Weekly Worker 411 Thursday December 6 2001
Letters
Tactical tangle
As chair of the Republican Communist Network (Britain) and RCN (Scotland) I would like to comment on the articles by Sarah McDonald (CPGB) and Dave Craig (Revolutionary Democratic Group) concerning the divisions between the majority of the RCN (Scotland) and the RCN (England) (Weekly Worker November 22).
These divisions resulted in the RCN (Scotland) voting in favour of the following motion: “RCN resolves to break formal constitutional links between RCN (Scotland) and RCN (England) in favour of working together on campaigns and other initiatives on a case-by-case basis.” At its meeting of November 18 the RCN (Scotland) voted in favour of the above motion.
Commenting on the above decision to break formal constitutional links between RCN (Scotland) and RCN (England), Sarah believes that “underlying everything was the deep divide between left nationalists in Scotland on the one hand and those who stand for the unity of the working class against the UK state on the other” (all references are to the two articles mentioned above unless otherwise stated).
Thus for the CPGB, anyone who is in the RCN Scotland and disagrees with them is immediately a left nationalist and there, sadly, their analysis ends. No thought is given to the possibility that there might be more than one way to unite the working class and overthrow the UK state: ie, that it is a tactical question.
However, the truth will out and a few lines lower Sarah moves a little closer to it: “The argument for the split was put forward as being over two main issues: firstly the CPGB is not very nice; and secondly that the RCN does not function in England.
“The second point is true at face value. The RCN does not intervene as the RCN in the Socialist Alliance in the way that the RCN in Scotland has intervened in the Scottish Socialist Party.”
The real facts are that, apart from a single RDG initiative at the SWP’s Marxism 2001 under the RCN banner, the RCN (England) has intervened in absolutely nothing whatsoever. There appears to be a number of reasons for this general lack of RCN activity in England.
Firstly, there is an apparent split between the RDG and the CPGB on the role of the RCN. The RDG appears much keener on the project. As the RCN (England) consists solely of the CPGB plus the RDG plus Terry Liddle of the Green Party (all the ‘independents’ having left), this causes quite a problem, hence the inertia.
Secondly, the CPGB is internally split over their attitude to the RCN. One section, including Mark Fischer, thinks that the RCN is a waste of time, whilst another section, headed by Jack Conrad, “see a role for the RCN in Scotland, but not really for England” (Dave Craig). However, these differences are never debated out in front of the working class in the pages of the Weekly Worker or any other public forum and certainly not honestly inside the RCN. So much for the CPGB’s much vaunted “open and direct, no-holds-barred style of debate” (Sarah).
Thirdly, there is a disagreement between the CPGB and the RDG on their strategy and tactics towards the Socialist Alliances in England. “We have been pulling in different directions” (Dave Craig).
It is important for readers to understand that neither the CPGB nor the RDG insist on putting these questions to a democratic vote to produce majority and minority positions, the majority position becoming the publicly stated position of the RCN. This is the complete opposite to their attitude on questions involving the SSP and the national question in Scotland where they insist on votes being cast and the RCN adopting majority decisions. This is inconsistent, to say the least. Such double standards have made some of us very weary of being lectured from and possibly outvoted by a passive RCN (England) that is merely a convenient shell, empty of real content.
Fourthly, despite its criticisms of the SWP in England for acting as if it were the working class party inside the Socialist Alliance, this is exactly the attitude of the CPGB towards the RCN. Thus for the CPGB the RCN exists solely as a vehicle to influence the SSP. Even in this, the actual experience of effective work in the SSP and wider working class by RCN (Scotland) is discounted and ignored when it should be valued.
Dave does make a valid point when he says that we have proposed what appears to be a “national ‘solution’ to a non-national problem”. On reflection, the formulation of the motion does cover up the real issue, which is that the majority of RCN comrades in Scotland are fed up of trying to work constructively with the CPGB and wish to dissolve any formal relationship. In our defence, I would like to make the following points.
Firstly, when we have discussed these issues, the CPGB, RDG and Terry Liddle - ie, the entire RCN (England) - have acted as a united front and there has been no public acknowledgement or acceptance that there were genuine issues with the CPGB (I would say to each individual in these organisations that if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem). We would react positively to any approaches by non-CPGB comrades who wished to work with us or by a CPGB which had a good solid rethink about its methods and attitude towards working with others.
Dave also is formally correct when he says that it would have been better if there had been a written document to support the motion, but he cannot deny that Scottish comrades had raised all the issues and extensively discussed them at the two previous, all-Britain, meetings. Every member, including himself, was acutely aware of them.
Dave, leading theorist of the RDG, presents himself as the person keenest on developing the RCN in England. How revealing then is his article, ‘Follow the SSP example’ (Weekly Worker November 8), where he outlines his vision of the Socialist Alliance in England and indicates that lessons can be learned from the experience of the SSP. He goes on to write: “SWP, SP, AWL, CPGB and RDG supporters are all in the SSP. Workers Power and the International Socialist Group are either in it, or would be if they had members north of the border.”
