Letters

My solution

Thank you for publishing two excellent articles on the climate catastrophe (Eddie Ford’s ‘A living nightmare’ and Jack Conrad’s ‘Techno-fix delusions’ (both July 27). Both reflect the urgency required to prevent increased tendencies towards drought, famine, war, inequality and state oppression. Eddie calls for a “working class solution”, while Jack, on the other hand, criticises socialists who advocate carbon capture and storage schemes (CCS). He targets them for substituting technological solutions for the need to organise the working class into a political party.

What, therefore, is a solution that both ends the catastrophe and assists the process of workers forming a collective movement to oppose and overthrow capitalism? The following is an attempt to give a tentative answer. Put succinctly, this is for Marxists to support workers to devise a socialist plan to end both climate change and its cause - capitalist accumulation. Such a plan applies globally; is transitional to a socialist world of abundant, clean energy; and operates on a democratic basis - workers electing managers and administrators, subjecting them to instant recall, and paying them an average wage.

The global creation and application of a socialist plan is necessary because fossil fuel and financial companies operate transnationally. Moreover, the effects of the catastrophe apply across borders. Socialists want to avoid being associated with what Jack calls “the ruinous industrial practices” of the former Soviet Union. As he observes, these resulted in a series of environmental and social disasters. If thinkers such as Hillel Ticktin are correct, these disasters were not the outcomes of socialist planning. Targets were set, but there was no planning. Nor could there be in a backward, isolated country that oppressed workers.

Under the Stalinist system, workers had less control over production than within capitalism. This is one important reason why a socialist plan to end the climate catastrophe entails the democratic control of the workforce. Here we can distinguish nationalising the production of clean energy from bringing it under the social control of the producers. The former allows for the continued existence of capital accumulation and the emergence of a corrupt, bureaucratic elite. The latter involves the election of managers, the abolition of the financial sector, and the creation of a democratic decision process. This would erode the existing division of labour.

A socialist plan for ending the climate catastrophe is transitional to a world where people’s needs for clean energy, water and air are met. This means liberating energy, water and air from the commodity form. These goods’ actual or potential role as capital must be abolished. Calling for free clean energy, water and air is an essential part of the socialist movement and addresses the real needs of workers for a higher standard of living worldwide.

Finally, what role will technology play in a socialist plan? I imagine that workers will debate how to convert presently harmful technology, into useful and environmentally safe machinery. This would be part of the planning process. The proposal that robots and artificial intelligence be used to bring a world of abundance of time, goods and services into being will be discussed. Will that mean that workers support investment into research into CCS? Choosing CCS as an alternative to driving carbon emissions down to zero is clearly irrational. Supposing proven environmentally safe schemes do exist, CCS could only be used alongside - rather than instead of - other political and economic measures for establishing a world of free, clean energy, water and air.

Paul B Smith
Ormskirk

Sustainable

There are several issues with transport policy (‘Clean air as a right’, August 3) and the inability to provide sustainable transport infrastructure.

Car dependency is the main issue, with cars being the most detrimental mode of transport. No technological or physical barriers really exist to a high modal share of walking, cycling, light rail and heavy rail in urban areas in developed countries. People’s journey share on sustainable transport increases everywhere in line with its provision. It is only fossil fuel propaganda, greenwashing (any battery electric vehicles) and half-measures (quite possibly Ulez and LTNs) obstructing real progress.

Tricks they use are the emotive ‘motorist-cyclist’ division, claiming cars benefit the vulnerable and infirm, and dubious metrics. For example, modal comparisons for the impact of journeys without including the impact of manufacture and disposal of vehicles. Or the environmental impact broken down per passenger over a fixed distance, but not factoring in distance travelled.

It is a shame then that Britain (and America) ripped out its town tramways to make room for cars in the 1950s. Sustainable transport may not be revolutionary, but it is certainly not Tory policy either.

Jon D White
email

Zetkin’s legacy

Clara Zetkin was an important and effective socialist leader during the period of the Second International. She was a fierce advocate for women’s rights and was clear and uncompromising in her working class politics; she understood the dangers of bourgeois feminism. However, I’m not sure that the honour and accolades, the quasi-exaltation bestowed upon her by Ben Lewis is warranted (‘Clean breaks and clear principles’, August 3). Parenthetically, although she’s attributed with being one of the major proponents of International Women’s Day (“one of Zetkin’s major achievements”, says BL), it’s less known that the origins of this working class celebration have their roots in New York City, circa 1908.

