Weekly Worker 458 Thursday November 28 2002
Letters
SWP and SA
I’m a supporter of the Socialist Alliance. It’s tremendous it has come into being, as at long last there is a chance to break from the dead maw of Labourism. Isn’t it the first opportunity we have had since the dreadful Hyndman to build a broad communist movement in England? Communist, because it can become the real movement of the working class (Marx’s idea of communism). It is so different from the norm of four people, a party leader and a fantastically detailed programme (Marx’s idea of a sect).
And, talking of sects, a few days ago I contacted Socialist Workers Party centre, asking them to put me in touch with their Canterbury branch. I thought that the SA in east Kent needed to pull together to mobilise concrete support for the firefighters. Once I found out where they met, I visited the SWP branch meeting to talk about action. It was a meeting of five, plus me. The meeting started with a talk entitled ‘Revolution - is it possible?’ given by an SWP minder from London. The speaker’s scenario for a British revolution was of the Labour left in parliament being dominant and, supported by SA MPs, precipitating a constitutional crisis, perhaps over the introduction of a wealth tax. I was surprised by all this. I thought I had gone to a Marxist meeting - but no: neither Marx nor the economy was on the agenda. It was just left social democratic reformism garnished with ecological concerns.
Naively, I thought the following discussion was to be a sharing of ideas. So I made the point, obvious to Weekly Worker readers, that the vision that had just been described was that of Kautsky and German social democracy, rightly damned by Lenin nearly 90 years ago. But I found the SWP had an odd idea of discussion. I was denounced as a wrecker, told I should leave the meeting, told that Lenin, Trotsky and all that were not important.
The speaker said he was too busy as an activist, raising money for the firemen (sic) to have time to read those old books. The revolution would come from young people’s concerns over globalisation, not from old leftists. That put me in my place. But I didn’t leave, as I had come to see if joint action could be organised in support of the fire strike. The SWP and I agreed to meet on Friday November 22 in Canterbury. We would raise money in the town centre and then go to support the picket. I didn’t join the ‘comrades’ for drinks after the meeting, as they clearly thought that political thinking and discussion was ‘arguing’.
Today I received this email from the SWP branch secretary: “As to collecting on Friday, I have decided that as we are selling papers and doing a collection under the name of the SWP it would be better if you didn’t meet up with us, as the last thing that I need is arguments when we are trying to recruit.” The fire strike, then, is primarily an opportunity for the SWP to recruit. So much so, that they don’t want to work with other socialists in support of this key dispute.
Frankly, we need to have a serious discussion about the role of the SWP in the SA. The SA will go nowhere whilst the SWP, now a strange ‘Marxist inner party’ surrounded by red-green mish-mash branches, continue their same game, using the SA as ‘their’ latest united front. My whole experience of the SWP since the SA was set up is that they have no real interest in it except as a forum to recruit to the SWP. If that is really their game, other members of the SA need to seriously reassess the SA’s future - for, if that is what is going on, it currently has not got one.
Thanks for providing such a thorough and valuable report on the firefighters, by the way.
Richard Harris
Kent
SA party
Despite the Weekly Worker’s ‘weekly whinge’ about the SWP, we must not lose sight of the fact that they weren’t always like this, and forget the importance of this political organisation (and its predecessors, the Socialist Review Group and the International Socialists). They carried out some important theoretical work during the latter half of the last century, and they organised hundreds of would-be revolutionaries based on Cliff’s theory of ‘state capitalism’, under the banner of ‘Neither Washington nor Moscow’.
All this took place whilst the original CPGB haemorrhaged members and was still following zombie-like the Moscow line on Stalin’s ‘national socialism’. Thankfully your group turned away from the Stalinist tradition some time ago and have acknowledged Trotsky’s contribution as well as Lenin’s. From what I have read recently you seem to be successfully putting the ‘democratic’ back into democratic centralism.
Alas, the SWP over the same period has changed into an organisation of ‘bureaucratic centralism’ (as pointed out by the Scottish Socialist Party’s Kenny McEwan - Weekly Worker November 21), but we cannot deny that they are still extremely successful at attracting new members from the various campaigns they get involved in or stage-manage. However, their ‘bureaucratic centralist’ culture is not an ideal environment to educate revolutionary cadre. Those who have a mind of their own and question this claustrophobic regime are eventually driven out of the organisation. The majority of those who stay will probably sink into complete passivity. Perhaps we should call this a ‘degenerated workers’ party’.
