Letters

Back Livingstone

I was delighted to read the Weekly Worker headline, ‘Back Livingstone’, who is rightly identified as a “thorn in Blair’s side”. This is a positive development on the CPGB’s part.

However, there are certain inconsistencies here, comrades. Over a year ago the Weekly Worker claimed that “Labour is well on the way to transforming itself into a bourgeois party of the bourgeoisie” (October 8 1998). Is not it amazing that a party “well on the way” to becoming a bourgeois party has a membership overwhelmingly in favour of Livingstone, and affiliated unions that may well also vote for the left candidate? The week before this the Weekly Worker wrote an article about the success of the centre-left Grassroots Alliance in the Labour Party NEC elections. The election of four anti-Blairites, three of whom are definitely to the left of Livingstone, was dismissed. The oh-so-wise Mary Godwin told us that “neither the newly elected ‘hard left’ members of the NEC nor their platform have anything remotely to do with socialism” (October 1 1998).

Yet no one seriously involved with Labour politics can help but notice the tremendous similarities between the selection of Labour’s candidate for mayor and 1998’s NEC elections. Jim Blackstock noted last week: “Neil Kinnock, declaring himself four square behind Dobson, the official Blairite candidate, described Livingstone as ‘the man who invented the loony left and everything that went with it’. Others can be expected to follow suit, as Millbank pulls out all the stops to ensure Livingstone’s defeat. Blair is worried. We must do all we can to make his worst nightmare come true.” This is all very true.

Yet last year the CPGB chose to ignore Neil Kinnock’s rabid attack on the Grassroots Alliance in The Guardian. In particular, Kinnock reserved special hatred for Liz Davies, who was accused of being a “Trotskyist” and Militant supporter, regurgitating all the allegations made by Claire Short and co, when Liz was blocked from being a parliamentary candidate. However, Mary Godwin could not understand what he was on about, with Liz being accused of espousing “the warmed-up politics of Roy Hattersley”.

Although she was generous enough to admit the “left wing of Labourism is not dead”, Mary did not even welcome the victory once in the article! Yet now the CPGB is talking about supporting Livingstone, even if he stands as the official Labour candidate. Is this the same party that stood against Livingstone in the last general election?

It is time for the CPGB to admit that it has seriously overestimated the strength of the Blair project over the Labour membership and that of the affiliated trade unions. Since the 1997 election Blair’s attacks on the working class have led to a virtual abstention in campaigning by the Labour membership in the Euro elections, a close-run Welsh leadership candidate, which only produced the success of a Blairite because of the obedience of trade union bureaucrats, and two NEC victories for the left.

Now we have the selection process for mayor of London. Livingstone is not the first “thorn in Blair’s side”. From the moment single-parent benefit cuts were introduced there has been increasing opposition to Blair amongst Labour’s rank and file. This was proven again by the 1999 NEC elections. The MPs, when afforded the luxury of a secret ballot, elected Dennis Skinner showing that even the most rightwing of the sections of the Labour Party remained unconvinced of the ‘project’.

The vote for the Grassroots Alliance amongst ordinary members also increased. Liz Davies and Christine Shawcroft - both members of the editorial board of Labour Left Briefing, the furthest left component of the Grassroots Alliance - were elected. The success of Christine Shawcroft, blocked from being a candidate for the GLA by the Blairites, was particularly impressive, with her vote increasing by 5.77%. A person who stood on a platform not dissimilar to that of the SWP’s lobby demanding renationalisation of the utilities and railways, full employment, a national minimum wage starting at half median male earnings, a comprehensive education system with decent student grants, pensions linked to average earnings, the retention of universal benefits and taxation of the rich was the fourth most popular candidate with Labour members.

Liz Davies, who also endorsed the SWP’s lobby, did even better on a similar platform, which also contained opposition to the Asylum Act and the bombing of Iraq. More generally, the five Grassroots Alliance candidates who opposed the bombing of Serbia (on this issue they were to the left of the CPGB’s new hero Livingstone) got between 36,956 and 52,644 votes, beating all the rightwing candidates bar Lord Sawyer, who topped the poll, and Michael Cashman and Diana Jeuda, who came below three CLGA candidates in fifth and sixth place respectively.

There can be no doubt that this also shows Mary Godwin’s view that it was the support of The Guardian which saw success in 1998 as false. The Guardian was in fact hostile this year, but it made no difference. Anyway, comrades, if limited support from the bourgeois press means candidates have nothing “remotely to do with socialism”, then surely you should not support Livingstone’s candidature for mayor. At the recent launch meeting of Frank Dobson’s campaign, Jonathan Steele of The Guardian, politically about as leftwing as the old SDP, stood up for Livingstone, as have many other people who have traditionally been enemies of the left.

