Weekly Worker 576 Thursday May 12 2005

Letters

Gobsmacked too
Comrade Andrew Berry calls us sectarian for not calling for a vote for Jeremy Corbyn in the recent general election, by which I think he means that our criteria for supporting candidates were so narrow that only people who agree with us on obscure and irrelevant issues are worthy of support (Letters, May 5). My own definition of sectarian socialism would be that it supports policies that reflect sectional or temporary advantages, as against the long-term interests of the class as a whole.

Furthermore, we were forced to select our criteria for working class unity when the left is divided and with the exception of Respect almost invisible. Because of Respect’s call for a coalition between muslim activists and socialist activists, we felt we must emphasise the centrality of class as an organising principle. Because of the left’s weak and divided nature we had no choice but to make our definition of class as wide as possible without letting in those forces that were ideologically opposed to working class power as a matter of principle. Nobody on the left or even in the Labour Party was excluded by our call: we couldn’t have been more inclusive.

Our second condition (and we only made two) should have been equally non-controversial for socialists. Namely, that we should demand the unconditional and immediate end to the imperialist occupation of Iraq. We were as gobsmacked as comrade Berry when we could find only four Labour candidates that would publicly support this position (after all over a hundred of them voted against the war because it was illegal, immoral or just plain stupid). Jeremy Corbyn, much to our surprise, was not one of them. He answered none of our repeated calls to clarify his position. I cannot help but feel he wanted to avoid the question during the election and emphasise his Labour loyalty above his socialist principles. This bodes ill for the future, does it not, comrade Berry? But it’s no good fulminating against the messenger: you need to take it up with your candidate.

I can sympathise with David Landau still wanting to vote for Corbyn because of his record, but the problem is that if the left leaves imperialism free to dominate the world stage uncontested then what chance do socialist campaigns in parliament have of succeeding and how long before the handful of “people who can be counted on” becomes half a handful? You cannot de-link foreign and domestic policy: they have the same exploitative aim. Labour’s tendency to surrender to imperialist pressures is deep and longstanding and has to be challenged. The occupation is, after all, a living issue - British troops are out there now killing people. We cannot ignore it. Sometimes life delivers an unpleasant shock and you are stuck with a choice you neither wanted nor expected. We chose the principle over the person. Comrade Landau chose the person - wrongly in my opinion.

Paul Hubert asks, reasonably enough, what is the difference between phrases like “as soon as possible” and “speedy”, and why did we find one acceptable and the other not? The answer is they come out of the mouths of politicians and you have to ask questions to find out what they actually mean. “As soon as possible” could mean ‘first thing in the morning’ or it could mean ‘in a couple of years’. So could “speedy”.
You see, we didn’t try to tie people down to a set of words, but sought to understand their intentions. We did not insist that they had the same view of imperialism as we have. The result may be a bit fuzzy, but it isn’t sectarian.
Phil Kent
Hackney

Corbyn’s platitudes
Comrade Berry states that actions speak louder than words and comrade Mike Calvert points out that when in the USA Jeremy Corbyn spoke at “every anti-war rally”.

I was one of the people who had the delightful task of ringing around the campaign offices of Labour left candidates and attempting to find out about their individual positions on the Iraq war and occupation. Looking on the list and seeing names like Lynn Jones of Birmingham Selly Oak did not inspire me too much - I knew most of the soft, pro-imperialist pap she and others would reel off.

Seeing Jeremy Corbyn’s name, however, cheered me up a little. Surely someone to have a comradely discussion with on the question of Iraq? Well, it seems that the new pope is easier to get on the phone than comrade Corbyn. You have to ask, if the direct question concerning support of the statement of withdrawal of troops really was something Jeremy could have dealt with by quickly answering with one word, then why were our numerous calls never returned?

Comrade Landau points out that Corbyn’s election material amounted to nothing more than pacifistic, liberal platitudes on the issue of Iraq. It is not as if there has been a misunderstanding which Corbyn has been rushing to correct!

