Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 09:55 BST-1
From: sumo-AT-cix.compulink.co.uk (Ian Nicol)
Subject: == No Subject ==              


Re:OP Broadshhet 5 part 2
Open Polemic and the Leninist Faction

In pursuing its general line for the integration of the movement, Open 
Polemic has undoubtedly placed itself in a state of unity and conflict 
with the vanguardist organisations, no more so than with the TLeninistU 
faction of the old CPGB which, following the launch of the Weekly Worker 
in 1981, has given the movement a relentless rendition of its own, 
particular TIskraU strategy.

A TLeninistU review of the first issue of Open Polemic's journal was 
thoroughly negative and hostile. Open Polemic was obliged to point out 
that it had the same goal as the TLeninistU, the formation of a single 
communist party in this country and that: 
TIt is only our strategic approach to this vital task that differs. As 
such, objectively we are allies and not adversaries of yourselves and the 
other 30 vanguards.U

Despite regarding Open Polemic as being, by definition abstract and 
ineffectual, and unrelated to political intervention, some five years  
later, the TLeninistU was inviting Open Polemic to work for communist 
rapprochement as a faction under the banner of the TCPGBU.

By the beginning of 1990, ironically the same year that Open Polemic came 
into existence, the TLeninistU was confirming its sectarian credentials, 
declaring that it was Tthe only revolutionary wing of our movementU and 
that to be a TgenuineU communist, one had to accept its TleadU and its T
disciplineU.

Although it could not bring itself to formulate any definition of 
Marxism-Leninism, the TLeninistU not only argued that TMarxism-Leninism 
is powerful because it is trueU, it asserted that it was necessary to 
equip the Party with a TMarxist-Leninist programmeU. It went on to say, 
and this is significant to its most recent tactics concerning programme,  
that this would depend on Treforging the Party and then convening a 
congress.U and that the TLeninistU would prepare a draft programme and 
present it Tin the form of a proposal to the congress of the reforged 
CPGB.U  

However, by its Fifth Congress, at the end of that same year, the T
LeninistU resolved to transform itself into the TCommunist Party of Great 
BritainU and call its own National Committee the Provisional Central 
Committee of the TPartyU.

For the TLeninistU leadership this meant that it could pursue its TIskraU 
strategy with all the authority that it had bestowed upon itself by 
appointing itself as the leadership of a TCPGBU politically organised in 
accordance with the TLeninistU version of democratic centralism.



Open Polemic and the CPGB (Leninist)

Undeniably, the CPGB (TLeninistU) has the politically significant 
distinction among the numerous vanguardist organisations of allowing its 
members the right to form factions. Its PCC (the TLeninistU leadership), 
despite its continuing insistence that Open Polemic was Ta reactionary 
diversionU later extended its particular,  concepts on factions with an 
invitation for Open Polemic to join the TCPGBU as a faction. Presumably 
by such an act the comrades of Open Polemic could then be looked upon as T
genuineU communists. By the same token, if they took the decision to 
leave on a future occasion, they could then be villified as not being T
genuineU communists.

Despite its misgivings, for Open Polemic this TCPGBU development seemed 
to present the possibility of a definite break with the impasse of 
sectarian vanguardism for it carried the prospect of advancing open 
polemic and rapprochement into the arena of transitional party, political 
organisation. Of even greater, particular significance was the prospect 
of Open Polemic and the TLeninistU, with their different approaches to 
communist  rapprochement, acting together in the revolutionary interest. 

It was evident to Open Polemic however that the TLeninistU, with its 
established control of the leadership of the TPartyU, was still intent on 
continuing the practice of leader centralism  within the TCPGBU. In the 
view of OP, any organisation joining the TCPGBU as a faction would not be 
polemicising on equal terms with the TLeninistU which had put on the 
mantle of the Provisional Central Committee. It would be polemicising on 
unequal terms with the Tleadership of the PartyU. As it transpired, the 
various organisations recognised this reality and have been more than 
circumspect in taking up the invitation to join the TCPGBU as factions. 
Being in leader centralist mode themselves, they have their own interest 
in the possibilty of attaining leadership status before they commit 
themselves to such a step. So, in general, those with any interest in 
the TCPGBU who were still clinging to their TvanguardistU backgrounds 
were interested in the possible opportunity to put forward their 
programmist approach, which well suited the tactics of the TLeninistU.

