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Weekly Worker 544 Thursday September 16 2004
Letters
The other 9/11
Last week saw the 31st anniversary of the ‘other 9/11’. On the
morning of Tuesday September 11 1973, two jets launched a deadly attack
on the presidential palace of La Moneda in the heart of Santiago, Chile.
A military coup led by Augusto Pinochet ousted the presidency of Salvador
Allende, the democratically elected socialist head of state. Thousands
of Allende supporters were rounded up, detained, tortured and murdered.
During the previous three years the US helped destabilise the country.
They cancelled loans and aid to the elected government of Chile, but re-armed
its military. CIA manipulation was rife. When Allende was elected, Henry
Kissinger had said: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and
watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
He meant it. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with American
interests.
Both September 11 events were tragic, but let us not forget the many thousands
of people who were tortured and murdered in Chile in the interests of
capitalism.
Dave Edwards
Doncaster
Imperialism
Mike Macnair’s reply to my letter suggests his grasp of psychology
is little better than his grasp of Marxism (Letters, September 9). Quite
how Tourette’s syndrome or Sean Matgamna’s alleged “original
Healyism” are relevant to our differences on imperialism is beyond
me - but then flights of fantasy also characterised his original articles.
Macnair says he would happily engage with us if only we wrote a serious
critique of his views. How very “non-sectarian” of him. Except
that he has just expended 15,000 words over three issues of the Weekly
Worker without actually writing a serious critique of the Alliance for
Workers’ Liberty’s understanding of imperialism or indeed of
earlier Marxist theories. Little wonder we feel exasperated at yet another
CPGB hatchet job dressed up as a scholarly contribution.
Macnair said in his original piece that our analysis is “a pretty
clear break with the programmatic positions of the tradition from which
the AWL originally came”. He says this includes “the Trotskyist
variant of communism”, the Comintern and “Lenin’s theory
of imperialism”. Our alleged heresy is pointing out that imperialism
can have progressive consequences, such as the creation of working classes.
Even from the selection of quotations in my letter it is clear that all
the classical Marxists understood imperialism in this way - in their major
and minor works - not simply their “casual comments”, as he
puts it. This is not theology - it is necessary to represent the views
of earlier Marxists accurately before building on their insights and/or
criticising them - something Macnair has simply failed to do.
Macnair says I “conflate” the classical Marxists, “paying
no attention whatever to the differences between these views”. But
this misses the point, since they did share common assumptions on the
nature of imperialism and the AWL does not simply conflate them in our
articles (see, for example, Workers’ Liberty February 1996).
Macnair says: “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.”
But this is precisely what we have said in developing the idea of the
‘imperialism of free trade’ - the form taken by imperialism
since 1945. This is something Macnair would know if he had bothered to
read even a small sample of our publications.
And what alternative does Macnair present in his articles? An account
of capitalist decline with little substance, some superficial remarks
about the state, a dubious analogy depicting the relations between the
most powerful states and the recycling of dependency theories. This is
hardly an advance. In fact it is much like the kind of mechanical application
of Lenin we’ve been trying to go beyond.
The political conclusions Macnair draws from his view of imperialism are
also clear. On Iraq he offers purely verbal support to the Iraqi working
class, whilst emphasising exactly the kind of facile anti-imperialism
that implicitly promotes the islamist ‘resistance’ to the occupation
in the name of a mangled ‘Leninist’ defeatism. The CPGB ludicrously
goes so far as to propose that the newly emerging labour movement form
an alliance with the fundamentalists - a proposal that, if it were ever
put into practice, would surely cut the throat of independent working
class politics in Iraq.
If these are the results of his investigation, then nothing has been achieved.
Paul Hampton
AWL
Beslan
I have nothing but praise for your article about the Beslan massacre (‘Putin
follows in the bloody footsteps of Stalin and the tsars’, September
9). I fail to understand what the Chechens hoped to achieve by committing
this terrible act. They have only lost supporters of their cause for national
liberation and in the unlikely event that Chechnya gains independence
suicide bombers and the like will not live to see their region free from
Russian oppression.
