The Left

Bolshy supports the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, but the AWL is just one of many socialist groups in Britain. Why is the left so divided? How can it be united? And, in the meantime, how do you choose?
Mike and Faz take the temperature of the British left...

If you decide that you're a socialist and want to join a socialist organisation, one of the first problems you'll encounter is - which one? There are dozens of left groups active in Britain, each with its own separate membership, publications, meetings, campaigns etc. Sometimes these groups cooperate; more often, they maintain an attitude of studied hostility to each other, either denouncing the other groups as traitors to the true cause of socialism or simply pretending they don't exist.

Clearly, from the point of view of effectiveness, this situation is crazy. If there were a single, united socialist party with a membership equivalent to all the existing groups put together (a few thousand), it would not only draw in many currently unaffiliated socialists, but be a lot more effective at attracting young people and new recruits. So why do divisions persist? Is the left like the Judean rebels in Monty Python, more interested in fighting itself than uniting to oppose the common enemy?

That scene in the Life of Brian is very funny, but it doesn't really explain much. After all, the groups which exist today haven't always existed. Most of them originated in splits from or fusions between earlier groups; the last ten, twenty and thirty years have seen the rise and fall of a number of organisations. Previously dominant groups have shrunk radically or even disappeared, while others have grown to take their place. In other words, the situation isn't static - it changes depending on what people do, how well they organise, how successfully they convince other people of their ideas.

Moreover, there have been times when the left has managed to unite. In 1919, inspired by the 1917 Russian (socialist) revolution, a great variety of organisations united to create the Communist Party of Great Britain - which, despite its small size, played a crucial role in the British workers' movement until it was undermined by the Stalinist counter-revolution in Russia.

The wider picture

The example of the early Communist Party is a good one, because it demonstrates how the development of the left is affected by the broader social and political situation. Just as socialist organisations have grown fastest when workers, students and other people become radicalised (by an anti-war movement for instance), what previously seemed like insuperable barriers to unity may be swept away by the pressure of events.

This in turn may help to explain why today's left is so divided. For the last seventy years, since the rise of Stalinism turned the world's communist parties into agents of bureaucratic reaction, genuine socialists who continued to stand in the tradition of the Russian revolution have by and large remained marginalised. In this situation, it has been very easy for disagreements to turn into feuds and splits, spiralling out of control until we have the proliferation of groups that exist today.

Moreover, the weakness and division of the left has sometimes been self-reinforcing. There has been no lack of radicalisation, working-class struggle and even revolutionary situations over the last seven decades - but socialists have almost always been unable to lead these movements to victory. In both the Spanish civil war of 1936-9 and the French general strike of 1968, for instance, the working class overthrew capitalism for a brief period - but radicalised workers looked to the much larger Communist Parties, which used their support to undermine the revolution. Thus even major struggles have not always led to a growth of the genuine left.

Division and democracy

A major political crisis or upsurge in the class struggle may help the left to unite. But historical weakness is not the only reason for division.

There are major disagreements and differences of viewpoint between the various socialist groups in Britain today, but most of them could be accommodated within the framework of a single, democratic party. In an organisation where decisions were taken democratically by an active, informed membership, debate took place openly and the rights of minorities were guaranteed, a reasonable difference of views would be less a problem and more a source of strength. Those who are currently in different groups could, if necessary, organise tendencies and factions within this united socialist organisation.

So why doesn't this happen? For instance, why can't Bolshy and the AWL form a "Workers' Liberty tendency" inside the Socialist Workers' Party? The problem is that the SWP simply isn't democratic. It doesn't decide its policies by open debate and a free vote; its Central Committee is not open and accountable to the members; minorities can't raise their disagreements in the pages of Socialist Worker. We would simply not be allowed to operate as a minority within it. The SWP is particularly bad in this respect, but the same is true of almost every socialist organisation active in Britain today - the AWL being the notable exception. Such undemocratic internal arrangements prevent the unification of the left in two ways.

Firstly, they create a political culture in which serious disagreements are not containable within one organisation. Whatever the issue, when minorities are not free to dissent and attempt to win the majority over to their position, and therefore face a choice between shutting up and getting out, splits are virtually inevitable. (Several of the socialist organisations that exist today, for instance, were at one time part of the SWP - sadly, most of them have not learnt the lesson of how important democracy is.) Secondly, lack of democracy creates, at the top of even small organisations, an elitist leadership more concerned with its own interests than those of the left or working class as a whole. Such people want to remain "big fish in their small pond"; they fear the openness, accountability and searching political debate that a united left would make possible.

Just as real discussion is necessary for genuine agreement, so democracy will be absolutely essential in uniting the left.

How do you decide?

There are many hopeful signs. The last year has seen not only hundreds of thousands protesting against war on Iraq, but the working-class movement beginning to fight back against the new Labour government. At the same time, different left groups and unaffiliated socialists have begun to work together more, not only in campaigns like No Sweat, but through the Socialist Alliance. This Alliance has many problems, but it is still a big step forward from the isolation and hostility that went before.

At the same time, the various left groups still exist - although most of them have joined the SA, actual unity is still a long way off. In this situation, it would be tempting to throw up your hands, declare all the groups as bad as each other and either join the SA as an individual or just give up on socialist organisations all together. But this would be a mistake.

Analogies are always a bit ropy, but consider this one. If you wanted to buy a car (or a TV, or whatever) you wouldn't be put off by the sheer variety of models available. You would try to find out as much as possible about the different makes, weigh up the information available and buy the one you liked most. Likewise with the left: you should find out as much as you can about the different groups, read their publications, go to their meetings, talk to their members - and decide which one you want to join.

On Iraq, Palestine, globalisation, the Labour Party and a host of other issues, different groups have very different positions. During the recent war, for instance, most people in the AWL thought we should combine our opposition to Bush and Blair with support for the Iraqi workers against Saddam Hussein's dictatorship; most other groups argued that the left should simply oppose the war. Clearly this was a very important disagreement. You don't have to be an expert on everything in order to join a group, but it is always helpful to find out more about the issues.

Workers' Liberty

Of course, Bolshy is not neutral on this question - as you've probably guessed, we think you should join the AWL! We think this not only because it is right on this or that issue, but because it is open and democratic, with its members debating and deciding what its policy is. Where many other organisations see themselves as the future party in miniature, which will grow by ones and twos until it becomes a mass organisation, we understand that the creation of a real socialist party will require the unification of not only small left groups, but bigger sections of the workers' movement which are currently not socialist at all (eg the trade unions). The AWL has its own members, publications etc - but we also seek to act as a force that promotes unity between the different sections of the left.

Find out more about us - and if you agree, join us!