Splintered Sunrise

While making his legendary speeches on state capitalism, the late Tony Cliff had a good joke that always got a chuckle from the assembled faithful. This was in dealing with the Five Year Plans, when the bureaucracy would announce (and I don’t have my copy of State Capitalism handy, so I’m plucking a figure out of my left ear) that they would aim to produce 21 millions tons of steel. Then when it came to the next plan, the target would be raised to 16 million tons. Your average Soviet punter, of course, was so starved of information that he couldn’t do a quick compare and contrast.

This joke of Cliff’s comes to mind when reading the SWP Central Committee’s “state of the party” reports in the pre-conference bulletins. We shall skip tactfully over the “World economy – back to the abyss” perspective that opens IB #1, and turn to the membership figures. The CC (and presumably this is Martin talkin’ now) says that “Today there are 5,938 registered SWP members and about 1,700 unregistered members (registered membership is up by over 200 on last year).” This calls for a little deconstruction.

In the first place, this recent innovation of the “unregistered member” is more than a little fishy. These are people who have effectively dropped out, but are kept on the books. They aren’t active and don’t pay subs, which means that they aren’t members in the sense that we always used to understand. I can think of no reason for keeping members who have been inactive for up to two years on the books, except to puff up the numbers. By the way, when the Yanks were excommunicated, one of the proofs of the ISO’s incurable sectarianism was its insistence that branches regularly weed their membership lists.

But is the registered membership a useful guide to anything? I suggest not. Readers with long memories will recall that in the 1970s Cliff had the novel idea of introducing the rigours of the competitive market into party recruitment, by setting up a league table of regional organisers, with the hotshot recruiters at the top and the slackers at the bottom. This did not noticeably speed up recruitment to the party, but it did give an unfortunate boost to what Ahmed Shawki pithily describes as “organiser’s bullshit syndrome”. Of course, the more outrageous spoofers would be found out eventually, and would feel the wrath of Cliff, but the precedent set was not a happy one.

This was made worse in the early 1990s when the “dash for growth” meant that membership criteria were massively relaxed. Many of those counted as members were effectively sympathisers, who might turn out for a big event (Marxism of course, but remember Healy used to regularly get 10,000 or so to his big jamborees) or put a few quid into the appeal if asked, but who weren’t active by any sensible criterion. As for the annual re-registration, it is well known that organisers would bust a gut getting the maximum number of signatures for the centre, whether or not it reflected the real membership in their districts. It has become painfully obvious that carding simply doesn’t take place any more, at least not in a systematic way. And that’s without the possibility of double bookkeeping at the centre itself.

So, five thousand, nine hundred and thirty eight. So how come the pre-split Respect had only 2,500 members, even on paper? And how come the loyalty oath circulated by the CC was signed by only a fifth of the party’s claimed membership, including people I know to have been inactive for years? Isn’t this stretching credibility just a little?

I also notice that the claimed circulation for Socialist Worker is 8,000 per week. Now, it isn’t many years ago that the paper was regularly shifting 30,000 per week. And, if we take the membership figures as accurate (which I don’t), that would mean that virtually nobody outside the party was taking the paper. I know the print newspaper is a dying medium, but it surely isn’t in that parlous a state.

I am therefore immensely cheered to find in IB #2 a long-time comrade who shall remain anonymous remarking that “on July 15, 2006 Socialist Worker reported that, ‘Some 4,100 activists gathered to discuss and debate a huge range of political issues’ at Marxism 2006. However, in the first IB a CC document reads, ‘Marxism 2007 was a great success. Over 4,100 people attended the event, up over 400 on last year.’ The size of Marxism is one indicator of the standing of the party and we are entitled to ask which is correct.”

A very good question, and one which party members deserve a straight answer to. I’m glad to see that the spirit of critical inquiry is not dead, although this comrade’s impersonation of the under-socialised child who pointed out the emperor’s lack of clothing may see a quick termination of membership in the pipeline.

Further teasing out the implications of the Renewal project, I just want to ponder briefly on a question Andy had raised a little while back: that of truth and reconciliation.

