Letters

SSP diktat

According to the editor of Scottish Socialist Voice, the Socialist Workers Party have recently agreed to stop selling their weekly newspaper, Socialist Worker. This had been one of the conditions for SWP entry into the Scottish Socialist Party.

It does not say much for the SWP leaders that they are prepared to be dictated to by the Militant when genuine democratic centralism allows for political pluralism. Their agreement has consequences for other currents within the SSP who sell papers publicly now, in spite of the SSP's protestations that no disciplinary action will be taken against any member who sells a paper other than the Voice. However, it clearly shows that anyone who does gain support for their platform's ideas within the SSP will be fair game.

The real villains of the piece here are the Militant. Their talk of how little the SWP has changed and the SWP's undemocratic methods is almost laughable in circumstances where even the slightest threat of losing control or influence within the SSP has resulted in proposals for a clampdown on internal democracy. Less than seven months after the rejection by the membership of the SSP of a delegate-based conference, they are back with the same proposal. Why? Clearly fear that existing policies will be overturned at the AGM by a growing party of members who can all turn up and vote. The SWP potential entry makes it doubly urgent for them. This proposal amounts to no less than turning the SSP AGM into a Militant rally. There would be the Committee for a Workers' International in numbers, some non-aligned people and one or two token voices of oppositions to make it look democratic, and that would be it. Bye bye, SSP.

The party paper is an even worse outrage. We are all expected to sell in public a badly produced paper that comes out irregularly and does not print what are seen as dissident views - and if you don't like it, tough. It has been argued for in the name of presenting a united front to the working class. But this cannot be forced by bureaucratic diktat. Unity and democratisation are about a voluntary process. Over time, as there are shared common experiences between socialists within the same organisation, there would be pressure to unite around a single paper from most people in all tendencies. However, the SWP have signed up to this diktat to get in, and in doing so have made it more difficult for the consistent democrats within the SSP to retain pluralism at the special conference in November.

It also shows how little the Militant have changed. Democracy is fine as long as all the decisions and positions are going the Militant's way. What is particularly galling is seeing all their usual methods in getting their way come to the surface. Distortion of people's arguments backed up by denial. And outrage if you dare suggest that their true motivations lie in retaining control.

The future of the SSP lies in the main with the non-aligned people of the party. They must realise that the party is not controlled by a group of non-aligned consistent democrats who believe in being honest with other socialists from different traditions. The Militant's proposals would seriously damage the party's effectiveness and public profile. Throw them out.

SSP diktat
SSP diktat

Lone 'Voice'

Genuine democratic centralism allows for those with minority views within a party to express those views both orally and in writing to everyone. The idea that an individual cannot state what they believe to be in the interests of the working class or party outside of party forums is a profoundly undemocratic and Stalinist one. The responsibility of being a party member means it must be made clear that they are minority views (even perhaps the individual's view alone). Party policy on the particular issue should also be articulated in a balanced way.

It logically follows that in the current debate between the SSP and the SWP there should be no insistence that the SWP wind up their paper as a condition of membership. Yet this is precisely what is being insisted upon by the CWI-controlled SSP in Scotland. There are clearly consequences for all other actual and potential platforms in terms of their public sales of papers (something all tendencies have carried out without criticism in the past).

The undemocratic methods of the SWP should not be dealt with by bureaucratic measures. The logic of doing so is that you begin by waving around a partially democratic constitution like a club and end up with disciplinary hearings staffed by control freaks asking questions like, 'Have you ever been a member of ...' etc, etc, etc.

It is especially wrong in circumstances where the Voice is an uninspiring newspaper that few members of the SSP have pride in (partly because dissenting voices cannot get articles printed in the thing). If this changed there could be a voluntary move over time to the sale of one paper with the better members of the SWP willingly moving to carrying out public sales of the Voice.

In the meantime a democratic party can cope with more than one paper. There will be greater unity in action if a merger takes place and workers will appreciate and respect this much more than failure to unite as a result of an insistence by some on one public paper.

Lone 'Voice'

Childish

Jack Conrad's "aside on Tony Cliff and orthodox Trotskyism" is a prime example of, childishly taking an irrelevant myth (Lenin's 'conversion' to 'Trotskyism') - not, incidentally, propagated by Trotsky - and attempting to counterbalance it with an equally erroneous argument (Weekly Worker August 3).

