Weekly Worker 461 Thursday December 19 2002
Letters
Rational, mature
Like a lot of readers, I was appalled at the inclusion of a letter by one ‘John Hughes’ in the Weekly Worker (December 5). Notwithstanding the perfectly valid political points and observations regarding the hypocrisy of the state on this question, I was appalled because this epistle amounted to no more than a whinge that a child-abuser’s right to stalk and molest children, and to view child pornography, is to be curtailed still further.
As a one-off this would have been bad enough to be published without some explanation from the Weekly Worker editor, but in the light of the infamous ‘Frank Worth’ letters this action was, frankly, unreal.
More worrying though for those of us keen to see a rational, mature debate around the age-of-consent laws and related issues, is the seemingly contemptuous manner in which those of us disturbed by the matter are lumped in with reactionary, hysterical types who see perverts lurking behind every tree and in every playground by members of the CPGB.
Ian Donovan is the obvious culprit here. In breathtaking arrogance he equates us with Blairite witch-hunters and hysterical reactionaries. This contempt for the broad readership of the Weekly Worker has done nothing but damage to the CPGB and our stated aims of deeper left unity.
In conclusion, those sick and disturbed types who see our position on the age of consent as a charter for child abuse have, sadly, been given yet more ammunition.
An explanation for this insensitive, irresponsible and, frankly, disgraceful action is long overdue. Anything less will merely confirm my fears that the organisation has nothing but contempt for our members, supporters and readership.
Harry Paterson
Nottingham
Offensive
What an odd lot you are! No room for a right of reply on ‘Leeds’, but space for paedophiles and fascists. Still, it’s your paper. I was shocked that the letter in the Weekly Worker did not result in a flood of protest letters, or even merit an editorial comment. Is this because:
- You are a bunch of paedophiles?
- You’re confused and don’t realise how oppressive and offensive it is to those readers (estimates vary between one in four and one in 10 of the general population) who have suffered, as children, unwanted sexual overtures from adults?
- Your readers recognise it as a jaded attempt at sensationalism on your part and greet it with deserved indifference?
For the record, Ian (Defender of the Faith) Donovan, on the UK Left Network list claims that the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, inter alia, call for the abolition of the age of consent. We don’t. We were for the equalisation of the age of consent (belatedly enacted by this government). We recognise that 16 is to some extent arbitrary and are against the criminalisation of peer sex between under-16s, but we are in favour of legislation preventing the sexual exploitation of children by adults (which is what your correspondent was advocating).
Gerry Byrne
AWL
Socialism urgent
Martyn Hudson clearly did not understand what I said at the CPGB north east day school on December 7, in opposition to Jack Conrad’s contention that “the longer capitalism continues, the easier it will be for the working class to emancipate itself peacefully” (Weekly Worker December 12).
Martyn’s assertion that “comrade Pearson could only see the signals of distress of a class [ie, the working class] on its way to shipwreck” is nonsense. It is inconsistent with the taped record of the discussion and it will be unrecognisable to anyone who is familiar with my political views and my confidence in the victory of the working class.
I was, in fact, warning against the development, coming from the top of our Party, of a complacent, laissez faire attitude to the unfolding of the class struggle. I countered with the notion that failure of the working class to make revolution, in a period of increasing capitalist decadence, will lead to the common ruin of the contending classes and to barbarism. I was stressing the urgency of the project of socialist revolution, not expressing despair at its prospects of success. I contended that ripening of the objective conditions for revolution turns, in the absence of revolution, to over-ripening and to rottenness.
Whereas the famous observation by Clara Zetkin goes that “fascism is the price the working class pays for failing to make revolution”, comrade Conrad’s new thinking appears to see not a price to be paid, but a bonus to be reaped. Failure to make revolution today will be rewarded by it being easier to make it tomorrow.
This is a dangerous politics that invites passivity, apathy and gradualism. In my view it dovetails perfectly with comrade Conrad’s simultaneously developing interest in the possibility of the winning of a majority in parliament becoming the first act of the socialist revolution (see Weekly Worker October 31).
