Letters

Respect for IWCA

Does anybody seriously believe that Respect, this wet-lettuce coalition of middle class lefties, can win over the hearts and minds of working class people? I'm sure many Trots are almost orgasmic at the prospect of flogging more newspapers and recruiting people to a new organisation, but it just goes to show how out of touch they are with the class. We don't need celebrities and over-sized egos, like Mr Galloway, peddling their fast-track path to salvation at us. We need a working class organisation that can encourage self-awareness, confidence and solidarity within the class.

After much deliberation, I've decided to join the Independent Working Class Association, who seem much more realistically placed to further the interests of my class. They won't satisfy the needs of the Marxist intellectuals and armchair ideologues, but they'll certainly please those who want to make a difference to the lives and consciousness of people in working class communities.

Respect for IWCA
Respect for IWCA

Trust Galloway

In spite of your blunders and dim-wittedness, I thank you for the Galloway interview (Weekly Worker December 4). However, comparing George Galloway to Father Gapon is intellectually dim. Father Gapon was barely political - more humanitarian. Fine. But George Galloway, although undoubtedly a sincere humanitarian, is someone from a working class background with an uncompromising anti-imperialist and socialist outlook.

George Galloway is different from Arthur Scargill in that Arthur lacked the intellectual quality necessary for a proto-Marxist organisation. Arthur was too busy being leader of the National Union of Mineworkers to find time to do all that intellectually demanding and time-consuming Marxist stuff. Had Arthur acquired a thorough grounding of Leninism, I am sure things would have turned out differently.

Arthur was influenced by the Communist Party. Unfortunately, those people didn’t bother teaching the classics to their people. There are many ex-CPers who haven’t even read the Communist manifesto.

George Galloway has proven that not only can he help build and influence a movement, but that he has the intellectual and political tools to take on British imperialism. That is definitely a huge asset for our class, and for the worldwide anti-imperialist movement. That is why The Daily Telegraph and New Labour were so desperate to undermine the credibility of Mr Galloway. Thankfully, he has seen off that challenge with a healthy gusto.

The GG phenomenon hasn’t happened in a long time. Working class leaders of this nation traditionally looked to the Soviet Union to do their thinking for them, or at least allow themselves to be heavily influenced by Soviet policies.

I can trust Mr Galloway not to make a major or even minor blunder in the struggles against all sections of our ruling class. The weakness of leadership, that has so often dogged the proletarian movement of this country, seems to be in the process of being rectified.

Father Gapon could never deliver a successful revolution. Mr Galloway, given the opportunity, will make sure that we don’t mess up our chances.

Trust Galloway
Trust Galloway

Hangover

In reviewing the website of the Campaign for Real Ale, Phil Hamilton suggests that the concept of a Camra youth section might be a “hangover” from organiser Roger Protz’s days in the SWP (‘Political small beer’, December 18). While it is true that Roger was the editor of Socialist Worker in the late 60s and early 70s, to my knowledge the SWP has always been opposed to youth sections, women’s sections, black sections or any other minorities getting together. After all they may develop policies which clash with those of the central committee, and that would never do in the SWP!

A more likely explanation of any hangover (an unfortunate term with regard to Camra, but perhaps apt with regard to left groups!) is Roger Protz’s experience in the Healyite Socialist Labour League in the early 1960s, when he was editor of Keep Left, the highly successful youth paper of the SLL in the Labour Party Young Socialists. The SLL attracted a following amongst working class youth by organising weekly discos in council housing estates. In 1964 Keep Left and the SLL were expelled from the Labour Party and set off on a sectarian trajectory, which included them refusing to march on the mass anti-Vietnam war demos of 1967 and 1968. This lost them a large proportion of their membership and support.

At that point Tony Cliff made a conscious effort to recruit ex-members of Keep Left and the SLL in order, as he put it, to “harden up” his own organisation, the International Socialists/SWP. He promised openness, democracy and faction rights. This veneer of liberalism lasted about three years before bureaucratic methods and witch-hunting became the norm. Many comrades left or were expelled from the IS/SWP, Roger Protz being one of them.

