This is an article written by Ed Potts, to complement the agreed TAS submission to the Forging Communist Unity meeting on 23 February. It elaborates some arguments about the purpose, form and content of a programme, and then begins to explore some areas of apparent disagreement on the nature of the transition between capitalism and communism.
We in TAS hope that the FCU process will bring about a new fused partyist organisation which is greater than the sum of its parts.
As part of that process it would be a positive step forward if it could produce its own programme which represents the common effort of the various tendencies involved, which is simultaneously ambitious and bold and yet also accurately reflects the level of development of the organisation as it actually exists in the coming period.
This would be preferable to a process which limits itself to trying to reach only “acceptance” of any document or draft that currently exists. We think that there are any number of programmatic documents and/or organisational statutes on the revolutionary left that we could “accept”, particularly if there were tactical advantages to being in such an organisation and we were free to present disagreements. But this asks the wrong question. We want to see a much stronger and more confident new organisation, and this requires us to place significant emphasis on working out a programme that, so far as possible, is based on agreement of the forces involved in FCU.
The point of a programme
I agree with describing the programme as a “guide to action”. It is not primarily a theoretical analysis, a mere agitational list of marching orders, or a polemic against other trends. It is aimed at revolutionary action, i.e. changing the world. But it is a “guide” to such action in that it equips the reader to understand why such action is necessary, the significance of it, and how to ensure that such action serves the overarching goal.
The best programme serves as such a guide by setting out clearly and simply the organisation’s fundamental perspectives, the reason for its own existence, the nature of the historical moment and process in which it seeks to intervene, what means it will utilise, and its aims in doing so: and in all of that, the reader gains something of an understanding of what it would mean to become a member and play a role in the organisation.
Given that we want to create an organisation which is united around a common programme rather than a narrow “ideology” or the mere predilections of a particular sect, there is a tension at work in formulating the programme. On the one hand, we must take care not to leave out anything which is truly fundamental (as to do so would invite into the organisation ideas which could fatally undermine it); but on the other hand we must aim as much as possible for conciseness. It is not simply a matter of style or accessibility, although both are important: it is a matter through efficient use of language of boiling down and discarding everything which is irrelevant, trivial, or otherwise a barrier to unity.
Conciseness as a weapon
Conciseness in a programme can be achieved by limiting content to the following criteria:
- A direct explanation of a concept, e.g. “capitalism”, “the working class”.
- An explanation of a subsidiary concept which is necessary in order to understand a primary concept. For example, the means of production and the way in which the working class is separated from them.
- Argument which, if omitted, makes either the programme as a whole or some other key concept less compelling. (However, it should be borne in mind that there will be countless opportunities for the organisation to address and elaborate all manner of issues and arguments in the ongoing output of its publications.)
These criteria of course will need to be flexible, and there may be better formulations out there. But they provide something to aim for.
Draft Programme
The CPGB Draft Programme contains a considerable amount of material which in my view falls outside these criteria. That is not to necessarily to criticise the conclusions drawn in those sections, let alone the effort that went into writing them. But brevity has a brutal logic at times.
Part of the issue with the CPGB Draft Programme may be that it is mismatched to the organisation which in fact deploys it in the here and now. Comrades have described its drafting as “putting their heads above the parapet” where other communist groups were unwilling or unable to do so. In that sense it is commendable and represents a seriousness which is higher than those groups who dismiss the importance of programme, or do not see the need for any programme at all.
However, its nature as a “draft” corresponds to its proposed function as the draft programme for a future mass communist party: “even after its adoption, the new draft would remain just that – a draft. The document is intended as the CPGB proposal to be put before a future founding congress of a Communist Party. We are absolutely clear that the current CPGB does not constitute such a party, which must be created by the coming together of the most advanced militants, most of whom are currently members of the various left groups.”[1]
In other words, it was written as a draft for an organisation that does not exist. However it appears that in practice (as can be seen by the fact it has been put on the table for consideration in the FCU process), it also serves as the unifying programmatic document for the CPGB-PCC which does exist in the here and now.
