Letters

Philosophy

Phil Watson and Kevin Graham raise interesting and intelligent points: the former in defence of George Lukács against the “highly misleading” attack on him by Linda Addison; the latter in defence of Louis Althusser against the “criticism” of John Dart (Weekly Worker Letters, January 15). Unfortunately, in correcting what they perceive of as the mistakes of others, both comrades fall into error by widening their defence much too far.

I, in my turn then, must first defend the CPGB ‘majority’ against the charge of “liquidationism” levelled by comrade Watson, and secondly defend Marx and Engels themselves from the charge of “revisionism” coming from comrade Graham.

Phil Watson seems to believe that comrade Addison’s mish-mash of ineffectual bile, dour pessimism and puerile inaccuracy published in the Weekly Worker in October last year stems from a sophisticated misreading of Lukács’s History and class consciousness. I beg to differ. This comrade arrived at right liquidationism not as a result of theory, but due to a lack of theory. Her little lecture on the ‘sins’ of Lukács is mere ornamentation - or, if you prefer, camouflage.

But what of the “absurd”, “unprovable” and “liquidationist” formulation in the ‘What we fight for’ column which comrade Watson so strongly objects to: namely, “We are materialists: we hold that ideas are determined by social reality and not the other way round”? Given limitations of space, I am sure the comrade will forgive me for not entering into a discussion concerning the dialectical relationship between matter and consciousness. Needless to say, I do utterly reject his rather flippant charge of liquidationism - which here can only mean liquidating the theory of Marxism. No doubt the comrade wants to appear even-handed and scold both comrade Addison and the CPGB ‘majority’.

Our formulation corresponds to and is adapted directly from Marx’s celebrated 1859 preface to his Contribution to the critique of political economy. Hopefully a few selected quotes will suffice: “In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will …. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness … a distinction should always be made between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic - in short ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.”

This brings me to comrade Graham. He more or less equates ‘classic’ Marxism with arid economic determinism. However, as can be seen from the passage just cited above, Marx (and Engels) rejected the absurd and ignorant notion that economics was the sole determinate - rather than the determined determinate of the last analysis. Yet comrade Graham foolishly says that it was they who therefore set the “revisionism” of Althusser “in motion”.

My prime objection to Althusser is not that he brought into Marxism a stress on the role of ideology - it was there in rich abundance already. But that he re-invented an entirely spurious old, ‘scientific’ and young, ‘idealistic’ Marx. Of course, there was a young and old Marx. Marx was not born a Marxist. But when did he become a Marxist? Althusser places Marx’s ‘epistemological break’ not, as I would, in 1844 with the Paris manuscripts. Rather it was with Capital or even his Marginal notes on Wagner - Marx’s only fully Marxist work, according to the French academic. This revisionism originates not in the Collège de France, as comrade Graham imagines, but the Soviet Union. The Stalinites could not but find embarrassing stirring calls for negating alienation and universal human liberation. They tried to explain away the Paris manuscripts and the German ideology by dismissing them as the product of a ‘non-scientific’ young Marx.

In my opinion there is an uninterrupted method and aim that joins the Marx of 1844 to the Marx of Capital. The method is scientific; the aim is freedom. Between the two works and the two points in time there was no qualitative break but, not least as shown by Grundrisse, consistent, logical and painstaking development. Althusser did not try to “strengthen Marxism”, but revisionism. Thankfully in the end he failed.

Jack Conrad
London

Pie in the sky

Although Jim Blackstock’s article ‘Winnie fills SACP vacuum’ (Weekly Worker December 4 1997) can be said to be ‘better’ than most being bandied around in the media, it contains hints and misinformation that I feel should not pass.

I presume it is felt by many that the 37 ANC members (including the president, Thabo Mbeki), having been amnestied by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee without having to state their crimes, are to be excused. After all, as Jim Blackstock says, they were fighting the struggle and I agree one cannot equate revolutionary violence with reactionary violence. But were they really?

In the 1970 and 80s, great respect was paid in Britain and in Europe generally to the chief representative of the ANC in London, Solly Smith (Samuel Khunene) and his sidekick, Dr Francis Meli. In 1990 Smith confessed - and implicated Meli - to having been spies for the South African apartheid regime. After his confession, Smith was made head of the ANC in the Orange Free State and a few months later both were found dead in hotel rooms in different towns.

In the 1980s the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group was being trashed by the ANC and AAM, as was David Kitson and myself. The membership of the London ANC was peculiarly obedient to these spies.

 The British media also fulsomely followed the dictates of the spies. But there were many others: the British Anti-Apartheid Movement went to great lengths to assist the Boer agents. Ken Gill, leader of the union Tass, joined avidly in trying to rubbish the Kitsons and stopped David’s funding at Ruskin College, having previously promised him a ‘job for life’ after his 20 years in jail as a member of the high command of Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Nothing further has been published about the spies, although PAC member Patricia de Lille tried to make some facts known in parliament recently. Her allegations have not, of course, been answered.

