TUSC, CPGB and Leninism

SL/B letter to the CPGB

Dear comrades,

Your entertaining article on the 3 February TUSC Convention in Birmingham (“Farcical Labour Party mark two”, Weekly Worker, 8 February) is rightly scathing about the state of the left. We agree it is split into umpteen “sects grouplets and ‘parties’”, each “doing their own thing”, yet they are mostly pushing the same political programme which is a variant of Corbyn’s left Labourism. But what is the CPGB doing about it?

There is an urgent need for a strong, united, working-class opposition to the Tories and Starmer’s Labour in the election. The left must join forces in a common electoral platform representing the interests of the working class. TUSC’s campaign draws a class line that is sorely needed. It provides a vehicle for working-class opposition to Labour, while allowing participating groups the freedom to run their own independent campaigns.

Communist unity is a constant theme in your press. But what’s the point of it if you’re not prepared to fight for unity of the working class against Starmer in the election? Communist unity cannot be separated from the struggle to unite the working class against its class enemy. Your article criticises TUSC, sometimes along the same lines as we do, yet you put forward no proposal for working-class opposition to Starmer. That makes you no different than the myriad other “sects, grouplets and ‘parties’” that your article decries.

As a way out of the present impasse of the left, we propose a public debate with you on the theme: what strategy for communists in the election? Even better, we should encourage other groups to participate in a panel discussion and debate our differences openly, all the while putting to the fore: how to advance the interests of our class.

Our perspective is laid out in our 9 February leaflet “Why the Spartacist League supports TUSC and why other groups should do the same” [see article on facing page]. It challenges the British bourgeoisie on “red line” questions, saying: Workers must run the country! Liberation of Palestine! Down with NATO! Expropriate the banks! Citizenship for immigrants! Down with the monarchy!

By sharply opposing the bourgeoisie on these questions, our programme also draws a line against the Labour and trade union lefts. At the TUSC Convention we put forward amendments, one of which stated that we should only support left Labour candidates (eg Zarah Sultana) if they oppose a Starmer government. By voting down that amendment, TUSC is keeping the door open to unity with those “lefts” who will support a Starmer government. That gets to the core of our criticism of TUSC. Its aim is to breathe new life into Corbynism using the same “broad church” model of unity with the right wing as Corbyn did, with disastrous results.

Contrary to the letter published in Weekly Worker (“TUSC and Sparts”, 15 February), our approach to the election does not contradict the description of TUSC in Workers Hammer (no 251) as “an openly reformist ‘broad church’ electoral coalition, to revive the Corbyn movement, oblivious to the fact that Corbynism already proved its bankruptcy precisely because of its reformist ‘broad church’ programme”. This political characterisation of TUSC is completely valid and we restated it at the Convention. Our approach is to fight for communist politics inside TUSC. Our criticisms of it, including our amendments if adopted, would strengthen TUSC as a vehicle for working-class opposition to Starmer.

The working class is weak, atomised and demoralised as a result of the defeat of the strike wave. Unity of the class is of paramount importance for rebuilding its fighting capacity and preparing for future battles. The Weekly Worker is right to condemn the lack of unity and reformist illusions on the left. But are you prepared to do something to overcome these? Let’s at least debate the issue.

Comradely,
Eibhlin McColgan for the Spartacist League

Letter to the SL/B CC: an unfortunate formulation

Dear comrades,

The 19 February letter to the Weekly Worker effectively explains why we are for building TUSC as a working-class electoral front against Starmer and Sunak. It makes clear that we do this while opposing its social-democratic Corbynite programme and by putting forward our own revolutionary programme for the elections.

That said, the letter contains the following unfortunate formulation: “The left must join forces in a common electoral platform representing the interests of the working class.” This is incorrect. The above formulation is, in fact, closer to the position of the CPGB than to ours. The CPGB is for the amalgamation of the existing left based on a socialist programme that would (to use our words) stand “for the interests of the working class”. They call this “communist unity”. In contrast, our objective is to split the left and the workers movement along fundamental class lines.

The position of the CPGB is the classic position of the pre-World War I social democracy: unity of the workers movement under a formally socialist banner. In contrast the essence of Leninism is to split the workers movement from its pro-capitalist leaders (Noske, MacDonald) as well as from those “socialists” who uphold unity with these very traitors (Kautsky being the most pre-eminent of such centrists). Throughout the war and the Russian Revolution, Lenin showed how unity with centrism divided the working class and paralysed its actions. This lesson was fundamental to the success of the Russian Revolution and the creation of the Third International.

Bringing this back to today, we can see that for all its denunciations of Corbyn, the CPGB upholds his conception of the party at one step removed: left Labourites advocate a broad-church party which includes the right wing of Labour while the CPGB advocates a broad church including the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party, Socialist Appeal, etc. The problem is that these left groups all support, in one way or another, the very “left” leaders who stand for unity with the right. In the unions, they support the likes of Mick Lynch and Sharon Graham and/or, in Labour, Zarah Sultana & Co. This is classic Kautskyism, and it is through this mechanism that the working class remains chained to Labour no matter how many times it betrays.

All things considered, the mistaken formulation quoted above does not negate the principled nature of our letter to Weekly Worker. However, this mistake should be used as an opportunity to insist once more on the Leninist principles of the party question within our ranks and in the broader left.

Comradely,
Perrault