This presents an issue. If the Draft Programme is really only a draft for a future discussion and organisation, what are the programmatic commitments which in reality unite the organisation which exists right now – or would unite a fused organisation arising out of the FCU process?
Cutting our cloth to fit
A key part of the argument in the original FCU proposal is that unity can and should be addressed at every stage of our activity as communists (and not put off until some more auspicious day when we will all be members of the same mass party).
But principled unity, if it means anything, is based around programme. So by addressing the question of unity at each stage of the development of our organisation, we also must address the question of what type of programme is appropriate to each stage.
I would argue that there is a need for a programme which addresses the unity of forces achievable at our current stage, and not just the unity that is envisaged by a future refoundation congress of the CPGB.
The CPGB’s draft programme invites comrades to accept it as a “guide to action”. However its length and form inhibit its effectiveness as such as a guide.
By presenting some 15,000 words but asking for acceptance rather than agreement, there is inevitably a distorting effect on how it will be received.
The greater the level of detail and/or number of issues addressed, the greater the probability that any given comrade will not agree with all of the analysis put forward. It is right in my view to fall back on “acceptance” as the ultimate test which determines whether someone can be a member of the organisation. But that does not mean that we should skip straight to the bald question of acceptance. Surely agreement on the programme is preferable if it can be achieved.
And if there is analysis or argument which cannot be agreed, especially by significant numbers of members or prospective members, it is also a valid question to ask: does that analysis belong in the programme? Or does it properly belong in a commentary on the programme, viz. Kautsky’s elaboration (ca. 50,000 words) on the Erfurt Programme itself (ca. 2500 words).
To put a significant quantity of such secondary analysis into the programme, on the basis that even if not “agreed” it can simply be “accepted” as part of the whole, significantly detracts from the overall quality and efficacy of the programme. It makes the commitment of any given member to that programme likely to be weaker and more superficial. It will often be unclear which parts they agree and which they merely accept, and what bearing that might have on the unity of the organisation and its ability to win others to its ideas.
Acceptance good, agreement better
By asking for mere acceptance rather than trying to seek the maximum possible agreement, there is a real risk of a telescoping effect in which disagreements of quite a fundamental nature are masked by a comrade’s (or group of comrades’) acceptance of the programme as a whole.
The risk of this as an issue diminishes the more concise the programme, and the correspondingly greater emphasis which can be placed on agreement.
We have nothing in principle against discussing the contents of the Draft Programme, and it may be that discussion of sections 4.3, and 5 (to which some thoughts are offered below) will enable us to get our teeth into what may be areas of significant disagreement. But with regard to the majority of the document, given that for the reasons set out above the critique is that much of it is simply extraneous to what is needed, we propose a different approach.
A fresh approach
For this reason the most productive way to approach the question of achieving programmatic unity will be for the participants in FCU to draw up a brief, for a small team to draft a fresh programme which aims for both the highest level of political agreement possible between the forces involved, and to equip the new organisation with the most effective document possible for prosecuting its struggle.
A programme, drawing on historical examples, might encompass the following:
- A preamble outlining briefly:
- the nature of capitalist society;
- its division of society into contending classes;
- its inability to resolve its own contradictions or to solve the problems facing humanity (with an accessible explanation of these problems, i.e. multi-faceted socio-economic-environmental crises etc);
- the unique interest and ability of the working class to take power in a democratic transformation in order to achieve its own liberation, and then the emancipation of all humanity;
- and the necessity of communism as a system to achieve everything that capitalism cannot.
- There should then follow an outline of the general process of democratic transformation, i.e. what it means in broad terms for the working class to rule society (without seeking to make prescriptions on every aspect).
- Finally there should be an outline of the economic programme necessary that our class must implement on coming to power, i.e. the expropriation of the capitalist class.
There may be a compelling argument that given the historical experience of our movement which has taught us lessons not easily envisaged in the early years of Social Democracy, the programme should spell out certain theoretical clarifications such as the impossibility of socialism in one country, and the duty of all communists to pursue revolutionary action against war. However, to the extent that these belong in the programme, they can easily be incorporated as argument which strengthens the outline above, rather than as a gateway to a whole shopping list of “important issues” to be addressed.
