02.10.1997

We would like to know

Around the left

In our paper, we have once or twice corrected ‘mistakes’ which have appeared in Workers Hammer. This is the publication of the American-based (some would say US-centric) sect, Spartacist League. Some of its statements concerning the supposed political positions of the CPGB are more than just economical with the truth - they are often pure invention. 

Thus this bi-monthly paper insisted that the CPGB “campaigned” for a ballot during the miners’ Great Strike - a complete untruth. Then for some time it informed its readership that the CPGB supports the Maastricht Treaty and everything it stands for (on the grounds that the Weekly Worker does not have a simple, ‘just say no’ position). These are just two of the extraordinary silly calumnies that appeared in Workers Hammer.

However, it looks like Workers Hammer is up to it old tricks again. As always, it has the ‘written from afar’ US imprimatur all over it. Anyone reading it can only conclude that SL’s reputation for political dishonesty and naive invention is well deserved.

For all of SL/Workers Hammer’s rhetorical ‘hardness’, there lurks a very conservative philosophy - remember the final scene from the Wizard of Oz?

Thus, in the ‘editorial notes’ section of Workers Hammer it begins with this formally correct starting point:

“Our attitude to the national question is grounded in intransigent opposition to all forms of nationalism, particularly the dominant English chauvinism. We stand for the right of Scotland and Wales to self-determination (which means the right to choose to form a separate state” (September/October).

Nothing to argue with there. But things are not that simple. The editorial then goes on to outline a position that implicitly negates the above perspective:

“As an elementary (if limited) extension of bourgeois democratic form, we advocate a ‘yes, yes’ vote to a Scottish parliament including with tax-varying powers, and a ‘yes’ vote to a Welsh assembly.”

For all its leftist huff and puff SL is employing exactly the same ‘common sense’ gradualist logic we get from the Socialist Party, Scottish Militant Labour, the Socialist Workers Party, etc. Blair’s sop parliament in Edinburgh, and Ron Davies sub-sop Welsh assembly in Cardiff negate the right to self-determination - and in the process makes a mockery of democracy, particular in Wales.

To cover its right-leaning tracks, SL attacks Workers Power’s position on Wales (“campaign for the biggest possible ‘no’ vote”); the ridiculous Socialist Equality Party’s ‘no’ vote in Scotland; and they have a passing dig at SP (they really mean SML) for its position on the Six Counties.

All easy targets, but not really the point, SL comrades. Why not quote from Socialist Worker or The Socialist positions advocating ‘yes’ votes on identical lines to Workers Hammer? Too much of a blow to SL’s sectarian pride, is the answer.

There is another agenda though, which it certainly shares with SML and SP Wales - nationalism. Or rather, nationalism by leftist proxy in SL’s case. Sounds unlikely? Is not SL ‘ultra-internationalist’ - the sworn and mortal enemy of all forms of Stalinism (ie, socialism in one country-ism).

Well, perhaps not.

As the editorial says:

“The CPGB ... have embarked single-handedly on a campaign for an active boycott of the referendum and for another ballot containing the ‘multi-option’ of a sovereign parliament. In reality, the CPGB oppose the exercise of self-determination and call for a single ‘federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales’” (original emphasis).

The only possible interpretation of this statement is that because the CPGB does not advocate Scottish/Welsh independence we therefore do not support the right to self-determination.

This is utter crassness, and displays a total misunderstanding of the communist/Leninist position on national self-determination, and indeed rights in general. Communists support the right to divorce - do we therefore go round advocating that all couples split up? Or what about the right to an abortion - presumably SL members go up to all pregnant women they meet and demand they have an abortion.

As internationalists, we fight for the unity of the British working class. We therefore implacably fight all forms of nationalism/separatism - as SL also claims to do. But we support the right of the Scottish/Welsh to self-determination - up to and including separation. Hardly conducive with voting ‘yes’, as SL has done.

We want the Scottish and Welsh to exercise their right to self-determination by challenging the very foundations of the UK state.

SL wants to “seek to hasten the demise of the archaic ‘United Kingdom’”. Yes, comrades, but in a positive fashion, not a negative way. Not by a reactionary break-up of the UK along national - or regional - lines. Implicitly, this is the message from the latest issue of Workers Hammer.

SL comrades - do you support Scottish independence or not? If so, is there a Scottish road to socialism? We would very much like to know.

Don Preston