Letters

Forced to act

I have read your recent articles on East Timor on your website (nice website), after seeing reference to them in Green Left Weekly.

Apart from factual errors (the armed resistance is called Falintil, the National Liberation Armed Forces of East Timor, not Fretilin, which is a political party of which Xanana Gusmao, whose first name is not Jose, has not been the leader since 1983), your position on the sending of Australian troops is dead wrong. In a vital respect your comparison with Kosova is incorrect. Imperialism intervened in Kosova in large measure to disarm the KLA, but there was no such immediate imperative in East Timor.

You argue that, “Ending pogroms and a peaceful transition to independence with as little disturbance as possible is clearly in the interests of Australia.” Well, yes, now that the Australian government has been forced to intervene. The overriding imperative for Australian imperialism has been and continues to be maintaining its alliance with the Indonesian regime, and minimising embarrassment to the Indonesian armed forces (TNI). That is why the Australian government continued to publicly support Indonesian’s continuing occupation of East Timor right up until the August 30 vote. That is why, even though they knew about the plans for a pogrom for months before the vote, the Australian government downplayed the danger and insisted that TNI alone must maintain ‘security’ in East Timor. That is why they argued against and delayed the intervention for as long as possible. If they wanted to do it so badly, as you suggest, Australian troops would have been there on September 6, rather than September 20.

When it became clear by September 5 that a genocidal campaign was being organised by TNI, a wave of anger and disgust swept through Australian working people - against their own government. If socialists in Australia followed your policy, exactly what would we have urged the mass movement to demand of the Australian government? Nothing, apparently. You declare: “Rather than appealing to the Indonesian and Australian masses to take action, opportunist strategy is to demand that the government ‘do something’ in order to ‘expose’ it.” What was the point of the “action” you called for?

I suppose it is “opportunist” to call, as we have for some years and continued to do during the recent campaign, for the Australian government to “do something” by cutting its military ties with Indonesia, reversing its recognition of the Indonesia annexation of East Timor and scrapping its Timor Gap Treaty, which divides the oil resources of the East Timorese people between Australia and Indonesia. Around 100,000 Australian people did take action in the streets and workplaces, mobilisations which we often initiated and in which our recent and past activity played an important role. These actions made the aforementioned demands, and the demand that the Australian government send troops. Masses of people learned in practice about the rotten role of the Australian government, and saw that they could do something about it. The government was in fact exposed before millions of people. Mobilisations in Indonesia led by the Peoples Democratic Party similarly called for Indonesian troops out, UN troops in.

The International Socialist Organisation have been bleating that the demand to send troops “demobilised” the movement. Presumably they would have preferred the massacres to continue, so the movement to stop the massacres could continue. Of course the imperialist rulers are seeking to use the new situation to its advantage, but they are under important political constraints - which is why they are moving very, very cautiously in their plans to disarm Falintil.

Campaigning through mass action for the insertion of imperialist troops, as well as the other demands, was the only way for us to help prevent the extermination of the East Timorese national liberation movement, and perhaps of the East Timorese nation, and the most concrete way we could advance the struggle for socialism in East Timor, Indonesia and Australia. Any other policy would have isolated the socialists, delivered the consequently smaller and weaker movement to the real opportunists in the trade union leadership and the Labor Party, lost us an audience of tens of thousands to talk to about Australian imperialism, and quite possibly led to further delays to the sending of troops, which would have meant further destruction in East Timor and further losses among East Timorese liberation fighters and socialists.

These dangers greatly outweighed any loss of credibility among the dogmatic left.

Nick Fredman (Democratic Socialist Party)
Lismore, Australia

Semi-dishonest

In his review of the International Bolshevik Tendency’s newly released edition of Trotsky’s Transitional programme, the editor of Revolution and Truth, Ian Donovan, is at least truthful enough to acknowledge that plans to publish this volume provoked a major faction fight and split within the IBT in 1997-98 (Weekly Worker October 7).

He fails to note, however, that the opposition (of which I was the leader) did quite a bit more than raise “some interesting points”. In fact, nearly every criticism Donovan levels at the IBT was made, with varying degrees of emphasis, nearly two years earlier by us. We argued then, as does Donovan today, that the post-war boom made it virtually impossible to lead the working class on the basis of transitional demands, which were conceived by Trotsky as a response to what he believed to be the terminal crisis of capitalism. Like Donovan, we pointed out that many demands that Trotsky saw as constituting a ‘bridge’ to revolution have been realised to an extent under post-war capitalism.

The inability of Trotsky’s dogmatic followers - Healy, Cannon and Robertson - to come to terms with post-war reality, and their attempts to preserve orthodoxy either by denying that any boom had taken place, or by distorting the meaning of transitional demands, was likewise one of our major themes. We attempted, as Donovan now does, to make the connection between the programmatic blindness of these ‘orthodox’ groups and their organisational degeneration.

