{"id":1294,"date":"2009-07-10T19:10:45","date_gmt":"2009-07-10T19:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=1294"},"modified":"2021-03-03T19:33:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-03T19:33:32","slug":"the-need-for-socialist-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/10\/the-need-for-socialist-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Need for Socialist Unity"},"content":{"rendered":"

A contribution from Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network. This is immediately followed by a supplement analysing the European election results, which assesses the current balance of political forces in the EU<\/acronym>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales the main lesson of the 2009 European elections is clear \u2013 we need Socialist unity. In Ireland, this is needed to take some of the impressive gains just made to an altogether higher level – especially those of the Socialist Party (SP<\/acronym>), but also by People before Profit (SWP<\/acronym>) and the Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG<\/acronym>).<\/p>\n

This will not be easy, given past political sectarian divisions, the continued pull towards Left populism, and the usually unacknowledged political significance of the partition of Ireland, which both the SP<\/acronym> and the SWP<\/acronym> downplay. Thus, for example, despite the electoral successes in \u2018The 26 Counties\u2019, Socialists vacated the electoral terrain altogether in \u2018The Six Counties\u2019.<\/p>\n

There are independent Socialist groups beyond the SP<\/acronym> and SWP<\/acronym> in Ireland, such as the Irish Socialist Network, as well as journals to promote debate between Socialists and with Republicans \u2013 Red Banner<\/cite> and Fourthwrite<\/cite>. They may find some difficulty being heard in the face of the likely triumphalist clamour coming from the SP<\/acronym> and SWP<\/acronym> after their recent electoral successes. Nevertheless, the job of promoting principled unity needs to be undertaken now, even if it does not bear fruit until sometime later.<\/p>\n

Very soon, the Irish ruling class is likely to want to organise a rerun of the Lisbon Treaty referendum. Given that Eurosceptic Libertas leader, Declan Ganley, seems to have thrown in the towel, after failing to win a Euro-seat in North West Ireland, the responsibility for opposing this neo-liberal treaty falls much more squarely upon Socialists. The reactions of Sinn Fein (previously opposed to the Treaty) and Labour (previously supportive) will be interesting. This could provide Socialists with real opportunities to make their mark on Irish national politics.<\/p>\n

However, this will mean striving for real Socialist unity, if the whole of Ireland, not just Dublin, is to be covered properly. The ability of the WUAG<\/acronym> to organise effectively in small town Ireland (in County Tipperary) shows the possibilities. Furthermore, it is to be hoped that Irish Socialists can take a leaf out of the French NPA<\/acronym>, and organise an internationalist campaign against the neo-liberal Lisbon Treaty.<\/p>\n

In England, Respect, which provided the main Socialist Euro-election challenge in England in 2004, albeit in Left populist colours, had already split and then dropped out , before the 2009 Euro-election. There is also a warning here for the SWP<\/acronym>\u2019s \u2018People before Profit\u2019 in Ireland, which is still following the Left populist strategy now abandoned by their comrades in Britain, at least for elections, after the fiasco involving Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets, and the tail-ending of George Galloway.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, in the context of more direct action by workers and communities facing draconian service cuts (e.g. the Glasgow Save Our Schools campaign), there is an increasing possibility that the Mainstream parties, holding council office, will victimise Socialist councillors, who identify strongly with such actions. The SSP<\/acronym> has already had this experience with Jim Bollan, suspended for nine months by SNP<\/acronym>-controlled West Dumbarton Council. So the pressures on Socialist councillors (and trade union activists) will be considerable.<\/p>\n

The demise of a once more united Respect allowed their now vacated 2004 electoral space to be contested by others in the recent Euro-election. Scargill\u2019s SLP<\/acronym> made a pitch for the Left celebrity vote, whilst the openly Europhobic, Left nationalist and populist No2EU, tried to appeal to some of the same chauvinist sentiments as the Right populists.<\/p>\n

