Letters

Irrelevance

Reading the CPGB statement on the European Union referendum and Paul Demarty’s accompanying article, ‘A carnival of reaction’ (February 25), it would seem as though the choice is between two repellent ‘sides’: one led by David Cameron; the other by the clownish duo, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage; with George Galloway as left auxiliary. But in reality the choice will be between two outcomes: the UK staying in the EU or exiting it.

We are also told that the referendum is a cynical, deceptive manoeuvre. This is true, but the same could be said about most bourgeois elections, especially those held under the blatantly anti-democratic first-past-the-post rule.

The statement and the article studiously avoid the question as to which outcome of the referendum would be worse for the long-term interests of the working class and the struggle for socialism. In my opinion, exit from the EU would be considerably worse: all the arguments for exit are overtly or covertly nationalist, while some of the arguments for staying in are internationalist. And I have reason to believe that the CPGB comrades share this assessment. Had the CPGB been able to tip the balance, it would be highly irresponsible not to do so, and thereby allow exit to occur by default. The present call for boycotting the referendum is a pose, assumed in the secure knowledge that it is virtually certain to have nil effect on the outcome. This is a luxury of irrelevance.

Moshé Machover
London

Vote ‘yes’

We should call for a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum because as socialists we must ask and answer the question: is it in the interests of the working class and oppressed in Britain and internationally for the UK to remain in the EU or to leave it? That is our sole criterion.

We are for a ‘yes’ primarily because we recognise that socialism in a single country is impossible. Indeed capitalism has long ago become impossible to sustain and develop in a single country, and socialism must be built on a far higher level of wealth and productivity. An exit from the EU would strengthen nationalism and patriotism - not only in the British ruling class, but also in a big section of the British working class.

But surely we must not attempt in any way to confuse the Socialist United States of Europe with the present imperialist cabal that is the European Union? The United States of America was established in the War of Independence and maintained in the Civil War in revolutionary struggles. France’s internal customs borders were demolished along with the ancien régime by revolution in 1789-94. However, both Germany and Italy were unified from the top down basically by reactionary political movements after failed revolutions.

Labour MP Kate Hoey, George Galloway and the Morning Star have pandered to ‘anti-establishment’ Strasserism. Five Labour MPs have left the pro-establishment Vote Leave Tory-dominated campaign and founded the Labour Leave campaign, funded and chaired by millionaire John Mills. They have (all?) now lashed up with the Grassroots Out (GO)! Campaign, which includes the Campaign against European Federalism, Ukip and sundry other racist scumbags, on the basis that it is more ‘anti-establishment’. This is leftwing populism lashing up with rightwing populism in an unprincipled carnival of reaction.

Hoey defended her conduct in a Morning Star article. It was pointed out that Grassroots Out is led by hard-right Tory MP Peter Bone and she was asked if she finds it difficult to campaign alongside people she has such ideological differences with. She replied: “The reality is that if you really want to get out, every group has a slightly different perspective, and we can only win this referendum if we can all come together. I don’t think there’s a problem with that.” That’s pandering to Strasserism. We are pleased to see a principled opposition to this Strasserism has emerged in the Communist Party of Britain/Morning Star.

Vote ‘no’ from the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party and others is essentially reformist with a perspective of the parliamentary road to socialism, dominated ideologically by the old CPGB’s 1951 British road to socialism. The abstentionist line of today’s CPGB, the RCIT and others is unpardonable fence-sitting in this most vital of political question for the class-consciousness of the British and international working class. Comrades of Workers Power, Left Unity, Socialist Resistance and others who take the vote ‘yes’ line do so on the basis of seeking to advance the struggle for the Socialist United States of Europe and rejecting all this economic nationalism and anti-immigrant bigotry and putting forward the programme of internationalist revolution in Europe and globally.

Gerry Downing
Socialist Fight

LU bleeding

Left Unity was founded on a Labourite programme - the ‘Spirit of 45’ - which, like old Labour, sought to restore the UK’s ‘social monarchy’ established after World War II. This has now been reclaimed by the Corbyn movement. You would have to have your head buried in England’s sandy beaches not to notice that the democratic movement in Scotland has already seriously damaged the prospects for a British social monarchy.

