Letters

Overexcited

Jack Conrad says: “In light of Corbyn’s success the left needs to seriously examine why it gets the Labour Party so wrong” (‘Confusion and disarray’ August 6). It is also a good time to consider whether the CPGB has got it wrong too.

The British Labour Party is not a republican socialist party, as Jack indicates when he says: “While Corbyn advocates many eminently supportable demands, there is an acceptance of the existing constitutional order. Corbyn calls himself a republican, but does not consider the abolition of the monarchy a priority. Nor does he propose to sweep away the standing army ... and usher in a radical democratisation of society.”

Even worse, “Corbyn calls himself a republican”, but does not see the need for a militant republican party. This is ‘platonic republicanism’, with words, but not the deeds nor means of achieving it. And it is not just Corbyn who “calls himself a republican”, but the whole Labour left and the CPGB too. They are all agreed that republicanism is not a priority and therefore we have no need of a militant republican party. I made this point in the Bermondsey general election campaign against the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition-Left Unity lash-up.

The British Labour Party has never been a republican socialist party and has never attempted to carry out the programme of the social republic, nor abolish the House of Lords and end all the Acts of Union nor “sweep away” the British army. Corbyn and the left may be very ‘radical’, but they are still in living in the conservative world of the British social monarchy and its heyday of 1945.

I can, however, agree with Jack that the Corbyn campaign shows that social democracy is reviving in England. But the decline of British Labour, as the programme of the social monarchy for the United Kingdom, is set to continue. If Corbyn wins, and I hope he does, that contradiction will be played out more quickly.

The British Labour Party is the peculiar form taken by social democracy in the UK, even if the left in England thinks it is the normal and therefore the only possible form. Scotland says different, as I argued in the Bermondsey election campaign. So now we face the rise of social democracy and the further decline of British Labour.

Social democracy is the mass politics of the working class as much as trade unions are the mass organisations of the working class at work. Like unions, social democracy can lose support and go into decline, but this decline is temporary and cannot be permanent unless the working class itself is liquidated.

The Corbyn movement is one sign of its revival. Tusc and LU have been part of the struggle to revive social democracy in the form of Labourism.In so far as New Labour drove social democracy out of the Labour Party, then Tusc and Left Unity are attempts to fight back by creating a mark two version of Labour.

The pendulum has already started swinging in Greece, Spain and Scotland, where the traditional forms of social democracy were seen to fail. The advanced sections of the working class looked to create alternative forms. In Scotland, New Labour was rejected by the working class, even though the break evolved over some years and began to crystallise in the Scottish referendum.

The Corbyn campaign stands on the contradiction between the revival of social democracy and the further decline and destruction of British Labour. That is not good news for Labour’s imitators in Tusc and LU. Republican socialism is one way out. You can have republicanism or British Labourism, but not both. So, if the Socialist Workers Party is underwhelmed by the Corbyn campaign, it seems to me that the CPGB has become overexcited.

Steve Freeman
Republican Socialist and Anti-Unionist

Desperate

What does it mean to call the British Labour Party a bourgeois workers’ party today?

Jack Conrad argues that Lenin’s characterisation of Labour as a workers’ party remains as true as it was a hundred years ago. Comrade Conrad gives three reasons. The first is that Labour members are mostly wage workers; the second is that a majority of workers in the UK (apart from Scotland) vote Labour; and the third is that workers’ organisations - the trade unions - fund the party.

In an interesting footnote, he quotes Lenin in support of this analysis and seems unaware that it might cast doubt upon it. Lenin states that Labour was a “thoroughly bourgeois party” which “exists to systematically dupe the workers”. Whether it was also a workers’ party depended on “the men [sic] who lead it, and the content of its actions and its political tactics”. It does not depend on its membership.

In order to decide whether Labour is a workers’ party today, a Marxist following Lenin would give a historical account of the tactics and actions of its leaders. A sociological examination into the class composition and affiliation of its members and voters would be of secondary significance.

As comrade Conrad observes, the phrase ‘bourgeois workers’ party’ is contradictory. What is the nature of this contradiction? A century ago a contradiction existed between a membership committed to advancing the movement for working class emancipation worldwide from below and leaders that inhibited it with national, local, bureaucratic and administrative controls from above. This contradiction manifested itself in debates over the nature of the goal of workers’ liberation - socialism - and whether this could be achieved through reform or revolution.

