The Commonwealth Party and the Communist Party |

(First appeared in Prometheus Journal 15 January, 2025 | This version includes some minor clarifications)

The left in England is in disarray since the defeat of the Corbyn movement. It has led to discussion and debate about the need for a new party. What kind of party should it be? What programme should it organise around? To answer these questions we should begin with the distinction between Social Democracy and Communism. 

Social democracy is the mass politics of a working class that supports liberal parliamentary democracy, trade unions and economic and social reforms. It forms a national party in different nations and states and seeks international allies and organisations, such as the First and Second Internationals. Social democracy may talk about socialism in one country whilst in practice supporting the aspirations of the working class for the reform of capitalism and a better life for all (health, welfare, incomes, work, education etc.)

The Labour Party is controlled by Right social democracy (i.e. social liberalism) now in office as His Majesty’s Labour Government. Left social democracy, represented in the Corbyn movement and ‘Corbyn’ Labour, won the Labour leadership in 2015 and fought the 2017 and 2019 elections. Today Left social democracy is trying to recover from defeat. Many supporters have left or been driven out of the Labour Party. It is divided and fragmented. A few left Labour MPs and their supporters remain inside the party with independent MPs, and parties such as the Workers Party of Britain, Collective, five Independent MPs, TUSC and Transform etc.   

Communism supports the liberation of the world from capitalism. It recognises the revolutionary role of the world working class. Human liberation is directly connected with the abolition of capitalist property (i.e. private and state ownership of the means of production). In essence the communist party is a world party, as recognised in the Third and Fourth (communist) Internationals. 

The international communist movement is still shaped by the defeat of the Russian revolution and the struggle between Stalinism and Trotskyism. In England and the rest of the UK, many small ‘parties’, including the SWP, the Socialist Party of England and Wales, the Communist Party of Britain, Counterfire, the Alliance of Workers Liberty, and the Communist Party of Great Britain compete with each other for the national leadership of the working class. 

The liquidation of the USSR brought the epoch of Stalinism and Trotskyism to an end even though its shadow still casts a dark cloud over communist politics today. Nevertheless a new communism – international republican communism – is emerging from the failure of the old communism corrupted by ‘economism’ and revealing itself in opportunism and left communist sectarianism. Republican communism must stand against Stalinism and Trotskyism and for a new world party of republican communism. 

Social democracy and communism

There is a considerable burden of sectarianism in the mutual antagonism of social democracy and communism. Many communists adopt a position of intellectual superiority. An aristocracy of communism looks down on the ignorant ‘peasants’ of social democracy. In response the social democratic workers despise the arrogance and stupidity of the communist aristocracy and many see them as sectarians disconnected from the real world.

It is not a matter of a strict interpretation of this text written in 1847 but to recognise the ‘spirit’ of this in the hostility of Marx and Engels to the sectarian idea that the communists should set up their own sect separate from broader mass parties of the working class. In the British working class movement this was the central question in the relationship in 1920 between the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Labour Party. In the post war period it was reflected in the British Road to Socialism that sought a close relationship among the Broad Left and whether Trotskyists should be inside the Labour Party or organise groups such as Labour Party Marxists.  Under conditions of a global crisis of capitalism and imperialism and the crisis of the British social monarchy it is necessary to find the programmatic basis by which social democratic workers and communists can unite and work together for the common interests of the working class. Then it is possible to consider the organisational form.

Mass party of the working class

There is no basis for a mass communist party in the UK. The existing fragmented communist groups are wedded to Stalinism or Trotskyism. Although republican communism is a revolutionary democratic break with these two main ideologies it is far too weak to launch an alternative world party. Of course the case for a different kind of world party needs to be made. 

There is, however, the basis for a mass social democratic party in England and the rest of the UK. This possibility was shown in the rise of the Corbyn movement with hundreds of thousands of supporters in the Labour Party and millions of votes won in 2017 and 2019. Despite the defeat and fragmentation of the Corbyn movement, the conditions for a mass party still exist not least with the war in Gaza, the Palestinian solidarity movement and the defeat of the Tories in 2024.

Republican communists should work together to educate and organise internationally for a new post Stalinist-Trotskyist world party. This task should not be set in opposition to the efforts of social democratic workers to build a mass party of the working class in England and the rest of the UK. On the contrary social democrats and communists must work together to unite the working class movement and build a mass social democratic labour party. 

The Republican Labour Education Forum is not a communist organisation. It has members and supporters who are social democrats and communists. It is not a party, or a substitute for one, but an education forum working on the politics, ideology and programme for a mass republican party. Our central argument is the working class movement must break with the social-monarchism. If there is no radical rupture, the left will remain stuck in a doom loop trying to repeat the Labour’s seriously flawed 2017 and 2019 social monarchist programmes.

In 2024 the Labour left is divided between those social democrats and trade unions still in the British Labour Party and those outside. The RLEF has been making the case for the left in the Labour Party to campaign for a ‘republican Labour Party’ and for the left outside Labour to make the case for a ‘commonwealth party’. These two slogans are complementary and directed to overcoming the divided left around a democratic programme. This implies a two-pronged approach to the social democratic left.

Further to the left are communists, who have international political tasks that are unique to them and not supported by the broad mass of social democratic workers. However social democratic workers and communists can and should unite in the struggle for a mass social democratic labour party. The fundamental question is what programme should they unite around? If communist have any use to the working class beyond sectarian self-promotion it is in fighting for a minimum social democratic programme. This does not prevent or hinder communists continuing to promote the idea of world communism and a world party. 

Left communists reject the idea that there can be principled unity between social democratic workers and communists in one party. Republican communists should look to the Communist Manifesto and reject the sectarian idea that a few communist sects should set up another national communist ‘party’ outside the social democratic movement and in opposition to it.