Lessons For The Left
Lesson 8 – Programme and Politics (iii)
The lessons that the Left should learn are almost diametrically opposed to those that Paul has proposed. Rather than a collapse into the reactionary values of family, fairness, hard work and decency, the Left should base itself on the values of class, solidarity and internationalism.
Rather than searching after an ephemeral broad alliance that requires that the Left liquidate its politics and programme, now is the time when the Left needs to clarify and sharpen its politics and programme. It needs to do that, in order to focus its attention on those tens of thousands of new, young activists drawn into political action, in Britain, and indeed worldwide. There is a crying need for such an approach to all of those drawn into political activity in Hong Kong, for example, where the current middle-class politics of the movement offers no way forward, and only the prospect of defeat, and disaster. We can be with all these forces in action, but harshly critical of their leaders, and the current politics under which they are being led.
The lessons that the Left should learn are those of Permanent Revolution, as described by Marx and Engels in relation to the revolutions of 1848. That is that, rather than liquidating our own politics and organisation, it is necessary to defend them, and to sharpen our criticism of the liberal and social democrats, whose bourgeois agenda will inevitably lead them to stab the working-class in the back. We can make common cause with them, in action, to fight our immediate enemies – which today is not neoliberalism, but petty-bourgeois reaction, actual liberalism and anarcho-capitalism – but all the while we warn the workers of the bourgeois nature of those democratic forces, giving them absolutely no confidence, or political and organisational support.
As part of our focus on class, solidarity and internationalism, we seek, in the first instance, to build the independent self activity, self-organisation and self government of the working class in militant opposition to the bourgeoisie and its state. There can be no talk of a Left government, and certainly not a Workers Government unless and until, the working-class, in its large majority, has been won to the ideas of socialism. Even progressive social-democracy, requires that the working-class recognises the need to focus on its own class interests, and recognises that these interests can only be pursued on an international basis, in the first instance, here, an EU wide basis. Anything less is simply Utopian, and reactionary. Progressive social-democracy requires not an extension of state capitalism, which offers only a greater degree of exploitation of workers, and the creation of self-serving, inefficient bureaucracies, but a struggle for industrial democracy, in the same way that, in the 19th century, workers struggled for political democracy, and the right to vote.
But, such industrial democracy, the removal of the control over the socialised capital of the associated producers by shareholders, and introduction of control by those associated producers, will require a political revolution. The idea that the current control by shareholders is unwarranted, even according to bourgeois property law; the idea that this control is holding back, even, the further rational accumulation and development of capital – as those shareholders seek to extract interest, or to use profits to inflate share prices rather than to invest – is one that we have to permeate into the consciousness of all workers. Only on that basis can we get a Left government that will have the support in society to be able to take the required measures, and face down the slaveholders' revolt that the owners of fictitious capital will inevitably launch against us.
But, such a battle, whilst it might start in one country, is one that can never be resolved solely in one country. It will require that such a battle be conducted across the EU as a whole, whichever EU country might be first into the fray. That is why our perspective can, now, never be national, and must be international. It is why we must reject all the nonsense about progressive nationalism. Nor, for the reasons Marx, Engels and Lenin set out can we have any talk of promoting federalism or other weakening of the role of a unified state, of a one and indivisible republic, whereby such bodies would act to limit the development of such programmes, as a means of fighting a rear-guard action against them.
That means that the Left must demand that Starmer opposes Brexit, and commits to Labour taking Britain back into the EU. In the intervening period, it means demanding that he commits Labour to voting against any Tory plans to place Britain outside the Single Market and Customs Union, or that ends the right to free movement. It means that we should build an EU wide labour movement. Such a movement should demand that conditions for workers in Britain be maintained at the same level as the best in Europe, and similarly, it should demand a process of levelling up in Europe itself. Labour should vigorously oppose any attempt of the Tories to deny the people of Scotland another referendum on independence, but Labour, particularly in Scotland, should argue against any vote for independence as a reactionary diversion.
Inside Labour, the Left needs to form a united front. That means that we recognise the different positions of the various Left sects operating inside it. We should support the idea of other socialist organisations such as the SWP, SPEW, CPB, CPGB and so on, being able to affiliate to the LP. Indeed, we should argue for all of the left sects currently working inside the LP to affiliate on that same basis. That means that these organisations can continue to argue openly for their ideas, encouraging a rigorous debate over them. At the same time, it means that all of the Left, the most numerous and most important part of which is all of those half million individual members that have joined after 2015, can unite in action against the Right inside the party, and outside. Rather than liquidating our politics, and chasing rainbows in search of an alliance with bourgeois forces outside Labour, such as the Greens, Liberals and SNP, the Left inside the LP, should leave no space for these organisations, by providing our own socialist solutions to the questions of the environment, civil liberties and so on.