Left Unity needs to change its programme and strategy by ditching its Labourite programme and adopting a democratic programme (the ‘social republic’), which addresses the crisis of Westminster and issues such as popular sovereignty, a new constitution, so-called local government devolution, the relations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the European Union, as well as democracy in local communities, in the workplace and in the trade unions.

It is indisputable that such a shift from a Labour programme to a democratic programme must be debated across the party and agreed at national conference. The only question is whether this should take place before the scheduled conference in November. I agree with the Communist Platform it should be sooner rather than later. Nothing is more dangerous in a crisis than doing nothing to resolve it positively.

The 2015 annual conference had to deal with a crisis of disorientation. Many followed the logic of their own ‘Spirit of 45’ towards liquidation into Momentum and the Labour Party. The CPGB are not the last to take that path in the hope of transforming the Labour Party from a broad church into a communist halfway-house party. LU decided to fight on as an independent party without discussing or deciding how that would be done. No real decisions were taken.

In May and June Left Unity faces the biggest test since the Scottish referendum and the general election. There will be the elections for London mayor, local councils in England and Wales, the national assembly for Wales, the police and crime commissioner in Wales, the Scottish parliament - and in the European referendum the potential exists for a serious political crisis over the future of the UK.

Now the leadership of LU have a choice. Take a time-out and effectively sit out the battles of May and June. Stick with the old politics until November. The current policy is to back Labour by not standing any candidates in the local and national elections in May and supporting the Tory-Labour ‘remain’ popular front in June. In Scotland LU is not going to back Rise or be active by backing their candidates against the Scottish National Party and Labour. In short the ‘Spirit of 45’ policy is simply to make way for Labour.

If we are not going to sit out the political battles of May-June we need a special one-day conference no later than April. We could then adopt a democratic programme and strategy to adopt a position to fight Labour by showing we have an alternative. Of course, this costs money and takes time, and plenty of people will want to avoid that. But it means investing in the future and getting ready to start building a new Left Unity.

Here is the catch 22. If LU is not going to fight any of these elections or campaigns, it would be better to use the time and resources to hold a special conference in May-June and involve members in a national debate to develop a fighting perspective on democracy. On the other hand, if we are going to fight the May-June political struggles, we will need a special conference to adopt a militant, democratic programme in sharp contrast to Labour’s social monarchy.

In conclusion, LU can avoid the political struggles in May-June and keep busy campaigning on a host of worthy causes. ‘Activism’ is the programme of the SWP. But, as long as we remain stuck in the ‘spirit of 45’ programme, Left Unity will be in danger of dissolving politically into the Labour Party. How long can we keep bleeding before we die?

Steve Freeman
LU and Rise

What militia?

James Marshall correctly draws attention to numerous existing conflicts that have the potential to spin out of control (or be deliberately pushed that way), to a direct confrontation between major powers (‘A working class military programme’, February 25).

I do not regard ‘mutually assured destruction’ as a barrier to a protagonist calculating they could win a ‘regional’ war. Clausewitz famously referred to war as resembling a game of cards. James’s comments, however, are welcome, as I have at times argued that the CPGB has not dealt with this or paid enough attention to the threat of war. He also makes some correct points about the Stop the War Coalition’ s pacifist leanings.

A few years ago when an attack by the west on Iran seemed likely (not that the threat has disappeared) Hands Off the People of Iran was set up to oppose the threat, but was not presented as a wider anti-war movement. Indeed, it sought to work under the STWC umbrella; its affiliation bid was turned down, but that of CPGB was allowed.

The situation is overripe for a movement on socialist principles. The World Socialist Web has called for an anti-war movement based on a perspective of mobilising the working class internationally. I wonder now if the CPGB has any response to that.

Turning from the war danger to the need for the working class to defend itself, James calls for a people’s militia. Why “people’s” and not“workers’” he does not explain, but it sits uneasily with the simultaneous call for soldiers to be protected against bullying and be represented by trades unions. It is not clear who is meant to create the (workers’) militia.

