Letters
IBT knots
The comrades from the International Bolshevik Tendency seem to be tying themselves in all sorts of knots over the question of tactical alliances with bourgeois parties (Letters, July 9).
Barbara Dorn, writing on behalf of the group, starts by reasserting an IBT statement from a letter to the Weekly Worker in 2005, to the effect that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had been “mistaken” to vote for the Cadets in the second round of elections to the tsarist duma. This, according to the IBT, was “in contradiction” to the “political basis for the victory of the October Revolution”. However, by the end of her latest letter comrade Dorn seems to be justifying the tactic on the grounds that this form of electoral support for a bourgeois party was “purely technical” and was in any case “forced” on the Bolsheviks.
Despite this she ends her letter by declaring that “‘Communists’ who are prepared to give electoral support … to bourgeois parties do not stand in the legacy of Lenin and Trotsky … but rather embrace the policy of Kerensky and the Mensheviks.” So Lenin himself, who not only supported the tactic at the time, but referred to it approvingly in his 1920 ‘Leftwing’ communism, did not “stand in the legacy of Lenin” and had embraced “the policy of Kerensky and the Mensheviks”?
It is no good claiming exceptional circumstances - either it is unprincipled to “give electoral support” to bourgeois parties or it is not (for our part, we agree with Lenin that no tactic should be ruled out in advance). But the excuses the IBT comes up with in trying to square the circle do not stand up to examination.
In what way were the Bolsheviks “forced” to strike a deal with the Cadets? They could have refused the arrangement and seen their candidates defeated in the second round, or they could have continued their previous policy of boycotting duma elections altogether. But they knew the deal would result in the election of Bolshevik deputies, who were able to do a brilliant job in the third and fourth dumas, thanks to this reciprocal arrangement with the Cadets (as well as the Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries and others).
And in what way was the deal “purely technical”? What the Bolsheviks meant by this was that it involved no programmatic compromise on their part. But what it clearly necessitated was “electoral support” - Cadet candidates were indeed elected through Bolshevik votes (which brought with it the secondary advantage of ensuring the defeat of reactionary Octobrist and Black Hundred candidates).
But this had nothing to do with a Bolshevik “presumption that tsarism would be overthrown by a bourgeois-democratic revolution” - with the implication that this demanded some kind of strategic alliance with the Cadets. The Bolsheviks’ refusal to rule out tactical “support [for] the bourgeoisie against tsarism (for instance, during second rounds of elections, or during second ballots)” was precisely predicated on their strategic “alliance between the working class and the peasantry, against the liberal bourgeoisie and tsarism”, which required an “unremitting and most merciless ideological and political struggle against bourgeois liberalism”.
These quotes from ‘Leftwing’ communism prove without a shadow of doubt that Lenin had not junked either his revolutionary strategy or the tactics that flowed from it with his 1917 April theses. He was correct to insist that it is permissible for communists to enter tactical alliances with secondary enemies in order to defeat our primary enemy. What is unacceptable is any compromise on principles - for example, suspending, watering down or abandoning our political criticisms of such temporary allies.
Peter Manson
South London
Not Bolshevik
Barbara Dorn and the so-called International Bolshevik Tendency not only get the Bolsheviks completely wrong. They get the CPGB completely wrong too.
Strangely for a group with that name they contemptuously dismiss the entire history of Bolshevism prior to 1917, including Lenin’s strategy, along with the electoral and other tactics that necessarily went along with it.
Nor do the comrades show the slightest understanding of the post-revolutionary regime and social conditions envisaged by Lenin. The Bolshevik and Menshevik programmes are seen as indistinguishable, because Lenin called for “a period of capitalist development before a socialist transformation was on the historical agenda”.
Of course, the Bolsheviks were not banking on a democratic revolution led by the bourgeoisie, to be followed by a bourgeois government presiding over ‘normal’ capitalist development - that was the Menshevik position. No, the Bolsheviks fought for the working class to lead the peasant masses in a democratic anti-tsarist revolution. What regime was to result from this revolution? Under optimal conditions a worker-peasant government led by the party of the working class. Something that was feasible in Lenin’s opinion not because of the internal balance of forces within Russia, but because Russia’s revolution would spark the European socialist revolution.
