Getting Splinters
S
ince our foundation in 1904, membership of the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been conditional on acceptance of the Party’s Object and Declaration of Principles. All applicants for membership are required to undertake a short written or verbal ‘test’ designed to enable them to demonstrate an understanding of – and agreement with – this Object and Principles and also of the Party’s basic political positions not otherwise directly covered in the Declaration. There has been a sound reason for this as all members, once admitted, have full democratic rights and stand in basic equality to one another. This kind of political democracy can only work on the basis of agreement around fundamental principles and there would be no point in a socialist organisation giving full democratic rights to those who, in any significant way, disagreed with the socialist case. The outcome of that would be entirely predictable. Naturally, in an organisation of critical thinkers that has endured for a century, the existence of some disagreement is inevitable. Indeed, it would be true to say that a fair number of internal debates and disagreements have arisen in the Socialist Party concerning issues not covered by the Declaration of Principles and not addressed in the initial membership test – in other words, issues which are somewhat peripheral or incidental rather than core and fundamental. These issues have included the Party’s exact attitude to trade unionism, its view of capitalist economic crises, and – in more recent years – whether something akin to law will exist in socialist society. There have been some event-specific debates too – such as over the Party’s precise attitude to the Spanish Civil War A pamphlet from the ‘Social in 1936, to the Hungarian Uprising in Science Association’ 1956 and then to the movements for political democracy in the Soviet-bloc states in the 1980s. On other, far fewer, occasions, small groups of Party members, sometimes concerned by the Party’s pace of growth (or lack of growth in some periods) have developed ideas which have challenged the Party’s basic, core positions more clearly. Having initially agreed with the Party’s principles and analysis they developed a political critique which challenged these positions at a more fundamental level. But even in these instances, only a handful of disputes have been so serious that they have led to organisational breakaways, and for a political body that has seen thousands of members join over a century of activity, this is remarkable. While sometimes damaging to the Party, these have always involved very small numbers of dissidents who have either left the organisation voluntarily or who have been expelled by a Party Poll. In each case they have
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been more an instance of splintering than splitting. For the historical record, six splinters of the various kinds discussed above can be readily identified. They are detailed below in chronological order.
The Socialist Propaganda League The early dispute in the Socialist Party which led to the formation of the tiny Socialist Propaganda League was the product of the optimistic belief of the Party’s founder members that the socialist revolution was near. A group of members around Harry Martin and Augustus Snellgrove wanted the Party to take a definitive stand on the attitude socialist delegates elected to parliament or local councils would take towards reform measures proposed by one or more of the capitalist parties. In February 1910 a letter from “W.B. (Upton Park)” was sent to the Socialist Standard asking “What would be the attitude of a member of the SPGB if elected to Parliament, and how would he maintain the principle of ‘No Compromise’?” The perspective of this small group of members was that no reform of capitalism could ever be supported by the party claiming to represent working class interests as it was not the job of socialists to take part in the running of capitalism. Any attempt to do so would run counter to the famous ‘hostility clause’ of the Declaration of Principles. The Standard ’s reply on the matter, backed by the Party’s Executive Committee, stated that each issue would have to be looked at on its merits and the course to be pursued decided democratically. This did not satisfy the members who had raised the question, who formed a ‘Provisional Committee’ aimed at overturning the position espoused in the Standard’s reply and who set their case out in an ‘Open Letter’ to Party members, arguing that socialists were required to oppose measures introduced by capitalist parties on each and every occasion. This was again rebutted firmly by the EC who contended that it would be ridiculous for socialists, by way of example, to oppose a measure designed to stop a war in which the working class was being butchered. Believing this approach to be a violation of the principle of ‘no compromise’ several members resigned over this issue during 1911, a small number going on to found the Socialist Propaganda League. The SPL’s principal speaker and writer was Harry Martin, Snellgrove having been one of those from the Provisional Committee later to rejoin. Though Martin was sympathetic to the Party in all other respects, he continued to denounce the SPGB’s willingness to engage in ‘political trading’ in pamphlets and on the
Socialist Standard June 2004