By embarking on this process aimed at unity we have an opportunity consider things afresh, produce a programme that is not just the [intellectual] property of one of the constituent parts of a new fused organisation, and hopefully produce a programme which is better suited to the phases of political activity confronting us in the near future.
The nature of the transition – some areas of disagreement
Section 4.3 of the Draft Programme sets out a particular analysis of the nature of the transition from capitalism to communism which is in my view neither common ground among communists, nor properly supported by the theory or practice of our movement.
“The workers’ state inherits not only sectors of the economy that capitalism has socialised in its own way, but those sectors owned by small and medium capital and the petty bourgeoisie as well as a middle class which possesses various skills monopolies.” There is not much to disagree with here, although the force of any argument based on this analysis inevitably hangs on concrete questions of fact: what parts and proportions of the economy are owned by big, medium and small capital? What is their significance to the economy as a whole, qualitatively and quantitatively? To what extent are the “skills monopolies” really confined to the middle class, and how serious a problem would this be?
“Under these conditions universal nationalisation, forced collectivisation and flat-wage egalitarianism are ruled out – historical experience certainly shows that they lead to disaster.”
Again we must avoid generalisations and the over-extrapolation of limited historical experience if we are to get anywhere. None of the “historical experience” of communist revolution was ever applied to an advanced economy governed and directed in significant part by computer algorithms, supported by highly educated populations.
“[…] the full socialisation of production is dependent on and can only proceed in line with the withering away of skills monopolies of the middle class and hence the division of labour.” It is not clear on what basis it is argued that this would present any real kind of impediment to the socialisation of the economy at our current stage in history. There are just under 700,000 trained accountants and bookkeepers employed in the UK. 150,000 people enroll every year in Computer Science degrees.
We are in other words in a wholly different position from the Russian Empire on the eve of the revolution, in which two thirds of the population were not even literate. Yes, there may well still be a concentration of certain skills among something that might still be described as a “middle class” – but the numbers involved clearly indicate that even those who are not thoroughly proletarianised will clearly have strong links with the working class, and may be won over to the revolution without the huge expenditure and concessions that were necessary for the Bolsheviks to secure the services of the so-called “bourgeois specialists”. It seems unlikely that lack of expertise and skill will be any significant problem when our class comes to run the economy.
The argument continues: “The economy under working class rule will therefore be contradictory: there is a socialised part and a part which consists of surviving capitalist elements. The aim, however, is to slowly extend the socialised part of the economy so as to finally replace the market and the law of value with conscious planning and production for human need.”
This section has been summarised elsewhere in the following terms: “In short the character of the revolution is profoundly democratic; it is prepared to use physical force, but prefers peaceful means; it involves a rupture in class rule, but seeks to combine this with gradualism.”[2]
A commitment to [partial] gradualism would be quite a significant concession to make if it were not strictly required by the objective circumstances. So we must interrogate that, but also consider the political implications of such a plan. If the working class are by this point the ruling class in society, why would they tolerate the continued existence of capitalist class rule within significant sectors of society?
The proposal for this kind of a transition also raises rather fundamental questions about the class nature of the society during that period, and the relation of its governing forces to the class struggle. In the bullet point measures put forward by the Draft Programme, we read “Unemployment will be abolished. There will be an obligation for everyone to work”.
Logically, does placing an obligation on all to work during such a gradual transition mean that, because the “socialised sector” does not comprise the whole economy, some workers will be under an “obligation” to continue to subject themselves to alienated wage labour for an indeterminate period of time? Who shall decide who gets to work in the socialised economy and who continues to toil for a boss, albeit with “guaranteed full rights”. What shall happen to workers who refuse to draw the short straw?
It seems hard to imagine that the section of the working class employed in the surviving capitalist part of the economy would be untouched or unmoved by the political earthquake of their class coming to power. After all in our conception this would be a mass democratic transformation, not the work of a clique or conspiracy. If they have absorbed the lessons of this political upheaval, even if only partly, surely they would very swiftly identify the boss within their workplace as a representative and remnant of the bad old regime, and seek to replace them both in the interest of their own emancipation, and also to prevent any attempt at capitalist restoration.
