Letters

Not Cliffite

It is always gratifying to see our organisation, Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century (RS21), praised in the pages of your eminent publication. However, there are a few points in Jack Conrad’s recent article, ‘Wrong and right war politics’ (October 17), that need correction or clarification.

Firstly, it is a point of pride that all of RS21’s official policies and motions passed at our all-member assemblies are available publicly on our website, including the recent motion about Ukraine (revsoc21.uk/motions-and-policies). In RS21, we believe that this kind of transparency and openness about our politics and about the workings of our organisation is very important, but there is always more we can and should do on this front - perhaps the layout of the website ought to be adjusted to make this page easier to find.

Secondly, Conrad refers to RS21 as a “still Cliffite organisation”. We are not a Cliffite organisation. If RS21 had been a Cliffite organisation, I would not have joined it a year ago. For many years, I had decided against joining RS21 precisely because I had been under the misapprehension that it was Cliffite. RS21 is a Marxist organisation, it is a revolutionary socialist organisation, and it is “an ecosocialist, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist organisation” (revsoc21.uk/about). Within those (rather broad) bounds, it is an extremely pluralistic organisation which fosters and encourages discussions, exchange and comradeship amongst revolutionaries influenced by a wide range of different traditions within Marxism.

It is probably arguable that, strictly speaking, RS21 was never a Cliffite organisation. Even though it was an organisation founded by Cliffites as a split from a Cliffite organisation and was once composed exclusively of Cliffites, I’m not sure that as a matter of official policy there was ever anything that specifically marked RS21 out in this way. Scanning through the website’s list of official policies dating back to 2014, I am struggling to find any evidence for the idea that it was ever formally a Cliffite organisation.

While RS21’s founding members may have still agreed with much of the substantive politics of the Cliffite tradition, its structure and practices certainly constituted an explicit break from the organisational model of Cliffism (as exemplified by the Socialist Workers Party). This meant that RS21 has usually had very little in the way of centralism, discipline, requirements on members, etc - and it has often functioned as something more like a loose network than a traditional democratic-centralist cadre organisation. It’s probable that RS21 overcorrected for some of the problems with the SWP’s organisational model, and recently we have been taking some steps to reform the organisation to be more structured and coherent (albeit still, rightly, very distant from the SWP’s model).

At any rate, a consequence of this is that in the decade RS21 has existed, many non-Cliffites have joined (as far as I’m aware, the majority of current members were never in the SWP), and have not been cadre-ised as Cliffites - instead RS21 has built a really interesting and productive melting pot. Yes, we have many brilliant and invaluable comrades who still identify strongly with “the IS tradition” (as ‘Cliffites’ prefer to call it!), and that heritage is an important part of the organisation’s history, but it is just one component of the creative, pluralistic and forward-looking fusion that RS21 has become.

Archie Woodrow
RS21 North London

Anti-Semitism

A number of weeks ago I was admonished by organisers of a pro-Palestine rally in Liverpool for giving a speech I was told made other speakers (likely Labour affiliates in town for the party conference) “uncomfortable”, causing several to withdraw from the platform.

The issue: raising how false accusations of anti-Semitism have been weaponised to undermine support for Palestine. I was told my contribution was problematic on the grounds that it’s “important our demos reflect the wide range of views within the movement” and yet it is increasingly clear to me that some within our movement are committed to, in effect, censoring activists from talking about the key issue that has undermined the Palestine movement in this country more than any other.

This is something thousands of activists across the country have experienced - being victimised, intimidated, libelled, suspended or expelled from the Labour Party as anti-Semites, largely without evidence or due process - including, disproportionally, Jews. It was used to oust the only pro-Palestine leader of a major political party this country has ever seen and the government is now virtually bereft of pro-Palestine voices because of it. It has indisputably cowed and weakened our movement, with rightwing Labour its chief instigator, and yet it is the advice of some organisers that this shouldn’t be spoken of in public. I can only assume that the idea is not to upset those still able to reconcile their support for Palestine with remaining a member of an organisation that embraced this very tactic to purge its own membership and is currently tacitly supporting genocide in Gaza: namely, the Labour Party.

I was told that by raising this issue on stage I wasn’t being “helpful”. What isn’t helpful is brushing such a vicious political instrument under the carpet and characterising it as merely ‘a row’. The weaponisation of anti-Semitism is recognised the world over as a key tactic used by Israel and its allies to silence pro-Palestine voices. The need to combat it is openly discussed on the US anti-war left and right, for example (eg, Bernie Sanders), and yet much political leadership in this country is seemingly too brow-beaten or preoccupied with preserving its own status to challenge it.

Even as a strategic calculation this is completely wrongheaded and leaves us open to attack time and time again. If those in a position of leadership within the movement are unwilling to confront these smears head-on, then please don’t reprimand (and in effect attempt to gag) other activists with direct experience of such attacks for doing so. I believe, as do many others, that it’s vital for Palestinian liberation that we fight back (see the adjudication I won against the Jewish Chronicle for libelling me).