Phil Hamilton calls Camra “political small beer”, but I am sure Roger Protz would argue that his time has been spent more productively in organising Camra than in slogging it out for 40 years on the left. If Phil claims that socialist politics are ‘big beer’, then I’m sure that prosecutions in the bourgeois courts are due on the grounds of both quantity and quality.

I mention all this not because of nostalgia but because history has a habit of repeating itself. This month with Respect we are once again promised openness and democratic rights. Comrades will no doubt remember similar feelings of warmth and optimism with the start of the Socialist Alliance and with Arthur Scargill’s SLP, as many of us did with Tony Cliff in 1968. The lessons are - get involved certainly, but get organised on the basis of openness and democracy, because these are key requirements in a workers’ party. We must not take them for granted or assume the leadership mean what they say.

I notice from your report that the SA Democracy Platform stresses these two issues in its programmatic document. For me the platform needs to go further: to draw up democratic demands for the working class internationally, on the national state, within workplaces and trade unions and within our own socialist organisations. Democracy is not an optional extra or a bolt-on policy, but the oxygen by which the working class become involved and leaders are made accountable.

In such a democratic movement, a capable organiser like Roger Protz might find a role.

Hangover
Hangover

Do us a favour

“Camra could well achieve its limited objectives, but this consumerist strategy has little to offer socialist politics”. Well thank god that Phil Hamilton took the time to go online and write this article! Imagine if socialists had gone to Camra's website and thought that they could find all the answers there - anarchy would prevail on the left, as beards, pipes and ale took over from meaningful campaigns for the betterment of the working class.

Do us a favour, Phil - you've clearly run out of 'left' websites to review, so drop the reviews of meaningless sites and do some real work.

Do us a favour
Do us a favour

Good wishes

An Afghani and an Algerian asylum-seeker escaped from Haslar removal/detention centre at 2.30am on Wed-nesday December 31. The National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns would just like to wish the escapees well. May they find health, wealth and happiness in the United Kingdom and may the dark forces of the immigration and nationality department never cross their paths.

We should add the same good wishes for all those in the UK and the rest of the world without status, whether economic or political refugees. May 2004 bring you that little piece of paper that allows you and your family to reside in whichever country you have decided to make your home.

Good wishes
Good wishes

Corrections

It was a surprise to see that my rather rambling thoughts at Communist University 2003 merited being reproduced in the Weekly Worker, but I am happy that you felt they were worth wider circulation and hope they provoke thought and discussion (‘Radical christianity and social resistance’, December 18).

Just a couple of things in response. Firstly, I have long ago given up on the Socialist Alliance and have not been a paid up member for nearly a year. Secondly, to correct a major typo, I did not say that Galilee was the centre of political and religious power, but Judea and Jerusalem in particular, I think that is obvious in what I say elsewhere in the talk.

Corrections
Corrections

Al Richardson

I was taught by Mr Richardson in the 80s at Forest Hill Boys School and am very sad to hear of his passing.

He was an inspirational and passionate teacher, of the type that we need more of in these troubled days. He taught his pupils that not taking what you are told at face value and that to question those in positions of power was your duty as a member of society - and he did this without enforcing his own beliefs on our young minds.

He left a big impression on this pupil and I’m sure many others.

My condolences go out to his partner and his family.

Al Richardson
Al Richardson

Win back Labour

It was refreshing to get a thoroughgoing political response from Nick Rogers, although I must point out that I did not accuse Hugh Kerr of lying. but of reporting inaccuracies by claiming that John McAllion was going to join the Scottish Socialist Party (Letters, December 11). Nick’s more substantial points are central to the debate about the future of the left in Scotland and Britain. He is quite right to say that being on the left in New Labour does mean dealing with constraints, but to a large extent the effectiveness of those constraints depends on the success or otherwise of building opposition to the neoliberal leadership.

