Weekly Worker 592 Thursday September 15 2005

Letters

Principled

I see the CPGB have put forward a series of orthodox-sounding, posturing, ‘socialist’-tinselled motions for the Respect conference in November. The aim, no doubt, is to aggrandise this islamophobic, second-rate Alliance for Workers’ Liberty-type sect and try to make out that ‘socialism’ is in some way synonymous with their economistic capitulation to backward, chauvinist consciousness on key issues involving oppression of immigrants.

Given that the CPGB have played absolutely no role in Respect’s campaigning activity in the past year, and also that the entire thrust of their propaganda about Respect seems to be a campaign of whinging about the presence of nasty muslims, I have to say that in my view the position of principled socialists and anti-imperialists in Respect should be to give no support as a matter of principle to any motion proposed or sponsored by supporters of the CPGB.

Whether to abstain or vote against such motions is a matter of fine tuning and empirical calculation, but no support for CPGB motions is possible, given the reactionary thrust of CPGB politics on at least two questions. This refusal in principle should be conditional on the absence of two key changes of position by the CPGB:

(1) That they repudiate the position that they took in the general election, refusing to support a number of Respect candidates on the grounds that their muslim religious background meant that they were allegedly completely alien to the working class, even though they stood on a programme of demands of a type that the CPGB has, in the past, judged to be eminently supportable and having a working class thrust.

(2) That they declare their support for the struggles of all indigenous Iraqi forces genuinely resisting US-British imperialism’s invasion and occupation of that country, and repudiate their previous islamophobic polemics against Respect for adopting that progressive, anti-imperialist policy.

Only in the event that the CPGB publicly announce a complete about-turn on both these positions would it possible for principled anti-imperialists and socialists to even consider voting for any of their motions - or for that matter, voting for any of their members or supporters were they to stand for election as delegates in Respect branches. If they were to make these changes to their policies, this would mark them crossing the Rubicon from being reactionary opponents of the Respect project, fundamentally of the same type as the AWL (albeit with their own idiosyncrasies), to being, however shakily, in some real sense supporters (however critical) of the Respect project itself.

Even then, I would say they should be judged on their actions in seeking to build the project, not mere words. Words are cheap, and posturing ‘pure’ motions are even cheaper. But if they were to seriously engage with the task of building the project, their political role and influence would have the potential to grow accordingly. I’m not holding my breath, however. There are some pretty hardened islamophobes in the leadership of that little grouping, however much they sometimes like to hide this with double talk.

Ian Donovan
London

Healthy debate

I agree 100% on your motions on socialism, immigration, and accountability and transparency. I understand the point you are making re faith schools, but as a practising christian I am not sure I can totally support this, and I suspect that muslim members may also feel uneasy about it. I think this (like the others) needs a good, healthy debate, to find out other members’ views.

Good luck!

Pauline Cassim
email

AWL prejudices

Sacha Ismail wrote a modest letter a couple of weeks ago regarding Dr Mohammed Naseem, Respect candidate for Birmingham Perry Barr (Weekly Worker September 1): “To equate this far-right lunatic with muslims and people of muslim background in general is a racist insult - and to support a coalition which could adopt him as a standard-bearer is a betrayal of socialist principle.”

He was presumably referring first to Respect and secondly to the CPGB’s support for it. In the pages of Solidarity, however, comrade Ismail was not so diffident. In a column of his entitled ‘Looking left’, under the heading, ‘Galloway fan club: members wanted’, Sacha blasted the CPGB with the full force of his indignation: “According to the AWL comrades who attended [Communist University], it was highly entertaining,” he says. “Those highly principled publishers of the Weekly Worker had organised a debate with us on the general election contest in Bethnal Green and Bow ... this session was entitled ‘Galloway or King’, a title as misleading [why?] as the discussion that followed” (workersliberty.org/node/view/4762).

Sacha’s column amounts to little more than Sun-style tabloid muck. It serves to expose the sectarian prejudices that blight the AWL and its cadre: ultimately, a sore bunch of economists reeling from successive working class defeats. Their behaviour in the 2005 general elections and the rather silly and flimsy rationale behind their stance on the King-Galloway bout showed their tendency to become bitter, demoralised righties one moment (lauding King as a lapsed trade unionist, rather than an imperialist savage), then retreat into stubborn leftism the next (declaring Galloway to be ‘dirty’, and therefore a uniquely deplorable political phenomenon).

