Letters

Centrist fudge

In a December article published in the Freedom Socialist in the USA, Jed Holtz argues that the crucial task for socialists in the United States is to demand the formation of a Labor Party that can unite workers behind a single political platform and fight the right. This party would be “kick-started” by the trade union movement and unite broad working class layers behind a reform programme. The article paints a rosy picture of such a party, arguing that a working class party would be able to bring the fight to the right and the Trump government. However, in reality, a call for a Labor Party is nothing more than a centrist fudge of the real issue.

By calling for a Labor Party, and not an explicitly socialist party (socialism is not mentioned once!), Holtz is calling for a political party rooted in the leadership and structures of the trade unions. This form of party, which exists in several countries, from British and Australian Labour parties to the Canadian New Democratic Party, is not a revolutionary party, but rather a bourgeois (liberal) workers’ party.

If a Labor Party was to form in the United States today, its leadership would likely include anti-immigrant stooges like Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters. It would include rightist trends in the trade union movement. These questions are not addressed at all. We cannot fudge the most vital task in the development of the socialist movement: the formation of a revolutionary party!

Then there is the question of programme. While a full proposed programme is not sketched out, the article does not mention once the minimum democratic tasks of a socialist programme in the United States - tearing up the slaveholder’s constitution, and establishing a maximally democratic republic. To call for a Labor Party instead of a Socialist Party is a dangerous fudge. Working class independence can only be guaranteed by a socialist programme.

Holtz, who is a member of a Trotskyist political organisation, should know better.

Edith Fischer
Australia

Sparts aim right

With a rightwing Labour government in power and Trump and Reform UK setting the political agenda, there are currently a lot of discussions among leftists about the need to create a new left party. The need for a working class and socialist alternative to Starmer’s Labour is dire, and we support any initiative in this direction. However, the current discussions among various left groups have brought to the surface everything that is wrong with the British left, and provide examples of how not to advance this goal.

This starts with the group, Collective, linked to Jeremy Corbyn, Len McCluskey and many others. They had a series of closed meetings, whose main purpose seems to have been convincing Corbyn to launch a party - only for him to refuse. Carla Roberts’ coverage in the Weekly Worker (‘Corbyn’s maybe party’, September 19 2024) did a pretty good job of showing how this band of finished Labourites is hopeless, so we will not dwell on it.

Finally, many are realising that waiting for Jeremy can’t be the only strategy for the left. This is the context in which Prometheus issued a call for a debate on the need for a new party, with many individuals and groups (CPGB, RS21, Why Marx?, etc) responding. But we need to be frank: the discussion so far has been a talk shop centred around organisational matters. What type of structure should a party have? What sort of democracy would it need? An electoral alliance or a party? Should it have a paper press or an online one? And on and on ... Nothing of substance has been written on why the left is so weak and divided. And, crucially, what should this new party fight for? If this debate is to be useful, it must be pursued on a different basis.

It seems many in this discussion assume that the reason the left is weak and divided is simply because no-one has ever thought of bringing everyone together before. It is in vogue to denounce the ‘sects’. Very well. But many who rage against the ‘sects’ often happen to be members of one. The divided state of the left is not an organisational issue. It is not something that can be solved by amalgamating existing groups around a vague commitment to communism.

The left is weak and divided because it lacks a programme that can unite the working class against the British imperialist rulers. When we say programme, we do not mean an abstract description of the goals of communism and a list of general, timeless positions. This is what the CPGB Draft programme is, and it is no basis for unity. A programme is a guide to action to advance the interests of the working class. It must draw the lessons of the preceding struggles, lay out an understanding of the specific period we are in, confront the obstacles in the way and set the tasks of communists. While it does not resolve everything, this is what we tried to do in our document. ‘The breakdown of US hegemony and the struggle for workers’ power’ (Spartacist No68, September 2023).

So, if we come down from the clouds of abstraction and get into the real world, what is obvious is that the left is weak and discredited, and growing numbers of workers are turning to the right. Any discussion about a new left party should start by explaining why this is and what to do about it.

The past three decades have been characterised by the hegemony of the US empire, whose ideological pillar was post-Soviet liberalism. Throughout this period, most of the radical left essentially adapted to liberalism, positioning itself as its most radical wing. Most socialists pursued alliances with liberal elements, middle class intellectuals and trade union bureaucrats - forces all tied to the liberal wing of the ruling class. Other socialists stood on the sidelines, clinging to Marxist purity and doing nothing to address the problem (which is what our organisation did until our recent reorientation).

