Letters
False premise
Let me congratulate Dave Craig for the flawless logic of the argument in his article last week (‘Yes to Democracy workers’ party’, July 16). Just one small problem though. The premise upon which he bases that argument is entirely false.
Comrade Craig assumes an extremely close connection between the militant Lindsey strikers and the ‘No to the EU, Yes to Democracy’ European Union election platform. He links them together as though they were part of the same phenomenon by referring to the “No2EU strikes and No2EU election campaign”. Not even the Socialist Party in England and Wales (for whom comrade Craig’s article reads like an extended apology) has claimed such a thing.
Of course, there are some rather obvious connections. Two of the No2EU candidates were Lindsey workers (although one was not actually involved in either of the two recent disputes with Total) and both the strikes and the campaign highlighted the anti-worker nature of EU laws and regulations. Another connection is that SPEW comrades (including those two candidates) played an important role in both.
But the strikes and the election campaign were not two features of the same movement. There is no evidence to suggest that the Lindsey workers, or even the majority of their leaders, threw themselves into the No2EU election drive or even supported it, let alone were instrumental in setting it up.
In fact we know they were not involved in No2EU’s formation, which was the brainchild of Brian Denny, member of the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and trusted colleague of Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union. Comrade Denny devised the platform for Crow, who invited the CPB and later SPEW to come on board. It was these two organisations which were responsible for producing most of the candidates.
Because comrade Craig simplistically lumps Lindsey and No2EU together, he cannot get his head around the fact that, while like him we welcomed the Lindsey strikes despite the nationalistic slogans initially raised by some strikers, the CPGB could not vote for No2EU on June 4. But it is really quite straightforward.
The Lindsey strikes, particularly the first, were spontaneous acts of working class resistance to attacks on jobs and conditions, and it was inevitable they would throw up all sorts of ideas, both progressive and reactionary. It is the duty of communists to support such resistance and try to provide principled guidance. And in fact the SPEW comrades played a positive role in winning leadership positions in the strikes and successfully combating the nationalistic ideas.
No2EU, on the other hand, was not at all spontaneous. It was exclusively hatched at the top in accordance with the very worst aspects of the CPB’s programme, Britain’s road to socialism - its anti-EU xenophobic, popular frontist British nationalism. SPEW not only did not combat this backwardness - it pretended all along not to see what was in front of its eyes. Despite what comrade Craig says about the campaign developing its own momentum, right up till election day every No2EU leaflet and every No2EU election address carried the same old left-nationalist slogans and bullet points.
The most ludicrous part of comrade Craig’s article is the claim that it was a “huge gain” that the question of Europe was posed in terms of ‘Yes to Democracy’. This is like saying it is a “huge gain” every time mainstream politicians spout about democracy when, for example, they oppose working class collective action. What is important is the content, not the form - and the only content given to ‘democracy’ in No2EU’s platform was the demand for “self-determination” from the EU for poor little, oppressed Britain!
Peter Manson
South London
Israel’s mask
Eddie Ford accuses me of not thinking before hitting the keyboard (Letters, July 9). I can only suggest that he takes his own advice.
Of course I oppose ‘self-determin-ation’ for oppressor nations. Why? Because their ‘self-determination’ inextricably and inevitably means the oppression of others. Their national identity is in fact bound up with that oppression. Self-determination is therefore a meaningless concept when applied to an oppressor group or nation. That is the reason why Lenin did not raise the question of self-determination of the Russian peoples.
What concretely does self-determin-ation mean in such a situation? Self-determination is generally held to mean the right to be free from national oppression and the right to form one’s own nation-state if one desires. The latter has been achieved by Israel, Britain and the United States, yet it is clear that, in reality, their ‘self-determination’ means determining the destiny of others.
That is one reason why the Israeli state poses the question of the oppression of the Palestinians in terms of ‘the right to exist’ of the Israeli state or, as now, the rightfulness of a Jewish state. What they mean by this is an acceptance of their right to dominate the region and those who live as hewers of wood and drawers of water.
Bound up in the national identity of Britain and the US is the role of imperialist policeman. In such a situation, talk of self-determination is meaningless. In the case of Israel, self-determination is a mask that covers the face of settler-colonialism and racism.
Tony Greenstein
Brighton
Resourceful
Jim Moody states that “Afghanistan offers no agricultural or mineral resources of any note” (‘Equipment row must not divert growing opposition to the war’, July 16).
This is possibly inaccurate, as a geological study carried out by the United States suggests that there may be large amounts of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil waiting to be exploited beneath the soil. It may also be a source of iron, coal, copper, gold and, according to British geological studies, even uranium. I would refer comrades to the British Geological Studies website (www.bgs.ac.uk/AfghanMinerals), which has an assessment of the mineral wealth of the area, albeit one based mostly on work done before the Soviet invasion.
