Communist Unity – a change is needed

After six months of inaccurate reporting back from the Forging Communist Unity (FCU) talks, by CPGB-PCC members Jack Conrad and Mike Macnair, about the positions of Edmund Potts and I who represent Talking About Socialism…from a Marxist point of view, comrade members and supporters of the CPGB must wonder what on earth their leaders are doing, wasting time discussing unity with a group of people who clearly don’t know the first thing about Marxism or communism.^I

This is the constant refrain of Jack Conrad and Mike Macnair in their regular weekly reports on the Forging Communist Unity (FCU) talks and articles in the Weekly Worker.

According to these reports we don’t want a programme or understand its importance or role; we don’t think that there will be a period of transition to communism; we don’t understand the struggle for democracy and the need to extend it (‘extreme democracy’); we don’t see the importance of establishing communism internationally, but want a revolution only in Britain; we see only two classes in society and we don’t have a strategy for winning over the middle-class; we want to wreck the economy, starve Britain after the working class comes to power, and we’re going to murder at least two million people.

This is all hair-raising stuff.

At this week’s CPGB Online Communist Forum we heard more of the same. Jack Conrad introduced a session on the question of the party programme.

TAS has paused its participation in the FCU process in order to concentrate on trying to produce a programme that might be the basis for a new, fused organisation.

This is what Jack Conrad said,

“My fear is that what they’ll produce is something at least along the lines of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. This is a maximalist programme that rejects all notions of reform, all notions of transition between capitalism with capitalist state power and communism.” ^II

It beggars belief that we can be accused of rejecting “all notions of reform”. This is paragraph 16 of the TAS statement, Who we are and the ideas that guide us:

“So long as the working class is not yet able to win power for itself a socialist/communist party would support and actively participate in working-class campaigns to defend past gains, to improve living standards and extend democratic rights. But any reforms will only be partial and temporary so long as capitalism continues.”

This is from the very first article to appear on the TAS website, What is Socialism?

“Only when confronted by the power of the working class will the ruling class and its state be forced to make concessions (reforms), to temporarily appease the majority, fearful of losing complete control, only to take those concessions back when events become more favourable to them. The task of socialists is to strip away the veneer of impartiality from the State, to reveal its class content. While fighting for any reform or concession from the ruling class, the working class must always have its eye on the ultimate goal – fundamentally breaking the power of the capitalist class and the capitalist state and inaugurating the basis of a new society.”

You will find similar formulations throughout our material. Communists must fight for all reforms, to improve the position of the working class in society. But we fight against reformism as a political strategy. Our aim is not to reform capitalism into something that can work in the interests of the working class, that is impossible. We do not aim to manage capitalism but to abolish it.

In his talk, Jack suggested that we in TAS do not understand the need to deal with the capitalist state apparatus and institutions, that we don’t have a global, or even a European perspective in respect of transforming capitalism. “The comrades in TAS are more inclined to the SPGB approach than what I would describe at least as the sort of classic Marxist approach”, says Jack.

Jack Conrad regards TAS as “a rag bag mixture”. TAS even has a member who is, he guesses, a ‘Trotskyist’ who is committed to the transitional method! “God help me!” expostulates Conrad. “There may be others!”

It makes one wonder why the CPGB-PCC is seeking unity with such people. It makes one wonder if they are seeking unity with such people.

TAS and the necessity of communist unity

TAS is a small group of committed communists. We each come from different backgrounds and different Marxist traditions. Some have been involved in Marxist politics for decades, some for only a few years. Some come from a Trotsyist background, others do not. Some may support the Trotskyist Transitional Programme and its approach, others may support the CPGB’s minimum-maximum programme, others still may prefer to consider a completely different approach. We are seeking to overcome the separation of communists into rival sects. We are all serious. Anyone who is serious about building communist unity must be prepared to encompass communists with different communist opinions. In TAS we disagree with each other respectfully, treating each other as serious communists, albeit that we have differences.

In TAS we all want communist unity. It is an objective necessity. That is why TAS initiated the FCU process, suggesting that we seek fusion of the groups involved rather than just a series of political educational meetings.

In the FCU talks, we have argued that a new, fused organisation, with a new name, with a new programme and an open and welcoming culture could have an effect of drawing other Marxists and interested labour movement militants towards it. Without exaggerating, we think that were such a fusion achieved it could have a bigger long term impact, showing that it is possible for communists to unite, rather than to split.

We have argued, however, that for this to work, any new organisation would have to be seen to be just that – a new organisation. Marxists and other interested people who may be attracted to a new, fused organisation have already demonstrated that they do not want to be in the CPGB, (or TAS or Prometheus, for that matter), otherwise they would have joined already.

So why would they join an organisation that was just the same as the existing CPGB, with just a few extra people ‘on board’? The CPGB have made it clear that they do not agree with our approach. They do not really seek fusion, they seek to absorb some of those involved in the FCU process and perhaps a few others. Jack lets the cat out of the bag when he says, in his OCF talk, “that’s what we’re talking about. So we’re talking about CPGB, this is our intention, this is where we want to go and that’s what we’re trying to bring TAS and Prometheus on board.” ^III They want us to get “on board” their party project, rather than help to build a united, fused party project..

That is why they reject the idea of a new name, why they have refused to work collaboratively with TAS and Prometheus to draft a new programme for a new organisation and why they insist on presenting their own draft programme. They have made it clear that they see nothing wrong with their internal culture or their method of engagement with others on the Marxist left.

