Letters
Dead-end
I find James Turley’s put-down of Gerry Downing and what would appear to be the CPGB majority’s dismissive attitude towards anti-fascism and the ‘no platform’ tactic disturbing (Letters, November 19).
Karl Radek’s praise for the fascist Schlageter, at the Communist International, of all places, demonstrates that the seeds of the German Communist Party’s tragically mistaken strategy towards the Nazis and the Social Democrats had already been laid. To counterpose this to Trotsky’s attack on Thalheimer and Brandler is absurd. I realise that it is easy to find a quote from Trotsky or the old masters in support of your view and I therefore hesitate to do so, but Trotsky was quite clear as to the follies of the KPD, the German party: “One of the necessary conditions for the liberation of the party from bureaucratic bondage is a general examination of the ‘general line’ of the German leadership, beginning with 1923, and even with the March days of 1921 … The party will not rise to the height of its great tasks if it does not freely evaluate its present in the light of its past” (‘The turn in the CI and the situation in Germany’).
I have no doubt whatsoever that Trotsky, had he lived, would have regretted his statement about the “monstrous” exaggeration of the forces of fascism. The extermination of millions and the ravages of fascism bear witness to his complacency.
And let us remind ourselves of the KPD’s record. Ruth Fischer, one of the worst Stalinists, appealed to anti-semitic students to hang Jewish capitalists from street lamps in the August 22 1923 edition of Vorwärts, the KPD’s paper. Hermann Remmele, subsequently elected to the Reichstag and the executive committee of the Communist International, in a debate with the fascists had, according to the KPD paper, remarked: “How such anti-semitism arises I can easily understand. One merely needs to go down to the Stuttgart cattle market in order to see how the cattle dealers, most of whom belong to Jewry, buy up cattle at any price, while the Stuttgart butchers have to go home again empty-handed because they just don’t have enough money to buy cattle” (Rote Fahne No183, August 10 1923).
The fact that not one of the KPD’s Reichstag deputies from 1930 onwards was Jewish is testament to the policy of appeasement of anti-semitism that the KPD pursued as a result of the policy laid out in Moscow. This was a policy which led to the return, under the Nazi-Soviet pact, of German communists into the tender clutches of the Gestapo.
I am more interested in learning lessons from past mistakes than swapping quotes from Trotsky. One of the lessons the left should have learnt is that ‘debating’ with fascism is a dead-end road. There are undoubtedly times when one may well be faced with no alternative. ‘No platform’ is a tactic, but it is one that should not be lightly discarded. Certainly, it should not be jettisoned when the left is in a position to enforce it. That is precisely the road of the KPD and ‘social fascism’.
Tony Greenstein
Brighton
Liability
It’s probably no accident that the individuals who are most keen to present the British National Party as no longer being a fascist or Nazi party are those who oppose the ‘no platform’ policy. Arguing that the BNP is neither Nazi nor fascist makes it easier to undermine that policy, dogmatically adhered to by the Socialist Workers Party and others, without any evidence that it is effective.
However, whether the BNP are open or concealed, closet Nazis (which they are trying to become under Griffin) should not be the main factor in evaluating the effectiveness of ‘no platform’. Most Nazis who aspire to political power today must conceal their Nazism to some degree or even completely.
Apart from certain politically naive elements, most people on the left, by and large, are not fooled by the BNP trying to becoming closet Nazis. However, the ‘no platform’ policy has its drawbacks. Would the SWP turn down an offer to appear on Question time to challenge the views of a semi-concealed Nazi like Nick Griffin in front of millions on national TV?
We need to be flexible enough not to make a dogma of ‘no platform’, while guarding against any illusions that debate alone can defeat the far right. We ourselves need not invite fascists to debates, but, in the age of the TV, if we turned down an invitation by a third party to challenge the views of people like Nick Griffin, would this not mean taking inflexibility to absurd limits?
At the same time, any communist who fails to understand that fascists, aiming to win support from contradictory class forces, are forced to conceal their true intentions to some degree, even from their own members, is more of a liability to the working class than an asset.
Tony Clark
London
Pissy fit
Sarah McDonald’s article on the Glasgow North East by-election is the biggest bit of piss yet (‘Nats and left take a beating’, November 19).
