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SWP, Marxists & Respect 1. Context 1.1 The background to this article is the recent split inside Respect. A number of us who were SWP members were expelled because of this split. Others simply left the party when practice came into conflict with a commitment to build a broad organisation to the left of Labour. The common thread is a decision to put class before party. 1.2 With the space once occupied by social democracy increasingly vacated, the emergence of Respect as an attempt to fill at least some of this space is an important stage in the rebuilding of working class political organisation. Respect is also defined by an unprecedented relationship between the left and parts of the most oppressed sections of British society. With racism now a defining feature of our age, this is a tremendous achievement. Marxists have something to offer in building this alliance, but also a great deal to learn from it. The purpose of this article is to make some suggestions towards the development of a Marxist current that is engaged in building Respect. 1.3 As a starting point I want to re-examine some of my own experience inside the SWP, focusing on two general areas of politics and practice. Firstly, a tendency of the SWP leadership to have perspectives regarding the prospects of class struggle so overblown as to render them badly defective. And secondly, a model of a Leninist party so top down as to engender a culture of self censorship and deference inside the SWP, massively hindering debate, self-criticism and the ability to internally readjust imbalances in perspectives. My comments necessarily emphasise some negative aspects of my experience in the SWP in order to draw out some lessons for future practice. They do not accurately reflect the totality of that experience, much of which was positive and enriching.[1] 2. A tendency to exaggerate 2.1 The events of 1989 have proved to be a severe test for the perspectives and analysis of the Marxist left in general. The perspectives of the SWP in the aftermath of the 1989 collapse of the regimes across East European were critically flawed. A celebratory tone and cheery optimism for the prospects of a growth of the international left stood out. This was wishful thinking. 2.2 The collapse of the Eastern bloc equalled in popular consciousness the collapse of the feasibility of any socialist project. If those regimes had been overthrown by forces trying to reclaim some more democratic version of socialism, or even social democracy, the wider consequences might have been different. Instead, they were overthrown and replaced by forces which embraced neo liberalism and Western bourgeois democracy. 2.3 The collapse allowed imperialism to go on the offensive, most dramatically in Iraq and later the Balkans. Neo-liberalism ran riot with massive consequences, not least on the living standards and life expectancy of those living in the countries worst affected. A wave of racism swept Europe, and far-right parties previously considered ‘beyond the pale’ won mass support and in some cases were integrated into bourgeois governments. Whole swathes of the left internationally were demoralised. In Western Europe mass parties of the working class split and declined and social democracy moved dramatically to the right. In Britain, these events gave momentum to the right inside the labour movement to go places hitherto unimagined, symbolised by Blair’s ascendancy. However one explains the causes of such a development, the consequences are unarguable. The imperialist offensive was deepened, and the working class movement was pushed even more on to the defensive. 2.4 This massive underestimation of the impact of the 1989 events on class consciousness was compounded by a theorisation of the period that drew radically more optimistic conclusions. The SWP claimed that many of the features of the crises of the 1930’s existed in the 1990’s. They were unfolding at a slower pace but nevertheless opened a favourable period for revolutionary advance. 2.5 The disconnection of theory from reality was perhaps summed up in the formulation that there were large numbers of radicalised youth who had ‘90 per cent agreement and only 10 per cent disagreement’ with the politics of the SWP, and were just waiting to be scooped up. Those in the IS Tendency who critised the ‘1930’s in slow motion’ perspective at the time as inaccurate and damaging have been vindicated by time. 2.6 On the basis of this perspective, whole chunks of the SWP’s infrastructure were literally destroyed by a process of endlessly splitting and re-splitting of branches in anticipation that great gains could be made by ‘pushing outwards’. Expansion was driven purely by voluntarism, sustained by an unreal perspective about ‘opportunities’ disconnected from the actual level of class consciousness. This illusion of growth was maintained by an open-door recruitment policy in which members were signed up on the basis of the most minimum connection with our politics, or even our activity. 2.7 A tendency to either to exaggerate class consciousness, or downplay weaknesses in social movements, also marked the analysis of the SWP after Seattle and again after 9/11. The post-Seattle mood, and the organisational forms it took in this country, was more accurately captured by the phrase ‘global justice movement’. The largest expression of this mood in the UK was around the issue of debt cancellation, which was driven by an alliance of NGO’s and Christian churches. Its political ambition is probably most accurately reflected in Naomi Klein’s brilliant recent book The Shock Doctrine. This is a swingeing critique of neo-liberalism which ends with a clarion call for a return to a social democratic model based on Keynesian economics. 