It is undoubtedly right to campaign for Livingstone “against New Labour”. But it is inconsistent with your traditional sectarianism towards the Labour Party and its left wing, which was shown best by your decision to stand against the man you are now supporting for mayor in the 1997 general election.

The decisive battles in the trade unions and Labour Party are approaching. It would be criminal for the left to isolate themselves. In the forthcoming period it will be decided if Blair will transform the Labour Party qualitatively, and also, if he does, if a future workers’ alternative will have a mass base. The best way to ensure some success in the latter, if we cannot succeed in stopping the former, is to fight alongside Labour’s membership which is increasingly angry with Blairism, so that these people, many of which are to the left of Livingstone, remain with us in the future.

Will Matthews
Cambridgeshire

Edinburgh debate

I expect that the Weekly Worker will carry a report on the Republican Communist Network day school in Edinburgh on ‘international socialism’. I also expect that the argument as to whether this faction within the SSP (and beyond) should endorse the ‘international socialism’ slogan will echo inside the paper for some time to come.

This meeting was welcomed by all, especially once it became clear that there was a willingness to bring on board members of the Glasgow Marxist Forum and the AWL rather than to encourage the ghettoisation of potential factions. That said, there was a sense of incredulity, shared by Jack Conrad and myself, as to how there could be any doubt about revolutionary Marxists shouting their internationalism from the rooftops.

It has fallen to Allan Armstrong of the Communist Tendency to attempt to provide some theoretical justification. But his objections to the slogan ‘international socialism’ do not, I believe, make any sense. I would refer Allan to the section of the Communist manifesto entitled ‘Proletarians and communists’:

“The communists are distinguished from the other working class parties by this only: (1) in the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality; (2) in the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.”

Point one makes explicit that communists are, by definition, international socialists and point two does so implicitly. Is it possible that Allan judges the Communist manifesto as mistaken, an immature work which Marx later disavowed? What about the Critique of the Gotha programme? It is in this less well read, but nonetheless important, work that Allan finds justification for his opposition to international socialism. Might I suggest that Allan takes some time out to reread his bible. Look at Marx’s critique of section 5 of the Gotha programme:

“Lassalle, in opposition to the Communist manifesto and to all earlier socialism, conceived the workers’ movement from the narrowest national standpoint. He is being followed in this - and that after the work of the International!”

I challenge Allan to explain how to interpret this critique of the Gotha Programme as a critique of international socialism rather than of the detractors of international socialism. Could Allan also comment on the following extract from a letter, written by Engels to August Bebel (March 18-23 1875) published, alongside Marx’s critique, in the pamphlet of the same name?

“Secondly, the principle that the workers’ movement is an international movement is, to all intents and purposes, completely disavowed for the present day, and at that by people who have upheld this principle most gloriously for five whole years under the most difficult conditions.”

Engels goes on to cite the Franco-Prussian war as an example of Bebel’s internationalism, an internationalism of which Bebel (or at least many of his comrades), for reasons which Engels could not begin to comprehend, appeared to be ashamed. For precisely the same reason, I would cite the position adopted by Allan (and the rest of the RCN) towards the war in Kosova as an expression of his/their international socialism.

I would also refer Allan to his 5,000-word article on the British-Irish (Weekly Worker October 28). On this question, we are both united against Jack Conrad’s theses. We may or may not be right. But the fact that we believe we have responsibilities forcing us to take the trouble to draw up a position, and to vigorously defend it, a position which only indirectly relates to Allan’s nation (the Scots), defies the logic of his stated anti-international socialist position. Allan might want to respond by pointing out that it does relate indirectly. That, Allan, is the whole point. As Marx insisted from the moment he became a communist (and as Lenin and Trotsky reiterated, over and over again), the struggles against exploitation and oppression the world over are all (at the very least indirectly) interrelated.

Any struggle for the emancipation of the working class in Scotland (or anywhere else) consciously abstracted from the struggle of the world working class, one which must to take advantage of the, entirely progressive, global division of labour, would lead (whatever our subjective desires) to a collapse of the national economy and to a miserable lowering of the productivity of labour. As shortages grew, unemployment rose and working hours lengthened, all the ‘old crap’ would revive. It happened in isolated Russia and it would happen, sooner rather than later, in a proudly independent socialist Scotland.

