Letters

Agreements

I want to thank the comrades at the Weekly Worker, and in particular Mike Macnair, for their sustained engagement with Prometheus’s ‘What is the party?’ series, but I also thought it might be worth responding directly to a few of the points raised in comrade Macnair’s recent article, ‘What sort of partyism?’ (January 9), where he addresses my own contribution to the series.

On the issue of “separate” versus “independent” organisation, comrade Macnair has me bang to rights. This was a sloppy and imprecise use of the terminology on my part. The point I was intending to make was more precisely about organisational independence, not organisational separation - the argument was intended to apply equally to external revolutionary ‘third-party’ organisations and to organisations functioning as affiliates or internal factions to other non-revolutionary organisations.

On the issue of the term, ‘anti-capitalist’, this was something I went back and forth over, with early drafts of the essay inconsistently flipping between terms like ‘socialist’, ‘communist’, ‘Marxist’ and ‘revolutionary’, as well as ‘anti-capitalist’. I settled on ‘anti-capitalist’ as the most legible and self-explanatory term, which would make the argument easily accessible to the relevant audiences as widely as possible. This was specifically just in consideration of the essay itself, its audience, its argument - it was not intended to reflect any wider judgement on the relative political or rhetorical merits of the different terms.

More broadly, I agree with comrade Macnair about the importance of grasping the nettle of the words, ‘communism’ and ‘socialism’ (and ‘Marxism’ too!), but these are all terms that can be quite ambiguous and come with different baggage to different people, and I thought my essay was long enough already, without having to add an extended digression about exactly how I was defining those terms. The term, ‘anti-capitalist’, by contrast, has the virtue of being almost completely self-explanatory to any relevant audience: ie, to anyone on the left who wishes to overthrow capitalism. True, there can conceivably be reactionary anti-capitalisms, but these are generally marginal in Britain, and presumably non-existent amongst the likely readership of Prometheus, so I didn’t regard that as a relevant concern.

Additionally, I was trying to make the argument for the necessity of the party basically from first principles. There are plenty of comrades who are sceptical of identifying with labels such as ‘Marxist’ or ‘socialist’, perhaps identifying more with terms like ‘anarchist’, precisely because of their scepticism about the idea of the party. Even if it might only be a minority of those people who are open to these arguments, I didn’t want to foreclose their engagement by using terminology which excludes them from the start. Perhaps a relevant difference here is that comrade Macnair is used to writing in the Weekly Worker for an audience mainly of seasoned Marxists. By contrast, I started writing my essay as a response to the ‘Party Time’ events at Pelican House, so had in mind a generally younger audience with perhaps more varied ideological self-conceptions and more uneven levels of political development.

On the issue of parties as broad fronts with the aim to immediately form a government, I think that comrade Macnair is misunderstanding my argument - or perhaps conflating together two separate issues. My argument on this point is not a general one, but specifically that, under Britain’s ‘first past the post’ electoral system, electoral parties usually need to function as broad fronts. This is not just the case if they wish to form a government - even to break through as a minor oppositional party with a handful of MPs is usually extremely difficult. The 2024 UK general election took place in conditions of probably unprecedented political weakness for the two major parties, and saw unprecedented breakthrough successes for left-of-Labour, independent and third-party candidates - yet that still amounted only to four Green and five independent MPs out of 650. And those were candidates and parties running broad campaigns.

Macnair cites Corbyn’s Labour Party and the Green Party as significant minority opposition parties, as if they are counter-examples - I don’t disagree about their importance as opposition parties, but nevertheless they are both examples of what I mean by political parties that operate as broad fronts. Whether an electoral party is politically broad or narrow, and whether it prioritises acting as an opposition or aiming to immediately form a government, are two separate questions. Yes, there is a relation between them - because, the more priority you put on forming a government immediately, the more intense the pressure to maintain as broad a coalition as possible, but that pressure still exists, albeit less intensely, for oppositional parties.

I’m not arguing that communists in Britain can’t or shouldn’t ever run parliamentary campaigns completely independent of coalition agreements with broader progressive forces, but the reality of Britain’s electoral system is that electing even a single MP is usually prohibitively difficult when the left’s vote is split.

On comrade Macnair’s characterisation of my argument as implying a “mass strikist” conception of the party reflecting orthodoxies of the new left, I’m afraid I don’t really recognise the characterisation or follow the argument. Perhaps this reflects my own historical or theoretical ignorance, but it feels to me that there’s some leap in the argument here. This relates to the content of my previous letter (November 28 2024), and I would certainly be interested to hear comrade Macnair spelling out his attitude here in a little more depth.

