Letters

Analyse reality

Roy Bull’s determination in his letter to the Weekly Worker (‘Pained fog’, August 1) to see only complete and uncomplicated victory in Ireland and South Africa does the communist movement a great disservice. The ‘official optimism’ that has dogged the working class movement in both its Stalinite and Trotskyite forms can never substitute for informed analysis.

Comrade Bull believes that anyone who refuses to accept his wishful thinking must be guilty of defeatism, although why the CPGB should desire defeats for national liberation movements (as he implies) is beyond me. In actual fact I cannot recall any Weekly Worker article describing the end of apartheid as a “setback” or the IRA as being “defeated”.

The IRA has not been defeated, but neither is there any victory - except in comrade Bull’s imagination. We did not arrive at this conclusion as a result of some IRA ‘announcement’. Petty bourgeois political organisations are not renowned for their candidness when they are forced to change course, and military forces inevitably proclaim every ending of hostility as a victory for their own side.

Much more useful than relying on what they say is to analyse the comparative strength of the combatants - both in the particular, and against the backdrop of the world balance of forces. I am sure that even comrade Bull has noticed that there has been a significant change since 1991. The USSR, the most powerful counter-balance to imperialism this century, no longer exists. National liberation movements and non-imperialist countries alike no longer have an alternative centre to look to.

Previous thorns in imperialism’s flesh such as Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, etc are gradually being brought to book. Revolutionary Cuba has been immeasurably weakened. Whereas its military forces helped to push back imperialism in the 80s, today it is struggling to survive itself.

The collapse of bureaucratic socialism has meant that the most important source for material assistance, weaponry, experts and advisors has all but dried up. It is true that contradictions within imperialism have now started to become clearer. But the USA remains hegemonic, especially militarily.

What about the situation on the ground in Ireland? Which side has the more powerful weapons, the greater fighting forces? Who controls the most territory? In fact comrade Bull does not claim that British imperialism’s imagined ‘defeat’ has been a military one. It has resulted, he claims, from “unprecedented international pressure”. World opinion, he says, has been influenced by bombing campaigns and propaganda tours.

And who is overseeing the ‘peace’ process? That well known stalwart of democracy and freedom, US imperialism. No doubt British imperialism will lose out to some degree - not to the Irish people, but to the USA. How can this be viewed as progressive? I do not think there is the slightest possibility of a settlement resulting in a united Ireland. But a US-imposed ‘unity’ would in any case be worse than useless.

On South Africa, comrade Bull writes: “The overthrow of reaction by revolutionary struggle [democratic revolution? - TJ] cannot always proceed directly to the total victory of the socialist revolution.” The implication is that it will eventually follow, as surely as night follows day. A strangely stageist conclusion for one who so vehemently denounces such a schema for Britain.

The dismantling of apartheid was a great victory for the South African masses. But paradoxically, it has turned out to be a victory for imperialism too. Capitalist stability has finally been re-imposed (at least for the moment), and the bourgeois state remains intact, no longer threatened by revolutionary ferment. The socialist idea has been pushed back out of working class consciousness.

While the establishment of bourgeois democracy has greatly increased working class scope for struggle, in practice it has produced a retreat into trade union battles.

It is comrade Bull, not the CPGB, who cannot grasp these contradictions.

Ted Jaszynski
North London

Keep ’em out

In Weekly Worker July 4, Alan Fox took us to task for advocating a socialist immigration policy (Weekly Worker June 13). But strip out the hysteria and attempted ridicule from his reply, and what is left? Not very much.

Fox advances three arguments in favour of the slogan, “Smash all immigration controls”.

1. We are concerned with running the existing order, or managing capitalism for the ruling class. On the contrary, we are concerned to show that providing a haven for those who are fortunate or (relatively) rich enough to escape from poverty does not do one jot against the existing order. Oppressive class rule remains for the people - the vast majority - who have no hope of emigrating to Britain or anywhere else, despite Alan Fox’s best intentions to “raise the miserable expectations of the oppressed and inspire them with the vision of what can be attained”.

2. Lenin was in favour of ending all controls. Whether or not he was we cannot say nor, we suspect, can Alan Fox. Lenin’s letter from which the quote comes appears to attack the Socialist Party of America for wanting to restrict Chinese and Japanese immigration to the US. We see no difficulty here. The call to restrict Third World immigration is not one we have ever supported. Any restrictions have to be non-discriminatory, and the rich immigrant should not be able to buy their way in, as our article makes clear.

3. We see the real answer to imperialist oppression as the support of those people fighting for national independence, sovereignty and self-reliance. We plead guilty. We have long been bemused by the CPGB’s enthusiasm for the globalisation of the world economy as the necessary precursor to an inevitable socialist dawn. This will apparently be achieved after international class war “with the world divided into two camps - bourgeois and proletarian”. Given this mechanical view of the class struggle, best expressed by the openly Trotskyist groups, it is no wonder that the CPGB sees no future in arguing for self-reliance. For good examples of defence of imperialism, see John Bridge’s report on the Calcutta Anti-Imperialist Convention (Weekly Worker November 30 1995):

“During the convention, Suci comrades and the middle class Ghandian allies bemoaned the effects of India’s integration into the global economy. In speech after speech, imperialism was portrayed, not in terms of laying the material prerequisites of world socialism. Instead, transnational corporations were condemned as insidious conquerors who have to be driven out ...”

