Letters

Silly reply

Mr ‘Filip Spijkerman’ has sent in a silly letter (October 8). To reverse the words of Lenin, I have read it and I shall reply to it.

In his first paragraph, he posits that comrade Eddie Fischer and I argue we should “form yet another international, next to all the Trotskyist and Stalinist, etc internationals, but this time of partyists”, and says we should instead “go through the existing Marxist left (nationally and internationally)”. However, if Mr ‘Spijkerman’ had read comrade Fischer’s and my letter, he would see we argue exactly for going “through the existing Marxist left (nationally and internationally)”! From this we can conclude that he either did not read the letter (presumably due to the fact it was written by two women) or that he is unable to read, in which case he should go back to primary school to learn to do so (perhaps we should call him ‘master Spijkerman’).

In his second paragraph, Mr ‘Spijkerman’ posits that I did not attend the Online Communist Forum, probably because “part of the problem is in fact political”. In fact, he just makes this up. In reality I was stuck waiting for an airplane that was delayed by three and a half hours in Barcelona airport, after a long weekend (ie, Friday-Sunday) of forging exactly those international ties he accuses me of refusing to forge! Of course, Mr ‘Spijkerman’ could have easily found this out if he had reached out and asked me about it. However, he is not known to reach out to women.

About the rest of the text, with respect to the usefulness of “partyism” as a label and “going directly to the class”, I would simply like to point to the Movimiento Socialista and its success in Spain, and let that speak for itself. Those who are anti-Communist Platform in the Netherlands can talk to the sectarians of the International Socialists and the New Communist Party all they want - instead of doing any work in the Revolutionary Socialist Party (they don’t!), they even refuse to put themselves up as candidates for the Utrecht local board - where they are a supermajority of active members! - in the hope that they will magically give in and unite. They can talk to them, but as of now they don’t.

One may ask what it is they do at all.

Elise van der Doelen
RSP, Netherlands

Stand by Elise

On September 27 comrade Jack Conrad said on the Online Communist Forum that comrade Elise van der Doelen calls herself a “Macnairite”, “opposes the minimum-maximum platform” and wishes rather to have a programme which “compromises with social imperialists”.

All of this information can be traced back to Communistisch Platform, is thoughtlessly repeated by the CPGB in its podcast, and is patently false. Members of Communistisch Platform seem to have made it a hobby to spread lies about comrade Elise. I have in the last few months also heard that she opposes the right to form a faction and that she proposes a federal structure, which overrepresents smaller sections.

On the set of propositions repeated by Conrad, there is indeed a joke in the RSP to refer to oneself, in jest, as a Macnairite, tied into a larger in-joke which pretends that comrade Macnair is not a contemporary figure. I’m sure comrade Elise may have done this, but to take such a satirical comment as a serious political description is nonsense.

She has also repeatedly defended the use of a minimum-maximum programme. It is ironic that the comrade mentions the historic examples of the Parti Ouvrier, the Communist Manifesto and the Erfurt Programme on Communist Forum, as they are the exact examples that we would argue both the programme of RSP and CPGB should resemble more, not less.

Regarding programmatic compromises with social imperialists, I will refer to the discussion surrounding taking a hard line programmatically and practically against the reformists and social imperialists, when de Socialisten (now the RSP) was in its infancy. In this discussion it was clearly us, including Elise, who developed this hard line and did as Conrad himself instructed us to do: rebel against Communistisch Platform’s opportunism.

This, however, is not the only point on which Communistisch Platform’s accusations are in fact confessions. Regarding federalism, it is precisely Elise who proposed that sections should no longer be represented according to their membership on paper, but according to how many people actually showed up to vote and join the discussion.

It is Communistisch Platform which argued that those who do not voice their opinion in any way ought to be “represented” (their opinions on things are to be retrieved through some sort of proletarian magic unknown to me, no doubt) through those who do vote within their section.

Young comrade Elise van der Doelen is, in my opinion, the most efficient and politically literate administrator the RSP has, and she is quite obviously perceived as such by many. No wonder then that Communistisch Platform feels it necessary to project its mistakes onto her, to prevent her from usurping the status of the more credible representative of partyism from the Netherlands.

Willem Gloudemans
RSP, Netherlands

DSA wrecker?

As I’ve publicly criticised the Democratic Socialists of America’s Red Star caucus - a Marxist-Leninist faction to which one of the organisation’s two co-chairs belongs - I’ve frequently been accused of being a ‘wrecker’ or engaging in ‘wreckerism.’

