15.11.2001

Socialist labour party

Divide deepens

As reported in last week?s edition, the leadership of the Socialist Labour Party is deeply split over its attitude towards the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington (Weekly Worker November 8). A majority of the national executive, meeting on September 22, agreed after a tense three-hour debate that the SLP should ?condemn the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?, rather than merely ?deplore? the resulting ?loss of life? - which was all that Arthur Scargill could manage in his initial press release issued on behalf of the party.

The NEC statement, proposed by the international committee, was agreed against the wishes of Scargill, the SLP general secretary, and is now official party policy. Although it has been sent out to the membership and incorporated in a leaflet against the imperialist war, it was not included in the October-November issue of Socialist News, the SLP bimonthly, or posted on the party?s website. Neither was it distributed by SLP members at the October 13 demonstration organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in London.

The virtual invisibility of this leaflet and complete absence of any publicity for the agreed position cannot simply be put down to disorganisation or inertia. The NEC statement is being actively suppressed by supporters of Harpal Brar, editor of the ultra-Stalinite Lalkar, formerly the journal of the Indian Workers Association. Comrade Brar himself is a member of the SLP executive (and indeed of the international committee, whose position on September 11 he opposes so vehemently), where he sits alongside three of his closest supporters: son Ranjeet, representative of the youth section; and Amanda Rose and Ella Rule of the SLP women?s section.

The Brarites control the London regional committee, which explains why the leaflet was not available on the October 13 demonstration. In addition, another member of the Brar family, Harpal?s daughter Joti, jointly administers the SLP website with Carlos Rule - yet another of Brar followers. Scargill?s own statement was promptly posted immediately after the September 11 attacks, where it remains to this day. Clearly Scargill, at the very least, tacitly approves of the Brarites? actions.

The latest edition of Lalkar contains four  verbose articles which are diametrically opposed to the NEC majority position. Two are unsigned, but are written in the unmistakable, style of Brar himself. The third is by Zane Carpenter, a Stalinite loyal to Scargill, whose pieces are frequently carried in Socialist News, while the fourth is unattributed, but is actually reprinted from Fightback, whose writers are former members of the Revolutionary Communist Group.

Taken together, these articles are undoubtedly directed against the party on whose NEC comrade Brar sits. But, in true Stalinite style, the main butt of their polemic is not mentioned. Indeed, unusually, the words ?Socialist Labour Party? do not appear in this issue at all. But how could Brar openly identify the SLP when he writes words like these: ?? the present crisis is proving on an incomparably higher level the rottenness of imperialism, as well as the rottenness of what passes for the ?left? in the imperialist countries??

Brar goes on to expand upon this ?rottenness?. He remarks that you cannot of course expect a principled position from ?our present-day counterrevolutionary philistines of the type represented by the Trotskyists of the Weekly Worker, who have effectively aligned themselves with US imperialism?. However, ?What is truly monstrous is that parties and groups claiming to represent the interests of the proletariat should ? be nudged into unreservedly condemning the attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC in terms indistinguishable from those used by imperialist organs and statesmen alike. Those guilty of this sinful conduct are not confined to the usual fraternity of counterrevolutionary Trots and revisionist renegades ? but sadly are also to be found amongst some of the best contingents of the proletarian movement in the imperialist countries.?

Since Brar cannot bring himself to mention the official SLP statement, let alone describe the strained discussions at its September 22 NEC, he has to make do with polemicising against the remarkably named ?International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with the Soviet People?, which apparently has just had a congress in Toronto (no doubt to the eternal gratitude of the Soviet people). This august body narrowly defeated an attempt by ?a delegate from Britain? to remove all reference to ?condemnation? and ?terrorism? from the agreed resolution on the September 11 attacks.

Brar treats us to a full account of the arguments presented in Canada, together with details of the various drafts and amendments. Obviously the deliberations of these time warp inhabitants are of much more relevance to socialists and communists in Britain than the controversy raging within the leadership of his own party.

