Letters

Original sin

Jim Creegan’s article, ‘Walking the tightrope’ (March 22), makes some valid points against Jacobin and Bhaskar Sunkara. Sunkara and co appear from the quotations he gives to be affected by the common far-left illusions in ‘broad fronts’ and formations like Syriza.

But he spoils his points by beginning with the issue of Karl Kautsky on the 1910 Prussian suffrage campaign, in Carl Schorske’s interpretation of this as the ‘original sin’ of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has been widely adopted by the post-1956 new left.

It is, in fact, reasonably clear from contemporary comments that Lenin and Trotsky, at least, thought that the German left was succumbing to adventurism in its position in 1910. The event also gives indirect context to Lenin’s early uses of the tag that “For a revolution to take place, it is usually insufficient for ‘the lower classes not to want’ to live in the old way; it is also necessary that ‘the upper classes should be unable’ to live in the old way”. In 1910 it is clear that the Prussian suffrage campaign was not tending to break up the armed forces of the German state, and pushing the campaign further would merely have resulted in a severe defeat. The German left displayed the falsity of its own strategic conceptions on this issue by adventurism in Berlin in January 1919, and again in the Communist Party of Germany’s 1921 ‘March action’.

With 720,000 members in 1910 in a population of 65 million, and 6.4 million in SPD-linked trade unions, and so on, the party might have been in a position to challenge for power, if the upper classes had become “unable to live in the old way” through a real crisis. The Democratic Socialists of America, with 32,000 members in 2017 in a country of 325 million, is not. This all the more is true of the small groups to the DSA’s left. The same applies in very many countries. We have to hope for time for a gradual process of rebuilding the workers’ movement before open crisis erupts. We may well not get it; but, if we don’t, the outcome of a crisis is more likely to be ‘Egyptian’ or ‘Syrian’ than socialist revolution.

The flip side is that comrade Creegan doesn’t mention the debate over imperialism in the SPD in 1910-11 over ‘arms limitation’ proposals and the SPD parliamentary fraction’s response to the ‘Agadir incident’, documented in Day’s and Gaido’s collection Discovering imperialism (2012). In this debate Kautsky and the SPD centre - and, it must be said, a part of the left - adapted their tactics to pacifist utopianism and promoting attempts to defang the imperialist states, and abandoned the demand for a militia.

This development was pretty clearly more closely connected to the betrayal of August 1914 than the ‘mass action’ debate. Among other aspects, as Ben Lewis and I have shown in this paper and in Critique, an important part of the ‘mass action’ left of 1910 and before became German defencists in 1914.

The issues of imperialism, arms and war are also far more relevant today than is the issue of ‘gradualism’. ‘Gradualism’ preoccupied the cold war-period new left in response to US imperialism’s promotion of social democratic gradualism. Today we live in a world in which capital no longer promotes gradualism: a world in which US capital and its state promote ‘colour revolutions’, as well as overthrowing states and leaving behind only ruins.

Mike Macnair
Oxford

Cultural Corbyn

Since becoming the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn has succumbed too much to those within his party who will never accept his leadership.

He has overlooked his supporters by appointing his enemies to frontbench and other positions. He has allowed some of them to worm their way back in, despite their having resigned in an attempt to force him from office. He has allowed a free vote on Syria, yet no-one remembers a free vote on Iraq. He has whipped an abstention on Trident. He has acted against the social and ethnic cleansing of Labour Haringey, but not to secure justice for the 472 teaching assistants in Labour Durham. He is supporting the government’s indulgence of the ludicrous theory of gender self-identification. He is hinting at support for the customs union. And has gone too far in accepting Theresa May’s and Boris Johnson’s totally unproven attempt to blame the Russian state for the attack in Salisbury.

Jeremy Corbyn is the most culturally significant British politician in living memory, the most agenda-setting leader of the opposition ever, and the global leader of the opposition to neoliberal economic policy and to neoconservative foreign policy. The Corbyn government will lead Britain and the world out of politically chosen austerity, and away from wars of political choice. But only if it is backed up by enough MPs to cancel out his enemies within his own party, since there is going to be either another hung parliament or a tiny overall majority.

