Weekly Worker 266 Thursday November 26 1998
Letters
Fascist CPGB
The SLP congress in Manchester definitely marked a “new stage”, as you put it last week (Weekly Worker November 19) - but in the ending of political “degeneration”, not its start. The political disruption and sabotage by Trotskyism and other anti-communist infiltration has been recognised for what it is, and rightly sidelined.
Just how damaging and unscrupulous such infiltration is, and its real destructive motivation, was immediately apparent from the near-fascist provocations and threatened violence against SLP members (some just elected to the NEC) as they left the hall. The whole incident was stimulated and egged on by Weekly Worker paper-sellers lining the exit and jeering at the more confused delegates. The lack of interest in real political clarity and incitement to anti-communist hostility is equally clear from your sly and dishonest reporting of the same incident in your paper.
There was no “result which almost led to fisticuffs”, as you put it, which implies some impartial objective forces had been at work, or that the election of Roy Bull as vice-president somehow was ‘responsible’ for the incident. There was simply the sour and undemocratic reaction of those who have already been exposed as Trotskyist infiltrators and saboteurs, who want to see the historic post-war working class movement against capitalism, which the SLP has every chance to revive, drowned in the old confusions and 57-variety squabblings of the Trotskyist swamp.
The sourness created a provocation outside the hall which pushed and prodded the bitterness of those blinded by single-issue politics into abuse, insults and threats against delegates who stand firmly for the development of the SLP and Scargill’s leadership. Some like Terry Dunn were pushed to standing outside and shouting bad language and “homophobe” accusations at delegates, with a clear physically violent intimidatory purpose - while your people, and the Fiscites like Brian Heron stood menacingly close in a ring. This short-cut, simplistic, PC attempt to drown discussion is both unscientific and wrong. You could see why if you read this week’s Economic and Philosophic Science Review.
None of what happened is other than fascist in tone and anti-communist in intent, and illustrates the total bankruptcy of your politics and philosophy, which is quite unable to stand up to scientific argument, and indeed, despite its supposed openness to discussion and debate, is not interested in communist and working class opinion. Just the opposite - it is deeply anti-communist. This leads to book-burning, oppression of discussion and physical attack, which have all been seen before: it is called fascism, capitalism’s answer to slump.
Adrian Greenman
South London
Dishonesty
I was disappointed to read Danny Hammill’s misquotation of my views in his report of the otherwise useful and enjoyable CPGB weekend school, ‘Against economism’ (Weekly Worker November 12). Comrade Hammill does not seem to be too good at writing reports on events; however, there is no excuse for misquoting me when my words were recorded on tape.
Danny quotes me in saying that the demand for the arming of the proletariat “only applied to the USA, where it is more of a ‘cultural question’”; and goes on to claim that I said: “Since Britain is not in a revolutionary situation, to demand the arming of the workers is foolish and dangerously ultra-leftist”. This is a complete misquote.
What I observed was that the arming of the masses in the United States is in no sense a political advance on the situation in Britain; it is a historically-based result of an old bourgeois revolution. I also observed that the non-arming of the working class in Britain is also a ‘cultural’ matter. I pointed out that the fact that American workers sometimes carry guns and use them in strikes does not itself mean that the American working class is in any way more revolutionary or class conscious than the ‘pacifistic’ British working class; that this is a matter of bourgeois ‘culture’, not the politically advanced nature of American workers.
Perhaps the CPGB disagrees, and thinks that workers carrying guns who clash with the cops, but at the same time vote for Democrats or even in some cases Klansmen, are more class conscious than ‘pacifistic’ European workers, who at least believe the workers need a political party of their own. This sounds like tailing spontaneity and backwardness to me - a classic feature of the very economism the CPGB spends so much time denouncing!
I stated that I supported raising the demand for picket line defence squads, etc in the miners’ strike of 1984-5, albeit with the reservation that it was also necessary to warn against a descent into guerrillaism.
