17.10.2024

Wrong and right war politics

Escalation, Storm Shadows and the danger of nuclear war between Russia and Nato should not be dismissed as a diversion, as unnecessary and dull. Jack Conrad replies to critics and welcomes a recent development

Last week we carried a letter from Carla Roberts.¹ She is not quite alone in her views; there is, in our ranks, at least one other critic of the statement issued by our Provisional Central Committee on the latest developments and dangers of escalation in the Russo-Ukraine war.² However, because comrade Roberts has taken the lead and gone public, the following remarks will mainly concentrate on what she has to say.

For a start, the comrade complains about the statement not being a statement. It is apparently a long or “overlong article”. Statements, you see, “should be short and sharp, and concentrate on the political principles”. Prescriptive, to say the least.

In standard English the word, ‘statement’, in fact carries no special meaning whatsoever, when it comes to length. A ‘statement’ is meant to be a “definite or clear expression of something in speech or writing”. Put another way, something like a ‘declaration’, an ‘expression of views or facts’, an ‘affirmation’, a ‘proclamation’, an ‘explanation’, a ‘presentation’, or a ‘report’. You can also have an artistic statement, a fashion statement and a bank statement … the latter being of any length depending on the number of financial transactions.

Our ‘Establishing a principled left’ statement is therefore, er, a statement. Besides political principles it contains explanations, views, facts and warnings. What about length? Coming in at just a tad over 1,900 words it is, certainly in Weekly Worker terms neither long nor “overlong”. It took up a page and was accompanied by a three column picture of a Ukrainian tank. But frankly, if 19,000 words were necessary to convey our collective message, that would in itself be no problem.

No property rights

Comrade Roberts says that she was “the person who at the last aggregate of the CPGB proposed drafting a statement on the war in Ukraine in order to seek closer cooperation with others on the left”. She definitely proposed issuing a statement and this suggestion was readily accepted by myself. When comrade Tam Dean Burn asked why we would want to issue a statement at this precise moment in time, I did not, however, reply that we wanted to “seek closer cooperation with others on the left”. Instead I referred to my aggregate opening.

Here I stressed the danger of escalation, the symbolic importance of British Storm Shadows, the danger of a wider (including a nuclear) war, the strategic aims of US imperialism to reduce Russia to a neo-colony, or a series of neo-colonies, with a view to strangling China. I also dealt, in the opening, with the necessity of genuine socialists and communists “cementing principled unity” and towards that end drawing clear lines of demarcation against social-imperialists, against social-pacifists and against centrists. Finally, I noted the criminal silence over Ukraine, when it came to certain sections of the left.

Either way, it needs to be understood that, whatever is in the head of a particular proposer, those authorised to action any such proposition can do with it as they see fit - as long as they are ultimately accountable. Proposers, especially when it comes to a passing verbal suggestion, do not exercise property rights.

Clearly, comrade Roberts looked at our statement and did not find what she wanted. With hindsight she would have had us “delete, as a minimum” formulations 1-10 and formulation 19. Leaving aside formulation 19 for the moment, this would “mean”, according to her, that “the reader would not have to wade through all sorts of paragraphs about this or that weapons system”. Yes, I am sure that there are some strange folk who find the idea that there “is a real danger of escalation in Ukraine and the possibility of war between Russia and Nato” a total bore (formulation 1). Though, I must admit, that the people who I come across in everyday life are really concerned - terrified even - by the prospect.

Obviously, the same blasé judgement is made, when it comes to our highlighting the “strong position” agreed by Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer, “which everybody takes as reference to British Storm Shadows - and other Nato-supplied missiles that Volodymyr Zelensky wants to use to strike into the territory of the Russian Federation” (formulation 2). And how “Putin has warned that, if this happens”, it would mean that “Nato would be at war with Russia” (formulation 3).

All comrade Roberts sees is a lot of tiresome stuff and nonsense that ought to be hacked away like so much dead wood. But formulations 1-10 matter. It is why the PCC issued the statement. There is after all ominous Kremlin talk of “reducing Kyiv to a “giant melted spot” … and, as we said, “this is sabre-rattling, perhaps - till the moment when it is not”. So we take the danger of escalation seriously, Storm Shadow being a ‘red line’ symbol of this phasing into World War III (formulations 7-10). The same goes for weaponising the nuclear facilities in Ukraine and Russia, and potentially covering the entire region in deadly radioactive fallout (formulations 5 and 6).

