Letters

Socialism pure

Hopefully it really is only "for want of anything better" that Jack Conrad refers to the former USSR as 'bureaucratic socialism' (Weekly Worker April 27). Despite its origins in proletarian revolution, there is no meaningful sense in which the social formation in question after 1928 deserves the designation 'socialism' at all, regardless of qualifying adjective.

To continue to refer to it as such is completely disastrous from an agitational point of view. The experience of Stalinism remains one of the bourgeoisie's prime propaganda weapons against socialism, with the Soviet Union rightly identified in the popular mind with the gulags, one-party or indeed one-man dictatorship, mass starvation, cultural repression, denial of human rights, drab uniformity. In short, the antithesis of any vision of socialism from below.

This being the case, why not replace a term adopted not scientifically but only 'for want of anything better' with one leaving not the faintest chance of the far left being tainted by association? While Conrad's existing analysis is immediately derived via Ticktin, it remains located within a broad bureaucratic collectivist tradition that today expands far wider than the positions of Shachtman, the originator of the term. So why not recognise this with the explicit use of the designation 'bureaucratic collectivism'?

Socialism pure
Socialism pure

Murphy's law?

Anne Murphy, the CPGB component of the London Socialist Alliance assembly list, is so far down that she could only be elected come the socialist revolution.

In the LSA's propaganda there is plentiful mention of the Socialist Workers Party candidates, but little mention of Comrade Murphy and none of the CPGB. Is this a case of:

a) The love that dare not speak its name; or
b) He who pays the piper calls the tune; or
c) The CPGB has chased the SWP until it has been caught?

Murphy's law?
Murphy's law?

Apologists

I see that Victoria Brittain of Socialist Labour has waded in with a defence of the Milosevic regime in the pages of The Guardian.

Brittain's apologia for the Serbian state is found in her review of a new book edited by Tariq Ali, Masters of the universe? Nato's Balkan crusade (Verso). Naturally she approves of the views peddled by this "eclectic group of contributors who have contrived between them to take on just about everyone involved in the promotion of Nato's first war" (April 29). This "group" consists of a list of prominent 'left' apologists for the actions of the Serbian state during last year's Balkans war.

In her review, Brittain bemoans Nato's attack "on a sovereign state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" - action that "had no backing from the United Nations and was thus illegal in international law". It goes without saying that she fails to mention that this particularly "sovereign state" was held together by force and violence directed against the Kosovar ethnic Albanians. The suffering endured by the Kosovars at the hands of the Serbian state is conveniently forgotten.

Monstrously, Brittain backs up the view of Regis Debray that there is not "the slightest doubt that it was the Nato attack that started the humanitarian catastrophe snowballing" - with no reference of course to the fact that the Serbian pogrom against the Kosovars must have involved some pre-planning. What I find sad is that these 'anti-imperialist', pro-Serb sentiments are uncannily redolent of comrade Callinicos's recent declarations that the "mass expulsion of Kosovan Albanians was "in fact precipitated" by Nato's bombing campaign (Socialist Review April). The same could be said of Hitler's holocaust being precipitated by the western imperialist-USSR alliance.

Apologists
Apologists

Party and class

While I welcome comrade Will Matthews's contribution (Letters Weekly Worker April 27), I would like to point out the fundamental flaws in his argument and method.

He first states that the problem in British Marxism has been isolation from the class, of which disunity has been a symptom. I would argue that both are in fact symptoms of the liquidation of Bolshevism following the degeneration of the Russian Revolution. The fact that both Stalinism and Trotskyism have contained and do contain elements that owe more to trends like Menshevism should be sufficient to illustrate this.

Comrade Matthews seems to have high regard for Labour's post-war conferences. Yes, they delivered reforms, which undoubtedly deepened illusions in capitalism, but these needed to be combated resolutely, not lauded by communists. I am disappointed that the comrade seems to delight in the fact that the chances of a revolutionary situation developing were curtailed. Yet the comrade seems to think if the Revolutionary Communist Party had gained a Labour MP, then this would have changed things radically. When you consider that Militant had three and this did not alter the flawed nature of its politics and eventual collapse (cause and effect), then this suggestion sounds a little ridiculous.

The real political lessons for today are that, while communists must be part of the class struggle, they must also struggle to refound and develop Bolshevism for the struggles ahead. A vital component of this is the struggle against regressive trends in the workers' movement and what currently masquerades as 'Bolshevism' or 'Marxism'. It is this that the Weekly Worker does well. I would like to ask how else the comrade proposes to ideologically combat deviant trends within Marxism other than through open polemical debate (like the one we are currently engaged in).

The Weekly Worker is a one-sided publication, but at the moment it is a necessary tool for ideological struggle which can provide a reforged CPGB with a cadre theoretically schooled and armed and thereby help in the process of recovering Bolshevism.

Party and class
Party and class

State of siege

During the seven days from April 4 to 10 the Bolivia government of general Banzer was faced a semi-insurgency, to which he responded by imposing a state of siege.

This was sparked by the total blockade of Cochabamba in response to the neo-liberal plan of the government to hand over to a transnational company control of the distribution of the city's water. As a result the poorest sections of the population would lose free access to water and the new owner soon announced a 36% price rise.

This move enraged the peasants and a Coordinating Committee ('Coordinadora') was formed. It called for a blockade of streets and highways on February 3. The government responded with the brutal repression of the blockaders, who held out for two days of violent confrontations in which many were injured on both sides.

When they were sold out by the civic committee which took over the negotiations with the government, the Coordinadora called for a renewed blockade extended to the bordering provinces on April 4.

Cochabamba was totally paralysed. Finally the government decided to negotiate and agreed to break the contract with the water company. The masses celebrated, but after a few hours it became known that they had been deceived when Banzer went back on his word.

Responding to a call from the union confederation Unica, peasants began a peaceful blockade of the highways around the capital, La Paz. On April 7 the army intervened to remove the barricades.

On April 8 the government announced the state of siege. However, in Cochabamba not a single barricade was removed and the population began to confront the police who had to retreat. The army confronted the protesters, wounding eight people and killing one.

Two days later the government capitulated to the Coordinadora and accepted its demands, including the freeing of its leaders.

State of siege
State of siege