Or consider the uncritical support for a politically and economically integrated EU by Paul Greenaway (Weekly Worker April 4 1996):

“Ostrich-like, the [SLP] document blithely informs us that the current moves toward economic and monetary union are purely and simply mechanisms designed to further the capitalist cause. Instead of viewing globalisation as an objective process which is to be welcomed - insofar as it erodes the nation state and brings people together - the SLP leaders treat increasing union as something to be feared ... The positive first steps of forming independent working class organisations should not be caged within the boundaries of Britain but taken out towards Europe-wide workers’ organisation.”

This naiveté is touching. It is reminiscent of the TUC’s about face on Europe (‘We can’t make any impact here, but just you wait until we get the Social Chapter’). Globalisation and economic integration of regional blocs - whether European or not - precisely serve the aims of imperialism. Until substantial sections of the working class in Britain are ready, willing and able to fight here, then appeals to some greater entity to solve problems for us is idealistic nonsense. Alan Fox should read Lenin on the subject of uneven economic and political development in his commentary on ‘The United States of Europe Slogan’ (Selected Works Vol 5).

Of course the capitalist class wants mobility of labour, to get labour power at its cheapest. But when labour from abroad cannot be productively employed, then the Treaty of Rome notwithstanding, this ruling class will be quick to close the door on ‘benefit tourists’.

We repeat. The call to end all immigration controls is a liberal slogan. The right to emigrate to anywhere in the world, which for the foreseeable future will be organised into nations, is idealistic. There are often pressing humanitarian reasons for allowing people in to escape persecution. There are certainly good working class reasons for insisting that people allowed in do not face any discrimination in their rights as citizens. We will continue to support that call. But to elevate the call to abolish immigration controls to a pseudo-revolutionary status is foolish. In the meantime, working class people exposed to it will continue to shake their heads in wonder.

The Marxist Group

Curious approach

The Weekly Worker (July 11) featured a supplement, ‘The revolutionary democratic road to socialism’, produced by the Revolutionary Democratic Group (faction of the SWP) as a draft programme originally for the Socialist Workers Party. This is therefore a Trotskyist production, as is made clear in section A on world capitalism and world revolution (particularly paragraphs 16-34) - a kind of skeleton history with curious omissions, downright falsification and an anti-Leninist bias.

Section C has an interesting innovation, the ‘Minimum programme for a federal republic’ where demands can be forced through by a ‘dual power’: that is, the workers’ councils developed to a national level, forcing reforms during the transitional period.

In section D we meet the premise that the dual power republic would represent the most democratic form of the bourgeois republic and would lead to an extension of the class struggle.

This ‘dual power’ has a familiar ring. Returning to section A in paragraph 17 reference is made to the dual power republic - taking control after the downfall of the Tsar, and made up of the provisional government of bourgeois elements supported by the soviets (councils) of workers and peasants who had risen against the hardships and tyranny of Tsarism, a different situation altogether from Britain.

While borrowing ideas from the Russian revolution, the RDG has a very curious approach. The dates for the ‘democratic revolution’ are given as February 1917 to March 1921, thus giving no prominence to the ‘Ten days that shook the world’ - the Bolshevik seizure of power under Lenin in October, 1917, introducing the world’s first workers’ state.

The given date of March 1921 refers of course to Lenin’s proposal for a New Economic Policy. Christopher Hill in Lenin and the Russian revolution states that unsympathetic foreign economists saw nothing but surrender to capitalism in the NEP. Trotsky was opposed, but Lenin’s plan received 336 votes in Congress, and Trotsky only 50.

He also opposed the plan for electrification of the new republics, and the development of the heavy industries, arguing that Russia was basically an agrarian country of great estates and should remain so. If Trotsky had succeeded, the Nazi armies would have had a walkover.

The insistence that from then on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was controlled by state capitalism is a Trotskyist fabrication, since they know quite well, as explained later in this document that the motivating force of capitalism is the acquisition of profit through the exploitation of the workers’ labour power, certainly not the case in the USSR where the relationship between the forces of production was very different.

No reference is made to the drive to smash the popularity achieved by Stalin and the victorious Red Army at the conclusion of hostilities in Europe in 1945, or of the vicious anti-communist propaganda launched particularly by the US. Or of the ever-increasing nuclear arms race endangering the peace of the world, a danger which is still present in the increased competition between the major capitalist powers. Would a consequent breakdown open the way to a setting up of socialist governments?

The last section, the transitional programme, lays down basic demands for such a state, which it is said can only be achieved in association with others. There is no vision of further development beyond such a state, though, according to Marx, a state however worthy, is by its nature repressive and eventually under communism should wither away.

Mary Carter
North Devon