And while we did not dwell at length on the Spartacists’ trade union work during the 1970s (which the IBT now regards as overwhelming proof of the relevancy of the Transitional programme), we did point out in passing that their work was no more successful than that of many other leftist groups at the time. Even the title of Donovan’s piece, ‘Semi-religious method’, was prefigured in our documents when we pointed to the tendency to treat the Transitional programme as “an article of religious faith”.

Why, then, does Donovan give us such short shrift? I think the answer may have something to do with his difficulty in explaining why, despite the remarkable similarity between what we said in 1997 and what he says now, he not only did not side with us in the IBT fight, but was firmly (if not enthusiastically) in the dogmatist camp of the majority. To rationalise this embarrassing fact, Donovan must attempt to discredit our views, even to the point of misrepresenting them.

So, for the sake of revolutionary truth, a few corrections. We never argued “that proletarian revolution was not possible in the period of the French May 1968 general strike … because such proletarian struggles were not possible in the post-war boom”. In fact, we stated the opposite: that, for a brief moment, the events of 1968 did open up revolutionary possibilities. We claimed only that these events contained a logic very different from the notions of revolutionary crisis elaborated in the Transitional programme and other Marxist classics, and that the circumstances that gave rise to May ’68 are not likely to repeat themselves. This did not detract from our belief that, whenever the masses throw themselves into struggle on a broad scale, Marxists must attempt to bring that struggle to a revolutionary conclusion. This duty transcends all theoretical considerations.

We never contended that “Arthur Scargill’s social chauvinist opposition to the European Union was ‘right’”, but that Scargill was right to oppose the treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam despite the British-parochialist slant of his opposition, and that the IBT was wrong to advocate neutrality regarding these thoroughly anti-working class covenants. People are sometimes on the right side for the wrong reasons. It is also interesting to note that the IBT’s internal discussions on Maastricht are very similar to the exchange (over a year later!) between Workers’ Liberty and Socialist Outlook on this same subject.

There is one larger point, however, on which Donovan does not entirely misrepresent us. While we argued that the objective conditions on which Trotsky based the Transitional programme ceased to obtain during the post-war period, we did not reject Trotsky’s main methodological premise: that the revolutionary potential of the proletariat, and hence the whole question of programme, is integrally linked to the economic conditions of world capitalism. This does not mean that the proletariat can only make revolution “when it is staring pauperisation and starvation in the face”, as in Donovan’s crude caricature of our views. It does imply, however, that the class struggle tends as a rule to intensify, and revolutionary situations to become much more common, during periods of prolonged capitalist economic crisis (like the period between the two world wars); and that, on the other hand, the working class will be much less receptive to revolutionary ideas during periods of sustained prosperity (like the 50s and 60s). While revolution certainly does not follow automatically from even the most militant trade union struggles, neither can the revolutionary potential of the proletariat be divorced from its material circumstances. This, it seems to me, is not “economism”, but Marxism.

Whether or not socialism is ‘on’ or ‘off’ the immediate political agenda will depend in large part on the broad character of the economic period through which we are living. This, in turn, must be determined by serious analysis, not by spouting the slogans of 1938. There is little clarity about the economy today on the Marxist left or anywhere else. It is sorely needed. Among militants weaned in the Spartacist tradition, even the raising of such questions is dismissed as ‘objectivism’. In Donovan’s newly adopted political circle, they seem to be written off as “economism”.

Jim Cullen
New York

Antidote

One week we have Mark Fischer expressing his preference for the term ‘shit-sheet’ over “long pretentious meanderings and Delphic formulations” (Weekly Worker September 30) - the next we have Don Hoskins accusing Delphi of “overawing them [the working class] with big words”.

As neither are noted as paid-up members of the Plain English Society, there must be other factors uniting them in this common plea for linguistic simplicity. Foremost is obviously Delphi’s attempt to persuade the left to adopt a critical reappraisal of the Bolshevik tradition and the roots of Marxism itself. Delphi has committed the heresy of stating that Marxism-Leninism is not a science.

Dialectical materialism is not a science, but a philosophy, which addresses all the perennial speculative problems of the relation of thought to matter, the nature of objective reality and what constitutes being. Historical materialism, derived from this philosophy, has enabled analyses of the historical processes which have uncovered certain general laws about the dynamics of change and the nature of capitalism. But, in itself, historical materialism is also not a science. Whether Marx, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxembourg et al - for all they did to enlighten our understanding of imperialism, they also failed to predict either the course of its actual economic development or the class struggle.