Programme

TAS and the Prometheus Unity Faction both set out their positions at an early stage that we did not want the CPGB programme as the programme for any new, fused organisation. Keeping the CPGB programme would inevitably make the new organisation look as though it was just the same CPGB with a few extra people. We want something that will be attractive to people who have not joined the CPGB and who won’t join what would be the CPGB with a few more people.

My own view is that the CPGB draft programme is not fit for purpose. It began life as a factional document in the old CPGB, over forty years ago. Every aspect of it is coloured by those arguments. They are not relevant. Its introduction sets this out with a long, irrelevant history of the old CPGB’s evolution and development, then deals with the Leninist, then the new CPGB, which isn’t really the CPGB at all. It is all about comrade Jack Conrad’s own personal history of stalwart defence of his positions. None of this is relevant to the programme. It is unnecessary in a programme for today. It wasn’t necessary in a programme at any time. It is a factional document. There is nothing wrong with having all of that history, setting out the personal history of comrades and past political battles, in other articles for those interested in that sort of stuff. That is not what is going to win people to the banner of any new group.

The tenor of the whole document is set by its introduction. This describes the former Communist Party of Great Britain as “undoubtedly the highest achievement of the British working class” I don’t agree with that formulation. The history of the CPGB is not one that I want to celebrate. It is not one that I defend. It is not one that any serious Marxist should want to emulate. It is primarily the history of Stalinism and the Stalinist control of the national communist parties which were members of the Comintern, and which continued to be directed from Moscow after the Comintern was closed down. I don’t want to throw everything out. The fusion of different working-class communist organisations into one unified CPGB in 1920 was a positive step, but even then, there are criticisms of the process that should be discussed. Communists in Britain carried out some marvellous work within the working class but the party was a British reflection of the Stalinised Soviet party. The history is contested and should not appear in the programme. In any event, it is irrelevant to the programme.

The rejection by the new CPGB of the  Stalinist ‘national road to socialism’ is correct. Why would we want to muddy that position by tying ourselves to a history that is dressed top to toe in those non-communist clothes?

In my opinion, the Stalinist history of the old CPGB demands a break with it, not just politically but also in form and presentation. It demands a new name. Apart from the argument that continuing to be called the CPGB will give the (correct?) impression that it is just a continuation of the CPGB as it is now, it will convey the impression that we are building in the mould and method of Stalinism. That cannot be the way we want to be regarded.

The most confessional sect

In the introduction of the CPGB programme it states that “The CPGB we are seeking to build…will not be a confessional sect.”

Firstly, no-one who hasn’t read the Weekly Worker will know what this means. What is a confessional sect? Those of us who have read the paper or engaged in discussion with the CPGB agree, if I have understood things correctly, that a genuinely democratic communist party should not insist on agreement on everything. What matters is acceptance of the programme, it is argued. This is a slippery concept. The CPGB puts things in its programme which should not be there and then says, “It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree, you only have to accept.” What happens if we can’t accept? Then we are accused of sectarianism. Points that don’t need to be in the programme, should not be in the programme. Insisting on having something in the programme that is irrelevant or unnecessary, just because it is important to one individual or a group of members, is a guaranteed way of causing avoidable division.

Differences of historical interpretation, such as whether the Soviet Union was a degenerated workers’ state or was a form of state capitalism, are of no significance in respect of the programme, so long as we are clear that we do not want to create a modern version of the Stalinised Soviet Union. Theoretical differences, such as interpretations of Marx’s theory of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall, what we mean by ‘alienation’, or the duration or speed of any transition to communism, should not be a programmatic issue. Questions of tactics should not be in the programme; they should be informed by it.

But Chapter 5 of the CPGB’s draft programme is exactly what can only be described as “an article of faith”. “Socialism is not a mode of production”, it states. I see socialism as being the same as communism. Why should I accept the CPGB definition, with which I completely disagree? Why should any other Marxist who describes themself as a revolutionary socialist, that is, a communist, accept it? Recently the Socialist Appeal group changed its name to the Revolutionary Communist Party. As far as I can see, they have changed only their name, not their politics or their goal. Why would our party programme include something that is an obstacle to other Marxists joining?

There is nothing in Marx or Engels where they write, or can be read as implying or suggesting, that socialism is a stage towards communism, or even towards “full communism” or “fully developed communism”, as argued by the CPGB.

Phases of communism

“Between capitalism and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”
                               Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875. ^IV

I don’t think that Marx ever used the terms “full” or “fully developed” in respect of communism, as communism would continue to develop. Who can foresee how? He referred in his Critique of the Gotha Programme  ^V to an “initial phase” and “a higher phase” of communism. Both were phases of communism, which emerges after “the period of revolutionary transformation of [capitalist society into communist society]. Corresponding to this is also a political transformation period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.”

I argue that the phrase “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a phrase that will be misunderstood today, especially given the experience and legacy of the Soviet Union and other similar states, and because of modern China, which is not communist but is ruled in a thoroughly undemocratic manner by the Chinese Communist Party.

The phrase means nothing other than “the rule of the working class”, which I think we all agree is the majority class in society today.

A careful reading of Marx’s Critique shows that he envisaged a period of “revolutionary transformation” under the rule of the working class, in which capitalist society is transformed into communist society.