Sacha goes on: “Sadly I wasn’t able to pay £100 to attend the CPGB’s ‘Communist University’” - implying that the fee (£130 actually) was too steep, even though it included accommodation for the whole week. Now £130 - or £30 for a weekend ticket, £5 for a session - is pretty good to cover the cost of hosting such a unique and necessary event; a week of the most honest, open and genuinely democratic debate you could find, in which discussion is rigorous and thoroughgoing in order to clarify policy and theory.

In another section, comrade Ismail observes that “Galloway has taken time out from his busy schedule of being hailed in the Weekly Worker, opposing free speech and preparing to launch himself in America to make another attack on the Scottish Socialist Party.” Galloway’s careerist and reactionary tendencies are not unknown to the Weekly Worker, comrade; but we did support him against Oona King and in the US senate hearing.

With regard to Respect, the CPGB adopts a position of critical support, the merits of which have been extensively discussed and elucidated on the pages of this paper. George Galloway’s national socialism; Respect’s lack of internal democracy; the SWP’s oblivious rightwards charge - these are all things that have been reported on by our paper and represent a far more constructive engagement with Respect than the AWL’s mulish and ill-informed abstention.

Carey Davies
Sheffield

Connolly

Andrew Harvey writes: “I would like to point out that James Connolly was a Roman catholic as well as a Marxist. He disapproved of the American Marxist DeLeon’s anti-catholicism. In his Labour, nationality and religion Connolly quotes church fathers and saints as well as socialist thinkers to denounce social injustice and exploitation. Before he was executed he received the last rites from the Capuchins. Thus he died a Roman catholic and a Marxist” (Letters, September 8).

One of Connolly’s major theoretical contributions was his discussion of the relations between socialism and religion. Connolly’s views on that matter are fairly original and atypical. The reason why he engaged with the subject is that a great proportion of the Irish working class was influenced by the Roman catholic religion.

The catholic hierarchy was trying to keep workers away from socialism by saying that socialism and the christian religion were incompatible and antagonistic. The priests pointed out that socialism, especially in its Marxist form, was intrinsically bound with materialism and atheism; so it is impossible for workers to be socialist and christian at the same time. Connolly struggled ideologically against this position, and tried to demonstrate to the workers that they could be socialists and good catholics at the same time.

His position was a version of the old adage, ‘Render to caesar what is caesar’s and to god what is god’s’. For Connolly, socialism is concerned solely with political, social and economic issues, all other matters being beyond its scope: “Socialists are bound as socialists only to the acceptance of one great principle - the ownership and control of wealth-producing power by the state, and that therefore, totally antagonistic interpretations of the Bible, or of prophecy and revelation, theories of marriage and of history may be held by socialists without in the slightest degree interfering with their activities as such or with their proper classification as supporters of the socialist doctrine” (J Connolly CW Vol 2, pp383-84).

Socialism deals with facts explainable by reason; religion has to do with theological matters and faith. Religion is totally outside the realm of socialist discussion: it is a private affair: “Socialism, as a party, bases itself upon its knowledge of facts, of economic truths, and leaves the building up of religious ideals or faiths to the outside public, or to its individual members if they so will. It is neither freethinker nor christian, Turk nor Jew, buddhist nor idolater, Mohammedan nor Parsee - it is only human (ibid p238).

There is an absolute separation between socialist and religious issues, so there should be no necessary conflict between socialism and religion. Although Connolly would often attack particular representatives of religion for their political stance (see, for example, ibid pp371-382), he never attacked religion as such. He attacked the clergy for speaking on non-theological matters which were beyond their competence, but also criticised some socialists (such as Daniel De Leon) for their polemics in favour of atheism.

Did Connolly make too many concessions to religion? His views have some relative justifications, but also relative limits. They have some justification as one can be a socialist and at the same time believe in god (think of liberation theology, for example). And the attitude of some sectarian socialists that atheism should be a central article of faith would alienate many people who would otherwise be in agreement with socialism. As Connolly puts it, many christians have been “repelled from socialism by the blatant and rude atheism of some of its irresponsible advocates” (ibid p234).

