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What’s Wrong with the SPGB?

Review article of “What’s Wrong with using Parliament?” by The Socialist Party [of Great Britain], 24pp July 2010, £1.00.

In the light of the referendum on a change in the voting system (see “The alternative vote referendum…” ) we thought we would take another look at the only genuinely socialist organisation which attempts to sell us the parliamentary road to socialism. Over the years we have debated the issue of how we will get to a socialist society several times with the SPGB ⁽¹⁾ in both meetings and our press. Indeed several people have contacted us after listening to a tape our 1994 debate which you can still buy from the Socialist Party. Last year they brought out a new short pamphlet, What’s Wrong with Using Parliament?, to restate their belief that socialism can only come about via parliament. It is that which we are reviewing here.

The reasons for debating with them, and not other parties claiming the title “socialist” is not simply because they have a culture of debate (propaganda and education are their main activities) but because they share with us a real understanding of what socialism is. Unlike the Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyists they do not believe that some form of state ownership of the means of production is socialism, or even a step towards it. Like them we are “an organisation of equals. There is no leader and there are no followers”. (Introducing the Socialist Party at the beginning of the pamphlet). But differences over how socialism can be achieved have dug a chasm between themselves and revolutionaries. This pamphlet only underlines that distinction.

The pamphlet is neatly laid out and lucidly written. Bizarrely it has a contructivist design (more usually associated with the October Revolution which they reject!) on the cover (with a red wedge flying into Big Ben). The contradiction on the cover however is trivial compared with the contradictions inside. The pamphlet claims to be aimed at “Anti-parliamentarians and Anarchists” but only Anarchists are quoted. This is no accident since the SPGB claims Marxist orthodoxy for its views on parliamentarism and to deal with Marxist critiques would be more difficult. It also frees the SPGB from dealing with the really big issue of working class consciousness (a word which does not appear anywhere in the pamphlet). The pamphlet is a tale of two halves with the first being the SPGB’s defence of using parliament and the second dealing with five arguments against using parliament taken from Anarchist publications in the second. Here we can only deal with some of these

Instrumentalist Arguments

They set out the premises of the debate accurately enough

what distinguishes us amongst those who want a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, is our view that parliament can and should be used in the course of establishing such a socialist society. (p.5)

 

But this quickly leads us to the first contradiction. Although they recognise that parliament is a capitalist institution, that voting atomises ands reduces to passivity the mass of the population who only get to put a cross on a piece of paper every 5 years or so, they still argue that

what better way is there to challenge that “democracy and freedom” than by using the accepted legitimate channels and thereby be able to call [liberal democracy’s] bluff.

 

But who is bluffing? The capitalists, who have instituted a political system that not only does not challenge their rule but is the ideal framework for it, or the SPGB who would legitimise working class impotence by supporting it? The increasingly derisory electoral performance of the SPGB over the last 107 years might be taken as sufficient proof of the point that there is no route to socialism via bourgeois institutions but it is a lesson that the SPGB refuses to learn. Instead the pamphlet is full of straw man type arguments which they dig out (and not always fairly) from the anarchist texts they criticise. One of these is to criticise this argument

Socialism cannot come through the Parliament. If we look at a country like Chile we can see why. In 1973 the people elected a moderate socialist government led by President Allende. This democratically-elected government was toppled by a CIA backed military coup. Repression followed in which the workers movement was smashed and thousands of militants lost their lives.

“What is Anarchism?”, www.struggle.ws/pdfs/whatis.pdf

 

The essential part of the SPGB reply is that this is because Allende was not a real socialist and did not have “enough” popular support. But in this argument Allende’s “authenticity” is not the point. The bourgeoisie do not distinguish between real socialists and state capitalists. All they see is a threat to their property and in Chile there was a mass movement seeking to redress the balance for the working class (however deluded we all agree they were). The fact is, as we noted a long time ago, the SPGB are more devoted to parliament than the “democratic” bourgeoisie! The capitalist class will not shrink from switching to a Mussolini or a Pinochet once they see that the rules of the democratic game do not deliver the desired results. The problem is exactly the opposite one. Most Chilean workers believed, like the SPGB, that the elections had guaranteed their legitimate right to rule when in fact it did not touch the essential organs of the state. This error is underlined earlier in the pamphlet when the SPGB write

Gaining control of the state will at the same time give control of this social organ which can be used to co-ordinate the changeover from capitalism to socialism. Of course, it couldn’t be used in the form inherited from capitalism.

