Date: Tue, 20 Aug 96 12:03 BST-1
From: sumo-AT-cix.compulink.co.uk (Ian Nicol)
Subject: == No Subject ==              


Re:OP Broadsheet 5 part 3
Communist Rapprochement

Both Open Polemic and the TLeninistU stand for communist rapprochement, 
for the unity of revolutionaries and for open polemic within the future 
party of a new type. But, their distinctively different strategies for 
achieving that end immediately placed them in a state of conflict with 
each other. Their particular unity, under the banner of the TCPGBU, 
therefore represented a significant development which carried far 
reaching implications for the process of rapprochement across the 
movement. The possibility for theoretical fusion and then agreement on 
strategy had been opened by the Provisional Central Committee with its 
invitation for Open Polemic to work under the banner of the TCPGBU and 
OP's positive response had further increased that possibility.

Not being a vanguardist organisation or a factional product of any such 
organisation, Open Polemic does not advance a particular programme for 
the class. Nevertheless, it is prepared to work in a principled and 
disciplined way with any vanguardist organisation that is looking towards 
the eventual establishment of a single, communist party, provided that 
provision is made for Open Polemic to put forward its views. In the 
eventuality of such a party, which might possibly be a reforged CPGB, 
being established, the continued existence of Open Polemic as a distinct 
body will become unnecessary. In this, Open Polemic does not demand that 
its version of democratic centralist, political organisation be put into 
place before there can be any organisational coming together but, it does 
consider it necessary to have a degree of flexibility in political 
organisation.  

However, ignoring its previous, conditional references to democratic 
centralism of 1989 and failing to recognise the necessity for developing 
a transitional relationship in, or a transitional form of political 
organisation, the TLeninistU has tried to impose its own version of the 
political and organisational principle of democratic centralism.

Communist rapprochement is a coming together of comrades and the 
establishment or renewal of cordial relations between individuals and 
groups of communists. The process of rapprochement among communists 
involves agreement in common at the highest possible theoretical level. 
It should not be confused or entangled with the process of majority 
decision for action in common among the class.

The process of rapprochment between the TLeninistU  and Open Polemic took 
the organisational form of the latter's representational entry into the T
CPGBU. It opened up the possibility for the advance of rapprochement 
between a number of other organisations. The TLeninistU however 
persistently entangled this rapprochement process with its own democratic 
centralist process. It constantly insisted that the OP representational 
members had the Tsame rights and dutiesU as other members and must 
therefore participate in all decision making and be subject to all 
majority decisions, as though the party was already reforged. The T
LeninistU has yet to understand that however hard it might try, communist 
rapprochement cannot be developed through majority decision, under its 
banner. It can only be developed by common agreement. That was the hard 
lesson that had to be learned by those communists who came together to 
establish the old CPGB in 1920.

Formal discipline based on majority decisions can only be exercised on 
the completion of the rapprochement process, with the actual 
establishment of a future party of a new type which may or may not be a 
reforged CPGB. In the meantime, we must rely on the self-discipline of 
those who put the general revolutionary interest above particular 
vanguardist interest.



The Draft Programme of the TLeninistU

The TLeninistU wing of the old CPGB had been very clear concerning its 
approach to the question of revolutionary programme for the class. At its 
Fourth Congress in December 1989, it stated :
     
 TThe essence of the struggle being conducted by the CPGB(The Leninist) 
is to equip our Party with a Marxist-Leninist programme. The provision of 
the CPGB with a Marxist-Leninist programme depends on reforging the Party 
and then convening a congress.

Taking this into consideration our conference resolves that the Leninist 
wing of the Party must:
   a)   Prepare a draft programme.
   b)   Establish a commission for this purpose.
   c)   Present the draft programme for discussion in
         Party organisations and in our working class.
   d)   Present the draft programme in the form of a     
          proposal to the congress of the reforged CPGB.U

The TLeninistU however created an immediate antagonism with Open Polemic 
when it departed from even this programmist position. By the end of 1995, 
it was no longer referring to the draft programme of the TLeninist wing 
of the PartyU, it was referring to its draft programme as being the T
CPGB's draft programmeU and that this would be Ta powerful weapon in the 
fight for a reforged Party.U

A year later without, of course, any congress of the reforged party 
having been convened, the TLeninistU employed a standard, leader 
centralist procedure. It published its own, factional draft programme in 
the Weekly Worker in the form of a proposal emanating from the 
Provisional Central Committee. It asserted that, following the draft 
programmes of 1935 and 1951 elaborated by the leaderships of the old, 
well established CPGB, its draft programme was destined to be the draft 
third programme of a Party that had yet to be reforged! So here was a 
self-appointed Provisional Central Committee, supposedly committed to 
rapprochement under a pro/Party banner, acting as though it was already 
the Central Committee elected by an actual Congress of a reforged Party.

