fight” for
“Marxist politics and an orientation towards
the working class” will be required to hold
such members? The question of how we
relate to new recruits, integrate them into
party structures, develop them into leaders
and educate them into our tradition will be
critical in the period ahead.
Our tradition
One final point on our tradition needs to be
spelt out as it has become a commonplace in
sections of the party to deride what is seen
as a “dogmatic” approach to theory. Now,
any revolutionary party worth its salt will
adhere to and defend its tradition, which is
generally the hard-won product of struggle. There is always a balance to be struck
between engaging in new debates thrown
up by a changing world, and preserving the
lessons of history against what Marx called
“the ruling ideas in society”. Hallas, in his
account of Trotsky’s Marxism, puts it well:
“A mass party, unlike a sect, is necessarily buffeted by immensely powerful
forces, especially in revolutionary circumstances. These forces inevitably find
expression inside the party also.
“To keep the party on course (in practice, to continually correct its course in
a changing situation) the complex relationship between the leadership, the
various layers of the cadre and the workers they influence and are influenced by,
expresses itself and must express itself in
political struggle inside the party. If that
is artificially smothered by administrative means, the party will lose its way.
“An indispensable function of the
leadership, itself formed by selection
in previous struggles, is to understand
when to close ranks to preserve the core
of the organisation from disintegration
by unfavourable outside pressures—to
emphasise centralism—and when to open
up the organisation and to use layers of
advanced workers inside and outside the
party to overcome the party conservatism
of sections of the cadre and leadership—
to emphasise democracy—in order to
change course quickly.”
One of the difficulties in the current period—
which is neither upturn nor downturn—is
how to strike the correct balance. One-sided
demands that we open up to new forces and
ideas cannot overcome this real difficulty,
and several arguments and analogies have
been heard often in recent months that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
The first is that Marx himself drew on
the political economy of Adam Smith and
David Ricardo, the philosophy of Georg
Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach, and the
socialist politics of Saint-Simon and Fourier, among others. However, this analogy is
empty. Marx, in formulating what became
11
known as Marxism, was drawing on the
pinnacles of bourgeois thought in its revolutionary phase. This is not comparable with
the ideas floating about in left academia
today. In addition, Marx was highly critical
of many of the ideas, as any glance at his
critique of classical political economy in
Theories of Surplus Value will confirm. He
sought to critically appropriate insights of
the revolutionary bourgeois thinkers while
maintaining a ruthless focus on workers’
self-emancipation.
A second argument is that Lenin in 1905
called for the “opening up of the gates of the
party” to allow in a new wave of militant
workers who were not steeled in the politics
of the Bolsheviks but who brought with them
the energy and ideas of the movement.
The party must learn from the class, not
just teach it. This is certainly true. But in
1905 workers were making a revolution.
They established a soviet in Petrograd. It is
not clear who people who cite this example
conceive of as the “revolutionary vanguard”
in the class today.
Certainly we do not have workers’ selfactivity on anything like this kind of level
anywhere in the world. That is not to say
that there is nothing that we can learn from
the movement, but it is important to retain
some sense of proportion. We draw on the
high points of struggle but we don’t uncritically absorb ideas from the movement
simply because they are “out there”.
A third argument is that Tony Cliff, Mike
Kidron and others, were “heretical” in relation to the wider left when they developed
their ideas, notably the theories of state capitalism and the permanent arms economy.
Surely we should be heretical today.
The problem with this argument is that
it is inevitably used to advance claims that
are far from heretical—indeed they conform
to the common sense of much of the wider
movement and left academia.
So it is said to be “dogmatic” to emphasise
the continued potential of organised workers
to mount resistance to capitalist exploitation. It is “dogmatic” to defend Leninism. It
is “dogmatic” to cling to the notion that the
crisis of capitalism is ultimately the product
of declining rates of profit. It is “dogmatic”
to critique elements of post-structuralism or
queer theory or the new feminism.
Questioning these “dogmas” is heroic and
heretical. But why? What exactly is so brave
about accommodating to the prevailing ideas
of the movement? How is this analogous to
the efforts of Cliff and Kidron?
Their theoretical innovations sought to
apply an extremely rigorous Marxist method
to changed circumstances and, in doing so,
reached new conclusions, with new implications for how socialists should intervene in
the world.
This is how we should and, at our best,
do approach theory today. This is not the
same as eclectically drawing on ideas from
left academia. That does not mean that our
theoretical work has reached a state of perfection and should not be revitalised, nor do
we want to retreat from our engagement with
left academia, which has grown in recent
years. But the method of revitalising our
outlook must surely come from a process
of collective, critical and active engagement
with the world using the tools of Marxism.
Given the general antipathy to both
Marxism and, in particular, Leninism, we
have to combine openness to novelty with
an ability to critique the prevailing ideas
in academia and in society at large—and
defend a tradition consisting of a developing, vibrant application of Marxism to the
world around us.
What next?
The tensions in the party today originate
in the wider context of the period. That is
not to belittle genuine concerns about our
DC and the cases it has heard. These are
real concerns. But they are concerns that
most comrades are genuinely attempting
to address. We are confident that we can do
so in such a way that comrades can defend
the party, its processes and culture in the
wider movement.
However, the scope and ferocity of the
debates we are having demonstrates that
wider issues are also at stake. That is why
they can only be settled through political
debate and collective intervention in the
world to test our ideas. But both the debate
and intervention are now imperilled by the
entrenchment of factional divisions in the
SWP.
Within our tradition, numerous people
who have strongly disagreed with the leadership in one phase of the party’s history
have subsequently played an important
role in its development—as any glance at
the composition of the outgoing central
committee and national committee will
confirm.
As Hallas wrote of an earlier period in
our history,
“In 1968-9 we had a number of real
factions, for example the ‘Democratic
Centralists’, the ‘Micro-Faction’ and
‘Platform Four’. They were groupings
of comrades who wished, at that time,
to push the organisation in particular
directions and to change its organisational structure accordingly. They held
open meetings to discuss and expound
their views and to solicit votes.
“The factional struggle was quite
sharp and in the heat of the conflict a
good many uncomradely things were
said.
“Finally Conference decisions were
made on the disputed questions. The
factions more or less rapidly dissolved.
No-one ordered them to dissolve. They
dissolved because new issues were arising and new alignments of comrades on
those issues. They dissolved precisely
because they were genuine factions.
“Today there are former members of
each of these factions on the National
Committee. They do not vote according to the former factional line up.
They vote according to their individual
estimates on the merits of current proposals. Tomorrow there may be new
factions and no one can predict with any
accuracy what the line-up will be. It is
very unlikely to be similar to the earlier
factional alignment.”
Although the broader debates we are currently having on theory and our general
approach to the movement will continue for
a long time to come, the contentious issues
surrounding the DC and the perspective of
the party must be decided in December.
Nobody will agree with every position
taken by the conference; some may disagree with most. But every member must
be bound by them, like them or not. Provided the factionalism ends, members of
the opposition should not be prevented
from holding positions in the organisation
or playing a full part in the life of the SWP.
It will, of course, take time to rebuilt trust,
but this can only be done through common
intervention in the world.
Whatever the pressures of the wider
movement, we believe that the project of
creating a revolutionary party is as essential today as it ever was. The SWP is not the
finished product. But what we have built
so far is too precious an achievement to be
squandered. We must learn the lessons of
the past year. But we have a collective duty
to conduct and conclude the debates before
us in a manner that can begin to cure the
party of its fever and resolve the crisis.
politics and the
workplace
Central Committee
On Sunday 29 September over 50,000
people, mainly trade unionists, marched
through the streets of Manchester. The
demonstration was almost twice the size
that the TUC had expected.
It was a big, lively demonstration,
headed up by an impressive Unison
contingent.
Despite the setbacks of the last two
years (since the retreat after the strike of
30 November 2011) the mood was angry
and defiant.
Anyone who seriously believes that
we are simply living through a downturn,
where workers feel defeated from before
they start to fight, just had to look at the
faces of those on the march.
Those workers weren’t beaten, the problem is they’ve hardly been called upon to
fight.
The anger workers feel comes from the
12
reality of the Tory assault. David Cameron
and George Osborne are heading up devastating cuts to public services. The squeeze
on living standards – the longest fall since
the 1870s – is obvious to everyone. And
the bedroom tax, alongside other benefit
changes, means real hardship and the threat
of eviction.
For some time we have argued that
alongside the anger against austerity there
is also a lack of confidence amongst workers to fight, particularly without an official
lead
This conditions the situation we face
now. On the face of it there is the possibility of action on a big scale by a number of
unions against the Tories. But it’s important
to stress, there is the potential for large scale
action, but there are no guarantees.
Over the last few weeks we’ve seen very
successful regional strikes by the NUT &
NASUWT. We’ve seen a firefighters’ strike
across England over pensions, with more
action scheduled for 19 October.
CWU members have been voting on
strikes.
University workers in Unison, Unite and
UCU have balloted on strikes over pay and
UCU members in the FE colleges are to ballot for action.
The PCS executive will decide its next
steps on 22 October following a wave of
action earlier this year.
The potential to bring all these fights
together is obvious. And almost everybody
says that’s exactly what they’d like to do.
This year’s TUC conference voted again
to support continuing examination of a possible general strike. And a motion pushed
by the RMT’s Bob Crow for a midweek day
of action including coordinated strikes was
passed by eight to one.
Even Unison’s Dave Prentis has talked
(again) about the inevitability of action if
pay curbs continue.
But there are real problems alongside
the possibilities and potential and the tub
thumping rhetoric at the TUC.
The FBU has called only a five hour
strike and now Scotland is out of the fight
moving towards a separate deal.
Despite the huge success of the regional
action by teachers the NUT & NASUWT
have still to call their long awaited national
strike.
This of course will lead to a worry
amongst activists that action, commonly
expected for November, could be “put off”.
The CWU ballot result comes after the
formal start of the privatisation of Royal
Mail and with Labour pulling back from any
pledge to re-nationalise Royal Mail.
Socialists have to fight to maximise the
potential for a fight. But we have to explain
to those around us that it will require real
pressure on the union leaders and organisation on the ground to secure the kind of
strikes that could really stop the Tories.
And that, particularly after the experience
of 2011, we can’t simply put our faith in
even the best left official to deliver a fight.
That will mean working with the officials when they give a lead, but “against
them” too, arming the activists around us
with a clear picture of the potential and
pitfalls of the situation.
This doesn’t mean just waiting for the
“sell out” in order to denounce the officials.
That’s not how you build the confidence of
the rank and file.
Amongst teachers we’ve argued that
national action is needed to beat Gove. It
hasn’t stopped us fighting for the maximum
activity around the regional strikes, pushing for demonstrations and picketing.
But it would be crass not to raise possible
problems down the line with activists, particularly with those who’ve been through
the last two years!
That’s why comrades helped to launch
the “name the day” petition that Hackney
NUT have produced.
Background
While a great deal of anger exists we know
the response from the trade unions in the
face of the worse recession for generations
hasn’t been on the scale we need.
The year 2012 saw the figure for strike
days “lost” fall to just 250,000 from the
previous year’s official figure of 1.4 million days (figures boosted by the pensions
strikes).
In fact in five out of the last six years
strike days “lost” in the UK have been
under 1 million.
There are many weaknesses on our side.
In IB1 Simon from Huddersfield, Andy
from Leicester and Ray and Jamie from
London amongst others quote heavily from
the Gov.uk website and other government
national statistics data.
These figures are very useful in giving
us a general picture of the level trade union
organisation and density, but the figures are
not exactly a revelation.
These same facts and figures have
appeared in countless publications and
journals and all of the SWP’s publications
in various articles and in various ways have
studied the picture they outline.
Yes trade union membership in Britain
is down from its high point of over 13 million in 1979. Yes trade union membership
fell between 1995 and 2012 from 32 to 26
percent.
That means that around 6.5 million
workers in Britain are in unions, 3.9 million (56.6 percent of the workforce) in the
public sector and 2.6 million in the private
sector (14.4 percent of the workforce).
Articles in the ISJ, Socialist Review and
Socialist Worker have previously looked at
the level of trade union membership, the
number of trade union reps, the number
of women and young workers in unions
and their implications for the struggle in
Britain.
The figure for the number of trade union
reps for example has fallen from well over
300,000 in the mid 1980s to between
100,000 and 200,000 today.
According to Ralph Darlington, between
16,000 and 18,000 of these trade union reps
are on full time facility time.
It’s worth noting that the present attack
on facility time could be a double edged
sword for the Tories and the employers.
Of course we oppose any attempt to
attack facility time. We have to fight to
defend anything that’s been gained from
the employers.
But we know that a layer of full time
reps were nurtured as a counterweight to
the power of rank and file shop stewards
and removing them can put more emphasis
on the role of the rep to defend members in
a kind of “local plant bargaining”.
There is certainly potential for this in
schools for example where full time facility time is being withdrawn in some areas
from divisional secretaries.
Attacks on national pay structures,
like Gove’s attack on the teachers have of
course got to be resisted, but again local
bargaining would put the emphasis back
on the rep.
Situation
We are in a situation where we have a great
deal of anger amongst working class people
at present, centred on issues from the bedroom tax to the privatisation of Royal Mail
to issues of pay, pensions and workload.
There is also a widespread politicisation centred on a growing understanding
by many activists that attacks on terms and
conditions and public services are all part
of a wider assault on the working class.
We see the effects of that politicisation
in many ways. A stark example (and an
example of the weakness of the government) was Cameron’s defeat on Syria with
opinion polls showing 70 percent opposition to war. This was the legacy of the mass
anti war protests of the early 2000’s.
Our experience as a party at this year’s
trade union conferences was enormously
positive. We held some of the biggest fringe
meetings we’ve held in years, sold large
numbers of Socialist Worker and recruited
to the SWP.
There was real support at conference
after conference for action and a wish to
see “words turned into action”.
But all this doesn’t change the fact that
there is a lack of confidence among rank
and file workers. This is the product of
years of defeats under the Thatcher government and the low levels of struggle since.
Such factors have been shaped by
the role that Labour and the trade union
bureaucracy has played.
In recent times workers have generally
been dependent on the union bureaucracy’s
lead. When the call comes to vote, march
or strike the response can be brilliant, but
the call has to come.
There are exceptions.
The electricians’ fight against the
BESNA agreement in 2011 saw a real
13
level of rank and file initiative and has left
behind a legacy of rank and file involvement in Unite’s strategy in disputes against
blacklisting at Crossrail and elsewhere.
In recent weeks the Glasgow social care
workers walkout was an example of successful unofficial action.
But these examples do not represent the
experience of most workers.
Post N30
Many activists recall the experience of the
pensions strike of 2011.
That year saw an upswing in the struggle
against austerity. From the student revolt
(that started at the end of 2010), through the
first UCU national strike on 24 March, the
mass TUC protest of half a million on 26
March to the J30 strikes by the NUT, PCS,
UCU and ATL.
A summer of riots and the rise of Occupy
were followed by the 30 November strike by
2.5 million workers.
The strike movement in 2011 increasingly
became a focus for the whole anti-austerity
movement.
The stories of disabled activists, students
and anti-cuts campaigners’ joining the picket
lines and protests showed the galvanizing
effect of the strikes.
It’s also important to underline the very
high level of recruitment by the unions
involved in N30, documented by Socialist
Worker and elsewhere.
Trade unions grow through struggle. This
point has to be hammered home at a time
when for many in the trade union movement
merger is seen as the only realistic response
to loss of membership.
Even activists in unions that have been
in action over the last period can see merger
as the “magic bullet”. A debate has begun
inside the PCS about the beginnings of
merger talks with Unite.
In the PCS and Unite we’ll need to be at
the forefront of the argument that fighting,
not mergers, is the way to recruit and grow.
More generally any attempt to push for
unionisation following on from victories
like Crossrail and Hovis needs to be fully
supported by socialists, we need to get
involved.
That means for example socialists operating around the big Crossrail sites (Unite
membership forms in hand).
It’s also important to underline the fact
the unions looked different on N30 to
the stereotypical image that is sometimes
painted of “pale, stale and male”.
Something like 500,000 workers took
part in activity on the day. The strike was
young, active and was the biggest strike by
women workers in British history.
Process
So how did we get to N30? Throughout
2011 there was a developing process where
left trade union leaders like Mark Serwotka
(PCS) and Kevin Courtney (NUT), work-
ing with socialist and activists in the unions
not affiliated to Labour helped drag the
“big guns” of the trade union movement
into action on N30.
The strike by NUT, UCU, PCS and
ATL on 30 June was used as a battering
ram (or a form of friendly persuasion) to
push Unite, Unison, the GMB and others
to strike. Eventually 29 unions struck on
N30.
Effectively throughout 2011 the left in
the trade union movement pulled the right
and the strikes pulled the rest of the movement behind it.
The weaknesses of this process was
exposed when under pressure from Labour
the TUC, Unison and the GMB pulled
back from action and moved to sell a deal
after the meeting at Congress House on 19
December.
The break up of the pensions’ campaign
left many activists disorientated and looking for explanations about what had gone
wrong.
This has led to a lot of soul searching
by socialists and to some a re-writing of
history.
The N30 strike is now dismissed by
some at least as simply a “bureaucratic
mass strike” with the implication that
workers action was simply turned on and
then off and that nothing was gained from
the action.
Now formally any large scale strike
called by the trade union leaders is a
“bureaucratic mass strike”.
But there is a real danger that the term is
being used to underplay the role socialists
and activists played in winning the action
and the role that rank and file workers
began to play as 2011 wore on.
This approach can lead to downplaying
the importance of the biggest strike in Britain for generations. Andy from Leicester
argues that Charlie Kimber’s description
of N30 as having “opened a new chapter in
British working class history” was wildly
over optimistic.
The fact is that the N30 action showed
that the mass strike isn’t foreign to the
experience of British workers.
But the N30 strike put the trade unions
firmly at the centre of the battle against
austerity in a way they hadn’t been before.
And the action had the potential to develop
much, much further than it did.
We have to look at the processes that led
to the strike on N30. There really was the
development of levels of self activity by
the rank and file in building and delivering
the action on the day, the joint union demonstrations and rallies.
And even when union leaders sold the
pass in December a real fight took place in
many unions over the retreat led by Prentis
(Unison) and Kenny (GMB).
The pensions strike wasn’t simply
brought to a halt on 19 December. There
were strikes by London teachers and lecturers in March 2012, said to be part of the
ongoing pensions fight.
Lecturers again, civil service workers
and Unite health workers came out in May
that year too.
In fact the teachers’ action wasn’t finally
put to bed until after the NUT’s Easter
conference had voted for a national strike
in June (a strike that was never called as
the unions leaders went into talks with the
NASUWT).
The problem that the left faced was
that we were not strong enough to halt the
retreat across the movement, despite being
strong enough in unions like the UCU, PCS
and NUT at the time to at least to slow it
down.
When the right wing capitulated, they
pulled the left behind them. There wasn’t a
strong enough network in any union to halt
or reverse the process.
At present this remains the fundamental
problem that we face.
How do we bridge the gap between the
widespread anger that millions of workers
feel and their ability to successfully push
the officials and even act independently of
the officials they rely on at present to lead
a fight?
How do we break the cyclical process
where every struggle is dependent on the
trade union bureaucracy, both its right and
its lefts, willingness to call action on or
off?
If this remains the key question then for
socialists the task of building, broadening
and deepening the networks of activists
inside the trade unions remains central.
But this explanation for the low level
of struggle, centred on both workers confidence and the role of Labour and the trade
union bureaucracy has been challenged by
a number of comrades.
The failure of the N30 strikes to break
through seems to have confirmed for some
comrades that something fundamental has
changed in the working class, only this can
explain the failure to develop mass action
against austerity, based on the workplace.
We’ve seen other comrades raise arguments that mirror descriptions of the
“salariat” with claims that public sector
workers wages and perhaps their “gold
plated pensions” offer an explanation for
their failure to fight. In fact teachers have
come in for a real bashing!
For some the frustrations that followed
the retreat after N30 have led to despair at
ever breaking the hold of the officials.
Some have argued to abandon or at least
try to get around the hold of “right wing
unions” and look for alternative strategies.
We’ve seen the rise of the “pop up
union” at Sussex University presented as a
way forward. Unison members, sometimes
whole branches, in local government and
health despairing with the Unison bureaucracy have left to join Unite.
In London cleaners at Senate House
abandoned Unison to join the IWB (a syndicalist group) after the result of branch
elections were seemingly ignored.
It’s not surprising that some workers
14
can become frustrated and feel the “grass is
greener” somewhere else. We’ve seen this
before from the activists who left Unite to
join the RMT on the London buses in the
late 2000’s to the electricians who broke to
form the EPIU after Wapping.
But it’s worrying when socialists take
up this strategy too.
The “pop union” backed off when faced
by anti-union laws. It wasn’t the magic
bullet to the problem of the trade union
bureaucracy.
And those who left Unison for Unite can
find it as frustrating as the union they left.
The question of the trade union bureaucracy can’t be sidestepped, it has to be
confronted.
The British revolutionary syndicalists
argued to “fight from within” the social
democratic trade unions during the period
of the great unrest (unlike for example their
counterparts in the IWW in the US) while
developing unofficial structures alongside
the official structures.
This tactic was repeated with the development of the workers committees in the
First World War. We argue for the same
strategy. Stand and fight in the majority
union where you are while attempting
to develop rank and file confidence and
organisation.
And of course we can find that the “right
wing” unions deliver action too.
Unison and the GMB played a huge role
on N30. In recent weeks Unison members
have been out for ten days at Future Directions in Rochdale (making 19 days in all)
and have been on the picket line in South
Gloucs.
The Glasgow social care workers who
walked out unofficially were Unison members as were the low paid, mainly women
workers at Mid-Yorks health trust that
struck for nine days earlier this year.
And Unison organised the biggest delegation at the 29 September protest in
Manchester.
Workers, even in the present period can
shift the bureaucracy. Sometimes even the
most right wing leaders can be forced to
fight by the scale of the attack and the need
to show they have muscle.
After all even the most right wing union
leader has to be able to show that there is a
real reason for the boss or the government
to sit round the table with them.
We have to remember our history. The
NUM smashed the Tory government in
1974. It wasn’t led by Arthur Scargill, it
was led by Joe Gormley, who was on MI5’s
pay roll.
Structural changes
Contributors in ISJ 140 take up many of
the arguments about the changing nature of
employment and the structural changes that
have affected the British working class.
Of course it’s very important that we are
aware of changes in workers real experiences and respond accordingly. But there
is a real danger that we draw unnecessarily
pessimistic conclusions from the situation.
For example most workers on zero
hours contracts are in workplaces with
more than 100 employees. This means that
they are in workplaces that have real collective power.
The actions of workers at the Hovis factory in Wigan are probably the best reply
to arguments that overemphasise the debilitating effect of zero hours contracts on
workers’ ability to fight.
A confident lead from BFAWU (a small
union with around 30,000 members) led to
a militant strike, involving mass picketing,
scoring a major victory against zero hours
contracts.
A full time workforce which understood
that’s its position was being undermined
struck to support more “precarious” workers that they worked alongside.
An equally confident response by unions
in other growth areas for zero hours contracts such as higher education and health
could also meet with success. The UCU
has just had such a victory at Edinburgh
University.
The University was named and shamed
in a UCU survey that showed 2,712 people
employed on the contracts and has now
promised to end this kind of employment.
Our job as socialists is to analyse, yes,
but also to spread knowledge of and replicate the best responses from our class.
Bureaucracy
So without ignoring the changes to the
workforce or the weaknesses in trade union
organisation the key problem remains the
trade union bureaucracy and what we do
to develop the confidence of the rank and
file.
The bureaucracy, specifically the left
bureaucracy and how we work both with
and against it is at the heart of the arguments about how we as revolutionaries
help to re-build working class confidence.
Any organisation that seriously attempts
to relate to and shape the class struggle can
only do so following the widest possible
process of debate and discussion.
It isn’t and never has been the case that
we are “hatching an industrial strategy
from the heads of one or two CC members” as Ray and Jamie from London argue
in the IB.
This really is a strange argument to put.
Ray for example, as convenor of our Unite
fraction, was centrally involved in discussions with the CC about backing Jerry
Hicks candidacy in the recent Unite general secretary election.
The CC alongside some comrades in
the Unite fraction put an argument, generalising from the Sparks victory and Jerry’s
previous votes that there was an audience
to the left of Len McCluskey.
Other comrades argued that Jerry’s vote
would collapse in the face of support for
McCluskey.
The decision was debated by our
Unite fraction at several meetings. The
fraction was split pretty evenly and eventually the decision was taken to the SWP
conference.
It was hardly a policy “hatched” by a
couple of individuals in isolation from the
rest of the party!
There are dozens of other examples
of how we have developed strategies in
our union fractions that are far removed
from the image of decisions being made
in isolation from the membership in dark,
cappuccino-filled rooms by a couple of
individuals.
We have regular national industrial
meetings and national and regional caucuses of our trade unionists.
Initiatives we’re involved in like Unite
the Resistance have been debated at
national meetings, union fractions, district
aggregates and local branches as well as in
the pages of our publications and in the run
up to conferences our IBs.
These processes are not perfect, but they
have certainly shaped and developed the
party’s industrial strategy.
For some comrades, such as Ray and
Jamie, the SWP’s industrial strategy is far
too focused on the trade union leaders and
the official structures of the unions.
They argue that effectively our organisation relates to union general secretaries,
conferences and elections while it lacks a
concentration on the base.
For many of our trade union members
who spend their time as union reps, building solidarity, defending members, battling
against racism, sexism or homophobia in
their workplaces this won’t quite match
their experience.
But of course it’s crucial to examine our
practice and improve it.
We want every SWP member to build a
base at work, strengthen trade union organisation where they are, fight to become a
union rep and attempt to build the confidence and the combativity of the workers
around us.
For example in June’s teachers strikes
in the North West dozens of comrades in
other areas were involved in “twinning”
with striking schools, sending messages of
support, organising sympathy protests on
the day, sending photos to their twinned
schools.
Comrades in Hackney NUT helped to
initiate a petition calling for the teaching
unions to “name the day” for action this
term. That’s good. But it means nothing if
SWP members and reps we work alongside
don’t get into the staff room and get people
signing to back the action.
When the announcement hit over an
end to pay progression in the NHS a health
worker in Bolton called a branch meeting and won support for a demo to protest
against the attacks on pay and the wider
assault on the NHS.
When teachers march we have to be
the people fighting to get delegations from
15
other unions onto the protests. In the universities we have to move now both to
build the action but also win the support
of students for the strikes, organising joint
meetings etc.
These are examples of the kind of activities we have to fight for in every workplace,
getting workmates to sign petitions, give to
collections, come on demos etc.
But of course we have layers of new
members who have little workplace experience. A number of comrades have raised
arguments that we need to offer more
guidance.
The recent day school for new and
young members (a follow up from the 2011
event), Paul McGarr’s pamphlet and the
orientation we have argued for in Unite
the Resistance all underline our attempt to
develop organising strategies both for SWP
members but also for those we are able to
work with.
Strategy
But our strategy doesn’t simply consist
of building in our own workplace alone
although it should remain our key focus.
We can’t ignore the fight for a socialist strategy beyond our own workplaces,
in the wider union and indeed across the
movement.
As revolutionaries we want to win arguments for action and political opposition to
austerity across the union.
That will involve raising motions in
union branches and at regional and national
conferences and standing for positions as
reps, branch officers and even to national
executives.
Crucially it involves fighting for leadership at every level. We want to be the
“tribune of the oppressed” and the key
fighter in the workplace, we also want to
play the same role from the platform at
public meetings and rallies.
At a recent NUT/NASUWT strike rally
when a comrade spoke from the platform
they received a standing ovation from
hundreds of teachers. That’s not about an
ego boost for the comrade, it’s about offering real leadership. Those who wanted to
tear the head off Gove heard their feelings
expressed.
Of course there are dangers in this process. A vote at a regional committee or a
union conference is one thing but turning votes for resolutions into reality is
another.
But the union branch, committee, conference are still fields of battle that we can’t
ignore and that can have a direct effect on
the level of struggle.
Standing for positions in union branches,
regional bodies and for NECs has an inbuilt
danger that activists can be pulled away
from their base, or elected without enough
support to hold them to account.
But the election of left officers to
union bodies is still a reflection of workers wish to see a fight even if they are
unconfident themselves.
It can also have a direct effect on the
struggle. It was certainly the case in 2011
(for example) that the left was able to
express and give leadership to a willingness to fight over the issue of pensions.
It made a real difference that SWP members and other socialists were represented
on the NUT, PCS and UCU NECs. This
wasn’t about them “manoeuvring” to get
action. It was about expressing workers’
willingness to fight and offering leadership, sometimes in the face of the national
union.
It would be criminal to simply vacate
this scene to others and refuse to offer
leadership at a time when what the leadership does or does not do has such a strong
effect.
Broad Lefts
Part of our wider role in the trade unions
involves our involvement in Broad Lefts.
These organisations are mainly electoral
machines, orientated on the election of left
officials.
Many are shadows of the Broad Left
organisations of the past. But they often
pull together good activists who want to
see a fighting leadership.
In some unions it’s been possible to
influence the orientation of these Broad
Left’s towards activity rather than just elections The UCU Left has been at the centre
of pushing for action in the union, held
activists’ events and launched a magazine.
PCS Left Unity played a role in attempting to provide a forum for discussion as
the pensions campaign hit the buffers in
January 2012.
But we have to flexible. In the NUT
SWP members are part of the Socialist
Teachers Alliance (STA).
STA members led action in 2011 only
to pull back in 2012. A grouping LANAC
(Local Associations for National Action)
emerged at NUT conference 2012 that
clearly gave better expression to the need
for action.
SWP members got involved in the
initiative. There is ongoing debate in the
NUT about our relationship with the left
formations.
For example what attitude do we take
to the STA if there activists pull back
from backing national action this term.
What does this mean for upcoming union
elections where LANAC’s main figure is
standing as a candidate against the STA?
In Unite we were forced out of the
United Left for backing Jerry Hicks. The
decision to back Jerry was right and opens
up possibilities for the future but had a
price in souring our relationship with some
good union activists.
If you are part of an electoral organisation, then you will face hostility if you back
alternative candidates!
In the wake of N30 some of the Broad
Lefts, such as the United Left in Unison
show signs of fragmentation.
Where possible we have to fight to
develop a rank and file orientation to these
organisations and to make sure we don’t
remain hitched to electoral organisations
and agreements if the groupings fail to give
a lead in struggle.
Role
The central role of the bureaucracy in this
period highlights the need for a serious
strategy towards the officials, both right
and left.
Left leaders like Mark Serwotka, Len
McCluskey, Christine Blower and Kevin
Courtney often express the rank and file’s
aspiration to resist as well as reflecting
their lack of confidence.
How we use the “official calls” from the
union leaders to strengthen the ability of
rank and file workers to act independently
is central to our practice.
There is very little point our simply
denouncing the latest sell out by trade
union leaders if we fail to use the chances
we’re given to develop self activity.
The TUC’s calls for mass protests in
March 2011 and again in 2012 were
denounced by some as too little too late. Of
course it’s right to argue for a more proactive response from the trade unions in the
face of austerity.
But building for the 26 March 2011 and
the massive turn out on the day fed into the
mood for action that led to J30 and N30.
When Mark Serwotka argued that “we’ve
marched together now let’s strike together”
it offered every activist the chance to take
that argument into their workplace.
When the TUC backs the People’s
Assembly’s call for direct action on
5 November it makes it easier for us to
raise the prospect of, for example, protests
against cuts and the attack on NHS pay at
hospitals on the day.
When Unite organised a protest against
fascism alongside UAF in Liverpool on
12 October it was a big opportunity for
Unite members to raise politics and involve
activists.
When the day is announced for the next
big TUC protest in 2014 it will provide
all of us with a focus, even if the potential
wave of action this year is wasted.
There has been much debate in the party
about the street verses the workplace over
recent months. But we all know that the
impact of “the street” can help build confidence in the workplaces. Most people came
back from Manchester buzzing, much more
likely to vote for or take part in action.
While we know the central importance
of collective action in the workplace it
would be crazy to down play the importance of protest.
Protests on 5 November over zero
hours contracts or defending the NHS
don’t have to be a distraction from strike
action, they can help to build the confidence of workers that is the basis for a
16
successful industrial response.
At its highest level in recent years the
interplay between the official and unofficial
brought victory in the BESNA dispute.
Electricians used official calls by Unite
for days of action and protests against
BESNA to pull off unofficial protests, site
occupations and strikes. Eventually with
the threat of strike action at Grangemouth
this process defeated the multinational construction companies.
This relationship between official calls
and what we make of them is crucial.
Education
The period since 2011 has seen tens of
thousands of activists go through a process of political education.
There are clearly large numbers of
workers who want to see a more consistent fight against the employers and
the government than is being provided
by even the most left wing trade union
leaders.
The huge (80,000, 36 percent) vote for
Jerry Hicks in the recent Unite general
secretary election, the vote in the same
union of nearly 6,000 votes (42 percent)
for socialist and rank and file electrician
Ian Bradley are evidence of this.
Big minorities at the union conferences
over the last two years have constantly
voted to the left of the top table on issues
relating to national action.
These votes are an expression of a
mood amongst a layer of workers rather
than, in most cases, the development of
concrete organisation. That’s a process
that we have to fight to help to create.
This is the layer of activists that we’ve
tried to reach and relate to around the
Unite the Resistance initiative.
Unite the Resistance grew out of the
pensions dispute of 2011.
Its main task was to provide a forum
for those who wanted to see a serious
industrial fightback and to build up the
networks of solidarity that would be necessary to push the fight forward.
This initiative has involved a critical working relationship with a layer of
left officials at both a national and local
level.
At times we have used aspects of the
strategy used by the Minority Movement
in the 1920s as a loose example of what
we are arguing for.
It’s part of the ABC for socialists to
engage in joint work and initiatives with
left leaders and to encourage workers to
get involved in initiatives and debates on
strategy through their presence.
This is the implementation of the
united front.
But Ray and Jamie argue in IB1 that
this amounts to “putting too much focus
on the left bureaucracy to deliver the
necessary action and can sow illusions
in them”.
They go onto argue: “our focus on
general secretaries and other leading left
bureaucrats, alongside our comrades in
leading positions in the unions skews our
perspective to the detriment of a consistent strategy that begins with the rank and
file”.
But there is a real danger here that we
begin to reflect ultra left arguments that
see every left official or Labour MP who
appears on a platform or gets involved in
a campaign as being offered “left cover”
by revolutionaries.
If we muted our criticisms of the
strategy and tactics of left officials then
perhaps this would have been fair comment. But this is hardly something we’ve
been accused of in the trade union movement over the last period!
Just think about the arguments we’ve
had with Len McCluskey or other left
trade union leaders.
At the Unite the Resistance London
meeting in January 2012 Mark Serwotka
came under pressure over how to respond
to the retreat on pensions, Kevin Courtney came under similar pressure at the
national conference in November 2012.
These arguments were part of fraternal debates but did show how Unite the
Resistance can act as forum for a sharp
dialogue between rank and file activists
and the officials.
This has led some comrades to argue
that they are unclear about Unite the
Resistance as a strategy.
The role Unite the Resistance played
in the dispute at Hovis should be enlightening to anyone who is unclear. It shows
the kind of network we are fighting to
build in every area could achieve.
Unite the Resistance initiated solidarity pickets, solidarity petitions and
support rallies for the strikers. Unite the
Resistance activists, along with BFAWU
delegates collected over £700 for the
strikers at the TUC Congress.
Up to 300 people came to a solidarity
meeting organised by Unite the Resistance
after the TUC demo on 29 September that
highlighted the dispute. A large delegation of strikers came to the meeting.
During the dispute the Unite the
Resistance network had a good relationship with BFAWU officers, to the extent
that the campaign was thanked for its role
at the end of the strike.
But this didn’t stop socialists raising
ideas or arguments within the dispute and
winning an audience for Socialist Worker
and the SWP.
The Unite the Resistance conference
on 19 October if successful could provide
a model for similar “Organising to win”
events that can drive through the message
of the need for co-ordinated action, and
arm activists with a strategy at work and
can build up networks of solidarity.
These events can be complementary
to the local People’s Assemblies and we
should look to build wider support around
them.
We think this is a clear perspective for
Unite the Resistance that SWP members
should fight for.
Wider
Involving activists in wider networks and
political campaigns is more crucial than
ever in the present circumstances.
We’ve argued for years for a “political” approach to trade unionism. We don’t
believe that an upturn in struggle will
come as a result of the growth of cumulative strength based on the kind of “do it
yourself reformism” of the 1960s.
Increasingly almost every dispute is
centred on wider political issues. Hovis
was about contracts, it was also about
austerity and its effect on workers’ lives.
Many workers feel more confident
to fight over the defence of the services
they provide than over “bread and butter”
issues.
The most popular placard on recent
teachers’ demos has been the Socialist
Worker “Gove out” placard. Even though
the strikes are about defending national
pay bargaining in reality they are against
Gove’s assault on education.
Many young activists have gained
their experiences from the movements,
not the trade unions. They have marched
against war and racism, joined protests
called by Occupy or UK Uncut or taken
to the streets against attacks on EMA and
rising tuition fees.
We have fought hard in recent years to
link the workplace to these social movements and campaigns. We’ve fought to
get trade union delegations onto Stop the
War protests, helped to link Occupy with
N30 and the Sparks dispute.
The protest that kicked off the student revolt was called jointly by the NUS
and UCU. Although we see the power of
workplace and trade union organisation as
central we want to build links between the
movements and workers and raise wider
politics in the workplace.
We have to fight to win a generation of
activists to a perspective that means they
are central to wider political campaigns
while constantly fighting to involve and
orientate those movements on the potential power of the working class.
In recent months comrades in the NUT
have helped to take successful initiatives
around the primary curriculum and attacks
on history teaching. Such initiatives can
draw in new activists to the union.
Another important political issue is the
role of Labour. Labour and Ed Miliband
have at last responded to the bitterness
over falling living standards.
In recent weeks we’ve seen a raft of
policy promises such as the pledge to
scrap the bedroom tax, to freeze energy
prices for 20 months and to question
some uses of zero hours contracts. Labour
activists will have something to say on
the door steps that marks them out from
17
the Tories.
However Labour remains committed
to the Tory spending plans and Miliband
has spent the summer months, in the wake
of the Falkirk selection row, distancing
himself from the unions.
The fact that the GMB has threatened
to withdraw a million pounds in funding
from the party shows that there is real
anger about these moves.
Union leaders like Billy Hayes of the
CWU and Dave Prentis of Unison have
publicly condemned the way Miliband
has acted.
The issue of political representation
will be an ongoing debate and we have to
think how we are raising it inside every
union.
People’s Assembly
It’s been really important that SWP members have thrown themselves into both
building the national People’s Assembly
in June but also local organisation (that
have pulled hundreds to meetings including many trade unionists) and activities.
We could have dismissed or distanced
ourselves from the assemblies or simply
“intervened” with paper sales outside
meetings.
This approach would have been sectarian and the SWP leadership took
a deliberate stand against any such
position.
We have to make sure that a policy of
“constructive engagement” with the People’s Assembly is repeated across Britain.
And we have good examples from Sheffield to Bristol to Leicester where we are
playing this kind of role.
At the national People’s Assembly
hundreds of SWP members attended and
brought delegations. We played a big role
in shaping the debate (if only mostly from
the floor thanks to the organisers) on the
day.
The People’s Assembly meetings
have involved big hitters from the trade
union movement and the TUC conference
backed them.
That makes it even more important
that we are part of them and that we fight
to make them succeed.
We want the activities on 5 November,
the day of direct action called by the People’s Assembly and backed by the TUC,
to be as widespread and successful as
possible.
But like our involvement in any social
movement we go into the assemblies raising a serious debate about how the fight
against austerity is developing.
This is not to distance ourselves from
the movement or score sectarian points.
It’s because if we don’t raise important issues then we are failing to offer
a serious lead and by the way, on issues
like Labour and the need for co-ordinated
strike action, we’ll be behind the political
level of much of the audience at these
events.
Rob from South London puts forward
an almost diametrically opposed criticism
of our relationship with the officials, this
time regarding the People’s Assembly, to
that put by Ray and Jamie about our work
in Unite the Resistance.
Rob argues that we need, “a political relationship with those officials
who encourage political struggle while
developing a radical left committed to
translating this into increased confidence
at the workplace level. It is only in the
context of a wider political challenge to
austerity that we can hope to undercut
the timidity that exists at the top of the
unions”.
Of course we need a “political relationship” with the officials. This will involve
supporting calls for activity and taking
part in fraternal debate. But it will also
involve raising arguments about the way
forward.
Working “with and against” means
exactly that. It means being prepared to
work with the officials when they “rightly
represent us” as the Clyde workers committee argued.
We don’t look to make perpetual
denunciations of the officials. But we are
prepared to take them on if they pull back
from a real fight.
At the national assembly we were
right to back the event and the initiatives
it called for. We were also right to argue
for the need for strike action as well as
protests and to raise the role of Labour.
This is particularly the case when the
People’s Assembly’s main figure is Owen
Jones, the key figure, along with Len
McCluskey, of the attempt to “reclaim
Labour”.
It’s interesting to note that between
Rob, Jamie and Ray we are now both too
soft and too hard on the officials. Perhaps
they’d better talk this through.
Socialist
Alongside our attempts to build networks
of activists across the unions we also want
to build up a bigger socialist presence, a
bigger SWP.
People join a party that has something
real to offer, a party that makes a difference. That means offering the whole
package, from selling Socialist Worker
to collecting for Hovis, to building the
latest protest to having a serious national
strategy to beat austerity, to a vision
of winning a different world free from
oppression and exploitation through revolutionary struggle.
Selling Socialist Worker alone isn’t
enough for a revolutionary, but without
selling socialist publications, and trying
to pull people to our meetings then at best
we’re acting as good trade union activists
and at worse we’re failing to rise to the
political level of the people around us.
We also need to build better and
stronger fractional organisation.
That means at a national and local
level pulling our trade union comrades in
individual unions together, electing working fraction committees, offering ideas,
guidance and a common strategy, pulling
in new comrades, and producing model
motions.
Comrades need to know at a national
and local level who they should contact
for advice and information. The industrial
department can’t be the only port of call,
although it should be one of them!
Of course we also need to make sure
that SWP branches and districts have a
serious industrial strategy.
Are we pulling together our key activists to talk about how they operating at
work? Are new members being discussed with about how they operate in the
workplaces?
Do we have a relationship with key
militants in our area, do they get Socialist
Worker each week? Do we ask key activists that we are working with to join the
SWP?
Do we have regular workplace sales at
major local workplaces? Are we producing our own leaflets for disputes at a local
level as well as using materials produced
at the centre?
These are all questions we need to be
asking and strategies that we need to be
developing. We hope many of the experiences of branches, districts and fractions
can be shared in the next IB.
At a time of enormous attacks on our
class its right that we clarify our ideas and
our strategy. But it’s crucial that while
we retain “pessimism of the intellect” we
remember that we also need “optimism of
the will”.
This perspective is not arguing for
“one more push” until we make the great
breakthrough. It is however a call for us to
develop strategies that relate to the deep
anger that exists among workers.
In recent disputes the role of socialists has made a big difference. At One
Housing, Hovis, South Gloucester, Mid
Yorkshire Health Trust and Connaught
School there wouldn’t have been action
without the role that individual socialist
played.
We all have to fight to play the same
role and seek to develop fightbacks.
SWP members, alongside other socialists and activists have played and continue
to play an important role in many other
areas of resistance.
Our activists helped to initiate the
London-wide health demo that proved to
be the “tipping point” that delivered the
national Manchester protest.
The SWP has an important role to play
in arming a new generation of activists.
Our particular orientation on the rank and
file and our understanding of the specific
role played by the trade union bureaucracy mean that we can help orientate the
best fighters in the period ahead.
18
fighting women’s
oppression
Central Committee
1. A thread running through many of the
arguments in and around the party over the
last year has focused on SWP’s analysis of
women’s oppression.
These debates reflect arguments in the
wider revolutionary and broader left and
all our publications and the meetings and
courses at Marxism and branches across
the country have given space to develop
this discussion. Although some in the faction have argued during this period that the
SWP’s analysis of women’s oppression is
outdated and unresponsive to new ideas
and the new situations women face in the
21st century we believe it is always vital
for revolutionaries to engage with alternative ideas and analyses.
We have a unique view of oppression
and its relationship to exploitation and class
society. We want to win people to Marxism because it does more than describe
the problem, it points to a solution that
gives women and men agency in their own
liberation.
2. First in this document it should not be
necessary to spell out the sheer inequality and discrimination that women face
in modern capitalist society. Nor need we
repeat the damaging impact of the ever
more crude commodification of women’s
bodies that seeps into every part of our
lives. This is a development which has been
well documented in all our publications.
But it is clear that the issue of the position of women in society has been back
at the centre of politics in recent years in
a way that we have not seen for several
decades.
The impact of the exposure of the horrific scale of sexual abuse of young people
and children committed by Jimmy Savile is
still being felt. Other high profile celebrities have also faced charges through the
year. But significantly, women, and some
men, are also coming forward to report
experiences of abuse completely unconnected to the Savile cases because the issue
was being openly discussed.
Writers and activists are trying to
grapple with the contradictions of major
advances for women being coupled with
evidence of abuse, endemic discrimination
and the explosion of flagrant sexist images
and stereotypes polluting popular culture.
Over the past nearly ten years this has
led to a raft of books and newspaper articles documenting sexism today and the
response to it. This has meant that recent
years a welcome resurgence in interest in
ideas around women’s liberation. Feminist ideas and organisations have become
popular and feminist theorists studied
seriously.
Object’s campaign to stops Lads’ mags
being stocked in supermarkets will be
ramped up this month with the spotlight
on Tescos and this autumn will see the
return of the Feminism in London conference on 26 October, such conferences have
attracted up 1,000 people in past.
Quite rightly we (in IBs over the last
three years and elsewhere) have pointed
out that feminism for many of these new
activists is simply anti sexism rather than
any thought-through commitment to patriarchy theory or separatism. It expresses
anger at how women are treated and it is
the common sense touchstone of those
fighting back. There is no single set of
feminist ideas or a specific movement or
organisation.
SWP members work alongside such
feminist activists in numerous campaigns,
within trade union women’s conferences
and so on. We often have much common political ground around the impact
of sexism and the burden that austerity is
disproportionaly putting on working class
women and even opposition to the capitalist system itself.
It is from this common activity and
debate that we can look to winning a new
generation of revolutionary socialists to
the SWP. The party puts the question of
women’s liberation as essential to the fight
for socialism. Our theory and practice is in
direct contradiction to recent accusations
that our party is sexist. Some who have
criticised us even assert that the nature of
a Leninist party means it is by definition
not able to address the issue of women’s
oppression sufficiently.
We reject this and stand by our record. Of
course when someone signs a party membership form they do not suddenly become
immune to the ideology, structures and
pressures of a society divided by oppression. But as revolutionaries we challenge
these. In the words of Lenin we model ourselves on “the tribune of the people, who
is able to react to every manifestation of
tyranny and oppression, no matter where it
appears, no matter what stratum or class of
the people it affects.”
In practical terms this also means making sure child care is organised so the
parents, especially single parents who are
most likely to be women, can attend meetings and party activity. That’s why Marxism
provides free full professional crèche facilities for every meeting from 10am to the last
one that finishes at 8.30pm. It is unique as a
political event of its size to do this.
Clearly such professional provision
simply won’t be possible in an average
branch or district. Nowadays parents don’t
necessarily want random different comrades to be allocated each week. It is often
more practical to offer financial help from
branch or district funds for people to use
their regular babysitter for example.
It also means making special efforts
to ensure gender balanced platforms, to
develop women members become speak-
ers, writers and activist leaders in a world
which socialises women to lack confidence
in taking a lead.
Part of the renaissance of interest in the
politics of women’s liberation are theoretical developments that seek to define
more precisely how to understand women’s
oppression. Some in the faction argue these
offer insights or critiques that Marxists are
missing.
Chief among these seem to be ideas
about privilege and identity and the nature
of how different inequalities “intersect”
under capitalism, all of which are being
revisited. The concepts that men benefit
from the oppression of women and that
women should receive wages for housework have returned and is being raised at
meetings. Silvia Federici’s Revolution at
Point Zero published this year argues this
in a collection of essays from the 1970s to
the present day.
Arguments are being put forward may
be familiar to some but are being had in
new contexts with a new generation that
did not live through the 1980s. For example US academic Nancy Fraser’s Fortunes
of Feminism also includes essays written
in the 1970s and 1980s as well as more up
to date analysis.
The republishing of Beyond the Fragments by Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal
and Hilary Wainright this year with a new
chapter by each of the authors is another
sign of this looking back to find ideas to
explain the present. They held a launch
meeting in London, which failed to attract
an audience of newer activists and felt
more like a reunion than a public event ,
although the SWP members who attended
made a good intervention.
The resurrection of Beyond the Fragments is also a sign of something else. It
originally evolved from those breaking
with revolutionary politics and Leninist
organisation. The additions to the new edition continue this critique. In the case of
Wainright she dismisses the SWP in particular, as she goes on to sing the praises of
Syriza in Greece which she describes as “a
new kind of political organisation, beyond
both Leninism and parliamentarism”.
So although many of the activists being
politicised by their experience of sexism
will be open to socialist ideas, some of the
theoretical analysis being put forward by
those hoping to win them is a direct critique of and challenge to a Marxist view.
For example we have fundamental differences with privilege theory. This is based
on the premise that if someone is simply a
member of a group, say is white or male,
then they gain privilege because they are
not black or a women in a racist or sexist
society. The logic of such a worldview is
that it sees individuals as responsible for
oppression and it also implies that all men,
or all white people have a common experience and interests.
When you are told to “check your privilege” it both implies that a white person
19
benefits from racism in society, a man
benefits from sexism and so on. In contrast as Marxists we see racism and sexism
as being built in to the very structures of
the system. Racism does not benefit white
workers—being racist does not give you
privilege, it divides our side. Sexism and
racism and homophobia entrench divisions
and fragmentation within the working class
and weaken us.
An attempt to overcome divisions of our
side is the idea of “Intersectionality” (for
a good account of this see Sally C’s contribution in IB1). It signals a move away
from the identity politics which became
part of the fragmentation of the Women’s
Liberation Movement towards an attempt
at understanding of how different oppressions intersect and affect eachother.
Although this view acknowledges class
it sees it as another oppression rather than
seeing the potential of collective class
power to win unity.
Yet Marx’s analysis remains a touchstone for many, even those who oppose it.
As Martha Gimenez points out in a special
issue of Science and Society on Marxism
and feminism she co-edited with another
US academic Lise Vogel in 2005, “Marx’s
intellectual power and vitality remain undiminished, as demonstrated in the extent
to which even scholars who reject it must
grapple with his work’s challenge, so much
that their theories are shaped by the very
process of negating it.”
Obviously academic feminism does
have influence among activists, though we
shouldn’t overstate the influence of some
of the ideas that have a high profile in
academia but are aimed at and accessible
to, for example Fraser’s book, a narrow
audience.
In an interview with Sally Campbell and
Judith Orr in Socialist Review in 2010 the
US writer Hester Eisenstein and academic
herself talked of how some academic
feminists can become “parochial” and in
concentrating on gender overlook class
and an understanding of the system as a
totality.
Her book Feminism Seduced which she
spoke on at Marxism that year was about
the limitations and pitfalls of seeing gender
in a vacuum. You can start with a feminism
sprung out of a militant anti imperialist
movement in the 1960s and end up 50 years
later with feminists justifying the invasion
of Afghanistan to liberate women.
Of course debate about how class and
gender interact are not confined to the
academy. Laurie Penny began as a blogger
and is now a contributing editor of the New
Statesman. She writes on popular culture
and feminism and has identified herself as
both a feminist and a socialist in the past.
She devoted a whole column in August
to the argument that all men benefit from
sexism, asserting, “that’s how oppression
works”.
3. Such ideas have even reached into the
revolutionary left. In the US leading member of the ISO Sharon Smith used a meeting
at its national Socialism event to declare
that the SWP and the IST were wrong in
their analysis of women’s oppression.
She argued that Marxism was reductionist, that men did benefit from women’s
oppression and she now rejected decades
of writing by leading SWP members which
she was “tremendously embarrassed” to
have respected for so long.
Smith finally pronounced herself a
“Marxist feminist” to demonstrate her
break with her past. Smith used references
to German revolutionary Clara Zetkin to
argue that leading Marxists of the past have
also embraced feminism. She quotes Zetkin’s recognition of the oppression faced
by rich and middle class women to make
her case.
But such a recognition is completely part
of a Marxist approach which acknowledges
that oppression cuts across class divisions.
We point to how women are trivialised,
judged and discriminated against even if
they are city bankers or Tory ministers. But
we go on to say that doesn’t mean that we
believe that such women have a common
interest in bringing down the system that
breeds such inequality.
Zetkin understood how all women were
in affected by oppression in different ways
but to use this to rebrand her as a feminist
is to do a disservice to both her ideas and
political activity.
She wrote about how Marx‘s writing
and his materialist concept of history meant
that “the ‘love drivel’ about a ‘sisterhood’
which supposedly wraps a unifying ribbon
around bourgeois ladies and female proletarians, burst like so many scintillating
soap bubbles.”
4. But one thing is clear, people are looking
for answers about how to understand women’s oppression and what to do to combat
it. We want to work alongside everyone
who wants to fight sexism, whether it’s
in campaigns about sexist ads on student
campuses or abortion rights. At the same
time we need to put forward our own political tradition to newly politicised activists
who want to understand and oppose
oppression.
The first thing to say is that oppression is
much more difficult to dissect than exploitation. Exploitation can be calculated, how
much is spent on a factory and its machinery, how much is paid in wages, how much
surplus value extracted and so on. It is a
social relationship between the exploiter
and the exploited.
Oppression cannot be measured in the
same way. Because of the intense personal and psychological damage it can
cause it is often seen as merely a subjective experience. Some theories begin with
relationships between individuals because
of this but this can mean the subjective
experience of oppression becomes the
explanation. Instead we have to see that
personal relations, personal identity are an
expression of oppression not its cause.
Martha Gimenez has written on the limitations of subjective experience defining
oppression, “Experience in itself, however,
is suspect because, dialectically, it is a unity
of opposites; it is, at the same time, unique,
personal, insightful and revealing and, at
the same time, thoroughly social, partial,
mystifying, itself the product of historical
forces about which individuals may know
little or nothing about.” However oppression is not just an
ephemeral psychological state or a theoretical abstraction. Oppression has material
roots, and has a very real objective structural impact on the lives of millions.
Prejudice and backward ideas all flow from
these material roots.
Oppression is both rooted in class
society and affects people in all classes.
Oppression is not an independent and separate system of discrimination that runs
alongside exploitation and class division—
the “dual system” that some theorists argue
for. You only need to look at the ruling
class and compare it to the working class
in terms of diversity of gender and race
to see that there is a relationship between
class and oppression.
5. Marxists start with looking at society as
a totality. Our materialist view of history
sees the basis of any society as the method
by which people produce the means to
live. We locate oppression as developing
at certain stages of history in particular
circumstances. Fredrich Engels wrote that
the origins of the systematic oppression
of women arose in the first class societies, which as the title of his classic book
describes led to the rise of the family, private property and the state.
Today the institution of the family
shapes women’s oppression even though
it has gone through many transformations,
and many people do not live in the stereotypical nuclear family. The separation
between the socialised production and private reproduction means that the home is
still portrayed as women’s main or most
important sphere. This is despite the fact
that half the work force today are women.
This is used ideologically to discipline
women and make them feel they should
take responsibility for covering the responsibilities of children, the sick and elderly
rather that the state or society. The Tories’
austerity attacks are forcing an ever-increasing burden on the family, which means on
working class women. Cuts in welfare and
the public sector disproportionally affect
working class women.
This has brought home the role the
family plays in serving the needs of the
system, in contradiction to those that see
its function as a place for women to serve
the needs of individual men. Although this
is contested by feminist writers including James and Federici, who theorise that
“wages for housework” is the solution to
20
the problem of the privatised family—a
position that effectively accepts the status
quo as unchanging.
Federici describes as the kitchen as ”our
slave ship” and criticises Marx’s view that
workers’ organisation in the workplace was
the power that could challenge the system.
She argued that this meant he didn’t see the
importance of “reproductive work” and that
“he accepted the capitalist criteria for what
constitutes work.”
But women who face the extra burden
of work in the isolation of the home are nor
going to be liberated by being paid a wage to
stay there. We fight for welfare benefits and
decent wages and we argue that work in the
home should not be seen as only women’s
responsibility. But ultimately we believe
that the reproduction and maintenance of
the next generation and care of the sick and
elderly should not be the sole responsibility
of individual women or families but of the
whole of society.
Leon Trotsky wrote a powerful article
in exile in 1936 after Stalin came to power
on Thermidor in the Family. He documents
women in Russia going back into the home
to cook and clean clothes because the state
provision was letting them down—the
social laundries “tear and steal linen more
than they wash it.” For Trotsky this wasn’t
just an idle observation about housework,
for him women being forced back into the
home was important evidence of the retreat
of the revolution.
The question of housework raises once
again the question of who benefits from
women’s role in the family. If work in the
home is women servicing men then men
have a, however temporary, interest in maintaining the system as it is, even if in the long
term there is an abstract need for unity.
Patriarchy theory in its many forms
reflects this view, that there are essential
interests that all men share. It might seem
like a useful label for how society appears,
but it implies a common power and interest all men share in perpetuating women’s
oppression.
Men have no objective interest in women
being paid less or in the state pushing a
greater burden on working class families. A
we wrote in IB in March, “It is not possible
for male workers or any other section of the
working class to have short-term interest
that directly contradict the long-term interest
in unity. This is not about the consciousness
of male workers, this is not about their perception of their interests, it is about their
objective material interest.”
6. This approach is at the core of our analysis and shapes our theory and practice as
revolutionaries. In fact this class analysis
was shared by many active at the start of the
Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) of
the 1960s and 70s in Britain. In contrast to
the WLM in the US the British women’s
movement was shaped by a relatively strong
reformist and revolutionary left, as well as
greater union density.
In the US the left tradition of fighting
for women’s liberation had been broken,
the legacy of Stalinism and the ferocious
witch-hunts of the McCarthy era had taken
their toll. So the New Left developed with
little regard to the question of women’s role
in society and so women who had become
politicised eventually rebelled against their
marginalisation in the movement. The anger
at their treatment meant that separatist or
radical feminism was stronger in the US
than in Britain.
7. History has shown that oppression can
generate mass movements of opposition
but if these are organised solely on basis
of oppressed group they come up against
limits of existing society. They also show
that the experience of oppression does
not automatically lead to unity among the
oppressed or with other oppressed sections
of society. Suffering sexism or racism does
not by definition mean you feel unity with
LGBT people or with recent migrants, for
example. Being a woman does not mean
that you automatically take sides against
Islamophobia.
A class analysis of oppression sees that
in order to win there is within working class
struggle an intrinsic and objective drive for
unity. Workers have nothing to gain from
divisive oppressive structures or ideas.
Women are now half of the working class,
they are not a reserve army of labour, they
are not in jobs that are merely an extension
of work in the home. They are a permanent
part of the working class with higher union
density than men and they have been at the
forefront of the strikes against the government attacks on public sector workers.
One of the features of the experience of
oppression is to engender a perception of
powerlessness. The Marxist tradition can
explain this but also expose the perception
a lie and show that when we organise where
we are strong, we have the ability both to
challenge the bosses’ and the government’s
attacks and to fight for liberation.
9. The party been put to the test on many
fronts this year, and despite this the bulk of
comrades have gone out and fought on every
issue including on women’s oppression.
• At the trade union and women’s conferences this year our comrades gave a
lead in debates about fighting women’s
oppression.
• SWP members have been at the heart
of the Bedroom tax campaign which has
produced a brilliant new layer of working
class women fighters who in many cases
not previously part of the organised working class. They have come to fore to lead a
magnificent fight which has already scored
victories.
• Abortion Rights has been back on the
agenda this year and comrades have been
central to protests against the 40 days anti
abortion groups mobilising outside abortion clinics in London and Cardiff. When an
anti-abortion group tried to launch itself as
a group on student campuses we were the
only left organisation to join the London
picket.
• The SWP were once again alone on the
left in holding meetings all over the country on International Women’s Day (IWD).
In London 100 people came along and two
people joined. In Glasgow we were part of
a 200 strong protest on the day against the
sexist heckling of women taking part in the
debating society and 75 came to our IWD
public meeting. There were other local successes, for instance, in Sheffield 50 came to
the meeting.
• This year’s Marxism saw a record number
of meetings and courses to debate questions
around oppression and how we fight for
women’s liberation.
• In the colleges the issue of rampant sexism
on campus is still central. A student club
night at Leeds university had to withdraw
an advertising video for an event they called
‘Freshers Violation’. It included footage of
male club goers describing how a girl was
going to “get raped” and how they would
“violate” freshers.
All this shows how important it is for us to
continue to put the fight for women’s liberation at the centre of our political theory and
our activity.
We have a tradition to be proud of. Our
members fight in every campaign whether
it’s for abortion rights, to save a local crèche
or against welfare cuts. At the same time
we are committed to developing a cadre of
revolutionaries, women and men, who can
lead in the party and class in the struggles
that we’re going to face in the months to
come.
Building the
Party
Central Committee
As we write this (on 12 October) it’s clear
that there are some crucial immediate
focuses:
• Pushing to deepen and escalate the battles
by teachers, firefighters, postal workers, civil
service workers, higher education workers,
probation officers and others. We are the
most enthusiastic about the calling of action,
the most determined to agitate to make that
action effective and to coordinate different
struggles. We do not accept the resistance
should be limited by the ambitions of the
union and Labour leaders.
• Pushing for more action locally and nationally against austerity and attacks on wokers.
We do not want the call for coordinated
strikes or a general strike to become a cover
21
for inaction by the union leaders.
• Continuing to build the movement against
the bedroom tax.
• Continuing to mobilise against the EDL
and other fascists, to build UAF and oppose
racism and the war on immigrants
• Building among students, including the 2
November student assembly.
• Arguing for and joining protests across
Britain on 5 November, the People’s Assembly day of direct action and continuing to
build the People’s Assemblies
• Looking for opportunities for political agitation around Labour’s attack on the union
link.
• In Scotland we should be building the
Marxism in Scotland event on 16 November
and continuing our successful interventions
around the independence campaign.
• Looking always to boost the sales of
Socialist Worker and to recruit to the SWP
While taking part in all the different acts of
resistance, we also build the SWP. Brazil,
Turkey, Greece, South Africa, Egypt and
several other countries have seen struggle on a much higher level than in Britain
during the last year. But in all of these the
rise in struggle did not abolish the need for
revolutionary organisation - it intensified it.
The building of a revolutionary party is the
irreducible necessity for all of us. The ruling
class will act in the most brutal and centralised manner. The working class needs its
own organisation.
The party cannot be built without
involvement at the centre of all movements
of resistance. The united front method
remains central to us. Without struggle, and
involvement in struggle, we will stagnate.
That is why we place emphasis on all the
united fronts we are involved in but particularly Unite Against Fascism and Unite the
Resistance.
The SWP is the biggest organisation on
the revolutionary left, but is still much too
small for the tasks we set ourselves. That is
why we have to grow – to shape the struggles now and to prepare for bigger and even
more important ones in the future.
We have been through a year of extremely
damaging internal divisions, and we deal
with this elsewhere in this bulletin. This has
affected recruitment, retention and the party’s prestige. But the party has far from gone
under or stagnated. Indeed we continue to
play a central role in the trade unions, in
workplace struggles, alongside others in
the anti-fascist movement, in many of the
bedroom tax groups, in Defend the Right to
Protest and elsewhere.
But the bedrock of that involvement has
to be the party organised in the branches and
union fractions. Without the branches our
interventions will be haphazard, fragmented
and individualised.
Nearly all our branches are also having
regular meetings. If you look at page 12 of
Socialist Worker you can see that it is barely
able to contain the details of all our branch
meetings. That wasn’t true a few years ago.
Of course not every branch has expanded
or feels that it is seeing more involvement
by members. Some have suffered because
a number of active members have left. We
recognise that and are determined to keep
strengthening our branch structures.
Too many branches still do not have a
physical list of who they know in their area,
who can be approached around campaigns,
who they are trying to get to meetings and
who they want to recruit.
Such a list needs to be constantly updated.
But it needs to exist. Otherwise every campaign and meeting begins with the search
for names, contact details etc. And if this
periphery exists only in the minds, memories and address books of a few members
then it is not the property of the branch as
a whole.
Equally branches need to develop a sense
of place. What are the local workplaces, are
they unionised and by which union, do we
know a rep, who runs the local tenants’
organisation, who is involved in the bedroom tax campaign, the disabled people’s
campaign, the Somali network or the Yemeni theatre group, where do our members
live in case a local campaign breaks out, and
where do they work. Such questions (and
many others) cannot be addressed overnight.
But every branch should seek to know the
answers and to become part of their area.
We should also discuss the branch meeting topics with members. Of course we can’t
simply be driven by the whims and particular interests of individuals, and the meetings’
organiser needs to have a plan. But that plan
should be discussed with the branch.
We have a national speakers’ list but we
would like comrades to continue to update
it and add names to it – either their own, or
people they recommend.
Membership
Our total membership now stands at 7,180.
This is down 217 from the number last year
but up on 2011’s figure of 7,127, the 2010
figure of 6,587, the 2009 figure of 6,417
and 2008’s of 6,155. The number of subspaying members is 2,147 – 30 percent. This
is slightly down on last year.
We lose members every year for a
variety of reasons. There have been more
leavers this year because of the issues that
have arisen since the conference in January.
We estimate that the “excess” number of
leavers is about 450. We regret this and are
determined to seek to win every member to
the united perspective we have outlined.
Recruitment
From 2008 to 2012 recruitment to the party
averaged about 1,000 a year. This year is
probably going to be slightly lower overall.
Up to the end of September in 2012 we had
recruited 618 people. Up to the end of September this year we had recruited 553.
This is lower, but only because we
recruited fewer at Marxism than usual. If
we had recruited our normal number at
Marxism then we would at present be on
a higher figure for recruitment than last
year.
Just over 30 percent of those recruited
are on direct debit.
Recruitment to the SWP
2008 2009 2010
Jan
48
158 35
Feb
85
63
51
Mar
81
74
102
Apr
144 63
64
May 87
71
87
Jun
76
93
82
Jul
160 147 168
Aug
44
45
30
Sep
90
156
69
Oct
118 171 156
Nov
74
106 126
Dec
14
57
92
Total 1,021 1,184 1,062
2011
133
122
181
119
78
28
143
59
75
98
66
74
1,176
2012
40
78
63
39
53
49
143
35
118
132
91
66
907
2013
38
48
68
59
48
49
60
67
116
Recruitment to the SWP by district
Barnsley.................................. 4
Birmingham............................ 15
Black Country......................... 8
Bradford.................................. 4
Brighton.................................. 13
Bristol...................................... 12
Cambridge............................... 3
Cardiff..................................... 6
Central London....................... 16
Chesterfield............................. 4
Coventry.................................. 3
Derby....................................... 5
Doncaster................................ 2
E Devon, Somerset, Dorset..... 4
East Anglia & Norwich........... 19
East London............................ 32
Edinburgh................................ 7
Essex....................................... 11
Glasgow.................................. 29
Hackney.................................. 17
Home Counties........................ 7
Huddersfield............................ 4
Hull......................................... 1
Kent......................................... 6
Lancashire............................... 9
Leeds/W Yorks........................ 16
Leicester.................................. 8
Manchester.............................. 83
Merseyside.............................. 8
North London.......................... 32
North West London................. 12
Nottingham............................. 6
Portsmouth.............................. 4
Rest of Scotland...................... 10
Sheffield.................................. 28
South East London.................. 22
South London.......................... 21
Southampton........................... 3
Swansea................................... 4
Thames Valley......................... 8
Tyneside.................................. 13
Waltham Forest....................... 21
West London........................... 25
22
Recruitment is a matter for
the whole party
There are objective factors that shape the
possibilities for recruitment. The level
of struggle has been generally low in
2013, although there have been important moments of serious resistance. The
demo in Manchester was excellent, but it
was much smaller than the previous TUC
demos in 2011 and 2012.
However, the level of recruitment is
not just an objective question. It matters
whether there is a culture of recruitment
in branches and districts.
Looking at the figures above, Manchester stands out from every other district.
There is a serious culture of recruiting in
the district which means that on every sale
and on every activity comrades expect to
meet people who could join and argue
with them to join. We could all learn from
their experiences.
Too often recruitment is left to
“experts” or “specialists”. We all have
to get used to asking people to join and
working to encourage people to join,
answering their questions, suggesting
reading and so on.
We want every comrade to be a leader
at work, university, college, school or in
their campaign organisation or community. That means talking to people, selling
Socialist Worker, encouraging activity,
asking people to meetings and trying to
recruit to the party.
We are for “open recruitment”, spreading the net wide, while also tightening up
targeted recruitment.
It’s not guaranteed that someone who
joins on an anti-EDL demo because
they hate fascism and like our approach
to fighting it automatically becomes an
established cadre.
It’s a battle to win them fully, and
sometimes we are successful and sometimes we are not. But if we hold a good
number of those we recruit in this way
it’s worth it.