In condemning my views on this as legalistic, and even misquoting me in the blatant manner Danny did in his article, once again the CPGB is tailing spontaneity, and rejecting Bolshevism. The fact is, in July 1917 when the Bolsheviks led the Petrograd proletariat, but not the masses in the country as a whole, the Bolsheviks deliberately led the Petrograd masses away from insurrection, because the relation of forces in the country as a whole were not ripe at that point. No doubt if Danny Hammill had been around in July 1917 he would have condemned the Bolsheviks for legalism.
I should note that the method of dishonestly quoting people and attributing to them words they never said can only bring discredit upon the CPGB. At bottom, they are contrary to the spirit of Bolshevism that you seek to uphold. CPGB leader Jack Conrad gets upset when his Stalinist pedigree becomes a political issue in any discussion, but it is precisely episodes of petty falsification like this that ensures that pedigree is still a political issue.
Ian Donovan
Revolution and Truth
Distinctive view
The report in the Weekly Worker by Danny Hammill about the CPGB ‘Against economism’ school missed out the main focus of theoretical inquiry and tension. This related to the contributions of the Trotskyist Unity Group.
Firstly, at the ‘Lenin and Iskra’ session, I outlined the importance of philosophy for opposing bourgeois ideology, and showed the necessity of philosophy for developing class consciousness. Secondly, at the session on ‘imperialist economism’ only the Trotskyist Unity Group critically defended the politics of the so-called imperialist economists led by Bukharin.
It was pointed out that Bukharin between 1915-16 contributed immensely to the elaboration of a Marxist understanding of imperialism and the state. Under pressure from Bukharin, Lenin modified his understanding of the state, and accepted Bukharin’s perspective of the need to smash the bourgeois state if proletarian revolution is to be successful.
Thirdly, it was the TUG who challenged most effectively John Bridge’s homogenous and unilinear conception of the continuity of Lenin’s democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry theory between 1905 and 1917. In systematic detail it was shown how Lenin’s theory was drastically modified, and that Lenin continued to revise and alter his perspectives during 1917 in relation to the constantly changing balance of class forces.
John Bridge had no real alternative to the TUG standpoint, but instead of accepting the theoretical superiority of our viewpoint he resorted to a series of diversionary tactics such as trying to dismiss the significance of my quoting Lenin’s criticisms of Kamenev.
Fourthly, we agree with the CPGB’s call to develop a critical understanding of Trotskyism in relation to programme, and historically materialist objectivism. In this context our distinctive views on the history of the degeneration of the Fourth International were outlined. Thus the TUG contributed substantially to the CPGB school, and represented the exciting challenge of creative, non-orthodox Trotskyism.
The CPGB is comfortable with polemical struggles with orthodox Trotskyism, but can the CPGB accept the formidable task of tackling a more modern and non-dogmatic version of Trotskyism?
Phil Sharpe
Nottingham
No more trust
I enjoy reading the Weekly Worker, though not for the turgid pseudo-theoretical articles.
What I like are the down-to-earth factual accounts of life on the left in London, plus the keen and eager way you seek to drive a wedge in if ever possible.
Your circulation deserves to go up. You are far better than Private Eye. If the Weekly Worker could be put into the hands of every leftist, a much-needed realignment of the left would soon take place.
However, you are English. Jack Conrad (November 19) comes up with a once typical English view of the national question in Britain. Using wildly distorted history, Jack proves that the nations of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales do not really exist. The British Isles are all the nation of Britain.
Strangely, at referendum time, Jack called for genuine self-determination for Scotland, a place he does not even believe to be a nation. Genuine self-determiners should not vote ‘yes’, said Jack. They should actively abstain, whatever that means. Citizens of Glasgow! The time is 9pm. You have one hour in which not to vote!
The CPGB’s Scottish contingent are far from being nationalists. However, before long, they saw that they had been taken for a ride. The CPGB now no longer has a Scottish contingent.
That’s the trouble with the CPGB. Most of the Weekly Worker is a jolly good read, even a laugh occasionally.
But nobody trusts you any more.
Ivor Kenna
Central London
