Scottish Debate | Home | News | Donate | Join 

The Scottish debate

Party, Programme, Reformism and the International

The Committee for a Workers' International never opposed the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party. The resolution on Scotland, adopted at the International Executive Committee (IEC) meeting in November 1999, clearly stated: 

"In the run-up up to the formation of the Scottish Socialist Party, the leadership of the Committee for a Workers' International proposed that our Scottish comrades should accept one of two options. Option One was for a re-launch of the Scottish Militant Labour, and the formation of a new party affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International. 

This proposal was not made in order to cut across or end the electoral alliances in which Scottish Militant Labour had successfully participated in the previous period... However, the Scottish comrades clearly rejected Option One, and therefore, the possibility of implementing Option Two was posed. This would have entitled the launching of a broad party within which we would have maintained a distinct revolutionary organisation, programme and membership". 

That was our position.

The comrades, however, rejected both options. They handed over virtually all the resources (the paper, finances, full-timers, headquarters, etc.) of the Scottish Militant Labour to the Scottish Socialist Party. They began to operate as loose current with the sole aim of "influencing" the party. What has happened to the assurance given in 1998 that: "It would openly advocate Committee for a Workers' International affiliation within the Scottish Socialist Party"? (Proposals for progress on the New Scottish Turn, 21 May 1998).

Despite opposing political ideas used by the comrades to justify dissolving our Scottish organisation, the World Congress agreed in 1998: 

"This Congress does not believe that the proposals put forward by the Scottish Militant Labour EC for the organisation of its members in Scotland are adequate for the functioning of a cohesive revolutionary organisation based upon the policy, programme and methods supported by the Committee for a Workers' International and its sections. 

However, to allow all comrades in Scotland time to reconsider the issue posed, this Congress, with greatest possible reluctance, accepts that the Scottish Militant Labour has gone ahead and implemented its proposals, and therefore to recognises the Committee for a Workers' International group in the Scottish Socialist Party as a full section".

The IEC, in November 1999, after discussing the situation in Scotland urged the comrades to take some minimum steps in order to strengthening the forces of Marxism in Scotland.

No decision has been imposed on the Scottish comrades. Despite this, the comrades repeat the unjustified claim that the Committee for a Workers' International leadership "seeks to impose strategy and tactics upon individual sections" (paragraph 325). They also claim that the Committee for a Workers' International is "over-centralised" but as usual they do not substantiate this accusation and no example is given.

It is not the Committee for a Workers' International that misrepresents the view of the International Socialist Movement majority, but the opposite. The majority of the leadership is misrepresenting the views of the Committee for a Workers' International among the ranks of the International Socialist Movement and the Scottish Socialist Party. It is the International Socialist Movement leadership who have created and spread the myth that the "Committee for a Workers' International is hostile to the Scottish Socialist Party".

The International Socialist Movement majority are not just in the leadership of the Scottish Socialist Party. Ten out of eleven members of the Scottish Socialist Party leadership are members of the International Socialist Movement. 

The full-time staff of the Scottish Socialist Party are International Socialist Movement members. Its representative in the Scottish parliament is an International Socialist Movement member and the Scottish Socialist Voice is produced by International Socialist Movement members. 

Despite this there has been no campaign organised, or serious effort made, to establish closer links between the Scottish Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers' International or the Scottish Socialist Party and our sections in England, Wales and Ireland. We want to ask the majority: Do you uphold the aim of the Scottish Socialist Party affiliating to the Committee for a Workers' International?

In paragraph 341 it is stated that: 

"Some people have point blank refused to join the International Socialist Movement because they do not understand why they should join an International which they know is implacably opposed to everything they are doing". This is incredible. Who are these people, and if is true, who is responsible for portraying the Committee for a Workers' International as an International "implacably opposed to everything they are doing"?

Reports of the electoral successes of the Scottish Socialist Party have been distributed to the members of the Committee for a Workers' International across the World. Sections have carried articles about the evolution of the Scottish Socialist Party, news from Scotland has been featured in our Newsletter, etc.

Compare this to the pages of Scottish Socialist Voice, which hardly ever mentions our work and successes in other countries. It never carries articles written by Committee for a Workers' International members outside of Scotland but has carried articles written by our opponents. No reports have been given to us about the work and the state of the International Socialist Movement.

