Constructing an alternative to Marxism-Leninism: British Communists and prefigurative politics

Jérémy Tranmer

I’d like to begin with a quotation from an article written by a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain:

The marxist and post-marxist left has an established view of anarchist politics. We half remember reading about the splits in the International between Marx and Bakunin, in which the self-centered anarchists, with their utopian and unrealistic proposals, were defeated by a combination of hard-hitting polemic and hard-nosed — and sometimes underhand — tactical maneuvering. More recently, anarchism has been associated with ultra-leftist politics — adventurist solutions of individualist actions and strategies which are thought to have weakended the progressive forces and played into the hands of enemies. From alliances between anarchist mass organizations and Trotskyist parties in the Spanish Civil War, through to the terrorist stupidities of the half-dozen people in the ‘70s ‘Angry Brigade’ in England, it has seemed that anarchists point only towards dangerous, self-defeating dead ends.[309]

Although he was caricaturing the views of people from the Marxist tradition and went on to state that it was “time for a re-consideration,” many Communists had probably expressed similar opinions about aanrchism thoughout the party’s history. What he omitted to mention was that from the mid 1970s until the early 1990s some Communists had espoused prefigurative politics and advocated the complete rethinking of the party’s theory and practice to take it into account. In 1991 the Communist Party ceased to exist and was ‘transformed’ into Democratic Left, which attempted to integrate prefigurative politics into its constitution and everyday activities. This paper aims to examine how anarchist-inspired ideas took root in the CPGB, how they were used by certain Communists and what impact they had on the party as well as on its successors.

1. CP and anarchism

The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was founded in 1920 and was fully ‘Bolshevized’ by the end of the decade. The CP’s constitution was based on Marxism- Leninism, a Stalinist combination of Marx’s views on class relations under capitalism and Lenin’s vision of the revolutionary party. In this paper I shall concentrate on the latter. At the heart of the CP’s Leninism was Democratic centralism: in very basic terms once a decision made democratically, it had to be implemented by all party members. Given the vertical organizational structures of the party (branch, district, Exceutive Committee, Political Committee, National Congress), the banning of horizontal communication between members and the dominant position of the leadership, decisions often taken in undemocratic manner in the upper echelons of the party and imposed on rank and file members. Unity and discipline was seen as necessary features of the revolutionary party.

The CP also considered itself as a vanguard party, leading the working classes and its allies towards revolutionary transformation of capitalist society and the construction of socialism and in time communism. Communists believed that their legitimation as a vanguard party came from the scientific understanding of politics and society that Marxism-Leninism gave them. Over the years changes in ideology and strategy took place, as the party moved away from orthodox Leninism and began to give greater importance to elections and creating broad alliances with other social and political forces, for example. Yet the CP remained offically committed to Marxism-Leninism and its basic structures and functioning remained unchanged, even after the truamatic events of 1956. But worth noting that the CP not homogenous, monolithic as CP leadership and opponents suggested

In CP publications very little about anarchism (more about dissident branches of Communist tradition eg Trotskyism (Hitler-Trotskyism, Trotskyist sects) and Maoism; partly due to the relatively marginal nature of anarchism in Britian. However, safe to assume that the CP’s pro-Sovietism would have led it to see anarchists as enemies of the Soviet state and support the suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion, Makhnovist movement in the Ukraine and anarchist activities in general in the USSR. It can also be assumed that the CP viewed anarchists as an irresponsible, disruptive nuisance who along with other sections of what it termed the ‘ultra-left’ prefered direct action to the creation of broad alliances.

Nevertheless, there were some historical links between British Communists and anarchists as well as some common ground between the two groups. The CP laid claim to William Morris as part of an indigenous radical tradition and a precurser of communism, allthough the it avoided mentioning that Morris had been opposed to the kind of ‘State Socialism’ that it advocated and had worked with anarchists in Socialist League. Syndicalists such as Tom Mann and AJ Cook were drawn to the CP in its early days. Communists and anarchists also cooperated in the peace movement, especially CND, during the Cold War. And they were obiously both opposed to capitalism and undertook extra-parliamentary activity, even though the kind of alternative societies they envisaged diverged markedly.