Being in declared opposition to the continuation of the practice of 
leader centralism in any future party of a new type, the Open Polemic 
Editorial Board as a whole was not prepared to enter the TCPGBU as a 
faction. It nevertheless recognised the necessity for responding to such 
a significant development in a positive way but more importantly, it also 
recognised that the revolutionary interest demanded the maintenance of 
the political independence of Open Polemic.

Open Polemic subsequently responded to the invitation from the TCPGBU 
with a comprehensive statement which was published in its Broadsheet 
No.4. and also in the Weekly Worker. This statement included its decision 
that:
     TRepresentatives of Open Polemic would therefore join the CPGB on 
the basis that this would constitute a particular and significant 
extension of OP's general strategy for open polemic across the 
revolutionary movement.
       On entry as members of the party, these comrades would, however, 
regard themselves as the party's Provisional Polemic Committee, 
responsible for the facilitation and practice of open polemic as OP's 
particular contribution to the work of reforging the CPGB. ...

... They would do so despite Open Polemic's deep reservation that theT
LeninistU faction, at present, lacks the necessary political maturity to 
cooperate with others in carrying through the process of rapprochement.U

It was perfectly obvious that the different approaches of Open Polemic 
and the TProvisional Central CommitteeU to the question of party could 
result in a certain antagonism within the process of rapprochement. These 
antagonisms would not be resolved by any demand that OP representational 
members must automatically adhere to all majority decisions. The comrades 
concerned were entering the TCPGBU as part of their revolutionary duty 
towards the rapprochement process. They were not joining a particular 
vanguardist organisation because they agreed substantially with its 
particular programme.

Open Polemic therefore took the view and still takes the view that in 
accepting the principle of representational entry, the Provisional 
Central Committee had accepted the entry of another kind of member than 
had been the case previously. A situation had developed which posed 
questions concerning the practice of democratic centralism within a T
PartyU which had yet to be reforged.

Transitional Political Organisation
Given the long experience and self-discipline on the part of the OP 
comrades, and given goodwill on both sides, there was some prospect that 
any difficulties arising during the period of transitional political 
organisation could be overcome and that the process itself could open up 
the possibility of other organisations coming in under the banner of the T
CPGBU.

Of interest is the fact that the TLeninistsU of the CPGB at their Fourth 
Congress in 1989 recognised the difficulties of transitional political 
organisation when they asserted that:
TWith uding gateways to 2 external networks. Asynchronous: 3270 
emulators, NTO dial-ups and PSS with NPSI).  In addition the client was 
converted from using an IBM Mass Storage device to storage managed by 
DF/HSM and CA1 using pools of 3380s backed by 3480 cartridge tapes. 

June 1985 to December 1986 : on contract to American Express. Providing 
systems programming support to a system consisting of two 3090/200 and a 
3081. One major task was the installation of VM/SF, another the 
installation of DB2. The primary systems in use were MVS/XA, JES2, CICS 
and ISPF.

May 1984 to June 1985 : employed by MASSTOR Systems. As a Senior Design 
Engineer designing, testing and implementing new software product in 
support of the M860 and Hyperchannel hardware. The major product 
developed was an automatic backup and recall system for use with two or 
more computer centres linked by HYPERCHANNEL or a SNA network. It 
propagated the information from a backup run on one system automatically 
to the other and was capable of automatic recall of datasets across the 
network. This software involved cross memory communication between the 
requester address spaces and a server address space as well as 
communication between the server spaces over the network.

