(en) Britain, Collective Action Commentary*: Democratic Centralism in Crisis (an open letter to members of the SWP)

For our international readers the SWP (Socialist Workers? Party) is a Trotskyist 
organisation, associated with the International Socialist Tendency based around the ideas 
of its founder Tony Cliff, and is widely considered to be the largest (and possibly also 
the most influential) Leninist party in the UK. ---- The SWP has been in the grip of an 
internal crisis since the beginning of 2013 when an allegation of rape was levelled 
against a senior member of the party Martin Smith (referred to as ?Comrade Delta? in 
internal party communications). This allegation was handled by the convention of a 
kangaroo court ? a disputes committee consisting of senior party members and friends of 
Martin Smith ? who subsequently dismissed the female member?s claims. As the allegations, 
and the party?s handling of it, became more widely known, a number of SWP members have 
very publicly left the party.

Following this there have been accusations of a culture of misogyny within the 
organisation. A former ?Socialist Worker? (the party?s paper) journalist has also claimed 
that ?feminism? was ?used effectively as a swear word by the leadership?s supporters?. The 
ensuing revelations have been well covered by the far-Left blogosphere ? on Penny Red, 
Harry?s Place and the Communist Party of Great Britain blogs ? and makes little sense to 
rehash the content of these here. Suffice to say we share the bulk of rank-and-file SWP 
members? revulsion at the way the central committee handled the allegations and, like many 
on the Left, express our unreserved criticism towards such misogynistic practices and the 
stark hypocrisy of individuals who claim to stand for women?s liberation.

It is not the intention of this article to seek to twist the knife in a little further 
in the same ways other Leninist sects have done, revelling in the demise of a much 
despised rival, when their own democratic practices leave much to be desired and are 
equally hidden from public scrutiny. We also reject the commentary of the mainstream media 
and liberal commentators who claim these revelations spell the end for a tradition of 
revolutionary politics in the UK. Such statements rely on the often repeated 
mischaracterisation that revolutionary change necessitates the imposition of dictatorship 
and party diktat. This does not speak to the true character of the revolutionary struggles 
carried out by the popular classes, nor does it speak to the real and living revolutionary 
alternative to which we identify ? that of libertarian socialism.

Our criticisms of Leninism are clear and principled. If you wish to understand more 
about them you can read our political platform or our literature or consult the library 
available on Libcom.org. The intention of this article is to put forward two alternative 
propositions ? firstly, that the vision projected by the SWP of the need to build a 
popular and revolutionary working class movement is not one exclusively tied to the ideas 
and organisational practices of that party, and secondly, that an alternative exists to 
contemporary Trostskyist politics that both embraces dissent and democracy while arguing 
the benefits of political coherency and unity in the form of social anarchism.

We recognise that for a great number of people the SWP is a first base for their 
development within revolutionary politics. Many in the anarchist movement got ?into 
politics? as a result of the lively and visible campaigns that organisations like the SWP 
organise. It is understandable why this happens. The SWP is an organisation that places a 
great stress on recruiting and mobilising its active membership. Many of us, isolated 
within a country with little to no far-Left tradition, are attracted to the vision that 
SWP organisers project of a popular working class movement able to push revolutionary 
politics to the forefront.

These ideas of building a popular working class movement, however, are not exclusively 
tied to the SWP. They are also not exclusively tied to the organisational structure that 
the SWP argue are necessary for their realisation ? that of a strict organisational 
hierarchy and democratic centralism.

Marx argues that ideas and history have an important relationship to each other. We should 
heed these words when we consider the arguments made by a faction within the Russian 
Social Democratic Labour Party (known as the ?Bolsheviks?) in 1903 who called for a loyal 
and disciplined cadre of ?professional revolutionaries.? This organisational practice came 
to define the structure of revolutionary organisations across the world for the next 
hundred years. Some argue that these were the necessary operating practices for a 
revolutionary organisation in the repressive climate of the autocratic regime of the 
Russian Tsar. When the Bolshevik model proved ultimately successful in overthrowing both 
the Tsar and the following Provisional Government these subsequently became promoted as a 
successful model of revolutionary praxis worldwide.

