First Published: Vanguard, Vol. 1, No. 8, September 1964.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba and Sam Richards
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This appeal is to three long-standing members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. We will call them Bill Smith, Tim Jones and Joe Reed. These are not their real names although the comrades in question will know well enough who we mean. Bill Smith joined the CP. as long ago as 1948 (maybe before), while the other two have had at least 24 years continuous membership. They are all long-standing members of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. Tim Jones is a Trade Union Branch Secretary, Bill Smith is a Shop Steward in a Surrey factory while Joe Reed is a leading Shop Steward at the British Aircraft Corporation Ltd. Works at Weybridge, Surrey.
Dear Comrades,
Your party held a meeting at the Co-op Hall, Addlestone, on Wednesday, 22/7/64, and there were 35 in attendance.
One thing stood out a mile and that was that CP. speakers studiously, deliberately and calculatedly avoided like the plague any mention of the role of the state. They scratched all round it, talked about the need for working class action and working class power, yet somehow managed to dodge any analysis of the role of the state. This is no accident because if they did seriously discuss this crucial question, they would reveal for all to see the fact that they have completely and utterly abandoned Marxist-Leninist theory.
The speaker was asked whether it was possible under capitalism for a nationalised industry to be run in the interests of the mass of the people. He didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no as the song goes, but the speaker’s answer revealed all too clearly the fact that Lenin’s “State and Revolution ” has been slung out of the window. He said that approximately 20% of all industry is nationalised–Mils is not enough. As a result of mass working class action, pressure must be brought to bear to increase this proportion. We must make inroads into the positions of monopoly capitalism and through socialist nationalisation, alter things in favour of the working class. Shorn of all window dressing, demagogic phrases and pious wishes, what does this mean? Is this something new–is this ”creative” Marxism? Of course it isn’t. It is the old reformist policy of socialism bit by bit–a rehash of what the Fabians have been saying for decades.
The CP. is bashing for all its worth this slogan of nationalisation, and as a result of the crisis concerning B.A.C. Ltd. and the VG10 aircraft, they campaign for nationalisation of the aircraft industry. But is this a working class solution? As the speaker said, 20% of industry is already nationalised But under capitalism, industries are not nationalised because of concern for the working class and the general public, but only in order to make capitalism work more effectively. So the CP. demands “Socialist ” nationalisation while the state is still in the hands of the capitalist class. The point is that, as Marx and Lenin repeatedly pointed out, the state is not neutral. It is the coercive apparatus of a certain class, and any measures that that class takes is always administered by mat class in the interests of that class. Therefore, to put forward the slogan of “socialist nationalisation” while the state is in the hands of the bourgeoisie is pure deception, is an absolute sham and a fraud. A working class solution demands expropriation not nationalisation, in other words, a revolutionary solution not a reformist one.
After the meeting, Tim Jones asked us why we were 50 years ahead of the working class. “We are a tactical party,” he said, “we must put forward these demands as an immediate polity.”
“Isn’t that the classical social democratic formula for betrayal of the working class?” we replied, “in fact, on every occasion that we hear you. Tim, you sound more and more like a member of the Labour Party.”
In actual practice, the CP. has cast aside all revolutionary principles, yet it still claims to be a Marxist-Leninist party. Why are the revisionists such fakers, why are they so dishonest? The reason is not far to seek. There are still plenty of Old stalwarts like Tim in the Party. They stay in, although they have had the spirit knocked out of them by the leadership. Only one thing keeps them in and that is their illusions. They will not face reality. They have an almost unlimited capacity for self-deception. In spite of everything, they cling to the idea that the CP. is still essentially a revolutionary party. The revisionist leaders know that, apart from anything else, the subjective illusions of the old guard must not be shattered. Once they are, it is the beginning of the end for revisionism. That is why the CP. leaders are so cagey, so hesitant, such “clever boxers.” They cannot afford not to be. They mustn’t give the game away.