To say it would be needed to protect a left Labour government from military intervention raises other issues. A Labour government in 2020 is entirely possible, given a likely major global economic crisis. Whatever the subjective desires of its new-found support base, I can only assume that such a government would be the one to implement the ruling class agenda. We have the example of the ‘far-left’ Syriza raising the hopes of the masses, only to betray them. If a new party of the hard left can do that, how much easier for the British Labour Party after a century of loyalty to the ruling class?

It will be necessary to arm the workers politically against such a government by drawing lessons from the Greek experience. Much of the left currently flocking to Labour were precisely the ones cheering on Syriza and making the excuses when it scabbed. Arming the working class politically is the absolutely necessary first step before talk of militias makes any sense.

In a period of intense struggle the question of arming the workers arises not as abstraction - as a list of demands presented to a Labour government, in its own best interests - but from the objective need to defend strikes, demonstrations, occupations, etc against such a government. A nucleus of a militia could emerge and grow alongside strike committees, factory councils, escalating to dual power and a challenge to the state. Drawing, in fact, on the experience of the Russian Revolution.

Mike Martin
Sheffield

No game of bluff

Following Yassamine Mather’s piece on the risks of nuclear weaponry (‘Weapons of genocidal destruction’, February 25), there is one other myth we might specifically confront. Namely, that the UK is strong and secure because it has its own ‘independent nuclear deterrent’.

Britain’s Trident weapons system is not technically independent and, as Yassamine and others have pointed out, is only part of the American arsenal to knock out Russia, with Trident specifically aimed at Moscow. As Russia is the only nuclear power equal to the huge US weapons stock, the strategy of ‘deterrence’ by the threat of mutual destruction is aimed only at Russia, whatever its government happens to be. If some unforeseen leader with a martyr complex did get hold of Russian hardware, we wouldn’t be looking at a game of bluff.

As for British autonomy, the Trident missile system requires navigation assistance from US satellite technology: the warheads would not reach the designated city of Moscow without it (source: Greenpeace, 2006). So if an exchange like the old cold war scenario were to occur, Britain would either be a target - if it didn’t join in a first strike by the US - or an assassin. It is not an independent power impressing everyone with its big gun.

Mike Belbin
London

Democratic USSR

The guru of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty group, Sean Matgamna, has rather proudly published a second book on the Russian Revolution, a 798-page tome entitled The two Trotskyisms.

Sean has recently introduced a number of sections and themes from the book in the AWL’s weekly, Solidarity, and there have been a subsequent number of quite lengthy review articles exploring and rehearsing some of the key contesting themes.

I don’t come from any of the many Trotskyist traditions, and in fact regard them as diversions and alien from what one may term traditional Marxism-Leninism, so I am somewhat surprised to find myself becoming interested in a series of articles intimately concerned with the key competing catechisms of conflicting Trotskyists concerning the class nature of the Soviet Union, and thus really only of interest to present-day high priests and priestesses of the different factions.

Andrew Coates summarises Matgamna’s book (Solidarity No394) as consisting of “a selection of original articles from 1939 to the early 1950s, by Trotsky, his ‘orthodox’ champions, and those expressing opposing views on the errors and gaps in their political approach. The present work aims to present a demythologised account of the raucous debates of the Trotskyist movement inside the American Socialist Workers Party ... during the 1940s - placing the heretics on an equal, if not superior, footing to the orthodox.”

If I understand correctly, the “orthodox” are the James Cannon trend who broadly held that the Soviet Union remained a form of workers’ state, albeit ‘degenerated’, while the ‘heterodox’ were associated with Max Shachtman, who held that through ‘bureaucratic collectivism’ a new form of class-divided and class-exploiting society had arisen.

Coates raises the question as to whether this book and subject is really “worth the time and effort,” and certainly I don’t think I will be adding it to my collection.

I personally find Trotsky to be a most unappealing character: arrogant, vainglorious, narcissistic, anti-social, a fop, a dilettante, with ruthless dictatorial tendencies and with family roots among the petty bourgeois kulak class in pre-revolutionary Russia. These roots reflected themselves first in his vacillating but general siding with the Mensheviks and against Lenin during those critical splits and debates within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party from 1903, and later in his estrangement from the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, after joining with it at almost the 11th hour.

Even Matgamna - presumably a fan of Trotsky - states in the book that “over the period leading up the [second world] war he presented a large quiver of half-evolved and half-eroded ‘positions’, ambivalences, and contradictions.” Indeed so.

At this point, I am reminded of Moshé Machover’s second very convoluted and lengthy article in the Weekly Worker (‘New contest, new focus’, February 4), anticipating what we are all waiting for - namely the third article, presenting his no doubt unique analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In this second piece, Machover seems desperate to pray in aid Trotsky for his arguments (why?), claiming first and ridiculously that “Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution was foreshadowed in Lenin’s Draft theses on national and colonial questions for the second congress of the Communist International, dated June 5 1920”. Machover actually quotes part of the theses in his article and anyone who can read can see that Trotsky’s version of permanent revolution has absolutely nothing to do with Leninism.

Machover then demolished his own argument by going on to say: “the Portuguese case (in 1974) is the only one that came even remotely close to Trotsky’s scenario of permanent revolution. But in the case of Portugal this movement was not actually consummated.” So Trotsky’s theory has proved completely useless in practice in explaining the world and contradictions of imperialism from the turn of the 20th century, and has not been able to guide a single successful revolutionary struggle in world history.

Machover actually summarises well the Leninism of Lenin on imperialism and the national and colonial question as: “in this new worldwide struggle, liberation movements in the colonies would be objectively important allies of the socialist revolution, because they were ranged against a common enemy: imperialism. Even where these liberation movements are led by bourgeois or petty bourgeois elements and have ‘bourgeois democratic’ nationalist aims, they would nevertheless undermine world imperialism and thereby help to bring about the demise of moribund capitalism.”

One can read precisely this Leninist approach in works by, for example, JV Stalin in the Foundations of Leninism, the documents of the 17th and 18th Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1934 and 1939), and the 1961 programme of the CPSU - all of which not only successfully analysed the changing balance of world forces, but provided a guide to action in practice for millions of working and oppressed peoples around the world, and delivered real and significant gains for working people as a consequence.

Machover is also forced to acknowledge the complete false analysis, premises and sheer “unreality” of Trotsky’s central strategic thesis and approach to revolution, his dilettante 1938 Transitional programme, “the founding document of the Fourth International”, and therefore the progenitor of all successor Trotskyisms.

Desperate to pay homage to Trotsky and give him credit for something, Machover claims that “in 1938, Trotsky correctly predicted World War II”! A stunning and useful insight, no doubt.

Paul Le Blanc’s article in Solidarity No388 “was a detailed and thoughtful piece and deals with the subject (of The two Trotskyisms) in a tone of ecumenical and scholarly tact” (comment by Ed Maltby in Solidarity No391). I too found it fascinating and revealing; it includes a number of interesting formulations, which together seem to suggest the publicly stated bases of the four key Moscow trials between 1936 and 1938 were in fact broadly correct.

Le Blanc quotes Trotsky in exile calling for “the removal of the bureaucracy (ie, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) by force”, that the role of the exiled Fourth International “was to prepare for this [coup d’état] and stand at the head of the masses in a favourable historical situation”, that the FI was “underground” and that “the illegal existence of a party [conspiratorial organisation] is not non-existence.”

Paul traces the political evolution of leading Trotskyists, such as Shachtman and Burnham, who ended up seeing the Soviet Union “as much worse, far more exploitative, far less progressive than capitalism”. “They then joined cold-war anti-communists, who saw the power of the capitalist (imperialist) United States as the strongest bulwark against” the Soviet Union and its positive example, especially in the third world and for national liberation movements.

The arguments set out by the prosecution and supported by the trial judges that former leading members of the party, who had systematically lost the political arguments over 20 or more years, made just about every wrong political judgement conceivable, had lost the trust, respect and support of the party and the people, had conspired with displaced persons, both inside and outside of the USSR, “people of the past”, remnants of overthrown classes and strata, and with state agencies of western powers, including those describing themselves as ‘national socialist’, to carry out a revolutionary coup d’état against the Stalin regime, and replace it with some form of “coalition government”, seem to be supported by the facts now available to us.

