Letters

Inaccurate

I have been a subscriber to your journal for a couple of years now and find it a useful source of information on who is doing what to whom in the revolutionary left, and I generally enjoy the robust polemical tone of Mark Fischer’s column.

However, if I might offer a little friendly criticism, Mark’s tendency (and he is not alone in this) to embroider his articles with quotes from Lenin’s Collected Works adds nothing to their persuasiveness, especially when, as in the case of Mark’s article, ‘Craig agonises’ (Weekly Worker July 2 1998), his gloss on the reference (VI Lenin CW Vol 19, p173) is both inaccurate and inappropriate.

In discussing whether recently ex-CPGB comrades should have their views aired in the columns of the Weekly Worker, Mark opposes the notion, calling in aid Lenin and a small episode in his dispute with Bogdanov from the year 1913. Mark sets the references out thus:

“A few years after having Bogdanov expelled from the Bolshevik faction he attacked the Vpered group to which the man belonged in the Bolshevik paper Pravda. Bogdanov sent a reply, which was published. Outraged, Lenin wrote to the editors telling them that their decision was ‘so scandalous that, to tell the truth, one does not know whether it is possible after this to remain a contributor’. Lenin saw no ‘right’ for Bogdanov - the leader of a trend that proposed the dissolution of the Party - to be accorded space in the pages of the Bolshevik press to propagate these views, even if responding to a polemical attack. Right or wrong, he assessed it politically, in other words.”

It is difficult to imagine a less convincing example, or one with more errors. Bogdanov was not a member of the Vpered group. In Lenin’s words (from the same article Mark calls in aid): “The Vpered group is disintegrating completely. Mr Bogdanov left them a long time ago.” Nor did Bogdanov or the Vpered have a dissolutionist policy. That was a Menshevik heresy of Potresov, Martov, etc. Bogdanov and Vpered were Otzovists, dedicated to the cessation of work in the Duma and trade unions and other legal working class organisations in favour of an underground party. Lenin’s complaint was that Bogdanov’s article denied Vpered’s line was connected to boycotting the Duma, etc. Lenin says: “Mr Bogdanov expounded the Vpered platform incorrectly and gave the facts incorrectly … I cannot continue to contribute articles in face of Mr Bogdanov’s despicable lying.”

None of this is particular heinous, but it is the sort of mess that comrades get themselves into when they bolster a sagging argument by reference to infallible writ. The similarity between the Dundee comrades and Bogdanov and Vpered is as remote as the Russia of 1913 is to Britain in 1998. Have the Dundee comrades imported the anti-Marxist philosophy of Mach and Avernarius into the CPGB as Lunacharsky and Bogdanov did to the Bolsheviks? Did they set up a rival party school to the Communist University as Bogdanov, Lunacharsky and Gorky did? Did they lead physical attacks against party public meetings as Alexinsky and a group of Vperedists did? I will bet the answer to these questions is no. Indeed, in terms of boycotting I would have thought that Jack Conrad and Mark Fischer would be closer to Bogdanov than Dave Craig or Dundee.

In any case, comrades, take heart. At the end of it all, Bogdanov, Lunacharsky and Gorky all returned to the fold. So why not save a lot of space and allay all suspicions and print the comrades letters?

Jim Higgins
Norfolk

Not even-handed

The Communist Party of Great Britain is as accurate as ever. In West Belfast the Socialist Party got 128 votes, not 28. More importantly however is the allegation of “evenhanded in their equal condemnation of both loyalist death squads and republican anti-imperialists” (Weekly Worker July 2). The Socialist Party has never described these trends as being one and the same, or even opposite sides of the same coin. The reasons for republican armed struggle and loyalist reaction necessitate a more detailed analysis than the CPGB provide.

Such a lazy description could only be provided by a group devoid of support and analysis from those on the ground in Ireland.

Phil Bryant
Belfast

The life of John

I had to blink a few times when I read the letters page in the latest issue of Socialist Review (July). In it there is a wonderfully non-sectarian, hands-across-the-water-type letter. Thus we read the following:

“Once we could have argued for a ‘one party, one election’ approach; now we need something more flexible. For example, the Network of Socialist Alliances brings together local groups of socialists who are taking up struggles across the country. The Independent Labour Network is enlisting support of those disaffected with Labour following the move of Ken Coates and Hugh Kerr, Euro MPs. The Green Left Network seeks to mobilise those who combine demands for environmental sustainability with social justice, and there are Green councillors willing to work with socialists. These three networks are linked and are developing the possibilities of cooperation and coordinated electoral intervention, where appropriate, effective and possible. At the same time, there are at least three socialist parties with electoral aims and experiences: the Socialist Party has elected representatives; the Socialist Labour Party has fought elections widely; the Socialist Workers Party is considering putting its resources towards an electoral platform.

“All these forces are worthy of recognition.”

The author of this letter concludes:

“We could also demonstrate by working together that (nearly) 2,000 years later we are not all reliving the experience of the splitters who were so prominent in The life of Brian.”

Who wrote the above words? John Nicholson, convenor of Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance and the Network of Socialist Alliances. A comrade who used the most despicable bureaucratic practices to exclude and drive out communists from the GMSA.

It appears from the above letter that comrade Nicholson is prepared to work with just about anyone except communists - and in particular the CPGB.

Worst of all, Nicholson tries to enlist Monty Python’s The life of Brian on his side! I recommended that comrade Nicholson watches it again. He may find that the joke is on him.

John Dart
Bristol

What did I say?

Gone are the heady days of a week at Blackpool or Scarborough debating a full schedule of political, industrial and world events - which marked the NUM out not simply as a trade union, but as a social and political organisation with campaigns and views affecting all areas of work and life.

This year’s NUM national conference (Barnsley, July 4) is reduced to one day only, and as such reflects a very much smaller agenda, as well as a limited ability to launch mass interventions. At the insistence of Arthur Scargill the NEC (reconvened as “a special delegate conference”) voted earlier the year to hold only bi-annual conferences, even of the one-day variety, and to reduce by half the number of NECs in a year. All of this in a dire struggle to stay solvent in an ever declining coal industry, coupled with an ever declining loss of membership density. The next time we are due to meet is in the millennium!

The conference itself was vibrant, with dynamic contributions from the floor and a unity of purpose across national and old political divides. The union committed itself to a campaign to win recognition at RJB mines (the main coal-owner in Britain) and a conciliation scheme. Arthur set the ball rolling with a wage target of £50,000 per year for face workers, £40,000 elsewhere underground and £30,000 on the surface; a six-hour day and a four-day week. Our aim of retirement at 50 on a full pension has long been nailed to the masthead.

In Arthur Scargill’s words, there was “only one note of discord” in the whole conference, and it seems it came from me, raising a question on the annual report and the accounts. I simply asked if the £20,000 annual affiliation we paid to the International Energy and Miners Organisation could be justified - given the lay-off in staff, the cut-backs in union services and the fact that all we have seen for it was a periodical badly duplicated news sheet. Then we needed an international miners’ organisation under the control of the miners, with democratic delegate structures, and to whom it would be accountable.

Well, I suppose I should have known better. Arthur was irate. Never had he been so slighted, and generally did his fishmonger act with barrow-loads of red herrings. He was accountable - anyone could go their conferences - and implied accusations of disloyalty, nationalism, lack of gratitude, etc. No, it’s not possible to get back up and restate with bared breasts one’s undying commitment to our international comrades. You’ve had your go and all that is to be done is to sit and be harangued, while doing a McEnroe, ‘What did I say? What did I say?’ plea to fellow delegates.

Dave Douglass
NUM Hatfield