Lenin, under the impact of World War I and later the February revolution, began, as a Marxist, to make a fresh analysis of both the international situation (which seemed wholly ripe for social revolution) and the class forces within Russia: "The Russian revolution - precisely because of its proletarian character ... is the prologue to the coming European revolutions" (lecture in Zurich, January 1917).

These words are a tacit exposition of the permanent revolution. Lenin, after a thorough and independent Marxist analysis, had - by April 1917 - arrived at the same position held by Trotsky. This is not a "myth": it is a matter of history (incidentally, the same can be said of Trotsky's acceptance of the Bolshevik conception of the party).

While the Bolshevik slogan, 'revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry', was more advanced than the Menshevik stageist one, and is infinitely closer to Trotsky's theory, it simply lacks the clarity and incisiveness of permanent revolution.

This was rightly diagnosed by Lenin himself: "The formula is already antiquated ... The person who now speaks only of a revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry is behind the times ..." As can plainly be seen, Lenin, after re-evaluating the situation, had abandoned the "antiquated" formula. Lenin's fight to realign (Trotsky's expression "re-arm" is more accurate) the party is well documented.

Lenin, clearly, believed (rightly) that Russia was in the process of the permanent or uninterrupted revolution. It would seem also that it is in fact not Tony Cliff who sets out the Letters from afar and the April theses as the dividing line with old Bolshevism; nor was it an idea "hatched" by Trotsky. It was ... Lenin himself. A fact that comrade Conrad seems ignorant of.

The main deficiencies of the 'revolutionary democratic' theory are obvious. The realities of such a regime would be absurd. Why would the proletariat, once at the helm of the state, confine itself to the programme of the radical bourgeoisie (land reform, democratic republic, separation of church and state, eight-hour day, etc)? Why would a proletariat sufficiently conscious to overthrow tsarism then willingly subjugate itself to the bourgeoisie?

This formula of bourgeois worker-peasant dictatorship is thoroughly imbued with the prejudices that led to the bankruptcy of Russian Menshevism - that the tasks of the bourgeois revolution can only be completed under the social and economic rule of the bourgeoisie. It was precisely freedom from these prejudices that allowed Trotsky to develop the theory of permanent revolution in 1905-6 and Lenin to amend his views.

Pointing out the bankruptcy of the 'revolutionary democratic' slogan is not in the least to "belittle" Lenin (although Lenin himself was adept at this - reading some of his 1903 vintage material, Lenin told Radek, "Isn't it interesting to read what fools we were then?"), or indeed to falsely inflate Trotsky's standing.

The very fact that Lenin, after himself realising the inadequacies of his previous formulation, was fully able to reach the correct conclusion proves how firmly he was rooted in the Marxist method, and how completely he observed and absorbed Engels' axiom: "Our theory is not a dogma, but a guide to action."

Childish
Childish

Asylum-seekers

Mark Fischer, Ian Donovan and myself have argued over the slogan 'Asylum-seekers welcome here' (Weekly Worker , August 3). I don't think any of us is in any doubt that what we have is a tactical disagreement between revolutionary socialists. This is not the case when it comes to differences with some other contributors to the debate.

Andrew Cutting may not have jettisoned all pretensions to being a Marxist (yet), but his latest letter represents a definitive crossing of the ideological barricades. Andrew is young, relatively inexperienced and may become deeply embarrassed by this particular intervention. I certainly have no objections to comrades reaching out to grab his hand, to try to rescue him from the clutches of the BNP before he moves on from fellow-traveller to fully paid up member. But let us not kid ourselves about just how rotten are the politics he is defending.

I can think of no better illustration than Andrew as to why Mark needs to rethink his attitude towards our slogans on asylum-seekers. Mark might want to dump the slogan 'Asylum seekers welcome here' because it is not an accurate reflection of popular opinion, which is obviously true. The slogan might also be deficient in that it places no demands on anyone, but the same is true of his alternative - 'Asylum seekers are not to blame'. What makes the latter slogan preferable to the former in the eyes of opportunists (by which I do not mean Mark) is that it does not so categorically pin our colours to the mast.

