Letters

Democracy

Martin Greenfield’s June 12 letter in a sense usefully corrects some of my points in the previous issue of the paper, which might be one-sided. But I am not fully in agreement with his arguments.

In the first place, my assessment of present political dynamics is not pessimistic, but merely realistic - like those ‘pessimists’ who insisted in 1900-14 that great-power war was coming, against those who argued that international economic interconnections and the sheer destructive power of weapons made great-power war impossible.

Accelerating climate change is, I agree, also a threat. However, since the early 2000s US actors have been arguing that the primary responsibility for carbon emissions lies with China. It is clearly US policy - continuous across Obama, Trump, Biden and Trump II - to impose regime-change, followed by break-up and descent into warlordism, successively on Russia and China. If the USA succeeds in this policy without triggering nuclear war, there will result a significant reduction in global carbon emissions. Of course, the dynamics of US decline would then demand de-industrialisation of continental Europe as the next threat …

The point in my article is that the need for proletarian revolution is right now mainly posed by the present tendency of capitalism towards barbarism, rather than being mainly posed by the present growing strength of the workers’ movement (as was the case around 1900, and around 1970). And this has negative implications for the claim of Talking About Socialism comrades that the strength of communism as a political movement will lead the petty bourgeoisie to be willing to accept immediate expropriation as part of a communist programme.

How to “organise and inspire”, in order to turn “a global alternative driven by an internationalist proletarian communist movement” into a more likely outcome? The answer is that even a partial break with the left’s anti-factionalism can be temporarily inspiring, leading to a rapid snowball effect: witness the Brazilian Workers’ Party, Rifondazione Comunista, and on a smaller scale the Scottish Socialist Party, among other examples. Of course, all these were more or less rapidly derailed by the left’s nationalism and governmentalism. But, if we could break through the outer line of fortifications, which is the anti-factionalist and ‘national road’ commitments of the far left, such a snowball effect on the far left could rapidly open the way to a struggle to de-managerialise the mass organisations of the workers’ movement. And that, in turn, could rapidly pose a political alternative which could reach into the state apparatus as well as into the petty bourgeoisie.

But the precondition is overcoming the anti-factionalism: both in the form of refusal to tolerate minorities and refusal to work as minorities, and in the forms of insistence on diplomatic agreements, ‘civility’ and so on. Without this all that we will get is another diplomatic lash-up, leading at best to a brief episode of hope, followed by rapid demoralisation.

As to comrade Greenfield’s second point, yes, of course, “to the extent a communist party becomes large and mass, its members will inevitably have to ‘manage and coordinate’ communities, unions, workplaces, strikes and other struggles”.

It is, however, a mistake to suppose that the primary purpose of the party is to manage and coordinate struggles. What this idea of primary purpose leads to is silencing the work the party needs to do at the level of the political, for the sake of ‘connecting with’ struggles that at present - quite understandably - seek to avoid the political for the sake of the broadest possible mobilisation round the single issue on which they are fighting. It also inherently leads to managerialism, as the party leadership seeks to (micro-)manage and coordinate the struggles.

In this connection, I do not in the least retract the point that the purpose of adopting theses on trans liberation is not to attract trans rights activists, but to try to arm the workers’ movement with political instruments to escape the workers’ movement being used as a plaything in the hands of the liberals (the ‘gender recognition’ line) or of the conservatives (‘gender-critical feminism’). That is, in my view, a great deal more important than the possibility that any far-left group might attract trans rights activists.

Equally, it is certainly true that the CPGB’s Draft programme calls for workplace committees, organising beyond union membership, and generalised workers’ control. The problem with calling this “extending democracy into the workplace” is that this slogan supposes that we have already got democracy outside the workplace, and we don’t.

What we have is rule-of-law mixed constitutions in the capitalist states, with elements of monarchy in the form of elected presidents and so on, and of aristocracy in the form primarily of the judicial power, as well as very limited elements of democracy (the vote, trial by jury, limited freedoms of speech and association).

What we have in the workers’ movement is managerialist-bureaucratic rule with similarly limited forms of democracy (and often even less). To propose to “extend” this sort of “democracy” into the workplace (as opposed to fighting for its overthrow in the first place in the workers’ movement and in the state) is to lend political support to the existing regime of managerialist control.

