Scotland's road to revolution

Chris Bambery:
These are exciting times. The 1990s are ending with the battle between reform and revolution on the streets of Indonesia. The argument that is taking place is, do socialists limit themselves to being the extreme wing of bourgeois democratic liberalism or do they demand social and economic freedom as well as democracy?

Indonesia is simply the highest expression of social instability which accompanies a growing economic crisis. Britain is not immune from this. We know that Britain took the hardest knocks in the 1980s under Thatcher, so we're starting from the back of the field, but the same class polarisation, the same bitterness, the same rejection of market values exists here as in other countries. And it will take very little to ignite that bonfire of discontent. What we're seeing internationally is a crisis at the top of the system and a revival of working class struggle at the base.

Marxist ideas, derided in the 1980s, are winning a new audience as people want radical change. As free market liberalism is visibly collapsing, Marxism can explain what's going on in the world and can offer a solution.

We're also seeing a growing crisis of Labourism. Blair actually believes in the market and comes out with the mantra that there is no alternative, just like Thatcher did in 1981. There's no alternative at Fujitisu or Viasystems-- it's the market. Blair's attempts to impose total control on the Labour Party, for instance to ensure that the Scottish parliament does not become a focus for discontent and opposition to New Labour, is also creating a crisis. We've seen it in Scotland with Dennis Canavan's decision to stand against Blair. There's civil war in Wales, where the quite unlikely figure of Rhodri Morgan is now in opposition to Blair and has to be supported. And in London you have to defend Livingstone's right to stand as mayor.

In Scotland and Wales there is a viable electoral alternative to Blair which is not the Tories. We are seeing growing support for the Scottish National Party. Many on the left argue that this is some irresistible type of nationalism. I would argue, firstly, that the rise of the SNP is about disenchantment with New Labour, and secondly that the SNP is seen falsely as somehow representing 'Old Labour' values in opposition to New Labour.

No socialist has an interest in maintaining the unity of the United Kingdom. We would prefer the UK state to be torn apart by revolution. If it falls apart we'll shed no tears. For us the main enemies remain unionism, British nationalism and also Blairism, which wants to blunt the Scottish parliament. In Scotland, we would have no problem in voting for a referendum which posed separation as a vote of confidence in the Blair government. We'd have to judge on the concrete terms.

A recent article in the Glasgow Herald on John Maclean complained that the British left supports independence struggles in East Timor and Ireland but not Scotland. Now, half a million people have died in East Timor-- it's under military occupation by the Indonesian government. I did not experience that coming here today. We did not experience what took place in Ireland over the last 200 years of British colonialism. To try and claim that Scotland is equal to Ireland and East Timor is an insult to Irish and East Timorese people. For Marx and Lenin support for Irish independence was a matter of principle. Ireland was the first victim of the new United Kingdom state but Scotland became a crucial part of that British imperialist expansion. Glasgow's prosperity was built on the tobacco trade based on slavery. The opium wars were fought to defend the rights of Scottish merchants to drug deal in China. The very emblems of Scotland, the bagpipes, the glengarry, the tartans, are symbols of 19th century British militarism.

Every time this century when Scottish nationalism gains support there is a background of discontent with Labour. Scotland is one of the most class divided nations in the world. Having the right Scottish accent, background and education is no obstacle to becoming part of the British ruling class. Incredibly an SNP spokesperson recently argued that because there was no indigenous ruling class in Scotland you could have an alliance between the working class and the middle class based on social democratic consensus. But we face a nasty ruling class and have to break its power.

The SWP still looks to working class revolution to achieve that. We reject the pessimism which has spread through so much of the left. For us unity between English, Scottish and Welsh workers is not some optional extra. The whole history of Scottish working class struggle is not one of separate struggle. You can't talk about Red Clydeside separate from Sheffield or Barrow or Coventry. When we've fought together, we've won together. Conversely, when nationalism has been injected into working class struggle in Scotland, it has brought defeat. In 1984-85 the Scottish and Welsh NUM leaderships were the weak link in the chain. When South Yorkshire was the centre of the miners' militancy it was nationalism that said we've got to keep Scottish steel plants going. The idea that somehow Scottish workers are in competition with the Welsh and northern English workers was the name of the game. It's a disastrous strategy. It did damage in terms of the working class struggle.

There's a war of words between the SNP and the Labour Party, but both accept that the way forward in Scotland is about trying to get low skilled, low paid jobs from multinational capital. I don't want to see Scotland competing with the Irish Republic, Portugal and Spain at the bottom of the ladder. I reject Alex Salmond's idea that corporation tax in Scotland should be lower, like the Irish Republic, because what he doesn't say is that direct taxation for workers there is the highest in western Europe.

