Another split in "The Party"?

Submitted by cathy n on 9 December, 2013 - 2:37

The Socialist Workers' Party national conference being held in mid-December will result in yet another split. This is the only rational conclusion to draw from a reading of the SWP pre-conference Internal Bulletins.

According to a Statement for Our Revolutionary Party, signed by nearly a hundred members:

“Comrades who continue to belong to a permanent faction (i.e. the oppositional Rebuilding the Party (RtP) faction, formed in September) should be expelled to ensure that they do not damage and undermine our Party.” (IB1, p.20)

A contribution from members of the Merseyside branch expresses the same outlook:

“Those who continue to have more in common with ex-members and sectarians and so easily ignore our democratic-centralist structure can’t be allowed to remain in the party. Anyone who does not genuinely accept the December conference decisions should leave the party or be expelled.” (IB1, p.54)

SWP members based in and around Sheffield avoid the word “expel” but, like a number of other contributions, argues for the same approach:

“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 permanent factions, secret or open. ... We cannot allow this practice to continue.” (IB2, p.72)

Other contributions take it as read that members of the RtP faction, which over 250 members have signed up to, will simply quit the SWP after the December conference: “It is quite clear that a section have already decided to leave the SWP and a good number have declared their intention to do so.” (IB3, p. 92)

The SWP Central Committee (CC) makes the same assumption: “The strategy the faction has chosen to pursue, and indeed to radicalise, makes it likely that many of its supporters will leave after conference.” (IB3, p.8)

But this does not mean that the CC is actually averse to expulsions. The faction’s behaviour “violates our constitution and would allow us, in principle, to take such action (expulsions).” (IB2, p.9)

A CC motion for conference demands “an end to the existence of permanent factions in the organisation” (IB1, p.10). It does not take much imagination to work out how the CC would put an end to the existence of such factions.

Apart from the allegation that it constitutes a “permanent faction” in direct breach of what the SWP claims to be the norms of a Leninist party, the RtP faction stands accused of a host of other misdemeanours.

It has begun “developing ideas which are moving away from ideas which are central to the SWP” (IB1, p.25). It “foments discontent amongst the ranks of the party” and carries out “relentless attacks on the CC” which have “taken on the proportions of a crusade.” (IB2, p.35)

The faction is “not a rebuilding operation but an insidious demolition job”, some of its members are “drifting away from revolutionary politics”, some “probably never really embraced our politics”, and “a few work for the secret state and will help to stoke the fires of discontent within our ranks.” (IB2, p.86)

In the history of the SWP the “unscrupulous methods, distortion of facts and events, and sometimes outright lies in pursuit of a political objective” which are used by some faction members are unprecedented. (IB3, p.73).

Faction members have “deepened and extended the witch-hunt (against the CC),” they create “confusion and suspicions and divisions” by using “slurs and rumours”, and they exist “in violation of successive democratic votes and conference decisions, (which) shapes their approach to democracy generally.” (IB3, p.74)

In terms of its politics, the faction is “characterized by a tendency towards pessimism over the potential for resistance by the organised working class, combined with an exaggerated optimism towards the current ideological radicalism.” (IB1, p.10)

It “seeks to maximise a sense of moral outrage” while “largely disdaining to engage with the political arguments” (IB3, p.7). It has accommodated to “movementism—the substitution of movements for the role traditionally accorded by Marxists to the struggles of workers—along with voluntarism more generally.” (IB2, p.7)

The dominant elements within the faction are guilty of a “slide away from Leninist politics” and aim to “force a fundamental change in the SWP as a Leninist organisation”, whereas the CC and its supporters are united by “a shared and absolute commitment to building the Leninist party.” (IB3, p.92)

And yet – somewhat miraculously, given the intensity of the “suffocating and rancourous internal debate” (IB3, p.7) – the SWP goes from strength to strength!

In Manchester the SWP has become “the living organic expression of the most militant revolutionary workers (in the city)” (IB1, p.39). In Wigan “our SWP branch meetings are bigger and better” (IB2, p.34). In Manchester/Longsight “our roots are strong and our branch is blooming” (IB2, p.42).