Yet the reality was that it was the Bolshevik party?s pseudo-libertarian ideas, those 
laid down in Lenin?s ?April Theses? and the ?State and Revolution?, that were able to 
attract a mass base of support for the party so critical in the months leading up to the 
October revolution (ideas libertarian enough that many of the anarchists were fooled at 
the time). It was slogans such as ?All Power to the Soviets!? and those that spoke to the 
existing organs of working class power that harmonised so well with the increasingly 
confident and autonomous practices of the Russian workers and peasantry, not cries for 
party discipline nor the practices of revolutionary terrorism or the repressions and 
execution of dissidents carried out by the Cheka.

Democratic centralism is less to do with the legacy of a ?successful? revolution than 
with the monopolising influence of the Third International (the Comintern) over the 
ideology of international communist and trade union movements following the Bolshevik 
capture of state power. The prestige, practical and economic support offered for 
affiliation with Russia was a huge bargaining chip in securing adherence to the 
?Twenty-one conditions? Lenin laid out to the international socialist parties. Following 
Stalin?s rise to power these centralist principles were easily abused to ensure that 
sections of the international were acting in conformity with USSR foreign policy 
ambitions. Even opponents of Stalinism, like Trotsky and Bordiga, held to the essential 
organisational principles that Lenin laid down here. This is likewise the same tradition 
that Tony Cliff and the IS (later the SWP) was to spring from.

Now undoubtedly there is a degree of flexibility to the extent that democratic 
centralism is practised. For some Marxists these ideas are simply a means of operating a 
healthy organisational unity. With this particular vision we?d likely have little quarrel. 
The point is that the strict, hierarchical party model has little, if anything, to do with 
the mobilisation of popular working class movements and even less so with the process of 
revolution. Returning to the days in October, it was Lenin?s flexibility and the open and 
autonomous quality of the party sections thrown open by the influx of members, that marked 
his political practice over this decisive period (see Rabinowitch?s excellent history of 
the Petrograd Bolsheviks, ?Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 
1917 Uprising?). For these few months the Bolshevik party was transformed from that 
tightly-knit cadre organisation into a mass party acting in common with the most advance 
sections of the workers movement. It was the ability of members at the grassroots to use 
party press and internal structures to push for an ever more radical position from the 
centre that characterised the shift in the comparatively conservative attitudes of the 
leadership at this time, not the other way around.

Revolutionary practice does require leadership, but this is not a leadership exercised 
through committees and party lines. It is a leadership that emerges through a dialogue and 
relationship of constructive activity within workplaces and communities. It is a 
relationship that emerges through small victories, patient work and an increasing level of 
trust. This is a process that specifist anarchists call ?social insertion?. We aim to push 
social struggles on a revolutionary course while also recognising the practical lessons 
and ideas that evolve from it. Centralism, on the other hand, is unable to listen and 
anticipate these changes because it denies the critical influence of the grassroots. It is 
also, as the allegations involving Martin Smith clearly demonstrate, easily open to abuse 
from a tight clique at the centre. That is not to say that organisational unity cannot and 
should not exist. Rather it is a unity, much like social leadership, that evolves through 
an open and democratic culture of self-criticism and debate. In both cases we believe that 
our own tradition of specifist or "Platformist" anarchism offers viable lessons and 
guidance on how to build both influential and united political movements while embracing a 
culture of democracy and internal debate.

We understand that for many disillusioned SWP members the apparent alternatives of the 
warring Trotskyist sects may seem unappealing. The even smaller anarchist movement even 
less so. It seems highly unlikely that the central committee will ever revisit its 
handling of the allegations against Martin Smith and the SWP will likely continue 
operating in a state of recurring crisis and ensuing splits. It may be that there 
currently is no alternative on the level of their projected vision of a popular 
revolutionary party. The SWP itself certainly fails to live up to this, both politically 
and practically. That doesn?t mean that such an alternative cannot exist. In fact in the 
current political context such an alternative is more pressing than ever. What is required 
at this conjuncture is a convergence amongst all those interested in such an alternative 
on the need for a resolutely feminist, democratic and constructive movement able to look 
beyond the politics of both Leninism and democratic centralism towards the organisational 
tasks and social struggles that face us at this time.

-CW
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* Commentary pieces represent the views of CA members and supporters to ongoing social and 
political issues.