The claim that the Scottish Socialist Party will not take part in left unity initiatives until Tommy Sheridan has been jailed or removed is total crap. The SSP has always been a party of left unity and it always will be. Sheridan split the left in Scotland by setting up his own party. Even though the by-election result was piss-poor for the SSP, it was a true vote of people supporting a socialist candidate rather than one carried by a media personality.
And how many votes did the CPGB candidate get? Whoops! Sorry, ye didnae stand or put any effort into getting a socialist elected.
Rikki Reid
email
Folly
Your article about Respect’s conference and discussion of the points raised by Stuart Richardson in the debate on racism and fascism could give the misleading impression that Socialist Resistance does not “confront the myths about immigration promoted by the mainstream media and parties” or “fight for public services - housing, health, welfare - to meet the needs of all” (‘No coalition with “son of No2EU”’, November 19).
We do all of the above - not only as active members of Respect, but through our regular activities, publications and public forums as Socialist Resistance. In Birmingham, over the summer, two issues of our regular local bulletin and three issues of a specific anti-fascist supplement were very explicit in this regard.
We have been absolutely clear that in order ultimately to defeat fascism - the BNP, the English Defence League, or whoever - we need to tackle head-on the sewer which allows them to breed. To this end, we call for the building of a broad socialist party that would precisely address the issues of housing, jobs, etc, and fight for socialist solutions, whilst, at the same time, tackling the issues of racism and anti-immigrant scapegoating.
At the end of the day, an anti-fascist strategy has to be an anti-capitalist one, but, in the here and now, we must not concede an inch of terrain - ideological or physical - to the fascists. That is why when Asian youth turned out to confront the EDL socialists and anti-fascists (not just Socialist Resistance, but the SWP, individual members of Respect, Unite Against Fascism supporters and members of other groups and none) all stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them.
Not to have done so would have been criminal folly.
Brian Standish
SR, Birmingham
Crusty borders
When I was little, my mother used to scold me for leaving my crusts when there were “all those starving children in Africa”.
It made me feel guilty and I resolved to try and save all of the crusts that my friends and I left so that we could send them to Africa for the starving children. Later I came across Oxfam and other charities which try to persuade us that if we send the ‘too much’ we’ve got to the third world, we can salve our consciences and still live well.
Many simplistic socialist souls have long believed that, if we took all the money from the rich, aristocrats and capitalists and shared it out among the masses, we would achieve justice and wealth. Actually, it would work out at about £30 per week each more, which isn’t worth fighting a revolution for.
The point, though, is that that’s not what socialism is all about. It’s about capturing the means of production and wealth. It’s about the wealth and abundance creation potential which the capitalist class owns and squanders, and which we would employ to its full capacity for the benefit of all.
So, when we come to the ‘no borders’ slogan, I am reminded both of the crusts and the share-out. Surely, the point isn’t that every impoverished person from the four corners of the globe should come to Britain and share what we’ve got. In an instant we too would have nothing. Don’t say that wouldn’t happen. Look around you. Millions are knocking on the door to get in. The welfare state is straining and failing under the pressure. Visit any hospital and, no matter how seriously ill you are, see how long you get to keep the bed. There are millions upon millions of unemployed people in Britain; a full quarter of all 16 to 21-year-olds are unemployed; and there are tens of thousands of utterly wretched communities, mostly those who used to produce things.
The jails are bursting apart. Pensioners are dying and most will no longer now receive a state pension, as ‘we’ cannot afford it. Millions are struggling to keep a roof over their heads or get on the endless council waiting list for a house. The green belt is dying and being concreted over, school playing fields and parks are being built on, roads and motorways are jam-packed to capacity, and train journeys now equal a long stand or an advance seat reservation. The population is due soon to crash through the 70 million mark.
Into this chaos, you want to introduce the slogan ‘no borders’ and allow anyone from anywhere just to come in. You want to take this slogan to the people in Britain who have their backs to the wall and feel utterly neglected, deprived, discriminated against and disenfranchised. You want to make this a condition for support for any parliamentary candidate?
Sorry, comrades, I think you’ve had a stroke of Oxfam liberalism. The answer to the problem is not to allow Africa and Asia to migrate in their millions (which they would, of course) to share the declining wealth we have, but to free the massive wealth they have. They need industrial revolutions and mass wealth-creation programmes; they need socialism to feed and clothes themselves and the world. We are part of that global solution, but to suggest open borders, under conditions of capitalist decay, growing poverty, anti-social crime and armed anti-western insurgency right now is simply not credible.