Comrade Greenfield’s third point is just a misunderstanding of my historical analogy. The revolutionary bourgeoisie did not destroy the city communes (English boroughs) and replace them with wholly new entities, but forcibly overthrew their monarchist leaderships, thereby turning them back into instruments for the overthrow of the state regimes. The analogy, then, proposes that what is necessary is to overthrow first the managerialist leaderships of the far-left groups in order to create a party. That will create an instrument to overthrow the managerialist leaderships of the trade unions and other mass workers’ organisations in order to turn them into instruments for the overthrow of the state regimes: that is, instruments through which the working class as a class can develop self-government and an inspiring alternative to the regime of capitalist managerialism.

Mike Macnair
Oxford

Humpty Dumpty

Mike Macnair dismisses my suggestion that a party seeking to lead the working class requires an answer to the question, ‘Does it matter what a woman is?’, as “Aristotelian” (Letters, June 12). Comrade Macnair will have to explain to me his issues with Aristotle, but as far as I know he was a more useful thinker than Humpty Dumpty, with whom Macnair appears to agree, at least regarding the word, ‘woman’- “It means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less”. Comrades can decide for themselves if that is adequate, or if whether someone is fertile or not has any relevance to the question of which biological sex they are.

The second part of Macnair’s reply asserts that I have swallowed Republican Party propaganda and that I consider trans people a threat to women in general. This is nonsense and wild stuff, considering I simply suggested a party seeking to lead the working class should have an answer to the question, ‘Should anyone who wants to do so be able to access spaces reserved for women?’ To which, naturally, answer came there none.

Sean Carter
email

Evidence?

Paul Demarty writes that Alasdair MacIntyre was “a Catholic who routinely ridiculed the church’s inability to see any political issue as pertinent except the legality of abortion (though he agreed that it should be illegal)” (‘Philosophy in the ordinary world’, June 5).

I’d like to know the evidence for this claim - either part of it. I am a student of Alasdair’s who has read widely in his work. I know of no evidence that MacIntyre thought the church only focused on abortion (it obviously focuses on immigration, education, capital punishment and many others issues), and I also know of nowhere in print where MacIntyre says abortion should be illegal (though I suspect he did think this).

Dr Christopher Kaczor
Los Angeles

New party

In Australia, over the weekend of June 14-15, 430 members of the Victorian Socialists registered attendance at the national conference to ratify a plan for national expansion, debate constitutional amendments and vote upon an executive council (composed of nine ordinary members and four directly elected party officer positions). This conference marked the first attended by the newly formed Communist Caucus of VS, which brought forth a swathe of motions and amendments predicated on a reply to the question, ‘What kind of party do we need?’ For comrades of the Communist Caucus, the answer was a revolutionary mass party, a communist party - this was the type of party that VS, through its national expansion, should aspire to be.

Communist Caucus urged the adoption of a minimum-maximum revolutionary programme, where our “minimum demands can form the basis for electoral campaigns and, if implemented in full, would bring the proletariat to power”. This includes minimum demands for a democratic republic, the replacement of the standing army with a popular militia, withdrawal from all imperialist alliances and a universal minimum living income.

We also pushed for democratic changes to the rules, the establishment of a Socialist Party newspaper and recognition that the new Socialist Party is part of an international fight for socialism.

As anticipated, each and every one of the Communist Caucus’ amendments and independent motions were voted down by an overwhelming majority - as was our ticket for the executive. What is notable about the conference is not this outcome, but what it implies for the party moving forward. The most significant decision made at conference was approval of a federalist structure for national expansion (each state party of ‘The Socialists’ will have its own constitution ‘in the vein of’ VS), proposed by Socialist Alternative member Corey Oakley - the continuing secretary of VS since its inception. Such a structure was opposed by the Communist Caucus, on the grounds that it neither reflects the kind of party we want to build nor provides a strong foundation for party work. In adopting a federalist approach like that of the Australian Greens party, a (presumably) nationally elected leadership operates ‘above the fray’ of the state-based organisations, allowing a Bonapartist approach outside the direct control and accountability from the national membership. This means, in effect, the national membership is disempowered, with undemocratic independence given to state ‘parties’.

