Letters

Cruel deception

Would Alan McCombes care to comment on Bill Bonnar’s review in Red (summer 1998) of Donald Sassoon’s “excellent” book, One hundred years of socialism?

Just how do Bill’s arguments square with the reassurances given to Peter Taaffe? In paragraphs 54 through 61 of his document ‘For a bold step forward’, Alan gave his word that the programme of the proposed Scottish Socialist Party would commit its entire membership to “the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of workers’ power”. Alan went on to claim that there is now unanimous support for this in the SSA. His familiarity with the politics of the membership is clearly less comprehensive than he would like to believe. Evidently it has slipped his mind that Paisley branch stood a candidate in the general election whose attitude to our Charter for socialist change exactly parallels Tony Blair’s to clause four. What we are dealing with here are purely meaningless ritual commitments to be privately, publicly even, ridiculed. Bill’s review suggests to me that Sean Clerkin was not the only SSA candidate whose commitment to common ownership and workers’ power was less than wholehearted.

What is Alan’s response now that we discover that the key task, as far as Bill is concerned, is the election of a left government whose aim would not be socialism? Will he, in defiance of CWI discipline, agree with Bill’s description of the French Socialist Party as a model socialist party? Would an SSA/SSP government behave like Lionel Jospin’s government today? Bill isn’t just disproving the claims Alan makes for unanimous support for “a full-blooded socialist programme”; his remarks are a slap in the face to Gauche Révolutionnaire (the French section of the CWI). Alan might wish that, for diplomatic purposes, the entire rank and file of the SSA could pretend we agree on 80% of our politics. Neither Bill nor I labour under the delusion that this is the case. And I, for one, consider it unhealthy to perpetrate such a cruel deception on our class.

Bill’s model of a socialist organisation in a revolutionary situation is the Stalinist CP in the Spanish Civil War; mine is the Bolsheviks in the 1905 and, in particular, the 1917 revolutions. Bill’s model of a socialist organisation in a non-revolutionary situation is the one in government across the Channel today defending the interests of the French ruling class; mine is the Bolsheviks both before and between the Russian revolutions. The theses, resolutions and manifestos of the first four congresses of the Communist International would come near the top of my list of recommended reading for any young socialist; for Bill they would, I suspect, be more likely to appear on a list of proscribed literature.

It is not necessary for us to pretend we all agree on 80% of our politics in order to coexist in one party. Bill appears to be implying that Leninists in the SSA dream of rapidly transforming it into a democratic centralist party. He warns that were we to succeed he would jump ship. But no one is foolish enough to see this as a credible project. Bill and I both agree 100% in building support for workers in struggle, be they Scots like the Glacier workers, English like the Liverpool dockers or whatever. Given this fact, and given that we also agree on building united fronts around struggles and campaigns which fight over progressive issues, such as opposition to all forms of oppression, there is a basis for us to coexist in one organisation for the foreseeable future.

Nevertheless, at least some of us have not forgotten the explanation Lenin and Trotsky gave for why we have but one example of the working class taking power this century. This is because of the failure of Marxists outside Russia to patiently and methodically build democratic centralist vanguard parties with deep roots in the class, and to do so not after the revolution has broken out, but in the years and decades beforehand.

Tom Delargy
Paisley

Right of reply

I thought my article ‘Rapprochement stalled’ (Weekly Worker May 28) might be slightly provocative. As it turned out, I stirred up some different, indeed unexpected arguments. I want to deal now with what I thought would create debate. I will leave for another occasion the surprising question of the existence or not of a ‘Dundee group’ and whether they can join the tendency.

I certainly expected my claim that there was a “big hole in the policy of openness” would bring forth a reply. Openness does not and cannot mean that any and everything must be printed in the central organ. However, a ‘right of reply’ in the letters page, to those criticised or misrepresented is a minimum requirement and indeed a democratic safeguard.

When Lee Rock was criticised in the Weekly Worker, he was able to exercise a right of reply. That was to the credit of CPGB. When the national organiser made comments in his column about comrades leaving, their replies should have been printed. After all, if it is important why comrades left, we must hear their reasons directly. That is the starting point for drawing out the politics.

If all we are allowed to hear is the PCC or their representatives, then it is conceivable that all we might get is ‘spin doctoring’. I hope it is not too cynical to suggest that leaderships have a vested interest in deflecting criticism and putting the best spin possible on any events.

What we need to find out is the real politics of the situation. Was it a product of a “rightwing liquidationist trend” or the result of an incorrect political line or method? In either case there are very important reasons why we should continue to discuss these matters, even if those who left disappeared into a black hole. The problems of rightwing liquidationism or an incorrect political line will remain and continue to damage us. Unfortunately so far, all we have heard is petty trivia about hard times and comrades’ personal problems.