On the US presidential election, since a vote for the American Libertarian
Party would be a wasted one, I call for a boycott. The left may say they
will vote for Kerry. Sure, he is the lesser of two evils, but that doesn’t
mean you have to vote for him. As far as I am concerned, Kerry is to Bush
as Tony Blair is to Michael Howard.
Simon Byrne
email
Class collaboration
We note that the article on your recent Communist University contains
the following report of the intervention of one of our comrades: “Alan
Davis of the International Bolshevik Tendency said the workers’ party
must be internationalist and committed to working class independence,
so it must give no support to Ken Livingstone, the anti-war movement,
or the Respect coalition” (Weekly Worker September 2).
This does not accurately represent our well-known attitude toward the
“anti-war movement”. As you well know, we are not opposed to
anti-war activity, merely to the openly class-collaborationist reformism
pushed by the Stop the War Coalition misleadership. In fact we have actively
participated in anti-war mobilisations in Britain and have proposed the
building of an openly anti-imperialist bloc in such events. This would
pose the possibility of an open political struggle against the Stop the
War Coalition’s pacifism and class collaboration - something the
CPGB has been unwilling to do.
We note a pattern of capitulation to class collaborationism by the CPGB
leadership. A recent example was the article ‘ESF chooses Ken’s
police apologist’, which recognised that Livingstone “eagerly
promotes the City and big business and disgracefully called for London
underground workers to cross RMT picket lines”, yet still characterised
him as someone “broadly ‘of the left’” and defended
the CPGB’s vote for him in the 2000 London mayoral elections (September
2). Even in this retrospective article there is no criticism of the openly
class-collaborationist programme Livingstone is carrying out today. It
was this programme that precluded any possibility of Marxists advocating
a vote for him.
It is clear that the CPGB leadership does not include respect for the
principles of elementary working class solidarity in its definition of
who is “of the left” - this is liberalism, not Marxism.
Barbara Dorn
International Bolshevik Tendency
ESF website
Reporting on the European Social Forum website, you write: “Instead,
the contract had been given to the company GreenNet, which at the moment
does not seem able even to correct problems with the site that have been
pointed out on countless occasions” (Livingstone tightens his grip’,
September 9).
This is not true. Firstly GreenNet is one of the most progressive ISPs
in the UK and supports tons of grassroots organisations and campaigns.
Second, the delays to changes to the website, etc are not the fault of
GreenNet, but both the stupid slow process in the ESF and the fact that
one GLA employee is in effect the only person in charge of the website!
here@there.com
email
Swansea murder
Around 300 people gathered on September 14 in Swansea for a vigil for
Kalan Kawa Karim, a 29-year-old Iraqi Kurd who was murdered in an alleyway
outside a pub in the centre of the city two weeks ago. Witnesses and evidence
suggests that the murder was racist in motive.
Kalan had fled Iraq in 2002, having been tortured whilst in prison there.
He had been given full refugee status when he came to live in Wales some
20 months ago. The 150 or so members from the Kurdish community have repeatedly
reported living in fear of a racist attack. Kalan’s death bore testament
to that fear.
Amongst those at the vigil, which included Kalan’s family and friends,
was the Kurdish Federation in the UK. Its speaker commented on the police
declaration that Kalan’s death had been declared an “isolated
incident”, yet highlighted the common scenario where individuals
fleeing terror under Saddam’s regime were persecuted further and,
in this case, murdered in this country. The Swansea Bay Asylum-Seekers
Support Group added in a leaflet that “… government politics
which make many immigrants ‘illegal’ encourage the resentment
and fear of foreigners - Kalan Karim is the latest victim of a UK climate
of hatred.”
Activists from local asylum-seekers support groups and Respect, who called
the vigil, are now planning a march through the centre of Swansea towards
the end of this month. Swansea Bay Asylum-Seekers Support Group can be
contacted on 07837 275279.
Bob Davies
Swansea
Imperialist AWL
No doubt Richard Roper is more than capable of repelling the synthetic
outrage of Martin Thomas (Letters, September 9). However, I am surprised
at not only Mr Thomas’s failure to understand the most elementary
rules of logic, but his resort to conspiracy theory.