The communist society that emerges in its “first phase” is communism. It is not called socialism. It is not capitalism, or a mixed economy, which is just another way of saying a capitalist economy, in which some sectors have been taken over by the capitalist state – the economy remains capitalist.

Elsewhere in the Critique we read this,

“Within a cooperatively organised society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor expended on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor…

“Here we are dealing with a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.

“Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society, after the deductions have been made, exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor.”

This may be difficult to penetrate but I argue that Marx’s meaning is very clear. The task of the working class when it comes to power is to use its power, that is its complete dominance over society, which consists mainly of itself, the majority working class, to expropriate the property of the capitalist class, i.e. its ownership of the means of production. It transforms them into their opposite. It transforms them into “common ownership”, within a “cooperatively organized society”.

The producers are not paid wages, as under capitalism. The producers are now in control. They direct production and they determine how the product is distributed, including how much goes back to each producer. Marx was looking at a society in the “first phase” of communism, which he did not envisage, at the time, as being a society of abundance:

“In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and thereby also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life’s prime desire and necessity [erste Lebensbedürfniss ^VI]; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-round development of the individual, and all the springs of cooperative wealth flow more abundantly, only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be transcended (überschritten ^VII) and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!”

Marx sees the first phase of communism, as communism. Jack Conrad doesn’t. He writes,

“We insist, therefore, that the lower stage (sic) is not and cannot be a mode of production. Its essence is movement, change, flux.” [The essence of all things is movement, change, flux. NW]  “Neither the law of value or the law of the plan dominate. Rather the lower stage is the rule of the working class state over capitalism as it is and which ends with the withering away of the state and the realisation, at last, of a society of freely associated producers.”

No. This is not Marx. Read his Critique. This is Conrad.

Now, by all means disagree with Marx. But don’t misrespresent your views as his. Chapter 5 sets out a completely different approach from that of Marx. Jack Conrad argues that it is orthodox or classical Marxism. It is not. Mike Macnair accepts that it is unorthodox ^VIII. Mike is correct. It is unique and idiosyncratic. It is a confession of faith. It is designed to make the CGPB different. It is its point of difference, to justify its separation from all the other Marxist groups which it criticises. It is nothing but an ‘article of faith’, to use a CPGB term. It makes the CPGB a confessional sect, just the same, if not worse, than those it criticises.

Any comparison between Chapter 5 and the approach of Marx, not only in his Critique, but throughout his writings, shows that the CPGB does not follow Marx on the question of the transformation from capitalist society to communist society.

This is a fundamental issue. What is our objective and how will we achieve it? Is our aim solely to implement a fuller democracy – extreme democracy, even – which is limited just to the state, or is it to transform capitalism into communism, that is, transforming private property into common property?

Having this approach in the programme, makes the programme not a guide to action but a guide to the wrong sort of action, namely, inaction.

Marx and the Paris Commune

Here is Marx writing about the Paris Commune of 1871 in his marvellous The Civil War in France:

“[I]t was a thoroughly expansive political form, while all the previous forms of government had been emphatically repressive. Its true secret was this. It was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor. 

“Except on this last condition, the Communal Constitution would have been an impossibility and a delusion. The political rule of the producer cannot co-exist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical foundation upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule. With labor emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute.”

Note this well. “It was essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class…”

More than this, it was ,“the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.”

And this, “The political rule of the producer cannot co-exist with the perpetuation of his social slavery.”

It is worth repeating, “The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical foundation upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore of class rule. With labor emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute.”

Marx continues,

“The Commune, they exclaim, intends to abolish property, the basis of all civilization! 

“Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land, and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor. But this is communism, “impossible” communism!

…

“If co-operative production is not to remain a sham and a snare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system; if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production – what else, gentlemen, would it be but communism, “possible” communism?”

In other words, the Commune, the rule of the working class, was to serve as the political form for the “economical emancipation” of the working class.

That is the purpose of the period of “workers’ rule”, or “working class government”, or the “revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat” today.

A decisive imposition by the majority working class of its own class interests on society as a whole, which is comprised mainly of itself, would represent the interests of all in society except for the capitalists. The middle class will see that its interests, too, are protected and improved by this act. Of course, it is not authomatic. We have to win the argument. I believe that argument can be won, largely in advance of the working class coming to power.

Transformation and transition

I prefer to refer to this issue not as the question of the transition, but as the question of transformation. In that way we understand better, in my opinion, the purpose of the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. It is not to simply carry through a democratic revolution but a revolution of all aspects of society, that is to extend democracy to the economy. Precisely to turn private property in the means of production into “a cooperatively organized society based on common ownership.”

I do not agree with the bifurcation of the democratic and economic tasks of the working class. I do not agree that there is a democratic stage and then an economic stage in which there will be a period of working class rule over capitalism. In my opinion the working class in power would have to extend its rule over all aspects of society and, crucially, over the economy. Otherwise, we would have the contradictory position of the working class being formally in power but not actually in power. Power would continue to rest, as it has always done, with that class that owns the means of production.

All societies are in a process of transition, whether slow or rapid. Marx described capitalism as being in a state of transition, arguing that the concentration of production under capitalism inevitably led to its socialisation, and to the creation of the massed ranks of the producers – the proletariat, or working class. But the socialisation of the means of production under capitalism was just that, socialisation of the production, but under the rule of the capitalist owner. The outer shell was at loggerheads with the inner content. The shell needed to be shattered by the revolutionary transformation of private into common property. The expropriators need to be expropriated. The transition seen within capitalism does not in and of itself transform into its opposite. The producers organised into a conscious decisive, unstoppable force must do that.