The document claims in paragraph 24 that: 

"Material which has been sent for inclusion in the Committee for a Workers' International newsletter has been suppressed". 

It is completely untrue to imply that the Committee for a Workers' International Newsletter refuses to include reports of the work of the Committee for a Workers' International in Scotland. Since the beginning of this year the International has received only one "report" from Scotland, on 10 February, and this was unsuitable for the Committee for a Workers' International Newsletter. 

It was in fact a report of the Scottish Socialist Party and not a report of the work of the Committee for a Workers' International section. Only two sentences were given over to the Committee for a Workers' International, and these gave a completely unbalanced account of the Scottish Committee for a Workers' International section's conference held in February.

This year, the reports of the work of the section in Scotland, have been written by comrades in the International Centre. This is because no reports from Scotland have been received.

Nearly all of the international guests at the Scottish Socialist Party Conference in February this year were interviewed by the Scottish Socialist Voice. The exceptions were Peter Madden and Niall Mulholland from the Committee for a Workers' International. 

A letter (15 March 2000) was sent from the International Centre to the Scottish comrades, asking for clarification on this and other matters arising from the Scottish Socialist Party Conference. For example: why a number of leading Scottish comrades were not present at the International Socialist Movement fringe meeting; why, unlike all the other visitors, Peter Hadden and Niall Mulholland were not invited to address the Scottish Socialist Party conference (until the intervention of Philip Stott ensured that Niall Mulholland spoke); and why Niall Mulholland and Peter Hadden were not previously informed about, or asked to attend, the whole of a meeting for visitors to the Conference that Frances Curran and Murray Smith had organised on Sunday 27 February.

Frances Curran wrote a reply on 3 April 2000. She gave her account of events but did not comment on the reason Committee for a Workers' International comrades were not interviewed for the Scottish Socialist Voice. The comrades have yet to give an account as to why this happened.

Frances Curran's explanation as to why the two Committee for a Workers' International representatives were not informed of the visitors^' meeting, and were subsequently invited to attend only part of the meeting, is incredible.

The comrades only found out about the meeting through the Portuguese Left Bloc representative and Frances Curran only invited the comrades to the meeting once it had clearly been in session for some time.

She says in her 3 April 2000 reply to the International Centre, "don't pretend you were excluded" because Peter Hadden and Niall Mulholland were invited to an after-conference meal with Murray Smith, Frances Curran and international visitors on the Saturday night. 

She correctly points out that the comrades declined this invitation because they had other discussions already planned. Frances Curran had described this as an informal gathering over a meal and Peter Hadden and Niall Mulholland understood from this that it was not crucial they should attend. In her 3 April letter Frances Curran goes on to say : "In fact this is where most of the discussion developed over the question of an international socialist alliance..." and "The next day we met merely to tie up organisational details and the setting was pretty informal. You were both (Niall Mulholland and Peter Hadden) invited to the discussion as it broadened out into more general issues..."

What is Frances Curran saying here? It seems to be that important discussions took place on possible international socialist alliances on the Saturday night. The "organisational details" relating to them were discussed at the meeting of international visitors the next day, without the involvement of Niall Mulholland and Peter Hadden from the Committee for a Workers' International. 

Why did Frances Curran and Murray Smith, as Committee for a Workers' International members (and an IEC member in Frances Curran's case), not inform the Committee for a Workers' International representatives about the Saturday evening discussion? Why were Peter Hadden and Niall Mulholland not also asked to come along and discuss the "organisational details" during the Sunday meeting? Why were they only asked to come to the meeting when it "broadened into more general issues?

Francis Curran and Murray Smith wrote an article for the May 2000 edition of 'Inprecor' the international journal of the USFI. Part of this article was published in 'Socialist Outlook' (the paper of the USFI group in Britain, ISG) Issue 35, June 2000. They write: 

"The Scottish Socialist Party tries to act within the concrete conditions of Scotland, but we do not neglect the international dimension. We see the Scottish Socialist Party as part of the re-composition of the workers' movement internationally. We therefore see it as very important to reinforce links between the new anti-capitalist formations which are being created, especially in Europe".

