Letters

Bad faith?

Jack Conrad has written a silly letter (October 20). I shall reply to it in a comradely fashion, which, I’m sad to say, is more than it deserves, given its uninformed nature and embarrassing bad-faith approach.

Comrade Conrad calls upon “principled communists” in the Communist Platform (CP) in the Netherlands to “rebel” against their organisation. He claims that the CP has experienced a “headlong collapse into the most abject centrism - that is, the opportunism of the post-August 1914 Kautsky sort”. Our crime? The CP supposedly brushed over the topic of Ukraine at the Socialistenconferentie (Socialist Conference) to preserve unity with the Dutch section of the Fourth International (SAP-Grenzeloos), which supports arming Ukraine. He bases his bold claim on a single, brief report of the conference by myself titled ‘Uniting a motley band’ (Weekly Worker October 13).

Comrade Conrad is dead wrong, and I shall briefly explain why. The topic of the war in Ukraine was not brushed over, but addressed directly in the lead-up to the conference, as reported in an earlier article in your own newspaper entitled ‘Not time to party … yet’ (September), where a CP comrade described it as a “real hurdle” towards the formation of a party. Clashes took place in public debates, after which the SAP agreed to subject themselves to the majority that rejected arming Ukraine. In the Utrecht branch, one of the largest branches of De Socialisten, the local leadership was forced by (now former) members of the International Marxist Tendency and by the CP, as well as a majority of the branch members, to withdraw their support for a Ukrainian social-imperialist organisation, Sotsialniy Rukh, that called for Nato military support. This in turn resulted in one member of the SAP stepping down from the committee of the Utrecht branch of De Socialisten. At the CP public discussion weekend (where members of various tendencies within the Dutch left, including members of the SAP-Grenzeloos, were present), we held a session about the responses of the Dutch left to the Ukraine war. In this session, which led to fierce debate, the CP speaker clearly denounced social-imperialist organisations on the left.

At the conference itself, the war was addressed again - this time not directly (in the plenary session, that is), but in the shape of a debate on Nato and imperialism. After all, this was a conference primarily about organisational structures and preliminary general goals. Marxists (within and outside the CP) at the Socialistenconferentie successfully attacked the few ambiguously worded sections of the draft perspectives document that could be interpreted as less than principally opposed to Nato, and replaced them with lines such as: “We do not give (direct or indirect) support to capitalist governments and we fight against Nato, a reactionary and imperialist institution, which we want to leave immediately.” The CP also put forward a proposal to radically change the original document text on self-determination (our amendment can be found in ‘Uniting a motley band’). Although the original text did not explicitly mention Ukraine, it seemed quite clear to us that it was hinting at the Ukraine situation and that its ambiguous wording could lead to support for interventionism, as it was quite in line with the Mandelite talk about national emancipation with regards to Ukraine.

Our position on De Socialisten has been that we should not accept unity on an unprincipled basis. Of course, in the lead-up to the conference there were those on the left who proposed we stop debating and just come to a quick unity - a broad-left Socialist Party mark two. This was never good enough for us and we vehemently opposed these calls. We don’t just want any party: we want a Communist Party on a principled communist programme, not just unity around the lowest common denominator. Communist parties can’t just be declared, but have to be forged through intense political debate and a fight for principles.

The coming months will see the drafting of a De Socialisten programme and there is no doubt that we will clash with the SAP on the topic of Ukraine and our attitude towards the war. Unless a miraculous shift takes place within De Socialisten, it is safe to say that principled politics will be adopted by a wide margin (again), and that the programme will represent the already established anti-Nato line. Only from the discussions in the coming period can we draw conclusions on whether or not unity on a principled basis with the current participants of De Socialisten is possible. We cannot pre-emptively avoid these discussions, since our starting point is that to get to a mass party we have to start by convincing the existing left of principled politics.