This of course would not appear to fit with the schema envisaged in the Draft Programme. Indeed one reading of the Draft Programme might suggest that concerted action contrary to this scheme is dangerously counterrevolutionary – after all, the Draft Programme does not exactly pull its punches in saying such “flat-wage egalitarianism” risks “disaster”.
The implications of this analysis become clearer in section 5 of the Draft Programme. Socialism is defined as “the rule of the working class”, but also as a transition in which “classes and social strata exist”, necessitating the “continuation of the class struggle”, and they will “only finally disappear with full communism”.
What is not spelled out is how long this transition might last. Of course the answer might quite rightly be that crystal ball gazing is to be avoided: but is it likely to be months, years, decades…? This is an important question because, while the strategy of a communist party is to arm our class materially and ideologically to come to power, the question of what that power will be utilised for (whether a swift resolution of all social contradictions, or a long transition bearing the hallmarks and continued features of capitalism) is surely far from irrelevant.
In 5.3 we read, “The speed of that advance is dictated by the completion of the world revolution and the correctness of the policy of the working class and its party.” This does not exactly clarify matters. What is correct or incorrect policy in this context? And the logic is somewhat circular. The revolution (which in our analysis must be global) will be completed once the world revolution is completed?
If those are truly the only limiting factors, then why the analysis set out in section 4.3, and the significant number of “Immediate demands” in section 3 which seem clearly to be aimed at such a transitional period in which class society persists?
The output of the Weekly Worker is consistently and stridently against all programmes and compromises which result in the working class managing capitalism, rather than abolishing it. That is correct. But how is this reconciled with the definition of socialism in the Draft Programme? Is it distinguished by the additional concept of the state etc withering away? How satisfactory is this distinction if the transition envisaged is a long one, with the risk of a positive resolution slipping through the grasp of those who were involved at the outset?
All of these are important issues which we will need to clarify through discussion.
22/02/2025
3259 words
[1] ‘A Programme to Unite All Marxists’, accessed 16 February 2025, https://weeklyworker.co.uk//worker/838/a-programme-to-unite-all-marxists/.
[2] ‘The Meaning of Character’, accessed 16 February 2025, https://weeklyworker.co.uk//worker/1401/the-meaning-of-character/.
Although I have only recently been looking into the output of Cpgb and TAS, I have for a longer time been reading the Marxist texts and thought you may well be interested in this introductory document of the Internationalist Communist Tendency which shares some of the features of a programme but recognises that the ICT is not the world party nor it’s only embryo.
Feel free to critique. https://www.leftcom.org/files/2019-for-communism_0.pdf
In his reply to Tas comrades, Jack Conrad in the Weekly Worker ,27/02/2025, discusses programme. He repeats Lenin’s schema of 1903 that working class economic struggles produce nothing but trade union consciousness. That Socialism comes from outside the economic struggle between employers and employees. But, a moments reflection on economic struggles shows that this artificial division between the economic and high politics is pure dogma. Think about the great miners strike of the 1980s. The state intervened decisively on the side of the coal board. It was a political struggle the miners verses the government. Or think about wage freezes or wage rise caps in the public sector. These strikes became political as well as economic. There is no Chinese wall between the economic and political. Another example from Britain was the recent rail workers strike. The Tory government intervened to stop a settlement. This was making the dispute political. In any strike the anti trade union laws on picketing add a political dimension . During Austerity there was government pressure on employers to make settlements within government guidelines. Historically, as early as 1905, Rosa Luxemburg drew attention to the interweaving of the economic and political. It was difficult to disentangle one from the other. Sometimes the dynamic was from political to economic and sometimes from economic to political. Sometimes both factors were at work. Lenin himself altered his schema, acknowledging in the 1905 Revolution, the elementary economic struggle could produce Socialist consciousness. In 1917 the elemental class struggle from which a mass party is created found the Bolshevik minimum programme insufficient. The high politics of the minimum programme was swept aside for soviet or workers power. Jack Conrad offered more mystifications for a transitional regime between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism. During this so called transitional period neither the law of value nor the law of the plan would dominate. Make of that assertion what you will. He is rendering Marx more profound. He views the transitional regime as a situation where the workers would win political power(via the party) but the class would not be liberated. So ,instead of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the domination of society by the associated producers or a democracy of workers co operating in production and making the decisions that effect working class lives, the party would use state power to take society forward on the basis of how the capitalist economy is. where there would be big capitalist companies, but with gradual enlargement of workers control and a private sector of small scale capital This view seems to be based on the Russian experience. The party would introduce socialism by instalments. But an isolated Russia was not ripe for Communism.