I was challenged by Jack and Martyn to explain what I meant by decadent capitalism. I needed to do nothing more than to refer the comrades to the features described in Lenin’s work, Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism - the hegemony of finance capital, the growth of ‘coupon clipping’, the prospect of the turning over of the economies of whole countries, such as Britain, into the type of superstructural activity that, even then in Lenin’s day, as he cited, already characterised the south east of England. My comments were indeed focused on Britain and the working class of Britain and I made no apology for this being the case. Our primary aim, after all, is the forging of a Communist Party in Britain, in order to confront the British capitalist state. I argued, and I would have thought it was pretty incontestable, that the decadence of British capitalism had already had regressive impacts on the British working class.
De-industrialisation has done enormous damage to the collectivity of our class. I exampled this by describing the industrial village I lived in, back in 1960. The whole of village life was dominated by the workingmen’s club. It provided a football field, tennis courts, a bowling green, allotments, a concert hall. It organised major events - carnivals, sports tournaments, excursions. The picture was replicated hundreds of times over in the industrial belts of the country.
Yes, this was in a period of industrial peace. The steelworkers, for instance, did not have an all-out strike for 55 years after 1926. But the collectivity meant that, when a strike did come, in 1981, it was possible, within days, to switch the modus operandi. It was not long before physical confrontation with police was taking place on the picket lines and coaches were being sent to picket Sheerness and other private works hundreds of miles away. We didn’t have a revolutionary programme and leadership guiding the class, of course, but we did have a battle-fit army ready and waiting once we communists did the work, which was even then urgent, of winning the class to understand its historic role.
Today, the picture is very different. Trade union membership has plummeted. Strikes are at an all-time low. Centralisation of capital, together with de-industrialisation, has considerably lengthened the travel to work time and therefore the working week, for millions. There has been substantial regression for many workers, especially the remaining industrial workers, with respect to working hours. The 12-hour day is making a comeback 150 years after Marx and Engels prioritised the fight for the eight-hour day, precisely because they knew that workers exhausted by such anti-human shifts were not material for making revolution.
Paid rest breaks and subsidised canteens are virtually gone. Workplace nursery provision exists at a level that is a tiny fraction of what it was, in the lighter industrial areas, during the two post-war decades of labour shortage. All this has happened as we move into a period of capitalism characterised by substantial lengthening of the duration of slumps, with all the prospects that this brings for further attacks on wages and working conditions.
In short, the task of making a revolution, here in Britain, has become harder, not easier, with the accelerating decline of capitalism. We have reaped no dividend from our decades of failure. I would counter comrade Conrad’s thesis that the longer capitalism continues, the easier it will be for the working class to emancipate itself peacefully, with one which I am sure derives from a sentiment oft expressed by the great Marxists of the past: ‘The longer capitalism continues, the more urgent it becomes for the working class to emancipate itself and, in the process, the whole of humanity.’
John Pearson
Manchester
Vodka reds
I am writing regarding the general appeal of the left wing to the youth of this nation. I have experience of this, as I am 15 years of age and have only in the last six months became a communist (and I use the term ‘communist’ with caution, because no doubt there will be 10 letters of backlash attacking me).
The fact that every time I read the letters page of the Weekly Worker everyone is criticising each other over minor points - I have even read a letter discussing the spelling of a word - is concerning. Instead of arguing over the dressing, you should concentrate on the meat of issues. Who really cares about the wording of this and the fine-tuning of that?
The main point of my letter is to attend to the problem surrounding getting youth members interested in the party. Everyone around my age, and sadly people a lot older, are still stuck with the impression that communists are all Russian spies who wear big waistcoats and drink vodka. The general public think that Stalin is the same as Lenin, and gain most of their knowledge from James Bond films. How does the left plan on changing people’s conceptions of what socialism, communism and the whole left wing is about? Why do the BNP get infinitely more press coverage than the left?
Although it pains me to say it, the general public won’t be swayed by the cleverest of arguments and points. They’re much more likely to be persuaded by someone standing up and saying, ‘We will build more hospitals if you vote for us’ than someone saying, ‘We will modify the social infrastructure in the workplace’. I’m not saying the left should forget these points, but these things do need to be addressed if anyone’s going to have even heard of all the little parties.