Conspicuous by its absence from this list of left groups is the RCN. In fact, the RCN, of which comrade Dave is a member, is not mentioned once in the whole article. What conclusion would an unbiased observer make as to the relative importance of the RCN to Dave and the RDG?
Returning to the November 22 issue of the Weekly Worker, Dave goes on to say, correctly: “We need to begin by identifying as precisely and honestly as we can the real political problems.” Unfortunately, he identifies these as: “First and foremost and underlying everything is the issue of the federal republic versus the workers’ republic. All members know that this has been the main divide in the RCN.”
Well, I’m sorry, Dave, this simply will not do as an explanation. In the RCN (Scotland) we have members who hold differing positions on these questions and continue to work well together and certainly at this point in history would not make it the basis of a split. The fact that the CPGB and the RDG have acted, hitherto, as if a person’s position on this question were one of fundamental principle (separating ‘true communists’ from ‘left nationalists’) is a perspective that I for one do not share.
More positively, Dave himself acknowledges that, “The Scottish workers’ republic slogan is not wrong in some absolute sense. In some circumstances, it could be a correct position to take.” This recognition that it is a tactical question is a huge step forward and one that I would urge the Communist Tendency and the CPGB to publicly endorse. An earlier acceptance of this would, I believe, have taken the heat out of some of the internal RCN debates.
Similarly, recognising “the unevenness of the political movement between England and Scotland” (without claiming that there is anything inherently more leftwing or socialist about the working class in Scotland than in, say, the north east of England - my birthplace) and “In Scotland, the RCN is not just a network. It is a faction or platform inside the SSP” is a further step forward, away from abstractions, towards a concrete grasping of the real conditions under which we are operating.
Although when he goes on to write, “In England … there are no platforms within the Socialist Alliance”, I want to ask why not? Will anyone in the CPGB and/or RDG take responsibility for the fact that, after all this time (more than two years), the RCN (England) is not even a recognised faction in the Socialist Alliance? Will they also accept that considering this to be a problem does not make one a left nationalist?
Dave says that, “The truth is that the Edinburgh comrades do not want to work with us.” On the contrary we have done the work and you have not. If the RDG and the CPGB want to convince the likes of myself that they truly want to work with us then build the RCN in England and act as a recognised faction in the Socialist Alliance. This and joint campaigning work will act as the confidence-building measures that will be required to repair our relationship.
Finally, the editorial in the most recent issue of Republican Communist states: “Allan Armstrong, Bob Goupillot and Nick Clarke - all living in Scotland and members of the Scottish Socialist Party - have one after the other resigned from the editorial board” because “these comrades have either succumbed to or have never broken from left nationalism” (sic, No7, winter 2001).
Sound familiar? The truth is that the original editorial board (consisting of Allan, Nick and another comrade, SK) produced four issues in just over a year. The new editorial board took nearly a year to produce one issue. This is largely because the comrades in England did not consider it a priority despite urgings from Scotland. This delay reduced our effectiveness inside the SSP.
The situation worsened when John Bridge became the coordinator. The coordinator’s role was primarily to organise the technical production of the magazine. However, with issues 6 and 7 John decided to effectively exclude certain elected individuals from the editorial board and articles were published that some editorial board members - ie, myself (issue 6) and Nick (issue 7) - had never even seen and which John Bridge refused to show us despite repeated requests.
Bob Goupillot
Midlothian
Charming the SWP?
I noted with shock that Jack Conrad seemed to be flattering the SWP. I do not know if this is part of a CPGB charm offensive. But what else can one conclude when we read in Weekly Worker that “officially the SWP designates the Socialist Alliance as a united front between revolutionary socialists and left Labourites. The International Socialist Group and the Revolutionary Democratic Group have echoed this warped view” (November 15)?
First the SA is an alliance, not a party. It would be “warped” to claim anything else. The label ‘united front’ is not something which misleads anybody. Most campaigns - and this is what the SA still is unfortunately - are united fronts of a range of organisations, which still retain their political independence. It does not matter whether we describe the SA as a campaign, an alliance, a bloc of left forces or a united front.
However, it is the second point that I object to. The RDG is supposedly an echo of the SWP. If Jack thinks for a minute, or even 10 seconds, he will remember that the RDG has consistently advocated the left working together on a united front basis since before the miners’ strike in 1984, through the poll tax and right through the 1990s. We have long advocated the left voting as a bloc in elections. We used to go the SWP’s annual Marxism and SWP conference in the early 1990s to say so.
But we did not restrict ourselves simply to a united front of the left. As CPGB comrades may remember, we joined the Socialist Labour Party, where we campaigned for a communist-Labour Party. We have consistently advocated a united front of the left and actively promoted its transformation into a higher form, a party of the left. This is why we are currently promoting the Scottish Socialist Party.
It is therefore wrong to say the RDG is an echo of the SWP. If anything it is the other way round. The SWP’s political line is a pale echo of the RDG and will not begin to catch up until they realise that a united front or alliance can and must become a party. Just look to Scotland where the Scottish Socialist Alliance became the SSP. The days when the Stalinist parties declared themselves to be the vanguard because they were big, and small organisations were only allowed to be their followers, has long since gone. It is a mind set that Jack should steer clear of.