Wales Forward provided the main Socialist challenge in Wales in 2004; the Left unionist, Respect came a poor second. Both presented themselves in Left populist colours. There was debate in Wales Forward over how Socialists should address the national issue. After Wales Forward\u2019s demise, members split between its Left nationalist component, most going into Plaid Cymru<\/span>, and its Left unionist, mainly former Labour component. The two Socialist slates in the 2009 Euro-election in Wales, the SLP<\/acronym> and No2EU, had nothing to say on the Welsh national issue, and confined their appeals to largely English-speaking South Wales.<\/p>\n

The resurgence of British Right nationalism, represented by the Conservatives becoming the first party in Wales, UKIP<\/acronym> taking their first seat, and the BNP<\/acronym> taking their largest % increase in the vote, highlights the need for Welsh Socialists to unite to more effectively to counter British chauvinism. The recent production of a Celyn<\/cite><\/span>, a magazine emulating Scottish Left Review<\/cite>, and involving debate between Welsh Socialists from different backgrounds and in different political organisations, represents a tentative first step.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the current dire political situation, throughout the UK<\/acronym>, could well lead to a further retreat into Left populism amongst the existing divided Socialists here. The SWP<\/acronym> looks as if it wants to draw others into another Left unity campaign against the BNP<\/acronym>, shifting the focus away from the Mainstream parties. However, it is these parties, especially New Labour, which have largely been responsible for creating the economic and social crisis that has allowed the Fascists to emerge into the limelight in the first place.<\/p>\n

In the late 1970\u2019s, the old Anti-Nazi League (ANL<\/acronym>) adopted this same Left populist approach, invoking Second World War, British opposition to the German Nazi menace. Whilst making some contribution to the demise of the National Front (NF<\/acronym>), the ANL<\/acronym> completely failed to mobilise to defend those Irish victims of the very British, Union Jack-waving Fascism of the loyalist paramilitaries and their \u2018mainland\u2019 supporters. Furthermore, this very British Fascism had the behind-the-scenes support of the British state. Irish Republicanism then represented a real threat to the British ruling class.<\/p>\n

The ANL<\/acronym> also failed to offer any political challenge to the sitting Callaghan Labour government, which had inflicted pay restraints and cuts under the Social Contract, thus creating the situation in which the Fascist NF<\/acronym> could thrive. It was the Thatcher\u2019s incoming Conservative government that finally halted the rise of the NF<\/acronym>, after she resorted to Right populist, racist rhetoric about being \u201cswamped by people of a different culture\u201d. The prospect of rolling back the current BNP<\/acronym> electoral advance, by means of another Conservative, or a returned New Labour (unlikely it is true) government, is hardly a very reassuring prospect.<\/p>\n

The Socialist Party (SP<\/acronym>) in England and Wales, and its International Socialist (IS<\/acronym>) outrider inside Solidarity in Scotland, offer another road to Left unity, which also needs to be questioned. They do want to build a political alternative to New Labour, but by further developing the bureaucratic, Left British nationalist, European electoral front, No2EU. They want to merge it with the SP<\/acronym>\u2019s own Campaign for a New Workers Party to form a new party based on the existing undemocratic, bureaucrat-dominated trade unions – in other words, an Old Labour Party mark 2. They also hope to win over whatever sections of the Labour Left still show any life. This is the current French Left Front and the German Die Linke<\/span> approach. Rifondazione Comunista<\/span> and Left Unity in Spain have already made similar attempts, with predictable results.<\/p>\n

There may be critical analyses going on amongst members inside the bureaucratically centralised SWP<\/acronym> and SP<\/acronym>. How has the SWP<\/acronym> become so marginalised and how did the Socialist Party end up inside the politically suspect No2EU project? These parties\u2019 internal regimes do not encourage much independent thinking. Nevertheless, there is also a good number of Socialists outside the two largest British Socialist organisations, some of whom gathered last September as the Convention of the Left. So, it is to be hoped that together with any critical voices there may be inside the SWP<\/acronym> and SP<\/acronym>, independent voices advocating principled Socialist Unity can yet emerge. Any \u2018red\u2019 shoots need to be encouraged.<\/p>\n

