Following our recent ‘Marxist Unity’ day school in Salford, speakers were asked to share their speeches for publication on our website. As one of the organisers, I have written my own reflection, hoping this provides an evaluation for an event we hope is replicated across the country.
On ‘Marxist Unity’, our publication believes the self-actualisation of working-class power comes through the organisational form of a democratic, multi-tendency party. Only the party is capable of merging workers, communists and those at the sharpest end of oppression. Without internal democracy, which can accommodate differences, the party would lack a mass character and be susceptible to state loyalism and chauvinism.
However, what pathway does a politics of left regroupment and political independence, i.e. ‘partyism’, take? The dominant position on the left is to sidestep organised Marxism and appeal directly to the unorganised, a familiar refrain to ‘organise in our workplaces and communities’. However, this turn to localism does not challenge capitalism at the state level and misses the interconnected relationship between base-building and an outward-facing and inspiring party-building project. Furthermore, to ignore the existing left leaves the sects to play a debilitating role in trade unions, anti-fascist and other organisations. History has shown through the ‘Coalition of Resistance’, ‘Respect’, ‘People’s Assembly’, ‘Enough is Enough’ that sect fronts and broad coalitions without an explicit communist horizon and meaningful democratic structures are doomed to failure. This does not mean an abstentionist strategy in whatever broad fronts do emerge. After all, Prometheus is inspired by the Marxist Unity Group, which operates inside the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the US. Politically intervening and seeking to change the fragmented political landscape could force joint activity and enable rank and file members to demand a stronger political line in such organisations, even eventually transforming them into real mass, revolutionary parties.
Therefore, in my mind, no credible route to a mass communist party exists without attempting to intentionally cohere the tens of thousands of Marxists in this country, both within and outside communist ‘sects’. As our day school showed, this is a practical task rather than an abstraction, and a question of revolutionary strategy: do we liquidate ourselves wholly into localised base building or work towards a democratic, pluralist organisational pole of attraction? The result of the latter approach could start a snowball effect in communist politics in this country.
By contrast, “base building”, unmoored from Marxism, accepts our disorganisation and places no political demands on communists inside and outside organisations. This path of least resistance and ‘quiet sectarianism’ significantly lowers our expectations to merely recruiting members to existing communist sects ‘in the tens’. Tailing movements, holding a banner on marches and hoping workplace struggles spontaneously develop communist consciousness is getting us nowhere. In my view, we will continue to burn out and churn activists, unless we cohere a communist party capable of “cadreising” these militants.
We should not wait for reformists and bureaucracies in the trade unions and sects to create such an organisation. It is simply not in their material interests to do so. As proud torchbearers of the communist tradition, we can do so much more if we step outside our comfort zones to speak to other communists, clarify our political agreements and disagreements, and scaffold a pole of attraction for the Marxists in this country.
To facilitate a space to develop a pathway to partyism, our ‘Marxist Unity’ day school brought communists together in the same room to try to answer the questions posed in this introduction. This was inspired by the comrades at ‘Party Time’ who ran a series of events on the party question attended by several of our editorial board members. This provided a useful starting point and generated some important questions to consider whilst planning our own day school.
In the event format, we wanted to avoid a traditional ‘top-table’ event with low participation and thinking. I understood why the ‘Party Time’ event opted for some big speakers from the Corbynism period to generate interest, but we have high political expectations of attendees and wanted them to play a major part in the event. Our ‘big speakers’ were the communists travelling across the country to our day school.
However, it was important to ground a shared understanding of partyism so that attendees were not speaking past each other. This is a risk when conceptions of ‘The Party’ range from an entirely electoral formation, a broad front, to a mass communist party. Therefore, our opening session, titled ‘Towards Partyism’, needed a speaker capable of outlining a credible vision of ‘The Party’. Considering the book ‘Revolutionary Strategy’ is a major influence on the politics of Prometheus, Cosmonaut and the Marxist Unity Group, we invited its author, Mike Macnair to speak.
In terms of other speakers, we thought it best to provide a platform and experience for other Prometheus editorial board members. Placing trust in our comrades would develop our own political perspectives, public speaking skills and experience running the first in many political education events.
Our next consideration was the invite list. Considering our attitude towards ‘left regroupment’, we invited the various communist sects and wider ‘partyist’ publications. Those invites were aimed at local branches in order to promote rank-and-file attendance. We received positive responses from the CPGB-PCC and CPB. However, the majority (particularly the larger communist groups) maintained the ‘quiet sectarianism’ I mentioned earlier and declined to attend.
Nevertheless, with 3 weeks to promote the event on various WhatsApp and Discord groups, registration numbers exceeded expectations. Those in attendance included Prometheus readers, podcast listeners, those inside and outside communist organisations, including anti-imperialist and climate justice groups.
The event sold out all 50 tickets, which demonstrated that there is a strong appetite on the Marxist left for playing an active role in building a party. The challenge then was planning learning objectives, format and running order. In my mind, we wanted attendees to gain a collective understanding of ‘partyism’, work through the barriers to ‘left regroupment’ and suggest joint activities to build a bridge from today to the future.
Our day school format was an introductory session, two workshops and a plenary. We wanted to navigate the tension in all learning environments – between ‘direct instruction’ from speakers outlining their own political framing and facilitating a debate across a wide range of thought. Our solution was to provide varied and regular opportunities for contributions throughout the day.
We anticipated the relationship between oppression and party would come up particularly on ‘red lines’ around left regroupment and mass communist party membership. In my view, Marxist organisations should forge unity on the basis of a political programme, and we should not shy away from discussions on red lines and should encourage comrades to fight vociferously for anti-oppression to be central in that programme.
In order to facilitate a comradely discussion and draw out political agreement and disagreement, we proactively included this in workshop discussion, whilst asserting the need to remain comradely and respectful at all times. During the day school and afterwards, attendees repeatedly asserted that fighting oppression is a prerequisite for any wider unity.
The introductory session was the most traditional ‘top table’, as stated earlier, we wanted to avoid attendees speaking past each other. Both Mike Macnair and Cat Rylance gave excellent contributions on ‘ ‘Partyism’ providing a historical and contemporary context to the debate. However, comrades from the floor wanting to make a political intervention at the event did so enthusiastically (which meant we overran significantly!)
The ‘barriers to a mass communist party’ workshop was followed by attendees having the opportunity to speak to each other in more depth. In my experience, breakout groups are a good way to facilitate peer learning and support those who might struggle with public speaking. As the facilitator, it was made clear to groups on timings, questions, electing a chair and someone to provide feedback. During the activity, I circulated the room to gauge whether groups needed more time or prompting. When planning the workshop, I was worried that groups might struggle with conversation and suggested six questions, and this was probably too many. It meant either that the groups did not answer some questions at all or that they felt some questions were not answered deeply enough.
Overall, the event was a success, with comrades also taking the opportunity to network afterwards at the venue and social. Post-event information contained a short summary of the event, mailing list sign-up, and a suggestion that comrades write reflections and organise similar ‘Marxist Unity’ events across the country. On this final point, we are planning to pull together a ‘How to organise a Marxist Unity’ event toolkit containing general versions of our planning checklist and documents. Please get in touch if you’re interested in having a look or want to chat further.