Personally I have never felt the need to rein in anything that I have said or written or campaigned for. And in that context I should point out to Nick that members of the Campaign for Socialism were heavily involved in the anti-stock transfer campaign. That includes prominent councillors like Jim MacKechnie and Aileen Colleran, as well as Elaine Smith MSP and the Scottish TUC coordinator of the campaign, Mike McNichol, in addition to constituency and com-munity activists like Dave Moxham and John Craig. Similarly, members like Rozanne Foyer and Robina Qureshi have made significant contributions to the asylum campaign.

I applaud the SSP’s work on warrant sales, but I think Nick will acknowledge that without the support of a significant number of Labour MSPs that advance would not have taken place and that the SSP is still not in a position to take progressive legislation to a successful conclusion under its own steam, nor will be for some time.

At the centre of the argument between the SSP and the CFS is really whether it is possible to reclaim the Labour Party for a radical politics. Ultimately there are only two options if you reject seeking to win back the Labour Party as it is: you can seek to reinvent the Labour-trade union alliance with no credible argument as to how it is likely to be more successful than first time round, or you can seek to take socialist ideas directly to the working class.

The early socialists did not form the Labour Party for nothing. They were only too well aware, as we ought to be, of the difficulties in challenging a culture saturated with centuries of imperialism, racism, commercialism and individualism. It takes a very powerful social movement indeed to shake that. And if, as Nick is arguing, that it is possible to build such a movement with all the difficulties that entails, why does he thinks the comparatively more simple task of winning back the Labour Party is impossible?

Win back Labour
Win back Labour

Work through unions

So comrade Dougie Kinnear's answer to fighting for socialism seems to the passing of resolutions (Letters, December 18). You suggest comrade McLean should go to his next Labour Party ward meeting and do this. I'm afraid you don't really answer any of his points and completely forget the nature of the Labour Party. Labour is a party based on the trade unions. This is a fact, whether we like it or not. It is dominated by a rightwing, pro-capitalist clique carrying on the work of the pre-1997 Tories. While as a trade unionist I welcome some of the reforms, I take the line that it is clearly not enough. I feel the correct method is to work through the trade unions to challenge Blairism.

The union branch can use its affiliation and delegation rights. It is far easier to do this than setting up separate socialist parties every other year and getting low votes against the Labour Party election machine. In Scotland the SSP is an alternative, at the moment, but on the whole many workers tend to steer clear of electoral politics - thus the low turnouts at council and general elections. The recent shifts in the leaderships of the various unions leftwards mark an important development to seriously work amongst the class on the shop floor, instead of folding leaflets for the next election that comes along.

Good luck with your venture with the SSP. But I am going to stick with putting pressure on the Labour Party through my union delegation, and building on the modest victories we got at last year' s Labour conference. At the same time I will be fighting to raise political awareness amongst my fellow workers, many young and new to trade unionism, in my branch.

Work through unions
Work through unions

CPGB tails SWP

At the CPGB aggregate on December 7, the leadership decision to join the Socialist Workers Party’s Respect coalition was retrospectively rubber-stamped. Marcus Ström encouraged the members to have trust in wishful thinking. He argued that the Respect coalition represented the success of the anti-war movement - unlike the Socialist Labour Party, which was a product of defeat. But, as Peter Manson observed in the Weekly Worker (October 16), it was the political failure of the SWP to recruit during the anti-war movement that compelled it to attempt to reproduce the movement on the electoral stage. Respect, like the ‘Peace and Justice’ initiative that preceded it, was a result of political failure: that is, the failure of the SWP to promote the Socialist Alliance and a socialist programme.

This failure was illustrated by the defeat of SA candidate Brian Butterworth in Brent East, as the votes went to the party of Charles Kennedy. The latter had, of course, been given a platform by the SWP during the great demo on February 15.

The Respect coalition expresses the lack of confidence of the SWP in socialism from below. It is moving in an opposite direction to what the class needs - a mass workers’ party. At least, Scargill had put a party and a programme as the solution to the crisis of working class representation. In this he was correct. It was in his bureaucratic, top-down and anti-democratic methods that he destroyed the prospects of the Socialist Labour Party becoming such a party.

