Letters

LU hot water

Peter Manson writes about the policy-making conference of Left Unity in Manchester on March 29: “the obsession with political ‘broadness’, with anti-democratic constitutionalism, risks disabling the project from the start” (Moderate party takes shape’, April 3).

As CPGB members and the Weekly Worker have made clear many times, they are in favour of a solely Marxist party, which they sometimes call a ‘communist party’. Apart from the word ‘communist’ putting off people horrified by the crimes of Stalinism (with ‘Marxist’ having similar connotations to many), such a party could never gain mass support. When they actually put that theory into practice, uniting with the Democratic Socialist Alliance and the Critique journal, in setting up the Campaign for a Marxist Party, that campaign completely failed to take off.

I have argued for a ‘revolutionary platform’ within Left Unity, and supported the Socialist Platform, but to make LU more revolutionary and unite together revolutionary socialists in preparation for a potential huge economic crisis (that could even be more severe than the 2007-08 credit crunch) rather than to totally take over LU, which is not practical anyway even if we tried to. I want a ‘broad socialist party’ involving reformists as well as revolutionaries, with at least some members openly mentioning their revolutionary views. Apart from other significant political differences, including the emphasis on the ‘working class’, suggesting that middle class people like Russell Brand (who plugged Ken Loach’s Guardian article on Left Unity on the eve of the Manchester conference, contributing to the quick recruitment of 200 new members) should be disenfranchised, I wouldn’t be keen on joining the Communist Platform due to its name.

The CPGB want a Marxist/ communist party to operate on the basis of democratic centralism, as explained in its ‘Draft rules’ (www.cpgb.org.uk/ home/about-the-cpgb/draft-programme/ draft-rules). I also have problems with that, since I think it important to put forward my own views in public rather than being limited to the collective decisions of a party (with that party’s leadership being particularly powerful).

I actually got myself in a fair degree of hot water at the People’s Assembly against Austerity recall conference on March 15 by speaking against a point in a motion from the Communist Party of Britain (linked to the Morning Star newspaper), which said that we should “continue to demonstrate that there is no economic need for any austerity measures”. I argued that there is a need for austerity under capitalism and there is a possibility of a much greater crisis than at present, which means that a socialist revolution is the only solution. The continually increasing national debt makes the sort of lofty reforms proposed throughout that conference unaffordable. No-one had mentioned the word ‘socialism’ before me (and it was only during an esoteric speech about canal boat direct action virtually at the end of the conference that it got mentioned afterwards).

Last year’s conference was even worse, without socialism being mentioned at all in either of the two plenary sessions, and with Labour MPs (plus that party’s members, Tony Benn and Owen Jones) and trade union leaders speaking, but with LU co-founder Ken Loach refused permission to speak in those sessions. I was actually a delegate from Left Unity nationally at the recall conference and I made two mistakes - not clarifying that they were my personal views rather than those of LU as a whole and that I’m in favour of public ownership, which was the subject of that section of the conference.

However, I disagree with LU’s Terry Conway, who told me later that I should have limited what I said at the People’s Assembly to the collective viewpoint of LU and that, if I was a trade union delegate, I should just put forward views of that union or union branch. Such ‘broadness’ would have led to a situation whereby only revolutionary organisations could have mentioned socialist revolution, and quite possibly the only one was Counterfire, the main organisation behind the People’s Assembly, who want a broad organisation anyway!

Returning to the LU conference, I put forward two amendments via the Manchester branch. The first argued for compensation to be “capped at a certain level so that large shareholders lose most of their investments” when shares are converted to government bonds during nationalisation, and this was accepted into the economics commission document before conference. It had been argued at the commission meeting in London that I participated in that those receiving share bonuses on company boards should not be compensated, but my proposal is surely better, and this ‘transitional demand’ makes our policy on the economy significantly more radical than it otherwise would be.

The other amendment, which the CPGB’s Laurie McCauley spoke in favour of, since I couldn’t attend conference, argued for the nationalisation of “companies that attempt to destabilise a Left Unity government” (as Peter pointed out) “by a ‘strike of capital’ or by trying to transfer assets overseas” (as the amendment stated) and was carried overwhelmingly. (There is a minor mistake in Peter’s article, where he states that amendments were carried for “the nationalisation of ‘other essential services’ (apart from those privatised over the last three decades)”. The document already included “all the major British-owned banks, building societies and insurance companies” and “the giant supermarket companies, which dominate the retail trade and much of the agricultural and food industry in this country”, and there were no other amendments for “essential services”.)