Additions

Having complained about the statement being “overlong”, comrade Roberts wants to introduce some additional text. There are what she sees as puzzling “omissions”. Ever since she “joined the CPGB some 25 years ago”, she writes, “the organisation has distinguished itself by stressing the need for a politically independent, working class position in a war between two reactionary sides”. Actually, we would insist upon a “politically independent, working class position” in any war, such as a national liberation war, which we support.

That aside, comrade Roberts accuses the PCC of omitting - that is, abandoning - the “concept of revolutionary defeatism” and the slogan, “The main enemy is at home”. We have replied, as is clear from her letter, that we should not fetishise particular phrases, slogans or formulations. In an earlier exchange she complained that the words, “revolutionary defeatism” and “the main enemy”, had been dropped or betrayed by the PCC. Now we only have the “concept” … progress, but only of a sort.

Well in all my years writing on the question of war in the Weekly Worker, and before that in The Leninist, I must admit that I have never felt under any obligation to use these exact words in each and every article (or speech or resolution). I am not going to the bother of checking. I simply know that this is the case. So readers can rest assured that the PCC has not gone over to social-pacifism on the quiet with our ‘Establishing a principled left’ statement. Frankly, though, the suggestion is risible.

While our statement did not include this or that exact combination of words wanted by comrade Roberts, it does close with this resounding declaration:

Clear lines of demarcation must be drawn. This is the necessary condition for developing the political consciousness of the advanced section of the working class and then taking the struggle of the broad masses from the narrow routine of trade unionism and economics to the level of high politics and thereby the perspective of turning what is a war between reactionary capitalist powers into a civil war - a revolution - for democracy, socialism and communism (emphasis added).

For anyone reasonably well versed in the ABCs of political language, this is simply another way of presenting the “concept” of revolutionary defeatism and the slogan, “The main enemy is at home”. You can agree, or disagree, with what is being said, but there can be no mistaking what is being said.

It is worth noting too that I have written, on a whole number of occasions, about how in Russia, following the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks, first under the leadership of Lev Kamenev and Joseph Stalin, then under Lenin, dropped revolutionary defeatism. All of this is, of course, very well known. Hal Draper wrote a thorough-going study on the question back in the mid-1950s.³

Moreover, we recently published an excellent eight-page supplement penned by Lars T Lih, where he made the exact same point. As soon as Lenin “arrived back in Russia, he understood that any reluctance to disavow the hostile image of the Bolsheviks as defeatist semi-saboteurs would be political suicide”.

Yes, Kamenev and Stalin had already argued that ‘Down with the war!’ should be discarded as a campaign slogan. Did this argument offend or infuriate Lenin, asks Lars? No, in fact, Lenin went out of his way to endorse it:

The slogan, ‘Down with the war!’, is correct, of course, but it does not take into account the specific nature of the task of the present moment and the necessity of approaching the broad masses of the people in a different way. It reminds me of the slogan, ‘Down with the tsar!’ with which the inexperienced agitator of the ‘good old days’ went simply and directly to the countryside - and got a beating for his pains.⁴

So there was no chasm between Lenin and his lieutenants, as alleged by Trotskyite dogmatists and bourgeois academics alike. The reality is much more straightforward. Kamenev and Stalin grasped the “central realities of the post-February situation” and proposed a mass campaign based “solidly on the existing Bolshevik programme”, While not necessarily agreeing with every detail, Lenin had no reason to be “scandalised” by their efforts. On the contrary, he explicitly endorsed their rejection of “anarchist methods” and their search for a more effective slogan.⁵

Revolutionary defeatism was a perfectly serviceable weapon for inter-factional disputes and struggles in exile circles. However, slogans such as ‘Down with the war’ did not go down well amongst the masses, not least rank-and-file soldiers and sailors. They took revolutionary defeatism to be siding with Germany - that and an attempt to sabotage the war effort. Hence, instead of revolutionary defeatism the Bolsheviks fashioned popular demands, such as ‘Peace without annexations’ and ‘Publish the secret treaties’. They proved to be brilliantly effective, as proven by Bolshevik majorities in elections to the workers’ and soldiers’ soviets during the summer and autumn of 1917.

Fetishism puzzle

Comrade Roberts defends herself from charges of “fetishism with words” by claiming to be puzzled: “Have we not fought tooth and nail to keep the name ‘CPGB’ alive?” “Is that fetishism?”, we are innocently asked.

Well, for my part, I very much like the CPGB name. It links us with the party founded in 1920 and before that the Communist Party of the Marx-Engels manifesto. Taking the name is, or could be, a real gain for the principled left, if the gumption was there. We did, I believe, a real service by rescuing the name from the Eurocommunist liquidators and keeping it from the grubby hands of the Morning Star clique.

