In the building of new, radical, anti- own group; some had a more dynamic view character; the other, the abandonment capitalist parties there are two pitfalls to be of splits and regroupments on the road to a of its goal. One is the danger of sinking a kind of re-branded far-left group. The of the future mass revolutionary party as a the danger of becoming a movement of second danger is much more serious. It is bigger version of their own group. Today bourgeois social reform." The idea of the question very well a hundred years contradiction through which we must make Alex Callinicos's article reopens a for the left. Respect's votes in a number some additional impressive electoral - including Respect in England and the the British left has achieved in the bye-clections Respect polled 12.4% and Scottish Socialist Paity (SSP) in Scotland. past - with the exception of the SSP. 6.4% respectively. Murray Smith deals well with Callinicos's George Galloway got 92,000 votes for an outright win in a local council bye- controversial remarks about the SSP. the European Parliament in London. election in Tower Hamlets and has just general significance of the June 10 in its ethnically and culturally diverse into a long-term gain for the left? both a disaster for new Labour, the Since the Callinicos and Smith articles Alex Callinicos is right to look at the worst since 1918, and a breakthrough were written Respect has notched up lessons of the experience of the Socialist avoided. The first is the danger of just being to see the radical left not as the beginnings of a mass alternative to social-liberalism, but as a kind of left pressure group on the traditional reformist parties. forcing social-liberalism to the left is a ago: dangerous illusion. Mass mobilisations can block its attacks, yes, but not force it to the left. The record of those in Europe who have tried to act as a left counterbalance to social-liberal domination rather than build a socialist alternative is not encouraging. For decades small revolutionary groups way. It follows that this movement can best defended theneedto "build therevolutionary advance by tacking betwixt and between party. Some of them just reduced this the two dangers by which it is constantly perspective to the linear growth of their being threatened. One is the loss of its mass A reply to Alex Callinicos Alan Thornett construction of broad parties in Europe a qualitative advance My agreement with Murray's response allows me to concentrate on making some additional points in response to Alex Callinicos's views about the development of Respect and the role of the Socialist Alliance which preceded it. I agree with both of them about the election results in Britain and the emergence of Respect. The results were mass party. But they generally had an idea we are faced with the task of building 'On the one hand, we have the mass; on the other, its historic goal, located outside of existing society. On one hand, we have the day-to-day struggle; on the other the social revolution. Such are the terms of the dialectical contradiction through which the socialist movement makes its number of important debates on the of working class inner city areas were Lindsey German polled just short of 5% come second in another in the same area loosely call the 'Muslim community', can Respect's initial success be turned forms. is a major step forward in itself. back into the condition of a sect: the other broad formations while deepening their These are still the two dangers that threaten political content. Rosa Luxemburg posed us, these are still the terms of the dialectical our way. All quotations from des Celliniens aricle in the fuest ison in" softhe Diseassion Bulletin of the Imernation Socialist Tendens CST), to nhich the SUP helongs. The enrin bulletin can be found on aww:/sendener:nel. Stathis Armelnkis "Some hypotheres on the reasons for a enor merels clackoral detea amd it mess political crale. int 1S7 Bulletin 3 Han Thorne!?. The sigmdiconer of Respect, Promine 13. Set Socialist Revistance 1? Suminer 2004. • Rose lasembang Organisarional Onsions » Social Democrat: in Rosalmonburg Speaks ed Mart-illici Hore. Ven Borh. 1970. Droned in Paul Le Blan. The scores. In the Leicester South and Birmingham Hodge Hill parliamentary Soon after it had for London Mayor, and Respect got 20% as we go to press. All these results add up of the vote in East London in the Greater to a dramatically better start for Respect London Assembly (GLA) elections. In than we could have predicted at its Birmingham Respect averaged 7.4% founding conference last January. It has and in Leicester 10%. The support found its place on the political map in a Respect has won from what we can remarkably short period of time. So how A balance sheet of the Socialist Alliance 27