The defeat of the October revolution in Russia and the rise of Stalin’s terror state gave weight to the idea that ‘socialism’ was a system of top-down control through nationalisation, a welfare state and other forms of bureaucratic administration mediated through the trade unions. This notion functioned - in Lenin’s words - to “systematically dupe the workers”. The trade unions’ inability to control workers’ militancy in the 1960s and 1970s and the consequent bourgeois turn to finance capital led Labour leaders to embrace market forms of control more explicitly.

Has the contradiction at the heart of Labour been superseded? Does the leadership now no longer pretend it is a workers’ party? Comrade Conrad argues that it has not. There are still Labour leaders whose tactics are guided by the goals of working class liberation from below. Evidence of this can be found in the contemporary campaign for Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

What then does the possibility of Corbyn’s leadership represent? There is no evidence that he conceives of ‘socialism’ as anything other than nationalisation and a welfare state. He stands for the redistribution of state revenue from the financial to the industrial sector through investment in the infrastructure. In other words, he is a social democrat politically and a Keynesian economically. He clearly represents Labour’s last attempt at systematically duping workers.

It is conceivable that a Corbyn government would gain the active support of that section of the bourgeoisie sensitive to the failure of policies of austerity during a depression. The hope might be that the revival of older forms of control and cooption through the trade unions and the left can prolong the life of capitalism.

These are false but real hopes. Trade union leaders’ salaries depend as much upon financial investments of funds as on membership fees. They continue to collaborate with the capitalist class to promote long-term strategies for sustainable investment and socially just forms of corporate governance. However, in the long term, the trade unions could not contain the collective force of an upswing in workers’ expectations. Many workers whose labour power is productive of surplus value are no longer unionised. Moreover, the influence of a Stalinised and social democratic left is weaker than it was during the cold war.

It is for these reasons that the sensible section of the bourgeoisie will be persuaded against supporting a Corbyn government. The continued deleterious consequences of austerity and increasing authoritarianism appear to be a lesser evil. Presently there is a strange alliance between those on the right and left who believe that a Corbyn-led government would be the first stage on the path to a dystopian/utopian ‘socialism’. However, as Marxists know, there is no distinctly British (nor English or Scottish) road to a democratically planned, classless society worldwide. To suggest otherwise is a delusion.

It would be a shame if, through a mistaken and outdated analysis of the Labour Party, contributors to the Weekly Worker came to believe that the last gasps of the corpse of Labourism marked the birth of a socialist revolution. The challenge of a campaign for a Marxist workers’ party today deserves a less desperate, more thoughtful response.

Paul B Smith
Merseyside

Excellent

Jack Conrad’s article was excellent, with pretty much the position of Ted Grant, which probably explains why the Heinz 57 varieties of the new revolutionary socialist party (Marxist-Leninist or Trotskyite) cannot bear to print a similar piece.

Ted consistently argued that the workers in times of crisis would orientate themselves towards the trade unions and their political expression, the Labour Party, as they are the traditional organs of the working class and enjoy enormous reservoirs of support, which the sectarians (meaning anyone who disagreed with his analysis on the revolutionary left) do not understand due to their petty bourgeois outlook.

As you can guess, I was a long-time adherent of Militant until the split. I am still active in the Labour Party and Unison, and totally loving the move back to a mass left-reformist current taking a lead in the Labour Party. But this can also be a breeding ground for a rapid transformation towards a revolutionary movement, with ideas of Marx, etc.

I enjoy your website and agree with most of what you publish - keep it up. I agree with the view of the CPGB that the revolutionary left needs to sort itself out and unite around a common programme if ever it is going to build a mass revolutionary socialist party or even to see a transformation of the Labour Party itself in that direction. This is perhaps less likely, but events do have the habit of confounding predictions.

Dave G
email

Endorsement

Jack Conrad criticises open primary elections in the Labour Party: “There must be a clear distinction between those who are members - with the right to elect, be elected and decide policy, etc - and those who are supporters or just plain voters. Membership of the Labour Party ought to be something to value, to be proud of”.

Karl Marx asks and answers at the start of chapter 2 of the Communist manifesto (1848): “In what relation do the communists stand to the proletarians as a whole? The communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.”

A ringing endorsement for open primary elections in working class parties, as far as I can see.

Jon D White
SPGB

Rational face

A couple of questions for comrade Hillel Ticktin. As an avid listener of Hillel (podcasts and videos), I wondered if he thought Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US were the rational face of the bourgeoisie.

Despite Corbyn not talking in the works programme style of Sanders, is he a credible representative of capitalist growth, as opposed to the tendency of muddling on, somewhat incoherently, or the impossible dream of a Somalia style set-up? And how much support does he think this anti-austerity combo have with a section of the capitalist class?