Tom Delargy
Paisley

SSP

I approved of Bob Pitt’s demolition of Gerry Downing’s ignorance re the Scottish Socialist Party (Letters, October 21, 28). However, his urge to back the Labour Party, no matter what, leads him into similar confusion in ‘Scottish facts’ (Letters, October 28).

He accuses the SSP of failing to treat the Labour Party with the same relatively non-sectarian attitude it displays towards others. The claim is untrue. The SSP has repeatedly invited Labour Party members to debate with it but has almost invariably been turned down. Significantly, members of the Scottish National Party - Lloyd Quinnan, Margo MacDonald, etc - are much more willing to engage in public debate with the SSP than Labour is. True, the (leftish) Dundee Labour MP John McAllion is billed to speak at the SSP-sponsored event, Socialism 2000, in Glasgow this week (November 7-8). However, let us see if he turns up.

The SSP is alert for any signs of splits in the Labour Party, but thus far the Labour Party in Scotland is the SSP’s bitter rival for working class support, as well as being a source of many attacks on the working class. The SSP has made some headway by comparing “New Labour with old Tories”. Perhaps Bob Pitt thinks we are being unfair to note that Tory anti-trade union laws have remained intact under Labour, and Scotland’s few Tory councillors can calmly support minority Labour administrations because Labour carries out “good Tory policies” (the exact words of a Falkirk Tory councillor in June this year). Also, Labour in Scotland has many of the characteristics of a ruling party - complacency, cronyism and corruption. Supporting Labour is thus problematic, even if Bob Pitt does not think so.

Finally, Bob Pitt underestimates SSP support and organisational strength. While Glasgow remains its heartland, it has set up numerous branches in other parts of Scotland this year, many of them active, not least in things such as supporting strike action. Recent opinion polls in Scotland by System Three suggest that SSP support in the central Scotland region (ie, not Glasgow) is high enough to win a second list seat in the Scottish parliament, to add to Tommy Sheridan’s Glasgow seat.

James Robertson
Linlithgow

On Delphi

“Dialectical materialism is not a science, but a philosophy, which addresses all the perennial speculative problems of the relation of thought and matter, the nature of objective reality and what constitutes being” (Delphi, Letters Weekly Worker October 21).

Well, Delphi, there was I thinking it was just using the dialectic in relation to stuff that exists rather than stuff that does not.

Dialectical thinking is a healthy scientific method: you have a theory, you inquire of that theory, contemplate an antithesis, arrive at what you think is a truth and go looking for some experiment that will prove or disprove your ideas. The experiment either proves or disproves your theory or the antithesis, or suggests that something else is needed - a synthesis (ie, a new theory to test).

That Marx and all those other folks Delphi mentioned failed to predict accurately what the future held is no surprise, for despite using a scientific approach to problems and questions Marx was as handicapped in making predictions as any politician. Politics is not a pure science, where astronomers can accurately predict the position of Mars at any given point in time and get it right. Politicians have a disadvantage: human beings are not as predictable as planets, mathematical equations or the effects of combining two or three chemicals. Conducting experiments to test your theories are a big problem as well. The only way to test Marxists’ theory of the future development of capitalism is to wait for it to happen or not, as the case may be - we cannot run a simulation on a PC or ask everyone to kindly step into a lab for us. The factors we are dealing with are not particularly predictable: they are conscious creatures possessed with the ability to have different ideas of what is good or bad, as well as having a unique knack for reason.

A critical reappraisal of Marxism is not needed; understanding it as a methodology is. The left’s failings in formulating theories from their experience is obviously a valid concern: those who do not end up liquidating or sitting around repeating themselves, never realising they are talking a load of bollocks. If you cannot learn from the class struggle, then natural selection will wipe you out!

As for Delphi’s use of language, he/she/it can use whatever language it likes, but in the long run keeping it plain and simple is the way to go. Long words might sound good, and give you a tremendous sense of well-being because you can use them, but there are usually two or three little words that are far more effective. For example, instead of “epistemological premises of Marxism”, what is wrong with saying, ‘the theory and methods upon which Marxism rests’? Then perhaps us mere mortals who are content to have ordinary pen names and refer to ourselves in the first person can engage in the great Delphi’s crusade to persuade us to be critical of the Bolshevik tradition and the underground plant growth of Marxism itself.

Finally a note on Ivor Kenna’s letter in the same edition - good point, Ivor. I share your bemusement at why this British-Irish thing has been brought up: perhaps Delphi or some mere mortal comrade can enlighten me.

