Weekly Worker 435 Thursday June 6 2002
Letters
Federal republic
I read Cameron Richards’ report of the Welsh Socialist Alliance day school with interest (Weekly Worker May 30). While it may well be true that for the SWP “the main enemy for socialists in Britain is the nationalism of the British state”, it is disappointing to see Richards characterising this approach as wanting to “tail the nationalist agenda, rather than fight it”. It is this kind of sectarian nonsense that has left the revolutionary left - widely perceived, and correctly so, as the ‘English left’ - without any significant roots in the Welsh working class movement.
But Richards is forced to pay lip service to national demands. What is his solution? “A federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales”. But this is just empty phrase-mongering! How will this federal republic come about? Who will bring it into being? How will it operate? Without formulating positions on the terrain of the national question concretely, communists will remain as marginalised in Wales as they are today, either unable to address the real political questions, or being held, as they are widely in Wales, as not taking the question seriously.
So while of course we need to raise the demand of self-determination, we need to raise it concretely. For self-determination to have any concrete content, however, we need to make it absolutely clear that it is the people of Wales themselves that have to have the right to determine on their own part their relations with not only the rest of the British state but the rest of Europe (and indeed the rest of the world). The argument for a ‘federal Britain’ is only designed to fudge this issue.
Does this conception of self-determination amount to independence? Economically, of course not: economic ‘independence’ is, and always has been, a utopian (or dystopian) impossibility. Politically, well, yes, it does: for the freedom to determine its relations with the rest of the world does indeed give a people effective state independence. Concretely, communists should raise this position for political independence in the form of the demand for self-government for Wales. We need to fight for the demand for a Welsh assembly/parliament with full powers to determine its own functions and responsibilities, up to and including the right to secede from the British union if it so wished: ie, we need to demand a Welsh constituent assembly. And we need to fight for the government, a revolutionary workers’ government - Welsh, British and European - that will guarantee this.
The English-dominated British left has a long and ugly record of trivialising the national question in the British state. Until it rectifies its history, it will not make a revolution in Wales or in Britain - or anywhere else for that matter.
Ed George
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Blindfold CPGB
As a founding member of Teesside Socialist Alliance, I found the articles in last week’s paper highly amusing (Weekly Worker May 30).
To describe the TSA as “vibrant” is either a misuse of the word or another example of the Stalinist school of falsification that seems to have become a regular feature in Weekly Worker articles (see reports on the Socialist Party in Lewisham, Preston and Ireland). The author, Martyn Hudson (no newcomer to revolutionary politics), at an anti-war meeting in Middlesbrough stated that anyone who condemned the September 11 attacks was a tree-hugging hippie. I look forward to his analysis of individual terrorism in your paper.
In the recent mayoral election the candidate gained 0.84% of the vote at a cost of at least £1,500. Certain members have now come to the conclusion that it was a mistake to stand, belatedly realising that because of the Mallon factor the SA was unlikely to make any headway. So much for foresight.
As for bringing high politics into the SA, I am reliably informed that the CPGB have managed, through a combination of sectarian approach and clumsiness, to alienate all of the independents in Teesside SA (most of them do have some sort of base in the wider labour movement), including the mayoral candidate.
There are opportunities to rebuild working class politics in Teesside. However, the CPGB remain blindfold to these events.
John Malcolm
Teesside
Gossip sheet
Thanks for carrying the interview with Dave Church (May 30). The Weekly Worker is often accused or denigrated as just being a ‘gossip sheet’. However, this kind of information is important. I haven’t seen the news anywhere else - on the various Socialist Alliance email lists or website.
Some people would be ‘in the know’ - and that means there would be gossip. Your interview means that it is in the open - and given a political context. I would say that Dave has not given me much of an idea of what he would practically do to make the SA different and I’m sorry he has resigned - you should’ve stayed on, Dave!
However, the whole thing is a contribution to the argument for having a Socialist Alliance paper!
Matthew Caygill
Leeds
SP lessons
Brian Cahill finds half a point, squeezes it around, throws a few punches at the Socialist Workers Party and uses it to justify the unfortunate tactics of his ‘ourselves alone’ Committee for a Workers International (Letters Weekly Worker May 30).
However, his criticism of our coverage of the Socialist Party and the Lewisham education candidate is justifiable - he could also have mentioned Frank Lore’s sectarian bluster in relation to the postal workers’ demo and the SA trade union conference in his ‘Welcome to planet Taaffe’ article (March 21).
I also would advise forethought and caution to a number of Weekly Worker writers who tend to just wade in against the SP - understandable, given that group’s general political approach, which in the here and now works against one of its supposed aims: the construction of a new working class party (of what hue we can perhaps leave for another time).
On this key question of party and programme Brian is on more of a sticky wicket. CWI comrades need to look critically at their historic approach to programme and consider its limitations. It is indeed a disappointment to me that those who have done so - not least many valued comrades in the leadership of both the Scottish Socialist Party and the Socialist Alliance - have developed politics to the right of the Militant tradition and have retreated on some of the more sane positions of the CWI, on issues such as Palestine, etc. Apart from Harry Paterson’s useful intervention, there has been no real critique of this tradition from its political left.