The recommended ticket for the new executive composed by Socialist Alternative (SA), the post-Cliffite, hegemonic political organisation within VS, garnered support among those attending the conference - with 10 out of 13 executive positions occupied by Socialist Alternative members. Such a ticket was likely mobilised in response to our own ticket, given that the Communist Caucus was the only organised opposition to the Socialist Alternatives pinched perspectives on the future of the organisation.

It’s not surprising that Socialist Alternative has ensured its dominance on the new executive. This will be further reinforced when the new state-based ‘parties’ have representation on the executive in the form of appointed-from-above state secretaries, all of whom are expected to be Socialist Alternative members.

The Victorian Socialists have made much of its rapid recruitment after the federal election in its push to register the Socialist Party nationally. However, the conference showed much of that new membership is paper and passive. With more than 1,900 new members claimed, there were 430 at the conference, the overwhelming majority of which were Socialist Alternative supporters (SA claims about 600 members, with about half in Melbourne). What it confirms is the ongoing hegemonic perspective put forth by SA within VS - that of, first and foremost, VS as an electoral front.

But to the extent that the new Socialist Party becomes successful, Socialist Alternative could increasingly become a minority. We won’t be surprised to see bureaucratic manoeuvres to ensure Socialist Alternative retains control of its electoral front.

While not touted openly, and certainly not hegemonic among SA members by any means, the refusal to adopt a programme for the organisation, the approval of a federalist expansion model, and the contentment with sub-Menshevik policy positions - more akin to Green Party liberalism - are justified most simply through an appeal to the fact that VS is still not seen as more than an electoral front for a particular ‘revolutionary’ politics. Yet it is undoubtedly becoming more. The strong work and outreach of VS outside of election periods, the emergence of branches, the stirrings of fraction work in unions and the last VS electoral campaign itself are indicative of this.

The choice, presented by the Communist Caucus, and to be reiterated at every conference of ‘The Socialists’ going forward, will be for the membership to choose between party and front. The Communist Caucus is not alone in presenting this choice, and we surely will not be the sole pro-party answer for long. With an approved federalist expansion, and an influx of independents who see The Socialists as a project beyond an electoral front, the potential for dilution, distortion and reformist broad-partyism will only grow. Should Marxists within VS want a party of their choosing - an aspiringly mass party, a party with a communist strategy - they would be wise to make this choice sooner rather than later.

Anthony Furia
Communist Caucus

Insights

In his book, The colliers of the United Association of Durham and Northumberland, David Douglass provides us with a rigorous and riveting account of events south of the River Tyne during what is described as the Great Northern Coalfield Insurrection of the 1830s.

Douglass takes us on a tour through the lives of miners and their families, the environment in which they lived and the conditions in which they worked. He describes in detail the nature of their employment, unpacking many of the unfamiliar terms used solely within the industry. Here we see an examination of the ‘bond’ - a hated condition of their employment, signed annually and very much at the root of the strike in 1831.

The work provides well researched and referenced insights into workers’ lives at a period of significant industrial strife - focusing on a period in the immediate aftermath of the repeal of the Combination Acts that made trade union membership illegal - and we hear of the callous nature of the establishment in its response to workers’ newly won rights. Douglass discusses well known characters such as Thomas Hepburn, the leader of the first miners’ union, from which the book’s title is derived, and William Jobling, the last man gibbeted in England for his role in the events discussed.

But he also reveals more about others - less well known, but no less significant - in the history of the labour movement. The “seven lads of Jarrow”, as they were described by Ellen Wilkinson in her book, The town that was murdered, are studied in some detail - we learn of their lives here in Tyneside, and of what became of them after transportation to the penal colonies in Australia.

This book, with illustrations throughout, makes an important contribution to the understanding of the struggles experienced by the founders of this great movement and the harshness with which the establishment fought back against the claiming of even the most basic of rights. The events - commemorated in Jarrow each year through the Rebel Town Festival (this year on Saturday June 21) - have for too long been overlooked.

This book goes a long way toward righting that wrong.

