[Marxism] British SWP'er raises questions about internal functioning

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Weekly Worker 553 Thursday November 18 2004
Call for democracy

Hot on the heels of his diplomatically worded critique of the Socialist 
Workers Party’s intervention in Respect (see Weekly Worker November 11), 
veteran SWP leader John Molyneux has now turned his attention to the 
organisation’s own regime and culture.

In this contribution to the Pre-conference Bulletin No2, headed 
‘Democracy in the SWP’, comrade Molyneux exposes the intolerance and 
monolithism of the leadership and, as “a strongly committed member of 
the SWP”, calls for far-reaching cultural change.

(snip)

When the level of struggle is high and rising, the confidence and 
consciousness of workers rises through their experience of the 
collective power. This is ABC for us, but the point is that it applies 
inside the party too. In an upturn when members disagree with their 
party leadership it is often as part of a collective with an experience 
of common struggle (which doesn’t necessarily make them right, of course).

In contrast, in a downturn the general experience of members is defeat 
and isolation, which makes it much more difficult to challenge the party 
leadership. When as a revolutionary socialist you feel your back is to 
the wall, defending your basic beliefs against what seems like a largely 
hostile world, it is hard to take on your own leaders as well.

But this ‘objective’ materialist explanation of the problem, while true, 
is also not the whole story. On the basis of this objective situation 
the party has developed, almost imperceptibly, a series of practices 
which reinforce the dominant position of the leadership.

One of these is the almost perfect unity and solidarity which the CC 
maintains in inner-party discussion. Whatever disagreements arise 
between them - and arise they must - they are kept strictly to 
themselves (apart from the occasional leak to close insiders), and a 
common front is presented at national meetings. As a general rule no CC 
member openly disagrees with another CC member, and all or most CC 
members combine to back each other up if anyone dissents. Moreover this 
internal solidarity has an informal but real tendency to extend to all 
those who work at the party centre. This cohesion obviously confers an 
enormous advantage in any dispute.

Another such practice is the way sessions at conferences, councils, etc 
are organised: generally without motions from branches and with the 
speaker’s slip system. There are, of course, a number of good reasons 
for these procedures but they have the side effect of allowing the CC, 
through control of the slips, complete control of the order of debate. 
Certainly this is exercised with discretion - dissenters are allowed to 
speak - but the common pattern is that any serious political 
contributions are rapidly rebutted by several speakers from the 
leadership and, crucially, the dissident has no opportunity to reply.

To give just one example: a few years ago at a party council, I 
disagreed, in just a couple of sentences, with the leadership’s 
estimation of the nature and size of the Birmingham demonstration to 
save Longbridge. My brief comments were promptly replied to by at least 
five members of the CC.

Finally there has been the habit - fortunately much reduced of late, but 
still not entirely a thing of the past - of attacking people who 
disagree, aggressively and personally.

The net effect of these practices has been (a) to load all debates 
massively in the leadership’s favour; (b) to make open disagreement at 
national meetings (as opposed to in private conversation) a highly 
disagreeable experience with little prospect of success. In other words 
it has been to deter dissent.

Overall it has led to a conception of the many national and local 
meetings primarily, even overwhelmingly, as transmission belts for the 
dissemination of policy from the leadership to the membership rather 
than as opportunities for the members to determine policy or hold the 
leadership to account.

Now is it wrong to raise such issues without proposing an alternative 
perspective? Not in my opinion. I don’t see why disagreement should have 
this ‘all or nothing’ character. I am a strongly committed member of the 
SWP and agree with all its basic politics, and with the main lines of 
its current policy and orientation, but I don’t think it is perfect, and 
from time to time I disagree with certain things. For when that happens 
I want a structure and culture which not only gives me the right to say 
so, but which also gives me the possibility, if my arguments are good, 
of having some success. Put it this way: just because the current 
general line of the party is correct does it matter if there are 
weaknesses in its democracy? Yes, because tomorrow the line, or aspects 
of it, may not be right and we will need a flourishing democracy to 
correct it.

full: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/553/swpdemocracy.htm

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