The Left should adopt the same approach to Starmer that the Bolsheviks took in relation to Kerensky and the provisional government. That is, we give him no confidence. His election as Leader is a massive shift to the Right, and will be used as merely a staging post for a further shift to the Right, if they are able to achieve it. It can only be stopped by the membership of the party organising against it, on the basis of its own independent organisation and politics. If left social democrats like Long-Bailey wish to join the Shadow Cabinet, that is fine, and will simply facilitate the exposure of the inadequate nature of their politics. Socialists should not do so. Rather we should demand “Down with the capitalist shadow ministers”. There should be no place for the open representatives of capital in the front ranks even of a progressive social-democratic party. But, the reality is that the right and soft-left dominate the PLP. That itself is a consequence of the failure of Corbyn and Momentum to push ahead with the democratisation of the party, and, in particular, mandatory reselection of MP's. That is now a priority for the Left, as is rooting out all of the same elements within local authorities.
The main enemy today is the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, and their political representatives that have captured the Tory Party and sections of the media, just as the same elements have captured the Republican Party in the US. In opposing these elements, Labour can even make common cause, in action, with the progressive bourgeoisie, the representatives of big industrial capital, and the owners of the fictitious capital based on it.
We should not make the same mistake that the Spanish Stalinists made in 1931, in failing to support the Republican government when it came under attack from fascists and monarchists. But, we can never do so on the basis of any common organisation or platform. Indeed, in reality, today, the representatives of this section of society are so small in number that they have little role to play compared to the battalions of the working-class, and of the petty-bourgeoisie between whom the real battle is being fought out. The main function of the progressive bourgeoisie, today, in opposing the reactionary petty-bourgeoisie, is its control of the state, as witnessed in the use of the courts to strike down both Trump and Johnson repeatedly. Those are its chosen weapons, but they cannot be the ones used by the working-class. Rather we must build workers independent self-activity and self government, today, so as to defeat our immediate enemies within the ranks of the petty-bourgeoisie, but with our eye on our other enemy, the bourgeoisie itself.
Postscript
Its several weeks since I wrote this response, serialised over the intervening period. When I began writing it, I had no idea that its contents would be vindicated so swiftly. The sacking of Long-Bailey, had been an early warning, the paying of the wreckers was another, but then it was followed by the sacking of Nadia Whittome, for refusing to go along with the policy of abstention on the Tory bill to provide immunity to British war criminals. The writing was on the wall, as Starmer continued to stuff his Shadow Cabinet with all the old openly pro-capitalist, right-wing MP's. This was a right-wing, Bonapartist, who was rallying the forces of the Right behind him, supported by the massed ranks of the bourgeois media to launch an assault on the Left.
It was inevitably followed by a provocation, in the form of the suspension of Corbyn, not for anti-Semitism, but merely for exercising his normal bourgeois-democratic right of free speech to challenge some of he findings of the EHRC Report. Even Andrew Marr, in questioning Starmer, said that he was not clear on exactly what basis, what rule, Corbyn had been suspended. This provocation is the end of the first skirmish in this battle, as Starmer and the Right go around bayonetting the survivors of that skirmish, as thy line up their artillery, ready for a bombardment designed to decimate the ranks of the party membership itself.
Much as with Orwell's statement about the Stalinists in Spain, Starmer and the Right are far less concerned that the result of such action will lead to yet another Tory victory than they are in ensuring the defeat of the forces to their Left. Anyone thinking they will be dissuaded on that basis will be sorely disappointed. It is necessary to prepare the membership for the bombardment to come. Its important that the new membership be educated on what has just happened, and what is to come. We must do all in our power to prevent a drain of members from the party, which is what Starmer and h Right seek to achieve, hoping their enemies run away from the battle.
But, we must also avoid sections of the Left engaging in pointless adventurism, which will only give the Right the opportunity to carry out further expulsions, and the closure of branches and CLP's. Its inevitable that we will have to have some individuals who act as the public face of opposition to the witchhunt, but the Internet makes it possible to build an anonymous, but massive opposition to it, without giving the Right an opportunity for expulsions. We can promote model resolutions, and gather online petitions opposing the witchhunt, and we can pass motions simply calling for suspensions and expulsions to be lifted, using our greater numbers to get them approved.
But, what the current assault shows is the need to build the kind of rank and file movement that should have been created five years ago. Instead of all the flash events like the World Transformed, it was necessary to put he effort into building real fighting organisations at local level, and instead of appeasing the Right, and back pedalling on mandatory reselection and other democratic reforms, they needed to have been made a priority, so as to begin clearing out all of the right-wing establishment, whose power comes precisely from the positions they hold, and their access to the Tory media. That is where the Left's attention should now be placed, not on fighting a rear-guard battle over expulsions, but fighting an offensive battle for democracy, and the deselection of all those rightwingers.
Paul Mason has at least called for Jeremy Corbyn's suspension to be lifted, but it was still couched in terms designed to appease Starmer. he has still not engaged in the required self-criticism for the position he has adopted, and which Starmer's actions have now shown to have been grossly misplaced.
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