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Weekly Worker 543 Thursday September 9 2004
Letters
Imperialism
The three letters in last week’s paper responding to my articles
on imperialism have very different characters (Weekly Worker September
2).
Richard Roper makes important points about both competition between financial
centres and the revival of overtly pro-imperialist geopolitical theories.
I should emphasise that, for all of the 15,000 words or so in the three
articles, they are no more than an outline approach to the issues, and
are addressed specifically to the ‘anti-imperialist’ line of
the Socialist Workers Party and, the other side of the coin, the Alliance
for Workers’ Liberty comrades’ use of the ‘imperialism
of free trade’ idea to defend their line on Iraq. There is a lot
of valuable theoretical work on the present evolution of imperialism being
done, and a lot which still needs to be done.
Pete Waterman invites the Weekly Worker to give him substantial space
to defend the idea that the “global justice and solidarity movement”
may include but “simultaneously surpasses the class-limited, national,
party and union inter-nationalisms that once dominated” (emphasis
added). It may well be worthwhile for the paper to do so: similar ideas
are very widespread on the left, and a clear exposition of them would
sharpen up our own response. For myself, I do not see more globalism in
the “global justice and solidarity movement” than the internationalism
of the radical youth expressed back in the late 60s in the slogan, ‘Ho,
Ho, Ho Chi Minh/We shall fight, we shall win/London, Paris, Rome, Berlin’.
And ‘surpassing class-limited politics’ is commonplace old-style
‘official communism’ ... and Blairism.
Paul Hampton’s letter is classic AWL. First, we get the assertion
of the AWL’s Trotskyist dogmatic orthodoxy, based on finding ‘support’
for AWL positions in casual comments, as opposed to the main lines of
texts and resolutions formally adopted: ‘the classics also said imperialism
is progressive’. This is a theological-legal approach to argument
- what Stephen Jay Gould called ‘citation grazing’. The AWL
would be a lot more scientific if they admitted openly that it is necessary
to correct the errors of the classic authors on imperialism which led
to the failure of prediction in the 1940s-50s. Similarly, comrade Paul
conflates “the views of Kautsky, Hilferding, Luxemburg, Lenin and
Bukharin” into a single theory which was “more or less adequate”,
paying no attention whatever to the differences between these views.
Secondly, the letter is evasive. The core of the argument of my articles
is that the role of the state and states is central both to any theory
of imperialism, and to the question of defeatism - which has been a critical
element in the CPGB’s differences with the AWL over Iraq. To this
argument comrade Paul simply and blankly fails to respond. Presumably
he thinks substituting dismissive or abusive assertion for argument is
a sufficient response. This practice - a kind of political Tourette’s
syndrome - derives ultimately from Sean Matgamna’s original Healyism.
The same thing happens on the concrete question of Iraq. I do not in the
least insist on “screech[ing] ‘now’! at the end of every
demand”. I object to the fact that the AWL argues positively that
Marxists should not campaign (participate in campaigns) for the immediate
withdrawal of British troops. The fact that the AWL argues positively
against campaigning for immediate withdrawal would not appear at all from
comrade Paul’s letter.
Comrade Sean’s original Healyism and the extent to which the AWL
political culture models itself on comrade Sean’s has the effect
that the AWL can’t simultaneously walk and chew gum (participate
in Respect and oppose its class-collaborationist politics; fight both
for the immediate withdrawal of British troops and for solidarity with
the Iraqi workers’ movement). Tough. AWL comrades engage in polemics
aimed to prove that simultaneously walking and chewing gum is impossible.
I am not persuaded.
I said in my final article that the AWL was right to reject the strategy
of the anti-imperialist front and the SWP’s cruder version of it,
that they were right to insist on an internationalist approach to Europe,
but that they were wrong to reject defeatism as a strategic approach to
the British state’s military operations.
Comrade Paul concludes from this that “All Macnair is left with is
the CPGB’s mantra, that the AWL is fundamentally wrong.” This
is, frankly, a pretty strange interpretation of what I said. I would be
happy to respond to a serious critique of what I wrote and might be led
to shift my position. Comrade Paul’s response is not such a serious
critique.
