Letters

It’s good to talk!

As you reported last week, some SWP comrades, frustrated by the lack of democracy in their organisation, have taken to using the IS-List on internet to talk the politics of international socialism. I have received a copy of some of those discussions.

One comrade who uses internet has no idea what the differences and splits were in SWP sister organisations in Australia and South Africa, although he feels confident that the splits were of no great substance.

But an incorrigible SWP networker is unable to resist the temptation to say that surely any Leninist expects to receive information about the split in the South African section, in which it is alleged that 40% of the membership was expelled. Surely SWP members in Britain need to be informed about the leadership’s justification? Otherwise how can a working class vanguard learn the lessons of such an inner-party struggle?

But a supporter of the CC policy on most things (except internet use) uses the latest technology to shout clearly and loudly to an SWP critic and internet user, ‘Keep your mouth out of things you know nothing about!’ This is the true anti-Leninist voice of the SWP leadership. Comrades should be seen and not heard! Another comrade comments that differences should be openly discussed, so every comrade can be educated and the consciousness of the vanguard enhanced.

Although the SWP carries Lenin as an icon of its organisation, the SWP regime has always been a travesty of democratic centralism. The essence of Leninist organisation is still missing. The Leninist party is built on the open debate of ideas, strategy and tactics with all shades of view within and outside the party.

The bizarre ban shows the SWP is light years away from the theory and practice of Leninism. While we have sympathy with the comrades who are compelled to resort to internet, we have to say there is no substitute for a Communist Party based on democratic centralism. There should be full and open discussion, followed by unity in action.

Dave Hulme
South London

Ludicrous dictatorship

The decision by the SWP to order its members not to use certain parts of the internet is as revealing as it is ridiculous. The central committee is obviously composed of idiots, self-deluded with their pathetic talk of security risks. It has certainly gone over the top in its fetishism for a dictatorial party power structure.

A number of points in particular struck me as ludicrous:

1. “Access to the internet, as to any technology, is determined by capitalist relations of production. It is therefore highly unequal and conditioned by the bosses’ domination of the economy and the state.” Private access to the internet costs about the same as buying a decent TV. For this reason left groups should use all available opportunities to communicate merely because they can without interference from state authorities.

2. The SWP is worried about “accountability”. Again this misses the point entirely. The internet is a forum for providing information, not for holding elections.

3. The SWP claims that the internet is a “diversion” from real political debate. Anybody who has spoken to SWP members can point to the lack of democracy in their organisation. So this last falsehood is in itself the most laughable of all the central committee’s fears.

The central committee of the SWP has by this act of stupidity exposed itself to accusations of dictatorship and short-sightedness.

Angus Wallace
Dundee

Mixed race Bosnians?

“If one Serbian general makes Bosnia the progressive solution, do not all the Scottish generals in the British army make unity with England the multi-national progressive answer we should fight for?” (letters, 106)

Are you people really so detached from reality that the best you can do, when faced with the fact that imperialist backed racial-fascists are attempting to eliminate an entire nation because of its people’s supposed racial inferiority, is to play patronising word games and, most obscenely of all, support them in their aims?

You seem to believe that all the sides in Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia are equally reactionary.

Who did Bosnia invade? Why has Bosnia been the only one of the three sides that the arms embargo has been effectively used against? When has Bosnia advocated ‘ethnic cleansing’ as official policy (as opposed to isolated acts of revenge and desperation)?

You ridicule the idea that multi-ethnic Bosnia is not backed by any of the main imperialist powers.

The Americans (and the UN) only want Bosnia to survive if it can be reduced to an ethnically-cleansed Muslim rump statelet that will ultimately be constantly dominated and threatened by its two aggressive (and genuinely imperialist-backed) neighbours - Serbia (under Russian, French and British influence) and Croatia ( a puppet of Germany and to a lesser extent the US).

You even betray the most basic of communist principles and support racial separation as the only solution for the people of Bosnia. Well, where do all the ‘mixed race’ Bosnians go? Is it the duty of communists to go to cities like Tuzla and Sarajevo and tell those who are fighting to live without racism that they should give up and maybe go start a pogrom instead, because - until they are ready for socialist revolution - then there is nothing else they can do?

James Tait
Edinburgh

Attracting support

The ongoing debate on the national question is one which jumps erratically from the cool analogies of comrade Craig to the “polemical froth” of comrade Hammill. Unfortunately the question of a practical solution remains.

In the present climate two points are clear. Firstly a Labour government would make the job of the CPGB manifestly easier, as it would be no different to a Tory government. We would therefore be in a position to attract working class members to our Party.

Secondly any movement on the national question would also help our cause. An independent Scotland, whether run by the SNP or Labour, would reveal their own capitalist proclivities, and again our job would be easier in attracting working class support. The arguments of comrades Hammill and Craig fail to reflect this last point, and see a federation of British states or an independent Scotland as some sort of stageist path to the Scottish road to socialism.

They are both guilty of subverting political reality to political theory.

James Millar
Glasgow