Afghanistan as an imperial possess-ion certainly has potential as a ‘fixer-upper’ so long as the country can be made safe for capitalism and the capital investment necessary to explore and develop the infrastructure can be found.
It is erroneous to suggest that the motives for the invasion and occupation are merely political. Empires are not just political affairs. From the Roman to the British empires, and into this new American empire, it’s about resources and labour, not lofty ideals about bourgeois democracy being better than the Taliban theocracy. The political element of American imperialism should be seen as a justification for the action, not as the reason for the action.
Capital needs new markets, and events in Iraq and Afghanistan are about making areas which have resources to offer into not just reliable, friendly producers of those resources, but societies in which the workers are able to consume the products of the market, secure the country, extract the resources using local labour, and deliver a standard of living that makes the local labour customers for consumer goods.
John Masters
Hertfordshire
Hopi and Hopa
Let’s imagine a situation in, say, 10 years time where there were no American and British troops in Afghanistan for whatever reason. And let’s imagine at this time in the future that these imperialist troops had come to invade Iran and were heavily involved in a bloody battle with an Iranian resistance.
Would the CPGB then wind down Hands Off the People of Iran and start up a campaign of Hands Off the People of Afghanistan?!
Bob Harding
Norwich
Constitution fight
Zimbabwe is going through one of the most important phases in its political history. Leaders of the inclusive government of Zanu-PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change formations agreed to prioritise the writing of a new constitution.
President Robert Mugabe had vehemently resisted calls for reform after the people had rejected his attempt in 2000 to impose a new constitution. Now, however, the people of Zimbabwe feel they have a golden opportunity to address issues that have been outstanding since 1980, when the country attained its independence from Britain. The 1979 Lancaster House constitution was a compromise document which failed to address fundamental principles, and subsequent amendments have not sufficiently dealt with issues of full political and economic democracy.
However, the process of writing the new constitution is dominated by parliamentarians as opposed to the people. This has led to a split in civic society, with some boycotting the process and some deciding to participate under protest.
We have no illusions whatsoever in the current inclusive government and the whole constitutional reform exercise they are pushing. At no point are these rightwing parties going to give full political and economic democracy to the people without a determined fight by the working people. They want to continue the elitist settlement they have already begun to effect. The MDC sees this as part of their regime change agenda, through which fresh elections are to be held in the coming 18 months after the completion of the constitution writing, whereas Zanu-PF seek to consolidate the political powers they currently unjustifiably hold and would not tolerate fresh elections so soon. Both of them primarily focus on civil political rights, as opposed to genuine socio-economic rights which the people want as constitutional guarantees.
We in the International Socialist Organisation believe working people should draw fundamental lessons from other struggles - particularly in Latin America, where in Venezuela Chávez has been able to lead a movement of working people that has produced probably one of the world’s best pro-people constitutions.
The constitutional reform process in Zimbabwe may provide a starting point for establishing a genuine anti-neoliberal working people’s movement similar to what we have witnessed in Latin America. Similarly Zimbabwe’s vast natural resources, including its minerals, are in the hands of capitalists who are selling them for profit. So the solution lies in putting in place a constitution that addresses not just democracy in the context of political autonomy, but economic democracy. Zimbabweans need free, quality education, healthcare, shelter, etc, funded by the proceeds from our diamonds, platinum, etc. We need a constitution that is written by the people and benefits the people.
That is why the ISO has been calling for people to participate in the writing of the constitution - not because they have illusions in the process, but to try and influence it to the extent of using the platform to fight for an anti-neoliberal constitution.
Our strategy has been one of spearheading the regroupment of progressive forces, particularly those we worked with from 2004, when we attempted to form the Anti-Privatisation Forum, and then in the Social Forum, in order to launch the Democratic United Front for a People-Driven Constitution (DUF).
The reception of DUF has been overwhelming. It currently unites over 30 working people’s movements and organisations representing mostly marginalised sections of society, including women, socialists, workers, students, HIV and AIDS groups, and the disabled. DUF has had meetings with members of the parliamentary select committee on the constitution, as well as leaders of civic society organisations. It distributed over 4,000 leaflets at the first all-stakeholders constitutional conference convened by parliament on July 13 and 14. Some of our members were tasked by the parliamentary select committee to speak on thematic areas on the day. All this confirms the positive reception DUF has had from both the working people it represents and the government.
DUF is for a constitution that reverses the attacks by neoliberal, free-market capitalists and political authoritarian structures on ordinary people and democracy over the past decades and which enshrines as legally enforceable and funded the socio-economic rights of the working people.
It has always been our perspective since 2002 to build an anti neo-liberal united front and we seem to have achieved that goal now, but we are fully aware of the potential dangers such broad united front movements like DUF may pose to a tiny revolutionary organisation like ISO Zimbabwe. We risk sidelining the need to strengthen our own forces. Most of our leading comrades have been assigned positions in DUF, including comrade Mike Sambo, our national coordinator, who has been elected DUF national co-chairperson.
