The problem with the ULA

Joe Carter

14 July 2011

The report of the ULA gathering on 25th June gives a good flavour of the speeches and the contributions made at the meeting but the conclusion of the article is not correct.  This conclusion is that the fundamental problem facing the ULA is organisational and that democratic organisation, in the form of a new party, would provide the means to sort this out.(1)  If the fundamental problem is itself the lack of a democratic  party then obviously creation of such a party is the solution.  This does not however address how this solution might be brought about.

It is clear that both the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Party do not believe that this is the biggest problem, but rather that it is creation of an effective resistance to the cuts and the general assault of the Government, EU and IMF that is most important.  I don’t think that Socialist Democracy disagrees with this latter point but argues that creation of a democratic workers party would be a great step towards addressing this problem.  The problem then becomes the relationship between resistance and the creation of such a party.  This provides a context in which it is possible to look at how a solution to the lack of democratic organisation might be brought about.

Politics

For the major organisations involved, and possibly for almost all independents, the politics that inform the ULA and its various elements are more or less adequate to the current crisis.  The argument appears over how they might be applied, with the SWP arguing that downplaying socialism, while retaining its content, is the way forward while the SP argues that the word socialism is no barrier to wider mobilisation and organisation and is an ultimate goal we should never shy away from.  In this debate the SWP labours minor tactical points about who should be invited onto platforms of meetings and whose name should be on the posters that publicise them.  These are of course minor questions, which are not at all the point, and can be agreed or disagreed depending on circumstances.  Points like these don’t clarify anything very much.

On the other hand the SP argument falls into the trap that it expressly denies and socialism becomes an ultimate goal unconnected to the means that are supposed to will it into existence.  This raises a much deeper and wider debate which I do not intend to enter into here.  It has already been covered on this site and is referred to in the short report on the ‘what is socialism’ discussion at the ULA gathering.

To illustrate what is meant by this I will give three examples.

Both the SWP and SP called for nationalisation as the solution to the banking predicament, which has been central to the whole economic crisis.  The effective nationalisation of the native banking sector by the Irish State has demonstrated that this is far from a socialist solution.  In fact nationalisation has been the means to implement the attack on the working class.  In effect both organisations regard nationalisation, that is, take-over by a capitalist state they purport to wish to destroy, as something progressive.  This is most apparent in the case of the SWP where too often their proffered solutions to the crisis involve nationalisation, full stop.

In the case of the Socialist Party such a demand is usually accompanied by the call for workers’ control of the banks but this is always seen as something to be conceded by the state, not grasped from its clutches.  In any case workers control of the banking system is almost a call to revolution and socialism.  Because we are nowhere near either, unfortunately, it becomes vacuous and empty.  As an educational tool it fails to explain what the workers should do and is irrelevant as a means of mobilisation for this reason.  It does in reality amount to a call for revolution, which only the deranged could believe is on any practical agenda.

The second example was briefly reported from the ‘what is socialism’ workshop.  At this the SP speaker said that if workers took over control of a workplace, as a matter of practicality, the SP would favour handing it over to the state for ownership.  This was a truly astounding statement that belied all the previous talk that socialism was workers taking over society and not ownership by the capitalist state.  At the very least the SP might want to ponder on the disjunction between what they think of as socialism and the means by which they think it might be brought about.

The third example is the endorsement by the SWP of the five-point plan of Terrence McDonough which involved leaving the Euro and reintroduction of the Punt.  He was honest enough to say that this wasn’t a socialist policy and to state clearly that multinational investment would not be deterred because costs would fall.  The SWP never paused to wonder just what ‘costs’ would fall.  It would of course be wages – they would be devastated.  This nationalist policy is not only an illusion but is also reactionary but once again appears attractive to major sections of the left because it relies on the (capitalist) state for implementation. 

For Socialist Democracy there are also questions.  How can it be written, as it was in the article on the ULA gathering, that the major constituents of the ULA have an incorrect understanding of the role of the capitalist state in the struggle for socialism and then say that lack of democratic organisation is the biggest problem?  This can only add up if it is believed that democratic organisation is the key to overcoming this, but is it?

Politics II

In fact the very end of the article points to what is by far and away the most important problem faced by the ULA.  This is missed because it is only pointed to and not touched.

The article is based on the recognition that the ULA is a response of the SP and SWP to the pressure of working class people in the run-up to the general election.  For the latter the divisions on the left don’t make sense; they are familiar with parties but not with ill-defined alliances.  The former has clear messages and the latter does not. The former can appear as an alternative and the latter does not.  The tentative steps towards unity since the election are themselves a response to this sort of pressure.  If the ULA has not yet been transformed into a democratic workers’ party, this is the reason and this is the problem.

The ULA reflects the bitterness, resentment and anger of working people but it does not reflect their militant organisation and action in defence of their rights and living standards.  After initial demonstrations and threats of strike action the response from Irish workers has been feeble.  In the general election they elected a coalition of parties committed to the policies of the previous government but supported them simply because they weren’t the previous government.

Capitalism may create its own grave digger in the shape of the working class but it creates it in the shape in which it itself is created.  Weak Irish capitalism has created a weak Irish working class and this in turn has moulded the left into its current shape.

The key to the future success of the ULA currently lies outside its ranks: in the thousands of workers who over the next couple of years must decide whether they are going to fight back and resist or unconsciously follow the false old republican maxim that it is those who can suffer the most who will prevail.

This does not mean the ULA has no role to play in mobilising the working class, it obviously does.   The ULA must also inform the working class of the future that exists within its current struggle, to paraphrase Marx and Engels.(2)  If the ULA fails in both tasks then the warning by one speaker at the start of the meeting that the ULA will be left behind by a new rising working class movement will be proved correct, and in such circumstances this would be welcomed.

Priorities

The current ULA provides an opportunity to go beyond the existing left wing organisations and these organisations recognise  this, they just fundamentally believe that this is not necessary because they trust that within themselves they have the political requisites to lead the working class.  Getting bigger is the name of the game not transformation.  When it is almost wholly a question of numbers who gets these numbers is the most important issue and provides the ground for continued organisational sectarianism. 

This is why it is most likely that any new party which is created would have pluralism as one of its ‘values’ which means continuing with such an approach but within a formal party framework.  Pluralism of course is not democracy.  It might even be called sectarianism with a human face.

For Socialist Democracy the priority must be to advance it views on how the working class can begin to resist and how such resistance can be made socialist.  Formulations which state that the key is democracy within the ULA leads to circularities, such as that we want a democratic party because we want a democratic party and we will achieve a democratic party by having a democratic party.

Notes

(1) “However, the biggest problem with the ULA is not its polices (which in democratic organisation can be debated and changed) but its structure.”  United Left Alliance Convention report, 30 June 2011. 

 (2)“The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”  The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.