Letters

Stimulating

I enjoyed reading James Marshall’s piece, ‘After Corbyn’s second victory’ (September 15) and found that I agreed with most, if not all, of it. I do not consider myself a Marxist, but I do fully support socialist values and principles.

I joined the Labour Party last year after Jeremy Corbyn was elected and recently subscribed to Momentum. However, I am unsure about Momentum at the moment.

Thanks again for such a stimulating article. I’m not a regular reader of Weekly Worker (only twice in fact), but I shall certainly make a point of visiting the site more regularly in future.

Janet Beale
email

Stalin

It seems to me that you’re in distinct danger of providing disproportionately generous amounts of liquid nutrient (or promotional fertiliser) to the ideas and arguments of a veritable garden-load of entirely moribund and outdated, but nevertheless pretty shameless, apologists for both the person as well as the historical role and legacy of a certain pernicious and strangling ‘weed’, carrying the name, Joseph Stalin.

Not to put too fine a point on things, I’m referring here to those contributions from comrades who seem to have forgotten one hell of a lot about that seemingly still much admired and distinctly revered guru cum demi-god of theirs.

For my part, I understand the fundamentally good and revolutionary intentions of those people - I really do. Indeed, my late father was one of them. He was a German-born communist, who as a young man lived in determined, dedicated, extremely spirited and often courageous support of the values, achievements and ambitions of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht’s Spartacus League plus the Bolshevik revolution - most notably as part of the International Brigade in the Spanish civil war against Franco’s blossoming fascism.

However, as things developed both within his own life and upon the world stage, my father (along with many other working class partisans from amongst his generation) progressively became one of the ideologically poisoned, fearsomely misguided and toxically misled supporters of Stalinism.

Obviously this was all very sad, yet my father continued his honourable and unbending belief that a specifically Marxist revolutionary pathway must be carved out and followed in order to successfully replace the horrors, obscenities and generalised processes of dehumanisation that stem from capitalism/imperialism.

So, with that particular family history as a backdrop (one which provides me with a certain level of personal empathy), may I now be permitted to jog the memories of that group of correspondents that I find myself concerned about? I do so via the following list of indisputable and proven historical facts:

1. Their good old ‘Uncle Joe’ Stalin was the ‘genius’ responsible for the deliberate and calculated purging of the officers and leading cadres of the Red Army, leaving them both catastrophically and tragically weakened in the face of the subsequent Nazi invaders.

2. Stalin was the so-called ‘revolutionary hero’ responsible for the satanic incarceration of vast numbers of Bolshevik leaders and cadres via the heinously counterrevolutionary Moscow trials.

3. Stalin was the ‘strong man’ who fled to his countryside dacha in paranoid-narcissistic mental collapse for days after being informed that Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union. That invasion occurred in direct contravention of Stalin’s own criminally miscalculated ‘peace pact’ with Nazi Germany.

4. Stalin was the progressive ‘prophet’ who ruthlessly installed, then violently instituted and presided over, his system of Stalinism. That being a system which shot to death or otherwise deported to Siberian gulags Marxist and Leninist and Trotskyist resisters, locking up so-called ‘intellectual’ objectors in mental institutions - having first of all categorised them as mentally ill.

5. The very same Joseph Stalin was the theoretical ‘inheritor and defender’ of the Leninist-led revolution who sent a sick-minded assassin to murder Lenin’s former comrade-in-arms as well as central revolutionary co-founder - that victim being Leon Trotsky, it goes without mentioning.

The above list defines the true, utterly ghastly and (most important of all) the supremely class-treacherous Joseph Stalin.

Now I suggest those self-same comrades carefully think things over for a while; I suggest they sit back and consider whether it can possibly be right for the readers of the Weekly Worker to be subjected to any more of that dangerous nonsense of theirs. As I’d like to say to my own father if he was still amongst us, even if you know the way, ask just one more time. After all, Stalinism is one of the primary reasons why the majority of our co-inhabitants of the planet despise and even downright fear what they perceive to be ‘communism’.

Bruno Kretzschmar
email

Democracy

I was pleased to see reports on social media that a Momentum branch last week raised concerns about the lack of democracy and transparency within the organisation nationally.

The Teesside branch motion speaks for itself and covers the main issues, but I share the comrades’ frustration that an organisation which aims to make the Labour Party more democratic does not abide by higher standards of democracy itself.

