More on the LCR congress

The congress of the LCR (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire) in Paris closed its main debate - on the "theses" and draft congress manifestos of the different "platforms" - on Friday 25th, and today (Saturday 26th), the main debate was on a motion about future organisation of youth work.

The outgoing leaderships of the LCR and of the youth group linked to it, the JCR, said that the "new party" which the LCR intends to launch should not have a separate youth organisation.

The JCR, like the LCR, should dissolve into the "new party". There should be youth sections within the new party - and a national committee coordinating them, with a publication and a website of its own - and they should have autonomy in youth work, but all young members should be in the party, and all young members of the party should be in the youth sections.

The aim is to tidy up the unsatisfactory and patchy situation of the present day, where some young activists are in the LCR but not in the JCR; some are in the JCR but not in the LCR; some are in both; etc.

No-one disputed the basic idea. A couple of speakers complained that the proposal was "too detailed", and pre-empted things which should be decided by the "new party", but that's all.

The congress now moves on to closed sessions at which it will amend the LCR constitution, take the votes on the documents, and elect the new LCR committee.

I'll add below to the brief reports I gave on Friday's and Saturday's debates, and report on some conversations outside the congress sessions. One LCR member asked me to put down in writing some questions I'd raised about the future direction of the LCR and the "new party", so I'll try to do that in another contribution.

The Picquet/Libération row

The debate on Saturday was a bit less good-natured than on Friday, because on Saturday morning Libération (a leftish daily paper, like the Guardian I suppose) appeared with an interview from Christian Picquet, editor of the LCR paper Rouge and leader of the "Platform B" minority.

No-one minded Picquet talking to the press. The LCR is not only open about its debates, but happy to have the press around.

The openness is good. It must surely be an advantage for the LCR that its congresses get breathless coverage in the mass-circulation press - if only AWL conferences got that sort of mass publicity!

I rather thought that the LCR could impose a few more restrictions on the press without damaging itself or opening itself to charges of secretiveness. Every time Olivier Besancenot came into the congress hall, it would be with a cluster of camera-people and microphone-wielding journalists around him. And in the corridors and at the coffee counter outside, every time you looked round there was a prominent LCR member - Besancenot, Alain Krivine, François Sabado, whoever - being interviewed by a journalist.

All that is by the by. What caused complaint was what Picquet had said to the Guardian-type journalist. "Basically, Olivier Besancenot has not really moved from his ultra-left line... As the project has been concretised, the definition of the new party becomes more and more 'revolutionary', and claims to be addressed only to 'revolutionaries'. People will thus understand that the proposed basis for the new party are those of the LCR today, and that the LCR wants to instrumentalise them.

"This risks a high political cost, from the refusal to discuss with the anti-neoliberal sensibilities existing elsewhere, from the Communist Party through the 'alternative' forces to the left currents in the Socialist Party, and the decision to appeal only to the 'anonymous' people in the struggles, to the 'everyday heroes'... It is a head-over-heels orientation".

It was not the fact of Picquet talking to the press and explaining his disagreements that caused anger, but what was seen as the destructive way of doing it.

I said to some majority supporters that I thought Platform B's concern for the idea of independent working-class political representation was right, but that Platform B was interpreting the idea badly (taking it to mean that the revolutionaries should not put forward their own politics, but instead should promote some weaker political formula sagely calculated so as to be able, hypothetically, to "represent" the majority of the working class). They were inclined to react with a snort. "Sure, everyone agrees with independent working-class political representation. But platform B is just using the idea as a cover for opportunist politics".

I noticed, however, that a lot of the congress speakers for platform B were young. That surprised me. The sceptical tone of platform B's arguments seemed unlikely to appeal to young activists, and, with all due regard for the dangers of personalising politics, Christian Picquet's demeanour is not at all that of the leader of a group of ardent young Trotskyists. I have no explanation, but the fact is, there were quite a few young LCR members speaking for platform B.

Some platform B members, so far as I can discover, are not that unhappy about their certain defeat at the congress. If the "new party" initiative produces only an expanded LCR, well, maybe that is missing a chance to create something "broader", but none of them seemed to have any great confidence about that "broader" thing being possible soon anyway, and a bigger LCR must be better than a smaller one.

Some other platform B supporters, apparently, had already quit before the congress, taking seriously the implication in platform B's arguments that the LCR is no good unless it can, and soon, get rid of itself and merge into a big leftish-but-definitely-not-revolutionary "broad party".

