[Marxism] SWP and Respect -- a central issue is the national question

[Joaquin Bustelo]

Lenin's Tomb replied to me:  

"This is an utterly bizarre angle.  The UK does not not need a "national
movement", it needs a socialist movement.  Britain has oppressed minorities,
but its problems can't be *reduced* to that, and no effort at social
transformation will succeed based on such a limited agenda.  Britain is not
an oppressed nation, but an imperialist one.  As such, the only "national
movement" going here is the fascist one - and the success of such a movement
would not be very promising for Muslims."

I'm HOPING LT is just being disingenuous because otherwise this reply is
truly appalling. I wasn't talking about an ENGLISH national movement, and
BTW, there is VERY MUCH an English national movement, which, in fact
dominates British society and permeates every pore.

"Britain is not an oppressed nation, but an imperialist one." Bravo. And
among the VICTIMS of British imperialism, which IS the (real) English
national movement [and which is so dominant and all pervasive that LT
imagines the only national movements in Britain are the fascist sects] are
people of color and most especially in the past few years Muslims. It is
THEIR movements against English national oppression that were being referred
to. 

LT says "but [Britain's] problems can't be reduced to that." Like, duh.

But is this really where the SWP wants to head politically? Sectarian
abstentionism in the name of nothing less than the full program for
socialist revolution? 

LT says further: "You haven't really understood.  The 'community politics'
involved here is not fundamentally about the defense of minorities: it is
about an electoralist strategy that has been deadly for every radical party
or movement that has subordinated itself to it.  We don't necessarily
counterpose class to community, but we are unprepared to see class politics
subordinated to psephological considerations."

I'm afraid LT and I continue to talk past each other. As I see it, what is
involved is *NOT* "the defense of minorities," but rather the PROTAGONISM of
minorities. And "psephological considerations" (detailed studies of election
returns -- I had to look up the word) are VERY MUCH relevant. Why? Because
that shows the base you have to build on.

LT refuses to accept the REALITY indicated by the election returns, among
other things. That reality is, quite simply, that Respect *succeeded* in
becoming, in some areas, the expression in the electoral arena of the
movement by Muslims against the attacks that have been raining down on them.


LT shows the same lack of understanding of my point in responding to my
statement that "under current political conditions in the UK, Respect became
a vehicle for the expression of a radicalization among Muslims who have been
singled out for repression and discrimination in the imperialist 'war on
terror.'"

He responds, "Respect was always supposed to unite Muslim socialists with
white trade unionsts, ex-Labour supporters with Trotskyists and so on, " and
"Respect was not, is not, and cannot be, solely the vehicle by which Muslims
fight against their oppression." 

But what I'm talking about is not about what Respect is SUPPOSED to be, I'm
talking about the reality that manifested itself *on the ground.* In certain
areas, Muslim communities made Respect THEIR OWN so that there it was no
longer exclusively an ideologically-based alliance of radicals from various
sectors and became, in part, an electoral expression of social forces in
motion. 

That calls for a shift in how Marxists think about the formation, because it
has begun to change, it now has an organic relation with a social sector,
even if it is only a sliver of the masses. The issue is not that Respect
ought ONLY to be a "vehicle by which Muslims fight against their
oppression," but that in reality it has become such a vehicle, although that
is not the ONLY thing it is. 

LT views this as being an issue of Galloway and his friends orientation: 

"It was the decision of a number of people around George Galloway MP to try
and transform Respect into a different kind of organisation, and their
opening shot was an attempt to unconstitutionally depose the national
secretary."

I think this is wrong. I think it was the decision of thousands of people of
color and other working people that opened the door to Respect being
transformed "into a different kind of organisation." Respect was to begin
with an electoral alliance held together by elements of a common ideology.
Thanks to the response of a sliver of the masses (sliver because only as of
yet in a few localities) it ALSO [not "exclusively"] became the political
expression of social forces in motion, which is what a mass party is. As yet
this is an embryonic development and, moreover, a tremendously uneven one. 

This would be, even in the best of cases, a complicated situation for
revolutionaries to relate to even if they analyzed and understood it, which
it seems to me the SWP hasn't done. One thing it is inevitably going to mean
is that this larger, no longer solely ideological Respect is going to be
less red, and especially and precisely in those areas where it has a base.
The hope, the project is to go through a whole series of experiences with
this base so as to gradually win them to revolutionary socialist
conclusions. But here you are not talking about attracting and convincing
individuals, but the maturation of a social layer.