Half of the people my age don’t even know what the left wing is, never mind the ins and outs of communism, and until young people are given an insight into this, the left wing will be the butt of bad jokes. I’d appreciate some feedback on this, please. I’m very interested in learning more about the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Roger Conway
email
Moving on
Following my letter last week I have a few other observations to make concerning democratic centralism and its manifestations.
For one thing, Lenin never specified (and neither does the CPGB) what exactly constitutes a party ‘action’. Despite my enquiries on the issue the answers I received were very vague. This is a major factor that makes the method easily abused, as the sects define speaking politically to members of a rival group or potential recruits as being ‘actions’.
Another thing that concerns me is that in its hierarchal method of organising it is a reflection of patriarchal society. Primitive communist societies that were matriarchal had no hierarchy as such - hierarchy only came about with the advent of patriarchy and private property, the state being the central and dominant method of patriarchal control and male power. This surely makes Leninism extremely difficult to reconcile with the liberation of women and the eradication of class society itself. The left, reflecting society, is male-dominated and using such forms of organising does not help in the slightest. In Healey’s WRP abuse of women took place, and similar reports have been made about practices in other sects.
Besides which, I feel that history has shown to us that Leninism just does not work! The Russian Revolution, despite the gains it made for the working class and for women, was defeated because it was led by a party that organised on the basis I have discussed. The encirclement of the Soviet Union by hostile foreign powers, invasions and civil war did not help, but that does not solve all of the issues and does not let Lenin’s method of organising off the hook.
Lenin was certainly a great man, but there were many problems with his way of revolution. Therefore, comrades, don’t you think it is time we learnt from history and moved on? As Marx said, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Liz Hoskings
email
Bunkum Beds
I’d like to thank comrade Collier for his absolute nonsense, which has allowed me to clear up, very briefly, any facts that might not be clearly understood about Bedfordshire Socialist Alliance (Weekly Worker December 12). In the first place, we do not ‘purport’ to be called anything. We are the Democratic and Republican Platform: that is our name and it is our right to form such a platform, as enshrined in the SA constitution.
Second of all, no one, but no one, ever refused to hand over the accounts. The accounts were kept in an utterly transparent and democratic manner. At our AGM the treasurer made a report to the SA membership and that report will still be available to any Beds SA member who requests it. No, the essence is this: all that was disputed by ourselves was the fact that the current officers went back on a democratically established procedure for handing the accounts over. That is where, for me, the dispute begins and ends, and everything else is pure falsification.
If anything, comrades Clarke and Thompson are being victimised for actually wanting to make sure that every member of the SA, nationally and locally, were reassured that every procedure was above board. If that is “so-called” democracy (an ersatz form, as the comrade implies), then, fine, you can stuff the ‘real’ kind - our “so-called” democracy seems much more honest than the current officers’ idea of it.
There are plenty of fools in this region who believe that electing officers and holding them to account is ‘bureaucracy’, that minutes ought to be a reflection of the contents of the minute-taker’s own mind rather than what was actually said and, if one doesn’t like someone, attacks and vile slanders are a fair enough way of getting rid of them. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having to repeatedly defend positions which should be a priori against the sludge and filth of anti-democratic practices taken to be the genuine article.
Yes indeed, comrade Collier, our platform must change. We must redouble our efforts to tear apart the tissue of lies being spread by a few individuals who have gone beyond even the most debased level of politics into what can only be described as pathological hatred of comrades Thompson and Clarke. When this sad episode can finally be laid to rest, maybe we can discuss some - oh, what’s the word? - politics. In the meantime, think very, very carefully about who you defend in future.
Ross Marat
Democratic and Republican Platform
Too careful
This is a corrective to Geoff Collier about what he calls the “essential facts” regarding the financial probity of the former BSA officers. Nobody has ever refused to hand over the accounts and funds. The national membership secretary told the new officers elected in April 2002 (attended only by the SWP and their three nominally ‘independent’ supporters) to set up a new BSA bank account. When they eventually asked the ex-treasurer for the funds (in August), we asked for details of the new account. No information was forthcoming because it appears that one did not exist! It was then even suggested by the SWP officer that we pay the final cheque into his personal account, (he’s not even the SA treasurer). This we refused to do so.
