State of the Party
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Off the back of a chat with alanjjohnstone in another thread, I wanted to know how comrades were feeling about the state of the party. I understand that I’m not exactly an active contributor, so apologies if I’m treading on anyone’s toes here. To get to the heart of the matter – is it fair to say that the SPGB is heading for extinction?
No. That’s just the personal view of one isolated member not living in this country and who has earned himself the nickname of Private Fraser !
I suppose you can’t say fairer than that! The SPGB has never exactly been a massive organisation, as far as I can tell, but it would be a bit of a pity if the monument finally crumbled.
Jack – not the progress we would have hoped for but you can’t kill an idea. Socialism can never die and we have managed to preserve its true meaning whereas our opponents, specifically the Left, have come and gone in an infinite variety leaving nothing behind them apart from cynicism.
JH, Indeed it is as ALB says only a personal view of one member but I do take issue with ALB’s added comment that the fact that I don’t live in the UK should have any bearing on my opinion.
Our case for socialism has been predicated on an analogy, the snowball effect and the avalanche effect. The former that our ideas when adopted will grow in size and gather in speed, and the latter, that some event or other will spur a dramatic onslaught of socialist understanding.
But what is the state of our organisation in the present?
A declining membership, an ageing membership, branches disappearing, a membership increasingly not engaged in political activity, our magazine has less circulation and fewer outlets to buy it. Our social media presence in numbers is far from being prominent. We have effectively less than 100 members shown to be sufficiently interested in the Party’s affairs to return a ballot paper in Party polls. Our companion parties cling to life with overall memberships that don’t add up enough to form a branch. Then there are those who some comrades tried to define and described as fellow-travellers, who John Crump called the thin line of non-market socialists, they are in no better condition than ourselves.
What are the positives? We remain in existence as Wez said (but so do many oddball religious cults).
The Socialist Standard has a healthy online readership and its presentation keeps on getting better.
Financially, we are perhaps one of the wealthier organisations on the fringes of politics, to the envy and jealousy of others.
Not being a regular here, you may not know I have periodically voiced my view on what we should do.
One, do what you suggested that we try to identify our problems and remedy them with a open conference.
Two, that the Standard becomes an interactive e-zine and the printed hard-copy of it is published only for special events.
Three, that we formally re-structure the whole World Socialist Movement as one unified World Socialist Party, administrating via the internet as the EC, branches and conference did during lockdown, showing the practicalities but revealing the snags to overcome of doing so.
Such suggestions have not been received too well and I understand why. We witnessed what took place when the emphasis on what we called ourselves happened.
I may have missed that debate on what to call the party, but I do think having a World Socialist Movement divided along national lines is a bit counter-intuitive. The internet has given us the capacity to create a truly global organisation in a way not possible before, and wouldn’t a genuine World Socialist Movement complete what was started way back in the First International?
I suppose the party is in this weird place of being a quite conservative radical organisation. Being over a century old creates a certain amount of institutional inertia, and I get why people wouldn’t want to abandon long-standing Socialist traditions. But if I was to be brutal, I’d say that it does seem like the SPGB is at risk of just fading away at present.
Maybe I’m just being a troublemaker, but I’d be interested to hear if anyone thinks the SPGB’s current MO will ever win the world for the workers?
A loose grouping of parties with more or less the same object and declaration of principles already exists called “the Companion Parties of Socialism” or the “World Socialist Movement”. All attempts to make this more formal have come to nothing.
I don’t think that a single World Socialist Party would be practicable or even desirable. One reason would be language. Our Indian companion party holds its meetings in Bengali and if we had a party rather than a group in Italy they would hold their meetings and communications in Italian.
Then there are different political and legal conditions in different states. Much of the time of the EC of the SPGB is taken up with matters to do with UK law (the EC is a purely admin body, it doesn’t decide policy). Similarly, why should decisions about whether to contest an election in one country be subject to a decision by a vote of members all over the world (SPGB Conference decisions go to a vote of the whole membership)? We had a vote once on whether smoking should be allowed at our Head Office (the decision was no) but why would members in America or Australia have needed to have a say in that? And why should members in Britain decide the attitude towards trade unions in India where workers’ union are more like political parties (which is why our Indian party is more opposed to them than we are to those here)?