Alliance (SA). However, the conclusions as the SA faced in England - the rise of refers to as a 'structural imbalance'. He he draws are seriously problematic. Blairism and a growing pool of people, is right: there was a structural imbalance It is not just that he regards the SA as including disaffected Labour supporters, The SWP was the biggest asset the SA having been a failure, but he locates the open to a new political organisation - but had and at the same time posed one of 'From a strategic point of view, a mass growing crisis of labour representation was a structural imbalance but whether it It faced the same objective conditions departure of the SP - which Alex Callinicos members was not easy. They had broken problems it faced in the objective political conditions rather than in the questions of its own development or problems of the wider English left. He argues that the decay of the Labour Party had not reached the point where the construction of a left alternative to new Labour was on the agenda. He puts it this way: socialist party can only develop in Britain if it succeeds in breaking away substantial sections of Labour's base, which, despite its decay, still reaches deep into the working class organisations and communities. The point of the SA was to brigade together the sane elements of the far-left into a united front (of a new kind) that could directly appeal to, and win over significant forces from a Labourist background... Given that Labour held together, the SA found itself in some internal difficulty. Had substantial ex-Labour Party supporters joined, the SA would have had two poles, reformist and revolutionary. I thought it was common ground with the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) that the objective conditions for a new party to the left of Labour had matured by the joined the SA in late 1999. Labour Party did not split, but the bulk of in disgust; its voting base in its traditional areas collapsed; its local meetings became moribund and its annual conference was stripped of its powers and replaced by policy forums. Blairism was a new kind of Labour leadership more consciously determined to fundamentally change the class nature of the party. Was the Socialist Alliance a failure? In fact the SA was by far the best initiative towards left unity in England prior to Respect. It failed to reach its potential, that is true. But this was due to political problems within the SA, and the wider left in England. It is hard, otherwise, to explain the success of the SSP in Scotland. 28 this does not explain the whole picture. The SA got some May 2000 GLA elections and then in as rival organisations. the June 2001 General Election. It did and the political fund, organising a major rank-and-file conference in March 2001. It had a good constitution, based on one- member-one-vote, that incorporated the far left organisations and gave maximum leverage to the individual non-aligned member. It also had a good manifesto that was, rightly, as Callinicos says, not a revolutionary programme but a radical left platform suitable for a pluralist socialist organisation. It provided valuable experience and also a springboard from The SA faced, however, a much more difficult configuration of the left in England than existed in Scotland. The Party of Britain (CPB) stayed outside. There was the continued existence of the Socialist Party (SP), as mid-1990s, or at least by the time SWP a sizeable organisation, which lurched increasingly towards a sectarian unilateralist trajectory - despite its its socialist and activist membership left ritualistic propaganda about a new SA at the constitutional conference in There was also a stronger presence of for Workers Liberty (AWL), but also the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Workers Power, which was capable of a much more constructive role, went off on a leftist binge, rejecting the idea of building broad parties at just the time when new possibilities were opening up. Added to this was the dominant size of the debates and improved the situation. But SWP inside the SA - exacerbated by the it went well beyond what the SA was able its trickiest problems. It was, however, to attain. The introduction of the Scottish to the credit of the SWP that it had taken Parliament was an important factor, but the strategic decision to join the SA and back the building of a broad socialist alternative. We had serious left unity for good results in the the first time after decades of functioning good work in the unions around the The issue, therefore, is not whether there was a containable problem, to be resolved as soon as possible by the expansion of the SA, or whether it rendered the SA non-viable, despite its achievements. Alex Callinicos seems to suggest it did, arguing that the imbalance was due to the weakness of the SA's reformist pole. This would raise some serious problems about the future of Respect as I discuss below. He puts it this way: 'When we asserted ourselves, however democratically, we caused resentment. and a few well known 'independents' cited 'SWP dominance' when they walked out of the Alliance. Usually they had their own reasons for leaving, but in truth the SWP did dominate the SA - not by intention, but by default, in the absence of a sufficiently strong pole from a reformist background' In fact there was such a pole or 'left Labour component' inside the SA. The party. The SP split from the SA had understood that success rested on its ability to attract ex-Labour Party members, and it had had some success, and standing as candidates. Both Mike smaller, sectarian far-left groups in England Marqusee and John Nicholson were than in Scotland, particularly the Alliance leading members, as was Dave Church and a sizeable group of socialists from Walsall where some were ex-Labour councillors. Liz Davies resigned from the Labour Party (and its NEC) to become the To have had more from the Labour tradition would have tempered the internal winning large numbers of ex-Labour Party