David Lindsay
Durham

False flag

I read - as always, with pleasure and interest - Paul Demarty’s article, ‘Russian weapons’ (March 22), but I think there is a lot more to be said.

For a kick-off, how did they know it was Russia and could only be Russia? There is an obvious connection - ie, the two victims were Russians - but the inference seemed, to me anyway, to come from the agent itself - if it’s novichok, it must be Russian. Well, how would they know? I assume it’s quite easy to say that a can of Coca Cola came from India and not Mexico because of all sorts of stuff in the water, but a small dose of chemical agent? Presumably, identified from blood samples surely, at the very least, there must have been something to compare it with, which would imply that novichok is available in Porton Down at least, as well as, maybe, Russia.

This is not to suggest a ‘false flag’ operation by MI5, but if the stuff is available in two places, it will surely be available in plenty more. And is it really believable that there is a chemical weapon so lethal that only the Russians have the technical expertise and equipment to make it? I am not suggesting either that Putin and co are incapable of doing such a thing. We got the measure of Putin from Chechnya, if not before, when he joined George Bush in waging the ‘war on terror’; most of the things said in his denigration are no doubt true, though stupidity has not often been a charge levelled. To return, how did they know? And how did they know so very fast when everything else about the events has been so slow - ‘If you were in Salisbury a week ago you’d better wash your clothes’.

Maybe it came from Russia, but, as Paul says, “there are close to 150 million of them”. He also asserts that Putin must have approved. Maybe, but maybe not. There are an awful lot of gangsters in Russia, in government and out. The 90s there were a political shambles. Scientists left facilities because they weren’t being paid and it is surely not beyond the bounds of possibility that some of the gangsters have access to novichok. And this would lead us to the question of motive.

Why this bloke, years after he was swapped out? Why now? Just to create a provocation to help Putin win his election? If that’s a strong enough motive, then surely there is motive enough for someone else to do it as an attack on Putin, from Russia or from elsewhere.

During the 2016 presidential election campaign, I thought that Clinton wanted a war with Russia and Trump wanted a war with Iran. Trump clearly still wants a war with Iran, but less so yet with Russia. The Democrats, the mainstream media, Clinton - ie, those who would probably self-describe as the adults in the room - still, it seems, want a war with Russia; though maybe they only want the Pentagon to spend a few extra billion on sending troops and equipment to eastern Europe - the Nato franchisees.

Boris Johnson wants to stop Putin having his ‘Hitler moment’ at the World Cup this year - which does, I believe, raise a question about Qatar. If we should shun Russia because of two people in a coma (a disgusting crime, whoever is responsible) then what about 3,000-4,000 construction workers from poor countries who in desperation for themselves and their families worked and died in appalling conditions in full view of the ‘free world’?

But Johnson isn’t the only one with a thing about sport. Let us not forget the doping scandal that has hit Russia in international athletics. A former director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory flees Russia and then admits to having spent his career covering up the illegal doping of Russian athletes. All the available blood from Russian athletes was tested and, sure enough, some were doped and so Russia could be banned from the 2018 Winter Olympics. I may be wrong, but I don’t recall any references to ‘blind testing’ or controls using, say, US athletes’ blood. Maybe the result would have been the same anyway, but it seemed to me that a rush to ban Russia was more important than scientific analysis. A more honest outcome might have been a move towards testing the blood of all Olympic athletes, or at least medal winners. It’s not as if Russia has been the only country at the centre of a doping scandal - just the only one to be banned from the Olympics.

Paul mentions “Occam’s razor” in attributing blame to the Russian state and he may well be right, but I suggest that it is a little early to say. As a fan of ‘true crime’ on the page and the TV screen, I would have thought that the police, army and whoever would search for the earliest trace of nerve agent, search CCTV to find witnesses and then try and link same to some motivation and/or paymaster.

I’m not trying to protect Putin or his minions here, but the whole affair is occurring in a swamp of barely concealed motives - not to mention a massive dose of hypocrisy. This one will no doubt run and run.

Jim Cook
Reading

No proof

Paul Demarty gives as the reason for Theresa May’s warmongering over the alleged nerve gas attack by Russia on Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia: “We suspect, ironically, that the blasting of Corbyn for softness on Putin comes at least in part not from concern that he would reduce Britain to a Russian vassal, but the opposite - that he might blunder his way into destroying the appeal we currently have for the oligarchs, and other delightful characters (Saudi princes and so on) to boot.”