The key argument is what's taking place over job losses and the developing crisis. The Scottish left has been waiting for a Scottish parliament but we just simply can't wait until next May. The Scottish parliament itself is going to have no powers to deal with this crisis. At Viasystems and at National Semiconductors we campaigned for occupation, arguing with workers to fight back.

The difference between Alan and myself is over what sort of party we need. In 1914 John Maclean was correct when he decided there was a fundamental divide between reform and revolution. There was a river of blood between them. Maclean, Lenin, Trotsky and Luxemburg understood that reform and revolution aren't two roads to one goal, they are two separate roads to very different goals. The whole history of the Labour Party this century has shown it. The attempt of the Scottish Socialist Party to bridge that divide, to have people from the social democratic tradition, the reformist tradition and the revolutionary tradition in the same party, and to say we can conduct this argument over a period of time is fundamentally wrong. There have been plenty of revolutions this century but only one successful working class revolution. Every other revolution stopped half way. In the debate between reform and revolution the reformists won, and the working class paid the price. You can't understand the Nazis in 1933 without understanding they were the vengeance of the German ruling class for the failure of the German working class to make the revolution.

Indonesia is showing what is possible. The debate between reform and revolution is there just as it was in Chile 1973, in Spain 1936, and those arguments are going to come here. Unless you have an organisation which is clear that you can't compromise with the capitalist state, you've got to take the power from them, that there is no parliamentary road to socialism, we're going to lose in that debate. Hopefully we can come to an agreement on the question of Scottish elections. But for us the crucial thing is that socialism is the self emancipation of the working class, is getting people to struggle. The biggest problem at the moment is confidence.

There will be a fightback, the bitterness is there, but we need a lead. If someone gives a lead we can ignite that bonfire of discontent.

Alan McCombes:
There is a huge amount of common ground between the SSP and the SWP and I would agree with most of Chris's contribution. But it is necessary to focus in on the areas of disagreement, to clarify the issues before us and to illuminate the road forward.

There is disagreement on the national question. Comrades in the SWP have consistently underestimated the significance of the national question in Scotland. In June 1997, for example, at the Scottish Socialist Alliance (forerunner of the SSP) conference, an SWP leaflet said that the left, particularly the SSA, have exaggerated the national question and that the outcome of the 1997 general election testified to that. This was a dangerous underestimation of the national question, of the depth of the national question, of the long term trend that is taking place within Scotland. In the last year or so there has been a seismic shift of opinion, especially among the low paid, among the youth in Scotland, who are the most fervently in favour of independence. Even a huge minority of Labour supporters say that they're in favour of an independent Scotland. At the same time panic is sweeping the ruling class. The resources and attention that have now been devoted by the British establishment to the task of preserving the union is unprecedented in the last 300 years. You have a chancellor staring in the face of world economic recession who has been effectively seconded to Scotland in order to lead the battle for the union. The SWP says that what you have in Scotland is not national oppression on the scale that you have in Indonesia. But this is to present the issue in a very one sided way, refusing to accept that there are degrees and varieties of national oppression. It's true that you don't have workers being slaughtered in Scotland, neither do you have workers in Scotland working for 50p an hour as you do in the far east. Does that mean Scottish and British workers are not exploited by capitalism because they have microwave ovens and video recorders? Of course it doesn't, because there are degrees of exploitation and oppression.

Chris says that the question of the independence of Ireland was a principle for Marx. Frankly it's a red herring. The question under discussion here is not whether we support independence as some kind of supra-historical, eternal principle but what side we now take in the political battle that is raging over the future of the British state.

There is a powerful class dimension to the national question in Scotland and at the same time there is a powerful national dimension to class politics in Scotland. For 20 years in particular there has been a sense of national oppression of a small nation where no decisions over the economy, over Trident, over the redistribution of wealth are taken in Scotland. These decisions are taken elsewhere. The majority of Scots polled show attitudes far to the left of the governments that we've had in power over the past 20 years: 70 percent of Scots stand for the removal of Trident, similar figures stand for redistribution of wealth, for defence of public services. When broken down according to identity those who express a strong Scottish identity are shown to have more left wing attitudes. In Yorkshire and in Merseyside you'll find the population far to the left of the government as a whole. But there is one fundamental difference: you do not have half the population of Yorkshire demanding an independent state and the break up of the United Kingdom in order to further the class interest. No matter how confusedly that might be expressed, that is what lies at the bottom of the national question in Scotland.