Steve Green
Hertfordshire

British-Irish

Manchester comrades have recently been treated to some of the comments that the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty have deigned to make on their website in connection with the CPGB’s current debate on the British-Irish.

Martin Thomas, for example, “very much” welcomes that the CPGB majority feel it proper that the right of self-determination should be offered to the British-Irish (or the “Northern Ireland Protestants”, as our comrade chooses to call them).

Mark Osborne is somewhat more huffy with us, asking whether the CPGB “will comprehensively overhaul their Irish policy ... what are the c[omra]des around Jack Conrad now saying about the role of the IRA? Or about the role of the British troops?” Rest assured, comrade Osborne, the CPGB majority is certainly not making the treacherous equation between the republicans and loyalist paramilitaries that you would seek to foist on the working class; neither are we going to start equivocating on the ‘progressive’ role of the British state, something that seems to continually tie the AWL’s collective tongue in public forums.

In any case we should not have worried: the CPGB is still very much beyond the pale for our comrade: “The CPGB could adopt a much more rounded, consistently democratic programme and the main, underlying problem with their organisation would remain untouched. They have no orientation to the working class, no policy for the labour movement.” And what “policy” would that be then, comrade? Pandering to labour dictators in the United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Trade Union Laws (no politics please, we’re socialists!)? Giving covert approval to witch-hunters in the Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance? Shrouding yourself in minimalist ‘transitional’ demands at election time? You certainly know how to set us poor ‘Stalinists’ an example.

Not that comrade Osborne is the only one with problems in this. In introducing these remarks by e-mail, comrade John Pearson (of the CPGB minority) feels they are “pertinently prophetic”. What my comrade means by this is that just because there has been a convergence between some CPGB and AWL comrades on the question of democratic rights for the British-Irish, it naturally follows that the CPGB will be forced to agree with the AWL’s appalling position on the republican struggle.

Of course, comrade Pearson’s remarks do nothing more than exemplify the atrophied thinking that he and his co-thinkers have sought to impose on the debate. The majority of comrades in Manchester CPGB have approached this question through an essentially dogmatic filter which rules out tampering with ‘core’ constituents of the CPGB’s politics - to do so is to take the high road to opportunism. Therefore the likes of comrade Pearson are essentially not interested in debating, or organising for, the winning the British-Irish to the cause of working class emancipation. Instead they merely give majority comrades an ultimatum: mess with this and you end up supporting the British state.

This method merely provides the cover for the erection of an abstract politics which does not allow the CPGB to address the concrete realities of the class struggle. In their own way the majority of comrades in Manchester mirror the dire spectacle of post-war Trotskyism with its bizarre narrative of orthodoxy and heresy hunts.

Phil Watson
Manchester

Machiavellian

The British-Irish debate in the Weekly Worker has highlighted the fact that in politics history is not so much about what happened in the past as a justification of a political programme.

Conrad’s history calls for the Irish masses to settle the question of Irish unity. It relies on an optimistic view of human nature and suggests a method by which the protestant minority can be voluntarily incorporated into a united Ireland. There is no role for the British state in this process. The working class in Britain should fight for the British state’s defeat in Ireland. The question is not exclusively an Irish matter, but requires international working class support.

Allan Armstrong’s history reaches a different political conclusion (Weekly Worker October 28). Namely that “Ulster-Britishness is an identity which cannot be politically separated from the reactionary monarchist and unionist British state which has promoted it.” Although a recent development, it is now an eternal relationship with nature and the human beings that fill its ranks have found their final resting place.

Even if this turns out to be the case, a democratic attempt to bring them around is not a waste of time. In a democracy everyone can say no, not just the Ulster-British. If the “repartitioned Ulster” is to be based on ‘nullification of Catholics’ the majority can, if necessary, oppose this development by declaring war. Democracy does not mean pacifism.

The most disturbing aspect of comrade Armstrong’s article is that he has no understanding of democracy, as demonstrated by his treatment of the Cossack question. I quote: “A basic feature of any materialist analysis should be to analyse what people do rather than be mesmerised by what they say.” If I understand this correctly, Lenin was a liar, Lenin was right to be a liar, Lenin won because he was a liar; communists should learn from this.

Armstrong is not alone on this: most people think communists say one thing when they are weak and do another when in power - that is why they do not trust us. The comrade has been seduced by realpolitik. Politics is reduced to Machiavellian manoeuvre in which cynical but rational minorities control the destiny of the masses - for their own good of course.

Phil Kent
London