Under such circumstances the revolutionary government in Russia would not seek to introduce instant communism by abolishing wage labour and commodity production. As proved by Stalin’s five-year plan, Mao’s communes and Pol Pot’s year zero, that would result in a human disaster. There would be a temporary period of capitalist development, not least in the countryside, where cooperation would be encouraged, along with proletar-ianisation. But this would be under the umbrella of an armed working class in Russia allied, linked to and receiving aid from their comrades in socialist Europe.
True, confusion often results from the use of the word ‘socialist’. Sometimes Lenin meant by it nothing more than working class rule. At other times it was virtually synonymous with full communism and the disappearance of classes, the states, money and all the vestiges of capitalist society. The first was possible in Russia - but relied on the revolution spreading to the advanced countries in Europe. The second was certainly not immediately on the agenda. Especially in an isolated Russia.
According to comrade Dorm and the IBT in April 1917 Lenin underwent a conversion of some kind and to all intents and purposes became a proto-IBTer. Utter nonsense.
Lenin did no such thing. In fact he consistently applied existing Bolshevik strategy to the unexpected conditions of dual power in Russia at the time. What was unexpected was that the majority in the soviets (the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries) were intent on transferring power to the bourgeoisie in the form of a provisional government dominated by the very same forces, but politically defined as bourgeois by its attitude towards land redistribution, the war, workers’ control and popular democracy.
Lenin argued for all power to the workers’, soldiers’ and peasant soviets under the leadership of the working class party - which would soon called itself communist.
Comrade Dorn is prepared to grudgingly allow that the Bolsheviks might be excused for doing deals with bourgeois and petty bourgeois parties under tsarism. And the CPGB is accused of wanting to do the same thing under different historical conditions. A slight problem: the CPGB is not arguing for workers in Britain to vote for bourgeois or petty bourgeois parties, though we have said that there is no point of absolute principle involved. No tactic should automatically be ruled out or automatically ruled in.
The IBT’s criticism began because the CPGB was of the view that a vote for the No2EU bloc for the June 4 EU election should at least be considered, if certain conditions were met. The IBT thought this was an outrage. Not because of No2EU’s little-Britain xenophobia. But because amongst the list of No2EU’s candidates was a certain Steve Radford of the Liberal Party! No5 in the North West.
The IBT could not vote No2EU because of his presence. This strikes me as owing everything to the politics of sectarian purity. Nothing to Bolshevism, which not only voted for the bourgeois Cadet Party under certain circumstances but, as Lenin explained in his ‘Leftwing’ communism, was quite prepared to do a deal with the German high command.
Such tactical manoeuvring is absolutely essential … if we are to advance the communist programme. That and that alone is the criterion on which we judge all tactics.
Enso White
London
Leftwing tendency
That the IBT don’t grasp the notion of tactical alliances and how they have been applied in Britain and Europe over the years is perhaps due to an ability to quote from Lenin’s ‘Leftwing’ communism without understanding it.
The IBT, just like Sylvia Pankhurst (quoted by Lenin on p103 of my edition), are the kind whose communism amounts to a purist sect that never gets its hands dirty. Presumably they agree with leftwing communists like Pankhurst that “The Communist Party must not compromise ... The Communist Party must keep its doctrine pure, and its independence of reformism inviolate.”
If such is the IBT’s position, then International they may be, a Tendency certainly, but Bolshevik? Never!
John Masters
Hertfordshire
Circular
I was unable to make the CPGB aggregate. Shame - it looks like it was an interesting meeting (‘Assessing Iran, debating the nature of the Labour Party’, July 9). I would echo Nick Rogers in his call for some theoretical work on the Labour Party. Mike Macnair is an interesting writer, but on the subject of the Labour Party he appears so often to rely on bald assertions.
He is happy to declare that it is “no novelty to describe [Labour] as a bourgeois workers’ party” (does that make it correct?); Labour “has not abandoned the traditional space it has always occupied” (no?); “The Labour Party is still most definitely a bourgeois workers’ party - it remains institutionally dependent on the trade unions” (financially maybe, but ideologically?).
He acknowledges “the former activist base of Labour has atrophied” and that, in part, the Blairite project was to replace these former activists with “young professionals”. That these “young professionals” have drifted back to the Tory Party does not reverse the wizened state of the party’s base nor the compliant, ‘on-message’ state of the trade union bureaucracy. Mike appears to be suggesting that, via this financial dependence, as long as trade unions exist, the Labour Party will remain a bourgeois workers’ party.
Not a very convincing argument. And rather circular in nature.
