Letters

SSP terms

The leaderships of the Socialist Workers Party and Scottish Socialist Party have met and it is emerging that the two organisations have agreed some kind of basis for the SWP joining the SSP, although it is still not clear what the terms are.

The SWP will probably want to end their isolation in circumstances where their public profile is far lower than the SSP's. Having some comrades in the SSP would allow greater opportunities for success in the coming election and avoid the embarrassment of a repeat of the Scottish parliamentary elections. It would also mean having positions within the SSP and the consequent reflected glory from Tommy Sheridan.

The position of the leadership of the SSP must be much more difficult. Failure to agree entry would open them up to accusations of sectarianism and not sticking to the existing Committee for a Workers International position of calling for a merger, with the SWP having tendency rights. Agreement would also avoid the very bloody business of an SWP takeover (something both sides will be keen to avoid at this stage).

In conditions where Stalinism has collapsed and the old 'in or out the Labour Party' argument is coming to an end, it is inevitable that there will be realignment and merger. In some ways it is heartening to witness it. However, the success of the left depends not just on greater organisational unity, but a change in cultural norms.

I repeat - tolerance of differences, critical independent thinking, honest political accounting for past mistakes, honest dialogue about differences, consistent democracy and a role for dissent - these things must become the norm on the left.

SSP terms
SSP terms

Libertarian

I was interested by Dave Osler's letter, 'Solidarnosc' (Weekly Worker July 27). He starts off by raising the flag for "libertarian Marxism" and then further down talks about my "Damascene conversion to Stalinism".

I am intrigued by his libertarian Marxism. I am pretty sure he was a Socialist Outlook member, and maybe a full-timer, when I was expelled in July 1993 for saying I was a CPGB supporter. Since Osler neither said nor wrote anything in my defence, I am forced to conclude that he was keeping his libertarian Marxism well under control. Or maybe he himself underwent a Damascene conversion to libertarian Marxism later. Personally I think libertarianism and Marxism are incompatible, and Osler's libertarianism is more a matter of his own freedoms than anybody else's. Is it not strange that most libertarians are rightwingers?

As to some other points - Osler says that future historians will regard Solidarnosc with as much reverence as the Paris Commune. Yes, perhaps they will if the world political climate moves even further to the right than it currently is.

On some occasions it is indeed possible for the working class to be mobilised, and mobilised very effectively, for reactionary purposes. The Ulster Workers Council in 1974 was one. The 'hard-hats' in the USA during the Vietnam war (building workers who attacked anti-war protesters in the name of 'patriotism') were another. The white working class people who voted British National Party recently are another example and I argue that Solidarnosc was yet another.

Osler extols the Polish Trotskyists he met but fails to probe their near disappearance more deeply. The (mostly Stalinist) far left in and from Turkey is considerably more tenacious than the people Osler is praising.

Osler resorts to a familiar anti-communist gambit: namely that I must "worship" what existed in Poland, the USSR and so on. If there was any social problem at all over there then their overthrow is totally justified. Well, this world view differs from that of the CIA only by having a thin 'left' screen. The world situation has gravely deteriorated, not been enhanced, since 1989-91.

Libertarian
Libertarian

Welcome here?

In what I consider an otherwise excellent article, 'Welcome here?' ('Party notes' Weekly Worker July 20), Mark Fischer gets only one thing slightly wrong.

While welcoming the opening of debate on the slogan 'Refugees welcome here!' "on various web discussion lists", he comments that "comrades have been getting stroppy with each other over the slogan".

Well, from what I have witnessed there was nothing terribly comradely about it. Indeed the drive by certain participants was, through the steady attribution of racist motives to some of the participants, to stymie discussion, not to engage in it. At issue, moreover, was not just the slogan itself, but more the mindset that identifies with it.

Ian Donovan's reply (Letters, July 27) is a graphic illustration of what is currently wrong not just with the slogan, but with a whole stratum of the left.

The tenor of his reply is one of smug complacency peppered with contradictions. On the one hand he tells us that it is not "that surprising" that the BNP has "gained a foothold" in Bexley. A foothold which he acknowledges is "a product of the weakness of the left".

Due to this failure, fascist policies have, he admits, "frightening potential" not just in Bexley, but in wider swathes of south-east London. A tacit acknowledgement that it is not simply 'special conditions in Bexley', but more that working class alienation is widespread, deep-rooted and long-standing. It is, in other words, a condition that affects the working class as a whole. Despite, or because of, this "we should not", he states, "resign ourselves" to the situation. At some length he then explains precisely why such resignation is the best and indeed probably the only principled option available.