Mike Macnair
Oxford
Emotional
The Weekly Worker chose to publish a letter which, by heavy sarcasm, accuses
the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty of being in the pay of imperialism
(September 2).
A certain Richard Roper claims that in our writings on imperialism: “The
AWL have once again, by an amazing coincidence, come up with a theory
which directly aids imperialism and confuses the left.” If this means
anything, it is that some hidden connection or influence (there must be
one, otherwise the “coincidence” would be too “amazing”)
ensures that on every issue (“once again”) the AWL’s efforts
“directly” (not indirectly, not inadvertently) “aid imperialism”.
Open debate is not the same as an open sewer, into which any slander can
be thrown. Print Mr Roper’s views on imperialism, by all means. But
any responsible editor would refuse to print this old-CP-style insinuation
of corruption, made without evidence.
Just what Mr Roper wants to say about imperialism, theoretically, is unintelligible
from his letter, but his emotional bias is clear: he is very, very, very
hostile to the USA. The Weekly Worker has a problem. For many people on
that Yankophobe wavelength - which dominates its chosen environment, Respect
- you are almost as bad as the AWL. You support Sadr only hesitantly;
you did not side with Saddam Hussein in the 2003 war until the last minute;
you did not side with the Taliban in the 2001 war at all; in your time
you have headlined “Oppose Sharon and Hamas”. It’s rather
like the ‘centrist’ groups in the 1930s - “in the middle
of the road”, as Trotsky put it - who had been shaken free from Stalinism
and social democracy, but then tried to keep themselves in the swim by
joining the denunciations of the “shrill”, “sectarian”
or “disruptive” Trotskyists.
But your recent experience, with defections in both sceptical-of-Respect
and ultra-pro-Respect directions, suggests that clarity is better.
Martin Thomas
AWL
Appetite for unity
It seems ex-Red Platform comrades have finally cracked the problem of
getting space in the Weekly Worker - by leaving the CPGB! Many, many thanks
for your critique of the Red Party (‘Yet another bloody non-sectarian
sect’ Weekly Worker September 2).
Mike Macnair closes with his main conclusion: “For all their ostensible
non-sectarianism, their actual decision to split and set up a new party
was sectarian. It disproves not the CPGB’s approach to differences,
but their own.” In short, while he finds no sectarian politics in
our arguments, we’re sectarian simply because we left the CPGB.
Firstly, of course, not all of us did. Gerry Byrne was a member of the
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, and a former national committee member
and sub-editor of Solidarity. Rae Hancock was a candidate for the South
East group the Peace Party, which came within a whisker of trumping the
mighty Respect in the European elections (winning 12,572 votes to Respect’s
13,426 - and on a ticket including republicanism, open borders, and workers’
representation on a worker’s wage! But that’s another story).
More importantly, though the Weekly Worker is a fine paper (which it would
be unseemly to praise too highly as, after all, I wasn’t exactly
a stranger in it), it would perhaps be overstating its importance to categorise
merely leaving the CPGB as sectarian in itself. Let’s face it: people
leave groups and join others all the time: are all those who left other
groups to join the CPGB also sectarians?
As for those of us who did leave the CPGB, Mike criticises “the comrades’
inability or unwillingness to give any clear explanation of why they have
split”, but then rather spoils his case by also criticising the explanation
that, well, we failed to give. He accepts the PCC made “mistakes”,
and documents and even criticises their refusal to print collected anti-Respect
articles, and their decision to shut down the Red Platform column. He
denies that these mistakes, though, “actually amount to … suppressing
dissent”. Well, with great reluctance, but, as you insist, we’ll
repeat what we said at the time: we think they did. You may disagree,
but surely you’ve rather undermined the argument that we never explained
our reasons?