No doubt replacing the Stalin regime by some form of “coalition” or “government of national unity” might have appeared “progressive” to exiled and dispossessed leftists, but surely the new regime’s dependence on the western and Axis powers would have soon revealed itself and would in time result in the dismemberment of the USSR and the probable extermination of large numbers of Slavic peoples at the hands of triumphant Nazism.

Paul concludes by quoting from Marcel van der Linden in his book Western Marxism and the Soviet Union that “it is perfectly clear that the Soviet society can hardly be explained in orthodox Marxist terms at all; a fully adequate analysis of the USSR has still to be developed.”

This is an extraordinary place for Trotskyism to end up. Marxism is surely about the “concrete analysis of concrete reality”. To claim to be completely mystified as to the true class nature of the Soviet Union means either a complete abandonment of any semblance of Marxism or a wilful refusal to acknowledge the true reality of the Soviet Union, or both.

If the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a “new ruling class”, it must have been the most democratic and meritocratic ruling class in history, drawing into its ranks the brightest and the best representatives of the majority working people and the working class.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Globalisation

While the United States pushes its new globalisation through the new Trans-Pacific Partnership of 12 countries (including Mexico and Chile, but excluding China), the whole ideology of globalisation faces a crisis.

The theory depends on a world division of labour, where each country specialises in exporting its most efficient products ... and imports from countries who are doing the same. Of course, this relegates a few countries to exporting bananas or coffee, while they import automobiles from the US.

This theory, which is a justification for imperialism, assumes that each country must depend on every other capitalist country (like the USA) for their basic food and services. But it begins to break down when one of those countries faces an internal crisis: the Chinese total debt will have increased from $10 trillion in 2015 to more than $30 trillion in 2019; and Chinese capitalists are sending hundreds of billions of rhembini outside of their country and buying dollars and euros instead.

Although China is not part of the TPP agreement, it is part of a world economy that can only function when all parts of globalisation, including China, are functioning - similar to a watch which requires all parts to work or nothing works. Deglobalisation has begun: all throughout Asia cargo ships are not moving. Singapore has 14 cargo ships and China 13 ships that are not going anyplace because there is no cargo. They sit at anchor. The dry bulk index is 74% below last August. India’s Mercator Co has just sold its interest in six ships for the equivalent of $2.

Globalisation only works when there is no crisis. Otherwise it turns into its opposite.

Earl Gilman
email

Printing money

It is a topical delusion to dismiss the monopoly power of bankers, when parliamentary legislation has afforded them the privilege of benefiting from the ‘ability to create money’. In circulation in the United Kingdom today we have 3% of hard currency produced by the Bank of England and 97% of soft currency - the electronic transactions created by the banking system through credit cards, electronic payments and such things. The reason for the failure of banks is because they have only hard currency reserves of 3%.

The economic power of the bankers should be incorporated into government economic decision-making, because through legislation the government can control the power of bankers to create money through requiring them to purchase every £1 they lend from the Bank of England that is under state ownership.

100% reserve banking would insulate the UK economy from future repetitions of the Northern Rock bank run fiasco and would increase the profits accrued by the treasury from the Bank of England selling the money that it does still print to the private bankers.

It is the nationalisation of the printing of money that we need to achieve, because that would raise the income to repay the national debt and eliminate the reductions made in public expenditure.

Oliver Healey
Leicester

Contribution

Twenty-three people attended a discussion, ‘William Morris: revolutionary socialist or utopian dreamer?’, at the Red Shed, Wakefield on Saturday February 27. The speakers were Colin Waugh (Independent Working Class Education Network), Brian Else (Wakefield Green Party) and Bill Martin (Socialist Party of Great Britain). The chair was Yvonne Sibbald.

After the speeches there was a lively discussion about Morris’s attitude towards anarchism and about whether he was in fact a Marxist. One contributor from the floor emphasised the need not to “pigeon-hole” Morris, but rather to concentrate on and appreciate his contribution to art and to political thought.

The group’s next planned event is on Saturday July 16 - again at 1pm at the Red Shed - when we will be discussing ‘Tolpuddle and the fight for trade union rights today’.

We are looking for speakers for this event. Call Alan on 07931 927451.

Alan Stewart
Wakefield Socialist History Group