In Barnsley a recent public meeting was “our largest since January 2012” (IB2, p.71). In Sheffield the branch has “recruited in the last six months double the number of members that left in April” (IB2, p.72). In Leicester the branch recently held “the biggest Socialist Worker public meeting that many of us can remember.” (IB3, p.31)

In Waltham Forest the branch has “massively increased our credibility and the respect in which the SWP is held locally” (IB2, p.78). Teeside “has seen nothing short of a total reverse in direction in regards to the level of Party activity and involvement.” (IB3, p.31)

Special mention must be made of Ipswich and the reasons for its growth: “The branch has gone from 2 to 24 members! … Ipswich SWP does not have a single supporter of the faction and never has done. We do not navel gaze. We do not turn inwards.” (IB3, p.35)

Such cameo anecdotes are consistent with the CC’s overall assessment of the state of the SWP:

“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.” (IB2, p.21)

“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.” (IB2, p.21)

Needless to say, contributions in the IBs from members of the RtP faction paint a very different picture not just of themselves but also of the overall state of the SWP – and one a lot closer to reality.

Even if the Manchester/Longsight branch is “blooming” and the Waltham Forest branch has “massively increased” the respect in which it is held locally, these appear to be the exceptions rather than the rule:

“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.” (IB2, p.24)

“From a claimed membership of 7,597 only 1,300 members attended pre-conference aggregates. Less than a third of the membership regularly pays subs. The circulation of ‘Socialist Worker’ is approximately the same as the claimed membership. ‘Marxism’ this year saw a 40% drop in attendance and a 60% drop in recruitment compared to the previous year.” (IB1, p.32)

“Leeds District began 2013 with 201 registered members. As a result of systematic contacting we currently have 73 plus 12-15 who are likely to re-register. There are members who joined as long ago as 2007 who have never paid subs; members who cancelled a direct debit or standing order as long ago as 2007; members who transferred out years ago, etc.” (IB1, p.86)

“In Leicester branch earlier this year it was indicated that we had 123 registered members, but over half over these had never paid any subs and three had last paid subs only in 2004. In reality, we probably have not 123, but only 25 members in Leicester.” (IB2, p.88)

The ‘real’ factionalism within the SWP, according to the RtP faction, is that being conducted by the “Undeclared Faction” (UF) – some members of the CC and their supporters among the broader membership.

Lies, abuse and misrepresentation are not the hallmark of the RtP faction but the stock-in-trade of the UF and, indeed, of the organisation’s CC in general:

“There has indeed been a ‘permanent faction’ in the party for a number of years, and it has been made up of those who have organised to defend MS (an SWP full-timer accused by two SWP women members of rape and sexual harassment) at any and all costs, and by any means.” (IB3, p.100)

“The UF organised around a petition that called for M to be reinstated to the CC slate. This faction continues to exist and to operate. One section of it has hardened into a sectarian and conservative rump intent on driving anyone who raises criticisms of the dispute out of the organization.” (IB2, p.46)

“The UF has been responsible for much of the destruction of the past few months. It has been able to exert an influence over the strategy of the central committee and the functioning of many branches and districts. Comrades associated with ‘the opposition’ have been systematically removed from local positions.” (IB1, p.48)

“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.” (IB2, p.26)

“The CC has sought to focus on a variety of other important issues such as Leninism, movementism and tried to pretend that the dividing lines in the faction fight coincide with dividing lines on these questions. It is pretty obvious that they do not.” (IB3, p.29)

The RtP’s basic critique of the SWP’s leadership runs as follows.

When M was accused of rape by a female member and then of sexual harassment by another female member, members of the CC put their loyalty to M above the need to conduct a proper enquiry:

“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.” (IB2, p.46)

That “wider malaise” consists of a number of overlapping elements.