The need for Socialist unity is most starkly demonstrated in Scotland, where the Socialist vote fell from 5.2% in 2004 to 3.8% (on the most optimistic interpretation, which includes the SLP<\/acronym> vote) or 1.8% (if the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity votes alone are considered).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, despite the SSP<\/acronym>\u2019s considerable achievement in winning Socialist unity in Scotland in 2003, attempts to recreate this unity today may prove very hard, given the impact of the past, and likely future court case (involving Tommy Sheridan, and both SSP<\/acronym> and Solidarity members) and the acrimonious split.<\/p>\n

The political decline of Solidarity was demonstrated, by a section of its members\u2019 involvement in the Left British nationalist bureaucratic, Europhobic, No2EU campaign (with its ill-fitting, Left Scottish nationalist, Sheridan bolt-on). However, it is a good sign that sections of the Solidarity membership refused to go along with this. Socialist unity was discussed at Solidarity\u2019s first post Euro-election Scottish Council meeting. It remains to be seen how much this mirrors the political manoeuvrings of the SWP<\/acronym> and SP<\/acronym> HQs<\/abbr> in England, and how much this represents genuine new thinking.<\/p>\n

The SSP<\/acronym> still remains divided between a more outward looking wing, which wants to get involved at all levels of politics, and understands the need for wider Socialist unity, involving other political groups; and those, mainly, but not exclusively from Glasgow, who are still suffering from the traumas of the previous court case and the split. They believe that the SSP<\/acronym> can ignore other political groups, particularly Solidarity, and build itself as the dominant force in Scotland, mainly by working in local campaigns. Some appear to see the SSP<\/acronym> as little more than a political and social network for Socialists in Scotland, with most of their contributions made on the electronic media \u2013 a sort of virtual party.<\/p>\n

Therefore, when the decision was finally, if belatedly, taken, to stand in the 2009 Euro-election, in the face of this internal opposition, this represented a real advance for the SSP<\/acronym>. Even better was the fact that, despite the differences between those for and against standing, this debate was conducted in a comradely manner in all public party arenas (let\u2019s leave aside website discussions dominated by the virtual Socialists!).<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the biggest gain, agreed by Conference, after the decision to stand was won, was the unanimous vote to campaign as part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. This motion was presented by the RCN<\/acronym> and backed by Frontline, who also invited a French NPA<\/acronym> speaker, Virginia de la Siega, to address Conference. During the Euro-election campaign itself, the SSP<\/acronym> then brought over another NPA<\/acronym> speaker, Joaquin Reymond, to address public meetings in Dundee and Edinburgh and Glasgow.<\/p>\n

However, Left populism also surfaced during the SSP<\/acronym>\u2019s election campaign. This came about due to the decision, taken after the Conference, to launch a \u2018Make Greed History\u2019 campaign. Originally conceived as a way to attack the bankers and others responsible for the economic crisis, this perhaps had greater purchase when the Westminster MP<\/acronym>s\u2019 expenses scandal broke out. However, the essentially populist nature of this slogan was highlighted when even Gordon Brown and David Cameron (hypocritically) promised to deal with their own greedy MP<\/acronym>s<\/q>.<\/p>\n

The overall focus of the SSP<\/acronym> election campaign, should have been the \u2018Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis\u2019, put forward by our alliance partners, the French NPA<\/acronym>. It could then have been supplemented by the much more specific, \u2018A Workers\u2019 MEP<\/acronym> on a Workers Wage\u2019, once the expenses scandal broke. Given that our former SSP<\/acronym> MSP<\/acronym>s actually implemented this policy, when they were in the devolved Holyrood parliament between 1999 and 2007, this could have made a lot more impact.<\/p>\n

