Speech made by Sid French against the 1977
draft of the "British Road to Socialism". Merton Civic Hall ,
Wimbledon , 9th June, 1977 - just over a month before the establishment of the
New Communist Party of Britain.
Whilst not pretending that everyone here is agreed about the
draft British Road or what we should do about it, this great meeting is an
indication of the tremendous concern about the attempted revision of our basic
programme which exists in and around our Party . The meeting is part of a
public nationwide debate called by the Executive Committee. It is beginning to
look from the reactions in one or two parts of the country that the Executive
Committee is not now so keen on the public debate as it may first have appeared
to the naive. Criticising such a document does not normally lend itself easily
to public meetings of this size and I therefore apologise if you feel there are
too many quotations in this lecture. I am not here to criticise the style or
even the odd section. The large majority of the Surrey District Committee among
thousands of comrades up and down the country believes that this document is a
revision of Marxism, that it is an attempt to compromise and to avoid the
inescapable class struggle. As such it must be totally rejected and replaced by
a Marxist-Leninist programme. In opening a discussion on our District Committee
Mick James summarised the stages of the process laid out in the draft and I
don't think it is too unkind to the authors to put his points in here.
According to the draft we shall proceed as follows:
1. We build the broad democratic alliance. 2. In due course
it convinces the majority of the people of the need for socialism. 3. They then
elect a Left Labour government which carries out a policy that includes taking
over some of the large firms and gradual democratisation of the State machine. 4.
This process goes on with the steady improvement of living standards and the
extension of democracy and freedom. As a result of this there is the election
of successive Left governments. 5. Finally the Movement is strong enough to
ease itself into a position of taking State power from the monopoly capitalists.
6. The socialist government will then operate on behalf of the sovereign
parliament in a pluralist democracy. 7. If it is defeated in an election by a
non-socialist Party it will surrender office and much of what it has been able
to achieve will be negated. 8. If it is re-elected the process will start all
over again. One is tempted to comment the very best of luck - you will
certainly need it.
Capitalism today is in a profound crisis. Moreover, the
economic crisis is deepening and this is not disputed by the apologists for
capitalism themselves, many of whom concede that this is the worst crisis since
the 1930s. In spite of this, the possibility of a revolutionary situation
arising from the interplay of the deepening economic and political crisis is
not even considered is not even mentioned in the present draft. That certainly
explains a number of our problems today. Also it explains why when the
overwhelming majority of parties in the world communist movement have a
Marxist-Leninist position the minority which have not are in what were
previously the so called imperialist mother countries of Western Europe and Japan.
The struggle for parliamentary representation is a legitimate part of the
revolutionary strategy as is the struggle to get a Left or socialist government
reflecting the aspirations, responding to the demands, of the overall
revolutionary movement. But it is part of our responsibility to ensure that the
revolutionary forces, and through them the masses, are aware that any attempt
to introduce a transfer of power via parliament will in all probability
precipitate a major constitutional crisis. We should not baulk at this
possibility but regard it as an opportunity to be taken advantage of, to be
turned into a revolutionary situation in which the possibility of seizing power
might well become a crucial necessity. Should the socialist revolution come in
this way there would certainly be no question of forces and parties hostile to
socialism being allowed to operate freely since the working class would most
likely have to impose a state of emergency, something else which is not allowed
for in the reformist Road to Socialism. It is not surprising that the lessons
of Chile are not taken to heart in this draft. They do indeed come a little too
near home to be comfortable. In a number of ways the Chilean Road to Socialism
was similar to the one we are proposing. It was a constitutional road - it was
to have been a peaceful road. In certain areas, as in the role of the armed
forces and police, and in the concept of the democratisation of the State, an
insufficiently deep class analysis contributed to the temporary defeat of the
revolutionary process that was precipitated by the forces of national and
international reaction. Of special significance and of the greatest pertinence
to our discussion on the "British Road to Socialism" is the critical
and self-critical analysis being made by the Chilean Communist Party in recent
editions of World Marxist Review. In particular pages 34 and 35 of the January
edition should be essential reading for anyone tempted to fall for the current
soft sell of the British Road to Socialism. In addition to this Luis Corvalan
in an important speech made in Moscow in January this year showed very clearly
that the revolutionary fight to establish the broadest possible alliance
against the ruling military Junta and American imperialism in no way negated
the necessity of establishing working
class power - i.e., dictatorship of the proletariat. In fact so important and
so specific is he on this point that I will quote the passage in full: "In
the light of what has happened in Chile, it is now necessary to bring to power
a popular government that can repel all the plots and putsches engineered by imperialism,
domestic reaction and fascism. There is no question of establishing a
proletarian dictatorship in the country today; but at a definite moment in its
history that question will necessarily arise and will make the democratic gains
more real." Everybody here presumable will agree with the need for the
broadest possible alliance whether for immediate economic demands or on
political issues. It is the attempt to substitute a government of the broad
alliance for the dictatorship of the proletariat as the path to socialism which
should concern us all. In order to get this conception over the new draft has
to spread confusion on the nature of the working class. After reading some
parts of the draft one wonders why it is necessary to have an alliance at all!