But these reasons explain why we left the CPGB, not why we formed the
Red Party. The Red Party was formed to argue that, to be honest, this
kind of sectarian bun-fight was perhaps not the best way of filling the
hearts of the bourgeoisie with fear. Naturally, in the first issue of
the Red Star, we weren’t about to fill it with denunciations of the
CPGB - or the AWL, come to that. I must confess that this is the first
time I’ve encountered a group complaining that another didn’t
run articles attacking them. For this, we’re sectarians? Are you
sure about this, comrades?
Mike’s replies to our political arguments are worthy of more serious
discussion, but space allows only the briefest replies here.
On our call for humanism inside our groups, he argues that by making great
demands on comrades’ time, money, and lives, the “Leninist groups
predominate” over humanist ones. But do they? There are perhaps 3,000
members of the British left groups all told. Isn’t demanding an ever
increasing amount from an ever smaller membership a recipe for, well,
the modern British left - surrounded as it is by a mass of broken, demoralised
shells of ex-comrades, muttering ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’
in their sleep, and wincing their way past Socialist Worker sellers?
We have also argued the left speaks a language most cannot understand,
and Mike defends this on the grounds that many groups of ‘specialists’
do the same: quoting the interesting examples of fly-fishermen, mechanics,
and “swingers”. I don’t fish, and don’t, um, ‘swing’
(there’s a confession I never thought I’d be making in the Weekly
Worker), but I drive very old cars, far too fast, and have had plenty
of contact with mechanics as a result. Now think, is some jaw-stroking
engineer saying, ‘It’s your castellated grommet assembly - whole
thing needs replacing: gonnacostyaguv’ really the best model for
socialist propaganda? Yes, mechanics need a special language to talk to
each other, but I can’t help feeling that they, like the left, could
do better in communicating with those outside their expertise. In the
end, we need to take our arguments to those who aren’t yet socialists,
and to persuade.
Let’s move on from here. We regard the CPGB, and indeed the AWL,
as close comrades - and we note the primary criticism both organisations
have made against us is that, well, we’re not part of them. Perhaps
this is a good sign. Let’s turn that appetite for unity into wholehearted
cooperation, in the Socialist Alliance Democracy Platform and elsewhere,
towards building a genuine workers’ party, in which we can enjoy
freedom to continue our discussions, while finally achieving unity in
action.
Manny Neira
Red Party
Rights
Three short points on Mike Macnair’s well aimed article on the Red
‘party’.
Firstly, it was not through a decision of a CPGB members’ aggregate
that the Red Platform was given a weekly column. That was agreed by the
Provisional Central Committee after myself and Mark Fischer persuaded
Cameron Richards and Manny Neira that they should publish their disagreements
with the majority not outside our structures, but through them. Hence
the Weekly Worker column and a website link (we also published letters
and a string of other articles written by them and their co-thinkers).
Secondly, the decision to close the column was taken by the PCC because
the Red Platform comrades could no longer fill it with anything worthwhile.
We do, after all, have a duty to the readers of the paper. The Weekly
Worker is not an ‘anything goes’ noticeboard.
Thirdly, and most importantly. Closing the column did not affect their
rights as members. They were free to issue their own propaganda (printed
at cost price by the Party press) and write, collectively, or as individuals,
for the paper - indeed, as far as I know, after the column was closed,
the editor accepted everything they submitted. In other words no one was
silenced.
Sadly, despite the Red Platform’s claim that they were CPGB “partisans”,
the majority of them possessed no understanding of comradeship nor commitment
to the norms of democratic centralism. Doubtless, in part that is our
fault. But that is another story.
John Bridge
London
Allegations
Take a look at the draft constitution put forward by the Respect executive
for adoption at the conference at the end of October. It does appear,
to put it mildly, that the allegations raised by the CPGB that Respect
is a “non-socialist alliance” and that it would likely have
a “worse internal regime than the Socialist Labour Party” were
ill-judged, arrant nonsense.
