The SSP: The last 18 Months and a rapidly changing society

Scottish Socialist Party
First published 4th June 2006

Clearly the political experiment that is the SSP has stalled.

Platforms and loose coalitions of comrades are at each others throats.

Bullying is rife and the SSP has revealed itself to be a party trapped in a cultural time warp where little men act as if they are Red Clydesiders. They use the rhetoric of class war to advance their own position against the rest of us less impressed by Machismo posturing.

Patriarchy within the party is self-evident and the passivity of the women's network revealed. Some women comrades are either passive in the face of male power or actively support it as we have seen with the SWP whose woman comrades support the latest SWP line.

Cliques abound and factional in-fighting leaves the broad membership from powerful participation in political discussion. Having your voice heard in this party if you are not a member of the "in crowd" is difficult, most members try but fail.

Elitism among progressive comrades is also obvious. The most progressive within the party rely heavily on contacts with the Scottish intelligentsia, paid social activists and assorted media stars to bolster their position internally.

Discrimination against comrades with disabilities is also obvious and the disability network exiled to the outer reaches of the party.

Grand strategists, the magicians of knowledge occupy the centre and progressive knowledge and ideas meant to empower others used instead as a means of intellectualising and justifying special privileges for an elite few. Political privilege and patronage entrenched, not for financial gain as in other parties but for personal gain never the less. It's empowering being heard and valued is it not?

Elitism, intellectual hubris, self-deceit and deceit towards others are everywhere.

The clarion calls to be "positive" are already being heard. This or that class warrior or earnest revolutionary points excitedly towards the "working class" or the"community" and urge us all "to get out there" and put our differences behind us.

Any notion of self-analysis is attacked as being "negative" and one can well understand why. There are some members who will not fare well with introspection. Deep in their hearts, or more accurately their minds lurk the shadows of a previous culture now extinct.

They are yesterday's psychology in today's party with emotional attitudes towards themselves and others evolved in a patriarchal and bullying culture and family. These internalised lessons are broadcast unconsciously. At least unconsciously to some, though not to the rest of us who look on in awe as radical fossils lacking all but the most rudimentary self-awareness walk among us.

The various Marxist platforms that started the SSP to create a mass party often attack others seen somehow less socialist.

Members without a Marxist pedigree are viewed with suspicion and seen as potential counterrevolutionaries needing urgent conversion to the one true faith for fear ill disciplined ideas pollute the party. If they cannot be so converted then excluded so the contagion does not spread to "good" contacts beloved of Marxist cliques.

Around them some of the nonaligned hover hoping that they too will be well regarded and allowed into hallowed meetings where the great and the good meet and decide what happens for the rest of us.

Yet a mass party by definition would have more nonaligned members than Marxists.The platforms would have to work within a political environment where collectively they are a small minority. This is not to their taste and in good part is one reason the SSP experiment has stalled.

The culture and psychology gap is also a generational gap. Though some, notably Cumnock branch perhaps others, have found new ways to work with the younger generation. In Edinburgh the older generation unconsciously patronise young people who are groomed in the attitudes and politics of an older generation by platform members.

Already ominous attitudes are emerging among the most progressive of the younger generation who regard the SSP as "bossy" or authoritarian, intent on leading and not listening. The sexual dysfunction so obvious in the older generation only adds to the impression the SSP are old fashioned and out of touch with modern attitudes.

The "swinging" sexuality of middle-aged men and women fatigued by endless bad relationships bewilders progressive young people who have a healthier attitude towards sex than those brought up under the unforgiving shadow of sexual repression linked to guilt and shame.

The SSP stands revealed as old fashioned, unable to make sense of a modernising Scottish society experiencing fast cultural and technological change. Globally, the emergence of a genuine international; antiauthoritarian, participatory and democratic in nature forces diverse political ideas into Scottish political orthodoxy.

The Internet is part of this revolution yet the SSP devotes most of its communications resources to print journalism just as traditional print organisations are transferring to the web.

The younger generation are comfortable with these new technologies yet the SSP cannot collectively find a way to use them to set up modern 21st century communications. Whatever rationalisations offered this self-evident truth is a further sign of our inability to cope with rapid modernisation.

Improvised attempts by empowered members working alone or in small groups is further evidence of the gap between self-appointed elites and the broader membership, judged not sufficiently interested or enthusiastic or knowledgeable to help in modernising our communications. This elitism hidden behind a welter of accusations, recriminations and technological aggrandisement leaves members passive and techno elites point to this passivity as proof that we should continue as before.

Authoritarianism and bullying is endemic within the SSP. Inherited from the past this authoritarianism undermines the entire Scottish left and progressive movement as we stumble unsteadily towards a different society radically different from the one we grew up in not that long ago.

The SSP has currently stalled. To move forward we need to examine ourselves intelligently and thoroughly.

Nonaligned members will face hostility from ingrained authoritarians unable to adapt to modernity and reflexively suspicious of the new. The bullying and harassment will not always be obvious. Members in favourable positions huddled around this or that powerful figure within the SSP, too needy for recognition will lead the certain attacks.

Grassroots democracy will prevail whether within or outside the SSP. The old culture will gradually recede within the society and its political parties will reflect those changes. The SSP will adapt or perish.

Meanwhile a new radical politics is emerging which does not lend itself to descriptions from a bygone era whether Marx and his contemporary critics or even later thinkers like Reich and Fromm.

The discussions around the progressive platform and the events of the last 18 months prove this. For those trapped in the past no amount of text will convince them.

Scottish progressive politics is in transition. Authoritarians everywhere are on the run. The efforts by Tommy Sheridan and hangers-on are reactionary last-gasp efforts to stop the unavoidable. Though they may gain temporary success backed by media stars like George Galloway their victory will be pyrrhic.