The working class is so large there is surely no need. It is such a huge
percentage of the population that it is itself the broad alliance. What is
surprising is the attempt to present these anti-Marxist ideas as something new.
They were all dealt with so many times before by all the great communist
leaders from Marx down to Harry Pollitt. Lenin the nice Russian leader as distinct
from those who invaded Czechoslovakia! said in 1918 -"Bourgeois democracy,
although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism , always
remains , and under capitalism is bound to remain , restricted , truncated ,
false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for
the exploited, for the poor. It is this truth which forms a most essential part
of Marxist teaching, that Kautsk though 'Marxist' has failed to
understand." It appears that some others have failed to understand it too.
What is the real situation? We are experiencing the greatest capitalist crisis
for close on 50 years. There are 1.5 million unemployed. "Experts"
talk confidently of 3 million. The Daily Mail, a fortnight ago, forecast that
shortly one third of all architects in Britain would be drawing the dole whilst
millions are without proper houses. Last week it was the turn of medical
students who are now promised unemployment. Whilst we cut social services and
our health deteriorates. It has begun already for tens of thousands of trained teachers.
Don't let the publicity about these sections detract from the plight of
hundreds of thousands of young workers without jobs, without training and
outside of socialist revolution little future indeed. For those fortunate
enough to be in work there is a direct cut in living standards. On the other
hand, there is the situation in the socialist world. Many including some who
should know better in our own Party are apparently very concerned about a
mythical lack of freedom there. They have been so affected that they fail to
see the issue in class terms and talk of freedom as though it were something
absolute irrespective of the economic and state power in each country. But what
about freedom in Russia. What about the rights of dissidents? I'll tell you
about the most famous of them all as reported in last Friday's June 3rd Evening
Standard: "Solzhenitsyn has one million pounds say Swiss”. Author
Alexander Solzhenitsyn reported an income of £192, 000 and a fortune of more
than 1 million to the Swiss tax authorities in 1974 after he was banished from
the Soviet Union. This official information was published today by
Switzerland's top circulation newspaper Blick today in angry reaction to the
author's latest book in which he calls Switzerland "A money-miserly
republic of Lackeys". Perhaps Maisie a telegram of sympathy to the Swiss
people from this great meeting inscribed -ever been had - might be in order. In
the socialist countries, particularly in the Soviet Union, living standards are
going up by roughly the same margin as they decline in the "free"
world. Rents and food prices are basically stable. Though one has to confess
that a rent increase was allowed in the Soviet Union as recently as 49 years
ago! There have been no unemployed since the twenties. Even the Guardian is
forced to admit despite the qualms of the Women's page of "Morning
Star" that women are nearer to equality in that country than anywhere else
in the world. Their children have four times the opportunity to go to a
university as do our own. Instead of our basic position being a stressing of
our pride of association with the greatest event of all human history and
subsequent advance we seek to trim our sails. Therefore day after day we treat
our readers to stories about so called dissidents and their antics. We have now
discovered that fact that Russian men do not treat their women as equals and
largely ignore the situation of women in the Soviet Union in all the
professions throughout industry from manual skills to top management and of
course in parliament and local government . In the YCL it is worse with almost
open appeals to the Czech Young Communist League to revolt against its
socialist government. If the British YCL's appeals to Czech youth are as
successful as they unfortunately are in this country the Czech revolution has
little to fear! It is clear that this opportunism is designed to ingratiate us
with the electors of Britain. If it is, it isn't succeeding very quickly. Three
weeks ago we had the biggest round of local elections and that very British phenomenon
the swing was about 25% away from us. In the recent Dutch election our seats
dropped from seven to two. Ah, but what about Italy? Well in Italy you have a
completely different situation in two major respects. The electoral system and
its pendulum swing have worked for us there, as we are the electoral
alternative party to the Christian Democrats. We did not get into that position
by policies of an Italian Road, the historical compromise, we want Italy in
NATO, Britain should be in the Common Market etc., the Communist Party of Italy
came out of the war as the alternative electoral party not through these
policies but through its revolutionary struggle in the fascist factories, in
the national armed uprising in 1944, and
against the background of the colossal sacrifices of Russian and other
communists Unfortunately in Britain we are not the electoral alternative to the
Tories. Therefore our opportunism is not even succeeding in buying us votes. I
have already mentioned the state the YCL is in but all the Party EC does is to
congratulate them on their advances. As we reach the end of yet another card
issue campaign our membership is down and looks like ending up two or three
thousand light. Morning Star circulation falls practically all the time despite
an almost continuous campaign. Since January we have already lost over a
thousand daily readers, a rate of 1% per month. You might expect our Party to
be self-critical but no, instead two things flow from it, the first is that we