However, no, we do not fetishise the name. Back in 2001 we published a little booklet, Towards a Socialist Alliance party.⁶ The entire one-thousand print run quickly sold out and we produced a second, revised, edition in the same year. What aim did we have? Our aim was announced loud and clear on the front cover. We wanted to unite the “six principal” organisations of the Socialist Alliance - SWP, SPEW, AWL, ISG, Workers Power and the CPGB - into a Socialist Alliance party. True, we would have probably bided our time and proposed, at some opportune moment, that together we call ourselves Communist Party of Great Britain.

We successfully defeated hiving off Wales from the Socialist Alliance (as sought by the SWP, ISG and others, who enthusiastically promote petty nationalism). We also did our best to reach out to the Scottish Socialist Alliance/Party. Not with the intention of bringing about some rotten compromise. No, our aim was to split internationalists from nationalists and organise on the basis of the ‘one state, one party’ principle.

Not that we would have insisted upon the CPGB name. To have done that would be stupid, unprincipled and would indeed fetishise what is, after all, a mere name.

“Also missing”, announces a horrified comrade Roberts, “is the necessity of establishing a workers’ militia - another long-established key weapon in the CPGB’s propaganda arsenal”. A necessary correction: our main programmatic demand here is for the “formation of a popular militia.” A workers’ militia might be a step in that direction, but what we are after is the “dissolution of the standing army and the establishment of a popular militia under democratic control”.⁷

I am sure that there are many other demands, formulations and aims missing from the PCC’s statement. But the implication is that we have somehow abandoned our established principles. Suffice to say, any such suggestion is entirely misplaced.

Anyone looking over the archives of the Weekly Worker will find not only references to the popular militia demand peppering numerous articles. There have been entire articles devoted to that one subject alone.⁸ Perhaps, though, if we had included the demand for a people’s militia in the statement, comrade Roberts would have objected that this constitutes a barrier to left unity and cosy cooperation. Unfair? Well, maybe.

More to the point, though, when it comes to assessing a possible Russia-Nato war and phasing into World War III, the demand for a popular militia is tangential. If the world’s standing armies have been dissolved and replaced by “popular militia[s] under democratic control”, then big-power (even small-power) conflicts become much, much more difficult, though not impossible. But, to state the obvious, that is not the case.

If the popular militia demand had been included in the statement, no-one on the PCC would have raised the slightest objection. But its non-inclusion takes nothing away from the main thrust of the argument and certainly carries no political significance whatsoever.

Now we come not to fetishising the words, ‘revolutionary defeatism’: rather comrade Roberts failure to understand what “we actually mean by revolutionary defeatism” (my emphasis). She fleshes out what she actually means, though, by saying that it involves support for “strikes, boycotts and actions by trade unions to disrupt the military supply chain”. Elsewhere she has written about “sabotage”.

Orthodox tradition

It would be silly to insist on one meaning when it comes to revolutionary defeatism … and almost anything else for that matter. So I willingly grant that what pacifists of many kinds, anarchists and syndicalists too, mean by revolutionary defeatism is “strikes, boycotts and actions by trade unions to disrupt the military supply chain”.

However, in terms of politics, I see myself standing in the tradition of the orthodox Marxism of the Second International, most consistently and effectively upheld throughout World War I by the RSDLP (Bolsheviks). And, of course, as everyone knows, they resolutely opposed the suggestion of organising a “general strike against the war”. Pacifist nonsense, as far as a blunt talking Lenin was concerned.

For them revolutionary defeatism meant just that - turning what was an inter-imperialist war into a civil war - a revolution - for democracy, socialism and communism. Against leftist and rightist opponents, correcting the misconceptions of honest friends too, the Bolsheviks explained time and again that preferring the victory of the Central Powers, the Central Empires, over victory for tsarist Russia did not mean wanting victory of Hohenzollern Germany, Habsburg Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey. Though, from the point of view of the workers’ movement in Russia that would, on balance, be a “lesser evil” compared with a victory for tsarist Russia.

Most certainly, however, their revolutionary defeatism did not mean “strikes, boycotts and actions by trade unions to disrupt the military supply chain”, let alone blowing up roads, bridges and railway lines. Lenin is quite explicit: “We do not sabotage the war, but we struggle against chauvinism ... It would also be erroneous … to appeal for individual acts of firing at officers.”⁹

Doubtless, though, that was the charge of the sworn enemies of Bolshevism … they are filthy German agents who want to disrupt the “supply chain” to the front by agitating against the war on the home front and stirring up discontent amongst the ranks.

