Weekly Worker 472 Thursday March 20 2003
Letters
SP excluded
Being in the West Midlands visiting relatives and friends, I decided to call into Coventry to attend a Stop the War Coalition rally held at Coventry Methodist Central Hall on Thursday night. I was lost for words after this complete farce and travesty of democracy.
The speakers included Jeremy Corbyn MP, a Birmingham muslim anti-war activist, New Labour councillor Heather Parker and Andrew Murray, and was chaired by Penny Hicks (Socialist Workers Party). A reasonable crowd of around 450 heard some OK-ish speeches from the platform, although none really hit home hard with good political points - then the fun began.
From the floor, Socialist Party councillor Dave Nellist made some very good points about how capitalism is the root cause of war, and that we need a new political movement. All of a sudden the priest in charge of the building ran to the front of the room, screaming and waving her hands everywhere (the crowd thought a bomb was about to go off). “Stop! Stop! There must be no political speeches.”
This caused great confusion, especially as members of New Labour had dominated the platform (put there by the SWP). Nellist correctly continued and received thunderous applause from the audience - many of whom were clearly surprised that the SP, given they have three councillors in the city, and are the only ones putting forward a political alternative to war and imperialism, weren’t allowed to speak in the first place.
As a former member of Militant, clearly I have no real loyalty to the SP (or any other left group for that matter), but this was just ridiculous. Apparently, the Central Hall was ‘donated’ for the meeting, but ‘there really is no such thing as a free room’. Clearly deals had been done behind the scenes between some sections of the local coalition and the rightwing priest. To quote the SWP, “Is this what democracy looks like?”!
Charles Mitten
Milton Keynes
Bogus
The article on anti-war tactics properly invokes the classic Kornilov case from Leninist science, but then manages to miss the whole point of it (Weekly Worker March 13).
The lesson was: temporarily suspend the direct struggle to overthrow the Kerensky regime; give a revolutionary lead to the all-out fight to defeat Kornilov, thereby indirectly continuing to undermine Kerensky for his weakness and vacillation. In Iraq, temporarily suspend the direct struggle to overthrow the Saddam regime; give a revolutionary lead to the all-out fight to defeat the extreme reactionary putsch by dominant imperialism’s representative (Kornilov/Bush), thereby indirectly continuing to undermine the weakness and vacillation of Saddam’s bogus ‘anti-imperialism’.
The article, however, proposes the exact, catastrophic opposite, saying: “Whether to take up arms against the Saddam regime is purely a tactical decision determined by the balance of forces … once US forces begin their drive on Baghdad.” The whole point of Lenin’s article is to say that tactics can reveal either a principled grasp of historical necessity or opportunist muddle-headedness.
In 1917, the priority was not to let extreme reaction bring a complete halt to the revolutionary process. To that end, the need to overthrow Kerensky gave way to the need to defeat the Kornilov rebellion. In 2003, the priority for the whole world is to see US imperialism defeated as soon as possible, wherever possible.
If it happens during this monstrous Nazi blitzkrieg on Iraq, so well and good. Continuing to take up arms against the Saddam regime in the midst of its resistance to the US forces’ drive on Baghdad weakens the chances for US military defeat in this first of many military adventures to come.
All-out for the defeat of US imperialism does not imply the slightest ‘support’ for the Saddam regime, or create any illusions that it does not remain the target for resumed direct overthrow-struggle the moment that the more reactionary threat to mankind from rampant Nazi US imperialism has been damaged as best possible in the immediate situation around Iraq.
Joe Harper
Manchester
Final comment
So no one from the CPGB, or their periphery of supporters, dares to respond to my recent questions regarding the CPGB’s continuing support for the cross-class-collaborationist STWC.
The CPGB’s main ideologues, Conrad (Kautskyite) and Donovan (Trotskyite), have proven unable to reply to my criticisms of their anti-Leninist views on the revolutionary party or their support for cross-class collaboration. You condemn yourselves with your silence and I see no point in wasting my time with further involvement in the opportunist swamp that is your letters page.
As a final parting comment, in the forlorn hope that some of your readers and supporters have critical faculties worthy of the name, I note that the CPGB is not even willing to take the elementary communist position of defending Iraq’s right to self-determination against the imperialist invasion force. Conrad justifies this by blatantly misinterpreting quotes from Lenin and making up the spurious category of “proto-imperialist”.
The CPGB is communist in title only and your Kautskyite revisionism sullies the name of all the genuine communists who have fought under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.
Brian Walters
email
Peacemonger
What do Mark Fischer and Tina Becker mean when they say that a Liberal Democrat speaker at the People’s Assembly for Peace was “allowed to pass Charles Kennedy off as a peacemonger” (‘Anti-war party debates’ Weekly Worker March 13)?