This becomes quite important because, as Andy points out, some of those sharply criticising the current practice of the SWP had themselves been involved in these practices previously. Indeed, Dave Renton, someone I respect a great deal, has given this as one of his major reasons for taking the SWP side in the dispute.

Without wanting to rake over old disputes unnecessarily, I don’t think it’s a tenable proposition to say that we should, in Mr Tony Blair’s phrase, draw a line under the past and move on. There are too many bad memories, too many grudges – many of them quite justified – poisoning relations between people who could work together. I think this places a responsibility on people involved in Renewal, who are trying to build something better.

The point is that people can and do change. My mind goes back to 1985 and the collapse of the WRP. There was a genuine transformation on the part of many – of course not all – Healyites as they came to look at the shipwreck of their movement, and ponder what they had done. Even someone like Mike Banda – the thug’s thug, Gerry’s enforcer for thirty years – could do quite a searching self-criticism. And a lot of these guys were never the same again.

Now I’m not remotely suggesting that Renewal should institute a Maoist-style regime of “speaking bitterness” and compulsory self-flagellation. Far from it: it’s just a question of demonstrating practically that the bad old habits are being outgrown.

I think that in the first instance the victims of today should be thinking about building bridges with the victims of yesterday. I think of Steve Godward, a fine trade unionist who got fucked over by the machine for being too independent-minded and too popular for his own good. There are people – they know who they are – who owe Steve an apology. I think of Anna Chen, one of the best press officers the British left has had, getting fucked over by Rees for being too good at her job. An apology from the Rees camarilla is probably out of the question, but there are people out there who Anna helped and who didn’t stand by her when she could have done with the support. In these and many other cases, it’s my humble opinion that some modest gestures – and maybe private gestures would be more meaningful than public ones – would go an awful long way to building trust.

So much for reconciliation, where does truth come in? Simply that it’s important to realise that the behaviour of the SWP leadership is not just a question of them getting things badly wrong over Respect, on a whole number of levels. Rather, we are talking about a process of gradual degeneration going back thirty or so years. If the SWP is doing what Duncan Hallas warned against in the 1970s and becoming a kind of state capitalist WRP, that’s just the end of a long road.

What is needed here is to show that people can reflect on their experiences and draw meaningful lessons from them. This could actually be a valuable learning experience for a lot of people. I would love to see a serious article on the decline of the SWP from someone like Rob Hoveman – not that I’m particularly singling out Rob, but he just comes to mind as someone with the intelligence, insider experience and ability to produce something really good and insightful.

Truth and reconciliation? If handled correctly, yes, it could improve matters no end.

Having written so extensively about the Respect crisis and nailed my colours as firmly to the mast as they’re likely to get at this stage, it was only natural I would want to toddle along to the conference and see what was going on. But which one? Hmm… well, even assuming that I would have been let into the Swoppie conference, I had a fair idea what was going to be said there in advance. The Renewal conference seemed a much better bet – that side has made a far more attractive case. Would it live up to expectations?

 By and large, yes. It was lively. It was unpredictable. It was at times a bit chaotic, but that’s only to be expected – it’s a sign of life. And the signs were that Respect was very much alive and kicking. Certainly morale was extremely high.

George was on his normal barnstorming form, of course. Love him or hate him, there’s no political entertainer quite like him. I especially liked his comment that he wouldn’t be stooping to personal attacks on former friends, as it’s undignified (not something that worries me as much as George) and, besides which, calling somebody a great man for several years and then calling him the devil tends to put your honesty in question. You said it George.

A good thoughtful contribution from Salma, who’s getting to be a more and more impressive operator. Nick Wrack’s rallying call was brilliant if I may say so; Ken Loach raised some of the most pertinent points about how we got where we are and where we go next.

The Swops of course did come in for some stick, which is in no way surprising when you consider their behaviour of late. Perhaps not surprisingly, the harshest criticism of the SWP came from a series of SWP cadre with, I would estimate, well over a century of membership between them, who clearly know what they are talking about. Best of all was the contribution from the wonderful Jerry Hicks, a man the SWP should be thoroughly ashamed of losing.