Personally I would be strongly opposed to transforming ourself into an organisation that only existed in cyberspace. The Revolution might not to be televised but it won’t take place on the internet. It will be real people organising on the ground, in the places where they live and where they work.
Jack – so what are your suggestions to improve things? In all honesty I think we have exhausted the possibilities and have tried just about everything. I get tired of the suggestion that somehow we are to blame for our present position. There is no ‘magic pill’ to bring people to consciousness of reality. If our theory of historical materialism is correct then the working class will hear us sooner or later but there’s absolutely no point in the self flagellation that some members indulge in. We have to be there for the world when it recognizes the need for us – if it is too late (in terms of the environment) or the majority will never hear us then our theory of how everything works is mistaken – and there’s no evidence for that at this time as all of our predictions have come to pass.
One reason would be language. Our Indian companion party holds its meetings in Bengali
And much of the WSP(I) website is in English as it is the lingua franca (as is also Hindi) of India which has umpteen official languages. Bengali, however, does have the advantage of also being the tongue of Bangladesh. How advantageous it would be if we had a Bangladeshi Party. Would we expect them to exist separate and distinct or side-by-side, since they share so many problems?
We also have complications of language in Canada with the French-speakers and even the USA where tens of millions first language is Spanish.
Yes, there will be legal obstacles. Many nations have laws and electoral rules concerning foreign funding of political parties. Are they insurmountable? We already deal with Welsh and Scottish and in the past EU elections.
But we do have the experience of the World Socialist Party of Ireland that encompassed two separate sovereign countries.
What happens to workers anywhere in the world, is the concern of socialists everywhere in the world. Identified as individual different companion parties weakens that argument, IMHO.
We have a handful of isolated individuals living in various around the world who are either in the SPGB or the WSPUS. Wouldn’t it be more apt that when they engage in activity they do it as members of the World Socialist Party.
Regional organisations would be more like branches. Even within our own constitution, it provides for a certain amount of autonomy and independent decision making. What the WSP(NZ) determine the best course for themselves should not be challenged by the WSP(UK)
I certainly don’t wish to interfere if Cardiff Branch permits or doesn’t permit members smoking.
The case that we will all be tied down to debating issues not immediately relevant to ones own local circumstances is actually an argument used against us by those who don’t support the concept of world socialism and global administration. Decision making is always going to be something that raises problems which require to be addressed.
As for the argument that we cannot survive as an organisation in cyberspace, as I said the recent pandemic lockdown showed that remote meetings was doable. As branches merge, travelling to branch meetings will possibly exclude some from participation and alternative methods of running regional branches must be considered.
NE Regional Branch attempts never took off but it was before we had the experience of Zoom and Discord.
But I do personally prefer face-to-face interactions. Lancaster’s effort to bring us more socially together is an example where they recognised our present relationships between members needed to be improved long before social distancing. Such ventures are compatible with more internet activity
Our name should represent our ideas and our method of running our movement should reflect our aspirations. It is one of our Unique Selling Points that we stand against nationalism, and are for a world socialist cooperative commonwealth.
Our conferences should be world conferences involving all the companion parties debating and discussing. I know from union experience, that their conferences are divided so that different industry sectors have time allotted for themselves after the general conference has taken place. Again we are running global discussion meetings on Discord and the only snag has been time-zones differences.
As for the Revolution not using the internet, well, we know that mass movements have arisen and taken action via communication on social media. The printed word can be censored but attempts to silence cyber-space has failed despite efforts to suppress it.
But remember, I did have three suggestions.
Honestly, I don’t think we’re to blame for our present position. Even if we had said all the right things at all the right times, the SPGB still stands against pretty much every other political or non-political organisation. That challenge alone is almost insurmountable.
But if we recognise the challenge we face, how best are we to achieve the object of the Party? Are we supposed to be a mass electoral party as originally intended, aiming to win a majority of votes and thereby institute socialism? Or are we a repository of wisdom, preserving the purest form of Marxism until the people are ready to embrace it?
I’m not necessarily saying that those are the only two options, but that does seem to be the dichotomy at the heart of today’s SPGB. In some ways we’re quite an intellectual, elitist organisation, yet we aspire to be a mass electoral organisation of the working class.