With hindsight it is understandable that certain lacunae in my report could lead to misunderstanding on the part of someone who is unfamiliar with the situation and the Dutch political landscape. For any such weaknesses in the report, I have only myself to blame - I had been asked to draft a report by one of the CPGB comrades and, because I was pressed for time, did so in order to give international comrades only a general sense of what was taking place around De Socialisten. But to completely denounce the Communist Platform in less than 500 angrily formulated words, on the basis of arbitrarily filling in gaps in your knowledge by assuming the very worst of your comrades, indicates a fairly low standard of substantiation.

At every step of this journey, we have sought to assure comrades that there will not be a unity project without a foundation on which Marxist unity can be built. We repeatedly hit the brake in the lead-up to the conference to be certain that we would not rush into a project that lacked principled politics and we engaged with those who wished to construct an opportunistic broad-left party, where we won convincing majorities for Marxist politics. Instead of informing himself on the situation, comrade Conrad chose the path of a bad-faith attack on our organisation. Such polemics produce little clarity or constructive debate, but do lead to frustrations. If comrade Conrad had contacted the CP, we would gladly have provided him with basic translations of CP and De Socialisten texts, so he could have formed an informed opinion on the topic.

Next time, shoot us an email and get the facts straight!

Andries Stroper
Netherlands

Trotskyist?

On the whole, Jack Conrad’s letter last week was very good. It’s astonishing that a new Dutch “party-in-formation” calling itself De Socialisten (‘The Socialists’) refuses to take a clear and forthright stand on Ukraine. This would be inexcusable with regard to any major military conflict, but it’s doubly so, now that Nato’s proxy war is threatening to plunge Europe into a 1914-style crisis, and Jack is entirely right to point that out.

But there’s a problem: his use of the term ‘Trotskyist’ to describe the pro-Nato pseudo-socialists of the Dutch SAP, or Socialist Alternative Politics. Jack knows perfectly well that Trotsky fought his entire life against the phony anti-imperialism of such ‘woke’ anti-Russian forces. In a 1938 interview that has come up in CPGB discussions on at least one occasion, Trotsky showed that his hostility to British imperialism was such that he was even willing to defend semi-colonial Brazil against its ravages, even though the fascist, Getúlio Vargas, was in power at the time in Rio de Janeiro.

In the event of a military clash, Trotsky said:

“I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally - in this case I will be on the side of ‘fascist’ Brazil against ‘democratic’ Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil, on the contrary, should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship. The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.”

This does not mean that Trotsky sided with the fascist, Vargas, as some seem to think. Rather, it means that he sided with Brazil, despite its government, against the supposedly liberal UK. Since this is the opposite of what the SAP and other followers of Ernest Mandel preach, why does Jack blandly endorse their claim that they are acting in Trotsky’s name in siding with Nato in Ukraine? Would he endorse Stalin’s claim that he was acting in Lenin’s name in putting Radek, Bukharin et al against a wall? Would he describe Xi Jinping as acting in Marx’s name in steering China in a capitalist direction? Or does he really hold Trotsky responsible for the Mandelites’ surrender to Nato aggression?

This may be a lot to hang on a single word. But the fact remains that, rather than taking the opportunity to expose the Mandelites’ misuse of the term, Jack tacitly endorses it. He should really try to be more careful.

Daniel Lazare
New York

Inexplicable

Ted Talbot refers to my “very low intellectual level” in contrast to his own effortlessly superior credentials (Letters, October 13). Some measure of Talbot’s cerebral abilities can be gauged from his response to my statement that he is a racist.

“Islam,” Talbot proclaimed, “is not a race.” This is true, and neither are Jews, yet this does not absolve those who attack them from the charge of racism. If we follow Talbot’s ‘logic’ the Nazis too were not racists! In fact there are no races. Races are an artificial political construct fashioned by ideologues for colonialism and imperialism as a justification for their conquests of other people’s countries. Racism can be summarised as discrimination or prejudice against any group defined on an arbitrary - often biological - basis, such as colour, ethnicity, language or nationality. It has nothing to do with ‘race’.