We are proud of being fighters, we welcome those who want to be part of that.
We don’t write them off because we
discover they don’t have our entire world
view immediately. Other people like our
theory and our ideas.
They might not be so keen on our
active engagement in the world. Again
we welcome such people joining and seek
to win them.
When they sign a form they are presenting an opportunity, a chance for us to
persuade them.
Equally we need much more targeted
recruitment where we have a long-term
relationship with people and win them
over time.
Socialist Worker plays a key role in
this. Those we sell to regularly are those
who are most likely to join and stay
members.
Retention of members
– branch meetings, public
meetings and rallies
Everyone who says they want to be a member is important to us and we have to work
hard to make then feel part of our organisation, to take part in its activities and the
broader class resistance, to learn our full
politics, to find ways to bring their energy
and strengths into the party, and to take part
in its democracy. This is a big task.
Branch meetings are a crucial part of
this. Many of the issues that emerge at
present are quite complex and the party
takes a position that is not shared by wide
swathes of the left.
Think of Syria where we are against
imperialist intervention, for revolution
against Assad. Think of Scottish independence where we are for independence,
against nationalism. Think of the People’s
Assembly where we are for energetically
building the assemblies, against the politics
of section of their leadership.
All of these require serious and sustained
discussion so that comrades understand
our position and feel confident to argue
it. Branch meetings play an important role
in this. We should make sure there are
regular ring-rounds of members (not just
texts or emails) for branch meetings, we
should have leaflets on sales and at all our
activities.
The branches are organising centres for
the fightback, and they should meet each
week.
Our meetings should continue to have
a first half which deals in a relevant way
with the major political issues of the day or
an aspect of our theoretical tradition. It is
perfectly possible to blend history, theory
and today’s politics in a powerful way.
We also need regular public meetings and
rallies which can draw in non-members
A public meeting is not a branch meeting without a second half, a rally is not
a public meeting with some posters. We
should produce good publicity a month
before a public meeting and draw up serious plans about who we want to get there.
We want rallies to be our flagship events
in the area, and a big pull for the whole
of the left, campaigners etc. This means
long-term planning and rigorous attention
to detail.
We want our regular attenders there,
new people, and those who have perhaps
taken a backseat recently but are enthused
by new struggles.
Building the meeting should involve
both mass publicity and posters so that no
one can miss the fact this meeting is taking place in your town plus an attention to
detail around who we can bring from the
periphery of your branch. And we want a
serious attitude towards recruiting people.
This has to be thought through in advance
and particular people assigned to prioritise
recruitment above everything else.
This autumn we are holding a series of
rallies on Racism, Resistance and Revolution. These are based around the excellent
new book Say It Loud. They involve leading SWP members who contributed to the
book but also high-profile campaigners
against racism and injustice such as Janet
Alder and Carol Duggan. These are models
of what we want for our rallies.
Socialist Worker
Socialist Worker is central to our political engagement and intervention. We need
to make a serious push around it. In the
new year we will be asking every branch
to do a stocktake of where it sells and what
chances there are for new sales. We want
every member to ask themselves how they
can sell one or two more papers a week.
Public sales on streets and outside workplaces are very important. But we also want
our members to be selling the paper in their
workplace. Each branch must use the paper
to build up a periphery of people they relate
to in their local area and we need to ensure
that every member of the SWP has copies
of SW to sell. We want to use SW to help
root us more deeply in the working class.
Selling Socialist Worker can help locate
the best militants, those people who want
to fight and are most sympathetic to our
arguments. Reading Socialist Worker regularly can help draw many more people into
a closer relationship with the SWP.
Of course, the role of the internet has
massively increased. The key thing is that
it doesn’t negate the need for a physical
paper that can be taken and sold not only
on demonstrations and public sales but by
all our members individually.
The paper brings issues physically
together, links organising to analysis,
history to the present day and identifies
militants both when they buy and sell it.
Socialist education
Nobody joins the party with a fullyfledged understanding of every aspect of
the revolutionary Marxist views we hold.
So we have to make sure that our meetings
equip members with the arguments they
need and introduce them to our tradition.
We have to encourage every member
to read both the classics and new books.
We have to provide space for comrades
to discuss and debate and ask questions,
both in formal meetings and in less formal
settings such as after a sale or a demo or
over a cup of coffee.
Systematic educational work is an
important aspect of our efforts to retain
and develop members.
The current period is clearly one of
intense ideological debate. In this context
it is important that all our members feel
confident in fighting for our ideas.
Over the past two years, we have
sought to encourage branches to organise
educational meetings. These can help to
cement our relationship with newer mem-
23
bers, develop comrades’ grasp of Marxist
theory and explore issues in greater depth
than is possible in a branch meeting.
Our basic “Education for Socialists” course, consists of eight meetings,
supported by short pamphlets on introductory topics. We have now added a brief
“Revolutionary Classics” course, featuring four short works: Marx and Engels’s
Communist Manifesto, Engels’s Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Luxemburg’s
Reform or Revolution, and Trotsky’s Lessons of October.
Of course, districts vary in their composition, the experience of members, the
level of recruitment, etc. Careful thought
needs to be given to the kind of educational work appropriate in a particular
context. The national office is happy to
discuss different types of educational
meeting, ranging from day schools and
one-off meetings, through to courses. We
can also help with material and speakers. Every district should have a comrade
in charge of educational work. A wellstocked district bookstall, with the classic
works and the latest publications is also
essential.
To help with educational work, we
have created two dedicated pages on the
SWP website. The first www.swp.org.
uk/education contains downloadable versions of all our educational pamphlets and
a brief guide to organising an educational
course.
The second www.swp.org.uk/theory
contains links to a huge (and growing)
number of books and articles on different
areas of our theory. These have proved
very popular and we know of a number of
cases where comrades have been recruited
to the party through reading this material
and then come to a meeting to join up.
There is a postcard available with details
of the websites.
Marxism 2013
Marxism 2013 faced the formidable challenge of an organised boycott campaign
which pressured speakers to stay away and
encouraged people not to attend the event.
Regrettably this had an effect in a smaller
attendance than last year.
Those who encouraged a boycott might
reflect that their actions were a setback for
the whole socialist left, not just the SWP.
Nevertheless, Marxism 2013 was a real
success with over 3,000 attending. More
than 1,000 non members came, and over
1,000 students.
We involved some important figures on
the left both in Britain and revolutionaries
from around the world at the event. Marxism demonstrated that there is a real thirst
for explanations of the world and organisation to change it. The event was also an
important opportunity to begin drawing
out the political differences inside the SWP
and the wider left.
Who is a member?
The document from Leeds in IB1 tells us
“Leeds District began 2013 with 201 registered members in the five branches. As
a result of systematic contacting we currently have 73 plus 12-15 who are likely to
reregister making a max of about 88.” The
author therefore tell us that the district’s
efforts have managed to strip more than
half the membership off the lists. We don’t
believe this is a valid approach.
It’s a problem if comrades risk removing
from our lists people who consider themselves members or might still be interested
in the party.
Some comrades think the only real
members are those who pay subs. Of
course we do want to have a serious effort
to get everyone to pay something. Money
is a political marker of identification with
our organisation - and without it we could
do very little. There are always a number
of delegates to conference who arrive not
paying subs. Certainly it’s a contradiction
that people believe they can vote on the
direction of the party but not give it any
money. We should ask (in a comradely and
calm way) that every comrade pays subs
and explain its political importance. It is a
problem that only a third of our membership has a direct debit, and one that has
existed for a while. One of the pulls on
the left at the moment is the idea that parties, particularly revolutionary parties, are
outdated. That is a political argument we
have to win, and persuading someone to
give money regularly is one sign we have
done it.
Much less revolutionary parties than the
SWP expect people to pay subs. The Parti
de Gauche (part of the Front de Gauche) in
France would demand that someone who
earns £15,000 a year pays £10 a month.
The French Communist Party would
expect them to pay £12.50 a month. Even
the British Labour Party expects someone
on £15,000 to pay £5 a month. Our subs
are more than this – we are a revolutionary
organisation which expects commitment.
But everyone can pay something.
However, we still need to recognise
that there are people who, for one reason
or another, don’t pay money but still see
themselves as revolutionary socialists and
identify with the SWP. Some people are
pushed to the edge financially and stop paying. And there are people who for a whole
host of reasons in their personal and work
lives may be very active at one point, less
active for a while, but then return because
they are enraged at the fascist threat, or
Cameron’s attacks, or Miliband’s vacillations. Or they may be inspired by a student
revolt or a revolution in the Middle East or
because they see the party play a particularly good role.
There are other people who rarely if ever
come to a branch meeting but who argue
our politics at work or in the community,
read our publications, and see themselves
as members. We should not write off such
people. They might change their phone or
address and (incredibly!) they fail to notify
the SWP national office. We lose touch
with them for a while. Should we wipe
them from our records?
All of this underlines the great importance of following up people as soon as
they join, meeting them and then continuing to talk to them, phone them and involve
them. Part of our problem is that we haven’t
always done this systematically.
Of course if there are people on your
branch list who have made it clear they
do not want to be a member, than tell the
national office and we will remove them.
We are also planning a serious effort
in the new year to hold a proper re-registration which seeks to increase comrades’
confidence in the branch lists. This will not
be “dividing the sheep from the goats” and
striking out those who don’t make some
supposed standard of activity. We want to
use it to explain and win people to the perspectives agreed at conference, to increase
participation in the party and have more
people on subs and selling the paper.
We want seriously to make efforts to
contact all our members, to involve them
more fully, and to make branch lists fit
reality.
Debate in the party
Let’s begin with what should be an obvious
point. Debate inside the party should be
political, not personally abusive. It should
not include slurs or personal comments.
Comrades should respect each other and
not damage the party’s reputation.
It is amazing that people who at a meeting will have a reasoned debate then go on
Facebook and deliver a river of bitter hate
towards one another, the party, its members
and its leadership. This has to stop.
We believe that the main forms of debate
in the party should be at our meetings, our
publications, our national committee and
party councils, our internal bulletins and
conference. But the internet has opened up
new possibilities for serious debate.
This year we have had several articles
on the International Socialism website that
are extensions to, or replies to, articles in
the print edition. We believe there should
be an enhanced ability to debate online and
will present detailed proposals in the next
IB.
Moving forward
December’s conference will bring to an
end a particular type of arguments. Of
course political discussion and debate will
continue, but the bitter, formalised and
factional nature of them cannot. The party
has a very important role in looking outwards, being part of the fight to strengthen
resistance, and building revolutionary
socialist organisation at the heart of every
campaign.
24
Mistakes? We’ve
made a few – but
then again too
few to mention
Ian (Enfield)
Around a hundred party members, many
of them prominent, have signed the “Statement for Our Revolutionary Party” (IB 1),
which tells us that “we have maximum
discussion, then we make a decision, sometimes with a vote, and finally we unite in
action.”
This particular point was made to me
repeatedly during the period before the
Special Conference. Indeed, younger comrades gazed at my wizened features in
apparent disbelief that one so old could not
understand something so simple.
In fact I accept the principle as far as
it goes. I don’t even think it is particularly “Leninist” – it’s common sense. You
couldn’t run an allotment, let alone a revolutionary party, without some recognition
of the need to accept and act on agreed
positions.
But if I accept it as far as it goes, the
problem is that it doesn’t go very far. It
leaves a lot of questions unanswered. In
particular, the question of what we do when
it is clear that we have made a mistake.
Everyone agrees that both the CC and the
membership are fallible and sometimes
make mistakes. So what do we do about
it?
In fact a simple debate-vote-act model
will not do. In real life there are many other
factors, notably the timescale.
On a demonstration we may have to
decide whether to confront the police or
back off. The appointed stewards have to
decide in a matter of seconds and everyone
must follow – for half to advance and half
retreat would be a total disaster. Any analysis comes after the event.
In other cases there is no such urgency.
With the Respect operation it probably
needed at least two years to see if the strategy was working. It needed unanimous
support – unless we put all our energies into the project, we couldn’t be sure
whether it was viable. But at the same time
we needed constant discussion, monitoring
and evaluation.
And there are rare occasions when the
mistake is so grievous that it has to be
challenged, whatever the formal constitutional position. Presumably nobody thinks
Tony Cliff and his comrades should have
accepted the majority vote in the Club
(Fourth International) and agreed to support North Korea in 1950 (if he had our
organisation would not exist). Or that Communist Party members in 1956-57 should
have accepted the majority vote and supported the Russian tanks in Budapest.
If we’re on the wrong road and are driv-
ing into a swamp, the first priority is to
change direction, whatever previous votes
have been taken. To reject that is formalism
of the worst sort.
It is bourgeois politicians who refuse to
change their minds or admit mistakes. We
remember “the lady’s not for turning”. They
are scared that any turn or apology will
damage their image and their career. Revolutionaries are not afraid to look reality in
the face. “Only the truth is revolutionary,”
as Marx is reputed to have said.
At the start of both the 1984 miners’
strike and the campaign against the Poll Tax
we took positions which were, if not incorrect, veering towards abstract propaganda.
After the failure of the Orgreave picket the
strike was forced onto the defensive; when
it became clear that local government workers would not refuse to implement the Poll
Tax, the campaign shifted to non-payment.
In both cases we had to shift our position
sharply. Fortunately we then had a leadership that was both flexible and confident
enough to make the turns.
In 1978, at the time of the second ANL
Carnival, the National Front called a
demonstration in Brick Lane on the same
day. The CC quite correctly decided not
to cancel the Carnival – that would have
given the NF a power of veto over all such
events. But the CC was culpable in failing to ensure that enough comrades were
sent to Brick Lane. The next week Socialist
Worker carried a front-page apology signed
by Tony Cliff personally. Such an apology didn’t weaken Cliff’s standing in the
party – it strengthened it because comrades
appreciated his honesty and willingness to
learn from mistakes.
Democracy in a revolutionary party is
not a matter of formal “rights”; it is a question of responsibility. Every member of the
party has an imperative duty to prevent the
party taking a course which may damage it
irreparably.
Alex Callinicos stresses that “a strong
political leadership, directly accountable
to the annual conference, campaigns within
the organisation to give a clear direction to
our party’s work”. But leadership is also
about learning from the membership, and,
through the membership, from the class.
As Cliff used to say, the more members
we have in the party, the more ears to the
ground we have.
When the pit closures were announced
in 1992 the SWP raised the demand for a
general strike. At first sight this seemed to
contradict the way we had always rejected
such a slogan as ultra-left. But, for a couple of weeks at least, it fitted the mood in
workplaces and union branches up and
down the country. Paper sales and recruitment showed we were swimming with the
stream.
How did we get it right? Not because
the CC were studying the Financial Times.
But because the centre was constantly on
the phone to organisers and key activists
throughout the country. The leadership
learned from the membership.
Everyone should read Tony Cliff’s article “The balance of class forces in recent
years” at http://www.marxists.org/archive/
cliff/works/1979/xx/balance1.htm.
Cliff was telling the membership a
bleak and unpopular truth – that there was
a “downturn” in struggle, and that many of
the hopes we had nourished during the seventies were doomed to disappointment. But
also note his method – to quote extensively
from the experience of industrial militants.
Cliff’s greatness was not that he was a
clever fellow or a good writer, but that he
knew how to learn from the membership.
The present leadership seem to have
a rather different attitude. It is indisputable that we have been through a very bad
year (by far the worst I remember in fifty
years’ membership). But Party Notes gives
us only good news, and doesn’t mention
the setbacks. Small wonder that many
comrades, doubtless often wrongly, are
sceptical about the achievements that are
reported.
Or again, there is the failure to give us
honest membership figures (even when
conference delegacies are based on them).
The leadership seems to think we are such
sensitive souls that we shall be distressed
to learn that the membership is nothing like
the ten thousand we claimed some years
back. (When I joined we had 106 members,
and I should not be unduly demoralised to
learn that the real figure is 1500 or less.)
In fact the CC’s attitude to the membership is profoundly insulting. I wonder what
new members think when they discover
how the CC is “protecting” them from the
truth. The CC seems not only unwilling to
learn from the membership, but to positively distrust us.
Over the past year we’ve lost around 500
members, seen our student work largely
collapse, had a Marxism little over half
the size of 2012, and lost the support of
much of our periphery. The CC has at best
tolerated, and at worst encouraged, a situation of near civil war in some branches,
where good activists are insulted and marginalised. And it isn’t over yet – without a
genuine change of course we risk losing
many more comrades.
One of the most fundamental principles
of democratic centralism is that the leadership are accountable to the membership.
Yet after this disastrous year all eleven CC
members are putting themselves forward
for re-election. (Even the England cricket
team makes one or two changes after a particularly humiliating defeat.) And though it
is widely rumoured that the CC is deeply
divided, the membership have no information to enable them to decide who should
be in the new leadership.
Apart from Alex Callinicos all the existing CC are comrades who have spent most
of their political lives as full-timers. (And
of the four proposed additions, all are or
have been full‑timers.)
Now I’ve known a lot of full-timers over
25
the years. They are dedicated comrades
who work very hard for far less money that
they could earn in other jobs. They are in
no sense a bureaucracy.
Yet it is true that those whose political
experience has been very largely inside the
apparatus will tend to put loyalty to the
organisation as such rather higher than the
rest of us might. In a crisis like the present
one, this can be a real problem.
Moreover the role of the working class
and workplace organisation is at the very
centre of our politics. But on the present
CC not a single member has any significant
experience of workplace organisation. Two
of the newcomers are experienced trade
unionists – a start, but a very small one.
Finally, how should the debate be conducted? A lot of people have expressed
hostility to “permanent factions”. I can only
agree with them. I believe that factional
organisation tends to polarise discussion,
and make the exchange of ideas more difficult. Factions are a last resort, only to be
used in exceptional circumstances. But
anyone who thinks the present situation is
not wholly exceptional must have been, to
adapt a comment of Julie Waterson’s, living in a supermarket freezer cabinet.
The experience of the Special Conference suggests that some comrades think it
is enough to win the vote and then stamp
their feet. If they do, they may find that
some comrades will vote with their feet.
Why I joined
the SWP –
new members
speak out
Aiden, David, Cam, Laura, Claire, Sophie,
Honor, Claire, Yasmin, Laila, Saira, and
Mark (Manchester)
After Marxism 2013 comrades in the
Manchester District met and agreed on a
political perspective, we elected a leadership to fight for it.
Our agreed political priorities were:
A. Mass mobilisation for 29th September
March on the Tories
B. Re-building at the University and
amongst students
C. Building the Party
Central to building the Party has been the
development and application of a recruitment strategy. On the paper sales and as
part of our interventions, where we take
a lead in the struggle we ask individuals
– Would you like to join the SWP?
A team of comrades, with support from
the national membership office, have been
pushing the recruitment culture in the
District. It is developing and has been successful. One problem is following up on
everyone who signs up or leaves details.
Every week This year new members have
been recruited to the Socialist Workers
Party across Greater Manchester.
In this contribution members who have
joined this year will speak out in their own
words about where they first came across
SWP, what led them to join the Party and
become active, and what the Party should
be doing. All contributors are leading in the
class and in the Party and all are involved
in selling Socialist Worker.
…………………………..........................
“I work shifts in a warehouse in Trafford
Park. In Levenshulme where I live, the
campaign to save my local swimming baths
took off. I was involved from the start. I
left the Labour Party behind and joined
the SWP because they had the sharpest
arguments, were always concrete, showed
leadership in the struggle, and put the hardest argument to the Council. As a party
member I have helped lead occupations,
marches and paper sales. I am involved
with UAF and UTR, and in Wigan I was
arrested on the 3am picket - the Bakers
Union executive paid my fine.
At the moment I am reading the Say It
Loud! book ahead of our District Rally”.
…………………………..........................
“I met the comrades at one of the Bedroom Tax protests. SWP members there
were encouraging people to speak out. I got
more active against the Bedroom Tax, and
rejoined the Party. (I had left earlier in the
year) For me the most important thing is to
build the struggle and the Party. I am now
part of a team of comrades building around
the University and amongst students. I am
currently reading a book on Malcolm X”.
…………………………..........................
“I searched the internet to find out where
the SWP met in Manchester and went to the
Chorlton Branch meeting. They were talking about class and revolution. It was the
first time I had heard these arguments put.
“I joined. Now I am district paper organiser. What I most like about the SWP is that
if they say it - then they do it. We are not
flakey. It’s about conviction and consistency. I have just finished reading Party and
Class”.
…………………………..........................
“I always saw the SW stalls on Market St, I
am aware of the history of the SWP which
goes back years. I went to the Manchester
People’s Assembly and I left my details
with everyone. It was an SWP member who
called me back. I wanted to get active - and
not just post on the Internet – I wanted to
be part of a left wing party that is on the
streets. I joined.
“Socialism is a magnet for me. It’s not
an academic thing. There are so many
books to read. Its The Ragged Trousered
Philanthropist at the moment”.
…………………………..........................
“After I split from my ‘banker boyfriend’
the first thing I did was sign up to go to
Marxism 2013. I always knew I was a
socialist and being a scientist I wanted to
be in a party that was active and doing
things. As soon as I joined the SWP there
was activity every week.
“Working in the NHS I am very anti
privatisation. On immigration I have found
people in the Party I agree with, we have
discussions and develop ideas. I like the
intellectual side of it all. At the moment I
am reading a book by Eric Hobsbawm”.
…………………………..........................
“I am a new member and joined in August
2013, but why did I join? I have always
been interested in politics and always felt
that I could not support a mainstream party
as my politics were too left. I then started
talking to some friends, who are now my
comrades, about various aspects of the
party, and was convinced this was the party
for me! I attended my first branch meeting,
and immediately felt relaxed, comfortable
and very welcome. I only regret I did not
join sooner.
“What I like about SWP, is that there
is no power struggle, everything is based
on centralised democracy, whilst other
comrades may have more knowledge and
experience in protesting etc, I have never
been made to feel insignificant. Future of
SWP? I would like the see the unity of all
comrades, and for the party to have more
members. We need a revolution!”
…………………………..........................
“I have been very active over the Bedroom
Tax. I recently spoke at a DCH meeting in
Brighton, after a Labour MP had spoken. I
had to put him right about a few things.
“But it’s not just the Bedroom Tax. I go
on the anti-racist and anti-Nazi protests,
and before that it was the anti-war marches.
When I was working at CAB and also a
school governor I actively campaigned
against homophobia and for inclusivity of
people with HIV status.
“We can’t get rid of the Tory Coalition
without a struggle. But the Labour Party
can’t do it. We are the moral voice of the
Left. We are at the forefront of all the struggles - we connect to them. Not like Labour
who distance themselves from it all. I
gravitated towards the SWP because that
is where the debates are taking place. And
what really matters is what gets done.”
…………………………..........................
“I rejoined the SWP at an anti-EDL protest
in March this year. I have lived in multicultural Manchester for 22 years. My partner
is Asian and it has never been more important to actively challenge the racist politics
of despair, not only for my family and our
city, but for all of us.
“The organisation at the heart of organising against racism and fascism is the SWP.
I joined the SWP because I was asked. This
is only part of the reason I rejoined. I have
always been a unison steward and the need
to get organised at work is key to fighting
austerity. I am a social worker in a mental
health team and we are facing relentless
26
cuts to staff and services. This can feel
overwhelming at times.
“Since rejoining the SWP, I have begun
to feel more confident in organising at
work. Our members have whistleblown
about a number of key services both in the
Local Authority and at the local hospital.
We have recently stopped the plan for zero
hours contracts for front line emergency
social workers and have had success in
fighting for increased staffing in a number
of services. All our union meetings are now
coordinated with the health steward so we
can maximise solidarity and more effectively resist.
“Our branch and the local trades council
has supported the local anti-bedroom tax
campaign. Getting members on our lobby
of the Council and local demo against the
bedroom tax has helped people link the
union to campaigns and believe that resistance works. One member came with me
to the Hovis solidarity picket at 2am. We
came into work buzzing and everyone
heard about what had happened in stopping the vans going out.
“I can’t believe how many union meetings we have had in the last months. Even
our team meetings have become like union
meetings organising for the 30th September demo and arguing that management
should be cut – not us, or our services!
“Two members leafleted with me for
the Unite Resistance post demo rally on
29th, and then came along with the health
steward to the rally. They loved it and now
I sell three papers at work. The paper has
been a really useful tool to show people
what is possible. The fantastic walkout of
the Glasgow social workers has been the
talking point of our office. If they can do it
why can’t we? Because of the fact that the
SWP links politics with action and because
this has results like the Hovis workers,
this feeling of resistance is concrete and
really anything is possible with solidarity
and coordinated strike action. Let’s make
it happen!”
…………………………..........................
“It was at Marxism 2013 that I first met
SWP members. I met lots of people all committed for change. I joined. Although I do a
lot of small things helping people, I wanted
to part of making a wider change, a change
driven from the bottom up. I wanted to be
active, to be part of making a better society.
The SWP is important to me as I want to be
part of a party that is unified. But I don’t
want that unity to compromise my integrity. The central issue for us all now is to
get rid of this ConDem government!”
…………………………..........................
“I have become much politically more
active this year. I am on the membership
team for the District. For me Woolwich
was the turning point for the SWP. After
that, the Party clearly took the fight against
racism much more seriously. But racism
was always there. The bedrock for the
Party is our political theory on imperialism, capitalism, and oppression.
“Recently, one SW reader I spoke to
said that it was an honour to have been
asked to join the SWP. He said that the only
reason he had not joined yet was that he
sees it as being a real commitment, one
that he cannot give at the moment, but he’s
thinking about it. There are lots more people like him. People are looking for a Party
to join.”
Rebuilding the
Party faction
Multiple authors (see below for full list)
Dear comrades,
The party’s pre-conference period has now
opened, and the comrades named at the bottom of the following statement have decided
to form a faction.
We’ve taken this step because we feel it is
vital for the long-term interests of the party.
The statement below sets out our reasons in
more detail. We hope all comrades will read
it carefully – and we invite all those who
share our concerns to join us.
If you wish to join the Rebuilding The
Party faction, just send an email to [email protected] including your
full name and SWP branch.
Over the next three months we hope to
engage in genuine and comradely debate
with all members of the party. We have
asked for a meeting with the Central Committee to agree details of how this debate
will be conducted, and the CC has agreed
to meet us.
Over the next few weeks we’ll be organising a series of open meetings around the
country to explain our position and debate
the issues facing our party. We urge all
members to come to these, whether they are
sympathetic to our arguments or otherwise.
We are also holding a national faction
caucus in London on Saturday 26 October.
We invite all faction members and sympathisers to come along to that caucus and hear
what we have to say. We will also be sending
speakers to all pre-conference aggregates.
The comrades who have signed this
document are dedicated to finding a principled resolution to the problems our party has
faced. We invite you to join us in that fight.
In Solidarity
Rebuilding The Party
Rebuilding the Party faction
statement
SWP Pre-Conference Period, 2013
The SWP is going through the most serious crisis in its history. Comrades across
the party now need to unite to ensure its
recovery, whatever side they took over
recent months. We need to ensure that all
the issues surrounding the dispute are fully
resolved and that political solutions are
found to address the roots of the crisis. The
party has already lost over 400 members,
including most of our students. If we want
to avoid further losses, and the risk of marginalisation and isolation within the wider
movement, we can’t simply carry on as
we are.
We have been through a period of
intense debate in the party. The leadership’s
approach to political argument has been
largely responsible for the damage caused:
they sought to suppress information and
debate; comrades have been misled; differences within the leadership have been
hidden from the membership; the scale of
the crisis has been consistently underestimated. Progress has been made, but only
after intense pressure was applied on the
leadership.
These flaws are the same ones that characterised the last major crisis faced by the
party, around Respect. Although they were
widely acknowledged in the party at the
time, they were only partially dealt with
by the Democracy Commission and many
of its recommendations have not been
implemented. Alongside resolution of the
immediate issues around the disputes, a
political reckoning is required if we are
to learn lessons from what we have been
through. We need a leadership that enables the whole party to learn from mistakes
and move on, which means being able to
openly and politically explain changes in
position.
It is up to all SWP members to ensure
that both the immediate issues and the roots
of the crisis are addressed within the party.
Some basic necessities need to be swiftly
dealt with around the dispute. The disputes
commission report, whose findings are due
to be refined and developed during the preconference period, could provide a basis to
move forward. Full resolution of the issues
arising from the dispute, however, will
require some political steps to be taken by
the leadership:
1. A public acknowledgment of the specific nature of the mistakes that occurred.
2. An apology to the two complainants
for the negative consequences they have
suffered as a result of their treatment.
3. Revision of Disputes Procedures to
make them “fit for purpose”, as called for
by the report on the second case.
We also need to make strenuous efforts
to address the failures to apply our principles and regain confidence in our ability
to act as a tribune of the oppressed. This
should include a period of debate about
how we equip the party, in theory and practice, to lead and intervene effectively on
questions of women’s oppression.
Some comrades have echoed right-wing
sexist arguments, such as that women frequently make false rape allegations or that
if a woman doesn’t report a rape immediately this indicates that they are lying. The
27
party needs to assert in practice its commitment to zero tolerance of sexist comments
and behaviour.
We need to face up to how we got here
and address long term flaws in the party’s
internal functioning and its relationship to
the wider movement. Otherwise the party
will not recover from this latest in a series
of crises and splits.
These questions are fundamental to the
party’s ability not just to speak to those
beyond its ranks, but to listen to them. This
interaction allows the party to locate its
day-to-day activities within a wider strategic framework, giving members and
non-members clear political perspectives.
Full participation of comrades in debate,
and the involvement of the wider movement, will help strengthen the party’s
theory and practice, allow us to intervene
more effectively, to learn from the movement, help shape it, and attract the best
fighters. As part of this process a campaign
should be launched to win back those comrades who have left the organisation over
the dispute.
We need to address both immediate
questions and the accumulated longer
term internal problems that have contributed to this latest crisis. The following
proposals will not provide a complete
solution but they are essential if we are to
achieve a wider process of renewal in the
organisation:
1. The CC’s role in the crisis needs to
be addressed if the party as a whole is to
hold it to account. It is impossible for the
organisation to make an informed decision
about the membership of the CC when
serious divisions are withheld from the
membership – these divisions must be laid
out before the party. The composition of
our leading bodies (CC, NC, DC) needs
to reflect the fact that the political lessons
of the past year have been learnt. This will
require electing new ones mainly comprising comrades willing to recognise the
mistakes made and work to correct them,
and removing those members who have
acted to frustrate and obstruct a satisfactory
resolution to the disputes processes.
2. The relationship of the membership
to the branches, fractions and elected bodies of the party needs to be reviewed. This
should include:
• A concerted campaign to rebuild and
regenerate the branches
• The strengthening of the party
structures to play a meaningful role in
developing and debating perspectives and
holding the CC to account
• Strengthen our fractions for united
front, trade union and student work, ensuring consistency, transparency, reporting
and accountability to elected bodies of the
party
3. Proper and open debate needs to be
facilitated on key questions in line with
decisions taken at the special conference.
The party website should be opened up
to contributions on these questions. Deci-
sions of previous conferences need to be
implemented, including those providing for
debates to be carried in SW and our other
publications.
4. Proper accounting of where we are as
an organisation, including regular reporting of membership figures (recruitment,
resignations and subs base) and publication
sales figures to the party.
5. Acknowledging the damage done
to our student work and ensuring that the
party as a whole acts to repair this damage,
working with our remaining students to reestablish the SWP’s political relationships
on campus.
6. For these debates to take place there
must be a commitment from the CC that
faction speaking rights and the election
of delegates to conference will maximise debate and reflect the real differences
that exist within the party. It must intervene to prevent the ostracism in certain
districts and branches of comrades who
have been critical of the party’s handling
of the dispute.
Such preoccupations are not the preserve of any one grouping within the party.
But since it looks unlikely that the CC
intends to provide adequate leadership on
these issues, it is now up to all comrades
who want to find a way out of the crisis and
begin to repair the damage to the party, to
come together and assert a way forward.
SWP Members who support this statement and wish to join the faction should
email their name, branch & district, and
contact details (email, phone) to:
[email protected]
Signatories:
Adam D (Hackney East)
Adam L (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Adrià C (Colchester)
Al M (East Lancs)
Alan P (Canterbury)
Alan R (Dundee)
Alberto T (Islington)
Alexis W, Ali S & Alice B (Euston)
Amy G & Andrew O (Cambridge)
Andrew N (Chelmsford)
Andy C (Manchester City Centre)
Andy N (Stirchley, )
Andy S (Hackney Dalston)
Andy W (Leicester)
Angela S (Hackney Dalston)
Anindya B (Tower Hamlets)
Anne P (Edinburgh)
Anne S (Bury & Prestwich)
Arjun M & Arnie J (Brixton)
Arthur G (Canterbury)
Ayshe A (Thanet)
Bartley W (Chorlton)
Bea L (Norwich)
Becky B (Southwark)
Becky G (Portsmouth)
Bel D (Euston)
Ben S (Brighton & Hove)
Bettina T (Hackney East)
Bill C (Euston)
Brian P (Harehills & Chapeltown)
Bunny L (Canterbury)
Camilo A (Glasgow South)
Carol W (Taunton)
Cathy P (Oxford)
Charlie H (Hackney East)
Charlotte S (Lewisham)
Chaz S (Walthamstow)
Chris T (Leicester)
Christian C (Euston)
Christina D (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Christine B (Glasgow South)
Christine V (Manchester City Centre)
Clinton F (Kingston)
Colin B (Chorlton, Manchester)
Colin F (Lewisham)
Colin M (Thanet)
Colin W (Hackney Dalston)
Craig P (Brixton)
Cris J (Thanet)
Dan J (Manchester)
Dan S (Norwich)
Darren P (Southwark)
Dave P (Newham)
Dave R (Oxford)
Dave R (Brixton)
Dave R (Leicester)
David A (Brent & Harrow)
David H (Euston)
David H (Kings Heath, )
David R (Swansea)
David R (Euston)
Deborah M (Hackney East)
Debs G (Liverpool)
Deni K (Swansea)
Despina M (Hackney East)
Dod F (Aberdeen)
Dominic W (Liverpool)
Drew M (Glasgow South)
Duncan S (Edinburgh)
Elizabeth D (Harehills & Chapeltown)
Emily M (Colchester)
Emma C (Rusholme)
Emma C (Southwark)
Enric R (Euston)
Eric B (Bolton)
Estelle C (Brixton)
Ewa B (Chorlton)
Ewan N (Kingston)
Fergus A (Hackney East)
Frank S (Norwich)
Fraser A (Brixton)
Fraser R (Thanet)
Gareth J (Cardiff)
Geoff B (Canterbury)
Geoff B (Bury & Prestwich)
Gill G (Hackney East)
Graham C (Glasgow North)
Greg P (Lewisham)
Hanif L (Liverpool)
Hannah D (Euston)
Hazel S (Ealing)
Helios A (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Ian A (Bury & Prestwich)
Ian B (Tottenham)
Ian C (Lewisham)
Ian D (Walthamstow)
Ian H (Edinburgh)
Ian S (Ealing)
Ian W (Edinburgh)
Imelda M (Hackney East)
Imogen C (Brixton)
Ioanna I (Ealing)
Iris C (Euston)
28
Isabel H (Bury & Prestwich)
Jack F (Wandsworth & Merton)
Jacqui F (Walthamstow)
James B (Leytonstone)
James K (Newham)
Jamie A (Cambridge)
Jamie D (Lewisham)
Jamie W (South East London )
Jane D (Bury & Prestwich)
Jaz B (Brixton)
Jelena T (Brighton & Hove)
Jen S (Glasgow South)
Jen W (Tower Hamlets)
Jim W (Euston)
Joel D (Euston)
John O (Handsworth)
John R (Taunton)
John W (Oxford)
Jon F (Thanet)
Jonas L (Tower Hamlets)
Jonathan D (Lewisham)
Jonathan N (Oxford)
Jonny J (Tower Hamlets)
Jonny P (Newcastle)
Jordan M (Hull)
Judith S (Oldham)
Judy P (Bury & Prestwich)
Jules B (Walthamstow)
Julian V (Lewisham)
Justin C (Kingston)
Kaiya S (Cambridge)
Kath K (Stirchley, )
Keith C (Burnley)
Keith M (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Keith P (Aberdeen)
Kevin F (Leicester)
Kier R (Oxford)
Kim G (Birmingham)
Kirsti T (Lewisham)
Kyri T (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Laura J (Walthamstow)
Laura N (Lewisham)
Leo Z (Lewisham)
Leon B (Cambridge)
Lesley F (Luton)
Liam T (Thanet)
Lis L (Walthamstow)
Lois C (Brixton)
Louis B (Islington)
Lukas K (Euston)
Luke E (Lewisham)
Luke S (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Marie C (Thanet)
Marilyn T (Edinburgh)
Mark B (Tower Hamlets)
Mark W (Southwark)
Martha J (Lewisham)
Mary L (Norwich)
Matt C (Lewisham)
Matt G (Walthamstow)
Matt G (Euston)
Matt W (Euston)
Matthew C (Hackney Dalston)
Megan T (Walthamstow)
Michael F (Brighton & Hove)
Michael H (Telford)
Michael M (Chorlton)
Michal N (Bristol North)
Mike G (Glasgow South)
Mike T (Leicester)
Mike W (Bristol North)
Mikhil K (Bury & Prestwich)
Mireia C (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Miriyam A (Oxford)
Mitch M (Cambridge)
Mona D (Walthamstow)
Naina K (Hackney Dalston)
Nancy L (Oxford)
Nanda P (Leytonstone)
Nathan B (Medway)
Neil D (Edinburgh)
Neil R (Kingston)
Nicholas J (Brixton)
Nick B (Stirchley)
Nick C (Fife)
Nick E (Oxford)
Nigel D (Hackney Dalston)
Norman M (Wandsworth & Merton)
Oliver L & Ollie V (Colchester)
Owen H (Cambridge)
Owen M (Southwark)
Pat S (Euston)
Patrick N (Hull)
Patrick W (Southampton)
Pau A & Paul B (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Paul B (Manchester City Centre)
Paul M (Bury & Prestwich)
Pete B (Lewisham)
Pete C (Edinburgh)
Pete G & Peter A (Hackney East)
Peter D (Norwich)
Phil T (Edinburgh)
Phil T (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Pura A (Liverpool)
Rachel E (Essex)
Raymond M (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Rebecca K (Luton)
Rebecca S (Tower Hamlets)
Richard M (East Lancs)
Rick C (Southwark)
Rick L (Manchester City Centre)
Rita M (Hackney Dalston)
Riya A (Tottenham)
Rob O (Croydon)
Rob S (Walthamstow)
Robin B (Euston)
Roderick C (Walthamstow)
Ron S (Crawley)
Ross S (Euston)
Ruairidh M (Wandsworth & Merton)
Russ D (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Ruth L (Brixton)
Sadie F (Cambridge)
Sai E (Tottenham)
Salah A (Ealing)
Salman M (Handsworth)
Sam B (Portsmouth)
Sam B (Derby)
Sam J (Walthamstow)
Sam O (Bury & Prestwich)
Samir H (Euston)
Sara B (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Sarah P (Colchester)
Seb C (Cardiff)
Sebastian C (Rusholme)
Shamma I (Tower Hamlets)
Shanice M (Euston)
Sharon M (Islington)
Sharon S (Walthamstow)
Shayon S (Manchester City Centre)
Shirley M (Thanet)
Siân R (Tower Hamlets)
Simon B (Norwich)
Simon D (Oxford)
Simon F (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Simon F (Kings Heath)
Simon M (Huddersfield)
Somaye Z (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Sophie W (Oxford)
Søren G (Lewisham)
Stef N (Tower Hamlets)
Stella H (Thanet)
Steve C (Hackney Dalston)
Steve C (Luton)
Steve H (Tower Hamlets)
Steve V (Euston)
Steven M (Glasgow South)
Stuart C (Levenshulme)
Stuart D (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Sue B (Bury & Prestwich)
Suhail M (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Sundara J (Handsworth)
Syed B (Walthamstow)
Tara T (Brixton)
Terry W (Edinburgh)
Theo W (Euston)
Tiffany T (Walthamstow)
Tim E (Swansea)
Tina S (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Titus D (Walthamsto)
Tom H (Longsight & Levenshulme)
Tommy M (Edinburgh)
Tony W (Harehills & Chapeltown)
Tracey B (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Trish M (Brighton & Hove)
Tyler D (Walthamstow)
Valerie P (Kingston)
Viv S (Hackney Dalston)
William C (Canterbury)
William S ( Kent)
Willie B (Edinburgh)
A response to
the Rebuilding
the Party faction
document
Bobby (Southampton)
I have written this after a discussion
about the document at Southampton SWP
branch meeting. These comments reflect
my response but it is shared in essence by
those present.
Firstly this document does not move
us on from the discussions in February. I
cannot see any new ideas, but more seriously, there are no counter-proposals in
the document and criticisms are not sufficiently detailed to allow us to understand
the argument.
1. The “divisions” in the CC. This accusation stems back to our last conference but
there are problems with it.
Firstly, we are still not told what these
29
“divisions” are. Does the faction know
what they are, or are these just rumours?
I want leading bodies of the organisation
to have differences, even disagreements
and arguments. How else are we to arrive
at good decisions? The last thing I would
like to see is a CC who agree absolutely on
every topic. I have been a member for over
40 years and in that time I have had many
heated discussions with other members and
I know that there have been divisions in the
leadership over the direction of the Party at
times. Yet we are still here!
The Faction demands that a new CC is
elected; presumably they will put up a slate
at Conference when the whole body can
decide, as we did last year.
2. The second item asks for a campaign to
build the branches. Surely it is up to the
members in a branch or in its district to
look at its strengths and weaknesses? When
did we become an organisation which only
acts on local issues when given central
directives? What are the concrete proposals of the Faction to be included in this
campaign?
The same criticism applies to the
requirement to strengthen Party structures
and the fractions. In what way? This is just
empty rhetoric if not supported by specific
suggestions. Perhaps the Faction will bring
motions to branches, but it would be helpful for debate to have some clues.
3. The request for proper and open debate
is again a repeat of previous demands, but
the lack of specifics is still a problem. What
key questions? Are we to spend the whole
year discussing what happened at a previous conference instead of relating to the
outside world?
4. What is meant by “where we are as an
organisation”? I would agree that there are
problems with information on our membership data.
I find it very difficult to get names deleted
for members who have left the country, the
local branch or the party. There is nothing new in this and again, much of this
depends on branches and districts ensuring that they check membership at Appeal
and Re-registration as well as on efficiency
at the Centre. How accurate can our sales
figures be? Not all our branch members
attend every meeting and our paper organiser often has 2 or 3 weeks’ money to send
off with no clear idea of how much relates
to each week. I am sure we are not the only
branch with this situation.
5. With regard to student work, I believe
the Party made an error several years ago
in separating out the students from the local
branch.
I am culpable in not raising objections
at the time and I know that some other
branches did what we did and just ignored
it. It seems from latest reports, and our own
experience locally, that student recruitment
has picked up with these Freshers’ Fairs
and it must be remembered that we lose
students every year when they leave University. The task then is to track them when
they move and to ensure that a new branch
welcomes and involves them.
6. Again, there are no specifics. What
changes to existing arrangements for factions are wanted? If any comrade feels badly
treated by their branch or district, they have
recourse to the Disputes Commission.
Differences of opinion and debate on
the way forward are the life-blood of our
organisation and always have been. However, in order to find the necessary next
steps, there must be clarity in the argument. There can only be useful response to
detailed and specific criticism. I have only
found generalised and indirect suggestions
which cannot lead to any useful debate.
Down with the
finger wagging
Jabberwockys!
John (Hackney East)
‘How can I help you get Birchall?’
A comrade accosted me with this bizarre
question on the morning before my Sunday
evening debate with Ian Birchall about the
German revolution at the Marxism Festival
in July. The conversation continued something like this. I assume he was a comrade
but maybe not.
‘How do you mean?’
‘He’s part of the faction!’
‘Sorry, I don’t get your point.’
‘Your debate with him is part of the faction fight, it’s not realllly about the German
Revolution!’
The ‘realllly’ was really loud with the llll’s
heavily stressed and he began wagging his
finger.
‘No, it is not about the faction fight, it
realllly is about the German Revolution!
Do you know anything about the German
Revolution?’
‘No’
‘Comrade, do me a favour. Go to Bookmarks now and ask them politely if you
can sit in the corner reading the ‘March
Madness’ chapter in Chris Harman’s book
Germany – The Lost Revolution. If this is
not possible please go to another meeting
tonight!’
It didn’t end there. Throughout the day
I was approached by ‘both sides’, with dire
warnings about how the faction fight would
erupt at the debate. It didn’t of course but
there are some lessons for all of us from
this sorry saga.
Factionalism breeds a life of its own
with obsessives, jabberwockys, on both
sides who realllly do begin wagging their
fingers when they argue, metaphorically if
not literally.
I know otherwise excellent comrades
on the ‘CC side’ who talk about the faction as though they were Enemy No 1,
Tories or worse... Similarly I know otherwise excellent comrades in the faction
who have talked themselves, and, worse,
allowed themselves be talked into, a total
demonization of the SWP and especially
its – our – CC.
As it happens there may be just be some
lessons for us now from my debate with Ian
Birchall, though I’m not sure how popular
they will be on the extremes of either side.
Ian and I were specifically arguing about
the role of Paul Levi, Rosa Luxemburg’s
successor as leader of the newly founded
German Communist Party, the KPD, a
revolutionary socialist party in the pre-Stalinist period. Now Levi had a notorious,
though I would argue justified, hostility to
ultra leftism. The problem was his tactless,
ultra provocative methods for implementing this hostility.
On two really important, though very
different, occasions, Levi’s approach to the
problem of dealing ultra leftism clashed
with Lenin’s. What is interesting for us here
is that, on both these occasions, we meet a
very different Lenin, contrasting sharply
with the image of the ruthless faction
fighter who had so successfully exposed
the Mensheviks as phoney revolutionary
socialists before the Russian Revolution.
This was a Lenin who wanted to maximise the impact of the German party, a party
poised to become the first mass communist
party in an advanced industrial country, by
stressing, within the norms of democratic
centralism, its heterogeneity - its diversity
in character.
On the first occasion when Levi forced
the ultra lefts out of the KPD at the party’s Heidelberg Congress in 1919, Lenin
was dismayed. Now Lenin knew they were
a major obstacle to the essential ‘united
front’ turn that the KPD had to make in
order to reach out to millions of workers in
the reformist parties and trade unions. This
was the subject, of course, of his famous
‘Left Wing Communism...’ pamphlet. But
he wanted more subtle ways of dealing
with them.
He admired their youthful revolutionary
energies, courage, gifts as propagandists. He
wanted the argument with them to continue
– even suggesting Comintern mediation.
On the second occasion – which was
much more serious – the aftermath of the
appalling ultra left ‘March Action’ in Germany 1921 which arguably derailed the
German socialist revolution, it was now
Levi himself who faced expulsion.
Levi had not only opposed the KPD’s
participation in the March Action, he also
exposed the ultra left turn of the Comintern
itself which had encouraged it. However
Levi’s very public aggressive condemnation
30
deeply alienated rank and file communists,
not just their ultra left leaders.
It was even suggested that his public
attacks played into the hands of German
state security.
Lenin also complained that Levi
showed no sense of solidarity with ordinary party members. Nevertheless though
Lenin couldn’t prevent the expulsion, he
wanted Levi back in the party as rapidly
as possible.
He greatly admired Levi’s political
intellect, Levi had been proved correct on
most political questions. He also told Clara
Zetkin that Levi had ‘proved himself in
times of the worst persecution.’
Readers are invited to draw their own
conclusions on the relevance of the above.
Women’s
liberation
– developing a
strategy for the
21st century
Estelle (Brixton) and Hannah (Euston)
The crisis in the Socialist Workers Party
has forced to the surface a series of questions about our political and theoretical
tradition around the question of women’s
liberation. Marxism is a combined theory
and practice that fights for total human liberation in both economic and social terms.
This necessarily includes fighting for the
liberation of women. The mishandling of the dispute in the
SWP has generated enormous damage
to the party’s practice and reputation on
this question. This article does not seek
to address these issues which are the subject of ongoing debate in the organisation
and of several articles in this bulletin. It is
however written from the view point that
unless we are able to properly acknowledge and deal with the part’s shortcomings
on this question, our ability to remain a
relevant force in the debates and movements unfolding in reaction to the women’s
oppression and sexism will be greatly hindered if not made redundant. The political fall out and resistance to
global economic crisis has seen an associated upsurge in movements and debates
around women’s oppression. In response to the most grotesque forms
of sexism there has emerged a new generation of women and men who self-identify
as feminists We see this most clearly on
university campuses, but also in the
debates over women’s liberation that have
taken place in Tahrir Square, the Occupy
movement and Spain’s Indignados. We can
see it in the publication of new books on
women’s oppression and the republication
of writers who first became prominent in
the Women’s Liberation Movement of the
1970s and 1980s.
We need to grasp the political significance of these developments. We say this
not just because any socialist worth their
salt should always be trying to grapple with
what is new and what remains the same.
But also because if we do not take these
movements seriously we will not be in a
position to shape and influence a powerful strand of resistance and radicalisation
which is integral to the current crisis. We
will miss opportunities both to be part of
pushing back the sexist backlash that has
been gaining ground over the last decade,
and to win significant numbers being radicalised over these questions to Marxist
politics and the SWP. A changed world for women
It is nearly 30 years since we last had a
major debate in the party on this issue.
In that period there have been significant
transformations in women’s social, economic and political situation.
The reaction to sexism on campus, in
the workplace and the struggle is in part
a reflection of the transformed position of
women since the liberation struggles of the
1960s. Almost half of Britain’s workers
are now women and there are more women
than men in higher education.
Since the 1980s there has been a continuous year-on-year increase in the number of
women who are members of a trade union.
Remarkably this comes despite an overall
decline in union membership. Today some
55 per cent of trade union members in Britain are women.
The systematic oppression of women
remains a central feature of 21st century
capitalism. We can see this by looking at exactly
which jobs women are working in. Just
ten occupations account for over half of
women workers in Britain. These are primarily service, teaching and caring roles
that replicate traditional gender roles
within the home. The top category is shop
assistants and sales roles. This is followed
by teaching and healthcare, and then by
administration and cleaning. Four in five
part-time workers are women. Almost two
thirds of low-paid workers are women. Underpinning this picture in the workplace, and the wider ideological processes
that undermine women, is the continued
burden carried by women in the daily and
generational reproduction of labour power.
Despite enormous changes in the shape of
the family and relationships over recent
decades, this remains a central feature of
21st century capitalism. Only one in ten mothers, for example,
can maintain continuous employment
throughout the first 11 years of starting
a family. Women are also increasingly
having to care for elderly relatives. The
number of women caring for elderly relatives or people with disabilities is set to rise
from 1 million currently to 4 million in two
decades time.
Neoliberalism and women’s
oppression
All these developments have been shaped
by 30 years of working class retreat. The
attempts by our rulers to restore the long
term fall in the rate of profit has led to
attacks on union organisation, the growth
of new workplaces that are unorganised or
poorly organised, and cuts to the “social
wage”, ie the welfare state, benefit system
and public services.
The neoliberal period has also been
marked by increasing class differentiation,
with a minority of women gaining from
the “second wave” struggles over women’s
liberation. A larger number of women now
have well-paid professional jobs that grant
them significant control over their lives and
the labour of others. In Britain around one
in five women hold management positions.
Between 1979 and 1995 the top ten per
cent of full-time women workers saw their
pay rise by 70 per cent in real terms, as
compared to a 49 percent rise for men. The rise of this stratum of professionalised women goes hand in hand with the
rise of an associated ideology of “power
feminism” that reflects their interests. This
ideology is characterised by a co-option
of women’s liberation rhetoric combined
with right wing stances on all other issues.
A typical example comes from former Tory
MP Louise Mensch, who recently attacked
“intersectional bollocks” in favour of an
“American feminism” that involves women
“running for office, founding a company,
becoming CEO of Facebook or Yahoo”.
This is part of a wider process whereby the
right has either actively attempted or been
passively forced to absorb elements of liberation ideology for their own ends.
One of the most pernicious aspects of
neoliberal period and associated ideology
has been the rise of “raunch culture”, a
term coined by American feminist Ariel
Levy to explain the commodification of
sex, sexuality and women’s bodies.
Women are expected to be, at one and
same time, a career woman, a “supermum”
and a sex goddess. When women inevitably fail to live up to these impossible
demands, they are condemned through a
series of put-downs and stereotypes. Many
of these are primarily sexual insults, such
as “slut”. But many also have an explicit
class content, as when actor Ricky Gervais
told the Sunday Times: “If there’s a woman
in leggings, eating chips with a fag in her
mouth, sterilise her.”
Young women complain of endemic
street harassment. A cynical “lad culture”
has been stoked up since the 1990s and now
runs rampant in universities and colleges.
31
One shocking aspect of this has been the
rise in reactionary attitudes towards rape
and other forms of sexual aggression. A
survey of London students found a majority sympathised with the notion that a raped
women was “asking for it” if she had been
drinking. Terms such as “grey rape” have
become popular, terms that function in
practice to minimise or excuse rape. Sexual
and domestic violence remain widespread:
the latest figures say one in twenty women
experience rape in their lifetimes and one
in five experience sexual violence more
generally.
But why does any of this matter to Marxists? Put simply, because the role women
play in reproducing labour power and the
perpetuation of sexist ideas is rooted in and
assists exploitation and the drive to accumulate which lies at the heart of the system
we want to smash. It weakens the unity
within the working class that is required to
fightback effectively and achieve socialist
revolution. Crisis and resistance
For a socialist revolution to be successful
revolutionaries need to agitate around the
contradictions that exist at the heart of the
system.
Today, these contradictory trends have
been intensified by the economic crisis
and austerity. Many activists talk about
the “triple whammy” hitting working class
women: they will be disproportionately
affected by jobs cuts in the public sector,
cuts to services and benefits, and the extra
burdens these cuts will place on “women in
the home”. Unemployment among women
is at a 26-year high. The crisis will also
increase pressures within the family: it is
already leading to an increase in domestic violence at the same time as cuts are
removing what little support there presently exists for women trying to escape
abusive relationships.
But capitalism cannot resolve this crisis
by simply turning the clock back and forcing women back into the home. Capital in
the 21st century needs women’s labour to
expand. Its attacks on women are part of
wider attacks on the working class. It may
attempt to shore up the family ideologically and undermine women’s hard-won
economic independence. But moves in
these directions are necessarily limited by
its more powerful need to exploit women
as workers.
This clash between expectations and
experience is a central factor that is generating enormous anger among women
and men. Protest movements have erupted
in reaction to sexism and sexual violence
across the globe, from the SlutWalks
pioneered in Canada to the anti-rape demonstrations that started in India and spread
across South East Asia. There has been
public outcry at the sexist culture and abuse
of young women revealed within institutions like the BBC.
In Britain while public and media outcry
is one thing, what does this actually translate to in terms of activity on the ground?
Much of this activism is based around
university campuses with the Guardian
reporting a huge surge in feminist societies.
In May and June of this year the Guardian
ran a series of articles interviewing the “new
wave of activists making feminism thrive”.
They reported “Conscious of the damaging
and age-old perception that “feminists hate
men”, new societies are busy recruiting
male students.” NUS have put considerable
resources into research and campaigns on
harassment and sexual violence, hosting
the biggest fringe meeting on the question
at last year’s NUS conference.
Alongside initiating, building or participating in sizeable debates and meetings on
women’s liberation, comrades have been
involved in a range of important local campaigns from agitating against the vist of
DSK to Cambridge University to responding to instances of sexual harassment and
violence on campus with cross campus
protests involving staff, students and their
unions.
Another interesting development is the
involvement of Muslim students. Perhaps
as a result of the anti-war and anti-fascist movement the resurgence of campus
feminism has been much more aware of
the danger of Islamophobia within the
movement.
But this resurgence isn’t limited to
the campuses. Women are not only joining unions at a faster rate than men, but
have also been at the forefront of much of
the struggle and disputes that have taken
place; from the pensions dispute to teachers strikes; the campaigns against health
cuts and agitation against the bedroom
tax. Party this is a reflection of the broader
changes in women’s economic and social
position in society, but it is also linked to
the concentration of women in the public
sector, in the membership of those unions
that have taken action and the disproportionate impact the wider cuts to the social
wage are having on women. These developments have all contributed to a political change in how sexism
and equality issues are viewed in the unions
and the workplace. Before being elected as the first female
general secretary of the TUC Frances
O’Grady said a key priority must be attracting a “a generation of new ‘young guns’
into the trade union movement and shift
the ‘male, pale and stale’ stereotype”.
Since then the TUC has committed to campaigning on two major projects in 2013
- discrimination against pregnant women
- and the difficulties facing older women
workers.
In October 2010 Unite launched “Equal
Pay Day”, and a year round campaign promoting equal pay along with its “Women’s
Charter” that was later adopted by TUC
Women’s Conference and other national
unions. PCS has released a “Women’s
equality toolkit” and Unison’s annual
women’s conference has grown to 650
attendees.
However limited or uneven these campaigns might look on the ground, they
clearly open up important organising
opportunities. Alongside this we have seen the growth
and establishment of various groups and
campaigns. The largest feminist group
in the UK is UK Feminista, which was
founded in 2010. At its last conference
1,000 people attended - and one in ten of
them were male activists. UK Feminista says their mantra is that
“sexism is not about men against women
but people against prejudice”. This is crucial if we are to really understand what is
motivating the new generation of activists. Their most prominent campaign,
against “lads mags”, contributed towards
the Co-Op agreeing to ban lads mags from
their stores on the 9 September 2013.
Another campaign group “No More Page
3” initiated a petition that gained 140,000
signatures and forced the Irish Sun to scrap
Page 3 all together.
All of these developments are indications of a growing politicisation in reaction
to sexism and oppression which is particularly sharp on campuses. The political
character and levels of participation in particular campaigns and initiatives vary and require judgement and discussion about
how to best to relate to effectively. In October 2012 the death of Savita
Halappanavar in Galway after being denied
an abortion sparked international protests
and 20,000 on the streets of Ireland.
We need to understand that the simmering frustration around these questions
could also turn in to larger mobilisations
were we to have a “SlutWalk” or “Savita”
moment in the UK.
In order to effectively intervene if that
were to happen we need to consider what
the party’s attitude to the new movements
should be.
The party
There are two trends going on. There is
the objective link between sexism in society and the changing economic role played
by women. There is also a growing subjective link between anger at women’s
oppression and a wider, deeper critique of
all society’s major institutions, and even of
the capitalist mode of production itself.
This is an important and welcome development that can serve to strengthen unity
and resistance on our side. It contrasts with
the situation in the 1980s where divisive
battles over sexism broke out as civil rights,
student and anti-war movements were on
the wane. Nowadays anti-sexist politics
can act as a bridge into political activity
and into revolutionary socialism. Furthermore it means that the levels
of casual sexism that were tolerated, even
on the left, in the 1960s and 1970s are no
32
longer acceptable. A revolutionary movement that does not take a hard line against
women’s oppression is simply no longer
possible. Those who think this can be an
optional extra or a secondary issue are
utterly and fatally mistaken.
It’s not the 1980s any more
It is worth spelling out how the context
and the internal politics of women’s liberation struggles today differ from those of the
1980s. Back then we saw the emergence of
various political strands around women’s
liberation that were fundamentally shaped
by the retreat of 1960s radicalisation and
the downturn in industrial struggles. It
was rare for involvement in the women’s
movement to lead activists towards a more
revolutionary perspective. The entire left
movement was in retreat and disarray. Militants that had been working together fell
out and retreated into their silos.
Consequently the primary concern of
the party’s work was to win people away
from the demobilising influence of sectarian and reformist feminist currents.
There was a period of clarification of
our political ideas which was productive,
including debates on “male benefits” and
debates between the IS tradition and socialist feminism. However there have been significant
changes in the shape of women’s oppression and sexism since that period, and in
the body of work addressing these questions, which must be engaged with. One of
the areas where we have sought to develop
our theory and intervene, for example,
is in response to “raunch culture” which
as noted earlier was a phenomenon first
identified and analysed by an American
journalist Ariel Levy.
We have to recognise that the political
character of the period is different now and
requires a shift in approach. It would be
catastrophically mistaken for socialists to
see the new radicalisation around women’s
oppression as a threat (as is implied by the
use of grotesque terms like “creeping feminism”) or to caricature those identifying as
feminists today as simply embodying a set
of ideas and arguments which predominated in the 1980s. Our task is to fight for socialist ideas
within these movements, including arguing out the points of difference clearly and
constructively.
To not do so would risk taking a sectarian approach. Sectarianism is a term that
is so bandied around it is worth reminding
ourselves what it is. According to Duncan
Hallas, “Sectarians, for Marx and Engels,
were those who created “utopias”, abstract
schemes derived from supposed general
principles, to which people were to be won
by persuasion and example “ co-operative “islands of socialism” and such like
as opposed to the Marxist emphasis on the
real movement’, the actual class struggle.
It was with this in mind that Marx wrote:
“The sect sees the justification for its existence and its point of honour not in what it
has in common with the class movement
but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes it from the movement.”
There is pressure (and there always has
been) for activists to downplay or deprioritise issues of women’s liberation for the
sake of unity. This is a hard political question that has to be addressed in practice.
There is also pressure to hold onto to an
orthodoxy, which is always easier to do
than updating or applying our politics to
new situations.
The crisis in the SWP in the past year
that stemmed from a failure to properly
apply our principles of women’s oppression
has done great damage to our reputation in
the wider movement. In the course of this,
some comrades have resorted to some of
the most backward and sexist arguments
about women who make serious allegations
of a sexual nature. There is a danger that
this begins to ossify into a deeper theoretical degeneration, as illustrated in a recent
article by John Molyneux which dismisses
important theoretical developments about
the social construction of gender and sexuality that have been viewed as a part of our
tradition for several decades.
If we are serious about engaging with
emergent struggles against sexism then we
have urgent work to do in repairing that
reputation.
But if sectarianism is one pitfall, liquidationism is another. Earlier we talked
about how politicisation over theses questions can serve as bridge into political
activity and socialist politics. But we also
know a bridge can be crossed in two directions. How socialists intervene therefore
matters.
One characteristic of the movement
post-Seattle has been a rejection of separatism and a desire for unity. But the crucial
question, as ever, is over the terms on
which that unity is achieved.
There is some pressure on activists to
bury their differences and rally behind a
progressive “common sense” that brings
together the struggles of workers, students
and women but doesn’t fight for the view
that the workers have a unique role to play,
or take up the question of politics and political organisation.
Recent months have seen a number of
generalised attacks on the SWP and socialist organisations as inherently sexist and
unable to address effectively questions of
oppression.
In recent articles and talks the ISO’s
Sharon Smith and Abbie Bakan have criticised the SWP as “Marxist Anti-Feminists”.
Smith and Bakan call on us to “embrace
feminism” and criticise us for drawing on
socialist-feminist writings but not calling
ourselves feminists. These are not helpful
formulations. Bakan and Smith presumably wouldn’t call us “Marxist anti-Black
nationalists” or “Marxist anti-Reformists”,
so why Marxist anti-feminists? Having a
serious critique of theory does not mean
you are “anti” the people who espouse it.
The diverse nature of the movements
and politicisation taking place in response
to oppression and sexism means it is
incumbent on socialists to fight for political clarity. Failure to do so will not only
undermine the potential of the struggles
over these questions to be successful, but
also for them to be part of a wider challenge to capitalism and process of renewal
of Marxist ideas and strengthening of revolutionary socialist organisation.
A strategy for the
21st century
So how do we construct a strategy that
avoids both of these pitfalls? In Britain
we have not seen the kind of large scale
protests over sexism and women’s oppression that have developed elsewhere. But
the engagement around these questions is a
very real feature of the political landscape
in Britain and amongst activists on the
ground. That means we have to put a high
premium on developing and renewing our
body of theory and finding ways of engaging with activists over these questions.
At the same time we have to have a more
serious discussion about what it means for
the party’s strategy and activity.
When our members have taken initiatives on campuses in campaigning against
sexism, for example, they have been
largely successful. There is real potential
for a nationally coordinated campaign over
these issues in the new academic year - one
that arises organically from the movement
and that can start to roll back the tide.
We also have to get to grips with what
the changed world of work and renewed
attacks on women mean for our industrial
strategy. We have to link up women radicalised by sexism with women radicalised
by the cuts. These are not separate struggles. Linking them is what political trade
unionism is about.
Alongside embedding ourselves in campaigns, and where appropriate trying to
initiate them, we also need a more rigorous
approach within the party itself.
There is now broad agreement within the
party that the smashing up of the branches
was a mistake. But one of the consequences
of this was losing the kind of meticulous
conscious efforts that won new members
to our politics and encouraged and developed cadre. This has impoverished the
party’s political culture in general, but also
undermines the effectiveness of the party
to act as a collective counterweight that can
help comrades overcome the pressures and
barriers that the experience of oppression
present to their confidence to lead on every
front in our party. In IB 1, for example, of 49 pieces,
including statements, amendments and
collective submissions, only 14 of them
involved female authors.
33
Each branch should know who their
new women members are and be encouraging them to do branch meetings. They
should be encouraged to write for all three
publications, though this may take time and
support. If we are serious about a strategy
that recruits women (and men) radicalised
by sexism we need a strategy that retains
them in the party by explaining and analysing their experiences of the world.
The party’s new book on racism, Say
It Loud, is an excellent new resource and
we should commission a similar book of
essays related to sexism.
There is also a pressing need to update
and enrich our tradition around women’s
liberation. It is unacceptable for us to airily
dismiss contemporary feminists or lazily
assume that their arguments are no more
than a retread of the “patriarchy” theories
popular in the 1980s.
We have to respond to the theories
around women’s oppression that are
actually operative in the movement. In
some cases this will involve a sharp but
informed disagreement, for instance with
Silvia Federici’s reformulation of the
wages for housework argument. In others
a more nuanced approach will be required.
Examples here include new books such as
Heather Brown’s Marx on Gender and the
Family, as well as older works such as Lise
Vogel’s Marxism and the Oppression of
Women which has just been republished.
We may find that their arguments are
the same, or we may find that they are different. But it would have been daft in 1985
for us to say “let’s not bother with Heidi
Hartmann because we have dealt with
Simone de Beauvoir” and it is daft today
to not respond to what young women are
reading.
The same goes for arguments about
intersectionality, the notion that the system
involves multiple categories of oppression
that interact and “intersect” in complex
ways.
If your starting point is feminism, then
intersectionality is a positive step forwards
in response to the domination of the
women’s liberation movement by middle
class white women who frequently overlooked how, for example, racism affected
black women. Islamophobia has been a
significant feature in some feminist and
LGBT politics. Basic notions of intersectionality can help to cut against this. Similarly
a recognition that class must be discussed
as part of understanding oppression is a
step forward.
But our starting point, of course, is
Marxism and we want to win an understanding of class as the key analytical tool
for explaining oppression and for locating
where the power lies to challenge and end
it. In order to do that effectively we need
both to understand the roots of intersectionality in the work of black feminists in
the 1980s, and the ways in which intersectionality theory is being developed and
expressed by a new generation of political
activists shaped by the experience of anticapitalism and crisis.
In other words we have to engage
with where people are at and what they
actually saying rather than assuming we
are dealing only with old arguments in new
clothes. This is essential if we are going
to persuade people that Marxism remains
the best tool for those who want to fight
all manifestations of oppression today.
It is pressing because whilst the political
arguments developing amongst activists
on these questions are promising, the low
levels of class struggle make the prospects
of frustration, fragmentation and division a
real possibility.
In order to address these arguments we
need to have a much more rigorous series
of debates around these questions in all
publications and involving a wider range
of authors. The establishment of an online
forum for these and other debates would
also be an important step forward, in helping to facilitate a wider participation of
comrades. The proposals for a women’s
day school dedicated to developing debate
and discussion, in a manner similar to the
advanced courses we hold at Marxism,
should also be organised.
Conclusion
Socialists have to engage with the new
radicalisation over sexism and women’s
liberation. This involves developing our
practice on these issues as well as updating
our theory. Sadly, as a result of the crisis, we have
lost many, possibly the majority, of young
members in the past year -women and men.
This makes it more urgent, not less, that
we take up a conscious strategy around
recruiting and retaining those radicalised
by sexism.
As Tony Cliff put it:
“To achieve unity between white and
black workers, the white workers must
move toward the black workers and go
a mile further. To achieve unity between
male and female workers, the male
worker must go out of his way to prove
that he is not part of the oppressors.
Lenin put it simply in 1902. He wrote
when workers go on strike for higher
wages they are simply trade unionists.
Only when they go on strike against
beating o Jews or students are they
really socialists.”
The theory and practice of women’s liberation is a live and contested field. Socialists
need to be part of that argument and not just
to “intervene” in a mechanical and reactive
manner. The discussions around women in
the workplace, women and austerity, and
on sexual assault, harassment and coercion
have moved on significantly in these circles. We are behind the curve, and we have
a duty as socialists to catch up.
Our intervention
in the Hovis
dispute
Wigan SWP
Background
In April Premier Foods (Hovis) announced
the redundancy of 30 workers due to “business needs.”Two days after those workers
were fired off Hovis brought in 24 agency
workers.
This caused outrage at the Wigan plant
and the union told management this was
not acceptable and action would be taken.