As a communist, I don’t believe in money. Ideally, we will abolish it. But right now? We can’t because we have to have an abundance of wealth. I don’t believe that jails are the answer to any question and under a communist world they will not exist. But right now I have no alternative to them. Do we advocate setting everyone free regardless of their anti-social, murderous or criminal intent? We haven’t reached the level of social responsibility and consciousness which would allow such a programme. But open the borders? You actually advocate this now, under conditions of capitalism, scarcity and poverty. It is utopian and deeply reactionary in terms of the current state of the class struggle.
Since wage-slavery began, the working class has sought to limit the labour market. Firstly, through collective bargaining, through protection of skills and trades, limited apprentices, or through mass labour restrictions, limiting production, opposing casual labour, stopping overtime, setting a base level of wages and conditions. Your programme of open borders throws the labour market wide open to the lowest common denominator and poverty-level wages. It puts the working class here and generally in Europe into a position of utter weakness. Trying to organise in such conditions would be virtually impossible: the ‘labour market’ would be a buyers’ market, and the worker prepared to work for nothing will get the job. Forget unions. Under conditions of communism, yes, no borders are an achievable principle; under present-day conditions in Britain it is pious nonsense.
Willie Hunter
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Red mist
You can always rely on the Spartacist League for sheer, babbling, sectarian idiocy. So, in a recent article (‘Intrusive and authoritarian’, September 10), I expressed support for the main demands as outlined in an SL/Partisan Defence Committee letter (September 3). Which is that all criminal charges be dropped against the 26-year-old teacher, Helen Goddard - who was subsequently imprisoned for having purely consensual sex with a 15-year-old female pupil - and that the age of consent laws should be abolished, to be replaced and guided by the notion of “effective consent” (to use the Sparts’ perfectly valid phrase).
However, I also made the surely obvious observation that “trying to establish what is ‘effective consent’ is complicated by the alienated social-political relations that so palpably exist under capitalism” - that is, there is the ever present danger of sexual favouritism and corruption - so communists call for “alternative legislation to cover sexual misconduct and abuse, based on both effective consent and the empowerment of youth” (emphasis added).
True to form, the Spart red mist descends here. So the SL’s Julia Emery whips herself into a rage over the CPGB’s “liberal illusions” in the capitalist state, which supposedly sees us granting the right of the government to police our bedrooms and “regulate the sexual activity of youth and children” - making us, it seems, reactionary “guardians of morality” (Letters, November 19).
Er, no, not quite - the clue was in the original article, comrade Emery. We in the CPGB are for the abolition of the irrational and authoritarian age of consent laws as part of a whole raft of demands that we fight for in the here and now - precisely in order to win the battle for democracy and hence empower youth. Such as lowering the voting age to 16, democratic control over their school or college, a real minimum wage or grant so as to enable independence, access to decent housing, and so on. To fetishise the demand for age of consent abolition - in isolation from other programmatic demands, as the Sparts seem to do - does indeed leave you open to the accusation that your frothy r-r-revolutionary rhetoric in reality amounts to not much more than an ‘abusers’ charter’. Judging by comrade Emery’s dismissal of the very notion of “alternative legislation”, the Sparts seem to be against laws prohibiting rape and other non-consensual sexual acts.
As an aside on Roman Polanski, it is not the case, as comrade Emery alleges, that the CPGB has maintained a “studious silence”. The Weekly Worker does not attempt to comment on every individual case that comes into the media - given our limited resources, that would be an impossible task. But the general principles upheld by the CPGB, to be applied to all similar incidents, can be gleaned from articles such as my September 10 piece.
Eddie Ford
email
Not victimless
I find it extraordinary and even bizarre that Julia Emery of the Spartacist League defends Roman Polanski’s actions because the young Samantha Geimer had previously taken Quaaludes and had sexual intercourse.
It is utterly unjustifiable to claim, as Emery and the Spartacists’ paper Workers Vanguard have done, that drugging and sexually assaulting a person against their express will is acceptable, just because the individual has used sedatives and had sexual relations. I wonder if they have thought through what their proposal would mean if carried to its logical conclusion.
Contrary to the claim of Emery, the official report transcript of the grand jury (March 24 1977) shows that Geimer did not consent in any sense and expressly rejected Polanski’s advances, leaving aside the issue of whether she even could have consented in such drugged state or at her level of cognitive development. This was not a victimless crime; there was a victim and she has described herself as such.