The SP Ireland’s “revolutionary” manifesto for the recent Irish general election cited by comrade Cahill indeed calls for “public ownership and democratic socialist planning of the key areas of economic activity” (‘What we stand for’, SP election 2002 website). Frankly, however, it is not a demand that by itself represents much of a step forward programmatically.
It could have come from several manifestos of social democracy past, and certainly gives no real guide to action in terms of how this is to be delivered - ie, by the independent organised action of the working class - and does not provide a break from the traditional vision of the creation of ‘socialism’ through parliamentary procedures by a leftwing Labour government, as proposed in the 1980s.
There is talk of democratic community action to tackle drugs, but no mention of legalising all drugs - a demand now even touted increasingly by sections of the ruling class. There is also, of course, the idea that the gardaí can be placed under community control! This barely needs commenting on.
The issue of the Irish Socialist Workers’ Party is of course more problematic. I am no expert on the SWP Ireland, but it would certainly appear to exhibit all the political flaws of its British parent organisation. After sustained and patient work in the labour movement and in working class communities, the SP looks at the SWP with barely concealed contempt. The politics of the SWP are indeed a huge barrier to the revitalisation of a cleansed working class politics for the 21st century. However, the SWP cadre, membership and periphery should not be judged solely as irritating competition, but comrades whose politics need to be engaged with by way of mercilessly harsh but open polemic and joint actions wherever possible.
Brian’s basic approach is to ask, ‘Why bother with the SWP?’ I would argue, because of the key issue of building a party. Internationally the CWI stresses the importance of new workers’ parties, in contrast to the task, as upheld in the 1980s, of recapturing social democratic parties, if not the Second International itself, for the working class. The game plan of the SP is that in a period of radicalisation mass workers’ parties will come about with a reformist consciousness - and the CWI will emerge as the left wing, ready to lead us to socialism.
The logic of this is that there is a political continuum, beginning with Marx and Engels, upheld by Lenin and Trotsky, and ending up with Peter Taaffe and Lynn Walsh - heaven help us. The notion that these comrades, whatever useful interventions they and the CWI may have made, are the main, if not the only, leading partisans in the fight for a new form of society is a dangerous one. It implies that certain individuals have a monopoly of correct ideas, whereas in reality they are developed as a result of constant testing in the heat of the class struggle and through open debate, including between tendencies.
The CWI sees this as a problem and discounts any forces (in terms of the construction of a Marxist workers’ party) that do not wholly concur with its programme.
Is the SWP tradition important? Of course many would gladly put parts of it in the bargain bucket, like soiled items sold off cheaply in your local supermarket. However, look at the thousands of members - all middle class lecturers? Look at the body of theoretical interventions. Look at Bookmarks. Look at the annual Marxism event. Ignoring this and not engaging with it (beyond sending along occasional paper-sellers) is the hallmark of a sectarian outlook.
I have met several SP comrades over the years who have concurred with the idea of a democratic centralist Marxist party, based on the open search for truth, which doesn’t impose gagging orders, nor inhibit the membership and - heaven forbid - the working class itself from developing the best politics through free-minded and open debate. However, these comrades too often see the lack of such a regime in the SP as a minor issue which they can live with, or else they leave the organisation rather than putting up a fight (unlike comrade Paterson).
The lessons our “tiny” CPGB has learnt from its members’ experience in the ‘official’ communist movement and in other left groups - including the SP - may yet provide a focus for CWI militants. Despite the admirable achievements of the Irish Socialist Party, they are part of the problem as much as being part of the solution in terms of building a workers’ party.
The CWI has held its organisation together through a rough period. It left the Socialist Alliance, barely losing a soul. It conducts some basic work in the working class with some seriousness, if much trumpeted fanfare. The question for CWI comrades is, however, not whether they can grow, but what they will grow into.
Lawrie Coombs
Teesside
Death fast
In Turkey’s F-type prisons, the repression and attacks directed at the prisoners are continuing and growing worse. They are being held in conditions of severe isolation and their health condition grows worse from day to day.
In Edirne and Sincan F-type prisons, those who are continuing death fast actions to resist isolation conditions have been completely isolated from other prisoners and have had to confront psychological torture as well. In Edirne F-type prison, Ali Osman Kose is being kept in B block all by himself. While he has no contact with other human beings, he has been forced to hear constant loud noises coming from machinery and industrial estates nearby.
The isolation and psychological damage endured by prisoners on remand and convicted prisoners also opens the way to physical harm. Many of them have started to suffer severe hair loss, and their skin is also flaking off. Those having to live in these inhuman conditions, isolated from one another, are continuing to resist. The DHKP-C trial prisoners are continuing the death fast actions against the F-type prisons.
We appeal to the media and public opinion to be sensitive to the death fast actions against isolation, which are continuing despite all attacks.
Tayad families
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