Whilst noting the half-hearted opposition of Corbyn - accepting sanctions whilst querying the veracity of the account - we must take all related global developments together to get a true picture of what is happening as a consequence of the Skripals’ poisoning. The imminent fall of east Ghouta is the latest failure of the US in its regime-change efforts in Syria and this is what is behind the feverish changes of personnel in the Trump administration to the most warlike hawks. It is also behind Theresa May’s extraordinary attack on Russia. Consistent reports are that, when east Ghouta is liberated by Assad and Russia, the USA and Israel will launch a strike against Syria and possibly Iran, in an attempt to kill Assad and his government and so begin an invasion for regime change. Russia is aware of the plans and has made defensive preparations and promised retaliation against US forces which have illegally invaded Syria east of the Euphrates and on US warships in the Mediterranean and the Gulf.

Trump’s latest appointment of the warmongering John Bolton as his national security advisor in place of the more cautious HR McMaster is a further indication of the preparations for war a week after his sacking of secretary of state Rex Tillerson on March 13, because he was too was moderate on Syria, North Korea and Iran. Tillerson’s replacement, CIA director Mike Pompeo, is also a far more bellicose character. “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the cabinet and other things that I want,” Trump told reporters, moments after announcing he was ousting Tillerson. The New York Times wrote that the appointment of Bolton, after the dismissal of Tillerson and McMaster, means that Trump now has “the most radically aggressive foreign policy team around the American president in modern memory.”

It is truly idiotic to take the events at their face value and to proclaim, using Occam’s razor as a guide, as Paul does: “On the face of it, it is highly unlikely that anyone other than agents of the Russian state conducted the attack on the Skripals. There are the usual jeremiads of the conspiracy theorists in their endless battles with the ‘sheeple’, according to whom this was an inside job; and a story is doing the rounds that it may be a provocation on the part of the violently anti-Russian government of Ukraine.”

Occam’s razor just will not cut it. Taking the one option that makes the fewest assumptions was never a great plan; this heuristic guide was never adequate as a theoretical method; it was always simply an opportunist choice of which narrative would suit the best and was a barrier to the development of the scientific method. It takes “mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision. Examples of this method include using a rule of thumb, an educated guess, an intuitive judgment, guesstimate, stereotyping, profiling or common sense”, according to the sensible Wikipedia entry.

There is absolutely no proof that Russia had anything to do with this. All the propaganda is along the line of ‘It’s highly likely they did it - it’s like what they would do - they’ve done similar things in the past’. Not only did Putin have no motive to do such a thing, just as Assad had no motive on the Ghouta sarin gas attack in 2013, the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack on April 2017 and chemical attacks recently in east Ghouta: they both had every reason not to do such things. They are winning the war without the need for these weapons.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has destroyed May’s narrative in a piece entitled, ‘The Novichok story is indeed another Iraqi WMD scam’, where he pointed out that:

“1. Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian ‘novichoks’. The UK government has absolutely no ‘fingerprint’ information such as impurities that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.

“2. Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced ‘novichoks’ even exist.

“3. The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW [Boris Johnson said he would provide such a sample to the OPCW, but not to Russia. How authentic that sample might now be is obvious - GD].

“4. ‘Novichoks’ were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.

“5. The ‘novichok’ programme was in Uzbekistan, not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.

“It is a scientific impossibility for Porton Down to have been able to test for Russian novichoks if they have never possessed a Russian sample to compare them to. They can analyse a sample as conforming to a Mirzayanov formula, but, as he published those to the world 20 years ago, that is no proof of Russian origin. If Porton Down can synthesise it, so can many others, not just the Russians.”

As we observed in relation to that Ghouta chemical attack of August 21 2013, “We have every reason to suspect that sarin and mustard gas (the same as used by the US in Vietnam), which killed hundreds of people, was the work of imperialist terrorism in the region. Obama and the imperialist mass media are seeking to ascribe the blame to the Syrian government and are using this to justify the attack [not made in the end - GD] ... It is also reminiscent of the ‘Gleiwitz incident’, a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on August 31 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II in Europe. This was used to justify the invasion of Poland in 1939” (Socialist Fight: ‘For the military victory of Syria’).