The company didn’t believe the staff would
do anything; there had not been a strike on
this site since 1979. They underestimated
the shopfloor’s anger.
To stop the strike going ahead the Company announced that it was willing to give
6 workers permanent contracts but it still
wished to use Agencies to employ staff
on Zero Hour contracts, being paid at a
lower rate. Workers rejected this offer and
demanded that no Agency should be used,
and any temporary staff should be offered
contracts; and if working there for over
12 weeks then permanent contracts should
be given, arguing that even as temporary
staff they should be paid the same as full
time staff. (In other plants agency workers
had been used to undermine the pay and
terms and conditions of all staff and Wigan
workers were adamant not to let this happen there.)
The strike
The strike was solid across the plant from
start to finish. BFAWU members made up
230 of the 357 employees at the Hovis bakery - Hovis drivers were in IRTU, which
gave material assistance to strikers, and
refused to cross picket lines (morally supportive, but ineffective since the lorries
were empty of bread when returning) .
Right from the start we attended the
picket line with papers and ideas. Like all
workers going into action for the first time
their confidence did not match their anger.
They obviously leant on their officials
who, it must be said, proved themselves
open to ideas and different forms of action
within the context of winning the dispute,
as opposed to negotiating a grubby compromise. This made our intervention easier,
but not without some sharp debate and
leading by example on the picket line.
One of the key meetings took place at
a Wigan Trades Council meeting where
we have three Party delegates, at which
union officials from the strike attended.
We argued that this strike was of national
importance and that we should raise the
stakes by pushing outwards, calling for
solidarity picketing, sending delegations
34
to union branches, workplaces; days of
action, local rallies and marches. Soon after
an organising meeting was called which
included BFAWU officials, shopfloor reps
two UTR comrades and the chair of Wigan
Trades Council.
Out of this came a solidarity picket and
a march and a rally through Wigan. And
for the third week of strike action it was
agreed that UTR would organise a national
day of action against Hovis, including a
boycott campaign. In the meantime delegations from the pickets to other groups of
workers began to be organised, Manchester
comrades and UTR activists stepping in to
bolster local activity.
The solidarity picket led to over 50
union activists from a variety of unions
to join the Hovis picket line. Those of our
comrades from across the North West who
were able to, played a magnificent role in
this.
Vans were blocked, traffic held up, spirits lifted. It was another key moment in
the development of the strike; solidarity
had been delivered at a crucial time and
the possibilities of further acts of solidarity
were now on the agenda.
Soon after, Wigan comrades had a discussion on the picket line about the need
for escalation. Our argument was simple.
This wasn’t a strike where people crossing a picket line into the factory was the
problem, it was the baked bread getting
out! The pickets were responsive, but we
decided to take that argument to the march
and rally in Wigan that followed.
On the Saturday over 300 strikers,
friends, family and union activists marched
through Wigan to a rally at the local labour
club. The mood on the demonstration and
in the meeting was defiant, angry and militant. Unite the Resistance material, Socialist
Workers, both were everywhere; 3 UTR
speakers and two local members of Wigan
SWP as well as the local MP and union
officials spoke, our comrades arguing for
escalation. The atmosphere was fantastic
and arguments around attending the TUC
demo in Manchester, coordinated action
against austerity were widely accepted.
The following Monday morning at 3
am was another key moment when dozens
of pickets confronted the first lorry heading out to deliver bread; it was stopped for
over an hour.
The driver of the second lorry went half
way down the lane and refused to go any
further. He was led back by a director and
when confronted by pickets the vehicle was
abandoned. The drivers, always supporting
the strike but unable to take official action
then refused to move bread out of the factory. Six vans were driven out by managers
when usually there would have been 15 to
20. All of them were late and missed their
delivery slot, leading to further delays with
supermarkets refusing delivery.
Police turned out and arrested three
pickets, two of them Party members. All
fines were immediately paid by the union.
The pickets knew they had caused serious damage to the Company. A further mass
picket was called for Wednesday morning
with the strike due to finish at 6 am. Again
a key and, as it happened decisive moment
had arrived. All the drivers refused to go
out, scabs were brought in from London
and the police put on a show of force.
Over 100 pickets blocked the road with the
strikers themselves in the forefront. A few
lorries eventually edged their way out, but
the bosses had been broken. There were
no arrests.
At 6 am the shift went into work in
the driving rain singing the “Workers
united will never be defeated”. Strikers
then announced that in their next week of
action, every morning they would call for
effective mass picketing and Hovis would
see the same events unfold, shattering their
profits.
The following day Hovis asked for
negotiations and capitulated to strikers’
demands. In spite of the fantastic result a
number of key activists were keen to stay
out for longer. For them, as for most, striking had become a liberating experience,
but distrust of the bosses was ingrained.
Rightly so, since Hovis tried to renege on
the Agreement to be met by yet another
threat of a walk out.
Conclusion
A strike like the one that occurred in Wigan
is uncommon but, given the mood of resistance that we are seeing, the anger that we
experience in our campaigns and trade
union meetings, is unlikely to remain so.
Crucial to our intervention was the support of comrades in the District, in Unite the
Resistance, and in the national structures
of the Party. Other political organisations
were active in the dispute but owing to our
local implantation and network of contacts
developed over the years we were able to
punch far above our weight in influencing events, much more so than were other
organisations.
We understood that even small numbers
of workers pack a punch; that generalisation and solidarity moved ideas forward;
that any strike, no matter how small, how
bureaucratised, can transform consciousness. We worked with union officials,
supported them when moving the strike
forward, operating independently when
needing to test the need for more active
intervention.
We’re actually quite proud of what
we did locally. Ninety papers were sold
over the three weeks of action, hundreds
of pounds were collected in workplaces
and on the streets, we have made a few
more contacts in local unions, recruited to
the Party, and created a few more ‘fellow
travellers’.
And the strike has shifted the mood
in Wigan itself. Our SWP Branch meetings are bigger and better, the local Trades
Council is energised, Hovis workers joined
the FBU picket lines, and constituted the
biggest workplace contingent on the Manchester NHS demo. We have entrenched
our link to yet another layer of trade union
activists.
These modest gains are important. The
more so since they are the result of the
initial anger and resistance of well over
two hundred workers being impacted
by the commitment and activity of four
revolutionaries.
A reply to
Andrew from
Cambridge
Steve (Brighton)
In his first IB contribution Andrew from
Cambridge says that a funny thing happened to him at January 2013 conference,
he voted against the CC twice, once
over the Jerry Hicks debate and over the
Comrade X case. There are considerable
differences between the two issues.
The decision to hold the Jerry Hicks discussion at conference came about because
the Unite fraction was split almost evenly
down the middle, a situation which was
well known about, and this was the only
way of resolving it. And in the best traditions of democratic centralism, once the
vote was taken we moved to implement
the decision and the outcome was a very
creditable vote for the Jerry Hicks camp,
and a vindication of the position of those
that argued that there was an appetite for a
fightback amongst substantial layers of the
membership.
The Comrade X issue was not well
known about in the party, and in the run
up to conference there was only one small
reference to it, in IB 3. In Brighton and
Hove branch, ( a branch that really suffered as a result of the dispute ), we held an
aggregate on 9th December and there were
no references to the case at that aggregate,
in spite of certain parties there being well
aware of it.
The first inkling that the branch had of
the impending furore was at the last branch
meeting before conference, when it was
quite clear that those certain parties ( who
had been delegated to conference ) were
intent on taking it forward, alongside other
delegates from the district that had not a
clue as to the nature and importance that
was being attached to the issue.
What then ensued was a full scale,
orchestrated assault on the leadership,
led by people who had been at the heart
of what has since become the faction, and
relying on the ignorance and confusion of
the majority of the delegates which enabled
35
them to at least ensure that the matter was
not sufficiently resolved.
In between the January conference and
the March special conference there was a
re-grouping of this opposition, with those
around Seymour and Mieville ( already
openly campaigning against the party outside the ranks of the organisation ) taking
advantage of the “In defence of our party”
initiative to ride on the coat tails of those
who had formed IDOOP.
I actually wrote to the principal fraction signatories of IDOOP ( Gill G. and
Pete G. ) pointing out that that they should
have been more rigorous in demarcating
between who were genuinely concerned
about the specific issue and the future of
the party and those who were just using the
initiative to further attack the party; I never
got a reply.
Once it became clear that IDOOP had
considerable support amongst sections of
the membership and that it constituted de
facto a permanent faction, there was little
doubt ( certainly as far as many non-faction
members were concerned ) that there was
going to have to be another conference,
and while IDOOP will claim the credit for
this, those of us who did not identify with
the factionalising did recognize the need
to resolve the issue of the DC process and
how its inadequacy had contributed to the
fissure opening up in the party.
Many comrades, including myself,
wrote contributions in the pre-special conference bulletins to that effect, and focused
on the issue, both in our IB contributions
and in the bruising district meetings that
were a feature of the period between January and March.
For those that now identified with the
faction, the Comrade X case had only
become one of a range of matters which
they took issue with the leadership, and
they went about the business of building
their case and building their faction with
gusto.
There have been allegations from the
faction about intimidation from leadership
supporters and attempts to prevent them
from articulating their position, but in
Brighton efforts were made on both sides
to ensure that the discussions were comradely, and that when it came to voting for
delegates to special conference, a form of
proportional representation was used that
was administered to the satisfaction of all
concerned.
During this period, certainly in Brighton,
the leading elements were entirely engaged
in building their numbers and strengthening their position, being conspicuously
absent from involvement in regular party
activities. While restricting us in terms of
the breadth of our work, we still managed
to build and consolidate our influence in
the local Defend the NHS group, which has
blossomed into substantial force, with regular organizing meetings involving health
union full time officers, lay representatives,
political and community activists.
The March special conference saw the
faction decidedly defeated, in spite of their
claims of “false polarization” of the debate.
The motion put forward by the central
committee was carried overwhelmingly by
the assembled delegates. Summarised, that
motion:
• Condemned those elements who took the
debate about the dispute outside the party
and sought to overturn the decisions taken
at conference by undemocratic means
• Continued to agitate for a re-opening of
the case by forming a faction specifically
around the DC case
The motion did acknowledge the need to
review the DC process which had significant shortcomings and went on to:
• Call for the setting up of a commission
to review the DC process, electing four
“lay” members to that commission at
conference
It also identified that there were issues
of wider significance that needed to be
debated and itemised seven areas where
that debate needed to be focused.
Finally the motion called for the disbanding of factions or platforms and the
taking down or dismantling of blogs and
especially the “International Socialism”
website.
Clearly the position of those around the
IS website became untenable and they left
the party. In Brighton we also lost many
good comrades not aligned with the IS
group but who did not agree with the decision of the special conference, and who
had made it clear that that was what they
were likely to do in the event of such an
outcome. With many of these comrades
we maintain a reasonable relationship, and
they are prepared to work with us around
specific issues; there is still a respect for
each other in our commitment to fighting
the class enemy.
However it soon became clear that
the leading elements of IDOOP had no
intention of disbanding. They made some
half-hearted gestures in order to disguise
their intentions but very soon there were
indications that they had established their
own bank account, maintained their own
communications network, and continued
their proselytizing operations; any national
party event, such as the party council on
2nd June or the national industrial meeting on 22nd September would see them
prioritizing their attempts to recruit to the
faction, assiduously directed by Generalissimo HD. Jim (Euston) in his contribution
“Roots of a Crisis” ( IB 1 ) refers to the
“undeclared faction” gathered around the
CC, but carefully refrains from referring to
this permanent faction, displaying a mendacity that brings into question much of
what he then goes on to say.
So Andrew, you might have signed up
to IDOOP prior to the special conference,
and have taken the decision to sign up to
the Statement of Intent published in late
September, but it sounds like you at least
adhered to the principles of democratic
centralism and relinquished membership
of the faction in the intervening months.
For many other faction members it was
business as usual.
So what does the faction stand for? We
know what the faction uses as a banner to
draw comrades into signing its statements
and fomenting discontent amongst the
ranks of the party. The continuous playing
on the outcome of the DC case to expose
the wound, to continue to rub salt into it so
that it flares up, becoming inflamed again,
generally not spreading but definitely not
healing.
And of course the relentless attacks on
the central committee, the latest of which,
predictably, has been launched from without and circulated zealously by those
elements in the faction to which the assault
on the CC has taken on the proportions of
a crusade.
But to return to my question, what does
the faction stand for? They have within
their ranks comrades of the stature of Neil
D. and Ian B. (to cite just two) who have
the theoretical principles at their fingertips
and the ability to articulate an alternative
argument.
Why has the faction not produced an
alternative to the general perspective document, or the documents on Facing the
Challenge of Fascism, or that regarding
students? Or our industrial work? If the CC
has got things so badly wrong (apart from
their inability to find a way of resolving the
differences over that case ) why is there no
coherent argument posed against the direction that the leadership is taking the party?
If you are going to hold the CC to account,
then you should be addressing these issues
as well. So have the CC got it wrong on:
• International issues
• Fighting Fascism
• Student work
• Our industrial perspectives
Comrades need to be asking themselves
these questions when considering the arguments of the faction.
With regard to the question of an apology, it might be that the leadership should
apologise to the whole party for not moving quickly and decisively to deal with
the DC process and the attendant problems that have been caused as a result of
its shortcomings, but we should make no
concessions to the people who accuse us of
being rape apologists, whether it be those
outside the party who say it, or those within
the party who continue to think it.
And as we are both Unite fraction members, Andrew I will conclude with some
remarks on the industrial perspectives.
The party has been through a roller
coaster of a ride in the last five or six years
but industrially there has begun to be some
coherence and direction. There have been
references in current and previous IB contributions to the dissolution of the branches
and the lurch into movementism in the late
‘90s and early noughties, but very little
about the decline of our industrial work.
36
I can remember during the 1997 British
Airways dispute having to argue, alongside
other comrades, the importance of putting
a leaflet in and getting down to the picket
lines, and this with both our district organiser and the leading comrade in the district
(long since gone to join the Green Party).
Contrast that with the way in which the
fraction has operated around some of the
struggles that have taken place in the current period, such as the Sparks dispute or
that at Amnesty.
The help and support provided to comrades in unorganized or badly organised
workplaces or working around such workplaces. Scarcely a day goes by without a
posting on the group about some dispute or
other and an exhortation for everyone to do
their utmost to get down to the picket lines
and raise messages of support and financial
solidarity. And most importantly, the analysis of what is happening in our union and in
the trade union movement generally.
Ian A. might well be right when he
points out our shortcomings in the aftermath of N30, but we are better placed now
as a party and as a fraction than we have
been in years to correct those shortcomings
and effectively intervene in the industrial
struggle, in the class struggle.
So if you agree with me, that we are better placed to intervene in the class struggle
than we have been for many years, and that
we intervene as revolutionary socialists,
as tribunes of the oppressed and not just
as very good industrial militants, and that
we have done this in line with the party’s
industrial perspectives, then I would urge
you to carefully consider this in relation
to aims and objectives of the faction, who
I believe, are prepared to disregard these
considerations in pursuit of this vendetta
against the leadership.
I too was at the same meeting that
you referred to at Marxism, when Alex
Callinicos posed the question “What do you
do if you lose the vote?” If you recall, Willie B. got up on the platform and announced
“Comrades, there’s a split in the party!” It
is a question that is likely to be posed again
at our conference in December. I just hope
that the answer this time is not “Comrades,
we’re splitting the party”
Which way
forward?
Ian (Bury & Prestwich)
Alex Callinicos made an important
step forward at Marxism 2013 when he
acknowledged that “learning the lessons
means looking at and recognising the mistakes that have been made” – even using
the “m-word”.
Unfortunately the CC contribution to
IB1, despite dealing with the party crisis,
doesn’t look at or recognise any mistakes
made by the party. Alex & Charlie’s ISJ
article, “The politics of the SWP crisis”
goes as far as to say “no one in the SWP
leadership thinks that, with the benefit of
hindsight, we would address the issue [the
disputes case] in exactly the same way”.
They can’t quite bring themselves to put
the “m-word” in writing, let alone say what
the mistakes were or what political lessons
we can learn for the future.
The CC isn’t living up to Charlie &
Alex’s stated view that “only a serious
attempt to air the political differences on
every side, to thrash these out openly in the
party” will do. Deep divisions remain inside
the CC, which is hiding disagreements from
the party membership until they explode repeating a mistake acknowledged by the
Democracy Commission conference after
the Respect crisis.
7. It was wrong not to suspend the man
when the second woman made her complaint formal.
8. It was wrong to delay hearing the second case for months.
9. It was wrong to restrict the DC from
making a full decision on the second case
on the grounds that the man resigned from
the party and refused to give evidence,
leaving the panel able to go no further than
saying that there was “a case to answer”.
Eamonn McCann powerfully reminded
comrades at Marxism 2013 that principles
come before any strategic or tactical considerations. It is unacceptable that our party
has been led to act in ways that fail to apply
our principled commitment to women’s
liberation.
When comrades in key positions in
unions or movements make mistakes, we
are expected to openly acknowledge and
correct them promptly. Why can’t CC
members live up to the same standard?
Mistakes
Avoidable
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=915&issue=140
http://youtu.be/95se9IalIOA?t=5m44s
Even if our CC won’t talk concretely about
mistakes, the party still should.
All kinds of mistakes are alleged, but
it is hard for most comrades to decide
between competing second-hand accounts
of what did or didn’t happen in the disputes. Most of us will have to stick to the
politics and the facts we know for sure if
we are to avoid taking sides based on who
we trust most – a recipe for divisions which
cannot be resolved politically.
We can identify some key mistakes
simply by consistently applying the party’s
basic politics and a bit of good sense:
1. It was wrong to use a disciplinary
panel including people with close personal and working relationships with the
man, which inevitably led to perceptions
of bias.
2. It was wrong to act as though the perceptions of the movement were irrelevant
to the project of building a revolutionary
party.
3. It was wrong to refuse to allow a
witness for W (the comrade who brought
the first complaint) to return to working
in the national office on the grounds that
this would “undermine the harmony” of
the office.
We would never accept this excuse from
any capitalist (neither would an Employment Tribunal) and our standards should
be higher.
4. It was wrong to stop supporters of W
from publishing proposals for improving
the Disputes Procedure in the IB last year,
circulating them at the January 2013 conference or forming a faction.
5. It was wrong to pretend that there was
no “second woman”.
6. It was wrong to try to prevent reporting or debate on the issues arising from
the case after the annual conference on the
pretext of confidentiality.
In their ISJ article, Alex & Charlie say they
reached the conclusion that they wouldn’t
address the issue in exactly the same way
“with the benefit of hindsight”. All of
us have learned and changed our minds
over recent months, at various times and
speeds.
A key part of the role of the CC should
be to facilitate debate in the party so that
the organisation can get decisions right and
correct mistakes promptly. In this crisis,
our CC failed the party badly.
At the January conference the comrades
who opposed the DC report didn’t ask for
the case to be reopened. They attempted to
put forward proposals for improving the
DC process, but the CC refused to allow
them to include these in an IB, or to circulate them at conference, or to move them as
a motion or amendment to the DC report,
or to form a faction to argue for them.
The CC suppressed the proposals. Most
of the points they tried to raise at the time
are now addressed in the DC commission
report, and the world hasn’t ended. Had
the CC allowed our democracy to function properly, the party would have had the
opportunity to avoid most of the crisis that
has engulfed us.
Once the crisis broke, some comrades
put forward proposals to address it, but
these were vigorously opposed by the
CC. The NC meeting on 3 February 2013
rejected by 39 votes to 8 a motion calling
for:
1. An acknowledgment by the Central
Committee of the widely held concerns
within our organization and internationally in our tendency, and in the wider
labour movement, about the handling of
the dispute, and an assurance that we are
taking steps to learn from this criticism and
address problems.
2. A review of Disputes Committee (DC)
37
procedures in relation to cases involving
allegations of rape and sexual harassment.
Sufficient time should be allocated at the
next Party Council to discuss ways in
which the DC and its procedures can be
strengthened, with space also allowed for
votes on proposals brought forward by
branches and the leadership.
3. X to stand down from any paid or
representative roles in our party or united
front work for the foreseeable future. 4. No disciplinary action against those
comrades who have publicly expressed
concerns over the DC’s conduct and
findings.
5. Full support for the comrades who
made the complaints. Zero tolerance of any
attempt to undermine them and others who
have raised criticisms of the DC report.
Action to ensure they do not suffer any detriment in the party because of the position
they have taken. An end to the punishment
of party workers who have expressed concerns over the dispute.
Instead, the NC passed a CC motion
which proposed a DC review restricted to
confidentiality and reporting of findings
and mainly focused on condemnation of
those who argued that mistakes had been
made.
Looking back at the rejected motion,
where are we now?
1. The DC commission report is published on the SWP web site in order to
reassure the wider movement that we are
addressing concerns about our procedures
2. Branches and the leadership can bring
proposals to amend the report, which has a
wide remit, and voting at our conference
3. X resigned from the party, avoiding
accountability in relation to the second
case
4. No wave of expulsions
5. Little progress
The kindest thing one could say about
the CC’s collective handling of the crisis
is that they have been “leading from the
back”, having to be dragged along by sections of membership to do what should
have been done from the start.
The defensive failure of the CC to
allow our democracy to function properly
to avert or promptly address the crisis has
led to huge damage to our organisation
– loss of members, deep divisions, loss of
trust, weakened discipline, wasted energy,
political confusion and damaged external
reputation and relationships.
Learning from mistakes is
crucial
To successfully take and hold power in a
revolution, the working class needs a mass
revolutionary party. Such parties grow
rapidly during the process of revolution,
with every individual who was a member beforehand working with dozens of
new recruits. The vital work of building
the party beforehand therefore shapes its
chances of navigating the tides of revolution and leading the class to victory.
Three of the attributes required by the
precursors to mass revolutionary parties are
firm principles, the ability to learn through
democratic discussion, and unity in action.
If not established in advance, these characteristics are unlikely to develop sufficiently
when the party faces the challenges posed
by mass action and mass recruitment.
Lenin argued in “Left Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder”:
“A political party’s attitude towards its
own mistakes is one of the most important and surest ways of judging how
earnest the party is and how it fulfils
in practice its obligations towards its
class and the working people. Frankly
acknowledging a mistake, ascertaining
the reasons for it, analysing the conditions that have led up to it, and thrashing
out the means of its rectification - that is
the hallmark of a serious party”
We need a leadership that enables the
whole party to learn from mistakes and
move on, which means being able to
explicitly and politically explain changes
in line, whether due to changed objective
circumstances or to correct a mistake.
The recent shifts by the CC are welcome, but instead of openly arguing for
them, they are seeking to “cover” their
change in line by spraying attacks against
those who argued for change before the
CC “authorised” it. The effect of this is
to leave many of the CC’s former supporters disorientated and politically
confused, still defending positions the CC
has abandoned, as illustrated by Rhetta &
Mark’s IB1 contribution. Shouldn’t Generals withdrawing from a foolishly taken
position clearly explain to their troops the
need to retreat, rather than leaving them
behind with no ammunition in a stinking
trench?
Alex & Charlie refer to a need for
the party to “renew its democratic culture”. Yet no CC member was willing
to tell even the NC whether there were
divisions in its ranks over key questions
such as whether to hear the second case,
whether to accept the report on the second case, or what to do with the report of
the commission into DC procedures. How
can conference democratically decide on
its new CC if comrades have to rely on
rumours of where the divisions lie? This
is a “hollowed out” democracy without
political accountability.
We have to build an organisation that
faces reality and deals with mistakes
promptly and openly, no matter how
uncomfortable that can be. However successfully we build, if our organisation
doesn’t have this attribute we would be
building something other than the foundations for the genuine mass revolutionary
party our class needs.
Dispute cases or wider issues?
Comrades have been offered two explanations for the current crisis. The CC piece
in IB1 and Alex & Charlie’s ISJ article see
it as a result of the pressure on the party to
accommodate to the movements, and the
disputes case as a “trigger”. Jim’s piece in
IB1 argues that it was the mis-handling of
the disputes cases in the context of existing weaknesses in the party’s political
culture. Both point to the long period with
a low level of industrial struggle as the
background.
It is worrying that some comrades
still don’t seem to accept that a lot of
revolutionary socialists might have very
strong feelings (and act accordingly) if
they think that their party didn’t handle
allegations of rape and sexual harassment
properly.
Shouldn’t a revolutionary organisation be composed entirely of people
who would get very angry indeed if they
thought this was the case? Those who
seek to brush aside these central issues
(as Alex & Charlie do in their ISJ article,
still ignoring the second woman) do the
party’s fine record on women’s liberation
no service at all.
All sides agree the crisis has come in
a context, even if they disagree about the
significance of allegations of rape and
sexual harassment against a CC member. So let’s dig in to the argument about
“movementism”.
In his IB1 piece “Between Scylla and
Charybdis”, Paul sets out the basic case
for a revolutionary party and the dangers
of accommodation on one side and sectarianism on the other.
If revolutionaries engage with the rest
of the working class and its struggles
and seek to influence them, we will be
influenced in turn, hence the danger of
accommodation or movementism.
But in resisting that pull, and trying
to build a revolutionary group within
the class, there is a danger of overemphasising differences and isolating
ourselves from the struggle and becoming sectarian.
Any genuine revolutionary group will
exhibit signs of both accommodation and
sectarianism as it fights to steer a course
between them.
Collective, democratic, decision
making is crucial to minimising either
mistake. At different times, different
comrades will be subject to different pressures. By pooling our experiences we can
make fewer and smaller mistakes than we
would individually.
Democratic centralism is necessary,
but not sufficient. Politics is central. It has
been striking in recent debates how the
importance of politics has been consistently underestimated by the CC and its
supporters.
We have been told that we “punch
above our weight” because of our distinctive form of organisation. That’s a
38
factor, certainly, but the biggest one is
our politics.
That’s why comrades still pack a punch
even when operating as single revolutionaries in workplaces and campaigns
around the country.
SWP members tend to stand out as
having a clearer analysis of the situation
and clear proposals about the way forward. Most comrades have to try to win
leadership politically, without any option
to lead numerically by weight of disciplined numbers (not that that’s usually a
good idea!).
Being part of a collective organisation
of revolutionaries sharpens our politics
and helps us be more effective individually too.
I keep hearing comrades arguing that
we win people over by being “the best
activists”. I think this is a dangerous position. I think we win a hearing with people
by being “amongst the best activists”, but
we only ever win them to our politics
with, er, our politics.
The idea that the worst crime a socialist can commit is to break the rules or
constitution would have been met with
derision by Lenin, Trotsky or Cliff. Rules
must serve organisation and organisation
must serve politics. Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of the
wise.
The question of politics is also central
to how we work out how to steer between
accommodation and sectarianism.
A good understanding of the theory
of the United Front and a knowledge of
the history of our movement can provide
a range of templates and good and bad
examples against which we can compare
current situations. Working such questions through collectively on the basis
of a shared assessment of the balance of
forces, is the best way to get it right.
Alex & Charlie’s piece does begin
to raise some of the key questions, for
example when talking about Respect:
“Because Respect was small, the SWP
played a dominating role-not because
we wanted to but by sheer force of
numbers. Instead of revolutionaries arguing for their politics among
a much wider group of radical nonrevolutionaries, we were deciding
how much to hold ourselves back in
order to seek wider alliances. That was
problematic”.
The problems with Respect are an example of a wider problem. As Jim puts it in
his contribution:
“We have yet to come to terms with
the tensions inherent in the role the
SWP has found itself playing since
the late 1990s. How to respond to the
wider imperatives of the movement
and play a key federating role which
maintaining and asserting our own
independent political identity? How
to sustain necessary political tension
with our political allies without threatening the viability of joint projects or
simply liquidating into them?”.
This question would benefit from more
debate in the organisation. I made my
own first stab at this two years ago and
I hope more comrades will engage with
this debate.
The CC is right to be alert to the real
dangers of accommodation/movementism, just as we should be alert to the
danger of sectarianism.
But rather than shouting “Movementism! Movementism!” as a slur against all
those who might disagree about the handling of allegations of rape and sexual
harassment, it would be more effective
to:
• Encourage debate on how we maintain political independence and tension in
campaigns where we may be numerically
or organisationally dominant.
• Branch and educational meetings
around the united front etc.
• Engage in debate to develop our
assessment of the balance of class forces,
which forms the basis for any rational
discussion about how we steer between
accommodation and sectarianism.
• Strengthen fraction organisation in
unions, major campaigns and for our students so that everyone involved is engaged
in working out how we steer between
accommodation and sectarianism in each
area of our work. This would make us
more effective, improve accountability,
and provide a framework to win comrades who may be straying off towards
accommodation or sectarianism.
• Openly argue through the politics of
specific examples, treating comrades who
err in either direction as people we want
to win over, not humiliate or drive out.
Errors of accommodation or sectarianism aren’t the property of a few flawed
individuals. All of us will make these
mistakes at various times. We need to relearn how to argue such issues through
politically, without creating bogey-men.
Politics, debate, collective organisation
and activity are the solutions.
It is striking in IB1 how many contributions from critical comrades are
trying to grapple with the key questions.
None of these are agreed positions of
the opposition – people have a range of
views. But we are trying to have a serious
debate about key issues. I appeal to every
comrade to join these debate in the same
spirit, rather than heresy hunting.
Reading IB1, it didn’t appear that there
is a significant body of opinion in the
organisation arguing for abandoning the
working class as the agent of change or
liquidating the party into the movements.
It did appear that there were people who
http://www.ianallinson.co.uk/IB1%202011%20Party%
20and%20Class%20Today.doc
emphasised the “threat” from the movements far more than the “opportunity”.
Seeing movements primarily as a
threat to our revolutionary purity would
be the road to sectarianism. Clear politics
and collective organisation are our best
guarantee of engaging in movements correctly, so that we build both them and our
party within them.
Fudge is not enough
People well beyond the ranks of the
Rebuilding the Party faction would share
some or all of the views I’ve expressed
above. The big question is how can we all
get the party working well.
The outgoing CC is offering one way
forward:
• Concede ground while attacking the
Rebuilding the Party faction, mystifying
the political issues
• Reform the Disputes Procedures
while pretending nothing was previously
wrong with them, despite the report from
the second case saying it underlined “the
need to revise the Disputes Procedure and
make it fit for purpose”
• Maintain the pretence of a united
CC
• Elect a new CC with even greater
hidden divisions bottled up inside it, in
an attempt to federate enough support to
avoid accountability
While this would probably mean yet
more comrades leaving the party, such
an SWP would undoubtedly continue to
function and have an impact. It would
continue to age and suffer more avoidable
crises, due to never being willing to learn
the political lessons from the previous
ones.
There is a much better basis for building the party we need:
• Apologise to the two women for the
consequences of mishandling of their
complaints
• Openly acknowledge our mistakes
and revise the Disputes Committee procedures to make them fit for purpose
• Bring the real political issues out into
the open
• Without having any “purge”, elect
new leading bodies that clearly tip the
balance away from those who opposed
hearing of the second case or reforming
the disputes processes and towards those
who want to renew our democratic culture
and repair the damage we have suffered
Whatever positions you have taken
previously, whatever views you hold
about individual comrades who were in
the opposition, isn’t it obvious which
approach is in the interests of the working class?
39
An alternative
slate for
the Central
Committee
Ian (Bury & Prestwich) and Pat (Euston)
In IB1, the outgoing Central Committee (CC) proposed a slate for the CC to
be elected at the conference in December. The proposed slate does not offer a leadership that can rebuild the party from its
present crisis. Instead it just entrenches the
current untenable situation: the status quo,
but worse.
We intend to put forward an alternative
slate that can lead the party out of the mess
it is in. If you have suggestions as to who
should be on the alternative slate, please
send them to swprebuildingtheparty@
gmail.com.
plaints and reported to conference which
narrowly accepted it. It was not the CC who had responsibility for dealing with/investigating the
complaint. If the procedure was flawed
or not comprehensive enough to cover
the nature of allegation which it seems it
wasn’t, hopefully the work that has been
done on this issue detailed in IB1 and subject to amendments will hopefully set us in
good stead for the future if we are unfortunate enough to have to deal with this type
of serious allegation again.
What has never been explained to me by
anyone during this issue is; What is it that
comrades wanted the CC to do? Override
the democratic procedures we had agreed
in previous years? That for me would have
been a disaster and one I would have been
up in arms about.
I was not an attendee at last year’s conference but equally would have accepted
the will of conference on this issue whichever way conference voted.
Some observations
Two questions
and some
observations
Ian (Cardiff)
I write in response to some ongoing arguments in the Party in the hope that this
contributions may be of some help moving
forward. The questions are in relation to
some points in the statement of intent in IB
1 which does contain some valid points:
1. Where it states it wants the CC to ensure all sides are heard at conference
etc. (My italics). What do the comrades
actually want the CC to do? Please explain
as it’s a serious question. This reads to me that they are encouraging the CC to bypass the democratic
procedures in the party and act in a Stalinist fashion.
An aggregate of members elects delegates to conference and the members will
elect those delegates as they see fit. This
is as it should be. If a group of us form a
faction in pre-conference period as allowed
but we don’t get any of our faction members elected to conference what is the CC
expected to do? Not allow someone who
has been democratically elected to attend
to allow me a faction member to attend?
2. The statement of intent wants the CC to
apologise.
The CC may have made some mistakes
in the handling of the crisis. However, this
disregards a major fact, in that it was the
disputes committee that handled the com-
Money
It is unacceptable that over half of members pay no subs. This means, for most, that
either the argument has not been had or the
member is not convinced.
We rightly criticised Galloway’s supporters in Respect in Tower Hamlets for reeling
ten pound notes off a roll to pay members’
dues. We are worse; we allow people to pay
nothing and then sit in aggregates and vote
etc.
A systematic campaign must be undertaken to speak to every single person who
does not pay subs to ascertain the level of
what they can afford and frankly I believe
the vast majority can afford something.
When I joined a leading comrade stated we
take your money, time and energy but we
offer you a party of like minded people to
work with to help try and change the world,
this is one argument that helped win me.
Membership inevitably involves some sacrifices ;from each according to their ability.
Permanent factions
It is clear to me that some comrades want
to see this, therefore I would ask that they
come forward and declare this and argue
their case. It is a legitimate argument –absolutely disastrous I would argue – but never
the less if comrades believe in it they should
be prepared to argue for it.
Democratic Centralism
A few points; I want to see open discussion.
I do not want to trawl the internet looking
for an article which a comrade told me about
which I was anyway unable to find. I want
to read it in the party’s publications etc. This
is why I think an extended Socialist Review
website may help facilitate political debate.
Democracy involves losing: When I was
on the NC of the Party I voted against the
expulsion of the ISO (US) from our tendency. I was in a minority of one - still that’s
life.
Relatively early on in my membership
of the SWP Women comrades in Cardiff
decided we were going to petition for a
women’s right to choose and against SPUC
on the Saturday. I can’t say I was looking
forward to it as a then young man thinking it
was a women’s issue. I was argued with and
they won I went along and to my surprise it
went well and I learned a lot.
Being an activist In Unison and a member of the SWP I could go on I guess I’ve
lost quite a few votes over the years in the
Union but we have to implement democratic
decisions. The comrade from the Unite faction in IB1 who was on the losing side in
the general secretary’s debate deserves to be
read on this subject.
There is a certain irony for me in the
current debate particularly in relation to the
CC of the past few years and the extent of
democracy. For a number of years the IB’s
were about six pages long and to which I
contributed to regularly including many
criticisms of internal matters like membership figures etc. There was extremely little
debate and discussion then when perhaps we
could have done with it.
Whilst the recent crisis relating to an
internal matter has been very serious and
damaging the roots of some organisational
and perspective problems go back many
years and the short article by Anne and
Martin in IB1 I think makes some succinct
points about this.
My last point is this when all is said and
done conference will have to vote on perspectives, changes to procedures etc. The
question is; Can we all react in the manner
of the Unite comrade in IB1 if we lose the
vote?
Avoiding
Mutually
Assured
Destruction
Paul (newly moved in Tower Hamlets)
As Barry & Mick note in IB1 (Neither One
Nor T’Other), the SWP stands at the edge
of a precipice where two opposing factions
threaten to bring about, to paraphrase Marx,
‘the mutual ruin of the contenders’.
In one corner, over 200 signatories to
the article headed ‘Statement of Intent’
[SoI] roughly represent those who remain
in the ‘opposition’ of the former IDOOP
faction, raising questions about the Delta
case, party structures, party democracy, the
relationship of leadership bodies to each
other and the wider membership, and the
40
scope for meaningful and frank debate
within the organisation.
In the other, around 100 signatories to
‘Statement For Our Revolutionary Party’
[SFoRP] which seems to simply state generalities around party principles as in a
‘Where We Stand’ column, and asking for
the expulsion of those to comrades who
continue to belong to a permanent faction
should be expelled’.
I want to address this imminent danger:
another 200+ members facing expulsion
for permanent factionalism. The SFoRP
faction may think this will ‘purify’ the
SWP. It will certainly not - it will in fact
be a most serious blow to lose such a large
number of valuable, thoughtful comrades
and be a serious block to recruitment and
retention in the future.
But I also want to make two proposals seeking to improve our structures
and strengthen our ability to have honest debates without blowing ourselves to
smithereens, as I think structural problems
in party democracy have played a large
role.
1. Motions not factions
I propose that the prime system of debate
in the SWP should centre on the submission of motions to Party bodies (including
Conference and NC), not the formation of
factions.
In his IB1 article ‘On Factions, Permanent or Otherwise’, Dan from Norwich puts
his finger on a key problem with a factionbased system, quoting ‘a Norwegian friend
who told me that when he joined the Left
Party in Norway he had to join one of the
factions, not because he agreed with either
of them but because it was the only way to
have a voice.’
Dan goes on to say that ‘it’s obvious
that our formal ban on permanent factions
has not prevented the worst aspects of
factionalism from setting in. We need an
honest accounting of what might prevent
this.’
Seeing things through the prism of,
or loyalty to, a faction,as the other Paul
from Tower Hamlets rightly states (in IB1
‘Between Scylla and Charybdis – comrades
we need to revert to adding surname initials
to tell IB contribution authors apart) does
not just affect those forming factions. It
also marshals those defending the CC line
into exactly the same prisms and loyalties.
I think that factionalism in the SWP is
structured as a likely outcome of debate by
it being the only form of debate elevated
to a place in our constitution, even in the
3-month pre-conference period.
Formation of even temporary factions
runs the risk of structuring and giving a
grouping momentum and a life of its own
to carry on after the temporary period,
like [without wishing to disrespect the
intentions and views of those in factions]
a Frankenstein’s monster. Why do we
have factions, even temporary ones, in
the first place?
Factions also often carry within them a
mixture of nuanced positions, over a variety
of questions, rather than being homogenous. This therefore gives rise to another
disadvantage of factions, of lacking clarity
in resolving contested questions.
Instead, I suggest that contested issues
should be debated around motions. Each
issue can be clearly, precisely and separately debated (although motions can also
be about other proposals, not just contested
issues). Motions also have the stunningly
simple advantage of being associated with
debate over a defined timescale, as in any
other conference. Motions can be (and are)
submitted to NC, all year round.
The preamble to IB1 on conference procedures states that ‘the main methods of
discussion is through what we call commissions’ and goes on to state ‘sometimes
there’s a need for more specific debates.
These can usually take the form of commissions or amendments to commissions.
But recently both the CC and other party
bodies have submitted motions. These
can be useful but should not be the main
form of discussion. That should stay as
the commissions.’ [This balance is not laid
down constitutionally – how has it become
agreed practice?]
Presumably, the point of commissions is
to outline what we conclude we generally
agree with (after amendments of points of
dispute), to show the broad agreement with
the bulk of our conclusions. This is all well
and good to steer us to the agreed majority
part of what we discuss, to stop us concluding that all we are about is disagreeing with
each other.
I am not arguing that motions should
completely replace commissions. We can
perhaps fine-tune the balance between
motions and commissions. What I am arguing, though, is that that the submission of
motions should replace factions.
If our democratic structures use a defined
temporary decision-making period, in line
with the general principles of democratic
centralism, why on earth do we not make
motions central to that process?
2. Widening proposals of CCs
to the NC
There were several very useful and insightful contributions to IB1, one of which is
entitled ‘Learning Lessons from the Last
Year’ which makes many useful points,
including ‘moving out of entrenched factional division is going to take a major
political effort on all sides….. We are going
to have to learn how to listen to each other
and work together again’.
It concludes: ‘We need to develop a
National Committee of comrades who can
think independently in order to both support the CC and hold it to account. One
proposal for strengthening that role is for
the NC to meet more frequently.’
I support that proposal, and also suggest
it would benefit the SWP to go further: that
instead of an outgoing CC simply proposing its successors, that out of frank and
thoughtful discussion the NC also discuss
these proposals first, vote on them, and
is also propose its own combinations of
candidates.
Such frank discussion could interrogate
the political reasons for the balance in such
slates, and bring out any political arguments within the CC, as well as their own.
This may or may not use the slate system. Slates are not inherently good or bad
– it depends how they are used. Positively,
a balance of different elements can me
made in forming a good overall whole
slate, helping to overcome some unpredictability by individual votes.
Current CC arrangements of a group
of around 15 proposing the same number
of successors represents a poor level of
involvement - about the same level as the
Chinese CC and some way behind the conclave of 115 cardinals that elect the pope.
We seriously need to widen political discussion that informs who is proposed for
our leadership. Widening the body of proposers to the NC would be a step forward.
In addition to elections, political discussions in the NC on pressing questions will
not be limited to conference period and
CC elections. Reports from NCs, including feedback of debates from all sides of
disputed questions, should be issued to
branches, which should have time to discuss their own views of issues raised at
NCs, bearing in mind not to spend too
much time on it so that we have general
political discussion on a topic and a second session on intervention in campaigns,
unions and other practical involvement.
The practice of submitting motions
both to the NC and Conference, in both of
proposals 1 and 2, should be encouraged
and regularly incorporated into the fabric
of branch meetings. That way, the general
membership is better prepared for, and
involved in, debates in the party, including
disagreements in leadership bodies.
Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad
Movement?
I also wish to add some thoughts to the
debate about our relationship with those
we work with outside the party, to those
well made especially by Jim from Euston
in IB1 (‘Roots of a Crisis’ – overall I
thought this was the best article in IB1).
United front work should be at fundamentally important to us. It is easy to dismiss
as ‘movementist’ different, diverse formations that the struggle throws up. But as
Lenin famously said of the Easter Rising,
‘whover expects a pure revolution will not
live to see it. The danger is that comrades
dismiss such movements (as movementist!), or any attempt to construct broader
formations. This circular tautology is a
41
recipe for sectarian isolation.
It strikes me that our success with Stop
the War and Respect, at least as initially
planned, hinged on our ability to walk and
chew gum at the same time – to have at
the same time the flair to imaginatively
build and enable inclusive coalitions
which included wider non-Marxist forces
- the ‘wide’ aspect of a united front, while
not being prescriptive about that front’s
adherence to previous examples - while
maintaining ourselves and seeking to give
a lead as a Marxist component of that
alliance.
That broke down in ways Jim describes
well. But we will need to apply an imaginative approach that does both things in
future.
Central to the dangers of ‘movementism’, according to several contributors,
is no longer seeing the working class as
central to social change. However, there is
some ambiguity here.
If the term is meant to say that ‘social
movements’ (eg feminism, gay liberation
etc) are seen as a stronger force for change,
then this is true. But it is being used more
widely. The slur of movementism seems to
be being applied to any broad alliance like
the Stop the War Coalition.
It seems true that there is an extent to
which those around Counterfire downplay
the central role of the working class. John
Rees no longer sees strikes as more important than demonstrations. Lindsey German,
at a recent peoples’ assembly meeting in
North London, stated ‘the unions aren’t as
strong as they used to be’.
However I think that a more salient feature of Counterfire is to try a new formation
of a small radical left alliance without an
explicit Marxist element as a component.
The very names ‘Counterfire’ and ‘Dangerous Ideas’ seem to accept the idea that
to build the left, don’t push the terms ‘left’
or ‘socialist’ as that might put people off.
Counterfire have abandoned that Marxist
component in any organisational, or perhaps even individual senses in favour of
some of the strategies learnt in Stop the
War – get a coalition led by lots of leftish individuals, with established names
for themselves; hope to group a New Left,
in ways that seem perhaps to overlap in
approach with the foundation of New Left
Review (suggested to me by seeing the
fine John Akomfrah film The Stuart Hall
Project – a radical publication gathering
thinkers, a café etc).
None of this should at all mean we
should be sectarian to Counterfire – we
should engage with them fraternally. I
attended several interesting sessions of
one of Counterfire’s Festival of Dangerous
Ideas, and Lindsey to her credit defended
the SWP against an attack about the DC
case from Tom Hall, stating that she had
been a member of the SWP for over 30
years and didn’t regret it for a minute.
At the time we helped to successfully
build Stop the War, we didn’t dismiss it
as ‘movementist’. We shouldn’t fall into a
pessimistic trap by doing so now. Rather,
we should welcome the imagination and
creativity that people bring to struggles and
protest, such as against war and fracking,
engaging with it while applying our Marxist politics in sensitive alliance with them
and maintaining our identity and organisation. We should also be bolder in cultural
activity and engagement as the CP used
to do in the 1930s and we did with Rock
Against Racism in the 1970s, rather than
dismiss it as ‘popular frontism’. All power
to the imagination!
Where I stand – on other
matters
While I can agree with the part of the
‘Statement of Intent’ about improving party
democracy, I do feel on the other hand
that we have taken considerable steps in
addressing the shortcomings of the disputes
committee, as can be seen in IB1.
For the most part, I think we can say
that we have upheld a tradition of fighting
women’s oppression well. The ‘Statement’,
however, seems to think that the only way
forward is to wear sackcloth and ashes
to win back members by issuing public
apologies.
If this were appropriate, though, it would
only confirm to those hostile to us that we
were Leninist sexists all along. We are not,
and never have been, the WRP, so to speak.
I say for the most part, because there are
one or two failings from the DC case that
still need addressing. One is also a failing of
democratic centralism: when people are punished for disagreeing with the centre/central
committee by being sacked or moved.
Democratic centralism must be able to
handle differences of opinion, and offer
support to those bringing genuine complaints, better than this. The centre should
not think it can act high-handedly without
consequences.
That said, I think that we can widely
recognise that DC procedures have now
improved. It would be reasonable to apologise that they were not as good as they
should have been, but hopefully now will
work better. I think that the reason why I
joined the original IDOOP faction, to review
disciplinary procedures, has generally been
put in place for a better process in future.
I also view favourably other proposals
raised to address increasing internal debate
and democracy, including publishing CC
minutes and a blog. We must be adult
enough to recognise that people do have differences of opinion and nuances of position
(god knows the last year must have demonstrated that!), even on the CC whom we
should certainly not expect or wish to be an
infallible monolith.
A branch that’s
blooming
Charlotte, Dick, Jan, Maureen and Mike
(Manchester Longsight/Levenshulme)
Amongst many of the contributions to IB1
that critique the organizational structure of
the SWP and conclude that the party is in
terminal decline, there is a recurrent theme
around the collapse of local branches.
Indeed Jim (Euston) writes
“We need to address the nuts and bolts
of how the SWP functions. In particular,
how do our branches regain their role
as the core of the party, providing ideas
and cutting edge arguments and acting as an organizational hub for local
activists?”
The story of our branch over the past 12
months we think provides some answers
to this question and by describing our
experience we can pull out key factors that
have been instrumental in the building of
a local branch of the type that Jim yearns
for. Indeed, while many contributors to IB1
describe a year of despair and frustration,
our branch has had its best year ever since
its inception in 2011. While we have all
been affected by the internal crisis, and
we welcome the commission to review
the disputes procedures, nevertheless we
end the year with a stronger and healthier
branch that is pushing outwards with vital
new comrades playing pivotal roles both
at branch and district level. So how did
we do it?
A key element of our success has been
clear political argument at the heart of
a local anti-cuts campaign that helped
deliver a partial victory under difficult
circumstances. We were able to lead in
the campaign because of deep local roots
within the community. We have been consistent and methodical as well as creative
and audacious. We have also been welcoming and open with new comrades. Our
branch is a place of high-level political
debate but also friendly and safe so new
comrades have integrated quickly and have
felt confident to ask questions. This has
given them confidence in turn to take up
political debates at work and remain politically sharp within campaigns.
Whilst trying to keep this contribution
short it is worth giving some detail. A key
battlefront for our branch has been the
fight against council cuts (and who doesn’t
have them in their area!?). In 2011 a huge
campaign kept Levenshulme swimming
baths open and comrades living in the area
were at the heart of that fight. As a result
we decided it would be good to establish
a local branch but the reality was that we
hadn’t really won people to our politics
although we had earned respect within the
community as hard working activists. We
42
set up the branch in the autumn of 2011 but
for the first year struggled with a core of
4/5 comrades.
In January of this year the council came
back for more cuts and this time both the
baths and the library were earmarked for
closure. We argued politically from the
start and our politics cut with people who
have now experienced 3 years of year on
year cuts and a deterioration in their own
working conditions. At a public meeting
of about 150 on the 18th January after
various local councillors, Labour and Lib
Dem and the Labour MP had done lots of
handwringing about the situation, several
comrades spoke and called for the city
council to set a ‘no-cuts’ budget. It was
the clearest political analysis of the crisis
facing local services and resonated widely
at the meeting with people who previously
had focused on narrow, localized demands
taking up the wider argument against the
politics of austerity.
With an analysis that austerity is a
political choice and not a force of nature
at the heart of the campaign, local people
fought back in their hundreds eventually
occupying both the library and the baths
and scoring a victory by keeping both
open. While there is not the space to go
into details of the campaign it was incredibly creative and energetic and many new
activists emerged to take a lead. Two of
the key activists have subsequently joined
the SWP and our branch and we have a
strong periphery which meant that in the
run up to Sept 29th we could call a local
meeting called ‘Why we’re marching’ with
speakers from unions and campaigns and
25 local people turned up. We put out a call
to march together and when we gathered
for the train into town there were more than
50 of us.
But we have recruited through other
routes too. A new member who met us on
a UAF demo and another through the bedroom tax campaign. Our meetings have
gone from the original 4/5 regulars plus a
sprinkling of others to an average of 10 at
a meeting with serious apologies. Longer
standing comrades have been revitalized saying that our meetings are the best
they’ve been to for ages for both political
discussion and activity.
Energy and political excitement has been
backed up by diligent attention to detail.
Weekly alerts about the meetings which
people respond to, eg sending apologies if
they can’t attend. Much better follow up
with new members, ring rounds and contact visiting. We have an up-to-date list of
workplace contacts in the local area and
we do delegation work for specific events
such as Sept 29th. We also have good relationships with the local mosque built over
many years and have been invited in to
speak – the last such invitation saw 35 men
staying behind after prayers to discuss a
forthcoming anti-EDL protest with us.
We have a regular local paper sale but
in recent weeks in addition we have taken
the initiative to instigate sales in Stockport
and Ashton with a view to re-establishing
branches there. Our first sales were 27 and
25 respectively. Branch members also regularly support the town centre sales. The
branch also intervenes as part of Manchester District SWP and has helped to shape
several activities on a Saturday – local bedroom tax events, anti EDL demos, Hovis
strike, community campaigns and sales.
This has stretched us but with a much
larger number of active members we have
so far delivered.
One more reflection of the feel of the
branch has been the response to the appeal.
Already 17 comrades have given and the
total stands at over £800. Many people sent
off money without having to be asked and
have promised more to follow.
The result, ironically given the pessimistic tone of much of the content of IB1,
a fantastic year with a victory against council cuts; a growing and dynamic branch;
new members who are politically confident
and active in their workplaces; branch initiatives taking the paper into new areas.
Our roots are strong and our branch is
blooming.
Do we think the working class is up for
a fight, hell yes. Working class people are
as angry as ever about everything, they
just need someone to say come on we can
change things as a collective. There is a
world out there to win you just have to go
and engage with it.
Manufacturing
differences?
Colin (Manchester)
Factional disputes have a tendency to proliferate. What starts as an argument about
one matter risks spilling over into arguments about quite other matters which are
initially peripheral to the core argument and
get added on to enlarge the original issues
at stake. Disputants create amalgams where
none necessarily exist. Comrades explain
why someone holds a different position
in terms of arguments like ‘It is no accident that X says Y, he is a movementist/
anti-Bolshevist, Anthingyoulikeist’. Matters which could, indeed should be, part of
the ongoing conversation among members
about the nature of the world and how to
respond to it are converted into factionalised issues as well.
So, for example, what ought to be a
very open and exploratory discussion
about such matters as the contemporary
relevance of ‘feminism’, involving the
critical evaluation of new literature as well
as of older ideas and practices, itself risks
becoming factionalised inside the SWP. So
too, it seems, does discussion of the nature
of the contemporary class struggle and its
prospects.
Some of this drift towards widening the
field of dispute involves switching topics,
so that, rather than debating the issues in
the original factional controversy, disputants challenge the right of their opponents
to hold their views by suggesting they are
abandoning the very principles of Marxism itself.
The current crisis in the SWP is not
about the nature of the working class today,
or about the need to orient towards its
struggles. Those are matters which are – or
should be – matters for ongoing debate and
discussion at all manner of levels, without
any kind of ‘factional’ taint.
There is a serious dispute inside the SWP,
and it is about the internal life of the SWP
as an organisation. It began with arguments
about the inadequacy of our procedures
for handling complaints by members.
Some members refused to acknowledge
any problems, though now they are (belatedly) being addressed. In the course of
the argument about our internal disputes
procedures, the wider rules, procedures
and political culture of the organisation
were also thrown into question. All these
issues are ‘domestic’: they’re about about
the rights and duties of opposition, about
weaknesses in our internal democracy,
about failures by the leadership and about
the real risk of their leading the SWP into
becoming a narrow sect.
Pete (Birmingham Small Heath) in his
contribution to IB1 (‘No more Putilovs?)
wants to join in the rhetorical game of
enlarging the sphere of argument. He seems
to warn against such a drift, but actually
contributes to it himself.
If, in my talk at Marxism (‘What could
a socialist revolution look like?) I’d wanted
to suggest abandoning the view that the
working class is central to any feasible
conception of socialist revolution, I’d have
said so. Actually, I spent some time arguing
that at the centre of the tasks facing any
future socialist revolution is the question
of establishing workers’ control of production and distribution, on a basis that must
be democratic and ‘cooperative’ (i.e. not
‘market’ based) from the beginning. Who
else could possibly achieve this except the
working class? That’s part of what I’ve
always understood to be the ABC of revolutionary socialism, and I see no evidence
that I deviated from it in any way.
Pete seems to think that my suggesting
– in the major capitalist powers – there are
far less big factories like Putilov, or the
Ford River Rouge plant, or the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk means that the prospects
of working-class revolution are somehow
diminished. He thinks this observation is
somehow proof of my (and ‘the faction’s’)
sliding away from Marxism. What a daft
argument!
43
Working class
Pete does allow that the working class, and
the nature of production and distribution,
has changed somewhat. He cites the case of
Trafford Park, where he says 1,400 companies employ 35,000 workers. Okay, but when
I came to Manchester in the early 1960s
Trafford Park included, among some other
very big workplaces, the AEI plant (‘Metrovicks’) , which employed 25,000 workers
all on one site and with one employer. Even
in the later 1960s, it still employed 20,000
workers– we used to distribute 1,500 factory
bulletins there every fortnight, and always
ran out before the end of the paper sale. (We
wrote them, incidentally, with the help of
workers in the factory, and regularly collected donations towards their production at
the gates.) Trafford Park is a shadow of its
former concentration of workers.
All the big workplaces I mentioned were
engineering plants. They were characteristic
of a phase in capitalist development when
metal workers were at the militant core of
the working class. This comes out in two
very good pieces of writing by non-members of the ‘faction’: Alex Callinicos’s 1977
article on Soviet Power, and Donny Gluckstein’s book The Western Soviets.
Are there still big concentrations of
workers? Of course there are. Many of them,
though, consist of sites where dozens, even
hundreds, of different employers operate.
This is true of the airports and the big shopping complexes, for example.
Do changes in the concentration of
workers make the prospects of workingclass revolution less? Pete seems to think I
believe this. What nonsense!
A central question that faces any working
class – now, of course, including millions
of so-called ‘white collar workers’ – that
sets out on the road to revolution is that of
the coordination of literally hundreds of
workplaces. The Lenin Shipyard was not
just significant because it employed 16,000
workers in 1980, but because it had a big
meeting hall. There, delegates from over
600 occupied workplaces assembled to form
the historic inter-factory strike committee¸
the closest thing to a soviet we’ve seen in
Europe since the war. (At the shipyard in
Szczecin, down the coast, 740 workplaces
were represented.)
Do changes in the nature of the working
class make such a development less possible? Not at all.
Just to stir Pete’s pot a little, though,
I’ll now add that there are other changes
that will very likely make a difference to
the form of organisation adopted by any
future revolutionary workers’ movement
- and I don’t have a clue how they will
be handled. By way of illustration, let me
briefly recount my father’s experience. In
1919, at age 14, he left school – as did most
working-class kids. He was lucky, he got an
apprenticeship (seven years!) in a factory in
East London. At the time he started work,
the pension age was 70, and 80 per cent of
worker never lived long enough to collect
their pensions. Today it’s different, in two
significant respects. First, large numbers of
young people, many of them working class,
don’t begin anything like fulltime employment till they are in their 20s. Second, many
more workers survive to collect their pensions (even though both Labour and Tories
are trying to claw some of this gain back).
Why does this matter?
In any future workers’ revolution, there
will be a whole layer of young people, and
another layer of lively 70 and 80 year olds,
who will play important parts in making
and consolidating the new society. They will
demand to be part of any new ‘constitution’.
The question of the forms of working-class
power will have to take account of this.
Ever since the 1960s, for example, students
(school and college) have played a significant part in mass insurgencies, and it hardly
seems likely they won’t be involved in new
forms of soviet. Pensioners are hardly likely
to accept a form of popular democracy based
solely on workplaces that excludes them! So
the form that the workers’ councils of the
future will take is an open question. And we
have damn-all experience to theorise about
how it will be solved.
Saying that does not, to my mind, involve
any retreat from the principles of Marxism.
Pete should remove his sectarian blinkers
and learn to think.
Neither
factionalism
nor equivalence
but the
International
Socialist
tradition
Terry (Hornsey & Wood Green)
work. Adaptationism “...is a key element
underpinning the factional opposition
which has emerged and persisted over the
last year...”
Paul goes on to argue that the other danger is “...a retreat into a mind-set which sets
a course towards sectarianism...” Again I
think that Paul is correct here, especially
when he goes on to argue that this second
danger “...should be no surprise for in truth
these two – adaptation and sectarianism
– are always twins, with one comes inevitably the other.”
However, it seems that Paul is
mistaken on the number of dangers the
party faces. Rather than there being two
twin dangers as Paul suggests, there is in
fact only one: the adaptationism/sectarianism of the permanent faction.
Is it sectarian to defend the
SWP?
After outlining what seems to be an accurate picture of the nature of the permanent
faction his argument takes a strange turn.
Paul claims that some comrades not in the
faction are also on a path to sectarianism:
“It would be a real tragedy if in an entirely
correct desire to defend the party from
the pull of adaptation to movementism,
and from the disastrous price we would
pay from a culture of permanent factional
organisation, good comrades were pulled
into a spiral whose centre and end point
was sectarianism.” It seems that defending
the party is sectarian as well, at least there
is a danger of becoming so.
This is a strange argument indeed. How
could defending a political tradition with at
its heart the key issues of: class, exploitation and workers organising at work, lead
to adaptationism? Surely the very opposite
would be the case. Similarly, how could
defending the party from the threat posed
by permanent factions, primarily by looking outwards and trying to engage in real
world struggles, lead to sectarianism? This
simply makes little sense.
No to equivalence
The movementism and
sectarianism of the
permanent factions
In Internal Bulletin 1 Paul (Tower Hamlets)
is absolutely correct to insist that “More
than ever we need a party precisely of the
SWP ‘kind’”.
He goes on to focus on what he sees
as the twin dangers present in the current
period: adaptationism and sectarianism.
Adaptationism he argues is “...an adaptation to the politics current in many of the
movements and within struggles against
oppression...” A politics which does not
have at its heart the key issues of class,
exploitation and workers organising at
Returning to Paul’s suggestion that the
party faces twin dangers it seems that he is
right after all. However, the second danger
is actually posed by those like Paul who
equate the permanent faction with those
who have been defending the party. This
‘equivalence’ can only mask how to effectively end the period of permanent factions
that the party has had to endure of the last
year or so.
Mad dogs and factions
Paul also argues that an increasing number
of people see everything “...through the
prism of factional differences.” Prisms
refract or distort light but there is no factional prism in the SWP.
44
There is only the reality of nearly a year
of permanent factions. Many comrades see
factional differences nearly everywhere
but that is the reality in a large number of
branches and districts. However, Paul seems
to see this as a failing of some individuals
who have stood “...firm against the dangers
of adaptation to movementism...” and who
want to “...defend and maintain the core politics and traditions of the party...”
But this is no personal or political failing,
rather, it is the reality of allowing permanent
factions. It is a reality that effects everyone in
the SWP, including Paul. If you are in a room
with a mad dog, eventually it is impossible to
tell who is mad.
Your behaviour has to adapt to your surroundings. After all, as Marx said, social
being determines consciousness. If you want
to end people seeing everything in terms of
factional differences, then you must end permanent factions: declared or otherwise.
Neither factionalism
nor equivalence but the
International Socialist
tradition
Equating the permanent faction with those
who have been defending the party is like
the continuation of the permanent faction
itself: a threat to the very existence of the
SWP as a Leninist vanguard party. The only
difference is how long the threat takes to
become a reality.
However, there is a third way, excuse the
terminology, it is Bolshevism: the politics
of the Internationalist Socialist Tendency.
Let us use our conference to debate and discuss how we should move forward but once
we have done so we must act together as a
combat party with a united leadership and
membership to give the most effective lead
we can in the class struggle. There can no
longer be a place in the SWP for those who
refuse to accept this. They should leave or
they must be expelled. Enough is enough.
Still neither one
nor t’other
Barry (Bradford) and Mick (Barnsley)
Events since we wrote for IB1 have confirmed our worst fears. Despite the clear
opinion expressed by leading international
comrades at Marxism 2013, the two blocks
are launching bitter attacks on each other.
This is best shown by the Callinicos-Renton
exchanges. The two sides are rapidly
approaching a point where only total defeat
over the other will be acceptable. This runs
the risk of smashing up the party, one way or
the other. For this reason alone neither side
can be allowed total success.
Developing our line of thought from the
analysis in IB1 (and taking all that as read),
the following is clear:
1) The seriousness of this was brought home
to us at Marxism 2013. No-one can seriously
argue that the event was not a shadow of
its previous self. This was true in terms of
numbers, the refusal of invited speakers to
attend, the quality of the debates, and the
general atmosphere.
Reports from around the country suggest
a paralysis in many branches that that led to a
serious lack of growth in a period which, on
the back of continuing generalised attacks on
our class, should be translating into serious
general recruitment.
In a reverse sense, this is borne out by our
personal experiences from branches where
fortunately the paralysing effects have not
been felt to any significant extent. In both
there have been increased attendances and
real growth, primarily but not exclusively
through our activities around the bedroom
tax and anti-fascist/racist work.
2) A year ago the 80-90 who formed a faction
contained a core who were clearly intent on
leaving whatever the outcome of the January
conference, even if that was delayed by the
nature of the uproar.
The bitter personal experience of B shows
that with careful management that ought to
have been reduced to 40-50. Instead, the
Central Committee now admits that 400-450
members have left since January. Inflating
a loss by a factor of 10 is an issue of competence in itself, since it is 3 times the size
of any previous loss after a bitter internal
dispute.
3) Since the difference between the signatures to IDOOP in March and RBtP now is
200+, it’s clear that another 200+ comrades
have simply given up in despair. Therefore,
driving out another 200+ comrades postconference, as a well-supported piece in IB1
happily contemplates, can be expected to
generate an additional significant loss.
Who really believes that the residual
party could absorb such losses without being
seriously organisationally and politically
compromised?
4) The performance of the BtP faction has
been lamentable. Firstly, their document
provides no concrete way to ensure that
this situation, in itself in key aspects a rerun of the Respect crisis, does not re-occur.
Secondly, in the predictable uproar that has
followed the publication of IB1 and the ISJ,
they have allowed debate to be defined by
the most aggressive and intransigent of their
supporters. Failing to get a grip on this process has facilitated a descent into partisan
conflict that is driving the party towards a
catastrophe.
5) The debates are still wandering around
a central issue. In their current ISJ article,
Alex Callinicos and Charlie Kimber begin
to engage the ideological impact of Lindsey
German and John Rees. Good! The trouble
is that is seven years too late.
We agree with AC and CK that there is a
danger from what is loosely called “movementism”. From about 2005-06 we were
worried by Lindsey German’s constant references to the Stop the War Campaign as
‘the Mothership’. It didn’t seem to fit with
the general framework of SWP politics, but
since she kept repeating it without open
contradiction from the rest of the CC we
assumed (naively, in retrospect) that it must
somehow be OK.
It is now clear that she and John Rees
were developing a strategy that the broad
united coalition of Stop the War, appropriate
for a single issue campaign of that nature,
was a template into which all SWP activities were to be forced. This popped up again
in the form of John Rees’ ‘United Front of
a Special Type’ formulation in relation to
RESPECT.
Such a strategy demands that the partners
play ball. When it became clear that George
Galloway and a dubious collection of bandwagon-jumpers were not on the same script,
John Rees could not let it out into the wider
party as it would shoot down the ‘United
Front of a Special Type’. Eventually Galloway forced the issue and most of us had our
first nasty surprise, when RESPECT split.
So “movementism” has indeed been a
threat within the party for a long time. However, it is not the invention of Dave Renton,
Rob Owen, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and All. It
was formed inside the Central Committee of
which Alex Callinicos and Charlie Kimber
were members.
We would hazard a guess that criticisms
were raised inside the CC at the time. Unfortunately, the slate system and the omerta that
it generates consistently keeps these from
the wider party. It meant that the fallout from
RESPECT focused on the organisational
rather than theoretical aspects, and so we
never had a full political resolution of the
issue.
Because it was primarily organisational
rather than political, the number of people
who left (in England) to form Counterfire
with LG and JR was surprisingly low, given
their stature of decades of leadership of the
SWP.
The implication of this is that there
remains scattered around all sections of the
party comrades who still retain some measure of sympathy with their strategy. Given
their reemergence in the leadership of the
People’s Assembly, and initiative in which
we are correctly fully participating, the issue
of their strategy is one that requires urgent
resolution.
We repeat that the party is in great peril.
With a change bin internal culture, facilitated
by such measures as we outlined in IB1, we
can resolve the full range of issues confronting us and come through. For this to occur,
comrades must retreat from their obsession
with crushing their perceived opponents.
45
A response to
‘The question of
power’
Julie (Nottingham), Cath and Becky
(Leicester)
First of all we welcome discussions about
oppression and how to fight it. The difficult
issues around the Disputes case have quite
clearly highlighted political differences.
Theories about women’s oppression in the
context of the 21st Century do need to be
debated rigorously within our party.
We agree that revolutionary socialists should aim to be respectful, honest
and non exploitative. And we concur that
individuals in leading positions need to
be particularly careful of their behaviour.
Jackie from Tower Hamlets is right to point
out that members of a revolutionary party
are not immune from the baggage of capitalist society. To our knowledge the SWP
has never claimed otherwise.
We want to look at this statement Jackie
makes: “our understanding of our tradition
is that we form sexual relationships freely
without the constraints of bourgeois morality.” This is rather idealistic. Members of a
revolutionary party still have their desires,
and sexual preferences influenced by the
material world they live in, in this case
capitalism. “Most people’s ideas are shaped by a
collection of differing and sometimes
contradictory notions. These flow
from the interaction between their
experiences the prejudices of the society they live in.” (Chris Harman Socialist Review, January 2005). It is in the course of becoming a revolutionary socialist, that a person is won to
rejecting the prejudices of the society
around them. This is an ongoing process
and does not happen overnight. Capitalism
also creates insecurities.
The increasing commodification of sex
means that women, and increasingly men
face pressure to attain a physical ideal. And
through the condition of alienation:
“the terms of relationships between
individuals become coloured by the
logic of the capitalist system. Other
human beings appear to us through economic categories. We relate to them not
directly, but as customers, employers,
managers and competitors.”
(Alienation by Dan Swain, 2012). Obviously being revolutionaries we want
a society based on co-operation, not competition, and we politically reject labelling
people as superior / inferior. However we
are not immune from its psychological
effects. The insecurity and anxiety many
of us feel in the presence of others is a byproduct of a system that divides people. Slip seamlessly?
Revolutionary socialists should aspire not
to judge other people’s sexual behaviour
and sexual arrangements – providing they
are between consenting adults. In her article
Jackie asks “when does avoiding moralism
and possession slip seamlessly into lack of
respect for sexual partners, hurt feelings
and exploitation?” We do not believe people “slip seamlessly” into raping someone, or carrying
out other forms of abuse and oppressive
behaviour. Rape is a specific act and it
needs to be differentiated from other
acts, otherwise the term itself become
meaningless. Women are oppressed and many have
had horrific experiences, but they are also
real, active beings with human agency.
Women are not simply victims of what
other people do to them. It takes a perpetrator to remove a woman’s sexual agency
- she does not lose sexual agency by
herself.