It is clear from the Critique that while Marx saw the first phase of communism as being “still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges”, it was nonetheless communism, it was a society of cooperative work, of common ownership, it was therefore a society in which classes had disappeared, through the process of transformation everyone had become a worker, the working class had abolished itself. Communism, including in its first phase, is a classless society. Because the producer receives back a part of the social product, the common fund, an amount commensurate with his direct labor – his contribution to the general fund after necessary deductions – money has also been abolished.

All of this is necessary in order for the further development of the productive forces under communism, so that we arrive at a society of abundance. It is not that only the society of abundance can be called communism. It is the ending of exploitation, the transformation form private ownership to common ownership that creates communism, which then develops. If you like, it transitions from the initial phase to a higher phase but can only do so if the transformation from capitalism into communism has been achieved. That is what the period of workers’ rule is about. That is why it is needed. This period is crucial.

However long it takes, the period of transformation must end with the socialisation of the means of production under the ownership and direct control by society as a whole. That must mean that what has been referred to as petty bourgeois production has also been socialised. As this process of transformation proceeds, the new forms of a state, which have been established by the working class in power to replace the old capitalist state institutions, have dissolved into simple administrative tasks, integrating all aspects of society. There is no longer any capitalist class capable of overthrowing the moves towards communism by force, so repressive forms of a state machinery are not necessary.

Daily Mail howls of anguish

Yet when we argue that the working class in power must set out to socialise every aspect of the economy, including the small businesses and petty producers, we are met with an outcry one would expect to see in the pages of The Daily Mail, not in a communist paper.

Again, I stress. We have put no timescale, duration or speed on the process, but we do insist that the socialisation cannot be put off to some distant future. It begins straight away and must continue rapidly. The task is NOT JUST to extend democracy in what may be called civil society, but to extend it to the whole of the economy. That means taking the means of production into democratic common ownership. It means planning democratically. It means the expropriation of the capitalist class. That, and nothing less, represents the extreme democracy I advocate.

This is Jack Conrad,

“Either way we should at least consider the possibility of a drawn out, highly contested, bitterly fought transition from capitalism to communism. A transition during which we would be well advised not to alienate the middle classes either by threatening or actually forcibly expropriating them (every corner shop, every restaurant, every small farm, every local plumbing business). Why? Because the chances are that, firstly, any such move would result in chaos, economic regression and cause widespread consumer discontent; and secondly, that any such move would see the middle classes flocking into the arms of counterrevolution.”

The organised working class, through its own organisations including the mass communist party, will have to have prepared in advance how it will approach the questions of organising production, distribution, keeping data, how to use the latest computer technology, how to co-operate with workers in other countries, how to operate the ports, the railways, the factories and the farms.

While we cannot set out now a blueprint for the future, a mass communist party will have in its ranks and be able to call on every sort of expert, scientist, computer programmer and much more. The working class now ensures that the trains run, using complicated technology, that containers are unloaded from the ships, using complicated technology, that bread and milk is delivered to your local supermarket or corner shop, using complicated technology. This can only improve with the working class democratically planning and directly running everything.

The middle strata?

The reason I put a question mark in this cross-head is that it is not at all clear what and who Jack and Mike are referring to when they accuse us of not seeing that there is a stratum or strata between the working class and the capitalist class.

We are accused of only seeing two classes, and of ignoring the middle class. Again, this is plain wrong. We have repeatedly said the opposite at FCU meetings. There is clearly a layer of the self-employed who want to be inderpendent of any boss. Their difficulty is that they cannot escape the inexorable expansion of capitalist production into all areas of work. Doctors, layers, accountants are forced more and more to work for bigger organisations, so they lose their independnce. Plumbers are forced to work for organisations like Pimlico Plumbers. Taxi drivers have to work for Uber, and so on.

Artifical Intelligence is now undermining the position of that section of independent computer programmers or those who work as self-employed in the field of information. Whereas in the past it was only machines and factories that could be moved across the globe to find cheaper labour, now this can be done via the world wide web and computer technology. Cheaper technological workers can be found in a bedroom in Lahore or Mumbai than in London or New York. The wages – or fees – of this layer in the advanced capitalist countries will be undercut by competitors from abroad. Their more comfortable lives are threatened. We have to respond to this with arguments about new technology being used for the benefit of all and reducing working hours, rather than putting people out of work.

The trend is for the greater and greater proletarianisation of all labour. The middle classes are driven down into the ranks of the working class. They face insecurity and uncertainty, too. We can win this layer for communism.

An insurmountable obstacle?

My main points are these: the comrades exaggerate the size and significance of this layer and seem to include in it capitalist individuals and enterprises that should most certainly be socialised. More detailed analysis needs to be carried out so that we can understand who is being referred to. They have a view of the middle-strata consciousness that is static and will remain unchanged from here until and beyond revolutionary change.

However, one question, as an example. Is the CPGB in favour now of calling for the ejection or removal of all privatised enterprises that fleece the public purse by getting contracts in the NHS, education and local government? I would demand that, and fight for that, while explaining that any reform must be protected through more fundamental change. I belive most of the population would agree with the exclusion of such enterprises.

