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Party, Programme, Reformism and the International

The Nature of the Scottish Socialist Party Programme

The International Socialist Movement PC completely misunderstands the question of programme, and this has been clear since the discussion opened on the launch of the Scottish Socialist Party. They reject the Minority's claim that they have "abandoned the historic programme of Marxism" and attack their statement that "the overall programme of the Scottish Socialist Party is not and cannot be a revolutionary programme" as a "dogmatic assertion". (Paragraph 156)

Throughout their reply, the International Socialist Movement PC continually mixes up two different types of programme. They confuse a revolutionary Marxist programme (which expresses the fundamental aims of socialist transformation and strategy for the taking of power by the working class) and an immediate programme for the current conjuncture.

During the debate in 1998, the Socialist Party EC repeatedly explained that a programme in the sense of 'a list of policies and objectives' is what Marxists have always termed an 'action programme'. This is a limited programme, containing anti-capitalist, working-class demands, which can serve as the current programme of a broad formation, a united front, an election platform or a broad campaign.

A revolutionary party also has an immediate, campaigning programme designed for the current conjuncture. This is a transitional programme. It contains important aspects of our full programme but does not contain all our programmatic aims.

The Scottish Socialist Party's programme is clearly an action programme for today not a statement of strategic aims. The Scottish Socialist Party is not, in our view, a revolutionary party. It has never adopted a rounded-out programme of fundamental socialist aims (or even discussed the question of joining a revolutionary Marxist International, which cannot be separated from the issue of an internationalist programme).

Therefore, the Scottish Socialist Party programme, as the programme of a politically heterogeneous party, cannot be accurately described as a transitional programme. However, in our view, International Socialist Movement, when drawing up the programme it believes that the Scottish Socialist Party should adopt, should use a transitional approach.

A transitional programme contains the policies and demands on which the party will campaign in the current stage of the class struggle. It will not, of course, contain all our strategic demands; Trotsky's Transitional Programme of 1938, written on the eve of a new world war and anticipating pre-revolutionary situations, went further than a current transitional programme is likely to go in the advanced capitalist countries at the moment.

A transitional programme has to take into account the present consciousness of the working class. Nevertheless, its starting point is the objective crisis and the need for socialism. A transitional programme has to act as a bridge, linking immediate demands to more far-reaching revolutionary aims, raising the consciousness of workers and pointing them in the direction of a socialist transformation.

We have never argued that the Scottish Socialist Party at this stage should adopt a Marxist revolutionary programme or formally base itself on the ideological tradition of revolutionary Marxism Like the International Socialist Movement Minority (and unlike the International Socialist Movement Majority), we recognise that the Scottish Socialist Party is a politically broad party and that it would clearly not be effective at this moment to campaign for the adoption of such a programme.

That would be, as the International Socialist Movement Majority document says, "to run too far ahead of events'. However, we do argue that the International Socialist Movement, as a section of Committee for a Workers' International, should base itself on the programme and ideological tradition of revolutionary Marxism. Within the Scottish Socialist Party, the International Socialist Movement in our view should fight for policies and demands, which point towards, and are consistent with, a rounded-out revolutionary programme.

The International Socialist Movement should work to win the best Scottish Socialist Party activists to the ideas and policies of the Committee for a Workers' International. The International Socialist Movement should also promote the Committee for a Workers' International's ideas and record amongst the Scottish Socialist Party membership.

This tactic (Option 2) is based on our characterisation of Scottish Socialist Party as a broad party. However, if (as the International Socialist Movement Majority argue) the Scottish Socialist Party, with a core of Marxists in the leadership, is likely to move in a revolutionary direction as events unfold, the question could be posed at a certain stage of a campaign by the Marxists to win majority support for the adoption of a Marxist revolutionary programme and acceptance of the ideological tradition of Marxism.

Such a change, however, would require a struggle to transform the party, on the lines outlined by Trotsky in relation to the French Party in the 1920s, from a broad party into a real revolutionary party. Trotsky recommended that this Party would have to give "forthright and precise" answers to a series of questions, if the French Socialist Party's decision in 1920 to rename itself the Communist Party and to become a full section of the Third International was to be realised in practice.

Among other issues, he asked what the new Communist Party's attitude was to revolution; to tolerating those within the Communist Party who were arguing the Russian Revolution was premature; to support, direct or indirect, for bourgeois governments; and to purging the trade union movement of betrayers of the working class.

Trotsky argued it would not be enough to give the correct answers in theory. They would need to be confirmed by the actions of the different sections of the Party. In other words, it was not only the question of formal adoption of a Marxist programme. It was also a question of winning the overwhelming majority of the ranks to a rounded-out Marxist tradition and the reorganisation of the Party on the basis of democratic centralism.

Today we are living in a very different period. However, we would still use a similar method to win majority support for revolutionary ideas within a broad party.