Given the make-up of the present House of Commons and the leadership of the governing party, isn’t that what Charles Kennedy is? I think you can be against the rush to war by Bush and Blair, even if you are a capitalist reformer!
Graeme Kemp
email
Harassment
On the basis of the Terrorism Act 2000, some organisations are banned, among them the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front).
In the framework of the ‘war on terrorism’ headed by the USA since September 11, the British state has also begun to play its part in the policies of aggression pursued by the USA. It took part in actions to bomb Afghanistan and kill its civilians. At the moment these policies of aggression are continuing, within the framework of slaughtering the people of Iraq and turning that country into a US state. An aspect of such a policy is destroying the revolutionary struggle and the democratic opposition throughout the world. For this reason too, the anti-globalisation movement is liable to be accused of terrorist activities.
The British state banned the DHKP-C as a way of supporting the fascist regime in Turkey. It thus banned the struggle against fascism in Turkey and the right to resist fascism. And the Terrorism Act 2000 also made it illegal in Britain to reveal the crimes against humanity that go on in Turkey.
But nobody can prohibit the struggle against fascism. Bans, imprisonment and starting up new court cases cannot prevent us from telling the truth about what goes on in our country. No force, no punishment can stop us from revealing the terrorism practised against the peoples of Turkey by fascism.
They wanted to legitimise the repression against the DHKP-C by carrying out an operation in which six democrats from Turkey and one from Britain were arrested. They acted as if something really major had been uncovered, basing this on address books and various documents found on the people arrested. In actual fact there is no underground organisation in Britain. Here, all work is done openly, legally and legitimately. And, since there is nothing secret and clandestine, there is also nothing to reveal. All that exists are various ties - part of our well known and above-board activity.
Especially in the last month, the police have been going around shops in London to intimidate people and blackmail them into making statements against the DHKP-C. So far they have gone to about 80 shops, but everyone has told them they bought magazines or contributed to aid campaigns voluntarily. This is not the response the police are looking for, so then they tell shopkeepers: ‘You own a house, a car, a business. If you don’t want to lose them all ...” The aim of the police is not to protect local businesses, but to turn them into informers.
DHKP-C
London
AWL sectarians
Gerry Byrne of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty asks for evidence and quantitative indicators as to the undemocratic and sectarian nature of the AWL (Letters, March 13). I suggest she examines the four letters from her comrades (including her own) sent in reply to my article (February 6).
How many of them address the argument I put forward in the article? Not one of the four. That may not be statistically significant enough for Gerry, given the small sample size, but to me it suggests that these comrades are not listening to my point of view. In fact they are denying me a right to a point of view in a classic sectarian manner.
Another example of this: Jim Denham in his letter states that I have “never understood the concept of a revolutionary party” - not that I have a different opinion, but that my opinion is worth nothing because it does not agree with the abstract truth according to Jim Denham and presumably the AWL (March 13). If that is not sectarianism I would like to know what is. Jim says I “bleat” about sectarianism; let me remind him that Trotsky in the Transitional programme said: “It is impossible to make any further compromise with sectarians for one single day”.
Next let Gerry count the number of personal attacks in every one of the letters. To me personal abuse is a typically undemocratic and sectarian method and should be unacceptable in the socialist movement. Then of course there are the lies to count up, of which Jim Denham’s letter contains the most. Lies are a stock in trade of the sectarian and the bureaucrat. Both Jim Denham and Clive Bradley say that I am a fool because I did not realise what Alan Thornett and his co-thinkers were up to. That is a lie: of course I understood exactly what was going on. I was on the NC and a member of the Democratic Centralist Faction (DCF) which included more members from London, Oxford and elsewhere than “a few friends from Coventry and Birmingham” - another Jim Denham lie. The DCF had regular discussions with the Alan Thornett group and we devised a strategy together. Of course we did. I would have thought that would have been obvious to clued-up comrades like Jim and Clive.
Another classic sectarian method is to distort what your opponent is saying. I did not call Sean Matgamna an “evil genius” or use the term “hand-raisers” - those terms are made up by Gerry Byrne. Jim Denham says I “repeatedly attempt to refute Clive Bradley’s account of events”. Actually I acknowledged that what Clive was saying was of course his experience and I respect that. But I pointed out that I was there and he wasn’t. I think that Gerry Byrne, the materialist, would agree that a witness at the scene of a crime has more credibility than somebody who wasn’t there. That isn’t arrogance: that is common sense.
