Letters

Fancy footwork

Two, three, many socialist slates for London? What testimony to the arrogance, blundering stupidity, petty-mindedness, backward-looking sectarianism, blustering machismo, cack-handedness, clumsy tactical incompetence and chilling lack of strategic vision presently on display throughout the British left.

Scargillism without Scargill is a full-on no-brainer. The political prestidigitation now seen in the Independent Labour Network - coming as it does after recent events in the Manchester and London Socialist Alliances and the tragicomedy of the Socialist Labour Party - will leave many grassroots supporters of the idea of a new and electorally viable socialist formation pulling their hair out.

It’s just that I am not sure whether it is sadness or anger that has sent my already thinning pate over the abyss into alopecia. The self-appointed leaders-in-waiting of Britain’s slowly emerging new socialist party should bloody well get their collective act together. Now.

Rampant chicanery just does not constitute serious socialist politics. This ain’t no polytechnic student union. This ain’t no Constituency Labour Party general management committee circa 1983. This ain’t no fooling around. Shabby back-door attempts to stuff perceived nogoodniks by the multiple miracles of fancy footwork simply will not do.

If our new party emerges anything less than open and democratic, it will defeat the very object of building it. It will instead stand condemned in advance to the many activists who have been on the receiving end of witchhunts in the Labour Party, the trade unions, and/or the SLP. Been there once, been there twice, don’t want to see it dished out on others a third time.

This is a message to the stitch-up merchants. Broad-based socialist formations have to be just that. Broad. As Collins English Dictionary puts it,

“having relatively great breadth or width; of vast extent, spacious; of great scope or potential; clear and open; liberal; tolerant; widely spread; extensive”.

In a nutshell, it must include the nutters. Attempts bureaucratically to exclude ‘ultra-leftists’ are - in and of themselves - far more damaging than letting the tosspots into the tent in the first place.

I am a member of Socialist Democracy, a cuddly current mercifully not deemed beyond the pale within the Socialist Alliances or the ILN. I am also writing as a revolutionary socialist involved in all socialist unity initiatives in Britain since the Chesterfield conferences of the late 80s, a time when many were ploughing their respective isolationist furrows.

Accordingly, I want to make this an explicit plea for tolerance on behalf of less respectable comrades. I only wish I’d said something similar at the height of the SLP purges, rather than keeping my head down in the forlorn hope of making the cut at the next recarding. Hello, Delphi, old chum, are you reading me?

The name of the game is not reconstructing a Bennite left in exile. The Scottish Socialist Party - and unlike the publishers of this newspaper, I wholeheartedly applaud its emergence as an exemplar of the party of recomposition we should aim for south of the border - surely underlines that.

Revolutionary socialists have earned every right to be an integral component of a new socialist party in England and Wales. All revolutionary socialists, not just those deemed acceptable to the right wing of such a formation. CPGB included. United Socialists ‘R’ Us. To paraphrase a great line from a great movie - I am Spartacist.

“Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.” Right on, Rosa. Even the Social Democratic Federation had a seat at the table when the Labour Representation Committee was founded.

Behind the latest attack on the London ILN lies profound ignorance - or perhaps deep-seated distrust? - of the current composition of the London left. In the capital, there just isn’t a left social democratic layer, comparable to the base of the ILN in a number of provincial cities.

The effects of an explicit political virginity test, administered at the hands of a gate-keeping social democratic immigration control, will be massively more damaging than allowing a handful of headbangers to dish out their crazy leaflets and propose a few nutty motions from the conference floor. You despise them? Then the simple answer is, give ’em enough rope. Together, we can vote them down.

Remember, ultra-leftism is a moving target. The Blairites have expelled people with what would previously have been considered mainstream Labour left politics, using precisely this catch-all term as ostensible justification. Comrades from a Labour left/80s Trotskyist entryist background should have first-hand knowledge of this. Shame on those who would repeat the experience.

The lessons to be gained from parties of recomposition on the continent are instructive too. The Fourth Internationalist current within Rifondazione Comunista is acknowledged as an integral part of the party, despite the depredations of now-departed rightist sections of the leadership.

A recent speech from none other than outgoing Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown recently observed that under proportional representation, “a new party of socialists, credibly led, could hope to win a small group in parliament”. Got that, guys? The man said “credibly led”.

Of course, winning a small group in parliament is hardly the limit of socialist ambition. But in the current UK political stalemate, it would represent a key advance.

Time to end carve-up culture. Base steering committees on one delegate per affiliate. Don’t erect ridiculous artificial preconditions based on magazine subscriptions.

