The Line of March to
a New Society
Presentation given by a representative of the Central
Committee at the release of the Political Report to the Third Congress of
RCPB(ML) on the Work of the Central Committee
Comrades and friends,
The significance of the 3rd Congress of the Revolutionary
Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) to us as we start the new
millennium is that it has opened up the line of march that will take us to a
new society, to a socialist Britain, as part of the struggles of the working
and oppressed peoples, the workers’ and communist movement world-wide for
emancipation. This is why we have given the Congress Report this title:
"The Line of March to a New Society". This line of march does not
mean that now everything is cut and dried. But it means that we have a clear
perspective. The experience of our Party, especially since 1994, summed up in
the 3rd Congress, has taught us how to build our history from one stage to the
next in the course of working out the line of march and the problems which
demand solution in the whole of society. Therefore, this is why the Report to
the 3rd Congress is such an important document, and becomes itself a weapon in
the struggle. We are very proud to be opening up the 21st century, the new
millennium with the publication and release of this document. There could be no
more fitting way that our work in this millennium could be opened up other than
with the publication of this document. Of course, this also means that all the
hard work is ahead of us, that we actually have to advance along this line of
march. But now the success of the Congress will give rise to the success of the
implementation of its decisions and its perspectives. We are confident that
this work too will be crowned with success, and that these successes in turn
will be transformed into lasting victory, into a realisation of a socialist
Britain, the deed of the working class and people themselves through social
revolution, so that the working class does indeed constitute itself the nation,
become the leading class and take the human and material resources under its
control, set its revolutionary stamp on society, and move to the elimination of
exploitation of persons by persons and finally achieve the goal of communism
and the classless society.
This 21st century ahead will be a century of unprecedented
revolutionary transformations. This is what we can confidently predict from the
whole history of the 20th century from our standpoint as communists engaged
without reservation in the struggle to transform society from capitalism to
socialism. The bourgeoisie cannot offer the people any bright future for the
21st century. Their world is full of incoherence, which they try to rescue by
imposing on the people a programme of being competitive globally while hatching
up various versions of the so-called Third Way to convince the people to go
along with this programme and accept that there is some hybrid system, some
mythical beast of a society which is neither capitalist nor socialist, to
convince the people that human development has ended apart from implementing
the programme of globalisation, that the future can only be guaranteed if they
do so, but that life consists of such hard choices.
For us the exact opposite is true. From the concrete
analysis of the objective situation and armed with the theory of Contemporary
Marxist-Leninist Thought, we can see how the human factor/social consciousness
can be brought into play so that humanity can march along the path that will
open the door to progress and bring about a new society based not on sentiment,
not a utopia, but a society which is born of the very conditions that exist in
today’s society, but provided all that is blocking the forward development
of such a society is cast off. This is the challenge to our Party and to
humankind, to remove those blocks to the development of society, to fight the
class struggle on these fronts where the space for change exists, to actually
bring about this change in a programme of practical politics, to bring the
gestation of the new society to its full term precisely along this line of
march.
In other words, our task is to prepare the subjective
conditions for revolution. This is one of the main themes of the Report, that
the whole reason for the Party’s existence to prepare these subjective
conditions, to prepare for the coming revolutionary storms is brought out in
The Line of March to a New Society. The Party itself is the number one
factor, the decisive instrument, the most conscious element in preparing these
conditions. We say that the objective conditions are ripe, in fact over-ripe,
that there is and can be no next stage of society except socialism, that
everything about this society cries out that such socialism should be brought
about. But that conversely this is the ruin of the bourgeoisie, it is the ruin
of the financial oligarchy and all exploiters. So all their efforts go into the
promotion that there is no next stage, that the working class should not go for
socialism.
The Political Report to the 3rd Congress brings out what
the main thesis of the Party’s 3rd Congress is. It points out that it is
the work of the Party and its Central Committee which brought the Party to the
3rd Congress and enabled us to stand on our own feet. The Report then stresses
that in order to rise to the occasion in the period which lies ahead into the
21st century and carry out its new plan of practical politics, the tasks which
are required to lift society out of the crisis and open the door to a socialist
Britain – what is necessary is that RCPB(ML) be consolidated on the new
historical basis. What this new historical basis is, is elaborated in the
report. The conscious factor is what underlies this new historical basis. It
involves all the members, all the Marxist-Leninists, in being political, not
confining themselves to agreeing or disagreeing, not just being members of a
basic organisation but actually working out ways to wage the class struggle in
practice at the appropriate level. It requires organisations that combine
action with analysis. In this context, the Report raises the importance of
settling scores with the old philosophic conscience. Here it is the new parts
company with the old, what is revolutionary parts company with what is
conciliatory. Settling scores with the old philosophic conscience is not
something obscure or esoteric that we are putting forward. It is crucial to
Marxist-Leninists finding their bearings. It determines whether it is
revolution that is being organised or something else. One can be very
"left" sounding but not be settling scores with what is old. And this
struggle dates right back to the time of Marx when he put forward that
philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, but the issue is
to change it. He put forward that the most radical rupture was required, not
only with the old property relations but with the whole superstructure and
pervading ideology that protects and defends those old property relations. This
is the radical rupture, this is the settling of scores with the old conscience,
that Marx and Engels came to the conclusion must be carried out in their day.