On the question of exploitation, in a
relationship one party might be less confident and have less life experience that
the other.
Does this mean they can be potentially
taken advantage of - yes of course they can.
But for abuse to occur, the other party has
to act in a way which is abusive. We should
avoid making assumptions about particular
relationships between adults. We need to
judge situations on a case by case basis
– i.e. what words are said and / or what
deeds are done.
Moralism and possession
People have arguments with each other, and
can hurt each other’s feelings. This is part
and parcel of the stress and pressure of living under capitalism. A revolutionary party
will only intervene if a comrade is bullying, or if they display oppressive behaviour
linked to sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia or transphobia.
Our tradition regarding women’s liberation, and indeed all forms of sexual
liberation are based on people such as Frederick Engels, Alexandra Kollantai, Lenin,
and also includes Marxist and Feminist
anthropologists. We do not view monogamy as either “natural” or “unnatural”.
Instead we believe that human beings have
the capacity to live in a variety of ways,
with a variety of sexual arrangements.
There is no problem as long as they are all
consenting adults.
Of course in capitalist society, because
of alienation and lack of control many people, including socialists are brought up to
want “a special someone” to be with them
and only them. Whilst it is (probably) better to discuss the possibility of an open
relationship and agree some boundaries,
rather than a person feeling deeply hurt
by their partner’s affair, this is a private
matter. The SWP has always taken the view that
comrades should sort these issues out by
themselves. The reason being is that we
do not think people have the right to own
each other in sexual relationships. The Disputes committee would only intervene if a
complaint of bullying/oppressive behaviour was made, or if conflict boils over and
affected the ability of a branch / district to
organise.
How do we define power?
We feel that in Jackie’s article there is a tendency towards defining “power” mostly in
terms of personal behaviour. For us power
cannot simply be reduced to the dynamics
in personal relationships.
Marxists view real power as being in the
hands of the ruling class. They decide who
will eat, who will get bombed, who will get
treated in hospital, who will live, and who
will die. A tiny percentage of the population control the earth’s resources and so
control the conditions of our lives. This is not to deny the terrible impact
of abusive behaviour that is carried out by
some individual (mostly) men. We think
that amongst the working class, abusive
behaviour is a consequence of lack of
power, combined with reactionary ideas.
It is in the interests of the tiny elite that
people kick downwards instead of upwards.
Sexist ideas are held by individual men,
but they do not originate from them. They
originate from a tiny group at the top of
society - the ruling class. The ruling class create and re-create
women’s oppression, using the ideological role of the family, shored up by the
words of politicians, newspaper editorials, the church, the education system and
judiciary.
The solution
Jackie’s article states “power is at play in
any relationship and should be ideally balanced between participants.” We are not quite sure what this means.
Sexual relationships may involve a party
who is less socially oppressed than the
other person in the relationship. We do not believe it is the author’s
intention but we think her argument helps
feed pessimistic conclusions. For example
the idea that “women should avoid having
sexual relationships with men, as men are
less oppressed than they are, black people
should avoid having sexual relationships
with white people, as white people are less
oppressed then they are, and so on.”
Having the potential to act oppressively
does not mean a person automatically will
act oppressively. Revolutionary socialists believe it is possible to win the less
oppressed to identifying with those who
46
are more oppressed. A person does not
have to directly experience an oppression
in order to oppose it. In her article Jackie states that “I
think we need to try to understand the
underlying politics which will direct our
attitudes to and expectations of our personal relationships.”
Our answer to that is we think a revolutionary party should constantly strive to
challenge sexism in wider capitalist society, and on the occasions when it occurs
inside our party. Female and male comrades should be encouraged to play an
active role outside and inside the party.
It is this process which helps to increase
comrades’ confidence and build a culture
of respect. There is no iron wall between the
internal life of the party and the wider
world. Struggles against oppression and
exploitation in wider society feed into the
revolutionary party. It is by intervening in
real-life campaigns that transform people,
including revolutionaries. A miner, who took part in the 1984-85
Miners Strike recalls their experience: “Miners died scavenging for coal to
keep their homes warm. But it was
also the best year of my life, as it was
for many other miners’ families. There
was a real strong sense of solidarity
among people and peoples’ lives were
transformed. They saw things, and each
other, differently. They saw solidarity as
the basis of a better world. That didn’t
die with the end of the strike.”
(Socialist Worker Issue 2142). A question of
leadership
Hannah (Euston)
The current crisis in the Socialist Workers
Party has brought the role of the Disputes
Committee into sharp focus – in particular,
how it handles allegations of rape and sexual
harassment.
Following a protracted political struggle
within the organisation, the Disputes Committee Review Body has come forward with
a number of proposals to address shortcomings in our procedures (Bulletin 1, p41). We
have to accept these proposals and build on
them if we’re to ensure the failings experienced by the two women involved in recent
disputes are never repeated. The review proposals are also a necessary first step towards
rebuilding confidence among comrades and
the within the wider movement that the SWP
puts its theory into practice when it comes to
dealing with women’s oppression.
However, the Central Committee’s role in
this crisis also has to be put under scrutiny.
The CC is, after all, the body with overall
responsibility for the political direction of
the party and for upholding the party’s principles, integrity and standing. It is the body
which dealt with the complaint involving
Comrade W the first time round in 2010. It
is the body that failed to act to address the
mishandling of disputes in 2012 and 2013, or
to stop the sexist slurs and bullying that the
two women at the centre of the dispute have
been subjected to by some comrades.
Recognising the mistakes
At Marxism this year Alex C said: “It’s true
we’ve been through a very profound and
painful crisis over the handling of serious
complaints. And as far as I am concerned,
I am part of a determined effort to address
these complaints and to learn the lessons
from this whole process. And of course,
learning the lessons means looking at and
recognising the mistakes that have been
made. That’s part of any honest process in a
revolutionary party.”
But there has still been no proper accounting of what those mistakes were, what led to
them, whether they were accidental or shaped
by deeper political problems, or what lessons
we need to learn. We need to understand why
defending the party became synonymous
with defending the leadership, and in turn
with defending M. We need to grasp how
it came to pass that internal considerations
over the protection of a leading individual
and the “cohesion” of the CC ended up overriding our basic political principles.
The ability of the CC to act in this way is
a product of a wider malaise in the SWP’s
political culture. A revolutionary party
requires a consistent, focused and coherent leadership. But such a leadership can
only do this effectively in the context of
an active, critical relationship between the
leadership and membership. That is what
enables an active relationship between party
and class – the relationship through which
our political principles derive their purpose
and meaning.
It is now clear that over a period of time
that relationship between party leaders and
party members has fragmented and worn
down. The latest crisis has crystallised and
accelerated this breakdown.
In particular, this episode has been
marked by systematic attempts on the part of
the CC to conceal the facts and information
from comrades, or to ensure that only partial
information is let out. Much of this has been
justified by talk of “confidentiality”. In reality “confidentiality” has served as a cover
for keeping comrades in the dark about the
issues at stake.
Political divisions on the CC
In their recent journal article, Charlie K and
Alex C refer to political divisions which
developed, initially regarding the handling
of the complaint in 2010, and later on the
CC over the response to the dispute hearing in autumn 2012. These were serious
divisions over how we put our principles
on oppression into practice. Yet they were
never aired in front of the party.
The failure of the CC to come clean about
these divisions incubated factionalism. It
was driven by some members of the CC
majority who wanted to undermine the
legitimacy of the minority raising criticisms. The minority were effectively
gagged in the name of “confidentiality”
and “collective responsibility”. Meanwhile a narrative was informally circulated
– one that cast aspersions on the motives
of the women bringing complaints against
M, that impugned the motives of comrades
who were critical over the dispute (including the CC minority), and one that talked
about the dangerous pull of movementism,
feminism, autonomism and so on.
This was the basis of an “undeclared
faction” that developed over this issue. It
organised around a petition that called for
M to be reinstated to the CC slate. This
faction continues to exist and continues to
operate. One section of it has hardened into
a sectarian and conservative rump intent
on driving anyone who raises criticisms
of dispute out of the organisation (“Statement for our revolutionary party”, Bulletin
1, p20).
The CC majority had won a position on
the CC by isolating the minority. It then
tried to do the same thing in the wider
party. But as on the CC, the minority was
a significant one. Calls to “draw a line” or
“respect the vote” meant that an unprecedented number of comrades with legitimate
concerns – most of whom had never been
part of a faction before – joined the In
Defence of Our Party faction in February.
They did this because all other channels
were blocked.
Full disclosure of the real arguments
on the CC earlier on would have stopped
this destructive narrative in its tracks. It
could also have prevented arguments about
the dispute from becoming the subject of
factions. Instead the CC responded to January’s conference votes by ramping up its
state of denial. This led to a deepening of
divisions, entrenchment and fragmentation
in the party.
These problems in the party are not
new. The need to address the relationship
between the CC and the party at large was
identified in the Democracy Commission
following the Respect crisis:
“Comrades who happen to be in the
minority should not be crushed to the
point of humiliation. All party meetings
– branch, district, national, CC, conference – should be conducted and chaired
with this in mind. Nor should there be a
fear as – with reason – there has been
in the past, of exclusion, isolation or
ostracism for the expression of dissident
views. The Democracy Commission is
united in calling for a more open demo-
47
cratic culture in the SWP conducive to
the frank debate of political differences.
Of particular importance in the development of this democratic culture is
the handling of disagreements within
the Central Committee.
“For some time the custom and practice has been for ALL differences within
the CC to be hidden form the wider
membership (except for close personal
confidants) with all CC members presenting an image of more or less total
unity until the last possible moment.
Obviously we don’t want to go to the
opposite extreme of every minority practical difference being bought to the NC
or permanent multiple factions. But the
responsible discussion of serious political differences when they arise would
help education comrades and train them
in thinking for themselves.”
(Pre-conference Bulletin 1, October
2009, p25 – emphasis added)
These recommendations were never implemented. A key reason for this is that the
Democracy Commission was not combined with honest political accounting of
what had gone wrong during the Respect
period. Now we are repeating exactly the
same mistakes. We have a commission, we
accept that “mistakes were made” in the
abstract – but we avoid specifying what
those mistakes were or drawing the necessary political conclusions.
Comrade X’s case
In August 2013 the case of the second
woman, Comrade X, was heard. The Disputes Committee found that M had a case to
answer on the charge of sexual harassment,
based on a substantial body of evidence.
It found that the recent disputes had
stretched the Disputes Committee “to
breaking point”. Yet the substance of this
report is still not known by comrades.
The woman involved has complained that
the summary report given to the National
Committee about the case is misleading
– but these complaints have been ignored.
The whispering campaign over the credibility of her complaint continues. Some
comrades in the undeclared pro-M faction
even submitted amendments to the Disputes Commission Review referring to
witch hunts against Lenin, Charles Parnell
and Joe Hill – thereby implying that the
allegations against M constituted a similar
witch hunt.
The CC has not intervened to correct
any of this. Instead, Charlie and Alex
chose to open the pre-conference period
with an article in the International Socialism journal which explains away “political
divisions” over the dispute in terms of the
pull of movementism and pessimism over
the power of the working class. Difficulties
around the dispute are acknowledged but
trivialised by reducing them to questions
of “perception”.
In doing this Charlie and Alex are throwing away the opportunity which the DC
Review Body and the DC hearing into the
second case has given for the party. This
is an opportunity to deal with the unjust
treatment of the two women involved in the
dispute, and to begin healing the damage
done to the party’s political standing over
women’s oppression.
Moreover the CC slate proposed in
Bulletin 1 (p16) includes current CC members who have resisted even the smallest
steps taken to try and correct mistakes. It
includes CC members who voted against
accepting the DC report into the second
case. It even adds an additional comrade,
who has been instrumental in organising
the undeclared faction in defence of M.
If we accept the narrative constructed by
Charlie and Alex in the journal – that the
issue which has dominated party life for
the last year is actually all about the hidden
hand of movementism – then we simply
lay the basis for another pre-conference
period where the opportunity to genuinely
address issues outstanding from the dispute
will be lost.
If comrades are not made aware of the
role played by CC members, collectively
and individually, then how can we hope to
hold anyone to account? How is accountability – the cornerstone of democratic
centralism – even possible under such
circumstances? If the differences between
current and proposed CC members on an
issue that has defined the party for almost
a year remain hidden, how are we meant to
even start addressing the issue of ongoing
factionalism within the party?
Only a proper accounting of what has
gone wrong – and the role of the CC in all
that – can lay the basis for a renewal of the
party. And without that renewal the party
faces a serious danger of degenerating into
a sect.
I was one of the CC members involved
in dealing with Comrade W’s case the first
time round in 2010. I was also involved
in the arguments surrounding the case in
2012. The nature of that case was exceptional, and exceptionally difficult to deal
with. But if the Democracy Commission
recommendations had been implemented,
had comrades been made aware of the
situation, had the NC functioned as it is
supposed to, then problems could have
been addressed and mistakes corrected
much earlier on. Confidentiality in this case
was an important and serious issue. However it would have been possible to involve
comrades in discussion of the political
issues and disagreements at stake without
divulging detail of the evidence involved
in the case. Moreover doing this was necessary, precisely because of the nature of the
allegations and who they involved.
It is important that comrades are given
a better understanding of events that took
place – including arguments on the CC
and the ways in which members were prevented from hearing about them. This will
make for difficult reading, but it is only
by grasping the detail that comrades will
be able to make an informed judgement
about what needs to be done to prevent this
disaster from happening again.
What follows is not aimed at raking
over old coals, but at informing comrades
about the political shortcomings of the party’s treatment of the dispute – why the CC
got it so badly wrong, how party structures
failed which could have allowed members
to addressed these mistakes, and what
changes need to be made to address these
problems.
I do not seek to vindicate my role in this
crisis. During 2010, I was part of a deeply
flawed process which sowed the seeds for
what happened later. In 2012, when the
complaint re-emerged, I fought alongside
a minority of CC members to convince the
CC to steer a different course. But we chose
not to explain our arguments to comrades
until party conference. This was a mistake
on my part, and I regret it. But ultimately
this error was rooted in collective political problems that we all need to face up
to. They are problems that will require a
change in the leadership and in the functioning of our political culture, if we are
truly to be part of a “determined effort to
address these complaints and to learn the
lessons from this whole process”.
2010: the dispute the first
time round
During Marxism 2010 two experienced
comrades approached Charlie K to inform
him that a young comrade had been upset
for some time over her treatment by M.
She now wanted to do something about it.
Following a meeting between M, Alex and
Charlie, I was asked as a female member
of the CC to meet with Comrade W and
another comrade of her choice to discuss
the issue.
During that meeting it became clear
to me that Comrade W was very distressed. Over the course of the meeting
she described a series of events in which
she felt harassed and under pressure. The
events she described in 2010 remained
consistent with the account she raised later,
even if the language she used to describe
events changed later.
It had taken a huge effort for her to
come forward. In particular she, and the
other comrades supporting her, were conscious of M’s standing in the party. This
was not long after the Respect crisis which
most comrades credited M with steering
the party through. It followed the departures of Lindsey G, John R and Chris N
from the CC.
I discussed with W and the comrade supporting her various ways of dealing with
her complaint, including referring it to a
formal hearing of the DC. But at that stage
Comrade W could not face such a process.
Her main concern was that there was be an
48
acknowledgement by M and the party that
she had been treated unjustly, and action
taken to reflect that. In particular she felt it
inappropriate that M remained as National
Secretary, given his behaviour towards her.
She also wanted an apology from M.
Following discussion with Alex, Charlie
and other CC members it was agreed that M
would convey an apology to Comrade W for
the distress he had caused her and that M’s
role on the CC would be reviewed in the
pre-conference period.
In retrospect it is clear that attempts by
myself and other CC members to mediate
an agreement of this kind was a major mistake. We could for example, have involved
comrades on the DC in discussing with W
her options without her feeling she had to
leap into a formal dispute. We could also
have taken a political decision that what we
had heard required a formal investigation
conducted on the basis of the evidence conveyed, even if W didn’t feel able to take
part. Put simply, we should have assessed
the situation politically and given a lead.
Charlie and myself made clear to W when
we met her together that we believed the
account she gave of what had happened to
her.
The CC rationale for its actions was
that W did not want a formal investigation.
However as the situation unravelled, the
CC increasingly acted in a way designed to
manage the potential damage the complaint
could do to M, the CC and the party. In one
of the meetings that took place to discuss
the issue, for example, I was asked by Alex
C if I had it in for M, because I insisted that
action would have to be taken. The discussions about M’s role largely took place in the
form of individual meetings rather than collective discussion on the CC. When the time
to review M’s role came, he was allowed to
request that he be moved to the industrial
office – thus avoiding any formal political
sanction at all and misrepresenting the move
as a voluntary decision on his part.
The flaws in this approach were exposed
when W resigned from the party in Autumn
2010 stating that she could not remain in
the party while M remained on the leadership. Despite this, there was no revisiting
of the question at hand on the CC. Instead
its overriding concern was to prevent W’s
resignation from reopening the manner in
which we had dealt with the situation. I had
to insist that all CC members be informed
about her resignation. In the end her letter
was shown individually to CC members. I
attempted to meet with W but, understandably, she did not respond.
It was clear at this point that we had got
it terribly wrong and that at a minimum we
had to put the facts of what had happened
to the party at conference. But the CC was
extremely resistant to saying anything.
This position became untenable after the
appearance of a story about the case on the
Socialist Unity website. Even at this stage,
however, the CC was resistant to conveying
key information to the membership – over
the serious nature of the complaint, over the
fact that we had agreed to review M’s role.
Without this information it was difficult if
not impossible for comrades to grasp what
was at stake and what was going on.
The 2011 conference and its
aftermath
In the end the conduct of that session at conference was nothing short of disastrous. The
issue was raised during the discussion of the
CC slate, and contextualised by talk of articles appearing on sectarian websites. This
meant the whole focus of the discussion
centred on defending M’s political record
from these attacks, rather than on the serious issue at hand that needed discussion in
its own right.
The reasons for M’s move to the industrial office were fudged. M was granted
an extended contribution in which he put
forward a version of events that gave the
impression this was simply about a “consensual relationship” of no further concern
to the party. The implication was that W
was distressed by what amounted to a breakup. W, of course, was not even present at
conference.
This set the scene for series of contributions from comrades in support of M and
against “bourgeois morality”, which culminated in a standing ovation and chants. This
horrifying spectacle was a complete betrayal
of the agreement that had been made with
W.
Alex, Charlie or myself should have
intervened to correct the situation directly.
I greatly regret not doing so. It is one example of the destructive way CC “collective
responsibility” has functioned at points
where there have been serious disagreements among the leadership. M had brazenly
broken the agreement that had been made
with W. But another CC member challenging that breach would have been seen as a
serious breach of CC discipline. It was left
to a comrade who had been supporting W to
challenge what was being said.
Some attempt was made to address this
the following day in the disputes session.
But the references were so oblique that most
comrades would not have understood what
was going on.
Following the conference, I insisted that
the record be put straight at the next NC
meeting. This was finally agreed, along with
a review of disputes procedures where CC
members were involved. But the manner in
which this was done meant that most comrades on the NC, let alone the party at large,
would not have grasped the seriousness of
what was being raised.
Meanwhile a growing number of comrades were raising their anger over what
had happened in the conference session.
This became a running sore in the party.
The session on women at the 2012 annual
conference was fractious and angry, partly
in reaction to the previous year’s appalling
events. This was the first time CC members
started to talk about a “whiff of feminism” in
the party. They were more troubled by this
“whiff” than by the foot stamping, chanting
and standing ovation for a man subject to a
complaint of harassment by a young female
comrade.
What explains the disastrous initial
handling of this complaint? Clearly there
is a problem in allowing CC members to
deal with complaints involving other CC
members – something now recognised by
the Disputes Committee Review Body. But
the enormity of the failure to deal properly
with the complaint illustrates something
else, something more troubling: that from
the very start the handling of this complaint
was primarily driven by a concern to defend
M, and to defend the CC – regardless of
any consequences for the woman involved
or for the integrity of the party’s politics on
oppression.
There were many opportunities to address
these failings. But they were thwarted by a
lack of openness from the CC about what had
actually gone on. This lack of openness was
partly justified in terms of confidentiality for
both parties. But in this instance confidentiality served to damaged the complainant
and protect M. The pressure on individual
CC members not to challenge this state of
affairs publicly was immense. And all of
these issues would reemerge with a vengeance once W rejoined the party and made a
formal complaint to the DC in 2012.
The 2012 dispute
In 2012 the dispute remerged when Comrade W lodged a formal complaint of rape
with the CC and the Disputes Committee. In
the course of that dispute, a second woman
– Comrade X – came forward to give supporting evidence to W based on her own
experiences with M.
From this point the Disputes Committee took responsibility for hearing the case.
But there were also a number of political
decisions relating to the case that had to
made by the CC. These decisions generated
sharp disagreements on the CC that over
time crystallised into minority and majority
positions.
What was at stake in these disagreements was not political perspectives, but
how as a leadership we should respond to
questions raised by the dispute in way that
was consistent with our general politics
and traditions on such questions. Alex and
Charlie say “no one would claim we could
not have done things differently with the
benefit of hindsight”. However there were
comrades, both those involved in the case
and on the CC, that did raise questions and
arguments about the course of action being
taken. This is not to vindicate everything
those comrades argued at the time. But it is
disingenuous to say the least to imply that
“political divisions” developing around this
question were really motivated by a political
drift away from the traditions of the party.
49
Rather we should be asking: why were those
arguments not heard by the wider membership? Why were those comrades making
complaints vilified, removed from positions
or marginalised in the party?
In the first instance, there was an argument over whether M should be suspended
pending the hearing. A minority of comrades
argued that suspension without prejudice
was the only responsible course of action
to take given the seriousness of the allegations. Although this is normal practice in
the party, there was a long argument before
it was reluctantly accepted by the rest of
the CC.
There was also a disagreement about
publishing the CC slate scheduled to be published in IB1. Several comrades felt it was
wholly inappropriate to agree and publish
such a slate until the case had been heard.
The CC couldn’t reach agreement on a way
forward, with three comrades (myself, Ray
M, Mark B) arguing in favour of postponing discussion on the slate until after the
outcome of the dispute was known. The
CC decided to refer the matter to the Disputes Committee chair Pat S, who strongly
advised against publishing the slate. The
publication of the CC slate was delayed.
Following the Disputes Committee hearing the CC was again divided over what to
make of its report. The report concluded
that the allegation of rape was “not proven”,
adding that “we do not think M raped W”.
Since then many comrades have pointed
out the problems of the Disputes Committee attempting to rule in this way on a rape
allegation.
On the second question of “sexual
assault, harassment and abuse”, the CC
was presented with a majority verdict of
“unproven”, with no action to be taken
against M, alongside a minority report from
the chair of the DC in which he said: “Whilst
I concur with the majority that the case of
rape and sexual assault was not proven,
given the evidence we heard I think it likely
that M did sexually harass W.”
This left us with a problem, since the
majority report was not supported by any
serious argument beyond: “We found it difficult to rule on these issues because the
versions of events differed substantially
and there were no witnesses.” In relation
to the supporting evidence from the second
women, the majority report simply stated:
“It did not change our view of the outcome
of the case between W and M.” Here we had
a dispute in which two women were making serious allegations about a CC member,
but there was no convincing explanation as
to why there weren’t believed, nor illustration of how our general political approach to
these questions had been applied.
In this context myself and three CC
members (Joseph C, Ray M, Mark B) felt
it incumbent on the CC to address the inadequacies of the DC report. At a minimum
we felt it raised questions over M’s conduct
(namely, that his conduct was not appropriate for a leading member of the SWP).
These questions had not been addressed by
the Disputes Committee, and we felt they
needed to be addressed by the CC.
The point here is not to reopen the case.
The constitution of the party is clear that the
CC should decide whether to accept or reject
reports from the Disputes Committee. In
other words, the CC has a political responsibility to take a position on these matters. But
a vote was not taken – precisely because the
CC was divided –until two days before the
January 2013 national conference.
The run-up to the January
2013 conference
It was in this context that four CC members
(myself, Ray M, Mark B, Joseph C) made it
clear that we would not stand on a CC slate
alongside M. In the event M wrote to Alex
and Charlie stating he would not be restanding for the CC. This was on 30 October, the
day the CC was due to discuss the slate and
the Disputes Committee report.
M’s decision to stand down was formally
accepted by the CC. But again the reasons
for this were never explained or publicly
stated. Instead it was presented as a “personal decision”, much as his move from
National Secretary to Industrial Organiser
had been glossed previously. Meanwhile
the divisions remained on the CC: over the
Disputes Committee report, over whether M
should be on the CC slate, and over whether
any action needed to be taken in relation to
his role in the party.
This created a situation where comrades
could draw their own conclusions. Rumours
began to circulate that CC members were
pursuing some kind of political vendetta
against M. This was linked to the argument
about the pull of feminism and autonomism.
Some comrades began a petition to mobilise
for M’s reinstatement.
All of this should make abundantly clear
that the factionalism that has dominated the
party’s internal life over the last year started
at the top of the party and flowed from
attempts to avoid CC members being held
to account, or avoid confronting real political disagreements that had emerged over an
issue that was clearly going to be a major
point of discussion, not only in the party
but also in the wider movement. A facade of
CC unity was presented to the party. Behind
it, those CC members who supported the
Disputes Committee report developed a
narrative in defence of M. The minority,
in contrast, were effectively gagged under
the guise of “collective responsibility” and
“confidentiality”.
One example of this will suffice. Before
the disputes hearing into the rape allegation, M broke his suspension by speaking
at a UAF public meeting in Waltham Forest and tweeting about it. This was a gross
breach of CC discipline which felt like an
act of intimidation to W and her witnesses at
the time. They complained about it. But no
action was taken was against M. A censure
was proposed by Joseph against Weyman
B who had falsely claimed M had Charlie’s agreement to speak. This was opposed
by the majority. When, however, Ray M
expressed his concerns about the handling
of the dispute to an NC member he was publicly censured.
Another poor decision during this period
came when the CC majority removed Comrade X from her role in the industrial office.
This was claimed to be in the interests of the
“harmony of the office”. The minority felt
that much more serious issues were at stake,
namely ensuring that we treated a comrade
who had made allegations of sexual harassment properly and in a manner consistent
with our politics on women’s oppression.
X had initially said she would resign if
M continued working since she could not
work in the same office with him. She later
revised her position and asked that she be
facilitated to continue to work in her job.
The CC minority proposed practical ways in
which this could happen. But the CC majority refused this request, insisting that any
CC member should be free to come into the
centre without negotiation. This was just
one illustration of the lack of clear discussion even on the CC over what M’s status
in the party was. So in the event, the second
woman to give evidence was effectively
punished for speaking out. The Disputes
Committee has since recommended that
the CC apologise to X for “unintended but
nonetheless real hurt and distress”.
Since the CC was divided on these questions, it would have been much better to
have found ways to convey the situation to
the wider party. This was always going to be
– and has since become – a major issue for
the party as whole. Confronted with serious
allegations of a sexual nature against a leading member, how would it ever have been
different? In this context, a two-to-one split
on the CC was serious enough to require
advice from the party. This was not about
pre-empting the conference decision on the
report itself. The majority DC report did
not deal with the issue of conduct or with
the political implications of M’s conduct.
Explaining these issues in advance of conference would have at least equipped comrades
with an understanding of the issues at stake
and mitigated against the sharp polarisation
that took place.
The NC meeting in November
2012
A critical opportunity to do this came at the
NC meeting convened in mid November
2012 – the NC being the body tasked by
the Democracy Commission with advising the CC and holding it to account. The
CC minority had argued for an emergency
meeting at which the full DC report (which
did not go into any detail about the evidence) and the minority report would both
be disclosed. The meeting was convened,
but the proposal itself rejected.
50
Instead the NC was given a CC introduction which focused on leaks on the internet.
The CC did not indicate the nature of the
complaint against the CC member, or that
there was a minority report, or that the CC
was divided on the issue, or that two women
rather than one woman had made separate
submissions to the Disputes Committee.
There was no mention that the Disputes
Committee had formulated a vague and
unexplained phrase of “not proven” rather
than “not guilty” in its conclusions.
But the CC did circulate M’s letter standing down from the CC in which he claimed
he had been found “not guilty”. As a consequence, the NC was not in any position to
make an informed discussion on the issue
or to make political suggestions that would
have avoided the inevitable divisions and
discontent among many members that subsequently emerged.
The problems were increased by the CC
making no attempt to clarify the issue or
to come back clearly against the comrades
who wanted to move motions supporting a
CC slate with M on it. There was nothing
said to counter the rumours of this being a
“problem of feminism”, or simply a political
attack on comrade M.
This was despite the fact that the CC had
already received a number of complaints
from comrades who reported being told that
one of the complainants was a “jilted lover”,
the other motivated by a political agenda,
and that critics of the report were being
accused of feminism/autonomism.
The refusal to intervene to stop these
arguments meant that backward and sexist
rumours about the women involved in the
dispute were allowed to spread unchecked.
They have been allowed to develop to the
point that some comrades have no compunction about echoing some of the most
reactionary arguments about women who
make complaints about rape and sexual
harassment – that they are liars, or are motivated by spite.
It cannot be emphasised how pivotal that
NC meeting was. This was an opportunity
to seek guidance from the wider party leadership on a question that goes to the heart
of the project we are all fighting for. One
way or another, how we dealt with this
issue would define the party’s future and the
SWP’s future standing in the movement.
That opportunity was not just wasted, it was
deliberately misused to sow confusion and
mislead comrades about the true situation.
A more open approach at the NC would
have paved the way for a more constructive pre-conference period. But instead
of informed discussion in the aggregates,
there was rumour, half truths and polarisation. The official position was that the issue
could not be discussed in the pre-conference
aggregates due to confidentiality, and that
comrades had to wait for the DC report to
conference. At the same time a narrative was
covertly encouraged that suggested those
seeking to challenge the Disputes Committee report were in some way undermining
the democratic processes of the SWP, and
that this was all part of a wider attack on
democratic centralism.
The false conflation of this dispute with
wider debates in the party about democracy
served to obscure the real issues at stake,
namely how we deal with rape and sexual
harassment allegations. It treated these real
issues as secondary questions compared to
the more pressing concern of “defending our
structures”. This also encouraged a kneejerk
reaction among some comrades who were
led to believe the whole debate boiled down
to democratic structures coming under
attack. In fact it was entirely appropriate,
right and proper for comrades to subject the
Disputes Committee decision to political
scrutiny over the issues outlined above.
Unfortunately the CC did not prepare
comrades with a balanced view of the problems and debates surrounding the DC. This
would have helped to bring the discussion
into the party forums and prepared comrades properly for the debate that was to
take place at conference. A greater degree
of openness and trust in the membership
was required. Suppressing criticism
The CC thwarted other attempts to inform
comrades of the basis of the challenge to
the Disputes Committee report. The complainants and their witnesses wanted to
put constructive proposals on modifying
the Disputes Committee. They were first
of all prevented by the CC from including these as a resolution before meetings
(since they had ruled the issue was not to
be discussed). Then they were told they
could not include them as a statement in
a pre-conference bulletin. Finally, when
the complainants, witnesses and supporting
comrades declared themselves a “reluctant
faction” in order to get the statement out to
the members, they were barred from forming a faction.
The statement made clear that comrades
were not seeking to reopen the case, but
wanted to raise criticisms of the process
and make constructive proposals for the
future. Yet no one was allowed to see it.
When later the complainants and witnesses tried discussing with the CC and
CAC (Conference Arrangements Committee) how to raise their proposals at
conference, they were told they couldn’t
since they hadn’t passed motions in their
branches. One suggestion was that they
could move an alternative DC slate. Comrades declined this option since they keen to
keep the argument focused on the political
issues surrounding the DC process rather
than making it a question of personnel.
It should be noted that the proposals
made by these comrades included a commission to review our disputes procedures,
a demand finally conceded by the CC at
the March special conference. Many of
the comrades’ recommendations are now
included in the Disputes Committee Review
Body report. This demonstrates contrary
to current CC claims, those critical of the
leadership have maintained a consistent set
of demands and that it has been the leadership that has changed its position.
The CC and one of the NC chairs also
informed NC members about the censure
of CC member Ray M – without giving any
explanation of the real divisions underlying the censure, or that it was opposed by
five CC members. A request by a minority
on the CC to circulate a short outline of
those differences was voted down at the
CC. Again the members were not being
allowed to know what was happening.
The CC split in December
2012
Reading this piece many comrades will
ask themselves why the CC minority did
not bring their concerns to the membership
earlier. It cannot be stressed enough how
much the pressure of “collective responsibility” was bought to bear on the minority. Defending the Disputes Committee report
had been turned into an issue of principle. The logic of that was that the minority
would have to “split” in order to challenge
it openly.
In that situation, the CC minority were
very conscious how this would be perceived
by the wider party. It risked distracting from
the real arguments surrounding the dispute.
The fact that comrades knew so little about
what was going on meant that the wider
narrative that had developed about deeper
political disagreements became plausible.
Nevertheless it clearly was a major mistake not to come out about the arguments
earlier. Instead the minority concentrated
on their right to air their views at conference in the appropriate session. We all felt,
given our involvement and insight into the
issues, that it would have been an abdication of leadership not to do so. We did not
feel this was cause for a “split” on the CC.
As conference neared, the pressure on us
to sign up to an agreement to stay silent on
our criticisms became greater. In one of the
final CC meetings of the year a discussion
took place where the CC minority sought to
reach an agreement with the majority over
how they would raise their disagreements
at conference.
The CC majority refused any such
agreement. A decision due in that meeting
on the final CC slate to be put at conference was postponed. The “quid pro quo”
seemed to be that the CC minority would
be guaranteed a place on the slate only if
they agreed to shut up about the dispute
– such was the importance of “nuanced”
political differences that were made great
play of at the conference itself.
When the CC slate was discussed just
two days before conference, the majority moved the removal of myself and Ray
claiming that there had been a “breakdown
of trust”. This breakdown of trust was not
51
explained in any detail. It can only be attributed to the fact that we had criticised the
Disputes Committee report and the CC’s
handling of the fallout from it. There were
no other issues raised when discussions
about the slate took place. This was the
logical consequence of turning the dispute
into an issue of loyalty to the CC, and in
turn treating dissent over the dispute as disloyalty to the party and even to the whole
concept of democratic centralism.
Even when the minority of four were
forced into a position of having to put to
conference a separate slate in order to be
heard by members, the space given to us
was squeezed. The CC minority requested
a statement be sent to members explaining our position. This was denied. Instead
a response to our proposed statement was
circulated to the membership, almost all of
whom would not even have seen the original statement. It included the assertion that
the split slates resulted from the refusal of
the CC minority to sign up to a CC statement that was responding to the two factions
launched before conference – thus implying
the differences were really rooted in wider
political differences. What it did not say was
that our main objection to signing the statement was that it asked comrades to endorse
the Disputes Committee report in advance of
the conference debate. This was incredibly
insensitive to those comrades who had yet
to make their challenge at conference and
showed a flagrant disregard for conference
democracy. Numerous comrades have said
they signed the statement without understanding the issues that were at stake, and
regretted it later when the Disputes Committee debate came to light.
The closeness of the vote on the Disputes Committee report (239 to 209 with 18
abstentions) by a conference that could never
have seen the details of the submissions
to the Disputes Committee demonstrated
that the concerns of the CC minority were
widely shared across the party and that it
was right to be open about them.
The vote should have been a political
siren to the CC warning them that they
needed to address the political mistakes
the party had made in relation to the dispute. It was incredibly close, given that just
days previously the CC had used the party
apparatus to build support for the Dispute
Committee’s report, gathering hundreds of
signatures.
At the end of that session one comrade
challenged the CC to come back the next
day with a way forward that reflected the
closeness of the vote and seriousness of
the issues raised. This did not happen. Support for the Dispute Committee report was
made into an oath of loyalty. Comrades were
instructed to convey to their colleagues and
fellow activists that M was a “comrade in
good standing” or leave the organisation
– until M later resigned. A review of the
Dispute Committee procedures was resisted
and resisted – before finally being accepted.
A hearing into the second case was blocked
with one excuse followed by another – then
finally heard.
In the course of all this stonewalling
and U-turning, hundreds of comrades were
driven out of the party, the party’s standing on women’s oppression was seriously
damaged, and political life in the party has
become dominated by the disputes issue.
This was fought over openly by one faction,
and resisted by another – a faction led by a
minority of CC members whose insistence
on protecting M trumped all other political
factors.
A way out
So how do we end this cycle? Throughout
this piece I have highlighted the enormous
pressure within the CC to conform to the
majority view, pressure justified by the
notion of “collective responsibility”. In practice this prevented those comrades whose
misgivings and criticisms have turned out to
be sound from being open with the membership. This insistence on bottling up divisions
and hiding them from the membership made
a difficult situation far worse. We need to
end that political culture at the top of our
organisation
This is not about personalities or individuals, it’s a product of various processes
that have taken root in the party over a long
period of time. The democracy commission
identified many of the problems outlined
in this article. That was four years ago. We
need to ask why its recommendations have
not been implemented and why a political
culture persists that involves substitutionism and a leadership that is detached from
the membership, giving rise to familiar
patterns: a tendency to isolate minority
opinion through private briefings (“someone on the CC told me,,,”), accusations of
“factionalism” directed towards any kind of
opposition or critical thought; debates being
obscured in order to present a false image
of harmony; the notion that protecting the
apparatus is more important than considering our standing in the wider working class
movement.
Here are six suggestions that can offer a
way out of this hole.
1. There has to be an honest political
accounting of the party’s failings over the
way it dealt with the sexual harassment and
rape allegations against M. These shortcomings are identified implicitly in the Disputes
Committee Review Body report, and explicitly in the outcome of the second case. They
now need to be openly acknowledged. This
must involve an apology to the two women
who suffered as a direct result of these shortcomings. We need a political response from
our leadership that equips comrades with
an explanation what went wrong and what
lessons we have learned.
2. This means an end to the fake arguments
about the issues at stake here. Rather than
engaging with the real arguments, the lead-
ership blamed student perspectives, or the
pull of movementism, or a drift away from
the party’s traditions. This approach contains a dangerous split logic. Do we really
want to lose hundreds more comrades from
the organisation?
3. Those who bear responsibility for what
has happened cannot be allowed to continue
in the same way. The existing CC has to
change. They are primarily responsible for
the crisis that has torn the party apart over
the last year. We need a leadership composed
of comrades committed to acknowledging
the mistakes made in the dispute, openly
and politically. Those CC members who
have resisted even the smallest steps taken
to address these mistakes have to go. Those
who have intervened to begin to address
them must follow the political logic of their
actions – by explaining why their position
has changed and what we need to do to
avoid these making these mistakes again.
4. But we also need a CC that is committed
to addressing the deeper deficit of openness
and accountability in the political culture
of our party – a CC that is committed to
renewing and strengthening the basic units
and leading bodies of the party, from the
branches to the NC, units that are essential
to the effective functioning of democratic
centralism. This must include a commitment to taking important differences to
the membership. A party of leaders in the
struggle needs to know what is going on
and have the opportunity to debate it. There
has to be an end to a “not in front of the
children” approach and a culture of trust in
the membership.
5. We should not see diverse opinion on
the CC as a threat, but rather as something that can strengthen how we respond
to issues. Differences of opinion should be
the cut and thrust of any political leadership. They only consolidate into factions
when they are not put to the test in the wider
membership, or when they are turned into
loyalty oaths or obscured by the invention
of ulterior motives.
6. Finally there needs to be a commitment
to implementing in practice the resolutions
of the Democracy Commission. This was an
important response to a previous and damaging split in the party. If we do not heed
its advice we will split again and again and
again.
This is not the first crisis the party has been
through in recent years, but it is the most
serious and the most damaging. The future
of the party is at stake. Comrades who want
to secure a future for the party need to be
part of asserting a different course of action
to that currently being pursued by the CC.
You need to speak out – it’s now or never.
52
A response to
Hannah’s article
on leadership
Alex Callinicos
Hannah has written a lengthy, tendentious,
and self-aggrandising account of how divisions developed on the Central Committee
over the W case. That is her right, and her
arguments deserve rigorous critical scrutiny in the preconference discussion. But
she makes two factual claims that require
immediate challenge.
1) Hannah asserts that when she, Charlie
Kimber, and I were attempting to mediate
between W and M in July 2010 I asked her
if she “had it in for” M.
This is an absolutely false and grossly
prejudicial claim. Though I agree with
Hannah that our attempt at mediation was
not ultimately successful, it was carried out
in good faith and the three of us worked
together quite harmoniously in an effort (as
I repeatedly stressed in our discussions) to
be fair to both parties.
I did ask her this question, but six
months later, in January 2011, in a very
different context, following arguments on
the Central Committee in the autumn and
immediately before the party conference.
2) Hannah also implies that she believed in
2010 that W had been raped. If that is so,
she must explain why she did not communicate this very serious charge to Charlie and
me at the time (which would have resulted
in the case immediately being referred to
the Disputes Committee) and why indeed
she remained silent about this belief for the
following three years.
The demand Hannah now makes for an
“accounting” applies as much to her as it
does to anyone else.
Building a small
party branch
Jac, Cath, Michael, Dave W, Dave S,
Becky, Sally and Andy (Leicester)
Over the last two years Leicester branch
leadership has been slowly replaced by
members who have been central to building the Leicester branch, united fronts and
alliances.
There have been political differences
around party perspectives which led some
members of the branch to no longer avail
themselves to party and branch activity.
They became inactive in fighting for party
perspectives and actual branch building.
Although attending Left Unity meetings,
without discussion with the branch, became
their primary activity.
However, despite this we have had some
successes which have helped to maintain
our confidence and push out to a wider
audience.
We wish the remainder of this contribution to focus on and stress the practical
implementation of revolutionary socialist
perspectives and orientation, as formulated
by party conference and through the year.
We wish to focus on Unite Against Fascism, Unite the Resistance and the People’s
Assembly.
Earlier in the year we initiated a successful UtR rally which attracted around
60 people, including representatives from
the Unite union at Burton Brewery, RMT
and PCS stewards.
After the murder of Lee Rigby, we
called a “Don’t Let the Racists Divide Us”
UAF meeting which also attracted around
60 people including a Somali youth group.
We also worked closely with the local
trades council in organising the recent People’s Assembly in Leicester which drew
around 80 people. We have used these
events as a vehicle to build real links with
the local working class. We have also made
contact with trade unionists by visiting
picket lines and holding workplace sales
where possible.
Our Saturday sale has been maintained
despite an effective boycott by faction
members and our branch meetings are just
beginning to draw in more people interested in our ideas.
United front work
Unite Against Fascism in Leicester has
gained a great deal of respect over the last 3
years for consistently opposing the EDL and
the BNP. At our last demonstration, called
in response to the EDL march to the war
memorial after the murder of Lee Rigby,
it was obvious that UAF in Leicester had
‘broadened out’ somewhat – with a strong
presence from Leicester Labour Party along
with Unite, PCS, Unison and Trades Council representatives all attending. Around 180
people showed up in total, compared to a
much smaller EDL presence, which looked
demoralised and defeated.
The role of Unite the Resistance is much
clearer now than it was a couple of years
ago. It’s primary purpose is to organise a
‘militant minority’ inside the working class
movement- and to repair the links across
industries and workplaces that were so badly
damaged over the previous 2 decades. This
perspective is finding an audience locally
– with Hovis and Burton Brewery workers
showing an interest in attending the UtR
conference on 19 October and sending representatives to our rallies.
Our tasks regarding UtR in Leicester
have therefore been to give a lead to workers in struggle and help them to organise
more effectively. A good example of this
is the way that striking BFAWU members
in Wigan learnt from the more militant tactics of the Molson Coors workers in Burton
– holding mass pickets, organising marches
through the town to gain local support, etc.
By engaging in these struggles, workers gain an understanding of their position
in society in relation to the state and their
employers – one which would take much
longer to learn purely from theory.
Locating the militant minority
The vote that Jerry Hicks received in the
Unite leadership election earlier this year
has been well publicised, as has Ian Bradleys. The significant number of trade union
members voting for these two candidates
proves that there is a layer of workers that
are dissatisfied with the existing trade union
leaders and desire a more militant approach
from such leaders.
How do we locate this militant minority?
It is something we have discussed in our
branch and led to us making interventions
at the mass meetings held by Molson Coors
workforce, holding workplace sales and visiting picket lines in an attempt to identify
these workers.
We have had some success with this
strategy and as a result our UtR branch has
some solid links to trade union militants in
the area.
We have new sale at the Hovis plant in
Leicester.
It should also be stated that one of our
comrades in Unison has signed up 6 of her
workmates to the UtR Conference – this is
a fantastic achievement and testament to her
work as a Unison steward.
This has fed into our other interventions
around building for the People’s Assembly,
where Molson Coors workers sent us a message of support which was read out by a
comrade at the meeting. A Hovis steward
that we made contact with on a sale outside
the factory was also in attendance. He has
also taken SWP papers and leaflets into his
workplace.
We are committed to widening this network and are therefore working towards
another UtR meeting in November to discuss how we can fight the employers’ use of
zero hours contracts.
Repairing the branch
We have ‘held the line’ and succeeded in
keeping the branch together and operational throughout the year. Therefore we
now have to discuss as a branch how we
can repair the damage dealt to us by the
factional fight. There are several elements
to this work:
• Drawing in potential new members
• Recruitment
• Development of cadre
• Students
• Making stronger organic links with
workplaces
53
Public meetings are a good vehicle to
draw in people who are interested in our
ideas and may want to join the party. We
have committed ourselves to holding a
public meeting every month and a half
and to build for these meetings properly
by way of leafleting and contacting members and our periphery. These meetings
mean that we always have something
to build towards and recent ones have
attracted between 18-20 people. This not
only boosted our confidence as a branch
after a very difficult period but also widened our periphery and helped to counter
some of the scaremongering over the
scale of the crisis inside the party at the
moment.
Progressing from this, we need to be
bolder in asking people to join the party,
both at our meetings and on Saturday
sales – especially given the successes
scored elsewhere in the country.
It has to be said that the factional fight
has forced us to sharpen up our politics
around the role of the party, democratic
centralism and our attitude to the broad
left and reformism. Alongside this we
have adopted a couple of strategies in
order to develop cadre inside our branch.
One of these is the introduction of educationals - where we invite someone to
speak on a subject and try to discuss this
subject in more depth and at greater length
than in the branch meetings. Prior to these
educationals, reading lists were sent out
to our members in order to familiarise
them with the arguments to some degree.
The other important aspect to developing cadre is obvious – Saturday sales
are a great opportunity to sharpen up
our arguments and expose our ideas to
a wider audience. Organising rallies and
coaches to demonstrations puts us in
contact with people who may not agree
with all our arguments but are prepared to
debate with us whilst uniting over a common cause. Therefore any new members
should be asked to help out on Saturday
and workplace sales and a political argument should be put to them as to why this
is so important.
As far as is realistic, we also need to
get back to our work in the universities
– students can liven up branch meetings
and provide us with a larger pool of activists on the ground. We made tentative
steps towards this by holding a stall at the
local fresher’s fayre and are now looking
at restarting our paper sales on campus.
The successful implementation of
united front work has led to the development of a new network of worker
militants who know who we are and who
can be contacted to offer solidarity and
help build public meetings and rallies and
so on.
Providing we focus on these areas,
the branch has the potential to grow and
attract new members which will in turn
strengthen our interventions.
Conclusion
Despite the lack of any full-time SWP
organisers in our area, and the on-going
factional disputes, our branch has continued to “punch above its weight” locally.
This can be seen in our interventions on
picket lines, our successful UtR and UAF
meetings, the recent People’s Assembly
in Leicester and our UAF mobilisation
against the EDL following the murder of
Lee Rigby.
One positive result from the factional
dispute is that our politics have had to
sharpen up to argue effectively within the
branch for a democratic centralist approach
to deciding our tactics and strategies. Our
educationals are also a good way of developing new cadre. Public meetings provide
us with something to build towards and
help draw new people – workers and students – to our ideas.
There are massive struggles going on
at the moment throughout Europe and the
Middle East. In this country, we have a contradictory situation whereby workers want
more combative trade unions (as was shown
by the number of votes both Jerry hicks
and Ian Bradley received in their respective
election campaigns) but lack confidence to
fight back. At the same time, we have witnessed some small but significant victories
over the last couple of years starting with
the Sparks victory in 2012, the brilliant victory over the Hovis bosses more recently,
Crossrails being forced to re-instate Frank
Morris and Cameron’s humiliating defeat
on Syrian intervention. This gives us hope
and an important task for us now is to continue trying to locate this militant minority
within the trade unions and strengthen their
ties with the wider working class via UtR.
This can only be done by ‘bread and butter’
work – visiting picket lines, selling outside
workplaces, attending union rallies etc.
This could lay the foundations for a revival
of rank and file organisation in the future
and help ensure that the union leaders are
not able to sell out any further potential
fightback.
This is our understanding of the strategies involved in UtR and we will continue
to build and strengthen links between local
militants using this united front.
By working in teams of comrades we
have become aware that when actions by
workers take place we are better able to
respond and maintain an intervention.
This is important because the volatility of
the political situation, in terms of workers resistance (4 hour strikes, one day
strikes, protests, and rallies with gaps in
between), means we have to be flexible in
our responses.
In terms of the party looking forward, we
need to develop bolder recruitment around
these united front and branch strategies. If
we manage to build a small student base it
will also be a good start towards repairing
the damage inflicted recently. We can also
integrate these students into the branch and
get them involved in our activities, which
will in turn help them develop politically.
Overall this year the branch has a had
better profile and many workers, trade
unionists and campaigners in Leicester
now know we exist as a party that is worth
listening to. This is because we are serious
about fighting back and being organised.
There is a long way to go and a great deal
of hard work however but that’s what we
expected anyway. It seems to us that overall, our perspectives are correct because in
Leicester we have had some real successes.
We now need to grow and we believe we
have positioned ourselves well enough for
growth to happen providing that we debate,
act and intervene.
Political Trade
Unionism
Malcolm (Huddersfield)
At the end of the 60s, beginning of the
1970s the left amongst staff at Leeds University was dominated by communist party
and left academics such as E.P. Thompson,
Owen Lattimore, Ralph Miliband and Zygmunt Bauman.
At least 14 Professors were CP members including the Professor of Chemical
Engineering. The intellectual dominance of
the left by Leeds Academics made Leeds a
magnet for me, a young academic scientist,
just radicalised by the student, civil rights,
workers and anti-war movements of the
late 60s and early 70s.
In 1973 the miners led by a right wing
General Secretary forced the Tory Heath
government into calling a three day week
and a General Election won by a left talking Labour Party.
The Wilson Government (soon to
become the Callaghan Government) came
into office against a background of high
expectations. (To build more hospitals and
schools, keep the pits open) which were
soon dashed by the City of London which
organised a run on the pound, selling UK
currency for dollars and other currencies which caused much higher prices for
imported goods and runaway inflation.
The ease with which the Government
was beaten into submission (closing hospitals, schools and pits) was an object
lesson in the political power of capital over
reformist government. The publication by
the CP of its draft “British (e.g. Parliamentary) Road to Socialism”, together with
formal abandonment of revolutionary politics, seemed perverse in the circumstances
and the CP organisation disintegrated over
the following decade at Leeds University,
balanced by a growth in revolutionary left
organisations such as the International
Socialists (IS, the forerunner of the SWP)
54
and the International Marxist Group (IMG,
led by Tariq Ali), particularly but by no
means exclusively amongst students.
Although we didn’t know it at the time,
1974 marked a watershed in the Rank and
File movements which had inspired our
revolutionary activism and orientation on
the working class.
The end of the 70s was a painful one
for revolutionaries steeled in mass Rank
and File movements into which we had
invested (correctly) a great deal of political capital. The general orientation of the
left turned from the workplace to Parliament, a process accelerated by the Labour
Governments ‘pay restraint’ policy with
the support of prominent left TU officials
Scanlon and Jones.
As a result of this retreat Left Labour
became a magnet and a number of
prominent revolutionaries (and entire
revolutionary organisations) joined the
Labour Party, many quickly becoming
equally prominent reformists, MPs, TU
functionaries, Government advisers and
civil servants.
Towards the end of 1980, the AUT
affiliated to the TUC and SWP (as we had
become) members left ASTM and its leading national bodies and joined the AUT
on the basis that it was now a proper trade
union which negotiated our pay and conditions of service. Whilst ASTM was a
left talking union, the AUT certainly was
not, despite what we now know was a CP
leadership, although this did not become
apparent until very many years later.
The downturn
During the downturn in industrial struggle,
a minority of comrades in pre-92 Higher
Education were active in the AUT, being
elected as delegates to national conferences, standing as workplace reps etc.
We avoided taking on branch officer
positions and case work. We concentrated
on political campaigns and industrial struggles such as the ANL, the miners and the
print.
The raising of these political campaigns
in the trade unions allowed us to build small
networks of activists around us who, whilst
not revolutionaries, agreed with the campaign politics. This was small scale united
front work which made it much easier for
us later in the current period of ‘Political
Trade Unionism’.
This group, together with a much bigger
group of comrades in NATFHE, helped hold
a left together in Higher Education (HE)
throughout the downturn which has subsequently been able to build and increase left
influence within the TU movement.
At the same time CP steward organisation which formed the backbone of
organised class resistance in the 60s and
70s declined, in many cases leaving our
comrades as the only non-sectarian and
organised political force willing to give a
political lead independent of the TU offi-
cials and the Labour Bureaucracy. The
disintegration of the CP really came about
as a result of their adoption of the same
politics as the TU bureaucracy with whom
they became completely identified.
In this tough period a cadre of revolutionary trade unionists emerged at the
heart of what resistance remained in the
downturn.
Seattle and beyond
Seattle in 1999 woke many of us (not everyone in the party agreed) to the fact that
the outside world had changed and that
the walls erected in defence of our party
organisation needed dismantling.
The walls were a defence against a hostile ideological world but they also isolated
us from a class whose political views were
radicalising. In so doing we increased our
ability to put down political roots in the
class by encouraging members to engage
consistently and actively with the outside
world, spending less time in internal party
work and more time intervening outside.
On the other hand, we increased our
susceptibility to the pull of the many different political strands emerging at the time
(movementism, autonomism, reformist
defeatism, and demoralisation).
The Labour Party continued to move
rightwards, based on the idea that workers could not win and that only Parliament
could ameliorate capitalist exploitation.
Outside of the party and on the left the
dominant idea is that the working class is
but one component of many forces and is
not seen as we do as the crucial active element in any successful socialist movement.
Amongst trade union activists, this idea of
movementism has much less traction.
The opening of a political perspective
of permanent capitalist crisis, described
by Tony Cliff as the “30s in slow motion”,
against the background described above
has perhaps unsurprisingly lead to a series
of sharp arguments in the party, the current faction fight being the most acute
example.
From middle class
professionals to proletarians
Whilst the employment of staff on fixed
term contracts is not a new one (most
academics even in the 1970s started off
in temporary postdoctoral positions), the
chances of subsequently getting an academic position were far higher than it is
today. Posts were permanent and the sacking of an academic an almost unheard of
event.
This changed under the Thatcher Government with a successful legal challenge
to ‘tenure’ and a failed AUT campaign to
defend it, followed by the sacking of a Hull
academic, Edgar Jenkins on the spurious
grounds that his subject area was no longer
needed – in other words, redundancy.
Since 1982, almost 800,000 PhDs were
awarded in science and engineering (S&E)
fields, whereas only about 100,000 academic faculty positions were created in
those fields within the same time frame.
The number of S&E PhDs awarded
annually has also increased over this time,
from ~19,000 in 1982 to ~36,000 in 2011.
The number of faculty positions created
each year, however, has not changed,
with roughly 3,000 new positions created
annually.
This marks a qualitative shift for academics from relatively privileged secure
positions towards the current ever present
threat of redundancy, wage cuts, zero
hours contracts and management control.
This change took place over more than
two decades and continues, seemingly
imperceptibly.
Political Trade Unionism
From around mid-2000 onwards the
party developed a perspective of “Political Trade Unionism” which aimed to
draw together the confidence that could
be gained on the one hand from relating
to the more generalised ‘anti-capitalist’
anger and pro-social democratic politics
developing at the time (which continues to
develop as this is written) and on the other
to the more mundane and often demoralising day to day struggles defending terms
and conditions of service in the workplace.
Below I attempt to illustrate this process
with the example of our practice at Leeds
University.
A minority of comrades adopted this
perspective, particularly within pre-92
Higher Education and many academic
comrades who abstained from trade unionism during the downturn never got back
into it following the Seattle ‘shift’.
One of our weaknesses since 2000 has
been the abstention of a significant layer of
academic comrades, many of whom now
form part of the faction.
The merger of the AUT and NATFHE
into the University and College Union
(UCU) in June 2006, forming the largest tertiary education union in the world
with 120,000 members, marked a period
of growth for the union and increasing
militancy, in part due to the expansion of
Higher Education.
Industrial action in 2004 and 2006
resulted in a shabby 3 year pay deal which
looked better than it might have done due
to a fall in inflation in 2009. The agreement
in 2004 to a job evaluation and grading
deal was a significant defeat for academic
freedom since it accelerated the process
of increasing managerial control over academics, the establishment of formal line
management and a new legal basis for
disciplinary action. Nevertheless, we have
seen more industrial action in pre-92 HE
since 2004 than in the entire history of the
AUT.
HE is a bigger business and overseas
55
income earner than either aerospace or
pharmaceuticals. In the early 70s there
were around 8000 students and around
1300 academic staff at Leeds University, a
ratio of approximately 6 students to every
academic. Today there is around 8000 staff
of which 3300 are academics, teaching
around 33000 students, a ratio of 10.
However, nearly half of all academic
staff is employed on temporary contracts
with around 50 contract terminations occurring every month and the ratio of staff with
student contact to students is around 14.
The University turnover today is around
£500 million per year. It is noticeable that
the numbers of staff employed as managers
has greatly increased (the ratio of total staff
to students has actually decreased over the
past 40 years) and this is associated with
a steady deterioration in the conditions of
employment, as pay and status decrease
and workload and management control
increase.
What we have seen over the past 40
years is the emergence of a new industry
(Higher Education), a new workforce and
a new union (UCU).
Karl Marx would not have been surprised to see on the one hand this increasing
bureaucratisation of HE (The relations of
production hold back the forces of production) and on the other the consequent
proletarianisation of the workforce as a
formerly middle class profession is transformed into a working class occupation.
Nor would Marx have been surprised
to see a new industry together with a new
section of the working class emerge as others declined. A slogan of the 2004 dispute
was (Shelley, 2005) “from Porter to Professor” and an outcome of that strike was
a ‘Framework Agreement’ which imposed
the same pay and grading structure on all
categories of university staff, including job
evaluation.
Those of us (a minority of SWP academics employed in HE) who immersed
ourselves in this process by combining
political campaigning within and without
the UCU have been able to take a lead and
help shape the UCU in a way which is
impossible for the many comrades who sat
and reported from the side lines.
We recognised that whilst workers were
not confident enough to act independently
of their officials, it was possible to increase
confidence by tapping into the prevailing
political mood and that this gave us opportunities denied to us for decades.
In Leeds we organised delegations
(together with our banner) to every significant political demonstration and built
an action group around the 2004, 2006 and
2010 strikes of upwards of 100 members in
a branch numbering around 1500.
A few AUT and NATFHE comrades had
begun meeting nationally in the period prior
to merger (2004 to 2006) and a national
caucus of AUT and NATFHE members
was established just before merger in 2006.
The much more developed trade union con-
sciousness and political organisation of the
NATFHE caucus enabled us together with
the few SWP activists from the AUT to
have more influence within the union than
our numbers might have suggested.
These comrades formed the core of the
current UCU fraction, a significant proportion of whom (mainly ex NATFHE) went
on to be elected UCU NEC members based
on their outstanding record of activism
under generally unfavourable conditions.
Hot on the heels of merger the UCU Left
was established at a very successful meeting in Birmingham.
Trade Union officials,
revolutionaries and the Rank
and File, the Leeds experience
When discussing the Trade Union Officials
it is necessary to differentiate between
locally elected lay officials (Branch Presidents, secretaries etc.), nationally elected
officials (General Secretaries) and nonelected, appointed officials who are only
accountable to the Trade Union managers.
Members elected to the NEC on a
regional or national basis are also subject
to some of the pressures of trade union
officials.
On the one hand the official is subject
to pressure from the rank and file members
of the union through election and general
meetings of the union, on the other the official faces pressure from the institutions of
the union and directly and indirectly from
the employer.
The degree to which the official represents the needs and desires of the rank
and file depends on how close s/he is to
(a) democratically expressed views of rank
and file union members, (b) the national
officials and national bodies of the union,
(c) the employers and (d) the discipline
of and accountability to a revolutionary
organisation.
This is clearly not a simple thing when
the democratic structures of the union
become attenuated due to Rank and File
passivity or as is the case at present, the
Rank and File are not confident to act
independently of the nationally elected
officials.
In 2009 in Leeds it was apparent that
the new Vice Chancellor was intent on the
transformation of the university into a new
HE business by means of sacking a large
proportion of his current academics and
recruiting a new workforce. He stated that
his aim was to place Leeds University in
the world top 50 by 2015 and that he would
do this through compulsory redundancies
if necessary. If this strategy had been successful, the same would have followed
throughout HE, decimating the UCU. Following discussion on branch committee,
I put myself forward as Branch President
and was elected unopposed, clear that we
would soon be in dispute.
We had discussed in the UCU fraction
that a fight over redundancies was inevitable and had worked out a strategy of
redundancy avoidance based on an assumption that whilst members were unlikely to
support prolonged industrial action over
voluntary redundancies, there was the real
possibility of action against compulsory
redundancies. This assessment was based
on our experience of the 2004 and 2006
national disputes in which the union pulled
its punches, unconfident of support for all
out indefinite strike action.
Our negotiating position (what we
regarded would be a victory) was based
on the idea that whilst opposition to organisational change per se was not a viable
position to adopt at that time, any change
must be in the interests of our members and
their students and had to be negotiated by
the institution on the basis of no compulsory
redundancies. This was combined with an
argument in defence of academic freedom.
It was also clear that we could win national
support for a local dispute over compulsory
redundancies and the ‘redundancy avoidance’ negotiating stance. Furthermore, we
believed that we could win such a dispute
with national support.
Building on our experience of organising pickets and an action committee in the
2004 and 2006 disputes we had over a 100
members signed up and ready to picket the
moment we called a strike. With a successful strike ballot under our belts we went
into negotiation and the university eventually capitulated the day before we were due
to strike in early 2010.
A really effective blog and publicity
campaign had put the university and its
new VC on the defensive and national and
local officials spent two days knocking
on every member doors during the ballot
period. As a result our membership rose
dramatically making Leeds one of the biggest UCU branches in the country.
Every move we made was accompanied by reference to a General Meeting
which were being held weekly towards
the culmination of the dispute. Upwards
of 200 members attended these meeting
and national officials were left in no doubt
of the support of our members for our
strategy. Management spies in our meetings also meant that management were
in no doubt of the support we had, with
almost unanimous votes for action in all
the meetings.
In the event we won and whilst a voluntary redundancy scheme led to 700 people
departing (eventually to be replaced by
younger, cheaper and sometimes temporary
staff), compulsory redundancy is not the
order of the day and the UCU has successfully fought off threats in other universities,
Liverpool being the latest example. In its
place, organisational change agreements
have become the norm, a defensive position for the union without question but one
which holds union organisation together,
ready for more favourable circumstances
which we may possibly see currently
56
around the 2013 pay dispute.
The struggle in Leeds was not unique
and nationally the left held a majority of
the NEC. Effective caucusing made it possible for the left to push for national action
jointly with the NUT over pensions later
in 2011, in the teeth of opposition from
national officials. This in turn generated
the head of steam which made the pensions
strikes of November 30th 2011 possible.
The downturn is over, but the upturn
has not yet begun. When sea tides are on
the turn it is sometimes difficult to know
which way the tide is going with conflicting incoming and outgoing currents. This is
a source of some of our current difficulties
I believe. We cannot even rule out a further downturn although this is unlikely and
revolutionary socialists have an important
role in influencing the outcome of the current capitalist crisis. This is why we need to
take the current faction fight seriously.
Revolutionaries in trade unions can now
win union elections, we have never hidden
our politics as the CP did for many decades, nor should we.
People who vote for us do not agree
with all our revolutionary views necessarily but they are happy to be led by people
they know and trust.
Reformist pessimism means that often
we are the only people willing to stick
our necks over the parapet; we do this not
because we are suicidal but because we
know how to win.
Trotsky said that revolutionaries make
the best reformists and this is certainly true
in the current period. In these conditions
it is incumbent on revolutionaries to step
up to the plate. In some circumstances this
means 50% or 100% facility time, failing
to do so would be a failure of leadership.
We should do this under the direction of
national fractions and the CC in order to
ensure that we always put the general needs
of our class before sectional interests.
As we have seen above, in early 2010
we held a series of mass meetings at Leeds
which gave cause for optimism, these were
the biggest rank and file meetings ever held
at Leeds University, albeit held within the
official union framework.
Their impetus led to a successful outcome to the local dispute. We do not have
a Rank and File movement like the one we
saw over four decades ago and the organised left is more of an electoral machine
although it is capable of mobilizing support
for disputes.
The Leeds dispute would not have
been won without the presence of organised revolutionaries in the workplace who
understood the relationship between TU
officials and the Rank and File.
Leeds members still do not have the
confidence to act independently of the
officials and in the following year we saw
a vicious national witch hunt against the
SWP conducted by the CP and our General
Secretary as part of her campaign to win
that year’s GS elections.
Partly as a result, I lost an election to the
right whilst we argued for a continuance
of our dispute with the university and continued resistance to the cuts. Currently the
branch is run by reformists with the support of the national officials. Under these
conditions it proved impossible to resist
the sell out by the trade union officials of
our pensions.
Despite this, from my point of view as
a revolutionary and workplace activist,
the current political situation is the most
favourable since the early 1970s.
I was elected a national member of the
UCU NEC coming second to top in the
poll on the basis of political roots build
through political campaigning in my union
over very many years. My work colleagues
might not agree with all my politics but
the discussion in our tea breaks is generally political, something which would have
been unheard of ten years ago. Political
discussion even takes place in scientific
conferences which in the past was also
unheard of. My scientific colleagues know
my political views and they are welcomed
in diverse political discussion which could
not have happened even a few years ago.
I am not unique, there is a layer of comrades with similar experience who are in a
real sense part of the political leadership of
today’s working class.
We will be at the heart of any future
Rank and File movement to which the
upcoming Unite the Resistance meeting is
a step towards. To dismiss us as a conservative layer in the party is foolish. For every
quote from Lenin regarding youth, there is
one explaining that the party is the memory
of the class and one work of Lenin’s which
the IDOOP faction fail to quote is “Left
wing communism, an infantile disorder”.
Autonomism and reformism in
the party in Leeds
Whilst we met weekly with SWP students
at Leeds in 2010 and 2011, our meetings
concentrated on organising joint NUS/UCU
activities but in other respects were not
political.
We failed to sharply raise the need for
Leninist politics amongst the students
because it was something we took for
granted and they knew nothing about.
This was not helped by the fact that there
was already conscious opposition to the
party’s traditions amongst some party full
timers who were directing student work,
nationally and in Leeds.
There is a connection between the retreat
into academia and accommodation to
reformism/autonomism for many of those
involved in the faction. Their move into
academia is not simply that of those with
jobs as academics but also many who go off
to do PhD or postgraduate work.
Whereas a generation ago comrades
would train to be teachers or social workers
etc. in order to get jobs and also be trade
unionists, a PhD is seen by many comrades
as a gateway to independence and away
from trade unionism. This is not without an
objective basis given the increased competition for academic posts referred to above
and connects the elitism of many of the
older and younger comrades in the faction.
On the one hand comrades organising in
the UCU have been successful in recruiting
young members to the party and to workplace activism. Some prominent faction
members on the other hand missed a trick
in the universities. They could have been
recruiting postgraduate teaching assistants
to the UCU and building in the UCU. For
example, comrades in Leeds UCU who
were not members of the faction worked
closely with student union officers and
organised jointly with them coaches to NUS
demonstrations.
Prior to 2010, there was a quite hostile
attitude in the SU to the UCU, fostered by
the VC. This began to change with the student campaign against fees (Strongly and
publically opposed by our VC) which was
also supported nationally by the UCU.
A large UCU delegation which I led as
President of the UCU at Leeds participated
in the November 2010 student demonstration against fees (14 coaches with both staff
and students went down from Leeds) and
the staff delegation watched the Millbank
events from the road outside.
On our return I was door stepped by the
BBC as we got off the coach in Leeds and
was televised defending the student demonstration. I was then asked to write an opinion
piece in the Yorkshire Post as a result of
which the VC attempted to censure me in
Senate of which I am a member.
Highly unusually, Senate did not back
the VC and the censure was not pursued,
if it had been I would likely have lost my
job. Nevertheless, my assessment at the time
was that most people supported the students
and were glad that there was resistance to
fees and cuts.
UCU support for the campaign against
student fees put us in a much stronger position to win support from students for our
pension strikes. In the build-up to the 30th
November 2011 pension’s demonstration,
we were clear that we needed student support for our industrial action and spent time
meeting SU officials as well as publicising
our point of view more widely to students.