The “usual jeremiads of the conspiracy theorists” were right on those occasions because they were more attuned to the real world than either Ockham or comrade Paul.

Gerry Downing
Socialist Fight

Sick to death

Am I the only the reader to be completely sick to death of having to read the poisonous anti-Semitic rantings and ramblings of Ian Donovan, Gerry Downing and Tony Greenstein in the Weekly Worker? Greenstein appears to now have a weekly article, for goodness sake. I am not in favour of a general ‘banning’ of anti Semitic, racist or frankly neo-Nazi rants, but why does a paper with a pro-working class, pro-human liberation (for all people), communist perspective have to continue to provide them with a platform? We would not dream of allowing advocates of paedophilia a platform.

Greenstein idiotically asserts he can’t possibly be anti-Semitic because he is ethnically Jewish, but his writings prove it is perfectly possible to have such a basic hatred. The contradiction is within his own personality, not in logic. Greenstein ludicrously claims there is no such thing as anti-Semitism or discrimination in advanced capitalist societies such as the UK, because most Jews are now either upper middle or capitalist class, when the world and his wife knows anti-Semitic abuse and attacks are going through the roof.

I am happy to declare a non-vested interest. I am not Jewish nor is any member of my family or circle of friends and acquaintances that I know of, and I wouldn’t care less if any were. I think the ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign directed at the Labour Party has been cleverer than we might have first thought. The main tactic seemed to be to conflate criticism of the policies of the state of Israel - clumsily and ambiguously referred to as ‘Zionism’ - with being anti-Semitic.

Many of us on the decent, pro-human left have tried to separate Zionism from anti-Semitism, arguing it is perfectly possible to be critical of the policies of the state of Israel without that criticism becoming, through clumsiness or intent, a broader attack on a whole group of people because they happen to be ethnically, culturally or religiously Jewish.

We have to be really careful here. Greenstein is not so stupid (but thinks he is cleverer and more devious than he is) as to openly call for the destruction and liquidation of the state of Israel or to be completely openly racist against Jews. But occasionally he allows his true position to emerge. It is one thing to wish the Balfour declaration and the establishment of Israel had never happened; it is quite another to advocate the present-day destruction of that state.

Given that there is a moulded and established Israeli nation and an Israeli people - the majority of whom are working class and who therefore are our class sisters and brothers - we need to be very clear and explicit that if we advocate a one-state solution in present Israel/Palestine, we are not thereby advocating the destruction of that Israeli people, either through deliberate intent or as a collateral.

Donovan/Downing/Greenstein simply invert the approach of the ‘anti-Semitic’ campaign. Whereas it claims that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitism, D/D/G simply turn that inside out and, to varying degrees, blame and criticise Zionism, the policies of the Israeli state and day-to-day living conditions within Israel as down to their ‘Jewishness’. Greenstein attempts to be clever and attacks through association and insinuation, and is not brave enough to be totally explicit.

One of the most appalling and disgusting contributions from Donovan/Downing was their letter in the Weekly Worker of October 12 2017. Three quotes:

“They (the Palestinians) will have noticed that the aircraft that drop white phosphorus on Gaza schools have Jewish symbols on them, and represent a state that calls itself ‘the Jewish state’.”

“Apparently, the ‘political Zionist movement’, which created the state of Israel, had nothing specifically Jewish about it.”

“But, for Mike Macnair, it is ‘anti-Semitic’ to say that that there is anything Jewish about political Zionism or the Jewish state.”

Excuse me for being a political novice or an innocent. But how does being Jewish specifically explain how Israel and/or its governments can act in completely unacceptable ways against the Palestinian people in particular and Arab people more generally? It can’t and doesn’t. This is anti-Semitism pure and simple, indicating there is something about Jewish people’s ethnicity, culture or religion which leads them to act in such an appalling way.