But why does the International Socialist Movement Majority say that any suggestion of the Scottish Socialist Party adopting a revolutionary programme in the sense of a body of ideas and the accumulated experience of Committee for a Workers' International (paragraph 157) "...of course rules out a priori [in advance] any possibility of the Scottish Socialist Party ever developing a revolutionary programme" (paragraph 758)?

Is it because they do not believe that the Scottish Socialist Party will ever become a revolutionary party? Alternatively, is it because they believe that the ideological tradition of the early years of the Communist International (Cl) and of the Fourth International (Fl), and the accumulated experience of the Committee for a Workers' International are now theoretically outmoded and politically redundant? We would like to hear the International Socialist Movement Majority comrades' view on this.

Do the comrades rule out a priori the development (by whatever route) of a mass revolutionary party based on the ideological programme and tradition of revolutionary Marxism?

We do not consider that a revolutionary programme for the next period will simply be "a regurgitation of statements drawn up a specific periods in history such as the programme of the Corn in tern or the Fourth International" [paragraph 165]. A current programme has to relate to today's conditions and to the contemporary experience of the working class.

Marxists today have to deal with many issues that were not on the political agenda in 1919 or 1938. Nevertheless, in our view, a contemporary programme has to be formulated on the basis of the theory and method underlying the programmatic statements of the Cl, the founding documents of the Fl and the theoretical and political contribution of the Committee for a Workers' International.

This does not mean a "regurgitation" of these ideas, but a skilful, principled application of the method to contemporary issues. This applies both to the fundamental programmatic aims of International Socialist Movement and to the formulation of an immediate programme for the Scottish Socialist Party.

The International Socialist Movement Majority appears to be suggesting that such programmes develop spontaneously on the basis of events. "These debates (on the task of the transition from capitalism to a workers' state) will develop naturally as the class struggle itself intensifies" (paragraph 161). "Programme and ideology take shape over many years and are developed not just in resolutions and conferences, but in the white-hot furnace of class struggle itself" (164). "There is no objective reason why we cannot continue to make the programme of the Scottish Socialist Party evolve (174). "A programme, as Leon Trotsky once pointed out, is not formulated for discussion groups, but for the broad mass of the working class." (159)

The crucial question is how will an adequate programme capable of meeting up to events "evolve" or "develop naturally" or "take shape"? In our view, an adequate programme will only develop through the conscious agency of a coherent Marxist organisation which has a clear, rounded-out understanding of both theoretical programmatic ideas and the character of an appropriate transitional programme.

Without spelling it out in so many words, the International Socialist Movement Majority's document repeatedly denigrates the role of a revolutionary Marxist organisation in the development of a programme for the Scottish Socialist Party.

"The Scottish Socialist Party programme" say the International Socialist Movement Majority (paragraph 759), "has not been modified to accommodate some mythical 'reformist tendency' but is designed to appeal to the working class right now". Ironically, this is precisely the classic formulation used by reformists to justify a 'practical', 'realistic' approach to the struggle of the working class.

Without the theoretical anchor of Marxism and a coherent revolutionary organisation, even the best comrades, whatever their past record, are inevitably subject to reformist pressures. This is not a question of a "mythical reformist tendency" but of social pressure exerted through big layers of the working class itself.

In paragraphs 162-164, the International Socialist Movement Majority try to hide behind some points made by Peter Hadden in his Reply to the Politics of the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). Peter (on page 20) correctly criticises the formulations of the 'Where We Stand' column of the SWP's Irish paper.

The opening 'Reform not revolution' section (quoted by the International Socialist Movement Majority in paragraph 162) is an ultra-concise, very simplistic version of State and Revolution. Peter is not arguing that the SWP should not have a theoretical, programmatic position on the state and socialist revolution.

His point is that, at the present stage of development, such declarations in the Where We Stand column of a party newspaper are ultra-left, abstract propaganda. In a revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situation, it would be appropriate for a Marxist party to put forward demands in relation to the state and a struggle for power by the working class (as, for example, in France in May 1968, in Chile in 1973, in Portugal in 1974, etc.). In the present period, however, what is required as a public platform is a transitional programme, and it is this idea that Peter Hadden defends against the SWP.

The SWP (as Peter points out), on the one side, puts forward an abstract, general programme, while on the other, it puts forward an "action programme" which is " ..in fact a left-reformist programme, a set of radical reforms which could be paid for within capitalism by soaking the rich with taxes" (p21). The SWP's approach is, in reality, that of a maximum and a minimum programme - revolution in the remote future, 'practical', 'realistic' reforms now - the classic approach of the reformist social democracy in the past. In contrast to this, Peter defends the Transitional Programme.

Peter outlines the approach of the transitional programme (quoted in paragraph 163). "We agree," say the International Socialist Movement Majority, "and that is exactly the way in which the Scottish Socialist Party programme has been formulated. That is not to suggest that the Scottish Socialist Party programme is fully rounded-out. This is a brand new party... programme and ideology take shape over many years..." (164)

However, in our view, the Scottish Socialist Party programme is not consistently based on a transitional approach. We will deal with some of the specific aspects of the Scottish Socialist Party programme later in the document.

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