Letters

Blaming workers ...

I was somewhat disappointed that, instead of a serious analysis of the situation facing Irish workers following the end of the IRA ceasefire, the CPGB trotted out the 20-year old slogan of “unconditional support” for the IRA.

Even more disappointing is that you accused the left, and by implication, most of the working class, of “social chauvinism”. This is not as bad as the ‘social fascism’ characterisation adopted by the KPD during the struggle against Hitler in the 1930s, but exhibits the same sort of sectarianism. It is preposterous to accuse workers who feel justifiably disgusted at the deaths resulting from IRA bombings of siding with the bourgeoisie.

Comrades McLoughlin and Jaszynski are right to point out the hypocrisy of British imperialism, which has massacred thousands worldwide, when it condemns IRA atrocities, but does this mean communists should adopt a mirror image of this position? Of course, knee-jerk reactions by working class people, such as calling for more state repression, have to be challenged. We have to patiently explain why the troubles started, how the oppression of catholics led to the rise of the civil rights movement and how the IRA rose from the ashes of its defeat, when people saw armed struggle as the only alternative. But we cannot blame British workers for not showing solidarity with the IRA. Blowing people up is not the best way to win their support.

You are right to say that Northern Ireland needs a Communist Party, and this must embrace the whole of the working class. Imposing preconditions, by insisting on the removal of the border before any working class unity is possible, as Ted Jaszynski does, is not the way to do this.

The CPGB’s contacts with the Irish Republican Socialist Party are to be welcomed. You are right to point out the futility of expecting anything to come from approaching loyalist fringe groups. But in order to build a Communist Party the IRSP needs to break out of the republican ghetto from which it developed, and look to other sections of the working class.

Protestant workers need to be won away from loyalism. This cannot be done by insisting on support for a united Ireland before any form of united struggle is possible. The national question cannot be separated from the other issues affecting the working class, but has to be argued for in the context of the revolutionary struggle as a whole.

It is to be hoped that the North Hertfordshire CPGB supporters will reconsider their mistaken decision to break from the PCC. For my part, I would be glad to debate this question, as I think it is vital that communists re-evaluate their attitude to Northern Ireland in the light of recent events, in order to effectively build socialist organisation, both here and in Ireland.

John Bossano
International Socialist Group (personal capacity)

... or imperialism?

I would like to make a quick response to the erstwhile (allegedly) comrades from North Herts. When you ae living in the belly of the British imperialist beast and are, though unwillingly, most certainly the recipients of its benefits of plunder and privilege, the first thing you do in any period of anti-imperialist struggle of any tactical sort is to dissociate yourself from imperialism, lest you, not unnaturally, be presumed to be one of its defenders and supporters.

The crucial factor here is not what you think of the tactics of the side that throws up imperialism’s crutches, but where you stand on the question of imperialism.

We stand absolutely and emphatically against imperialism and call for its defeat and British forces out of Ireland in any way necessary.

If the British army wasn’t in Ireland, Canary Wharf wouldn’t have been bombed. If you don’t like the Canary Wharf being bombed, withdraw the army of occupation from Ireland.

Condemning the bomb, as if it is some pointless habit which some mindless soul has unleashed on an innocent and harmless island for no apparent reason, may make you feel comfortable. It has nothing whatever to do with the reality of the situation. Neither will it in any way bring around a situation where the bombs actually stop.

Imperialism is responsible in the final analysis for all of the bombs and the death on this island.

Dave Douglass
South Yorkshire

Get a grip

I would like to reply to comrade Sandy’s comments (Letters, February 29). In my 62 years’ membership or association with the CPGB I have never had problems in accepting Marx and Engel’s teachings, even though Marx was a non-proletarian intellectual.

What makes them the giants they undoubtedly were was that they used their intellectual capabilities to develop the theory of class struggle as being the motive power for human development.

There were other intellectuals around with similar training to Marx and Engels, but that certainly did not make them great theoreticians of the working class movement.

Unfortunately, as I have already pointed out, there are considerably different degrees of intellectual attainment and at present I see no Marx, Engels or Lenin among the non-proletarian intellectuals within the movement. Again I accept intellectuals today have a part to play in the formulation of theory and policies, not because of their being intellectuals, but on the merit of the conceptions they project.

During my time in the Party I have seen pinko professors and academics with all their pet theories come and go (some such as those who used to write in Marxism Today) and the likes of Lysenko in the Soviet Union, who brought the whole of socialist science into disrepute with his cooked-up theory of ‘The possibility of acquired characteristics being hereditary’ to fit the needs of prevailing Soviet ideology.

After his previous attempt to saddle me with a theory he elaborated himself, comrade Sandy now lets his imagination run wild on what would be the reaction of comrade Mike O’Farrell and myself at the time of Marx and Engels.

He should really get a grip on himself. He must remember he is not alone in being able to use his imagination. I have no problems with Marx and Engels, nor with intellectuals as such, but being a non-proletarian intellectual doesn’t make one a Marx or Engels.

