Letters

Growing pains

In response to Barry Biddulph, I want to clarify a couple of points (Letters, March 29).

If we call democratic revolution and socialist revolution ‘stages’, then permanent revolution is a two-stage theory, in which one grows into the other. By contrast ‘stageism’ is a three-stage theory with separate economic stage between the other two stages and no ‘growing over’. Most British Marxists are stageists - currently in stage two waiting for stage three.

The question of ‘internal stages’ within the democratic or socialist revolutions is a separate issue. Lenin shows that Marx had two internal stages within the socialist revolution - the lower stage was socialism and the higher communism.

Barry says that Lenin had a theory of permanent revolution which he calls “Lenin’s two-stage theory - the democratic revolution growing over into the socialist revolution”. He has claimed that this was the theory of permanent revolution held by the mature Trotsky, not the younger version.

If this is correct, then the mature Trotsky became a Leninist. It sheds a different light on the April theses. It would seem to suggest that in 1917 it was Trotsky that ‘grew over’ to Lenin’s permanent revolution, not the other way round!

Growing pains
Growing pains

Missing

According to John Smithee, “A Tory victory in the next general election would lead to the Labour Party’s complete financial and organisational collapse as a mainstream political party. This would create a political vacuum which communists could fill, provided they do their work correctly over the next few years.”

Heard it all before, John, and it hasn’t happened yet. The financial collapse of the Labour Party is about as likely as Bill Gates being short of a bob or two. Reality check - the British Labour Party has approximately 200,000 paying members, the backing of every major trade union and a number of wealthy supporters. There has never been such a thing as a “political vacuum”; a term that suggests a whole political tradition could disappear is a bigger laugh than the BBC asking “What’s Titoism?”

Observe British politics and you will see that, despite the end of the USSR, the Communist Party of Britain carries on, albeit with the help of a Zimmer frame or two. Despite the fall of the National Front in the early 1980s, the British National Party toddles on. Despite the great schism in the liberal movement in the 1920s that saw many switch allegiance to Labour, the Liberal Party survived. And the Conservative Party is Teflon-plated titanium in its ability to continue.

No mere crash in the housing market can destroy a political party. And all this trash about ‘if the communists do things right’, comrade - however correct the politics, the communists will have no effect; so long as capitalism lives without any concrete challenges to its hegemony, there is no nascent revolutionary mode of production about to undermine the capitalists in the manner they once undermined the feudalists.

The belief that the working class is historically revolutionary is misplaced. All its attempts at alternative organisation fail. From the Paris Commune to the workers’ soviets, they have been resolutely unable to build a concrete alternative to the market that is strong enough to survive and prove itself better than the status quo. All socialism can ever really be is capitalism that spends its profits on improving social conditions - a position many a bourgeois could come to just as much as any prole. The missing ingredient of the Marxist pudding is the proof that the working class has an economic system up its sleeve that isn’t just capitalism with humanitarian features.

Missing

Red sub

Does anyone know what happened to the Red Party, the splinter from the CPGB that published Red Star? I subscribed to the magazine and only got a couple of issues.

Has the revolution been cancelled? If so, can I get back some of my subscription money?

Red sub
Red sub

Youthful activity

Leeds Socialist Youth Network held a launch meeting towards the end of March. Unfortunately there were only five of us ‘youth’ there (three members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, one from the CPGB and a supporter of Permanent Revolution) - most of whom don’t actually live in Leeds, but other parts of West and North Yorkshire. There was also an observer from Leeds Socialist Campaign Group, which has agreed to support Leeds SYN.

Despite the small turnout, we have made a start. We discussed the John for Leader campaign - how we all felt it was going, what many of us saw as its programmatic shortcomings and how we could build it locally.

We also discussed what other campaigns we, as Leeds SYN, would involve ourselves in. The AWL’s Mike Wood suggested that we campaign on issues surrounding young workers’ rights, unionisation and student-worker unity. I suggested that we get involved in the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign in Leeds. Both suggestions were unanimously agreed. We agreed to start having public stalls as soon as we have the necessary materials (the first is pencilled in for April 10).

If anyone wishes to get involved or to be kept in touch, please email me at dave@communiststudents.org.uk.

Youthful activity
Youthful activity

Timid

Your report on John McDonnell’s recent visit to Stockton speculated that Teesside’s constituency Labour Parties might be uninterested in discussing politics or afraid of being seen to associate with anyone challenging Gordon Brown’s coronation as party leader.

Here in Middlesbrough, the Labour Party is too timid even to mount a serious electoral challenge to the town’s non-Labour incumbent mayor. Despite having left the police force in disgrace after admitting 14 serious disciplinary offences, former detective inspector Ray ‘Robocop’ Mallon won a landslide victory in Middlesbrough’s first directly elected mayoral contest in May 2002. The Labour candidate, Sylvia Connolly, suffered a humiliating defeat of Dobsonian proportions, registering only 23% of the vote compared with Mallon’s 63%, even though Middlesbrough has long been considered a Labour stronghold and the party dominates the council chamber.

