SPGB - http://www.
worldsocialism.org/spgb
100 years of solitude
While most leftists in Britain were coming to grips with 'super
Thursday's' poor election results for Respect, June 12 marked the
centennial milestone for the Socialist Party of Great Britain. As
the country's oldest Marxist group, it has long been regarded by
the rest of the left as a political fossil. This is partly because
of the propagandist character of SPGB activity, and its steadfast
belief that a socialist party should be confined to abstract campaigning
for socialism. It believes the pursuit of class struggles for gains
that can be won under capitalism is an unnecessary distraction from
propagating the socialist solution. Unsurprisingly this divorcing
of socialism from the everyday existence of the working class has
won the SPGB few friends over the last 100 years.
The SPGB's website (not to be confused with http://spgb.org.uk
- the site of a splinter group of the same name) is a small and
simplistic affair carried by the World Socialist Movement, the party's
'international'. It hosts a Socialist Standard archive complete
back to 1998, though there is a link to various "highlights"
dating from 1910. The navigation panel carries links to the WSM's
discussion forum, a quick introduction and statement of principles,
a list of pamphlets (sadly these are not as yet online), conference
resolutions, the party rulebook and a myriad of other curios.
However, pride of place goes to the anniversary special of the
Socialist Standard. Available in plain text and pdf, the issue is
packed with anecdotes from the party's history, as well as a recapitulation
of its main shibboleths (which is a recurring feature of every issue).
Its 'A century for socialism' editorial sets out the main stall.
It starts with an overview of contemporary capitalism as a system
which remains fundamentally the same as that which confronted the
SPGB's founders. It makes a number of correct points, such as: "A
society that can now send spaceships to Mars but which cannot adequately
feed, clothe and house the world's population despite the massive
technological resources at its disposal …. is seriously and
fundamentally flawed."
The most interesting parts of the editorial address reformism and
'vanguardism'. The former was the issue over which it split from
the Social Democratic Federation. For the SPGB, a strategy that
requires fighting for reforms will only attract people interested
in giving capitalism a human face. This leads increasingly, the
argument goes, to the progression from a paper commitment to socialism
through to a situation in which reforms become an end in themselves,
and from there to a problematic merely concerned with managing capitalism.
The Labour Party is used here to illustrate the point - it set out
to "reform capitalism into something vaguely humane".
Now, almost a century on Labour has been "turned by capitalism
into something rather more than vaguely inhumane".
The commentary on 'vanguard politics' argues that the Bolsheviks
provided a socialist strategy as counterproductive as reformism.
Apparently, Leninists engage in a "wilful confusion of socialism
with nationalisation and state-run capitalism", while believing
"socialism could be created by a political minority without
the will and participation of the majority of the population".
While this may apply to the economistic and voluntaristic practices
of some Leninists (including Lenin himself at times, but especially
Stalinism), this critique really misses the mark. The SPGB's belief
that the SWP, SP, CPGB, etc think that socialism can be established
in Britain against the will of the majority and without mass workers'
democracy is wishful thinking. In common with every other left group,
this is symptomatic of the need to differentiate the SPGB from the
rest rather than an honest attempt to grapple with the actual positions
of its opponents.
The 'Movement or monument?' article lists what the SPGB takes to
be its contributions to "revolutionary theory and practice".
Most of which are pretty uncontroversial such as the inevitability
of capitalism's crises, the international and majoritarian nature
of socialist revolution, and the need for full and open democracy
within the socialist movement (something widely preached but not
practised by the left at large). Some are distinctly barking, such
as the belief that "there can be nothing progressive about
wars in the modern world" because ultimately they all boil
down to "competitive struggle between sections of the owning
class". Presumably then Palestinians should not bother resisting
Israel's genocidal occupation if the only result will be to line
the pockets of Arafat and friends.
But such positions are to be expected when socialism is separated
from the real class struggle in the here and now
Phil Hamilton
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