WeeklyWorker

Letters

Trans liberation

Jack Conrad’s response to my letter the previous week, despite coming from a writer I usually hold in such high regard, is a deeply disappointing and a slightly stereotypical response (Letters, August 1).

I did note the brief reference in the CPGB Draft programme to support for trans liberation, yet actually looking through the demands raised reveals nothing that even vaguely relates to us. I cannot emphasise and clarify this enough: while gay and trans liberation are deeply intertwined, there are arenas where they are fundamentally separate and must be dealt with as such. So, in the spirit of following Jack Conrad’s comradely advice to look at what is in the Draft programme, I will engage in a brief exercise of reading through the demands so carefully laid out by him.

The preamble of this section is entirely correct: we have been historically used as scapegoats and forced into the paradigms of capitalist gender. Yet the problem emerges with the closing line: “The working class needs to be mobilised in order to defend and advance sexual freedom.” Absolutely, yet here comes the problem: trans rights are not “sexual freedom”: they are an entirely separate issue. My right to have sordid affairs with other women or marry the woman I love is in no way related to the basic right to get on hormones and transition (which I thankfully am after a four-year struggle).

Looking through the explicit demands of the CPGB’s Draft programme, my statement that you fundamentally fail to address trans issues rings true once more. In the spirit of honesty I will go through each of the demands and critique them in this manner, though in purely political terms I fully support them.

A vital step forward, yet once again who I engage with in sordid affairs is not related to the hormones I’m taking or the medical access to surgery (unless we consider sexual practices or state harassment to cover sexual reassignment surgery, which is a novel definition).

Once again as outlined, the women I marry does not impact my medical transition. I will, however, concede that the support for fertility treatment benefits trans people, and as such I rescind my criticism of this arena. I do try to be a reasonable woman.

I concede this in turn to the CPGB: this will benefit many trans people, as cultural barriers and institutionalised transphobia make the job market a deeply complex and scary arena to wade through.

These two demands are vital. A high proportion of trans people are involved in the sex industry, and their protection is vital and necessary. The defence of sex workers must rest upon their power, as must the defence of all workers.

Yet once again the glaring problem remains, for all that Jack Conrad claims the Draft programme is filled with “opposition to discrimination” and “championing of freedom”, the question that I find myself running head-first into, much like the realisation that I am a woman many years ago, is very simple: What about freedom from discrimination in the medical field, where hormones are gate-kept, and our basic rights denied to us?

What about the freedom for the medical and economic rights that are necessary for us to fulfil the aim of communism and transform us into complete human beings (even if in a perhaps more literal sense than amongst our cis comrades)? Communists know well that claims of freedom mean nothing if not paired with concrete material action, yet where is the step forward for these actions, in this field? It is not within the Draft programme where it would make the most sense. It could just take the form of an insertion of a simple paragraph or even a sentence.

It is not within the resolutions or theses issued by the CPGB. As far as I can tell it is in thin air - or somewhere in the scattered editions of the Weekly Worker. This paper is a vital publication, but, when such a question is scattered across issues for decades, one can hardly find a clear and concise road forward.

If comrades are interested in continuing this debate or engaging with the work of the Revolutionary Communist Organisation in Australia, I would heartily recommend they submit a letter to the RCO’s The Partisan at partisanmagazine@proton.me. We look forward to the debates.

Brunhilda O
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Biblical quotes

If I were to write a very lengthy article for the Weekly Worker which purported to set out the ideological bases of modern-day Nazis and did so through very lengthy quotations from, say, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf over the two pages, I suspect very many readers would smell a very large rat.

I might be accused of, while purporting to be anti-Nazi, surreptitiously smuggling large amounts of Nazi quotes into the Weekly Worker for my own private gratification and also providing gratification for any actual Nazis reading it (hopefully, not likely). They might suggest the Weekly Worker was guilty at the very least of bad taste in carrying so many objectionable quotes.

Yet Moshé Machover, an Israeli, in the name of trying to expose the ideological bases underpinning modern-day Zionism, uses his two-page article to extensively quote blood-curdling and horrifying passages from the Old Testament advocating mass murder and mass destruction of non-Jewish peoples (‘Promise myth as template’, July 25).