Leeds SU officials backed our pensions’
strikes including the day of action on the
24th November 2011 and joined the picket
lines. Following this we have since worked
successfully with the Leeds Student Union
to improve conditions for postgraduate
teaching assistants and in Leeds UCU we
are now recruiting postgraduate teachers to
the UCU and campaigning over postgraduate teaching pay.
Today our politics are attractive to
increasing numbers of young people and a
key question for HE worker members of the
party is the best way to relate to them.
In my party branch, when our young
57
members take initiatives it is vital that the
older comrades, rooted in the Trade Union
movement turn out to provide support, a
political lead and orientation on organised
workers.
In turn, these young members value our
experience and the respect we have within
the working class movement. Abstention
from political trade unionism is no longer
an option for comrades working in Higher
Education. Otherwise we will miss the new
opportunities for party building which are
emerging.
So many words
Bridget (Kings Heath)
So many words have been written about
the events of the last year that the temptation is to avoid adding any more. But then
the ground is conceded to those who have
written at length whilst a lot of members
who have been working hard keeping the
branches together, building bedroom tax
campaigns, UTR and UAF go unheard.
I welcome the proposals from the Disputes Review Committee and see in these
a way forward for the party. However if
we keep going back to arguments around
the dispute we will never agree and cannot
move on.
For every tale of a faction member being
persecuted, I can give you a story of faction
members vilifying non faction members.
For every member of the faction who has
a story of ‘passive card-holders’ being use
to swell the numbers of a delegation, I can
show you another district where members
who do not attend meetings, do not do paper
sales and do not take part in any party activity sign up to the faction and become active
only around the time of conference.
Pat talks of ‘gossipers, speculators and
bullies’: this may be so but they are not
confined to one side. Faction members talk
of how upset they have been by the handling of the case: but then others have been
extremely upset by the appalling behaviour
of the faction in continually disregarding
conference votes and creating a permanent
faction.
The faction say ‘some comrades have
echoed right-wing sexist arguments that if
a woman doesn’t report a rape immediately
this indicates that they are lying’ and this
certainly is not acceptable.
But some 200 faction members put their
name to a document on a public website
which names M as a ‘sexual predator’,
equally unacceptable.
Both faction members and non-faction
members want to claim the moral high
ground. Hard though it is, if we are to find
a way forward, all sides have to accept that
everyone has acted in good faith.
For example in IB1 Sheila and others
say that people argued against a full review
of the Disputes procedure in Feb: yes and I
was one of them. Not that I did not think a
review would be necessary but the timing,
with a witch hunt in the press and so soon
after conference, did not seem right.
The delays in hearing the second case
were not because some people were putting
loyalty to an individual before their politics on women’s oppression. There were
problems around setting up this hearing and
many, like myself, thought it was going to
be very difficult for a fair hearing to take
place since M had been named on a public
website as a ‘sexual predator’. The party
had not ‘forgotten our principles’ but was
genuinely trying to find a way which was
fair to both complainant and defendant.
Last week, for the first time in months,
faction and non-faction members worked
together in a B’ham NUT meeting: it felt at
last as if we were comrades again.
Talking to one faction member afterwards we agreed that we both wanted the
party to come out of this as strong as possible and that we would work to that end. Six
months ago we couldn’t even speak to each
other such was the intensity of feeling on
both sides. I came away optimistic that, in
Birmingham at least, there might be an end
to the splits caused by the crisis.
However on reading the faction statement it doesn’t read like the statement of
comrades who genuinely want to find a resolution to the problems of the last year.
One of the key demands is ‘a period of
debate about how we equip the party, in
theory and practice, to lead and intervene
effectively on questions of women’s oppression.’ Our branch has set up a series of
meetings around issues raised on the opposition blog – women’s oppression, privilege
theory, neoliberalism and the working class
– but members of the faction do not attend
meetings (with the exception of one person) and do not engage in discussion around
these issues.
Another demand is that ‘we need to
address flaws in the party’s internal functioning and its relationship to the wider
movement.’ In Birmingham we have been
central in setting up the People’s Assembly but no member of the faction has been
involved. Again with the bedroom tax
– we have built a Benefit Justice Campaign
involving tenants and others but the faction
have been absent. Do they just want to talk
about our relationship to the wider movement or do they want to actually be engaged
on the ground?
Again the faction statement calls for ‘a
concerted campaign to rebuild and regenerate the branches’. I fail to understand
what it means for people to sign up to a faction with this demand when they have not
been involved in their branch meetings for
months or years.
The statement requests ‘a commitment
from the CC that the election of delegates
to conference will maximise debate and
reflect the real differences that exist within
the party’. I did not think it was up to the
CC how we in Birmingham choose to elect
our delegates. I imagine we will be electing
people ‘on the basis of their activity and
involvement in the party’. (Neil IB1)
Finally the faction calls for ‘removing
those members (from the CC, NC, DC) who
have acted to frustrate and obstruct a satisfactory resolution to the disputes processes.’
I can accept that people have criticisms of
the way things have been handled but I do
not accept that any of our leading comrades
have acted in the way described.
I think that there are members of the
faction, if not all, who want to stay in the
party and avoid any further haemorrhaging of numbers. Do they honestly think this
factional statement is something which we
can unite around? Yes, we do need to learn
lessons from the last year. We need to do
that together as a party: the strident demands
of the faction statement make that harder to
achieve.
The SWP and the
internet
Gary (Swansea)
Over the last twenty years or so there has
been a ‘revolution’ in global communications with the rise of the Internet and how
people communicate online, the development of new web 2.0 technologies, social
media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The SWP has endeavoured to meet
these new communication challenges with
the employment of a full-time party webdeveloper, an updated website, a more user
friendly homepage with links to our various
publications, party resources, video clips
of Marxism, SWP telly for example, and
external links to social media campaigns,
twitter feeds, etc.
This is not to say that the party’s website
should remain static and of course the party
needs a website to meet the challenge in
today’s interconnected world. However,
there is an increasingly clamour by some
comrades within the party to adopt a more
federal online structure such as internal
forums and external websites. “Getting it
right” on the question of the internet does
warrant serious discussion within the party
and I respond to the article in IB1 with
some of my own suggestions.
The experience over the last year has
shown the dangers of how the lack of
discipline and accountability online has
damaged the party.
Current and former party members
either through official blogs such as Lenin’s Tomb and other websites/blogs set up
by disgruntled members hiding behind a
58
cloak of anonymity whose sole purpose
has been to damage the party and attack the
democratic decisions taken at conference
such as the Dispute Committee’s decision
(albeit a narrow majority) the elected CC
and individual party members.
The IS tradition has is always sought
through the years is to have an open honest,
always rigorous and sometimes contentious
discussion about theoretical analyses, party
tactics and our intervention in the class as
a whole.
Of course the Internet is a vital tool in
this respect for reaching a wider audience
for our ideas at a national and international
perspective. The internet, however, is not a
forum for personal attacks, vendettas and
pernicious slander of comrades who take
positions democratically decided at conference or for that matter a comrade who
takes an oppositional view, that is not our
tradition nor should it ever be.
There is, however, an approved way of
voicing disagreements or alternate points of
view and that is to involve either the local
branch committee, the elected National
Committee representative or failing that
the party organs such as paper the Review
or ISJ so the whole party can be involved
in the discussion.
Whilst I am not against online forums
in principle the question is how best this
can be achieved. The need for internal and
external forums “uni-directional” from
the centre out is a confusing if worrying
trend.
The current SWP website is an online
‘shop-window’ for our tradition and ideas;
it would be therefore confusing for someone accessing our ideas for the first time
being subject to a barrage of abstract debate
and online party-crises if the party had an
internal forum.
Secondly, this seems to be at odds with
a “constitutional” manner suggested. Not
every comrade has access to a computer wouldn’t this exempt those from the
discussion? Moreover, who is going to
arbitrate discussion, discipline and standard of behaviour in this forum or external
website? Is a suggested moderator overseeing discussion the best real use of party
resources?
This is also a worrying trend the comrade from Bury & Prestwich does allude
to this that is the separation from activity, there is a danger that we are going to
substitute our work building the party on
the ground to a ‘real-time’ atomised online
discussion forum in cyber space divorced
from actually meeting people physically
‘face-to-face’?
Perhaps an alternative compromise
would be for the website to include a comments feature, in which, comrades can
leave comments/suggestions similar to the
Guardian website for example.
Lastly, I am also at odds with the notion
of existing high quality “official” party publications are not sufficient in the age of the
internet. This seems like an abandonment
of our tradition and internal discussion!
The website is not only read online by current members but also non-members both
nationally and internationally.
Historical and current party publications
are essential if we as a party are to extol
our brand of socialism, rescue the ‘real’
Marxist tradition from our detractors and
provide a lead to the class in struggle.
The internet is literally littered with
numerous ‘socialist’ websites, online forum
groups, blogs who primarily exist online in
a sectarian manner often against anyone
who disagrees with their perspective or
their ‘holy grail’.
One reason the SWP has endured is that
we are not a sect and that we demonstrate
our theory in practice actively participating
either in the workplace or within political
campaigns that we are involved in.
The emergence of blogs and online chatter
around the recent crisis in the SWP have
had both positive and negative side effects,
the negatives are all too apparent, and well
rehearsed, but what is less well understood
has been the “further reading” that many
comrades have been pointed towards as
part of these online musings. This shows the need for the SWP
membership to be able to have an open,
and informed, moderated, and comradely
area, to debate and work through ideas
collectively. Conclusion
swp.org.uk
There is party agreement that the internet
and social media plays an increasing role
in our lives particularly with younger comrades, however, it is only a facet of our
work in building the party. Social media is
a very useful tool in building meetings and
to highlight campaigns, etc, however it is
one tool in which, revolutionaries adopt as
part of a weapon in a larger armoury.
The internet is a fast moving medium,
which often requires immediate responses
to daily political events/issues it is sometimes impossible therefore for a leadership
to meet on a daily basis to respond to any
given political crises.
Ultimately comrades using Facebook/
Twitter for example must use political
judgement in a disciplined and fraternal
manner. A number of comrades in the party
use online blogs to promote debate and promote campaigns, etc, blogs are an excellent
way to warrant discussion, however, the
same standard of behaviour applies to
bloggers as comrades using social media.
Criticising members’, spreading malicious
gossip and unsubstantiated rumour this is
neither our tradition nor how we should
conduct ourselves online.
We do need therefore to create a culture of responsibility online and a standard
of behaviour which befits our theoretical
tradition.
Where I agree with the comrade from
Bury & Prestwich is that the party needs to
take the important issue of open discussion/
disagreements seriously, however, nowhere
does he address how we build the party on
the ground? And a forum will involve a
narrow participation of comrades.
There are no quick fixes to building
as ‘mass’ workers party if there were we
would have adopted them the suggestion
for an online forum/external websites
would ultimately I feel lead to the separation from real activity.
Interacting with
the blogosphere
Adam (Hackney East)
The SWP has made major strides with its
online presence over recent years, it has an
informative website, with relevant content,
useful links, and appropriate resources. It is
a fantastic tool for informing the cadre and
class of our politics and perspectives. It has
been a valuable source for getting the latest
news from Tahir Square, industrial actions,
and other disputes, but there is a major element missing. Interaction
Interaction is a fundamental part of the
modern web browsing experience, interaction brings people closer to your platform,
retains their interest for longer, continues to
inform and build on the issues with experience and theory and will become a record
of events, it allows for users to feel part of
the community you are building.
As socialist, interaction should be
embraced, nurtured, and used, to keep
comrades involved and informed and allow
them to contribute in constructive ways.
As a way of further developing our ideas
and tactics, and as a place to share experiences, to educate and learn from each other
and our periphery. Nothing online beats a
bloody good polemic, on a well managed
portal. We need to own that arena. To further our online presence and interact with the movement on a larger scale
than at present, we should be looking at
developing an SWP Blog Portal.
Public and private Portals
The SWP Blog would consist of mainly
open public forums, dealing with theoretical questions, views and opinions from
struggles and used as a link to our website
and publications, but also an area for hot
debate on the issues of the day.
Other areas should be reserved strictly
for SWP members only, dependent on the
nature of the forum. The private area should
be open to discussions around policy and
59
internal debate, summaries of important
meetings or discussions, the types that
clearly have needed better moderation over
the last year. In the interests of transparency and
the fullest amount of debate possible and
information available to members, this portal would be a valuable addition to party
democracy. Although clearly it should not
be used lightly, or around confidentially
sensitive issues. It would need to be moderated and comrades and the public should
register with an email to use it. Registration having the added bonus of being
another way of making contacts with our
periphery. Talk Talk
A Blog should not, as has been suggested
in recent online and offline comments,
become a ‘talking shop’ necessarily
removing us from our political work. I do
not agree with this perspective, for some
comrades it could be a way for them to
contribute where they can’t currently or
don’t feel confident enough to do in other
arenas, and for other more confident comrades, a place to do even more talking! Many comrades have a variety of challenges on their time, and capitalism, and
biology will get in the way, as elements of
the membership get older this will inevitably become more likely; a meeting may be
impractical or impossible to attend, a regular paper sale, at exactly the wrong time
for one, but better for the group; aspects of
life will inevitable intervene, disabilities,
families, illness, and work, will all conflict
with our comradely ‘duties’ at some time.
So the time available for some comrades to
be political can be brief and only snatched
at. An SWP Blog portal would facilitate these comrades in keeping involved,
informed, and in contact with the party and
to a degree, still active, or at the very least
engaged. But the suggestion that it would become
an online “talking shop” removing us from
political work is an outmoded and derisive
argument besides.
Every 18 months technology renews, and the massive increase in the use of
mobile smart devices, over recent years
is testament to this, currently smart phone
ownership in the UK is estimated at around
60% of the adult population, estimates
suggest it will increase to 80% by 2017
(http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/
markets-by-country/18-uk/154-mobiledevices).
Unfortunately these percentages
decline, like so many things, with age
(http://www.edigitalresearch.com/news/
item/nid/655462669), so for more active,
often younger comrades clearly capable
of writing comments to an SWP Blog, on
the bus, or the train traveling to a meeting,
as well being capable of contributing to it
when they arrive, the ‘talking shop’ argument must appear very weak indeed.
Copy and pasteboards
The SWP Blog is not a substitute for our
core propagandist activity of going to
events, speaking at meetings, or fly-posting (which appears to have gone out of
fashion).
Our paper sales cannot be replaced by
online blogs, as nothing online has the
power of real-life concrete connections
in our local areas, workplaces, schools or
universities.
But as a place to keep-in-touch and
engage with the Party and wider movement it would become a very useful tool,
accessible potentially to millions. And
I couldn’t imagine any SWP piece not
finishing with a call to arms, a poster to
download for the next demo, a line telling
you where to go to get ‘the tickets’, or a
link to Bookmarks, because “…comrade,
you really should read this.” An SWP Blog could become a valuable tool for education within the SWP,
an area for discussion and polemic, on
topics of immediate importance, and for
more thoughtful theoretical or educational
articles, it would be a supplement to our
Newspaper, Journal, and Review, an area
to continue the discussion, formulate
ideas, get deeper into the study, or develop
articles collectively for later publication.
This conference agrees:
1) That the Party to develop and incorporate a fully moderated Blogging portal,
area, or other suitable forum, similar
in structure to the Guardian’s, “Comment is Free”, or the BBC’s “Have your
say” forums as part of the SWP’s online
presence. 2) That a ‘working group’ be set up to
investigate, and ultimately, with assistance, implement ways to develop an SWP
Blog Portal or area, and to find ways to
incorporate a range of ‘topics’, or ‘headings’, for public users, and to also look at
the viability and security aspects around
private portal areas for use strictly by registered SWP members only. 3) Timescale for full implementation of
an SWP Blog, by next conference, or
sooner. I say all this in the full knowledge that, as
a print based media worker, I am shooting myself in my mouse hand, but as a
socialist wanting to keep on learning, and
keep up to date with the latest events, best
theory and practices, and to keep informed
of the experiences of other comrades, be
that on the bus, train, or coach, or when
the kids are asleep, then I’m willing to
take that bullet. On Disputes
Committee
reform
David (Euston)
The report of the Disputes Committee
Review Body is careful and well-considered. Generally, if there are problems with
its proposals, those are more to do with
the things which its authors did not think
through, rather than those that they did.
That said, there are still gaps in it.
The first two should be uncontroversial; they just take further ideas which are
already in the report:
1) Exchange of information:
Until 2013 our position was that a man
accused of a sexual crime was told the
case against them, but the person bringing
the claim was told nothing about how it
was opposed. That imbalance between the
women making complaints and the men
being investigated was indefensible and
the Review Body are right to say that it
should end.
The weakness of the Review Body’s
proposals is that they suggest that when
a person is accused of anything, including
serious sexual misconduct, they are entitled
to know the case against them, and they are
only “invited” (i.e. asked, with no sanction
if they refuse) to state in advance how they
defend the case.
This should be put on a more robust footing, when it comes to sexual allegations. If
the case is defended, the person resisting it
must state the basis of their defence a fixed
time in advance (eg 6 weeks before the
hearing), and if not it will be presumed that
the complaint is well-founded and disciplinary action will be taken.
Only a strict rule of this kind will make
the people who are subject to complaints
disclose their position in good time, and
therefore give complainants a fair opportunity to develop their case properly once they
know how it is actually being resisted.
2) A proper decision:
Until now our position has been that the
person accused is told the outcome of the
case against them, although the explanation
is generally very brief, rarely amounting to
more than a page of A4 paper. In the last 12
months, the party has grudgingly begun to
send the complainants the outcome as well,
although this was a reform conceded under
protest, and the DC still usually provides
explanations only in brief.
Not giving full reasons invites everybody
to fill that gap with whatever explanation
suits them. For example, during the first
complaint about the National Secretary, it
may be that the reason he was believed by
the panel hearing the case was that he was
very convincing in answers to their ques-
60
tions, or because he had documents which
backed up his version of events.
I am sceptical that there ever was such
an explanation, but I concede that it is
possible. If no-one in the party knows
why he (or anyone else) was believed,
how could we have a compelling explanation to account for the panel’s decision?
How can we justify it to anyone else?
Whoever is believed, both parties are
entitled to reasons: the person who is
believed so that they can explain to other
people why they were believed, and the
person who is disbelieved, so that they
can understand and see for themselves
that a fair procedure was followed (if it
was indeed fair).
The next two problems force us to think
more deeply about the process itself:
3) Confidentiality:
The party needs to work out what confidentiality is for, and whose reputation we
are defending.
For the last two years, the overriding
impression is that we have fought far harder
to protect the reputation of the men who are
subject to complaints than of the women
who bring them, and we have fought hardest of all to protect the reputation of people
at the head of the organisation, whenever
they were involved in a dispute.
Everywhere else but in the SWP, people are allowed to know who is subject
to the complaint and their outcome. In
unions, in workplaces and in the courts,
the rules may well extend to protecting
privacy while a complaint is ongoing,
but there is no automatic rule that once
a complaint has been determined, its outcome and the reasons behind it must still
be kept secret for ever.
If we maintain our present practice of
“defendant’s confidentiality” and “CC
secrecy”, we will look like we have something to hide. This is linked to providing
the reason for decisions.
No-one in the party has anything to fear
from an allegation which is fairly investigated and disbelieved, and they have a
plausible explanation for their vindication
which they can give to the world.
What is killing our organisation is the
culture that “no-one is allowed to know
why we reached the decision we did, you
just have to take it on trust that we did the
best we could”.
A dynamic which assumes we can all
be ordered to trust the leadership in a matter of this seriousness, has produced a
climate of generalised distrust throughout
the party.
4) The discretion as to whether to
investigate.
The DC Review Body proposes an initial
stage during which “the DC may consider
the nature of the allegation or complaint
to be serious enough that a formal hearing
will be necessary”.
We could have the best rules in the
world, but there would be worth nothing
if there remained in place the situation
we have had for several years where the
decision about whether to investigate and
on what basis to investigate remained the
prerogative of the leadership, or the DC,
each of which has had an effective veto
over an investigation.
We have seen this problem in a number
of recent cases: in the first complaint
against a then CC member, where it was
the CC who decided in 2010 not to refer
the matter for proper investigation (i.e. it
simply never went before the DC’s predecessor, the Control Commission), and
in the most recent rape allegation which
came to light this month in which (it is
said) that the DC used the initial informal
stage to discourage the complaint from
proceeding and to prevent her complaint
from proceeding.
If it is true that the DC acted in this
way, the practice is indefensible. It
shames the entire party.
There needs to be a much simpler rule:
if the complaint is made, and it is serious, then it will be investigated. We are
revolutionaries and too much is at stake:
no-one will stop us from trying to find
out the truth.
Why bother
with Socialist
Worker?
Sadie (Socialist Worker and Southwark)
There is debate within the party about the
role and relevance of Socialist Worker.
This isn’t surprising.
As Chris Harman noted in his pamphlet on the revolutionary paper, “It is
quite common for individual revolutionaries, and even whole organisations, to
feel that there are easier ways to build up
influence.”
But the importance of the paper flows
from a politics that is based on the working class. As Harman wrote,
“The connection between the revolutionary leader and paper is specific
to revolutionaries whose concern is to
build mass struggles.
“It is not to be found with those
whose conception of change is that
of a small, determined minority performing heroic deeds on behalf of the
majority.”
The Socialist Workers Party argues that
the working class remains the force for
revolutionary change. We stress Karl
Marx’s argument that, “The emancipa-
tion of the working class must be the act
of the working class”.
We want to get more workers politically
active. This isn’t only to win immediate
battles but also because through fighting
back ordinary people begin to see their
own power.
Under capitalism, the dominant ideas
are those of our rulers. It can be hard
to put across ideas that challenge them.
Most people have contradictory ideas
and there’s unevenness among people we
work with.
This is where the revolutionary paper
comes in. It can identify the key political
priorities in any given week and arm militants with a strategy for how to win.
It can inspire people who are told they
are powerless with facts that contradict
that. It can spread news of struggle and
build solidarity.
It can contain, in news and features,
arguments for socialism and revolution.
It can challenge the myths that our rulers put forward to keep us divided and
weak.
It can help create political relationships and networks of militants that can
more confidently organise resistance.
It is a way, as Harman put it, of
“bridging the gap between theory and
practice”.
Debate about the content of Socialist
Worker within the party is a good thing.
But some arguments that appear to be
simply about content can reflect deeper
political arguments.
So Amy and Mark write that we need
to “break with some of [Socialist Worker’s] current ‘form’ as a newspaper”.
They complain about “shouty” headlines
and “the panacea of the general strike”.
In fact Socialist Worker has rarely
called for a general strike in recent years
because it would have been abstract to
do so. But when the demand was raised
during the public sector pension strike the
paper rightly championed it.
Amy and Mark say Socialist Worker
should contain arguments and theory. It
does.
But they imply that we should move
away from “news reporting”, pointing out
that the paper “doesn’t have a monopoly
on radical news”.
This misunderstands the purpose of
news reporting in the paper.
Socialist Worker reports news to try
and draw out useful lessons for people in
struggle and to put arguments about how
to win change.
Other papers and websites may of
course report the same events as we do –
but they don’t do so in the same way. And
they don’t do so for the same reasons.
Socialist Worker’s reporting of the
Egyptian Revolution, for example, highlighted the key role that strikes played
in the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. It
was informed by links to revolutionaries
organising on the ground.
61
Other news sources have reported
events in Egypt very differently.
Socialist Worker aims to help ordinary
people understand the world and their
power to change it. The vast majority of
other news sources do not.
Socialist Worker has also produced
original news stories. It was the first paper
to link Anders Breivik to the English
Defence League, for example. It exposed
in detail the truth about the Marikana
massacre in South Africa last year.
And it covers industrial disputes that
are only mentioned briefly, if at all,
elsewhere.
But the paper shouldn’t simply report
news or produce propaganda. It should
aim to be the voice of ordinary working class people and it should tell their
stories.
Harman said of the Northern Star,
“People clamoured to read the paper
because it told them what they themselves,
and thousands of other people like them,
were feeling and doing.”
Many Hovis workers read Socialist
Worker during their recent dispute. They
told comrades how much they loved the
paper’s coverage of their struggle.
But once they bought the paper, they
didn’t just get a feature about their own
dispute. They’ve also got articles on
the fight against fascism in Greece, on
imperialism, on the Labour Party, on
Syria, Islamophobia and a range of other
struggles.
People buying the paper get a package
that aims to win them to a revolutionary
understanding of the world. This is different to, say, reading a blog post.
Finally selling Socialist Worker isn’t
only important because of the impact it
has on those who buy it. It matters because
it has an impact on those who sell it.
It forces us to engage with people and
to defend our politics. This should help
us become clearer about where people
are at, which arguments cut with people
and so on.
We should also become clearer about
our own ideas. Tony Cliff wrote in 1974,
“A worker that buys one copy of the
paper has a very different attitude to
it than the one who sells a couple of
copies.
“If he buys he doesn’t have to read
the paper, he doesn’t have to take a
position on the different ideas in the
paper. If he sells the paper he can’t
avoid doing both because he always
faces the possibility of one of the buyers arguing with him about the paper.
“In reality people never grasp ideas
clearly unless they have to fight for
those ideas.”
...............................................................
A group of comrades have asked for
the following article to be printed in the
IB. It also appears on the International
Socialism website.
The full debate including the original
article and a reply to this article can be
found at http://www.isj.org.uk
The urls are:
h t t p : / / w w w. i s j . o r g . u k / i n d e x .
php4?id=915&issue=140 The politics of
the SWP crisis, Charlie Kimber and Alex
Callinicos
php4?id=931&issue=140 “The politics of
the SWP crisis”-a response
php4?id=932&issue=140 Can we move
forward? a reply to Wolfreys and others
Charlie Kimber and Alex Callinicos
‘The politics of
the SWP crisis’
– a response
Jim, Hannah and Simon (Euston), Colin
(Manchester Chorlton) Louis and Alexis
(Islington), Anindya, Jonny and Jennifer
(Tower Hamlets), Estelle (Brixton), Neil
(Edinburgh), Jacqui (Leytonstone), Amy
(Cambridge), Mike (Glasgow North), Mike
(Telford), Andy (Hackney Dalston), Dan
(Norwich), Megan (Walthamstow)
As members of the editorial board of International Socialism we wish to disassociate
ourselves from the recently published article, “The Politics of the SWP Crisis”,
written by the journal’s editor and the
national secretary of the Socialist Workers
Party (SWP).
It purports to offer a summary of the
recent disputes that have divided the
organisation along with an overview of the
party’s trajectory over the past decade.
The article’s account of both processes
is partial and misleading. More than this,
however, we believe that the political
stance adopted by the authors will, if left
unchecked, destroy the SWP as we know it
and turn it into an irrelevant sect.
The authors find much that is “shocking” about the dispute. They bemoan the
“falsehoods” that circulated about it and
the fact that people behaved “shamefully”
or “outrageously”.
Yet their anger is exclusively reserved
for the way details of the case filtered out
to the party membership and the public
at large. They have nothing to say about
the treatment meted out to the two women
complainants, nothing to say about the
campaign orchestrated by leading party
members to undermine them, nothing to
say about the denigration of these women
as “jilted lovers” and “liars” carrying out
a vendetta against a CC member because
they were motivated by “feminist”, “auton Kimber and Callinicos, 2013
omist” and “movementist” deviations.
Indeed, the authors have nothing to say
about the second complainant at all, aside
from an oblique reference to “a subsequent
hearing”. She remains, as far as they are
concerned, invisible.
Why is this so? Have they forgotten that
the CC was instructed to apologise to the
second complainant for distress suffered
as a consequence of her treatment following her testimony in the first dispute?
Have they forgotten that the “subsequent
hearing” ruled she had provided enough
evidence of sexual harassment to require
the former CC member to answer the case
against him should he ever try to rejoin the
SWP? Why is there no mention of any of
this?
For many hundreds of party members
the gap between the party’s politics on
women’s oppression and its practice in
this case boils down to a simple fact: when
confronted with evidence of sexual harassment presented by two women on the
one hand, and the word of one CC member on the other, the Disputes Committee
(DC)—mainly composed of current or
former CC members—came to a verdict of
“not proven”. In the process they subjected
one woman to questions about her sexual
history and the other to questions about her
drinking habits.
At this point the Central Committee, driven by a sectarian minority in its
ranks, made a decision that would cost the
party dear. It opted to defend the disputes
committee and argue in a statement to all
members that anyone siding with those
challenging the process would be demonstrating “a quite unwarranted lack of
confidence in the capacity of the party and
its structures to maintain and develop our
tradition on women’s oppression”.
The CC did this before the women had
even presented their case to conference.
They wrote a document arguing that party
members “should endorse the DC report”.
They wrote that “to take any other decision
would have no basis in how the DC actually addressed this case”. They used the
party apparatus to persuade over 500 members to put their names to the document. All
this before either of the women had been
able to put their case to the membership. In
the weeks before conference the CC even
refused to let the complainants and their
supporters circulate a list of proposals to
members recommending changes to the
disputes committee procedures.
In the face of unprecedented uproar
from members and from outside its ranks,
in March the leadership agreed to set up
a commission to look into its disputes
procedures.
This commission has identified a number
of shortcomings in the procedures and has
Such behaviour has been documented in formal
complaints to the Disputes Committee
Statement from SWP Central Committee, January 2013
These proposals were eventually published in the
March 2013 Pre-Conference Bulletin, p46.
62
recommended changes to them, notably that
no CC member should sit on the committee
in cases involving other CC members. In
other words, the CC’s position has changed.
In January it claimed challenges to the
disputes procedures amounted to an attack
on Leninism, democratic centralism and
the entire International Socialist tradition’s
capacity to deal with questions of women’s oppression. It deliberately suppressed
information detailing shortcomings in the
procedures. By September it was forced to
acknowledge these shortcomings and adopt
virtually every proposal made last December
by the complainants and their supporters.
Quite a climbdown. There should be
no shame, however, in changing a wrong
position. Yet this is clearly too much for
the authors. Instead they adopt a series of
positions that are at best contradictory, and
at worst totally incoherent. A “willingness
to re-examine our procedures”, they argue,
“should not be allowed to cast any doubt on
the integrity of the process in the original
case.” The problem is not real, it is one “of
perception.” The leadership, in other words,
did nothing wrong but has suffered from a
perception that it did.
And where has this perception come
from? From the basic facts of the case and
the shortcomings identified by its own commission? No—from the “frustration felt
across the party due to the failure of struggle
to break through after 2011”, from “the influence the new feminism has exerted within
our ranks”, from “the belief that the working
class has been so rotted by neoliberalism
that it is fragmented and broken”, and from
“contempt for the actually existing workplace struggle”.
These highly charged phrases bring us to
the point of the article. Problems in the SWP
have not arisen because any kind of injustice
has occurred or because the leadership has
done anything wrong. No. The crisis in the
SWP, like every other crisis experienced by
the party “since 2007” can be put down to
one thing: “More than anything else”, they
argue, problems have occurred because of
“the pressure of movementism”.
The spectre of movementism looms large
throughout the article like some hidden hand.
After Millbank, the authors explain, “We
won many students to our ranks”. They then
adopt a passive voice to explain that sadly,
these students “were integrated into the SWP
on a movementist basis that encouraged them
to see themselves as separate from and superior to the rest of the party, part of a student
vanguard that could lead the working class
as a whole into struggle against austerity.”
This is a breathtaking assertion. We are
asked to believe that the hundreds of students who detailed their reasons for leaving
to the national secretary all through the
spring were not motivated by rage against
sexism and injustice or the sense that the
party was failing to apply its own politics in
Kimber, 2013.
SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, September 2013,
pp41-45.
the dispute controversy.
They had apparently come under the
influence of a previously undetected elitism
fostered by the hidden hand of movementism. It is this, the authors argue, that “helps
to explain why so many student members of
the SWP abandoned the party in reaction to
the DC controversy”.
What a curious thing that such an incredibly powerful phenomenon remained
undetected within the party for over two
years, only coming to light as a side effect of
the CC’s attempt to account for its own role
in the dispute crisis.
The perpetrators of this insidious movementist vanguardism are not identified by the
authors. Nor do they provide any evidence to
back up their assertions - no articles or bulletins or examples are cited.
The authors rely upon unsubstantiated
claims and insinuation rather than rigorous
argument. In doing so they undermine the
credibility of this journal. The authors sift
through the internet for evidence of heresies committed by the opposition. Rather
than cite any actual documents produced by
Rebuilding the Party supporters, they simply
assert that the faction’s hidden agenda is to
leave. What source is provided for this assertion? An anonymous Facebook post!
Others are subjected to the same disingenuous debating tactics. Michael Rosen,
for example, who has produced a series of
comradely but critical pieces calling on the
party publicly to take responsibility for its
mistakes, is cited by the authors.10
They do not refer to any of the uncomfortable questions he asks of them, but
instead cite his skepticism about democratic
centralism. “Michael is entitled to his opinion, but in expressing it he confirms that
what’s at stake can’t be reduced to the DC
case”.
The subtext here is familiar: those critical
of the party’s handling of the DC case have
ulterior political motives. Like the comrades
who were agitated about the dispute because
they had lost sight of the centrality of the
working class, people like Michael Rosen
claim to be concerned about how organisations might improve the way they handle
rape allegations, but what they really want
to do is criticise democratic centralism. Such
figures, in other words, are simply objective
allies of the hidden hand of movementism.
To their credit, the authors do cite words
written by Michael Rosen, however selectively. When it comes to criticising “the
faction” they are happy to revert to speculative insinuation. The Rebuilding the
Party faction is a grouping of several hundred members who have developed fierce
criticisms of the leadership and forced it to
concede on a number of points that mean the
party is today in a position where its rehabilitation within the movement is at least a
possibility.
Like Michael Rosen and the students,
however, they are not motivated by the dispute but by a lack of discipline or concern
about wider political questions. The authors
note “the increasing tendency for faction
members to freelance in different areas of
work, notably anti-fascism, where some
members of the opposition counterpose
squaddist ‘direct action’ against the Nazis by
a self-appointed vanguard to the emphasis
on mass mobilisation that has distinguished
both the ANL and UAF.” The authors do not
bother to cite any evidence for this “squaddism” but are happy instead to insult, by a
process of lazy amalgamation, significant
numbers of opposition comrades who have
devoted a large part of their lives to developing and engaging in the party’s anti-fascist
work.
The authors rely too much on logical fallacies and vague generalisations. There is
only one clear reference to an actual article
written by a faction member. Neil Davidson
is criticised for noting that only 14 percent of
private sector workers are unionised.11
They counter his figures by claiming that
in 1925, 30 percent of South Wales miners
were not unionised. As an argument this does
not make sense. But that is not the point. In
this instance, the authors are not interested
in engaging in an argument to develop the
party’s understanding of neoliberalism. They
are simply bringing the authority of the CC
to bear in an attempt to discredit a faction
member.
The article is full of loose formulations
about an “increasing tendency” to do this,
or the way “some members” do that. It was
once argued that “the history of philosophy
is written in the future anterior”.
For the authors of this article, the history of the SWP is written in an impersonal,
passive voice: “there is a tendency to exaggerate the extent to which neoliberalism has
weakened and fragmented the organised
working class”; “it can seem inappropriate
to sell our publications or to fight for recruitment to the party”; the remedies proposed
by the democracy commission “were not
sufficient to prevent the development of even
more severe conflicts over the past year”;
“the veneration of the movement leads to the
sidelining of the revolutionary party”.
Bad things tend to happen to the organisation but it’s never clear how or why or who
is responsible. When it came to the disproportionate role played by the SWP in united
fronts, for example, “The fault perhaps was
not to recognise it... it’s a tremendous temptation simply to celebrate the movements.”
Such formulations are not accidental.
They reflect a desire on the part of those
who played a leading role in the mistakes
listed above to evade responsibility for any
of them. This underpins the basic political
weakness of the article. The authors claim
that:
10 Rosen, 2013.
11 Davidson, 2013.
In reality only a serious attempt to air
the political differences on every side, to
thrash these out openly in the party and
to fight to win members to the outcome of
these debates can minimise the losses to
63
our organisation. Papering over political
differences in order to hold the faction
together only heightens the likelihood of
a split.12
But the entire article is so full of insinuation and evasion that it does precisely the
opposite of this. None of the direct political
challenges to the leadership posed by the
Rebuilding the Party faction are addressed.
Since February opposition comrades have
been arguing that the party must undertake
a proper political accounting of the crisis
we have faced; they have done this not to
discredit or attack the party, but to ensure
that it emerges from this crisis as a credible
political force.13
This means acknowledging and accounting for mistakes and coming to terms with
how they occurred. It means offering full
support to the women who brought the
complaints. It means openly and directly
confronting those who have attempted to
distort the issues at stake and obstruct the
party’s disputes procedures by delaying the
hearing into the second complaint.
A first step in taking political responsibility for this situation would be to offer
a simple apology to the two women complainants for shortcomings in the disputes
process—shortcomings identified by the
party’s own disputes commission. Acknowledging these mistakes would in turn allow
us to begin addressing flaws in the party’s
operation.
Ultimately we want structures and a daily
functioning that develop conscious and
effective means of confronting the various
challenges this period presents for a revolutionary organisation. This does indeed mean
that the party, and its leadership, must begin
“to air the political differences on every side,
to thrash these out openly in the party.”
The CC majority, which the authors lead,
refuses to do this. It continues, as the article demonstrates, to indulge in, “Papering
over political differences” in order to hold
the CC together. It is this, not the alleged
shortcomings of the faction that “heightens
the likelihood of a split”.
The CC has consistently refused to reveal
political differences among its own ranks
and lay them before the party. This is what
lay behind the Respect crisis: real questions
about the political direction of the party were
obscured behind evasive insinuations and
coded messages that meant what was really
at stake only emerged in hindsight.
The CC has repeatedly allowed successive factions to develop within its own
ranks, precipitating splits. But in each case it
has concealed internal divisions from party
members, and maintained a facade of unity.
It is doing precisely the same thing today,
ignoring the democracy commission’s recommendation that such divisions should be
explained to members.14
12
As “The Politics of the SWP crisis”
makes clear, the CC majority is pandering
to the notions put forward by a sectarian
faction, operational since at least the end of
2012, which has consistently peddled the
myth that the complainants and those who
support them are motivated not by justifiable
concerns but by a dissident political agenda.
For all its bluster about the dangers of
permanent factionalism, dangers which
most opposition comrades are fully alive to,
it has rewarded the supporters of the sectarian minority on the CC by inviting one of
its leading members to join the ranks of the
leadership.15
This will ensure factional division remains
part of the life of the organisation for at least
another year.
For all its unsubstantiated claims about
the Rebuilding the Party faction being led by
the nose by a minority that wants to leave, it
is the CC majority that is being driven by the
imperatives dictated by sectarian voices in
its own ranks.
This approach is leading the party into
further retrenchment and isolation from the
broader movement. It will ensure that the
cycle of splits that have occurred since 2007
will continue, not because of some hidden
hand of movementism, but because the party
leadership is incapable of looking reality in
the face and dealing with it.
This is the direction of travel pursued
by the authors of this article. They present
themselves as drivers of a car, eyes fixed in
the rear-view mirror, passively observing the
mistakes that lie in their wake, eyes averted
from the crash they are blindly directing the
party towards. All those who want to see the
SWP survive as a viable organisation must
now unite to help the party steer a different
course.
References:
• Davidson, Neil, “The neoliberal era in Britain:
Historical developments and current perspectives”,
International Socialism 139 (summer), www.isj.org.
uk/?id=908
• “In Defence Of Our Party” faction statement,
emailed to SWP membership on 9 February 2013.
• Kimber, Charlie, “Statement to SWP members”,
emailed to SWP membership on 12 January 2013.
• Kimber, Charlie, and Alex Callinicos, “The Politics of
the SWP Crisis”,
• International Socialism 140 (autumn), www.isj.org.
uk/?id=915
• Rosen, Michael, “Open Letter to the SWP”, 22 July
2013, michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/openletter-to-swp.html
• SWP Central Committee, “For an Interventionist Party”,
emailed to SWP membership on 3 January 2013.
• SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, 2009, “Commission on
Party Democracy” (October).
• SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, 2013, “Improving the
Working of the Disputes Committee” (March).
• SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, 2013, “The International
Socialist Tradition and the Current Crisis in the SWP”
(March).
• SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, 2013, “Proposed Central
Committee”, (September).
• SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, 2013. “Report of the
Disputes Committee Review Body” (September).
: Kimber and Callinicos, 2013.
13
: SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, March
2013, p59; and In Defence Of Our Party, February 2013.
14 SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, October 2009, p25.
15 SWP Pre-Conference Bulletin, September 2013, p16.
Moving
forward means
acknowledging
mistakes and
holding our
leadership to
account
Simon (Small Heath), Viv and Rita
(Hackney Dalston)
Some paragraphs of this article have
been removed by the national secretary
and some names have been removed
This document is a narrative of the events
leading up to and following a Disputes
Committee (DC) hearing in October 2012
in which Comrade W accused a then CC
member (M) of rape. We do not go into
the detail of the case here but focus on the
mishandling of the situation by the CC and
their deliberate campaign of misinformation and intimidation, supported by a layer
of leading comrades, once the case became
known in the wider party. In producing this
narrative we hope to elucidate the issues
needing redress before the party can move
forward.
Before the hearing
At Marxism 2010 two woman comrades
(Sadia J and Donna G) approached former
CC member Viv S to discuss a serious
allegation regarding sexual harassment
involving the then national secretary (M)
and a young woman comrade (W). This
allegation surrounded incidents that had
occurred a year earlier.
The two comrades discussed the incidents with Viv and, on behalf of comrade
W, asked if she would approach the CC
and ask for their intervention. At this stage
comrade W stated that she did not feel
emotionally able to take part in a formal
dispute hearing.
Viv raised the issue with Charlie K
that evening. Charlie was the CC member whose department Viv worked in. He
took the matter extremely seriously and
said as the CC was about to enter into the
post Marxism international meeting that he
would meet with Alex C to discuss how to
proceed. Viv asked Charlie to confirm what
steps were going to be taken to resolve the
situation and to keep her informed. She
asked Charlie to agree that neither M nor
the CC would be told the identity of the
women who had come forward on behalf
of comrade W. He agreed.
Charlie informed Viv within 24 hours
that he and Alex had confronted M on the
Tuesday following Marxism and that he
had denied any knowledge of comrade
64
W’s claims. In the days that followed
Charlie informed Viv that the CC had
asked Hannah D to meet comrade W to
find out more about her situation and what
resolution she was seeking. At the meeting
comrade W disclosed a great deal of information including details of text messages
from M to her. Sadia attended the meeting
at comrade W’s request.
Following this meeting Charlie and
Hannah were sent to comrade W’s district
by the CC to meet with comrade W to discuss what resolution she wanted. Again
Sadia attended the meeting at comrade W’s
request. At the meeting Charlie apologised
on behalf of M and stated that M’s position
would be reviewed. She was told that she
could go to the DC at any point should she
wish to.
Looking back, we think it was a great
burden to put on comrade W. She was making accusations of sexual harassment at the
very least. Yet the CC abdicated all responsibility and made her entirely responsible
for deciding the political outcome of the
situation. She was clearly emotionally distressed and unable to think through how
she wanted the situation resolved beyond
saying that she needed M to leave her alone
and to stop being the national face of the
SWP. In retrospect, we recognize it would
have been helpful with comrade W’s consent to have approached the DC rather than
the CC, especially considering the case was
concerning a CC member.
Unfortunately, comrade W pulled further
and further away from the party and during
the pre-conference period and in autumn
2010 she resigned because, although M
would no longer be national secretary, he
would remain on the CC. She felt she could
not continue to be a member while M was
on the leadership. She described her distress at receiving bulk party emails signed
by him, or being invited to events he was
due to speak at.
In the run up to the 2011 conference
it became clear that some comrades were
already organising to defend M and had
been informed about the case, even though
the case was confidential. They set about
undermining comrades W, Sadia and her
partner Simon F. A member in comrade
W’s district, went as far as to question why
Sadia and Simon were still in communication with comrade W.
The conference in 2011 was one of the
lowest points in our party’s history. Alex
C introduced the CC slate. When it came
to the question of M’s position he used the
words “sexual harassment” to describe the
complaint raised against M. However, Alex
started his introduction by referring to the
postings on Socialist Unity, thus posing the
situation as a matter of party loyalty and
unity against a scurrilous attack by sectarians. For many people this is what initially
registered, not the question of “sexual harassment”. Alex also fudged the issue of
whether M had been moved from his post
as national secretary because of the sexual
harassment charge, claiming that while the
CC had promised to look in to M’s role, M
was tired of being national secretary and
wanted to return to the industrial department – implying it was his choice.
M was allowed to stand up and make a
grandstanding speech, under the disguise of
responding to sectarian attacks by Socialist Unity, while comrades clapped and
stamped their feet. The issue of women’s
oppression was dismissed and undermined.
Instead of a serious discussion of M’s role,
the session degenerated in to a cheerleading session in which a leading member,
who conference had been told was accused
of sexual harassment, made himself out to
be a victim and received a standing ovation by people who claim to stand against
women’s oppression. Comrade W had no
voice and no chance to correct this one
sided account of events.
We had no idea that this would take
place and were shocked and unsure of how
to respond. Sadia spoke to stop the question of W being swept aside. She did so
in a careful and considered way yet she
was attacked by many leading members
for doing so. A leading comrade told her
partner Simon that she should be shot for
making the contribution. HS climbed over
chairs to confront her stating “how dare
you make a contribution like that without
giving anyone the chance to come back
on it” – despite herself having made a
contribution in defence of M in the same
discussion. She was later forced to apologise by a member of the CC although she
still told the comrade she thought her contribution was wrong.
A number of members contacted Alex
C and Pat S that evening to ask for clarity and demanding that the situation be
addressed at the conference the following
day. A statement was made which, while
attempting to address the problems caused
the previous day, was unable to address
the damage done by M being allowed to
grandstand at the conference.
In Autumn 2011 comrade W re-joined
the party because, as she told the DC later,
she did not believe that there was anywhere
else a revolutionary socialist could turn if
they wanted to be active.
In the interim, Sadia and Simon had kept
in touch with her. She had been through a
course of counselling to deal with what
had happened to her. In the months that
followed comrade W was given further
confidence by the party’s brilliant handling
of the political discussion surrounding the
Assange case. As a result she felt more
strongly than ever that she wanted to come
forward and resolve her case and felt she
could trust the party’s structures to handle
it seriously.
In September 2012 she asked Sadia to
speak to Hannah and inform her that she
wanted to take out a disputes case against
M and that she was accusing him of rape.
It took a very long time and a great deal of
courage for comrade W to reach this point.
Hannah advised her to contact Pat S immediately. Comrade W asked Sadia to be her
advocate and to speak to comrades on her
behalf. Sadia phoned Pat and Charlie the
following day to inform them.
As soon as the calls were made to Pat
and Charlie things began to move towards
a DC hearing. In the run up to the hearing
there were numerous problems:
1. Comrade W was not contacted by the
CC to be told that M had been suspended
pending the hearing, so was anxious that he
may come to her district or confront her.
2. She was not told that when she sent
her statement to the DC it would forwarded
to M.
3. She was told that she would not have
access to M’s statement, which meant that
he was able to prepare his defence while
she had no knowledge of what he would
say against her.
4. She was not advised as to who his
witnesses were or what their statements
contained – yet M had access to her list of
witnesses and statements.
Pat tried to make the process as painless
for comrade W as possible. She was told
beforehand about who would be sitting on
the panel and was asked if there was anyone that she did not want involved.
She asked that one member be removed
as she had knowledge of the case and had
been approached for advice by Sadia and
Simon as a DC member in their district, yet
had failed to provide any support or guidance. Comrade W did not know anyone
else on the panel – it was starkly clear that
this was not a committee of her peers. Pat
also phoned comrade W to talk her through
the procedures and ask if there was anything that could be done to make her feel
comfortable. But none of these actions
could make up for the hearing itself and
the fallout thereafter.
The hearing
We were asked to arrive at the venue at
10am that morning in October 2012. We
were told that the committee would have
a discussion and they would then call
comrade W when they were ready. Over 4
hours later, we were still waiting. This took
its toll on W. There did not seem to be any
regard for the fact that the long wait would
be highly stressful for her. She kept pacing
the room wondering what was happening.
A CC member read out the legal definition of rape – saying that this would be
the DC benchmark. At no point was there
any sense that the DC was ill equipped
to attempt to make a judgment on a rape
allegation.
The initial questions following comrade
W’s evidence were agreed between the
committee and asked by Pat alone, at comrade W’s request. The questions initially
focused on trying to establish the facts and
clarify dates.
It was following M’s evidence the questioning become inappropriate and at times
65
reactionary – the questions were asked
by individual panel members rather than
through Pat. Comrade W was given no
warning about the nature of the questions.
She had not seen M’s statement or been
able to hear what his witnesses were saying. The questions ranged from a supposed
relationship she had had with an older
comrade in her district to asking why she
had gone for a drink with M and about her
previous boyfriends, with specific people
named and whether the relationships had
been full sexual relationships.
Rita sat through the hearing with comrade W offering support and intervention
when she became distressed. Rita confronted the panel over the inappropriate
questioning, noting that questions about
previous or other sexual or personal relationships were irrelevant to whether M had
raped comrade W.
Comrade W was also continuously asked
if she had been “in a relationship” with M,
and this was asked of her witnesses too.
There did not seem to be an understanding
that rape can occur within relationships and
therefore that this line of questioning was
inappropriate and ignorant. She was also
asked about an incident with M which she
had tried to forget. Comrade W became
very upset and left the room in tears saying that they thought she was a “slut who
asked for it”. Rita made the point that people who had suffered this kind of trauma
did not always remember in a linear manner and that this form of questioning was
not helpful.
The hearing took place over two days
and comrade W was left waiting for hours
on end while the DC deliberated. The verdict was delivered at 10pm on the Sunday
night, just before we had to leave the venue.
There was no explanation as to how it was
reached, no offer of support or guidance,
no clarity on how she was meant to handle
the outcome. The verdict was simply that
the accusation of rape was unproven and
a statement would follow in a few days. It
took over three weeks.
After the hearing
1. Another woman comes forward:
Following the hearing a second woman
(comrade X) came forward having heard
about comrade W’s case. She met initially
with Viv having heard about her role in
comrade W’s case. Viv suggested that she
meet with Pat to raise her allegations.
Comrade X met with Pat to discuss her
own complaint against the same comrade,
M. She said that she would like to give evidence on behalf of comrade W and herself
in a reconvened hearing. M was called on
to answer the case.
Following a full day hearing, she was
simply told that her evidence was not relevant. She was given no advice or support
and the allegations she raised were simply
ignored. Considering that she was accusing
M of sexual harassment, it seems utterly
irresponsible for the DC and CC to simply
pretend that this information did not matter.
If any member brings a charge of sexual
harassment against another, especially a
full time employee and leading comrade,
the leadership should out of political prudence and principle take action to resolve
the situation as quickly as possible.
X also faced inappropriate questioning
by some members of the DC. CC member AL asked if she had misconstrued M’s
approaches as he was a friendly man who
often bought her coffee, while DC elected
member MB asked her about her drinking
habits.
2. Political undermining, bullying and
intimidation of comrades involved in the
hearings
Comrade W’s treatment following the hearing is nothing short of shameful. In her
district she was simply ignored as if she
ceased to exist. When she did see members
and tried to talk to them, her experience
was one of abuse and bullying. One member informed her “It is not appropriate for
me to speak to you”, while another who
confronted her on the street near her home
called her “a silly girl” stating that 14 year
olds get groomed not 19 year olds.
Comrades also accused her of going to
the Daily Mail when the story was leaked,
despite comrade W’s clear distress at the
press coverage and fear of exposure. Some
comrades even arranged meetings in the
café area at comrade W’s workplace,
despite her having asked them not to do so.
This caused her great distress and considering the number of cafés in the city was
cruel. Charlie, when confronted with this,
argued it was not fair to the comrades to
ask them to meet elsewhere, despite W’s
distress – part of his argument was that it
would appear that W’s allegations were
true if he intervened. After repeated complaints the CC were forced to intervene
and stop the comrades meeting there. There
were even reports that she was a member of
another political organization and in league
with former members deliberately trying to
smash the SWP.
Each attack on comrade W and her supporters was reported to the CC but there
was no intervention to calm the situation
down and no consideration of how to support W’s continued political activity. There
was no consideration for the fallout in the
district – rumour and gossip were allowed
rather than political clarity.
At the same time, it became clear that
there was a concerted effort to undermine
Simon and Sadia for supporting comrade
W. Many district members stopped answering their calls and refused to work with
them on building the district appeal event
which they were organising. It was clear
that undermining the credibility of the
people supporting comrade W was more
important than building the party. The new
district organiser also ignored them and
they felt undermined at meetings. It was
only following repeated complaints by
local comrades that the CC was forced to
intervene – and again this had no effect to
resolve the situation.
In addition, in the weeks that followed
the hearing it became clear that a faction
had emerged within the CC and the party to
defend and exonerate M. [names removed
from document]. Following the first conference in 2013, one leading north London
comrade even launched a financial appeal
for M, sending emails around asking for
donations. The lies spread included accusations
that we were in collusion with the state to
destroy the party, that comrade W was a
women scorned because M broke up with
her, that it was just a relationship that ended
badly even though W had made clear no
relationship had occurred, and politically
we were labeled autonomist feminists with
a secret agenda to undermine democratic
centralism and the Leninist tradition.
We sent numerous emails to the CC asking for the lies and slanders to be acted on.
Numerous comrades sent personal emails
to the CC following being told these lies
personally by CC members and leading
comrades or after witnessing bullying in
branches and districts first hand. The CC
did nothing.
Charlie did however find it appropriate to ring and question Sadia, who had
most closely supported W, and to email
her threatening her and the rest of W’s witnesses with disciplinary action should we
discuss the case with anyone. And while
the CC failed to intervene, they allowed M
to continue his work and even refused to
act when M spoke at a UAF rally in
Waltham Forest while suspended.
3. Blocking our democratic rights
The CC took extraordinary steps to block
our democratic right to challenge the DC
report and to gain clarity on the outcome
of the hearing.
Comrade W supported by the four comrades involved in the DC hearing as her
witnesses and support informed the CC
of their intention to challenge the hearing
outcome. We asked on numerous occasions how we should do so, and sought
clarity with both the CC and DC on what
information could be raised with comrades
within the boundaries of confidentiality.
We approached Charlie and the CC on
numerous occasions requesting that a solution be sought so that the situation could
be resolved. The CC at no point met with
any of us to try and resolve it. Viv wrote
to the CC as a former CC member asking for intervention – no intervention was
forthcoming.
In order to ensure that a full, informed
debate took place at conference, we asked
the CC to allow us to submit a short motion
to conference for the DC session asking
for a DC commission to be established
and a review of procedures for rape and
sexual harassment cases. Charlie and a
66
member of the conference arrangements
committee informed us that we would be
not be allowed to do so because we had not
passed the motion through a relevant party
structure. This is despite the fact that we
had been told not to discuss the case under
threat of discipline which made it impossible to raise in a branch. We asked the CC
to reconsider this position and to allow us
to put forward a motion. The CC refused to
allow us to put forward a motion.
Finally, in desperation and in an attempt
to end the rumors going round the party,
which were already causing serious political damage, we submitted a statement to
IB1 for conference 2013 simply clarifying
why we were challenging the DC outcome.
In it we made explicit W’s request that she
did not want a second hearing or the outcome of the case revisited. Comrade W
felt unable to take part in a second hearing
following the emotional trauma of the first
and because she felt betrayed by the process. At best we hoped we could learn from
the mistakes made, and end the culture of
bullying and intimidation. In the document
put forward to the IB we asked for conference to demand an investigation into the
practice of the DC and to set procedures
should future cases of a similar nature
arise. The CC refused to print it.
As a result, we formed a faction of 30
comrades to ensure our right to put forward
the statement. The CC refused to allow us
to form a faction. The statement is below at
the end of this document.
Throughout the pre-conference period
the CC and the M faction organised across
districts to stop us being allowed to go to
conference. Despite conference being the
only place where challenges to the DC can
be brought, attempts were made to exclude
us. We were all active comrades who had
in three of our four cases worked for the
party until quite recently and were leading
district members who had been to every
conference throughout most of our party
membership. Yet in our aggregates we
were called liars for not discussing the case
or the challenge in our districts and this
was used as an argument to stop us going
to conference. We were accused of having
ulterior political motives. The CC members
in these aggregates did not defend our rights
to go to conference and challenge the DC.
The lies about our motives were allowed
to continue – that we were driven by a
political agenda and wanted to challenge
perspectives rather than simply wanting to
ensure that mistakes which could destroy
our party’s reputation for fighting women’s
oppression were addressed.
Moving forward
We believe comrades should know the
position of comrade W: she has been
severely damaged by the mishandling of
the case and the fallout which followed.
She came forward to the CC and DC trusting that her organisation would behave in a
principled fashion. She has been hounded,
isolated and ostracised. As a result, she has
left the SWP and feels she has no choice
but to leave the city she lives and studies
in because she cannot bear constantly seeing or being afraid of seeing the comrades
who have played a role in making her life
so difficult.
The aim of producing this narrative is
to ensure that comrades are fully informed
about the extent of the errors made so that
we can learn the lessons we need to in order
to move forward.
We recognize that errors go hand in hand
with being revolutionaries. We demand that
our members throw themselves into action,
making decisions in the process which
could be flawed.
However, we also expect that a revolutionary socialist party should thrive
by being able to acknowledge mistakes,
discussing why and how they occurred,
addressing them to ensure as far as possible
that they are not repeated and if necessary
holding one another to account. An atmosphere should be fostered which encourages
debate and deepens our democratic structures to allow this to take place.
The DC Commission report goes some
way to recognising the errors made and
suggests significant improvements for
future cases. This must be implemented.
Ironically, most of the suggestions we submitted to the Commission, which comrades
were blocked from seeing by the CC, have
been belatedly incorporated.
But there are steps still remaining which
need to be taken before we can move forward: we need a discussion across the party
on how we went so wrong, and we believe
that our leadership must be held to account
for their actions and errors which have led
to hundreds of resignations and an erosion
of our politics and standing on women’s
oppression.
We also believe that without a public acknowledgement of these mistakes
– including an apology to both women for
the distress, bullying and delays – the party
cannot recover and rebuild.
We have remained members throughout this appalling period because of our
commitment to building and broadening
the revolutionary socialist tradition – not
simply out of blind loyalty to organisation.
We have spent decades between us building the SWP, proudly fighting to make it
a party that people want to join. As such,
we believe it right that we have tried to
stay and fight to correct the errors made,
which if allowed to continue will turn the
organization into an irrelevant sect with a
once proud record on women’s oppression
left lying in tatters.
Below is the statement regarding the
formation of a faction sent to the CC on
2 January 2013. The faction was formed
as a last resort following the CC’s refusal
to either allow us to put a motion to conference with proposals for reforming DC
processes or to circulate a statement clari-
fying the nature of our challenge. The CC
denied us the right to form a faction.
Initial statement sent to CC
on 2 January 2013 regarding
Dispute Committee challenge
at conference
Since six comrades announced their
intention to challenge the Disputes Committee (DC) in IB3 their motivations have
been subjected to a significant amount of
misinformation. Our request to circulate
a statement clarifying matters has thus far
not been accepted by the Central Committee (CC) and we have been denied the right
by the Conference Arrangements Committee to put forward a motion during the DC
session at conference. The six complainants
have therefore sought the signatures of 30
comrades to circulate this statement in the
interests of transparency and clarity. Should
the CC turn down this request, then this
statement will form a faction.
This is a reluctant faction. All comrades
who are signatories to this statement share an
enormous pride in the politics and record of
our party; including our party’s commitment
to fighting for women’s liberation, and our
location of that struggle firmly within our
fight for socialism.
Our concerns are specific but significant
ones around the handling of complaints of
serious sexual misconduct within the party.
We ask for:
The DC report to be rejected not with the
aim of re-opening one specific case, but to
mark the fact that sharp changes need to be
made in the way we deal with such cases in
the future.
The newly elected DC be tasked with
discussing how to improve the handling of
allegations of a sexual nature in the future,
taking on board the following proposals:
Proposals for improving the working of
the Disputes Committee
1. Comrades making an accusation should be
made aware of the DC’s procedures, and be
kept informed of the progress of the case.
2. Everyone involved in the case must have
equal access to information (unless issues of
confidentiality require otherwise).
3. The DC should consider what support
comrades involved in cases may need.
4. As far as possible the DC members
involved in a case must not be closely associated with either party to the complaint, and
should this be the case, the DC must use its
power to co-opt members.
5. The DC must seek to ensure that witnesses
are not placed under unnecessary stress (with
recognition of the personal and distressing
nature of evidence that may be given).
6. Comrades making a complaint of sexual
misconduct should not be asked about other
personal relationships or their sexual or
social behaviour.
7. The DC must explain to all comrades
involved how it has reached its decision, and
67
also explain to comrades what they can say
about the case.
8. Comrades involved in a dispute must
abide by party discipline.
9. Neither party to a complaint should
be the subject of denigration or wilful
misinformation.
Our concerns
We disagree with aspects of the DC’s handling of a dispute considered by it in 2012,
and also with a number of CC decisions
regarding the case. We do not wish to re-open
this case, nor to create damaging divisions
within the party. There are, however, lessons to be learned. Our objective is solely
to improve the handling of similar cases in
the future.
The DC formally heard serious allegations of a sexual nature. We believe that the
handling of this case and the unsupportive
approach taken towards the woman involved
call the report into question. A second comrade made allegations (against the same
comrade) which were also of a sexual nature.
We believe the DC’s decision not to report
on the accusation from the second woman to
be wrong. Additionally, the manner in which
the second accusation has been reported to
party meetings and the lack of clarity about
why the woman comrade was moved from
her party job has allowed comrades to draw
misleading conclusions about the allegation,
including whether it had even been made.
The handling of the issue by the CC following the DC hearing has compounded
many of the problems. The decision to
release a statement to the National Committee rather than the report itself opened
a discussion on extremely limited information. Entirely misleading information has
been circulated by some comrades about
the motives or behaviour of the two women
who made the original complaints, and about
the motives of comrades who are seeking
to challenge the DC report. Our concerns
include the summary nature of the expulsion of four comrades in the pre-conference
period. This approach has been unnecessarily divisive, and has hindered our collective
ability to resolve a difficult situation in the
best interests of the party.
Within the wider organisation, comrades
have been left to draw political conclusions
based on partial information at best, and gossip at worst. Neither is helpful. Our view is
that mistakes have been made. The solution
is for conference to guide the CC in reaching a positive outcome that prevents these
mistakes recurring. Adopting the above proposals will help facilitate this process. An
honest discussion and a shared way forward
is the best route to ensuring a strong and
united party.
Finally, for clarity: this challenge to the
Disputes Committee report is a specific
‘stand-alone’ issue. Our shared view is that
this stands apart from any wider discussions
taking place at conference, and must be dealt
with separately.
Motion from
Rebuilding The
Party faction
Pat (Euston)
In IB one I wrote a piece explaining why
I felt the Party needed to acknowledge the
shortcomings of the Disputes Committee’s
procedures in dealing with the cases involving two young women and M.
I argued that the findings of the Disputes
Committee review body, and the finding of
the second case that M had a case to answer,
meant that an apology to the two woman
concerned was a logical step in the process of
acknowledging the failures in the process.
In light of that, on behalf of the Rebuilding The Party faction I am submitting the
following motion that faction members will
be moving in their branches in the pre-conference period:
1. The findings of the commission reviewing
the procedures of the Disputes Committee
should not lead to a reopening of the original case brought by W against M, but they
do call into question the process adopted to
heard that case and implicitly recognise that
they were not fit for purpose.
2. Shortcomings in the procedures and processes obstructed the party’s attempt to act in
line with its political traditions and so left W
feeling she had been failed by the party.
3. Despite the second woman formally lodging a complaint in March, the CC/DC did not
agree to a hearing going ahead for several
months, after numerous attempts to block it
taking place at all.
4. The recognition of the failures in dealing
with the first case led to a special body being
set up to handle the second one.
5. The Disputes hearing in the case involving the second woman concluded, based on
the evidence they heard, that M has a case
to answer for sexual harassment. It also
concluded that the Disputes Committee procedures needed to be revised to make them
“fit for purpose”.
6. The failures outlined above caused deep
divisions in the party, lost us members and
damaged our reputation amongst supporters
and friends in the wider movement.
7. The two women who made the complaints
suffered more than anyone else as a result of
the failures outlined above.
8. The party must never repeat the mistakes
made, must publicly acknowledge them,
learn the lessons and revise the Disputes
Committee procedures to make them fit for
purpose.
9. The SWP apologises to W for the hurt
and distress caused by the failures in processes and procedures employed to deal
with her complaint and for the negative
consequences suffered as a result of her
treatment.
10. The SWP apologises to the second
woman for its failure to deal with her case
promptly and for the hurt and suffering
caused by the speculation and bullying she
endured and for the negative consequences
suffered as a result of her treatment.
The politics of
childcare
Angela (Dalston), Megan (Walthamstow),
and Rachel (Chelmsford)
Women suffer oppression throughout their
lives. Oppression is rooted in the family
under capitalism and through a process of
asserting gender differences women’s roles
and expectations are further defined in a
sexist society.
From birth they are given pink dresses
and at nursery are encouraged to keep their
pretty clothes clean. At school they are
encouraged to take certain subjects and to
think about certain jobs. As girls become
women their bodies become objectified
and all too often they have to protect themselves from sexual and physical attacks.
When women become mothers their
time and energy is swallowed up caring
for their children. However, having a child
doesn’t dampen the anger against capitalism or dim the passion for socialism.
When women have children, the way
oppression is experienced in the privatised family structures their lives to a great
degree. The ‘double burden’ of work inside
and outside the home is the key feature of
oppression for working class women. In
2008, 38% of women with dependent children worked part time compared with 22%
of those without dependent children. Only
35% of women with a child aged under
five were in employment due to the lack of
affordable nursery care and the wholesale
closure of state nurseries compared with
59% of those with school age children.
While more men now get involved in
the care of their own children it is still the
case that childcare is overwhelmingly the
responsibility of women. A 2005 report
states that women in full-time employment spend nearly 30% more time on
childcare every day than men in full-time
employment.
This is partly due to attitudes and
assumptions in society that women play a
caring and nurturing role and should be at
68
home with children while men should be at
work. These ideas are reinforced by economic reality; for example men can only
take two weeks of paid paternity leave,
while women can take nine months maternity leave. As women still make only 79%
of what men earn for the same work, it is
often more practical for the woman to take
the longer break.
Women in all classes suffer from women’s oppression, however class shapes
that experience. Ruling class women can
employ nannies and middle class women
can afford regular, reliable and flexible
childcare.
The experience of working class families is quite different. Women with caring
responsibilities are often stuck in low
paid part time jobs and are unlikely to
be able to increase their income by taking up overtime; many jobs are closed to
them if the hours don’t fit with childcare
responsibilities.
This means that women are less likely
to achieve promotions at work or choose
jobs that could improve their pay and conditions.16 Cuts to public sector jobs affect
women disproportionately as women make
up 65% of public sector workers and a
greater concentration in some areas like
education. Women’s unemployment in
general already stands at a 23-year high.
This particularly affects the quality of
life of single parents – and an overwhelming 92% of single parents are women.
Single parents are also particularly hard-hit
by cuts to childcare tax credit, housing benefit and the closure of childcare services.
Services for parents and carers have been
severely cut by the Tories, with organisations such as Surestart, which provided
activities in low-income areas, being completely slashed.
The lack of subsided childcare places
and nurseries, which could help parents to
work, makes it more likely that fathers will
be more likely to stay in fulltime work after
the birth of a child and become the main
earner for the household, while the woman
spends more time with children.
This can be a contradictory experience;
women and men both often want to spend
more time with their children and less time
at work. But being out of work can be isolating, especially when (as is increasingly
the case in austerity Britain), working class
parents find themselves facing economic
hardship and cannot afford activities and
entertainments for their children.
Women are increasingly being told on
the one hand that they should get out to
work and off any benefits they may be entitled to, and on the other that they should
unselfishly devote their lives to their
children.
Historically it has not always been the
case that women’s work has depended on
privately organised childcare.
16 For statistics on this see the Equality and Human
Rights Commission on ‘Women, men and part-time
work’. Other statistics are from the TUC, 2011.
In Britain during the Second World
War, when women were needed to work
in industry, nationalised childcare was
provided to enable women to work. Women’s lives changed enormously. This only
happened after campaigns for childcare;
women were initially expected to continue
to care for the home and the family while
working long hours.
Once the war was over and men returned
to the factories, women were encouraged
to clock back in at home and the nationalised nurseries were shut down, though
many women continued to work for social
and economic reasons, and childcare was
either dealt with through private or family arrangements or older children simply
looked after themselves becoming ‘latchkey’ kids. 17
After the war the National Health Service was created. The NHS’s core values of
universal access and that its services are
free at the point of delivery has never been
extended to the important job of caring for
children. Childcare is now privatised, either
within the home, among extended families
and friends or by paid services provided by
nannies, child minders or nurseries.
The problem does not end when children go to school. Then, childcare must be
provided for the beginning and the end of
the day for parents to be able to do a full
day of work and commute. Some schools
provide club care services, many don’t.
