Weekly Worker 441 Thursday July 18 2002

Letters

AWL eccentricity

In his otherwise useful review of John Rose’s Israel: the hijack state, Ian Donovan takes the AWL to task for its “eccentric campaign to portray the SWP and other leftists ... as outright anti-semites” (Weekly Worker July 4). Our “guilty-liberal conception”, he goes on, holds that “the historical suffering of the jews ... dictates that the jews can never be guilty” of crimes comparable to Nazi genocide.

Aside from what one feels is a rather desperate urge to distinguish the CPGB from the AWL on an issue where we are close co-thinkers, comrade Donovan is missing several points here. First, nobody is suggesting that “jews” are not capable of crimes: there is nothing about the jewish people’s suffering which inoculates them against reactionary actions. To compare even the worst crimes of ‘Zionism’ or the Israeli state with Nazi genocide, however - which is the comparison at issue - is wrong both politically and as a meaningful comparison. Nothing Israel has ever done to the Palestinian people is remotely comparable to Nazi genocide. That doesn’t mean that what Israel has done is okay. It means that socialists should keep a sense of proportion.

More than that, though, it is reasonable to ask why this comparison springs to the minds of ‘anti-Zionists’ so readily. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, for instance, in its treatment of the Kurds, might reasonably bear some comparison with the Nazis; but the comparison is rarely made. Israel is constantly compared to Nazis, Sharon to Hitler, and the treatment of the Palestinians to the holocaust. In part, no doubt, there is a lame (guilty-liberal) disappointment that a people who have suffered could then cause suffering to others. But there is also the inescapable conclusion that the actions of jews are more holocaust-like and Nazi than the actions of anyone else.

This does not mean that the Socialist Workers Party or other leftists are “outright anti-semites”, if by “outright” you mean conscious advocates of pogroms or neo-Hitlerite ideologues. Obviously not: if we thought this I think you’d find we would refuse to participate in the Socialist Alliance. But their demonological attitude to Israel and ‘Zionism’ makes them hostile to most jews, who are Zionists; and they take attitudes which amount to double standards when it comes to jews.

For instance, in my local Socialist Alliance, one SWP teacher commented (and nobody seemed to object) that to combat the anti-semitism of his (muslim) students, he needed to show he was an anti-Zionist. This is an extraordinary notion. Our views on the Middle East have no bearing on fighting anti-semitism. Logically, this SWP member’s attitude implies that a Zionist jew has no right to ‘combat’ anti-semitism, or perhaps even deserves it. I don’t think he is an “outright” anti-semite; but I think his attitude is truly, frighteningly terrible, and it is a matter of the general health of the left that such attitudes be opposed.

If opposing such reactionary gibberish makes the AWL “eccentric”, so be it. The CPGB is welcome to its efforts to seem more polite and conventional.

Clive Bradley
AWL

AWL economism

Gerry Byrne, as a new member of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, seeks clarification on a number of questions (Letters, July 11).

“... what do you mean when you call us ‘economists’?” asks Gerry. Explaining her understanding of economism as a term used by Lenin to “describe those who believed that the economic struggle would spontaneously evolve into political struggle, without the conscious intervention of revolutionaries”, Gerry asks: “Have I got it wrong?” Yes, unfortunately you have, comrade.

Gerry not only misunderstands economism herself: she imputes a misunderstanding to us - that we mean by it “any intervention in the economic struggles of the working class”. She adds: “If we don’t even mean the same things when we use the same words, how are we going to talk to each other?’ Well, the CPGB have been attempting to clarify this question directly with AWL representatives and in the Weekly Worker for a very long time. Whilst a new member might not be aware of this, others certainly are, so why is it they persist in misunderstanding what we say?

Our understanding of economism does indeed derive from Lenin, especially as elaborated in great detail in What is to be done? Economism is subservience to spontaneity, a belittling of the conscious element of struggle, of the role of revolutionary politics. Taking the line of least resistance, doing what is immediately possible rather than what is necessary. In a nutshell, it is to abandon the fight for democracy, which lies at the heart of revolutionary politics. It inevitably means subordination to bourgeois ideology.