We would welcome input, especially from those comrades with experience of working in united fronts with non-revolutionaries. The history of left organisations across the world has taught us how perilous such united fronts may be for revolutionary parties.
Mike Sambo
ISO Zimbabwe
Sterile project
Nick Rogers comments (Letters, July 16) on my report of the last CPGB aggregate (‘Assessing Iran, debating the nature of the Labour Party’, July 9), which apparently “misses the thrust” of his argument. Perhaps he should write something explicit to make plain his views.
As to Nick’s main point, the clarification that he offers is almost as damning as what I, apparently inexactly, reported. He maintains he argued in the aggregate 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”.
Sorry, but the “most class-conscious” (the phrase Nick used at the aggregate rather than “most militant”) workers do not recognise the need for yet another left-of-Labour project. What the most class-conscious workers recognise is the need for a united Marxist party. There are not many of us about at the moment.
Recent promoters of halfway houses have used this idea of a left-of-Labour formation as a synonym for what they want, ensnaring the unwary within their sterile project. This concept is a rotten idea that distracts and obstructs us from the need of the hour, which is to establish a Marxist, communist party worthy of the name. The halfway house/left-of-Labour advocates are half afraid of their own purportedly Marxist shadows, and lack confidence in the ideas of Marxism.
Unless, of course, I have misunderstood the thrust of what “left-of-Labour” is all about.
Jim Moody
email
Transcendent
Both the International Bolshevik Tendency and the CPGB claim at the same time to be ‘Bolshevik’ and are competing for the title. The debate comes down to each group finding the right quotes from Lenin to refute the other side’s quotes from Lenin.
It doesn’t seem possible to your writers that Lenin could have been wrong. Peter Manson wrote: “Cadet candidates were indeed elected through Bolshevik votes ...” (Letters, July 16).
If our strategy is the education of the working class, this ‘tactic’, in confusing Bolshevik workers, had the opposite effect. The end result was confusion in Bolshevik ranks regarding the provisional government between February and April 1917.
I think we have to break with the form of argument which ‘proves’ a question by quoting Lenin or Trotsky. The fact of making a revolution did not make them infallible. Today we face the need to build a revolutionary party that is superior to, even transcending, the Bolshevik Party, not a copy of it.
Earl Gilman
email
Unreflecting
Phil Kent writes that all parties of the Second and Third internationals demanded the right to bear arms, even Bernstein, before the rise of Stalin (Letters, July 9). Kent’s logic is that because these internationals supported this demand, it must be right. But this is simply an example of the unreflecting mind, worshipping what it considers to be superior authority regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
It is not the business of communists to demand the right of everyone to bear arms, even if this was the position of Marx, Engels, Lenin or Trotsky. Furthermore, any communist who demands the right of everyone to bear arms today has deserted communism for radical bourgeois libertarianism, because it is impossible to demand the right of fascists, Nazis and other racists and counterrevolutionaries to bear arms and remain in the camp of communism. Only organised labour should have a right to bear arms, where civilians are concerned.
Comrade Kent also quotes me on the question of peak oil. My reply here is that communists, at every stage of the political struggle, must seek to posit the new features of the crisis of capitalism on the past accumulated knowledge we possess, to determine which factors today have the most bearing on matters of strategy and tactics. It is important to emphasise here that the present crisis of capitalism is not only economic; it is rather a ‘peak oil economic crisis’, the first of its kind in the history of capitalism. What this means is that capitalism will not be able to climb out of it, because any attempts at recovery will come up against the global peak in oil production and thus plunge the economy back into recession. The political consequences of this should be examined in regard to society as a whole and the state in particular.
Kent says socialism means working class rule. This is true, but Lenin’s description of the dictatorship of the proletariat as the bourgeois state without the bourgeoisie should be borne in mind. As for the need to smash the old state machine, what does this mean in real, concrete, practical terms, other than to remove - purge - from it those elements who continue to support the old order of things. As consumer capitalism declines with the decline in oil production, more people will realise that social ownership is our means of escape from the general meltdown. This realisation may arise in the state more acutely than in the general population.
Tony Clark
London
Save our steel
Several thousand people marched through Redcar on Saturday July 18 in support of steel workers at the local Corus plant, where 2,000 jobs are threatened by the cancellation of orders due to the recession.
The rally was a splendid demonstration of solidarity by the people of the town itself and labour movement activists from outside the area. Most of the banners on display carried the Community and Unite unions’ logos, although other trade unions were represented too.
Most of the speakers, including Unite joint general secretary Derek Simpson, contrasted the government’s willingness to pump billions of pounds into the banking sector with its reluctance to provide any serious assistance to manufacturing industry. “Manufacturing genocide” was how Ucatt regional organiser John Cosgrove described it. The effect of so many redundancies is also likely to be felt far beyond those directly employed by Corus.