2.8 It is important to say that, in light of just how defensive a position the Western labour movement finds itself in, and how all-persuasive the neo-liberal agenda has become, the development of strong labour movement currents around the programme Klein outlines would represent a huge move to the left. Even that is beyond the current stage of development in mass politics. Some of Klein’s views may find partial expression in individual campaigns, but the totality of them is far in advance of the kind of programme which any mass labour movement force is willing to fight for. Such politics are not the sum total of our ambitions as Marxists. But an honest assessment of where we are tells us a great deal about the current state of class consciousness. 2.9 The SWP inflated the significance of currents and eddies associated with the global justice movement. It was always a gross exaggeration to talk about an ‘anti-capitalist movement’ in this country, later downgraded into an ‘anti-capitalist mood’, as evidenced by the failure of its ‘anti-capitalist united front’, Globalise Resistance.[2] Attempts to explain this by saying the anti-capitalist movement had ‘morphed’ into the anti-war movement exaggerated the existence of the former and the political character of the latter. 2.10 There have been important turning points since 1989, which the SWP rightly tried to give leadership to – and for which it deserves credit. The anti-war movement does signify the discrediting of post-1989 imperialist propaganda about a new, peaceful, world order under their hegemony. Large numbers of people woke up to the reality that imperialist domination means war and conquest. It was an important ideological lesson, which gives us a starting point for the rebuilding of a socialist and Marxist movement. 2.11 However, it is also the case that the political impact of the anti-war movement itself has been partial. Tony Blair was, after all, re-elected in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. This is not to deny the huge significance of the Stop the War movement, both in terms of its contribution to the international anti-war movement or its contribution to creating a new generation of activists. But we cannot escape the fact that its political impact has been less enduring and comprehensive than hoped for. Tariq Ali explains this relative weakness by arguing that “…the decline of the large working-class parties and the trade unions in the Western world has made it very difficult to sustain a permanent opposition to the war”. He rejects the view that it can be explained by the contrasting nature of the resistance or liberation movements, and looks for an answer in the blows dealt to working class organisation in Europe over several decades.[3] The political impact of the anti-war movement itself was weakened by the legacy of a prolonged period of defeat for the labour movement. So, the most significant political advance out of this movement was the formation of Respect – which by any definition is an embryo rather than a fully formed political alternative to the parties of war and neo-liberalism. 2.12 It is fundamental to any development of political strategy or tactics that we correctly understand where we are: the strengths and weaknesses both of our side and theirs. Throughout the past 20 years – at least – there has been a pronounced tendency in the SWP to exaggerate the opportunities and downplay the threats. 3. A
deformed internal political culture 3.2 Authority inside the SWP is maintained by a highly centralised leadership, who employ full timers to execute their line, subject to almost immediate sacking if it is deemed they are not acting effectively. Conscious of having to stay in favour with the leadership if they want to retain their livelihood, and for many their sense of status, self-censorship among the full time staff becomes instinctive. 3.3 The advantage of this method is it creates an organisation with a very high degree of discipline, capable of intervening in a tight and coherent manner. The disadvantage is that without consciously seeking to create a political culture where members feel they can question and challenge the leadership, there can be a very fine line between discipline and deference. This was compounded by the tendency to emphasise the positive, resulting in leading members exaggerating and distorting the reality of the work that they do in order to highlight the ‘opportunities’. The effect is too often an atmosphere in which members can easily slide from exaggeration to dishonesty. One consequence of this culture has been the development of a widespread cynicism inside the organisation, especially among members with many years of membership. It was commonplace for experienced comrades simply not to take seriously much of what was said in ‘Party Notes’ and be very sceptical of reports in Socialist Worker. 3.4 The lack of a culture of internal party debate was accurately described by John Molyneaux:[4] “…the nature of the problem can most clearly be seen if we look at the outcome of all these meetings, councils, conferences, elections, etc. The fact is that in the last 15 years (perhaps longer) there has not been a single substantial issue on which the CC has been defeated at a conference or party council or NC. Indeed I don’t think that in this period there has ever been even a serious challenge or a close vote. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of conference or council sessions have ended with the virtually unanimous endorsement of whatever is proposed by the leadership. Similarly, in this period there has never been a contested election for the CC: i.e., not one comrade has ever been proposed or proposed themselves for the CC other than those nominated by the CC themselves. It is worth emphasising that such a state of affairs is a long way from the norm in the history of the socialist movement. It was not the norm in the Bolshevik Party or the Communist International before its Stalinisation. It was not the norm at any point in the Trotskyist tradition under Trotsky.” 