Talbot accuses me of wanting to prevent criticism of Islam. Not at all. I am all in favour of critiquing religion. What I am opposed to is those who use religion to justify their attacks on its adherents. When Nick Griffin of the British National Party called Islam a “vicious, wicked faith”, he denied that he was attacking all Muslims. Talbot has no such reticence. For him, Islam is a “vile” religion, as are those who call themselves Muslims. If Talbot was a Marxist, he would understand that Islam, like all religions, takes on the colour of the societies in which it operates.

Western imperialism has done its best, be it in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, to promote Islamic fundamentalism of the Wahhabi strain in order that their ruling classes would have a source of legitimacy for repressing opposition to western oil and imperial interests.

Islamic countries historically were extremely tolerant, compared to Christian countries. The only country under Nazi occupation which prevented even one Jewish deportation was Muslim Albania. The comparison with Christian countries like France is stark. Islamic countries provided refuge for Jews and others fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. They were places of tolerance in comparison to a Europe of religious wars and the burning of witches. Muslim Spain was likewise a place of toleration compared to Christian Spain.

The idea that child abuse is peculiar to Islam is another racist trope. Child brides were legal in Britain up to the 17th century. In confirming that “Rape, child sexual abuse and exploitation is a Muslim phenomenon, the product of a particularly misogynist religion,” Talbot marks himself out as a 24-carat racist and bigot. Talbot’s statement is not borne out by any evidence. It is part of the staple diet of European fascist propaganda.

Talbot denies the massive evidence of the abuse of black children by white men in this society: he says that “obscurity here is so complete that even Greenstein can provide no evidence of it”. Clearly Talbot is either unaware of or has no problems with the stripping of 15-year-old girl Q by officers of the Metropolitan Police. Black people in London are three times more likely to be stripped than white people, according to Leah Mahon in The Voice. The evidence of rape and violence by white men in authority over black women and girls is all over the net, but Talbot has apparently missed it.

Some 58% of the 650 children stripped by the Metropolitan Police were black and in 2018 this rose to 75%. Children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza wrote in August: “I am deeply concerned by the information that I have received. I am not reassured that what happened to Child Q was an isolated issue.”

The disproportionate use of stop and search by the police against black youth is well known to most people, Talbot apart.

It is clear that the phenomenon of Pakistani grooming gangs in northern cities has nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with material factors like night-time occupational trades. That was why I made the comparison with Catholic and Protestant priests in closed institutions, such as schools. If Talbot is correct about Islam being a cause of the rape of children, then it logically follows that the Christian faith must also be to blame for the sins of their own priests.

What was Talbot’s response to my comparison? He ignored it and told us he had not addressed “the exciting new findings from the James Webb space telescope” - which was true, but completely irrelevant, because Webb’s space telescope has nothing to do with child abuse, whereas the abuse of children by white Christian priests is highly relevant.

Talbot’s inability to face up to the fact that child abuse takes place in situations where children are vulnerable and weak, such as in children’s homes and schools, regardless of religion, colour or nationality, is what makes Talbot a racist. For him child abuse by white men, whether it is by priests or Jimmy Saville, is of no concern.

What does Talbot do when he runs out of arguments? He accuses, without a shred of proof, Steve Cousins and me of being “nonce apologists at least, and nonces at worst”. I know that Talbot values his ‘freedom’ to abuse and insult, but I am surprised that the editor felt obliged to include this particular phrase, especially given that Talbot was complaining about Steve Cousin’s ad hominem attacks.

Talbot feigns mock indignation that two of my children went to Christ’s Hospital public school. The decision to send them there was that of my wife, from whom I’m separated. The fact is that they passed the entrance exams and gained 100% scholarships. We paid no fees. In fact Christ’s Hospital is exceptional in that over 50% of students there pay no fees - hence it contains a large proportion of working class kids.