Afghanistan in late 2001. The SA was by- made by the SSP, which increased its the nearest thing we have had to a split than by collective split. The decision to join something new, therefore, was also an individual process. Some were wary about joining an organisation with such a large far left component and/or dominated The integration of this by the SWP. left-Labour component was more or less a precondition to a further breakthrough on this front. In this the actions and attitude of the SWP was as crucial as the campaigning successes of the SA itself. The point here is not to put all the - far from it. The SWP made important compromises in the cause of the unity of the SA, and engaged in debates it did not want to have. But the blunt fact is that there are things that only the dominant organisation can do. The SWP failed to convince a lot of individual activists that the decision-making processes of the SA were sufficiently separate from those of the SWP itself. The result was a growing resentment, not always based on fact, which became an increasing problem. Alex Callinicos is right to say there was often resentment against the SWP even when it acted in a perfectly democratic way. There was also sectarianism towards the far left in general. He is wrong, however, to suggest that it was an unmanageable situation. It was always going to be difficult in an organisation embracing diverse traditions of the left and far left. It meant that the SWP had to be squeaky clean when it came to the democratic functioning of the SA, to ensure no credence could be given to false accusations. Unfortunately there were too many examples, particularly at a local level, of pre-emptive decision-making by the SWP, a tendency to regard democratic procedures as cumbersome or time-wasting. In my view a perceived lack of democracy was responsible for more individual members flaking away from the SA than any other reason - particularly those who had a history of fighting for democracy in the unions or the Labour Party. An example of this pre-emptive approach at national level was the SWP's response to 9/11 and the looming invasion of with Labour by individual decision rather passed and the rally to set up the Stop the War Coalition was called in the name of the SWP. Many of us on the SA Executive Committee thought the initiative should have come from the SA itself. outcome would have - a highly successful anti-war movement - but the distinction was important. It was symptomatic of a problem when something important, other than an election, came up, the SA was set aside and the SWP took over. SWP leaders argued that only a revolutionary party could take problems of the SA at the door of the SWP such an initiative. But why? Why should the elected leadership of a broad alliance, acting as a party on a wide range of issues and developing collective experience, not be able to take such an initiative? Behind this was the SWP's strategic view of the Alliance as a 'united front of a special kind'. This effectively saw the SA as a mainly electoral vehicle amongst several such united fronts the SWP were involved in such as Globalise Resistance and the Anti Nazi League. But the SA was not a united front: it was a political organisation with a rounded programme offering itself as a political alternative. commitment to the SA and caused it to counterpose the building of the SWP to the building of the SA, as, for example, on the anti-war demonstrations. War on Iraq The invasion of Iraq by the US Britain in March 2003 created a renewed the disenchantment amongst Labour's traditional supporters. We saw the biggest Parliamentary revolt of Labour MPs ever. The scale of these new opportunities was clear in the elections in May 2003 - just after the fall of Baghdad - for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and some English local authorities. Labour lost control of traditional Labour councils such as Birmingham and Brighton. Alliance won its first local councillor in Preston through drawing support from the Muslim community for its anti-war stance. The most spectacular gains were representation in the Scottish Parliament The SA's AGM a few weeks later addressed this new situation and launched a new political initiative calling more effective than the existing SA. Unfortunately the Communist Party of Britain, an important component of the Stop the War Coalition, and a potential supporter of a realignment, decided not to join but to stick to their line of 'reclaiming' Labour for the left. This strategy looked towards the trade union left, the so-called 'awkward squad' and the Campaign Group of Labour MPs. However, George Galloway's expulsion from the Labour Party, in October 2003, opened the situation up. He promptly appealed for a new political coalition based on the unity forged in the anti-war movement. After a series of discussions and