Do we allow what is essentially a progressive movement to be monopolised by the SNP and channelled in a pro big business, pro free market, pro capitalist direction or do socialists intervene decisively to stamp the imprint of socialism on the national movement that is arising? And this is not about nationalism. I've got an article by Chris which says that the SSP is also clearly a nationalist party in its call for a Scottish socialist republic. I believe that this is to misuse the word nationalism and to misrepresent the political outlook of the SSP. You can argue whether John Maclean was mistaken or not when he called for a Scottish workers' republic but he went to prison on two separate occasions for his internationalist principles. He talked about the elimination of national differences through intermarriage even when he was promoting the idea of a Scottish workers' republic. So Maclean wasn't a nationalist. How can you possibly state that the SSP is clearly a nationalist party in its call for a Scottish socialist republic-- it's a contradiction. Which nationalist party anywhere has as point two of its constitution to promote the international solidarity of the working class and the oppressed against global capitalism? The SSP is not a nationalist party.

Chris says that the SSP fudges the divide between socialists and the SNP. In the last few years we have done more than any other section of the left in Scotland to oppose the pro big business agenda of the SNP. The SWP's policy on the national question remains timid, half baked and confused, and does not put forward a clear position around which socialists should mobilise. It's a recipe really to say only that we will support independence in the event of referendum calls for a vote of no confidence in Blair. A referendum is going to be much more than that-- not only voting no confidence in Blair but no confidence in the British state, the Westminster system, the United Kingdom. The SWP's policy will lead to socialists tagging along behind the SNP rather than stamping a socialist colouration on the national movement.

What is needed is a clear, decisive and unambiguous policy on the national question and we believe that our demand for a socialist independent Scotland is precisely that. The SWP falsely counterposes the class struggle to the national demand for socialist independence. Our paper has as its masthead 'Struggle, Solidarity and Socialism', and I believe that on all three counts the SSP has a track record second to none on the left in Scotland-- leading struggles within communities, occupying facilities, occupying schools, organising solidarity activity with workers in struggle. Nor does it mean that you have to abandon socialism. Last year we stood candidates and raised the ideas of socialism when nobody else was raising it. Every single household in Glasgow received a letter putting the socialist alternative. Hundreds of street meetings and public meetings were held.

The other key issue is what kind of party do we need-- not to storm the barricades in the future, but what kind of party do we need now in Scotland to challenge the pro big business agenda that's being promoted by all the other political parties. We must have a sense of proportion. This is not Petrograd, April 1917, when the differences were the issues of how to take power. It's not 1914 either, when Chris rightly says Maclean took a revolutionary stand. But in 1918 Maclean stood as a Labour candidate in Glasgow alongside people that he would have regarded as reformist. Perhaps 99.99 percent of the population in Scotland are not active in socialist politics. Yet hundreds of thousands of these people are broadly sympathetic to the ideas of socialism. Only a tiny minority would regard themselves as Marxists or revolutionaries. How do we appeal to these hundreds of thousands of people that regard themselves as socialists? Do we present them with an ultimatum-- unless you accept revolutionary politics you shouldn't be involved in political activity? Or do you begin to build a socialist party which involves revolutionary and non-revolutionary socialists and begin to create a mass alternative to the free market parties? Chris says that historically the right wing has always called the shots in such a broad party. I would challenge that statement. The Russian RSDLP was a broad party which included revolutionary socialists and non-revolutionary socialists, and the left wing in the shape of the Bolsheviks called the shots between most of the period between 1903 and 1912. The SSP doesn't have a trade union general secretary with a million block votes which can be cast in favour of the right wing. Hugh Kerr's got one vote and I've got one vote. Any member of the SWP that joins the SSP would have one vote. If the ideas that you advocate cannot prevail in a broad socialist party how are they going to prevail in the trade unions or in society as a whole? The SSP is an open, democratic party. If you're confident that your ideas arecorrect then you should participate, argue for your ideas and surely your ideas will prevail ultimately. We're not asking anybody to give up their ideas or even abandon their organisation but to discuss building a broad mass party of socialism. We can achieve socialist unity in Scotland and that will be a huge step forward for the working class and for the ideas of socialism within Scotland.

Alan McCombes (in response to discussion):
I want to be quite clear that I agree with much of the analysis over Scotland's role in the British Empire. Nobody is comparing Scotland with Ireland or East Timor or anywhere else. But I think it's one sided to say what is the material basis for national oppression in Scotland, because the national question is not just a material question. Before the collapse of Stalinism, the Soviet Union poured vast amounts of money into the satellite states of Eastern Europe in the form of subsidised oil and raw materials. Does that mean there was no national oppression in Poland or the Baltic states? It doesn't because national oppression takes different forms. This is not to compare the situation in Scotland with the situation in the Baltic states but to ask for more tolerance and rounded analysis of the national question itself. Your position is very confused on the national question and it will confuse people. The SWP has said when you argue the case against separatism with Viasystems workers you can win the argument. So how can you argue the case against separatism with them on the one hand and then argue that if there was a referendum they should vote for independence? It's half baked, it's confused and it's contradictory. Such socialists will be marginalised and will leave the national question open to the SNP, if they do not get involved in it.