Five years on and Mallon is seeking another term in next month’s local elections. The local Labour Party, however, anxious not to displease the ‘independent’ mayor under whose patronage the council’s executive seats are allocated, only announced its choice of candidate on March 23, barely five weeks before the election takes place.

A little known councillor, Charlie Rooney, has agreed to be the fall guy in the mayoral contest, which Labour is not even trying to win. Rooney’s true aspirations are reflected in the fact that he’s also seeking re-election in the ward he represents on the council.

If Middlesbrough’s Labour Party was serious about this election, it would have chosen a candidate much earlier and given him or her time to build a public profile and subject the mayor’s policies to critical scrutiny. The truth, though, is that Mallon’s policies are thoroughly New Labour in the contempt they show for working class communities, and the ‘people’s party’, which has most of the positions in his hand-picked executive anyway, has no intention of presenting anything more than a paper candidate on May 3. The smart money predicts that Mallon will end up replacing local MP Stuart Bell when he decides to retire. Lucky Westminster.

I sincerely hope that John McDonnell is able to get on the ballot paper for the Labour leadership election, but having a ‘dialogue’ with ‘Sir Stuart’ about that would be a complete waste of time.

Timid
Timid

Internationalism

I attended the event organised by the Scottish Socialist Party at the time of the opening of the very expensive Scottish parliamentary building by the queen of England. At that event, in the centre of Edinburgh, over 1,000 people signed the Declaration of Calton Hill, for a Scottish republic on the basis of liberty, equality, diversity and solidarity. Despite the great wording, many black and Asian people saw Scottish independence as nationalist and that demo was overwhelmingly white.

There was a much better racial mix at the demonstration for independence in Edinburgh on Saturday March 31, with many seeing it as internationalist. Under an independent Scotland, troops would be removed from Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps even triggering a complete withdrawal by the west. Independence could also scupper New Labour’s Trident plans, with the nuclear weapons no longer being locatable on the Clyde in a nuclear-free Scotland. An independent Scotland could also invest in tidal power, with an abundance of renewable energy untroubled by fluctuations in the weather and without the blots on the landscape of wind turbines.

Big business is almost entirely opposed to independence, with Stagecoach boss Brian Souter being the main exception. The reason for this opposition is that a capitalist independent Scotland would be a step towards achieving socialism, more likely than in the UK as a whole due to Scots being generally more leftwing, the socialist parties being stronger and less divided than in the rest of the UK and the presence of an (albeit flawed) version of proportional representation for the Scottish parliament. After a successful referendum, the SNP would undoubtedly split, and we must demand new early elections rather than wait until 2011. At this election, socialists could come to power, encouraging similar moves across this capitalist world.

Internationalism
Internationalism

Iraqi terror

Iraqi lesbians and gays continue to be subjected to a systematic reign of terror by shia death squads. The government of Iraq refuses to crack down on the killers or to take any action to protect its gay citizens. It is a regime that is dominated by shia fanatics and homophobes.

Supporters of the fundamentalist Sadr and Badr militias boast that they are cleansing Iraq of what they call ‘sexual perverts’. They are open about terrorising gay Iraqis to make them flee the country and murdering those who fail to leave. Their goal is a queer-free, pro-homophobic Iraq. They are dragging our country back to the dark ages.

Some members of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government are linked to the anti-gay death squads. They are the political representatives of the Moqtada al-Sadr movement and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Both these parties have militias - respectively the Mahdi army and the Badr brigades - who are responsible for the execution-style killing of lesbian and gay Iraqis - and the murder of many other Iraqis, including sunni muslims, trade unionists, unveiled women, journalists and men wearing shorts, jeans or western-style haircuts.

The murder of gay Iraqis has the support of highly influential religious leaders, such as grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. He issued a fatwa in late 2005, calling for the execution of gay people in the “most severe way possible”. After international protests, he removed the fatwa from his website, but the fatwa itself has not been rescinded. It remains in force and is the spiritual sanction for the death squads to murder gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq has corroborated Iraqi LGBT’s claims of ‘sexual cleansing’ by the death squads and islamist courts: “Armed islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile towards homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them,” January’s UNAMI report said.

“There have been a number of assassinations of homosexuals in Iraq … At least five homosexual males were reported to have been kidnapped from Shaab area in the first week of November (2006) by one of the main militias. [We were] also alerted to the existence of religious courts, supervised by clerics, where homosexuals allegedly would be ‘tried’, ‘sentenced’ to death and then executed”, said UNAMI.

This report provoked a hostile reaction from the government of Iraq, which suggested that gay people are unIraqi and unislamic. “There was information in the report that we cannot accept here in Iraq. The report, for example, spoke about the phenomenon of homosexuality and giving them their rights,” said Mr al-Dabbagh, a spokesperson for the Iraqi government.

Despite the great danger involved, the Iraqi LGBT group has established a clandestine network of lesbian and gay activists inside Iraq’s major cities, including Baghdad, Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and Basra. These heroic activists are helping gay people on the run from fundamentalist death squads: hiding them in safe houses in Baghdad, and helping them escape to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.

Iraqi LGBT needs donations to help gay people in Iraq who are fleeing the death squads. We need money for safe houses, food, electricity, security protection and clothing - and to help pay the phone bills of members of Iraqi LGBT. They are sending us information about the homophobic killings, at great risk to their own lives.