Why should any private individual be allowed to make money from public health care, education or refuse collection? Doesn’t this mean that we are fighting now together with workers across these services for the ending of any role for the SMEs in those fields?

When the working class comes to power, is the working class going to change its mind and allow these vultures to coninue to take from the social product, now controlled by the working class?

The same argument applies across the board  to other areas of the economy perhaps not so immediately obvious to the general population as the question of health, education and local services. But what about house building, for another example? Should a private contractor be able under working-class rule to make a profit from providing a home, or rennovating one?

I argue that we can and should be making these arguments now, extending from the obvious areas of public service and utility to cover all aspects of society. If we make the arguments, we will persuade people.

If we explain to small shop-keepers that they can have a better standard of living working cooperatively with other food retailers, wholesalers and distributors, without having to work 18 hours a day, or depriving their children of leisure time or being able to do their homework because they have to work in the shop, why would they fear communism and its programme of socialisation. Of course, this question calls into question the role of the big supermarkets who, through their domination of the retail trade, can set prices that make life difficult if not impossible for the small shop-keeper. It calls into question the roles of farming and food production.

This in turn is linked to the question of public health. Our food is adulterated. It poisons our children. It gets them addicted to sugar and salt and all sorts of other stuff. This leads to obesity and diabetes, putting more pressure on health care and so on.

We can explain that all of this is linked to the property question – who owns and benefits from all this? We can bring everything back to the question of profit. We need a society where that imperative is extinguished, expunged. It no longer exists. What matters is need. That will be addressed by the working class in power, and ultimately, once classes have disappeared, by the whole of society.

My argument is that an important task for us now is to argue this; to explain all this now; to win masses, including large sections of the middle strata, to the idea of social ownership now.

Winning the battle of ideas

The main task, therefore, is preparing the working class for power. That means persuading the mass of the people of the benefits of communism. This is done by argument and action, by struggle, by building support for the ideas of socialism, and building working-class confidence and organisation.  If we cannot do that, the working class will never come to power. We therefore need material that explains the benefits of communism, not only to the working class, but to those who might be considered individual petty producers, the self-employed and small business owners. Even sections of the capitalist class can be won over, especially the youth.

One of my main disagreement with the CPGB’s approach is on the question of the transition; that it does not identify as its main task the socialisation of the means of production but only parts of it. The main thrust of the CPGB’s apprach is on extending democracy only to the polictical field, not to the economic.

The working class cannot come to power to achieve only extreme democracy, and not to end exploitation. Ending exploitation means expropriating the capitalist class. It means no one can exploit another for gain.  It means that everyone who can, works, so classes disappear. That is the way in which communism is achieved.

The discussion, or rather disagreement, over what has been described as “the transition” has emerged because of the formulations in Chapter 5 of the draft programme, and various articles that have been written over the years by Mike Macnair, in which he has stated that the “transition” could take a hundred or even two hundred years.

We are accused of not agreeing that there is a need to win over the middle class, of not even recognising that there is a middle class, and of not agreeing that there will be any period of transition.

This is Mike Macnair,

“That first area of disagreement was the question of transition. Is there a period of transition after the working class takes political power – a period of transition to communism?

…

“Secondly, there was the disagreement over the Soviet experience. There is no common position between the CPGB and the other participants on this question, or, probably, within any of the groups. The problem is partly one of history and partly theory. How do you approach this? TAS comrades seek to take moral distance from the Soviet experience, asserting that our socialism will be democratic. The argument that there is no period of transition seems to be part of the same issue. Its comrades are only recent users of the word, ‘communist’, while Prometheus comrades use it more extensively, and the CPGB has, of course, done so since the beginning.”

For me, the words socialist and communist have always meant the same thing, so the fact that I might more regurlarly now describe myself as a communist signifies nothing. I do take a moral distance from Stalinism. Doesn’t Mike? Also a political, economic, democratic, human distance from Stalinism. Everything about Stalinism appals me.

Mike proceeds,

“Will the working class, on taking power, socialise everything, including the pub down the road, the barbershop two doors away?

“It appears that the comrades from TAS object to the CPGB’s assertion that the working class must take political power in the first place, and then there will be a process of rapidly taking over the larger concentrations of infrastructural capital, the banking and the finance system, and large monopolies. But there will be a substantial surviving petty bourgeoisie when the working class takes power and therefore a period of transition, in which the process of socialisation takes place.”

The answer to Mike’s question is, yes. On coming to power, the working class would draw all aspects of production of goods and services under the direction of society as a whole. Barbers, pubs, fish and chip shops will not employ anyone. No one will make a profit from anyone else’s labour. Until we have carried this out we will not have achieved communism.

I do not place any timescale on the “ period of the revolutionary transformation” of capitalism into communism. In fact, I have argued at the FCU talks that all questions of perspective, timescale and speed should NOT appear in the programme.

This is Jack Conrad,

“Another area of disagreement involves the necessity of the Communist Party winning over the middle classes as allies (or at least neutralising them). The TAS comrades appear to imagine that the middle classes represent not the least problem. As the Communist Party becomes a real social force they will flock to our banner … even though TAS says that they envisage (forcibly?) expropriating all capitalist concerns immediately, or almost immediately, after the revolution, no matter how tiny or marginal. They plead on behalf of workers employed by small capitalists: why should they remain exploited wage slaves! A strategic blunder of the first order.”