Dave Craig
RDG
Campaigning unions
Alan McArthur appears to be a demon amongst friends.
In an otherwise spot-on article in last week’s Weekly Worker (‘Sectarian shadow’, November 29), Alan castigates the Socialist Party for their unfortunate inability to unite with others in pursuing a more active agenda in the anti-privatisation movement. Absolutely: we need all guns pointing in the same place. This is certainly a weak area for the government and one which socialists should throw themselves into in a manner that produces the most efficient form of offensive. Refusing to unite with other campaigns, delays and protecting one’s own turf do nothing but harm.
What role for the Socialist Alliance in all this? Alan castigates me for allegedly favouring “narrowing the base of the campaign only to those who support the SA”. Perhaps Alan has read something into the text, or perhaps I need to accept that I am an uneducated oik who needs to brush up on his written English.
Campaigning in the trade unions to turn them outwards into fighting organisations of the class and similarly community organisations clearly have to become just that - workers’ organisation, uniting people who are organised in socialist organisations, the Labour Party or none at all.
However, there is a role for the SA. The two main players in this field (the SP and Alliance for Workers’ Liberty) were - up until Saturday’s SP walkout from the SA conference - members of the alliance and as such the structures of that organisation should have been able to act as a clearing house to ensure that this kind of thing did not happen. This is not to say I advocate the Unions Fightback, or any other campaign, becoming part of the structure of the SA. We have had enough of front organisations on the left, without getting the SA to make the same mistakes.
Hope that clears things up.
Bill Jeannes
Teesside
Violent objection
For Steve Jones and Fightback’s benefit (Weekly Worker November 29), I shall reiterate some of the points made in the current edition of Class War.
Had the World Trade Center and the Pentagon been targets of an attack aimed at the buildings as centres of United States imperialism, and targeted to minimise civilian working class casualties, we would not have a problem with that. However, these were not the targets and this was not the objective - quite the opposite.
The attacks were timed to coincide with the morning rush hour traffic in New York. Not just the “cleaners, cooks and technicians” innocently caught up in the blast, but the thousands of workers of all sorts going to work were the intended victims. The poor buggers on the airplanes, hapless little kids included, were quite obviously and deliberately the targets and clearly regarded just as much the enemy as the banker and the bureaucrat. Yes, we do object, and violently object, when such crimes are committed by the US state and others against the people of the third world. The average American worker is no more responsible for these attacks upon Asia, Africa or Latin America than s/he is the attacks by that state upon themselves.
We at all times take the side of the working class and oppressed against rulers and exploiters - native and foreign - and support their right to resist by all means necessary.
Attacks on ordinary workers in America by god-struck zealots who do not understand and care less how class society works are, to say the least, hardly in the interests of the world struggle against the capitalist system. If the ordinary working class folk of America or Britain are your enemies, we can never be your friends.
David Douglass
Doncaster
No to Spain
First of all I would like to congratulate Eddie Ford on an excellent article on Gibraltar (Weekly Worker November 29). As a resident of Gibraltar, it is good to know that we have support and understanding from both the British Conservative and Communist parties.
The ‘telephone boxes’ and ‘Watney’s Red barrel’ are of course urban legends or dim echoes of the past. Perhaps more relevant is that the school system, legal system, telephone network, electricity, etc are all British - although we have splashed out by having a French company manage the water. Although Gibraltar has its own TV station and can receive the Spanish channels, Sky, the BBC and recently ITV are the popular choices of entertainment and information.
Last time I looked, unlike Brighton rock, the Rock of Gibraltar does not have ‘Spanishness’ or even ‘Britishness’ embedded in it - however, the people are British and not Spanish and, as you correctly say, the future is their decision, and any attempt to impose a solution by Mr Blair and his pals will fail. Mr Hain talks to the House of Commons about the “bright future” he and our colonial masters are planning for us, but nobody is of the mood to say, ‘Yes, bwana’.
Perhaps if they did some more research they would find out why the promises fall flat. Gibraltar has an adequate health service modelled on the UK (apart from queues). Where our local hospital cannot treat patients our government pays for healthcare wherever appropriate. We do not need Spanish charity.
The ‘generous offer’ from Senor Piqué of 100,000 telephone lines is misleading. We do need to increase our local numbers on our (British) digital exchange, from five to six digits and the Spanish refuse to accept our international code of 350 which would make this a trivial task. He is not offering us lines, or even numbers: just trying to exercise Spanish control. Like healthcare we can afford to pay for whatever telephone services we need.
Mr Hain likes to compare Gibraltar to Northern Ireland and says, ‘It’s good to talk’. Unfortunately New Labour does not know how to listen to the people. In Gibraltar the population, which comprises jews, Arabs, hindus, protestants and catholics, and many ethnic groups, are all agreed on one thing. Nobody wants Spain to have any part in the future of Gibraltar. Even the 3,000 Spanish workers who come to Gibraltar daily because they have no jobs in their country agree.
And as an otherwise very polite lady said on GBC’s live phone-in yesterday, “Mr Hain is a fucking pain.” The natives are restless.
Jim Watt
Gibraltar