Meanwhile, the working class was being pummelled by the rulers in the name of these very lofty liberal principles and institutions. Just think of Blairism or the European Union. As a result, the working class increasingly came to hate liberals and everyone associated with them. But, since the far left became indistinguishable from the liberal camp, workers turned their backs on it, looking instead to politicians like Trump or Farage and seeing in racist and ‘anti-woke’ demagogy an alternative to the unbearable status quo.

The Corbyn movement is a prime example of this. Corbyn first generated enthusiasm among workers, but spent years conciliating the Blairites. He campaigned for ‘remain’ and then for a second referendum, hopelessly trying to appease them. As for the far left, it latched on to Corbyn uncritically. The price to pay was that millions of workers turned their back on the left and looked to Johnson and Reform UK.

This is why the left is so weak: it is enmeshed with liberals. And, as a result, workers have been deserting the left, which is now almost entirely made up of middle class people - a fact reflected in the pages of Prometheus itself. The endless exchanges on organisational questions are typical obsessions of the petty bourgeoisie.

So the task of revolutionaries is to fight within the left for a rupture with the liberals and to turn to the working class and fight for what it needs. The radical left is in competition with Reform UK for the allegiance of the working class. Saying this might shock liberals, but it is just true. This does not mean adapting to Farage, which is the mistake of Galloway’s Workers Party. It means being able to tap into the same discontent and provide it with a class-struggle road against the ruling class. To do so, socialists have to declare war on liberalism - starting in our own movement.

This is why those who propose any sort of orientation towards the Green Party are wrong. Socialists need this like a hole in the head. The Greens are a party of the liberal middle class, supporting anti-working class taxes like ULEZ and the pillars of the liberal imperialist order, like Nato and the EU. Any association with these people would be political suicide and a gift to Farage.

Equally wrong is Mike Macnair’s view that “it is not the job of the party to give tactical direction to trade unions or to individual strikes” (Prometheus November 26 2024). What is the point of a communist party if it isn’t to guide the struggles of workers? Communists will not win workers with theoretical treatises, but only if we can prove in struggle that our strategy is superior to that of Labourite union bureaucrats. Macnair’s conception simply ends up leaving those people in charge of the trade union movement.

To turn to the working class and get involved in its struggles; to stand in complete opposition to the ruling class, the liberals and trade union bureaucrats; to place our hopes in the class struggle and not in Corbyn or any other Labourite ‘saviour’ - these are the tasks of communists. Much more could be said. We urge readers to study the current issue of Workers Hammer, which embodies the type of party we want to build.

Vincent David
Workers Hammer

Stop debating

It was bad enough that the CPGB decided to hold its Winter Communist University on the day that the police prevented a demonstration from going near the BBC, on the grounds that it was a threat to all law-abiding Jews. But last week’s paper’s first two pages featured something called Platypus and Prometheus. The former seems to be some sea creature and the latter the Greek god of fire, and they seem to be as relevant to the class struggle as both of the aforementioned.

Of course, they are communist, but the alliance of fragments of sects is not terribly relevant to what is happening today. There are bigger questions, such as why we have a continual low level of industrial struggle. While the Socialist Workers Party abandons politics for activism, being prepared to make any compromise if the trade union leaders agree to fund them, the CPGB seems to believe that the revolution will happen inside a debating society.

Perhaps it’s worth reminding comrades that Reform UK is polling ahead of Starmer and the Tories. The police are in open alliance with the Zionists, as they conduct raids across the country under the banner of ‘anti-terrorism’ - all this while Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper seek to quash protest and dissent.

Debate in the Weekly Worker consists of the social-imperialism of Daniel Lazare vs his critics, but there is very little analysis of where we are after 16 months of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. So let me make a few observations.

Despite the horrific situation in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster, the Palestinians have shown that they will not accept a new nakba. Israel has not only failed to defeat Hamas, but the return of its hostages, who are healthy and well fed, is in contrast to the tortured and emaciated bodies of Israel’s prisoners. The disgusting racist, Lazare, may consider Arabs “backward and primitive”, but in the eyes of most civilised people it is the Israeli Jewish settler state with its rape and tortures, its destruction of hospitals and schools, who appear as modern-day barbarians.