3.5 The recent debacle over their intervention in Respect serves to highlight the havoc the deformed political culture inside the organisation can wreak. When the dispute inside Respect first came into the open none of those sympathetic to the concerns expressed in George Galloway’s original letter, including its author, either desired or predicted a split with the SWP. Indeed, like many observers on the left outside Respect, we watched with open mouths as the SWP responded to a rather mild rebuke by denouncing the most resolutely anti-imperialist MP in the country as ‘right-wing’ and claiming a ‘witch-hunt’ was being executed against them.[5] A reaction of incredulity turned into one of horror when the SWP started repeating the criticisms of the so-called ‘pro-war left’ in conjuring up the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism haunting Respect.[6] 3.6 The political premise of the SWP attacks was patently ludicrous. Tensions over candidate selection in two branches did not warrant their hysterical response. The SWP’s description of George Galloway was nonsensical, which even a cursory listen to his weekly radio programme shows. In a series of articles[7], Salma Yaqoob both demolished accusations of ‘communalism’ against her and the theoretical pretensions behind SWP allegations that Respect was in thrall to ‘community leaders i.e. small businessmen’. Claims of a ‘left/right’ split among the group of Tower Hamlets councillors were further discredited when one of those supposedly on the ‘left’, SWP member Ahmed Hussain, defected to join the Tory party! The SWP’s intention was to drive George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob out Respect in order to reassert their control. Instead their actions unified the overwhelming majority of the independents to take sides against them. 3.7 Inside the SWP itself, however, the picture was very different. Resistance to the leadership did not even manifest itself in a platform at conference. Critical members were easily expelled. The leadership were supported to the hilt, despite effectively destroying a central plank of SWP strategy. While John Rees had brought the SWP, Respect and OFFU into disrepute for accepting a politically tainted donation, the strongest rebuke he received from the SWP conference was praise for some very contrived apologies. Even to those of us familiar with the SWP’s mode of operation and lack of internal debate and dissent, the ease with which it could get its membership to swallow its sectarian nonsense was shocking. 3.8 This was made easier by the fact that the bulk of SWP members are largely inactive in Respect and very few were directly involved, even in East London and Birmingham, where Respect is strongest. Because of this lack of engagement, many SWP members were without any gauge against which to measure the actions and arguments of their leaders. Marxist organisations can ultimately only survive on the basis of a bond of trust between membership and leadership. There is inevitable unevenness in any party. Not everybody is involved in the same arena of struggle at the same time and to the same intensity. Political assessments will be arrived at by a combination of independent judgement and influence of the views from those you politically trust. This kind of trust is built up over years and decades of joint work and it is not easily discarded. Many of the arguments used to justify SWP behaviour have entailed cynically exploiting the trust of ordinary members in order to protect the reputations and standing of a clique inside the leadership. But there is a political sectarianism that underpins this focus on self-preservation. The SWP leadership appears to have drawn the conclusion that if they cannot dominate the space to the left of labour, they have to do everything possible to prevent any other left wing force emerging. This is classic sectarianism that runs counter to the instincts of many SWP members who are motivated by a desire to advance the struggle of the working class as a whole. This has been made easier by a culture in which questioning of the leadership is often viewed with suspicion, and where members can feel bullied and intimidated from so doing. The consequence has been to make it more difficult internally to alter the sectarian route the SWP is now embarked on. 3.9 Internal democracy, and a culture of genuine debate and dissent, is therefore absolutely essential in all forms of political organisation. Without it political leaderships become atrophied. This culture is not automatic and is something that political leaderships have to be proactive in helping to create. It is not something to be turned on and off when politically expedient. 3.10 In an article[8] written in 1986 about the decline of the Workers Revolutionary Party, Duncan Hallas saw in their experience ‘a most salutary warning about the dangers of mistaking wishes for reality, of false perspectives uncorrected by experience, of virulent sectarianism and political dishonesty’ which culminated in a ‘tragic waste of the efforts and sacrifices of many well-intentioned revolutionaries’. While the current ultra-left lurch of the SWP has not reached the depths of the WRP’s ‘virulent sectarianism’, the exaggerated perspectives, lack of accountability and dishonesty of its leadership is enough to serve as a warning. 4. Conclusion 4.1 The SWP, from 2001 onwards, were on the verge of transforming their relationship with mass forces, and of becoming something very different from the SWP of the 1980’s and 1990’s. But their inability to genuinely absorb the lessons from their work in Stop the War and Respect, and adjust their practice and thinking accordingly, has led them to put this positive process into reverse, and retreat to safe, familiar and much more isolated ground. In the process, the SWP have become locked into a destructive sectarianism: they would be happier with a weak and broken Respect, but subordinate to their control, rather than a Respect strong and vibrant but outside of their control, for fear that it could act as a competitor to them in the political space to the left of labour. 