Many parents, especially women, therefore
opt for low-paid flexible or home working,
night work or weekend work.
Childcare in the party
What can we do as socialists? We can’t
get rid of the problems of childcare under
capitalism, but we can campaign for free
childcare, against the closures and cuts of
provision and even for crèches in workplaces. We can argue against assumptions
that women should have the major responsibility for childcare. We also need to
understand the impact that lack of childcare
has on women’s ability to participate fully
in political life.
Considering the impact of economics and
childcare as outlined above a revolutionary
organisation needs to make every effort to
enable all parents and carers to participate in
activity, debate and discussion. The crèche
at the SWP’s annual Marxism conference is
a fantastic achievement and puts into practice our politics of fighting against women’s
oppression. However, this is once a year and
we could do more to facilitate childcare in
year round activities and debates.
Some parents have had good experiences
of childcare being considered in their branch
or district. For one comrade we spoke to
the district has always paid for childcare to
attend meetings and demonstrations out of
collective funds.
But this has been an uneven experience.
17 See Material Girls: Women, men and work by Lindsey
German.
For many of the women we have spoken to
the current childcare arrangements do not
work well and do not allow for the fullest
possible participation in the party’s daily life
of women with children.
All too often childcare is discussed as
though the branch is doing a favour to the
comrades with children, when in actual fact
as a party we simply can’t afford to lose
the experience and knowledge of those who
have children. This is a question of maximising activity
and democracy in the party and is a twoway street. Women comrades miss out on
the political life of the branch – obviously
if comrades can’t get to branch meetings
or aggregates they can’t participate in party
democracy – and the party locally misses
out on their experience and fails to use all
its resources.
Many of those with children could do
some activities during the day, will have
information about cuts in local services and
contacts that other branch members may not
have access to, but because they can’t get to
branch meetings none of this utilised. The
idea of every member having something to
offer seems to have withered on the vine,
and attendance at branch meetings is the
only criteria for seriousness and political
engagement.
Dismissing the contribution parents can
make reinforces the danger of the local party
becoming an isolated group of comrades
who do everything.
This is a wider question than just childcare – the party should look like the class,
and make space for those whose practical
lives make fulltime (or regular evening)
activity impossible. An unwillingness to
fight hard to include every member at some
level will increase frustration among those
who cannot attend meetings regularly or at
all and increase frustration and moralism
among those who can.
The current approach to childcare for
district meetings, national meetings and
conference – an example of which can be
seen in the note on childcare in Internal Bulletin 1 – can be a combination of informal
arrangements between comrades who happen to be friends and announcements that
if you need childcare to ask about it – often
without any concrete idea of what assistance
can be offered.
Offers to pay child minders may be made
and followed through in some districts, but
this cannot provide a solution for the sustained activity of more than a few parents.
Child minders can cost up to £7.50 per hour,
so if you have a few children in your district
and all their parents want to be involved
on a regular basis your district will soon be
bankrupt.
Alternatively, one suggestion has been
that if both parents are political they should
just take turns attending. This might work
for some people, especially comrades who
are already very involved and confident
with their politics, but may not work for
women who are new to politics, don’t have
69
a political partner, are single parents, or
who have had a gap after the often-difficult
early days of caring for a newborn.
This approach does not recognise the
social pressures on women that often leave
them feeling that they should be at home
with their children. The experience of childcare - whatever the age of the children - can
be isolating and confidence-sapping. It is
sadly often the case that if women ‘take a
break’ from activity due to an initial exhausting experience of maternity or the pressure
of looking after children of any age, their
district and branch stop relating to them.
Their partner, if there is one, is then the person who is more likely to be engaged with
politically. Sadly, many women comrades
just slip out of political life altogether.
We have been having informal discussions about this question among comrades
and a number of practical solutions have
been suggested.
Examples from the past, which seem to
be no longer part of the political furniture in
the SWP, have also been raised. Not all of
these ideas will work for every carer, branch
or district, but the important thing is to reassert the idea that considering childcare as
a collective and political act is essential to
the operation of the party. Some of our suggestions and examples of things that have
worked in the past include:
• Having meetings at varied times. Evenings
are not always good times.
• Having meetings in venues with a child
friendly space where children can play and
be watched over by their parents or other
comrades. Parents can bring toys and snacks
and share them out with others.
• Encouraging younger members to babysit
on an informal basis as part of the political
priority of the branch or district.
• Utilising technology to report from branch
meetings and take in reports from women
who may not be able to attend but who will
often have experience of local anti-cuts
campaigns, access to schools and clubs and
time to undertake daytime activities.
• If parents and carers are not able to attend
meetings their branch should keep in contact
with them through regular phone calls.
The first two points are made considering
that working parents often see little of their
children during the week, when they may be
passed about from breakfast club to school
to childminder, and that providing childcare
during political activities and meetings is
often the best way to enable parents to be
political while with their children.
This can be done on quite an informal
level for small meetings. If comrades want
to make this a more formal arrangement for
larger meetings such as a district aggregate
or national conference, the employment of
one or two qualified childcare assistants
to work with a group of volunteers would
cost a lot less than paying individual child
minders or babysitters for every parent who
wishes to attend.
The third point is based on the experiences of comrades who were growing up
with political parents and whose parents
were able to get involved in national meetings or other activities as a result of younger
comrades providing free babysitting services, and those of us who as young student
members were argued with to do just that.
The important element here is that it
was encouraged and organised by district
organisers, so that parents did not have to
approach comrades with caps in hand.
Childcare was seen as a political priority,
one that many comrades remember either
as parents, the children of political parents
or babysitters for comrades, and should be
seriously addressed as such again if we are
to retain the value and experience of women
comrades with children, broaden and deepen
party democracy and expand the ability of
branches to relate fully to comrades and the
wider working class in their localities.
Flipping paper
sales?
that people now recognise our sales because
we are not there every week and therefore
keeping it fresh. Other campaigners come up
to discuss with us and buy the paper. The key
thing to this is having all the nuts and bolts of
a stall and a meeting to take people to or an
event that they can go to.
We are trying to build the sense of activity
around us and that more people ought to be
involved.19
Comrades may have read Alex Callinicos
and John Rees’s pamphlet on ‘Building the
Party in the age of mass movements’, one
thing is sure is that the SWP is still here those
mass movements are either not as big or not
as active as they once were.
Currently there are many movements but
there is nowhere near as large as the building
of RESPECT and the Stop the War movement. The reason why SWP is still here is
because we want to be involved in as many
struggles with the working class as possible,
we can recognise the power of movements
and they can ebb and flow, which means the
paper being the back bone to our activity to
improve the networks of resistance. SW uses
realistic propaganda for agitation and not
abstract terms and it’s always about catching
the moment to have the best impact.20
Richard (Bristol South)
Mark Thomas used to joke that if there was
an orgy SWP would be selling papers at it…
we need to rebuild this reputation!
Pete Wearden and I have been switching
Bristol paper sales around, one week off the
city centre and another week on a busy local
street in Bedminster.
What this has done has kept our paper
sales fresh and with the results of better
paper sales and network building many of
the comrades have opened up to the idea.
We jokingly call it the ‘Paper Faction’ and
our aims are to sell papers, encourage people to our meetings and recruit them, having
told this to Judith Orr at Marxism this year
she gave her approval and so we go on with
confidence we are doing the right thing.
The theory bit
Yes I am being a blasé but having come
through the last decade and the movements, being nice to elements who we have
worked with I think it’s time to be proud of
SW because it is most likely where we were
recruited into the SWP by being sold a copy
of SW and going to meetings.
The majority of class struggle has existed
without the internet, it has its uses but our
Modus Operandi (big words) is talking to
people face to face and recruiting to the SWP
and or getting people involved in various
united front activities.
Tony Cliff was clear on what the paper
meant to the party and arming the working
class.18
One thing has been clear, in Bristol, is
18 C. Harman, et al, Socialist Worker Fighting to Change
the World (London: Socialist Workers’ Party, 2002), 42-5
Doing it!
Without asking those ‘grandmothers to
suck eggs’ let’s be clear on what a paper
sell should be about. The usual stuff:
• Papers
• Petitions
• Table
• Pens
• Recuitment Forms
• Pamphlets and Books
• Flyers for events and meetings
Just to recap, have enough pens, papers,
petitions and a Table to do what you need
to do. All petitions should have a donation
column but more on this later.
Pamphlets and Books, if you have them,
look at them and ask would you buy them
and if the answer is no then get rid of them.
Also think of flyer designs and how much
you can get on to an A4 sheet that can be
cut up (four flyers on an A4 means 100
flyers for every 25 printed – remember to
cut them out)
If you have a collection of old pamphlet
hand me downs, bundle them up in to a
cheap package. Don’t put expensive books
on the table, realistically around a fiver but
nothing over £10.
The trick to selling the paper is not to
lecture people, as soon as they sign the petition do not talk about the petition because
they already agree with you, flip the paper
open and show related articles, always ask
for a donation and if asked why be honest
it is for SW to keep producing a paper that
19 Socialist Worker Editorial Team, Socialist Worker and
the Movement (London: Larkham Printers & Publishers
Ltd, 2003), 2-4
20 T. Cliff, D. Hallas, S. Sagall, Education for Socialist 3
Strategy and Tactics (London: Socialist Workers’ Party),
17-25
70
reports on important issues not in the news
and if they won’t donate ask them to buy a
paper.
Remember to share information to other
comrades about articles that really work
well. And for fucks sake do not stand around
chatting to each other, you do that during the
week at meetings and most likely socialise
afterwards or after the sale you can have a
coffee.
Flipping sales is about not being part of
the furniture, you know those guys in the
city centre with their gospel words screaming into open air every week, that is not what
we want to be.
Scout about for good local sites and if
it does not work try somewhere else, what
you should be looking for is pavements that
make people walk pass the stall and two or
three around the stall and anyone else to
spread out up and down the street in pairs or
within eye sight of the stall.
The idea is to find a place that works and
if enough comrades support the sale then the
paper organiser should be looking for somewhere else to spread the network. Currently
I would like to see other paper reports from
elsewhere in the city via our local Face Book
news (oh the irony) but next I would like to
see two sales in the city centre at different
points and another easy to do local sale.
A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is
also a collective organiser. In this respect
it may be compared to the scaffolding
erected round a building under construction; it marks the contours of the structure
and facilitates communication between
the builders, permitting them to distribute
the work and to view the common results
achieved by their organised labour.
“Does this sound anything like the
attempt of an armchair author to exaggerate his role? The scaffolding is not
required at all for the dwelling; it is made
of cheaper material, is put up only temporarily, and is scrapped for firewood
as soon as the shell of the structure is
completed.21
I do not wish to go back to old guys more
than I have to. Where they are relevant is
important but not to quote them abstractly.
However I do recommend and invite readers
to go back to Lenin’s ‘What is to be Done’
and read on from ‘Can A Newspaper Be A
Collective Organiser?’
One of the most important things about
paper sales are to actually engage and sale
papers. If you have only sold one or two over
an hour week in week out, then ask other
comrades what the knack is. Accept criticism
and see you can improve. Whilst standing
out in all weathers we may as well enjoy
ourselves and actually shift these papers and
engage with people to come to events etc.
21 http://www.marxists.
org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/v.htm
Why I rejoined
the SWP
David (Rusholme)
I want to explain why I rejoined the SWP.
It’s because I am a revolutionary socialist
and believe that the best way to do so is
to be part of a party that puts the working
class struggle at the forefront of everything
it does.
In my short time away from the party I
looked at other groups on the left (I don’t
want to name them). None of these groups
seemed to understand the role that capitalism plays with regards to oppression or at
least they didn’t seem to understand it in
the same way that I did.
I also felt that it is difficult to be an independent activist. We need to bounce ideas
between comrades in order to increase our
political understanding of current events.
The SWP is the most active left group I
have ever come across, and its commitment
to tackle serious issues in a political, nonsectarian way is something all comrades
should be proud of.
The SWP has a proud history off tackling issues such as:
1. Racism and fascism
2. Sexism
3. Homophobia/ Transphobia
….among many others.
I feel this last year has been a challenging
one, but I’m optimistic that the SWP has
the ability to go into 2014 a stronger party.
It will be sad if people choose to leave
and I would encourage people to think hard
before they do so. However I feel we cannot have a repeat of this year.
I hope that SWP may continue to be a
force that the working class looks to in the
future. I hope all comrades can be as proud
as I am of being a member of the SWP.
A devolved Wales
Tim (Swansea)
In the current ISJ, Joseph Choonara and
Jane Hardy respond to Neil Davidson’s
argument about greater focus on regional
and local situations by stressing that such
sensitivities already inform our practice.
Indeed, democratic centralism can only
function through this kind of interaction.
Through it we develop on the one hand
political coherence and on the other a
feel for what is going on. It can help us
analyse devolution in the UK and the
different cultural and political factors it
harnesses. From the ruling class’s point of
view devolution is intended to disperse and
depoliticise governmental responsibilities,
but in a particular regional context, the
nuances of which as revolutionaries we
need to understand.
In Wales, for example, the SWP needs
to develop a more detailed analysis of the
nationalist party Plaid Cymru. We also need
to consider the issue of the Welsh language,
which will become critical as austerity
kicks in. Putting our politics into practice
means understanding the forces at work on
the ground. The ability of Plaid to position
itself to the left of Labour, for example, has
implications for electoral work.
I have submitted a piece on Wales and
devolution for the ISJ which I hope will
start up some discussion. I am proposing
setting up an informal network of comrades
in Wales to exchange ideas, articles etc for
publication in ISJ and Socialist Review.
Pushing a branch
outwards:
the Barnsley
experience
Dave (Barnsley)
This article is designed to show that, notwithstanding the impact of the internal
divisions in the SWP over the last year, it
is still perfectly possible for any comrade
or branch that orients outwards to the class
struggle to find both an audience, and people happy to work with us.
That was shown just this week when
we mobilised through UAF for leafleting
a ward where the BNP was standing in a
council by-election; 30% of those who
went out leafleting were non-SWP.
It was shown last week when we got 27
to an SWP public meeting, the non-members made up of people we have met this
year through bedroom tax work and longer
standing contacts who we have worked
with on a range of initiatives over a number
of years.
One person who came was at his first
SWP meeting since resigning earlier in the
year in protest at the party’s handling of the
Disputes Committee issue. It was our largest public meeting since January 2012.
And it has been shown in our work in a
united front campaign, Barnsley Save Our
NHS. The initiative for setting this up was
taken by a retired SWP health worker and
it has regularly involved UNISON Health
stewards and people who are angry at what
the Tories are doing to the NHS.
But most of all, it has been shown
throughout our work in the last 8 months
over the bedroom tax and Unite the Resistance. This article will look at those aspects
of the branch’s work. I hope that our expe-
71
rience can encourage other branches to do
as we have done.
It is worth, before starting, giving a
brief summary of the composition of the
Barnsley branch. The branch is dominated
by pensioners. The second largest grouping
is unemployed. Then we have a few students, only two of whom are at all involved
in the branch, and just three members who
are working. This is clearly not the composition we would wish, but if we work with
the members we have in a proper way we
can start to transform the branch.
Bedroom tax
Since 2010 the branch has tried to either
help initiate resistance to spending cuts or
be fully involved locally in national trade
union campaigns.
That was most successful in the pensions fight but also against staffing cuts
at Barnsley College through the UCU
branch where the SWP has some considerable influence. The students we had at
that time were fully involved in all those
activities, but the most active left Barnsley in the autumn of 2011.
We were singularly unable to get anything else off the ground. For example,
we tried hard in 2011 to start a campaign
to stop library closures which never took
off despite the hard work of comrades
involved. The approach of both UNISON
and GMB was ultimately to negotiate the best redundancy deals possible
rather than fighting any of the cuts, which
blocked off any potential resistance from
the workforce.
So, it was against that background,
that the branch decided to launch itself
into campaigning against the cuts in welfare – particularly to the DLA and with
the bedroom tax. We started with a public meeting on those two issues called by
Barnsley against The Cuts (a body set
up for that meeting and not used subsequently). It attracted a few people that we
did not know and was sufficiently encouraging for us to focus on the bedroom tax.
Two comrades took the initiative,
booked a church hall on a large estate,
got a speaker from Leeds Hands Off Our
Homes, and leafleted widely. Lots of
shops put up posters. On the night, despite
a snow blizzard, we got about a dozen
people turning up for what was an angry,
positive meeting. Many of them have
become core activists of the campaign.
At the same time the UCU branch put
a motion to the Trades Council calling
on it to organise a Benefit Justice public
meeting focusing on both DLA and bedroom tax. That meeting followed shortly
after, having had extensive local press
coverage, and was a big success, attracting over 60 people, trade unionists and
tenants. Again, we gathered more important activists. That has continued to meet,
originally directly under the auspices of
the Trades Council, and then later with its
own independent existence.
Since then we have settled into a pattern of a central Barnsley Against the
Bedroom Tax meeting on a regular basis,
supplemented by estate meetings to
spread the message of the campaign further. For instance, we held a successful 40
strong meeting last month in the ex-mining village of Cudworth which put great
pressure on the council Labour leader
who is one of the local councillors. That
meeting was built by the efforts of 3 SWP
retired/unemployed comrades with some
help from local tenants we had met.
Since April the bedroom tax group has
figured in the local paper most weeks, and
on local TV several times. That has been a
reflection of both our high level of activity
and the local Labour Party’s aggressive
approach to tenants in arrears.
We have had protests outside the court
every time tenants have been dragged
there, for arrears in either bedroom or
council tax. We have had one successful
demonstration, with a second planned. We
have demonstrated outside and inside full
council meetings. We have held meetings
in 11 villages/estates with more planned.
We have held innumerable street stalls
both in Barnsley and surrounding villages.
We have tried to keep focusing nationally,
so we took 17 tenants and trade unionists to the May Benefit Justice Summit,
a smaller number to the initial People’s
Assembly and well over 20 bedroom tax
activists to the Sept. 29th demo.
We have been able to get free places
on transport because of donations from
unions like UNITE, the Bakers Union and
the NUT. Our comrades have been consistently responsible for winning trade
union involvement in the campaign. The
demonstration we held brought several
union delegations, 2 Labour MPs and
Labour councillors together with tenants.
From the beginning the campaign
has operated at a high political level.
The combination of a Tory policy and
its forceful implementation by a Labour
Council has opened up all sorts of political debate.
One strand of debate we have had to
confront has been the conclusion by some
that UKIP might offer a way forward.
Early on, in particular, we had to counter the racist myth that Muslims could
exempt themselves from the bedroom tax
by declaring their spare room a prayer
room.
Many of the estates we have been
working on were ones which the BNP
campaigned hard on for several years.
Our message that tenants have to rely on
their own activity and unity with trade
unionists and other activists if we are to
beat the tax has helped to undercut those
racist ideas. That is neatly symbolised by
a street, which always had a depressing
number of BNP posters in the windows at
election time, even in 2010, now having
an impressive display of NO EVICTIONS
posters in the windows instead.
A different strand has been those who
have become interested in revolutionary
ideas. We have had about a dozen activists at our party meetings, there is wide
regular readership of SW and several have
joined. We did not know any of these people before we started campaigning.
As one woman, newly involved in the
campaign, told the council leader at the
meeting already mentioned, “You and
Labour are doing nothing for us. The only
support we are getting is from people in
the campaign.”
The vast majority of party members
have been involved to some degree, with
at least one member getting active with
the party for the first time in some years.
Unite the Resistance and
industrial work
Through the pensions strikes of 2011/12
SWP comrades took the initiative in
Barnsley, and South Yorkshire, in meeting
with unions like PCS, NUT and UNITE
(Health) to plan local demonstrations and
rallies on strike days. The national Unite
the Resistance initiative was a natural
extension of this work that struck a chord
with local union activists, particularly
after the sell-out of Dec. 19th 2011.
Our building of the South Yorkshire
Unite the Resistance day conference in
March 2013 marked a big step forward.
We got over 30 Barnsley trade unionists
there, the large majority not in the party.
We got delegations from PCS, NUT, UCU
and the Bakers Union, plus individuals
from GMB, UNISON, UNITE and FBU.
That led, in the days following, to successful delegations visiting picketlines
for PCS strikes( we were on one when
news of Thatcher’s death came through!)
UNITE Ambulance workers and CWU
Post Office staff.
Most of those who came to the conference came to at least one picketline, and
we mobilised other trade unionists as well.
We have tried to sustain this solidarity
activity, most significantly recently when,
through both the Trades Council and our
UtR network, we got 25 people together
to clap out the firefighters on their first 4
hour strike. That involved Women Against
Pit Closure, UNITE, PCS, NAPO and
UNISON members from 2 branches as
well as SWP members.
We have so far held one successful
Barnsley Unite the Resistance public
meeting with Jane Aitchison from PCS,
the secretary of Yorkshire Ambulances
UNITE, the secretary of the South Yorkshire CWU and a Barnsley bedroom tax
activist. We got about 30 there, including
bedroom tax activists, and while we did
not get many new people, we did meet
a young CWU rep at the Barnsley sorting office. The meeting was chaired by a
local PCS branch secretary and we held
72
a collection for the Chesterfield College
UCU strike.
We have put a great emphasis on raising solidarity collections with as many
disputes as possible. Sometimes we have
done this through paper sales, petitioning
and collecting for the Mid Yorks Hospitals
UNISON strikes.
Our working members are good at
organising workplace collections, pushing for solidarity in their union branches
and encouraging activists in other unions
to do the same.
As Unite the Resistance we have
organised public collections for disputes, sometimes involving non- SWP
members.
We did a successful petitioning and
collection session for solidarity with the
CWU Crown Post Office members outside
the Post Office, we leafleted 2 big council workplaces one day with a UtR flyer
explaining the Brighton GMB Cityclean
strike and went back the next day to do a
bucket collection, raising over £100.
We are working with union activists
in their 30s from a range of backgrounds:
CWU, FBU, UNITE Stagecoach and a
UNITE warehouse steward. They have all
bought SW on occasion. There is every
prospect of us being able to deepen these
connections in the coming period.
The next step will be how we follow
on from the Oct. 19th UtR conference
locally,organising solidarity for the next
FBU strike etc.
Conclusion
Barnsley SWP, like every branch, has
been affected by what has happened in the
party. But we have always tried to keep the
branch focus on how to intervene in the
outside world. Branch meetings are well
attended and lively.
Most of our members have been
involved in one or more united front campaign. We have not succeeded in getting all
members so involved, and the less members are involved with working with people
outside our ranks, the more prone they are
to doubts about the SWP and its standing in
the outside world.
But in my view the dominant feeling in
the branch is one of confidence that we are
making an impact locally and that if we
keep looking outwards we will continue
to do so.
For an
interventionist
party
– the Sheffield
experience
Dave, Bea, Jill, Sharon, Lucinda, Tom,
Maxine, Laura and Leroy (Sheffield), Jim
(Doncaster), Phil, Brian, Ben, Jill and
Martin (Rotherham)
As we enter a period of discussion in the run
up to the 2013 national conference, we hope
this article can inform other comrades as to
how we organise, build our influence and
conduct our debates.
The article aims to assess the experiences
of the South Yorkshire district since the
March special conference, after four months
of intense internal debate, the overwhelmingly majority of district members insisted
that our democratic decisions be respected
and implemented. It came as no surprise to
the district that a dozen or so supporters of
the faction refused to abide by the decisions
and decided to leave.
The litmus test for all party members
should be measured by the impact they have
within the working class movement and how
they develop a new generation of revolutionary Marxists.
The real day-to-day activity of revolutionaries should consist in fostering and
encouraging the self-confidence, self-reliance, self-activity of those among whom
they work. Whether we engage in the class
struggle, build solidarity with revolutionary movements across the globe or fight the
rise of the far right, we are an interventionist democratic centralist party and believe
that a Leninist vanguard party is not only
relevant for the 21st century, but also essential if we are to bring about a fundamental
transformation of society. Marxism is about
changing society, rather than just abstract
philosophising. What is significant about the
IB articles from the faction is the absence of
intervention.
As we write this article, over 50,000 have
demonstrated in Manchester, a bigger and
angrier protest than the one two years previously in the same city. The teaching unions
are engaged in their rolling programme of
strike action; fire-fighters have acted on their
strike vote, and bakers in Wigan have won
significant changes to conditions from their
bosses. Postal workers and the higher education unions are currently balloting for strike
action. This comes a month after Cameron
and Clegg were defeated over Syria. Our
task ahead now is how we continue to build
resistance and how we grow as a political
force.
In the last six months, Sheffield has
recruited double the number that left in
April, with most of our new members’ active
in some form within the party, campaigns or
working alongside other members. So far,
the signs are very encouraging within the
two Universities in the new term. Our sales
of Socialist Worker and the number of SWSS
sign-ups are much higher than a year ago.
That does not mean we do not recognise our
weaknesses, but it does mean we feel we are
moving in the right direction. Our comrades
have been central to many mobilisations and
campaigns in recent months. We list only a
few below.
Unite the Resistance
The first test for the district after the special conference was the Sheffield Unite the
Resistance conference. Over 220 activists,
including delegations of postal workers,
UNITE members, teachers and a large
number of welfare and housing campaigners listened to a range of left wing trade
union officials and lay activists argue for
resistance to austerity.
They turned out to make the event
a huge success even though we faced
repeated assertions that we were a ‘toxic
brand’ in the movement. It turned out to be
the biggest and most representative trade
union initiative the party had initiated in
South Yorkshire area.
At the same time, comrades within the
district were busy building support for
the Jerry Hicks campaign within UNITE.
Jerry came up into the area for a couple
of days, spoke at a party branch meeting
and brought out an important lesson from
the campaign, that no matter how battered
union organisation, on cold visits to factories and workplaces, Jerry was able to meet
trade union reps.
Mobilising against the EDL
As with most other areas, in the aftermath of the Woolwich killing, the EDL
attempted to march in Sheffield for the first
time. The two mobilisations in successful
weeks were some of the proudest moments
for the district.
A mobilisation of 700 anti-fascists prevented the police forcing a route through
for 60 EDL on the first Saturday, and following their humiliation the EDL called
a mass turnout of their supporters for the
following week. This time Unite Against
Fascism marshalled well over 2000 to confront 300 of the EDL. Out of our ability to
unite all organisations within the city, we
created an anti-Nazi atmosphere within the
area to such an extent that when a small
group of Nazis attempted to leaflet in the
main shopping area, the one comrade that
left the SW stall to challenge them was supported by around 80 shoppers. The Nazis
were chased off.
However, they are not a spent force.
At short notice, we were able to mobilise
locally 250 people against an EDL national
turnout of 300 in a working class area of
Sheffield. Since then, the news has broken
that national EDL figures have resigned
73
from that organisation. Every counter-demonstration has had its desired affect- we
have disrupted yet another attempt by neoNazis to seize the streets.
Anti-Bedroom tax activities
Since the introduction of the repugnant
changes to benefits, a number of comrades
have been instrumental in galvanising
opposition to the attacks on welfare and
the bedroom tax. We have succeeded in
organising a series of meetings and establishing a network of individuals that play
a major role in supporting working class
people that are at the brutal end of the coalition’s attacks.
We have established groups of activists
in working class areas of Sheffield for the
first time since the heydays of the anti-rent
increase campaigns in the early 1970s. Out
of our agitation, we have recruited some of
the key activists to the party. However, it is
not quite like the Poll Tax and therefore, we
are now debating how the campaign can be
sustained and taken forward and how wider
layers of people are involved and help to
organise continued resistance.
Peoples Assembly and the
build-up to September 29 and
teachers strike
Not only was it important for the district
to ensure support for the national People’s
Assembly in June, we have played a major
part in the development of local initiatives
and activities.
Over 80 came to an organising meeting
as a follow up to the National meeting in
order to maximise the resistance to austerity. The work resulted in over 300 at the
day event on September 14th. Party members were instrumental to its success on the
day drawing serious delegations of postal
workers and fire-fighters.
Although there is an overwhelming
feeling for unity in the fight against the
Coalition’s austerity programme, we have
still carried out a fraternal debate with other
activists, about the importance of class and
the trade unions. However, the very first
debate, mainly with younger activists centred on the role of social media in building
the event.
It was an important lesson for comrades
as it became increasingly clear that social
media was not the key mobilising tool. A
sign of our political success can be measured by our sale of one-in-five Socialist
Worker to those attending, Bookmarks sold
over £220 of books, and we signed up 28 to
the transport to Manchester and recruited
one to the party.
Teachers
Our political base within the local NUT
and trades councils were crucial in allowing the party to take initiatives and cement
an important number of other unions and
campaigns to supporting UtR, the Peoples Assembly and organising transport
for the protest at the Tory Party conference. Seven coaches went to Manchester
from Sheffield, four from Barnsley, two
from Doncaster, one from Rotherham, and
one from Scunthorpe, with many more
folk making their way by train across the
Pennines.
Our comrades within the teaching unions
were crucial to organising for the regional
day of action on 1 October, coordinating
a demonstration to the angry and electrifying rally. We sold well over 70 papers
on the day with our placards taken up by
many on the march of 2000. The discussion
when selling papers was around making the
national leadership call the national strike
before Xmas and also about the strategy of
voting labour in the next election.
Students
Working alongside and recruiting students
is the most vital area of work over the coming year. The district had its most organised
and systematic intervention into fresher’s
week at both Sheffield and Hallam for
many years.
We had stalls at both universities day in,
day out throughout the week (beginning on
the Sunday at Sheffield University!), many
comrades took a day off work and others
gave up several days to help out. It was
a positive experience all round with the
feedback enlivening our branch meetings
last week. Sheffield University 150 papers
sold 93 SWSS sign ups/contacts 3 recruits
to SWP. Sheffield Hallam 50 papers plus
more given away 39 joined SWSS 54 filled
in forms to be kept informed. However,
the key to building a student base is the
systematic and consistent attention to detail
in following up those that have signed up to
SWSS and the party. There can be no quick
fix. However, we intend to win a number of
them to Marxist ideas and our tradition of
Leninist organisation.
Recruiting new party members
and building a stronger
political base
We need to build our influence through
consistent intervention and increase our
ideological influence primarily through the
regular sale of Socialist Worker our regular
political meetings, rallies and importantly,
our SWSS meetings.
The centrality of Socialist Worker as an
agitator, propagandist and as organiser needs
to be much more prominent in all our work.
It is something we believe that the district
and the party have to address and make central to our work in the coming year.
Although we can do exceptionally well
in taking initiatives and within the working class movement, sometimes we do not
do justice to all our excellent work, by a
systematic approach to members and supporters. This can hinder our ability to take
full advantage of the highly charged political
atmosphere and the rising tempo of overt
anger within the working class.
In an article we submitted to the Special
Conference IB, we stated how our branch
meetings and organisation had improved.
However, we still need to address
a number of weaknesses. We have had
improvements in turnout across the district
and our branch meetings have attempted to
arm our comrades with a range of answers to
the questions they face in the outside world.
Nevertheless, we are still trying to
improve our branch organising structures,
something that needs to be in place, if we are
to recruit and retain new comrades. Our aim
is to create a new group of leaders within the
class and party.
The coming months
The next programme of public meetings will address some key arguments
within the broader movement and that are
reflected within our own organisation. We
are planning for a major public meeting
on ‘Racism, Resistance and Revolution’
where we are hoping to attract all our members and supporters, new and old at the end
of the month. A further public meeting will
deal with the impact of neo-liberalism on
the working class and if the working class
retains its foremost position as the fundamental force to transforming society.
The district has a strategy of intervening
and being part of the movement and campaigns and within those forums of carrying
through a political and ideological debate
through the sales of Socialist Worker and
our political meetings and educationals.
We want to win people as to how to build
real opposition and resistance to austerity
but also how can we win people to a Marxist understanding of the world and more
importantly, how it can be changed. We
are holding a series of monthly new members meetings to discuss the basic theoretic
ideas of Marxism.
The SWP has shown unlimited responsibility in the fight against the ruling class,
the far right, oppression and developing
solidarity with all those fighting across the
globe to bring about revolutionary change.
However, after the debate, comes united
action. We have far too much to lose. We
believe we need to re-assert our tradition
of democratic centralism at our national
conference.
There can be no place within the party
for to permanent factions, secret or open.
The factional atmosphere over the last year
should be a lesson all comrades learn.
We cannot allow this practice to continue, to impede the increasing opportunities
opening up to the party. What was and still
is at stake, is what type of party we are trying to build and whether it is equipped for
the struggles and tasks ahead.
74
Students and the
SWP – some facts
and figures
Sai (Tottenham)
The crisis that is rocking the party, probably the largest crisis in the SWP’s history,
has hit our students particularly hard. It
is difficult to establish numbers with precision, given the central committee has
grown out of the habit of sharing detailed
statistics with the rest of the organisation,
but a general estimate is possible.
This time last year the SWP could boast
a large and vibrant student membership,
with around 300 students, in approximately
60 institutions – both in colleges and universities. At the beginning of this academic
year, it was probably closer to 60 students
in 25 institutions.
It would have been very useful for the
organisation as a whole, if the student
office had given us exact numbers, their
analysis of the situation, and a plan of how
to rebuild.
Worse, the central committee as a
whole has spend the last year devising new
‘political reasons’ to explain the crisis in
our student work. Interestingly, none of
these reasons mention the dispute; it’s handling, and the fallout on campuses across
the country. The latest of these explanations can be found in Alex Callinicos and
Charlie Kimber’s piece in the International
Socialist Journal:
So movementism is not enough. Revolutionary socialists should continue to
be part of these movements and help
to build them. But we need at the same
time to organise to help to shape them
in a way that maximises their emancipatory possibilities and to fight for our
own politics within them.
When we fail to do this we can end up
paying a high price. The SWP was quite
right to throw itself into and enthusiastically to build the student movement of
2010, which shared many features with
the struggles we have been discussing.
As a result, we won many students
to our ranks. The problem was that
they were integrated into the SWP on
a movementist basis that encouraged
them to see themselves as separate from
and superior to the rest of the party, part
of a student vanguard that could lead
the working class as a whole into struggle against austerity.
This helps to explain why so many
student members of the SWP abandoned the party in reaction to the DC
controversy.
There are several claims made here about
our student organisation. The main ones are
not new, and were advanced in the run up
to the special conference in March. These
are that the student strategy was: movementist (defined above as not focusing on
the building of revolutionary organisation
at the centre of activity in the movement);
developing a position of student vanguardism; to break with the centrality of the
working class; to keep the students separate (and above) the rest of the party.
None of these claims stand the test of
facts. In this piece we aim to provide comrades with some of the facts and figures,
taken from stats, Internal Bulletins, and
weekly party notes. These documents have
the value of being written by the student
office and having gone through the CC as
a whole, or at least the national secretary,
and are therefore both indicative of what
the student office was saying, and of having been approved by the leadership of the
party.
Before doing this however, it is worth
comrades asking themselves a number
of questions. The situation that the CC
describes is a very serious one. Why did
not a single one of them raise any of these
concerns until the crisis over their handling
of the dispute broke out?
How is it possible, when Charlie and
Alex describe such a bleak situation, that
nobody disagreed with the student perspective put forward by the student office as
late as the January 2013 conference?
Both of them had spoken regularly
at student events, should they not have
addressed such serious concerns with the
student office, and the rest of the party?
Two answers are possible. Either they
were concealing serious disagreements on
the CC from the rest of the party (thereby
breaking with the agreements of the
democracy commission), or, alternatively,
they made this analysis up to justify the
disastrous consequences of the handling of
the dispute on our student work.
Students and the party
The clearest and most straightforward way
to work out whether students were taking
the party seriously, is to ask: were students
recruiting and were they keeping up with
recruitment across the organisation?
Recruitment stats
Students Rest of the organisation
2011
596
413
2012 (until November) 349
506
So in the year straight after the student
revolt, when the students are supposed to
have turned to movementism, they were
responsible for close to 60% of the total
recruitment to the party.
The next year that number drops, which
is to be expected given the defeat of the
strikes. But despite that student’s still
recruited 41% of the total amount of our
new members. Given that the students are
a small minority in the Party (around 300
this time last year by my estimate), perhaps
Alex and Charlie should worry about other
sections of the party falling in the prongs of
movementist liquidationism.
The more cynical comrades will say
that this does not in itself prove the student office wasn’t dropping the ball on the
importance of party building. Again let’s
turn to the facts, this time in the party notes
section written by the student office.
Just before the Milbank demonstration
the student office was telling students:
Every member has to fight to make sure
we come out the demo with a stronger
and bigger SWP, which means selling
SW and recruiting and having our SWSS
meetings lined up that we fight to get
people to. In London there is a London
wide SWSS recruitment rally on Monday 22 November.
Party Notes 8th November 2010
Then in the middle of the student revolt:
We have rushed out a pamphlet, ‘The
student revolt - why you should be a
socialist’. It is aimed at young students
who are being radicalised by the protests and will be on sale on Thursdays
demo.
The pamphlet outlines the basic case
for socialism and is a stopgap for the
book we will be publishing in January.
Party Notes 6th December 2010
So the student office was making sure that
socialist ideas, and the necessity of the
party were central to our student’s involvement in the movement.
But what about later? Didn’t we fail
to understand the changing nature of the
movement? We’ll return to this but simply in terms of party-building, here is what
the student office was saying, and what
students were doing n 2012, a year and a
half into our supposed turn away from the
party:
The openness to our ideas also means
we need to think seriously about how
we build the party on our campuses.
In order to do so we need to put in the
detailed work of drawing up a list of
those close to us, who we think we can
recruit, make sure we know where the
disagreements lie and what arguments
we need to wage.
Finally, assign a person for each of
the names of the list to follow them up.
Are we asking our periphery to join us
in the caucus? Are we fighting for them
to take up roles? If we don’t we should.
This detailed work is the only way we
will pull people in and build a bigger
broader SWP. In the last two weeks,
Leeds met recruited 4 people to the SWP,
Leeds University the same number and
the LSE recruited 2 out of their election
campaign. In the build up to the Oxford
Radical Forum, Oxford SWSS recruited
1 to the party. At UEL the group has
grown from 7 to 18 SWP members in
75
the space of a term. These are the kind
of numbers we want to replicate around
the country.
The paper has to play a key role
in building a stable periphery which
relates to our political ideas and is
pulled into our ranks. We need to create
a conscious strategy to build the confidence of our members to sell the paper
on our stalls and create buying vibrant
public sales where we meet people and
solidify our relationship with those who
buy the paper every week.
It is also vital that we sell individually to those friendly or close to us that
we know in our courses, societies and
halls. Every comrade needs to build a
network of SW readers around them and
work at recruiting them to SWSS and
the SWP.
At UEL the group organised a
sale that every member attended and
focussed specifically on selling SW.
They sold 35 papers, 30 attended their
SWSS meeting and 5 signed up to Marxism. It is through activities like these
that we will build our confidence to sell
the paper and use it in our private sales
as well.
Party Notes 5th March 2012
At the same time the student office encouraged a better relationship between students
in the party and local branches, far from
Alex and Charlie’s assertions about students being encouraged to see themselves
as separate and above the rest of the party.
So for example, in December 2011, a year
into the supposed development of ‘student
vanguardism’, all comrades would have
read in the Internal Bulletin of the SWP:
It is important that students attend their
local branch meeting. This is beneficial
to both the wider party and the studentsmaking sure the branches are hubs for
activity happening across the districts,
providing a place where students can
benefit form the experience of other comrades and the latter from the arguments
and new ideas that students bring. By
the same token, branches need to look
at how they can play a role in building
in the universities where we don’t have
a base or have only 1 or 2 members and
support SWSS groups where they are
more established.
It seems therefore pretty clear that, both
in words and deeds, the student office and
the students were putting the party and the
need to build it, at the heart of our work.
Students and the politics of
the SWP
Recruitment is all well and good, we hear
you say, but was any effort made to win our
students to the party’s politics? Did we recognize the growing ideological thirst that
existed? Did Joseph Choonara not argue in
the period running up to the Special conference, that students were simply being
activists and failing to relate to the bigger
political questions?
At the end of the year, we organized a student led two day mini Marxism type event.
Students, and leading members of the party
spoke, as well as other leading Marxists like
Terry Eagleton and Kevin Doogan.
Students were teamed up with CC members to prepare their talks and help develop
them. Just under 200 people took part in the
event:
STUDENTS FOR REVOLUTION
It is clear that the strike is going to be
a success but we need to think seriously about how we build the party and
spread our politics through it. Students
for Revolution is an obvious and important next step.
S4r is a two day Marxism at which
well-known speakers and activists will
present, debate and discuss the ideological questions present in the movement. It
is an opportunity for every SWSS group
to showcase the party and our politics,
and recruit. (….) We have to make sure
we push out now and sign everybody up
who we want to pull closer to our politics, into SWSS and the party.
Party Notes 28th November 2011
We then decided it was important to follow
this up by rolling out this level of discussion
and debate into the local groups, we therefore
asked some of the speakers if they would follow up the event with speaking tours across
the universities, which they agreed to do:
The speaker tours with Peter Thomas,
Jeffrey Webber and Terry Eagleton are
about to start in some places. It is very
significant for us that these non-party
members are happy to hold SWSS meetings for us, we therefore need to make
them a particular success and really push
out for them.
Party Notes 23rd Jan 2012
The greatest success with those tours
where the ‘Why Marx was Right’ debates
with Alex Callinicos and Terry Eagleton
(except in Sheffield where a hundred students came to hear Eagleton and Colin
Barker speak, because Alex couldn’t make
it). Over a 1000 people attended in 5 universities, with the highlights being 300 in
Oxford and 270 in Manchester.
There was also a special attention that
in this process we would strengthen people’s understanding of our own politics as
well as the bigger arguments in Marxist
thought today.
Therefore, we strengthened comrades’
preparation to meetings and their knowledge of our tradition.
So for example in the same party notes,
that announces the speaking tours, you find:
Before our meetings we should think
about circulating relevant SW p.10
articles, SR and ISJ pieces, in order to
build up the confidence of our members
to intervene in the discussions.
Throughout the term we need to think
about what we are reading as members
and what our periphery is reading and
if we have the necessary tools to take on
some of the arguments that are going
around. In order to help this process, the Student Office will update the
theory page on the website and send
regular reading lists out with articles,
and books. The first one will be sent out
today in SWSS notes.
Party Notes 23rd Jan 2012
Comrades can visit the theory page on the
website here: http://swssnet.wordpress.
com/suggested-reading/
Since then, the party as a whole
has adopted this approach on the party
website.
It is worth noting that in this year’s student perspective there has been no mention
of reading groups, focus on our publications,
speaking tours, the circulation of literature
etc. Is the central committee now saying
there is no longer a need for an ideological
focus?
At the last NC meeting Amy Leather
announced she had proof the last student
office did not organise regular SWSS meetings. We attach a spreadsheet with all the
SWSS meetings of the 2012 autumn term,
the last term of that office, so the party can
judge by itself [In a table on the next page].
We also think it points to a perfectly
healthy spread of ideological meetings and
meetings which deal with what is going on
in the world.
Finally, in that term the student office also
organised teach-ins, with Party speakers and
guests, in three universities, with an eye on
rolling them out all over the country in the
spring term:
Students – audience for our ideas
Essex Uni had 35-45 people in every
session of their teach-in on ‘Crisis
and Resistance in the Eurozone’, and
students from the local colleges came
along. Leeds Uni had 15-25 people
across their teach-in on ‘Fighting Capitalism in an Age of Austerity’.
Goldsmiths are having a teach-in on
‘What’s the future for the Arab revolutions?’, next Wednesday 12th December,
3-8pm. Sessions include ‘Permanent
Revolution in the Middle East’ – Anne
Alexander, ‘Marxism and Islam’ – Amin
Osman, ‘Imperialism vs. Revolution’
– Alex Callinicos & Adam Hanieh. All
students in London should bring a delegation to this event. (…)
In the Spring term, we want to roll
out these teach-ins in across the country. Please contact the Student Office if
you want to organise one.
Party Notes 3rd December 2012
76
University
Aberdeen
Aberystwyth
Bath Spa
Birmingham
City
10-Sep
17-Sep
24-Sep
01-Oct
08-Oct
15-Oct
22-Oct
Intro meeting
Birmingham
Intro meeting
29-Oct
Palestine mtg
Public mtg
- Why Marx
was right
Bournemouth Intro
Bradford
Brighton
Intro
Organising
meeting
Intro meeting
Marxism &
Feminism
Bristol
Brunel
Cambridge
What would
a socialist
society
look like
Riots revolts &
revolutions
First meeting
& stall this
Thursday
Why Marx
was right
Intro Marxist
economics
Cardiff Met
Cardiff Uni
Intro
Greece meeting Alienation
Coventry
Derby
Dundee
Essex
Marxism &
women’s
liberation
6th
Marx vs
Keynes
Glamorgan
Glasgow
intro
Malcolm x
Assange
Goldsmiths
Intro
Hertfordshire Hull
Intro
Palestine & the
Arab Spring
History of
fighting
racism
What would
a socialist
revolution
look like
South African
miners
why capitalism goes into
crisis
Did Lenin lead
to Stalin
KCL
The Eurozone: Assange
Crisis &
resistance
Why you
Reform or
should be a
revolution
socialist
Marx
Kent
Why you
should be a
socialist
Intro
capitalism &
Unravelling
democracy:
capitalism - a
friends or foes? Marxist guide to
economics
Kingston
Why you
should be a
socialist
Leeds Met
intro
Why you
should be a
socialist
1968 & now
What do we
mean by
revolution
Leicester +
DeMontford
Liverpool
Film screening Who needs the Racism, fascism
‘Babylon
police?
& how we fight
them: story of
the ANL
By any means Legitimate
Russian
necessary
Rape? Sexual
revolution
Malcolm X
Violence & the
media
By any means Legitimate
necessary
Rape? Sexual
Malcolm X
Violence & the
media
Intro meeting
Lampeter
Lancaster
Leeds
How
capitalism
underdeveloped Africa
1968 & now
Thursday
(5pm) or
Sunday
– crisis &
revolution
demo rally
police crime &
corruption
London Met
Malcom X
Riots, revolts & 1968
revolutions
has capitalism Palestine & the
underdeveloped Arab spring
Africa
LSE
11th
Education &
Capitalism privatisation
Racism &
LMU
Introduction to
Anticapitalism
Why Greece
should leave
the Euro
23 things they
don’t tell you
about Marx
Man Met
Man Uni
intro mtg
cops
reform or
revolution
The Syrian
Intifada thru
Palestinian
eyes
Arab spring &
Palestine
anti-fascism
Is human nature Marxism &
a barrier to
religion
socialism?
Newcastle
intro
68 lessons &
today
culture art &
revolution
workers & the
Arab spring
district meeting
Northumbria
intro
68 lessons &
today
culture art &
revolution
workers & the
Arab spring
district meeting
Oxford
Marxism,
feminism &
the fight for
women’s
liberation
eurozone
women
Queen Mary
Alternative to
capitalism
Assange,
fascism
imperialism &
rape’
operaismo
Sheffield
Hallam
Sheffield
University
intro
intro SWSS
Greece
Sexism & the
System
SOAS
Why Marx
was right
Sunderland
Sussex
Teesside
UCLAN/
Preston
whats
alternative to
capitalism
intro
An
The Marikana
introduction to massacre - the
anticapitalism reality of postapartheid SA
intro
eurozone
anti-racism
egypt
UEA
UEL
University of
Surrey
UWE
Whats the
alternative to
capitalism?
10-Dec
03-Dec
Rosa
Luxemburg &
Mass Strike
Education
meeting
Obama &
Romney: the
race for the
White House
N14 - The
return of the
mass strike
Debt: A new
dimension
to class
struggle?
What would
a socialist
revolution look
like?
Malcom X, MLK, Gramsci
Civil rights
the working
class
alienation
SWSS
teach-in
N14 - The
return of the
mass strike
Assange,
imperialism
& rape
Strikes, revolts
& scandals
How can we
bring down the
government?
the point is to
change it
what are
the police
really for
EDL, BNP &
fight against
fascism
N14 Mass
strike
Police, Racism Unravelling
& the police
capitalism: an
introduction
to Marxist
economics
N14 & the
Mass strike
MENA
Solidarity
Palestine &
Arab spring
Marxism &
Islam
Palestine
Cuts, abortion
rights & family
values: are the
Tories a threat
to women?
Sexism & the
system: a
rebel’s guide
to women’s
liberation
Students of
the world
ignite
N14 & the
Mass strike
Marxism &
History
Marxism &
Philosophy
Quebec
meeting
UAF meeting
(no platform)
+ district
rally
Why does
Israel kill
Palestinians
N14: The
return of the
mass strike
Why we need N14 & the
a revolutionary mass strike
party
1968
& now:
student
struggles
Why Marx
was right
Gaza
Strikes,
revolts &
scandals how
do we bring
down the
Government
fascism
district rally
N14 & the
mass strike
Palestine
police
sexism & the
system
district rally
N14 - The
return of the
mass strike
students
Marxism,
feminism
& women’s
liberation
Women, work Lenin
& family in the
neo-liberal
age
Malcolm x
African
struggles
Palestine
politics of
space
The mass
strike - sally
campbell
why Marx
was right
police &
racism
N14 - The
return of
the mass
strike
Is violence
necessary to
change the
world?
Is religion
Alienation
to blame for
homophobia?
American
elections
& N14
reading week How do fight
for women’s
liberation
today
rev ideas of
Marx
Syria:
resistance,
revolution &
the threat of
imperialist war
cancelled
district rally
Malcolm x
Alienation
crisis
68
Marikana
quebec mtg
Whats wrong
with capitalism
Black Panthers
Marx &
development
us elections
Marx
1917
- revolution
police
womens
liberation
n14: the
return of the
mass strike
N14 - The
return of the
mass strike
Syria
Malcolm X
Autonomism
why Marx
was right
party & class
n14 & the
return of the
mass strike
police
disabled
NHS
Cuts, Abortion
rights & family
values: Are the
Tories a threat
to women?
From
Operaismo
to Occupy:
The politics of
Autonomism
Strikes, revolts
& scandals
– how to bring
down the
government?
Palestine & the
Arab Spring
Intro meeting
Intro meeting
Police
Europe in revolt LGBT liberation
World in Revolt LMU
- Why You
Should Be A
Socialist
York
York St John Edinburgh
A world
in crisis
& revolt
- why you
should be
a socialist
Warwick
Middlesex
The SDL, the
BNP & the
fight against
fascism
today
Why Marx
was right
Portsmouth
What do we
mean by
revolution
Why do we
protest?
19-Nov
26-Nov
Gaza & the
Arab Spring
12-Nov
N14 - The
return of the
mass strike
The point is to N14 - The
change it
return of the
mass strike
N14: return
of the mass
strike
Defend right to
protest meeting
Cuts, abortion
rights & family
values: are the
Tories a threat to
women
Unravelling
capitalism
district meeting
Malcolm X
Race & Class
attacks on
education
Iran: 1979
Black Panther Party
The ppl vs
Murdoch
- role of
media
class struggle a womans
in Africa
right to
choose
Marxism & the 14th
fight for Black
Liberation
Spain - Austerity & Resistance
05-Nov
The point is to
change it
Marxism &
religion
autonism
Lenin
Palestine
igaza
crisis
is religion
to blame for
homophobia
Palestine
zombie
capitalism
Palestine
N14 mass
strike
Marx
Sexism & the
system
District
Aggregate
SWSS and the Class
Once all is said and done, Charlie, Alex, and
others will say – ok the students recruited
and raised the ideological level of students,
but what about the working class? Haven’t
they abandoned the centrality of the working class?
First of all, people will remember how
the students threw themselves into building
solidarity with the Sparks dispute: bringing
delegations week in week out to the picket
lines, arguing with students about the centrality of workers struggle and inviting
Sparks to speak on campus. Ian Bradley
for example spoke at KCL’s ‘Why Marx
was Right’, with Alex Claiinicos and Terry
Eagleton in order to make the link between
Marxist ideas and the actual struggle taking place.
This solidarity between students and the
Sparks went both ways. In the Autumn of
2011, a delegations of Sparks was kettled
after it tried to march from their demonstration in London to the student demonstration
taking place at the same time. The Sparks
were responding to the solidarity that students had brought them over the months,
including that same morning before going
to assemble for their own march.
Now, this was nothing new for students.
Earlier that year, straight after what were
the last two demonstrations of the student
revolt, the student office sent this out:
Deepening that unity will be key in the
coming weeks as the UCU begins balloting for strike action, and students must
take a lead in creating an atmosphere
on campus that helps to maximise turn
out and a yes vote for strike action.
Joint rallies, union general meetings,
mass petitioning, collections and cuts
group activity must be called to build
support.
Thereby building, immediately from
the end of the revolt, onto the workers’
struggles on the horizon.
This was replicated later as well, with
the solidarity brought to the public sector strikes, the workers and students joint
assemblies we organised on campuses,
and the collections for strike funds our
students set up all over the country.
Party notes 31st January 2011
In the third Internal Bulletin that year, the
central committee wrote:
No social movement develops in an
unbroken upward trajectory. As Rosa
Luxembourg observed in her seminal
study of The Mass Strike, instead they
ebb and flow. The initiative having
started with the students has shifted to
workers. This represents a qualitative
shift in the prospects for a fightback
in Britain that does have the power to
achieve the student calls to “bring down
the government”. It must be a major
focus for students. And the experience of the last year means a network
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of students beyond our ranks already
understand that.
This was obvious in the 24th Marchand 30th June strikes where students
were involved in building support for
the strike and showing solidarity on the
day from the strike festival at LSE to the
Goldsmiths College “flying picket van”
and occupations at SOAS and Edinburgh University.
It was even more obvious on the 9th
November national student demonstration during which thousands of students
staged a sit down in solidarity with electricians kettled by police as they tried to
join the demonstration and refused to
move until they were released.
And again in the same document:
The scale of the economic crisis and
nature of resistance in which the revolution is literally being televised, is making
it easier to point to the kind of arguments about the nature of capitalism,
the centrality of working class power to
resistance and revolution and the necessity for rooted revolutionary socialist
party and leadership. In Britain young
people will begin to experience for the
first time in their lives the visible power
of the working class.
Finally, comrades will remember that
the main united front our students were
involved in was the Education Activist
Network - a network that was based on
the very question of student and worker
unity in education. Its achievements were
uneven across the country after the revolt,
but certainly not negligible. Many UCU
and Unison comrades in education were
approached to try to organise jointly in
education.
It would not cross any comrades’ mind
to accuse the current student office of
having abandoned the centrality of the
working class, for having dropped that
particular united front and joint studentworker activity on campuses. It seems
equally unreasonable to accuse the previous student office of the same, when its
central activity outside of the party was
joint student-worker organsiation.
In conclusion, the description of our student work in the past is misconceived at
best, and a factional fabrication at worst.
We will let comrades come to their own
conclusions on the matter, but we hope that
this piece can allow us to have a debate
based on facts, and on the actual acts, successes, and short comings of our work in
the past, rather than on spurious previous
problems, which serve the only purpose of
explaining away and ignoring the current
real ones.
Secrets
Jonathan (Oxford)
Three years ago I was elected to a special
democracy commission for the party. We
reported to the party that the CC had to report
any substantial differences to the National
Committee, or we would be wrecked by
secret disputes at the top.
Now our party is in real trouble with just
such a secret dispute. The current CC has
been deeply divided. Amy, Jo, Judith, Mark
and Weyman have organised over the last
several months:
• To keep “Delta” on the national committee
of UAF;
• Then to prevent a commission to look at
revising the rules of the disputes committee;
• Then to prevent a hearing of the second
woman’s complaint of sexual harassment
against Delta;
• Then to prevent the report of the commission on revising the rules being presented to
the NC.
In each case they lost in part because
Charlie and Alex were on the other side from
Amy and Co.
I know this. Charlie and Alex know I
know. Most of the people at the centre of
the party know it, and Alex and Charlie and
Amy know they all know.
Yet the outgoing CC has proposed a new
CC which includes all the current members,
plus two new people they know will side
with Amy and two who will side with Alex.
They have done this without comment.
Amy and Co were prepared to paralyse
our party in order to prevent a complaint
of sexual harassment getting a fair hearing.
That is wrong. I do not want such people
heading my organisation.
Alex and Charlie have now written a
piece for the ISJ. The tone is ill-judged. It
will read to non-members as if Alex and
Charlie are furious with people who have
complained about sexual harassment. Nonmembers will also read it as arguing that we
may have got sexual harassment wrong, but
the people who complained about it have the
wrong politics. This is a deeply damaging
argument to make in public. It is a bad sign
that Alex and Charlie do not know this.
I agree with Charlie and Alex on class,
neoliberalism, Syriza, and many other matters. I have spent my adult life trying to build
a revolutionary party. I have been disgusted
by the tone of much of what I read on Facebook. There are a lot of people like me. The
argument made to us is that we should be
quiet and hold an organisation together.
But both wings of the CC are wrecking
our organisation. We began all this with
2,500 dues paying members, of whom 1,500
to 2,000 were active. 500 of those, mainly
younger people, have already left in anger.
After conference I expect at least 200 of the
opposition to leave or be expelled. Another
200 or 300 from all political positions will
leave in exhaustion and demoralisation. The
people who remain will be led by a deeply
split central committee, many of whom
despise each other.
Finally, another secret. In early July Charlie presented 20 emails among opposition
members to the CC and then the national
committee. All 20 emails had been sent to
“J”, who at that point was bringing a complaint of sexual harassment against Delta.
There is now an official party investigation
into the status and origin of these emails. The
sooner its conclusions are public, the better.
We are lost in secrets.
A response to
Jonathan
Central Committee
This article contains a series of accusations
about the CC and others. We robustly contest these accusations which are based on
supposed knowledge rather than facts.
Learning to
count properly
Amy (Cambridge)
Revolutionaries are good at many things,
but when it comes to counting, we seem to
have a few problems. I’m sure we can all
think of situations where a meeting or paper
sale hasn’t gone as well as you would hope
and 11 becomes ‘almost 20’ when reported
to other people. Inflating the number of
papers sold may stop an awkward conversation with circulation and ‘optimistic’
demo numbers may be somewhat closer to
reality than police underestimates, but they
don’t actually help.
We can’t learn from our activity if
don’t assess it, accurately and honestly.
That means knowing how it actually went,
rather than how we’d like it to have gone.
Three examples I think illustrate this point
- the figures for the Tower Hamlets demo
against the EDL, Marxism and the SWP
membership.
Tower Hamlets
We’re told that the recent demonstration
against the EDL in Tower Hamlets had, to
quote Socialist Worker, “over 5000” people
at it. Weyman Bennett is directly quoted
in the Independent as saying it was 7,000.
The UAF Twitter account claimed 8,000
on the day.
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Anyone who was there knows this
is simply not the case. Photographs and
video taken the day clearly show that there
weren’t even 5,000 people there. It was not
bigger than the demonstration in Walthamstow in 2012. A more realistic estimate
for the Tower Hamlets demo is around
2000. Getting the numbers right is key to
understanding the dynamics on the day and
dynamics of future demonstrations.
The tactics that we used on the day do,
in part, depend on the the numbers that
were present in East London.
To have an honest debate about whether
these were correct requires some honesty
about figures – 2,000 is significantly different to 5,000. If we continue to repeat a
false figure then those who weren’t there,
and even those who were, end up believing it, and the whole discussion starts from
the wrong place. It means the significance
of 500 people marching out of the park
(see 3-3:12mins in this video: http://bit.
ly/182ELBo), in an attempt to confront the
EDL, is brushed aside.
When it is around a third of those
present, it is crucial that there is a frank
discussion about what AFN did to mobilise
and why they were able to pull so many
people in behind them.
A realistic assessment about how successful the work done to mobilise before
the demo was also depends on knowing
how many people turned out in the end.
Estimates of 10,000 put forward in the
caucus the day before were clearly wildly
optimistic, as were claims from Charlie
Kimber what it would be be the largest
mobilisation of Muslims since 7/7.
We have to ask ourselves why did we
think that many people might turn up in
the first place? Why did this not match reality? What worked well and what could we
have done differently? This is not to denigrate in any way the efforts that people put
in - 2,000 people is a sizeable demo - but
we do want to be able to get 10,000 (and
above!) - so what can we learn from the
Tower Hamlets demo to enable this happen
in the future?
If we kid ourselves that there were 5,000
people there then we are likely to come
to the wrong conclusions as to where we
should put our efforts for future demos.
Marxism
We were told that, this year, 3,000 tickets
were sold to Marxism - 1,000 of those going
to non-members, and 1,000 to students. The
argument that there were 1,000 students at
Marxism had been used in support of current strategy for the student work.
The problem with this figure is that it
results in the wrong questions being asked.
If we really believe that there were 1,000
students at Marxism, and know that there
are less than 100 students left in the SWP,
then this means that the vast majority of
those non-members attending Marxism
were students.
This raises the question as to why students, who have been vilified within the
party over recent months as not being won
to the Party’s politics, were able to so successfully win people to attending Marxism,
and other sections of the party weren’t?
In most meetings I attended at this
years Marxism festival I was easily one of
the youngest people in the room. I’m 25. If
we really believe that there were 1,000 students at Marxism, 1/3 of the people there,
then this suggests that the vast majority
of them must be either mature students or
postgraduates. This raises the question as
to why we have made virtually no attempt
to theorise about these types of students?
The reality is a third of those at Marxism
were not students. While I don’t, necessarily, dispute that 1,000 student tickets
may have been sold for Marxism, the real
questions that we have to ask in relation to
students, are somewhat different from the
ones above.
The questions that we crucially need to
ask are why did so many of the students
we sold tickets to not actually turn up for
Marxism this year? Why the age profile of
Marxism this year was so much older than
in previous years? Where were the undergraduate students who should be playing
leading roles in SWSS groups? Why did
we not have an official student meeting to
try and hold together that the remain of the
student organisation in the party?
Deluding ourselves that there were 1000
students at Marxism this year means we
both fail to address these important questions and end up being told to pursue
a student strategy that is almost entirely
divorced for reality.
Membership figures
Much has been made of the SWP “punching above our weight”. There is a question,
however, as to what exactly our weight is?
It is well known that the figure of 7000
which is often quoted as the number of
members has little basis in reality. Participation in the aggregates prior to the March
conference suggests that in terms of active
members 1500 might be a better estimate.
Marxism figures would seem to confirm
this.
Most comrades who have even glanced
at a branch membership list in the last few
years know this to be the case. They are full
of people that are no longer active, have
moved away or may never have been aware
they are members in the first place. Even
the most optimistic comrade must surely
begin to question the figures when conference delegate entitlements (supposedly
1 for every 10 members) are three times
the number of people that attend branch
meetings.
The work done by comrades in Leeds
discussed by Mike in IB 1 (Note on Recruiting and Retaining Members in Leeds
District SWP) seems to be sensible, and
I agree that it is important to have a clear
understanding of the resources available to
us. What we can achieve depends on the
number of cadre willing to do things.
Conclusion
If we can’t tell the truth within the party
about how many members we have, how
many students came to Marxism or how
many people attended the Tower Hamlets demo then it is impossible to have a
rational discussion about these things.
Honest accounting of the successes
and failures of our activity is vital if we
are to learn from it and do things better
in the future. We’d all like there to have
been 1000 students at Marxism this year,
for there to have been 5000 people on the
demonstration against the EDL and be
in a revolutionary organisation of 7000
members, but this isn’t the case. If we are
serious about making these figures a reality in the future we need to stop pretending
they are true now.
Building the
SWP in Waltham
Forest
Alex, Dean, Gary, Jim, Joel, Mike, Roger,
Russ, Siobhan, Tash, Tony and Ursla H
(Waltham Forest)
Most comrades will be aware of the successful UAF campaign against the EDL
last year. This campaign and the way in
which we built it has massively increased
our credibility and the respect in which the
SWP is held locally
We have also been central in campaigns
in defence of the NHS with the local Keep
the NHS Public group. Most recently these
campaigns stopped the closure of a child
health clinic in Leyton and Connaught
day hospital. Leading comrades are well
respected amongst health activists.
Post conference and special conference
this year the leading activists in the district
made a decision that we would continue to
push out and build the party to prevent the
district becoming bogged down in internal/
factional debate. Waltham Forest is a large
borough and we have 2 branches- one in
Walthamstow and one in Leytonstone
Walthamstow branch
Walthamstow branch has continued to
recruit this year. We recruited 3 people from
the campaign against the EDL - 2 at the end
of last year and 1 early this year. All 3 are
active members of the branch with 2 on the
branch committee. 2 people who joined the
SWP at the TUC rally in November started
79
attending meetings early in the year and are
active members, attending meetings and
regularly selling the paper.
One is an active trade unionist in a local
sixth-form college that has recently taken
strike action over bullying. We recruited
another person from the college during the
strike. 2 more people joined at Marxism
this year both have come to a branch meeting with one attending regularly and doing
the Saturday sale. A student joined at a sale
and her boyfriend joined at the meeting the
following week. We also recruited 4 health
workers at the Whipps Cross hospital demo
in September.
The branch decided to move the Saturday sale in August - consequently we are
regularly selling 30+ papers weekly to a
very local population which has reignited
many of our members’ enthusiasm for the
sale. Sales are also done at the tube, the bus
garage, Whipps Cross hospital and more
recently the post office.
Members of the branch are centrally
involved in the Whipps Cross Hospital
campaign. Our ability to build this campaign with involvement from local health
workers is based on our long term involvement in KOHSP which expanded this year
with activists involved with 38 degrees into
a new group - We are Waltham Forest NHS.
A comrade based in in the hospital took a
lead in building resistance to the massive
cuts resulting from the financial crisis. We
have maintained a regular sale outside the
hospital so hospital workers know the role
we have played.
In addition the branch has attempted to
build the bedroom tax campaign on a local
estate; we are active in UAF and have been
involved in the People’s Assembly. Our
Marxism figures whilst slightly lower than
last year were still good and included nonmembers from our periphery
Branch meetings are very political with
a very high level of discussion and debate.
We ensure that meeting topics cover the
core politics of the SWP and address some
of the differences that have emerged in the
party over the past year so the debate is in
the open. Attendance at meetings is 30+
weekly and we often have non-members
attending.
We also organised a series of educational
meetings for new (and not so new) members. With UAF the branch has organised
a number of social events. These include
a ‘never again event’ over a week featuring talks, music, poetry and photographic
displays of the history of fighting fascism
in the East End plus a one year anniversary of defeating the EDL with a gig and
a picnic celebrating multiculturalism that
Jeannette Arnold (London Assembly member) and Jean Lambert (Green Party MEP)
attended.
The branch committee is elected by the
branch, meets weekly so meetings are well
organised, new members are contacted
and activity prioritised. In the interests of
moving forward and uniting the party after
special conference, comrades who had
been part of the faction were not excluded
but remained on the branch committee.
This was revoked by a unanimous
vote at a branch meeting of 17 comrades
once their membership of the faction was
exposed at the July NC. They had been
told this would happen if they continued in
a permanent faction. They both continue to
play an active role in the branch, in UAF,
have built the bedroom tax campaign and
been involved in building the People’s
Assembly locally.
Leytonstone
Leytonstone branch was set up last year
as we had recruited a number of school,
college and university students who lived
in Leytonstone. It was a small branch but
had established a routine of regular sales
and meetings.
After special conference the branch
went into decline and meetings shrank to an
attendance of only 1 or 2 people on some
nights. Several new and young comrades
had stopped responding to messages and
texts from the branch secretary and organiser of the bedroom tax campaign. Street
sales happened very occasionally and not
at all over the summer. Leytonstone had
very successfully built Marxism the year
before. This year Marxism was not built in
the branch and most members would not
sign up in advance although some then did
attend - presumably registering on the day.
The district had built a very successful benefits justice campaign meeting on
a local estate from which a march was
organised from Leytonstone to Walthamstow town square.
This was mostly organised by comrades
from Walthamstow with two Leytonstone
comrades. Other members of Leytonstone branch did come to the meeting but
were reluctant to sell the paper and only 1
Leytonstone member came on the march.
Both the meeting, the march (which was
led by black women and their kids) and
the number of students living in the area
demonstrate the importance for the Party
to build in that area.
Merging the branches
Over the summer the District Committee
(which is made up of both elected BC’s)
made a decision to merge the two branches
temporarily as Leytonstone is too important to be allowed to sink. We decided this
was the most effective way of ensuring
we could build across the district for 29
September demonstration in Manchester,
re-establish Socialist Worker sales and the
presence of the SWP in Leytonstone, as
well as ensuring new members and longer
term members had a political and outward-looking meeting to attend so would
hopefully become more involved. Unification of the branches was voted on at a
district meeting after discussion and won
with a sizeable majority.
In the weeks since the merger, attendance at branch meetings from Leytonstone
comrades has increased with three new
members attending their first meetings.
One of these is a young worker from a
local factory that recently went on strike
over union recognition. He was recruited by
another young, but longstanding member
of the Party, who had been very reluctant
to bring him to the Leytonstone meetings
and who had also stopped attending. They
were both very enthused by the meeting on
the Paris Commune.
Sales and activity are co-ordinated from
the weekly branch meeting and there is
now a weekly sale at the Leytonstone tube
and on the High Road. These are done by
Leytonstone comrades with support from
Walthamstow. A Leytonstone comrade is
also coming to the Whipp’s Cross Hospital
sale. 24 people from the district went to
Manchester along with campaigners from
UAF and KONHSP. We are currently considering whether to establish a third sale at
the Bakers Arms between Leytonstone and
Walthamstow.