In contrast, it has been a precondition laid down by the self-appointed committee of Respect that it will not be a party. The SWP leaders think they are already the party. Galloway hopes to return to the Labour Party in the manner of Ken Livingstone. And Monbiot and Yaqoob are not in favour of working class parties. This is no surprise, as they are not working class politicians. Galloway is clearly the anointed leader of Respect, but, unlike Scargill, he is a maverick without a labour movement following. Galloway’s support for Saddam Hussein was not shared by the millions marching against the war. As Kit Robinson pointed out in the Weekly Worker (July 3), Galloway was in a bloc with reactionary, repressive Arab governments - hardly a fact to inspire the anti-war millions.

Respect, as another SWP ‘united front of a special kind’, is not likely to make an electoral impact. In Jack Conrad’s words, “People vote for parties which, over a sustained period of time, have established a known presence and record of activity and stand on a fully rounded, testable programme” (Weekly Worker November 27). Yet, Jack, in the same piece, dismisses programme in relation to Respect as a sterile precondition.

Galloway’s precondition for the coalition is anti-European politics, as expressed in the European clause in the draft declaration of the Respect committee, which Jack Conrad admits plays into the hands of the anti-European xenophobic right wing (Weekly Worker December 11). The SWP hand-raisers will, of course, vote for the acceptance of this clause, despite Conrad’s wishful thinking that this anti-European position can be changed.

At the CPGB aggregate, the wishful thinking was taken to absurd lengths by Ian Donovan, who argued that a refusal to join Respect would be to make the same mistake as the Social Democratic Federation when they left the Labour Party during its formation. The comparison reflects a determination by the CPGB leadership to paint Respect in working class colours. The Labour Party was formed by trade union leaders in the TUC. They were the bureaucratic representatives of millions of organised workers. It was a step towards the political independence of the working class. Donovan’s lack of political proportion is symptomatic of the uncertainty of the CPGB’s approach to the coalition.

The oft used phrase about “critically engaging the coalition” is a smokescreen to cover their joining Respect. You don’t have to join it to critically engage. Marcus explains what the phrase means: “It does not commit the alliance to the coalition. What it does commit us to is a fight within the coalition for it to adopt a working class and socialist platform” (Weekly Worker November 27). But being within the coalition is joining Respect without democratic party mechanisms to change the ‘draft declaration’.

However, to return to Conrad’s point about programme as precondition being sterile, gesture politics. For Conrad, it’s “life” that counts. Life has spontaneously presented us with the Respect coalition to participate in. What a travesty of Leninism this is! This approach has more in common with the old Stalinist CPGB’s attitude to programme during the popular front period. Then, programme was placed on one side in favour of opportunist electoral pacts.

To the contrary, the working class has learned political lessons, usually the hard way, and these lessons have been retained in the collective memory of the class - hence parties and programmes.

There is a consistency in this. Weekly Worker readers will recall that, in 2000, Jack Conrad dismissed as doctrinaire those comrades who argued that support for Ken Livingstone for mayor of London should be conditional upon him standing on a socialist or a democratic programme. The CPGB voted for Livingstone, who had openly proclaimed his intention to form a cross-class coalition administration, including Liberals and Tories, which he did. As with the Respect coalition, the support for Livingstone was based on the fantasy that Livingstone, like Galloway now, could become leader of a mass workers’ party.

But Livingstone did not have the politics or programme to forge an alternative to the Labour Party. He was a celebrity politician, a maverick like Galloway - albeit one who was and is massively more popular than Galloway. To follow Galloway will lead to the same political dead end as following Livingstone.

Of course, the CPGB is not so much following Galloway as following the SWP leadership. Behind the sound and fury of the polemics of the CPGB leadership is the fear of being cut off from Rees and Hoveman and friends. The CPGB leaders have lost the confidence in carving out a socialist future on the basis of party and programme.

CPGB tails SWP
CPGB tails SWP