rallies around the country, Respect was launched in January 2004. Launching and building Respect It is clear that Respect is a major step forward from the SA. Its origins lie in the political situation created by the war and in the biggest anti-war movement ever seen in Britain. Although the conditions for a left alternative had existed for eight years or so, dramatic new opportunities This gives Respect a resonance that the SA never had. The debate is now on its political character and how to build it. Respect already has a bigger ex-Labour as well as the traditional Labour left. Respect has attracted many from ethnic minority communities time the left has managed to do this. Activists were strongly represented in the Respect candidates' lists and are evident in Respect meetings, with new people also coming forward. But its vote is much wider than this layer. George Galloway's expulsion for opposition to the war is 29
in the Labour Party. With the stature and leaders hold back from embracing credibility of an ex-Labour MP he brings Respect, even those who are sceptical with him an important chunk of the left Labour tradition. Does this mean that Respect has resolved 'structural imbalance' the suffered by the SA, as Alex Emphatically no! In fact the domination of the SWP inside Respect is no less than it was in the SA and no less of a potential a political alternative to new Labour. problem. and more viable As a new organisation Respect is better placed to tackle this, but the problems posed in developing Respect are similar to those is reflected in the human, material and faced by the SA: strengthening its non- far left component; making it habitable effective vehicle for left unity; bringing in parts of the left who are not yet convinced by it; making a breakthrough into the unions and gaining union affiliations. It also means tackling this 'problem' of the dominant organisation - seeking to the SA. At the same time Respect has to draw on the strengths of the SWP whilst develop politically. Out of necessity, it avoiding the pitfalls. This has to be done went into the June elections on a limited by building confidence and trust in the course of day-to-day work and Respect's organisational structures. But if it does processes. There decision-making are already signs of pre-emptive decision- collective politics. making at local level that set the alarm bells ringing. This is not just about the fears of individuals. We need to create the best conditions to bring new organisations into Respect. At the moment the only other organised groups within Respect are Socialist Resistance and the CPGB. In the unions hostility to new Labour continues to grow, yet important left IVI 30 about the 'reclaim Labour' position. We need to think carefully about this. The gains made by the SA in the RMT and the CWU need to be consolidated. The FBU, which has just broken from Labour, needs Callinicos implies? to be won to Respect. We need to create the best possible conditions for the unions to transfer their allegiances to Respect as The SWP has a much bigger commitment to Respect than it had to the SA. This political resources it is prepared to put into it. More of the SWP's leadership is for non-aligned members; making it an committed to Respect than was the case with the SA. SWP branches were clearly the driving force in the recent election campaigns. Respect has a profile in Socialist Worker that the SA never had All this is a basis for building Respect more consistently than was the case with political platform and with embryonic not develop more comprehensive and and its own distinct political activity, it will run into serious trouble. Alex Callinicos' defence of the 'Respect model' suggests that the SWP leadership still regard Respect in the way it regarded the SA - as a 'united front of a special kind'. This is a big problem. If Respect is to develop and consolidate it needs to move towards becoming a party rather viability. International Viewpoint from the Fourth International The summer issue includes the documents of 15th World Congress 10 issues by airmail only £30 (UK). First time subscribers £22.50 - 25% discount. For all non-UK subscription rates contact: [email protected] Cheques made payable to International Veiwpoint PO Box 112, Manchester M12 5DW, UK than a broad coalition. Only in this way can it develop the necessary collective political experience and internal life that will take it beyond being a collection of groupings and individuals. This will not happen immediately, but it needs to be the medium-term objective. Already there seems to be a consensus that Respect should be a multi-tendency organisation with the political groups having the right of platform within it. This is very important and a rejection of the authoritarian model of Scargill's Socialist Labour Party (SLP). Respect has a clear socialist reference point (the 'S' is for Socialism) but puts forward its socialist and anti-capitalist ideas in a way which is consistent with its pluralist approach, the diversity of its membership, and its stage of development. It is crucial that it continues this way. Respect has towards two thousand new members who were not in the SA. These new members will need, and will want, the democratic structures of a party in which they can participate and have their say. They will want local branch meetings with political discussions and debate. They were after all attracted to Respect on the basis of its politics and its stand against new Labour and the war. This is particularly the case with Respect members who are not members of an affiliated organisation and therefore have no other forum for such discussions. The October conference that will discuss as political the constitution, as well issues, will be a test of Respect's future Monthly review of news and analysis