 

Like so many caveats the last line is meaningless if you do not actually say that the first thing the workers will have to do in the course of their revolution will be to smash/dismantle the capitalist state and its organs of repression. This argument is an old one as the founding Declaration of Principles of the SPGB (printed a the back of the pamphlet) also argue that all they will have to do is have the state, the machinery of oppression “converted” and it will guarantee workers’ emancipation. For the SPGB winning a majority in parliament is the same as gaining control of the state (p.7) but how different do they think the scenario will be to that in Chile? Allende lasted 3 years because he was slow to move against the old state apparatus. If he had acted faster his government would have not have lasted as long. The point is that the state has to be destroyed in the course of the majority taking over, not via a parliamentary majority after a leisurely debate. Waiting to gain such majority will only allow those who hold all the reins of power to prepare their various contingency plans.

The SPGB are also so desperate to assert the importance of parliament that they attempt to deny that bourgeois state power lies elsewhere. When Class War argue that the real power of the state lies in the organs of repression, the permanent bureaucracy etc they are accused of “conspiracy theory” which then can be called “absurd”. But the spontaneous bowing of parliament to the needs of capitalism is plain for all to see and the SPGB accept this on p. 17. You don’t need a conspiracy theory to see that vested interests via lobbying, and think tanks set the agendas and define the limits of policy (one reason why any attempt to reform anything under capitalism sinks in the mire of its own contradictions). Political donations, control of the media, appointments of MPs and ex-Ministers to company boards etc are all part of the way in which capitalism ensures that capital dominates the political agenda. For the SPGB this is irrelevant since for them parliament is the main state organ and thus when they get a majority all these extra-parliamentary organs (including the armed forces and the police) will be so stunned by socialist argument and parliamentary legitimacy that they will be neutered.

There are other ways in which the SPGB don’t seem to take on the reality of what they are proposing. If they are for pure socialism (and we believe they are) what are their non-reformist minority MPs going to do whilst awaiting the time when they have 300 plus members in parliament (currently they have none and never have had one) to vote capitalism down? The people who elected them will expect some results in the course of a parliament, unless of course they no longer count on parliament, but then that begs the question as to why did they vote at all. Our new SPGB MPs will arrive in parliament to take the loyal oath to Her Majesty the Queen, and then what? The only concrete activity that the SPGB put forward is that they can use Parliament as a tribune to denounce the system. And after 5 years of doing that they expect to win a majority the next time round? They criticise the anarchists for putting forward “unrealistic alternatives” but nothing seems further from reality than the SPGB’s cosy view of the capitalist political system. The Anarchist Federation, for example, are castigated for envisaging the possibility that the capitalist class will actually put up a fight to defend its property (p.20)! It is clear that what the SPGB stands for is social pacifism and what they stand against is genuine class action. Capitalism will be safe for ever with these comrades.

In fact, what characterises genuine class action is beyond the SPGB. On p.19 they quote the Anarchist leaflet “What is Anarchism?”.

The authors of the ‘What is Anarchism?’ web-page leaflet mentioned above, which claims that “socialism cannot come through parliament”, agree with us that the revolution against capitalism must be a majority, participatory revolution. Central to our politics is the belief that ordinary people must make the revolution. Every member of the working class (workers, unemployed, housewives, etc.) has a role to play.
The trouble is they don’t seem to have thought through the implications of this. If on the eve of the revolution a majority of the population are in favour of it and are organised to participate in it, why should they not demonstrate this by putting up their own candidates to oppose and beat those who do support the continuation of the capitalist system? Naturally, these candidates would stand as mandated delegates not as unaccountable representatives. Being the majority, this would be reflected in a majority of seats in parliament. And if some pro-capitalists in the boardrooms, the armed forces or the police attempted a coup, what, as already pointed out, could they do against a participating majority committed to establishing socialism?
Once there is an organised, determined majority the success of the socialist revolution is assured, one way or the other. It is then a question of the best tactic to pursue to try to ensure that this takes place as rapidly and as smoothly as possible. In our view, the best way to proceed is to start by obtaining a democratic mandate via the ballot box for the changeover to socialism. The tactical advantage of doing this is that, when obtained, it deprives the supporters of capitalism of any legitimacy for the continuation of their rule.

 

This is the Monty Python path to socialism. The Anarchists talk of “revolution” as a single process (in our view, an error) but at least they see it as starting a process. The SPGB cannot conceive of a “revolution” until 50% plus 1 of the population is ready. For them “revolution” is a quiet vote, a polite discussion in parliament and the change in ownership of the means of production by legislative enactment? A splendid “tactic” which does not even actively involve most of the working class!

But here we are entering a Lewis Carroll world where “words mean what we say they mean”. Revolutions are certainly about more than change in government. They are fundamental shifts in class relationships and they either change the basic way we produce things or they fail. They are also messy unpredictable things but you would not think so reading this pamphlet.

In fact the pamphlet is entirely devoid of any reference to real struggles of real workers. It is a utopian plea to participate in the arena where the ruling class is strongest in order to defeat it. However the SPGB are absolutely certain that only they hold the key to the future of the working class. Anyone who advocates anything different is “unrealistic”.

The pamphlet arrives at this happy conclusion only by leaving out any discussion of how a real revolution can take place. The SPGB has long been an opponent of real class struggle which it equates with violence. In its founding Principles it states:

It is dangerous and futile to follow those who support violence by workers against the armed force of the state. Violent revolution has sometimes meant different faces in the capitalist class, always meant dead workers, and never meant the liberation of the working class. Unless workers organize consciously and politically and take control over the state machinery, including its armed forces, the state will be ensured a bloody victory.
Political democracy is the greatest tool (next to its labour-power) that the working class has at its disposal. When the majority of workers support socialism, so-called “revolutionary” war will not be required. The real revolution is for workers to stop following leaders, to start understanding why society functions as it does and to start thinking for themselves.

 

Between voting and violence there is nothing for the SPGB. In reality the very nature of capitalism is constantly throwing up class conflict even at times of relative class peace.

They see workers coming to understand the need for socialism only by “thinking for themselves” as individuals. This is the same appeal the capitalist makes in trying to stop workers take class action. In reality workers always “think for themselves” but they think different things at different times. When capitalism guarantees them a reasonable livelihood they accept it, and its media claims, to be the best of all possible worlds. However when the system begins to fail and enters into one of its periodic crises workers begin to “think for themselves” but not necessarily individually since their common experience begins to teach them more than all the lectures of the SPGB (or anyone else). This does not mean the end of the system but it does lead to collective resistance on an initially economic level. There is no mechanical link between the economic and political struggle (on this we can agree) but the struggles themselves have the potential to plant the germs of conscious opposition to capitalism. In some cases this consciousness takes political direction and this leads to the formation of class political organisations who make it their task to articulate the lessons of past historical achievements of the class. In doing so they help to define the communist programme.

At first is only a minority who tend to coalesce around a political party of the subordinate class. This minority is doomed for long periods to seem isolated and out of touch but the very contradictions of capitalism at certain point create wider class movements in which this minority works for revolution. Massive these movements might be but they still remain a minority of society. It will be a large minority (as in Egypt or Tunisia recently) which will launch the assault on the state. What transforms this minority into something more is the revolutionary act itself:

Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and … the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, … a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.

 

History suggests that this does not come piecemeal but rapidly. Even those who have been expecting it will be overwhelmed by its force. In the course of it the movement may be peaceful (the bigger and more widespread the more peaceful it is likely to be) but even an overwhelming movement such as in Cairo may have to be extraordinarily courageous in the face of last ditch fight to the death by capitalists defending their property. The collapse of the forces of the state under this mass pressure is the best scenario for the collapse of capitalist order in any one area.

This is, of course, only the beginning of the story. The overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism are not necessarily one and the same thing. People will be anti-capitalist before they understand fully what it means. This will be done via combination of propaganda/education and experience. The very process of revolution will lead people to practically solve the problems of how to organise by setting up assemblies, local committees and even workers’ councils based on recallable delegates. In the process people’s perceptions will also change. They will be ready to abandon the former mores of capitalism with its greed and selfishness. They will be more ready to listen to those who defend real socialism. Not all at once, but as the research into the behaviour of the mass movements in the French and Russian Revolutions have shown people began to behave differently in the process of mass action. Marx put this graphically in The German Ideology

… revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.

 

In contrast to the passive role of the voter under capitalism people will become, to use the words of the Anarchist Federation (quoted in the pamphlet), “energised”. It is only at this point when the old ruling class is on its knees that the implementation of a real socialist programme by the immense majority will be possible (provided that active within this movement are those campaigning for it).

Marx summed this up in the Theses on Feuerbach

The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

 

We do not know how this revolution will develop, or where it will take us, but we do know it will go beyond the mind-numbing passivity of voting for a capitalist parliament. Perhaps even the “changing of circumstance” will affect the SPGB and they will join the rest of us who also

want a classless, stateless, wageless, moneyless society based on common ownership and democratic control of the means of life.

 

(1) Although it has since shortened its name to the Socialist Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain still retains the full title in some circumstances so we will call it the SPGB here. It is not to be confused with its SPGB’s splitters, the Socialist Party of Great Britain which produces Socialist Studies [for our debate with them see “The Fairy Story of the Parliamentary Road to Communism” in Revolutionary Perspectives 39] nor the Socialist Party of the former Militant Tendency after it was expelled from the Labour Party.