Although Mark may have good reasons for being critical of the slogan, he cannot simply turn a blind eye to fact that he will find himself in the same lobby as people like Andrew, people whose motivations are less praiseworthy. Andrew's attitude could be summed up in the slogan 'Asylum-seekers fuck off and die'.

I am prepared to listen to arguments for honing our slogans. But if this slogan is to be dispensed with, it must be substituted with 'Open the borders!', 'No immigration controls!' or something equally emphatic.

Mark expressed anxiety about the slogan in the first place because he saw it as blaming workers who do not share our support for asylum-seekers. Ian is right to point out that the only way to curry favour with such people is by abandoning our support for open borders, something Mark would not contemplate. That is not to say that I agree with all of Ian's criticisms of Mark's original article, virtually every word of which I agree with. Although Mark's solution to the problem of backward workers voting fascist is, in my opinion, plainly inadequate, he has identified a serious problem, one which Ian wants to brush aside in a manner that I have called economistic. If my last attempt to justify this accusation was "confused", then let me try again.

The materialist component of my Marxism leads me to unconditionally endorse the emphasis Ian places on the relationship between class struggle and workers' consciousness. A rise in the level of class struggle will serve to purge whole swathes of our class of many reactionary ideas. At the very least it will create more favourable conditions for conscious revolutionaries to help workers re-educate themselves: Mark himself made this point in his original article.

But the dialectical component of my Marxism teaches me something else. We need not sit back and wait for a rising tide in the class struggle to rescue us, 5th cavalry-fashion. While Marxists exploit objective factors beyond our control to our best advantage (and are always on the lookout for the silver lining in any cloud), we never rely exclusively on them to do our job for us.

Revolutionaries have to recognise that we did have it in our power to curtail a rise in the fascist vote in Bexley and elsewhere. All we had to do was present our own electoral alternative to bankrupt Labour politicians. It is still not too late to stop this trend, to reverse it and, in the process, to qualitatively strengthen the revolutionary left - even while the level of class struggle remains pitifully low! If Ian agrees with me, then I withdraw the charge of economism. If he remains unconvinced, then I will keep arguing with him until he sees sense.

My solution to the problem identified by Mark is the following:

The socialist alliances must:

1) unconditionally oppose all immigration controls and adopt a slogan that expresses this commitment;

2) make it absolutely clear that we draw a line of demarcation between fascist cadres and workers who have in the past been convinced by their arguments about immigration controls, enough to vote for them. We should tell workers that all our candidates are non-negotiable on the question of immigration controls, but that we are appealing for the votes of workers who disagree with us on this question.

Opportunists in the LSA will want to draw up policies based on ever-shifting opinion polls. Revolutionaries can win the respect (and votes) of workers who disagree with us on very many important questions. But only if we are honest with them about what for us are non-negotiable principles.

Asylum-seekers
Asylum-seekers

Fair cop

The internet discussion list for International Socialist Tendency/Socialist Workers Party oppositionists has recently contained contributions from comrades agonising over the identity of 'Sverdlov', the pen name of a leader of the left opposition within the US International Socialist Organization.

A certain 'Rakovski' suggests that perhaps "Sverdlov was created by the leadership faction of either the ISO or the SWP as a way of releasing information advantageous to it and destabilise the other". Or could he be part of a "disinformation campaign" designed to discredit genuine oppositionists?

However, the following anonymous contribution takes the biscuit in my view: "There seemed to be a close relationship between 'Sverdlov' and the CPGB, if the attention paid him by the Weekly Worker is any indication. Maybe Sverdlov is another CPGB plant/correspondent/invention like Simon Harvey, Pat Strong and the rest. It's certainly the CPGB's style to invent an internal opposition and then have an invented insider report on it."

Come on, comrades, own up: it's a fair cop.

Fair cop
Fair cop

Intellectuals

I was surprised by the remarks attributed to me about intellectuals and the party at this year's summer school (Weekly Worker August 24). To my knowledge I made no statement to the effect that intellectuals were justified in not joining leftwing political organisations, and indeed my own view is that it would a good thing if Marxist intellectuals got more involved in political groups.

The main emphasis of my contribution to the first Ticktin session on capitalist crisis was to point out methodological problems in his approach.

Intellectuals
Intellectuals