Yes, the far left can be a royal pain in the arse. But a minimum requirement for the leadership of anything that deserves the name of a socialist party will be sufficient leadership skills to swallow a couple of aspirins, and live with it.

Dave Osler
North London

So wrong Long

The significance of the Hackney by-election is that different socialist trends were able to cooperate on the basis of class interest. Including the SWP and Turkish communists, who are just beginning to break from supporting Labour electorally. This could not have happened a year ago. Blair’s repositioning of Labour as an openly capitalist party has created currents that are washing away old certainties.

Nick Long (Letters Weekly Worker February 4) confuses a tactic to bring the left together around a political, not economistic, orientation in the here and now with his own long-term economistic strategy to bring a pro-working class party to power in the far distant future. It is foolish to emphasise the size of the vote at this stage before the left has proved to itself, let alone anyone else, that it can sink its own rivalries in the class interest.

Nick is easily enthused if, after “years of joint socialist activity” with policies he approves of, they only get 13% of the vote with Ian Page - a former Labour Party councillor. This is not very much when you consider that about 70% of the electorate do not bother to vote at all, having noticed that local government is merely an extension of central government bureaucracy. While searching out the real struggle in its true home, he fails to notice that most of the class is sloping off in the other direction.

Of course, if millions were marching on Westminster demanding flat pavements, I’d be singing from a different hymn sheet, but somehow I suspect it is not a big enough idea to generate much passion. Anyway the problem with acting locally is that it splits the left into myriad groups with private agendas while the state operates centrally. We cannot educate the class, or ourselves, by defining socialism as the honest, but ineffective defender of the welfare state. Socialism is a programme to smash the state, or else, like Old Labour, it is a fraud. We should have the democratic right to argue this case in front of the class as part of a united left. We should not run away from it because it is an electoral liability. Revolutionary politics usually are, but necessity is necessity.

Comrade Long wants to challenge the Greens but does not see the secret of their success. Namely, they start from what they believe to be the urgent universal needs of all humanity to which all institutions must be subordinated. Civilisation or barbarism, not palliatives to give local activists something to do while nothing really is happening. Their local growth reflects their international growth. They are making their ideas the ideas of the masses, which the masses can then use everywhere. Green ideas operate in society, far beyond the bounds of the Green Party. They shape the way people feel as well as think and affect the activities of their opponents.

The ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas of society. They represent a tendency in society, not just a party organisation.

Phil Kent
North London

Defend Iraq?

It is difficult to know where to start with the James Paris article (Weekly Worker February 4) on defence of Iraq. As an example of turgid and undialectic thinking it would take some beating. For comrade Paris the world has not changed since Lenin wrote Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. The sun has not set on the British empire; the bi-polar superpower world of the Cold War period is a figment of fevered imaginations; the USSR’s satellite states in eastern Europe have never existed; and India - along with numerous others - still languishes under the colonial yoke.

According to comrade Paris, were India - an independent capitalist state with a developed finance capital sector and nuclear capability - to declare war on Britain tomorrow this would be a defensive - and therefore progressive - war. The comrade sides with small slaveholder against big.

And what, specifically, about Iraq? An independent, if relatively weak, capitalist state with imperialist ambitions? A proto-hegemon in a region where a number of states vie for the title? A state with a degree of developed finance capital which demands to be exported but which is limited by youth and a lack of opportunity? Is Iraq semi-colonial? Or is Iraq proto-imperialist?

The world, as comrade Paris points out, has been divided up already and Iraq is in no position to force a redivision. At least not with the big boys. But it has attempted to impose its dominance regionally; it has attempted to expand by force. Its war against Iran was no class war. This was no head-to-head between Iraqi Ba’athist ‘socialism’ and Iranian clerical fascism: revolution versus counterrevolution. This was a war about oil, a war between “slaveholders”. Small slaveholders, yes, but slaveholders all the same.

What then of the current situation? Do we declare ‘a pox on both your houses’ and refuse to intervene. Clearly not. A victory for either side will reinforce reaction - the imperialist arrogance of the USA; the proto-imperialist ambitions of Iraq. Our position must be one of revolutionary defeatism and independent working class organisation. Comrade Paris allows capitalism to set the agenda. He sees no independent role for the working class in practice - only downtrodden cheerleaders. The grateful slaves of the small slaveholder.