I don’t see that there’s any contradiction between the conception of the party as “the institution which coordinates strategy” versus “a political voice for the working class in high politics”. We don’t wish for a political voice for the working class in high politics merely as an end in itself or for the fun of it - it’s because we view it as strategically necessary to advance our longer-term goals of overthrowing the class rule of the bourgeoisie and beginning the socialist transition! And achieving those goals will also require communists to engage in other activities besides just providing a voice in high politics and, if we want to succeed and to get the most out of those activities, we will need a coordinated strategy for them - and if the party isn’t the institution to coordinate that, then what is?

Further, I think the relationship between high politics and coordination of strategy goes in both directions - and apologies here: I’m now somewhat thinking aloud. The voice in high politics is a condensation and a reflection of the experiences, activities, interests, needs, etc of the wider movement and the wider class, and it has the effect of informing and galvanising the wider activities of the movement and of the class. I think there’s a fundamental point here - the fact that the institution responsible for coordinating strategy and the institution responsible for acting as a voice in high politics are one and the same is not coincidental. In this context, the essence of what we mean by politics and by strategy is that they are both generalised and generalising. And we have no other general institution.

The Comintern used to talk of the party as providing the “general staff” of the revolutionary struggle, and probably that overly militarised attitude was part of their ultimate downfall, but certainly the party is the great generalist!

And, yes, comrade Macnair is correct to say that my practical proposals have “an indeterminate character”, but the article was long enough already, and that section was only intended as a starting point. And I should say, of course, that I agree with Macnair’s closing remarks about the importance of open debate amongst communists.

Incidentally, I think Macnair is wrong to characterise The World Transformed as “one of the standard top-table-dominated setups designed to be turned on and off at the convenience of the ‘official left’ leaders” - it was actually a much more complicated and contradictory (and perhaps incoherent) project than that, but perhaps a reflection on my experience on the steering group of that organisation during the Corbyn years is an article for another time!

I think comrade Macnair’s comments about Momentum’s failures also are inexact. As an analysis of Corbynism’s failures more broadly, Macnair’s general argument here is not wrong, but my comments in the article were more specifically about Momentum as an organisation (and especially what happened with the changes to its constitution in 2017), not about the Labour Party itself. Again, I won’t get into the details here, because this probably merits its own article.

Archie Woodrow
RS21 North London

Platypus RIP

Two weeks ago, Mike Macnair criticised Platypus in this paper for producing “premature obituaries” of the left (‘Anti-partyist partyism’ January 16). Last week, Paul Demarty’s article, ‘Do the evolution’ (January 23), appeared under the banner, “Platypus is dead”. The irony is not lost. Unfortunately, this obituary was not only premature, but full of clichés and distortions.

Demarty claims Platypus founder Chris Cutrone wrote to Workers Vanguard, “commending the US occupation of Iraq”. Cutrone’s exchanges can be found in WV No847 (2005) and No874 (2006). In a further 2007 letter, written in response to the Spartacist Youth Club’s pamphlet denouncing Platypus, Cutrone wrote: “I have never in any form suggested, let alone said, because I do not believe that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq was good and supportable”. He reiterated the same points in a letter to the Weekly Worker (May 30 2013), concluding: “Only a deliberate distortion of the facts can characterise our project otherwise.” So, the original sin turns out to be a lie.

Demarty wants to take Cutrone publishing an article in Compact as a moment to “check in on Platypus”, but he doesn’t consider looking at the latest issues of The Platypus Review or the panels hosted by Platypus chapters around the world. Nor does he refer to the report from the 2023 Platypus International Convention published in this paper by Mike Macnair (‘History and anti-history’, April 20 2023). Is this a good use of the talents of that “bright-eyed CPGBer” interested in “the texture of that [Marxist] history”? It reflects an unhealthy view of organisations - one focused on the pronouncements of the founder rather than the activity of the members - which says more about the sad reality of the ‘left’ than about Platypus.

Demarty tries to fit Platypus into the ready-made Weekly Worker critiques of the British ‘far-left’ grouplets, with their boomer gurus removed from their revolving-door activists. Hence clichés like “Under the hood, there was something else going on - the ‘Platypus synthesis’.” He has forgotten the insights of his 2013 blog post, describing Platypus as “mostly harmless”, in which he noted: “There is no hidden agenda with Platypus, really - all the ‘scandalous’ stuff is on their website - but the idea of one is compelling for real reasons” (filbendemarty.wordpress.com/2013/06/13/mostly-harmless). Those “real reasons” boil down to one thing: avoidance of the questions posed by Platypus.