Ted Rowlands
Bishop Auckland

Vitriolic hate

James Tait (Letters, February 22) is quite right to say that if I accept the right of catholics, muslims and orthodox christians in Ex-Yugoslavia to self-determination then I must also give this right to protestants in the north of Ireland. Except that the protestants in the north consider themselves to be British and it is not my job to artificially create new nations.

Anyway their political project is not self-determination, but political domination under the protection of British imperialism.

If they were really interested in self-determination they would want to kick the British out and form an alliance with catholics on a common democratic programme.

Historically nationalism has been the base for many of the most barbaric anti-working class regimes that have existed, but it is also a powerful political reality that cannot be wished away. Where it exists, communists must turn it against the chauvinists into a weapon for the working class.

James seems to think that the working class could enter into a progressive alliance with the bourgeoisie in Bosnia because they had a common anti-nationalist viewpoint. To us a capitalist solution could only result in an imperialist carve-up.

What is needed is a political programme to split the working class from their capitalist leaders. In working class hands the right of self-determination is the right of each and every people to be fully involved in the democratic running of their own affairs. It cannot therefore by definition be used as a tool of oppression over any other people.

To my mind James seems to equate self-determination and bourgeois nationalism when in fact they are diametrically opposed.

Now that the capitalists are in control of Bosnia, what is to stop them demanding that the miners of Tuzla return them a higher rate of profit or close down? What anti-government forces can the miners tum to? Hardly the Serbs or Croats, whose rights they refused to defend.

This will help isolate the miners’ struggle, but - worse than this - because they believe that the Bosnian state is essential to their survival, they must subordinate themselves to capitalist interests.

Furthermore in his letter James allows his vitriolic hate of the Serbian state to spill over to include all Serbs.

If James’ opinion is a reflection of feeling in Bosnia (which I suspect it is) then it is hardly surprising that Serbs of Sarajevo have fled to Serbia. Far from being in the forefront of the fight against fascism, he is in fact acting as a recruiting sergeant for it.

Phil Kent
Brent

Absorbed feminists

The Guardian’s coverage of International Working Women’s Day - or International Women’s Day, as the feminists who hijacked the day always insist on calling it - was instructive.

A broad spectrum of successful women and politicians were interviewed for their views on the day. All, whether in favour or not, concentrated on how individual women like themselves gain power: “There is really no such thing as an international woman” (March 7).

Women’s issues were seen as individual problems of power and opportunity. Any kind of universal perspective that the feminist movement once had has been totally dissolved with the incorporation of feminism into the mainstream bourgeois individualist agenda and ideology.

It should also be noted that many bemoaned the separatist approach to women’s questions. For the benefit of the working class movement more than these bourgeois representatives, we should remind ourselves that International Working Women’s Day, as explained in last week’s Weekly Worker, never began as a separatist project. “Socialist women must not ally themselves with bourgeois feminists, but lead the battle side by side with socialist men,” Clara Zetkin emphasised in 1911.

Feminism may have been easily absorbed into the capitalist establishment, but the struggle for women’s liberation cannot be, because it is the struggle of the whole working class to destroy the capitalist state lock, stock and barrel.

Julie Hart
Wolverhampton

SLP diversion

In Weekly Worker February 22 the views I expressed about the SLP at the Open Polemic conference of February 18 are misrepresented and I wish to put the record straight.

I did not argue that communists should adopt a neutral attitude to the SLP. In fact I argued that the SLP was “stillborn” as a result of the constitution prohibiting open debate on the basis of open membership of groups and open factions. I expressed the view that any positive contribution the SLP could have made would have been through such a process of open debate.

Also I did not argue that the SLP is going to become the creature of the trade union bureaucracy. I argued that the SLP was the result of a layer of the trade union bureaucracy being dissatisfied with the lack of concessions to their views by the Labour Party, and that the SLP from its very inception represented the interests of this layer of the bureaucracy. Indeed the SLP’s practice since its formation shows all the hallmarks of the ‘left’ trade union bureaucracy referred to by Danny Hammill.

Activism around the SLP is a diversion for communists from the priority of reflecting on and discussing the problems within Marxism.

Phil Walden
Trotskyist Unity Group

Stalin as victim

In reply to comrade Hankin’s letter, ‘Political undead’ (February 22), I would like to express my interest in Partisan’s forthcoming document, Stalin against Soviet bureaucracy.

Stalin carried out a long and protracted campaign against local party officials who acted with a fair amount of relative autonomy.

This ‘centre-periphery’ conflict resulted in the chaotic and fairly fragmented Moscow leadership carrying out a series of membership screenings from the late 1920s until the mid-1930s.

Almost without exception these Moscow-inspired purges met with stiff reaction from the local leadership, had minimal effect, ran years behind schedule and led to very few people becoming expelled from the party.

Increasingly, Stalin became a victim of the bureaucracy he served.

Colin McGhie
Glasgow