Sunny Ret
Radical Chains

CPGB smear

Attentive and politically aware readers of the Weekly Worker over the last year or so will have observed the political dispute between the leadership of the CPGB and myself over questions involving imperialism, Zionism and the Jewish question. They will also have observed the way in which the CPGB has dealt with this political disagreement - witch-hunting and proscribing my views in the Communist Platform of Left Unity. They justified this by smears that my militant anti-Zionism and hostility to Jewish chauvinism today as a form of imperialist chauvinism, and the analysis of the material roots of this in my draft ‘Theses on the Jews and modern imperialism’, were in some way racist.

In the light of the smears about “leftwing anti-Semitism” against my views, it was always going to be interesting to see how broader forces on the left would handle this, were it to be concretely posed. Fortunately, this has now happened: twice, and very recently.

First of all, I have, after a period of political discussions, been invited to join the editorial board of the Trotskyist publication Socialist Fight, which I have agreed to do. As part of the broadening of the political basis of this publication, whose founders are internationally aligned with a particular Trotskyist faction, the Liaison Committee for the Fourth International, we have adopted a statement that explicitly accepts key elements of the CPGB’s position on the right of minorities in a revolutionary organisation to publicly criticise the positions of the majority, subject to such criticism not actively disrupting concrete and defined actions of the organisation as a whole (see http://commexplor.com/2015/08/02/socialist-fight-magazine-new-statement-of-purpose).

I always said I would work with any serious forces who embrace this perspective on how to build a genuine Marxist party. It is a pity that the CPGB decided that my anti-imperialist views were outside the framework of their ‘party project’, but that is life. As Oscar Wilde said, “Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.” It appears that they are actually building an ideological sect around loyalty to the legacy of Hal Draper, among others. The SF comrades are fully aware of my views on the Jewish question and my theses, which are now well known and have had a fair circulation on the left.

The other indicative illustration that my views are within the framework of Marxism, and can only be anathematised by those who are themselves the prisoners of prejudice, is that my theses were recently examined by the disputes committee of Left Unity, after a complaint along the lines of the smears previously carried in the Weekly Worker.

It is not clear whether leading elements in the CPGB were involved in this. But in any case, the complaint, which was about the contents of my theses and the allegation that they contained “anti-Semitic views” was dismissed by the disputes committee pretty decisively. I quote from their conclusion: “After study and discussion of the article, the disputes committee found that there is insufficient specific evidence to warrant our making a recommendation to the [national council] either for your expulsion or suspension, nor did we deem it appropriate to recommend any other form of disciplinary action.”

The DC were going on the contents of my theses, which are the most comprehensive, theorised exposition of my views, and were unable to verify claims that they were racist. A fuller account, and the text of the correspondence involved, can be found at http://commexplor.com/2015/08/06/left-unity-disputes-committee-exonerates-ian-donovan-of-anti-semitism-smear.

Taken together, these events are a devastating indictment of the CPGB and its political methods. Jack Conrad admitted to me, in an unguarded moment in the lead-up to the witch-hunt, that the motive for getting rid of me was cowardice, pure and simple. He could not stomach the possibility that by associating with me and my views, the CPGB would be (falsely) accused of anti-Semitism. In fact, reputable leftists on a broader level, whatever other flaws they may or may not have, have greater courage and integrity than Conrad. That is obvious.

Perhaps the CPGB will try to argue that these other leftists simply do not take racism seriously. However, just a cursory examination of their views on racism, and contrasting them with those of the CPGB, shows how ridiculous such a claim is. The CPGB denies that the British state is racist and it denies that the Labour right wing is racist. Evidence of this is legion in articles in their press. This is regarding racism against black people, anti-Muslim racism, etc. For the CPGB, the only form of (alleged) ‘racism’ that is worthy of being so branded, is harsh criticism and analysis of racism by Jewish chauvinists who either support Israel or act as gatekeepers in other ways against such criticism of the racism and chauvinism of its supporters against non-Jews, most notably Arabs.

In the real world, the CPGB’s strange views on racism are but an eccentric form of social chauvinism. That is what this case exposes.

Ian Donovan
Communist Explorations

Anti-Semitism

On August 6, Ian Donovan sent out an email circular, informing us that he had been exonerated of charges of anti-Semitism by Left Unity’s disputes committee. What is interesting about this little scenario is that no-one, not even comrade Donovan himself, knew that the DC was investigating the allegations.

