Letters

Twin trick unity

I’m afraid Mike Macnair’s response article really was one of his poorer efforts (‘Upfront, sharp and personal’, November 30). I don’t think anyone would agree that he actually engaged with many of the issues which have been raised - plus, he either basically misunderstands what has been said or blatantly misrepresents them. Overall, it was a very good illustration of why the Weekly Worker Group (WWG) is destined to remain a very small sect and to make zero contribution to either socialist or communist unity.

I do apologise if in my two letters on the subject I have failed to adequately distinguish between a socialist party (and socialist unity) and a Communist Party (and communist unity). I do not have the luxury of multi-page articles and thousands of words to go into any great detail.

The failure to understand the basic differences between a socialist party and a communist party is one of the principal failings of the WWG. It has led to a whole series of bitterly sectarian entryist adventures, including within the Socialist Labour Party, Socialist Alliance, Labour Party, Left Unity, etc. All ended in failure and left the WWG even more sectarian and isolated because of its conduct and behaviour.

One of the principal reasons has been the WWG’s attempt each time, insofar as it had any political or organisational clout, to try and convert the host party or organisation into a communist party, when the vast majority of their members either did not identify as communists and/or fundamentally disagreed with the organisational model and discipline of a classic communist party. Having tried and failed each time, it then either got itself expelled or chose to break away.

The only strategic conception the WWG has ever got roughly right is in relation to the Labour Party where its aim of “transforming the Labour Party into united front of a special kind, open to affiliation by all working class and socialist organisations” is actually broadly in line with what communists have programmatically advocated since 1951.

I think there are two main issues, which are related to each other and the answers to which can help point the way forward. One: where do we think is the basic raw material from which we can identify partisans, activists and leaders of the broad working class and seek to develop as and ideally recruit as communists to a genuine Communist Party? Two: the extreme degree of fragmentation on the socialist left and the competitiveness, if not downright hostility (hatred even), between the socialist and left groups, is deeply damaging to any prospect of actually achieving socialism in this country.

Surely all that combined energy, talent, experience, resource and enthusiasm which (even if only pooled to a certain degree) could be better organised and focused on actually taking the fight to the enemy, and really attempting to engage with broader layers of our class - as opposed to merely preaching to their existing ‘cadres’ and being dedicated to maintaining sectarian purity and separateness.

Advocating a mass socialist party which brings together the majority of socialist and communist parties, groups and individuals, and which is genuinely grounded and based in the real labour movement, in workplaces and communities, could be a necessary first step to overcoming the current fragmentation of the socialist left, and itself help build and develop the mass unity of the working class, as well as class and socialist consciousness within it.

It should be obvious that any such formation would obviously not be a Labour Party mark two. It would look extremely similar to the WWG’s own strategic objective of “a transformed Labour Party as a united front of the working class”. It would also obviously not be a Communist Party, as it would not be organised on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, on an agreed communist programme, or on democratic centralism.

Building such a mass labour movement formation is different from the independent need to build the Communist Party and communist unity - but they are not in contradiction either. Marxists, after all, see socialism as the first stage of communism after the overthrow of capitalism, which will transition over time to full communism, especially as socialist revolution spreads around the world.

I have been a communist most of my life and will be one until the day I die. I believe and support the concept of a communist party and believe that such a party is essential to the carrying out of a genuine socialist revolution. Others will have different views and I genuinely respect those. One can argue that building the Communist Party is also integral to building wider socialist and labour movement unity.

How can the concepts of socialist unity and communist unity relate to each other? The original Communist Party of Great Britain and its successor, the Communist Party of Britain, have had continuous programmatic aims since 1951 for the Communist Party to affiliate to the Labour Party - providing Labour remained the principal federal mass party of the organised working class, and the CP was able to retain its independent and programmatic identity within it. While rightly being critical of the sectarian nature and conduct of many of the ultra-left groups, the CP has always recognised there are good socialists within them and in the wider movement.