rationalise it in this latest draft by agreeing to surrender the vanguard role
of the Communist Party. The more we do so of course the more our members and
supporters fail to see the need of a Marxist-Leninist party and tend to cease
membership and activity. Nowhere is this more apparent over recent years than
in that most decisive sphere the trade union movement. The TUC General Council
and the General Secretary's Offices are littered with Left members of our broad
alliance who were previously members of our Party. Hugh Scanlon, Lawrence Daly
and Clive Jenkins are only a small section but they prove the point. Secondly
we have a very comfortable explanation. We don't need to be self-critical
because we are not responsible; it is the wickedness of the Soviet Union that
is holding us back. Therefore disassociation from the CPSU is the magic key
which will open all doors for us in Britain. Dispensing with such unpleasant
things as the dictatorship of the proletariat opens up the road to even further
disassociation from the Soviet Union which some of our leaders now forlornly
think is the way to ingratiate us with the electorate. This dream is not
working, and will never work. We are not suggesting that everything is perfect
in the Soviet Union any more than it will be in the Socialist Society of
Britain but it clearly is the greatest card which British communists today
possess. One could spend all night on the points that are wrong in this draft.
The most important is the attempt finally to ditch any conception of the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Of course we are all democrats but anyone not
knowing too much about politics will believe that we were engaging in a
schoolroom exercise in which the prize was awarded to whichever pupil could get
the word democracy in the most number of times. The pages are not numbered but
have a look at the page which starts line 1231. There are only 65 lines on the
page and the word democracy appears on 15 separate occasions. This may be the
most extreme example but the whole document has the same disease. I know that
Shakespeare was not a Russian poet but he did say something about
"Methinks thou do protest too much". The draft does however
reluctantly refer to the 14 countries which are on the road to socialism in the
world today. What it doesn't point out is that nowhere in the world is anybody
advancing to socialism by applying the theories of or under the leadership of
men like Karl Kautsky , Ramsay MacDonald. or even Jim Callaghan. In fact these
14 have all had four things in common. 1. They arose out of violent
confrontation. 2. They did not give promises that they would hand back power to
the capitalists if defeated in a free election, whatever that is. 3. They have
all established a dictatorship of the proletariat. 4. They were all led by a
vanguard Marxist-Leninist party.
Now we all accept without any reservations whatsoever the
desirability of bringing about socialism as peacefully as possible. There is no
doubt for instance that if Monaco is the last country to go to socialism that
Princess Grace will find it difficult to lead much armed resistance. However,
what we must not do is allow our hopes for the future to blind ourselves to
what has happened in the past. The historic world breakthrough which was made
under the leadership of Lenin's party arose out of a struggle against the bloody
imperialist war where millions had been slaughtered. Then following the
revolution many more were murdered by the armies of intervention. Then came the
blockade by the "democracies" which led to the death of millions
more. Then came the second world war when 20 million Soviet youth gave their
lives to save mankind. But of course it wasn't only the Soviet Union. We have
the world experience of what reaction will do in the twentieth century to
prevent social advance. The war in Spain , the American invasion of Vietnam ,
the US backed fascists in Chile, the British overthrow of Jagan in Guyana , the
overthrowing of the elected communist government in Kerala . Many things may be
in doubt but one thing is absolutely certain that if as we hope we take the peaceful
road to socialism in Britain, the main , in fact the overwhelming factor making
it possible will be the change in the balance of world forces which the Soviet
Union is primarily responsible. Having use the word democracy as often as
possible and expressed the almost racing certainty that we shall go to
socialism the peaceful way line 1483 in the draft is fairly natural "The
declared position of the labour movement, including the Communist Party, is
that it will respect the verdict of the electors, and that a Left government
will stand down if it is defeated in an election ." As I have already
indicated no successful Marxist party or socialist government has ever given
such an undertaking. It is not only the recipe for disaster - the Australian Labour
Party's recent history offers some advice on this. It is also a formula for
undermining the Leninist understanding of the state. If we were to stand down
does anybody seriously expect the ruling class just having mobilised its
resources , its lies , its tricks , its whole weight, then to hand back to us
like the gentlemen they are. They may have been taught social conduct on the
cricket grounds of Eton and Harrow, but we are talking about what they have
been taught in the class rooms about class rule. There appears to be some
confusion judging from the correspondence in the Morning Star and comment among
the supporters of the new draft as to whether we are ditching finally the
dictatorship of the proletariat or only the unfortunate words! Happily for
historians but unfortunately for Italian workers our mentors the Italian Party
are in no doubt. According to the Morning Star February 18th 1976, the Head of
their International Department, Comrade Pajetta said that they have long
abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat. The working class should have a
leading guiding role in society, but only as a result of a concensus .