4.2 Breaking with some of the perspectives and practices of the SWP does not have to mean however throwing the baby out with the bathwater. While the SWP provide a very poor model of applied Leninism in the 21st century, I see nothing in their practice that invalidates Leninist concepts of organisation per se. Similarly, a Marxist critique of capitalism as an inherently barbaric system, and a conception of the centrality of class struggle as the motor that drives fundamental change, remains no less valid now than it did before this split. Revolutionary change is required for human society to escape the threat of barbarism and build a new world on the basis of socialism. I remain convinced, too, that progress for the left as a whole in this country requires the development of Marxist currents which attempt to combine and test political method and practice. 4.3 What does this mean for our practice today? Our contribution to the international class struggle starts with the work we do to undermine British imperialism. In this context, the significance of the developments that have taken place around Respect, under the leadership of George Galloway and Salma Yaqoob, should not be underestimated. The demands made by Respect would probably have been accommodated by left social democracy in previous generations, but they have been given backbone by a resolute anti-imperialism, anti-racism and a critique of capitalism. This is the correct political orientation for mass politics. In the context of British politics today the development of such a mass current would represent a huge shift to the left. It is inconceivable to me that such a development could emerge without an active engagement in electoral politics. Indeed it is also inconceivable to me how any serious Marxist current could emerge without also having such an engagement both with that electoral struggle and with the forces that are attracted to it. 4.4 The tasks of Marxists in Respect is to recognise the importance of what we have built out of the anti-war movement, do everything we can to facilitate it, while drawing on the best traditions and practices of Marxism and the broader socialist tradition to inform it. The actuality of building Respect provides the central arena in which the discussions we will have between us can acquire real meaning. Grappling with the issues posed by building a broad left wing party, by engagement in electoral work, by deepening our base in communities, by finding common ground with oppressed sections of the community from a religious background…all these are challenging tasks that require clear political strategies and tactics, and consistent work. It is this engagement in building Respect which will define the nature of different Marxist currents. In my view there is no point in unity on the basis of a shared history if there is not the same unity on perspectives and strategy. And there is even less point if we are not testing and refining our views by extensive engagement in the practical problems of building Respect and relating to the forces that it attracts. This is a process, which will develop organically and at its own pace. 4.5 Another perspective sees the critical focus for Respect as being to unite ‘with other organised forces on the left…left-leaning activists and currents in the TUs, anti-globalisation and environmental movements’[9] I think this approach is mistaken. Such organised forces, in as much as they do exist, are extremely weak. A political orientation in this direction will inevitable find itself on barren terrain. Proposals for an ‘Action Programme’ which contain a wish list of demands, most of which have not emerged organically or are linked to any broader movement and therefore without forces to progress them, is abstract propaganda. Calls for Respect to rebrand itself as an ‘anti-capitalist’ party exaggerate developments to our left, underplay those to our right, and make a fetish of an orientation of those who call themselves socialists – whether or not they play any useful role in the real world at all. 4.6 Marxists can play a constructive role in the process of building a broad party but only if they drop an attitude of smug superiority to ‘reformists’, who are often regarded as there only to be used because they happen to have some temporary popularity denied the people who should really be leading the class. It is imperative that we have a sense of humility about who we are, what we represent, and where the success of Respect so far really lies. 4.7 Finally, how does all this relate to a commitment to socialist internationalism? We are politically active in the oldest imperialist power. The best contribution we can make to the international struggle for socialism is to progress the left here and undermine British imperialism and its capitalist class. If we can contribute to the emergence of a new generation of activists in Birmingham, East London or elsewhere, shaped by a progressive politics influenced by Marxism, such that it was capable of taking forward the struggle for working class representation and socialism, and if this experience could in any way aid the recomposition of the international left, then that would be no mean achievement. NOTES [1] For example, there are valuable lessons in the way in which the SWP embedded its members with an ideology sufficient to ensure that on the fundamental questions of the day their instincts were to adopt a principled viewpoint. (That did not mean the correct tactics followed unfortunately). Some of these lessons and experiences are directly relevant to building Respect. As the recent case of Ahmed Hussain illustrates, electoral politics attracts opportunists. Here was somebody who was prepared to use the SWP because he saw it in his best interests to progress his career, and who was also used by the SWP to progress their unprincipled drive for control in Tower Hamlets. Cllr Hussain has since found a more effective vehicle for his ambitions – the Tory party. While the sight of an SWP councillor joining the Tories is in a category all of its own, the corrupting dangers of personal ambition are real wherever Respect has an electoral footprint. And while the Ahmed Hussain’s case is unique, I doubt it will be our last experience of councillor defection. The best way to inoculate Respect against this kind of opportunism is for it to have a strong sense of ideology rooted in principles of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, equality and social justice. Respect needs to have a stronger ideological foundation and its members need to be more rooted in it. Marxists have a valuable contribution to make to this task. [2] In his recent book, “The Resources of Critique”, Alex Callinicos now provides a more sober and accurate assessment of the balance of class forces. Shame it comes at least two decades too late. He states the obvious but from within the SWP tradition the bluntness of his assertions stand out. He writes: ‘The revolutionary imagination of the twentieth century took as its social reference point the proletarian collectivity forged from the working class that emerged from the second Industrial Revolution, out of the great industrial plants of Petrograd and Turinm Berlin and Glasgow, Detroit and Billaincourt, Gdansk and Sao Paulo. But we live today amid the ruins of this working class collectivity, which was systematically dismantled…in the great neo-liberal offensive and capitalist restructuring of the past generation. There remains, nevertheless, good reasons for holding on to the idea of the proletariat as the universal class…But what cannot be disputed is that this working class is an aggregate if different categories of wage-labourer scattered across a globally integrated economic system, and not any kind of collectivity, let alone a revolutionary political subject. On the one hand, the old forms of proletarian collectivity – above all, the trade union movement and social democratic parties in the North – are in crisis, and, on the other, new forms have yet to take place.’ [3] Tariq Ali, ‘Imperialism and democracy don’t mix’ International Socialist Review, November–December 2007, ‘…the decline of the large working-class parties and the trade unions in the Western world has made it very difficult to sustain a permanent opposition to the war. Against the Vietnam War, by comparison, a mobilization was kept going. In the European countries, just to remind you, the main trade unions in every single Western European country were opposed to the war in Vietnam. It doesn’t mean they mobilized permanently, but they were opposed to it and they encouraged their members to come out. Most of the social democratic parties and communist parties in Europe were opposed to the war in Vietnam. In Sweden you had an ultra example: the Swedish social democratic prime minister, Olaf Palm, led a torch-lit procession against the war in Vietnam outside the U.S. embassy in Stockholm. All this has disappeared and you cannot recreate that just like this…. People can then say that if the resistance had been better organized, if it had more national flavor, they would get more international support, but I don’t think that’s it. They say there are too many suicide bombings, too much violence. But in the Vietnam War the NLF [National Liberation Front] was not a religious organization, but they used to blow up cafes in the middle of Saigon, they used to carry out acts that would be described today as terrorist —and were described by the U.S. then as terrorist. They used to blow up collaborators, they used to blow up places where soldiers gathered. No one blinked at that. Those who were opposed to the war backed them. Suicide bombing? What was the attack on the U.S. embassy in 1968? It was a suicide act. They knew they’d all die, but they felt that the symbolic value of capturing the American embassy in the heart of Saigon and putting up the NLF flag even for ten minutes was worth the suicide rate. So I don’t buy the argument that it’s just the tactics of the Iraqi resistance. I don’t think it’s helped, and I’ve criticized them myself, but I don’t think that is the central feature. After all, you had a resistance against the Italians in Libya, which was a totally religious resistance, and all progressive forces backed it. Prior to that, the Mahdi, a big religious leader fought the British occupation of the Sudan. When he defeated General Gordon in Khartoum, the great English socialist William Morris called it a victory for the English working class! I just do not buy this argument that the reason there isn’t more support for the resistance is that they aren’t more like us. I mean they weren’t like you in the Sudan; they weren’t like you in Libya; they weren’t like you in Algeria, a resistance that is romanticized a lot; they weren’t like you in Vietnam. There, Vietnam was a one-party state, the Communist Party was in total control, there were no freedoms and the NLF was very violent, yet the American antiwar movement supported all that quite happily. So what’s the problem? I think one of the problems is what I said earlier—the big, big decline of the massive working-class organizations all over Europe which supplied people for all these mobilizations.’ [4] Quoted in http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1413 [5] The ‘witch-hunt’ claim was cynical in the extreme. Respect does not have the capacity in its constitution or standing orders to expel anybody. The only ‘expulsions’ to take place were by the SWP of their own members critical of their leadership’s stance. [6] See http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10186 where Martin Smith favourably quotes a hostile commentator as saying “the split will strengthen the weight of Islamists in Respect Renewal…” [7] ‘The SWP takes a step backwards’: and ‘Challenges for Respect’: [8] ‘Cult comes a cropper’, Socialist Review, December 1985: [9] ISG, ‘Statement to Birmingham Meeting’, Feb 23rd 2008. |