Why so? Well, for one thing, "such large votes for the BNP are fairly rare nationally". No need to panic. It would in any case be the worst form of 'electoralism' to believe that high BNP votes "on run-down, lily-white estates can be turned around by fine-tuning our slogans". Though, as he admits the slogans in question do tend to "alienate", it would be a mistake to attempt to politically rectify the problem, if the outcome was to leave us open to the same accusations of the "pandering" he himself accuses the likes of Red Action and Anti-Fascist Action of.

What is more, "We should not be too concerned that our slogans might alienate backward elements" anyway. Instead, the election campaign of the left should be predominantly aimed at addressing the "multi-ethnic working class of the big cities". In other words, not only should we not try to counter what the BNP are doing, but even when our own propaganda is admitted to be considerably strengthening their hand, we should not, according to Donovan, even alter what we are doing!

'Let them wear lederhosen' is the attitude summed up. For all the fine talk of the 'multi-ethnic working class', this is political and moral cowardice of the first order. Sugar-coated it may be, but abject capitulation it remains nonetheless.

Thus no matter how much Fischer confronts the issue from a class perspective, Donovan fixatedly returns to the question of 'ethnicity'. The 'multi-ethnic' working class are the solution, he tells us. This is to pretend - as all liberals tend to - that fascism and anti-fascism is primarily a confrontation between races, when in fact it is a struggle between classes. Or it would be, if the left had (since the far right were forced to abandon the streets in 1994) shown the same dogged ambition as the BNP to go mainstream.

The upshot being that the 'battle of ideas' is now and has for some time been fought over political dominion within the working class itself. Even here this is not a fight the left are winning. And, for far too many, it is not a fight they even intend fighting.

Welcome here?
Welcome here?

My alternative

Two issues back, Mark Fischer put the case for jettisoning the slogan 'Asylum-seekers are welcome here' and substituting 'Asylum-seekers are not to blame'.

Like Ian Donovan, and for much the same reasons, I remain utterly unconvinced by his arguments. If the former slogan is to be criticised, it is not for the reasons given. It is surely for taking as given the Straw/Widdecombe distinction between genuine and bogus asylum-seekers. International socialists must openly and unequivocally reject this distinction: economic migrants are, as far as we are concerned, no less welcome than the politically repressed. To abandon this principle is to collude in state harassment of vulnerable people, demanding proof that they are not 'pulling a fast one': the thin end of a very nasty wedge indeed.

However, while I would take issue with Mark on key aspects of these two slogans, I am with him as against Ian on the more substantive issues raised in his column. Ian's analysis of the disturbing rise in support for the extreme right in parts of south east London is one-sided. Consequently, he holds out an economistic 'solution' to the problem it poses. Ian did himself identify part of the most important reason why white working class youth, the long-term unemployed and unorganised workers generally turn to the radical right: the betrayal of promises made by Labour governments and councils. This and the fact that most of the revolutionary left have, for decades, tied themselves, come election time, to disgraced, corrupt and politically bankrupt Labour politicians. All he failed to do was isolate what we could have done so that things might have turned out differently.

The revolutionary left has to face up to the central role we played in allowing the fascist right to establish a tentative foothold for themselves (thankfully, only in a small number of enclaves so far). It is, collectively, our fault for refusing to present any electoral alternative. This is now a matter of the utmost urgency. Not in order to rush out new pamphlets that interpret the world better than those presently on sale; we have to do this in order to develop a strategy capable of carving out the future we want.

It goes without saying that the socialist alliances should make the most efficient use of our human, and other, resources at the coming general election. But we would only compound all the gross errors we have made in decades past were we to choose to contest only a handful of seats.

In every run-down working class constituency where the fascists are likely to put up a candidate, the decision on whether or not we stand has pretty much been taken out of our hands. Irrespective of how weak we find ourselves in many such areas, we need to begin to raise the cash to put up a candidate, however inexperienced.

My alternative
My alternative

Closed borders

Mark Fischer's 'Party notes' demonstrates most vividly the contradiction in the New World Order and its reflection in the so-called far left. In the present period imperialism must attack its very foundation - the nation-state - in order to attack the working class. Likewise the left must attack the working class in order to attack the nation-state. The difference between the London Socialist Alliance and Blair's New Labour is trifling.