Worse, almost certainly while this degree of radicalization --a mass break
from the bourgeois parties-- is restricted to "minorities" and only in some
areas at that-- the process I describe is likely to be slow if not outright
reversed. 

*  *  *

Now to deal with how Galloway & friends tried to "transform" Respect
according to LT. He says "their opening shot was an attempt to
unconstitutionally depose the national secretary."

That "opening shot" was Galloway's letter to the Respect National Council,
and I do not see there ANY attempt to "depose the national secretary." What
Galloway proposed was to elect a national organizer to work alongside the
national secretary to try to overcome a whole series of organizational and
management limitations in how Respect was functioning. And, as LT himself
has confirmed, the SWP eventually wound up SUPPORTING Galloway's proposal.

I raised this earlier, asking for evidence, and LT replied pointing to a
statement by Glyn Robbins, who was the chair of Tower Hamlets Respect. The
statement defends the SWP from a "why-can't-we-all-just-get-along" type
stance: 

"Unfortunately, what I saw as an obvious and essential need for improvement
very quickly became a polarized argument and in particular, has been used by
some as a pretext for an attack on the SWP in general and John Rees in
particular. This was made very clear at the meeting I attended on 4th
September when three members of George’s delegation called, in more or less
veiled terms, for John to resign.

"I don’t know if this was always George’s intention or if he always planned
that this would inevitably lead to a battle royale in RESPECT."

This is rather a stretch. Ostensibly the SWP launched a big fight inside
respect because of the attempt to drive it from the organization, the main
evidence being the attempt to purge Rees. Some weeks AFTER the fight is
launched, the Tower Hamlets Respect meets. And Lenin's Tomb says if you need
evidence that the SWP was right in launching this fight, it is that three
individuals who agree with Galloway "in more or less veiled terms," in other
words, in Robbins's INTERPRETATION, reading between the lines of what was
ACTUALLY said, and in some heatedly factional meeting at that, implicitly
asked for Rees's resignation.

Robbins then imputes this view to George Galloway: ""I don’t know if this
was always George’s intention..."

Well, was Galloway there? Did he speak on the matter? 

And he and his close allies are on Respect's National Council that met a
couple of weeks later. Did he put a motion to request Rees's resignation to
that body? 

Isn't there better evidence than this? Three nameless individuals, in the
heat of a factionalized meeting, saying things which one person who
disagrees with them interprets as calling for Rees's resignation? 

Frankly, Robbins's arguments are less than impressive: "There is a
fundamental contradiction at the heart of the criticism being made of the
SWP’s role in RESPECT. It is being argued that the SWP is not giving enough
priority to the project, but at the same time, it is trying to dominate it!
I don’t think you can have it both ways."

Well, OF COURSE you can have it both ways! There is absolutely NO
contradiction. On the contrary, this is entirely TYPICAL of hierarchical
social relations -- with some people calling the shots, and others doing the
work.

And it is especially not contradictory if the line that the SWP seems to be
accused of following is that it wants Respect to be a united front for
elections, and NOT a rounded political party/organization, and that this
seems to be one of the main issues in dispute, whereas for a lot of the
others Respect is the beginning of a new party.

IN this view, the SWP would be accused of trying to dominate Respect so that
it DOESN'T become what in the SWP's lights might be a rival, a reformist or
centrist mish-mash making an absolute hash out of ALL political work.

*  *  *

Obviously, The issues around Respect and the SWP have moved beyond what it
raised in this post. Unfortunately, my work and other political commitments
made it impossible for me to respond to Lenin's Tomb more quickly. I am
sending this in nevertheless because I believe it is important to discuss
and understand the various aspects of this split -- including the role of
the organization question, which Louis has done and I believe it is
intimately related to what I am raising.

As I see it, the SWP has failed to do a real analysis of the situation and
the social layers involved. As an ideological propaganda sect, they have a
built-in prejudice to look at things not from the standpoint of social
forces in motion and evolution, but rather from the standpoint of comparing
formal positions to a static "correct program." 

Joaquín