It is also wrong to suggest that the war should not be the basis on which to shape our tactics regarding the elections. Comrades, two million people on the streets just two years ago, seeking a political alternative today is more than “key”. It is the most pressing issue in British politics - still. It is an issue that has split the whole of British society in two; it is the reason why Labour candidates refused to use Tony Blair’s picture in their election material; and following the stitch-up that was the Hutton report, it highlights the gaping democratic deficit within the constitutional monarchy system.

Comrade Landau’s approach to supporting Corbyn on the basis of “other issues” like his rejection of PFI and support for increased funding for health or whatever is also tactically flawed. For communists the main issue is the political independence of the working class, for which we need a party based on democratic centralism. To further this aim partisans of the working class must exacerbate divisions within the Labour Party and other political formations. The issue of unconditional withdrawal of troops draws a clear line between those who are on the side of the British imperialist state and those who are for the working class - at the end of the day you cannot be for both. Could PFI or healthcare provision have done the same?

And just a quick splash of cold reality for comrade Calvert in his posing of the rhetorical question, “Do we want the return of a Thatcherite regime?” We’ve got one, comrade, and this one comes with an oh so smug Blairite smile.
Ben Lewis
Sheffield

May Day
I listened carefully to the speeches of Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Benn in Trafalgar Square on May Day. Although they both gave mention to the war in Iraq and Corbyn called for the “withdrawal of troops”, he did not say when. Why so vague?

I couldn’t help noticing, by the way, the marked absence of the organised working class on the march, which was dominated by Turkish and other exile groups. Their participation is more than welcome, of course, since International Workers’ Day is meant to embody the determination of the international working class to achieve its trade union and political rights.

But how can it be so with the continued absence of British trade unions and leftwing organisations?
Roja Bamdad
West London

Minutiae
As a new reader of your paper, may I say how refreshing it is to see the degree of open debate. However, I don’t think the CPGB has done itself any favours over the election. Just to pick one example, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that socialists should not vote for Pete Radcliff of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (and instead vote for Labour!)? Surely our votes should have gone to all socialist alternatives to Labour.

My main point is about the importance of elections. They are in many respects a diversion from the task of building a mass revolutionary socialist (or communist, if you like) party. The real action is going on out there in workplaces and communities, not in parliamentary elections. The sole importance of elections to revolutionary socialists is that they may heighten political consciousness for a short period of time, providing a way in to debate the real political issues.

Let’s not get too hung up on the minutiae of it all.
Cameron Russell
West Midlands

So there
I see no need to add to the comments made by other Nottingham comrades regarding attacks on our campaign, apart from perhaps the suggestion that your readers judge for themselves as to what I said on Iraq during my campaign (see www.nottmsocialistunity.org.uk/2005/04/16/radcliff-answers-questions-on-iraq). I believe those answers to the Stop the War Coalition questionnaire, that not surprisingly was never relayed to anyone by the STWC, effectively refutes the pretence that I am an ‘apologist for the occupation’.

As for Steve Cooke’s assertion in his letter (May 5) that we barred him from information about our campaign, if he read the purposes of our list he attempted to subscribe to, it clearly says: “For announcements and information of interest to Nottingham Socialist Green Unity Coalition supporters”. Steve and the CPGB are clearly neither SGUC supporters, as the SGUC affiliates agreed mutual support, nor is he from Nottingham, as the CPGB does not have any supporters in this town nor looks likely ever to have any.
Pete Radcliff
Nottingham

Quagmire
Comrade Sam Metcalf (Letters, May 5) confirms my suspicion that the biggest obstacle to the left is the left.
Every sect on the British left hurls the turgid criticism our way that, while they are earnestly trying to face the working class, we’re stood behind them flicking the Vs. Excuse me, they say, can you leave us alone, please. We’re trying to build a workers’ movement.

Of course, comrades, this is bollocks; you’re trying to dig up frozen turf with a plastic fork, earnestly pretending that you haven’t noticed the other bunch doing exactly the same thing.

