Letters

Communist league

In reply to the Republican Worker Tendency (Letters 101)

Thank you for your letter of June 28 proposing that we form a Communist League. We do not believe that this suggestion is useful at present. It should lay on the table for possible consideration at a later date.

What we need to do immediately is:

1. Campaign for communist unity and democratic centralism in the Marxist movement as the beginning of rapprochement and movement towards a united Communist Party.

2. Pursue open ideological debate at joint meetings and in our publications.

At present we do not need a new organisational form to carry out the above tasks.

The immediate problem is that we have not been been able to come together to sign the Open Letter to the SWP central committee. This would be an important first step.

We apologise for the fact that you initially had very little time to consider your attitude to the Open Letter. Because of this we would ask you now to reconsider your decision, following further representations from us that we will send shortly.

Yours with communist greetings,

Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP), Provisional Central Committee, CPGB

Class conscious

Steve Hedley misunderstands what ‘spontaneity’ is. (Weekly Worker 103).

He tells us that, “far from tailing any spontaneous movement within the class, most Colin Roach Centre activists are shop stewards”. Thus he seems to think that ‘spontaneity’ somehow equals ‘unorganised’.

The working class as a class in itself under capitalism throws up all manner of different types of defence organisations - most importantly of course, trade unions. However, without conscious communist leadership these simply fight to secure a better deal for the working class within the existing system, or to beat back a particular attack.

If there were no revolutionaries or communists in the world, the working class would do this naturally, spontaneously. And they would be doing it forever. They might pose a threat to this or that individual boss or even government: They would never pose a threat to the system itself.

The job of communists - which Steve classifies himself as - is to organise our class to end the system as a whole, to form the proletariat into a class for itself. This hardly means that communists abstain from the day-to-day struggle of the working class. But what it does mean is that communists must understand its limits, its partial nature and the need to intervene consciously, in an organised and disciplined way, to overcome these limitations. In other words, a party of the class is required - something I know Steve agrees with, although I think he is quite wrong to suggest that the Colin Roach Centre constitutes the embryo of such an organisation.

Steve has a problem with the fact that a Communist Party is a disciplined section of the class. He has a particular difficulty that membership of the Party requires dues of 10%.

How can we in one breath talk of overthrowing the hugely powerful British imperialist state, then in the next moan that this might actually demand some real sacrifices - financially and otherwise? If we want the working class to take us seriously, we should take ourselves a little more seriously, I think.

Mark Fischer
East London

More polemic

In reply to Phil Sharpe (letters 103), I would first point out that though he may think my views of the recent Open Polemic conference were impressionistic, he is agreeing with Ray Hickman, who wasn’t even at the conference.

I must admit that I was not aware of the high level of discussion that you talk about. Although your views were certainly interesting, I do not remember much discussion around them - rather people asking why we were talking about them at all.

In response to your claim of us dismissing Open Polemic, you may not be aware that we have been in discussions with them for a year since our last cadre school which they attended. They have an open invitation to our London seminars which they have attended and taken part in on a number of occasions. If you followed our press, you would know that discussions have also been carried in print.

Therefore it should be clear that we do not use disagreements on practice to end the debate, but like Open Polemic and I assume yourselves, emphasise that theory and practice cannot be separated.

Stan Kelsey
North London

Road to nowhere

Mozambique’s newly-formed Communist Party (Pacomo) launched its first manifesto in May. The Party, which has around 800 members, says it draws its inspiration from the documents of the Frelimo Party’s Third Congress in 1977, which announced its transformation from a national liberation movement into a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party.

Within a few years of its independence in 1975 Mozambique had established a primary healthcare system that was praised by the World Health Organisation and tripled the number of children in primary shcools. Pacomo praises these gains, saying that Mozambicans at this time “were masters of their own country”. A highly exaggerated claim indeed!

The fact that Mozambique was still a feudal society, suffered from neo-colonialism and had a ruling party that was in essence merely following Soviet foreign policy ensured that the national liberation struggle would not go beyond bourgeois tasks. Indeed, earlier this year, as part of the imperialist-governed ‘peace’ process in the country, the rightwing, imperialist-backed Renamo entered parliament and Frelimo dropped all pretence to be socialist.

Pacomo calls for greater state control over the economy and has said it “will fight against all expressions of bourgeois ideology”. Will this fight also extend to within the Party? Its manifesto says that “the greatest democracy is within communism” and that real peace is only possible “with social justice in communism”.

It displays its sectarianism by condemning Mozambique’s trade unions and mass organisations as hopelessly compromised, but it is not clear to what or with whom. Instead it has set itself the task of building new organisations of workers and peasants, teachers, journalists, women and youth.

The Party’s general secretary, Almeida Tesoura, confusingly told journalists that “our objective is not to win power, but to demonstrate the advantages of communism.”

Mozambique’s working class needs a Communist Party, but one which has, unlike Pacomo, a clear goal of proletarian dictatorship and working class state power.

John Allan
Sheffield

Caring capitalism?

Who is Gary Salisbury trying to kid? His resignation letter (Weekly Worker 102) must rank as the swiftest political volte face since records began.

Much of what he says regarding the “communist movement” and the “revolutionary road” is utter nonsense.

Equally nonsensical is his assertion that Labourism is “progressive” and that capitalism is a “caring ecomomic system”. Tell that to the countless millions globally who have had first hand experience of this “progressive”, “caring” system. The millions of destitute and starving people whose daily suffering - whether it is on some impoverished council estate here or in a war-stricken Third World country - is an affront to humanity.

The history of capitalist development (“the whole rotten thing”, as Gary described it recently) had been one of untold plunder and misery. The carnage of two world imperialist wars is testimony to that, as was the imperialist slaughter in Vietnam, the Middle East and the Gulf. The communist movement was certainly not responsible for those atrocities.

How can you reconcile your assertion that “caring” capitalism is the only progressive option with your other assertion that “the end of the revolutionary road” will end up in a “vile barbarism”, whichever side won the struggle?

Surely some mistake here. A victorious “caring, progressive” capitalism presiding over a “vile barbarism”? But this is precisely what “progressive” capitalism has always presided over and has even more opportunity to do so since the demise of the Soviet Union. To claim that a vile barbarism lies ahead if the communist movement is victorious over caring capitalism is to insult those who are struggling to achieve that goal. Do you, Gary, consider your former comrades in the Party as the conscious purveyors of a future barbarism?

Turning specifically to Gary’s latest political home - New Labour - it is patently obvious to anyone who cares to check that, since Blair became leader, it has moved so far to the right that it cannot now be distinguished from the Tories. Blair’s ‘new Labour’ is so desperate to get elected that it is prepared to sink to any depths to please the capitalists, and to hell with the rest of us. Good luck, Gary.

C Carr
North Hertfordshire CPGB supporters