References in the debate - or lack of them

An odd thing in the congress - and, as far as I can see from skim-reading, in the pre-congress discussion bulletins too - is the lack of detailed consideration of the experience of other left-wing "new parties".

François Sabado, speaking on Friday, said that the fate of the Workers' Party in Brazil and Rifondazione in Italy showed the strength of the pressures to "institutionalise" the radical left, and concluded that the LCR should draw a line in the "new party" project against "managing the system within the framework of the established institutions". The new party should be for "revolutionary change" and "workers' power". (More later on the aptness or otherwise of these parameters).

A platform B speaker said well, Brazil and Italy had been failures, but the Linkspartei in Germany was a success.

A platform A speaker commented on platform B's preference for a "broader" political basis that Fausto Bertinotti, leader of Rifondazione, had freely proclaimed himself communist and Marxist, and "we know where he is today".

A few passing, favourable, references were made to the Left Bloc in Portugal (an alliance of the Portuguese co-thinkers of the LCR, an ex-Maoist group, and a splinter group from the Communist Party).

That is about all.

None of the platform A speakers mentioned the Linkspartei. Nobody said a word about the Scottish Socialist Party. Nobody said anything at all about Respect, although two articles about the Respect split appeared in Rouge just before the congress, one by Alan Thornett defending Galloway, and one by Chris Bamberry putting the SWP line.

(There are two small currents within the LCR linked to the SWP - an "official" one, SPEB, and an "unofficial" one, Socialisme International. Neither played any visible role in the congress. Both are more or less on the wavelength of platform B, though SPEB, apparently just for the sake of being on the winning side, backed platform A at the congress).

The other odd thing in the debate - for me - was the lack of historical or theoretical references. We do not want caricature "Trotskyist" debates carried out by way of exchanging quotations from historic texts and appeals to the authority of long-dead writers. But if we do not learn from the past, what else is there to do with it?

The LCR's chief theoretician, Daniel Bensaid, did not speak in the debates, and in fact seemed to spend much of the time helping out at the coffee serving-counter.

Empirical assessments

But, you may say, isn't that good? Instead of being a matter of juggling with analogies from other countries and epochs, the debate was realistic, empirical, focused on the immediate circumstances in France?

Not really. Some platform A supporters evidently think that the "new party" will be set up within months, and will be something much larger than the LCR. Others whom I spoke to were sceptical about whether anything sizeable is possible (but had backed platform A because it was less "liquidationist" than platform B).

I asked two members of the Démocratic Révolutionnaire current (a left-wing grouping within the LCR in recent years, which was part of platform A at the congress) what they expected in terms of the "new party". Sylvie and Angela are comrades whose judgement and good sense I respect.

Both flatly refused to make predictions. No precise predictions, with numbers and dates, are possible, they said. It is a matter of a general orientation.

I can see sense in that answer up to a point, but only up to a point. "On s'engage et puis on voit", as Trotsky said, quoting Napoleon. But before Napoleon gave battle, he assessed the terrain, his forces, the enemy's forces, his realistic hopes from victory, and his realistic fears from defeat.

One platform B speaker, in the congress, said that platform A's hopes were greatly exaggerated, because all the meetings so far of "collectives for a new party", round the country, have attracted a total of no more than 2000 people. The LCR itself claims about 3000 members. One platform A speaker referred to well-attended meeting of railworkers round the "new party" idea, and estimated that maybe 100 railworkers would be willing to join the "new party". What is the overall picture? No-one offered any detailed empirical analysis.

There was much general talk about "globalisation" working to integrate the traditional Socialist Parties and Communist Parties into programmes of counter-reform, about workers and young people no longer trusting the SP and CP, and about large numbers wanting to fight back and feeling the lack of a political party that will support them.

But platform A supporters, in conversation, would also concede that there has been a general retreat of working-class consciousness, organisation, and confidence in France. Plainly this retreat is nowhere near as bad as in Britain, and the revolutionary left in France has a profile and a periphery out of all proportion to what we have in Britain.

But take the electoral successes of the revolutionary left in France. At first sight they give the impression that a small but significant minority has been developed, four or five per cent of the electorate, which will vote regularly for the revolutionary left. Becoming active is different from voting. But if even one per cent of those voters would become active, that is a potential activist force of 15,000.