An excellent agenda , from Ed but we have to say that not all people can work depending on their disabilities etc and we should have the means to look after the people who cannot go to work due to long term or people born with disabilities etc who are not fit to work .
Genuine unity discussions can only take place on the basis of a jointly agreed programme by all the forces involved in the fusion process. Rather than the imposition of a draft programme of a party that does not exist in a double sense. A reforged CPGB does not exist and the real historical CPGB does not exist. Because the faction around the Leninist magazine picked up a discarded banner (CPGB) does not make the Weekly Workers group the CPGB.
In any case the project of reforging the CPGB is eccentric. The foundation of the CPGB in 1920 was not the highest achievement of the workers movement in Britain. It was the achievement of the Comintern and its agents and finances. It was not founded on a Communist programme or politics. The Comintern aimed for affiliation to the Labour Party and the tactic of pushing Labour left. In effect this was the politics of the BSP.
The founding Conference alienated many Socialists from the SLP who were against the narrow basis of unity and excluded John Maclean Britain’s foremost revolutionary. Sylvia Pankhurst was soon expelled for being too left -wing. The CPGB. found great difficulty criticising the first Labour Government and tail ended the bureaucrats of the official Labour Movement in the General Strike. The rest was downhill to Stalinism and loyalty to the USSR not the British working class. The CPGB Is not a model for Communist unity today.
In the draft programme of the CPGB the view of the transition from Capitalism to Communism is Social Democratic not communist. As Ed Potts says if the working class were the ruling class in society them why would they tolerate the continued existence of Capitalism. The CPGB view of the transition begins with Capitalism and it does not start with a new mode of production. This is not Marx’s view of the transition. Indeed, Mike Macnair acknowledges the CPGB view is unorthodox.
There are many introductions to Marx’s Capital and many interpretation of Capital. Michael Heinrich has written a clear introduction to the three Volumes of Capital (Monthly review Press,2004) He explains Marx’s view of the transition from Capitalism to Communism or Socialism which are synonymous for Marx. Marx’s aim was to overcome Capitalism. In the words of Heinrich, one can speak of communism when not only the commodity, money and capital have been abolished but the state itself. A state in which social relations of fetishism in society still exist. But, any state standing as a force above society will not emancipate workers from alienated social relations.
In the discussions during the unity process, Mike Macnair, has begun to describe the TAS understanding of transition as standing in the tradition of Bakunin. But, Mike has a problem. He speaks for an organisation which originally described itself as Leninist. Now, Lenin’s State and Revolution is very anti -State. As Ralph Miliband,(1) writes, for Lenin the state withers immediately from the start to the point of decomposition. This is the semie-state or commune state which is not really a fully fledged state standing above society.
Miliband makes the point that when Lenin talks about the state after the revolution, this is a very different state to the one in his State and Revolution. Following the Russian Revolution, Lenin substituted the Dictatorship of the Bolshevik party for the dictatorship of the proletariat. He assumed a organic relationship between class and party. The vanguard equalled the class. This is politics of substitutionism. In early 1918′ Lenin was clear, to proclaim the dying of the state would be a violation of historical perspective for Russia. ( backwardness isolation and so on )
Lenin’s State and Revolution echoed with the phrase smash the state. But, the Bolsheviks did not smash the state but utilised the Tsarist bureaucracy placing power in the hands of the leadership in the ministries of the Tsarist State. So in his State and Revolution Lenin was talking about scarcely a state at all, without a standing army or party and state bureaucracy. After the Revolution he talked about a strong state with secret police outside legal constraints and a standing army. The Bolsheviks were in an antagonist relationship with the working class. This was a so called workers state.