Ciao Livio Lo comera ardente sarà allestita DOMENICA 19 SETTEMBRE dalle ore 10 alle 21 in Viale del Policlinico 129 nella Sala Libertini della Direzione Nazionale del Prc dove alle 12 si svolgerà un breve ricordo, LA CERIMONIA FUNEBRE SI SVOLGERA' LUNEDI' 20 SETTEMBRE ALLE ORE 11 A PIAZZALE DEL VERANO PARTITO DELLA RIFONDAZIONE COMUNISTA Leading Livio Maitan 1923 - 2004 an active participant ever since." Livio Maitan had of Italian marxist current Bandiera Rossa. Livio became politically active was subsequently a leading Italian 1948 he the Fronte Democrazia Popolare. death. talked about Pablo in 1953. KATO COMUNTE TRA EURO SEONDAZION st Outlook "Our live than their profits AL FORUM Italian revolutionary socialist Livio His generation were the cadres who carried the Maitan died on 16th September, at the age of 81. "My autobiographical balance sheet cannot be separated from the balance sheel of the political and cultural, national and international current which I joined in 1947 and in which I have been been a Icading member Fourth International or outside. Communist R'efoundation since il came into existence in the early 1990s. and a long-time leader of the revolutionary during the Trotsky's writings. years of the Nazi occupation of Italy. and member of the In 1989 the Socialist Youth. In 1947 he joined organised the Italian Trotskyist morement of which he joined Democrazia remained a leading member all his life. In was a member of the leadership of Partito of Communist He was one of a small group of comrades who led the Fourth International during the difficult years of the 1950s and carly 1960s. First elected in Until recently. 1951. he remained a member of the International leadership, re-elected at each congress. until his Opponents of the Fourth International weekly until into his 70s. "Mandel-Frank-Maitan" the leadership of the Fl. following the departure of His book La Strada Percorsa - The Road Taken by Bertinotti. socialism remains works include Subscription & Back Issues Make cheques payable to Socialist Outlook. Send to P.O. Box 1109, N4 2U0i, London, UK. Subscription includes 1 years quarterly issues and postage & packaging. UK = £10 Europe = £12 Issue 01: Capitalism means War: Politics by other means Issue 02: Movements, broad parties and the revolutionary party Issues 03: 'Our Lives are worth more than their profits' programme of revolutionary marxism through the difficult post-war years. and who were gradually able to link up with a broader layer of new young activists in the mid-late 1960s. Livio was actively involved in the huge worker- student upsurge in Haly between 1969 and 1976, and universally seen as someone who had played a key role in training numcrous leaders of the Italian revolutionary left. whether inside the In the 1970s he also lectured on the economy of underdevelopment in the School of Sociology at the University of Rome. He translated and introduced almost all the Italian editions of Italian Fourth Internationalists around the journal Bandiera Rossa Proletaria. and with DP participated in 1991 in the foundation of the dell Rifondazione Comunista (Party Refoundation, PRC). He was elected to the leadership of Rifondazione at each successive congress from 1991 until 2002. despite and illness. he age maintained his participation in all the leadership bodies of the FI. A football fanatic. he played was published in 2002 with an introduction Communist Refoundation leader Fausto In this book Maitan argues strongly against the view that the defeats of socialism in the 20th Century were "inevitable", and equally strongly for the view that the possibility of His other published open. his 1976 book on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and a history of the Italian Communist Party, published by the IIRE. International = £13.50
PRE-ESF RALLY Thursday October 14th 7.30pm Indian YMCA 41 Fitzroy Square London W1 Warren St. Tube european social forum EVER GET THE FEELING YOU'VE BEENI CHEATED? resistance Alain Krivine French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire Film Director Ken Loach Joao Machado SSP MSP Frances Curran Karen O'Toole Socialist Resistance Josep Maria Antentas Anti-globalisation activist Socialist Democracy, Brazil" Socialist Resistance and anti-imperialist movements or £20 (other overseas. Cheques made payable to The monthly Marxist paper Produced by the Socialist Solidarity Network, the International Socialist Group and other individual activists in RESPECT, the Global Justice subscription rates are: 1 year for £10 (UK), £10 (Europe) RESISTANCE.Send to PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU