We welcome Prometheus’ call for articles. It is high time that communists in Britain make serious efforts towards communist unity – as an overdue step in the direction of organising our class internationally. We need to start a serious, open and democratic discussion about how we could get there. 

This is in the understanding that we cannot yet form what is really necessary: a mass Marxist/Communist Party that organises a large section of the working class. That requires the self-organisation of the class itself – and it currently shows no sign of doing so. But we need to be ready, because things can change quickly – especially in our politically unstable and fluid times, with the drive to World War III and the real danger that the impending climate catastrophe will wipe out human life on earth. 

Today, there are way too many groups who are trying to latch onto the ‘Corbyn surge’ of 2016 – by building ‘parties’ or groups’ that seek to replicate the worst aspects of the 2017 and 2019 Labour manifestos: with economistic platitudes, tame demands around lowest common denominator politics and leaving the monarchy and the capitalist state untouched. Transform, Left Unity, the Collective ‘Party’ etc all fall into this category. Others believe that local assemblies or electoral alliances are the way forward. And while we believe that self-organisation on a local level will be a key feature of socialism and communism, this is clearly not a strategy to seriously take on the capitalist class, which is organised nationally and internationally. The Workers Party of Britain is more serious, but politically characterised by national chauvinism and Labourism – similar to the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain.

We need democratic discussions

In other words, there clearly is a huge space for communists to organise in a democratic, principled Marxist Party. We want to propose to all those communists and Marxists interested in building such a party that we start discussing what it should look like and how we can get there, with a series of open and democratic Zoom events. 

• What kind of party? Do we need a Communist Party or a (better) Labour Party?
• What can we learn from our history – and which mistakes should we not repeat: SPD, Bolsheviks, First and Second Internationale etc
• What programme? Min-max, transitional, what kind of demands e
• Structure: Democratic centralism vs bureaucratic centralism, factions, platforms etc
• Culture: Freedom of speech, media, etc

We very much hope that these would not be just ‘abstract’ discussions, but form part of the active process of regroupment by underpinning our efforts with some solid understanding of what we are trying to do and where we are trying to go – but also help us to get to know each other better by working together. These sessions would also be useful to show where perhaps we disagree and where we require more discussion.

What we fight for

As the organisers of Why Marx? we fight for the following:

Democracy 

A Marxist party requires and fights for free speech, open discussion and a democratic culture of debate. Not because we are liberals, but because the interests of the working class require the open struggle of ideas and the ability to freely organise. Also, such a culture is essential in order to win the working class to the fight for socialism. Sects or ‘parties’ where members are not allowed to disagree with each other, with the leadership or with the programme are doomed to stay small and ineffective. Marxists do not counterpose democracy to socialism. Democracy is much more than voting every four or five years. Democracy is the rule of the people, for the people, by the people. 

Internationalism

There is no national road to socialism, no ‘socialism in one country’. The integration of the world economy means individual countries like Scotland, Cuba or Venezuela cannot simply ‘opt out’, even if they wanted to. International capitalism has bound each of us together. The experience of workers the whole world over, is the same. We share one enemy, the ruling capitalist class. Only by common struggle by workers across national borders, ultimately to remove those borders, can we utilise the world’s vast resources – its land and natural resources, waters, factories, science, and technology – for the benefit of humanity (and nature).

We fight for revolution

A Marxist Party fights for reforms, but we are not reformists. Marxists engage with all organisations of the working class, but we do not hide our programme. We always link these struggles to the fight for socialism, otherwise it is easy to end up in a blind alley and to programmatically subordinate to this movement or that campaign. Only a revolution supported by the large majority can establish socialism as a step towards communism. We fully support the battle cry of the Chartists: “Peacefully if we can, forcefully if we must.”

Marxism is green

A Marxist Party explains that it is the capitalist, short-termist mode of production and the need for constant ‘growth’ and expansion have led to the current climate catastrophe – not ‘humanity’ per se. Urgent action is needed, but we have to guard against pseudo-solutions, many of which are being advanced by the various Green Parties. Carbon offsets and carbon trading amount to greenwashing capitalism. Blaming population numbers (always those in poor countries) can lead to Malthusian programmes, while letting capitalism off the hook. Marxist argue for a rapid transition away from coal, oil, gas and nuclear power towards renewables and a massive reduction in energy demand – something that, in the final analysis, is impossible under capitalism. 

Marxism is scientific

Marxist ideas are based on a materialist, not an utopian, understanding of the world. Marxists explain that capitalism and class society – far from being ‘natural’ –  are, in fact, entirely unnatural and recent phenomena. For the vast majority of its existence, humanity has lived in communistic or semi-communistic communities, where the earth was jointly worked and the produce shared. Marxists expose the role of ruling class ideology.

Marxists fight to smash the state

Our party must explain that the state is not an independent, unbiased arbiter between classes, although it tries to appear so. The ruling class relies on its control of the state, with its laws, judiciary, prisons, secret services, police and armed forces. Marxists fight to create a new, different state, based on the rule of the majority of the working class. It would oversee the expropriation of the ruling class and start changing production for need, not for profit. Over time, with the disappearance of class differences, the role of the state as an instrument of working-class rule will itself become less and less necessary and the state will retreat more and more until it ‘withers away’ and, eventually, disappears completely. The government of people will be superseded by the administration of things.

We openly fight for Communism

Our party openly fights for communism, which is nothing more and nothing less than complete political, social, and economic democracy. It is a society in which the wealth of society and the means of production are no longer in private hands but are owned in common. Everyone will once again have the right to participate in deciding how the wealth of society is used and how production is planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the natural world of which we are a part and on which we depend. Classes will have disappeared, for when everyone is a boss, there will be no more bosses.

… and we have to say what methods will never get us to socialism/communism:

• An act of parliament. The Labour Party cannot introduce socialism, even if it wanted to. It must be the conscious act of the majority of people. 
• The nationalisation of public services. Nationalisation, even of the 100 biggest companies and even under workers’ control, still leaves production of major parts of the economy untouched, does not overcome the profit motive and, crucially, leaves the state in capitalist hands. Nationalisation can be part of the Marxist programme, but it has to go much further than that.
• ‘Municipal socialism’. Local reforms carried out in a small geographical area soon have to clash with the need to ‘balance the budget’ and will be vigorously opposed by the capitalist state.
• The Soviet Union. Chiefly because of the international isolation of the Russian Revolution, the attempt to establish socialism quickly turned into its opposite. Crucially, there was no democracy and no workers’ control.