I am sure any modern-day Zionist who not only supports the state of Israel, but also the genocidal policies and actions of that state against the Palestinian people, would be very pleased to read such extensive biblical passages apparently justifying the existence of the Jewish state and its inherent genocidal nature. I am sure Mr Machover is very proud of his latest ‘achievement’.

I have previously asked, to no avail, if you are going to carry analytical articles on Palestine, why not “from the Palestinian perspective and, ideally, from those within the secular, Marxist, communist traditions within the Palestinian resistance and national liberation movement, of which there are vast quantities of material available. This would be much more in line with the Weekly Worker’s stated aims of being in favour of Marxism, national liberation and socialism, and an international communist movement” (Letters, May 9).

Relying on Tony Greenstein and Machover as your ‘house experts’ on Palestine is completely bizarre. Greenstein is an appalling individual with appalling views - including the destruction of the Israeli people and nation - and most definitely not a Marxist in any shape or form, and, with such views, no socialist either.

Machover has a very specific sectarian history, displays far too much arrogance in his intellectualism to be a good Marxist or a communist, has complete contempt for the ability of the Palestinian people to liberate themselves, advocating instead some form of mythical ultra-left regional socialist revolution to liberate the poor Palestinians and to be able to offer something tangible enough to satisfy the needs and interests of the Israeli working class.

One can’t help but notice in both Machover’s and the Weekly Worker’s schema for the socialist revolution across Arabia, the Israeli working class has a unique, privileged position. It can choose to remain aloof from a socialist Arabia or, if the deal is attractive enough for them as a class, it might choose to join in. Funny that.

So, why no Palestinian Marxist voice in the Weekly Worker? Do you not know of any? Not know how to contact such writers? Or are you just simply not interested in hearing and publishing the Palestinian perspective?

Just in case anyone wants to throw around the anti-Semitism label, I am not criticising the use of Greenstein and Machover as sole authors on Israel/Palestine because they are Jewish. I believe every people and every individual should have the right to hold and celebrate any religious views they may have - providing, of course, the rights to life and the safety of others are not impinged - and any national or religious cultures they may have. This includes all Jewish people, who must never be subject to discrimination or hostility anywhere they live and work in the world.

I think in the recent debates and discussions carried in the Weekly Worker, the views and analyses put forward by Steve Freeman are by far the most acceptable, and, contrary to the introduction to one of his articles (‘Marching towards what solution?’ May 16), are very much in the Bolshevik tradition and that of the Communist International.

Freeman in that article and elsewhere references Moshé Machover’s correct call for three basic conditions for a just and equitable settlement in the Middle East: equal and comprehensive rights for all individuals living in the Mandate Palestine region; equal national rights for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples; and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Machover then, of course, veers off straight into his ultra-leftist ‘solution’ of an Arabia-wide socialist revolution, putting off any form of liberation for decades, if not forever. Funny that - Freeman incorporates these minimum demands into his specific schema for a federal republic for the Palestine/Israel region.

I think whether any remotely acceptable solution to the Palestine/Israel conflict includes one state or two, federal or centralised, or the degree to which any successor state(s) are able to transcend purely bourgeois categories and move towards socialism, will, as always, depend on class and democratic struggles by the working masses in the region, and their outcomes. Their outcomes and direction will be specifically influenced by the extent they can be led by genuinely secular and Marxist-Leninist currents and formations, especially within the Palestinian resistance and national liberation movement. It would be good to see the Weekly Worker on the side of these.

It is not for people living in Britain - the original colonial and imperialist power - to prescribe specific state configurations or constitutional outcomes for the peoples engaged in struggle for their national liberation, for democracy and equal rights, and, ideally, for socialism.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Mind-controlled

While, unlike John Smithee, I don’t support the ultra-left position of opposing all immigration controls, if Smithee is right about George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain calling for the sinking of boats carrying illegal immigrants by the Royal Navy, this would make Galloway’s party a fascist ‘workers’ party’ (Letters, August 1) Communists would be wrong to call for electoral support for such a party and needlessly splitting the Labour vote.