No doubt Geoff is aware of what went on nationally about cheques. You can’t be too careful. As ex-officers we all had a collective responsibility to safeguard BSA members’ money. Because of the continued lies and smears being put around by certain individuals, including by the individual who wanted the funds to paid into his own account, we asked, as an ex-officers’ group, to meet the officers. Obviously this needed to include the current treasurer in order to ensure that the transfer of the accounts was done both professionally and properly (which incidentally not one of the current officers or their supporters had contributed to) and to answer any questions they may have, being completely new to the BSA finances.
Indeed a motion was passed to that effect at the September BSA all-members meeting. The former officers went to the pre-arranged meeting, but the new treasurer didn’t bother turning up (and subsequently said that he wouldn’t ever attend any meeting!) and the elusive BSA chair was also not present because she was unaware that a meeting had even been arranged by the SWP secretary - who was propped up against the bar.
This has led to major row with the local SWP trying to issue their orders telling us to just do what they demanded. As records will show, we were always prepared to hand over the money to the current officers and/or the national treasurer at any time. When it proved impossible to do it in a sensible ‘democratic’ way locally, due to their lack of competency and obvious lax attitude to finances, that is exactly what we did.
Danny Thompson
Democratic and Republican Platform
Global change
Your review of the debate in the Australian Socialist Alliance is correct (Weekly Worker December 12). While in the spirit of unity we wouldn’t/couldn’t adopt your tone ... let’s just say that the interpretation fits the facts. The challenge is now one of deciding what to do next.
A major historical problem for the revolutionary left in Australia has been what I call the British disease. The main symptoms of this Marxian pathology are these: rampant sectarianism; bloated, centralised internationals, pontificating on the neighbourhood events and universal schemas.
Here is a joke - How many ISO members does it take to change a light globe? Hang on. They have to ring London first to find out.
Billy Bradshaw
Australia
Scots mist
To quote comrade Jack Conrad, “Communists stand opposed to every form of Scottish and Welsh national narrowness. Equally we oppose every form of British-English national chauvinism. Ideas of exclusiveness or superiority, national oppression itself, obscure the fundamental antagonism between labour and capital and divert attention from the need to unite against the common enemy - the British capitalist state” (Weekly Worker December 12).
Here we have it summed up - support for the advocacy of national self-determination in England and Wales obscures the main labour-capital contradiction (in Britain). Seeing he wishes again to ignore Lenin completely on how separation can strengthen workers’ unity, as in the example of Norway and Sweden, he further retreats into philistinism. Lenin pointed to the class contradiction as the source of all contradictions. He derided with sharp aplomb, on many occasions, those who talked about diversions and obscuring the class issue, as acting in a pedantic and philistine manner.
Extrapolating from this chauvinistic position, comrade Conrad would find Lenin to be a left nationalist. As further evidence of this we should scrutinise the following words of comrade Conrad very closely: “There is a British nation which evolved from the gradual bonding of three nationalities - the English, Welsh and Scottish”, not least with the growth of capitalism in the 18th and 19th centuries. The birth of the British nation “objectively was a profoundly progressive development”. But, because it was carried out “under the aegis of a brutal absolutism”, it was “accompanied by countless acts of violence and discrimination”.
It is quite clear comrade Conrad is taking a British nationalist stance in what should for communists indeed be a democratic question. It is quite clear to me that national identity in Scotland is not merely a delusion. It is a genuine sentiment that attaches it to the reactionary nature of all national identities: it is national identity which is itself obscure, as it is not a homogeneous identity. However, class politics does not obscure or reduce these matters - on the contrary it tries to clarify them as in the case in of gender politics.
Positing a British national identity is now reactionary to the setting up of parliaments and their struggle for full powers. To posit Scottish and Welsh democratic aspirations as false consciousness is to take chauvinism to a different form. It is a blind rationalisation based on the dogmatic need to keep the name of the CPGB intact. Stalin eclectically chose what constituted a nation, but communists should bear in mind the words of Lenin: “Marx questions a socialist belonging to an oppressor nation about his attitude to the oppressed nation and at once reveals a defect common to the socialists of the dominant nations (the English and the Russian): failure to understand their socialist duties towards the downtrodden nations, their echoing of the prejudices acquired from the bourgeoisie of the dominant nation.”