Many of the people we are helping have nothing but the clothes on their backs, when they flee the attacks by fundamentalist militias. We are also paying for medication for members who are HIV positive. Otherwise, they will not get treatment. If it is discovered that they have HIV, they will surely be killed.

The UK-based gay rights group Outrage is working with Iraqi LGBT to support its work. The group does not yet have a bank account. Operating an Iraqi LGBT bank account in Baghdad would be suicide. For this reason, it has to operate its finances from London. All the group’s members in London are Iraqi refugees seeking asylum. Their lack of proper legal status makes it difficult for them to open a bank account in the UK. This is why Iraqi LGBT is asking that cheques be made payable to Outrage, with a cover note marked ‘For Iraqi LGBT’, and sent to Outrage, PO Box 17816, London SW14 8WT, UK. Outrage will then forward the donations received to Iraqi LGBT for wire transfer to Baghdad.

Iraqi terror
Iraqi terror

9/11 truth

Gordon Downie writes: “As the Bush regime prepares to fabricate yet more reasons to attack another Middle East state, one may legitimately question any time spent analysing the superstructural phenomena discussed here”.

Isn’t it about time the Weekly Worker gave some view on the growing belief that 9/11 was an inside job, proved not least by the ludicrous claims that three super steel structures could defy the laws of physics and collapse at the speed of gravity through fire? Why the silence on such a burning question? Surely the cultural phenomenon of the 9/11 truth movement deserves some recognition or discussion. I have trawled your website’s search facility to no avail.

9/11 truth

Slurred words

Please accept my humble apologies for wrongly describing Paul Lynch as a trade unionist in my article last month on Respect in Wales. As he said in his letter last week, this was indeed a slur on Paul, whose organic relationship with the local labour movement I clearly exaggerated.

Yet this awful smear on Paul’s character might not have arisen if he had actually made a speech at the meeting where he was selected to be a Respect candidate in the forthcoming elections. Instead I stupidly relied on comment made to me by a local Socialist Workers Party comrade about Paul’s affiliations.

For all I know Paul might also be a monarchist, believes that the Acts of Union should stay on the statute book and wish that the church in Wales be re-established. He clearly was very upset by the CPGB’s motion calling for a democratic, federal and secular republic.

What I can’t accept, though, is the accusation Paul makes about me calling him ‘comrade’. My original article contained no reference to Paul as comrade. This tag was insidiously added by the editor of Weekly Worker. Shame on him. He will have to be held account for that slur.

I wouldn’t have dreamed of calling Paul that.

Slurred words
Slurred words

Can’t believe it

You published a letter from ‘Mitch Pileggi’ of ‘Darlington WSM’ last week headed ‘PR text’. Just to clarify, no faction leadership meeting of the kind ‘Pileggi’ claims took place at a Workers Power summer camp, in a tent or otherwise. Nor was a such a text message ever suggested at a meeting of the grouping that later became Permanent Revolution.

As the Workers Solidarity Movement is an anarchist organisation that only exists in Ireland, it is doubtful that the Darlington WSM is real. The fact that Mitch Pileggi is the US actor who played FBI assistant director Walter Skinner in The X-Files might also be relevant to the authenticity of the letter.

A two-minute phone call with Permanent Revolution or five minutes on the web could have clarified this. It confirms what all serious socialists already know about the Weekly Worker ­ its sloppy journalism means you cannot believe a word that is in it.

Can’t believe it
Can’t believe it

The whole truth

What Mike Macnair says about imperialism seems like it might be correct, but it omits crucial evidence. It does not give ‘the whole truth’ and as a result the conclusion is incorrect.

For example, the dominance of the first world, and the USA in particular, over third world countries - ie, imperialism - means superexploitation of people in those countries (the neo-colonies). This harms the working class everywhere. The harm to the working class in the neo-colonies is clear. What harm does it do to the working class in the first world? It means a greater accumulation of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie. This alone is harmful to the working class. Also, imperialism involves the propaganda of national chauvinism, which divides the global working class, and even divides the working class within the imperial nations (eg, along racial and religious lines).

Capitalist imperialism is more oppressive than any other kind of capitalism, resulting in the lowest wages, the worst working conditions, the most brutal political repression, the worst human rights abuses and so on.

The whole truth

Ideal soldier

The detention of 15 British marines and sailors cannot not prevent an imperialist attack on Iran. Rather this incident will encourage the imperialists to attack it as soon as possible.

In order to foil the imperialists’ international conspiracy, the soldiers of Iran and others in imperialist countries need to join the Iranian workers, teachers and students in their fight against US imperialism, as well as against Iran’s national religious bourgeois government. Soldiers should not forget that their actual duty is to protect the interests of the common people, not to advocate the policies of the imperialists, which oppress the masses.

On that basis, lieutenant Ehren Watada, who refused to obey orders to deploy to Iraq to take part in ‘Operation Iraqi freedom’, must be the ideal soldier. Every soldier who wishes to fight against international imperialism and national bourgeois policy should follow Lt Watada’s example.

Ideal soldier
Ideal soldier