The greatest revolutionaries have made mistakes, which do not always impact on their revolutionary legacies. In Zetkin’s case I think it’s worth doing a double take on where she fell short vis-à-vis political principle. Lewis questions why Zetkin hasn’t been given the acknowledgement he feels she deserves. He asks: how is it that somebody so admired by her contemporaries has largely been ignored by subsequent history?

She’s been criticised by both liberals and Marxists, etc. If the left has been ambivalent about Zetkin, it is probably because she made consequential choices which didn’t result in a sufficient challenge to Stalin, following the demise of the Bolshevik revolution, and had a complicit role. She might be the representative of Stalinist apologia as much as the “representative of the hundreds of thousands of social democratic workers internationally who remained faithful to the axioms of revolutionary social democracy”, as Lewis asserts.

According to the book edited by Mike Taber and John Riddell, “Zetkin supported Bukharin and Stalin’s harsh reprisals against the United Opposition, going so far as to endorse Trotsky’s expulsion from the Communist Party in November 1927. She did not protest the mass arrests of oppositionists and their banishment to Siberia” (Fighting fascism: how to struggle and how to win).

Leon Trotsky - arguably one of the greatest revolutionaries of the 20th century - should be taken seriously in whatever he wrote or said. About Zetkin he had some choice words. Shall we take a moment to mull over his assessment of Clara Zetkin?

“For a long time Clara Zetkin has been a purely decorative figure on the presidium of the executive committee of the Communist International. This cruel characterisation might not have been necessary if Zetkin did not serve as a pathetic cloak for the methods that not only compromise her, but also bring the greatest injury to the cause of the international proletariat. Zetkin’s strength was always her temperament. She never had any independence of thought.

“During 1923, Zetkin showed all the traits of a good old social democrat: she understood neither the sharp change in the situation nor the necessity for a bold change in policy. In the main, Zetkin takes no part in deciding questions” (‘Who is leading the Comintern today?’, 1929).

Notwithstanding everything, her historic speech to the German Reichstag in 1932 is a magnificent event in working class history.

We, the ordinary philosophers du jour, with the help of various professional Marxist historians and philosophers, have the final call in determining the legacy of Clara Zetkin based on her actions - not Leon Trotsky, not a few poetic words by Louis Aragon cited in the article (albeit one of my favourite poets), or the author’s attempts at idealisation and romanticisation.

Zetkin’s place in history should be seen without tendentious, rose-coloured glasses, so her socialist accomplishments can be realistically measured.

GG
USA

Confusion

In reply to comrade Peter Manson (Letters, August 3) I would like to point out that Lenin’s definition of dictatorship as rule untrammelled by any law is no different from my referring to this as “lawless rule”. “Untrammelled by any law” or “lawless rule” is exactly the same thing, although I may not have made this sufficiently clear, thus leading comrade Manson to misinterpret what I was aiming to convey.

The comrade correctly points out examples of dictators - eg, Napoleon and Hitler - who passed laws to bolster their respective regimes. However, the definition of dictatorship provided by Lenin, which I agree with, is not that dictatorships don’t pass laws, but are not bound by any law. That is the essential difference between a dictatorship and a democracy.

When communists misunderstand what dictatorship actually means, it’s not personal. It is a mistake shared by every single communist (including myself in the past) who have been misled - and that includes Marx himself, who went on to mislead communists over this issue in the period after the Communist manifesto. The manifesto nowhere mentions the term, ‘dictatorship’, but speaks of winning the battle for democracy, which logically prepares the ground for democratic socialism.

Communists have been misled about the meaning of the term ‘dictatorship’, which they mistakenly use to describe working class, socialist rule. Comrade Manson correctly tells us that, as long as social classes continue to exist, governments of any class will impose measures to limit the power of the enemy class. This is very true, but has little to do with the discussion about dictatorship. We don’t need a dictatorship to protect socialism, apart from in a serious temporary emergency. This is how it was used in the time of the Roman Republic before Caesar.

Dictatorships can and do pass laws, but they are not bound by any law. The Soviet Union is a good example. The 1936 constitution was for democratic socialism, which was in complete contradiction to the totalitarian direction taken by Leninism after the suppression of factions in the Bolshevik Party in 1921 - and later taken to extremes by Stalin and co. The execution of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, and the murder of Trotsky, who supported Leninist totalitarianism until he lost power, was illegal under the Soviet constitution, which is why they had to be framed up. Why did these murders occur? One reason is because the regime was a dictatorship, which is not bound by any law.

