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Website of the RED Platfrom of the Communist Party of Great Britain: for Republicanism, Equality, and Democracy!

on 'factions'

In some minds, the notion of 'factionalism' is automatically associated with division and disloyalty. We believe this attitude to be profoundly wrong. It is precisely because we are serious about building a truly mass communist party, and not an ideological sect, that the freedom to form factions to fight for different points of view amongst our comrades is essential. No comrade considering joining the CPGB RED Platform need be concerned that the decision represents a diminution of their loyalty to the party. As our founding statement states in its opening line, "The RED Platform of the Communist Party of Great Britain is, above all, a grouping of CPGB partisans".

The following long except is taken from an article titled "Party, non-ideology and faction", written by Jack Conrad in the Weekly Worker of December 15 1994. We believe it is an excellent treatment of the subject of the role of factions in building a Communist Party, which all comrades should read.

"Party factions

Let us be quite clear what is being said. Reforging the CPGB can be a task for many others besides us Leninists. What is more, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect, certainly it is necessary to provide for, the existence and struggle of different factions within the reforged CPGB. Leninists, at our 6th Conference in September 1993, have already unanimously agreed to allow “permanent or temporary” factions and “alternative platforms” (J Conrad Problems of communist organisation, 1993, p44).

Before presenting concrete proposals on factional rights in the CPGB it would be a good idea, I think, to answer some of the typical objections to factions: ie, they are anti-Leninist; they increase the danger of splits; they are Trotskyite, etc. To begin, let us ask a very necessary question. What is a faction? (A term which, it has to be said, carries an enormous amount of negative baggage.) We can turn to Lenin for an answer. “A faction,” he says, “is an organisation within a party, united, not by its place of work, language or other objective conditions, but by a particular platform of views on party questions” (VI Lenin CW Vol 17, 1977, p265).

It is impossible to prevent the existence of different views on Party questions. If, as in the SWP, there cannot be any permanent groupings, then it is only a step, and a short one at that, to the banning of differences of opinion. For whenever there are two opinions, people tend to group together. Not allowing for differences is far from healthy. Unofficial, hidden groups form, plot and fester. Much better to bring differences out into the light of day. That was Lenin’s theory and practice.

It will be seen that while he was not positively in favour of factions as such, his concern, as in the passage below, is to emphasise the difference between honest and dishonest factions: “Every faction is convinced that its platform and its policy are the best means of abolishing factions, for no one regards the existence of factions as ideal. The only difference is that factions with clear, consistent, integral platforms openly defend their platforms, while unprincipled factions hide behind cheap shouts about their virtue, about their non-factionalism” (Ibid).

Lenin was proud of the Bolshevik faction. It openly defended and advocated its platform. When the Bolshevik paper Rabochaya Gazeta first appeared, he therefore did not blush or hesitate to announce that it “necessarily makes it appearance as a factional publication, as a factional enterprise of the Bolsheviks”. After the defeat of the 1905 revolution and the disintegration of the Party, he fought, not for the end of factionalism, but the coming together of the Bolsheviks and pro-Party Mensheviks (those around Plekhanov). Lenin described the Bolsheviks as a “strong” faction and condemned “moralising, whining for their abolition”. That moralising and whining, it should be said, came from the likes of Martov and Trotsky.

And let those who would have it that factions by their very nature lead to splits ponder this argument. In the “observance in practice” of “democratic centralism, on guarantees for the rights of all minorities and for all loyal opposition, on the autonomy of every Party organisation, on recognising that all Party functionaries must be elected, accountable to the Party and subject to recall” and “their sincere and consistent application”, there is “a guarantee against splits, a guarantee that the ideological struggle in the Party can and must prove fully consistent with strict organisational unity” (VI Lenin CW Vol 10, 1977, p314). The suggestion that in consistent democratic centralism and minority factional rights we find a guarantee against splits might be an exaggeration. They do however provide the best conditions to prevent splits. Full minority rights also remove the democracy fig leaf some use to cover desertion and renegacy.

So I think we can safely say that in the years that followed the first revolution Lenin did not oppose factions. He was a factional leader.

After the October Revolution, the third revolution, amidst the danger of German invasion, a Left Communist faction came out against peace negotiations and for revolutionary war. Lenin not only fought them, he tolerated them. In March 1918 they had a daily paper, Kommunist, which carried their propaganda. Lenin also demanded that they take a full part in the leadership. The 7th Congress elected 15 members and 8 candidate members to the Central Committee. Amongst them three Left Communists who refused to take their seats - Bukharin, Lomov and Uritsky.

There was of course the 1920 ban on factions by the Party’s 10th Congress. This, it should be emphasised, was an “ exceptional year”. Peasant discontent was welling up, demobilised Red Army men were turning to banditry, imperialism was making plans and ominous threats, “bureaucratic practices” gripped the Party and demoralisation was fast spreading among the “largely declassed” workers. Under the flag of anarchism petty bourgeois counterrevolution was gaining strength (Kronstadt was soon to revolt). At the top of the Party there had been some fierce clashes, not least between Bukharin, Trotsky and Lenin over the trade union question. A number of factions emerged from below, the most notable being the Workers’ Opposition. Its platform, written by Alexandra Kollontai, printed in 250,000 copies, won 21% of the votes in the Moscow Party in November 1920, 30% of communist miners in early 1921 and had 6% of the delegates at the 10th Party Congress.

“Assistance is on its way from the West European countries,” Lenin promised the 10th Congress. “But,” he added with sober realism, “it is not coming quickly enough.” Under these specific circumstances he proposed a major retreat: ie, massive concessions to capitalism, which later became known as the New Economic Policy. More, he urged, as an emergency measure, a ban on factions. “Comrades,” appealed Lenin, “this is no time to have an opposition. Either you’re on this side, or on the other, but then your weapon must be a gun, and not an opposition .... Let’s not have an opposition just now!” So there was nothing normal about the ban on factions nor the new (secret) rule which allowed for the expulsion of Central Committee members. It was not the principle Stalin turned it into (that is, excepting his own faction). “This is an extreme measure that is being adopted specially, in view of the dangerous situation” (Lenin).

Lenin feared internal and external enemies would use the “luxury” of factional disputes within the “governing Party” for counterrevolutionary purposes. Hence “just now” he insisted that “there should not be the slightest trace of factionalism”. A retreat was “no time to argue about theoretical deviations”. The atmosphere of controversy was “becoming extremely dangerous and constitutes a direct threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat”.

It should be noted that, though the 10th Congress overwhelmingly voted to call for the “immediate dissolution of all groups without exception formed on the basis of one platform or another”, Lenin opposed the resolution presented by Ryazanov which would have prohibited elections according to platforms. “This is an excessive desire, which is impractical,” he declared, “and I move that we reject it” (VI Lenin CW Vol 32, 1977, p261). It was.

Back to the real business. Factions in our CPGB should have definite rights. That must include the right to become a majority. To facilitate this and the process of Party building, even under today’s conditions, I personally would agree to automatic access to the central organ, provision for separate publications, and proportional representation on the Provisional Central Committee and other responsible bodies, editorial boards, appeals committees, etc (that, in passing, is why recommended lists are necessary). As long as factions are loyal to the Party and the Party principle, as long as all members of the Party, irrespective of faction, diligently and fully carry out agreed assignments and fulfil all their financial obligations, I believe such an arrangement provides the surest framework for the merger, the fusion of factions and the conversion of factional centres into centres that are only those of shade or trend. Instead of the present isolation and exclusiveness of groups, I urge the struggle for influence in the Party. ‘Work, criticise and improve’ should be the motto."

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