Although I am hesitant to criticise Momentum at a time when it has come under unjustified attacks from the Owen Smith camp, the party machine and the national media, this is something we must put right as a matter of urgency if we are to make any headway in transforming the Labour Party. The truth is that such attacks are unlikely to let up at any time soon, so there will never be a good time. Addressing the democratic deficit is therefore not something we can put off until it is more convenient. Momentum needs to lead the political revolution in Labour by setting the best possible example.

The full text of the Momentum Teesside motion, approved on September 13, is as follows:

(1) Momentum Teesside supports Momentum’s aim to “Transform Labour into a more open, member-led party, with socialist policies and collective will to implement them in government” and its stated commitment in support of “working for progressive political change through methods which are democratic, inclusive and participatory”.

(2) We are proud that Momentum Teesside activists have led the way in promoting these principles in local Constituency Labour Parties and branches, and have sought to organise events for Labour members to debate the vital issues facing our party, where CLP leaderships have resisted these principles.

(3) We welcome the now well-developed database and communications capacity of Momentum - ie, mailing lists, social media and website.

(4) However, we note that agendas, documents and minutes for decision-making committees at national and regional level are still not published by the organisation nor distributed to members. We regret that Momentum members have sometimes learned about decisions made by the organisation many weeks after they were taken, through media outlets that may be hostile to Momentum, without having been informed by the organisation itself.

(5) Momentum Teesside believes that the fight to democratise the Labour Party cannot be separated from the way in which Momentum organises its own activities. Momentum as an organisation should therefore practise what it preaches to the Labour Party in its own internal decision-making processes, which should be seen to be fully democratic, accountable and transparent. There must be a presumption of openness in a member-based democratic socialist organisation.

(6) We call upon Momentum to publish on its website agenda papers and minutes for all its decision-making bodies, as well as the names of their elected officers and committee members. We call upon Momentum to require that all regional decision-making bodies and local branches adopt the same good practice regarding publication, providing support and training where necessary to help achieve this.

David Shearer
email

Open letter to the Labour NEC

Dear NEC

I am writing to you in connection to the recent suspensions and expulsions of Labour Party members. I am myself an expelled member of the party. I am asking you to take action to stop these exclusions.

There have been a large number of suspensions and expulsions of members during this leadership election, and there is mounting disquiet both in the party and beyond that these amount to a wholesale removal of members who are suspected of planning to vote for one or other of the leadership candidates. In many cases members have received letters that do not give any evidence supporting their expulsions or suspensions, and there is a good deal of evidence that when these are obtained (often after repeated requests) that the evidence is flimsy or non-existent.

In some cases, members have been expelled for five years on the basis of supposed support for other parties before they even joined the Labour Party; in other cases suspensions on the basis of “abusive language” on social media have been stretched to include forms of words that most reasonable people would not regard as in any way abusive. In both of these kinds of cases, serious questions have also been raised about the consistency of the application of the rule book: only some individuals seem to be vulnerable to these kinds of allegation, while others appear untouched by them.

The concern is that the suspensions and expulsions, both in the selection of individuals and the way in which data has been collected and used, (1) breach the principles of natural justice, as outlined by the recent report by Shami Chakrabarti; (2) involve an arbitrary and inconsistent use of the LP rule book, which should not be allowed to pass unchallenged. We therefore ask you to act to stop this. The ongoing expulsions and suspensions, which many view as an outright attempt to purge members, ought to be itself suspended until after the leadership election is over.

Suspended and expelled members should be provisionally restored as full members and have their votes counted as valid. After that time, if the party wishes to proceed against individuals, the process, which needs to be as open and transparent as possible, and in conformity with the principles of natural justice and a reasonable interpretation of the rule book, can then go ahead. And, if it proceeds, it is vital that there is proper oversight of the actions of the compliance unit, with clear lines of accountability for its decisions.

As a party, we need to insist on fair treatment. This surely ought to be the aim of the NEC and the party in general as this issue transcends any of our other differences. A great purpose of the Labour Party, and the reasons hundreds of thousands of people have joined, is to fight injustice in this country. It surely follows that the party must be exemplary in ensuring just treatment of its own members, and be seen to be so. If this is permitted to stand, what are we to think of the Labour Party?

I hope you will act on this vital matter of party justice and democratic accountability.