However, that has not stopped one of my children, Tom, being featured by his union, the PCS, as one of its leading young strike activists. Indeed, when Tom stood in the mock general election in the school for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition in 2015, he gained the highest percentage of any Tusc candidate nationally! My other child, Ellie, is a single parent. Not quite members of the British establishment!

Finally in referring to the pogroms against Muslims in Leicester by Hindu supremacists allied to Narendra Modi’s BJP party and the far-right RSS, Talbot manages to invert the situation, thus demonstrating just how reactionary he is. It is no secret that the BJP and Modi wish to see India following in Israel’s footsteps as a Hindu supremacist state. There have been massive pogroms against Muslims, Christians and ‘the Untouchables’ (Dalits) in India, instigated by Modi and the BJP. The BJP is now seeking to import into Britain the same communalism it has fostered in India, with Talbot acting as a cheer leader. Of course, this communal violence is a consequence of the British divide-and-rule strategy, which resulted in the partition of India in 1947.

I assume that Talbot once thought of himself on the left, hence his writing to Weekly Worker. If so he is a sad example of the political backwardness of a section of the British working class, steeped as it is in the myths of Britain’s imperialist past.

As Amrit Wilson wrote, “The disturbing rise of Hindutva supremacism in India has been mirrored by a corresponding growth of extremism in the Indian diaspora - particularly in the UK, where the efforts of such groups are now feeding into public policy decisions.”

Faisal Hanif, writing in Middle East Eye, described “a Hindutva-inspired march of around 200 men, mostly in balaclavas, echoing the anti-Muslim tactics inspired by the racist actions of the English Defence League in the not-too-distant past. The shouts of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ - a Hindu chant that became a ‘murder cry’ in India - were audible and illustrative of what has plagued and continues to haunt Muslims in India.”

It does not surprise me that Keir Starmer, the ‘Zionist without qualification’, has sought to appease Modi’s fascist supporters by reneging on Labour’s commitment to Kashmiri self-determination. However, I do find Talbot’s attempts to whitewash the BJP and Hindutva little short of outrageous.

I have no doubt that the BNP, Tommy Robinson and assorted fascist and Zionist groups would have space for Talbot’s apologetics for anti-Muslim racism. But quite why he writes to a communist paper is inexplicable.

Tony Greenstein
Brighton

Understanding

I wasn’t going to join the Ted Talbot row, but I’ve been watching a TV programme called ‘Beneath the surface’. It’s about neglect and abuse, including sexual abuse, of children over many, many years in a Norwegian village called Tysfjord. Journalists followed up the story and, to quote the BBC, “In 2014, following a tip-off, a group of journalists exposed a troubled history for indigenous Sámi women, men and children in Norway. It revealed generations of negligence, abuse and suffering, supported by a mass of evidence and previously unseen archival footage.”

Notable is the writing off of the victims by those who could, and should, have done something about it - a familiar tale. Also notable, I thought, was the attempt of those involved to understand why all this had happened and why they couldn’t arouse the interest of those informed, including teachers, nurses and the police. It has struck me, reading the letters, that Ted Talbot has no interest in understanding anything; it’s just Islam!

Well, that keeps it simple and saves a bit of thought, but it does seem a bit rough on the millions of women and children (and men) of wide swathes of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, Indonesia and the Middle East, to name but a few. And then, of course, we shouldn’t forget the UK and the US. Mind you, Muslims in India can get it rough too, what with rape, torture and murder - but perhaps that’s because of the Hindus?

But what about the god-fearing west? We have had Madeleine (‘Half a million dead kids is a price worth paying’) Albright and her godly boss, Bill Clinton, who made so many of those deaths possible. Two wrongs don’t, as they say, make a right and the abuse of those young women in the UK was abominable, but …

George W Bush was a ‘born again’ Christian and - with his puppy dog, Tony Blair, at his heels - he launched illegal wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. How many died? Though they were, after all, only Muslims, so of no account to either of these men of god.