This also raises again the whole question of the correct attitude of communists. Many with sectarian positions frequently claim that the working class needs to form its own party, when it has already done so. In Britain it’s called the Labour Party. There is no need to form another party of the working class in Britain, as the sects have been trying to do for years. The classic example of which is the Revolutionary Communist Group - and more recently the new RCP.

The fact that the working class party in Britain is presently led by mostly rightwing people isn’t a reason to adopt the sectarian platform that workers need to form a new party. Those communists who have this sectarian position should be consistent and call on the working class to form new, pure trade unions under leftwing leadership. Calling for a new workers’ party is no less absurd, when one already exists. It would be like the Bolsheviks in 1917 calling for setting up new soviets because the ones which already exist are led by the rightwing Mensheviks ...

The task for the left is not the formation of a new workers’ or communist party, which in British conditions is to indulge in sectarian politics - as Lenin recognised when he told communists to join the Labour Party. The task of the British left is to win Labour over to democratic socialism, as part of the process of winning the masses over to socialism. The same process - which would facilitate the growth of a mass communist party in Britain - is identical to the process which would facilitate winning Labour over to democratic socialism. Some communists have correctly rejected the sectarian position on Labour, but still retain the sectarian line that the task is to win it over to ‘Marxism’ instead of democratic socialism.

To those who don’t grasp how the British revolutionary process will play out, this may seem like I am preaching auto-Labour loyalism. But it’s really the recognition that the British road to socialism leads to the demise of the Labour party right wing. The danger to the working class in Britain isn’t the Labour right. The real danger is ultra-left sectarianism.

We face two main tasks today: winning people over to democratic socialism; and building up anti-fascist unity, while exposing the counterrevolutionary, racist narrative of the right.

Finally, I would like to say a few things about the Southport stabbings. The incident has the fingerprint of the deep state all over it, especially coming within weeks of a Labour landslide win in the recent elections. Those who are aware of the deep state and how it operates would have recognised the fingerprint immediately. These types of apparently random killings usually happen in the US, where the deep state has been doing this more often.

They use mind-controlled individuals to carry out assassinations, or random shootings to promote a particular agenda: for instance, the introduction of more anti-terrorist legislation, giving the police more powers, removing a political opponent, and so on. The mind-controlled stooges are then portrayed as weird, or loners, but these hapless individuals would have no clue why they carried out the crime they did. Likewise, the general public will have no clue that the deep state was behind it, nor will the police and most politicians. Researchers have shown something we need to be aware of: the deep state has an army of mind-controlled individuals, which it uses to do its bidding to achieve a certain agenda.

Tony Clark
For Democratic Socialism

Dog shit

Comrades from the Weekly Worker/CPGB have been at Communist University 2024 discussing all things ideological around the defeat of capitalism - maybe somewhat paradoxically, whilst its global elites continued developing ideas around the annihilation of any intentions in that revolutionary direction. They turn a blind eye to the intrinsic oppression, persecutions and even slaughter of a remainder of the world’s workers/toilers for the benefits made available to themselves.

But, hey, what’s not to like about capitalism? Certainly not when irresistibly spanking new ‘eco-friendly’ electric vehicles are there to be plugged in to dubiously renewable energy sources, before setting out on to jam-packed highways for hours alongside of a million courier vans delivering absolute shite for Amazon (amongst other such hideously planet-annihilating outfits). That’s, of course, assuming those motorway-blocking Just Stop Oil protestors won’t continue to behave with such ‘fanatical’ lack of consideration for the general public - or alternatively have been freed from serving those five-to-seven-year jail sentences.

By the way, I’m sorry not to have been at CU 2024 due to nowadays being obliged to treat my body with extra care as a result of ageing. The readers, supporters and members of the WW/CPGB may be egregiously isolated, but are authentic futurists - in stark distinction to those aesthetico-cultural traitors out there.

Sometimes I think I’d prefer to eat dog-shit sandwiches than to accept as ‘normal’ this current era in history, where a large section of citizens don’t seem to see things in that way.

Bruno Kretzschmar
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