"This does not contradict pluralism. Capitalist society has long lived
through a period of bourgeois democracy with many parties, and the middle class
has had a genuinely predominant social, cultural and political influence inside
the party system." To read some of the supporters of the draft you can be
sure if Marx and Lenin were here today they would of course be voting for it
lock, stock and barrel! Unfortunately for these apologists Marx and Lenin are
not here today. They, like mary other communist leaders were never men to mince
words and when they believed that something should be valid in all
circumstances, they said so. That is why they laid it out so clearly, their
views on the absolute necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the
critique of the Gotha programme which of course was a polemic with a social
democratic programme, Marx said "between capitalist and communist society
lies a period of the revolutionary transformation of one into the other .
Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state
can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. In 1916
that is a year before the Russian revolution, Lenin wrote that slogan which you
can
see up there if the sight of it doesn't make your eyes
blanch . It continues "The dictatorship is state power based directly on
violence and in the twentieth century - as in the age of civilisation generally
the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat
." There are some of course arguing 1916 was a long time ago, if Lenin
were alive today he would take a different line. Didn't the Party leadership in
this country abandon the whole idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat in
the first edition of the British Road in 1951? They certainly didn't and if
they had, they didn't tell John Gollan they had because in 1961 writing on
behalf of the Executive Committee in a booklet appropriately called
"Democracy and the Class Struggle" he said among other things
"these 44 years of Soviet experience have proved both the essential need
and the historically transient character of the dictatorship of the proletariat."
Why then should our leadership be trying to hide the whole idea rather than try
to win the support for it as the only road to socialism. Is it only because the
words are not the sort of language that very English institutions like the MCC
prefer to use? Well that is a matter of opinion, and I would like to tell you
the opinion of one very successful communist leader Comrade Zhivkov when he
said on behalf of the Bulgarian Party at the 1969 World Conference of Communist
Parties: "What is unnatural in this case is that certain communist
functionaries join in such Criticism on the 'undemocratic' nature of the system
in socialist countries and the ruling role of the Communist Parties there .
"Criticising the social system in socialist countries they, unfortunately,
deviate from the Marxist-Leninist teaching of the state, ignoring the
scientific, class analysis of the progress and requirements of socialist
construction in our countries , they , in fact , proceed from the notion of
'ideal' bourgeois democracy of 'pure' democracy: its multi-party system,
opposition parties, struggle for electoral votes, parliamentary manoeuvres in
forming this or that government etc ." There cannot be any doubt about one
aspect of the 1951 original version of the British Road. It clearly laid out
the need for a Marxist-Leninist party playing a vanguard role. Now of course
the Party leadership has abandoned it . However, pleasant this may seem in the
comfort of this hall, it is a dream world. In fact when the workers see the
Labour Party moving to the Left after a socialist government has been elected
many of them will turn even more strongly towards that government and not
towards the Communist Party . No, this is not the road to socialism, this is
the road to opportunism and disaster. It must be defeated at the coming
congress . The size of this great meeting is a sign that the forces who can do
this are gathering. Therefore step up the fight everywhere possible in the next
five months to ensure the defeat and for total rejection of this draft.
Socialism will not be built anywhere least of all in the oldest capitalist
country in the world without a mass Marxist—Leninist party . A party based as
it must be on proletarian internationalism, proud to be associated with the
great victories of the socialist world and in particular the Soviet Union and
as such taking its place in the world array of Communist Parties. Win, lose or
draw in November we pledge ourselves to continue the fight for the building of
such a party.