As for building a broader ‘mass workers’ party’, we must not only recruit those reformists that have turned away from Labour under Blair, but must enlist hundreds of young workers who have never been involved in politics before. Even if the SWP had a mind to pursue Jack Conrad’s dream of a Socialist Alliance party, do you think an SWP-led organisation peddling old Labour programmes would be successful in this task? In their infinite wisdom the SWP sees to it that the SA does not mention ‘republicanism’, as “it won’t bring in votes”! How many did the SA poll at Lewisham? The SWP are happy criticising the ‘Israeli butchers’, but never the ‘Hamas butchers’ - it’s no good pointing out New Labour’s double standards when they have such glaring ones themselves.
The SWP jointly organise protests with religious groups (linked to the Muslim Brotherhood) who oppose our communist ideals, are reactionary, homophobic and sexist. I am glad Marcus Ström (with the support of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty’s Martin Thomas) has spoken out against this practice at your last SA executive committee meeting. Our history is littered with examples of groups that either collapse into moronic activism in the shape of ‘economism’, often with theory being the preserve of the tops whilst the foot soldiers are discouraged from attaining a good understanding of Marxism.
This type of organisation will never have the capability to develop into the alternative workers’ party with an ability to carry through revolution. As Mervyn Davies stressed in his letter, this type of party will fail to recruit those needed to fight for socialism inside the trade unions or the community at large (Weekly Worker November 21). In the absence of members capable of challenging the leadership when it makes mistakes, the workers’ party will not develop good strategy and fail to recruit militant comrades and maintain a healthy regime. Look at the pantomime being played out at the present time by Bedfordshire SA, generated by the current SWP culture.
Lenin said “... there can be no mass party, no party of a class, without full clarity of essential shadings, without an open struggle between various tendencies, without informing the masses as to which leaders and which organisations of the party are pursuing this or that line. Without this, a party worthy of the name cannot be built”.
I hope that the Weekly Worker continues to give a platform to all those on the left with different views so we may find ways to jointly achieve a real alternative to Labour.
Nathan Catley
email
Sloppy Conrad
Thank you for publishing my letter (Weekly Worker November 14), but I did not expect such an exceedingly “sloppy” reply from comrade Jack Conrad (November 21). He cannot respond to Lenin’s idea that a separate Sweden and Norway would strengthen the working class, so he then tries to reduce my status by calling me an “individual” without “weight”.
This is reminiscent of Maoist denunciations and calls for far too subjective a judgement for anyone in their right mind to take seriously. We should answer the argument, not the person. It is a tad hypocritical to support the right to divorce and say a marriage should not be broken for the sake of the union. It is also a well known fact that the largest factions in the SSP are part of bigger movements organised internationally, including in England and Wales. Workers’ unity is not impossible because of national borders. It is a completely absurd notion.
Paul Anderson
email
Kautskyite Conrad
I see that Jack Conrad has replied to recent criticisms in the letters pages made about various of his articles by Laurens Otter, Barrie Biddulph and Paul Anderson. I also note that he has chosen not to respond to my letter, so I can only assume that he agrees with my conclusion “... that Conrad is rejecting Leninism for a 2002 version of Kautskyism”.
Just what do members of the CPGB and readers of the Weekly Worker make of this? Maybe you are all proud Kautskyite revisionists?
Brian Walters
email
Anti-Sovietism
Martin Thomas’s letter to the Weekly Worker (November 14) is the stupidest excuse for Marxist analysis I’ve ever read (apart from the current AWL garbage that the Palestinian refugees and their families have no right to return to their homeland - so much for free immigration). If I were Thomas, I’d keep quiet about the insane logic of calling on the Soviet Red Army to withdraw from Afghanistan and then ‘supporting’ the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan against the imperialist-backed misogynist reactionaries.
Thomas and the AWL knew then and still know now that only under the Red Army presence could the feudal-capitalist-imperialist property relations have been overthrown, the hegemony of the mullahs and khans smashed and women given the chance to live a dignified life. The PDPA - a militarily marginal, left-nationalist government - did not, of course, stand a chance of defeating the rightist zealots funded and armed to the teeth by US/UK/Saudi/Pakistani/Iranian imperialism.