As regards other speakers feeling uncomfortable or “reputationally damaged” by speaking after me, it was rather uncomfortable for me to be sharing a platform with MPs from the incumbent Labour government currently imposing a new raft of Tory-style austerity on pensioners and materially enabling genocide. But, unlike others, I do believe in pluralism and freedom of speech within a mass movement and wouldn’t dream of trying to police what others say on a podium (especially when the issue is so pertinent).

There were countless speakers at the rally who chose not to speak on this subject (which was their prerogative) and so I am left wondering why I - as the only speaker who chose to do so - should be admonished (absurdly on the grounds of ensuring a “wide range” of voices). The fact some organisers are showing that their instincts are to defer to the concerns of those in power (yet who do so little with it) - ie, the Labour Party - over the lived experience of embattled activists is both disappointing and revealing.

Audrey White
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Labour-power

Michael Roberts makes several fundamental errors in his article reviewing the work of Ahmet Tonak and Sungar Savran (‘Remains our bedrock’, October 17).

He says: “While the classical economists recognised that value in an economy was created by human labour-power …” Firstly, they didn’t say that, because they had no category of “labour-power”. They recognised that value was created by labour, whilst failing to distinguish that from the value of labour-power, which it was left to Marx to elaborate. If, as Roberts claims, here, value is created by labour-power, then that value of labour-power is equal under capitalism to wages, and so we have to conclude that the value of commodities is determined by wages!

No wonder Roberts got so confused in the past about the nature of inflation. True, he recoiled from that conclusion, which flows from his premise, but only by then putting himself in the same kind of contradiction faced by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, and later by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Eugen Dühring. He could then only explain price rises, if wages are not the cause, by claiming that it was down to monopoly profits, which is essentially the kind of mercantilist argument of James Steuart, but also of Dühring - that the capitalist simply adds an amount of profit onto those wages. Exactly how that is possible is again left a mystery.

From his false claim, Roberts goes on to a false conclusion: “State employees, teachers, social workers, health workers are unproductive for capitalism, as they do not deliver new value and surplus value for capital - indeed their wages are a deduction from overall surplus value. That partly explains why capital is so opposed to state spending and investment and in favour of privatisation.”

Not only is this false, but it has thoroughly reactionary implications. Firstly, as set out above, it is not true that state employees do not create new value. If they did not, then there would be no basis for them being paid wages for the labour they undertake. It is true that not all state employees create new value, but only to the same extent that not all employees of any other capital create new value. In those cases, as Marx describes, the basis of their payment is that the labour is necessary for the realisation of value, rather than its creation. But, it is clearly not true to say that the labour of a teacher or a doctor is not productive of new value.

Arthur Bough
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Red herrings

The CPGB seems to have gotten itself into an amateurish and unnecessary tizz over the statement, ‘Establishing a principled left’ (Weekly Worker October 3).

The purpose of the statement now seems unclear and, while I agree with much of what Jack Conrad (‘Wrong and right war politics’, October 17) has said in reply to Carla Roberts (Letters, October 10) - particularly around the right of the elected leadership, the Provisional Central Committee, to issue statements and whether or not such a document must have the words, “main enemy is at home” - much of the reply seems to be obfuscating around the actual purpose of the document.

Comrade Roberts is right to say that this statement “should be short and sharp, and concentrate on the political principles”. By indulging in a fatuous discussion about dictionary meanings of the word ‘statement’, comrade Conrad is throwing dust to distract from the main point: what was the political purpose of the statement in the first place?

Comrade Conrad writes in reply to comrade Roberts: “When comrade Tam Dean Burn asked [at the aggregate] 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’.” Really? What, then, was the point of the statement? The subheading of the published form says the CPGB PCC “calls for others on the left, individuals and organisations, in Britain and internationally, to discuss and agree this statement with a view to cementing principled unity and furthering the struggle against war and capitalism” (emphasis added).

But comrade Conrad seems to suggest that events are happening too fast for this to have been possible. To quote: “The statement was written and published, knowing full well that it was time-limited, would soon be left behind by fast-moving events.” Then clearly the statement as written was not fit for the intended purpose: “cementing principled unity and furthering the struggle against war and capitalism”. The form of something must suit its political purpose. A statement aimed at “cementing principled unity” with individuals and organisations must surely focus on the principles around which unity is being sought.

The original statement includes far too much running commentary on the war at this particular juncture, which, as its author admits, meant it was “time-limited and would soon be left behind by fast-moving events”. It would be a pity if the original author’s pride got in the way of clearing up this mess. But, alas, by throwing many different areas of disagreement into the discussion, the debate seems likely to be full of red herrings.

Time to refocus on the intent of the statement and proceed from there, rather than seek to defend bruised pride, real or imagined.

Martin Greenfield
Australia

Privilege

I had the privilege of knowing Tom May for over 30 years, primarily through the Cogers debating society. He was a remarkably knowledgeable individual and an exceptional speaker, known for punctuating his speeches with his signature phrases: “in fact” and “yeah”!

I was also close friends with his son, James, who sadly passed away a decade ago.

My heartfelt condolences go out to his widow, Rosalind, his son, Oliver, his daughter, Harriet, and his grandchildren, Harry and Lilleth.

Philip Holland
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