Donovan writes: “I cannot definitively say who the complaint came from, as I was not officially informed of the existence of the complaint until the investigation of the disputes committee had exonerated me. But from some gossip and rumours that had appeared on one or two scurrilous, Zionist-inclined blogs, it does seem likely that the complainant was Salman Shaheen, one of the elected principal spokespeople of the party. It is also possible that the complainants were the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB. Though I think that is unlikely, since repeatedly when challenged to substantiate his allegation that I had a ‘reactionary attitude to Jews’, including in the pages of the Weekly Worker, their leader, Jack Conrad, responded with … deafening silence.”

Well, Ian, rest assured, the complaint did not come from us. As far as we in the Communist Platform are concerned, our house is in order. We dealt with the matter at a CP meeting, where the comrade was essentially expelled. The majority (everyone except Ian) found the arguments he had been espousing regarding a Jewish “pan-national bourgeoisie” acting as a “vanguard” of the ruling class in strategic countries incompatible with membership of the Communist Platform. Ian may well be right in suspecting that the complaint had been made by Salman Shaheen, who had been asked on Twitter (I am reliably informed) why Left Unity tolerated anti-Semites in its ranks. Comrade Shaheen, in turn, apparently asked why we in the CP had not brought this to the attention of LU. Of course, it is not our job act as LU’s policemen. Ian’s views were published on his blog, Communist Explorations, circulated widely by the comrade himself and we published a report of his expulsion, detailing his anti-Semitic views, in the pages of the Weekly Worker (‘No place for anti-Semitism’, September 18 2014).

The fact that the disputes committee finds these views tolerable within LU is surprising. Or is it the case that the DC has a backlog of disputes to deal with and this was brushed under the carpet in the interests of dealing with it?

The fact that their enquiry was conducted in secret - so secret, in fact, that the accused himself didn’t know about it(!) - emphasises the point that we have been making all along: these tribunals must not be conducted in secret. For justice to be done, it must be seen to be done. We should be able to hear the argument as to why Ian’s views are not deemed incompatible with the principles of LU.

Sarah McDonald
LU national council member

Free Steve

The following resolution was passed as an emergency resolution at Saturday’s Birmingham Left Unity branch meeting.

Please would you consider passing similar resolutions in your organisations and writing to the British foreign office demanding intervention to free Steve Kaczinski, to the Turkish government demanding his release, and sign the online petition.

“Birmingham Left Unity notes:

1. that British socialist Steve Kaczinski was imprisoned, without charge, by the Turkish state on April 2 2015;

2. that the Turkish state is authoritarian and in crisis - there are hundreds of Turkish and Kurdish socialists held in Turkish state jails;

3. that Steve Kaczinski has been active in solidarity work with leftist militants imprisoned by the Turkish regime - over many years, Steve Kaczinski has worked with Turkish and Kurdish communities in London;

4. that Steve has worked as a translator for various conferences involving Turkish socialists in Turkey, Britain and internationally.

“Birmingham Left Unity believes:

1. that Steve Kaczinski should be immediately released and allowed to return to Britain;

2. that after 42 days on hunger strike, Steve is facing death, still protesting his innocence, still demanding the release of Turkish and Kurdish comrades.

“Birmingham Left Unity resolves:

1. to support the Birmingham Campaign to Free Steve Kaczinski;

2. to participate in pickets for Steve Kaczinski’s release and to take the branch banner;

3. to use its media/resources to call on others to support and campaign for individuals to promote the campaign;

4. to ask its members to put similar resolutions, as an emergency, to labour-movement bodies;

5. to send this resolution to other Left Unity branches, national council and executive with a view to Left Unity backing this international campaign.”

Free Steve Kaczinski now! Further information is available on the ‘Free Steve Kaczinski’ campaign Facebook page.

Peter Bloomer
Birmingham

Calais mob

Peter McLaren of Rugby Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition writes a weekly letter to the Weekly Worker, whether he has anything to say or not (Letters, August 6).

His latest missive on Calais illustrates why Tusc is of no concern to working people. At the last general election McLaren received just 1% of the vote. Writing on what was presumably his holiday trip, McLaren describes approaching Calais: “We drove past miles of high fences topped with barbed wire, as if we were travelling past concentration camps like Dachau or Auschwitz.” In fact, the fences are chain link - similar to the sort of thing that defines a tennis court area - and indeed this is part of the problem: anyone with a decent pair of pliers can hack a way through them.

The author asks rhetorically: “Are the migrants a physical threat? Of course not.” Well, tell that to lorry drivers, who have to have additional security locks fitted to their vehicles to prevent potential immigrants invading the cab. Private cars are now under attack, as clandestines threaten families in an attempt to frighten them into concealing them in the car boot.

McLaren asks: “Are they an economic threat? Of course not.” Let us be clear about this: the only people who want unrestricted immigration are the employers’ organisations and sections of the far left, who argue that the residential population has no rights that override those of immigrants.

