What is Socialist Party line on a new workers' party?
Letter from John Malcolm
Click here to go to reply from Alan Thornett
In Socialist Outlook 51 the following statement appears in Alan Thornett’s article on the Socialist Party:
"The use of the word ‘mass’ is crucial. Whilst the SP calls for a new mass party, it is opposed to the formation of a new party of the left which is not, at this stage, a mass party; for example the Scottish Socialist Party or a party on same lines in England – even though it originally welcomed the formation of the Socialist Labour Party by Arthur Scargill in the mid 1990s".
This is completely false. We do not oppose a new party of the left even if it falls far short of the term mass party. Neither do we oppose the SSP: in fact our section is a crucial part of this party.
We do not see the Socialist Alliance as being a party of the left, although it could have and may still develop in this direction. The SLP at the time of its launch had far more potential than the existing forces in the SA, and could have developed into a party of the left.
We need to make the distinction between what are the objective conditions and what is needed to advance the working class.
We do not see the development of a mass party as linear rather as a complex process with various forces and formations contributing to this development.
There can be no shortcuts however much will depend on exploiting the likely favourable objective conditions for socialist consciousness in the next period.
I would expect an accurate reflection of the SP position from a serious organisation.
I suggest you read or even review the latest pamphlet on the mass workers party.
Alan Thornett replies:
SP's pamphlet is just as bad as its statement!
Click here to go to John Malcolm's letter
John Malcolm argues that I was wrong to suggest that the statement showed that while the Socialist Party is in favour of a new mass workers party at some future date, it is opposed, in the meantime, to the formation of a new party of the left which is not at this stage a mass party.
My article in SO 51 was a response to the statement issued by the Socialist Party Executive following that organisation’s walkout from the Socialist Alliance conference last December.
I argued that it was clear from that statement that the SP would logically be opposed, for example, to a new party in England on the lines of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in Scotland.
John Malcolm advised me, for my enlightenment, to read the SP’s pamphlet The Case for a New Workers Party. I have taken his advice – and found that not only does the pamphlet contain the same political line as the EC statement (although the EC statement is a cruder version) but that my criticisms of the EC statement apply with equal force to the pamphlet.
The pamphlet does indeed fail to call anywhere for a new party that is not at this stage a mass party, and remarkably it fails to say anything at all about the rise of the SSP.
In this 24page A4 pamphlet, entirely about a new party of the working class in Britain, the only mention of the SSP is in a half sentence aside about a by-election result in Scotland!
If, as John Malcolm claims, the SP fully supports the existence of the SSP, this is a very strange way of showing it. The SSP is after all the most successful new broad party of the left launched anywhere in Britain for a long time. The idea that it does not warrant a mention (let alone a thorough analysis) in a pamphlet specifically on the formation of new left parties is bizarre.
The overall framework of the pamphlet, like the statement, is one of economic determinism. It argues that an inevitable economic crisis will trigger an inevitable explosion of working class struggle and a new mass party will emerge out of this.
The class content of this party is unknown, or at least unspecified. We can only assume that it would be old Labour recreated.
Meanwhile preparation for that eventuality should be limited to loose, federal Socialist Alliances, and various other forms of resistance, which crucially avoid moving towards party structures or becoming parties at this stage.
The model for the SP’s new mass party – expoun-ded at great length in the pamphlet – is, predictably, the formation of the Labour Party a hundred years ago!
True, this model (spun in the right way) can be twisted to suit the SP’s current argument about federalism. But to entertain the idea – after 100 years of social democracy, the rise and fall of Stalinism, the emergence of radically different social conditions, and with a trade union movement that has been through a long period of decline – that the early formation of the LP provides the tactical model for the emergence of a new party today is to lose touch with reality.
The formation of the Labour Party was characterised by an extended, tortuous, and incomplete break from Liberalism. The task today is different. It is to reassemble and regenerate the socialist forces scattered by the march to the right of new Labour and the collapse of Stalinism.
It is to link these forces to those, particularly young people, who are radicalising against the new world order. In the unions it is to fight social partnership and redefine the link between the unions and new Labour.
The best way of advancing such a political fight today, and preparing for a new mass party of the future, is not the recreation of old Labour – even if that was possible.
It is the formation of new parties which like the SSP are not yet mass parties but establish the model of broad inclusive socialist parties which can be the basis of a mass development when it comes.