Letters

Shining path

Paul Cockshott (Weekly Worker June 27) continues the debate on the revolutionary democratic road and takes up a new argument about the nature of the British state (Nairn/Anderson). I want to concentrate on debating revolutionary strategy and leave aside the question of the British state for another occasion.

Our theory is based on the idea of permanent revolution, in which every country has the potential for a democratic revolution, which leads directly onto the international socialist revolution (what Peter Manson, debating with me in this paper, has termed the universal democratic-socialist revolution).

We agree with Paul on the perspective of a national democratic revolution. But we disagree over the nature of this revolution. The Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) rejects the concept of bourgeois democratic revolution. The alternative is proletarian democratic revolution: that is, a national democratic revolution led by the working class, seeking to establish a workers’ state.

The best example of this is the Russian revolution. We have taken our stand firmly on this example. In terms of socialist politics it is the strongest place to stand. It will be amazing if anybody can dislodge us from this. Paul is certainly trying. But he is doomed to fail.

His first attempt is a bit demagogic. We have been condemned for “copying” the Russian model. We are accused of “slavishly following the example of the Russian revolution and the soviet system”. But it is easier to rubbish the Russian revolution as outdated, old fashioned and irrelevant to the modern world, than come up with an alternative. As he says: “In all honesty I must try to respond to the challenge from the RDG to state my own position.”

What is his alternative? First he says, “I can not come up with an alternative example for a revolution here.” History will not repeat itself, even in a modified form. “Britain is a paradigmatic advanced capitalist society.” So we are left either with a perspective for the British revolution based on the experience of the Russian revolution or a scenario invented by Paul thinking up a lot of good ideas, and stringing them together.

Paul rejects both the “dual power republic” and the “Paris commune/soviets” which are essential to the theory of proletarian democratic revolution. Perhaps without realising he is slipping back into the theory of bourgeois democratic revolution.

The minimum programme of the Workers Party of Scotland is not a programme for a dual power republic nor for a workers’ republic. It is in fact a programme for a peoples’ republic. There is nothing in this programme about workers’ control of industry. There is nothing about electing workers’ councils in every enterprise to supervise the management. Yet such demands are absolutely essential for both the dual power republic and the workers’ republic.

Paul tries to pretend that he has no example of revolution(s) on which to base his ideas about the future British revolution. He eventually lets the cat out of the bag when he says: “This [his] strategy is un-Bolshevik, but elements in it have been used to good effect in the Asian and Latin American revolutions.”

Paul needs to spell out the lessons from these revolutions which he thinks are relevant for all countries, including such an “advanced capitalist society” as the United Kingdom. It would also be helpful to know exactly which national revolutions he is “copying”.

If Paul can take a comradely jest - is he suggesting a long march from the Sierra Highlands to capture Glasgow Town Hall? This would certainly be a Shining Path rather than a revolutionary democratic road.

To be serious, we are now at last starting to understand Paul’s rejection of the Russian model. This is a debate between the best proletarian model (Russia) and the petty bourgeois-led (peasants’ and intellectuals’) revolutions.

The minimum programme of the Workers Party of Scotland (see Weekly Worker June 27) reflects this class point of view. There are no workers’ councils. But there are peoples’ assemblies in which members of all classes can participate. On the face of it, this seems very democratic. But in fact the opposite is true. All elections to peoples’ assemblies are abolished. There is no right for parties to stand candidates on their programmes and win a majority for their policies. The working class will have no right to vote for the party of their choice.

Assemblies in this peoples’ republic will be chosen by lot. They will have a random sample of miners, company directors, lawyers, bus drivers, etc. How would parties operate? Would they be suppressed or made illegal? In which case our random sample of miners and lawyers will form secret parties. Or they can be declared all members of one giant ‘people’s party’?

The suppression of the open contest between parties, whilst classes still exist, was the road taken by Stalinism. He suppressed parties in what remained a class-based society. Only in a communist society, when classes and parties have withered away, will there be a classless ‘people’. Perhaps then assemblies chosen by lot might be realistic. But not in class-ridden Scotland.

Paul is trying to find a constitutional solution for a political problem. In class society, workers often vote for capitalist parties, staffed predominately by the middle class and the capitalist class. This problem cannot be overcome by the abolition of elections and choosing by lot.

It has to be done by class struggle, party struggle and persuasion. We have to persuade workers to vote for communists, not bosses’ parties. We have to win a majority of our class to support the party that represents their struggle for freedom. Choosing by lot reflects Paul’s pessimism. If we cannot persuade the working class, then at least this method will ensure a majority of workers in the assembly, by preventing the workers voting for the wrong people.

Another aspect of the same pessimism is Paul’s view that the only possible route to a dual power republic is through a “cataclysmic war” - “prolonged, incredibly bloody, unwinnable and sub-nuclear”. We have heard all this crap before. The bourgeoisie always threaten this. They always say that about revolution in general. How many times have we heard that if troops withdraw from Ireland there will be an ‘incredibly bloody war’.