Britain is seen as a suitable end point by the Calais mob because we have a burgeoning black market in jobs and no proper ID checks. At a time when it is reported that Da’esh is attempting to smuggle illegals into Britain to commit terrorist atrocities this is a terrifying prospect.

Malcolm Scott
email

Debs v Diamond

In reply to Stephen Diamond (Letters, August 6), I would like to point out that, even after all those years that have passed, Eugene Debs still expresses it well:

Away with the ‘tactics’ which require the exclusion of the oppressed and suffering slaves who seek these shores with the hope of bettering their wretched condition and are driven back under the cruel lash of expediency by those who call themselves socialists in the name of a movement whose proud boast it is that it stands uncompromisingly for the oppressed and downtrodden of all the earth ...

If socialism - international, revolutionary socialism - does not stand staunchly, unflinchingly and uncompromisingly for the working class and for the exploited and oppressed masses of all lands, then it stands for none and its claim is a false pretence and its profession a delusion and a snare. Let those desert us who will because we refuse to shut the international door in the faces of their own brethren; we will be none the weaker, but all the stronger for their going, for they evidently have no clear conception of the international solidarity, are wholly lacking in the revolutionary spirit, and have no proper place in the socialist movement, while they entertain such aristocratic notions of their own assumed superiority” (www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1910/immigration.htm).

Debs was, of course, challenged on this view by others in his party, a response which may reflect some of Stephen Diamond’s concerns (www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1910/0820-untermann-replytodebs.pdf).

I leave it to Weekly Worker readers to judge who truly represented the interests of the American socialist movement - Debs or Ernest Untermann - particularly now, with the experience of hindsight.

Alan Johnstone
Socialist Party of Great Britain

Polish blood

Last Saturday, a certain ‘George’ Byczyński received coverage in The Independent and on the BBC World Service Newshour programme, where he was presented as offering a “positive” alternative to the migrant workers’ strike planned for August 20. I have written about the man’s shenanigans before (‘Christ of nations’, July 3 2014) and want to share a letter with you that I wrote to The Independent last Saturday. Unfortunately, it has remained unpublished thus far:

“An item in the August 8 issue of The Independent cites Jerzy Byczyński - or ‘George’ Byczyński, as he appears to call himself at the moment - calling upon Polish workers in the UK to donate “Polish blood” instead of participating in a planned migrant workers’ strike. Your journalist lauds this as a ‘protest of a more positive kind’.

“Byczyński is a spokesperson for Patriae Fidelis (‘loyal to the fatherland’), a UK-based front organisation for the National Movement, which is a coalition of Polish far-right and neo-fascist groups, such as the All-Polish Youth and National Radical Camp (ONR). Although Patriae Fidelis often presents itself as an innocuous support group for Poles living in the UK, a slogan on its website gives you an inkling as to which way the wind blows: “I am Polish, therefore I have Polish duties” - a quotation from Roman Dmowski, chief ideologue of the pre-war National Democratic Party, which was violently hostile towards Jews and the workers’ movement.

“It should come as no surprise, then, that ‘George’ Byczyński and his latest front group, the British Poles, are no fans of strike action and would rather donate some ‘Polish blood’. Polish migrant workers should ignore Byczyński’s scab call and go ahead with the migrant strike, which will hopefully be joined by workers of other nationalities.”

Maciej Zurowski
email

Not all over

I was pleasantly surprised and impressed to read Michael Roberts’ article and analysis of economics in China today, and was glad I persevered past the opening heady paragraphs describing the recent “dramatic” falls on the Chinese stock market that appeared to echo western commentators who say that somehow China is on the brink of economic and perhaps political collapse (‘Is it all over?’, August 6).

Michael in fact writes very well in conveying complex financial and economic issues and also relies heavily on objective analysis and economic facts garnered from undisputable international sources, rather than through ideological or prejudicial blinkers.

In his conclusions he could not bring himself to acknowledge that China is in essence socialist, but that is perhaps understandable and too much to expect. I am just thankful he didn’t feel the need to try to apply any of the usual ‘Trot’ labels to try and describe China, such as a ‘degenerate workers’ state’ (the mental image is of degenerate workers running around ...).

Michael refers to a number of features and facts which indicate the Chinese economy is something qualitatively different to a capitalist one. Just to take some selective quotations from his article: “far from entering a crisis [in 2002], China had the fastest growth ever experienced by a major economy in recorded history”: growth has been continuous over recent decades and not subject to the usual cyclical up and downturns inherent in capitalist economies.