The Murray Smith of 1993 argued very well against the Murray Smith of 2000. He correctly stated against the USFI leadership that "in the coming period there will be fight for the working class vanguard between Trotskyism and left reformist currents. That is why the line of 'refounding the Left' as defended by the French LCR is so criminal and must be fought against. We do not contribute to the creation of such currents or encourage illusions in their leaderships. But if they come into existence, we develop a tactical orientation towards them" (Resolution on Europe, reprinted in Committee for a Workers' International "International Information Bulletin", number 19, 27th October 1993)

It is obvious that the comrades' main objective is to make sure that the Scottish Socialist Party is part of what could become an international network including left formations formed in the 1990s. This, they hope, would include such groups as the Left Bloc in Portugal, the Norwegian Red Alliance, the Danish Red Green Alliance / the Unity List and others.

The other groupings have unilaterally tried to exclude the Committee for a Workers' International and its sections from this project. This is because all of these organisations oppose linking up with an International that is still committed to build revolutionary parties and a new mass workers' International - a world party of socialism. 

In reality they are opposed to including anybody in their alliances who continuing to fight to build a revolutionary international with a Marxist programme. That is why they have little interest in a genuine fusion or alliance on a principled basis of the revolutionary left groups moving towards revolutionary Marxism. This is the reason behind the avalanche of slanders - that the Committee for a Workers' International is collapsing - against us from groups like the DSP (Australia), sections of the USFI and other groups on the left.

Most of these left formations - new or old - are under the dominance of ex-left or left groupings that are moving away from revolutionary Marxism. Nevertheless, these broad formations have been able to take advantage of the political vacuum that exists, which in turn has made it possible to make electoral gains. 

The Committee for a Workers' International is quite prepared to establish links, work together and engage in a discussion with these formations and their members. Our comrades in Portugal are working inside the Left Bloc. The work of our section in the Dutch Socialist Party has been very successful; the Swedish section has attended conferences arranged by the Red Election Alliance in Norway and vice versa. However, we do not hide our criticism of the policy and methods adopted by the leadership of these formations.

This debate has now been continuing for nearly two and a half years. Unfortunately the differences have remained unresolved and become wider. A factor in this is that the Scottish Socialist Party's undoubted electoral successes and membership growth have encouraged the International Socialist Movement majority to continue with their course. We welcome the Scottish Socialist Party's rapid development and recognise that this also posed more sharper the tasks for the Scottish Committee for a Workers' International comrades.

Welcome as the Scottish Socialist Party's current success is, it does not mean that a straight road ahead has opened up. Historically there have been countless examples of left parties, even revolutionary parties, enjoying periods of success. But, tragically for the workers' movement, different combinations of objective developments, the results of the class struggle and, vitally, political mistakes have undermined these parties. Some, like the Spanish POUM in 1930s or the Italian PSIUP in the 1960s, enjoyed rapid growth only to completely disappear within a short period of time.

It is necessary to recognise the reasons for the Scottish Socialist Party's initial success. A key factor boosting the Scottish Socialist Party was Tommy Sheridan's election to the Scottish Parliament in May 1999. This however was not simply the result of the Scottish Socialist Party's launch a few months earlier, rather it was rooted in Militant and Scottish Militant Labour's long record of struggle, particularly since the Poll Tax campaign. 

There was every possibility that Tommy would also have been elected if he had stood as a candidate of an organisation affiliated to the Committee for a Workers' International. Once Tommy was elected the Scottish Socialist Party's credibility jumped, as was shown in the Euro elections shortly afterwards. However the Scottish Socialist Party's growth has not strengthened the Committee for a Workers' International Scotland because during 1998 the Scottish majority not only rejected Option 1, they also brushed aside Option 2.

As we have argued in this document the Scottish Socialist Party's future is not assured, not just because of vagaries of coming events, but also because of its lack of political clarity. The responsibility for this political weakness lies firmly on the shoulders of the International Socialist Movement PC majority. 

Unfortunately they still seem determined to continue on a course which will lead into the "marsh" of centrism and left-reformism. We appeal to the comrades of the International Socialist Movement majority to reconsider their position. It is time to stop dissolving the section into the broad Scottish Socialist Party and strive to utilise the Scottish Socialist Party's present progress to strengthen and expand the committed revolutionary forces in the International Socialist Movement.

Scottish Debate | Home | News | Donate | Join