One concerns the relationship between the membership and the leadership. A leadership can function effectively only where it is accountable to an informed and politically educated membership. But in the SWP the membership is kept in the dark:

“Over a period of time the relationship between leaders and members has fragmented and worn down. The latest crisis has crystallised and accelerated this breakdown. This episode has been marked by systematic attempts on the part of the CC to conceal the facts and information from comrades. (IB2, p.46)

A second element concerns a form of “substitutionism”, in which SWP full-timers act in place of an informed and engaged membership:

“The low level of class struggle in recent decades has led to a pattern of ‘substitutionism’ in the class and in the party: … SWP full-timers doing what activists should do, activists doing what members should do.” (IB3, p.29)

“Full-timers compensate for an absent membership. (This) encourages a form of uncritical over-reliance on party leaders who either have influence with the (trade union) bureaucracy, or who are able to pull off impressive interventions with our limited resources.” (IB3, p.41)

This “substitutionism” results in priority being given to protecting such full-timers, even from justifiable and necessary disciplinary proceedings:

“This I think is the real reason for the determination of the CC to protect M at all costs: He was simply much more important to them than most other comrades, however many hundreds of them were leaving in disgust.” (IB3, p.41)

Thirdly, the “substitutionism” of full-timers for an active and politically educated membership reduces the actual SWP membership to mere foot-soldiers for decisions from above, periodically energized by “endless over-optimistic headlines in ‘Socialist Worker’”:

“Since 1995 the general strategy of SWP could be characterized as claiming that every strike and demonstration is the most important event and requires our complete support and attention … (together with) repeated calls for frenetic activity and blind obedience to a leadership which is not clearly and democratically held to account.” (IB1, p.31)

“We live in a kind of permanent conditional future tense: what we claim might happen hasn’t actually happened yet, but give it another year, wait until the stars are in alignment and it will. … What we have is a style of wishful thinking: at some point ‘the anger’ will explode, and the lack of confidence which has held workers back will finally be overcome in a revival of militancy.” (IB3, p.42)

Fourthly, the combination of an uneducated membership, a leadership which is not genuinely accountable to it, and the replacement of a strategy by wishful thinking results in a failure by the SWP to think though the problems confronting it in the real world:

“The real explanation for our failure to grow is that it is not so much the nature of the objective conditions, as our failure to understand them: analytic failure led to a long-term mistaken perspective which in turn strengthened the most bureaucratic aspects of the organisational structure which was consolidated by 1975.” (IB3, p.41)

“To point out the problems with (the CC’s) non-strategy is not to succumb to autonomism or workerism or to express a belief in the revolutionary role of the precariat. It is simply to insist that we stop lulling ourselves to sleep with the pretence that nothing of significance has changed since the 1970s.” (IB3, p.42)

The RtP faction is calling for an apology to the two women whose complaints of rape and sexual harassment resulted in a campaign of vilification and slander against them. (IB2, p.26)

It is also calling for a review of the relationship between members and the elected leadership, a strengthening of the SWP trade-union and other fractions, more proper and open debate, proper accounting of where the SWP is as an organisation, an acknowledgement of the damage done to student work, and election of conference delegates to reflect diversity of opinions. (IB2, p.27)

And, of course, Callinicos, his supporters and members of the UF must be removed from all the posts they currently hold:

“There will need to be a significant change in our leadership. At a minimum, it will involve the removal of the minority of our CC who voted against the adoption of the second Disputes Committee report, and of Alex Callinicos, whose intervention at our January conference (‘this is war’) set the party up for our last eight months of continuous internal conflict.” (IB1, p.75)

The RtP faction is very much an opposition within the SWP tradition.

Its members repeatedly hark back to some ‘golden age’ of the SWP (and, before that, the International Socialists) in which the late Tony Cliff supposedly provided the leadership and democratic space now absent from the organization under the leadership of Callinicos and Kimber.

Like so many internal oppositions before them, the RtP present themselves as the ‘true’ Cliffites and the ‘true’ custodians of the IS/SWP tradition. Despite much that is positive in their criticisms, they inevitably fail to understand that they are merely the latest victims of the tradition which they seek to defend.