Criticism is a necessary tool of workers’ democracy and a part and parcel of our socialist tradition. To dismiss it, as comrade Metcalf does, is irresponsible. Why not join Jeremy Corbyn’s cohorts in the Labour Party if this electoral pluckiness is what you’re after?

We need the voluntary unity of all working class partisans in a single party, in which we have scope for the expression of minority opinions and are united in common actions, under the banner of a reforged Communist Party. Only through this can we hope to realise the goal of working class liberation. It is the highest form of organisation, as I’m sure comrades from the AWL would agree, but it is one that cannot be realised through narrow sectarian choices like the SGUC.

Or, for that matter, Respect. We have no illusions regarding George Galloway’s revolutionary potential. The point is to counterpose an alternative within Respect, not to suggest that it is the alternative. Our attitude regarding Respect, which contains the largest grouping of revolutionary comrades on the left, is to provide a counterbalance to those intent on dragging the SWP down into a quagmire of social democracy.
Carey Davies
Sheffield

Galloway blow
Congratulations to George Galloway and Respect for his success in being elected to represent the people of Bethnal Green and Bow. Notwithstanding the important criticisms we have of Respect, it is important that we recognise that this is a blow for the anti-war movement.

However, I would like to refresh people’s memory of how we first heard that comrade Galloway would stand in this constituency - it was ‘announced’ in the diary column of the Evening Standard back in June 2004. I mentioned this as a pointer to the possible democratic regime that was being established in Respect, in an aside in an article I wrote at the time. Comrade Galloway retorted indignantly: “Ström’s high authority, on which he bases his latest smear on me, turns out to be the ‘Diary’ column in the Evening Standard. It is surprising how often I have to tell you not to believe everything you read about me in the papers” (Letters, July 27 2004). Well, it turns out that the Evening Standard had it right ... I wonder where they heard it from?

More importantly, Galloway’s election is a tremendous opportunity for the left. It will take the opportunist crisis of the Socialist Workers Party to a higher level - which way will Respect go? To socialism or deeper into populism? The CPGB’s involvement with Respect has been correct - and it should continue to pursue such a line. The rest of the left has practically disappeared.
Marcus Ström
Sydney

Main enemy
Daniel Randall (Letters, May 5) is wrong to describe the CPGB’s line on Iraq as a “nonsensically anti-Marxist perspective”. Quite the opposite, comrade Randall. Our call for ‘troops out now’ is a response to the urgent and dire situation in Iraq, and reflects our view that the main enemy is at home.

For communists, the thrust of our anti-war efforts should be against our own state; if our efforts were successful it would show that we have the capacity to inflict defeat on our rulers.

Of course “we support those working class forces [by which I presume you mean secular forces] fighting the occupation on the ground”. Truthfully, however, at the moment these forces are dwarfed in scale and power by those fighting for islam.

The effect of the US/UK occupation can only swell the numbers of these militants drawn to political islam, both in Iraq and elsewhere. Every day the troops remain increases the chance of those currently quite disparate insurgent elements crystallising into a national theocratic ‘liberation’ movement, Their victory would certainly have dire consequences for the organised Iraqi working class.

The most pressing concern, therefore, and the most important for the working class in Iraq, is for the immediate withdrawal of troops. This is why we call for it, and it is not empty sloganeering to do so. Pete Radcliff’s hazy anti-war stance only fudges the issue.

It is silly to “prefer an orientation to solidarity with working class forces” over calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of troops; it is perfectly feasible, and necessary, to do both.
Finally, comrade Randall, we do not “wholeheartedly” support George Galloway. To our readers, and George himself, it should be pretty obvious that we critically support him. Check your Marxist A-Z for a definition of the term.
Jules Barca
Leeds

Kiwi IBT
In your May 5 issue you published a letter on behalf of the New Zealand Anti-Capitalist Alliance (ACA) over the name of Phil Duncan, which was critical of the International Bolshevik Tendency. Phil contends that the 1995 Wellington campaign against French nuclear testing on Mururoa atoll spearheaded by Non! was a middle class, liberal popular front.