Dismissing Open Polemic's central concern that vanguardist propagation of 
programmes for the class was actually retarding the process of communist 
rapprochement, Jack Conrad of the TLeninistU even informed us that their 
draft programme was Tnot simply designed for the futureU. He went on to 
claim that, Tin arriving at and then propagating an agreed draft 
programme and rules we can greatly enhance the struggle to reforge the 
Party.U The Perspectives T96 document followed with its own claim that 
the publication of the Tdraft third programmeU was Tundoubtedly a step 
forward for our PartyU.

For Open Polemic,the only other organisation to have a faction within 
the TCPGBU, this leader centralist, presentation of programme was a step 
backward. It immediately drew a protest from the OP comrades and prompted 
it to publish in OP No.12 its case for The Common Theoretical Programme 
for Communists, which it would regard as the preparation for and 
therefore not to be confused with the maximum programme itself. Putting 
the case for the elaboration of such a programme is consistent with its 
strategy and constitutes Open Polemic's response not only to the tactics 
of the TLeninistU, vanguardist faction but a response to others who were 
still insisting on advancing their own particular, revolutionary 
programmes for the class.

The TLeninistU and the SLP
Central to the TLeninistU draft programme is its particular understanding 
of the relationship of party and class both prior to and within the 
dictatorship of the proletariat and it was this understanding which was 
to inform its strategic approach towards the formation of the Socialist 
Labour Party. As a consequence, it aquired the vainglorious notion that 
this initiative by a left breakaway from the Labour Party could actually 
be moulded into a Communist Party.

In pursuing this notion and neglecting its own iniiative for  
rapprochement under the banner of the TCPGBU, it took the decision to 
propagate the TLeninistU draft programme for the class within the SLP. As 
this would be recognised by the movement as the Tdraft third programmeU, 
Open Polemic could hardly fail to be associated with it and, ludicrously, 
the OP comrades were also expected to dutifully go along with this 
voluntarist attempt at reforging the Party out of the SLP.
Ironically, the TLeninist'sU activism around its own party and class  
scenario contained a glaring contradiction. If communists could achieve a 
degree of rapprochement sufficient to mould the SLP into a Communist 
Party, they would actually be fit enough to begin that task 
independently. There would, in fact, be no need for the SLP. It is 
precisely because communists were not yet in that position that the SLP 
initiative came to be viewed as the alternative to the single communist 
party. According to the outlook of the TCPGBU this contradiction could 
only be overcome if TgenuineU communists accepted the Tlead and 
disciplineU of the TLeninistU and gathered all the Tpartisans of the 
classU around them.

>From the outset, the initiators of the Socialist Labour Party were giving 
it a left, social democratic orientation and those communists who were at 
all interested in it were in no fit state to change its developing, 
social democratic features. As Open Polemic argued at the time, the SLP 
could well be an opportunity for further communist rapprochement and 
action in common but, in the existing circumstances, there was 
infinitessimal potential for it to become the future party of a new type. 
The formation of the revolutionary party of the class remained the 
theoretical and organisational task for communists.

The TrevolutionaryU scenario within the Socialist Labour Party became yet 
a further display of the impotence of vanguardist fragmentation. 
Communists do not waste their time on what is remotely possible, they 
fight for what is necessary and what is necessary today is the ending of 
all manifestations of vanguardism. What is necesary is communist open 
polemic and rapprochement to establish the future party of a new type.

While the TLeninistU (and all other factions) insists on discussing all 
questions from the standpoint of its particular, programmist 
propositions, Open Polemic insists that all questions need to be 
discussed in terms of its general proposition; the need to elaborate a 
common theoretical programme for communists.

However, Open Polemic is concerned that the TLeninistU should contrive to 
use its own, political and organisational version of democratic 
centralism as the means to foster majority activism  and thereby 
insinuate the dominance of its draft programme into the rapprochement 
process within the TCPGBU. This tactic is the reason why the TLeninistsU 
demanded of  the OP representational members that they participate in all 
discussion and decision taking and abide by all majority decisions. In 
this way they could create a TPartyU ethos of democratic centralist 
normality and discipline through which the OP comrades would be actually 
drawn into becoming activists around the development of the TLeninistU 
programme.



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