I have already referred to how neither Lenin nor the Bolsheviks treated revolutionary defeatism as a shibboleth. After February they remained opposed to the defencists, but, as argued, Lenin insisted - and he provided written evidence - they “were not defeatists”.¹⁰ The Bolsheviks opposed calling for mutinies, soldiers abandoning their posts and heading off back to their village and all attempts to demoralise the army. It was, said the Bolsheviks, the right Mensheviks and Right Socialist Revolutionaries heading the Provisional government who were doing just that: demoralising the army by their woeful mismanagement of the war effort and continued robber alliance with Anglo-French imperialism.

It is to draw sharp lines of demarcation against social-imperialism, social-pacifism and centrism that we put forward ‘revolutionary defeatism’ as a concept, as a phrase in my string of ‘Notes on the war’ articles … and going back, before that title was adopted, to my first Ukraine war article, ‘Here we stand’ in March 2022.¹¹

Not that we are hung-up about ‘revolutionary defeatism’. We do not consider it a timeless formula, something akin to holding aloft a cross and throwing holy water at the capitalist vampire.

Lastly, the comrade complains that CPGB members “should at least have had a chance to see and amend” the statement before it was published. “We are, after all”, she says, “not interested in building a ‘follow the leadership’ sect … We want to build a real Communist Party, with fully engaged and active members.” Indeed we do. But our statement was signed by the PCC, not a CPGB aggregate. It came about after a longish aggregate report by myself and a full discussion. There were no political disagreements of any substance.

No less to the point. The statement was written and published, knowing full well that it was time-limited, would soon be left behind by fast-moving events, would become a historical document to refer back to, but not a weapon to be deployed for years to come. Storm Shadow and other such weapons might get the go-ahead any time now. We are also fast approaching November 5. Everything regarding Ukraine will almost certainly change if Donald Trump becomes the 47th US president.

To have waited till the next membership aggregate in late October, and for the ‘cut this and add that’ amendments from comrade Roberts, the whole thing - even if she got her way - could all too easily become hopelessly dated by the time we published it in the Weekly Worker (November 7: ie, two days after polls close in the US).

The PCC is elected to speak on behalf of the organisation as a whole. Those are our agreed rules and democratic method of operation. If anything, we were too slow in agreeing the statement. Comrades proposed various amendments to the initial draft, however, and we had to delay and delay again because of various other commitments. Doubtless the statement does not flow wonderfully. It is no work of art - in some respects it resembles a camel (a horse designed by a committee). But to have delayed publication still further would have been mistaken.

Formulation 19

What about formulation 19, the other target of comrade Roberts? It reads in full:

Throughout the entire current conflict, the US and its allies have sought to strike a balance between giving Ukraine enough weapons to resist Russia, on the one hand, and not doing anything too overtly provocative, on the other. Naturally this has infuriated the Zelensky regime … and its social-imperialist cheerleaders. They demand “full sanctions” against Russia (ie, siege warfare), claim that the Putin regime is “attacking democracy globally” and that Ukraine should get all the “arms necessary to liberate the country, from wherever possible and without conditions”. Effectively this ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’ line poses a ‘guns or butter’ choice in Europe, with the social-imperialists demanding guns: ie, supplying Ukraine with massively increased supplies of the most up-to-date fighter aircraft, tanks and missiles.

Does comrade Roberts doubt this assessment of the US and its allies? Why refrain from condemning the complete surrender of the social-imperialists before the dominant western narrative? Why not use the ‘guns or butter’ line against them? All this was left unexplained in her letter (and elsewhere, for that matter). Perhaps she fears that readers will find this stuff ever so boring too.

When I made these very points, encapsulated in formulation 19, in my aggregate opening, no-one, including comrade Roberts, raised any objection. With the Labour government committed to raising arms spending from 2.32% of GNP to 2.5% over the course of its first term … and with a generous slice of this going to ‘Arm, arm, arm Ukraine’ it surely matters.

Would it be unfair to blame the social-imperialists for the end to winter fuel payments to pensioners, the expected national insurance hike, the rise in alcohol duties, etc? No, it would be perfectly fair. And that is exactly what we shall do.

Where do we go from here? I would suggest a rigorous course of study, study, study. We are planning to hold our next (winter) online Communist University on the theme of war. Over the course of a long weekend in January 2025 we intend to explore the history, the issues … including our real and imagined differences.