Many people consider a country without self-determination to be ipso facto oppressed, but much more is documented. Needless to say, the desire for self-determination is there and springs from historical inequalities and in particular the establishment’s portrayal and coverage of Scotland, which is largely felt as an attempt at inferiorism or racism. To try and give a definitive and objective definition of a British nation to ride roughshod over these grievances and desires is an utterly bourgeois occupation which serves the British state and is unMarxist.
“The conclusion that follows from all these critical remarks of Marx’s is clear: the working class should be the last to make a fetish of the national question, since the development of capitalism does not necessarily awaken all nations to independent life. But to brush aside the mass national movements once they have started, and to refuse to support what is progressive in them, means, in effect, pandering to nationalistic prejudices: that is, recognising ‘one’s own nation’ as a model nation (or, we would add, one possessing the exclusive privilege of forming a state).”
Paul Anderson
email
SW platform
Did anyone expect the SWP to act differently (‘Falling out in Scotland’ Weekly Worker December 12)? Given the nature of the SSP leadership, I’m not sure the SW platform’s to blame.
Jim Padmore
email
Kurdish anger
The Kurdish community in North London is at the sharp end of government policies, suffering from the political double standards of a discredited Blair administration that is hell-bent on criminalising them.
Protests at the deteriorating prison conditions of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, in solitary detention in Turkey, spilled onto the streets of London on Thursday December 12 and once again within the space of a few weeks Green Lanes was blocked by police. “A little disorder in Green Lanes,” the police officer said. “Sorry to inconvenience you once again. Thanks for your cooperation”, as perhaps thousands of people were forced once more to walk the length of the north London road to make their way home.
There is growing concern not so much at the frequency of incidents and clashes involving the Kurdish and Turkish communities, but at the heavy-handed police response. Armed police now regularly patrol the area, ironically carrying the same brand Heckler and Koch weaponry that were notoriously exported to the Turkish army at the peak of the ‘counterinsurgency’ offensive against the PKK guerrillas.
A protest that simply involved unfurling a banner over the railway bridge with the slogan, ‘Free Ocalan, Free Kurdistan’, and setting fire to some car tyres is hardly a major disorder, but from the sight of road blocks and the number of police parading the streets it seemed like a state of siege. There is starting to be a real sense of menace and fear in the air, and it is not being created by the Kurds. Rather it is being directed at them. Local businesses, in particular the all-night supermarkets and restaurants, often run by Kurdish families struggling to pay the high rents and council tax, are being extremely hard hit by this unnecessary clampdown.
The repeated closure of Green Lanes is driving away the customers in droves. To see the street almost deserted on a normally bustling Thursday early evening is simply eerie for the passer-by, but distinctly ominous for the shopkeepers and restaurant owners.
For the Kurdish community as a whole, still shocked by a recent murder, it is one more intolerable burden that may drive many out of business and adds to the general hostility that Kurds from Turkey are now increasingly facing in Britain, in sharp contrast to their fellow Kurds from Iraq, whose leaders are now regularly feted by Downing Street and Washington.
This last headline-grabbing incident in the area where many thousands of Kurds live occurred a few weeks ago, when one 40-year-old man was stabbed to death and two youth workers were severely injured and hospitalised during a clash in a Green Lanes snooker club in an incident involving a money-lending racket. Such incidents reflect the rising tensions and a deep sense of discrimination at a time when Turkey is being wooed by Britain and America as a trusted ally in their proposed war against Iraq. The double standards are exposed in the way Iraqi Kurds are now also treated as allies in the war, while the Kurds from Turkey are systematically criminalised and marginalised.
It should be mentioned that Washington only recently branded Kadek (the PKK’s successor) as a terrorist organisation without one shred of evidence, while at the same time it is actually arming the Kurdish militias in the ‘free Kurdistan’ of north Iraq. Surely the Kurds from Turkey have a right to feel a little angry?
David Morgan
email
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