Whilst there was an air of resignation to the proceedings and the event was coopted by local officialdom, it was the contribution of local Labour MP and government minister Vera Baird that really lowered the tone. She was booed by the majority of participants who showed their contempt for her offer of “retraining” to those affected by redundancies.
Baird also attempted to shift responsibility for the steel industry’s predicament from her own government by blaming foreigners, and repeatedly referred to the purchasing consortium that is pulling out of a deal with Corus as “the Italians”, as if all Italians were somehow involved.
David Stevens
Teesside
Rule of matter
Poor old John Robinson wouldn’t recognise dialectical materialism if it hit him in the face (Letters, July 16). By the way, most idealists are perfectly happy to accept the conclusions of science in reality, as they think, quite correctly, that it is the result of human thought and imagination. Idealists also think their ideas reflect reality - very few argue that physical reality imitates their ideas.
All the same, scientific method is the best way into the understanding of materialism, by which I mean not only physics and chemistry, but systematic and objective research into all aspects of reality, such as history, politics, anthropology, etc. Materialism is an ongoing and ever developing attempt to explain reality and where possible to prove it. However, in many cases science can offer no proof, but has to depend on tenacity, thoroughness in getting under the skin of appearance, and the reasonableness and logic of their case to convince. Materialism argues that in principle everything can be understood, even though everyone gets things wrong, but perseverance and democratic review by one’s peers paves the way for better understanding. It is not dogmatic.
Comrade Robinson, on the other hand, is a dogmatist. Because soviets played a crucial role in the Russian Revolution in 1917 then they must play the same role in all subsequent revolutionary upsurges. For him there is no other way that the working class can organise themselves to take power. The reason why he clings so tenaciously to this view is because he believes that the working class reacts spontaneously to events like an earthquake or volcano because movements in reality leave them no option. Note the materialist metaphors: such phenomena require no thought to make them happen; in fact they demand the abandonment of all thought and just sweep everyone up in a desperate situation that changes them for ever.
Fortunately for humanity, although the workers have acted without understanding, “in this situation it is not very difficult for Marxists to show workers the significance of what they have done,” claims comrade Robinson.
Enter stage left the perfect communist party. It is a minority party. A party which does not try and go to the masses and patiently explain to them the necessity for self-liberation. Instead it roots itself entirely in the most militantly active trade unionists. That is, in a small and isolated minority of the working class that can be trained to lead the sheep once the coming catastrophe kicks off. I am not trying to write off the vanguard as irrelevant and I do think that leadership is important, but here the vanguard is being trained as an officer caste. A future Stalinoid clique.
Comrade Robinson’s approach also implies that working class politics takes place overwhelmingly on the factory floor and that the working class should eschew patient work, such as attempting to win a majority of seats in parliament, because that is bourgeois politics totally under the control of the cunning capitalist class. More so than the workplace?
Apparently, mass movements can easily be wiped out by ruthless, counter-revolutionary coups. He mentions Indonesia and Chile. But so does comrade Macnair in Revolutionary strategy, the book which inspired comrade Robinson’s tirade. Mike’s views are ignored here. The book does not argue that a revolutionary situation cannot arise before the working class is ready for it, but suggests a strategy that will give us the best chance of victory. But let’s not bother our heads with reality - the comrade’s material world is actually a fantasy.
Let us deal with a simple misunder-standing on comrade Robinson’s part. The capitalist class “would never allow” democratic political and trade union rights in the military, he says. Leaving aside the fact that ‘never’ is a risky word to use in politics, our programme, including our minimum programme, does not confine itself to what the bourgeoisie will agree to. We want to drive a wedge between the ruling class and their military. We want to encourage defections. The comrade does not say what his minimum programme would be, but this misunderstanding points to a very restricted programme. One, no doubt, that is materially achievable.
Comrade Robinson claims it is idealist to describe the working class as “the whole class dependent on the wage fund”. This is a formulation chosen to include the unemployed, pensioners, housewives and students. Unfortunately it also includes “criminals, racists, BNP members and scabs”, says comrade Robinson. Yes, but it’s a class, damn it, not a company of saints. It’s a class that has one material reality in common above all others - the need to get access to a wage somehow.
When it comes down to it, comrade Robinson’s crude brand of materialism comes back again and again to an aversion to democracy - not because he wants to be a ruthless dictator ruling over the working class, but because for him socialism is a material state and humanity must obey. Essentially there is no such thing as free will - we are dominated by an atheistic Calvinism. Instead of the despotic rule of god we have the equally despotic rule of matter expressed through impersonal laws of production.
Some forms of materialism are just a distorted reflection of the material world - and virtually indistinguishable from idealism.
Arthur Lawrence
email
