The Communist Party of Great Britain held its 32nd Congress in mid-November-the pre-congress discussion in the branches and the paper which caters for party activists, had been dominated by pessimism and recrimination. Well it might have been the party is faced with declining membership; loss of readership, and a catastrophic crisis in its youth organisation. The position is all the pronounced when it is contrasted with the dramatic growth of all the other left organisations (apart from the SLL) since the election of the 1964 Labour Government. What is more, the decline in influence takes place with a backcloth of intense class struggle and rapid growth of revolutionary ideas amongst the youth.
The Profundities of John Gollan If the rank and file of the party thought that this Congress would assist in overcoming this problem, Gollan, party secretary. soon disabused them: "Some argue that because we have not grown our policies must be wrong. This argument is contradictory" droned Gollan in his opening speech. He went on to say "....it is our view that the biggest single immediate factor regarding" (he may have meant retarding'!) "our growth is the insufficient understanding of the role of the Communist Party in the British labour movement." This extremely profound and penetrating remark was followed by re-affirmation of the general strategy of the CP: "..Socialism cannot come without a strategy for socialist revolution. A realist (1) strategy of socialist revolution as we have outlined in "The British Road to Socialism', ......must be based on the realities of our political situation, our labour movement, our social forces, and on the background of world developments. To the extent that a new Labour Government is compelled to carry out a left programme, to that extent imperialism and militarism would be weakened, the power of the City and the trusts loosened, the Tory Party weakened, and the power of the working class and the progressive forces increased. All this would be an advance in the direction of socialism." Bernstein and the founders of the Fabian Society couldn't have put it better.
No wonder Sid French, the leader of the proKremlin opposition which postures as being left, could say "The proposals made in the executive committee's analysis contained the mixture as before. There was nothing new in them and they would give the executive carte blanche to weaken the marxist basis of the for Labour's leaders to come out clearly for the withdrawal of British troops.
Women s Locraton The most lively debate was on women in society. Sensing opportunities in the women's liberation movement the leadership of the Communist Party has made somewhat of a turn away from the "sanctity of the family" line which dominated its thinking and faithfully reflected stalinist policies in the Soviet Union. Even so many of the speakers in debate on the resolution on women in society were extremely critical because of its economistic approach. Beatrix Campbell received loud applause when she asked why there was no creche at the congress. The conservative hostility towards women's liberation was best illustrated when Betty Reid, well-known baiter of Trotskyism, denounced the women's liberation movement for not putting out material dealing with the welfare of children.
Unemployment The emergency debate on the fight against unemployment and the general discussion showed no sign whatsoever of rethinking the disastrous policy of tail-ending the TUC. No evaluation whatsoever was made of why the promising struggle against the Industrial Relations Bill fizzled out. There was hardly a critical voice even on the question of the CP's present course in relation to such struggles as UCS-on the contrary in the voting for the new executive committee Jimmy Reid came top of the poll with 381 votes (as against 331 for Gollan, for instance). This is clearly an indication that the overwhelming majority of the delegates enthusiastically endorsed the policy in relation to UCS (even the negotiations which pledge class collaboration with potential buyers).
Some of the most significant political retreats were to be gleaned from statements made in speeches rather than the rhetoric (jazzed up to sound left) of the resolutions. For instance, the party which established its credentials in large sections of the labour movement owing to its work in organising the unemployed could have statements like the following made at its congress: Kelvin Helpin, chairman of Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, "We don't want an unemployed workers' movement, the trade unions must take responsibility for the position." A deepening of Reformism Thus we see that on general strategy, on the key issues facing the left in Britain (Ireland, unemployment, the fight against the Tories) and on such questions of principle as the oppression of women, the CPGB is commited to continuing its reformist policies. On the other hand, there is no opposition within the Communist Party of importance which seems to be grappling with these problems at even the most elementary level of analysis. The pro-Kremlin opposition, based upon the Surrey district and quite strong in the YCL, provides no answer. Indeed it can be seen quite clearly that this opposition is of considerable use to Gollan and co.
The Surrey tendency gives the Gollan leadership a way of branding any opposition within the party to its present reformism as being narrow and dogmatic. Any call to give blind support to the Russians on such questions as the invasion thirties in the fight against unemployment. of Czechoslovakia automatically alienates younger communists looking for a way out of the impasse. On the contrary it strengthens the hands of those, like Monty Johnstone, who would seek to take the party even farther to the right.
It is noteworthy that in this year's congress there was much less support from industrial militants for the Surrey opposition. However, it would be wrong to think that this struggle is over: the Communist Party will be in increasing trouble on the industrial front as the "left' trade union bureaucrats make compromise after compromise, on such questions as registration. On the other hand, each development in the crisis of stalinism will hit the CP harder and harder. As younger elements are shaken loose the old guard will tend to turn in on itself and find consolation in re-affirming its faith in the Soviet Union. The Strength of the CP-Its Industrial Base Despite its decline in recent years the Communist Party remains the biggest of the left organisations. When it comes to industry and the trade unions, the CPGB is in a much stronger position than all the other left groups put together. Despite these advantages the party is guite unable to play any significant role in the fight against the Tories. On the montrary, its function is essentially a negative one: through its Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions it has succeeded in leading thousands of militants into a blind alley. The 2,000-strong rally organised by that body in autumn last year, showed the immense potential for struggle against the Tories. Had the movement that conferenceand the subsequent strikes called by itrepresented been given a militant leadership the Tories could have been stopped in their tracks.
Many hundreds of devoted and sincere militants remain in the Communist Party. On the main reasons for this is that the CGB has built up in most of the important industries a network which gives militants a framework within which to fight the rightwing. In many cases, leaving the CP (and still more joining another left organisation) would isolate them from this left network. This network has its origin in the party's early days and the role it played in the It is this industrial base plus its identification with the workers states (this is a decreasing factor because of the crisis of Stalinism) which enables the CPGB to survive despite its betrayals, somersaults of policy and outright support for the crimes of stalinism. Only a study of the party's history and its relation relationship to the phenomena of the bureaucratisation of the Third International which followed on from the degeneration of the Soviet Union can explain its present policies. This approach is also necessary to understanding why the CPB is capable of making 'left" turns. In the present context there is an identity between the line of the Communist Party and the petit bourgeois pacifist wing of the social democracy, as expressed by a section of the Labour left. This is why both the Communist Party and Tribune make the European Security Conference, opposition to the Common Market and recognition of East Germany the main axis of their foreign policy positions. The invasion of Czechoslovakia upset this harmony and it was the threat to this alliance which compelled the Gollan leadership to condemn the invasion.
Comrades: Cast Away Your Soiled Shirts The position, therefore, of those mibitants in the Communist Party who are in it because they see it as a vehicle for building a revolutionary party is very bleak. Nothing that happened at the 32nd Congress of the CPGB can give them much comfort. In the last analysis, although it may seem extremely
----- pull-quotes -----
FT! The more it changes, the more it remains the same.