Economism does not apply solely to a limitation to economic or trade union struggles, but can equally apply to any arena of struggle where activity tails the spontaneous movement, fails to prioritise the fight for democracy and thereby constrains the political consciousness of workers within bourgeois limits. For Lenin revolutionaries “represent the working class, not in its relation to a given group of employers alone, but in its relation to all classes of modern society and to the state as an organised political force”.

Lenin goes on to argue that we therefore do not confine ourselves exclusively to the economic struggle, nor do we allow it to become the predominant part of our activities. Rather, we “must take up actively the political education of the working class and the development of its political consciousness”. He continues: “Agitation must be conducted with regard to every concrete example of ... oppression ... Inasmuch as this oppression affects the most diverse classes of society, inasmuch as it manifests itself in the most varied spheres of life and activity ... is it not self-evident that we shall not be fulfilling our task of developing the political consciousness of workers if we do not undertake the organisation of the political exposure of the autocracy in all its aspects?” (original emphasis). That is, we train the working class to become a ruling class of a new type. One that, on the basis of extreme revolutionary democracy, lays the foundations for a classless society.

The differences I detect within the AWL are between very narrow, consistent economists, who rejoice in their ‘orientation to the working class’ and have a dismissive sect attitude to the Socialist Alliance, and better, but inconsistent economists, who waver between a formal acknowledgement of political tasks and their actual concrete application.

A good worker knows the value of having the right tools for the job. It is precisely in order to carry out effectively any and all of the tasks that confront us that we need a party. The building of a party is the concrete task for revolutionaries. It is the very essence of a correct working class orientation and all other tasks flow from and into this essential task.

Currently the concrete manifestation of this struggle for a party is within the Socialist Alliance. Comrades who dismiss this much harder task for the easier line of least resistance, of accommodation to trade union politics, of the self-congratulation of ‘real’ class struggle - those comrades, have just lost the plot. Their efforts at best lend the economic struggle a political coloration - and then only in a very partial, limited and fragmentary manner.

So when I hear the AWL, and others, contrast their ‘orientation to the working class’ with our supposed dismissive attitude, I just have to smile. No left group has anything to boast about - most left union activists couldn’t hold a candle to the average shop steward of the 60s and 70s, even in the most mundane of practical tasks.

There is nothing wrong in principle with “long-term, patient work in the unions and working class communities, to build an organic base”. However, should the AWL (or the CPGB) with its scarce resources prioritise this necessarily fragmentary intervention over the building of an organisation that could do it much more effectively? This is not to counterpose one against the other - but to prioritise getting the right tools for the job: ie, a party. Further, building a base amongst the class should not be done by accommodating to what is, but on the basis of fighting for what could be.

The party project and building a working class base would be immeasurably strengthened if we had a Socialist Alliance paper.

Alan Stevens
Greenwich

USec-SWP axis

The correspondence between the Socialist Party/Committee for a Workers’ International and the European anti-capitalist left is extremely revealing (Weekly Worker July 4). In my opinion the SP should have been invited.

Judy Beishon for the SP executive committee raises some very valid points in questioning the exclusion. However, comrade François Vercammen of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International is far from convincing in his reply. The gist of his response is that because the SP isn’t in the Socialist Alliance then it can’t be involved in the Anti-Capitalist Left - it must be sectarian. Using this quite ridiculous reasoning, should Vercammen’s own organisation - the USFI flagship, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire - not be invited because it didn’t come to an agreement with Lutte Ouvrière?

I’m glad Vercammen mentions the Belgium conference. This of course happened at the same time as the Brussels anti-capitalist protest. A demonstration where the CWI and its youth group, International Socialist Resistance, had the biggest contingent of around 1,000 (yes, bigger than the Cliffite International Socialist Tendency, and much bigger then the Mandelite USec), with comrades from many countries, including from outside Europe. It was also the most militant and youthful. This, however, is an irrelevance for the USec/SWP axis who now dominate these ‘unity’ discussions.

Perhaps Ted Grant was right - those who scream the loudest for unity are often the biggest sectarians.

Peter Dennis
email

SWP crisis?

Your reporter at Marxism 2002 noted that 1,000 people attended. This is down from 6,000 two years ago. Is it time the left started talking about a big crisis in the SWP?