Thus, for example, there is a supposed contrast between the ‘good’ democratic centralism of St. Cliff of Cotton Gardens and the ‘bad’ democratic centralism of Callinicos the Antichrist:

“IS made the turn to a democratic-centralist form of organization between 1968 and 1975. … I regard this shift as having been absolutely essential. … But democratic centralism as currently practiced in the party privileges centralism (‘decisive leadership’) at the expense of democracy.” (IB3, p.43)

This overlooks the fact that Cliff’s turn to ‘democratic centralism’ was itself a means to stamp down on debate and dissidence in the party, the first victims of which were the forerunners of “Solidarity”.

In a sense, though, all of this is of little or no account. Short of an event inconsistent with a Marxist-materialist view of the world (i.e. a miracle), the RtP faction will be defeated at the SWP conference. And decisively so.

In the aftermath of the special conference held in March of this year over 400 SWP members resigned. The opposition could not win votes when those 400-plus members were still in the organisation. It is therefore even less likely to do so now.

In a number of areas, RtP supporters have been systematically carved out of conference delegations, giving them even less of a voice (and vote) at the conference:

“In Manchester, an aggregate electing 35 delegates managed to elect just one from the opposition, a comrade who joined the faction after she’d already been put on the ‘approved’ list. In North London (43 places available for election), with many faction members active in the district, none from the faction were delegated.” (IB3, p.49)

Gaining a hearing for their arguments so that they can win support for them is made even more difficult for members of the RtP faction by the systematic abuse and misrepresentation to which they are subjected in the pages of the IBs and in local meetings:

“Just look at my own district – Manchester. Such has been the level of bullying and ostracism that there is now only one branch (mine) where faction members are able to fully participate.” (IB3, p.30)

All ‘success stories’ in the pages of the IBs – from “blooming” branches to “bigger and better” branch meetings – have been written by CC supporters. This will be used to pigeon-hole and isolate the RtP faction as navel-gazers – in contrast to the rest of the SWP, which is busy building the Revolutionary Party.

(Demagogy about “we are the best builders” is a time-honoured tactic in the SWP. Many of the RtP faction’s supporters will have participated, or at least acquiesced, in the tactic in earlier times. Now it is their turn to be on the receiving end of the same tactic.)

In many of their contributions RtP members come across as ‘old and stale’. Too often, there is an undercurrent in their contributions of ‘the good old days’ and on ‘do you remember when …?’.

Some RtP members even make the mistake of emphasising the ‘generation gap’ which separates them from the younger SWP members who back the CC: “Indeed, younger comrades gazed at my wizened features in apparent disbelief that one so old could not understand something so simple.” (IB2, p.24)

Again, CC supporters will use this to portray RtP supporters as a spent force who may well have played a positive role in the SWP in the dim and distant past but who are now well and truly past their revolutionary prime.

A further weakness of the RtP faction – also of its own making – is its lack of clarity about what exactly it is demanding, apart from an apology to two (now former) SWP members.

It wants more debate, better debate, a better relationship between members and the elected leadership bodies, etc., etc. But apparently not for any particular purpose or to achieve any specific goals.

This vagueness plays into the hands of their opponents, allowing the latter to attack the RtP faction – justifiably – for failing to spell out just what its stands for politically, and to argue that this is due to the faction’s own internal divisions:

“I cannot see any new ideas. More seriously, there are no counter-proposals in the (RtP) document and criticisms are not sufficiently detailed to allow us to understand the argument. … I have only found generalised and indirect suggestions which cannot lead to any useful debate.” (IB2, pp.28/29)

“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 any responsibility whatsoever for the party’s work in these areas?” (IB2, p.5)

“This method (i.e. the failure to present a clear alternative) serves to avoid confronting the considerable political differences that exist within the faction and also to hold the faction together.” (IB3, p.7)

By contrast, the existing CC leadership can present itself as a safe pair of hands with a clear strategy for building the SWP:

“Our own willingness to continue to lead the party, if our proposed slate wins at conference, is expressed in all humility. We believe that we offer the comprehensive political approach needed to take the party forward – one that takes full account of our own crisis and how to overcome it.” (IB3, p.9)

The only real questions triggered by the SWP’s conference – its third this year – is how many members will end up resigning, how many will end up being expelled, and how many will continue to politically work through their experiences of the SWP’s politics.

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.