Those who believe in a politics and concept of a Communist Party would be able to argue our case, with the evidence and experience of struggle, within the democratic framework of such a federal working class party (proponents of alternative socialist politics, organisational forms and methods likewise). Theory, practice and experience will determine the outcome.

There are at least two ways of building communist unity and the Communist Party. One is for individuals or groups to join an existing Communist Party, agreeing to accept the current party programme and its organisational basis, including democratic centralism (and, no, factions are not compatible with democratic centralism). The second is for existing parties and groups to agree to merge on the basis of an agreed set of principles, potentially a new programme, and, obviously, all agreeing to abide by the democracy and basis of the new organisation.

Jack Conrad’s furious (and frankly hilarious) rant about Wrack and McMahon having not first approached the WWG (‘Getting touch’. October 19) in their quest for a mass socialist/communist party is extremely revealing in its complete lack of grasp of reality or any sense of self-awareness. It’s as if Conrad has looked at his WWG (it is most definitely ‘his’) through a microscope, and mistook a pinhead for a mountain.

Wrack and McMahon, in advocating a mass socialist party of tens of thousands, bringing together many of the existing left, should be commended for their ambition and challenge to all of us. Conrad, having considerably less than thousands in his group, was left exposed and throwing a tantrum at feeling slighted.

Mike Macnair’s formulation on whether “the CPGB-PCC faction can be the only organisational sieve or funnel for a future Communist Party” appears slightly more credible and acknowledging of concrete reality: “Other organisations would be in a much stronger position to take the sort of initiatives that would lead to a future communist party” (‘Unity based on solid principles’, November 2).

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Civility, please

I have read ‘Upfront, sharp and personal’ more than once to see if I understand it correctly. Are communists seriously advocating against civility? If so, what does this imply is acceptable: personal attacks, rudeness, insults?

I am unconvinced this is an appropriate response to opponents, let alone anyone else, as a means to achieve socialism. It isn’t revolutionary, rigorous debate or enforcing discipline. It was bad when Lenin did it and it was bad when Marx did it. It isn’t what Marx meant when he advocated “ruthless criticism of all that exists - ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be”.

Workers suffer enough at work and those willing and able to spare precious time in the cause of socialism I would advise to run a mile away from any groups or individual openly and unashamedly defending incivility.

Jon D White
email

Ceasefire

The resumption of hostilities in the Gaza Strip ought to spur all people of goodwill to add their voices to the demand for a permanent ceasefire.

The United Kingdom is one of the five permanent members of the United Nations security council and has a responsibility to promote and facilitate peace. The government of the country in which we live is instead lending its support to the large-scale violations of international humanitarian law being inflicted upon the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. This is a disgrace that brings shame on all who do not object. In my opinion, all those elected to public office in this country have a moral duty to speak out individually and collectively in favour of a permanent ceasefire and against the UK’s complicity in the war crimes being committed.

On Monday November 27 a full meeting of Oxford city council voted unanimously for a motion asking the council leader to write to Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and a local MP, demanding that they call for an “immediate, permanent ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip. Many other councils have also passed motions calling for a ceasefire, including Liverpool, Sheffield and St Albans. I hope that readers of this letter will contact their local councillors urging their councils to adopt similar motions.

Opinion poll surveys have indicated that a large majority of voters are in favour of a ceasefire. Councils should reflect public opinion on this issue and speak out against a British government that is actually giving diplomatic and military support to a state that is committing war crimes, rather than employing all the means at its disposal to stop those crimes.

John Wake
Harlow

Marginal theory

Paul Demarty’s article, ‘Don’t cry for Milei, Argentina’, is up to his usual excellent standard on the details of the crisis, but short of solutions (November 30). In dissing the Trotskyist theory of permanent revolution he cites the examples of those Trotskyist centrists who have betrayed the revolutionary perspective as evidence that it cannot work. I say it worked in October 1917 and stand with those more consistent Trotskyist currents who have fought for it - including some in Argentina.