Andy Hannah
East Midlands
Inadequate
Jim Moody’s report of the discussion on the Labour Party at the CPGB aggregate on July 4 does not adequately represent the positions of those critical of the Provisional Central Committee’s tactics during the European elections. Yassamine Mather’s contribution is entirely omitted, for example.
The short paragraph dealing with what I said contains one misattribution and a half-truth. While it has indeed been the case historically that the “most class-conscious part of the working class recognised the need for a Labour Party”, this was not a point I made at the aggregate. I argued that currently the most militant workers, such as those fighting to defend their jobs, are extremely disillusioned with the New Labour government and could be won to a serious left-of-Labour political project. The CPGB’s call for a blanket vote for Labour did not connect with this constituency.
And Jim’s suggestion that I “failed to see how making the question of militias a condition for offering support to No2EU candidates exposed SPEW” misses the thrust of my argument. The condition clearly did expose the Socialist Party’s refusal to give public support for a popular militia. Not that the refusal should have surprised anyone, given that this would have been the SP’s stance at any time in the organisation’s history.
I was responding directly to John Bridge’s explanation that the main target of the CPGB’s electoral tactics was the SP’s involvement in nationalist ‘red-brown’ politics. My argument was that the CPGB’s conditions were badly chosen, since Dave Nellist and other SP candidates were able to agree to all of the conditions except that on arms. Whatever the merits of that particular condition, it was not an arrow aimed at the heart of No2EU’s nationalism. I am yet to hear an answer to this point.
Jim does get right my argument about the need to more fully theorise the concept of a bourgeois workers’ party. Our discussion also needs to take proper account of the impact on the labour movement of 30 years of neoliberalism. Mike Macnair’s introduction, although I had differences with it, was a useful contribution to this task.
Nick Rogers
North London
Oil-ignorant
Mike Macnair seems to be ignorant of one of the most - if not the most - important factors driving imperialist politics and war today. In his article ‘Against imperialist war, against theocratic rule’ (July 2), he makes the absurd claim that US imperialism’s interest in the Middle East is somehow irrational and he attributes this irrationality to the destabilisation of global capitalism.
Although destabilisation may bring out irrational tendencies in capitalism, as Macnair claims, the US interest in the Middle East is perfectly rational. We can explain it by the fact that this region contains about 60% of the world’s remaining conventional oil reserves, with Iraq having the third largest reserves next to Saudi Arabia and Iran. These three countries, due to their oil reserves, are key to understanding US policy. Their importance can only grow, as the world makes the perilous transition to the depletion of cheap conventional oil.
Macnair’s article is thoroughly confusing when he touches on the oil issue and he arrives at a position diametrically opposed to reality. On the one hand, he argues that the underlying reason for US interest in the Middle East is military, and not an interest in ‘cheap oil’, but then, on the other hand, he goes on to show in the next paragraph how US suburban life is dependent on cheap oil. In fact, the whole world economy as presently configured - industrial production, agriculture and transportation - is dependent on cheap oil, and not just the US suburbs. Macnair needs to explain to us how it is possible for the functioning of the world economy, and the high living standards of the advanced capitalist countries, to be dependent on cheap oil and yet US interest in the Middle East is unrelated to it.
Failure to understand the palpably obvious relation between the two leads him to further mislead readers with the asinine argument that political arrangements in the Middle East are “completely” irrelevant to the availability of cheap fuel. But Macnair undermines this argument by saying that the US military machine is dependent on oil. In fact, the military machines of every nation are dependent on cheap oil and not just the US military alone. This issue is so important that it decided the outcome of two world wars.
Macnair claims that the problem is not one of US access to oil, or to cheap oil, because the oil market is globalised, but rather of US imperialism’s need to gain control over access to oil by potential rivals. In fact, the problem for the US is both to gain access to cheap oil and to establish itself as the oil policeman of the world. Unlike Macnair, the US knows that who controls the Middle East controls the world economy. This is a truth understood by anyone possessing the minimum of political literacy about world’s events, but according to Macnair we need not confer any special significance to the Middle East regarding oil because the oil market is globalised. This level of ignorance about the oil issue, arguably the most important issue facing the world, is truly astonishing.
Revolution or no revolution, capitalism cannot continue to exist without cheap, abundant oil necessary for its expansion.
Tony Clark
London
Idealist
In his book Revolutionary strategy Mike Macnair clearly does not rely, as any genuine attempt at Marxist analysis must do, on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism).