Worth going for? Yes. Except that more detailed research - by academics, but I know about it by reading a summary in the LCR's own magazine - shows, sadly, that the picture of the solid revolutionary four per cent is an illusion. Very few people vote consistently rather than occasionally for the revolutionary left. About 4% of the population say, when asked, that they "identify with" the revolutionary left more than with the mainstream left or the mainstream right; but, unexpectedly, the majority of that 4% do not vote revolutionary left (they may not vote at all, or they may vote for the mainstream left, for various reasons), and the majority of those who vote revolutionary left do not "identify with" it.

The arguments of Lutte Ouvrière

The response from Lutte Ouvrière to the LCR's project seems, at first sight, almost a caricature of a dour, closed-off mentality. They wish it well, they say, but they do not wish to take part, because they wish to build a real revolutionary organisation.

As explained to me by Jean-Pierre Vial, the LO observer at the LCR congress, there is more sense to it. LO has experiences of good electoral results, they say, and knows from experience that it is very hard to "capitalise" on them by drawing large numbers into activity.

LO's assessment is that France is going through a period of serious retreat of working-class organisation and consciousness. In such a period, their chief task is to hold on, to keep their organisation and their ideas sharp. They do not really believe that the LCR can pull off anything big. They won't do anything to obstruct the LCR, or discourage people who want to join with it, but they don't want to risk their own organisation and clear political profile in an enterprise in whose chances they have no real confidence.

It can be replied that LO tends to exaggerate the retreat because it tends to identify "class-conscious workers" in France too simplistically with the old Communist Party cadre core - which has indeed declined catastrophically - and that the LCR is "temperamentally" much better fitted to carry off a broad regroupment than LO. But the core of LO's argument is not absurd.

If the LCR majority - which includes comrades whose judgement I have learned to respect - estimates that it has a real chance of pulling off a big regroupment, it is certainly not for me to say no. And an attempt at a regroupment which, in the end, can only produce a somewhat bigger LCR, will certainly not be a waste of time.

I do think, however, that some empirical assessments and estimates would be in order. Vagueness will lead either to exaggerated expectations, and then demoralising disappointment; or to unnecessarily limited expectations, and then possible failure to seize opportunities. The case for the "new party", with prospective members, has to depend to some considerable degree on estimates of what that "new party" can do - beyond what the LCR can do now - and those estimates depend quite crudely and brutally on numbers.

The international dimension

One of the LCR's merits used to be its lively interest in international issues (even if we often thought what it said about those international issues was wrong!) That has shrunk recently, as the organisation's attention has been more and more focused on election campaigns and trade-union activity in France.

The paucity of international references in the "new party" discussion was, perhaps, an index of that. Another was the report, on Thursday, of the "international commission" of the LCR. In short, the report said that the commission has had much difficulty in basic functioning. And that, mark you, in an LCR which is buoyant and has recruited thousands of keen new activists in recent years.

There was a range of international observers at the congress. The presence of an observer from the Communist Party of Cuba, disconcertingly, got applause when it was announced, though no more than the polite applause that greeted all such announcements (including that of the presence of an AWL observer, announced together with a few others...)

The louder-than-usual applause was for observers from the Lebanese Communist Party and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. I guess the applause was just a symbol of proper general sympathy for the cause of Palestinian self-determination (the LCR has never been for the destruction of Israel); but, reading what I have read about the decline of the Lebanese CP into a junior alliance-partner with Hizbullah, I couldn't feel happy about it.

I had useful and interesting discussions with a comrade from the "Federation of the Alternative Left" in Switzerland. It one of three groups in Switzerland which are broadly aligned with the LCR-centred "Fourth International", though the FI, apparently, does not grant even observer status to any of the three. The FAL is focused on trade-union work; makes a solid effort at "party-building" (despite having only 40 members, it publishes three papers, in three different languages, for three different language-areas of Switzerland where it is active); is highly critical of Chavez (earning hostility on that count, so the comrade said, from all other currents of the Swiss left); has no illusions in the Linkspartei; and does not agree with the view, common in the LCR, that discussion of Stalinism is now "out of date".

I explained to the comrade some of the arguments on the left in Britain. When I mentioned that most left groups in Britain advocate the destruction of Israel, she rolled her eyes and exclaimed: "Two peoples, two states! It's obvious, isn't it?" Too true. A connection to follow up...

Chris Harman was there to observe from the SWP; an observer from the Socialist Party was announced, though I never saw her or him; there was no observer from the ISG (the small group in Britain formally linked with the LCR).