Letters

Toeing Moscow’s line

Just why Phil Watson wishes to have a go at us in his review of Phil Cohen’s Children of the revolution (Weekly Worker May 7) I don’t know, but I do take exception to his assertion that we at Revolutionary History adhere to “the morbid functioning of Trotskyist orthodoxy”. If you actually read what Bruce Robinson wrote in Revolutionary History Vol 6, Nos2-3; or what I wrote in my article ‘Cornering the chameleons’ in that issue; my review of Kevin Morgan’s Against fascism and war in Vol 3, No3; and my account of the ‘International communism and the Communist Internationalconference’ in Vol 6, No1, you will see that we eschew this “Trotskyist orthodoxy” that views every single action by British Stalinists as being ordered by Moscow. This is not surprising because, as Bruce said, the idea that communist parties obeyed Moscow unvaryingly to the last dot and comma is a caricature raised by those aiming to present a ‘native’ communist tradition.

What I dislike about the revisionist historiography of the official communist movement (it is not limited to the British party) is this insidious attempt by some Eurocommunists and their academic pals to try and dodge the foul legacy of Soviet Stalinism by concocting a ‘native’ communist tradition. The fact is that on every major issue from the late 1920s onwards, the Communist Party of Great Britain loyally followed the Moscow line, and even when there was a little local difficulty, such as when Harry Pollitt disobeyed the Comintern’s anti-war turn in September 1939, it was quickly ironed out.

As far as Bruce and I are concerned, the peculiarities of the CPGB during the Stalin era were merely matters of interpretation of the line sent down from Moscow. The shift to ultra-leftism in the late 1920s, the shift towards class collaboration in the mid­ 1930s, the uncritical support for the Moscow Trials, the turn against World War II in 1939, the turn to support it in 1941 and the abject class collaborationism that continued from then until 1947, the Cominform turn in 1947, the parroting of the slanders against Tito in 1948 - all this was common to all communist parties, not least the CPGB. Only after Khrushchev’s partial denunciation of Stalin and the fall-out following the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 did cracks start to appear in the official communist movement, and Moscow’s instructions were not adhered to automatically. This is not to say that members of the CPGB did not have qualms about the Comintern’s line or about events in the Soviet Union, but what evidence do we have of any oppositional movements within the CPGB, as opposed to individual grumbles, between 1932 and 1956?

If anything, the British party was probably one of the worse for toadying to the Moscow line. Not one leading British communist took an oppositional stand against the Stalinisation of the Comintern. Unlike Cannon and Shachtman in the USA, Brandler and Thalheimer in Germany, Van Overstraeten in Belgium, Sneevliet in Holland, Treint in France, Chen Duxiu in China, to name just a few central committee members who became organised oppositionists, nobody above district committee level did so in Britain, and even then not until 1932. Some may see that as evidence of strength. I see it as demonstrating the low theoretical level of British communism.

As for the possibility of Arthur Horner disappearing in the purges, several important non-Soviet communist party figures did disappear, and there was going to be a show trial of many Comintern leaders. It may have been partly through concern about workers’ reactions in the west that the purge was cancelled. But had it gone ahead and Horner was up before Vyshinsky as a ‘wrecker’, do you really think that Pollitt, Dutt and co would have broken step with the Moscow line and championed a ‘Free Arthur Horner’ campaign amongst Horner’s Welsh miners and other workers in Britain?

Paul Flewers
Revolutionary History

Proud achievement

Many thanks for the back issues of The Leninist and Weekly Worker, and the note which preceded them. It’s fascinating to trace the CPGB’s development since 1981 and, whilst you are obviously not in the business of gathering compliments, I think you can and should be very proud of what has been achieved. Looking over the back issues it is remarkable to think how distant the era of Soviet bloc/Cold War politics already seems; how profoundly the political context has changed, and how apparently complete has been the collapse of ‘socialist’ (albeit imperfect) consciousness amongst the working class.

That is not intended to sound pessimistic, as it surely presents new opportunities, and the ‘end of history’ is a long way off from where I am sitting.

I look forward to reading the back issues in more depth. Please find enclosed £30 towards the Summer Offensive. Not much, I know, but I only ‘earn’ less than £8,000 pa as a temp. I’ll send more before the Summer Offensive ends.