It is therefore necessary to indicate what aspect of dialectical materialism is relevant to the question of revolutionary strategy. Here a good starting point is the statement of Engels in his work Ludwig Feuerbach and the end of German classical philosophy, to the effect that the most important cleavage in the history of philosophy was that between materialism and idealism.
The materialist outlook starts from the premise that all thought, however distorted, represents a reflection of a material world which has an objective existence independent of our consciousness. In contrast to this, the outlook of idealism starts from the premise that the world is a projection of thought. In one way or another idealism tends to dominate most thought in capitalist society.
All genuine Marxists, therefore, have to remind themselves of the need to see thought as a reflection of the material world. This, unfortunately, comrade Macnair does not do. This can be seen in his rejection of the basic Marxist idea that organs of working class struggle such as soviets can be the basis for a revolutionary workers’ state.
Soviets arise in different forms. In Britain in 1926 they were called councils of action. In Iran in 1979 they were called shoras. General strikes play the part of soviets insofar as they objectively challenge the capitalist class for power.
Those who start from the premises of idealist philosophy are likely to point out that those whose struggles led them to set up soviets do not share the views of Marxists. Thus comrade Macnair, in his Revolutionary strategy, referring to the possibility of soviets or a mass strike leading to revolution, states: “For the workers’ party to reach for power (in a situation when it had not yet won a majority) would be a matter of ‘conning the working class into taking power’” (p55).
It is, of course, true that the majority of workers who participate in soviets or mass strikes may not realise that they are in effect objectively posing the question of class power. However, it must be an element of dialectical materialist knowledge that the working class acts first and thinks about what it has done afterwards. It would therefore not be too difficult for Marxists to show the workers the political significance of what they have done.
What is clearly needed is a Marxist party capable of linking up with the most militant sections of the working class. One such party existing today is the Japan Revolutionary Communist League. When the workers create their soviets, as must inevitably happen, the JRCL will be able to lead the soviets to take state power. If workers in a given country create their own soviets and there is no communist organisation to lead them, then the working class can go down in terrible defeat. This in effect happened in Iran in 1979.
Comrade Macnair puts forward his perspective for Britain. He suggests patient work in winning seats in parliament (p129). He also suggests a genuine government representing the working class must rely on the support of the majority of the working class. Thus he writes: “Communists can only take power when we have won majority support for working class rule through extreme democracy” (p130). The extreme democracy just referred to includes, among other things, democratic and trade union rights within the military” (p128).
The above requires comment. In the first place the winning of a communist majority in parliament would entail many years’ work. During this time events such as communist revolutions overseas could well lead to soviets and mass strikes in Britain. This in turn could lead to the question of a soviet Britain being posed.
Secondly, the ruthless and cunning British ruling class, on seeing a possible threat to their existence, could very well launch a counterrevolutionary coup and imprison or kill numerous communists. Recall Indonesia 1966 and Chile 1973.
Thirdly, comrade Macnair’s call for “democratic political and trade union rights within the military” raises more questions than it answers. The British ruling class would never allow this.
Comrade Macnair’s firm adherence to idealist philosophy is shown by his attempted definition of the working class as “the whole social class dependent on the wage fund” (p22). That includes criminals, racists, BNP members, scabs and all those who, in a revolutionary situation, would find themselves on the side of the capitalist class.
The whole point here is that the working class as the revolutionary class will define itself in struggle. In a revolutionary situation, many of those who are not “dependent on the wage fund” such as middle class professionals will be on the side of the working class and will identify themselves with it.
Comrade Macnair, as an adherent of idealist philosophy, attempts to project his own thought onto the material world by his attempted definition of the working class. In contrast, a materialist approach, reflecting Trotsky’s definition of dialectical materialism as “the conscious expression of unconscious processes”, has to grasp the objective movement of the working class as its struggles unfold and as it defines itself in struggle.
The basic questions of Marxist philosophy are clearly highlighted by a critical examination of comrade Macnair’s book. He offers a perspective of spreading the ideal of “extreme democracy” and of winning support for it (p130). Clearly this is an example of the idealist philosophical outlook, which sees changes in the world being brought about by changes in thought.
In contrast to this the correct materialist start must be from an understanding of the fact that the working class is a revolutionary class by virtue of its objective position in society. Further, that the working class has been and will be held back by a corrupt and counterrevolutionary trade union bureaucracy. It is the task of contemporary Marxists to overcome and defeat this bureaucracy. Only then can the working class realise its revolutionary potential.