Peter mentioned Lambeth’s motion on Europe, which stated that “demanding withdrawal from the EU … is a British nationalist position, which misidentifies the enemy as ‘Europe’ rather than the ruling class”. The clause Peter omitted, between ‘EU’ and ‘is’ in that quote, was “or opposing British entry into the European single currency”, which clearly is not “a British nationalist position”, but vital (if any politicians were stupid enough to propose it) for reasons given in a Manchester amendment that I wrote: “We oppose British and/or Scottish entry into the European single currency, since the European Central Bank is unelected and unaccountable, nationalisation of it is not a serious option this side of a socialist revolution across the EU, there are considerably different economic conditions in countries that have adopted the euro, and it is part of the troika that has enforced extreme levels of austerity on some countries in the euro zone.”

In the conference debate, Pete Green described the idea that opposing joining the euro was “left nationalist” as “ridiculous” and argued strongly that you only need to look at what’s happened in Greece, Spain and Portugal to see that joining a single currency “under the current regime, not in some potential future” is to submit ourselves to “the austerity measures imposed on behalf of the European banks”. My only qualm about what he said is that the “potential future” may lie “decades ahead” rather than there being serious potential for mass revolutionary movements in the coming period that could bring down capitalism, perhaps starting in Britain but spreading across Europe and the rest of the world very quickly.

The Lambeth motion (and therefore my amendment too) was remitted for consideration by LU’s national council, ostensibly due to a referendum on withdrawal from the European Union being years away (somewhat strange, because it would still be years away if the national council considers it). Although I think that the alternative composite from Milton Keynes and Sarah McDonald, originating from the CPGB, wasn’t perfect (in its emphasis on “the working class”), it’s good to have such a radical position on Europe, which doesn’t include the terrible position in the original Milton Keynes motion of abstention on joining the euro that was obviously deleted during the compositing process.

Steve Wallis
Manchester

Benn's send off

I thought readers of the Weekly Worker might like a short account of the experience of being in the crowd surrounding Tony Benn’s funeral from someone not belonging to the bourgeois media.

I was in the area between Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s from about 9.30am, more than an hour before the funeral was due to start, when there were already a few people there, including Lindsey German, Chris Nineham, John Rees and Andrew Murray, among the revolutionary left, who, I think, then attended inside the church. Others I saw entering were Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel and Sam West, among media people, as well as a wide range of Labour Party and trades union figures.

By the time the coffin arrived from the Palace of Westminster there were upwards of 500 people, at least, lining the road in Parliament Square. There was applause, cheers and tears from the crowd, as the coffin passed in and out of the church, as well as during the service (for which there was audio feed to the area where I was standing), especially when one of the family said it meant a lot to them that there were many people outside.

The service was touching, even for a hardened atheist, and made clear how much Tony Benn combined a workaholic attitude to politics with being a family man.

On one side of me was a young woman well-dressed in a black woollen coat and felt hat. I heard a man say to her in rather cut-glass tones: “I’m fed up of being told I’m too posh to be a socialist!” On my other side was an oldish woman holding a home-made poster saying “Dare to be a Daniel”, a favourite phrase of Benn’s that was referred to in the service. Apparently it comes from a hymn: “Dare to be a Daniel, Dare to stand alone! Dare to have a purpose firm, Dare to make it known.” Once the service had broken up, a small group sang ‘We shall overcome’.

In a bid to get the Weekly Worker and the CPGB some free publicity, for most of the time I was there I held in front of my chest the front page of issue 1002, with the photo of Benn and the headline, ‘The moderate extremist’. Dennis Skinner noticed as he went into the church and said, “About 1961, I think.” Here’s a link to a video on the BBC website that shows the front page held up in front of my fetching purple Unison tabard (twice): www.bbc.co.uk/ news/uk-politics-26763070.

I spoke to James Landale, deputy political editor for BBC news, saying that, while I disagreed with Benn politically, he was nevertheless the nearest thing that this country had to a high-profile, principled Marxist political leader in the second half of the 20th century. This didn’t make the cut into his report: perhaps not the sort of vox pops that this Eton contemporary of Boris and Cameron was looking for.

On another subject, I would like to thank publicly Chris Gray (Letters, February 27) for his recommendation of A dictionary of Marxist thought by Tom Bottomore (Blackwell) in response to my plea for some help with understanding Marxist terminology (Letters, February 13).

While I understand that many terms and interpretations are highly contested (one only has to read letters in the Weekly Worker a few weeks running to see this), nevertheless, from dipping into this book a few times, I think it admirably serves my need for a tool of basic orientation. It lies somewhere between a dictionary and an encyclopaedia, containing articles on individual Marxist thinkers and movements, as well as ones covering approaches by Marxist thought to topics such as literature. There is also an index and a bibliography, the absence of which often detracts from otherwise useful reference books (I speak as someone with some experience of reference library work).