To examine why they went wrong we need to examine the basic epistemological premises of Marxism. Don Hoskins may have been inoculated against this by the esoteric gobbledygook which was served up in the WRP - not to raise the consciousness of members, but to reinforce the mystical authority of the leadership. To suggest, however, that workers are incapable of understanding philosophy is both reactionary and patronising. Delphi is working class (both by origin and present status), and self-educated on these questions. Perhaps that shows, and in the attempt to abbreviate the article some clarity may have been sacrificed. Perhaps also Delphi does express some of the ‘pretentious’ language of the autodidact.

Far from pronouncing the class war dead, my main criticism of Marxism-Leninism is not based on philosophical abstractions, but on the left’s failure to draw theory from practical engagement in the class struggle. Vital to this engagement is the left’s use of language. Addressing workers in a propaganda or agitational situation, Delphi obviously uses different language to that in a theoretical article in the Weekly Worker.

If the Weekly Worker wants articles peppered with Class War type expletives then Delphi could furnish these too. But Delphi does not consider the paper a ‘shit-sheet’. In fact it is generally a welcome antidote to much of the anti-theoretical philistinism on the left, and I commend your feature on John Toland as an example of the wider knowledge Marxists should be embracing. Hopefully some of the issues raised by Delphi will be elaborated on by your correspondents - without sinking too much to a ‘wor-a-load-a-bollocks’ level.

Delphi

All at sea

Gerry Downing has completely misread my article, ‘Left numbers game’ (Weekly Worker October 7).

He writes: “Peter Manson says that we must be demonstrators and not lobbyists. It is useless to get Tony Blair to change his mind; the point was to influence the Labour left. To do what precisely?” Comrade Downing adds: “It is the dreadful counterposition of ‘lobby’ and ‘demonstration/rally’ that I find idiotic” (Letters, October 14).

This was precisely the point I was making when I wrote: “The attitude of working class partisans ought not to be coloured by such semantics.” I agree with comrade Mark Fischer that, “Any bourgeois politician, of practically any regime, is sensitive to pressure from below” (Weekly Worker September 23). Lobbies and demonstrations are both valid tactics.

The reason I went to such lengths to point out that the SWP-organised ‘lobby’ of the Labour Party conference in Bournemouth was in fact more like a demonstration was in order to expose the sectarian hypocrisy of the Socialist Party in England and Wales in refusing to back it. SPEW’s leaflet, handed out during the march and rally, stated: “It would have been better if the organisers of today’s event had called it as a protest rather than a lobby.”

But comrade Downing himself appears to be making an equally useless counterposition. He seems to imply that we should concentrate exclusively on pressurising the bureaucracy and forget about trying to influence the Labour left - as if the two are not interrelated. That is why presumably the SWP invited Labour lefts like Tony Benn to support the Bournemouth rally.

Gerry really is all at sea when he caricatures CPGB policy as ‘Smash the monarchy and the House of Lords and keep capitalism’. We want workers to mobilise around democratic demands in order to prepare them for the smashing of capitalism - an example we have in mind that will also be familiar to Gerry is Russia 1917.

Peter Manson
London

Abstract WP

I have one disagreement with comrade Downing’s excellent letter on lobbying Labour.

He says that Tony Blair “is popular with most workers”. Whilst there certainly is not the frustration that the likes of the SWP claim, there is growing resentment against Blair inside the working class. This is shown in Labour’s NEC election results and in the failure to mobilise the core Labour vote for the Euro elections.

In light of this, I would like to comment on comrade Fischer’s remark in last week’s ‘Party notes’, that Workers Power has an “abstract” paper which apparently only makes “general propaganda for socialism” (Weekly Worker October 7). This is more than slightly unfair, as WP often makes agitational demands of both an economic and political nature. A good example is their action programme for the Balkans. They also often have interesting articles on the trade unions.

However, a way in which WP is “abstract” is on the question of the Labour Party. The October Workers Power contains an article on the Labour Party conference which correctly rejects the ultra-left view that the grassroots membership has been Blairised. In addition to this, WP’s ‘Where we stand’ column on the back page every month calls for the building of a revolutionary tendency inside Labour in order to break workers from reformism.

From this many people might naturally presume WP did serious faction work in Labour, but they would be mistaken! This is “abstract”, as WP fail to realise that voting for Labour and making demands based on a correct analysis is little better than the “left posturing” comrade Downing refers to if it is not backed up by a struggle inside the Labour Party for these demands against Blair. After all, would WP make demands on the leaders of trade unions, but refuse to actually work inside those unions?

Will Matthews
Cambridgeshire

Openness

Please find enclosed a cheque for £5 for your paper’s Fighting Fund. Sorry it’s not much - my weekly wage of £146 means that I can only make donations of the more modest kind.

