An important minority of 30% of the party council, the highest body of the SP, voted against the proposals of the party leadership. This is a reflection of the broad dissatisfaction with the course of action of the party leadership against Rood.
In concrete terms, it was decided at the party council to confirm the suspension of all support for Rood and to set up a new youth organisation via the branches, under the leadership of a youth secretary. We should have no illusions: the party leadership will try to bring this youth work fully under the control of the party apparatus. A committee has also been set up to investigate where things have gone wrong between the SP and Rood and how to proceed. It will issue a final report on 1 May. We should be under no illusions about that either: the actual aim of the committee is to investigate how to prevent the youth organisation from becoming radicalised. Our answer to that would be: you can only do that by putting the young people on a desert island. It is not ‘attic room communists’ who are radicalising young people, it is the deep crisis of capitalism that they are facing!
Who are the Real Infiltrators?
Party chairman Jannie Visscher said: “We are not crazy. We will not let Communists hijack our youth organisation”. To substantiate this, a whole dossier of almost 200 pages, sometimes obtained in a questionable way, has been produced to prove that the Communist Platform has infiltrated the SP and is trying to win young people over. The so-called ‘Fact Sheet’ even dates back to the creation of the CWI, our International (now ISA), in 1974! There are also several documents in the “Fact Sheet” about Offensief, the forerunner of Socialistisch Alternatief. Offensief and Socialistisch Alternatief have never been involved in the creation or operation of the Communist Platform. But the same argument of being “infiltrators” was also used to expel us.
We joined the SP because we saw its huge potential, after the Labour Party (PvdA) was hijacked by careerists who turned what was once the big workers’ party into a pro-capitalist organisation that made huge cuts when in government. We recognised the possibility that the SP could take over the historic role of the Labour Party and develop into a new mass labour party. As part of the workers’ movement, we believe that we should be there where workers organise themselves as workers. Due to its dramatic shift to the right, from the beginning of the 1990s onwards this was no longer the case in the PvdA in which we used to be active.
The ideas of Marxism are at the heart of the workers’ movement. This applies to the trade union movement, the old social democracy, but also to the SP (albeit in a distorted way, with illusions in Maoism). It is not the Marxists, but those who simply want to reform capitalism, like the current SP leadership, who have hijacked the workers’ movement and our party! They have to a large extent squandered the potential that the SP had and are leading the SP to a dead end to become a kind of Labour Party 2.0. They have learned nothing from the mistakes made by the Labour Party. The SP and Rood were not built up by all those hard-working members to become a new version of the PvdA, but to fight for a socialist society. Marxism offers an irreplaceable instrument for this.
We do not agree with all the positions and methods of the Communist Platform, but of course we defend their right to be present as an organised group within the SP. We are always willing to cooperate with other left-wing forces and are in favour of a pluralist SP, where there is room for a variety of left-wing tendencies. It is perfectly justified and only logical that Marxist movements should also be part of the SP.
Will it Come to a Rupture?
There is widespread dissatisfaction in the party, and unfortunately many members are running away angry. Various initiatives have been taken to fight for the democratisation of the SP: a petition against the witch-hunt and a petition to defend Rood. The congress of the SP on the election programme will take place in a few days’ time, where an attempt will also be made to discuss democratisation. Last but not least, Rood is in the process of rebuilding up its structures and fighting for reintegration as the youth organisation of the SP.
Socialistisch Alternatief wholeheartedly supports all these initiatives. We must fight to democratise the SP. This fight is also necessary to keep the Rood youth and the left wing together and to further strengthen them.
But we must also look at the underlying political reasons and assess the relation of forces. It is not just a battle about democratisation, but about the political direction of the SP. Is the SP continuing on its path towards ever more parliamentarianism, with the sole aim of achieving government participation and managing capitalism in a more ‘social’ way? Or will the SP become a combative force, focused on building mass movements, not only to fight for improvements, but also to promote fundamental socialist change?
Unfortunately, the SP leadership increasingly favours the first, and in our estimation is prepared to go very far to achieve this: if necessary, throwing out all organised left-wing forces from the party, or make them leave by themselves through demoralisation. They think it would be better to have a party with half the current number of members, which would allow them to join a coalition, than to have a party with 31.000 members with a strong left wing that prevents them from doing so. They have a great deal of experience in suppressing or harassing opposition forces. The structures of the SP are designed in such a way that it is not easy to win a majority against the party leadership. Moreover, the party leadership has the established media on their side.
We must therefore take different scenarios into account. It would, of course, be extremely positive if we could win the fight for democratisation and for Rood. However, we must also bear in mind the possibility that, in the long run, this fight risks depleting and demoralising left-wing forces, or that the SP leadership will force us to break with further attacks. That is why we believe that Rood and the left must not only fight for the democratisation of the SP, but must at the same time prepare for an independent existence. An independent youth organisation, or a new formation on the left of the SP, would, of course, face considerable challenges, such as ensuring its financial independence. At the same time, an independent youth organisation or a new left-wing formation could be a pole of attraction for radicalising young people and workers, for whom the SP is currently not at all attractive. Rood could now initiate actions and campaigns towards young people, join protest movements where they arise and, to finance this work, start asking Rood members for dues and launch a major financial support campaign aimed at SP members and other sympathisers.
In our opinion, it is still necessary, even if it breaks down, to maintain an orientation towards the SP. The SP still has 31.000 members, including many workers, socialists and critical left-wing members. We must always try not to lose touch with them.
We are living in stormy times of deep capitalist crisis which sees more and more young people and workers looking for an alternative to this rotten system. At the same time, the deep crisis of the system makes a middle way no longer possible: either you are prepared to break with capitalism, or you go along with its logic. These contradictions are reflected in the crisis in the SP. Socialistisch Alternatief fights inside and outside the SP for a socialist society, in the Netherlands and internationally. Whether or not you are a member of the SP, if you want to fight with us for a socialist alternative, join us!