Patrick Donald
email

Scargill tragedy

Dave Douglass’s article, ‘End of an era’, was extremely informative and interesting (Weekly Worker July 11).

I never really kept up with what happened in the National Union of Mineworkers after the strike, though I suspected that Arthur Scargill had lost the plot, as it were. I knew Mike Pattinson (the son of Terry, the author of the original Mirror article on Scargill). He was a good socialist and found it difficult to defend Scargill and I found it difficult to press him!

I know that Arthur used a block vote of 3,000 votes from the East Lancashire miners (who apparently affiliated though there are no longer mines in the area) to outvote the rest of the Socialist Labour Party at one of their annual conferences!

It is a great tragedy that someone with Arthur Scargill’s record has retreated into bureaucratic manipulation and some shady financial manipulation to boot.

Tony Greenstein
email

Engerland

I have been intrigued by the recent debate over support for the England team, and whether this constitutes a breach of class loyalty and integrity, sparked off by the interview with the wonderful John Reid (Weekly Worker June 27).

Although the actions of a fraction of England supporters over the past 25 years has been more than suspect, I cannot but wonder if any of the ‘anyone but England’ crowd have ever had any contact with (a) England supporters, (b) football and (c) the working class.

Are all the merry folk in your local high street sporting replica England shirts gun-runners for paramilitary loyalist organisations? Are the purchasers of Owen/Beckham merchandise one step away from BNP membership? Indeed should we be considering hit squads against this impending rightwing horde?

I can recount dozens of England supporters (home and away) who, whilst suspect on their choice of financial expenditure, make up the cream of their class in terms of outlook and politics.

Similarly, whilst not wishing to ignore the work done by marginal fascist organisations amongst football supporters, in the 1980s especially, it cannot be said enough times that the overwhelming majority of football supporters saw these scum as “the band of the hand”, as someone once put it to me.

The growth of the fanzine movement also, which continues to represent a more genuine voice of fans, certainly has had more impact and more effect on combating racism in football from a ‘sort of’ class perspective and contained more influence than the fascists ever could. Certainly, despite my legendary, charm-driven paper-selling techniques, my sales of Militant never matched the easy pickings of The Donkey’s Tale (the less glamorous Gillingham fanzine).

I always support England at football and cricket, though I would draw the line at polo and line dancing. Today’s money-orientated football though … naah, don’t do it these days - too many toffs!

Lawrie Coombs
Teesside

Kiwi punter

Maurice Bernal’s front page is a good, concise article (Weekly Worker July 4). I try hard to understand finance capital in the modern context and we punters out there welcome a good, sober assessment. Mr Bernal should write an ABC series to educate us reds who are at sea with different articles on finance capital which often don’t bear out in reality.

I’m a Scottish immigrant of 28 years standing. We’re facing an election here between the Greens and a facsimile Blairite Labour government - the ‘Tory’ National Party is doomed. It followed Thatcherite ideas, introduced by the previous David Lange government, which was Labour. The worry for Labour, expected to cruise in, is how much the Greens obtain of the vote under the mixed member proportional voting system. MMP means you can split your vote. I will for instance vote Labour for my candidate and Alliance with my second vote. A person who does not get elected may be returned on second votes cast.

Michael Fay
New Zealand

Democracy

I have just read ‘Extreme democracy and the limits of capital’ (Weekly Worker April 4).

I completely agree. There can be no justice within society at all, never mind socialism or communism, without democracy. Even the transparent hypocrisy of Britain’s ‘democracy’ is better than no democracy at all.

I believe that if a communist is not a democrat, he is not a communist.

Daniel Randall
email

CPGB agents

Peter Hennessy’s recent book, The Secret State, quotes a former MI5 officer as claiming that, by the time the old CPGB turned itself into Democratic Left in 1991, “The security service had been virtually running the Communist Party of Great Britain at the end and bemoaned how much the pensions of former agents within the CPGB were absorbing from current budgets!” (p22).

None of this will be much of a surprise to those who witnessed at close hand the party going into self-destruct in those final decades. My only real difficulty is trying to work out which of the various Eurocommunist leaders and other assorted factionalists and disrupters in and around the CPGB during the 1980s weren’t actually police officers or spies!

Andrew Northall
Kettering

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