So in short, I haven’t got any concrete suggestions about how to bring about the speedy creation of World Socialism. What I would say is that we probably need to be honest about the function of this Party, and from there consider our next steps.
Wez, in an earlier post you said “Socialism can never die and we have managed to preserve its true meaning”
We have accomplished keeping alive the Socialist Party’s understanding of what socialism is. But let us face stark reality. That is a hundred people who still hold to the Socialist Party’s definition. And once those hundred have passed away, what then of the SPGB’s socialist knowledge?
Will it be the way of the SLP? Regardless of whether their industrial unionism was right or wrong, it is no longer part of the political debate any longer. When the SLP disappeared, so did their views become extinct. (I recall the furore when on article in the Standard called the SLP our political cousins)
We exclude others who share what we mean by socialism. I keep referring to those equally few in number in what John Crump called the Thin Red Line, those who advocate non-market socialism, various anarcho-communists and Left-Communists.
We do not wish to include them because we hold to political action to capture political power using constitutional electoral means when and where it is possible. Others of the Thin Red Line have made it an integral part of their principles to reject the use of the Parliamentary process to achieve the shared goal of common ownership.
For the continued existence of the idea of socialism and not simply our albeit well-grounded case upon how it can be achieved I do seek an accommodation with other groups who still adhere to what socialism really means. All of us need to reach a compromise and make concessions to one another Party-line. We have to enter in good faith into a collaborative pact of cooperation so that we survive and they too.(Libcom only purpose now is an archive library. Its forum is moribund)
Part of my proposal is to suggest an open conference where we and they enter into a serious dialogue. It does not mean we will not disagree but simply to locate what we can agree on and how we can effectively campaign on a shared platform to counter the prevailing political influence of the Leftists and the Labourites.
Heretical to some ears but it is about being nuanced on who we consider our hostility clause would be aimed at. Maybe it is my own political history but I found being a member of the IWW reduced political rivalries and Party loyalties.
The Party endeavoured to make a concerted effort at campaigning at the COP26.
It is perhaps too early to judge the results
But some things I would ask about are:
Was internet traffic to our website up?
How successful was the QR code approach?
There was a bit more visitors to the blogs detected but still insignificant numbers.
Has it resulted in prospective new members via our online process?
Has the local Glasgow branch had any enquiries?
What about applications for the 3 free issues of the Standard?
How much lit was sold?
How many Standards and leaflets were given out free?
Roughly how many people stopped each day to engage in exchanges with our members? (the weather wasn’t too amenable, I know)
Did those who expressed an interest leave contact details for us to follow up on?
Will a similar strategy of parachuting in our members to political events be worth repeating?
Were the out of town comrades satisfied with the food and lodgings arrangements?
I can answer some of those questions. At least 5,500 of the 9000 leaflets that we printed were handed out in Glasgow and elsewhere (more elsewhere as it happened). If it hadn’t rained in both Glasgow and Cardiff most of the rest would have been too. Those left over will be handed out later in Liverpool and London. 30 members throughout the country took part in this activity.
The QR experiment turned out to be a success and will no doubt be tried again. A full report will appear in the December Standard but I am sure Paddy will be able to go in more detail on that aspect before then if you want as well as about accommodation etc in Glasgow.
Alan, as you know, results from activities tend to form a long tail after the event so it’s not possible to say definitively what we got out of it. It wasn’t a runaway success, it wasn’t an abject failure. Yes we ought to do more leafleting, in my opinion, as it’s an activity most members can easily do and it’s now the most direct way of engaging with people now that public meetings have become a rarity. The QR code worked very well, with about 1 in 25 using it to access the landing pages. It also meant we could design the ‘front-end’ leaflet texts to be short and accessible while leaving the larger part of the argument to the ‘back-end’ ie, on the landing pages. The Party has always had a bad habit of overstuffing leaflets with prolix content that does more harm than good in my view.
The QR initiative always intrigued me when I first heard of it.
Have we been the first political organisation to use it in this manner?
I’m sure the limitation is now only going to be the extent of our imagination in its future use.
But can you clarify for me what 1 in 25 actually translates into figures?
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