Note the clear commitment to a society based on common ownership and democratic
control, the constitutionally enshrined hostility to the profit system,
and the ‘socialism’ in the name of the organisation. Note also
the overt, public statement encouraging dual membership, which is the
exact opposite of the SLP’s Stalinist constitution. The biggest flaw,
I suppose, is the retention of the slate system of leadership election
- a flaw that was also true of the Socialist Alliance.
However unusual its origins, this is clearly a socialist coalition that
publicly aims at democratic methods of organisation and functioning. Like
the SA, of course, it takes no position on the reformability or otherwise
of the bourgeois state - which is the kind of flaw one would expect from
this kind of project. This is, as we all know, an argument yet to be won
by revolutionaries left among the broader left constituency this project,
like its SA and SLP predecessors, is aimed at, so is it hardly surprising.
As in all such matters, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and
these may turn out to be just fine words that butter no parsnips, as the
saying goes. But this draft constitution alone blows out of the water
most, if not all, of the idiocies some on the left have hurled at Respect
in terms of its alleged ‘non-socialist’ nature.
Ian Donovan
email
For secularism
I am looking for 20 paid up Respect members to come forward as signatories
to the following conference motion, as required by standing orders (please
indicate your support by emailing me at DAVIDLANDAU9@aol.com):
This conference declares that Respect, the unity coalition, is a secular
organisation. This means Respect strives for a society in which people
of all faiths and none are equal, in which there is a complete separation
between religion and the state and any instruments of governance nationally
or locally and opposes the coercion by any authority of any person to
adhere to a faith or obey the rules of any faith. It means that Respect
is open to those of all faiths and none, does not favour and is not beholden
to any religion or religious institution.
Conference asserts that this follows from our commitment to equality and
socialism, a commitment embedded in our title. As a consequence of this
Respect will actively:
- Oppose coercive action by religious institutions, authorities or movements.
Oppose the suppression of right of individuals or sections of the community
by religious institutions, authorities or movements - for example, gender
rights, right to sexuality, right to ‘heretical’ beliefs, etc.
- Support all working class and progressive movements within those communities
who stand up for the rights of those under threat from religious institutions,
authorities or movements.
- Oppose the persecution and discrimination of people because of their
faith. Oppose the suppression of a faith by the state.
- Demand the immediate abolition of the blasphemy laws.
- Demand the immediate disestablishment of the Church of England.
- Demand the end of state subsidies to all faith schools.
David Landau
Islington Respect
Stalin
In last week’s issue, two letters appeared sequentially regarding
Stalin, each offering perspectives on the nature of the Soviet Union and
historical support for its politics (September 2). Both letters contain
a number of conflating and contradictory strands, subjectively deforming
history in order to excuse some of the actions of the bureaucratised Soviet
Union - an angle reminiscent of orthodox ‘official communism’.
DM Picard, in spite of his self-professed ‘abhorrence’ of Stalin,
nevertheless provides a rather dubious defence of Soviet collectivisation;
the benefits of hindsight and polemic enable him to excuse the forceful
immiseration of the masses for the sake of constructing a bulwark defence
against an expansionist Third Reich. Andrew Northall approaches this same
defence from a different angle, though the perspective is largely the
same: in spite of everything, Stalin symbolised a progressive force in
Soviet politics in the face of hardship, isolation and economic adversity.
Such a viewpoint is not only an absurdity, but stands in stark contrast
to the impetus behind a socialist movement in the first place: that of
forging a society on a higher social, cultural and economic basis than
that preceding it. Regardless of Russia’s underdeveloped economic
base, one cannot defend Stalin’s actions by way of a comparison with
western (British) industrialisation - to conflate the economic developments
in western Europe at the turn of the 20th century with Soviet forced collectivisation
is to essentially refrain from any form of concrete analysis of economic
and social relations, and to dislocate the political from the economic.
Quite how anyone - especially someone professing to be a Marxist - can
put forward an argument along such lines is remarkable indeed. Picard’s
perspective of Soviet industrialisation simply fails to appreciate the
purpose of socialism as an economic system: that it offers itself as a
more highly advanced mode of development than its forerunners, not a mere
effigy of them. Northall and Picard’s failure to appreciate this
is indeed what is “farcical” here.