But back to Winnie Madikizela Mandela:

It has not been found in any court, nor at the TRC, that Winnie killed, beat or caused the killing or beating of anyone. She asked for an open hearing to clear her name.

Jim Blackstock says “numerous witnesses have implicated” her in the murder of Stompie and Dr Asvat. These witnesses were all self-confessed liars: even the ‘unassailable’ Albertina Sisulu, when called upon to confirm her act of signing a medical card - evidence which she had given previously a number of times - denied having done it. One ‘witness’ admitted being a police spy. One, Falati, gave as her reason for lying that it was ‘traditional’, and so on. Posing Cebekulu, Richardson, Falati and people like them - self-confessed criminals and liars - as witnesses to Winnie MM’s ‘crimes’ is misleading your readership.

There have been campaigns against Winnie MM for many years, all of which have proved in and out of the courts to have been baseless. One after another, cases have been set up against her and then disproved. The one area where she was found guilty was in kidnapping.

In the UK and Europe there have been many cases where children have been removed from the care of child abusers. Only in South Africa, in the case of Winnie MM, has this been termed ‘kidnapping’. Falati reported to her that these children were being abused and she removed them from Verryn’s care, and she admitted that.

Judge Stegman found that when Stompie was murdered, Winnie MM was proved to be in Brandfort. This was corroborated by Mrs Sisulu at the TRC hearing when she denied signing the medical card with its altered date so crudely offered as evidence of Winnie MM’s presence in Johannesburg on that day.

Did you know it was said at the time of his death that Dr Asvat was in a position to confirm that Stompie had been raped? That was the reason given then why he was murdered. Winnie MM could not have done that (or arranged it) because it would have been contrary to her interests. Through all the years Winnie MM has run crèches, provided venues and food for children. Her writings of the children of Soweto are profoundly loving. Also, Dr Asvat was a great friend of hers.

Jim Blackstock says Winnie MM’s “revolutionism has drifted in the direction of reactionary populism” because she is alleged to have said she is in favour of restoration of the death penalty. Winnie denies she ever said that. Winnie MM has a huge constituency among the South African people. Dire moves were made to prevent her being elected deputy president of the ANC; but, despite all the media hype and hatred, she achieved 15th position out of 150 candidates in the voting stakes at the ANC conference in Mafikeng.

JB’s final paragraph is actually laughable. Here we have a revolutionary leader, proved and tested in the struggle, leading from the front, and he is asking the “masses” to jack her and “unite their forces in order to reforge the SACP around an independent working class programme”. Talk about pie in the sky! What SACP is he referring to? The Yusuf Dadoo one, who spent his time drinking himself under the table and whose followers (or leaders) were hand in hand with the confessed spies? Or the one led by Moses Mabidha who was not allowed to make decisions unless passed by Brian Bunting? The Slovo-led one which negotiated away the revolution? The one led by Jeremy Cronin that believes you can talk yourself into socialism and, hidden under the cloak of the ANC, is leading its capitalist policies? Or is something new suddenly going to jump out of the woodwork?

The umbrella of the ANC covers many good comrades. Let us hope they emerge, as Winnie has done, unsullied by the spies, the opportunists and the renegades.

Norma Kitson
Zimbabwe

Use and abuse

After reading comrade Danny Hammill’s letter concerning drugs (Weekly Worker January 15) and re-reading comrade Mary Ward’s book review on the same subject (January 8), I feel Mary’s position needs defending.

I believe Danny is confusing drug use with drug abuse. Mary talks about drug abuse and the “harm reduction” from it in the context of the Widnes experiment: If the product of the legalisation of drug use removes death from heroin abuse, this is good; if it prevents “children as young as 10 injecting heroin in Glasgow’s streets” this is good; and if it makes addicts “stabilise their lives and function as part of their communities”, this again is no bad thing.

Although only a small proportion of drug users are actually or will become drug abusers, Danny tends to be a little blasé to this aspect of the question. Whilst I agree that socialists and revolutionaries “should support legalisation … in order for substance use … to be fully socialised and humanised”, the potential physiological and psychological dependence of some drugs, notably the opioids - eg, heroin (morphine) - will always remain. It is therefore in this context that I believe the education, facilities and legislation that Mary writes about should not be overlooked as an important feature when dealing with drug usage.

The fight for the right to use drugs will be but one of many as we take up the issue of democracy and openness alongside the fight for socialism, communism and human liberation. Only then will “harm reduction” be fully achieved and workers be given the opportunity to establish whether or not a drug “pleasure-enhancing” strategy for society is an appropriate one to adopt.

Bob Paul
East London