Review of
The anti-capitalist movement and the revolutionary left
[Alex Callinicos, SWP (GB), 2001] 
By Stuart King.


This new pamphlet explains the SWP's view of the split in the International Socialist Tendency (IST), a split which led to the loss of one of its largest and founding sections, the US based International Socialist Organisation (ISO).

Callinicos' case is that the ISO failed to shake off the methods that were appropriate to the rightwing Thatcher-Reagan period "when it was necessary to protect Marxist ideas from a hostile environment". Instead of throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the anti-capitalist and Nader movement, they adopted a "sectarian approach" to the united front. From being a healthy revolutionary tendency they became an "ossified sect" which had to be expelled from the IST.

This tendency to sectarianism was apparently first spotted by the eagle eyed SWP leadership during the Balkan war of 1999. The ISO initiated a debate with the SWP Central Committee, arguing that it was necessary within united front committees against the war, to highlight the important differences that existed with the other forces involved.

It was, the ISO said, necessary to attack those who peddled illusions in the United Nations as an alternative to NATO and to criticise those who were in sympathy with Serbian nationalism and who opposed Kosovan self-determination. "It would" the ISO stated, "be unprincipled to ignore these questions within the anti-war movement."

As Callinicos points out "the ISO's approach contrasted dramatically with that pursued by its European sister organisations". The ISO was told in no uncertain terms by the SWP leadership that it suffered under a misconception, "that the way in which revolutionaries differentiate themselves within the united fronts is by 'putting the arguments' which sets us apart from other forces within the united front". Rather it was by "being the most dynamic and militant force in building the movement in question that we distinguish ourselves and draw new people towards us".

The result was that the SWP was indistinguishable politically from pro-Serbian Stalinists, and left Labour figures like Tony Benn, who wanted a peaceful imperialist intervention led by the UN. Support for Kosovar self-determination was abandoned in the struggle against "the greater evil" - NATO. Socialist Worker went into overdrive to deny that any sort of "genocide" was being conducted against the Kosovans, in the process belittling the actual horrors being perpetrated against them by the Milosevich's armed forces. In this they were at one with the Stalinists of the Morning Star.

Callinicos argues that "the systematic use of this united front approach developed by the Bolsheviks and the Communist International during its early years (1918-1923) is of crucial importance in relating to the new (anti-capitalist) political milieu."

The problem is the way the SWP use the united front has nothing in common with the Bolsheviks or the CIs use of the tactics. Callinicos does not bother to quote the CI's theses on the question; this is not surprising because it supports the ISO's view not the SWPs.

The 1921 Executive Committee's resolution, which was adopted at the Fourth Congress in 1922 unanimously, says of participation in a united front "While supporting the slogan of the greatest possible unity of all workers' organisations in every practical action against the capitalist front, communists may in no circumstances desist from putting forward their views, which are the only consistent expression of the defence of the working class interests as a whole." The resolution states that this should be done "not only before and after action has been taken, but also if necessary, during its course". No worries about "putting the arguments" here.

Further evidence of the ISO's "decline into sectarianism" was discovered around the anti-capitalist mobilisation at Seattle. Only a small number of ISO members were sent to this demonstration (although a leading ISO member was arrested in the actions). The ISO itself made a self-criticism, saying it had failed to mobilise sufficient numbers for what turned out to be a momentous event.

This, it should be noted, was certainly more than the SWP leadership had done, when they failed to mobilise at all for the J18 Stop the City event in London in 1999- a major anti-capitalist mobilisation -in a city where the SWP has hundreds of members. Nor did the SWP cover itself in glory on N30 in London when 1500 anti-capitalists demonstrated in central London at Euston Station in solidarity with the events in Seattle; then they managed to assemble a dozen or so paper sellers.

In fact if the ISO did underestimate the potency and significance of the anti-capitalist movement up to and including Seattle, it was a weakness they shared with the SWP leadership. The attack by Cliff and Callinicos in early 2000 was fuelled by hindsight at best.

There followed a further argument over priorities for the Washington anti-capitalist mobilisation. The ISO had called for some of its smaller branches to consider prioritising the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) which had some success in mobilising against the decision to execute hundreds of blacks on death row across America. This led to further letters from Callinicos and Tony Cliff.

But the arguments were not just about priorities and resources. The ISO thought the SWP exaggerated both the revolutionary nature of the movement and its importance. They argued that the "self-identified anti-capitalists" were a minority, "predominantly young students, overwhelmingly white and largely middle class", that the movement was an "exciting development but only one development among many".

This was tantamount to committing treason within the IST. The SWP, having virtually ignored the early developments of the anti-globalisation movement in Britain, was now running fast to catch up after Seattle. It now, correctly, recognised its importance on a world scale.

The ISO was not convinced, and dared to challenge their perspective. Worse at the same time the ISO took issue with another element of the IST's perspective - Tony Cliff's idea that Europe in the 1990s was like "seeing the 1930s in slow motion". The ISO pointed out  that far from slump, stagnation and mass unemployment the 1990s in Europe had seen a long period of boom. In criticising Cliff they had added lese- majesty to their list of crimes. Their time left in the IST was clearly limited.