I came into opposition with the Cliff Slaughter-led Workers Revolutionary Party before the 1986 split precisely on this issue; Nahuel Moreno was indeed uncritically championing the cause of the nationalist bourgeoisie against the comprador bourgeoisie, as I learned from a Spartacist pamphlet detailing his appalling opportunism (such gross opportunism by Stalin led to the massacre of the Shanghai Soviet in 1927 and the defeat of the Spanish revolution in 1939, to mention a couple). Slaughter wanted to fuse with Moreno, but I made a strong speech at a WRP conference in 1997 denouncing him, Bill Hunter entered the room and spoke to the chair and then announced that Moreno had just died. Everyone looked at me as if I had killed him! (Details are in my WRP explosion book.)

I would also cite the example of those South African Trotskyists who fought for the Workers Charter in the trade unions, as against the Stalinist Freedom Charter. As they wrote in 1991, “The logic of the ANC leadership’s position is quite clear. It is prepared to thoroughly compromise even its own bourgeois democratic programme, the Freedom Charter, to secure a negotiated settlement with the bourgeoisie.”

Many of those comrades are still fighting for the perspective of the permanent revolution. Stalinism’s two-stage revolution theory resulted in South Africa becoming the most unequal country in the world, with the black masses worse off now than under apartheid. Nelson Mandela has his statue in Parliament Square for counterrevolutionary services to British and global imperialism.

The point of the anti-imperialist united front was to operate the transitional method, placing demands on the national bourgeoisie to consistently fight the conflicts with imperialism, which were forced upon them, in order to expose their vacillations and win the mass anti-imperialist base to the only programme that could ultimately defeat global imperialism: socialist revolution spread both regionally and globally - the world revolution of Leninist-Trotskyist-Bolshevik heritage.

Citing, as Paul Demarty does, those who capitulated to the “ayatollahs in Iran in 1979” (the WRP yesterday and today, etc) and the “Sinhalese chauvinists in Sri Lanka” leaves out those principled Trotskyists who fought for the correct perspectives against the ‘socialism in a single country, two-stage revolution’ grovel to the USA in the first place.

Telling us that actually existing Trotskyists “behave in quite the same way as ‘official communists’, with a few marginal exceptions” leaves out the obvious answer: were not those “marginal exceptions” the principled ones, and is not the CPGB theory of extreme democracy via parliament an even more marginal theory?

Gerry Downing
Socialist Fight

Support DPRK!

On November 30 comrade Alejandro Cao De Benós, the president of the Korean Friendship Association (which our Korean Friendship Association UK is part of), was suddenly arrested in Madrid, at the request of the US FBI, and held for a number of hours before being released. Supposedly, he was arrested because he had broken US sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Those sanctions are illegal and have no validity outside the US.

The arrest and detention, as well as the threatened extradition to the US of comrade Alejandro, is most unjust. It is a politically motivated action and part of an intrigue by the deep state of the US and some other countries to destroy the Korean Friendship Association. They want to criminalise support for People’s Korea! It is part of a wider agenda to shut down dissent against the status quo in western countries.

The incident shows how false the so-called ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ advocated by the imperialists and their liberal friends are. Supposedly we live in a ‘democracy’, but those with opinions that are different to the status quo are arrested or kicked out of jobs.

The allegations against comrade Alejandro are completely false. The US is a gangster state and the Spanish government is acting as its puppet. There must be full solidarity with him and the Korean Friendship Association!

Dr Dermot Hudson
Korean Friendship UK

Veganuary

I call on comrades to try being vegan this Veganuary (the month of January!). There is no such thing as a humane slaughterhouse, as anyone who has spent any time in one can attest. The experience for the animals (and workers in them) is anything but.

The suffering of both humans and animals on earth need not be forever.

Tom Taylor
Plymouth