I would recommend it to anyone at an intermediate level of Marxist educational development as a tool for checking stuff that crops up in your Marxist reading and debate.

Tim Reid
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Lifelines

Last week (April 3) I wrote a review of the ‘Dialectics and systems theory’ chapter in Richard Levins’ and Richard Lewonti’s book, Biology under the influence. Steven Rose has written to me pointing out that there was a typo in his email to me, which should have read, “I am no great enthusiast for general systems (or chaos or catastrophe) theories.”

Here is a quote from his classic book Lifelines: biology, freedom, determinism (1997, p7) on ‘living systems’, which shows a balanced approach to systems similar to Levins and myself. He is summarising his book against those who fund science and against the dominance of genetic determinism, where he writes that his “main task ... is to offer an alternative vision of living systems, a vision which recognises the power and role of genes without subscribing to genetic determinism, and which recaptures an understanding of living organisms and their trajectories through time and space as lying at the centre of biology. It is these trajectories that I call lifelines. Far from being determined, or needing to invoke some non-material concept of free will to help us escape the determinist trap, it is in the nature of living systems to be radically indeterminate, to continually construct their - our - own futures, albeit in circumstances not of our own choosing.”

Steve Masterson
London

Even greater

Although only formally launched last November, Left Unity already has nearly 2,000 members and is growing by the day.

I am delighted to have been directly elected by the LU membership to one of the 15 positions on the national council. I stood on a bold socialist platform, stressing the need to organise the political fightback against austerity, promote socialism and combat the UK Independence Party. I also promoted my positions in, and support for, the Rugby Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, for whom I am secretary and prospective parliamentary candidate.

Left Unity and Tusc are part of the same left movement to build a new socialist party, and I see both as stepping stones towards that party. Tusc is an electoral coalition of socialists and trade unionists, and in Rugby we have an active branch which campaigns between elections. Left Unity is a ‘one member, one vote’ party in the early stages of development, but with much potential. Nationally, Tusc has offered Left Unity members use of its electoral title in this May’s council elections, and a handful have taken that up.

In some ways I am in a unique position, as I am both local group development officer for Tusc nationally and now an elected member of Left Unity’s leading national body. I am committed to encouraging even greater cooperation between the two organisations, and I will use both positions to influence that process if I can. Tusc and Left Unity have already held talks, and have agreed to meet again. Both are determined to avoid electoral clashes on the left, and both want to see the largest possible left challenge in next year’s general election.

I see both groups as being complementary to each other. Rugby Tusc members helped form the local Left Unity branch last year, and many remain active within it. There is definitely no conflict of interest. I am proud to be Tusc’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Rugby, and an officer of its national steering committee, and I am also delighted to have been elected to the leading body of Left Unity.

I clearly have a lot of work ahead!

Pete McLaren
Rugby

Fruitful

As the article’s title conveys (‘Border controls: reactionary by nature’), today’s uncompromising opponents of frontiers ignore half of the Stuttgart congress’s assessment of immigration controls: “fruitless and reactionary by nature”. They have given up arguing immigration controls are fruitless.

This is for good reason, because the Stuttgart congress was wrong; immigration controls are effective, most everyone today agrees, in reducing the labour supply and mitigating the adverse effects of immigration on wages. For those who deny that immigration controls raise wages, an interesting treatment is in Peter Turchin’s ‘Return of the oppressed: from the Roman empire to our own gilded age, inequality moves in cycles. The future looks like a rough ride’.

The US, in short, was in a revolutionary situation, and many among the political and business elites realised it. They began to push through a remarkable series of reforms. In 1921 and 1924, Congress passed legislation that effectively shut down immigration into the US. Although much of the motivation behind these laws was to exclude ‘dangerous aliens’ such as Italian anarchists and eastern European socialists, the broader effect was to reduce the labour surplus. Worker wages grew rapidly.

But whether restriction of immigration is “reactionary” isn’t, for a materialist, an independent question from whether it is “fruitful”. If the Stuttgart congress erred on the supposed fruitlessness (for defending against the harmful effects of mass influxes) of immigration restriction, the “reactionary” character of controls must be reconsidered. The resolution prohibits on principle only “preventing particular nations or races from immigrating” (my emphasis), which it singles out as “also [that is, in addition to being unfruitful] reprehensible from the point of view of proletarian solidarity”.

Stephen R Diamond
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