Positive

By way of conclusion, it is worth referring to a recent development on the left. In my last ‘Notes on the war’ article, albeit in a footnote, I asked about the position of RS21 - the SWP breakaway - when it came to the Russo-Ukraine war. It is, after all, no longer listed as an official affiliate to Chris Ford’s dreadful social-imperialist Ukraine Solidarity Campaign.

Well, we now know why (at least in part). Not only has this still Cliffite organisation disaffiliated from the blue and yellow USC: it has, at last, moved in the direction of principled politics. Proposed by Steven R, Alfie H, Andreas C, Harry H, Danny B and Callum F, RS21’s ‘All Member Assembly’ (ie, aggregate) meeting on September 15 2024 agreed a resolution that clearly parallels our position. Naturally, we have all manner of differences; nonetheless the new line is entirely positive.

I am only going to quote the section on Ukraine (the first section is on Palestine and ‘Israel’ - a “Zionist entity” whose official name the comrades dare not speak):

In Ukraine there is a genuine risk, for the first time in decades, of direct conflict between great powers armed with nuclear weapons … the Ukrainian war effort is financed and armed by the dominant imperialist alliance, organised in Nato.

What are the US war aims? (a) “consolidate” domination of the US-led order; (b) “provide an outlet for arms sales”; (c) “dominate the economy of Ukraine”; (d) ”destabilise and divide the Russian Federation; (e) “ensure American hegemony over the supply of gas to Europe; (f) “prevent the fracturing of Nato”.

Almost inevitably, given their Cliffite antecedents, the RS21 comrades characterise Russia as an “imperialist power” traditionally dominating the region and seeking to recover power through victory in Ukraine. We have discussed and can further discuss what constitutes imperialism in future articles. Nonetheless, the comrades are right when they say that they “stand with the Russian peace movement”.

We do not need to reproduce here the supporting argument. Instead, we shall jump to the conclusion: “During the course of the war it has become clearer that the inter-imperialist aspect of it is predominant in relation to the struggle of Ukrainians against occupation.” In all honesty, comrades, this was crystal-clear from the very get-go. Nonetheless, the comrades are right when they say that, as “socialists in Britain”, pursuit of this war “is an assault on the working class” and “must be opposed”.

This passage is also worth quoting:

… regardless of the political character of the enemies of British capitalism abroad, it is the duty of socialists in Britain to fight the infernal imperialists at home, and to work unceasingly for their defeat, and the defeat of their allies, by any means necessary. This means calling for the British withdrawal from Nato and the disbandment of Nato … Socialists who for whatever reason fail to do this, and call for arms to the allies of the imperialists, whether in Palestine, Ukraine, or anywhere else on earth, are aligning themselves with the imperial objectives of the British state … The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign clearly falls under this designation and should be condemned. Their motions should be opposed or modified within trade unions, and they should be challenged on their objectively pro-imperialist politics in every situation. It was correct of RS21 to disaffiliate, and comrades within the organisation should not participate within the campaign.

Our web editors should put the entire RS21 resolution up online. As far as I am aware, at least at the time of my writing this article, RS21 has unfortunately not done this itself.

Can we claim credit for what is undoubtedly a rebellion against what was previously a social-imperialist position? Perhaps a little, perhaps a lot. But claiming credit matters nothing. What is important is direction: away from social-imperialism and towards a principled communist position. That is most welcome news.

1. ‘Slogan fetish’, Letters, October 10 2024: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1510/letters.↩︎

2. ‘Establishing a principled left’, October 3 2024: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1509/establishing-a-principled-left.↩︎

3. H Draper The myth of Lenin’s ‘revolutionary defeatism - see www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1953/defeat/index.htm.↩︎

4. This passage comes from Lenin’s ‘Tasks of the proletariat in our revolution’ CW Vol 24, Moscow 1977, pp65-92.↩︎

5. LT Lih, ‘A hundred years is enough’ Weekly Worker September 19 2024: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1507/a-hundred-years-is-enough.↩︎

6. J Conrad Towards a Socialist Alliance party London 2001.↩︎

7. CPGB Draft programme London 2023, p32.↩︎

8. Perhaps the most recent being J Conrad, ‘Sir Patrick Sanders’ citizen army’ Weekly Worker February 1 2024: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1476/sir-patrick-sanders-citizen-army.↩︎

9. VI Lenin CW Vol 35, Moscow 1977, p163.↩︎

10. VI Lenin CW Vol 27, Moscow 1977, p193.↩︎

11. J Conrad, ‘Here we stand’ Weekly Worker March 3 2022: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1385/here-we-stand.↩︎