After all the spin about the Bengali contingent, I was extremely impressed by the contributions from East End councillors Abjol and Hanif, neither of whom I had ever seen before but both of whom were first-class speakers. Both laid heavy stress on their Old Labour credentials, which was pleasing for people who have been represented as “Muslim communalists” of late. Abjol in particular is someone who, if he was just out for a political career, could walk into the Labour Party and be handed a berth – that he hasn’t speaks well of him.

The general tone was very much leftwing and socialist – not quite as clearly socialist and class-struggle as I would have liked, but then that’s an occupational hazard of attempts at building a broad party. Certainly this didn’t look like a right wing to me, not in any meaningful sense.

As I say, morale was high. Upwards of 300 people at a conference organised at 10 days’ notice is not bad going at all – that the SWP rally attracted a roughly equivalent number (almost exclusively Swops and fellow travellers, from what my spies tell me) gives you some idea of the balance of forces. The attendees were firm in the conviction that they are here to stay and will go forward. More than one speaker mentioned a feeling of liberation, a relief at having got rid of the millstone around their neck. This is not of course the SWP as a whole, which everyone agreed contains many great activists, but the rotten methods of its permanent leadership clique. Amen to that.

So that’s a preliminary assessment. As for how things pan out for the renewed Respect, whether it can pick up lost momentum, and what becomes of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Respect, only time will tell. The May elections and the conference scheduled to follow will of course be crucial. But this wasn’t a bad start, not bad at all. Quite promising in fact.

I’ve been reading the SWP pre-conference bulletins, and a most fascinating read they are too. I’ll probably come back to them at greater length once I get the time.

However, a few quick observations are in order. Firstly, I was deeply unimpressed by the contributions from the CC. Their public statements haven’t inspired much confidence, but what the membership are being given – well, I’ll just say that, if you are inclined to take what Martin Smith says as gospel truth, then you’re almost certainly the kind of person BA Baracus would refer to as a foo. In fact, he might even be moved to call you a crazy sucka and pity your foolishness.

 There are, as one might expect, quite a number of sharp criticisms of the CC. Most of these raise extremely pertinent questions, hearteningly so in fact, and a couple cast serious doubt on the competence of the CC as evidenced by its record over the last few years. What is fascinating for me is the names appended to the articles. I had been on the lookout for several long-time cadre who I personally know to be critical of the CC, but they don’t appear, perhaps because they were obvious suspects. But some of those coming out of the closet as oppositionists now are people I would have categorised in the past as sycophants and apparatchiks – in fact, one of the CC’s harshest critics is a comrade I used to view as a Stalinoid maniac. Isn’t it wonderful what a faction fight can do for people?

 The competence question, though, is the great unanswered question. Unanswered because the answer might be a tricky one for the band of brothers and sisters on the CC. To put it another way, if Rees was working for a capitalist corporation, or even a contestant on The Apprentice, he would have been shown the door long ago.

This is where you feel the lack of Cliff. Whether Cliff would have allowed things to come to this pass is a moot question – what’s more to the point is that, even if he had, he’d have found a fall guy and Rees would have been busted down to the ranks ages ago. But of course, that isn’t how things work in the post-Cliff collegiate leadership. Look at Prof Callinicos. He probably can’t shoulder all the blame for the loss of most of the international tendency – the splits of the mid-90s owed much to Cliff’s brainstorms, and it was of course the old man himself who declared war on the ISO – but it’s instructive that Alex remains in situ.

The truth is that there is no one person with the authority to act as hatchet-man. Such is the balance of forces, and the federalisation of the CC into separate fiefdoms, that you would need a split down the middle of the CC for the Sheriff to be put in real jeopardy. Take Chris Harman, who I rate as easily the best brain in the SWP, and whose close acolytes have been keeping a very low profile of late. The problem is that Chris, after decades of being Cliff’s whipping boy on the CC, still has to show evidence that he has a spine to back up that brain. The more aggressive people on the CC, on the other hand, aren’t known as the sharpest political thinkers. And, whatever the undoubted talent there, not one of them has impressed me in recent years as a tactician of real substance.

Is it any wonder George has run rings around these bozos?