John Robinson
South London
Non-event
If Eddie Ford seeks to explore the ‘talents’ of Michael Jackson (‘Fantasy liberation’, July 2), then maybe he should also consider examining the careers of similarly endowed all-round song and dance acts such as Fred Astaire, Bruce Forsyth and a host of other stars of tin pan alley, vaudeville and the culture industry that have entertained and titillated the masses over the last century. Despite a few technological innovations, the stale and puerile content remains virtually the same. And so does the intent - namely the accumulation of as much real and symbolic capital as quickly as possible with the minimum investment of effort, education and training.
But through the persistent characterisation of Jackson and his ilk as victims, any critique of them along such lines is efficiently neutralised. By this route, pop stars are able to enjoy the financial rewards associated with celebrity whilst simultaneously benefiting from the sympathy that attends the underdog - an extremely smart marketing trick. Eddie Ford is right to compare the public’s response to Jackson’s demise to its similarly hysterical and stupid reaction to the death of Diana Spencer. But he failed to register Pierre Bourdieu’s insightful and suitably dismissive conclusion that her death was a non-event of epic proportions. Jackson’s death should be greeted in the same terms and it is mystifying why the Weekly Worker decided to devote precious copy space reporting it.
Gordon Downie
Cardiff
Gala solidarity
There was a very heavy police presence at the July 11 Durham Miners Gala. They were all tooled up, filming and photographing people and appeared quite menacing. In addition there were reinforcements waiting in the side streets, as if they’d suddenly need to wade in to ‘restore order’.
The gala was very well attended - definitely more people than the usual 50,000. But the organisers are quite capable of making sure that everyone is safe - not that the cops were really interested in anything like that. Clearly, for all the criticism of the police over the G20 protests, the policy of heavy-handed intervention has not been abandoned.
Although the gala is regarded as a cheap day out, it remains a traditional working class event. Quite a few people had Corus-related T-shirts and banners - a sign of the economic times, I think. There was an air of solidarity and dissatisfaction with the Labour government.
A number of left groups had stalls - the Morning Star/Communist Party of Britain were prominent as official sponsors, but also present were the Socialist Workers Party (together with its various franchise operations), Socialist Party in England and Wales, Labour Representation Committee, plus a range of smaller groups.
Steve Cooke
Stockton-on-Tees
Enlightening
I found Assaf Kfoury’s ‘Election confounds pundits’ an enlightening article - well documented and very fair (July 9). In his analysis, the author rises above the commonality of the New York Times editors and presents his ideas in a fashion respectful to the intelligence of his readers.
Ana Leila
email
Stimulating
Can I try and assure Cliff Slaughter that I didn’t plan to ignore Chris Knight and the work of the Radical Anthropology Group (Letters, July 9).
In an earlier draft of my piece, ‘Evolution’s revolution’, I acknowledge their stimulating articles on human development published in the Weekly Worker. Rather my intention was to present some further discussion material on the subject.
I now see that in not referring to their work I could be interpreted as dismissing it.
Mike Belbin
London
Top class
Of course, people like Yassamine Mather who write for the Weekly Worker are not, as Potkin Azarmehr asserts, “non-working class intellectuals”, but socialist activists who are fighting for the liberation of all humanity (Letters, July 9). They believe that only a revolution led by the working class can bring such an outcome about. Hence our preoccupation with the role of the working class in all political situations. So we are “putting humanity first”.
With so many millions coming out in protest in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran it is obvious that the bulk of the protestors must be workers in work or their unemployed brethren. Yet Ahmadinejad claimed that the protestors were all middle class and that he was the protector of the poor and champion of the independence of the Iranian people. So this lie has to be scotched, because it is a defence of a corrupt and brutal dictatorship against its own population and therefore an attack on humanity as a whole.
Moreover, the imperialist powers chose not to confront the Iranian regime’s lies directly in order to deflect the perfectly correct criticism made by Ahmadinejad that they are plotting regime change from above. So the west also has an interest in implying that, while it is not interfering in Iranian affairs, it couldn’t fail to notice that there is a stratum of Iranian society that could be used for a ‘colour revolution’: namely the middle class. That’s why they too were happy to give the impression that it is the wealthy elite which is supporting the call for democracy.
Imperialism is content to convey the impression that the working class masses are playing no role. In Britain this, perhaps, is the most important point to get across in order to prevent opinion here being drawn in behind our own imperialist bourgeoisie and its inhuman foreign policy.
Phil Kent
Haringey
