Weekly Worker 446 Thursday September 5 2002
Letters
Intermediate
I’m surprised that Phil Hearse has learned so little from so many years of more-or-less opposition within the United Secretariat of the Fourth International and a briefer tour with the Committee for a Workers’ International (‘Resistance and class independence’ Weekly Worker August 29).
The project of ‘intermediate parties’ is no more than a warmed-over version of the intermediate class struggle ‘replacement leadership’ concept developed by the Trotskyists in the 50s and repeatedly attempted (ending on each occasion with ultimate failure) by the USFI groups, the Argentinian Morenistas, Healy ... and so on. Of course, this was itself no more than a repeat of the underlying ideas of the ‘London Bureau’ of left socialist parties in the 1930s. Phil himself not long ago wrote a polemic on the failure of the Spanish expression of this policy for the CWI’s press.
But why does it fail? The answer is because it actually opposes the need of the working class for unity in action, alongside the most open and accurate debate of different views possible. By declining to fight openly for their own politics (whatever they are) the Trots practising the ‘replacement leadership’ approach (or ‘building new intermediate parties’) short-change the militants they work with. They promote the old Stalinist idea that unity in action depends on unity of ideas and suppression of criticism. In fact, they’re telling lies (suppressing the truth) about their own politics to the workers’ vanguard.
This is not a case against uniting in action in ‘intermediate parties’ or movements. It is a case against self-censoring your ideas to avoid frightening off potential allies. Paradoxically, this invariably ends in a ‘frontism’ no less severe than the SWP’s.
Of course, Phil and the group he supports may now actually believe the perspective of left reforms held out by some of the leaders of some of the intermediate groups, as against their left critics. But the militants their press addresses ought to be told one way or another.
Mike Macnair
email
Bogged down
I don’t think we should get bogged down in who said what at what meeting. Things can be said in the heat of the moment or confused or badly formulated (I would put the remark, attributed to the AWL member, ‘Zionism means supporting the right of Israel to exist, therefore we’re Zionists’, into that category). There is a more substantial question: has the Socialist Workers Party crossed a line, into anti-semitism?
I would argue they have. And cite, not a Hackney SA meeting, but the massive pro-Palestinian demonstration earlier this year. I was selling Solidarity at the beginning and end of the demo, and it made my blood run cold. I don’t think the jihadi anti-semites chanting “Death to the jews” were numerically dominant on that demo, but they gave it their political coloration. Jewish socialists and peace activists experienced it as anti-semitic. Jewish speakers were shouted down. I saw placards proclaiming, “Holocaust? What holocaust? Palestine is the holocaust” and Star of David = Nazi swastika symbols. You may argue that what was being symbolised was the Israeli state, but for the overwhelming majority of jews (and non-jews) they clearly stand as a symbol of their jewishness.
I believe that the majority of people on that demo, both white leftists and people from muslim communities, were there in solidarity with the Palestinians and to show their opposition to the actions of the Israeli state, but it was the jihadis who stamped their character on it. They are our class enemies but they operate in parallel to us. Their cadres attempt to lead and give definition to an inchoate movement: they seek to hegemonise the masses.
What is the attitude of Marxists to these enemies? At the very least, I would hope, to hold themselves distinct, to denounce the overt anti-semitism, to say it is unacceptable. The SWP merged with it. They consciously argued for slogans that blurred political distinctions between those who want to drive out the jews and those who, democratically, want a Palestinian state. They failed at any point to raise any objection to overt anti-semitism, even when it was pointed out to them.
This would possibly be just a regrettable incident in the past, were it not for the fact that they’re planning to do it again. The SWP have hailed the participation in the September 28 anti-war demo of the Muslim Association of Britain, who are linked to the jihadis, who provided the implicitly anti-semitic placards on the last demo. They are clearly unwilling to separate themselves politically from these elements. If silence is taken as consent, how much more so this enthusiastic embrace?
There has been a call for an anti-capitalist bloc on this demonstration, against the jihadis. There are moves to organise a women’s anti-fundamentalism contingent. These may come together. Whatever, it is important that socialists stand clearly opposed to anti-semitism and jihadi fundamentalism. If the SWP want to join their banners to our class enemies, they should do so alone.
Gerry Byrne
email
Zionism
Comrade Donovan accuses me of “desperation”, “sleight-of-hand polemic”, a “dishonest debater’s trick unworthy of a Marxist”, being “incapable of comprehending basic class arguments”, and much else besides (‘A spoonful of tar’ Weekly Worker August 29). Indeed, he finds it “pitiful” to have to respond to my “abject nonsense” at all.
It is true I underestimated the extent of the disagreement between us, or perhaps I should say overestimated the extent to which the CPGB had emancipated itself from the mire of leftwing public opinion. Comrade Donovan, and some of your letter-writers, berate me for assuming what I should have proved. I plead guilty to that: I thought we understood each other better. Apparently not.