Apparently Mr Roper’s accusation that the Alliance for Workers’
Liberty directly aids imperialism (true) and thus confuses the left (also
true) is such an amazing coincidence that it can only mean that the AWL
is in the pay of imperialism! Why? A far more likely explanation for AWL’s
pro-imperialist position than bribery is that it has convinced itself
that imperialism has a progressive role. And, if that is true, is it surprising
that people on the left are confused? I was certainly confused that a
group calling itself a revolutionary socialist and Trotskyite should also
support Zionism and partition in Ireland!
Does the AWL “directly”, as opposed to ‘indirectly or ‘inadvertently’,
aid imperialism? Well I’m not sure how you can ‘inadvertently’
support imperialism - as if it was a question of stepping into the road
without looking! Both myself and many others have shouted ‘Watch
out!’ on so many occasions that, unless the explanation is terminal
deafness, then one can only assume the AWL’s positions are indeed
deliberate.
Is AWL’s pro-Zionist position merely an ‘indirect’ aid
to imperialism? Well the Zionists don’t think so. I have copies of
articles from the Jewish Chronicle, the main newspaper of the Jewish bourgeoisie
in this country, openly reporting how Zionists admire the position AWL
takes! The Israeli state-funded Union of Jewish Students repeatedly expressed
its gratitude when I was in the NUS for Socialist Organiser’s support
for Zionism (no, they weren’t fooled by their two-statism). Of course,
compared to the support of US imperialism for the Zionist state, the AWL’s
support is but a drop in the ocean, but insofar as it confuses the opponents
of Zionism and brings comfort to its supporters, let us not be modest,
Martin. Of course your support for imperialism is direct. It’s just
that you are not able to muster many forces!
I am a Jewish anti-Zionist who has had to face not merely the hostility
of Zionists, who accused myself and others of ‘self-hatred’
(just as the Nazis accused anti-fascist Germans of being anti-national),
but also thuggery, the breaking up of meetings and accusations of ‘anti-semitism’.
All this we can accept and fight, but treachery from those who called
themselves Marxists but who aided those who justified war crimes against
the Palestinians is unforgivable. The explanation for SO/AWL’s position
is no different from that of social democrats in World War I. When chauvinism
is in the air, it is always easier to side with your own ruling class
than the oppressed in another country.
It is little wonder that, having gone out of its way to find excuses for
the bigots of Ulster loyalism (who also had a national identity, according
to the AWL - kicking catholics) and Zionism, that AWL is now finding reasons
why the United States and Britain should stay in Iraq. To protect the
workers’ movement no less! Is it any wonder that, with socialists
like these, Arabs should find the attractions of political islam more
to their taste?
The tragedy is that Martin Thomas doesn’t understand that the history
of imperialism is one of divide and rule and that, far from reining back
the murderous attacks of islam on Iraq’s worker parties, it makes
it ever more likely that the islamic parties will continue to grow in
strength.
Tony Greenstein
Brighton
All Zionist?
Roland Rance in his witty note is presumably asking that the post-1945
ethnic-cleansing of Palestine be termed ‘Zionist/imperialist colonisation’,
as opposed to “Jewish/imperialist” - telling us that he as a
Jew has not benefited from this conspiracy yet (Letters, September 9).
The implication is that the millions of Jews now occupying Palestine must
obviously all be Zionists, and that no Jews in the rest of the world get
any benefit or comfort at all from the building of the state of Israel
into an enormous military power and the most dollar-aided country on earth.
That anyone can have such naive delusions would be slightly more credible
if Roland Rance could be heard denouncing the foundation of the state
of Israel and all its works.
Royston Bull
Manchester
Abolish family
“ ... a revolutionary world of workers’ states is the only long-term
guarantee of real human enlightenment on all the rotten discriminations
still prevalent in an insecure, class-divided society” - Royston
Bull, has it down correctly (Letters, September 2).
Single-issue politics are but a manifestation of left reformism, for they
flow from the fallacious proposition that capitalism can somehow be reformed
to eliminate the terrible injustices that are inevitably part and parcel
of the society that the system has produced. Intolerance against gay people
has its roots within the nuclear family - the basic building-block of
capitalism - and until the nuclear family has been replaced by a higher
social unit reflecting the building of socialism, which can only occur
in the wake of a socialist revolution, these backward anti-gay attitudes
will persist, for they are learned within the family.
