Letters

RWT perspectives

This letter is to relay the basic political decisions taken and conclusions drawn at our aggregate regarding the question of ‘revolutionary regroupment’. The more detailed politics which determined these decisions and conclusions will be carried in depth in our reply to the CPGB’s ‘Party, non-ideology and faction’ document, which will be sent to you as soon as it is collectively agreed.

In the meantime here are the other basic decisions and conclusions regarding ‘revolutionary regroupment’ in general and the CPGB in particular.

(a) It is our opinion that the CPGB is in fact not a party and that you are a revolutionary tendency.

You are one of quite a few around, including us, who perceive the need to seriously address and debate the question of revolutionary regroupment. What you are presently promoting and pursuing in terms of granting factional rights to help in “reforging the CPGB” poses one of the key specific questions in what we see as the ideological and political clarification absolutely necessary before successful regroupment itself can take place: viz, what is a (communist) party?

(b) Another central key question is: What is a communist?

We are of the opinion that, in order to address all of the questions and issues contained in the general political thirst for and debate towards revolutionary regroupment; and to ideologically unite the disparate political organisations and individuals currently involved in this around the key issue of communism itself; and to attract and focus these and others not yet involved, a ‘Communist League’ would be suitable.

It would be a much truer political reflection of where we all are and much more appropriate for where we should most immediately be aiming, rather than a faction or a tendency of any established revolutionary organisation. A ‘Communist United Front’ for ideological and political debate, if you like.

(c) I should mention at this ‘stage’ of the debate that we see the question of communist/revolutionary regroupment as being programmatic. As well as all the other issues which go to make up the whole debate.

In this, the major difference we have with the CPGB is that you have some sort of concept of a ‘British Road to Socialism’. We are for the “republican break-up of the UK state” - the republican road to communism.

We look forward to your reply and thank you once more for the invitation and opportunity to participate in this debate.

Brian Higgins
Republican Worker Tendency

Hidden agenda?

I am writing as a supporter of Open Polemic, who due to prior commitments was unable to attend OP’s recent conference on The future party and its political organisation. Even so there are three points I want to make regarding the article, ‘Closet polemic’ (Weekly Worker 99).

Firstly, to characterise Open Polemic as an organisation which conceals its views and aims is a gross misrepresentation. As you are well aware, every edition of the journal carries editorials/statements on the views and aims of Open Polemic as a political project. If you disagree with Open Polemic’s aims and values, say so and say why; don’t mislead your readers.

Secondly, try to avoid slipping into ‘sound bite’ journalism. Stan Kelsey sets up this description of the conference with a snippet from Jack Conrad. We are then treated to three further very brief out-takes (two quoted directly and one paraphrased) which are supposed to sum up the event. Why not tell your readers about the six papers that were submitted and distributed prior to conference? You could usefully have described the content of the papers and gone on to engage in the debate which they generated.

Which brings me on to my last point. Why didn’t the CPGB-PCC get involved in the debate, either at the conference or prior to it by submitting a paper itself. Two answers spring readily to mind. Either, armed with Conrad’s assessment, they had no intention of being involved; attendance was only for the sake of appearances with the added bonus of generating a few cheap laughs in the next edition of the Weekly Worker. Or, rather more worryingly, they found themselves for whatever reason incapable of doing so. If you did enter into the polemic, why didn’t the article deal with that?

Stan Kelsey replies:

There is no misrepresentation in pointing to the falseness of OP’s claim to ‘openness’. The two representatives who attended our ‘Communism 94’ school in Spain last October were constantly telling us they had “not been mandated to discuss” almost everything. Concealing personal views in this way blocks the path towards the theoretical clarity and mutual trust which practical communist unity requires.

The ‘conference papers’ were, characteristically, nothing but the hopeless musings of isolated individuals and miniscule sects divorced from communist practice. It would be wrong, in my opinion, to dignify these by dissecting them in the Weekly Worker, or to endorse OP’s diversion from serious party-building by participating in the conference.

The Open Polemic project for communist unity has failed. Real pro-Party discussion is being conducted with other groups by the CPGB Provisional Central Committee, where theory is joined with practice. Genuine communists define themselves in relation to this reality. I hope Comrade Hickman and the OP editorial board will join us and use their journal in the struggle to build communist organisation and practice now.

R Hickman
Open Polemic

Weapon of control

The ‘not guilty’ verdicts in the case of Joy Gardner - cruelly killed by agents of the state in their efforts to deport her - has produced the usual stock response from left organisations. Instead of condemning the capitalists’ immigration controls for claiming the right to determine where workers should live and work, Militant puts it all down to “institutionalised racism, sanctioned at the highest levels and exonerated by the courts” (June 23).

The paper asks: “Had Joy Gardner been white is there any doubt that the treatment which led to her death would not have been meted out?” There is considerable doubt. Police and immigration authorities were not issued with ‘restraints’ and gags in a pack labelled ‘For black deportees only’. The equipment was for use against any ‘illegal’ worker who would not ‘come quietly’, agree to be uprooted from their home and dumped, perhaps penniless, thousands of miles away.

In response to the outcry at Joy’s death - not least from the anti-racist, liberal bourgeoisie - the authorities were forced to abandon their paid agents and place them on trial. After many hours’ consideration, the police officers were found not guilty. The jury - just like Militant - no doubt accepted the state’s right to enforce its border controls. It finally concluded that the killing was accidental.

While many individuals, including police and immigration officers, may remain racist in outlook, it is as clear as daylight that the state’s official ideology is anti-racist. The weapon the capitalists use today in their attempt to rally both black and white workers behind their state (including its barbaric immigration controls) is national chauvinism.

Those who limit their demands to the scrapping of racist immigration controls, instead of calling for our right to live anywhere in the world, are objectively strengthening that weapon.

Ted Jaszynski
North London