Talbot mentions “three gays stabbed in a park in Reading”. Yes, a terrible crime: three men enjoying a leisurely drink on a park lawn were attacked and died. This occurred close to the Maiwand Lion, often referred to as an iconic symbol of Reading. I’m sure that this had no relevance to either the murdered men or their killer, but the Lion is a sculpture erected to memorialise 328 men from the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment who died in 1880. They were part of one of British imperialism’s murderous wars on Afghanistan - and therefore on Muslims, as it happens.

Abuse - sexual or otherwise - is a common facet of life all over the world. I wonder if there is any country where it is not widespread? These crimes, along with war, need to be eradicated by ending capitalism - and then no doubt there will still be more work needed to bring this horror of history to an end. In the meantime, ignorant attacks on Islam don’t help.

Jim Nelson
email

Labour dead

Tony Clark makes some very good points about my so-called ultra-leftism (Letters, October 20).

I got my fingers severely burnt when I supported Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. In hindsight, Jeremy Corbyn was a complete disaster and has set back the cause of socialism for many years, if not decades. As the saying goes, ‘One bitten, twice shy’. Never again will I support a left-reformist Labour MP. As I said in my own letter, “The Labour Party is dead” (October 13).

With Liz Truss resigning, the Tory Party has put in Rishi Sunak, who will lead the Tories to a massive defeat in the next general election, which is still two years away. In those two years Marxists must get a life. I plan to tidy up my garden, whilst spending time listening to Classic FM, and I suggest Tony Clark does something similar. After the next general election a Sir Keir Starmer Labour government will be the government of choice of the capitalist class and the trade union bureaucracy for generations to come.

The election of a Sir Keir Starmer Labour government in two years time will put Starmer’s pink neoliberalism to the test. This will open up the space for the development of a Communist Party - provided it has nothing to do with the trade union bureaucracy.

As Tony Clark states, I agree with David North of the World Socialist Web Site of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), who correctly concluded 25 years ago that the trade unions are no longer part of the workers’ movement. This may upset ex-supporters of the ICFI, such as Gerry Downing, but the recent avoidance of a national rail strike in the US, which was undermined by the collaboration of the US rail union bureaucracy and president Joe Biden, shows the reactionary role of trade unions.

A similar agreement between the British trade union bureaucracy and a Sir Keir Starmer Labour government to undermine strikes and therefore cut living standards will clearly be on the cards, once Starmer becomes prime minister. This is why I support the ICFI’s campaign across the world for international rank-and-file workplace committees to take control of strikes and bypass the trade union bureaucracy.

Tony Clark can suggest that I join the ICFI’s British section, the Socialist Equality Party, but it seems they do not want me as a member. To paraphrase Groucho Marx: “I wouldn’t want to be a member of a political party which didn’t want me as a member.”

John Smithee
Cambridgeshire

Republic

Nick Barber, professor of constitutional law and theory at Oxford University, believes that one day “the nation” will command the king or queen to stand down. “If the UK lasts for long enough, it’s inevitable that we will move to a republic.”

There is still broad support for the monarchy in the UK - 62% told YouGov that they back the institution. Only 22% want an elected head of state. Yet Graham Smith, CEO of the campaigning group, Republic, notes that support for the monarchy has dropped from 75% in 2018. Also Commonwealth countries are queuing up to remove Charles III as head of state. Barbados became a republic in November 2021. Jamaica, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda, and St Kitts and Nevis have also taken the first steps to follow suit. Plus there is strong republican sentiment in Australia, New Zealand and even Canada.

As for Scotland, only 45% back royalty as an institution. A healthy 36% want a republic. Tommy Sheppard MP, the Scottish National Party’s constitutional spokesperson, says an independent Scotland would have to make its own decision and that he personally is for an end to royal rule.

So there is all to play for!

Alan Stewart
Wakefield