It seems probable (although it is never put coherently) that the case for open borders stems from the need to combat divisions in the class between workers in different nations. The question then arises, 'Are the workers whose instinct is to resist immigration labour aristocrats?' Are the inhabitants of Bexley North End all plump and greasy from the luxuries of imperialist conquest? Do they have interests which are antagonistic to workers of other nations? Do they have anything to lose but their chains? Comrade Fischer quite rightly does not think so.

Stalin's classic definition of the nation emphasises economic and territorial aspects of nationhood. Man seeks to control nature through his labour and in the epoch of ascending capital forms the nation-state along with its cultural coherence. We must move forwards, not backwards! The demand for the abolition of borders - and hence citizenship and hence nations - without the proletariat first acquiring political supremacy is a demand to descend into barbarism.

Although comrade Fischer demonstrates basic proletarian internationalist instincts he cannot drop the reactionary policy of open borders. His solution is to opportunistically subvert his own programme. Now if a communist party has a programmatic position then this position is in the interests of the class. If open borders is in the interests of the class then "refugees welcome here" should be a statement of fact or at the very least an attack on the most backward minority elements of the class. Comrade Fischer confounds his reactionary programme with a fudged methodology. Comrade Donovan on the other hand is more honest about his anti-working class politics and tries to preserve Marxist-Leninist methodology against this fudge which the CPGB-PCC/SWP/AWL will find necessary.

Mass immigration, which we are beginning to see in London, can only force down wages as the pool of labour expands. It can only stretch public services which are already run down. It can only concentrate the population into overcrowded ghettos. The SWP will say that we should organise the unorganised, but should we then call for more immigration to unorganise the organised again? The SWP will say that the rich should be taxed to fund public services, but the Marxist solution to crises is not to tax and spend, but for workers' power. The SWP will say that Britain is underpopulated, but the poorest areas most certainly are not. Open borders is against the interests of the class - including immigrants - but benefits the bosses who have a free supply of cheap labour. Moreover, despite the rhetoric from the politicians we already have open borders: the politicians are merely interested in keeping immigrants criminalised.

If the LSA continues with these policies it will never make any kind of breakthrough. Instead it must picket businesses employing immigrants as cheap labour.

Closed borders
Closed borders

Legal SP

In his article '100 plus', Marcus Larsem makes the mistake of saying that Militant contested 29 seats at the 1997 general election as the "Socialist Party" (Weekly Worker July 20).

There were indeed 29 candidates who used this name on the ballot paper, but only 24 represented Militant. The other five represented the Socialist Party (of GB) which had been using this name on the ballot paper since 1989. Fortunately, this confusion will not happen again, thanks to the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998. Militant's dishonest action of usurping the name of another party was punished by the registrar refusing to register them as 'Socialist Party'. So they were forced to register as 'Socialist Alternative' and 'Socialist Alliance' (which was then a Militant front).

There will in fact be some Socialist Party candidates at the next election too, standing exclusively for a society of common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use, not profit - as opposed to the Trotskyists United 'Socialist Alliance', which will be standing for state capitalism and impossible reforms of capitalism - a clear choice, should they happen to be standing in the same constituencies.

Legal SP

Only mistake

Regarding Gerry Downing's letter in the Weekly Worker July 13, the only mistake the Bolsheviks made in connection with the 1920 Polish campaign was letting comrade Stalin anywhere near it. It was he who refused to reinforce general Tukhachevsky at the gates of Warsaw, indirectly leading to the defeat of the Red Army. What a wasted opportunity!

However, in some defence of Stalin, the 1939 Soviet-Nazi pact would seem to have made perfect sense. It is no good some comrades turning up their noses at it. Yes, the Soviet Union by then was being slowly strangled by ever growing bureaucracy - but it still existed as something of a central focal point for the worldwide communist movement.

Only mistake
Only mistake

Correction

Thank you for publishing a DHKC document on fascism, under the heading 'Fascism - what is it?' (Weekly Worker July 27). There are a couple of points that need to be made, however.

What was published is not the complete document, which is three or four times as long as what appeared in the Weekly Worker. While what was published is not a bad reflection of the whole, a large section analysing political and cultural life in contemporary Turkey was missed out. On request the full document can be supplied to those who are interested. We will also be putting it on our website.

In what was published, when we wrote about the 1960 "political revolution" in Turkey, the word "political" is stressed in the Weekly Worker by means of italics. The original document we sent does not stress this aspect of 1960.

Correction
Correction