Describing China as an “economic miracle”, just one paragraph summarises growth statistics from the late 1970s, which almost literally take one’s breath away, both in their sheer scale, dwarfing anything ever achieved by any capitalism even at its most ascendant and rampant, and in the way they exceeded even the targets set by the Chinese Communist Party.

I am sure Michael is right to point to the significance of the slowing of the growth rate from double digits to 7% year on year, and retail consumption at “only” 10%, fixed asset investment “only” 13.5%. These are certainly well down on previous years and do appear to herald and reflect significant changes and rebalancing required within the whole of the economy, but they are still stupendous, compared with any capitalist country, and more so, given these still represent continuous decades-long increases.

“China has raised 620 million out of internationally defined poverty.” An astounding, astonishing achievement. Which capitalist or ruling class has ever attempted such a thing or even wanted to? As a young child gravitating to ideas of communism, I wondered why the powers-that-be didn’t simply use their power and wealth to solve world hunger, poverty and desperation. Well, the Chinese Communist Party went ahead and did so.

“Even if China slows down in the medium term, it will still add $21 trillion to its GDP by 2020, and real consumption per head is growing at 8.5% per annum, the highest of any major economy.”

By way of using major international reports and analyses, including from the World Bank, Michael edges to some sort of explanation of this “wonder” economy, when he notes “the free market still does not dominate in China, and ... the incredible economic success over the last 30 years was achieved through bureaucratic [sic] state planning and government control of investment.” Indeed so.

Finally, Michael’s article notes that, while “the communist elite” have steadily expanded the role of the private sector in the economy, “the ‘commanding heights’ of the economy in banking, industry and service sectors” remain publicly owned: “The vast majority of employment and investment is still undertaken by publicly owned companies or institutions under the direction and control of the Communist Party.” Indeed so.

Michael rightly describes and sets out a number of negative features of the Chinese economy both now and looking forward, including greater relative inequality, slowing growth rates, financial speculation and the ladling of state resources into private bank accounts.

Some of these are reflections and contradictions arising from the domination of one political party over many aspects of economic and political activity and for nearly 70 years, the fact the national bourgeoisie was never eliminated in Peoples China and indeed has always been seen as a partner in economic construction, and the fact that, ultimately, China is still part of and subject to some degree to the world market which is dominated by capitalism.

For me, China represents a massive part of humanity whose history, culture, expectations and aspirations have evolved over thousands of years and are completely different to those of ‘the west’. It is hardly surprising their concept of an economy and a society constructed and built in the interests of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation are not to be found in the texts of two 19th century German exiles living in Britain.

It should be clear from Michael Roberts’ article and to those with objective and open minds that modern China is anything but a capitalist or a state-capitalist country. I agree it is not a socialist country in the way we have traditionally defined such in the west or that we would necessarily want such a society for ourselves ‘come the revolution’.

It is surely, however, a country which through its Communist Party has full control of the majority of the nation’s resources and is aimed primarily at building a modern, 21st century, hi-tech, productive and self reliant economy, delivering high-class education and health for the vast majority of its citizens, and a modern, vibrant, energetic society, a part of world society, and making a distinctive Chinese contribution to shaping it.

Michael and the Weekly Worker have done a great service in penning and publishing this article.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Chicken harvest

How are we socialised into accepting systematic violence against animals? Like anything else, I think we learn the rationales for non-human exploitation in drips and drops. This education - or more accurately, miseducation - probably takes place throughout our lifespan, with different answers formulated to meet our ideological needs at different times and places. There’s nothing particularly nefarious in the process. Speciesist messages are passed on by well-meaning people. Human violence against animals is just the way it’s always been. Plus, it generates a great deal of money for certain people at the top of the economic hierarchy, and one might argue even those humans on the bottom benefit.

Above others, a particular instance in my socialisation stands out. In 1999, I was 12. My father had just accepted the headmaster position at a boarding school which, as a result, I would attend free of charge. The institution boasted a farm and in the fall students participated in what was euphemistically referred to as ‘chicken harvest’, as if killing sentient individuals was no different from the harvesting of potatoes, which took place around the same time. Leading up to the event, the school held an assembly at which the barn manager explained how animals were treated on factory farms and how it was different from that of those in his care.

The implication seemed to be that in raising and killing birds the way the school did, we did them a favour. The unstated assumption, of course, being that animal agriculture was inevitable. I learned there was a certain nobility in participating in violence against animals. Doing so represented a mature embrace of the world’s complexities, in contrast to those who bought the cellophane-wrapped results in the supermarket. Of course, acknowledging a contradiction doesn’t make furthering it less hypocritical. And one’s direct rather than passive participation doesn’t matter to the animals being killed. But it seemed like the reasonable, adult position at the time.