Paul is not just arguing against a dual power republic but against workers’ revolution in general. We now realise that Paul does slavishly copy the Russian model after all. Not the dual power republic or the soviets. But merely that it was preceded by a stage of world war.

By contrast, I am rejecting the thesis that the dual power republic must be preceded by a stage of world war. So perhaps I am not quite such a slavish copier of the Russian model as Paul first thought.

I do agree that before a dual power republic can emerge there must be a profound crisis in society. Quite clearly military defeat is one cause. What would have happened if Britain had been defeated in the Falklands or in Ireland, we can only speculate. But it does not have to be a world war. Take Russia in 1905. What about Iran in 1979? No military defeat there, but certainly a dual power republic (shoras). What about a dual power republic emerging in South Africa? Not an impossible scenario from the end of the apartheid regime and expectations raised by the new republic. Indeed the bourgeoisie employed Mandela to prevent this.

Paul points to the abolition of the Tsar, Kaiser and the Hapsburgs, all as a result of World War I. But what about the profound crisis in Spain in the 1930s? The Spanish republic of 1931 came about as a result of an election, which led to the abdication of the monarchy. Of course a crisis within the regime preceded this event. The Spanish republic, far from uniting the Spanish people, polarised them. If the Spanish republic was not clearly a dual power republic in 1931, it was soon developing into one.

The Spanish republic, as bourgeois as it was, symbolised danger for the capitalists and the hope of something better than the old order for the workers. The Spanish monarchy was a unifying symbol for the Spanish armed forces. The Spanish republic had no such loyalty. It split the officer class into republican officers and monarchists and fascists led by Franco.

The British army may be united, and certainly the officer class is united in loyalty to the crown. But you can rest assured that it will be more divided in its attitude to the federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales.

Dave Craig
RDG

Armchair ‘truth’

Phil Sharpe’s letter in last week’s Weekly Worker (July 18) was overwrought and obscure.

That Phil is up to date on recent Routledge book publications is not in doubt. That he has read and is able to summarise important writers like Jameson, Harvey and Bhaskar is also undeniable. But the point of my letter criticising his article on Euro 96 was to highlight a lack of seriousness in his analysis, that meant armchair opinion was dressed up as truth.

Phil proved this again in his last letter. Hidden among his brain-bulging tour of hegemonic postmodernism, Phil tosses out the following idea as if to suggest there is plenty more where that came from:

“We could argue that Paul Weller’s music represents the call for the formation of a cultural proletarian intelligentsia in musical form and lyrics, but which is eclectically combined with a romantic lament for the lost era of John Lennon. But even these potential oppositional forces are still fleeting and marginalised.”

Despite Phil’s best efforts he is again unable to conceal the paucity of his understanding and engagement with popular culture. Paul ‘Red Wedge’ Weller is not a potential opposition force who has been marginalised. He is a very rich, superannuated member of the musical mainstream who occasionally boosts his kudos with the ‘yoof’ by mouthing lefty banalities. If he represents our best hopes for the future then we will be waiting a very long time indeed.

The problem is that for Phil culture is a dead zone. What he takes to be glimmers of hope for the future are quite the opposite - Paul Weller is a rock dinosaur. It’s a second-hand vision, smothered with a patina of past tense philosophical ‘proof’ that makes lugubrious reading.

Has Phil listened to Funkadelic, a very popular oppositional force, who sing a song called ‘Free your mind and your ass will follow’?

John Atyeo
Bristol

Non-sectarian?

Anne Murphy’s report on the Charter for socialist change conference in Manchester was interesting (Weekly Worker July 18). But I am astonished to read her comments about Phil Griffin of Manchester SLP: “non-sectarian and open attitude”; “to be applauded”: are there two Phil Griffins in Manchester?

Perhaps Anne has not read about Phil Griffin’s role in excluding Steve Smethurst from Manchester SLP and in the subsequent closing down of the branch.

The ridiculous accusation made against Steve was that he ‘doctored’ an election leaflet in Oldham. In fact he was asked to draw up the leaflet and it was approved by John Smith, the candidate.

Rather than risk being outvoted over this, Griffin preferred to close down the June 27 branch meeting. The branch committee then decided to liquidate the branch at his instigation.

The reason for this outrageous behaviour is that comrade Griffin disagrees with Steve politically. He was afraid of the large number of revolutionaries in Manchester branch.

He may be “non-sectarian and open” when it comes to Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance, but his treatment of this own party members has been disgraceful. Anne Murphy should read the whole sorry tale in the Weekly Worker over the past few weeks.

Please do not use my real name, as it seems that even writing to your paper is now an expellable offence in the SLP.

John Brown
Manchester