August 1978 to May 1984 : employed by AMDAHL. Originally as a systems 
engineer assisting customers with their operating system support, later 
as a Software Specialist within their European Software Support Centre 
providing third level support to customers throughout Europe. This 
involved spending extended periods working at Amdahl's development centre 
in Sunnyvale working on software for the 580 series of machines prior to 
their initial shipment to customers and included developing and fixing 
both the hypervisor code to support the Logical Processor Facility and 
the UNIX based system used within the console processor. I also provided 
sales and installation support for Amdahl's UTS (UNIX) system throughout 
Europe.  Throughout all this employment I debugged and wrote fixes for a 
wide variety of products including MVS, VTAM, TCAM, JES2 and JES3.

June 1976 to August 1978 : employed by ALTERGO. Principally to design, 
implement and support the SHADOW TP monitor.

November 1973 to June 1976 : employed by Barclays Bank. As a systems 
programmer (MFT/MVT/HASP and MVS/JES2) later the senior systems 
programmer responsible for TP (BTAM/BATS, TCAM, VTAM and NCP)

October 1972 to November 1973 : working for Business Computers on the 
Molecular 18 range of computers.

October 1969 to June 1972 : studying mathematics at Warwick University.

January 1969 to October 1969 : employed by ICL as a pre-University 
student programmer.
 Summary of main product experience:

Equipment

Central processors: IBM ES9000, 3090, 308x...360/40, AMDAHL 5995, 580 and 
470, P/370, AS/400, RS6000

IBM and Compatible PCs

Teleprocessing: IBM 3725, 3705, 270x, AMDAHL 4705

Terminals: IBM 3270 family, 3780, 2780, 2260, Teletypes, IBM PCs

Other equipment: IBM Masstorage, MASSTOR masstorage, NSC Hyperchannel, 
Ethernet & Token Ring LANs.

Programming Responsibilities

System Generation/support:  IBM MVS (ESA/XA/SP/SE) MVT, MFT, 
VM(SF/SP/ESA), HARBOR, JES2, TSO, ISPF, RACF, VTAM, NCP, DB2, DF/HSM, 
UCC1, CICS, DMS/OS, SLR, SMP/E, NETVIEW, PC/DOS and OS/2

Design and implementation:

LU6.2 and TCP/IP connection from AIX to AS/400 for loan applications

LU6.2 connection from OS/2 to CICS for credit reference application

LU0 connection from OS/2 to IMS for a banking application

APPC transport layer from MVS to OS/2 for a plant control system

Transaction based file and command shipper using APPC on MVS, OS/2, 
PC-DOS and AS/400

Remote contingency system interfacing to IMS, DB2, VTAM and NETEX.
        
Remote backup and restore system interfacing to DMS/OS, VTAM and MASSNET

Amdahl's LPF hypervisor for 580s.

Amdahl's UNIX based console software for 580s.

Shadow TP monitor supporting 3270, 2260 and Teletype devices.
Also 3270 emulator and COBOL pre-processor for Shadow.
 Languages:

370 Assembler, C, COBOL, REXX, CLIST, Visual Basic and  SQL

PC Software

DOS, OS/2, LANs(Token Ring, Ethernet, LAN Server, NOVELL, VXNET & 3COM), 
3270 emulation, Word, Excel, Ventura, Manuscript, Freelance, 
Excelerator(CASE tool), VM/386, OS/2 Dialog Manager, 
OS/2 Presentation Manager, OS/2 Communications Manager, Networking 
Services/2(APPN), WINDOWS, ToolBook, WINDOWS 3 SDK,
OS/2 Toolkit, various C compilers, MicroFocus COBOL, NS/DOS, LINUX, 
TCP/IP, NETSCAPE





Chris Harris
Director, Lucaswhite Ltd.,
10 Rhyl Road, Perivale, Middx UB6 8LD, England
Tel (+44) (0) 181 997 9780 Mobile (+44) (0) 860-540468 
Email charris-AT-cix.compulink.co.uk
http://www.demon.co.uk/hgsys/home.htm




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