Attending ‘chicken harvest’ wasn’t mandatory, but there was a strong pressure to do so. Those who didn’t participate were forced to spend the day in the library, writing a report on animal treatment in factory farms. Only a handful of vegetarian students did this, one of whom I had a crush on. And in retrospect, I’m amazed by their ability to resist pressure from friends and teachers.

Chicken harvest was videotaped that year. In the recording, you can see me in my denim work jacket, gripping my neck in vicarious horror. There was a performative aspect to my reaction. But despite this, the slaughter was the first real instance of violence I had ever seen, so far as I can remember. And it was horrifying. Undoubtedly I had witnessed schoolyard scuffles, but nothing like this. Nothing that resulted in a bucketful of the lopped-off heads of living individuals, blinking in their apparent last moments of consciousness.

When it was over, I remember laying in the grass with my friends, publicly vowing to become vegetarian. This oath, of course, lasted a few days tops. Later, some boys broke into the car of my English teacher - an outspoken vegetarian who didn’t attend ‘chicken harvest’ or barn chores - and draped the interior with animal flesh. I remember acting, like my peers, as if it was quite funny. I think we believed she got what she deserved, for not recognising the way things were and doing so while a woman.

Two years after, in my final year at the school, I was a full participant in the year’s slaughter. Together with a girl I briefly dated, I wrestled a turkey into a large bucket with a small slit, just big enough for its neck to stick out from. I pinned the animals’ writhing body to the ground after its head was cut off with an axe, until the poor creature bled out. From there, we brought the carcass through the methodical process of boiling, plucking, gutting and cleaning. Somewhere, there’s a photo of me smiling, holding the corpse upside down, waving to the camera with a glove-covered hand smeared with blood. It wouldn’t be until I was preparing to go to college, reading Peter Singer’s Animal liberation, that I began to question the assumptions behind that smile.

Jon Hochschartner
email

Dialectics

Can I thank Mike Belbin for at least attempting to respond to my criticisms of Engels’ theory (July 30). I was, of course, criticising it in my letter published the previous week on the basis of what Engels did or did not say, and what other dialecticians have written about it. These weren’t my ideas, or my definitions, but theirs. I merely wished to highlight some of the many confusions they contain. However, I did add this thought:

“Engels also forgot to tell us what he meant by ‘quality’; this means that subsequent dialecticians ... regularly apply this law subjectively, appealing to it when and where it suits them, ignoring the many instances where it just does not work.” Mike’s comment appears to confirm my allegation: comrades apply what is supposed to be an objective law in an entirely subjective manner. This really doesn’t help clear up this confusion: it merely underlines it.

Rosa Lichtenstein
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Crucial

I want to defend the dialectic against both its enemies and false friends. Replying to Rosa Lichtenstein’s rejection of the dialectic (partly recapitulated in her recent letter), Jack Conrad in 2008 maintained that Rosa’s counterexamples were futile because laws of nature may have exceptions. As Rosa observed, her instances of non-dialectical transition were not narrow exceptions: amorphous forms of ice, which do not require a dialectical phase change in the substance’s structure, are thought more prevalent in the universe than the crystalline form.

Jack’s explanation of Rosa’s counterexamples as “exceptions proving the rule” reveals that he no more than Rosa correctly understands dialectics. Rosa’s supposed counterexamples don’t falsify dialectics even potentially: they show rather the inadequacy of impressionistic methods. The correct dialectical interpretation of the supposed counter-example is straightforward. Molten iron simply isn’t qualitatively different from solid iron, the distinction being only one of degree. To the impressionist (that is, anti-philosophical empiricist), the quantitative/qualitative distinction can be read of the surface of phenomena. Molten irons superficially appears analogous to melting ice, so their essential similarity becomes for the impressionist a ‘fact’. The atheoretical empiricist mindset over-prioritises preserving the deliverances of perception.

Engels and Lenin hold with the utmost clarity that the mark of dialectical change is the leap (I’ll leave Marx out of it, although I don’t see how Rosa can dismiss the endorsement of the dialectic at page 423 of Capital). Wide-reaching changes, whether quantitative or qualitative, aren’t in their essence what they appear on the surface, with time held still. If you believe, with Jack and Rosa, that the existence of (a great many) non-dialectical transitions refutes or would refute the dialectic, you seriously misunderstand dialectics, which involves overcoming the fixities of perception-based knowledge.