We have not ever argued anything of the sort. To the contrary, we have argued that our programme needs to address the concerns of the middle class now. We need to win, or at least begin to win, them over in advance of the working class coming to power. That is part of the purpose of our programme. Where have we ever raised the question of force?

Jack continues,

“The TAS comrades envisage a wonderfully easy hop, skip and jump to full communism and a society without money, wage-labour, exploitation, etc. They brush aside the standard Marxist expectation that between “capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other.”

We have never said any such thing. And we have never brushed aside the question of the revolutionary transformation of capitalism into communism. I argue that it is Jack who gets it wrong.

Here is Jack again, from a different article,

“We are breezily told that after the overthrow of the capitalist state there will be no exploitation through wage-labour, no private ownership of the means of production: “there will be the complete eradication of private (capitalist) ownership of the means of production”.”

However breezily it comes across, it isn’t what I said. What I actually wrote, in an entirely different context was,

“Capitalism, and its insatiable drive for profit, is the cause of all the problems that we face. It has created a massive working class that is exploited to produce that profit. The working class is separated from what it produces. The working class is the only force that can resolve these existential crises.

“We stand for the abolition of the capitalist profit system, the exploitation of the working class through wage labour, the complete eradication of the private (capitalist) ownership of the means of production (the land, the waters, rivers and seas and the minerals contained therein, the factories, transport, science and technology) and its transformation into socialised democratic common ownership, managed and planned democratically in the interests of all.

“We aim at a society in which everyone is freed from arbitrary rules and laws imposed on them by a minority ruling class. We aim at a society in which everyone works and contributes to the new society according to their ability to do so, and everyone receives what they need.”

Does Jack disagree witih anything there? If so, I think we need to know.

Jack continues from the quote immediately above,

“So are we to envisage forcible expropriation? The closure of specialist building firms, little breweries, artisanal furniture makers, landscape gardeners, corner shops, single-boat fishing enterprises? Laws to prevent family farms hiring seasonal hands? An approach reminiscent of Pol Pot … which will, I guarantee, drive the middle classes into the arms of reaction and constitute them as a counterrevolutionary bloc. Strategically dumb, to say the least.”

So here we have a quotation of mine ripped out of context so that the ensuing ridiculous question can follow. Forcible? Where have we ever argued or even mentioned this?

Winning the middle class in advance

I see the working class coming to power as a result of having already won mass support for its programme within the working class and in the process, already having won over a large section of what the CPGB comrades refer to rather vaguely as the middle strata. It will therefore be able to use its size and strength, and its having won over of the vast majority of society so that its socialisation programme is understood and supported, to carry out its programme of complete socialisation.

This means that a huge amount of work has to be done in advance of the working class coming to power, preparing it for coming to power, and preparing the middle classes for it coming to power. If we do our job of building a mass communist party, involving millions of workers, and significant sections of the better paid workers and sections of the middle classes, then there will be little resistance to the socialisation required.

Of course, there is no way of predicting how things will develop. My argument is that the working class should not seek to come to power prematurely, before it can implement its programme. By that, I mean its maximum programme.

It is not enough for it to come to power and implement only a minimum programme that is compatible with capitalism, and then leave capitalism more or less intact. It has to come to power not to manage capitalism but to abolish it. That is how we get communism.

Instead of quoting anything that we have actually said, and taking issue with what we have actually said, the two comrades exaggerate, misrepresent, set up straw men to argue about and present completely hyperbolic arguments against them.

Thus, we are followers of Bakunin and Proudhon, with both of whom Marx took serious issue. We are Stalinists of the 1929 five-year plan. Worse, we are Pol Pot. Pol Pot was the leader of the Khmer Rouge, the popular name for the Communist Party of Kampuchea. He ruled the country between 1976-79. It is estimated that between 1975-79, the Khmer Rouge killed between 1.5  – 2 million people, a quarter of the country’s population.

I ask again, if you really think this of us, why do you want us to join you? If you don’t, why say it? It is simply ridiculous and unacceptable.

I find that references to the petty producer, the middle class, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by Jack and Mike of no help whatsoever in understanding the approach of the CPGB or their opposition to the arguments I have set out above. References to 5.5 million SMEs does nothing to enable us to understand what Jack is talking about. He completely misunderstands the statistics that he quotes in defence of his position, thereby exaggerating the size of the strata he is dealing with. More work needs to be done on this whole issue of the size and nature of the middle class.

What do they mean by the middle class? Is this a Marxist definition, using the relationship of a particular section of society to the production process? Or is it a sociological definition? How is this strata defined? What we are discussing makes a difference to how we discuss and approach the solution to the problems that they raise about the attitude of the working class in power. How significant is this strata? Is it an obstacle to the transformation?

There is opposition to communist ideas at the present time from the majority of the working class, let alone to those who might be termed petty producers or small businesses, or the self-employed, etc. We all agree that we can win over those workers to communism, otherwise we wouldn’t be wasting our time trying. We believe that we can also do that with the middle strata.

Our party material must explain how communism will benefit those who are identified as potential opponents to communism. The self-employed plumber, electrician, joiner, taxi driver etc. Can we not explain now, how their lives will be better in a future communist society? Capitalism forces workers to become self-employed. They remain workers. My Uber driver is employed, but he is treated by the tax man as being self-employed, he tells me.