The most characteristic feature of the present-day CP. is its groveling. It grovels to nearly everybody–to President Johnson, to the Liberals, to the right wing Labour and T.U. leaders, to bourgeois pacifists and Church dignitaries and to the petty bourgeois intellectuals of the C.N.D. But most of all, it grovels to the left of the Labour Party which at any cost, must never be exposed. Why is this? Why does the CP. refuse to make a class analysis of the nature of the Labour Party? Yes, they do make strong attacks on old-style right wingers like Wood row Wyatt and George Brown as though they were devils incarnate who had “captured” the “good at heart” Labour Party. One would think that all you had to do was to replace them with “good” left wingers, then everything would be lovely. This is the CP. substitute for objective class analysis. Reformism is a historical and ideological trend in the Labour movement which is deep-rooted. You do not alter this fact by removing Woodrow Wyatt and George Brown. The dominance of reformism is epitomized fay the type of party the Labour Party is. Ft is, as Lenin said, essentially no different from other bourgeois parties–just a variant. It cannot be transformed or pushed to the left. Consequently, the whole strategy of the CP., which is based on transforming the Labour Party by pushing it left, is nothing but a monumental deception of the working class. That is why the CP. will not expose the class nature of the Labour Party, because by doing so, it would be exposing itself.
What of the petty bourgeois left? The left wing Labour and T.U. leaders are competing with the right wingers for all the plum jobs, positions and career opportunities, therefore they have to rely on (rank and file political awareness to gain support. In reality, the .petty bourgeois lefts are even bigger charlatans than the rights–they exploit the aims and aspirations of the masses only to advance their own careers. But the revisionists dare not expose the class nature of the petty bourgeois lefts, because isn’t that the very thing the CP. leaders themselves are doing, using the rank and file to advance their own interests so as to carve out for themselves a petty bourgeois niche in capitalist society? They dare not expose the bourgeois nature of the Labour right wing and the petty bourgeois nature of the Labour left wing, so what do they do? They try to impress thorn–they plead with them1–they grovel to them The revisionists are vulnerable as hell, on the defensive all the time. No wonder the capitalists and their ideologues and lap-dogs, sometimes use them as whipping boys, sometimes arrogantly and disdainfully throw them crumbs, but always treat them with utter contempt. The capitalists treat the CP. just like they treat their own lackeys–the difference is that the other lackeys demand a higher price, the revisionists sell their souls for now.
Comrades, like ostriches, you are burying your heads in the sand, expecting the fundamental ideological conflict between revisionism and revolution to “resolve itself.” Do not kid yourselves. Yes, the conflict will eventually be resolved, but only on the basis of the victory of Marxist-Leninist principles. There is no doubt whatever about the final outcome–revisionism will be completely and utterly shattered as an ideological force and with it the influence of the Dutts, Gollans, Klugmans and their master, the biggest renegade of them all, Khrushchev. The fight for peace and socialism and against imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, is inextricably bound up with the fight against revisionism. The revisionists will not be able to duck out of it–to find some safe hideaway. They will have to go. To the extent that Marxism-Leninism defeats revisionism, to that extent will the proletarian vanguard be able to fortify itself, to re-group and re-unite on a new basis, stronger morally, ideologically and in every other way. Sorry, comrades, that is the only way the conflict can and will be resolved.
The CP. is not only irrelevant in the struggle against capitalism–it has actually gone over to the enemy, it is a renegade party. Strong words, maybe, but that is the inexorable logic Of the situation. When a Marxist-Leninist party ceases to be revolutionary, in effect, it offers itself for hire to capitalism to do its dirty work. At the moment, the British capitalists have very little use for the CP. as the Labour Party has always performed this function very effectively. So the capitalists still use the CP. as a convenient scapegoat, while at the same time treating it with tolerant contempt. But the situation may well change. Imperialism is on the decline. The imperialists are getting noticeably weaker and weaker. Anyway, they are all paper tigers. But social democratic reformism derives its strength from imperialism and the super profits it extracts from its colonies and former colonies. These sources of revenue are drying up. The crisis of imperialism is also the crisis of reformism in the Labour movement at this particular stage in world history, just when the proletariat is turning away from social democratic reformism, the CP. steps forward to propose a new kind of reformism, i.e., revisionism, thus offering the bourgeoisie an extra lease of life. What a disgrace ! For how long will you allow yourselves to be used by the revisionist leaders, to do the donkey work for them, to be soaked by them, to pay their salaries, so that at some undisclosed date in the future, they may get a few seals in parliament? You are deceiving yourselves if you think that in the CP., you are effectively working for socialism. The awful truth is that by lending your support to revisionism, you are bolstering up capitalism. Is it not time to stop hibernating, to ruthlessly cast aside your illusions and to face reality? Wake up, comrades, wake up!