The SSP<\/acronym>\u2019s back up materials and meetings should have drawn potential supporters to our full politics, summed up by, \u2018Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism the Future\u2019. However, one problem here is that there is no unified understanding within the SSP<\/acronym> of what constitutes socialism, or even capitalism for that matter! Developing our theory and furthering this debate is a no. 1 priority. The RCN<\/acronym>, for example, is beginning this very necessary work, hoping to work with others, such as The Commune group, which has members in England and Wales.<\/p>\n

Now, although 10,404 people do not represent many votes, they do represent a lot of Socialists whom the SSP<\/acronym> needs to actively draw to the party. Unlike the SLP<\/acronym> or Solidarity, the SSP<\/acronym> still has meaningful regularly meeting organisation on the ground, a vibrant website, and a paper to build for the future. The main task is to create a new generation of committed, knowledgeable and engaged Socialists, who can show the way through this serious and developing, economic, social and political crisis. This means an ability to highlight, not only the dead end represented by neo-liberalism, but that other weapon in capitalism\u2019s armoury – neo-Keynesianism. The current crisis is likely to deepen, even when governments are reluctantly forced to make further interventions in the economy. We should be preparing now for this eventuality, so that Socialists can make real advances in the future.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Make Greed History\u2019 campaign might only have been a temporary feature of the Euro-election, but it appears to have taken on new legs. It seems to have provided a definite Left populist focus inside the party. This would appear to go along with a totally dismissive attitude towards everyone in Solidarity. This is not helpful when key sections of the wider working class appreciate the need for Socialist unity.<\/p>\n

The SSP<\/acronym> needs to welcome moves made by others to promote greater Socialist unity, even if some of these people have sometimes previously promoted disunity. People can learn from their mistakes. Each unity initiative needs to properly discussed and assessed. We need to show patience and diplomacy, whilst also ensuring that any Socialist unity is established on a principled basis. This unity does not mean an unprincipled stitch-up, pretending that nothing has happened in the past.<\/p>\n

Dire though the consequences of the split have been, there have been important lessons we have learned. First, Socialists can only make permanent gains by abandoning celebrity politics. The evidence for this comes, not only from the attempted promotion of Solidarity as the Tommy Sheridan Party, but of Respect as the George Galloway Party and the SLP<\/acronym> as the Arthur Scargill Party. Any united socialist organisation needs to be thoroughly democratic and treat all members as equals.<\/p>\n

Future Socialist unity must be thoroughly internationalist, offering support to all workers (or would-be workers) living here \u2013 not just those deemed to be \u2018subjects of the Crown\u2019. International working class unity is central to principled Socialist unity at this time. This means opposing both Left British and Left Scottish nationalism. The SSP<\/acronym>has become increasingly Scottish internationalist and republican socialist in its politics. These gains also need to be defended in a wider political context.<\/p>\n

When it comes to proposals for joint action, we should avoid being panicked by the SWP<\/acronym> into pretended threats of a Fascist takeover. There will be no BNP<\/acronym> \u2018March on London\u2019, far less Edinburgh or Glasgow. Those at the sharp end of BNP<\/acronym>\/loyalist attacks will mainly be individual migrant workers. This is why it was so important to oppose No2EU, with its thinly disguised racist opposition to \u2018social dumping\u2019. Support for \u2018No One Is Illegal\u2019 allows us to come to the help of all those migrant workers, legal or illegal, who face either BNP<\/acronym> attacks or state persecution.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, there could be a rise in loyalist sectarian\/racist attacks in Scotland, in the future, following recent attacks in Northern Ireland, and the new Mainstream political alliance on the Conservative and Unionist Right. The SWP<\/acronym>\u2019s equation of Fascism with German Nazism, and the SP<\/acronym>\/IS<\/acronym> \u2018a plague on both your camps\u2019 stances, are not the ways to confront this particular prospect. The loyalist paramilitaries are very British Fascists. They are the active upholders of the British state and promoters of racism and sectarianism. Their victims need defended and any non-sectarian Republican opposition supported.<\/p>\n