A victory for Saddam Hussein would “prepare the groundwork for the revolutionary proletarian overthrow of the Ba’athists”. “A defeat of imperialism would have added boldness and strength to ... the working class in Iraq ... to fight Saddam Hussein.” And, as history never tires of showing us, military victories always bring social unrest and the threat of insurrection at home. Isn’t that true, comrade Paris? I think not.

Comrade Paris accuses Mark Fischer of popular frontism. Rich indeed. Comrade Paris writes:

“... if the Kornilov revolt took place in the absence of soviets, would Marxists have still mobilised to fight him? Or, by the logic of your position, would you declare a pox on both houses and let the Kornilov fascists take control? The same question can be asked around the Spanish Civil War: would you have declared dual defeatism between the republic and the Franco fascists?”

Counterrevolutionary fascism without a revolution to counter - an interesting idea, but not one I intend to dwell on. The crux of the argument is thus - in the absence of an independent proletarian force during a war between reactionaries and not-so-nasty reactionaries, shouldn’t Marxist side with the not-so-nasty reactionaries? Sorry, comrade, but Marxists should side with the working class.

Where soviets or other proletarian anti-fascist organs do not exist, Marxists should seek to organise them - not throw in their lot with the ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie. Marxists worth their salt would seek to lead such organs against fascism with the object of defending existing political freedoms and extending those freedoms beyond the boundaries of the bourgeois republic. This is proletarian revolution, comrade: you advocate counterrevolutionary popular frontism.

Marxism is about movement, change, fluidity, not dogma and stasis. Go with the flow, comrade Paris: you just might enjoy it.

Andy Hannah
South London

Homosexual deviation

I must comment on Roy Bull’s remarks concerning homosexuality (Weekly Worker January 28).

Bull continues to peddle the idea that involvement in the fight for the rights of lesbians and gays does little but “disastrously helps sow, under capitalism, the illusion that reformist pressure can cure all ill”. Really? Clearly Bull does not believe that championing the rights of the oppressed is the responsibility of socialists. Dismissing democratic demands as simply the “last great wave of ‘reformism’ to steer social revolt away from revolutionary Marxism”, he feels it more prudent to ignore the discrimination, the victimisation, the assaults, the attacks, the abuse and the prejudice that many individuals from the gay community face on a daily basis. Indeed, by describing himself as a socialist and disassociating himself completely from the struggle for lesbian and gay rights, Bull not only alienates those from that community who see socialism as a vehicle for progress, but also allows political elements hostile to the idea of socialism to set the agenda for the oppressed.

I agree being ‘PC’ will not eradicate prejudice against the gay community. But tarnishing those who take up the rights of the oppressed with the same brush is wrong. The choice for socialists is clear: get stuck in and fight for our political mark on the issue or leave it open for others to determine what constitutes the way forward.  

Secondly, despite claims to the contrary, Bull’s thoughts on homosexuality are certainly not ‘scientific’. After reading his article, I have no doubt that newer readers of the Weekly Worker will already have serious doubts about his musings on the subject, but let me take this opportunity to remind everyone of some of Bull’s earlier rantings.

In the Economic and Philosophic Science Review (October 8 1996), lesbians and gays are described as “sufferers”, and “homosexualism” a “sexual deviation”.

In the edition of February 18 1997, it states that the “homosexual disorder is not unethical as such but its demonic drive can lay sufferers open to a more conspiratorial prevalence of such behaviour”. Bull then kindly reassures those suffering from this “disorder”, myself included, that “persecution of such abnormalities is a barbaric instinct and will die out under socialism”.

However, we are also told, should

“society establish that heterosexualism procreation remains the basic natural revolutionary pattern for the species, then cleverly rationalised deviations from this by emotionally charged male or female homosexuals in a position to strongly influence the education of minors is clearly going to remain a potential problem, possibly requiring continued differentiation within childcare and the teaching professions” (my emphasis).

Who needs Section 28 when we’ve got Bull to protect the youth of society from all those “cleverly rationalised” and “emotionally charged” homosexuals out there? I ask the reader: do such ideas form the basis for objective, “scientific socialism”, or do they represent the overt prejudice of an individual camouflaged with socialist credentials?    

Only to those who need to find a cure for the gay “phenomenon” is there such a thing as “homosexualism”. Only to those who want to put right “malfunctioning sexual orientation” does the gay “condition” exist.

To address same-sex relationships as a phenomenon to be studied because of “its obvious disadvantages for any species in evolutionary terms” (as if under communism people’s sexual freedom will lead them to indulge exclusively in same sex relationships!) would really be quite laughable if it was not so vile and offensive. 

Bob Paul
East London