What drove the demand for Soviet withdrawal was not serious Marxist dialectical analysis, but wretched ‘third camp’ anti-Soviet chauvinism that the AWL, SWP and others pushed right up until the USSR’s tragic demise. The end of the Soviet Union left Russia and eastern Europe as corrupt, impoverished, imperialist-dominated hell holes and left the whole world under the gun of US hegemony.
Unfortunately, judging by Jack Conrad’s reply, it seems the CPGB is heading down this sorry route itself (Weekly Worker November 21). Conrad asserts that he used to call for political revolution against the Soviet bureaucracy whilst still defending what he then thought were “historic gains” of the working class. Why does he not still think the planned, collectivised economy - the legacy of the 1917 revolution - bought historic gains for the Soviet working class? Like advances in social welfare and access to culture? The fact that the CPGB views the civil rights won by the proletariat in imperialist countries as historic gains but does not, in retrospect, view the welfare rights and overthrow of imperialist domination by the Soviet masses as historic gains would suggest you are now mirroring the AWL/SWP counterrevolutionary anti-Sovietism.
Without giving an honest analysis of the problems of bureaucracy and corruption in the USSR and other socialist states as well their historic achievements (including the present-day achievements of Cuba) the CPGB is playing into the hands of the bourgeoisie and disarming the proletariat of optimism and belief in their revolutionary potential.
Joe Wills
Bristol
My kind of people
I’d like to confirm that I’ve never said the Afghan mujahedin were ‘my kind of people’, in Lambeth town hall 10 years ago, or anywhere else at any other time.
I’d suggest, again, that you proceed in political discussion by consulting documents, articles, etc. The AWL’s material on the Afghan question is quite clear: we have always thought, said and written that the islamists were/are reactionary bigots. Attempts at structured debate are being derailed by your continual use of gossip-nonsense in polemic.
Mark Osborn
AWL
Political Tourettes
The editor of the Weekly Worker kindly forwarded to me a copy of Mark Osborn’s letter (above) denying he ever referred to the reactionary Afghan mujahedin as “my kind of people”. Unfortunately for Mark, one of his own comrades has waded in to confirm my recollection of the meeting at Lambeth Town Hall.
AWL member Tom Rigby, who, along with the CPGB’s John Bridge, led the debate that evening, posted a message on the RCN Britain e-list stating he “remember[s] the meeting very well”.
According to comrade Rigby, “Mark Osborn was just pulling [the CPGB’s] leg in response to their ridiculous allegations against us” - he said it but he didn’t mean it.
However, while I agree with comrade Rigby that Mark Osborn did indeed blurt out his “ridiculous” homage to our band of cutthroat shitbags, I cannot agree with his explanation.
Mark was sitting at the back of the room at the time and I can only presume that Tom’s view was obscured. Comrade Osborn was most vehement in his support - and was most keen that we should all know about it. No irony. No sarcasm.
It may be the case that Mark has a touch of political Tourettes. When he gets excited or otherwise agitated he becomes uncontrollably rude and offensive, often blurting out political positions and propositions no one in their right mind would lay claim to. This perhaps explains why he does not remember the episode. All I can say is, I hope he gets better soon.
Andy Gunton
South London
China
We shouldn’t be so surprised by what happened at the Communist Party of China congress, comrade Bernal (Weekly Worker November 21).
Tariq Ali recently commented rather opportunistically that Mao might have been right when he opposed the ‘capitalist roaders’. It takes some people a long time to learn - just look at the foreign policy record of the People’s Republic. Even if we take into account the ‘long view’ of history, there is no way much of what the Chinese leadership is now doing can be justified in socialist terms. By allowing millionaires to join the party, they are turning what should be a proletarian mass movement into an exclusive business club (just like New Labour). At the same time, by opening up China’s economy, all that the people seem to be receiving in return are impoverishment, drug addiction and an HIV explosion.
New China certainly hasn’t resolved any of the contradictions of capitalism. How soon before Blair visits?
David Morgan
London
Degeneration
I recently came across the website Revolution and Truth - proprietor: Ian Donovan, now of the CPGB, I believe.
I had a look at an article on the popular front, which turned out to be an anti-Spartacist polemic. Here Ian asserts that the “degeneration” of the Spartacist League is attributable to an incorrect position on the popular front. I’m curious to know what the mechanism is. How did a ‘wrong’ position on paper (because the Spartacist League rarely do anything other than produce and sell their newspaper) cause Jim Robertson to behave so strangely. Had he adopted Ian’s position would he have treated his followers better?