What is absolutely clear is that the Israeli state and nation are artificial entities that rest upon the oppression of the Arab and Palestinian masses, in conjunction with the corrupt and repressive Arab regimes. Revolution in the Arab east is clearly the precondition to the end of Zionism, but even without it the Israeli state is inherently unstable. What is clear is that the Israeli working class will play the same role as all settler working classes play - completely reactionary.

What is also clear is that despite the collapse of the Iranian axis, which I called out as a paper tiger long ago, the resilience of the Palestinian resistance in Gaza has inflicted a military defeat on Israel. That is one reason why Israel is turning its attention to the West Bank, where war has been declared on Jenin and the cities. None of this, however, surfaces in the Weekly Worker. Instead there is warbling about Zelensky and Trump.

There is, of course, nothing about the fact that Sarah Wilkinson, Natalie Strecker, Richard Medhurst and myself, as well as others, are facing the full force of the law, because we do not accept, unlike the miserable Lazare, that anti-colonial resistance (which includes, of course, Hamas) is a form of terrorism. The British state is attacking basic democratic rights and freedom of speech in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ and in the process is redefining anti-colonial struggles as ‘terrorism’.

The Weekly Worker appears to believe that defence of democratic rights, the right to protest, the right to support anti-imperialist movements is best left to bourgeois democrats. Internal discussions about unity between different sects seems more important to it than the fight against Starmer and the police’s move towards an authoritarian state.

What I do know is that at both the demonstrations outside my court appearances at Westminster magistrates court and the Old Bailey the CPGB was conspicuous by its absence.

Tony Greenstein
Brighton

Right ‘communist’

Ask one hundred random people what communism is and you may get one hundred different answers. Is it what we saw in the Soviet Union? Or was the Soviet Union some type of “bureaucratically deformed” state (Trotskyist)? Or was it essentially a state capitalist system? Or, as Noam Chomsky has stated, there was “nothing remotely like socialism in the Soviet Union” from early 1918, as the soviets and factory councils at that point were being destroyed by the Bolsheviks.

The important factor for me is to explain what communism is, counter the disparaging propaganda against it and correct the opportunistic groups who have championed communist ideals, when clearly they have stood for something completely different, such as simply opposing the far right.

In a recent podcast, Crispin Flintoff interviewed attendees at the central London rally on October 26 organised by Stand Up to Racism, where many, far from being ‘far right’ (whatever that means, because no-one bothers to define it and therefore it is used conveniently as a derogatory term), expressed concerns about their future, their children’s and that of the country. These are the ‘far right’, according to some!

Here’s an excerpt for illustration: “You can kind of see the, um, the dissatisfaction and a lot of what people are talking about in my opinion doesn’t really have anything to do with refugees or people from other countries. It’s people being kind of disenfranchised and, like, unhappy with the state of things in the UK. I think people are understandably really upset and frustrated with the state of things - you know, things like the housing crisis and benefits and every … there’s so many struggles.”

This was a young woman who had arrived late for the Stand Up to Racism rally and had found herself amongst “Tommy Robinson supporters”. Another attendee said: “I’m worried about the country. I’m worried about the way that it’s being run by Keir Starmer. I’m worried for my children, my grandchildren. I’m just a wife and a mother and a grandmother from a small seaside town and I see our prime minister letting criminals out onto the street … Our borders are … not being controlled and I’m just worried for our country ...”

These are the so-called ‘far right’ that communists are meant to ‘stop’. It’s a simplification to lump them all together as supporters of Tommy Robinson. Who are we attempting to stop? People who are concerned about what’s happening around them?

One issue these rallies highlight is the glaringly obvious two-tier policing and justice. Is the ‘left’ really going to ignore this because it’s an issue the so-called ‘far right’ have highlighted? Are we really going to highlight the plight of UK journalist Sarah Wilkinson, and oppose the way she has been treated by the authorities, because she’s a Palestinian supporter and support her campaign for justice, but at the same time ignore the plight of individuals in similar circumstances who are seen as belonging to the ‘right’? Maybe we should support all individuals suffering from two-tier policing and justice!

Many of these arrests and incarcerations involve issues of free speech and censorship. Therefore we should focus on those issues and not on the presumed political alignments of those on the receiving end. Does the ‘left’ bypass issues of censorship and free speech, or even oppose the idea of these issues because it has become lately a penchant of the ‘far right’?