However, Connolly’s assertion that religion is totally outside the scope of socialist discussion is also relatively wrong. For example, it would be unthinkable for socialists to remain neutral - on the basis that religion is beyond the scope of socialism - on issues such as excision or forced marriages in the muslim religion, the refusal by Jehovah’s Witnesses to give blood transfusion to children on the verge of dying, or the efforts of the religious right to put creationism on a par with evolution in the school curriculum. No one can imagine a socialist society coexisting with the religious practices of the Taliban. On that basis, Connolly was relatively mistaken.

As to Connolly being a Roman catholic, nothing could be further from the truth. Connolly wrote: “For myself, though I have usually posed as a catholic, I have not gone to my duty for 15 years, and have not the slightest tincture of faith left. I only assumed the catholic pose in order to quiz the raw freethinkers, whose ridiculous dogmatism did and does dismay me, as much as the dogmatism of the archbishop. In fact I respect the good catholic more than the average freethinker” (letter to John Matheson, January 30 1908).

If Connolly’s analysis of religion was that of orthodox Marxism (see ibid pp236-237), his “pose” was very atypical for a Marxist leader.

Liam O Ruairc
Belfast

Drug policy

I find the letter from comrade Kay Thompson difficult to understand (Weekly Worker September 1). We surely all sympathise with those who succumb to alcohol - it is, after all, easily accessible and therefore harder to quit than other drugs - whether legal or illegal. However, the inference of her letter seems to be that alcohol should be made illegal. This can hardly be taken as a serious suggestion, given the disaster that prohibition proved to be in the USA.

The starting point for communists should surely be to look at the situation with regard to the consumption of all drugs by workers, and whether keeping some of them illegal is (a) possible and (b) in the interests of the working class. It would certainly seem that the prohibition of (so-called) soft drugs is proving to be as big a disaster as the prohibition of alcohol in the last century; and the situation with (so-called) hard drugs does not seem to be any better.

Perhaps comrade Thompson should have read some of the contributions made by the CPGB on the problem. Of particular interest is an article by Jim Gilbert in the Weekly Worker of November 1 2001. With regard to the current situation he wrote: “What is becoming clearer in public discussion of the question of illegal drugs is that many recognise it is the very illegality of drugs that produces a bigger problem, and that criminal control of the illegal drugs distribution system poses health risks of a very significant level to the mass of users. Deaths from hard drugs like heroin are largely not from the heroin itself, but from the substances that unscrupulous dealers mix with it: anything from talcum powder to strychnine.”

And on future policy: “The question of drugs problem is a democratic question for communists. What individual adults want to put in their bodies must be up to them; it is certainly not the business of the state and especially not something for the criminal law. We demand the complete legalisation of all presently illegal drugs. Just as those who have eating disorders, alcoholism, nicotine addiction, and so on, must receive help to solve their problems, we to want those who find they cannot cope with cocaine, heroin or any other drug to receive help too. But those who want to use any substances must have that right, safe in full knowledge of their effects, including any side effects, and with the security that their drug of choice is up to a requisite quality level, without adulteration”

I don’t think for a moment that we would all agree totally with this, but it does give food for thought. Perhaps the CPGB should review and update its policy after undertaking further discussion in the Weekly Worker.

Jim Dymond
Aldershot

Come on, Marxists

I agree with Hutch Hampton’s letter pointing out the difference in strength between islamists abroad compared to ‘Marxists’ in Britain (Letters, September 1). However, why don’t other people reply?

Explain to everyone how you fight Blair and the ‘reformists’. Explain your tactic of supporting them in the same way as a rope supports a hanged man. Some people may find it impolite, but explain the importance of the CPGB putting demands upon Blair, whether he likes it or not.

Let’s answer the remarks made recently from the Irish republican movement. Explain when you refer to “petty bourgeois” people when you actually mean working class people … and vice versa. Explain why the money and influence of the ruling class has less importance to the Labour Party than that of the trade unions bureaucracy. Perhaps your answers can help people grasp just how powerful a similar spokesman would be if able to speak in the Iraqi parliament.

I know you do so much good with your petitions against the war and occupation, but, come on, defend your Marxism against truth.

Bob Harding
Norwich

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