I stood as a candidate in the general election last year in Govan, and the issues of abortion came up repeatedly because there was an active intervention by pro-lifers in every debate that took place, and in contrast to some of the other parties we put forward a very clear position in support of a woman's right to choose. Over segregated education we've been involved in concrete battles, in particular where the issue of opposition to the Catholic Church and opposition to segregated education was posed. It's completely misleading to suggest that the SSP is sweeping difficult ideas under the carpet and all we want is to achieve electoral gain. I've not had a chance to read the SWP's Action Programme but these extracts in this week's Socialist Worker include welfare distribution to the poor, £4.61 an hour minimum wage for all, an end to Tory privatisation. The SSP ten point manifesto calls for £6 an hour minimum wage for workers, for wholesale public ownership of the key sectors of the economy-- public services as well-- to bring back public ownership of the utilities. We've called for a maximum 10:1 income differential between the lowest paid workers and the highest paid workers in Britain. That's a much more radical, more revolutionary demand. I'm not saying that the SWP is reformist because it puts forward these ideas, but I don't think you should say that the SSP's programme is a reformist programme when in fact it's much more radical and far reaching than the Action Programme.

Chris Bambery (in response to discussion):
There's a difference between the Action Programme and the programme of the SSP. The Action Programme's demands are for agitation, and it centres on workers' activity. The central demand is occupy. We caught the echo at Viasystems, National Semiconductors and Longbridge. The ten point manifesto is for an SSP in a Scottish parliament. It's about elect us and this is the programme we'll bring in.

I don't agree with Alan when he says that panic is sweeping the ruling class over Scottish independence. There's panic in the Scottish Labour Party. It's terrifying for Brown and Dewar but it's not terrifying Brian Souter, Richard Branson or Rupert Murdoch. They are happy with independence. Getting an independent Scotland is not going to break British imperialism. Ireland in 1916 and 1921 was a big impulse for others to take up the freedom struggle in Egypt, in India and elsewhere. Independent Scotland would be a small capitalist state inside the EU. Is this going to inspire anyone else in the world? We're for it-- we're for the break up of Britain as a whole-- but we don't think this is going to be some paradise which will automatically go to the left. Scottish workers want a Scottish parliament, or indeed independence, as a means of escape from 18 years of Thatcherism and now from Blair. They want radical change. This is how they think they're going to get it. OK, we'll have the argument with them, but that desire for change can also swing the other way.

This summer we saw a strike in a shipyard in Greenock and among the Glasgow social workers. The Stephen Lawrence campaign got the same echo in Aberdeen, in Dundee, and in Glasgow as it did in London. People identified with Stephen Lawrence and they saw this is exactly what's wrong with Tony Blair and Britain. It's the same consciousness right across the country. Class unity is a daily reality to English, Scottish and Welsh workers. We should be proud that people in Scotland didn't pay their poll tax but the crowning moment was the biggest riot in British history for 100 years in Trafalgar Square. That's what class unity's about. English workers rallied to Timex, just like Scottish workers rallied to the Liverpool dockers. If you're in the CWU or the NUS, unity's a reality. In the colleges the attempt to get a breakaway from NUS on the basis of a Scottish union of students is actually scabbing on the struggle. It's breaking up the fight against tuition fees.

The fudge in the SSP is not over the national question but between reform and revolution. Lenin did not wait to build a revolutionary party until the boiling point of revolution in October 1917. The tragedy of Maclean and of Luxemburg was that they were attempting to build the party in that great rise of struggle. We lost out because there wasn't a revolutionary party in umpteen revolutions. Hugh Kerr at the founding SSP conference said we can hold the balance of power in the Scottish parliament. This is a very dangerous game. It's playing parliamentary politics. We can hold the balance of power and the SNP and New Labour and the Liberal Democrats have to come to us and ask for results. That's not about struggle. The difference is about struggle from the bottom up. At the moment in Britain, people are desperate for reform, they're desperate for change, they see it as a way forward.

On the elections-- if we can unite in London, if we can unite in Wales, why can't we do it in Scotland? Why have we been told that unity is on the basis of having to support a list right across Scotland of SSP candidates? We should come together. We should call on the Socialist Labour Party, on other people who might be interested in the discussion and say we want common unity.