We need to learn from the collapse of communist rule in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe rather than imagining that we can bring Leninism to power in the advanced capitalist countries. Democracy can take different forms, but the essence remains the same: the freedom to criticise our leaders and hold them to account, something which is anathema to all dictatorships. The most important political choice facing communists is that between Marx’s dictatorship theory and democratic socialism. We need to stop confusing dictatorship with coercion, the latter being the main function of the state, regardless of its class nature.

Tony Clark
For Democratic Socialism

Neo-Nazi Ukraine

“Someone wants to kill you, to rob you, and you will be next!”

You are being addressed by Derzhava, a Ukrainian political party banned by the neo-Nazi government of Zelensky. Most of the media lies and hides from you the fact that your government openly supports Zelensky’s fascists, openly helps neo-Nazis and actually preaches fascism itself, directing efforts to exterminate as many people as possible.

The political scientist, Lawrence W Britt, outlined 14 signs of fascism:

1 A strong manifestation of nationalism; 2 Contempt for human rights; 3 Search for scapegoats; 4 The supremacy of the military; 5 Rampant sexism; 6 Controlled mass media; 7 Obsession with national security; 8 Religion and the ruling elite tied together; 9 Protection of corporate power;10 Suppression of workers’ associations; 11 Disdain for intellectuals and art; 12 Obsession with crime and punishment; 13 Rampant cronyism and corruption; 14 Fraudulent elections.

From this list, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi government put all 14 positions into its service. Those who do not agree with this face assassination on the street or death in prison dungeons. Prisons in Ukraine are overflowing with political prisoners persecuted for dissent.

The Ukrainian neo-Nazi government operates under the leadership of world imperialism, led by the USA and Nato. US imperialism, in its deepest economic crisis, organised Ukrainian fascism in order to maintain and expand its hegemony by war. Unfortunately, many people live in countries whose governments, acting in the selfish interests of the ruling elites, support Nato. By paying taxes to such a government, people unfortunately are forced to support fascism. You can’t keep silent about it. You can’t turn a blind eye to it.

The price of silence and support for Nato fascism is high: worsening living conditions and cutback of medical services leading to impoverishment and sickness, and the inevitable shortening of the lifespan of people in the Nato countries.

A small bunch of traitors in the governments of different countries support Nato, with the aim of furthering the unhindered robbery of their own people. Every day they brazenly take away the surplus value and value added from each working hour of a working person (labourer, worker, employee, policeman, doctor, lawyer, teacher, military man), take one part of the stolen money to enrich themselves and give the rest to Nato to continue the plunder and murder.

US imperialism, which supports the puppet Ukrainian neo-Nazis, continues to pump them full of weapons to prolong the bloodshed and the mass resettlement and extermination of the people in Ukraine.

But this is not enough for traitors and US imperialists. They are steadily leading people like a herd to the slaughter, having already launched weapons of mass destruction in the form of cluster munitions and nuclear shells with depleted uranium. They’ve been helping Ukraine create a dirty bomb. They even want to blow up nuclear power plants and bring the war in Ukraine into a nuclear phase.

IUAFS
email

George Shaw

Very sorry to bring you the sad news of the death of our dear comrade, George Shaw, at the age of 87.

Born in November 1936, he grew into a young man interested in engineering. During his years in the car industry, he became a Labour Party member, a militant trade unionist and a Trotskyist. From 1975 or so, he moved to London, settling in Wembley. He joined the Brent Trades Council, supported the Grunwick workers and helped the Kilburn Unemployed Working Group in their many campaigns against inhuman treatment by the Department for Work and Pensions.

George moved to Barnet in more recent years, where he died on July 27 - he represented Unite on the Barnet Trades Council. And, as a Labour Party member, he defended the comrades of Labour Against the Witchhunt: he repudiated the fraudulent conflation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.

As a Republican, George helped present the thesis by Bruno Leipold, Citizen Marx: the relationship between Karl Marx and republicanism. In the last period, he joined the International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity front, where he denounced Nato as the warmonger that uses Ukraine as a platform for its war on Russia, China and their allies.

George’s communist confidence in humanity lives on through the continuation of our struggle for justice and equality without which there will never be peace.

Marie Lynam
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