And they did so by going into the essence of things. All forms of social
democracy deny that scores must be settled with the old conscience. Margaret
Thatcher was a Conservative. She was and is a whole-hearted advocate of
privatisation and the neo-liberal agenda. She made no bones about her support
for capitalism, and was "radical" only in the sense that she pushed
forward the programme of privatisation and neo-liberalism, the adoption of 19th
century values on the economic basis of the rule of the monopolies. In
dismantling the state sector of monopoly capitalism and dismantling the welfare
state to suit the needs of the monopolies, at the same time she promoted the
"trickle-down" effect and "people’s capitalism" as to
how the people were supposed to benefit from this neo-liberal agenda. But the
people were up in arms against such an agenda. At this point in Britain comes
Tony Blair, after the interregnum of John Major where "style of
leadership" was changed without changing the substance of the policies,
without departing from Thatcherism. Blair has done a service to the whole
bourgeoisie internationally by his elaboration of this "Third Way",
the attempt to re-impose a coherence on the crisis-ridden capitalist society.
Logic shows that if the programme of privatisation and neo-liberalism that
Thatcher put forward has not only failed to lift society out of its crisis but
is a factor exacerbating the crisis, then without further ado the whole motive
of this society should be changed. The whole direction of the economy should be
changed, society should move forward to socialism. But Tony Blair comes up with
the "Third Way", a modernised and renovated social democracy that is
supposedly neither capitalism nor socialism, that is neither pro-worker nor
pro-capitalist, that is neither old left nor new right. It is supposed to
transcend all these divisions and release the British genius. In this context,
Blair too claims to be "radical" just as Thatcher before him. But
actually to be radical is to transform society at its root. In other words, to
be actually radical also means that scores have to be settled with the old.
Settling scores is the last thing that Tony Blair wants to do, apart from
settling scores with the independent working class programme. This Third Way is
all elaborated, and one of the latest things is that a TUC journal is set up.
This comes after the special TUC conference on social partnership last year, at
which both John Monks and Tony Blair elaborated that the key thing for the
workers and the trade unions is what is in it for the employers, that
capitalists and workers should be "partners for progress". And note
that this word "progress" is being introduced which becomes one of
the main themes of the "Third Way", that under the signboard of
progress, in fact retrogression and medievalism, the promotion of 19th century
liberal values takes place. Up till now, workers have thought of trade unions
as their fighting organisations to defend their interests. They and us may have
criticisms of them and how well they are doing their job. But at least there
was a consensus that this should be their aim. But Tony Blair and John Monks
are assigning a completely different role to the trade unions. The trade unions
themselves are to become tools for the benefit of the employers. This is called
"new unionism in the workplace". It is to seek common ground with the
employers. There is to be partnership at work. Partnership can beat militancy.
So this is a call for the workers to get behind the capitalists of their
enterprise in the conditions of globalisation, when being competitive in the
global market is everything and further monopolisation is the order of the day.
Nothing could be worse for the financial oligarchy and the government than
workers fighting for their interests. And not just for their interests but to
put forward solutions, to have an independent voice in society. Now having also
set up a new trade union journal, Blair begins the new year by writing that
unions should not even think about politics, and not just unions but workers
themselves. The unions should just provide services for the workers. Of course,
they are not to be debarred from putting forward the politics of partnership at
work. Of course this whole Blairite thesis is to be opposed, but social
democracy gets very flustered by it, that the union leadership is being
debarred from having its influence and is having its links with New Labour
loosened. The point here is then that social democracy conciliates with all
these Third Way illusions that Tony Blair and an increasing number of
government cronies internationally of the "centre-left" are fostering
in the working class. Who is to step forward and put forward the independent
programme of the working class, that can rally them to occupy the space for
change, that can challenge the bourgeoisie in trials of strength on particular
fronts of this programme, that within the very movement against the anti-social
offensive and for the victory of the pro-social programme can begin to create
the subjective conditions for revolution? Social democracy cries, not us!
Liberalism cries, don’t look at me! It is true that the direction of
society is causing havoc for the people, it is instituting cut after cut in
social programmes, it is enriching beyond measure the financial oligarchy, it
is leading to increased tensions and armed interventions internationally. But
as for settling scores with the old conscience, that would be a bridge too far!
The workers would never follow us, they say, if we made such a clean break. At
the same time, all varieties of the old ideology are promoted and given
currency within the working class, which leads to their spiritual disarming, to
their ideological disarming, to reluctance to break with passivity and a
holding back from organising for their own emancipation and the emancipation of
all sections of the people and entire society.
(To be continued)