First of all, I must note that those who criticise the DSA’s more pragmatic caucuses are never accused of the same. But, beyond this, the word choice itself is revealing. While I’m sure ‘wrecker’ existed as a term of abuse in the socialist movement before the Stalinist era, the pejorative is deeply associated with it. For those who aren’t aware, ‘wreckerism’ was an all-purpose crime used to arbitrarily persecute political opponents during that period.

I’ve spent a good deal of time in online and in-person leftist settings, ranging from Trotskyist milieus like the International Socialist Organization to more anarchist-influenced ones, such as Occupy Wall Street. During this time, despite having sharp disagreements with some of those involved, I was never once accused of being a wrecker. I can only assume it’s because Trotskyists were the ones being accused of wreckerism during the Stalin era, and anarchists had already been crushed. It’s only since joining the DSA, where the most unapologetically authoritarian ‘socialists’ are welcome and have amassed disproportionate influence, that I’ve really encountered this insult.

Now, I certainly don’t think all DSA members who use the term are crypto-Stalinists. Wreckerism can describe a real phenomenon, in which people needlessly stoke conflict. Of course, which conflicts are necessary and which aren’t is a matter of personal opinion. I believe the fact that one of our co-chairs belongs to a caucus which lauds China as a positive example of real-world ‘socialism’ is a problem. Others disagree. The meaning of words changes and perhaps the Stalinist association with ‘wreckerism’ will dissipate. However, I do think the widespread use of the accusation in the DSA is the result of genuine Stalinists - like those in Red Star - injecting it there.

At the risk of engaging in too much armchair psychology, I believe many of the DSA members who use the term ‘wrecker’ with full knowledge of its baggage, do so because on some level they feel deeply powerless. Perhaps they’re 100 pounds soaking wet or maybe they have profoundly low self-esteem. Identifying with a historical dictator, and imagining themselves putting enemies against the wall for spurious reasons, gives them a sense of power they lack in their real lives. I sympathise with these feelings of inadequacy, having dealt with my share of mental-health issues, but they’re nothing to build one’s entire politics around.

Genuine democratic socialists have fought for decades to disentangle their ideology in the mind of the public from that of Marxist-Leninism, which advocates a one-party state, where the means of production are privately controlled by a bureaucratic elite. They are just beginning to have some success, as evidenced by the growth of the DSA. If we must revive and redefine the term ‘wrecker’ there are no greater wreckers than those trying to sabotage this advance, by effectively telling the public, ‘No, actually dictatorship and socialism are one and the same’.

I hope my fellow DSA members will vote Red Star caucus out of their positions of leadership.

Jon Hochschartner
Connecticut

Nord Stream 2

For anyone following the war in Ukraine and the powers behind it, a trial for the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines is set to begin on October 14 before a special panel (Staatsschutzsenat) of the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in Hamburg - 16 hearing dates are set through December 17.

A review of the press statements of Germany’s federal prosecutors (case files are not publicly available) shows that a Ukrainian national now finds himself in the company of the following defendants, who were similarly brought before such panels at several higher regional courts in the past year: accused agents of Russia, accused agents of Iran, accused Islamists of different types, and accused Reichsbürger and other rightwing extremists. Plus a Kurdish confederalist and Daniela Klette (ex-RAF).

For the Nord Stream attack, prosecutors filed charges on June 30 against “Serhii K”, a Ukrainian army officer in 2022, who was arrested in Italy in August 2025 and transferred to Germany that November. Of the four counts against him, three fall under the criminal code and one under the ‘war crimes’ chapter of the 2002 Code of Crimes Against International Law. In Bojan Pancevski’s recent book on the attack, Serhii K is anonymised as “The Captain”. Pancevski anticipates that his legal defence will encompass the following points (pp289-91 of the book): Germany’s lack of jurisdiction over the Danish and Swedish economic zones, where the explosions took place; combatant immunity under the Geneva Conventions; that Gazprom was itself a combatant; and that Nord Stream was a strategic war target.

The Federal Court of Justice had already rejected most of this at the detention stage. In December 2025, it held that German jurisdiction applies because the destruction took effect on German territory, where the pipelines come ashore; that functional immunity does not cover violent acts directed by an intelligence service; and that the combatant privilege does not cover covert action against what were civilian objects. It also found it highly probable that the defendant acted on the orders of a foreign state.