For the above (1) Ralph Miliband, Lenin, The State and revolution, in Class Party and Revolution, edited by Greg Albo, Leo Panitch, and Alan Zuege, Haymarket books 2018.
In his latest Weekly Worker article, Collaboration yes; opportunism no, Jack Conrad repeats previous distortions and misrepresentations of the TAS negotiating position in the fusion talks. Asking for a joint committee of all the organisations involved in the fusion process to draw up a new programme for a new party has nothing to do with opportunism or even gross opportunism. This absurd rhetoric is used to cloud the issues.
TAS has not objected to the CPOGB programme being included in a joint attempt to draw up a new programme. But, Jack Conrad considers the CPGB programme to be the only revolutionary programme. Any compromise or amendment or concession would be surrendering to gross opportunism, economism or any other political sin you can think of.
Jack Conrad boasts the CPGB have no fear of being in a minority. No, how can he fear a CPGB minority since, he knows in advance the CPGB will have a majority at any unity conference. That’s why he wants the votes to be binding. They will not win the vote by argument, but by CPGB discipline.
A brief comment to give my immediate thought.
“Dear comrades, TAS has decided to pause its involvement in the Forging Communist Unity Process talks until July 6 2025, so that TAS can produce its own draft programme for submission to the FCU discussions.
It has been clear for some time that there is no agreement between TAS and the CPGB over what programme any new organisation arising from the FCU process should adopt, or how a programme should be produced.”
I think communist unity would be based on a skeleton which comes down to;
1.The working class needs an international revolutionary organisation.
2. This organisation is not a government in waiting, it advocates the power of the working class through its own self-created bodies arising through the class struggle, coordinating through the mandating of recallable delegates to a central organ.
3. Apart from this specifically proletarian delegatory democracy, there is no way to introduce socialism and, at best, pre existing structures under capitalism can only provide an arena to make propaganda for revolution, not to make revolution.
I find it difficult to see how organisations not agreeing on the above could merge. Until such a foundation is established, then what is the point in creating a Programme providing a long and detailed analysis of capitalism, past present and future and blueprints for its revolutionary abolition. It strikes me that a future party will elaborate this Programme to the extent that it is possible but the first task is to assemble the elements of that future party, rather than carry out its tasks.
Hi Ant. The question is where do we start. if we start with an international then we are probably taking the Comintern as a model. So a handful of leaders as the international leadership. The Comintern was bureaucratic from the outset as its first secretary said. It was organised on military lines with top down instructions from the highest body down to national sections and the highest committee and then down through the hierarchy of committees. Extreme centralism.
This was not not based on the revolutionary Bolshevik party of 1917, but the ruling party of 1919-1921 which was in an antagonistic relationship with the working class and in which a new ruling elite was crystallising around the party state apparatus. They used the International as a foreign arm of the USSR. So in 1919-1920 they were looking for pushing the Labour party left to increase soviet influence at a time when the revolution was isolated and degenerating.
The intervention of the Comintern with its revolutionary prestige authority and large sums of money was decisive in forming the CPGB. Revolutionaries like Sylvia Pankhurst, and John Maclean were expelled or excluded. The Comintern lacked national roots and insofar as it had national roots used them to further the national interests of the USSR.
We should follow Marx and start from a national section with international perspective. This party would begin as a national form which should be international in content. Reaching out in solidarity with other communists in Europe and elsewhere. to form an international which would not be bureaucratic centralist.
As you correctly state, any communist society or a break from capitalism would not be about a workers’ government in waiting. It would be about workers’ power throughout society in their own self governing communities or communes. These would absorb state functions and cause a withering away of the state and class.
You correctly say that we must assemble the elements of a future communist party. But how can we do this except as unity around a programme or common outlook. The programme will change in mass struggle, the exact form of which we cannot predict. But, we can make a start today with the nucleus of a communist programme and party