2. 1970s, CP — feminism,Gramsci

As mentioned above, the CP was never a homogeneous organization. During the 1970s in particular unoffical groupings began to appear in the party. One such grouping based on what historian of CP Geoff Andrews has called ‘Gramscism,’ in other words a particular interpretation of the writings of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci. Using the work of one of the founders of British Cultural Studies Stuart Hall, they stressed the importance of the concept of hegemony, according to which in advanced western societies the ruling class managed to secure the consent of other sections of society as a result of its economic, political, cultural and intellectual domination. The almost military Leninist type of party was deemed to be inappropriate by the Gramscians who favored the creation of a kind of organization that would embody the society it hoped to create and would therefore enable the party to establish closer links with other sections of society.

Feminists also had a distinct presence in the CP. Women such as Bea Campbell and Sarah Benton were leading Communist feminists and helped attract other feminists towards the party. In 1976, for example, a public event organized by Communist feminists was attended by over 700 people. Communist feminists were also involved in the publication and distribution of the magazine Red Rag. Like the Gramscians to whom they were closely linked, feminists criticized the functioning of the party. In an article for the review Marxism Today, the Communist feminist Caroline Rowan underlined the contradiction between the party’s hierarchical structures and its aim of creating relations between people not based on subordination. Other feminists and Gramscians criticized tactics such as caucusing, whereby Communists working in organizations such as trade unions or the peace movement would liaise before important meetings in order to work out a joint position and commit themselves to defending it together. By proceeding in this way, Communists were able to have their aims adopted as they were a disciplined and organized minority even though the majority might have rejected them. According to feminists and Gramscians, such methods might bring short term gains but they were the antithesis of open democratic politics and risked alienating noncommunists.

Feminists and Gramscians thus rejected Leninism in favor of prefigurative politics, which entailed, according to Benton, “making changes now that will prefigure the form of society you would like to live in [...], it resisted the idea that before there can be any fundamental social change before the revolutionary party must have state power. It had — and still has — all the attraction of direct action and a deeply moral purpose” (143). In other words, feminists and Gramscians emphasized change here and now rather than waiting for revolution and the importance of morality which replaced the traditional Communist emphasis on efficiency.

It’s tempting to see the evolution of Communist feminists and Gramscians simply in terms of the adoption of anarchists positions. In the words of one historian of anarchism, the “creation of the elements of the new society within the framework of the old and particularly within the framework of the revolutionary movement itself is of course a straight anarchist concept” (p88/9). It was adopted by the First International in Sonvillier circular of 1871 and by Anarchist St Imier International in a resolution in 1872 was central to Anarchists such as Landauer. Moreover, anarchists had for decades advocated horizontal forms of organization, participatory democracy and direct action. In addition, in the 1960s British anarchists such as Colin Ward had elaborated the concept of ‘permanent protest.’ Believing that the chances of a revolution in a Western society were minimal, they concentrated on creating new relations and institutions in the shell of the old society and attempted to work out practical alternatives on specific issues within framework of existing society. In the 1970s they were involved in squatting, communes and cooperatives.

British Eurcommunists, as the reformers were often called, thus adopted positions previously held by Anarchists. Nevertheless, the situation of British Communists in the 1970s was more complex. Gramscian Communists believed that in a war of position against bourgeois hegemony classical revolutionary scenarios were no longer relevant and that revolutionary change would be a long, protracted affair — what they called ‘revolution as a process.’ The traditional difference between before and after revolution therefore became blurred and less significant. This had implications for a revolutionary party, its organization and tactics, suggesting that the Leninst party was obsolete. The development of Gramscism must also be seen within the context of the evolution of the radical left in general and particularly that of the New Left. The ethical, moral approach of the New Left and its adoption of a broad conception of politics had led it away from orthodox Leninism. In 1970 Robin Blackburn, who was closely involved with the New Left Review, thus stated that the aim of the revolutionary left should be to “build a movement which already shows you in anticipation the sort of institutions that will characterize the best revolutionary society” (81). Gramscian Communists were thus part of a broader drift away from Leninism among forces to the left of the Labor Party.