Socialists do need to make more active links with trade unions, but unlike the SP<\/acronym>\/IS<\/acronym>, this does not mean making concessions to union bureaucrats, no matter how Left-talking. Alongside a \u2018Workers\u2019 MP<\/acronym> on a Workers\u2019 Wage\u2019, we also need to see \u2018Trade Union Representatives on a Workers\u2019 Wage\u2019, and subject to regular election. Just as important is the building of a new rank and file movement in the unions that sees sovereignty lying amongst the members in their workplaces, not in the bureaucrat-controlled head offices, or Broad Left-dominated Executives. Workers need to be able to take independent action whenever needed, with the aim of building enough support to defy the anti-democratic anti-trade union laws.<\/p>\n

Given the difficulties of uniting Socialists within each of their respective nations – Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland – we face considerable difficulties uniting Socialists from all these countries. Yet, the British and Irish ruling classes are united in promoting the interests of corporate capital in these islands. Their agreed political strategy involves the continued promotion of the \u2018Peace Process\u2019 in \u2018The Six Counties\u2019, closer cooperation between the UK<\/acronym> and Irish governments, and developing \u2018Devolution-all-round\u2019, all to create the optimum conditions for capitalist profitability. It also involves them giving open (British government) and tacit (Irish government) support for continued US<\/acronym> imperialist war drives.<\/p>\n

Nor, is it surprising that much of this strategy has the open or tacit support of the British, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh trade union bureaucrats, through \u2018social partnerships\u2019. These have rendered trade unions almost completely ineffective as a means to defend their members. Trade union leaders now ask, as a way to counter the current economic crisis, that bosses accept their share of the pain too, in return for workers being prepared to accept massive job losses, pay cuts and reduced social spending. No wonder the bosses are \u2018laughing all the way to the banks\u2019 (now, of course, protected at our expense, by their political friends in government).<\/p>\n

The British and Irish ruling class strategy can not be opposed successfully by means of the organisational model \u2013 one state\/one party \u2013 supported by the parties of the British Left (and their Irish satellites) – the SP<\/acronym>, SWP<\/acronym>, CPB<\/acronym>, CPGB<\/acronym> and AWL<\/acronym>, etc.. Although in Britain this usually means forgetting that the UK<\/acronym> state does not consist solely of Britain, but also includes \u2018The Six Counties\u2019 of Ireland.<\/p>\n

Clearly this model is useless, when the nation itself is divided, as in the case of Ireland. This tends to lead to the acceptance of partitionist politics, which plays into the hands of both the British and Irish ruling classes. Furthermore, even in its attenuated \u2018one British state\u2019 version, one-state\/one party advocates have been unable to consistently counter British chauvinism, or to appreciate the democratic aspect of the emergence of national movements in Scotland and Wales.<\/p>\n

Both the CWI<\/acronym> affiliated SP<\/acronym>, and the SWP<\/acronym>, formally exist as a single party in Ireland but, in practice, follow partitionist politics, especially in their accommodation to continued British rule in \u2018The Six Counties\u2019. The CWI<\/acronym> in Britain has provided different degrees of autonomy for their members in Scotland (Scottish Militant Labour, the International Socialist Movement \u2013 which then left the CWI<\/acronym> – then the International Socialists-Scotland), but nothing equivalent in Wales. The SWP<\/acronym> appears to have no autonomous organisation in Scotland, merely expecting its resident members to implement the British line. The CPGB<\/acronym> has flirted with the notion of constituting itself as the CPUK<\/acronym> to cover Northern Ireland. It is also prepared to contemplate repartition of \u2018The Six Counties\u2019. The AWL<\/acronym> share similar pro-British ideas, but as yet have not suggested reorganising themselves on an all-UK<\/acronym> basis.<\/p>\n