Greenstein bashes away on the same themes in each article - he is worse than Livingstone on Viagra. Each article can be quoted from extensively, but the persistently common themes include: Zionism had a relationship with Nazism; Zionism even shared some of the same goals as Nazism; Zionism collaborated in Nazism’s escalating oppression and even the destruction of the Jews; Israel as a Jewish state and a society is inherently racist; Israel as a state and government shares many features of Nazism. Over and over again, Greenstein refers to Zionism, the Jewish nature of the Israeli state and society and Nazism.

The all-time classic is that Israel, as a society seeking to become an ethnically pure Jewish state, has an abnormally high rate of rapes and general sexual violence (Weekly Worker February 1 2018). It is not exactly hard to join all the dots. There are a very clear and not very subliminal set of messages.

I have to be honest that one of the things that frustrates me about Greenstein and his obsessions about Israel, Nazism and Jewishness is that on the very few occasions he is not writing about these, he can be superb. His articles on the UK general election were frankly brilliant tours de force (June 15 and July 6 2017). His proposals on renationalisations were pragmatic, radical, insightful and thought-provoking (June 15 2017).

The ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign has been cleverer than we first thought in that I don’t think the progressive, decent, pro-human left can any longer try and distinguish between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Corrupted, twisted and reactionary individuals who claim to be on the left, such as Donovan, Downing and Greenstein, have polluted the debate to such an extent by asserting that ‘Zionism’ - ie, the policies of the state of Israel and its governments - is due to its ‘Jewishness’. It has become that much harder for the healthy, majority left to present and project a clear and principled distinction between the two concepts. Thanks to ‘our enemy within’, I think ‘Zionism’ is now far too conflated with ‘Jewishness’ to be a useful distinction to be used by the decent left.

We are being stabbed in the back, machine-gunned from behind, covered in shite by these individuals. In the past so-called Stalinists would describe such people as Trotskyites and ‘social fascists’. With these examples, we can understand why the ‘fascist’.

For whatever reasons in their backgrounds or psychological make-up, it is clear they hate and detest people who are Jewish - maybe not as individuals, but where they are assembled in any significant numbers, such as in Israel. They use attacks on Zionism as a cover for attacks on organised entities, whether in civil society or at the level of state, which are Jewish and which advocate and project Jewish values and principles, including the right to self-identify as Jewish and to celebrate their perceived and actual histories, culture and religion.

If the problem with Israel and its government’s policies are down to ‘Jewishness’, it becomes frighteningly obvious what the ultimate solution for the now indigenous and established Israeli population becomes, and where Donovan/Downing/Greenstein are heading.

We must be very clear and explicit. There is nothing inherent about Jewish ethnicity, culture or religion which involves the oppression and crushing of others. We need to understand and analyse Israel in the context of capitalism and imperialism. And the solution in terms of the democratic coexistence of peoples, nationalities, religions and none, underpinned and united by class.

Please can the Weekly Worker stop providing a platform for reactionary anti-Semitic and frankly neo-Nazi poison. These people are laughing at us, wondering how they get away with it and, much more important, they are providing ammunition, including real bullets and bombs, for our capitalist and imperialist ruling class.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Wrong

We note that Tony Greenstein (‘Shame on the SWP’, March 22) omits to mention the role of the Revolutionary Communist Group in challenging the SWP/SUTR decision to allow the Zionist Confederation of Friends of Israel - Scotland (CoFIS) onto its Glasgow demonstration on March 17. Just to make clear:

1. It was the RCG and Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! which first publicly called for a counter-mobilisation, on March 14, after the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) said it would not do so.

2. The Scottish PSC then opposed the counter-mobilisation; privately, SPSC chair Sofiah MacLeod emailed SPSC supporters and allies on March 14, saying: “Our intention is not to engage with CoFIS or to attack anti-racist marchers and supporting organisations. We are not joining the FRFI demo.” So she was clear it was us who had called it.

3. The RCG had led the campaign against the SWP/SUTR decision, before and after it was made, publishing an open letter in mid-February, setting up an online petition opposing the invitation, which attracted over 1,000 signatures, organising a militant lobby of the SUTR steering committee meeting on March 10.

4. Our website report names all the organisations which supported the very effective counter-protest against CoFIS, and it does state that a few SPSC members defied the instructions of their organisation not to attend.

We wonder why Tony Greenstein got it so wrong.

Dominic Mulgrew
Glasgow