Comrade Brar?s argument is simple: the suicide bombers were ?some of the most heroic and self-sacrificing representatives of the national liberation movement of the Arab peoples? and their actions were therefore ?a continuation and an extension? of that struggle and should be supported. He quotes Lenin to the effect that ?terror is one of the forms of military action that may be perfectly suitable and even essential at a definite juncture?. It seems to have escaped our friend?s notice that Lenin was referring to terror used as a weapon by the working class, not by a bunch of anti-communist, anti-women, anti-worker religious bigots. To describe these reactionary ?anti-imperialists? as ?representatives of the national liberation movement? is enough to make Lenin turn in his grave.

In order to make his justification of the September 11 atrocities appear less outrageous, Brar pretends that ?overwhelmingly? - according to The Observer - ?the hapless victims of the attack were bankers, stockbrokers and management consultants? (September 30). What rot. They were ?overwhelmingly? workers who happened to be employed by such companies. And if, in any case, there really had been 50,000 capitalists beavering away in the WTC, would that have made such an attack acceptable?

Zane Carpenter, who has worked closely with Scargill at the SLP?s Barnsley headquarters, writes in similar vein: ?Every two-bit Trot organisation is howling with indignation about the loss of lives of American workers. But those who choose to work in the Pentagon and serve the armed wing of imperialism cannot cry foul when their victims fight back. Those who choose to work in the main economic wing of imperialism, which sucks the wealth out of poor nations and the lives out of the children of those nations, cannot cry foul when their victims hit back.

?What of the other workers, firemen, police, restaurant workers, flight crews and passengers? We must regret all needless loss of life, but ? the working class is split ? with those at the top serving imperialism ? The screams of all the Trotskyite organisations are the manifestation of this support for imperialism. They try to outdo each other to condemn the attack on the grounds that American workers died.?

I wonder how comrade Carpenter could have failed to notice that it is not only ?Trotskyite organisations? who issue such condemnations? But, like comrade Brar, Carpenter believes that an act of mass murder committed by middle class zealots, led by a millionaire - as part of a movement which aims to imprison women, ban trade unions, kill communists and smash workers? organisation - is a marvellous advance for the emancipation of humanity. He concludes: ?America has suffered a blow from which it is still reeling and shaken. It is our job to keep it in that state, not give it support.?

Even more nauseating is the submission by Fightback: ?We do not mourn, but welcome, the death of any workers at the Pentagon or any bankers at the World Trade Center; they have killed many times over before in their careers. Those cleaners, waiters, cooks and technicians who died were a tragic loss in a war which sees many millions of ordinary, innocent people die every year. The war against oppression will continue and many more will fall before its completion .?

In this way the ?tragic loss? of thousands of victims is written off as ?collateral damage?. The piece ends with this disgusting piece of anti-worker rubbish: ?With so many British ?socialists? benefiting from imperialism?s superprofits and sharing the lifestyles of the bankers and regular airline travellers, their capitulation is sadly predictable and their irrelevance a stark reality.? Evidently air travel ought to be beyond the reach of the working class.

Harpal Brar is not renowned for publishing articles with which he disagrees. So we can safely sum up his views as follows. The SLP?s action in condemning the suicide attacks typifies the ?rottenness of the left?, whose ?irrelevance has become a stark reality?, and this ?sinful conduct? is the equivalent of ?screaming? its ?support for imperialism?. Clearly the comrade does not think much of the executive majority. Mind you, the NEC?s reformo-Scargillite wing is, in its turn, less than impressed with Brar?s adulation of JV Stalin.

Obviously to pretend that the differences at the top are over nothing more than nuance is unsustainable. Yet that is what Dave Roberts, formerly a supporter of Roy Bull?s ranting Economic and Philosophic Review, claims to believe. Comrade Roberts was one of the minority who sided with the Brar/Scargill position on September 22. Other NEC members, like Liz Screen and vice-president Linda Muir, who were in favour of the changed position, genuinely seem to think that there is no contradiction between Scargill?s press release and the subsequent statement. When the NEC was locked in discussion for up to three hours, all it was really about was simply choosing the right form of words, according to these comrades.

I am afraid it is a little more serious than that.

Simon Harvey