Robert Field
Liverpool

War-weary hack

Simon Harvey’s article, ‘Reclaim Our Rights delegate recall conference’(Weekly Worker April 23), supports the campaign against the anti-union laws like a rope supports a hanging man. The picture he draws of the campaign is marked by his own experience as a war-weary SLP opposition hack. To read the article one would suppose the newly united campaign for the repeal of the anti-union laws is a thinly veiled sub-committee of the SLP NEC open to some guests from the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. In fact the new campaign offers an opportunity to build a rank and file movement against the anti-union laws. Despite Harvey’s SLP-inspired gloom the Reclaim Our Rights conference did unite the vast majority of those campaigning to get rid of the anti-union laws, including the Free Trade Unions Campaign, the SLP initiators of the Reclaim Our Rights conference and the anti-union laws campaign initiative of the CWU. Harvey’s article is silent about the FTUC or even CWU campaign, so let me explain.

The FTUC was set up by rank and file trade unionists from all over the country at a conference in Liverpool last July. The conference was called by Liverpool Unison who were at the time involved in a strike to defend local steward Lol Duffy, sacked for fighting cuts. It was supported by all the major disputes at the time. Representatives of the Liverpool dockers, Hillingdon strikers, Magnet strikers, Critchley Labels dispute, Project Aerospace and Liverpool CWU all spoke and over 200 delegates attended. In short it was a major rank and file workers’ event. Since its foundation the FTUC has campaigned within the workers’ movement against the anti-union laws.

The CWU (the postal and telecom union, Simon) has a policy of scrapping the anti-union laws and replacing them with positive rights for workers. This policy was won by the left and militants in the union with a rich history of defying the laws. FTUC supporters on the CWU national executive were able to win the setting up of a committee open to all national unions to campaign for this policy - an important break from the old policy of hiding behind the TUC’s non-campaigns.

The SLP set up the Reclaim Our Rights conference after the FTUC and the CWU had launched their campaigns. That could have led to the sort of stupid disunity on the left seen in the Gulf War or the fight against racism, with competing campaigns doing each other down and providing the right wing with an ideal excuse not to support any campaign. Fortunately good sense prevailed and we now have a united campaign on a principled basis. Of course no such alliance will be easy, combining as it does different ideological traditions and different elements of the movement, but if we can build a mass campaign against the anti-union laws I think it is worth the effort. Needless to say it will not stop the AWL saying exactly what we think of the behaviour of the union leaders who support the campaign in the RMT, CWU or anywhere else.

As to Harvey’s fascinating blow-by-blow account of the first recall Reclaim Our Rights meeting, he manages to miss the main point that this meeting was only to set up an interim committee to get things moving and to prepare for the delegate recall conference in July that will have the authority and the breadth to elect an executive, decide on policy and adopt a democratic constitution. It was in that context that I supported the temporary structure designed to aid unity and organise action until July.

Harvey and the Weekly Worker missed the point for two reasons. Firstly their lack of involvement in the campaigns against the anti-union laws and secondly a war-weariness in relation to their comrades from the old CPGB and SLP. The AWL have been central to campaigns and are not weary or pessimistic about the chance to build a rank and file movement against the anti-union laws.

Mark Sandell
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty

Not contradictory

John Pearson (Letters, May 7) is formally correct to pick me up on my assertion that fiscal capping policies such as the South African ‘growth, employment and redistribution’ programme (Gear) necessitate spending cuts and attacks on the working class.

It is of course possible for taxes to be increased by more than the reduction in government borrowing, but in reality such capping policies are almost inevitably accompanied by a refusal to increase taxation. I omitted to state in my first article (‘Capital backs Mandela’ Weekly Worker April 30)that Gear also provides for tax cuts for big business - although this point was made in my second article, ‘Delivering the masses’, which coincidentally was published in the same edition as comrade Pearson’s letter. Taken as a whole therefore, Gear does indeed necessitate public spending cuts.

I would however like to take issue with the comrade when he states:

“The working class agenda should not be to argue for opposition to Gear, Maastricht, or any other fiscal policies of individual capitalist states or economic blocs … Rather, we should be arguing that the capitalist class must pay for the universal working class demands for what we need in order to live anything like a decent life.”

The two are not mutually contradictory. Comrade Pearson goes on to raise a package of demands to tax the rich and the capitalists. How can we support a fiscal policy in favour of our class without opposing those of the bourgeoisie? Of course communists are against Gear and Maastricht, just as we are against any attacks on the working class.

Peter Manson
London