I respect the Weekly Worker’s genuine openness, and I am heartened by its non-sectarianism. I find your British-Irish theses somewhat bizarre, but once again you have opened your pages to criticism of the points it makes. It is for this democracy that I shall continue to support your paper. Along with Red Action your paper is the only ‘left’ journal worth reading.

Chris McDowell
Oxford

Why raise it?

I can’t understand why the question has arisen as to whether the Protestants should have self-determination in a united Ireland. If self-determination means anything it means that only a people themselves can determine whether they are a nation with the right to self-determination. Nobody else can say whether they are or are not a nation.

The protestant Irish have never raised the question of self-determination for the protestant Irish. So why raise it ourselves?

Ivor Kenna
London

Drift to right

I cannot help feeling that those who advocate we oppose Livingstone’s candidacy for mayor of London are simply conflating our understanding with how the mass of the working class see the matter. The unions are overwhelmingly for Livingstone and it seems that only the AEEU will support Dobson because they will not ballot their members.

It is the alternatives I find problematic. Indeed a section of the vanguard has given up on Labour and is attempting to build socialist alternatives. It is indeed necessary to relate to these comrades and if possible and fruitful enter a group like the SLP that has thus formed. But always it will be necessary to argue for orientation to the mass of the working class who are reformist in consciousness and vote Labour. The most successful ‘alternative’ is Tommy Sheridan’s Scottish Socialist Party. A real working class alternative for Scottish voters? I think not. Here are a few extracts from Scottish Socialist Voice by one John Palmer, reprinted in What Next? No11.

Headline: ‘War in Kosovo: a victory for human rights’. It begins: “For all who struggle for peace, democracy and justice throughout the world (pass the sick bag!), the war in Kosovo marked a momentous milestone in the evolution of post-Cold War Europe.” It can only get better after this. Palmer compares Milosevic to Hitler and congratulates Nato for having done better for the Kosovars that the Allies did for the Jews. Having attacked “fundamental theologians of the left” for sneering at plans by the German Green foreign minister for Balkan reconstruction as ‘mere reformism’ (I would call it blatant pro-imperialist chauvinism), he concludes:

“Of course socialists know this is no more than a tiny first step. We know that only building a world economic and political system which eliminates exploitation, poverty and grotesque inequality will guarantee an end to crimes against humanity. But here and now no serious socialist can but rejoice if the Kosovar Albanians are finally rid of their tormentors.”

There you have it. Having advocated socialism through parliament and nationalising the top 200 we now have socialism through imperialism courtesy of Wall Street!

Well now, how is this any better that anything Livingstone wrote (true, ‘comrade’ Palmer complains that the bombing of Serbia was a bit inaccurate and some civilians were killed, but did not socialists complain of the killing of German civilians during World War II while supporting the bombing of ‘Hitler’?) Where among the left Labourites in the constituencies would you find support for this line? This is the preserve of the right and the fake careerist lefts like Livingstone. Livingstone was opposed in Brent East GC on this by the entire left and only the rights saved him from a humiliating defeat. The point surely is that where we work is a matter of judgement depending on what is moving and what is likely to move.

Making a fetish of Labour Party work is deep entryism. Making a fetish of not intervening in the struggles of the Labour Party (whether we want to employ the tactic of entryism or not) is sectarianism and no bar against Palmerism. The fact is that as long as there is no overall revival of the class struggle revolutionaries will be marginalised and squeezed, no matter where they work. Ideological pressures and consequent ideological capitulations are apparent inside and outside the Labour Party. But I think it significant that in general the Labour lefts (Livingstone was a notable exception) and the larger centrist groups (SWP and SPEW) had at least a line of opposition to Nato.

Many of us who attended the Outlook-AWL-Workers Press-Workers Power-Workers Action (WIL) joint meeting in London during the bombing were appalled at the pro-imperialist trajectory of the meeting and were galvanised to re-examine our work and reflect on the transitional method. Desperation makes strange bedfellows, to misquote Shakespeare.

How significant is it that those who have given up on the working class drift rapidly to the right? How many times must the Weekly Worker, as the WIL did, tell us that the working class is still on its knees as a rationale for adopting imperialist stooge groups like the loyalists and the KLA and not proffering a real helping hand to raise them up?

Gerry Downing
London

Words altered

I want your readers to know the letter to which you attached my name in the Weekly Worker of September 16 1999 is not the one I sent to you.

Some words have been altered - which on its own wouldn’t be too bad, but important parts of the letter I sent were removed: for example, where I blame the Weekly Worker, as well as Steve Hedley, for smearing Mark Metcalf, as the headline ‘Informer Metcalf’s infantile disorder’ was your invention and most definitely not Steve Hedley’s.

Such political censorship is surely the living proof the ‘dead hand of Stalin’ is still very much at the helm in the new CPGB.

Brian Higgins
Building Workers Group