Letters

Federal republic

The Scottish Socialist Party is now in existence to fight for an independent socialist Scotland. This was the main point at issue during the new party’s first annual conference in Glasgow on February 21. The party is prepared to break up the working class movement in the name of breaking up the state. The SSP leadership hope that by chasing after nationalism they can become a popular party that can win elections. They hope to profit from the rising tide of nationalism.

Your report of the conference (Weekly Worker March 4) is seriously mistaken not to comment on this central question. One would have imagined from your report that the issue of nationalism went unchallenged. But this is far from the truth. Opposition to the demand for Scottish independence was clearly in evidence.

On the positive side, the tone and style of the event continued the healthy tradition of allowing and almost encouraging open debate. The new party already has three tendencies or platforms - the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), the Campaign for a Federal Republic (CFR) and the Red Republicans are ready to do battle over the national question. Despite this there are still many within the SSP that prefer to focus on the 80% they agree with and composite the 20% where they disagree. They prefer to remit some controversial decisions to a less inconvenient moment. This is how matters such as Ireland and the attitude to a referendum on the euro are dealt with.

The morning session was dominated by a discussion on a 16-point programme proposed by the executive. A handful of amendments were submitted. One originating from the CFR (which operates as an open platform in the SSP), argued for the deletion of an “independent socialist Scotland” and its replacement with the call for “a federal republic of England, Scotland and Wales as a step towards workers’ power, international socialism and world communism”. This amendment proved very controversial. It probably caused the most discussion of the whole conference. It united the more explicit nationalists with the CWI platform, against the amendment.

The CFR argued that the fight for a federal republic encapsulated the need for genuine self-determination for the people of Scotland, while at the same time abolishing the Act of Union and the monarchy and delivering a voluntary unity of the working class of England, Scotland and Wales from below. Despite this explanation there are some who just do not listen or who do not want to listen. They accused the CFR of being British unionists. But the CFR reject British unionism for working class unity. This is the voluntary unity of the working class - of Scotland, Britain, Europe and the world. In such conditions socialism is most likely to flourish at the expense of a divided ruling class.

At last year’s SSA conference only three delegates voted for the fight for a federal republic. This year, despite the intervention of the leadership ‘big guns’, new comrades were won to the idea. Several who were not yet paid-up members indicated they would have supported the CFR amendment if they had a vote.

Fighting against nationalism is not easy, either within the SSP or in Scotland as a whole, but the CFR is committed to challenging it. The idea of a federal republic is still to gain popular support within the SSP and the wider working class. But CFR members have shown themselves ready to upset the nationalist applecart. They have been plugging away, determined to put forward the demand at every opportunity. It is a principled way of resolving positively the national question in Scotland without capitulating to nationalism.

Alan Ross
Campaign for a Federal Republic

Why Stalin?

Here is a little test: Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Stalin. Hands up all those who have a problem spotting the odd one out.

When Jack Conrad confessed (Weekly Worker March 4) to being a social democrat in the sense that all the above were social democrats, he did not do himself any favours. Only an ignoramus could accuse Jack of being a Stalinist. Indeed, since his recent conversion to Max Shachtman’s theory of bureaucratic collectivism, most Trotskyists would accuse him of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Although I don’t believe that Jack has fully appreciated the significance of Trotsky’s contribution on a whole range of areas (first and foremost, permanent revolution and the method of transitional demands), he and his party have in my eyes the status of honorary Trotskyists.

The CPGB claims to stand on the theoretical foundations of the first four congresses of the Communist International. Excellent. 99.9% and more (far more) of those the world over who make this boast can trace our lineage all the way back to Leon Trotsky’s Left Opposition. The CPGB is, to the best of my knowledge, literally unique in being unable to do so. I repeat: only an ignoramus could accuse Jack Conrad of being a Stalinist. But when he can, without the slightest hint of irony, insert Stalin’s name into a list alongside the five greatest icons of revolutionary Marxism - well, this type of thing does cause much scratching of heads.

Stalin did write a book on the national question. Although I would be lying if I pretended to have read it, I am aware that it comes highly recommended from Lenin himself, a revolutionary of impeccable judgement. I know he would not have given this book his seal of approval had it been worthless. I am equally aware that Trotsky had to recognise that this book could not easily be dismissed.