Can we win doctors, computer programmers, experts in Artificial Intelligence, and others with skills we require in communist society to an understanding of how cooperative work will actually benefit them and their families?  I believe that we can. We should not wait until the working class has come to power. In fact, if we have not won large sections of this middle strata – however it is defined – then it is unlikely that the working class will come to power.

Static approach to changing consciousness

In my opinion, the approach of Jack and Mike is a completely undialectical approach. It looks at the middle strata, the petty producer and the small businessman as s/he is today, but in a society in which the working class has come to power. To come to power the working class will have had to have changed. It will have to have become conscious of its power. It will have to have understood the benefits of communism. It will have to be determined to smash all of the undemocratic institutions of the limited democracy that is capitalist class rule. It will have to have understood and planned for what it intends to do on coming to power. It comes to power with a programme which is a guide to action. That action is the transformation of society: from capitalism to communism.

It seems that Jack and Mike see all this having taken place in a vacuum. The middle strata will not be aware of the growth of communist ideas. They will not be affected by this growth of organised strength and confidence and consciousness among the working class. The middle class will be unchanged, static, unconvinced. Not if we do our job! Not if we set out our arguments for communism. Not if we take those arguments to every section of society. We will persuade, in advance, large sections of those who currently oppose us, of the advantages of communism. If we do not, then it makes the revolutionary coming to power of the working class less likely, if not impossible.

If the working class comes to power, it means it has developed the strength in society to carry through its programme. Not just a minimum programme that is compatible with capitalism. But a maximum programme that abolishes it.

Global and European perspective

Of course, this process has to be international. We are completely opposed to the idea of a national road to socialism, or to communism, which to me means the same thing. So, in the process of developing our mass communist party in Britain, we seek to assist the creation and development of similar forces abroad. We work together, we plan together, we prepare together. We must have a perspective of revolutionary change beyond Britain.

This is what I wrote back in 2016, in advance of the Brexit referendum ^IX:

“Ultimate goal”

“Socialists should always maintain sight of the ultimate goal of the socialist movement, that is the abolition of capitalism and the creation of a new socialist society. All strategy and tactics of the movement should be subordinate to that ultimate goal. This means, firstly, achieving working class rule, overturning the rule of the minority capitalist class.

“Socialism can supplant capitalism only if is established on an international basis. There can be no socialism in one country, whether that country is Russia in 1917 or Britain a century on. Britain does not have the resources to develop a socialist society on its own. In Britain, socialists must work towards a transformation on a European level in the first instance, where social ownership of the vast natural resources and the advanced level of economic development could begin to make planning on the basis of need a reality.

“Our strategic orientation and tactical decisions must be made on the basis of what advances the struggle for socialism on a continental and global scale. That is why socialists should oppose demands such as import controls, as they aim to protect domestic workers at the expense of workers in other countries, pitting the interests of the two groups against one another. Import controls have the effect of driving workers behind their own national capitalist class, rather than uniting together for an internationalist solution.

“The EU, like capitalism everywhere, has developed in a two-sided manner. It everywhere deepens exploitation and inequality. But at the same time it integrates the world economy, laying the basis for the future global socialist economy of abundance. The socialist revolution we call for will deepen and extend globalisation, that is economic interdependence, but liberate the world’s population from exploitation.

“Instead of calling for the breakup of nation states and international trading blocks, socialists should be seeking to extend them on a completely different basis. Capitalist development expands the number and strength of the global working class; it brings together the working class in different countries, makes them realise that the enemy they must remove is not just national but global. Socialists should encourage this realisation and seek to organise common action across borders in furtherance of a common project. The enemy of the British working class is also that of the German, Greek, Polish and French.

“To achieve this European-wide revolution, the working class of Europe has to organise together to challenge and overthrow the dictatorship of capital across the whole of Europe. The integration of the European economies within the EU, therefore, has its positive side as well as its negative. It is to our advantage that on a continental level the British, French, Polish, German and Greek working class has a common enemy, not only in the form of the individual owners of capital but also in the institutions of the EU – the Commission, the ECB and the European Council. The imposition of austerity across Europe creates the potential for European-wide struggle to resist it and end the profit system that imposes it. We must challenge not only the neo-liberal policies of the EU but capitalism itself.

“The institutions of the EU cannot be transformed into ones that act in the interest of the working class, any more than can the institutions of the British state. A socialist transformation would have to create its own new institutions that act in the interests of the new society – fully democratic and accountable. But identifying that task also demonstrates the enormity of that task. It will require a revolution in working-class outlook and organisation across Europe. The internationalist socialist perspective needs to become commonplace. Socialists must strive to overcome a narrow national outlook. And that is another reason why Lexit must be opposed. Unintentionally or not, Lexit reinforces the idea that there is a national solution to the crisis in society. It undermines and understates the international nature of the task that the working class has to carry out.

“This is not to argue that there has to be a single simultaneous revolutionary act of the working class across Europe at the same time, though that would certainly be the best development if it could be achieved. The working class may well enter into battle against the different national bourgeoisie at different stages, but the need to see that there is a broader struggle beyond national boundaries is an essential prerequisite for a successful socialist transformation. Lexit is dangerous because it suggests that something less than a European revolution is sufficient; that there is some British road to socialism. We should aim to turn national class struggles into European ones; campaigns against austerity from national resistance battles into continental class war against the institutions of the EU and the class they serve.