Behind the unexamined trope of the “well-trodden path” of Partisan Review, Telos, Spiked, etc - a CPGBer should know the political pitfalls of ‘just so’ stories about renegades - there lies the more daunting problem: the fate of Marxism. It’s no secret that those attempting to overcome the impasse in the first quarter of the 21st century have only chased themselves into increasingly narrow corners. What is the way out?

Platypus asks these questions: What is the legacy of Trotskyism? What is the concept of the left? Where do we stand in relation to the bourgeois revolution? And, yes, what is the alternative to the left’s hysterical reaction to the election of Donald Trump? To paraphrase Trotsky, fools will consider this “cheerleading”.

It is telling that this premature obituary appeared just after Trump’s second inauguration - it wasn’t the only drive-by attempt on Platypus in recent weeks - as the left realises it is unprepared for the bad new days to come, with little to cash out from the adventures of the last two decades. “Civilisation on the brink,” announced the Weekly Worker leader hysterically, in the same issue that it declared “Platypus is dead”. An interesting pairing, but wishful thinking on both counts.

Platypus continues to host the conversation that otherwise would not happen, not least because leftists and Marxists - even those apparently closely aligned - still cancel each other for supposedly beyond-the-pale statements. Not adhering to such taboos, which anyway change with the political weather, Platypus takes the left seriously - often more seriously than it takes itself.

Speaking on a Platypus panel in 2013 with Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara and member Benjamin Blumberg (available on the Platypus Affiliated Society YouTube channel as ‘Conversations on the left: what is to be done?’), Paul Demarty explained the CPGB-PCC attempt to analogise building a new Communist Party to the founding of the original CPGB in 1920. He observed that the uniting groups back then had around 5,000 members - not dissimilar to the number of ‘committed’ Marxists scattered across Britain today. Far from finding this bit of “policeman’s materialism” comforting, Demarty commented: “We’re back, in a sense, where we started, which tells you something about the 20th century.”

“Tells you something” - but what? For example, can we really take for granted slogans crafted for cold war anti-imperialism? Must one be “out to bat for Richard Nixon” to question their purchase at this late stage - 35 years after the destruction of the Soviet Union? But it seems we are back where we started - much further back - which tells you something about the 21st century: ‘The left is dead! Long live the left!’

Efraim Nashe
Platypus Affiliated Society

Communist allies?

Vietnam and China have deemed each other strategic allies and the amount of top leadership interaction between the two tells its own story. So I don’t know where Chris Cutrone got his “Vietnam now depends for security on a military and economic alliance with the US against threats from its ancient neighbour and enemy, China” from (Letters, January 23). Possibly from plain ignorance.

Vietnam is open for business and has also developed a close friendship with Russia. Time and time again it is stated on Voice of Vietnam radio station how vital its relationship is with the two countries - especially China, given the tremendous economic relationship they have with each other. Vietnam also does have a very large trade turnover with the US. It is opening up to all regions of the world, including Europe and Africa.

Vietnam and China are both communist states and seek friendship as neighbours, as communist parties and on all other fronts. Whatever pressure is applied by the Americans, using their high trade turnover as leverage, is absorbed and processed with their determination to maintain paramount friendship with all nations, distant and close. Vietnam has minor disputes with China and other countries in the South China Sea, but it is a rare occasion when anything related to minor disputes is reported in their media - unlike with the Philippines, which is being used as a battle ram against China. The China-Vietnam relationship is very positive and is managed in an orderly and friendly fashion.

As to what China is or isn’t, it must be recalled that the original seed funding came from the USSR. Without this delivery of machinery, experts and money China would be decades behind where it is now. All countries sell their labour, but not all countries save the profits of that labour to reinvest in their own industrial enterprises, as China did. They were in no position to bargain over wages in the early years, but now they are assuming the nature of a medium-waged country, which is facilitating the domestic boom and has made their economy no longer reliant on Europe-US. Their most important trading relationships are now in Asia, but they have expanded trade with all non-western regions of the world.

There is a reason for US aggression against China: ‘Trade, baby, trade’! But, unlike the US and EU, their military spending is overwhelmingly defensive in nature and matches the growing threat from the US - a threat that doesn’t exist conversely. China’s ever closer relationship with Russia is not deemed a military alliance, unlike Russia’s relationship with North Korea, for example, but this hardly matters, since to all intents and purposes that is exactly what it is. With Europe cracking up under US-China tensions and the most stupid war ever on European territory against the foremost nuclear power, Russia, with both the US and European economies drained by the super-profit motive and taking up a far lower share of the world economy than they had decades ago, the future is decidedly not on their side.

Elijah Traven
Hull