The only possible justification for dropping the proceedings against Polanski is that the victim has said she does not want the proceedings to continue and her wishes on the matter should be respected. There is no justification that there should be some special consideration simply because Polanski is a renowned film director. And certainly there is no justification in the way expressed by Emery and the Spartacist League.
Lev Lafayette
Australia
Gratification
While I agree with the spirit of Julia Emery’s letter, there are a few things that trouble me. While I agree firmly that the state has no right to intervene in consensual sexual activity, it becomes problematic when we apply this to children or very young people.
In a society that contained proper education, lacking the repression we have now, childhood sexuality would be allowed to develop in a healthy way and informed consent would be more likely. But we do not live in such a society at present, and consent that is actually informed is harder to pin down. Young people who are ill-informed are unlikely to be able to give such consent, as they may not even be aware of many of the basic facts. Consent that is made when one is ignorant is really no consent.
Take also the use of drugs or alcohol. An adult would, as long as they are not pumped with misinformation, be able to consensually accept a drink or even something not so legal. But were I to persuade a child to drink or take drugs, I would be considered at best irresponsible, at worst dangerous and abusive. When I was a child I didn’t know anything about drugs and next to nothing about the effects of alcohol. I am sure that many children have a similar lack of knowledge regarding sexual activity.
And, face it, a child is as unlikely to initiate sexual activity, as they would be unlikely to initiate intoxication. Plenty of adults have initiated these activities with me but I have yet to encounter this from a child. It may not be totally unknown, but you cannot deny that it would be rare. Would you guys take me seriously if I claimed to have given a child drugs and used as my defence that not only did they consent but also enjoyed the experience? I doubt it; therefore I see no difference if it is sex.
I don’t deny that Julia’s position is well intended - but it seems that she and her organisation take an attitude that seems not only ill-thought-out but also a little irresponsible. She suggests no replacement for the current laws (which I don’t agree with either), but, society being as it is, we need some form of protection against child abuse. If the current laws were scrapped with nothing to replace them, vulnerable children would be unprotected. Many rape cases, for example, do not result in a conviction due to the fact that one party can claim the other consented. With adults, the line on consent and non-consent is less blurred. So if it is difficult even then, what hope would there be for children? This would mean that those who are sexually inclined towards children in a predatory manner would walk free and leave children more at risk of abuse.
There is also the matter of equality: can someone who is inclined towards children deny that there is an element of power and control involved? It is one thing if children wish to experiment with each other, but an adult inclined towards children would trouble me simply due to the imbalance of power inherent in how they choose to take gratification.
Elizabeth Hoskings
email
Vulgarisation
Comrade Tony Clark is guilty of the most gross vulgarisation when he quotes Lenin’s article ‘On cooperation’ to give credence to the theory of ‘socialism in one country’ (Letters, October 29).
If comrades take the time to read the article, they will see that Lenin does indeed use the hallowed phrase, “to build a complete socialist society”. However, the main flow of the article is to encourage the development of cooperative societies to help redress the balance away from free enterprise and trade within the limitations of the New Economic Policy. To try and equate this with Lenin backing the idea that ultimately a socialist society could be built within the Soviet Union is totally fanciful and out of context.
With the resurgence of capitalism in the western liberal democracies, it had become clear that the Russian Revolution could no longer carry on down the road that the Bolsheviks had envisaged. Consequently, as Bolshevism withdrew into its nationalist shell, Stalin became the mouthpiece of this historical trend. He alone among the party leaders had at no time ever held any semblance of internationalist sentiment, and he quickly adopted an attitude towards the Russian Revolution of national self-centredness.
As the party slowly became affected by its environment - one of backwardness and semi-barbarity - the Stalinist leadership confirmed its acceptance of the policy of ‘communist self-containment’, whilst at the same time cloaking itself in the banner of the traditions of Leninist internationalism. Indeed, the only tactics or strategy that Stalin or Stalinists ever followed was one of self-aggrandisement, dressed up as a commitment to the traditions of Marxism.
It is important to distinguish Stalinism - which maintained in a most grotesque fashion aspects of Leninism (industrialisation, collectivisation, modernisation and planning), but which destroyed party democracy, leading to a quasi-autocratic style of government, tainted with hints of tsarism - from the advanced and industrially developed environments of western Europe, where traditionally Marxism had its organic roots.
Colin McGhie
Glasgow
Alternative?