Indeed, there is much of comrade Donovan’s response which makes me wonder if this is a worthwhile exchange. What are we to make of a polemic which spends several paragraphs attacking someone called ‘Vic’ who wrote a letter to Solidarity? Or which responds to my comment - that I couldn’t care less whether my criticisms of the SWP were from the left or right - like this: “That is, he is indifferent as to whether [his criticisms] come from a standpoint of consistent democracy and revolutionary socialism, or whether they come from a position of reconciliation with the status quo of racist oppression of the Palestinians”? Oh, absolutely, Ian, I’m indifferent to that. So this time I won’t assume Ian or anyone else in the CPGB understands what I’m talking about.
Most jews in the world identify themselves as Zionists at some level. They mean different things by it, and Zionism has meant different things historically. Some people don’t mean much more than that they think Israel has a right to exist (and when members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty have called themselves ‘Zionists’ they have meant it in this loose, un-ideological sense). Some, of course, mean they support everything Israel does, identify with the West Bank settlers, want to drive the Palestinians into Jordan, or whatever. But there are many jews, in Israel and out of it, who would consider themselves Zionists but oppose the oppression of the Palestinians.
Much of the left, on the other hand, sees ‘Zionism’ as something close to fascism, something it is a point of honour to stick ‘anti’ in front of. This makes much of the left, in practice, comprehensively hostile to most jews. It means, for example, that jews are required to declare their credentials on ‘Zionism’ first, before anything else can be discussed, and if they declare themselves Zionist are considered beyond the pale.
Comrade Donovan writes: “The stupidity of comrade Bradley’s rhetorical question is exposed. The point about whether or not a Zionist ‘deserves’ to be the victim of anti-semitism is a pathetic and scandalous red herring - unworthy of a socialist ... Zionism involves a form of bigotry against Arabs and muslims, and therefore a Zionist cannot ‘oppose anti-semitism’ in any meaningful way - on the contrary his or her bigotry can only provoke it.”
Eh? Zionism does not necessarily ‘involve’ “bigotry against Arabs and muslims”. This is to confuse the structures of the Israeli state with the ideology of Zionism - which, in and of itself, is not any more bigoted than any other nationalism, and historically has tendencies within it which were considerably less so. Perhaps Ian is thinking of those Zionists who fought with the Bolsheviks in the Russian civil war, or those Zionists who advocated a binational state in the 1940s ...?
So I’m sorry, I’ll return to my scandalous red herring. Would the CPGB unite with Zionists in a campaign against anti-semitic attacks by fascists? I imagine they would. Would you demand of them first that they state their position on the actions of the Israeli government? I imagine you would not. Yet the idea - my original point - that socialists can only oppose anti-semitism on the basis of anti-Zionism is in sharp contradiction to both these hypotheticals. Or am I assuming too much again? Does Ian think a campaign against anti-semitic attacks which unites with Zionists would be somehow compromising with bigots? That, by the way, is not a rhetorical question.
I am an internationalist Marxist, therefore not a Zionist, and opposed to Zionism as I am opposed to any nationalism. I am, of course, opposed to the actions of the Israeli government, the oppression of the Palestinians, racist laws, etc. I think, though, a Marxist understanding of Zionism should attempt to grasp the lived historical experience which made most jews Zionists after 1945.
Why was it, for instance, that many jewish socialists either ‘converted’ to Zionism, or were at least not particularly hostile? Obviously, because of the immediate experience. The echoes of this still explain, partly, why so many jews are Zionists. A policy which is deeply hostile to most jews - except of course those who declare their ‘anti-Zionism’ credentials, or until and unless they declare themselves for the destruction of Israel - I would call anti-semitic. I don’t know what else to call this, and I think it is unacceptable.
And this is what I really don’t understand about comrade Donovan’s position. The hostility I describe to most jews is predicated on the advocacy of Israel’s destruction (it’s a hostility which transforms into warm delight if this advocacy is embraced). The CPGB does not advocate Israel’s destruction. If you really, in arguing your two-state position, have never encountered the attitudes I am referring to - if you really think the identification of such attitudes is “slander” - it’s hard to know what to say. Maybe we’ve just had more arguments about this with the rest of the left than you have.
Clive Bradley
AWL
Right of return
You seem to be confused as to the meaning of ‘right of return’ and ‘free movement of people’ (‘Controversy and clarification’ Weekly Worker August 22).
The AWL’s position on the Palestinian right of return is not an exception to the principle of free movement of people: it is the upholding of that principle. Arguing that one group of people have some kind of divine right to a land runs contrary to said principle.
We must fight to build a situation in Israel-Palestine with two states and open borders; states between which the movement of people will be truly free.