Unfortunately, Northall goes further than this with his odious apologetic.
Apparently, ‘we’ need to make ourselves aware of the “historic
contribution of Stalin” - a request which is followed by a generic
and sketchy ‘vision’ of communist society. Thank god (or perhaps
the Man of Steel) for the visionaries! This approach is reminiscent of
Stalinist scribes prefacing all their works with a re-assertion of ‘diamat’
to confirm that they are operating within a sound and acceptable general
line. What follows might seem mechanistic and drained of progressive categories
- but that’s excusable, for Northall has provided us with his vision
to legitimate his diatribe.
We are told that Stalin is an “integral aspect of communism’,
and in refusing to acknowledge such, Northall proffers, we are rejecting
“our own history and tradition”. As if to validate his claims,
Northall juxtaposes the Paris Commune with Stalin’s USSR - another
reflection of his conflationary thinking. Indeed, no-one is disputing
the validity of Bolshevism or the Russian Revolution; instead, we reject
the counterrevolutionary bureaucratisation and caste rule from a party
elite that emerged in the wake of Lenin’s death.
Northall, like so many of the old ‘official communists’, simply
fails to grasp the qualitative shifts in the structure and nature of the
Bolshevik Party throughout its existence, especially in the wake of the
civil war. For exclamatory effect, we are also informed that the party
leadership were “better Marxists than Marx and Engels!” (sic).
This fetishised viewpoint speaks for itself, followed by a crude portrayal
of the roles of Trotsky and Bukharin in the 20s. So much for Northall’s
“scientific approach to history, revolution and [the] ultimate communist
ideal”.
Northall is not alone in his retrospective rewrites, however; Picard has
his own share in this historical Alzheimer’s. His lamentation that
Channel 4’s documentary on Stalin made reference to the Bolshevik
Party by name is purely arbitrary: the Bolshevik Party was still called
the Bolshevik Party, no matter how much Picard would like to re-pen history
in order to clarify nomenclature for today’s movement. Indeed, he
is correct when he states that Bolshevism did die “when Lenin died
and Trotsky did not succeed him” (or rather, was marginalised in
the mid-20s) - this however is besides the point. His portrayal of Trotsky
as the Soviet Union’s “true leader” subsumes concrete analysis.
Trotsky was clearly a logical successor on the basis of intellect and
aptitude, but this does not amount to the same thing as being historically
predetermined as leader. Here we find the (by now unsurprising) conflation
of concrete circumstances and flirtations with desire once more.
The prevailing themes of these two letters, exemplified by Northall’s
need to defend the USSR’s position with regards to its limitation
of world imperialism, conveniently forget the Soviet Union’s own
expansionist tendencies in the post-war period. But, of course, that’s
okay - it was presumably of a more noble and ‘heroic’ nature.
The left needs to wake up and stop apologising for the crimes of Stalin
and the rape of theory under the yoke of the Stalinist legacy. The documentary
did indeed “castigate Stalin, but blame communism”. Unfortunately,
that’s the nature of hegemonic liberalism - ‘he who controls
the terminology controls the ideology’, to paraphrase Mr Herbert.
For this reason, it is even more necessary to distinguish Stalinism from
Marxism instead of making crude excuses on the basis of ‘progressive
property relations’ or similarly dubious categories that these two
letters exemplify.
Marc Simpson
email
Not socialist
Comrade Andrew Northall writes that Stalin made a contribution to the
establishment of socialism. I disagree, although I agree that it is necessary
to study Stalin and the Soviet Union.
Comrade Northall refers to the Soviet Union as being a “socialist
state”. He is aware that this can only be a contradiction in terms.
A state is an instrument of class rule. Stalin, whom comrade Northall
admires, himself wrote: “Future society will be socialist society.
This means, primarily, that there will be no classes in that society ...
Where there are no classes, where there are neither rich nor poor, there
is no need for a state” (Works Vol 1, p336).