By continuously looking outwards and
emphasising activity within the class we
have, even in a difficult and often fractious
period, continued to function and expand
as an effective branch and demonstrated
the strength of the SWP tradition of proving our perspective through struggle.
We believe if we continue to organise
in this way, the district will be able to reestablish Leytonstone branch on a much
stronger footing and perhaps even establish
a 3rd branch.
Abolish the slate
system
Charlie (Hackney East)
In their article in ISJ 140, ‘On the politics of the SWP crisis’, Alex Callinicos and
Charlie Kimber argue: “But in reality only
a serious attempt to air the political differences on every side, to thrash these out
openly in the party and to fight to win members to the outcome of these debates can
minimise the losses to our organisation.”
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=915
This is true: airing all of the political
differences on every side would indeed be
a very good starting point. But the article
unfortunately doesn’t do that.
One of the most obvious features of the
present crisis has been the existence of two
factions: the open faction, generally known
as ‘the SWP opposition’, now part of the
Rebuilding The Party faction; and a hidden faction, satirised as ‘IDOOM’, which
includes a minority of the present Central
80
Committee, at least one of those nominated
by the present CC to next year’s CC, and
a significant number of the signatories to
the document ‘Statement for our revolutionary party’ (SWP Pre-conference Bulletin
1, September 2013).
But the existence of the second faction
has been repeatedly denied, with references
to ‘the’ faction (meaning the opposition)
being used to suggest that there is only one
faction, and that the CC has been united
over the past year. However, Candy, Sheila,
Paul et al highlight an obvious truth when
they say that “The CC has been divided and
paralysed over a number of issues relating
to the disputes cases.” (‘Learning lessons
from the last year, IB1)
That division and paralysis has led to
the last year being arguably the most turbulent and destructive in the SWP’s history.
We have lost the majority of our students,
and most members under 30. Marxism was
smaller and older than for about a decade,
with a number of invited outside speakers
publically refusing to speak at the event.
And in the unions and the movements,
it’s almost impossible to find anyone who
thinks we did the right thing.
I’m in UNISON, and in the UNISON
United Left the issue is a very much
a live one. Most of the people we work
with will only say what they think in private, but a number of close allies, most
notably Mike Rosen and Jerry Hicks,
have gone public with their criticisms.
(Mike Rosen’s comments are here http://
michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/
open-letter-to-swp.html , and Jerry Hicks’
here http://www.jerryhicks4gs.org/2013/03/
len-mccluskeys-election-campaign.html)
Respect and the Democracy
Commission
We have been here before, with the Respect
debacle, though our physical and moral
losses this time round are much higher.
The Democracy Commission was set up
to address the wider problems of party
democracy and accountability that the
Respect crisis had highlighted, and learn
the lessons by changing both our practices
and our culture.
The Democracy Commission process
did have some success in identifying the
short-comings in our structures, in particular the fact that the National Committee
failed to hold the CC to account. Fraction
organisation was also seen as key to providing a space in which we could make honest
assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of our work. But it also identified
a need for changes in the political culture
which had allowed such weaknesses:
“Of particular importance in the development of this democratic culture is the
handling of disagreements within the Central Committee. For some time now the
custom and practice has been for ALL differences within the CC to be hidden from
the wider membership (except for close
personal confidants) with all CC members
presenting an image of more or less total
unity until the last possible moment.
Obviously we don’t want to go to the
opposite extreme of every minor practical difference being brought to the NC
or permanent multiple factions, But the
responsible discussion of serious political differences when they arise would
help educate comrades and train them in
thinking for themselves.” (‘Democracy
Commission Report’, Democracy Commission Bulletin 2, May 2009)
How we got here
This has been ignored, and in several
respects we have gone backwards - the
treatment of those expression dissenting
views in particular has been worse this
year than before.
But at the same time it has proved
impossible to shut the discussion down,
not least because of another key change
since 2009 - the loss of political respect
on all sides for the current CC. I started
drafting this before the IS Journal article
and the subsequent shit-storm on Facebook, but whatever comrades’ other views
on the events of the last year, there seems
near-unanimity on the lack of political
leadership. “We have to support the CC
because they are so weak” was a phrase I
heard several times from comrades explaining their opposition to IDOOP, and to the
opposition as it has since developed.
What we are seeing, I suggest, is
the bankruptcy of the model of political leadership and political loyalty that
has characterised the party over the last
period. We face the choices of fundamentally changing the culture of the party and
the relationship between leadership and
membership, or going over the edge of
the precipice.
The two complaints against M have
been the immediate cause of all the turmoil
of the last year. Both have raised important
questions about socialist morality, about
sexism inside a revolutionary organisation
– but most of all, about power and authority. If ‘Comrade Delta’ had been a PCS
member from Southampton, the process
and the outcome would mostly likely have
been very different. We certainly would
not have had the spectacle of CC members and other leading members forming a
secret faction to prevent the second complaint ever coming to a hearing.
‘Defending the party’ became conflated with ‘defending the CC’, which was
then further reduced to defending one
particular individual. The idea that the
prestige and reputation of the party were
more important than any one individual
got lost in a fog of dissimulation and at
times downright lies (in particular the
repeated assertion that ‘there is no second
complainant’).
A united leadership?
At the heart of the problem is our current
idea of leadership: the CC of (almost all)
full-timers elected as a homogeneous team,
which has a collective voice and a collective discipline, and speaks in unison to the
party. Donny from Edinburgh summed
it up well in last year’s pre-conference
discussion:
“The system of alternative slates allows
a balanced team with a variety of skills,
aptitudes, combination of new and experienced, etc. to be proposed. It is based
on forging common political strategy, not
selecting personalities. With slates the
argument is therefore about faults in political strategy not individuals. If members
think a political problem exists, a different
slate can and should be proposed to correct
these faults...with individual elections the
creation of a CC would be more haphazard, and less likely to produce a coherent
political line.” (‘A short note in defence of
slates’, SWP Pre-conference Bulletin 3,
December 2012)
More haphazard? We have had three
major crises in the CC in the last five years,
with five CC members leaving both the CC
and the SWP. Because the arguments have
been confined to the CC, most comrades
have known nothing about them until the
differences exploded publicly, adding to the
sense of disorientation. The ‘not in front of
the children’ approach makes the problems
and divisions more acute - because they
cannot be debated out openly,, they fester
and inevitably become personalised. The
faults are indeed in political strategies, rather than in individuals, but they emerge as
arguments among individuals because the
underlying political differences are papered over.
Chris Harman identified one of the root
causes back in 2008:
“The problem is that our structures have
not in practice encouraged people to
participate actively in decision making.
There has been a tendency for comrades
to rely on the CC to make decisions,
even if this is in part because on very
important decisions, such as the attitude
to the anti-capitalist movement and the
initiative to launch Stop the War, they
could see that the CC was correct.
The result is precisely the vicious circle of people leaving decisions to the CC
and CC members falling into the easy
trap of assuming that only they have the
capacity to make the decisions. This is
what we have to deal with. We need a
national leadership which is wider than
just the full time members of the CC.”
(Chris Harman, ‘Some comments on
Neil Davidson’s document’, Socialist
Workers Party Pre-conference documents (IB 4) December 2008)
The last year has shown us where the attitudes of ‘leaving everything to the CC’
and ‘supporting the CC because they are
81
the CC’ have got us. As the damage done
by the DC cases has grown, the voices of
denial have got ever shriller, and the divisions inside some branches have grown
to the point where significant numbers of
members simply won’t go to meetings any
more.
Worse, some leading members have
attempted to explain this all away as a result
of ‘creeping autonomism’ or ‘feminism’ or
‘the growth of left reformism’, which has
gone along with a growth of real sectarianism towards both oppositionists in the
SWP and others on the left. When a leading
comrade can say in my branch meeting
“We don’t want Owen Jones speaking at
Marxism, anyway”, we are in trouble.
What needs to change
We need a fundamental change in the
culture of the party, which will involve a
fundamental change in the nature of the
leadership of the party.
We need first of all to acknowledge
what’s gone wrong over the last year, and
address the roots of the mistakes made
over the Disputes Committee cases. But
we also need to open up debate both on
the CC and inside the SWP as something
that happens all the time - and not just
debate on the ‘big issues’ as identified by
the CC at the Special Conference, but the
everyday questions about our activity that
arise from our activity. The mantra that ‘we
decide and then we do’ is fundamentally
mistaken because we constantly need to
evaluate what we’re doing, what works and
what doesn’t. Plenty of people knew that
something was wrong with Respect before
the row with George Galloway exploded,
but there was no forum for discussing the
problems.
Above all we need a culture where
asking such questions is something encouraged, not discouraged, and debate about
strategy and tactics is seen as normal. And
the CC has to model that – leadership
also means leading in setting the tone of
debate.
One immediate change that is necessary
for this to come about is to abolish the slate
system of election, and move to individual
elections for the CC. The slate system perpetuates the myth of the ‘united leadership
team’, and makes it more difficult for individual CC members to say what they think
publicly for fear they won’t be on the next
slate. It also perpetuates a hierarchy within
the CC itself – who decides who goes on
the slate?
Last year’s CC elections showed the
hollowness of the claim about the ‘united
political team’. At conference, a revised
CC slate was published, which aimed to
remove two of the four people who had
been raising political differences with the
then CC majority. But the justification for
removing only two of the four was couched
in personal terms (‘loss of trust’) rather
than political ones. What had happened
between the first publication of the slate
and conference to prompt this change? Noone could explain.
Whatever the wide arguments about the
‘return to Leninism’, in this respect at least
the Bolshevik Party left us a very simple
model to follow. The Central Committee
of 1917, which planned and organised the
only successful workers’ revolution in
history to date, was elected by individual
voting, with an acceptance that differences
would inevitably arise among them and be
argued out openly. The current leadership
of the SWP has as a body presided over the
worse losses of people and of reputation in
our history, and at key points in this year
has made tactical choices which have made
both of those worse . Conference needs to
hold them to account, but it also needs to
abolish the model of leadership that has
allowed this to happen and prevented any
expressions of dissent. Rebuilding the party
requires a number of fundamental changes, but without a new leadership, and a
new way of thinking about how leadership
works, none of them can happen.
Building SWSS
Lewis and Patrick (Sussex SWSS and
Brighton SWP)
In the article ‘The party we need’ published
in IB1, the members of the faction who
wrote the article claim that “We must recognise that the SWSS brand is destroyed at
most universities and work within student
societies and RevSocs to regroup where
we can.”
The aim of this short article will be to
use the small experience so far of building
SWSS (Socialist Worker Student Society)
on campuses to argue that submerging
ourselves into other societies would be
damaging to the party and the student left
in general, and that SWSS has the potential
to grow in most campuses.
At Sussex University, the term began
with 130 people signing up to SWSS at
freshers fair. The first 3 weeks have witnessed SWSS meetings of 27, 35 and 40,
on topics including fracking and the situation in Syria. In addition to this, the SWSS
group (which at the beginning of term consisted of 3 party members) was the only
group that tried to get people to the Manchester demonstration against the Tories,
which we did with some success, with 14
Sussex students making the 7 hour journey
up north. All tickets were bought at SWSS
stalls or meetings.
What does this show? Firstly, the notion
that SWSS is a destroyed brand is clearly
not true if we look at the figures not just
at Sussex but at other universities such as
Glasgow, Lancaster, Edinburgh, Leeds and
Manchester. Secondly, it shows there is a
huge potential audience attracted to revolutionary ideas.
Before the accusation is raised that the
level of student activity at Sussex in the
past year (mainly the anti-privatisation
campaign and occupation) mean that the
university is a special case, it is worth noting that almost everyone who has come to
the meetings and who came to Manchester were not involved in the occupation or
campaign.
This was part of a conscious decision
made by the SWSS group to make efforts
to reach out to freshers with little political
experience and to those who felt the antiprivatisation campaign was too isolated.
In other words, to build outside from
the typical hard left on campus. Furthermore, meetings at Lancaster, Leeds and
Edinburgh among others have seen good
turn out and discussion.
The meetings at Sussex have been full of
high level debate – ranging from the nature
of the working class to how to organise
against capitalism - with everyone coming
out feeling impressed and interested by the
political discussion.
One result has been that those who have
come to SWSS meetings have also been
successfully encouraged to provide some
much needed new blood to the anti-privatisation campaign.
The size of the meetings, the number
of people who came to Manchester, and
the interest shown in helping to build the
SWSS group strategy this term – local NHS
demo, the upcoming Student Assembly,
support for possible UCU strikes – show
that a significant amount of students are
open to revolutionary politics and recognise SWSS as the place to debate, organise
and take action.
It is therefore astounding that the faction’s article in IB1 claims that we must
submerge ourselves into other societies such as RevSocs due to SWSS being
“destroyed.”
Firstly this would make it hugely difficult to build the party – how are comrades
supposed to recruit within the RevSoc
organisation that was set up to essentially
replace the SWP?
Secondly, at Sussex the SWSS meetings
and stalls are the only place on campus
where relevant revolutionary politics are
discussed, and as the experience of the
Manchester demo shows, are also the only
place where serious organisation to get students involved in struggle takes place.
To argue that SWSS should not operate
independently to the rest of the left (while
of course working with other societies and
campaigns) is in direct contradiction with
the politics and practice of our party.
Moreover, it would be a disaster for a
generation of students who are interested
in revolutionary politics, and for many of
whom SWSS is the only place on campus
where such politics are debated (which is
the case at Sussex.)
82
Conclusion
So, is everything perfect? Of course not.
As SWP members, we face difficult arguments with potential members and fellow
travellers, not just on winning them to the
need for a revolutionary party, but also to
explain the events of the last year that have
caused many students to leave the party.
It is completely understandable that
comrades who were in SWSS groups of
15 or 20 and now find themselves alone
or in groups of 3 or 4 feel unconfident or
daunted at the task ahead of them.
However at Sussex we have managed
to build big meetings etc with only 2 active
members. Similar big meetings have
taken place at Glasgow, Manchester and
Lancashire.
The importance of small things such
as regular emails to SWSS sign ups,
regular stalls, frequently putting up
posters, and spending time and effort individually with potential members can not be
underestimated.
And it goes without saying that SWSS
members should be at the heart of any campaigns on campus, including those with
other societies such as Palestine Socs.
It is also important not to get carried
away – big meetings and getting people to
demos in the first few weeks of the year are
only the start.
However, it does provide SWSS groups
with a good base and contacts with which to
hopefully build and recruit new members.
In order to build effectively, we need
all SWSS members to be committed to
building SWSS on their campus, and to be
building the party within SWSS.
Putting SWSS meetings at the centre of
our strategy is crucial to winning to revolutionary politics the large potential audience
that has been evident in the year so far.
John Molyneux’s
comments
Nancy (Oxford)
John Molyneux’s comments in the current
ISJ on a paper Jonathan Neale and I wrote
this summer (IS, 139, Summer 2013) reveal
a deep intellectual dishonesty in our party.
This deficit can only harm us all, and for
this reason, I raise my concerns here.
John begins by saying he hasn’t the
anthropological expertise to comment on
our paper, yet then proceeds to do so.
His comments are shallow and sophistic. Most tellingly, John’s comments do not
engage with our central argument. Indeed,
he seems not to have read the second half
of the paper – an extended discussion of
the relation between class, gender and
neoliberalism in the US – which concludes
by outlining a class analysis to sexual abuse
and harassment.
We argue the problem is not biology,
men or the family, but managers who tolerate, cover up and enable sexual abuse and
harassment.
As sexual abuse and harassment are
issues which have preoccupied, divided
and paralysed the party for this past year,
John’s comments also reveal a lack intellectual courage on the part of the ISJ editors.
Either they were unable to find a comrade with both the will and skill to treat our
argument seriously, or they were reluctant
to consider a challenge to the party line
on gender relations, even though the line
has offered comrades few insights and less
comfort over this dreadful year.
Street in Bedminster and at Corn St, over
30 compared to around a dozen. So I am
not sure which left wing paper Mark and
Amy have been reading.
On the issue of news and information, it
is all about the selection of relevant information. Could you get information about the
agitation in the industrial centres of Egypt
during 2011 from the BBC, anchored in a
hotel overlooking Tahrir Square, or about
the rise of Golden Dawn in the early days
from the Guardian, or of the Hovis dispute
from the Mail. It is no accident that the
Financial Times editorial room has taken
multiple copies of SW for decades. There is
some news you will not get anywhere else.
Of course if you spend your life on certain
blogs the information might be found with
effort (not infrequently rehashed info from
SW), but the vast majority of people have
normal lives, going to work, feeding the
kids etc, or are we not interested in them?
Socialist Worker
– withering or
blossoming?
An organiser
Pete (Bristol South)
“Our party activists and close political contacts deserve and require so much more that
just news reporting.” They need, “sharp
analysis that can play the role of concrete
propaganda.”
So say Mark and Amy. A quick glance
at this weeks SW (28th Sept) has articles
on the roots of violence in Kenya, violence
and gaming, US intervention in Syria, Racism and the Veil. In other words “sharp
analysis which can play the role of concrete
propaganda”.
The main focus is an analysis of the
Tories and resistance, some of which is
directly agitational, some of which is more
analytical but clearly aimed at building for
action around schools hospitals.
Socialist Worker has had some exceptionally clear and sharp analysis of a whole
range of issues over the summer from Scottish nationalism to Syndicalism and the
crises in Egypt, Greece and Syria. This has
been reflected in repeat sales on our public
sales, people coming back to our stalls, not
to sign a petition or involve in particular
activity, but for the quality of the analysis.
I believe that we can, in time rebuild a network of contact sales based on this.
Of course agitation is also the function
of the paper and we are clearly not in a
period of defeat as in the post miners strike
period, but in one of low, but rising class
struggle (even Miliband has realized this).
The agitational aspect of the paper around
the bedroom tax, Sept 29th and war on
Syria has been exemplary. It has allowed
us to build activity in the form of protests,
and to achieve record sales in August!!!
Our branch had record sales at North
The arrival of Socialist Worker at the
branch on Wednesday or Thursday is a
central organising event. I have always
worried that Full Spectrum Resistance has
meant that members can get the paper without coming to branch.
Of course for some comrades this is necessary but it is a problem if it undermined
the branch as an organising centre. What
do we organise at branch. Bristol South
does two public sale a week (sometimes
more), we have reports from the sales, what
went well & what didn’t. We organise the
next weeks sales, we have taken to alternating sales between four locations to give us
maximum coverage and to avoid becoming
stale.
All comrades attend sales according to
availability etc – it is just what is expected.
We also take reports from interventions,
meetings, protests etc and organise to intervene at protests, united front meetings,
pickets etc in the next week.
In other words, the second half of our
meeting is an organising centre for intervention across our area. Non-members
attending often find this just as interesting
as the theoretical debates and sometimes
join us on activities, paper sales and protests (one non-member sold 12 papers on a
Syria protest after attending the branch on
the Wednesday before).
As I said earlier, I think we need to
build a regular contact with a wider range
of industrial militants and other supporters by the regular delivery of the paper.
Many people who buy the paper express
great enthusiasm for our politics, but don’t
respond to emails and texts as a means of
getting them to meetings or other events.
The regular delivery of the paper makes the
relationship to the party more concrete.
One of our members delivers about 1215 papers a week to a range of supporters
in North Somerset. The web and blogs have
not reduced their enthusiasm for the paper
83
or for the regular contact with the Party
which the paper involves.
Of course some people say they will get
the paper online. The problem is that we
have no relationship with them, can’t take
up difficult arguments or pull them into
activity.
Of course they are getting some of our
politics, which is good, but politics is a
collective activity which needs organisation, not an individualistic one conducted
in front of a screen. Does online engagement lead to activity – it all depends on
there being an organisation which is visible
in public, engaged with campaigning, has
clear politics, and which actively encourages people to participate.
Finally, the experience of standing of a
street corner, or outside a factory, office or
hospital, or on a protest, selling Socialist
Worker makes revolutionaries. How? If
you hold up a copy of the paper you are
representing a political tradition which
goes back to Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and
Cliff. You will be challenged on that tradition and be expected to defend it.
When you are asked a question, or challenged on the politics and feel unable to
respond you ask the comrade standing next
to you or raise it in the branch until you are
happy that you could carry the argument
next time.
Secondly, you learn the art of expressing a complex idea in two or three minutes
(the 20 minute conversation should be a
rare exception, if they are that interested
get them to branch).
It is vital to listen to exactly what is
being said, to understand the contradictory
ideas in many peoples minds, to learn when
to confront a reactionary idea and when to
divert an argument on immigration onto
one about defending health care or the need
for house building.
Thirdly, the sale is a vox pop in miniature. We get a feel of what goes down well
and what doesn’t. We learn to amend our
slogans to reflect current concerns without
conceding our politics. We get a smell of
the class struggle. We also meet workplace
or community militants who give us information about issues to which we may be
able to respond or build a campaign. I will
not discuss selling inside the workplace
here but I think we need to return to this
issue with urgency.
In short, selling Socialist Worker makes
leaders, makes comrades who can learn
from and intervene in the class. When done
within a self critical collective, an SWP
Branch, it creates revolutionaries who can,
respond to the crisis, lead in the struggle
and fight for a better world.
The paper doesn’t always get it right
(although it does so with impressive frequency), but it stands head and shoulders
above any other paper or website. It is
the central organising core of our party,
be proud of it. Buy it (don’t forget to pay
for your own copy), Read it, Sell it with
gusto.
A way forward
Mary, Pete, Thomas and Tim (Norwich)
This contribution is a response to some of
the articles appearing in IB1. In particular
we consider the article ‘Learning Lessons
from the Last Year’ as opening the way
to a possible resolution for many of those
who have felt disquiet over the last year.
It also points to some of the problems in
terms of democracy inside the SWP.
Firstly in terms of the CC:
“The CC has been divided and paralysed over a number of issues relating
to the disputes cases.”
The slate system has been our method
of electing the CC for 40 years. That has
been the case because the argument for it
has been a strong one. The election is not
a popularity contest but an attempt to form
a team that can best implement decisions
made at Conference in terms of the party’s
intervention in the outside world.
It served us well in the ‘80s and ‘90s
in not only maintaining our presence in
often difficult circumstances but in actually growing our membership. Being a
revolutionary pole of attraction during the
height of Bennism and realising the possibilities of recruitment after the miners
defeat are only two examples of many. In
this situation the CC was relatively small,
stable and in the main unified :
“…Alex Callinicos recalls that ‘the
CC was very much a collective, even
though Cliff was much the strongest
figure on it’. Cliff developed important partnerships with individuals,
particularly with successive national
secretaries, often telephoning them at
least daily, and also with some others – Lindsey German from the early
1980s onwards and Dave Hayes in the
1990s.” (Birchall p.450)
The CC was well adapted to the period and
the presence of Tony Cliff was consistently the glue that bonded the whole. Then
the world changed in 1999 with Seattle
followed by Genoa, 9 / 11, Afghanistan
and the Iraq war. The SWP had to adapt
internally to respond.
For the CC it meant the need to expand
its numbers and become more flexible
with an increased turnover of its membership. Its relationship with the wider party
needed to change. However the wider
party structure also required overhauling.
The strength of the SWP previously
- its strong branches and routine - were
now potentially a barrier to intervention
in the new period; hence the dissolution
of many branches. This opened up the
organisation to intervening effectively in
the new situation. It also meant a changing
relationship between the CC and a more
disparate organisation. The article ‘Roots
of a Crisis’ is right to say:
“The leadership as a whole grew
increasingly reliant on its full-time apparatus to gear the party into action.”
“The CC became more compartmentalised and less accountable. Its members
understandably became preoccupied
with their particular responsibilities as
the party took an increasingly influential share of work in the various united
fronts…”
The dissolution of branches led to declining membership and difficulties with
recruitment and retention. It was driven by
Bambery, German and Rees whose movementism was the basis for their subsequent
split.
The combination of the loss of branches
and the changed role of the CC together
with the loss of Tony Cliff (in 2000) at such
a critical moment caused the problems we
have faced since. The split from the SWP
of first the Left Platform and then the International Socialist Group may have been
unavoidable. The nature of it as others have
pointed out was not. Disagreement ‘behind
closed doors’ combined with the compartmentalisation meant that members knew
too little too late of the fundamental issues
involved.
This has continued since highlighted by
the last minute change of slate prior to last
years Conference, which came as a bolt
from the blue for most members. The quote
from ‘Learning Lessons’ that the CC has
been ‘divided and paralysed’ several times
this year is news to many of us. Members
in London may know and participate in
these disagreements. Many members elsewhere remain oblivious to it all. A policy
of ‘not in front of the children’ appears to
continue.
The suggestion that the CC should publish minutes of its meetings is ridiculous.
Would a Tory Cabinet do any such thing?
Cliff always stressed that in a class war the
CC must organise to effectively counter
the enemy. There are many discussions and
debates inside the CC that should remain
confidential. However when fundamental
disagreements on political issues, strategy
or tactics arise Democratic Centralism
demands that they are aired amongst the
membership.
Branches
It has been clear for some time that the CC
has been concerned with the general state
of the branches. Its emphasis on educationals - the encouragement to prioritise
building a consistent relationship with the
closest contacts - highlighting the need for
regular public meetings.
These are but three examples of many
attempts to improve the situation. However, we as yet have not reversed the
84
damage caused by the closing down of
branches a decade ago. Many have referred
to the decline in membership at least partly
caused by that decision.
We were central to building STW,
Respect and much else but failed to build
our organisation effectively out of it. Both
recruitment and retention of new members
suffered. The problem in many branches
now is that this has led to its own compartmentalisation. Leading members too busy
in their own interventions to have the time
or energy to address branch / district issues.
Hence the strong pull of movementism for
many. The figures from the CC prior to
Annual Conferences are clear:
Year
Recruitment
Registered
membership
Subs
paying
(%)
Subs
paying
(number)
2008
(1021)
6155
2009
1184
2010
1062
6417
51
3273
6587
40
2011
2635
1176
7127
38
2708
2012
750
(Jan-Oct)
7597
32
2431
Total/
change
4172
+1442
-19
-842
What conclusions can be drawn? The
problem at present is at least as much of
retention as of recruitment. Even if we take
the first two figures registered membership has only increased by 35% of the total
recruitment. However that does not give
the complete picture. For the subs paying
membership has declined by 25%, which
is by over 800. All this is prior to the problems faced in the last 12 months.
We have an increase of 1442 in registered members but a decrease in subs
paying members of 842. Why? It is not that
branches ability to maintain subs paying
members has suddenly deteriorated. The
article ‘Note on Recruiting and Retaining
Members in Leeds’ provides the answer.
The figure for ‘Registered Membership’ is artificial. More to do with the way
that records are kept at the centre. Many
included in the figure joined and left years
ago, some have moved away, contact lost
with others.
The party needs to develop accurate
records of actual membership including
those who are active but at present nonsubs paying. The rest should not be simply
written off.
Amongst them will be those who have
left but who branches should maintain
at least some contact. Others may have
moved away and need to be passed to other
branches. As the article says this is not
about ‘culling the membership’ but about
establishing who the members are.
Leeds figure for non-subs paying members was 30%. If true nationally that would
give a total membership of 3160 in October
2012. In November 2011 in ‘Building the
Party’ the CC wrote :
“In May 1926 the membership of the
Communist Party of Great Britain stood
at 5,000, roughly the same size as the
SWP’s today”
That was not true then and certainly is
not true now. The expression ‘punching
above our weight’ is often used. The pressure on members means that such issues as
this are put to one side. However that also
reflects that the questions of recruitment
and retention are neglected. We need a reregistration in which the party as a whole
is involved not simply one or two in each
branch.
Many members now may not have
experienced branches prior to the change
of perspective in the early-2000s. The
branches were not perfect, far from it. They
reflected the period we had been through.
Maintaining the routine was often centre
stage. We can not return to that. However
the solid base to activity that they provided
must again be generalised across the party.
Otherwise real growth will not return.
Age
There has been much debate in the party
on the question of age. There is no doubt
at present that we have an ageing party.
This predates the present loss particularly
of student members. However this has
exacerbated the situation. It is clear that
we need to redress the balance. Younger
members are not necessarily right or at
times the most energetic. However they
inject a vital element into the party. Cliff
wrote some unpublished notes on the state
of branches in 1987:
“Crucial task of branch to merge young
with old. Youthful experience could lead
it to a cul-de-sac. ...Healthy ultra-leftism of the youth. Young enthusiasts can
bump their heads against reality – not
understanding reality, and turn quickly
to become wise opportunists. Disappointed ultra-lefts turn in a short time
into conservative bureaucrats …”
(Birchall p 490)
Getting that balance right means at present
an emphasis on the retention of young
members. This involves on the one hand
encouraging their enthusiasm and activism.
On the other quickly developing one-to-one
political relationships with other members
in the branch. It’s a vital part of regenerating the branches.
Disputes Committee
Finally on the immediate question at issue.
To return to ‘Learning Lessons from the
Last Year’. It is true that the dispute arose
at a time of disorientation for many both
inside and outside the party.
The period since November 2011 has
been difficult given the hopes that the public sector strikes encouraged. It is also true
that particularly due to that disorientation a
whole number of debates have arisen about
our politics, strategy, etc.
However that does not wholly explain
the unrest over this issue. It was unique for
the SWP and one we would wish had never
arisen. A leading member of the party
accused of rape and sexual harassment.
The central role of the comrade within the
CC made it very difficult if not impossible
for the CC to handle.
‘Learning Lessons’ refers to events prior
to the DC:
“The issue had been raised in a different
form at the 2011 conference and there
was a widespread feeling, acknowledged by the CC at the time that it was
not handled well at that conference.
With hindsight if the informal resolution
to the issue had been dealt with differently in 2010 then things might now be
different.”
It was already too late when the DC began
its investigation. They were placed in an
impossible situation.
The CC should have intervened much earlier. However they were consistently split
on the issue. Some arguing that the accused
comrade was being hounded. As ‘Learning
Lessons’ indicates those splits have continued this year.
It was certainly wrong to ignore the
closeness of the vote at Conference on the
DC report.
This was not the usual vote on policies
to be implemented in the outside world
afterwards. The article describes events
since then concluding:
“…the CC and the wider leadership have
not always succeeded in the past year of
steering a course away from entrenching factional divisions further.”
So how do we resolve this. Certainly not by
concentrating solely on the political disagreements that have arisen subsequently.
There are many who have no such disagreements but feel disquiet over this particular
issue. We can not afford to lose them.
i) The main thrust of the DC review body
can solve that part of the issue as much as
it was ever simply about the DC. Minor
amendments may be needed but as a whole
it has dealt with the problems thrown up.
ii) The CC needs to apologise to the two
women comrades involved.
iii) Belatedly the CC should respond to the
open letter sent by Michael Rosen. He is
somebody who has been close to the party
for many years. Who does not share our
politics but has fraternally worked with the
party through all that time. To simply cold
shoulder him shows a defensiveness that
must end. It would be an opportunity to
respond to all the accusations and to admit
mistakes that have been made.
85
Democracy
Beyond that is the wider issue of how to
take the party forwards.
i) We repeat what was said earlier. When
fundamental disagreements arise on the
CC on political issues, strategy or tactics
Democratic Centralism demands that they
be aired amongst the wider membership.
ii) This in part involves an increased role
for the NC. In this we agree with ‘Learning Lessons’. The NC should meet more
frequently both to support the CC and hold
it to account.
“The CC has to bring major arguments
to the NC as part of a process of finding
resolution to those debates and developing a new leadership in the party.
iii) It also means districts and branches
being involved in some of these debates.
This requires the strengthening of branches
discussed earlier.
The problems of the last decade must be
put behind us. We do not intervene simply
to recruit but to help build the confidence
of the class. However, intervention must
lead to recruitment followed by cadreisation and hence the growth of the SWP.
We do not disagree with the party on the
nature or state of the working class, on our
understanding of women’s oppression or
the other issues that are being raised. We
do argue that a resolution must be found
to the only issue that unites the faction
that has been formed. Otherwise we are in
danger of losing many good members who
should be involved in building the SWP in
the period to come.
ISJ
The article by Charlie Kimber and Alex
Callinicos came out after this article was
completed. However, we feel we should
briefly respond to it. The general analysis
of the period from Seattle to the present is
excellent. It highlights both the new possibilities and the problems we faced. It is
also critical ‘with hindsight’ of some of
our approach :
“To put it at its harshest, no united front
will last in the same form forever. We
went through a process of what we would
describe as deliberately forgetting this
basic revolutionary understanding.”
This led Rees, German and Bambery in
the direction they have taken. It also led ,
given the low level of workplace struggle
to the pull of movementism inside the SWP
which we still face.
“It was right , for example , to break
away from the branch-building routine
of the 1980s. It was wrong to dismantle practically all branch structures
in some areas. Over- emphasising the
movement can flow over into the idea
that it is sectarian or unnecessary to
build an independent party based on
revolutionary politics.”
ISJ is probably not the place for it but we
think that the whole party understanding
what has gone before is vital in determining the best way forward in building the
SWP. We can not build a mass party in the
present circumstances. However significant
growth is perfectly possible.
To do that we need to come to terms with
the mistakes of the past and the present. To
recruit a thousand members yearly and to
not increase subs paying members is the
sign of a real problem. A problem in which
retention is as important as recruitment.
However as the article points out those who
argue for a fundamental change in the party’s intervention in the class are wrong.
“…it’s fairly empty not to recognise that
the key element that makes widespread
unionisation possible is not the efforts
of activists but the evidence of serious
struggle.”
Those who say that by returning to basics
we can repeat the successes of the 1930s
amongst car and aircraft workers are arguing a road to demoralisation at present. In
different circumstances in the 1970s the
movement of students into blue collar jobs
had a similar effect.
Unfortunately we return to the immediate issue. Firstly on Michael Rosen the
article concentrates on the third of nine
points that Michael makes in his open letter. He states that he disagrees with the
form of organisation that the SWP takes.
That should be no surprise to us as he has
always held that position. Last March he
wrote :
“I didn’t then (in 1977) and don’t now
think that Leninism is appropriate for
the present environment.”
Did that prevent him working with us for
the last four decades. Why no reference to
any of his other eight points? It really will
not do.
“And in truth no one in the SWP leadership thinks that, with the benefit of
hindsight, we would address the issue in
exactly the same way.”
Hindsight was precisely what was used
in the cogent analysis of the period since
Seattle. Put another way coming to terms
with the recent history of the class and the
SWP’s role in it in order to move forward.
Please give us the same ‘benefit of hindsight’ regarding this issue from 2010 to the
present.
reBuilding the
Party... faction
Phil (Bristol South)
I’ve been in the party for over 40 years
and have experienced ebbs and flows in
the class struggle. I’ve been on strike as
a member of the old AUEW, Nalgo, Unison and the NUT, leading local strikes and
actions as a shop steward and representing
workers at various levels in the trade union
movement.
There have been ups and downs in my
own level of involvement in the party,
but in the main I think I have been fairly
consistent and hopefully always honest. I
joined in the middle of a fierce faction fight
during which I experienced a concentrated
dose of politics. The political differences
were clear, and whilst there were slanging
matches it was generally the case that the
various protagonists held well-thought-out
political differences which were clearly
expressed in the meetings and conference.
The arguments shaped my commitment to
revolutionary socialism. The faction fight
cleared the fog.
I don’t think I can say the same about
the recent factions that have formed in the
past two conferences and in the run up to
the December conference. Initially, I could
not identify what the political differences
were from the documents submitted in the
names of the various factions, although
these differences finally emerged at the
last conference. What did become clear to
me, in Bristol, was that a number of people
who argued vehemently in support of the
last faction, many of whom have now left
the party, did not share the basic political
tenets of our organisation. The people who
supported the faction carried out most of
their arguments on the web, usually late at
night, which I think is a bit sad. They rarely
attended branch meetings, some didn’t pay
subs or sell the paper and when they did
appear at aggregates it was clear that the
arguments they were putting were not in
our tradition, but came from a pic’n’mix
selection from the different strands of the
feminist movement or were heavily influenced by autonomists and anarchists. In
truth many of them were not revolutionary
socialists. They have not been missed in our
branch..... in fact since they have departed
we have been able to get on with the job of
trying to build the party and involve new
people in activity.
So what does building the party mean?
Well, there are the obvious interventions we
make in the class struggle. This week this
meant visiting picket lines at fire stations
and council workplaces and discussing
politics with workers who were on strike.
But it also meant leafleting and petitioning
against the bedroom tax outside a football
match and outside a supermarket.
We intervened in meetings on the bed-
86
room tax and were involved with many other
labour and trade union organisations and
community groups in building for a meeting on the 50th anniversary of the Bristol
Bus Boycott.
We also leafleted and won support for
coaches to the demo at the Tory Party
conference in Manchester. These responsibilities were shared out amongst the branch
members at our well attended weekly branch
meeting, alongside the regular weekly public
sales, which have grown significantly since
the last conference. Our branch regularly
sells 50+ papers at public and workplace
sales and from this activity we have drawn
in new, and most importantly, young people
to work with us.
But the branch meetings are not just
organisational. They always have a political
lead and discussion. We produce attractive
publicity which is given out at paper sales
and advertised in cafes, shops and libraries
as well as emailed out to 70+ people who
have been to our local branch meetings or
been involved in other activities over the
year. And yes... we do advertise these on
facebook, but I am a keen advocate of talking to people in the real world as a priority
over the virtual world.
We also produce a regular bulletin for
those 70+ people who can’t always get to
meetings.
We are doing some things right. The
branch meetings are generally pretty welcoming places with regular attendances
between 10 (the lowest in the holiday
period) and 22 people. One of the two young
Somali women who have come to meetings
said she was impressed when lots of different hands went up for every activity that was
announced for the coming week.
A teenage bedroom-tax activist livened
up branch meetings with his very fresh
approach to campaigning. He has just
moved on to a university and will hopefully
become involved with the SWP there, but
I despair at the thought of him joining one
of the branches that have been wracked and
potentially wrecked by continuous internalised navel-gazing... which brings me back
to the faction.
In the launch document Rebuilding The
Party Faction Statement there are a number
of grouses about the leadership and some
unsubstantiated generalisations about sexism and right wing ideas in the party but
there is no clear statement of any differences in political direction, but I suspect
they do exist. I wouldn’t want to put words
into anyone’s mouth but I know some of
the signatories have major political differences with the principles of revolutionary
socialism.
I’ve known many people who have left
the Party over the past 40 years. Some drift
out of activity for a wide variety of reasons
that I won’t list, and many of these retain a
fraternal relationship and friendship even
though they are not involved. We have many
talented individuals in the party, and some
of these choose to use the talents they have
honed in the party to their own advantage by
climbing the greasy pole of management or
seeking personal aggrandisement and ditching their once held revolutionary principles.
Some leave because they have political differences with us that they no longer find
compatible with membership. It is this point
I want to address.
I always use anecdotes to amplify my
arguments. I have often argued that when
some people leave they offer up an excuse
rather than the reason for their departure.
This isn’t always the case and the first anecdote illustrates this point.
In the early 1980s I was in a district that
was seriously incapacitated by an internal
row. It appeared to some to be a personal
battle that went on for months and a member
of the central committee came to a branch
meeting to “assist” the branch. What happened took nearly everyone by surprise.
Instead of the anticipated huge row, the
leading, very longstanding member, made
a statement at the beginning of the meeting
which was an open and honest account of
his membership of the party, including the
reasons why he had joined and how much
the comradeship and revolutionary work
had impacted on his life, then he said he
was resigning because he had developed a
different set of values that did not easily sit
with membership of the SWP.
He resigned, wished us well and maintained a relationship with us at a distance
and comfortably moved up the ladder of
academia. I still have a great deal of respect
for this very principled person and whenever we meet it is always cordial.
Now for the second anecdote. Again in
the early 1980s and in the same district there
was a very long and sometimes heated discussion about Women’s Voice.
At a pre-conference meeting the district
supported the position that argued for disbanding the magazine and the organisation.
We had another meeting programmed
to discuss other issues in the run up to the
conference and to elect delegates. We turned
up at the meeting to find that 7 new members had joined that day, all supporters of
Women’s Voice and previously members of
various feminist groups and persuasions.
They all voted to elect a “pro-Women’s
Voice” delegate, which swung the vote, and
a pro-Women’s Voice delegate duly attended
the conference (there was one delegate for
our small district) and I suspect that was the
first and last meeting of the SWP that the
group of seven ever attended.
It was also the last meeting the member
who recruited them attended. The delegate
left the party shortly afterwards and went
into “community politics” as a paid community worker with some success, but he
was no longer a revolutionary.
The member who recruited the seven
women had never wholly embraced our
politics. Her reasons for leaving were never
given at a meeting but there were accusations that the SWP was anti-democratic and
anti-women, despite the fact that the woman
who had proposed dissolving Women’s
Voice in our branch because of its diluted
politics had previously been central to building it. She had learned something from the
experience. Alarm bells had sounded when
women with a very different set of ideas,
including a Conservative councillor, got
involved and began to divert campaigning
into a direction that was not socialist, and
certainly not revolutionary.
Accusations of sexism and being
undemocratic were slurs from someone
who had stretched the internal democracy
of the party beyond reasonable limits and I
suspect the reason for her resignation from
the party was quite different to the one
offered, which in my book was an excuse.
She left the SWP and remained involved
in women’s groups but was not visibly
involved in socialist politics.
I’ve looked at the list of signatories to
the faction document. I’m no soothsayer,
but I expect a number of people on the list
to leave the organisation.
It is my view that some are drifting away
from revolutionary politics and would feel
more comfortable with themselves and their
lifestyles if they weren’t encumbered with
the self-discipline of party membership.
There are a few others who in my opinion probably never really embraced our
politics and in truth have a different world
view. Of course anyone is entitled to view
the world as they like, but there are some
basic principles involved in being a member of the SWP.
I suspect the majority of the signatories
do not fall into either of these categories.
But I wonder if they recognise anyone on
the list who does not go to branch meetings, who does not sell the paper, who does
not bring new people into the meetings,
who continually internalises the discussions in “secret” web conversations.
This is the real damage being done to
the party.... it is not a rebuilding operation.
It is an insidious demolition job. It is dishonest to sign up to a document with the
title “Rebuilding the Party Faction Statement” if your intention is the opposite.
I don’t want people to leave the party,
but I also think it is better if those who have
a different political persuasion do leave
rather than continue to disrupt what we are
trying to do.
We have enough difficulty in getting a
hearing thanks to the press and the state....
yes don’t doubt for a second that there are
a few people within the party who work for
the secret state and will help to stoke the
fires of discontent within our ranks.
There are many things that could be
improved in our branch, but generally it is
a healthy and welcoming place for people
who want to get involved in our politics.
There are arguments and disagreements
but we get on with it. Most members in
the branch enjoy paper sales now they
have been reorganised and several members come up with new initiatives. Nearly
every member has done a political lead in
87
our branch and further afield and visiting
speakers nearly always say how much they
enjoyed the discussion.
I shudder at the thought of some of the
reports I have heard about some of the
branches in different parts of the country.
Politics is the key to our activities, and
the expression of political differences
clarifies the mind. Continual, often secret,
internalised and unsubstantiated gossip
is no substitute for political debate in the
branches. The faction document is substantially based on gossip, is not overtly
political and consequently it is as clear as
mud.
The niqab,
intersectionality,
gender and
transphobia
Helen and Bridget (Stirchley)
It’s been argued that those of us who have
disagreed with the faction have “accused”
critics of the leadership of “feminism”
(as if that were an insult, or something
you can accuse someone of). I think
the truth is that the SWP has attempted
a real engagement with new thinking in
feminism.
There are real differences inside our
organisation on this – in a discussion
of Andrea Dworkin’s ideas in my own
branch in Birmingham Kathryn (who
wrote about feminism in IB1) argued for
the adoption of Dworkin’s view of male
power as fundamentally correct.
While this is not heresy from her,
but something we need to debate, neither should it be seen as “anti-feminism”
from the majority in the party when we
try to win comrades and non-members
to a marxist understanding of women’s
oppression.
Intersectionality and the
niqab
Sally C’s discussion of intersectionality
in IB1 went through the way it is a step
forward from the notion that all women
have automatically common interests, and
a recognition of other forms of oppression
and of class.
She also discussed the limits of this
approach, whereby class is seen fundamentally as a form of oppression. Sally
argued we should engage positively with
women and men who take this approach,
and try to convince them of the central
role class plays in giving rise to oppression, and the potentially liberating
role of class in ending oppression and
exploitation.
We shouldn’t feel defensive about the
Marxist understanding of oppression, or
feel that somehow it is less understanding of the intersection between different
forms of oppression than intersectional
feminism. Precisely because of seeing
class as the key division in society we
have long been able to understand the
different lived experiences of oppression, and the ways oppression operates
differently for black women, ruling class
women etc.
A key moment in the development of
the intersectional approach in the US is
the debate over abortion and sterilisation.
A number of black feminists argued that
white middle class feminists were ignoring poor black women’s experiences.
First, while the battle for abortion
rights was carried on, some black women
were being forcibly sterilised, so having
their control over their right to reproduce
taken away from them, but nothing was
being done about this.
Secondly, most feminists felt winning
the fight for the right to abortion was
enough, and did not take up the battle
to have abortion provided free, meaning
that the right to an abortion was simply
theoretical for poor women. Clearly this
second issue had relevance to all poor
women, whatever their race.
Recently we’ve seen an attempt to
increase islamophobia by focusing on
women who wear the niqab. Attitudes of
feminists towards even the hijab, let alone
the niqab are far from straightforward.
I remember debating with an LCR
member (a French revolutionary organisation) who described herself as socialist
femininst who could not believe that we
would have a hijab wearing woman (Salma
Yaqoob) in such a leading position in
Respect, as the LCR member felt we were
promoting women’s oppression.
This has never been the position of the
SWP. We have always started from an
understanding of the way racism is used
to divide the working class, and therefore our primary job as socialists is to
overcome that division by convincing
working class people to defend people’s
right to wear their own choice of religious
dress, from the debate over turbans to the
debate over the niqab now.
We can also well understand people’s
wish to visibly demonstrate their religion
at a time when their community is under
vicious racist attack.
This understanding of how oppression
works to divide us meant that the SWP
could be very quick to act, along with
others, when the niqab was banned at
Birmingham Metropolitan College. The
scale of the campaign forced the college
to reverse the ban and the Principal to
resign.
Gender
John Molyneux has argued in the ISJ (History without nature?) that sex is based on
biology then massively socially constructed
– the purpose of John’s article, as I understand it, is to attempt to correct the false
polarisation that has been set up as between
sex being natural, biologically driven, or
being socially constructed, entirely a part
of our culture.
There have been two criticisms of
John’s article on the faction’s website. I
have no idea whether they’ve been submitted for this IB as they should be so that
all comrades have the chance to read and
judge them for themselves, but we’re not
standing on ceremony, and I think some of
the criticism should be answered.
While I think Louis’s criticisms are simply gratuitously offensive, and designed to
be so, I think Shanice makes criticisms that
should be answered.
I think Shanice is right to say that John
M doesn’t fully discuss gender. His article does conflate gender and sex without
a proper examination of the terms, or a
discussion if he intentionally conflates the
terms.
The idea of gender as distinct from
biological sex, as I understand it, can be
used to identify the characteristics usually
attributed to men/women that are in fact a
socially constructed product of the workings of oppression but usually understood
as a natural part of male/female human
nature. Shanice is correct to point comrades
to Cordelia Fine’s “Delusions of Gender”
for a very good discussion of this.
To then argue, though, that this omission
is evidence of transphobia (which Shanice
accuses John M of) is unfair and inflammatory. Transphobia is prejudice towards,
including encouragement of prejudice
towards transgender people, exemplified
horrifically in the press hounding and suicide of Lucy Meadows. A failure to fully
explore the difference between gender and
biological sex in an essay should not be
described as transphobia.
To argue as Louis does that John’s article presents heterosexual sex as the natural
norm, and other forms of sex as deviations
from this is an offensive insult to a comrade who has opposed homophobia for
decades. Unlike Shanice’s criticism, which
I think has serious problems but is a serious
engagement with John’s article, Louis’s
simply throws factional fire and makes
comradely debate very difficult.
I think Shanice is wrong to deny any
connection between sex and gender.
Molyneux contrasts with race which
has no basis in science/biology. Race is
totally a social/historic construct. Women’s
oppression is rooted in the social organisation of reproduction in the family, and
women’s role in physical reproduction a biological fact. In traditional societies
women’s gender roles will have been very
closely linked to issues around the family
and child care – caring, nurturing, home-
88
making qualities are labelled as womanly.
Gender roles become ossified.
This makes it easier for socially constructed gender roles – like what jobs
men/women do, what clothes they wear,
whether they study maths or arts, like pink
or blue, ‘their aesthetic expressions’ to
quote Shanice- these things clearly have
no basis whatsoever in biology or nature.
But because there is that link with biology
in the family where women’s oppression
is rooted, it is easier for the idea that these
other characteristics are also ‘natural’ to
gain hold.
This seems to me to be what John
is saying – “one of the reasons why it
(gender) has operated so widely and so
effectively is that it connects with the
material lived reality of the family in its
various forms.”
If gender is totally a social construct
then we can change gender or choose our
gender or get rid of gender altogether by
changing our ideas. But if it is rooted in
the family (in all its forms) and in the
privatised reproduction of labour then we
can only get rid of gender relations when
we get rid of the family.
It is no more transphobic to state that
oppression of transgender people will
continue to exist for as long as class society exists than it is sexist to state that the
oppression of women will continue to
exist for as long as we have class society.
The form that oppression takes can be
fought, changed and resisted within class
society, but oppression will not be done
away with until we sweep away the basis
of oppression itself.
It is not transphobia to state that the
oppression of transgender people is rooted
in the role the family plays for capitalism,
and the role women play in the family has
some roots in women’s biological role
in reproduction. This does not make the
oppression of women somehow natural or
right, any more than it makes homophobia natural or right.
What John says is not gender essentialism –(men are naturally like this,
women like that etc). But he shows that
because women’s oppression is rooted in
our social organisation of childbearing
and child rearing then all the other gender
roles that are attached to us are all the
more difficult to throw off.
It is right that we debate how to win
the battle to end oppression, but please
let’s keep this debate on the plane of
comradely debate, which starts with an
acceptance that we are all as socialists
utterly committed to ending all forms of
oppression.
Members,
democracy and
accountability
This situation appears to be getting
worse in recent years as the number of
members that are claimed to be retained
each year has increased dramatically as the
following table shows:
Andy (Leicester)
Recruitment
This article builds on the contribution from
Mike (Leeds Central) in the first IB. It widens the arguments and implications of the
SWP retaining so many ‘members’ on the
membership list who may not have had any
contact with the party for years and may
not consider themselves to be members.
One of the consequences of the ongoing low turn of class struggle and union
organisation in Britain is the high level of
passivity of the SWP membership. From
a claimed membership of 7,597 last year,
only 1,300 members managed to attend the
pre-conference district aggregates.
According to reports in an IB last year
less than a third of the membership regularly pays subs (down from 40% in 2010)
and the circulation of SW is approximately
the same as the claimed membership.
We have moved from a position where
all members were expected to pay regular subs and to sell SW each week to one
where individuals who completed a membership form several years ago, but have
had no further contact with the SWP are
still considered to be members. This is not
just a question of political honesty, but it is
having a detrimental effect on inner party
democracy.
In reality, the membership of the party
a year ago was probably around 2,500 (if
measured on the same basis as that used in
the 1970s) and is now probably only 2,000.
In Leicester branch, for example, earlier
this year it was indicated that we had 123
registered members, but over half over
these had never paid any subs (as there was
no entry under Last subs) and three had last
paid subs only in 2004 (over eight years
previously!).
For several of these members we have
no means of contacting them as they have
moved and their phone numbers/emails
do not work. One of these, I remember I
recruited on an anti-EDL demonstration in
Leicester, but as far as I know, he has not
responded to any subsequent contacts we
have made. In reality, we probably have
not 123, but only 25 members in Leicester. These are people who actually pay
subs regularly, consider themselves to be
members and are involved in some sort of
activity (paper sale, branch meeting etc), at
least from time to time.
This is a situation that has been around
for years, its not just that local branches
may not keep their membership list up to
date, but there appears to be a refusal by the
centre to delete members from the official
list. We have certainly asked for members
to be deleted from the national list and this
has not happened.
% retained
2008
2009
2010
2011
1,021
6,155
1,184
6,417
22%
1,062
6,587
16%
1,176
7,127
46%
2012
(to Oct)
750
7,597
63%
If these figures are to be accepted, we
retained over three times the level of
recruits in 2012 than two or three years
early. Is this really the case or are we now
just retaining far more names on the membership list than we did a few years ago?
For most people who join the SWP,
socialism is about democracy and equity.
They are angry because the society we live
in has disgusting levels of inequality and a
complete absence of real democracy, especially in our workplaces. So democracy is
one of our core beliefs.
Members expect the SWP to be significantly more democratic, open and its
leadership to be clearly more accountable
than society at large. The fact that it currently falls well short of this expectation
is one of the reasons that several hundred
active members of the SWP (possibly up to
a quarter of our actual membership) have
left over the last year.
This is not just about honesty by the CC
(which in itself is incredibly important),
but can have an adverse effect on democracy within the SWP (and within the united
fronts in which we are working).
The organisation should consist of
individuals who actively work together to
change society. Democracy should be the
lifeblood of the organisation. It is the way
in which we hold our leaders to account,
but more importantly it is the way that we
gain an overview of the level of class struggle and the relative success of our various
initiatives and interventions.
This can only be achieved if our democracy distils the active experience of our
members and so the CC and the organisation as a whole can learn and appreciate the
real standing of the organisation.
This needs, in particular, annual district
aggregates that bring together activists of
the organisation to elect delegates to our
national conference. The aggregates need
to make an open and honest assessment
of our successes and our failures and to
elect delegates to conference who can best
articulate this experience.
Aggregates should not degenerate into
exercises where members compete to provide the most optimistic assessment of our
successes and any suggestion of failure is
derided as pessimism or miserablism.
The danger of retaining such passive
membership is that it can be wheeled out
on occasions to ‘defend the leadership’.
This happened, for example, in Leicester
at the aggregate to elect delegates for the
special conference earlier this year. At the
89
annual conference in January our delegation reflected the political make up of our
branch (or at least its active members).
So this delegation included those who
were horrified with what the leadership had
done over the allegations against Delta,
across the spectrum of views to those who
could see nothing wrong with the CC’s
response.
However, the delegation to the special
conference was completely different. The
branch committee had worked hard to ensure
that the aggregate was packed with members
who were not critical of the CC (many of
whom had not been seen at branch meetings
for years). As a result, none of the dozen or
so members who had signed up to the factions were elected to conference and around
half of them resigned from the SWP in the
aftermath of the conference.
Democratic centralism should be both
about the CC providing clear and decisive leadership, but also about being held
to account. Accountability is not just about
formal adherence to democracy, but it is
essential to ensure that the CC learns from
the experience of the party and that the party
learns from the experience of the class.
This will not happen if delegates to conference only reflect the views of the majority
‘faction’ in aggregates and then only ‘loyalists’ are chosen to speak during conference
debates.
We need to devise approaches to voting
for delegates to conference that ensures that
delegates reflect the experience and views of
all significant groups within the SWP. The
conference arrangements committee should
be openly elected at the state of each conference (as is currently the case), should not
include members of the outgoing CC and
should also have responsibility for choosing those who can speak in each debate at
conference.
One of the key roles of conference is to
hold the CC to account for their leadership
of the party of over the previous year. The
CC cannot hold themselves to account and
so must not have any direct influence over
the way that conference is actually run or
the delegates who are called to speak during
its debates.
After each annual conference we then
need unity in action in line with the agreed
perspectives and decisions. So for example,
after the last annual conference several SWP
members of Unite in Leicester campaigned
vigorously for Jerry Hicks. This was despite
the fact that some of them had previously
had doubts about this tactic. However, they
had not been convinced by the decisions of
the special conference and had every right to
express their concerns with other members
of the SWP. Had this been acknowledged
several active members may not have left
the SWP.
We need unity in action, but we also
need continuous, vibrant and open discussion about our differences and concerns
across the democratic structures and publications of the organisation. Confidence in
the leadership and especially the CC has to
be gained through experience and cannot just
be dictated by the decisions of a conference
or appeals from the CC. So it was unrealistic for the CC to comment, immediately
after the January conference, “As far we are
concerned, this case is closed. This is not a
‘cover up’.”
Another example of the lack of accountability within the SWP is over its financial
affairs. A few years ago the SWP sold its
print- shop and offices in Hackney, but far
from this leading to surplus funds this seemed
to be followed by a period of austerity and
financial crisis.
What happened to the sales proceeds of
the print-shop and how did the SWP manage to get into such a financial mess? Until
recently, there also seem to have been a series
of National Treasurers one after the other. In
2010 in an unusually open and frank financial report the SWP indicated that its real
(inflation adjusted) subs income had been
40% higher a decade previously.
The CC should be accountable for their
management of the financial affairs of the
organisation, but this is not the case as so
few members outside the CC actually know
anything about the organisations finances.
There should be regular and consistent
reporting of recruitment, resignations etc –
not just when this appears to look good. So it
is not acceptable that the CC has not reported
any recruitment figures in Party Notes this
year (the last figures were issued with Party
Notes in mid-December last year).
How can the CC be held to account if
they do not provide details of the organisations finances or its success or otherwise in
recruiting people to the organisation?
The national office needs to ensure that
the membership list reflects only active
members who consider themselves to be
members of the party, pay subscriptions
regularly and take and sell Socialist Worker
each week.
That is not to say that those deleted from
the membership list should be ignored. Far
from it, we need to contact and visit them
regularly and have a sustained argument
with them to win them (back) into active
membership.
But the best way to do this is to include
them on branch contact lists and not to inflate
the SWP membership list with people who
are not aware of this status and have not had
recent contact with the organisation.
The SWP is a relatively small organisation of few thousand members. If we are to
achieve our ultimate goal of a successful
socialist revolution in Britain (and across
the world) we will need at least hundreds of
thousands of members (as there were in several European communist parties in the early
20th century). If our model of inner party
democracy and accountability of the CC to
conference is not fit for purpose now, it will
certainly have to be significantly improved
in the years to come.
To overcome the fractures across the
SWP of the last year we need to re-build the
organisation and its democratic traditions.
This will require being honest about the
actual active membership of the organisation, implementing in full the final report of
the Democracy Commission and for the CC
to ensure the following:
1. A public acknowledgment of the specific
nature of the mistakes that occurred.
2. An apology to the two complainants for
the negative consequences they have suffered as a result of their treatment.
3. Revision of Disputes Procedures to make
them “fit for purpose”, as called for by the
report on the second case.
Where did it all
go wrong
Dominic (Liverpool)
While many people are perhaps more usefully discussion how we get ourselves out
of the situation we are in the question of
how on earth this has happened still needs
asking.
How did an organisation on paper
committed to fighting against women’s
oppression, that is suppose to use a Marxism method to help us understand this,
that recruits people on the basis of fighting
sexism respond so terribly to serious allegations against a leading member.
One of the things said of SWSS members was that they didn’t truly understand
our politics. This was the reason that students were the most vocal section of the
party in opposition to the CCs mishandling
of the situation.
Others also opposing the CC have
always argued that this is not true, that our
students had a great record of arguing our
politics at a much higher level that most of
the rest of the party, that they did understand out politics and that they left since
the SWP’s handling of this case was not in
line with our politics.
There is a question though is this true?
Is there something in the politics of the
SWP that lead to leading members defending the indefensible? Are our claims to
stand up for women’s liberation actually
true? This article will attempt to make the
argument that the SWSS groups really did
misunderstand our politics. They believed
we had much better politics on women’s
liberation that we actually have. I discuss
several specific examples before attempting to make some conclusions.
The Assange case
One of the things that is often repeated in
defence of the SWPs record of women’s liberation is how well the party responded to
allegations of rape made against Assange.
90
This is something however that needs
be looked at in more detail. I would like to
make two points in relation to this. Firstly
we were very slow in reaching out position
on this case after arguments on the case
had been raging for years. I will also argue
that the line we finally reached which many
people are proud of actually appeared to be
a lot better on a women’s liberation point of
view than it actually was.
Our initial response to the allegations
was characterised by ignoring the rape
accusation altogether. Assange was first
arrested by British police on 7th December 2010. Socialist worker printed a 63
word article the following week reporting on a stop the war protest in support of
him headlined “Wikileaks: Defend Julian
Assange against the US government” and
finishing on the line “Assange should not
be extradited—and Wikileaks should not
be censored.” No mention was made in
article that he was arrested due to rape
allegations.
Over the following months an argument
developed on the left over this case. Various people were making arguments that the
women were CIA agents and couldn’t be
taken seriously. There was then a response
from feminists calling these people out for
rape apology saying that it didn’t matter
who Assange was we had to treat rape allegations seriously.
At the time I took the side of those
saying the case must be investigated
posting an article on facebook concluding “WikiLeaks is revealing information
citizens need to know – it’s a good thing.
Assange may or may not have committed sex crimes according to Swedish law.
Why is it so hard to hold those two ideas
at once?” There was never any discussion
of this inside the SWP that I encountered.
We seemed to be ignoring the issue and not
arguing against stop the war mobilising to
support him but equally not mobalising to
support him ourselves.
Feb and March saw two more SW articles on the case, a longer report of a stop the
war meeting in support of Assange making
no comment reporting Tariq Ali arguing
“that the victimisation of Wikileaks was
meant to be a deterrent to others” and making links to the Egyptian revolution.
Then a further short article (75 words)
when the judge found he should be extradited acknowledging that he was accused
of rape for the first time and repeating the
line “Assange should not be extradited—
and Wikileaks should not be censored.”
The party then decided to completely
ignore the case. Not covering anything
more on the case and his legal fight until he
skipped bail in summer 2012. In the intervening period there was much activism
countering victim blaming in rape cases
(the slut walks).
There were also lots of arguments
and various prominent left wing figures
(eg Tony Benn, George Galloway) made
terrible comments on the case completely
dismissing the rape allegations. The NUS
women’s campaign had started a campaign
to target these people calling for NUS as a
whole to refuse to work with them.
Assange skipping bail in summer and
seeking asylum in Equador embassy catapulted the issue to front pages of national
news and so the party could no longer
ignore the issue. The party then decided
that Assange might actually be guilty of the
rape charges or at least that they shouldn’t
be dismissed.
We also came out with condemnation
of those who had made comment trivialising rape accusations. In a socialist worker
article headlined “Taking rape seriously”
we argued “Myths about rape show how
deeply entrenched women’s oppression
is in society. We need to challenge every
expression of it as part of the big battles to
uproot oppression permanently.”
Our final position was spelled out in a
socialist worker article “Julian Assange
must face rape charges, not US revenge”.
This concluded with the line “The rape
accusations should never be trivialised or
brushed aside. But if the Swedish authorities were serious about investigating them,
they would guarantee that Assange would
not be extradited to the US. That could clear
the way for him to face his accusers.”
Perhaps given the SWP’s own recent
performance we should have included a
line about how if he could find some of
his colleagues who held Marxist politics
then they would also be able to determine
his guilt so long as they examined the case
from the standpoint of the proletariat.
The first thing I would say is that in politics timing is actually very important. The
fact that we had been so slow in coming
out with these statements meant that many
of the people who had be arguing against
stop the war’s unconditional defence of
Assange for the past two years were not
influenced by it.
Rather than being the most advanced
section of the class on this issue we had
been proved in practice to be behind some
sections of the class. Our position was better than many other peoples but to people
who had been campaigning on this for some
time our position appeared to be a result of
their pressure rather than coming from our
political principles. This created problems
for us later when we were attempting to
challenge some of the conclusions they
were making from this case.
It is true that there are many times when
the party will be behind the most advanced
section of the class. This is unavoidable due
to the nature of class struggle and potential
for new forces to come into struggle at a
higher level than those already engaged.
The fact that this has happened on something so fundamental to our politics as
being tribunes of the oppressed is a sign
however that everything is not ok.
The second thing I would like to argue
is that our position on the case was really
a fudge. It allowed us to take a position
than challenged some of the worst sexism
coming out of the remains of the antiwar
movement but what we were actually arguing for was the same as what Assange was
arguing for.
While it is patently obvious that the only
reason for the police’s heavy interest in this
case was that Assange was an anti establishment figure drawing a conclusion that
therefore we should defend him doesn’t follow. The argument that somehow the case
we an excuse to extradite him to USA was
never explained by the party but accepted.
Given the willingness of the UK government to hand over anyone who is asked for
extradition to the USA this argument seems
to have some major holes in it.
Instead the party appeared to be using
a far more reactionary mode of reasoning
for the case. That is basically since most
men could get away with what Assange
was alleged to do then he should too. A far
more principled line would have been to
point out the hypocrisy of our government’s
attitude on this case (which we eventually
did do) without using this as an excuse for
Assange to avoid facing rape charges.
To do otherwise is to somehow imply
that the fight against imperialism is more
important two women getting justice in a
rape case.
In an article entitled “Trivialising rape
won’t help challenge imperialism” our conclusion that the solution to this case that
“the investigation could continue with the
Swedish authorities questioning Assange
in Britain or making a commitment not to
extradite him.” Has the effect of justifying
Assange’s continued hiding from justice in
the Equadorian embassy. This sentence was
followed with the line “We cannot oppose
imperialism if we discard women’s rights
along the way” this is undoubtedly true but
is not clear that the party did manage to
avoid that trap in this case. Merely stating
we are against rape, sexism and women’s
oppression does not make it the case.
I have discussed this case in detail not
because I think it is the most important
thing in the world but because I think it
demonstrates that our approach to politics
on women’s liberation has flaws. It is often
more about giving the appearance of being
opposed to oppression that actually doing
anything meaningful to fight it. In this case
in particular we appear to have done nothing other than talk about it.
Transphobia in the ISJ
The most recent article in the ISJ contains
an article by John Molyneux discussing
gender and sexuality which falls into the
trap of crude transphobia that characterised
much of the radical feminist movements.
At one point in the article he states “Put
simply, women are able to bear children
and men are not.” With one crude stroke of
the pen he has erased the existence of trans
people from the world.
There are in depth critiques of this arti-
91
cle available to read on the revolutionary
socialism blog (revolutionarysocialism.
tumblr.com) so I will not attempt a detail
critique of that position here other than
using it as another example of the SWPs
poor understanding of oppression.
I do not believe that John Molyneux is
actually actively transphobic, more that he
simply wasn’t thinking about trans people
when he was writing this article. No doubt
if he had been thinking about trans people
he would have written something better
politically.
However his failure to consider them
shows that his (and whoever was involved
in editing the ISJ) commitment to opposing
women’s oppression is seriously limited.
When demanded we may be able to come
up with a politically correct position but
this doesn’t penetrate our thinking more
deeply than that.
I am not writing this section to make a
personal attack on John Molyneux. I am
using him as an example of a SWP theorist. No doubt there are many other leading
members of the SWP who would have
ended up writing similar lines if they had
written the article instead of Molyneux.
Comrades using reactionary
language on rape
One of the shocking things about this entire
process is that comrades had fallen back on
some of the most reactionary rape myths to
defend the CCs handling of the case.
The worst example of this for me was
in the run up to the special conference this
year. At an open IDOOP faction meeting
a member of the disputes committee had
come to explain to us why we were all
wrong.
At one point in the meeting she made
a comment saying we had to be clear that
M was not actually accused of rape but of
actions that taken together constituted rape.
Unfortunately I was not secretly recording the meeting so can’t provide an exact
quote.
On one level this is a nonsensical statement but on a deeper level it is a deeply
reactionary one. The implication behind
this is that because M was not physically
violent (I don’t actually know if he was
accused of violence or not) then it was not
rape rape but some lesser type of rape.
This is a very common rape myth that
contributes to the under reporting and prevalence of rape carried out by acquaintances
of the victim.
In response to some rather more public
exposition of rape myths by members of
the SWP national committee some comrades decided to submit a motion to the NC
pulling them up on their comments.
The response of the CC to propose that
the motion should not be discussed (and
the acceptance of this by the majority of
the NC) on the grounds that doing some
would imply that the SWP was sexist raises
serious questions about their commitment
to women’s liberation. When I raised criticisms of this in NC report back at branch
the argument was that the SWP has a proud
history of fighting sexism and pulling up
comrades for sexism. Therefore everything
was fine and the motion didn’t need to be
discussed.
Quite how examples of people being
pulled up for sexist comments in the past
means that attempts by comrades to pull
up comrades for sexism in the present
should not be discussed is unclear. If NC
members are making rape apologist statements on facebook then the only reasons
I can see why other NC members should
not be allowed to raise this at NC meetings
are either you don’t think that there was
any problems with the statements or you
don’t think it’s an important matter and
are willing to put the faction fight above
your commitment to women’s liberation.
We can keep repeating we are against sexism but unless these words are backed up
by actions they are just lies.
The other attack that has been used
against the opposition is that we don’t care
about the class struggle. That we are too
focused on internal arguments. That the
fascists/ Tories are on the attack so we need
to focus on that. That we have sold loads of
papers at trade union conferences so everything is ok.
Whilst hopefully all SWP members
when challenged wouldn’t defend the idea
that the class struggle is more important
that women’s liberation some members’
actions indicate otherwise.
We are the SWP for a reason, we see
building a revolutionary party as important.
A revolutionary party that thinks fighting
the Tories is more important than challenging sexism within its own ranks is not a
party that will get anywhere (or one I wish
to be involved in).