Daniel Randall
email
Anti-Kosovan left
Paul Flewers is wrong to use the word ‘discrimination’ to describe what happened to the Kosovan Albanians during the war at the hands of Serbian paramilitaries (Letters, August 29).
This concept was more appropriate to the 10 years preceding the war, when there was discrimination - above all in education. Rape camps, concentration camps, mass murder of Kosovan Albanian men and deportation of women and children out of Kosova surely goes beyond discrimination. It was genocide. The left here did not deny these things took place or accuse the media of fabrication. What sections of the left tended to do, to their eternal shame, was downplay these events and ignore the Kosovan Albanians when it came to campaign work because it didn’t fit into their dogmatic, campist view of the world.
The Kosovan Albanians were, after all, in the camp of US imperialism and therefore unmentionables not deserving of any kind of solidarity.
The SWP has seriously lost its political bearings on international issues. It’s important for socialists to be firm in arguing for independent working class politics against a campist world view.
Peter Burton
Edinburgh
Not separate
I feel compelled to comment upon a remark made by comrade John Bridge at this year’s Communist University.
The debate centred around the prospects for a joining of forces between the Weekly Worker and Solidarity to produce an unofficial SA paper. During this debate one comrade mentioned that she saw little value in such a proposal, as the result would be a paper in which the CPGB and AWL engaged in a series of ‘battle it out amongst yourselves’-type arguments. Comrade Bridge responded that this analysis is indicative of a tendency to see the working class as separate from the revolutionary party.
Having been unable to stay for the whole week, I do not know if these arguments were developed further. However, I think that comrade Bridge’s statement goes right to the heart of the matter. This tendency to view the class as something else - not interested in debates about strategy and tactics - is an approach to class politics that is adopted by most of the revolutionary left and underlies many of its fundamental weaknesses. Just look at the patronising ideas that pass for a critical analysis of class society in most of today’s leftwing papers.
Furthermore, over the last two years I have been increasingly drawn to the ideas of the CPGB as a worker. This doesn’t mean that there are millions of workers behind me who feel equally as drawn, but that’s not the issue. Rather the issues are which analysis most appropriately fits this period and how we collectively take these arguments further.
Ethan Grech
email
Own up
Gossip sheet? Introverted? Sinister connections? (‘Gossip sheet or new Iskra?’ - Weekly Worker August 29). Well, I don’t know about the latter. I have no evidence of that and I don’t go in for making unsubstantiated charges. But the ‘Weakly Wanker’ is definitely guilty of the former two charges. And, of course, there will always be a market for left gossip and scandal among the socialist chattering classes, won’t there?
Come on, own up - when was the last time you reported a real working class struggle or discussed a way to win one? When was the last time you led a real workers’ struggle? You may have done so, but I do not recall ever seeing such a report or article in your paper.
Perhaps you should get out and about a bit. You know, drag yourselves out of your editorial offices, pubs and meeting halls. Instead of spending all your time sneering at other people’s efforts and bitching about the rest of the left, why not risk getting your hands dirty in the class struggle a bit? You are sitting in the middle of an ocean of appalling London Macjob superexploitation. You and I both know that it is an outrage.
If the Weekly Worker really wanted to prove that it was not just a left scandal sheet, and wanted to make a name for itself as genuine communist paper, it would be devoting at least some of its space to reporting on its efforts to begin a fight to unionise a whole generation who have no idea what a union is .
Unreconstructed Trot
email
Diverse view
Serious revolutionaries read the Weekly Worker for much the same reason as they might read Socialist Worker or any of the mainstream newspapers: to gather diverse views on various subjects.
No “serious revolutionary” would consider joining the CPGB or any other reformist party connected with the Socialist Alliance. What has parliament to do with revolutionary politics?
Dave Charles
email
Sad losers
Having read your article on ANAL/SWP and their pathetic attempt to ‘Stop the nazi Red, White and Blue festival’, I have to conclude that the whole lot of you are sad losers. That the BNP event not only went ahead as planned, but was also a great success, shows that the ANALists are banging their empty heads against a brick wall.
If you are honest with yourselves, you will agree with me that the vast, vast majority of Britons do not want any more immigration, legal or illegal. Heads buried in the sand, the CPGB, ANAL/SWP, and all your fellow travellers, blithely ignore public opinion, and campaign for unlimited ‘further immigration’. As you will see in next May’s elections, the BNP vote will always far exceed anything the non-existent CPGB or our fruitcake friends of the SA will obtain.
One final comment: the BNP is not, never has been, ‘fascist’, ‘nazi’ or any other ludicrous label the extreme left has failed to pin on us. Rather, the clear reason you and your fellow extremists have failed so miserably in importing your communist terror to Britain is the 100 million victims of the red terror throughout the 20th century. From the most evil man in history, Stalin, to Pol Pot, people know they would be next if you and the communist killers ever gained power.
Tomorrow belongs to us.
Jason Blunt
Hull