“No evidence of Russian involvement has emerged,” write Holger Stark and Luisa Hommerich (translation) in the current edition of Die Zeit weekly, confirming what Germany’s federal prosecutor said in February 2023 and assessments that appeared in the Weekly Worker and elsewhere in 2022-23, as well as debunking early reports that Russia was the chief suspect.

Stark and Hommerich outline the current parameters of the public narrative in Germany on the eve of the trial’s start: the idea to attack Nord Stream arose in the US-oriented circles of Ukrainian intelligence (Pancevski reports, as early as 2017); the 2022 attack went ahead, even though Dutch military intelligence had learned of the plan and passed it to the CIA, which shared it with Germany; there was a simultaneous effort to attack TurkStream; the attackers are accused of having acted on behalf of and with the approval of state authorities in Ukraine; and Zelenskyy has denied official governmental participation in the attack.

In the US, one might begin the story in Texas and Louisiana rather than in Washington, and at the turn of this century rather than with the oft-cited remarks of 2022 and 2023 by Biden (pre-war: “We will bring an end to it”), Blinken (post-attack: “tremendous opportunity”) and Nuland (post-attack: “very gratified,” “hunk of metal”). That US sanctions on Nord Stream 2 were first enacted in 2019 under Trump I is a further clue to the ‘bipartisan’ interests at play.

Some events in the story, which have everything to do in the final instance with the production process, the world market and imperialist redivision:

• Mitchell Energy’s development of “slick water fracturing” in 1998
• Devon Energy’s combination of fracking and horizontal drilling in 2003
• state approval of Cheniere Energy’s LNG applications in 2011 (export approval to countries lacking a free-trade agreement with the US) and 2012 (plant approval)
• and Cheniere’s very first LNG export in 2016.

The latest turn: US and Russian officials have reportedly discussed bringing a US investor into Nord Stream, and Kushner and Dmitriev have discussed the sale of Lukoil’s international assets to a consortium, including the US government’s Development Finance Corporation. A patron of Ukraine and its enemy are now bargaining over the remains of the energy war.

Rivalry that took the form of sanctions and sabotage now also takes the form of investment and purchase. As Lenin stated, “the forms of the struggle may and do constantly change”, but its substance “positively cannot change, while classes exist.”

Sam Moews
USA

Bolshevik fantasy

The cause of Scottish independence, as espoused by the Scottish National Party, is now merely a front for Scottish bosses like the distasteful owner of Ineos Group Ltd, Sir Jim Ratcliffe. The stance of the SNP-ruled Glasgow council towards its workers makes that clear. The Menshevik Labour Party are also pro-business and no solution to Scotland’s woes.

Only a Bolshevik programme can transform the lives of workers, women, the poor and disabled in Scotland. That means land reform, where the vast lands of the rich are expropriated and shared with the populace. Let’s institute workers’ councils within every workplace, which will determine wage levels and strategic decision-making. Let’s have a workers’ militia to replace the police force and ensure justice for the working class. Let’s kick the grouse-shooters out of Scotland and end the gulf in wealth and lifestyle, which condemns huge swathes of the Scottish populace to miserable lives.

K Sean
Kent

School students

The high school and university student protests taking place for the past three weeks in France are not an isolated expression of rebellion.

Even if they are supported individually by parents, teachers and wage-earners, high school and university student protests, left to their own devices, are bound to be nothing more than a flash in the pan - whether they take place in France or Belgium or anywhere else. The same is true of protests against rising rents in Spain and elsewhere. Not only must we all join forces, but, above all, it is the entire wealth-producing class - the proletariat - that must step forward, take the lead in these uprisings and give them a perspective for struggle: first, against the immediate attacks on our living conditions; and, second, for proletarian revolution to overthrow capitalism. There is no other path in the face of poverty first and war second.

In this sense, high school students in France and Belgium, protestors in Spain, as well as all the so-called popular uprisings erupting across most continents, call upon the proletariat as a whole. These protests highlight the proletariat’s historical responsibility.

In France and Belgium, we therefore call on all the most militant workers to join and participate in the high school and university student demonstrations and assemblies. Above all, we encourage them to organise and form struggle committees - or any other form of active, militant group - to take collective action at demonstrations and assemblies; and prepare to enter the struggle and go on strike, based on demands that are as broad and unified as possible. We call on teachers in particular not to limit themselves to supporting their students, but to throw themselves into the struggle for their own demands, which, for the most part, align with those of high school students.

International Communist Current
France