A successful socialist revolution would necessitate that the nuclear family
receive no legal protection, and that social collectives be encouraged
and aided by a state and government of, by and for the working class.
The key to the elimination of social oppression is inextricably tied to
the overthrow of the profit system (capitalism) and its replacement by
a system of economic and social collectivism. In short, the power of the
working class.
Michael Little
Seattle
Willy-wagging
There have been a number of letters in the Weekly Worker demanding “how
many members” the CPGB has - comrade Shaun Tinsley’s being a
recent example (August 5). This is something of low political worth which
often raises its ugly head within left politics, indicative of a morbid
and decaying sectarianism prevalent in our current political period.
What a shame it is that left culture has degenerated into what can only
be compared to the practice of pubescent male youths in the PE changing
rooms - enthusiastically comparing their manhood. The trap which comrade
Tinsley falls into (and possibly the young boys too) is to confuse the
prime importance of quality with that of quantity.
It is taken as axiomatic by the majority of the left that ‘bigger
is better’ and therefore what is required for the liberation of mankind
is to draw as many people as humanly possible into this or that left sect,
analogous to an Automobile Association stall signing up people for motor
insurance. Little wonder then, that some British National Party thugs
so easily infiltrated the Socialist Workers Party (see Weekly Worker September
2).
This also has dire political and programmatic consequences - namely to
tone down terms like ‘socialism’, ‘communism’ and
the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ in an attempt to pander
the existing (low) consciousness of the masses in a display of dire opportunism.
Genuine Marxists start from the interests of the class itself - not the
size of this or that left sect in competition with each other, or the
extent that bourgeois ideology is warping mass consciousness.
We recognise that without revolutionary unity - around a democratically
agreed programme, in which minority opinions are not only tolerated, but
given room to flourish - the working class cannot liberate itself for
the ultimate good of humanity. This is why we intervene in Respect, the
anti-war movement and (thankfully now) in the Socialist Alliance Democracy
Platform, agitating politically against what we see as political failings
made not only by the SWP, but by the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty,
the Socialist Party, Workers Power and so forth.
Ben Lewis
Sheffield
CPGB ‘line’
Comrade Ian Donovan writes about “allegations raised by the CPGB”
in relation to Respect (Letters, September 9). The first of these is that
the unity coalition is a “non-socialist alliance” and the second
that Respect would have a “worse internal regime than the Socialist
Labour Party”.
The first “allegation” was publicly made by members of the Socialist
Workers Party themselves - they said that was why principles like republicanism,
a worker’s wage and open borders were out of place. Paul Holborrow
specifically said: “Respect is not a socialist organisation”
(Weekly Worker January 29). As to the second, that was, I believe, made
by a Weekly Worker writer, comrade Manny Neira, who like comrade Donovan
recently deserted the ranks of CPGB partisans.
The point is that the words of Weekly Worker writers should not be attributed
to “the CPGB”. Otherwise everything written in these pages by
comrade Donovan himself, who took a rather different position to that
of comrade Neira, would also have to be regarded as the official CPGB
‘line’.
Peter Manson
editor
Wake up
Methinks that Ian Donovan should wake up and smell the coffee. He has
written that Respect is “clearly a socialist coalition”. This
is utter codswallop. Because Respect is actually a rainbow coalition.
Furthermore, the Respect party is little more than a front for the SWP-ISG
bloc.
Perhaps Ian Donovan might like to explain why the Socialist Alliance was
destroyed by the SWP-ISG bloc?
Philip Maguire
Wolverhampton
Respect
I would like to send only the briefest of messages conveying my support
for the CPGB’s position on Respect. It is a position that, with the
aid of the Weekly Worker, allows us to be part of a growing movement without
being blind to its faults.
James Osterberg
email
Correction
Pictures accompanying the article, ‘Livingstone tightens his grip’
featured in last week’s paper Weekly Worker should have been credited
to Lars Bohn, bohn@attac.dk. We apologise for the omission