Perhaps this is what led him to suggest that Lenin might have had a hand in writing it, generously allowing one of his less bright protégés to take full credit. Perhaps Trotsky was being unfair. Perhaps Stalin really does deserve credit for having contributed one important theoretical work to the Marxists’ library. Even so, one classic (if it does genuinely deserve such a status) on a single aspect of Marxism hardly justifies Jack’s attempt to crowbar this grey apparatchik into the Marxist Hall of Fame - especially given the stark contradiction between Stalin’s theory and practice, a practice which utterly appalled Lenin to the extent that he called for his removal as general secretary.

A balance sheet needs to be drawn up, and the Gulags, the show-trials, the counterrevolutionary terror have to be entered into it. All these cast one almighty shadow which totally eclipses any positive legacy of the man. Does Jack accept this? I don’t doubt for one second that he does. I am sure all he meant to say was that this single book by Stalin can teach us far more about the national question than we can glean from Allan Armstrong’s 10,000-word essay (Weekly Worker February 18, February 25), riddled as it undoubtedly is with anti-Marxist idealism and voluntarism. If this is all that Jack meant to say, could he not have done so with a shade more clarity?

Tom Delargy
Paisley SSP

Help or hinder?

Jim Blackstock argues (Weekly Worker February 11) that Sinn Féin is on a rightwing trajectory, and is more interested in making deals with imperialism than going to the international working class.

This approach is flawed. Firstly, it is not inherently unprincipled to make deals with imperialism. The real question is: does such an agreement help or hinder the struggle for revolution? The Bolsheviks had to sign the terrible Brest-Litovsk treaty because the alternative was to allow German imperialism the possibility to advance and overthrow the Soviet regime. The Bolsheviks under Lenin’s leadership wanted a respite from this prospect despite losing large areas of territory, raw materials and industry. Possibly a major error was committed in that the Soviet state was constructed upon internal meagre resources, and the potential for revolution in Germany, if the treaty had not been signed, was not utilised. Furthermore, the prospect of civil war and bureaucratic degeneration was facilitated. However, despite these objections it is still possible to argue that treaties with imperialism are necessary if a respite, and potential for progress, is contained within them. This is the nature of Sinn Féin’s agreement with the British and Irish governments.

Secondly, Sinn Féin’s peace initiative has led to tensions and splits within the unionists, in particular between the ‘liberal hard-liners’ and the unrepentant hard-liners led by Paisley. This situation creates the basis for progress in the future, even if all the unionists are presently united together in relation to decommissioning.

Thirdly, there has been support from both the republican and unionist communities for the peace process. Adorno defined utopia as eternal peace. The present situation in Northern Ireland may not represent the basis for eternal peace, and the contemporary context shows there are many tensions and problems to be overcome, such as those described by Blackstock: eg, the question of decommissioning. But peace opens up the prospect of unity within the working class around the struggle for democracy, and transforming the presently limited electoral structures into an agency more accountable to the unionist working class. Is this perspective reformist? No, because it is rather a question of how electoral structures have been created and can facilitate further change and progress. The Scottish assembly has been created by the Labour Party, but the Northern Irish assembly is a product of revolutionary struggle, and this is recognised by the unionists who try to obstruct its functioning. The assembly will not realise socialism, but it can become a forum to mobilise the proletariat against capitalism and for the reunification of Ireland.

Fourthly, the whole perspective of Blackstock is based upon the conclusion that Sinn Féin will never become a revolutionary organisation. This is to ignore its working class base and bourgeois democratic programme, which means Sinn Féin has to resolve or intensify this contradiction, and become proletarian revolutionary or bourgeois and counterrevolutionary. The struggle for peace does not have the inherent logic of accommodating to imperialism, in contrast to what Jim Blackstock argues, but rather shows the possibility to raise the struggle against British imperialism to a new higher level.

Phil Sharpe
Nottingham

Simply eccentric

The socialist movement, precisely because it is at odds with official society, has always attracted a level of eccentrics, sometimes as prominent figures. One thinks of John S Clarke, poet, parliamentarian and lion tamer. Clarke also wrote some interesting books on socialism and history. More recently, I suppose if one were to be kind (too kind for my taste), Roy Bull might fit into this framework.

However, there is a difference between an eccentric who is deeply committed to the socialist movement and someone who is simply eccentric. It is with a degree of amazement that I noted, in The Independent (February 22), that Richard Booth, second-hand book dealer and self-styled king of Hay-on-Wye, is to head the SLP list for Mid-Wales in the Welsh assembly elections. Mr Booth, owner of the Hay Castle bookshop, is well known for his demand that Hay should be a separate country. His selection as an SLP candidate surely marks a further significant stage in the degeneration of that party.

Mike Stewart
North London