Over the February 3-4 weekend, 60 people participated in a conference on European anti-capitalist left unity projects organised by left-wing Swiss party SolidariteS. Held in the border town of Le Locle in the Neuchatel canton, the conference attracted mainly SolidariteS members and supporters, but members of the French Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) also attended.
"It's been a success", said Marianne Ebel, a conference organiser and SolidariteS member. "We wanted our members to be exposed to various European experiences and to reflect on the need for left unity as well as the dangers of working too closely with social-democratic parties, especially in light of the explicitly neoliberal agenda they are pursuing. We got some good discussion happening and we're particularly pleased with the enthusiastic response of our young members."
The international speakers at the conference were Manuel Kellner from Electoral Alternative for Jobs and Social Justice (WASG), Germany; Franco Turigliatto from Rifondazione Comunista (PRC), Italy; and Roseline Vachetta, spokesperson for the LCR.
Kellner, who belongs to the International Socialist Left tendency within WASG, expressed reservations about the project to unite the western Germany-based WASG and the eastern-based Left Party (L.PDS — formerly the Party of Democratic Socialism). "The process has been steamrollered at times and has upset a lot of grassroots activists. It needs to be transparently democratic. There has also been a WASG rank-and-file revolt in two of the Lander [states] over the participation of the L.PDS in governments with the [Social Democratic Party], where cut-backs have been brutal."
However, he acknowledged the great desire of a large part of the German population for a broad left party. "It's absolutely phenomenal that a WASG and PDS electoral alliance in 2005 polled 8.7% nationally before formal unity had even taken place. It's better to be part of this process than outside it — better to be a flea in the ear of a dog."
Turigliatto, a member of the Sinistra Critica (Critical Left) tendency within the PRC, suggested the PRC was being compromised by its participation in the social-democratic government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi. "It's a government that is being wooed by the Bush administration to keep Italian troops in the Middle East to prop up American foreign policy. It has also just passed a neoliberal budget, which the PRC will be seen as co-responsible for."
In 2003, in the wake of huge anti-globalisation and anti-war movements, the PRC gave priority to developing the social movements. However, this focus has changed to a parliamentary one. A Sinistra Critica report Turigliatto has co-authored for presentation at the PRC's 2007 conference states this was a mistake. It urges the party to prioritise the construction of a workers' movement. "We need a party of struggle rather than one focussed on parliament", it claims. The national leadership has refused to allow the report.
Vachetta, from France, explained why the majority of the LCR had decided not to participate in the unity project for a common left-of-the-Socialist Party (PS) candidate in the 2007 presidential elections. Hundreds of collectives gathering tens of thousands of grassroots activists had participated in a process to choose a single candidate to represent the "left of the left". The LCR was severely divided, with at least 40% urging the party's full involvement.
"There had to be an explicit rupture with 'social liberalism' before we could participate in the process. The Communist Party [PCF — the major participant] was not willing to do that. It has been a junior partner in PS governments that have implemented a clear economic rationalist program and still benefits from electoral trade-offs."
The process failed in December, when the PCF refused to withdraw its proposed candidate — PCF general-secretary, Marie-George Buffet — which the collectives' national organisation had rejected. There are now at least four planned left-of-the-left candidates, including Buffet, the LCR's Olivier Besancenot, Lutte Ouvriere's Arlette Laguiller, and radical farmer Jose Bove.
Vachetta said disagreements over tactics remained, with some LCR members declaring their intention to campaign for Bove instead of gathering the 500 mayoral signatures required for Besancenot's candidature.
The concluding plenary allowed SolidariteS to thrash out some of its own issues, including its common electoral front with the Swiss Party of Labour (PdT). The proportional system of representation allows the two parties to the left of the Socialist Party to gain several elected positions in all three levels of government, provided they run on a common ticket. They have agreed to do this in electoral contests throughout Switzerland, and session presenter Jean Batou expressed hopes for a future merger into a single party with tendency rights.