The Nader campaign became yet another bone of contention. While Callinicos finds no fault with the ISO's prioritising of the campaign, again he is contemptuous of what he sees as a sectarian approach to work in the Nader Committees. This "sectarianism" consisted in the ISO orienting to people who were critical of Nader and attempting to win them to a "long term political alternative". Callinicos is particularly scathing of the ISO inviting people from the Nader campaign to meetings such as "The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx".

 He declares that while political discussion is important it was most likely to emerge "organically from the work of the movement rather than originating from abstract topics artificially introduced by revolutionaries". What this meant was clear from the SWP's work in Britain in the Socialist Alliances. Here there were to be no "abstract" revolutionary demands. They blocked with the "organic" reformists to remove demands from the Alliance election platform which called for the disarming of the police, the removal of their CS gas, long batons,  guns etc.

Certainly working in united fronts around common actions means revolutionaries being dynamic, taking initiatives, being the most active builders of a campaign. But to counterpose this to revolutionaries putting forward their own arguments, fraternally criticising their united front partners when they mislead the workers and youth involved in the campaign, is self-defeating opportunism.

Further proof of ISO "sectarianism" is provided for Callinicos by the fact that it "dropped the Nader committees like a hot potato, preferring instead to relate to the liberal Democrats protesting against Bush's rigged victory." Callinicos fails to mention that the liberal Democrats protesting were in fact outraged black voters, deprived of their right to vote by a racist state Governor of Florida. To have ignored such a protest, one the democratic leadership quickly tried to close down, would have been really sectarian. Callinicos also neglects to point out that it wasn't just the ISO that dropped the Nader committees "like a hot potato" - so did Nader. He "disappeared" for months after the election, claiming he needed time to work out his election expenses!

The USA needs a Nader led "anticorporate democratic" party like it needs a hole in the head.

What the radicalising ad internationalising US workers movement and the anti-capitalist youth need today is a workers party- a revolutionary workers party. Yet the IST is endorsing populism - not very radical populism either. This is of one peace with its protection of the reformist character of the socialist alliances in Britain and Australia.

Of course the SWP believes that these are only halfway houses along the road to a revolutionary party.  But the experience of every major radicalising period in US history (before the first world war, between the wars and immediately after it, during the Vietnam war period) has stopped at the halfway house and then retraced its steps to the Democratic Party. These results were not inevitable but were in part made so by those who knew better trusting in the objective logic of the struggle rather than telling it like it is.


Split

The split with the ISO was carried out in a typically bureaucratic manner. When the Central Committee decided they were heading for a split they suddenly summoned aggregates in the SWP and issued an internal bulletin presenting the debate for the first time to the members. Of course no ISO leaders were invited to argue their positions before the membership, rather the SWPers were invited to line up behind the leadership.

When a minority in the SEK, the IST's Greek section, declared its support for the ISO and demanded faction rights, they were quickly terminated. Or as Callinicos diplomatically puts it "their very disruptive behaviour during the pre-conference discussion caused a backlash". As a result of "the backlash" the faction left before the conference.

When Ahmed Shawki, a leading ISO figure spoke at the new Greek organisation's founding meeting, in the words of Callinicos "The leaderships of the SEK and the SWP responded by breaking with the ISO and calling on the rest of the IS tendency to follow suit." No meeting of the international tendency leaderships, no attempts at compromise, no discussion of the differences, no international conference, - the IS tendency was simply told "to follow suit", which of course it did.


A real International

Callinicos concludes his pamphlet saying "The British SWP and its sister organisations have always set their faces against repeating the mistakes of Trotsky and his followers by launching an international organisation, with its own leadership and discipline ...We have conceived of the IST as an international revolutionary current composed of autonomous organisations that are united by a shared political tradition." The split with the ISO has exposed what a fraud this rejection of international democratic centralism is.

Of course the IST organisations are not "autonomous" (or rather they are as long as they agree absolutely with the SWP leadership). Callinicos' pamphlet shows how the SWP in London tried to direct in detail the tactics of the ISO - even down to which campaigns it participated in and what resources it allocated to them.

When the SWP(GB) moved away from large geographical branches, the whole of the IST, no matter how big the section or whatever the national class struggle terrain, were expected to "follow suit". The fact that the ISO refused to change its structure was another point of attack by the SWP leadership.

But at the same time as insisting on this centralism the SWP rejects the democracy that Trotsky insisted upon in order to build an international tendency. The IST has no world conferences of its tendency where political or tactical differences can be put before delegates elected by the membership, discussed and voted on. It has no accountable leadership that is elected at such conferences and is responsible to (and recallable by) the members. Minorities who disagree with the London/Athens leadership have no rights to put their case, no means of removing this de facto international leadership.

The ISO claim that "the SWP increasingly acts as a foreman unwilling to tolerate even the slightest criticism".  Of course the American leadership only "discovered" this when they were attacked. They have been party to this method of top down leadership in the IST for decades and have yet to renounce it in their own organisation. No doubt when the Greeks fall out with Callinicos they too will "discover" his bureaucratic methods.

The roots of the split lie in the bureaucratic centrism of the SWP and its fellow IST leaderships. The methods they use to build their tendency have nothing in common with revolutionary Trotskyism. Yet thousands of potential revolutionaries, disillusioned and repelled by these bureaucratic methods, take them to be the policies of Lenin and the CI - nothing could be further from the truth. This is the real tragedy - and its an international, not just an American one.