The CPGB have set themselves high standards in terms of openness. It is the job of all comrades, supporters and sympathisers to assist in maintaining those standards. But they do not exist in a vacuum. At times of crisis or setbacks there is a tremendous pressure for damage limitation and self-preservation. It is far easier to sweep things under the carpet, and on the face of it this seems less damaging. But that is short-sighted.

At times like this the commitment to openness is really tested. For this reason any departure or alleged departure from openness needs to be challenged openly.

Are my concerns paranoid and without foundation? The truth is that the events, beginning with the resignation of the previous editor, placed tremendous pressure on the group for damage limitation. The fact that the CPGB had its own internal debate about openness, as a result of these events, indicates the same. I was disappointed that so few CPGB members came out openly to defend their ex-comrades’ right of reply. Too many seem easily seduced by the argument that the letters were lacking in merit and contained factual errors. Even if both these claims were true, it would surely be an argument for printing, not suppressing them. Let the readers judge and not censors acting supposedly on their behalf.

Comrades Conrad and Kent did speak in favour of printing the letters in at least one meeting I attended. But most comrades were indifferent or against. I was surprised by Manchester comrades. They had become very concerned about the threat to openness posed by a thesis on this subject, but seemed indifferent to a right of reply. Perhaps I am wrong on this and they will no doubt correct me.

Whether the failure to print these letters constitutes a “big hole”, a little hole or a minor hiccup is arguable. Jack Conrad’s reply (‘Party notes’, June 4) provides an answer. Essentially he explains that the right of reply has not been abandoned, but rather temporarily suspended. A special procedure was thought up. A major document, rumoured to be 15,000 words, has been written, presumably critical of the ex-comrades. This will be sent to them. They will then be able to decide whether they want their original letters printed along with this document.

It needs to be said that the Dundee comrades had no choice in this. It was imposed upon them. The rationale for this was “because we do not want to further sour things and deepen divisions”. I accept that this rationale was sincerely meant by Jack Conrad. He has spoken on a number of occasions in favour of cooling the situation and maintaining friendly and comradely relations. However, a lot of bad things can be done in the name of good intentions. I fear that this will do exactly that. We will await this document with interest.

There is a lot of personalised politics going on about the merits of various individuals. We need to get rapidly away from this stuff and onto the real politics. The CPGB has suffered a political setback as a result of its intervention in Scotland. We need to find out whether this is a result of a trend of rightwing liquidationism or the result of the CPGB following an incorrect political line or method.

Dave Craig
RDG (faction of the SWP)

All crap

Regarding Don Preston’s column (‘No Politics please, we’re Bullites’ Weekly Worker June 11), my Socialist News article on drugs nowhere called for their banning. It argued that the ‘legalisation’ campaign played into capitalism’s hands since the drugs trade, the biggest on earth now, was deliberately used to pacify the masses, frequently with identifiable imperialist-state promotion around the world.

Campaigning about any ‘legal’ reform which does not challenge capitalism is a reformist diversion. More pressing tasks face communists than exposing ‘illogical’ cannabis laws. All capitalist law is crap. Pot-smoking hobbyists should declare their interest.

Ending British colonial tyranny in Ireland was forced on Britain by revolutionary struggle and is a different type of ‘reform’ entirely, seriously undermining and weakening British imperialism. Anti-apartheid was a victory, not for letter-writers to the UN essentially, but for the revolutionary struggle in Africa, to which imperialism was obliged to concede, weakening itself.

You get excited about “thousands of influential international bourgeois” writing to the UN to say that “the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.” More reformist illusions. Capitalist society is not going to get anything right - ever, no matter how many bourgeois write to the UN. All social problems will continue to degenerate. No use ‘legalising’ school truancy, or football-following hooliganism. Alienation cannot be reformed away. It can only grow relentlessly.

Let some or all drugs be legalised tomorrow; the Socialist News piece made no objection. It simply argued that the problem of escapist drop-outs, via drugs or alcohol, would still remain, and imperialism would be no weaker, and possibly even more secure. Feeling free to get smashed is not an obvious revolutionary educator.

There was no call to “persecute the alienated”, whether “losers, addicts or alcoholics”, as you imply. Nor was escapism remotely “blamed” on those who drop out. The capitalist system alone is responsible for alienation, as was made perfectly clear.

You admit that drug addiction under socialism would be a bad sign of a rotten state, implying that no one should want to become a drug or alcohol addict. But in the fight for revolutionary consciousness now, where the state of mind people are in really does matter, you pretend that the only thing that counts is that people should ‘feel’ they are ‘free’ to do what they like. “Human freedom now,” you insist. It is a complete illusion in reply to the correct view in Socialist News that “The ‘liberty’ to do something which in no way challenges capitalism’s economic, political, and social controls, is a false ‘freedom’.”

Yours is a completely un-Marxist view. The fight for revolutionary consciousness is all that matters. The 90% of our lives that we spend simply living, breathing, surviving, existing - or getting smashed - is of great interest to the individual, but of no great interest to the history of the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois-capitalist system.

Royston Bull
Stockport