In truth it was a bloc between the IBT, the Socialist Workers Organisation (a product of the fusion of Tony Cliff’s followers in the International Socialist Organisation and the formerly Stalinist Communist Party of New Zealand), the Council of Trade Unions, the Trade Union Federation and the Seafarers’ Union. This bloc was only possible because it was organised around a single demand - ending French nuclear testing at Mururoa - while at the same time participants remained free to argue for their different perspectives. The ACA apparently thinks this entire initiative was a mistake.

The day after the first nuclear test Non! held a sizeable demonstration at which an IBT representative warned against the danger of pitting New Zealand workers against French workers, called for international working class action against the tests, and supported the right of the deformed workers’ states to nuclear self-defence (the entire text of the IBT speech is published in 1917 No17 - www.bo-lshevik.org/1917/no17/NuclearTes-ts.html).

Was this middle class, liberal, popular frontism? The middle class liberals certainly didn’t think so, because the petty bourgeois peace movement types stacked the next meeting of Non! to pass a resolution saying that “The policy of Non! is against all nuclear weapons and all nuclear tests, and we will not provide a platform for people to advance nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons tests by any state.” This was an explicit response to our assertion of the right of North Korea and other workers’ states to nuclear weapons.
By changing Non!’s basis of unity from opposition to French testing in Mururoa to generalised nuclear-pacifist liberalism, this meeting turned Non! into a liberal pacifist propaganda bloc, so the IBT withdrew. Non! soon faded into oblivion. Subsequent protests were reduced to Greenpeace-type stunts without any proletarian orientation whatever.

Phil also berates the IBT for joining Multi-Cultural Aotearoa (MCA), which was built as a united front against a fascist provocation in Wellington on October 23 last year (see our account in 1917 at www.bolshevik.org/1917/no27/Welly%20demo.html). In fact the ACA itself joined this one - though not in order to organise the largest possible mobilisation against the fascists. The ACA played a role, as Phil says, in writing opposition to the New Zealand government’s immigration controls into the leaflet, thereby blurring the focus of the MCA, but they dismissed the fascists as small and irrelevant, and avoided the October 23 confrontation with them.

We see no wisdom in waiting until the fascists are large and present a more difficult military problem before addressing them. Nor do we advise attempts to build united actions against fascists on the basis of 10-point anti-capitalist programmes, which can only result in excluding most of the mainstream labour movement.
The IBT believes that fascism should be dealt with as soon as it rears its head. There are militants who will join this fight, and who should be encouraged to join this fight, who are a long way from us politically. Some of them support the Labour government; many believe that socialism is unrealistic or even undesirable. We are against the Labour government and for socialism, but we do not think it makes sense for socialists to place preconditions on those who fight the fascists. Instead we seek to use the opportunity posed by common struggle to make the case for the necessity of overturning capitalist rule.
Marcus Hayes
New Zealand

Sinn Féin
Liam O’ Ruairc (Weekly Worker April 21) and Philip Ferguson (May 5) have provided useful insights into the evolution of the Irish republican movement in recent years - and, I hope too, a stimulus for discussion.
Ferguson concludes that it “shows the limits of a national liberation struggle which does not transcend the political limitations of narrow nationalism” and that “the period in which national liberation struggles could be taken at least to the achievement of independence and some radical social changes by radical nationalist leaderships is over”. He further concludes that only a revolutionary socialist movement could succeed in achieving national liberation. His political framework for this assessment includes not only the betrayals of the republican leadership and of the British left, but the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I would argue that the republican leaders did not “betray” so much as continue the long history of compromise that has marked Irish (and other forms of) nationalism. Sinn Féin has always drawn strength from oppressed layers, but has never aspired to more than a bourgeois republic of its own. It has often spawned more radical offspring, but has never adopted them. In the early 80s I too was tempted by the prospect that socialist forces might emerge from the struggle. It seemed more promising than the British left, but the trajectory of Sinn Féin was in a different direction, and those who had begun to look to Marxism were dragged along with it. Long-term aims subordinated to the actually existing struggle - the timeless rationale of opportunism.