One more distortion from Jim Denham is that I have “the audacity to denounce the AWL for having defended itself”. Where did I say that? I think we all agree on two propositions. The first is that there was a crisis in the proto-AWL in 1984. The second is that it was not dealt with in a democratic manner. The disagreement is over whether a bureaucratic expulsion was justifiable. Clive, Jim and Gerry think it was. I thought then and I think now that there were democratic methods of resolving the crisis and maintaining the group. There might still have been splits, but the membership would have learned lessons from the process instead of being asked to vote on the grounds of loyalty. And I say to Gerry: the AWL may have a wonderful constitution, but it had a good one in 1984 which was broken by the leadership to expel comrades. Why should that not happen again? I think that is the nerve which I seem to have touched with the AWL.
Dave Spencer
Coventry
Reputation
Your AWL correspondents appear to be engaged in a concerted attempt to besmirch Dave Spencer’s reputation. Why? As far as I can gather, for one reason and one reason alone. As a former leading member of theirs he can, and does, bring a shaft of light to bear on a particularly shameful and defining moment in AWL history.
In short, a large minority was undemocratically bumped out on their arses in 1984 simply because of ideological disagreements with numero uno Sean Matgamna. Yes, the result, I am afraid, must be a sect, with a typical sect agenda.
Matgamna is the ventriloquist, Gerry Byrne the poison-pen dummy. Spencer is attacked for being simultaneously “self-serving” and a “cover” for CPGB “dishonesty and disunity”. What a paradoxical charge. Comrade Byrne then asks - in the name of “unity” - for contemporary evidence of AWL sectarianism. The implication, of course, is that the charge is baseless. Yes, it is funny. The humour is though entirely unintentional. Aside from the attempted character assassination of Dave Spencer, my reading over just the last few months provides damning evidence. However, for the sake of brevity I shall cite just four examples.
One, setting-up the so-called ‘Leeds incident’ to inoculate AWL members against the CPGB. Thereby fostering disunity. Two, branding marching with muslims on February 15 a ‘popular front’. Thereby fostering disunity. Three, voting to close the Socialist Alliance. Thereby fostering disunity. Four, boycotting the March 12 People’s Assembly for Peace. Yes, once again, thereby fostering disunity. Enough evidence to prove the sectarian charge beyond any reasonable doubt.
Bring on the “anarchist free spirits” once more. According to our Gerry, it is “perfectly possible” to tell the AWL’s “duarchy” of Sean Matgamna and Martin Thomas that “they’re wrong”. So what? In medieval times clowns traditionally performed that harmless function for the amusement and edification their emperors, princes and feudal lords. Seemingly they still do.
Salma Mackenzie
email
Repression
On February 20, Egunkaria, Spain’s only Basque language daily, was closed down. Acting on the orders of judge Juan del Olmo, more than 300 civil guards took over its headquarters, arrested its 10 directors and suspended the newspaper’s publication.
The Basque national question is being used to silence anyone critical of the government, of repression, of capitalism, of war. A policy of state repression will never solve a political problem such as the national question in Euskadi, rooted as it is in the experience of the Franco dictatorship.
In the Basque country it often feels as if a state of emergency has been declared. In Navarra, there is a refusal to acknowledge the Basque language has any official status. Councils that fly the Basque flag are threatened. There are continual arrests on minimal evidence and prisoners’ most basic democratic rights are denied, including prisoners who are seriously ill. Indeed, there have been repeated cases of torture.
By closing down Egunkaria the government has gained nothing. On the contrary, the February 22 demonstration against the action in San Sebastian was the city’s biggest ever, with more than 200,000 filling the streets. There was a feeling of outrage, but also of strength.
The march was supported by certain PSOE leaders, like Gemma Zabaleta, in a personal capacity, while others, like Roja and Rubalcaba, supported Egunkaria’s closure and proclaimed “respect” for the independence of the judiciary! The PSOE will have to change its position or it will start coming apart at the seams.
Defence of the right to self-determination is a historic demand of Spanish socialism. Hanging on to Aznar’s coat-tails and supporting repression will destroy the PSOE.
Jim Padmore
Vitoria
Questions
As someone who would like to see a world that provided equal and ample opportunities for all, I have been reading your website for a number of months and I have a few questions for you, offered in a spirit of fraternal polemicism.
You claim to use scientific method. This implies that your starting point is empirical evidence, from which a theory is then drawn. The theory is tested against events in society. If it doesn’t explain them, are you then not honour-bound to ditch the theory? In the approximately 400 years since capitalism reared its ambiguous head, has there been a single unambiguous example of a successful working class revolution?
You take pride in your history. I would never disparage the hard work of millions of activists, but what can you point to in your history other than a series of defeats? Despite the sacrifices of so many - 1871, 1905, 1914, 1949, 1990 - utter defeats (1917: a pyrrhic victory). Why do you think that an emotional attachment to these dates can persuade anyone that you have anything to offer them in the future?
Mischa Moselle
Hong Kong