Much of dialectics has been absorbed into bourgeois thought, which may help confuse Rosa, who imputes exaggerated singularity to its claims. The transition of quantity into quality naturally accompanies the dominant physicalist world view. Days are gone when qualities (say, the categorical properties of being alive or dead) are irreducible to underlying quantitative change (say, like the presence of élan vital). In a universe composed of quantities of matter and energy, where is qualitative change to come from, if not from an accumulation of quantitative change? To deny the transformation of quantity to quality, you must reject physicalism or deny the existence of qualitative change - that is, the occurrence of categorical leaps. But a crystalline ice molecule is one thing, a liquid ice molecule another. There’s no between, and the only way to reach the other side is by means of a leap.

Because dialectics has been substantially integrated into mainstream thought, it isn’t the typical political problem, where important political differences are attributable to failure of dialectical understanding. But one place where an explicitly dialectical quantity/quality analysis proves fruitful is where phenomena are seemingly unprecedented. Trotsky explicitly based his argument on dialectics when confronting new-class and state-capitalist theories of Stalinist Russia. We may suspect that Jack’s and Rosa’s misunderstanding of dialectics may be tied to their (visceral) rejection of a workers’ state analysis of Stalinism. Dialectics demands a nodal point in state power for a qualitative change to rule by another class.

To be sure, the dialectical law of quantity producing quality isn’t self-sufficient to justify a workers’ state analysis. Necessary, but not sufficient. It must be supplemented by other presuppositions - most importantly, the Marxist theorem that two classes with interests directly opposed can’t rule simultaneously. The opposition between the working class and an exploitative class requires a categorical resolution: one or the other class must rule. Because the change must be qualitative (categorical by necessity; not like baldness, categorical by mere convention), demonstrating that it must advert to a categorical difference in the class basis of state power. Such a categorical appeared when (and only when) capitalism was restored and necessitated a structural change in the state, involving the outlawing of the formerly ruling Communist Party.

Although dialectical logic cannot play as prominent a role in many other programmatic and strategic issues, it remains capable of rendering assistance, which sometimes is accomplished by highlighting the illusion of changelessness. One of the most common political errors due to this illusion is the misunderstanding of the principle that qualitative change involves a leap. Confusedly invoked is a version of the dialectic where to demonstrate a qualitative change it is sufficient to show a huge quantitative change, without locating any nodal point.

An example where a bit of dialectics becomes politically useful in this way occurs in appraising the supportability of political candidates. From the arguments in the Weekly Worker, it seems to me that the Corbyn movement is justified based on big differences in policy - quantitative differences are assumed qualitative merely because of their size. From Greece to Tower Hamlets, it is believed that quantitative differences on resistance to austerity translate into supportability. Of course, it may be protested that electoral support is tactical and doesn’t require qualitative distinction, but I contend elections are about drawing class lines, and vague promises regarding resisting austerity represent no principle defensible against betrayal, which requires sharp lines.

Dialectical reasoning can be politically important. When counterrevolution impended, failure to defend the Soviet Union must be called a political betrayal, but defencism can be justified only by dialectical argument, overruling undertheorised impressions. Stalinist countries are subjectively hard to defend, requiring a prioritisation of a regime’s class character over features like extreme authoritarianism - a prioritisation resting on being able to determine that class character. It also requires a sufficient confidence that the balance of class forces internationally is the decisive consideration, overruling impressionist arguments and empiricist extrapolations that the world would now be a better place had the Russian working class never taken power. But the factual predicate - that the Stalinist countries were ruled by a bureaucratic-aristocratic section of the working class - is only determinable through a dialectical argument combined with the basics of historical materialism. Dialectics can be politically crucial.

Stephen Diamond
USA

State obligation

Surely the collapse last week of the charity Kids Company, run by Camila Batmanghelidjh, both demonstrates and confirms the absolute correctness of the Marxist viewpoint - ie, the careful and detailed analysis that, however honourably well-intentioned, dynamically motivated and personally committed any individual or any group of individuals may be, their activities can never replace the obligation of the state to take ultimate responsibility for the safety, protection, care and welfare of its youth. Of course, a full-scale and genuine socialist society would be the only reliable provider of any such good and solid solutions. By which I mean a society deliberately ordered and structured for, and categorically targeted towards, the needs of all members of its population.

Notwithstanding all of the crafty and cunning counter-narratives peddled to, and thereby subliminally imprinted upon, their unsuspecting populations by capitalist societies, anything else floating around in anyone’s head other than this Marxist comprehension of matters is merely delusional and indeed diversionary nonsense; just system-enabling and system-perpetuating bullshit; simply sentimentalised as well as regrettably foolish crap.

Bruno Kretzschmar
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