An episode in British left politics is instructive. In 1984 the Bloody Sunday March was planned for Sheffield. I was on the committee, along with Sinn Féin (Britain), the Irish Freedom Movement, Troops Out Movement and Labour Committee on Ireland. After the IRA bombing of Harrods one of our committee was portrayed in the local media as supporting it. This led David Blunkett - never one to miss self-publicity - to call for the march to be banned and have republican supporters banned from council premises. The response of TOM/LCI was to walk out of the committee: their idea of fighting the ban was private conversations with “David”. The Tory government carried out Blunkett’s wishes and banned the march.

Soon after Sinn Féin closed down Sinn Féin Britain and placed all its trust in TOM/LCI for campaigning in Britain. The latter went to Blunkett and cut a deal, and in 1987, now firmly in charge of the Bloody Sunday anniversary arrangements, they held the march in Sheffield. When Blunkett was challenged as to his attitude, he declared that, since the committee had excluded those who were associated with the previous, banned, march, the council was happy to support it. In fact they were allowed the City Hall at a much reduced rate.

This was about the time that Gerry Adams shared a platform with Ken Livingstone at a big public meeting in England. Irish opinion in those days was quite hostile to Labour, but this event marked a turn. It was beginning to look as if Sinn Féin and the Labour left were made for each other. These developments were portrayed as victories for the republican cause, but it should be clear by now who actually benefited.
I would not say these amounted to betrayals so much as forces acting true to their underlying political nature, so it is not good enough just to moralise about their deficiencies. While describing them as “middle class” might jar on comrade Ferguson’s ears it should be clear that they are not exactly proletarian in their politics.

The collapse of Stalinism in the USSR as a model does not explain the behaviour of the various national movements and post-colonial regimes. Its existence had provided a counterweight to imperialism and left some room for manoeuvre, but its demise was itself a reflection of changes in the world economy, bearing down on all countries. Globalisation has now proceeded so far that we really have to say that the goal of national independence is itself a chimera, when a regime so massive as the USSR succumbs. What does an all-Ireland state mean in this context?

To challenge capitalism and the barbarism it represents, requires more than calling for “Connolly-type politics for Ireland” (ie, the 32-county workers’ republic). No solution conceived within national boundaries can offer a way forward. The political independence of the working class needs to be articulated on a global scale.

I agree, however, that those who are ready to question the history of the movement should establish links and start discussions.
Mike Martin
Sheffield

Utopian past
Andrew Northall has made a number of interesting points, most of which are sound (Letters, May 5). Socialism cannot come through parliament: the working class must recognise that it has no choice but to overthrow the capitalist state in the course of the establishment of its own dictatorship.

Participation in the bourgeois electoral circus can only help to retain the illusions the proletariat have in parliament. It reproduces the illusion that we live in a ‘classless’ society, and that there is any possibility of cooperation between different economic classes, which is liberal nonsense. It reinforces the illusion that the person we elect to ‘represent’ us is going to be able to make any real change in our interests.

In 1920, the abstentionist faction of the Italian Communist Party wrote: “What distinguishes communists is not that, in every situation and in every episode of the class struggle, they call for the immediate mobilisation of all proletarian forces for a general insurrection. What distinguishes them is that they clearly say that the phase of insurrection is an inevitable outcome of the struggle, and that they prepare the proletariat to face it in conditions favourable to the success and the further development of the revolution.” Participation in bourgeois elections does not do anything to prepare workers for revolution.

Whilst I am writing with reference to comrade Northall, I would like to make it clear that I retract the letter published in the Weekly Worker of September 9 2004 criticising his attitude to Stalin. Whilst I was correct that Russia was not socialist, but capitalist, I am afraid some of the comments about Russia being too backward etc were a product of my utopian past, when, pretending to be Marxist, I did not properly apply the Marxist method. As my perspectives have changed, I would like it to be known that my previous pamphlets, such as Revolutionary Marxism v utopian anarchism and Social democracy v leftwing communism, are utopian and are also retracted.
Richard Cumming
Glasgow

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