Moshé Machover exposed some quirks of the single transferable vote form of proportional representation, showing that it is theoretically possible for changing a vote from a second to a first preference to make that candidate less likely to be elected (Letters, November 12). He has reminded me of discussions on electoral systems taking place on the newsgroup uk.politics.electoral that I observed many years ago. This flaw of STV had escaped my mind.
However, no electoral system is perfect. In the Scottish parliamentary elections in 2007, with half constituencies and half top-up lists for the regions to make results more proportional, Labour concentrated on constituencies where they stood a chance of election, with the SNP making gains across the whole country. Despite gaining a 5.4% higher share of the vote than Labour (as I found out by entering the data in a spreadsheet), the SNP only beat Labour by one seat!
Under the Scottish system (and similarly in Wales), you can only vote for one candidate for the proportional top-up list. Last time, this meant left voters had to choose between the Scottish Socialist Party, Solidarity, the Socialist Labour Party and, of course, the Greens. The disadvantage of such a split vote was exacerbated by many voters staying at home, unconvinced a vote for any left candidate would make the slightest difference.
Similar splits occurred with the Euro elections, making it difficult to decide where to put a single X on the ballot paper - the British National Party would have been defeated in the North West if enough voters had tactically voted Green to keep them out.
Someone once suggested that votes should be conducted with the entire country as one constituency and no threshold - a party with 0.5% of the vote would get 0.5% of the seats. This, however, would put huge power in party machines, as with all other list systems mentioned above, but to a much greater extent.
The big advantage of STV is that it eliminates the need and motivation for tactical voting. As Moshé argued, tactical voting could theoretically affect results, but there is no way to predict its impact. As is self-evident, tactical voting is an inherent feature of the present ‘first past the post’ electoral system.
So let’s turn to the alternative that I suspect Moshé advocates, as a Marxist. The government could be made up of representatives from workplaces/industries, plus perhaps local communities. Let’s imagine there are industries with 1,000, 10,000 and 100,000 workers respectively. Would the latter have 100 times as many MPs as the former? What then about industries with 100 or 1,000,000 workers?
On top of this, the soviet model of government Marxists traditionally argue for would discriminate against unemployed people, disabled/temporarily ill people, students, pensioners and farmers/peasants. Or does someone have a realistic schema to overcome this dilemma - far more democratic than implemented in Soviet Russia in 1917.
Steve Wallis
Manchester
Arson attack
Last Friday, November 20, at 3.30am, a fascist gang made an arson attack on the home of comrade Yannis Yanatsis in Petralona, Athens. They broke down the front door of his home and threw an incendiary bomb inside. The fire engulfed the building, but, thanks to the people of the neighbourhood and firefighters, it was brought under control. The danger for comrade Yannis and his family sleeping inside was very serious, but fortunately everyone escaped unhurt.
Yannis Yanatsis is a well known member of the central committee of the Workers Revolutionary Party (EEK) and a leading figure in a very active local environmentalist movement that has fought against the privatisation of the Philopapou hill next to the Acropolis, as well as against the destruction of this historic neighbourhood by big capitalist interests. In July 2007 Yannis was viciously attacked by a group of goons with iron bars who emerged from the ranks of the police during a popular protest, and sustained serious head injuries, necessitating life-saving surgery. After this latest attack the police have refused to undertake any serious investigation.
The local population was immediately mobilised in solidarity. On Saturday November 21, a demonstration took place in Petralona and the next day a popular assembly was called. Hundreds of people gathered to discuss the criminal attack and the necessary response. Another mass demonstration has been called for Sunday November 29 and has the support of many left and local environmentalist organisations.
This attack against a leader of our party is not an isolated incident. There is an increasing level of police repression under the minister of public order of the newly elected Pasok government, as was shown by the mass arrest of three hundred 15 and 16-year-old boys and girls during a recent demonstration commemorating the student uprising of 1973 against the military dictatorship. As the first anniversary of the December 2008 revolt approaches, an economically bankrupt Greece is ripe for another social explosion. The pseudo-socialist government is readying the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state, and fascist groups operating under its protection have become very active, particularly against vanguard fighters.
We call on the international workers’, youth and popular movements, which in the past have shown such solidarity with Greek revolutionaries, particularly last December, to denounce the criminal attack against comrade Yannis Yanatsis and the new wave of repression in Greece.
Samira Ahmad
EEK