Does Ian still adhere to this view and if so would he please explain?
Yeshi Stevens
Germany
Windsor
I know Roger Windsor well, having worked with him here in France; I am now involved in a legal process against him.
I am interested in the comment about his being “bankrupt” (other than morally), as he is certainly running four separate estate agency offices in south-west France (Weekly Worker July 11). In fact his wife is the named managing director, and his son the legal manager. The company is called L’Affaire Française, with its head office in Jarnac, Charente, two sub-offices in the Dordogne and one in the Haute-Vienne. The prefecture is currently investigating the running of these sub-offices, following a private complaint.
I wondered about Windsor’s real motivation for his apparently untrue story to the Mirror in 1989: if he was working for special branch or MI5, why did he leave his disclosure so late? If he was not, why do it at all? Especially as it now seems that he himself really had paid off his loan from strike funds. Was he so desperate for money that it seemed an irresistible temptation to twist the reality and cash in by substituting Scargill for himself as the guilty party? Isn’t this suicidal behaviour if he himself had done what he claimed Scargill had?
My experience with Windsor here in France is that he seems to have a penchant for stabbing people working with him in the back. He worked under the guidance of a French estate agent, then broke his contract with this man and set up on his own in the same area (in breach of the terms of his contract). The French agent took Windsor to court over this and won; Windsor was ordered to pay back 200,000 francs (£20,000 at the time) and has been doing so at the drip rate of 100 francs a week, according to my informant (who says he himself advised Windsor to pay the fine in this way).
The informant and myself worked with Windsor for 12 months, until he started cheating us both, at which time we both gave notice, and I am trying to recover money which he owes me through the French courts.
Nick Lowings
France
ESF experience
I have just checked out the alarming details given by Henri Leblanc in your letters page (Weekly Worker November 21).
Even if true, it does not take the shine off the great experience fellow students and I experienced in Florence. To be part of that massive anti-war march was something else, and it must have been a slap in the face for the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi. You can’t tell me that the likes of Bush and Blair were not a little worried to hear that such massive hordes from across the continent were pouring into this renaissance-era Italian city to show grave concerns over their global agenda!
The front of the march left the Fortezza at 1pm, but the group we ended up with never left the starting position until about 6pm, and I was told by an Austrian comrade that there were marchers who still hadn’t left the Fortezza at 9pm. This massive demonstration of red flags and anti-capitalist chants lifted my heart and has boosted my confidence as never before. So please convey to your pessimistic comrades: a better world is possible!
Saul Cohen
Rochester
No Sweat
I apologise if the report I gave of the No Sweat meeting in Florence was inaccurate (Weekly Worker November 14). Obviously, with switching translations, etc, it was a little difficult to catch some comrades’ names (the announcer was German), and I had to ask afterwards for details in a lot of cases. Evidently, as Sandra Griffiths of Workers Power points out, I garnered some incorrect information (Letters, November 21).
I am still confused, however, as to the nature of the meeting. AWL comrades were building for it, and the flyer I saw advertising the event was for No Sweat, and not No Sweat Europe, the WP offshoot. I have since found out that Mick Duncan was supposed to be speaking at the event, but another AWL speaker read his speech for him. This meeting was in the Fortezza - I was there - are you sure we’re not both a bit confused? If not, I apologise profusely.
However, perhaps a good way of avoiding such confusion would have been to have avoided a split in the first place, comrade.
James Bull
Manchester
Release activists
We are appalled to hear that the Italian authorities arrested 20 anti-capitalist activists on Friday and threatened them with serious but vague political charges. One of the charges - ‘conspiracy against the state’ - was made law by the fascist government in the 1920s.
These arrests took place days after the end of the European Social Forum in Florence, an event which was organised around the slogan ‘No to privatisation, racism and war: another world is possible’. The forum brought together over 60,000, mainly young Europeans from the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements, non-governmental organisations and trade unions in four days of intense discussion about the neoliberal disaster and its alternatives. All of those arrested were involved in organising the forum. Despite media hysteria, the forum was a peaceful celebration of a new radicalism that is mushrooming around the world.
The timing suggests these arrests are an attempt to criminalise and confuse a movement which holds so much hope for the future. It is a matter of urgency for us that the accused are released and all charges are dropped.
Tony Benn, Louise Christian, Alex Callinicos, Kate Hudson (vice-chair CND), Chris Nineham and Nick Dearden (Globalise Resistance)