This organisational problem is merely an aspect of a wider political problem. This can be seen by the British and Irish SP<\/acronym>s\u2019 inability to offer a coordinated strategy to confront both the shared British and Irish ruling class political strategy for these islands. These two SP<\/acronym>s have a record of adapting to local circumstances in a way that produces glaring contradictions. Thus in Britain, they support an \u2018independent socialist Scotland\u2019, but merely a Welsh Assembly with more powers. In Ireland, they virtually ignore partition in their everyday politics and election material in \u2018The 26 Counties\u2019, whilst in \u2018The Six Counties\u2019 they have flirted with working class loyalists. The SWP<\/acronym> also have no overall strategy to confront the British and Irish ruling class alliance.<\/p>\n

Neither, though, is the largely \u2018go-it-alone\u2019 Left nationalism, which emerged in sections of both the SSP<\/acronym> and Solidarity, the answer. Any democratic and republican advance in Scotland can only be secured by similar advances in Ireland, Wales and England; just as a future socialism needs to spread internationally, if it is to survive.<\/p>\n

The SSP<\/acronym> made the first small steps towards an alternative \u2018internationalism from below\u2019 approach, when it organised the Republican Socialist Convention last November. This involved socialists from Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. The SSP<\/acronym> will need to vigorously defend this \u2018internationalism from below\u2019 principle in any future, wider, Socialist unity discussions, both against any Left Scottish nationalist isolationists in our own (and Solidarity\u2019s) ranks and, against the Left British nationalists who also figure prominently in Solidarity, especially the SWP<\/acronym> and SP<\/acronym>. These two organisations have already brought about so much disunity with their top down bureaucratic attempts at imposing \u2018unity\u2019, which just mirror the methods of the British state. The UK<\/acronym> remains an imperial state, albeit a junior partner with the USA<\/acronym>. There can be no \u2018British road to socialism\u2019, only a \u2018break-up of the UK<\/acronym> state and British Empire road to communism\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, genuine communism, following from an international socialist transition, means not total state control, but the end of wage slavery, in a society based on the principle of from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs<\/q> and where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all<\/q>.<\/p>\n

Supplement<\/h2>\n

The 2009 European Elections – a political assessment.<\/h3>\n

The European elections provide us with a snapshot view of the current state of politics. The following analysis looks at the election results in Europe, the UK<\/acronym> & Ireland and, in a bit more detail, in Scotland, in order to identify some significant political trends.<\/p>\n

A) Europe<\/h3>\n

1) The Mainstream<\/h4>\n

a) Mainstream Right<\/h5>\n

Despite the ongoing unresolved economic crisis, following the \u2018Credit Crunch\u2019, the main beneficiaries in the Euro-election have been those Mainstream Right parties belonging to the wider European Peoples Party (EPP<\/acronym>).<\/p>\n

Right Centrists have traditionally been pro-business, drawing their support from the middle class, and upholding conservative values. At times, in the past, these parties have accepted pragmatic state intervention in the economy and social welfare measures. This phase of Right Centre politics was most associated with overlapping Butskellite Conservative\/Labour and Christian Democratic\/Social Democratic support for social market or mixed economy policies, from the late 1940\u2019s to the mid 1970\u2019s in the UK<\/acronym>, and later in mainland Europe.<\/p>\n

In response to capitalism\u2019s crisis of profitability in the mid-1970\u2019s, Mainstream Right parties, beginning with the British Conservatives, have moved to the neo-liberal economic policies aggressively pushed by corporate capital, sometimes supplemented by Right populist appeals to social conservatism, defending \u2018family values\u2019 and \u2018national traditions\u2019.<\/p>\n

The parties of the EPP<\/acronym>, which made the biggest electoral gains in the Euro-election, currently hold office, either with other Mainstream Right parties or, in Merkel\u2019s case, in a coalition with the Social Democrats. They gained 20 seats overall[1]<\/sup><\/a>Until recently the EPP<\/acronym> grouping also included Cameron\u2019s British Conservatives, so the defection of their 26 MEP<\/acronym>s, underestimates the real gains made by the Centre Right, since the 2004 Euro-election.<\/span><\/span>