Christopher Horner
via Facebook

Open letter to Iain McNichol

Dear Iain McNicol

After over a month of repeated telephone calls and emails to the Labour Party, several assurances that I had not been purged or blocked, and three re-issues of my ballot, I was relieved to receive my ballot on Wednesday September 4. I voted the same day for Jeremy Corbyn.

Three days later, on Saturday September 17, I received your email explaining that my vote had been cancelled and that I was suspended from the Labour Party. The email was sent to someone called “Graham Scrambler”, but I am assuming it was me you had in mind.

Your email said it is regarded as unacceptable for members to use “racist, abusive or foul language or behaviour at meetings, on social media or in any other context”, and that I was guilty of an offence in this category. You then referred, more specifically, to “comments you have made on social media, including a post on July 26”.

My sole engagement with social media is via Twitter, so I looked up my tweets for July 26. There were 14 of these, only three of which related to the Labour Party. Here is the trio:

“Say publicly and repeatedly your leader is useless - polls slip down - say publicly and repeatedly that polls show your leader is useless.”

“Labour plotters routinely abusing/bullying Corbyn but NEC not bothered. Also routinely critiquing own Labour Party with help of MSM.”

“Mistake to think Blairites and Corbynites want the same things and disagree how best to get them. Blairites are Tory-lite. We need change!”

Needless to say, I stand by them. I imagine that the third might be the offending tweet because it includes a double-mention of the word “Blairites”. I know from colleagues on Twitter that you are more sensitive to the negative deployment of terms like ‘Blairites’ and ‘Progress’ than you are of terms like ‘Corbynite’ and ‘Momentum’. It will be for you to explain why and to justify yourself at a later stage - critically of course, after the leadership election.

Now, come on: reread my third tweet and ask yourself out loud if it warrants suspension from the Labour Party. The word ‘pathetic’ springs to mind. If you have other tweets you do not mention in mind, then you will be obliged to specify these when responding to my forthcoming appeal. In this open letter I have a few opinions and words of advice to offer in the interim.

Let me start with an obvious point. Your betrayal of your present office is such that you will likely resign in the aftermath of the leadership election. The attempt to exclude the elected leader from the second leadership ballot despite his impressive mandate was an offence against natural justice. Your repeated attempts to exclude Labour Party members from voting in the leadership contest on the basis of non-random but contingent criteria fall into this same category. Just listen to your policies. Never mind what the Labour Party website states, you can only vote if you joined the party before mid-January 2016. If you are a non-member, on the other hand, you can vote if you give us £25. Oh and, member or not, if you are eligible to vote we may check you out and if we don’t like what we find, we’ll remove your right to vote or, if you have voted, cancel it.

We will not have the full data set until the election is behind us, by which time you may no longer be in office. But there exists a strong prima facie case: (a) that you have through your office sought to bias the election away from Jeremy Corbyn and towards Owen Smith; (b) that you have acted to put obstacles in the way of pro-Corbyn members by rejigging the electorate; and (c) that you have resorted to farcical and ad hoc devices - just reread my emails above once more - to scrutinise and purge members likely to vote for Corbyn.

One of the ironies of the present campaign is the salience of what Freud called ‘projection’: supporters of Owen have routinely accused supporters of Corbyn of doing what they do themselves. These accusations include 
negative comments and behaviour. But ‘the rules’ you have applied to me apparently do not extend to the same degree to them or to MPs, several of whom have launched vicious attacks, and almost exclusively on Corbyn. No
routine sanctions there. And here’s another example of projection for you.

Look once again at my third tweet above, and substitute ‘Corbynites are hard-left’ for the penultimate sentence, “Blairites are Tory-lite”. Would I have been suspended then? Of course not!

Calculated political interventions of the sort you currently represent will not easily be forgotten. When the data are in it will be no good saying, ‘I was under a lot of pressure’, ‘I was trying to hold the party together’, ‘I was looking for a solution’; or ‘there were clearly errors of judgement’, ‘the administration of the ballot was not as efficient as it might have been’, ‘some voters were suspended who shouldn’t have been’.

I suggest to you that it is the vast majority of Labour Party members - and I include (but cannot speak for) the vast majority of those of us who have been purged - who most fully represent the values of the Labour Party. In 
line with the rules agreed by the pre-Corbynite party, we will have voted twice for Corbyn as leader. It is those who have sought to undermine this democratic process because it did not deliver the result they wanted who 
might more appropriately be anticipating sanctions.

You will be receiving my formal appeal against my suspension shortly.

Graham Scambler
via Twitter