Likewise Communist feminists were part of a broader movement. The British feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s developed in opposition to the centralized, hierarchical forms of organization of the traditional left, in its reformist and revolutionary forms and advocated independent direct action. The clearest expression of a critique of the traditional left came in the 1979 book Beyond the Fragments penned by Hilary Wainwright, Lynne Segal, and Sheila Rowbotham. In a chapter entitled “The women’s movement and organizing for socialism,” Sheila Rowbotham claimed that revolutionary organizations reproduced the power relationships and bureaucracy of capitalism and stated that, “ we need to strengthen and give space to the positive understandings which come from all our experiences of resisting capitalism” (132). One of the most significant features of the feminist movement was the creation of consciousness-raising groups in which small numbers of women were able to exchange their experiences of oppression, create a sense of solidarity and undertake joint action. These groups were similar to the affinity groups that anarchists had created in Spain during the Civil War, leading one historian to claim that “feminists are the only existing protest group that can honestly be called practicing anarchists” (Marshall, p 557). In fact, some feminists were attracted to anarchist analyzes of power and hierarchies and mixed with anarcho-feminists whose avowed aim was the erosion of power and authority rather than its transfer to another group or class. These ideas spread from the feminist movement into other organizations in which women were active such as the International Socialists (the forerunner of the Socialist Workers Party), the International Marxist Group and the CP.

It would be simplistic to state that a section of British Communists had simply converted to anarchism. Their questioning of Leninism and search for an alternative to it occurred at a time when others were also questioning hierarchical forms of organization, leading to the circulation of ideas within this radical milieu. The conjuncture was therefore favorable to the propagation of new ideas. Gramscism and feminism moved towards the adoption of prefigurative forms as a result of their own momentum and their own development, although there was some anarchist influence on feminism. The similarities between some aspects of the Communism proposed by Gramscians and feminists (or Eurocommunists as they were often jointly called) and anarchism were not openly admitted. It was more politically expedient for Eurcommunists to refer back to Gramsci, who was part of the Communist tradition, and/or to feminism, which was a social movement struggling against oppression. In addition, most Communists were not well versed in anarchist theory and politics (eg nothing in Marxism Today) and were unaware of the similarities I’ve just mentioned. It must be noted that there were significant differences between Communist and anarchist conceptions of prefigurative politics, the latter being part of a project linked to a political party which contested elections and aimed to achieve state power.

The Eurocommunists managed to have some indirect references to Grasmci and some more direct references to feminism incorporated into the 1977 version of the party’s program, the British Road to Socialism. Nevertheless, there was nothing about prefigurative politics. A commission was appointed to examine all aspects of inner-party democracy, but its composition was heavily weighted against the reformers, and unssurprisingly it rejected making any serious changes to the party’s structures. The reformers were reduced to signing the offical report and submitting a list of more radical proposals. The rejection of their demands was part of a more general backlash against change as the centrist leadersip sought to reimpose its authority. Yet, by the mid-1980s the changing internal balance of forces forced the leadership to ally with the reformers, who, once in positions of power, used the very structures they had previously damned to marginalize and expel their rivals. It was only when it was confronted with its own terminal decline as ewll as the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe that the CP finally abandoned Marxism-Leninsm and democratic centralism.

Democratic Left, the new post-communist organization, was committed to implementing prefigurative politics. The hierarchical structures of the CP were replaced by a horizontal organization with no intermediate levels between local groups and the Executive Committee. The meetings of the latter were open to all members. Members were encouraged to create horizontal issue-based networks within the organization as well as traditional geography-based groups. In its relations with others, Democratic Left did not seek a leading role but saw itself as a facilitator, bringing together people from different groups and organizations. However, members found it difficult to adapt to this new culture. Many still expected full-time party workers to organize activities and were reluctant to take initiatives themselves. As a result, the party’ activities soon decreased rapidly. Others complained that they had to shackle their own political identity in order to act as facilitators, limiting the visibility of Democratic Left. A cycle of decline set in, and the the New Politics Network, the successor to Democratic Left, has merged with Charter 88 in the Unlocking Democracy campaign.

From the early 1970s the CP was caught up in a general drift away from Leninism and a search for a less authoritarian and less hierarchical alternative. This move was shaped very marginally by the influence of anarchism and more directly by feminism and Gramscism. In the same way that Eurocommunism was situated between traditional social democracy and orthodox Communism, it was also, in some ways, between Communism and Anarchism, a half-house position which disturbed some Communists and former Communists, contributing to the decline of this particular section of the left. The case of British Communism and postCommunism shows the difficulty of combining red and black when this involves changing ingrained political habits and attitudes.