On Sunday 23 February Nick Wrack and Ed Potts of the TAS steering group attended the latest discussion in the Forging Communist Unity process. Representing their organisations at the discussion were Jack Conrad & Mike Macnair of the CPGB-PCC, and Cat Rylance & Sam Turner of the Prometheus unity faction.
Two documents were submitted in advance of the discussion. One was an agreed TAS submission (read here) which set out some arguments and proposals about the appropriate form and content of a programme. In particular, we proposed that the participating organisations should work together to draft a concise programme, aiming at a high level of agreement on the fundamentals in the first instance, which could be taken up by the new fused organisation we hope emerges from these discussions.
Ed Potts also submitted a longer article (read here) which elaborated on the arguments, and also set out a critique of certain areas of the CPGB’s Draft Programme on the nature of the transition from capitalism to communism.
Jack Conrad introduced the discussion on behalf of the CPGB-PCC, speaking to the documents submitted and the CPGB’s draft programme. Ed Potts then responded and elaborated on some aspects of the TAS documents.
A general discussion followed which was clarifying in a number of respects. It was generally agreed that the ultimate test of membership should be acceptance of the programme, rather than agreement with all of it. The TAS comrades however emphasised that, especially in the context of the FCU process, it is important to try and identify and achieve through discussion the maximum possible agreement on the fundamentals, and only then if necessary fall back on acceptance of what we cannot agree.
A more concise programme than the CPGB’s draft would have the advantages of greater brevity and accessibility, but also represent a firmer and more substantial shared commitment among the participating organisations. We hope this process will produce a new organisation which is not only bigger, but qualitatively better than all of those currently participating in FCU. There is an opportunity to consider things afresh.
There was a good deal of discussion about what does and doesn’t belong in a programme, as opposed to a more expansive commentary on the programme, or subsidiary documents on more transient issues. There was also a substantive disagreement about the nature, length, and class dynamics of the transition between capitalism and communism – but there was insufficient time to address this topic in any kind of comprehensive way.
It is clear that a lot more discussion will be required. The parties agreed to meet in person in the coming weeks. We look forward to continuing our progress towards unity.
The TAS report of the meeting of Forging Communist Unity(FCU) is positive and even up beat. But, Jack Conrad, in his report of the same meeting is less positive. Jack was reluctant, hesitant and minded to reject suggestions from Tass and Prometheus. He was reluctant to add yet more words from TAS and Prometheus to the CPGB draft programme. It was far to long already. Rather than seek ,in discussion, as much agreement as possible, Conrad seemed to expect non CPGB comrades to accept the CPGB draft and become a minority to conduct a factional fight for what they believed in. For Conrad, to seek as much agreement as possible was to seek consensus which he dismissed. He was particularly concerned that the TAS and Prometheus comrades would seek to rewrite the CPGB draft programme even more in the future. For Conrad this was not the Bolshevik approach. But, the Minimum programme of the Bolsheviks proved insufficiently revolutionary in 1917. The programme of workers power was improvised in 1917, as the Bolshevik party included political currents outside the old Bolshevik Leninists. The party reconstituted itself as the Communist party with a new programme in 1919. Conrad also insisted that it would be foolish to cast aside the Name CPGB. But,surely it would be foolish to retain the Name CPGB ,given its association with Stalinism and its origins as a pressure group pushing the Labour Party to the Left. It would hardly signal a 21st century Communism. Finally, Jack Conrad described the TAS concept of the transition to communism as a recipe to frighten the middle class. He claimed TAS wanted to steal land from small farmers and forcefully grab small shops. His own view of transition to communism was to assert there was a two stage process. There was a lower stage which was Socialism and then a higher phase which was communism. But when Marx wrote about a lower and higher stage, he was not talking about two systems but one system communism.
In Jack Conrad’s political report, 2nd of March, he returned to his theme of a transitional preparatory society prior to communism. Again it involved mystifications. Apparently Communism is not democratic in the sense that in the transition democracy withers away .But surely what withers is a state based on political democracy without economic democracy. The first phase of socialism/communism would be the democratic common ownership and cooperation of the associated producers( Critique of the Gotha Programme) this would combine economic and political liberation. The most extreme and extensive democracy defended by the people in arms. On one or two occasions Marx described this as the Dictatorship of the proletariat, by which he meant the domination of society by the working class. Or working class hegemony. The context of the phrase was different than today where dictatorship invokes the horrors of Stalinist and Fascist dictatorship. To use the phrase dictatorship to describe democratic communism would frighten the middle class, something jack is concerned about, and not only the middle class. Jack has an uncritical view of the Russian experience of revolution and he seems to understand the Dictatorship of the Proletariat as a government rather than mass cooperation at the grass roots which absorbs the functions of the state. An enlightened party dictatorship which doles out instalments of Socialism, the leadership think is possible. But it’s a question of applying democracy not eliminating it. As Marx wrote in the first draft of the civil war in France, the Paris commune was a revolution against the state itself, every form of the state. Now though Jack advocates some kind of preparatory transitional regime which he describes as the lower phase of communism ,Socialism, Marx was clear in the Critique of the Gotha programme: The first phase of communist society was based on common ownership and a cooperative non capitalist society.