Conclusion
I have used these examples because I think
they support the conclusion I have reached
about the party over the last year. Namely
that the SWP has correctly recognised that
to be a revolutionary organisation you
need to have a commitment to women’s
liberation.
Our way of dealing with this however
is not to actually seriously engage with
this but to make arguments that are on
the surface great from a women’s liberation perspective whilst not allowing them
to seriously affect our core politics. The
SWPs intervention into feminist movements and campaigns is more focused on
recruiting women to the SWP that a serious
attempt to help further these movements
(in contrast to our approaches in other areas
of our work).
This has resulted in us not managing to
seriously recruit from these movements.
We have not seriously engaged with these
movements on a theoretical basis instead
adapting our arguments to fit in with theirs
in order to attempt to recruit.
While some of the theoretical degradation is due to the fact many ‘comrades’
have spent the last year defending the indefensible I do think the signs are there in our
attitude to Assange.
I do think we managed to project an
image of having a far better position on
women’s liberation than are activities represent. This illusion has been shattered
over the last year. The student cadre spotted this soonest and left. The remainder of
the opposition is attempting to hold force
the illusion to be reality but so far all this
has done is expose it for the illusion it is.
Where do we go from here?
The past year has seen many mistakes and
misjudgements by the various opposition
factions. We failed to see the depth of
the problem back in January of this year
instead hoping the CC would somehow act
sensibly.
When it was clear that they were not we
attempted to correct their course but were
unable to win enough support in the party.
Again we rejected outright opposition after
the special conference instead hoping people would start to move at some point. This
inconstant opposition has meant we have
lost hundreds of comrades.
While there have been some achievements of the opposition staying in the party
the steady drip of people leaving the party
has seriously damaged the SWP.
An opposition that had realised in March
the depth of the failure of the SWP when
dealing with issues of rape could have led
a much stronger split at this point. In hindsight it was a mistake for us not to leave the
party with the ISN.
Having stayed this long we must now
make a public commitment. We will win
this faction fight or walk. There is no future
for an organisation led by those who put
a commitment to their factional interests
above women’s liberation.
If the current CC remains a majority in
the leadership following national conference no one will believe we have seriously
learnt any lessons from mistakes made (as
the disputes committee report gives us a
chance to). It instead looks like another
half hearted concession to critics. Recognising these mistakes and working out how
to act different in the future is needed.
Reading Cliff’s biography of Trotsky
one can’t help but get annoyed at him for
spending so long reading French novels
in Communist Party CC meetings in the
1920s.
The past year has been the opposition’s
time of reading literature (or going kayaking). We know what is wrong with the
party. The problems of sexism in the party
run too deep to be fixed. Unless the upcoming conference proves us wrong in reality
then we must end our hesitation and leave
with as many comrades who are left.
92
Leadership and
accountability
in Unite Against
Fascism
Phil (Hornsey & Wood Green)
It is incredibly important that Central Committee members operating in United Fronts
are accountable to party members.
Therefore comrades should be aware
of an issue concerning the recent campaign against the EDL attempt to visit
Whitechapel. I believe it should be taken
extremely seriously, since if CC members
breach party discipline they undermine other
comrades involved in united front work who
have been “holding the line” often in difficult circumstances.
On Wednesday 4 September BBC London News reported that a delegation from
Tower Hamlets handed in a petition of
10,000 signatures to the Home Office calling for the English Defence League march
on Saturday 7 September to be banned.
The delegation to the Home Office consisted of around half a dozen people led
by Rev Alan Green, head of the borough’s
interfaith forum. SWP Central Committee
member Weyman Bennett was part of that
delegation.
The party’s agreed position is that we are
against calling for bans on the EDL because
they tend to demobilise the movement. That
was our experience in Tower Hamlets in
2011. The SWP is careful not to give too
much credence to bans or to be seen to support them. That is why we agreed that SWP
members involved in UAF would not sign
or support the ban, which was organised by
the mayor of Tower Hamlets and backed
by many of our anti-fascist allies in the
borough. This position was reported in SWP
branch meetings and emphasised at meetings on the Tower Hamlets demo in Hornsey
& Wood Green a few weeks after the demo.
Socialist Worker also stressed the party’s
position on bans: “If the EDL are banned
they will still be escorted to a ‘static’ rally.
That’s one reason why we do not argue for a
ban.” (Socialist Worker, 7 September, p20).
Yet despite this, Weyman Bennett joined
the mayor’s delegation to hand in the
petition - and was seen doing so on BBC
London News, which typically draws in
over 600,000 viewers. Whether or not he
personally signed the petition this action
gave the impression that he supported the
ban.
This would appear to be a serious breach
of discipline that undermines comrades elsewhere who have been holding the line on
this question.
Moreover this incident is a symptom of
how decisions in our anti-fascist work often
appear to be taken without seeking support
or direction from party activists. In contrast
to much of our work in unions and political
movements there isn’t even a party fraction
in UAF which might help to counter the
pressure of working so closely with people
who are not revolutionaries. Perhaps there were good reasons why
Weyman had to change our policy and
appear to support a ban. But these were not
mentioned, let alone debated and discussed,
among the wider membership.
We saw during the Respect split what
happens if we just let Central Committee
members “do their own thing” in united
fronts. Without involvement or input from
ordinary party members even the best of our
leaders end up getting pulled to the right. In
Respect this ended in a bruising split that
weakened the SWP and the left as a whole.
It would be a tragedy and a disaster if the
same thing happens with Unite Against
Fascism.
A response to
Phil on UAF
Weyman Bennett
I strongly contest the accusations made here
by Phil in his IB submission ‘Leadership,
accountability and UAF”.
I was not part of any delegation that went
into the Home Office calling for a ban.
There were three major press conferences
called by UAF/UEE/the Mayor of Tower
Hamlets on Wednesday 4 September, Friday
6 September and Saturday 7 September. All
were called to update the press on our plans
to oppose the EDL, none was called to discuss a ban. I opposed the idea of a ban at all
three although others including the Mayor
and the representative of the East London
Mosque made it clear they supported a ban.
On numerous occasions, both in public
and in various publications, I have opposed
the idea of state bans.
There was a statement issued by a
number of activists for a ban in the run up
to the Tower Hamlets demonstration on 7
September 2013, I refused to sign such a
statement. There have been numerous anti
-EDL demonstrations where local committees, councillors and MPS have called for a
ban. I have never signed a single one.
I find it disheartnening that a comrade can
use an IB submission to call for someone to
be disciplined, even before they have the
courtesy to find out the most basic facts or
allow myself to answer those accusations. Phil and others in the faction are insinuating that UAF is a failure. The question I ask
is; would Tommy Robinson have resigned
from the EDL if their demonstration had successfully marched through Tower Hamlets?
UAF is far too precious to be turned into a
factional football
For a better
online presence
John (Oxford)
The 2012 SWP conference recognised that
the party’s online presence was not up to
what it could be, and that, in this respect,
we had been left behind. Since then, there
has been some sort of revamp of the
Socialist Worker site, but little else done
officially.
However, the party’s presence has
increased since then due to initiatives by
both individuals and groups of party members. Large number of party members have
Facebook pages, on which they discuss
political issues, while others post regularly
on their own blogs. A group of comrades
have set up their own “Revolutionary
Socialism in the 21st Century” discussion
blog, which, like many of the individual
blogs, takes up political discussion on
issues of interest to SWP members.
It is this latter blog that has created a
certain amount of excitement on the CC
and in the National Committee, though it is
difficult to work out the logic behind this.
Political debate amongst party members
is inevitable. It’s what we do, often every
time we meet, even in informal situations
outside the party’s formal structures such
as branch meetings. We do it because we
can think critically and because we think
it’s important. Discussions online should
be viewed in this context. In the end, there
is little difference, from the point of view
of party discipline, between an online discussion and an offline one.
It might be argued that a web-based discussion reaches more people than a chat in
the pub, but even here the argument falls
down.
Leaving aside the possibility of people
overhearing a pub discussion, we don’t
only speak privately or at small meetings. Comrades also speak at large events,
addressing hundreds of people at a time,
without having what they say checked. We
have never had a policy of tightly controlling what comrades say, relying instead
on their self-discipline. Unlike certain
other organisations on the far left, we have
always treated our members as adults.
Far from condemning web-based discussions, the party should be encouraging
it. There is no contradiction between
vigorous debate and a united political
strategy, Indeed, Lenin defined democratic
centralism as “freedom of discussion, unity
in action”.
Debate is the basis of a united political perspective and its life blood. Those
who demand silence and call it agreement
are just plain wrong. Nor should we be
frightened of heterodox opinions being
expressed. Without debate the party stagnates. And, in this respect, if in no other,
those who have created their own blogs
93
should be congratulated, not condemned.
The party needs to take up the challenge
of blogging. In order to do this, we need
not one but two official blogging sites.
The first should be on the lines of the
current “Revolutionary Socialism in the
21st Century” discussion blog: articles
submitted by any party member, lightly
moderated according to transparent criteria with comments also lightly moderated
to keep out the trolls. The debates on this
blog should be open to all to read and to
comment on. It will be for debates that we
want the world to join in, as with the ISJ
and Socialist Review.
The second blog proposed is slightly
different. It should be closed, being accessible to party members only. Its purpose
will be to discuss those things we don’t
want to talk about in public.
This is technically possible because the
National Office has email addresses of all
comrades in order to send out party notes.
This same list of email addresses can be
used to control access to a blog.
This blog itself should be run on the
same lines as the public blog, more or less
open to any posting, with light moderation
to prevent trolling. Such an internal blog
will aid comrades to be more disciplined
about what thy write on Facebook or their
open blogs, since there would the be an
outlet for internal discussion.
As far as other blogs are concerned,
there should be no attempt to restrict them.
The only proviso should be that comrades’
behaviour on them are subject to the same
rules as apply more generally. We don’t
need censorship in the party. We need
debate, more debate, conducted in a comradely way. And that applies to whatever
medium the debate takes place in.
The role of
United East End
in Tower Hamlets
Rebecca and Anindya (Tower Hamlets)
In its article “Facing the Challenge of
Fascism” (Bulletin 1, p10), the Central
Committee wrote that “tactical judgement, finesse and some understanding of
political, cultural and religious views” are
necessary when working in a united front
against fascism.
This has definitely been true of campaigns against the English Defence League
in Tower Hamlets that stopped the fascists
from marching in the borough in 2010,
2011 and 2013. These qualities have also
been a major factor behind the success
of United East End (UEE), the borough’s
local anti-fascist campaign.
Tower Hamlets has a strong sense of
community combined with a strong history
of anti-racism and left wing politics. This
meant local activists were able to respond
very quickly when the Guardian ran an article in summer 2010 saying that the EDL
planned to march in the borough.
They formed United East End, a campaign brought together the borough’s
Inter-Faith Forum, including the most
prominent mosque, church and synagogue,
youth groups that work predominantly with
local Bengali boys, LGBTQ groups, trade
unionists, anti-austerity activists, local left
groups and Unite Against Fascism (UAF).
This coalition was able to bring these
different groups together despite cultural
and political tensions, for example between
some Muslim organisations and LGBTQ
groups. Prominent local activists such as
Reverend Alan Green, chair of the InterFaith Forum, played a key role in bringing
different groups together.
UEE also focused on a point of political
unity – the overriding shared goal of all
involved, which was keeping the EDL out
of Tower Hamlets. For me the results of
this work were symbolised in 2011, when
Rebecca Shaw, a trans woman and local
LGBTQ activist, spoke from the platform
at a UEE/UAF rally held at the London
Muslim Centre.
The SWP has been able to intervene
very effectively in UEE: pushing for a mass
mobilisation and winning local activists to
our arguments around the ban. In 2011 a
large section of the campaign, particularly
from the Tower Hamlets mayor’s office,
focused on petitioning Tower Hamlets
residents to call for a ban. They were very
successful, since people were led to believe
that a ban was the best way to protect the
local community and avoid violence and
arrests.
But when the ban came through, the
SWP’s argument about bans being demobilising and ineffective were demonstrated
very clearly. Right up until the day of the
2011 demo, the police planned to march
the EDL into the borough and hold a rally
within its borders.
This caused great confusion among
local residents, who were understandably
under the impression that both the EDL
demonstration and the counter demonstration had been cancelled. We had to work
very hard to make sure that there would
still be a counter mobilisation on the day. It
wasn’t until the day before the demonstration that Islamic Forum Europe, a key local
Muslim organisation, changed its position
and backed the anti-fascists on the streets.
It was only on the day of the demonstration
itself that the mayor appeared. At the last
moment the police agreed not to bring the
EDL into the borough.
This year was very different. Faced
with united opposition from the mayor, the
London Muslim Centre, local trade unions
and the left, the police decided a few days
before the demo that they would not try
bringing the EDL into Tower Hamlets.
Moreover, throughout the whole process
UEE was in full agreement that there had to
be a mass anti-fascist mobilisation, ban or
no ban, as was stated in the UEE statement.
This was largely thanks to the experience
of 2011 and arguments we put then.
Working with UEE has never been
easy and each year has brought its own
challenges. In 2010 we faced sectarian
and Islamophobic behaviour from the
Whitechapel Anarchist Group. In 2011
there was a difficult debate about banning
the EDL, as well as bitterness between the
mayor and the local Labour Party. These
challenges have, I think, been handled well
because local activists understood that their
first priority was unity to keep the EDL
out of our borough. People feel that they
have ownership of the UEE campaign and
aren’t willing to let it descend into sectarian chaos.
UEE is not without its weaknesses. It
could, for example, learn much from We
Are Waltham Forest’s detailed work with
the local trade union branches. UEE has
also struggled to involve significant numbers of Muslim women – although Sisters
Against the EDL was an important step
forward in tackling this problem. Other
weaknesses stem from the borough-wide
nature of the campaign. UEE can’t call
mobilisations on a national or even a London-wide basis, but UAF can. UEE doesn’t
have the extensive links that UAF does
with trade unions.
However, it is the banner of UEE that
was able to bring together the widest possible forces to mobilise against the EDL
in Tower Hamlets. I’m proud that at the
big rally in 2011 I spoke with alongside an
friend I’d known from primary school – a
young Muslim woman from Tower Hamlets
– about our experience of multiculturalism
in the borough. I’m also proud that I have
always seen Bengali boys I went to school
with at the demonstrations as well as my
teachers. It is UEE’s roots in the community in Tower Hamlets that made this
happen.
I believe that it is important we
acknowledge that it was UEE, supported
by UAF, that made Tower Hamlets a place
of humiliation and defeat for the EDL on
three different occasions. The CC’s wording – “UAF, supported by United East
End” – gets it the wrong way round. This
was particularly true this year, when Lutfur
Rahman was keen to keep his reputation
as the mayor that kept the EDL out of the
community. But we should also acknowledge that the internal crisis in the SWP
damaged our ability to mobilise as effectively as we have done in the past.
UEE is the banner that most effectively
brings together the widest layers of the
community in Tower Hamlets. It is crucial
that UAF and the SWP continue to work
within UEE, as we have done in the past.
The narrative that at times exaggerates the
role-played by UAF in the Tower Ham-
94
lets mobilisations needs to be corrected. If
we don’t do this it becomes impossible for
us to get a clear assessment of our impact
on anti-fascist campaigning, or to adapt
flexibly to what happens on the ground. I
believe this has lessons outside of Tower
Hamlets too. Where well-rooted local campaigns with experience of the local area
exist, UAF should seek to complement
these rather than set up a “one-size fits all”
UAF group that consists mostly of SWP
members.
I would also like to propose that in
Tower Hamlets we put our efforts in to
building a permanent UEE group in the
borough rather than trying to build a permanent Tower Hamlets UAF group. UEE
has proved its track record in practice
and the campaign has real potential to do
important anti-racist work in schools, in
local community groups, faith groups and
trade unions.
What would
a democratic
party look like?
David (Euston)
Marxists ought to have a great deal to say
about democracy. After all, we are extreme
democrats. We grasp that under this stage
of capitalism, many of the superficial processes which are normally associated with
democracy (electoral parties, decisionmaking by representatives and the secret
ballot) have lost their appeal.
In the protests and the revolutions of our
time, in Turkey, Egypt and in the Occupy
campaigns, people call for democracy but
few protesters demand the constitutional
separation of powers. Marxists have a
developed theory that political democracy
begins to breaks down as soon it loses its
social content. Without reforms, people
turn their anger on politicians and democracy becomes a debased idea. We are too
shy in developing this argument and using
it to explain what is happening to the world.
We are too shy also in thinking about what
democracy means for our party.
The Classical Marxists had a number of
ideas about the process of democracy: if
there must be representatives, you should
keep their period of office short and make
them subject to recall, and take steps (eg
limiting their salary to a workers’ wage) to
ensure that the roles are filled by workers.
These sorts of insights might usefully
be applied to a Marxist party. In general, it should try not to rely on full-time
employees, or, where necessary, their terms
should be short and they should be subject
to recall.
The model that a large proportion of the
membership of a group will do no more
for it than pay subs, which are then used
to employ around 1 in 40 of the group’s
members as full-time employees is one
way to run a charity (although even there
the formula is usually more like 1 in 400)
but, as happens in charities, it reinforces
the passivity of everyone who is not on the
payroll.
A Marxist party which selects its leadership from a cohort of full-time employees
is, in practice, going to be run by its staff
not its activists.
The idea of a permanent leadership of
people whose primary right to their position is that they have been there a long time
might be appropriate in all sorts of other
places in society (it seems to work well
enough for the House of Lords), it is not
an attractive proposition in a revolutionary
party.
A slate system, where the leadership
gets to nominate its replacements, gives
the leadership a control over the organisation, and takes decision-making power
away from the membership. It rewards
loyalty and silence when the leadership
errs. It looks offensive outside the ranks
of those already persuaded by it. It is an
obstacle towards any party ever holding in
its ranks the generations of young members
who join the left in hope and depart with
their eyes wide as to the actual operation
of power inside our groups.
Democracy is not just about electing a
leadership, it is also about breaking down
the gap within any organisation between
those who take decisions at one moment,
and those who need to come forward in
the next.
You can have a undemocratic organisation and it will survive for a while, maybe
even a few years, just as you could hold a
revolutionary party together through a crisis of a few weeks on the basis of repeated
threats of disciplinary action, but do it any
longer than that and the group will die.
Democracy and activism need to be
integrated otherwise the democracy has no
purchase: it does not result in a group actually doing things differently.
Democracy is also about what happens in the smallest unit of a party. If its
branches have no purpose other than to distribute a series of tasks, which have been
drawn up centrally (build a meeting or a
demonstration, or sell a publication), then
the content of the discussion in that branch
will wither.
Rather than working out what your local
priorities are, rather than working out who
the branch knows, rather than working
out what your audience have told you and
what you can learn from them, the branch
will have purely instrumental discussions:
how do we get three people together on
Saturday for a stall? Who is going to the
next meeting? If you don’t give people a
chance to express their initiative and take
control of planning their own activity, then
fewer people will be involved in decisions,
and the decisions you take will be worse
for most members’ lack of involvement
in them.
In a healthy group, people are accountable to one another; members who say they
will do things, do them, and report back
on them, and then the group takes decisions about what is working and what to
do next.
In most healthy revolutionary parties
there are defined tasks (without them how
can anyone be accountable?) and some circulation of roles. A party in which anyone
is in the leadership for more than decade
is doomed.
Finally, there is a story about Rosa Luxemburg, that during one of the debates of
the 1890s, she found herself arguing with
a Polish reformist. As it happened, she was
also the only person in the hall who spoke
her opponent’s language, so before disagreeing with him, she first made a point of
translating his words into the German of
most delegates. She did so with scrupulous
care and accuracy, and only then did she go
on to explain her disagreements.
Democracy is also about a kind of
process: a willingness to tolerate a range
of dissenting views, the protection of the
rights of minorities. It is about something
as simple as being able to fairly represent
the views of those you disagree with, rather
than relying on selective quotation and
insults.
Rebuilding the
party branches
Paul (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Behind the crisis around M is a serious
problem of party perspectives. The SWP
has struggled with difficulty to relate to the
period of anti-capitalist radicalisation, but
low workers’ struggles, since 2000. This contribution focuses on what that has meant for
our branches. In this century, the party leadership has downplayed the role of branches,
as Charlie Kimber and Alex Callinicos seem
to accept, implicitly and by default, in their
recent ISJ article. We now need to turn that
round, if we want to hold the party together
and to grow.
Ian Birchall once described the SWP as
‘the smallest mass party in the world’. That
phrase pinned the problem: the organisation
had the politics of a small mass party, but it
lacked adequate numbers, and İt lacked adequate implantation in the class. The strategic challenge was then to
become a real mass party, and that remains
the perspective today: one that must be tested
out at local level by local branches, with the
help of the Centre and the party leadership. 95
We need a local focus, because issues
will present themselves in varied ways in
different localities. We need to remember
that there is life outside the metropolis,
and outside national demonstrations. In the
last analysis, the party’s impact in national
politics is as good as what we can deliver
on the ground in the localities, where most
people in Britain live, and where we have a
brave but patchy presence which we need
to sustain and improve. Locality means
most to the core sections of the class (as is
very evident in housing work), and we need
to ‘think global, and act local’. Of course,
we need not reactionary localism, but networks and communities of resistance! So in any branch, we must ask, how
can we match up to the political opportunities, the people and the workplaces of the
area? We need to study and understand the
demography and the political economy of
the area we live in: and mostly, if we get
things right, we will be learning from our
contacts and our political interventions.
On a papersale, there is always a range
of responses from passers-by: from ‘not
interested’, to agreeing with what we say
and buying the paper, with further groups
having specific things to say and bring into
discusson, that we need to listen to; and
then there are people who actually know
quite a lot about the SWP, and have thought
seriously about our work. So while some
people may take a paper, without things
going much further than that, there are others who we need to have a strategy about
and be in a dialogue with. So if we look around us, we see what a
small mass party might be like, and who
might join it, and speak up for it. We need to
focus on the issues and arguments that matter to those people. This is always a tough
but a rewarding orientation. We should not
beat ourselves up over our failings, as long
as we appreciate what the tasks are, and
work on them over the long term.
Now comes a big problem: since
around 2000, with the closure and then
the reopening of branches, and the turn
to mailing out papers rather than asking
branch members to distribute them, the
Centre has taken the focus right off these
key aspects of our work. Previously, the
Centre was much more concerned with
what branches and members needed to do
and why: our method and process, what
should happen in branch meetings, what
arguments to use when selling the paper,
how to work around our contacts. Members
were told, “don`t just rely on the objective
factor to sell the paper; we need to provıde
the subjective factor - and if someone joins
on the papersale, arrange to meet them - the
next day.” The Centre really used to drive
the branches forward, and we need to bring
some of that politics back today. Instead,
we just have a huge and ever-expanding list
of activities in Party Notes.
Instead, in recent years papersales have
often been done in a mechanical way,
crunching numbers in papers sold and
money taken, rather than thinking what we
learned from the sale, and how we can follow people up. If we didn’t learn anything,
then we had the relation between party and
class wrong. There has been a coarsening of the
party’s political ideas. For Tony Cliff and
Duncan Hallas, the working class had contradictory ideas. Once, when I was in a
small town branch which had Tony Cliff
speaking on ‘The rising struggle agaınst
the Tories’, plenty of people came along,
but Cliff just talked about the contradictions, because socialist consciousness does
not come automatically. He was right to do
so. The party leadership in those days had
a realistic view, and showed what a small
branch like ours could do about it, in practice. Instead, for our present CC, the class
suffers endless betrayals, and seems just to
need more confidence to fix matters. On the other side of the coin, Cliff and
Hallas understood that workers who were
not in the party could be part of the cadre
- a layer of individuals in the community or
workplace who held the line when things
were tough, who had political ideas and
tradition, and who would give a some
kind of lead in the struggle. It was clear
then that SWP members needed to use the
united front method flexibly, to work with
those around us who were already part of
the fightback.
To be sure, in recent years we have
faced the cumulative impact of decades of
low class struggle. It would help if we had
a leadership which could own up to the real
impact this has had, and just how tough this
period is for us. There is class struggle, if
only in the form of a “one-sided class war”.
The ongoing ruling class offensive sharpens working class anger, and makes people
open to our ideas, so that we do not have to
wait for mass industrial action until we can
start rebuilding the party.
Our branch in Hornsey and Wood Green
remains an good example of the progress
we can make. Since two years ago when
the first group of a whole range of new
members joined us, branch meetings have
doubled in size, and the branch sustains a
range of public and industrial papersales.
Four years ago, when I proposed visiting
some hard-to-contact members, people just
weren’t happy with the ıdea. Six months
ago when the current paper organiser (one
of the new members) proposed something
similar, once again there was a negative
reaction. But now, new members are organising weekly visiting, and this has been
accepted as a valuable part of the branch
routine. Contact and membership work is
an essential part of any branch’s activity.
We cannot write people off just because
they may have changed their email address
or their phone numbers.
This year, our branch has intervened
around the Kurdish Question: something
which is not and should not be in the
national perspectives, but which matters
locally, and which we had neglected for ten
years or more. We held a branch meeting
on the Kurds which was attended by seven
women Kurdısh activists. After some antibedroom tax door-knocking, sandwiched
between discussions about Syria, one of
those comrades has now joined the SWP.
Some other new branch members
include a teacher and an accountant, who
came to our branch meeting on Venezuela,
before Easter, because we had emailed
them from the Saturday sale. Then we
invited them to knock on doors on the
estate where I live, two days after their first
meeting, to oppose the bedroom tax and to
sell papers, and now they are both active
branch members. There are several other
new people, each with their own story to
tell; and yes, there are some long-standing
members who have come back into activity
(real activity) because of the faction fight.
We cannot build a party fit to make a
revolution simply by recruiting the ones
and twos. But we can and must make ourselves relevant for the process in future that
can bring such a party into being.
We urgently need to change direction as
a party. We need a leadership which realises that we need the highest standards at
the Centre, so we need to face up to our
mistakes and sort out the mess over the
complaints against M. We also need some
honest accounting about the progress of
our branch and fraction work, and what
needs to be done. Then members and leadership together must set about rebuilding
the party.
Why
neoliberalism
matters and
sectarianism
must be reversed
Luke (Hornsey & Wood Green)
In the last forty years the project of the
international ruling class has been to roll
back previous gains benefiting the working
class –free national health and educational
provision, relative job stability and standards of wages and benefits, union rights,
and so on.
Noam Chomsky accurately described
this neoliberal project as “class warfare”
(from above.) Our rulers united behind this
project to compensate for the declining
profits that surfaced in the 1970s recession. Neoliberalism (and the squeeze on
profits) also encouraged an increase in the
role of finance in shaping the economy and
the development of a series of ‘bubbles’
(property, stock exchange, etc.)
The success of this project depended on
96
the outcome of class struggle, which itself
was influenced by the strength and clarity of the political forces intervening on
either side. In Chile in 1973 the organised
working class and the left were destroyed
through Pinochet’s military coup.
His government, acting on the advice
of free-market economists such as Milton
Friedman, managed to introduce massive
privatisations. Even now only half of all
school-children are in state schools. Here
in Britain, Thatcher defeated the unions,
but did not dare dismantle the NHS and
was brought down by the poll tax riot and
campaign.
The Spanish government under rightwing social-democrats (PSOE) managed
to push through putting most young workers on ‘precarious’ fixed-term employment
contracts. In France and Greece the unions
fared better –stopping much of the neoliberal offensive. The French public-sector
strikes in 1995 brought down the Juppe
government. After a serious of successful
strikes in Greece the percentage of workers on fixed-term contracts fell not rose (at
least before the current crisis.)
In our recent debates in the party on
the neoliberal legacy both sides reject the
idea defended by many on the left that we
already live under a ‘neoliberal’ system.
Rather neoliberalism is an ideal for the
ruling class and one they can never fully
attain.
For really-existing capitalism to operate efficiently state investment is required
in social provision (to guarantee that both
current and future generations are adequately-skilled and physically and mentally
healthy enough to work efficiently.) As
mentioned, even when free-market policies
can be applied, they can be successfully
resisted by our class.
Neil Davidson has contributed two
important things by opening (or re-opening) a long-overdue debate. Firstly he has
encouraged us to look honestly and in
much more concrete detail at the balance
of class forces after decades of neoliberal
policies. (Whether you agree with all of his
conclusions is a secondary matter.)
Such an approach is an essential starting point to getting right our industrial and
general perspectives and has been lacking
in recent years. (For an example of a brilliantly performed balance of class forces
see Tony Cliff’s ‘Balance…’, published in
Autumn 1979. To write that piece, which
helped orientate party members throughout the 80s, Cliff interviewed industrial
militants in different sectors to reach industrial, political and ideological conclusions
–something that Rob has encouraged us to
do again in his IB1 piece ‘Revolutionary
Organisation and the United Front’.)
Secondly Davidson has placed the neoliberal project back at the heart of our
analysis. This is crucial for the following
reasons:
1) If we want to defeat our rulers we
must always bear in mind the strategy they
are pursuing. The Cameron government is
proving to be have an even more neo-liberal strategy than Thatcher.
2) Once we have clarified their strategy,
we can assess how well their side and our
side are doing.
3) If we root neoliberal political and
economic strategies in the economic conditions behind them, we can better grasp
ruling-class political behaviour.
4) Most importantly, we avoid treating
the class struggle narrowly as a battle limited to the workplaces, and instead can see
it as a wider project of bourgeois domination (a ‘hegemonic’ project in Gramscian
terms.) In other words, we will look at the
struggle led by the state and related institutions on a political and ideological level as
well as economic.
This last point is the crucial one because
although the neoliberal project has scored
many economic successes, for example
by substantially lowering public sector
wages under ‘austerity’ –an accelerated
and repackaged form of neoliberalismarguably the project has been much less
successful politically and ideologically.
The idea popularised by the Occupy
movement that society is divided between
the 99% and the 1% elite received support way beyond the size of the movement,
and recent protests to defend the NHS has
confirmed the popularity of this archetypal
public service.
Even before the crisis capitalism as
a system was more unpopular than for
many decades. This allowed the so-called
anti-globalisation movement to grow
and transform the political landscape
internationally.
Bush and Blair’s ‘war on terror’ showed
many people that to be able to function
corporations and free markets required the
iron fist of imperialism (rather than the
benign ‘invisible hand’ described by ‘liberal’ economists).
Labour’s embrace of Thatcherite policies under Blair was described by Thatcher
as her biggest achievement. Victories over
the working class by her (and Reagan and
others) encouraged such a shift on the
mainstream left.
But neo-liberalism was adopted by
social-democratic and other parties even
where the working class did not suffer a
decisive defeat. In a context of declining profitability any party wishing to run
capitalism -one of the main goals of socialdemocracy, would collaborate and promote
the ruling-class offensive.
As Harman pointed out in Revolution
in the 21st Century, this was further aided
by deregulation in financial markets, which
enabled international investors to remove
finance from a country much more quickly.
Governments were not left powerless, but
they had less room for manoeuvre to implement economic policy that capital did not
want.
This has meant that Labour-type governments, made a further qualitative shift
rightwards, on top of their long and bloody
history of capitulating to the interests of
capital, making them hardly distinguishable from conservative governments
–particularly on economic issues.
Seamus Milne, quoted in the CC’s ‘General perspective’ in IB1, thus described
“the era of neoliberalism” as being “when
the ruling elite has hollowed out democracy and ensured that whoever you vote
for you get the same.” The CC’s document,
however, does not draw out any political
conclusions from this.
The embrace of neoliberal politics by
social democracy, which some on the
international radical left started labelling
‘social-liberalism’, has had major effects
on the class struggle.
This could not have been otherwise
because reformism has as its second function to express and organise the desire of
workers to better their conditions. To a
point reformism legitimises and encourages
such a desire so when it abandons reforms
it can demoralise the working class.
So while it was Thatcher who famously
said “there is no alternative” (to free-market
capitalism); for many people it was Blair
that proved so. And when people feel there
is less chance of political change (through
the system), of course they normally don’t
immediately become revolutionary (!) A
more common response is to become more
passive and disengaged.
As Labour shifted rightwards over many
years, pulling with it allies and dispiriting
more radical forces, united fronts involving large left forces became more difficult
–and they were never straightforward to
begin with.
The features described have helped
shape the political struggle in Britain and
the advanced capitalist world in the last
three decades –a regression compounded
by the decline or collapse of the Communist parties.
On the industrial front, Labour’s neoliberal turn helped pull the union leaderships
further away from class confrontation. This
was aided by Thatcher’s anti-union legislation (which Labour have refused to scrap,)
the decline of some well-organised sections
of industry and the development of new
management techniques (all described by
Davidson.)
Fortunately the rank and file was not so
pliant –as was demonstrated when it elected
a layer of left-wing union leaders like Mark
Serwotka (the so-called ‘awkward squad’.)
We have seen, particularly in the publicsector pensions’ strikes of 2011 and the
Manchester demonstration this September,
that the working class is up for a fight if
the unions take a lead. However, the leftwing leaders have been largely tamed
by the full-time union machines, and the
level of official mobilisation has been too
low to give workers the confidence to act
independently.
This has meant the union bureaucracies
have been able to contain things, further
97
discouraging activity by members (a ‘catch
22’ situation in the short term.)
Clearly there have been many setbacks
for the class which affect our ability to fight
in the present. This is something that has
been acknowledged in party publications
but not adequately analysed. We therefore
need to talk more about how neoliberal politics has affected the class struggle and not
act is if nothing substantial has changed.
That said, we also need to talk about the
subjective influence of neoliberalism on
the struggle as well as the structural transformations that this has brought about.
Partly because of us downplaying or
ignoring neoliberalism, I believe we have
sometimes fallen for hyperbole in our
industrial work in recent years. While it is
normal and healthy for an interventionist
party seeking to develop the struggle to
accentuate the possibilities in the struggle we have sometimes made irresponsible
predictions.
An example was the repeated talk of
a ‘hot autumn’ during most of 2012 even
though the pensions’ dispute already had
been derailed and rank-and-file opposition
to this was weak.
This voluntarism –of which our recentlyresigned ex-national secretary seems most
responsible for- inflated expectations that
later led to disappointment. At our January
party conference the speeches expressing
most frustration were by union activists
discussing how they had been pushing
unsuccessfully to get the dispute “back
on”. Incidentally, when the party crisis
exploded soon after, students who had been
the section of the party most angered by
the party’s handling of a rape complaint
against the ex-CC member, were labelled
‘politically frustrated’. I believe that in this
there was an element of what psychologists
call ‘displacement’.
Paradoxically neoliberalism
has created big opportunities
The view outlined so far could sound like
the “pessimism” that the party leadership
(in the ‘General perspective’ document
and elsewhere) wrongly attributes to the
Rebuilding the Party faction by conflating
our ideas with those of other sections of
the left –a reckless and divisive tactic that
the CC has used on several occasions over
the last year. However, there is another
more positive side to the adoption of
neoliberalism among the large parties.
After the working class rejected Thatcherism in the 1990s, from which the Tories
have not fully recovered, tensions over
Blair’s version came to a head with the
Iraq war. This created a crisis that saw the
two-party system seriously undermined.
A similar process has happened in other
countries, in some cases occurring more
intensely.
The SWP has written a great deal about
the role of the world crisis and related wage
and welfare cuts in sparking new struggles and creating a space for new left-wing
parties to make breakthroughs. All of this
is correct. However the explosive struggles we are witnessing cannot be reduced
to responses to ‘austerity’. Firstly some
explosive struggles recently have taken
place in countries which are not suffering
from serious crisis (for example Brazil)
or even an economic crisis at all (such as
Turkey –where mass public occupations
were sparked by real-estate development
in a popular park.)
In the Spanish state, where the economic crisis has been big, the gigantic
‘indignados’ camp in Puerta del Sol centred its criticism on the similarity between
the only two parties that stood a chance
of governing. The centrality of opposition to austerity measures came at a later
stage in the Madrid movement’s development –something I myself initially missed
when writing articles on the subject. Some
SWP analysis of the 15th May movement
has treated the ‘anti-party’ nature of the
movement as being simply a sign of its
immaturity.
It actually was more than that, and
revealed the political as well as social
motivations behind the rebellion. Consequently it showed that the hollowing out
of official politics may lead to resignation
but can also create a space for exciting
new radical political movements based on
struggle and grassroots democracy. (Milne,
unfortunately only identifies the ‘inchoate’
–confused- nature of such movements in
the quote used by the CC.)
Reinforcing this analysis is the fact that
over the last year the political radicalisation
began by the indignados has fed into a
mainly-progressive political struggle for
Catalan independence and into projects to
create a new left-wing constitution.
The explosiveness, radicalness and
creativity of the student struggles in Britain in 2010 show that the emergence of
such struggles is not something alien to us.
‘General perspective’ and some of Paul’s
document ‘Between Scylla and Charybdis’
imply that there has been an exaggeration of the importance of these ‘social
movements’.
Bizarrely, the CC document indicates
the same while saying that such movements
can “change moods, ditch policies and
topple governments.”… I’d say that that
makes them pretty damned useful to the
class (!) The recent ISJ article by Charlie
Kimber and Alex Callinicos suggests that
involvement in movements has caused the
two big crises suffered by the party.
I will not attempt a full response to
that idea here, but just say that this whole
debate seems to be very selective about
which movements are a ‘pull’ on people.
Concretely there has been little or no
debate on whether revolutionaries can get
pulled through involvement in the unions
–the movement with the most developed
bureaucracy and which the state has the
biggest objective interest in co-opting.
Syndicalism (or limiting revolutionary
intervention in the workplace to struggles
over wages and conditions) and bureaucratisation are problems that revolutionary
union activists have always had to seek
to resist.
None of this is an argument for not being
deeply immersed in the unions –which is
the starting point for any serious Marxist
organisation. But the absence of this debate
does suggest that the arguments about the
movements are being distorted by internal
arguments related to other topics.
The international experience shows
how important it is to get right our attitude towards the movements and see how
the neoliberal period has shaped struggles
today. In a piece in his Socialist Worker
column published before the Brazilian and
Turkish struggles, Callinicos suggested
that the struggle in Spain was an anomaly
–comparing the more autonomous forms
of struggle there with the upturn in Greece
–which has seen a marvellous run of general strikes and included mass workplace
occupations.
If anything, however, the Greek example
is the less representative case. Workplace
struggle has been from the beginning a central component in the radical processes in
Egypt and Tunisia and the more short-lived
revolt in France in 2010. As mentioned, in
Greece and France the workers’ movement
did not suffer historic defeats. In Egypt
workers’ struggle had been on the rise
for several years and there and in Tunisia
workers’ protest has been part of a deeper
revolutionary process.
Nevertheless, in the other countries
where mass radical protest has emerged
(to which we can add Portugal, Mexico,
Occupy in the US and the Chilean student
movement) the struggle in the workplace
has lagged behind struggles in the squares,
streets and universities.
What is particularly inspiring, though, is
how these latter movements have fed into
strike action. The Chilean student occupations were joined by a 48-hour labour
stoppage. The street fighting against price
hikes in public transport in Brazil was followed by a large strike. The radical youth
movements in Spain and Portugal helped
bring about a historic ‘European strike’
involving several countries in November
2012. In many of these countries the workers’ movement had been relatively passive
in the previous period and neoliberals had
won key battles. Of course that means they
are more similar examples to Britain than
Greece.
Another related danger to seeing the
struggle in the narrowest ‘class’ terms is
to assume that when workplace struggle
does arise it will always take place within
the normal union structures and following
traditional patterns.
The most impressive struggle in the
Spanish state in recent months has been a
3-week all-out strike by teachers across the
98
Balearic Islands against cuts and attacks
on teaching in the Catalan-dialect spoken
locally. The strike movement, which saw
the biggest demonstration in the Islands’
history in October, was organised through
mass assemblies linked only autonomously
to the union structures and which managed to force through the strike against the
wishes of the union leaders. The failure of
the strike to spread beyond the schools (for
example to other public sectors who do
not have such assemblies) reminds us of
the crucial need to operate through union
structures, but the engine for this historic
strike came from elsewhere.
At Sussex University workers recently
won a victory after a strike threat by a
‘pop-up union’ following a not-unrelated
model of workplace organising (in this
case structures within a union that could act
autonomously from the union leadership.)
Rather than starting with solidarity towards
initiatives, some leading comrades showed
exaggerated hostility towards this struggle.
In the light of the experiences described
above, this is very problematic.
The missing element:
elections
In line with a political rather than syndicalist approach to revolution, we also should
be seriously engaging with any attempts to
erode neoliberal discourse and get across
key political demands to the class.
We clearly can’t just do this just by selling Socialist Worker. We need to seek out
ways of working with other sections of the
left in bigger political projects. In the last
six months we have made mistakes in this
regard –some we have corrected since and
others not. We were slow to throw ourselves into building the People’s Assembly
–partly because a section of the leadership
and membership originally reacted with
hostility to the project (although we seem to
have reoriented somewhat since.) Although
Left Unity (LU) has shown weaknesses
from the beginning, a project promoted by
Ken Loach, Michael Rosen, Kate Hudson,
Gilbert Achcar and (yes) China Mieville
should have attracted far more interest in
our party than it has done. I am not convinced that TUSC has more long-term
potential than LU and I think many other
comrades think the same.
Alex Callinicos has argued there is not
the degree of crisis and class struggle as
in Greece or France and that this makes
Unite’s ‘reclaim Labour’ project more
viable than an independent left project. I
think this is too simplistic. There is massive austerity in Britain which Miliband is
still offering to do very little to reverse. The
Labour left is still very small.
More importantly, the space that exists
to facilitate left realignment today is not
just about the crisis. It is also about the
hollowing out of institutional politics previously discussed. This longer process
has already shaken up British politics. In
Scotland the SNP overtook Labour after
adopting several ‘Old Labour’ policies
(against tuition fees, opposition to Trident,
etc,) and the more radical Scottish Socialist Party won several parliamentary seats.
South of the border Labour’s betrayals
allowed the SWP, alongside other sections
of the anti-war movement, to make a historic breakthrough with Respect.
More recently Caroline Lucas in
Brighton and George Galloway in Bradford
showed that left-wing candidates could win
key seats locally. Some of the memory of
Labour’s bankruptcy has waned under a
vicious Tory offensive, but not massively.
If Miliband reaches Downing Street he
won’t enjoy the kind of honey-moon that
Blair had –even though Blair was more to
his right.
In Ireland, where there is a low level
of struggle, our comrades in People not
Profit have shown that when anger over the
banks, cuts and corruption does not lead to
mass protest, it can be channelled through
the ballot box –having a positive impact on
the class and promoting struggle.
Avoiding sectarian drift
Two things worry me in the party about
the way we are analysing things on the
electoral-political front. Firstly, since our
January conference our analysis of the
new political projects has concentrated on
repeating the difference between revolutionary socialism and ‘left reformism’.
In a 2001 party pamphlet ‘The AntiCapitalist Movement and the Revolutionary
Left’ Callinicos criticises revolutionaries
who have the “urge to differentiate”. He
quotes Marx as saying, “[t]he sect sees the
justification for its existence and its point
of honour not in what it has in common
with the class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes itself
from the movement.”
In Paul’s IB piece he warns several
times about a “slide” to a sectarian party
approach, denouncing contributions at
the last NC meeting as “dripping with the
smell of this way of thinking” and making
the useful point that even serious organisations, for example Lutte Ouvriere in
France, have degenerated.
He is right to raise this warning. We are
seeing elements of a big decline in the attitude of our party towards the rest of the
left. On several occasions we have lumped
together very different left projects under
the catch-all term of ‘left-reformism’. The
worst example was when in an otherwiseimpressive talk at Marxism an ISJ-board
member compared Ken Loach, Miliband,
Gordon Brown and the right-wing Eurocommunists of the 70s –despite the fact
that the Eurocommunists in more than
one country attempted a coalition government with conservative parties and Ken
Loach’s politics is probably most accurately described as ‘centrist’ (including
having revolutionary elements as well as
reformist.)
As Rob points out, we also treated two
influential wings of the People’s Assembly as a merged ‘left-reformism’ when we
should have distinguished between those
that want a project outside the Labour Party
(which is very positive) and those like Len
McCluskey who want to rebuild Labour.
This is not a minor mistake. We should be
working hard to build bridges with those
on the left that are breaking with liberalism, not over-differentiating. Carrying out
an effective fight against neoliberal austerity may require us to work with other
sections of the left in close collaboration
to get particular radical demands across to
wide layers of workers –something that our
sister organisations in Germany, Greece
and Ireland are doing in different ways. I
believe such an approach is particularly
important because of the near-universal
condemnation the SWP has received on
the left over the handling of the dispute
reported on in January.
I believe that one of the reasons for
our lapse into voluntarism on the industrial front is that we have been pinning
too much of our hopes on this one form of
struggle meaning that we have not sought
out other opportunities to wage the wider
class struggle. Of course we are faced with
real difficulties in projects like the People’s
Assembly and in the electoral field, but we
must abandon our present bunker.
Rebuilding relationships with the
healthier sections of the radical left cannot be separated from dealing with the
causes of the party crisis –our historic mistakes over the disputes and the dreadful
handling of the subsequent crisis (which
included inaccurately attacking party and
many non-party critics as ‘non-Leninist’
and ‘movementist’, etc.) It was this behaviour and worse that drove hundreds of
good comrades to resign and threatened a
larger split, which many of us responded
to through the unprecedented creation of
a large faction outside conference. Consequently, Paul is wrong to see factional
division as being the cause of sectarian tendencies. He is mixing cause and effect and
needs to be corrected.
We also need to make an honest
appraisal of what we got wrong before we
suffered our last crisis, which took place
after our last attempt at working seriously
in a wider political project. I agree with
Rob that since the split with comrades
Rees, German, Nineham and Bambery,
we have “increasingly defined ourselves
against [that] previous period.” In the process I believe we have thrown more than one
baby out with the bathwater. It is not too
late to change course, but we must begin
to do it now. The alternative is to lose the
party.
99
The Disputes
Committee:
a call to all
members
Ana (Kingston), Francesca and Nilufer
(Kingston SWSS), Kate (Goldsmiths
SWSS), Nusrat and Saba (Ealing)
As detailed by the report of the DC review,
the vast majority of cases the committee
hears are not allegations of sexual misconduct or violence against women. However,
due to the debates which have raged in the
party over the past year, it is cases of this
nature that this piece will focus on.
Contrary to the claims of sectarians and
the right-wing press who would wish to
use allegations of sexism as a battering
ram against our party, the SWP is no more
plagued by sexism than any other institution or arena of capitalist society, and is
considerably less so than many.
However it would be naïve to expect
that no sexism would occur within the
SWP – or anywhere else in capitalist society. This is precisely why we must have
structures in place which women comrades
can turn to in the event that they experience
oppression in the party.
It is now widely acknowledged that
there were things which should have been
done differently during the investigation of
an allegation of rape against a CC member
last year, which is unsurprising given it was
the first time the party had investigated an
allegation of such a nature against a CC
member.
The review of the Disputes Committee
should now prevent any reoccurrence of
these issues and on the whole provides a
more robust and transparent process for
resolving all problems which arise in the
party, with special regard for allegations
related to women’s oppression.
However comrades have also raised valid
questions of accountability for the issues
which arose during this investigation.
It is unfortunate that up to this point,
and despite wide ranging discussion on the
topic, no members have chosen to propose
an alternative to the Disputes Committee
panel which handled the investigation.
While the issues encountered with the
process may have been down to a fault with
procedure, if there is to be accountability
for them then there must be a reconfiguration of the Disputes Committee.
It is in this spirit that we call for members, who wish to demonstrate in practice
their commitment to safeguarding the
integrity and discipline of the SWP and
to building structures which can be called
upon to safeguard the role of women in our
organisation, to stand for election to the
Disputes Committee.
How abuse
operates
Kathryn (Birmingham)
This is how systemic sexual abuse operates:
Some individuals are prized more highly
than others in an organization. These are
then protected by the organisation regardless of their actions. Any victims who trust
the system and report abuse are told they
can’t speak of it, there’s no use them making a formal complaint, no-one will believe
you etc, or encounter bureaucracy which
makes it harder for their reporting of abuse
to be registered.
The organizations may tell abusers
details of the victim’s complaint, giving
them a chance to alter their story or defend
themselves. The abuser gets opportunities which the victim does not. The system
is stacked against the victim, with the
abuser’s word being prioritised if they
are useful or popular. Victims encounter
shunning or character assassination. Their
experiences and selves are trivialised or
it’s implied they’re too mentally ill to be
believed. There may be claims complaints
are politically motivated. The number of
any previous cases reported is played down
so people think they are isolated incidents.
The organization may have an ideology/dogma that enables abuse; for instance
it plays down the ways in which men can
benefit from male dominance in society
socially, economically and sexually. Also
that the group must not be divided by consideration of how some parts of the group
have potential to abuse others. For the
cause, problems must be covered up or
realities denied. Plus, a hierarchy of status
exists but is simultaneously both explicitly
stated and played down, so any power (and
hence abuse of power) can be denied. The process of complaining is made
long and gruelling for victims, and the difficulties of the process are made publicly
known. This leads to victims dropping
complaints, which it can then be denied
existed/happened, or to people not making
complaints at all as they know what the
response will be; disbelief, ostracism and
so on. Interviews are made more gruelling
than necessary,with the victim’s actions
criticised as if she did something wrong.
People are told what they can say both
before, during and after the process, to further enable abuse to be covered up. In this
there’s also intimidation in that the implication is that if victims say something they
face shunning/expulsion and possibly the
loss of their entire social circle.
Could any of this be said to have happened in the SWP? Some people are
saying it.
The consequences of systemic sexual
abuse are that the organisation leaves
people scarred, it has led to suicides. It
can seem at first glance that the best one
can hope for such an organisation is that
it implodes so no further victims are created. However, many organisations such as
the BBC, the care system, the NHS have
had recent inquiries into possible systemic
sexual abuse.
It is harder in religious or political
organisations, as they often intrinsically
think they are all that is good and right, and
people in power wonderful. But in theory
it’s possible for organisations to seek and
root out abuse (though we must always be
vigilant) and become true tribunes of the
oppressed and models for other institutions
in society. Arguably all organizations contain some
potentially oppressive, exploitative and
abusive practices or people. The first step
in fixing this is acknowledging it, and that’s
what the SWP needs to do. There’s a lot
to do to rectify the organisation, but it all
springs from everyone accepting that we
contain some of the factors which make
up every part of the exploitative and abusive society in which we find ourselves,
and which formed every one of us. A male
dominant, sexually exploitative society.
Crisis –
which crisis?
Terry (Edinburgh)
There are dangers in viewing the current
crisis primarily in terms of the Disputes,
though they have certainly acted as a
catalyst.
For five or six years major internal disagreements within succeeding CCs have
taken Conference by surprise. Even though
almost all the individuals have changed,
old habits persist of “not in front of the
children”.
In between conferences, the flood of
calls to action has sustained the appearance
of unity, though this also promoted a habit,
among some, of unquestioning obedience.
The crisis which was developing over these
years was not originally a crisis of the party
but essentially one of governance. In fact,
it was only the quality of the general membership which held us together.
As others have stated in IB1 (p65), the
party’s structures are not ‘fit for purpose’: a
Central Committee which (despite change
of personnel) has been ‘dysfunctional for
at least seven years’ despite ‘the tinkering measures’ proposed by the Democracy
Commission. ‘Dysfunctional’ is not quite
true - commands and calls are transmitted
efficiently down the line – but we have to
ask whether operational efficiency is all
we need.
At the heart of these troubles is a selfselecting CC consisting largely of full timers
100
with minimal trade union experience and
little contact with anybody other than party
militants.
The claim that this system ensures a
united leadership is manifest nonsense.
The argument that CC membership must
be restricted to London because it meets
weekly is equally shaky; perhaps less frequent meetings would encourage more
strategic thinking rather than just operational decision-making.
The urgency of the present situation may
require presenting an alternative slate from
below at this moment in time, but in subsequent years nominations should be made,
on an individual basis, by districts and / or
fractions. This is the only way to ensure the
CC is renewed out of those who are proving
themselves through thoughtful practice and
leadership in real situations. At most, the
outgoing CC might need to nominate three
or four key full-timers, or the incoming CC
could co-opt them.
At Marxism 2013 a recognition of the
wider crisis began to spread, articulated
by both loyalists and dissenters. Indeed
Callinicos openly challenged the Opposition to propose alternatives to the current
version of democratic centralism. It is time
for an open discussion about this, rather
than simply equating the current model with
democratic centralism or Leninism per se.
Our current structure leaves too little
space to correct errors, which is ironic for
a developed Trotskyist party; Lenin (and
Cliff!) spoke out boldly against majority
positions when necessary.
There is at the same time an ideological
aspect to the crisis, exacerbated as some of
the loyalists sought to draw lines in the sand
by claiming that opposition to the cover up
derived from theoretical deviations.
Some of these lines were drawn in the
wrong place and the arguments became dogmatic not dialectical. The growing number
who condemned the way the disputes had
been handled were collectively labeled
armchair socialists, feminists, autonomists,
reformists. Feminism was used as a term
of abuse, and those who refused to cover
up the Delta affair were proclaimed antiLeninist. This disingenuous construction of
a narrative of deviation has only served to
deepen the rift.
There was also, however, the one-sided
argument about precariousness, an exaggerated polemic against union ‘bureaucrats’,
and the overwhelming negativity of response
to phenomena such as Left Unity and People’s Assembly, discussed in the following
section. The general drift of this line-drawing risks turning what is left of the party into
a disconnected sect.
In a situation where dissidents began to
realise the urgency of thinking for themselves once more, it was inevitable that
some mistaken ideas were expressed by
individuals, but actually very little in terms
of a general ideological position united the
dissenters and distinguished them from the
rest of the party.
Some contributions towards a
critical discussion
We might have been in a better place now
if there had been genuine attempts to promote the political debate which the CC
called for early in 2013.
However, in the spirit of trying to
move forward, establish a viable coherence in our party and counter the dangers
of the party degenerating into yet another
left-wing sect, my feeling is that some
debate is needed around a number of current issues. What these have in common
is a recent tendency to develop positions
dogmatically and one-sidedly.
1) The notion of a ‘precariat’ as some
kind of separate class is a serious defeatist error, but it is wishful thinking – and
one-sided research - to pretend that many
people’s lives have not become exceptionally precarious and that this makes
struggle harder.
While precariousness is, in a general
sense, endemic to being proletarian (nothing to sell but our labour power), Thatcher
and neoliberalism have restored Nineteenth Century levels of insecurity, both
objectively and subjectively, for a large
section of the class. Neoliberalism has
magnified economic divisions, increased
dependency on state benefits, and created extensive child and family poverty
as well as insecurity of employment. It is
no use being in denial about this.
2) We often encounter the inclination to
avoid struggle among top union officials,
but (according to Critical Realist theory)
tendencies may or may not be actualised,
and how they manifest depends on other
forces at work in specific situations.
We need to distinguish treachery
from cowardice from legitimate caution.
(Who, after all, would want their union
to be smashed in a strike called by a 51%
majority on a 20% turnout?) It is understandable that the most militant workers
become frustrated, but in practice, the
clumsy way in which a polemic against
‘the bureaucrats’ has been conducted has
led to turbulent relations with the very
officials we want on our platforms and
on our side.
If history is made (or not made) solely
by officials, where is the working class?
We might regret that union conferences
did not vote for a wave of strikes but the
decisions were generally taken by lay
members (democratically elected local
representatives), not full-time officials.
There is a danger of denying the agency
of our class, but also underestimating the
level of confusion sown by the “strivers
not skivers” polemic, the attack on public sector workers, xenophobia and the
economic ‘logic’ of Austerity politicians
and media.
3) It is correct to recognize the dangers
of electoral alliances (how could we not
after the Respect fiasco?) but greeting
the emergence of the People’s Assembly and Left Unity with broadsides about
reformism is too negative. Reformism
does not, ultimately, derive from union
officials and their association with left
parliamentary parties.
Workers demand reforms because we
want a better life. The working class will
continue demanding reforms until the
revolution – remember the slogan Land,
Peace and Bread – and indeed after. The
real problem is not reforms but the pretence that they can be gained by proxy and
without mass struggle. This was the great
mistake of many Second International
parties, and Labour MPs and councillors
continue to tell constitutuents “Leave it to
me, I’ll sort it.” The real challenge is how
we can link Left Unity, let us say, with
action in the workplace and the street.
4) Finally, we should also scrutinise the
CC statement ‘Facing the challenge of
Fascism’ in IB1 which draws a simple
equation between fascism and organised
racism. The EDL and BNP represent serious threats and we are right to combat
them with great energy, but this may not
be the form which repression and counter-revolution takes in the future, any
more than organised racism was at the
heart of Mussolini’s or Franco’s fascism,
or Pinochet’s coup in Chile.
The ruling class strategy, as manifested
by the Cameron’s gang, is more complex
in its creation of divisions in the working
class. It has worked not only to create
ethnic division, but to denigrate benefit
claimants, stigmatise the disabled, create
the delusion that public sector workers
are privileged and self-seeking, and that
unemployment is caused by idleness or
stupidity.
They seek to replace solidarity and
mutuality with a war of all against all
– the un-making of the working class.
To deal with all this, we need a democratic centralist party, an organisation
where honest and informed debate facilitates the development of cadres who
can think ahead, an organisation where
shared commitment is energised by collective understanding and our political
strategy is nourished and renewed by our
rootedness and our interaction with other
workers. Party organisation and leadership must reflect our political beliefs and
aspirations.
101
No splits, no
expulsions –
we need to unite
Steve (Medway)
Nobody can deny that the Party is in crisis.
On the one hand we have the opposition, a
highly vocal minority that contains some
very long standing and leading comrades
who are angry because they feel the Party
has betrayed them over the Disputes Committee decision.
On the other hand the majority of the
Party who are angry at the opposition who
they feel are betraying the Party by acting
in defiance of Conference decisions and
making open attacks on public blogs and
social media.
Nothing more illustrates the dialogue of
the deaf than the two contributions in IB1,
Statement of Intent and Statement for the
Revolutionary Party where neither is willing to acknowledge, let alone address, the
concerns of the other. It seems that hardliners one side want to split while hardliners
on the other side want mass expulsions. If
we are not careful both may get their way.
Any such course of action which leaves the
Party significantly smaller than it is already
would be absolutely disastrous not just for
us but for the Left as a whole.
What is at stake
Our current crisis would be serious at any
time but I believe that it is all the more so
happening now. We are at the beginning of
a new era where the stakes are higher and
the challenges much greater than we have
ever experienced.
The Tories are dismantling the Welfare
State before our eyes. If serious class resistance breaks out soon we may be able to
preserve some of it, if not there will be very
little left. Even if the economy recovers the
ruling class won’t be bringing the Welfare
State back short of a mass revolutionary
movement. As it is there is no prospect of
the economic crisis ending anytime soon.
The ruling class have no credible strategy
for ending the crisis and it seems likely that
the world economy will at best stagnate for
some time. There is also a good chance that
may get much worse. What we can be sure
of is that the huge attacks on our class will
continue for the foreseeable future.
Worse still is the climate crisis. If anything the recently published IPCC Report
understates the seriousness of the situation.
Global emissions have doubled in the last
20 years. There is currently a 68% chance
of missing the maximum safe level of a
2 degree increase in temperature and that
assumes that serious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions starts immediately.
But to do so would lead to a catastrophic
fall in the value of fossil fuel companies,
some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, which means that
no serious action is going to be taken.
What this means is that we do not have
the luxury of waiting another two or three
generations if we fail to correctly intervene
in any explosion of mass resistance.
There have been so many instances
around the world where the working class
has suddenly exploded into mass resistance but the revolutionary Left has been
too small, too fragmented among warring
sectarian groups, to be able to intervene
and have an influence on the direction of
the movement. That has then been diverted
by reformist or other influences and petered
out. Being right is not enough. Trotsky was
right about the way to stop the Nazis but
tragically unable to influence events. We
must not bring another, potentially greater,
tragedy upon ourselves.
How do we get out of this
mess?
While many comrades have been repelled
by the tactics of the opposition I believe
that the majority do not support the alleged
impeding of an investigation into a complaint of sexual harassment against an
ex-CC member who has now resigned from
the Party, nor do they want to see splits or
expulsions.
Overcoming the entrenched positions
and hostility will not be quick or easy but it
should be possible to reach agreement over
a few propositions to which most comrades
would sign up to and limit the damage as
much as possible. I would suggest these
are:
1. There must be honest accounting over
the delays into the investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against an
ex-CC member.
2. There should be a debate as to how
we can achieve greater openness and
accountability at all levels of the Party and
facilitate greater political discussion outside pre-conference periods. This debate
must be conducted in a comradely atmosphere and not through abuse masquerading
as polemic.
3. Decisions made by the majority of
the Party must be accepted and acted upon
by all members whether they voted for
them or not. These decisions must also be
defended by members in all public forums.
This is a basic element of Party discipline
and is essential to the survival of the Party
as an effective organisation.
4. Attacks on the Party or individual
comrades by Party members on social
media are unacceptable and must cease
immediately. Discussion of internal disciplinary matters and Party gossip are also
inappropriate subjects for discussion on
social media.
These propositions are deliberately
broad to maximise agreement, the more
detailed issues should be debated and
decided at Conference in as comradely
manner as possible.
If we can get through Conference without any splits or expulsions that would be
a good start but a lot more will need to be
done afterwards.
Many districts and branches have been
divided over these issues and personal relations between some comrades have broken
down.
Both sides will have to forgive each
other for things said and done. A real effort
will be needed to try and overcome mutual
hostility by working together as comrades
once more.
After all we work with people outside
the Party in various campaigns and united
fronts with whom we disagree and sometimes may not even like very much. The
Central Committee and full timers will
have to put in time and effort to make this
happen.
We have to concentrate hard on the
things that unite us, the threats we face and
the necessity for a revolutionary party that
has the politics, the roots and the weight to
influence any mass working class resistance when it comes. The stakes are too
high not to.
Why stay?
Brian (Leeds City Centre)
In August a former member sent the following note to the Opposition website and
some of us were asked to consider making a constructive reply to what seemed
a rather cynical but nevertheless genuine
inquiry regarding the future of our party.
On initial sight I felt the comrade’s comments were made as a sectarian taunt but
on reflection some of his points struck me
as worthy of a serious response.
In my reply below I chose to defend the
tradition of the party to which so many of
us have devoted their political lives whilst
on the other, explaining the role that the
Opposition was seeking to play in addressing the current crisis.
Although several comrades have seen
my offering and generally approved its
content, its submission here is on the basis
of my decision alone and I do not intend
my comments to be regarded as a statement
on behalf of the faction.
‘14th august 2013.
To clarify a simple matter……
I just want to know why people are still in
the SWP anymore? I think that is, considering what has occurred and the subsequent
pig’s ear which has resulted- including the
continuing mass expulsions of people who
102
have gone against or spoken out against
the will of the central Committee – a fair
question to ask. Surely, the standing of the
organisation has been irreparably damaged,
and continuing with it is simply like flogging a dead- or, at least, dying-horse.
Despite not being a member of the SWP
for over a dozen years, I have often attended
the annual ‘Marxism’ Conference, but, this
year, I just could not have brought myself
to go; it would have been like watching a
slow-motion car-crash.
I wait with great interest and trepidation
for your response.
Yours in Comradeship,
Jonathan ****** ‘.
To clarify a simple matter...
(A reply to Jonathan, a former
comrade.)
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for your short note. Firstly you
want to know why people are still inside
the SWP. Well firstly the SWP remains the
largest organisation on the British left still
rooted in the Marxist tradition and still
dedicated to the revolutionary overthrow
of capitalism. Secondly, the SWP with its
origins in the International Socialists; a
highly heterodox, lively, democratic and
activist off-shoot from what had become
a sectarian, stultified and largely irrelevant
‘orthodox’ Trotskyist tradition, still retains
much of its original fighting spirit.
It was those basic elements of the character of the IS that led many young fighters
into the organisation in the late 1960s
and early 1970s. I was one of them and
throughout my political existence I have
tried to continue to see the world around
me through the critical and refracting lens
of a Marxism shorn of dogma and idolatry
and inflexibility of thought.
And whatever its misgivings (and I am
sure that there are many critics with long
and selective memories who will continue
to remind us of them), the SWP as the heir
of the International Socialists has remained
my home.
But to deny that the past three decades
of unremitting global crisis has not taken
its toll on the left as a whole would be folly.
And to suggest that the SWP has in some
ways been immune from that testing period
would be to compound a folly with slavish
self-delusion.
Over the years the SWP has had its
internal conflicts and schisms. That is
an inevitable consequence of any socialist organisation that pits itself against the
merciless challenges of class struggle. But
it is in some way testament to the rigour
and toughness of our variant of Marxism
that has imparted more lasting qualities to
our organisation.
But now the SWP is experiencing the
greatest internal crisis in its history and the
outcome and resolution to that crisis will in
many ways determine the future not only
for the revolutionary left but also for the
whole project of revolutionary socialism.
But to confine that crisis solely to a
totally unforgivable case of alleged sexual
misconduct by a member of the central
committee and compounded by an inept
and dishonest cover-up by the CC would
be to miss the bigger picture.
Certainly this aspect of the crisis has
massively compromised the reputation of
the SWP in relation to two of the main
pillars of socialist principle; women’s liberation and the unyielding fight against
oppression.
But on closer examination what this
episode reveals is a wider crisis of an
increasingly unaccountable leadership in
lock-down mode that through the application of a somewhat dysfunctional variant
of democratic centralism is driving the
organisation into an intellectual and operational limbo.
However, to say that the CC is entirely
the author of this crisis would be to miss
the reality of a wider outside world in
which a capitalist mode of production in
deep and profound crisis has made prisoners of us all.
The massive, destructive and profound
distortions imposed on the organisations,
confidence and consciousness of the
working class by over thirty years of
neoliberalism have had a more concentrated effect on an organisation whose
fortunes are set by the tempo of a class
struggle in which it seeks to root itself.
It is in order to realign our organisation
to the challenges of a world almost unrecognisable to the one of the 1970s that the
Opposition came into being.
As well as redressing a grave matter of sexual misconduct and effecting an
essential adjustment on the whole issue
of oppression, the aim of the Opposition
is more centrally to radically review both
the matter of internal party democracy as
well as initiate an on-going debate aimed
at sharpening both the theoretical and interventionist capabilities of the revolutionary
left as a whole and the SWP – or its successor, in particular.
I hope that this goes some way to explain
‘why people are still in the SWP anymore?’
But in conclusion I would take issue with
your caricature of life inside the SWP: ’a
pig’s ear which has resulted – including the
continuing mass expulsions of people who
have gone against or spoken out against the
will of the Central committee…..’.
Now, certainly there have been expulsions but only four to date. These were
quite arbitrary and unforgivably during
the pre-conference period and on quite
ridiculous grounds. And for your information, I was the delegate who moved the
amendment to conference condemning the
expulsions and attacking the CC for the
exercise of ‘arbitrary power and breach of
trust with the membership’. And despite a
further and quite bitter faction fight since, I
am still a member of the SWP.
Far more serious than the high profile
expulsions of the ‘face book four’ has been
the massive loss in membership- probably
over 400 since the Annual Conference and
the virtual total loss of our students and
younger members.
This was very apparent at this year’s
Marxism event- which by the way, far from
being a ‘slow motion car-crash’ saw some
very pointed and long over-due debates.
In the meantime the Opposition is
engaged in the task of extending that debate
within the organisation and throughout the
pre-conference period to mid-December. It
is a task that will be tough, bitterly fought,
and at times dis-spiriting.
But not to do so would be to see the still
very considerable and good qualities in our
party under-utilised as the internal political
culture of the organisation is allowed to
degenerate further.
That is a prospect that many still in
the SWP cannot contemplate and that is
why, despite the experience of the present
period we have like the good Marxists we
are, come to realise that philosophy is not
enough. The point is to change it.
103
104
National
Committee
elections
National Committee elections 2013
Every year at SWP annual conference
delegates elect a National Committee of
50 members. Its role is set out in section
six of the party’s constitution (which is
in this bulletin). Those elected to the
NC also attend Party Councils and Party
Conference by right.
We call for nominations for the NC
in internal bulletins 1 and 2.
All nominations must be received
by 9am on Monday 11 November.
Please do not wait to the last minute to
do this.
A full list of nominations will be
published in advance. This will give
delegates time to decide who they wish
to elect.
Below is the nomination form. If
you wish to stand, please fill it in and
return it to me at the national office,
or email the required information to
[email protected]
Each nomination has to be supported
by five comrades, and the nominee has
to agree to be nominated.
Candidates have to be registered
members of the SWP and up to date
with their subs (this also applies to the
comrades nominating the candidate).
Each candidate should submit up to
50 words explaining why they should
be on the NC. Please do not submit
more than 50 words (last year the
longest one submitted was 174 words
– it had to be cut).
At conference, the CC, fractions,
student committee and districts can
submit lists of recommended candidates
to conference delegates.
Nominee............................................................................................................................................................
Branch..............................................................................................................................................................
Nominated by
1......................................................................................................................................................................
2......................................................................................................................................................................
3......................................................................................................................................................................
4......................................................................................................................................................................
5......................................................................................................................................................................
Please give a brief outline of why you should be on the NC (no more than 50 words)
........................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................
Please return this form to:
Charlie Kimber, PO Box 42184, London SW8 2WD.
Or email the required information to: [email protected]

Pre-conference Bulletin

Transcription

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