“Unfortunately, far too little has been done by the trade unions and social democratic parties of the European countries to coordinate common action across borders against this common enemy. This is in urgent need of correction. We need to raise the profile of our shared goal. We need a European socialist project, aiming to draw the entire European working class into active support of it. That will not be helped by a Brexit, but made more difficult.

“We need to do far more to work collaboratively with our sisters and brothers in other European countries, coordinating protests and making common cause on issues such as the minimum wage, a shorter working week, defending migrants and fighting for more democracy and accountability of the institutions that currently govern our lives.”

So, don’t listen to nonsense about us not having an international, or a European perspective.

As much as possible we should aim for the working class coming to power across borders simultaneously. Will that happen? Who can say? How can we predict? But we can do what we can to try to make it happen. So, no, we do not see a revolution isolated in Britain as surviving, if it remains isolated. However, in my opinion a revolution anywhere in the world would inspire and provoke revolutions elsewhere, just as happened in 1848 and 1917. Again, we cannot look at things as they are now, but as they must be if the working class is on the verge of assuming power in any advanced economic country.

None of this is new. I have set out my approach in articles and at the FCU talks. They were set out in the Socialist Platform, which all members of the CPGB signed in 2023 . They are set out in the TAS Statement Who we are and the ideas that guide us. I set them out in the very first article “What is Socialism?” that appeared on the TAS website, published on 29 August 2022. Read the ‘mission statement’ for Why Marx? which I wrote.

If you want to find out what I or Ed, or other members of TAS think, you will not find out from the reports of Jack and Mike at the OCFs or in their articles. Think for yourselves.

What now?

In my opinion, we are a long way off from agreeing to a unity conference at which there are binding votes. And it appears to me that we are moving further away from that with each article that is published, with each talk given at the OCF. I don’t know if we will ever arrive at that point. At the moment I am reluctantly coming to doubt it.

Regrettably, some of those who were involved in the FCU talks at the beginning have pulled back. RS21 attended the first meeting, but none subsequently. The Prometheus Editorial Board, which all agree with the idea of communist unity and to prioritise it, split into two, with only half remaining involved. I may be misreading things, but it appears to me that the desire or enthusiasm to continued participation is dissipating even among those in the pro-FCU faction.

Those watching the FCU process, who hope that it will succeed and may have been thinking about joining a new, fused, democratic organisation, may be less and less persuaded that it can or will happen. The more the CPGB acts in its customary way, and refuses to change, the fewer will be willing to participate and to contemplate the absorption – not fusion – that the CPGB is offering.

Even at this stage, if all those who want a fused organisation came forward to help TAS and Prometheus in arguing for a new, fused, democratic organisation with a new name, new programme and new culture, we may, just may, be able to achieve it. Otherwise, we may be forced to accept that it’s not going to happen at this time.

Notwithstanding the objective need for communists to unite, it is not really surprising that other Marxists are not queuing up to talk to the CPGB. The CPGB-PCC simply has no idea how to engage with others on the Marxist left and beyond.

The PCC’s idea of ‘going through the left’ is with a blunt and rusty broad sword to the stomach. Their ’polemic’ is not effective. It doesn’t kill but it infects. It poisons. It wins no friends, no allies, no potential partners in forging communist unity. Not even all of those who agree with their politics are willing to consider getting involved with them, even in a fused organisation.

The CPGB-PCC thinks that “the CPGB has the best ideas and the best organisational culture…they form an inseparable unity.” One wonders why the CPGB isn’t the leading force on the British Marxist left, showing the rest how to recruit and retain members, how to be active in all working-class struggles, how to lead in the trade unions, the Gaza solidarity movement, and so on. After all, they’ve been at it for over forty years.

The CPGB can’t seem to see that their self-assessment isn’t shared by anyone else.

A bit of self-reflection might be in order. If everything is so good, why has the CPGB not grown, but shrunk, in the last forty years?

If the CPGB wants to help to build something of substance and significance, then it needs to change the way it goes about things.

Unfortunately, at this moment, I don’t see anything changing.

1. This article represents my own views only. [↩]
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgzU-M53LYY&t=2265s at 3.44 minutes. [↩]
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgzU-M53LYY&t=2265s, at 1hr:03:18.[↩]
4. Critique of the Gotha Programme, Karl Marx, PM Press, California, translated and annotated by Kevin B Anderson and Karel Ludenhoff.[↩]
5. The translation of Kevin B Anderson and Karel Ludenhoff, is not available online, so I have linked to the version on the Marxist Internet Archive. I recommend the new translation and the Peter Hudis introduction.[↩]
6. The annotation from Anerson and Ludenhoff, at their note 23, states: “The German word Bedürfniss carries the the twin meanings of desire/wish and necessity/need. This phrase has sometimes been translated “life’s prime want”.”[↩]
7. The annotation from Anerson and Ludenhoff, at their note 24, states: “Literally, “crossed over”.”[↩]
8. Mike Macnair, talk delivered to the CPGB’s Online Communist Forum, 25 May 2025, at 8:26 minutes.
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVGB1XpxcBo[↩]
9. This is from an article titled, Brexit or International Socialism? It appeared in The Project – a Socialist journal, which was produced by the then Independent Socialist Network. Unfortunately, the website no longer is available. I retrieved this on 9 June 2025.
   https://web.archive.org/web/20210422180619/https://www.socialistproject.org/issues/may-2016/brexit-international-socialism/#comments[↩]