Stalin also argued that in socialism “buying and selling will also
be abolished”. Comrade Northall knows perfectly well that there was
buying and selling in the ‘socialist state’ of the Soviet Union.
Comrade Northall is an admirer of the Russian Revolution. But I was unaware
that he held that Stalinism was a proletarian current, and that in the
Stalinist states the working class held power.
Comrade Northall refers to a working class state in the ‘pre-capitalist’
Russia. In The German ideology, Marx demonstrated that the working class
in the advanced countries would lead the workers in the backward countries
in the development of communist consciousness and the establishment of
communism. Comrade Northall’s claim that socialism can come to a
backward country before an advanced country is a complete rejection of
dialectical and historical materialism.
I agree with comrade Northall that we must consider the Russian Revolution
scientifically. Doing so, from the analysis of material relations of production,
and the social formations which arise from this, I can only conclude that
Marx was correct, and comrade Northall is incorrect.
Richard Cumming
Democratic Revolution
Oh happy day
Nobody can deny that communism made its greatest advances when the international
communist movement was under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. This applies
also to the Daily Worker, now known as the Morning Star, which had a circulation
of 121,000 in 1947.
Readers will therefore be interested to learn that a new party, the Communist
Party of Great Britain (Marxist Leninist), was founded on July 3 2004
at the Saklatvala Hall in Southall. The CPGB (ML) bases itself on Leninist-Stalinist
principles, viewing itself as “the natural progression of the CPGB
of the 1920s and 30s”.
Ivor Kenna
London
Gay victory
The organisers of the Music of Black Origin (Mobo) awards cancelled the
nominations of reggae superstars Elephant Man and Vybz Kartel after they
refused to apologise for their lyrics inciting the murder of lesbian and
gay people.
The two singers had been nominated for an award in the ‘Best reggae’
category, but protests from the gay rights groups Outrage and the Black
Gay Men’s Advisory Group forced the Mobo organisers to reconsider
the nominations. The singers’ refusal to apologise is indicative
of their unrepentant violent homophobia.
For example, Vybz Kartel in Bedroom slaughteration, uses the lyrics, “Bow
cat, sodomite, batty man fi gat assassination” (“Oral sexer,
lesbian and queer must be assassinated”); and in Pussy jaw: “Faggot
fi get copper to di heart” (“Faggot must get copper [bullet]
to the heart”). Elephant Man, in A nuh fi wi fault, exhorts: “Battyman
fi dead!” (“Queers must be killed!”) - a lyric repeated
in We nuh like gay.
We applaud the decision to drop these artists. Incitement to murder should
never be rewarded. The Mobos have taken a lead and we hope other promoters,
sponsors, and record companies will follow their positive example.
Brett Lock
Outrage
SWP and BNP
The situation described in the article, ‘BNP infiltrates SWP’
is not the first time such a thing has happened (Weekly Worker September
2).
In the late 1970s, a tiny, overtly Nazi group called SS Wotan 18 (probably
long since defunct) boasted that one of its members had managed to infiltrate
the Socialist Workers Party. This was presented by them as being a major
feat. Anyone who knows the SWP and its recruiting methods will know that
it was not.
Steve Kearney
email
Conspiracy
Royston Bull calls for “a total Palestinian victory over the whole
post-1945 Jewish/imperialist colonisation attempt” (Letters, September
2).
As an anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist Jew, I have not been invited to
take part. Perhaps Mr Bull can provide the address, so that I can claim
my share of the benefits that I have gained from this conspiracy.
Roland Rance
email
Smoking bans
I’m sorry I’ve upset Patrick Randall (Letters, September 2).
If he reads my letter again he will see that I attacked the tobacco industry,
not smokers. The tobacco industry are pleased that you enjoy their product.
They want your money and they couldn’t give a monkey’s about
your health or anything else. I agree with him about the pharmaceutical
industry: they only care about your health if it can make them money.
I’ve also been known to enjoy cigarettes. In fact I only gave up
because I needed the money for other things - like keeping a roof over
my head.
Dave Edwards
email