There’s a patheticism in all of this. You’re being played, comrades. It’s divide and rule and many of you go along with it in full awareness, as there’s personal interests involved. I was aware early on of a hierarchy of status even within fringe, leftwing political parties. There are reputations at stake for stating the bloody obvious. ‘Yeah, I’m actually in favour of free speech, but we don’t want to be associated in any way with the other side,’ laments a long-time party stalwart who’s developed a kind of reputation within leftist intellectual circles, but doesn’t want to tarnish that by placing himself or herself in a position where he or she could be accused of ‘rightist tendencies’, or whatever the latest bullshit is.

Lenin has even been accused of being a “rightwing deviation of the socialist movement” (Noam Chomsky). Can no-one see the irony in that? The difference for me between today and the political activists of the early 20th century is that they don’t seem as slapdash with their attacks and the use of pejorative labels. Opponents of Lenin back in the day explained the reasons why they opposed him presumably so that understanding could take place. It is and was the difference between mere name-calling, or pejorative labelling, and substantive, ideological critiquing. Lenin’s critics didn’t just sling insults at him for the sake of it - as is happening now throughout mainstream and alternative political culture, when someone’s views are being objected to: they often articulated well-reasoned arguments to explain why they believed his actions contradicted their own political values or the original goals of the Russian Revolution.

In other words, they didn’t merely dismiss him as ‘rightwing’ (take note, comrades) or a ‘tyrant’ or ‘dictator’ without explanation: rather they took the time to analyse his policies and actions, and showed how they undermined the democratic ideals and revolutionary principles that had initially sparked the movement. They pointed to specific practices like the centralisation of power, repression of opposition, and the consolidation of authority in the hands of the Bolshevik Party as evidence that Lenin was veering away from the original goals of socialism - goals like worker control, democratic decision-making and revolutionary freedom - the heart and soul of what communism, and socialism, stands for!

On the February 1 rally in London, ‘left’ activists were urged to “oppose Tommy Robinson supporters” and “stop the far right”. Are you really saying that all of the marchers were Tommy Robinson supporters? The possibility exists that a large number of people attended this rally because they feel disenfranchised from the political process in Britain at this time, as highlighted above in the Crispin Flintoff podcast.

How do we know what the attendees are there for when those opposing are in their own tribal group at the opposite side of a police cordon? It’s exactly what the authorities desire - every issue split down the middle, with two clear opposing camps, basically just heckling each other. Is it not possible that a large proportion of the marchers agree with some, but not all, of what Tommy Robinson advocates? Surely, there are communists who reject two-tier policing and justice in Britain? Surely there are people out there who oppose someone, viewed either as left or right, being incarcerated for essentially making a documentary?

Yes, we can go into the ins and outs of the issue, but ‘shutting people up’ is essentially at the heart of the matter. Journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney were also arrested and temporarily incarcerated for making the No stone unturned documentary, essentially. It was a message essentially to all activists out there not to challenge the contemporary power structures in society.

Let’s take the example of Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. Are people in Northern Ireland thinking they’ll support both journalists, because they’re championing the issue of free speech and highlighting one of many injustices perpetrated against innocent people, or are they looking at the issue from a sectarian perspective? One side may support the journalists because that furthers their agenda, while the other side just ignores the issue because it goes against their agenda. Why don’t we all support both journalists and oppose their treatment by the Northern Ireland police because their plight highlights the need for more freedom of expression, more state accountability, more journalistic freedom, better journalism, and less censorship? We all benefit from such freedoms.

Why don’t we support the marchers in London because of their “concerns” - communists must have similar concerns too! No? Oh, dear, so communists aren’t concerned about the way things are being run in Britain? They’re not concerned about the British government’s support for terrorists in Syria, for example? Or pensioners losing their winter fuel payments? Or worried about their children’s future, as the woman articulated above in Crispin’s podcast?

What is ‘far right’? Is it a belief in zero immigration? If so then I can categorically say without any hesitation that the vast majority of marchers do not believe in zero immigration. Neither, though, will they believe in unfettered immigration, which would have horrendous consequences to the economy and budget allocations, etc. To borrow a term from Lenin, that would be “infantile leftism”!

Louis Shawcross
County Down