Vin Wynne
Tyneside

Omission

I read with interest Frankie Murden’s article titled ‘People’s question time in north London debates how to resist Starmer’ (Socialist Worker June 12). It claimed an attendance of 120 people - rather mediocre for a London meeting IMO. But it was rather revealing for what it didn’t say, as opposed to what it did.

The report of the meeting (organised by SWP front group We Demand Change) consisted of soundbites from various luminaries along the lines of ‘Struggle, struggle, struggle’, ‘Gaza, Gaza, Gaza!’. Even my beloved ‘City of Quartz’ (Los Angeles) gets a mention. It could have been from any SW article of the past quarter century or so.

What the article did not propose was any kind of electoral alternative to Labour. Have the SWP given up flogging that particular horse after their resounding rejection from people close to Jeremy Corbyn? Given the SWP’s recent obsession with pushing voting, the omission was glaring.

Even de facto SWP leader Lewis Nielsen (a young man rumoured to still be close to a certain Martin Smith, who now writes for Searchlight magazine) was quoted and failed to mention electoralism. Nielsen is now labelled as WDC and not Stand Up To Racism (certainly never SWP!).

Curiouser and curiouser.

Paul O’Keeffe
email

Apolitical!

I’ve recently become involved in The invaders’ fear of memories by Ben Rivers - a theatre piece based on the life and diaries of Yosef Nachmani - a Russian Jew who migrated from tsarist Russia to Ottoman Palestine in 1907. Nachmani became director of the Jewish National Fund in Galilee and subsequently played a central role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’s indigenous people. The play offers a perspective into the origins of settler-colonialism and apartheid in modern-day Israel, exploring themes of loyalty, violence, ideology and grief.

Ben Rivers - the great grandson of Nachmani - over the course of the play himself performs 12 characters and sings in Arabic, Hebrew, Ukrainian and Yiddish. The production is directed by Linda Wise, an original member of the iconic Roy Hart Theatre Company. Since August 2023 The invaders’ fear of memories has been performed to diverse audiences in Australia, Africa, Europe and North America.

Some activists from a Palestine solidarity group in Hastings had been trying to find a venue to present the play this September. One of the places they contacted was White Rock Theatre, which initially agreed to present the play. They then rescinded the offer, stating that, as a charity, they must remain apolitical. This excuse is all the more ludicrous, when we see the number of Zionist organisations in Britain involved in ethnic cleansing who also claim charitable status. For example, the very Jewish National Fund that features in the play raises funds to buy up Palestinian homes and land!

The performance organiser communicating with White Rock was given no further information as to why they changed their mind. Nor did White Rock respond to the organiser’s queries on this matter. It is possible that pro-Israel members of White Rock board expressed opposition to staging the play - or that White Rock pre-emptively anticipated a Zionist backlash and chose to self-censor in advance. Either way, their decision shows a complete lack of moral backbone.

Ben Rivers has posted all about this on social media and many people have responded, expressing their outrage and asking how they could help. He asked them to phone or contact White Rock via their website. We don’t think White Rock will change their mind, of course, but it’s good for them to know that their cowardly and complicit position in the midst of a genocide is being noted and does have consequences.

The irony is that their upcoming events include a show called Five mistakes that changed history - “a hilarious historical storytelling show, performed by historian and comedian Paul Coulter, about five people and how their mistakes (big and small!) changed the world”. As someone who has seen The invaders’ fear of memories said, “One can argue that your show is exactly about that (minus the ‘hilarious’ part). The impact of these terrible mistakes that changed so much and continue to haunt us.”

I am also in touch with my trade union, Equity, about this, as they are increasingly taking up such cases - the number of which is growing. The Israel lobby are doing all they can to ethnically cleanse Palestine out of culture as well as their homeland.

See benjaminrivers.org for details of performances elsewhere.

Tam Dean Burn
Glasgow

Hamas support?

In your ‘CPGB perspectives for 2025’ (February 27) your micro-sect declared: “Following the audacious Hamas-led October 7 2023 Gaza prison break there has been a huge global movement in solidarity with the Palestinian masses.”

That seems to be an enthusiastic support of Hamas ... Genuine Marxists don’t support genocidal, religious-inspired nationalists - neither Hamas nor the Israeli ultra-right - but Standing Together.

Nik Barstow
email