Letters
Teetotal socialism
Mark Fischer’s article ‘Binge-boozing Britain’ reads to some extent like an apology for alcohol, in keeping with the romanticisation of ‘real ale’ amongst most British left organisations (December 16). While the government is ostensibly castigating the nation for ‘binge drinking’, it is nonetheless in the interests of those in power (including the drinks industry) to perpetuate the popularity of the consumption of alcohol.
Fischer writes as if alcohol is an a priori part of human society; while he concedes that dependence upon it may reflect social alienation, he does not consider the proposition that it is a convenient part of the stupefying apparatus which engenders that alienation. He cites pseudo-socialist offshoots of the temperance movement as an example of the reactionary agenda behind campaigns against alcohol, but it should not therefore follow that teetotalism is an inherently reactionary position.
The reverse is possible: perhaps it may indeed be “absurd idealism”, but as a non-drinking socialist I believe in the idea that the human body and brain, common to all, are sufficient in themselves without the addition of external psychoactive chemicals, which are more often than not a symptom if not a tool of reaction.
Teetotal socialism
Teetotal socialism
No Kosova genocide
I draw your attention to John Pilger’s recent article in the New Statesman, in which, using the imperialists’ own statements, he proves that genocide did not take place in Kosova. The ‘genocide’ we all read about (in both capitalist and socialist press) was in fact an outright lie used to justify Nato’s war of aggression against Serbia.
Pilger also explodes the myth that the Kosova Liberation Army were any kind of freedom fighters who should have been supported on bourgeois democratic grounds - the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians and chaotic criminality now reigning in Kosova clearly proves the case.
The Weekly Worker was one of the papers on the British left who accepted (at least partially), and indeed participated in spreading, these lies of the imperialists. I am sure that I was not alone in being misled by you, and others like you on the left, into opposing those groups who argued for unconditional defence of Serbia against Nato and its KLA allies.
Will there be any self-criticism of your former position now that hindsight shows it to be incorrect?
No Kosova genocide
No Kosova genocide
SWP wreckers
I completely agree with you on the SWP. Their lack of internal democracy and refusal to work constructively with other groups is very depressing, as is their blinkered attitude towards oppression.
How are we to achieve a more united left? - that is the question. Unfortunately, the SWP invariably wreck any attempts to achieve this (the 2001 Socialist Alliance conference springs to mind).
SWP wreckers
SWP wreckers
Nuclear family
Sorry, Jane, but genuine communists do not defend the nuclear family: an institution that subjects children to degradation and humiliation, relegating them to the status of private property - hence the term ‘child stealing’ (Letters, December 16).
Communists do not recognise any right of parents to control their children’s bodies, especially in light of the fact that pregnant girls, fearful of their parents discovering their status, have turned to self-abortion, often with fatal consequences.
So long as the capitalist system continues to exist, its basic building block, the nuclear family, will be the subject of protection by the bourgeois state, and this will always be at the expense of the children. Communists recognise no obligation on the part of children to keep their parents informed as to the whereabouts of their sexual organs.
I’m amazed that Jane Davies even takes the time to read the Weekly Worker, as she is far removed ideologically from the communist movement.
Nuclear family
Nuclear family
Disservice
Nick Rogers’ article, ‘US decline and the drive to war’, was heavily reliant on the comrade’s subjective version of the ‘appearance’ of imperialism, dotted with soothsaying economic Rogersisms, crawling with sixth form analysis on global capitalist tensions, past, current and future, and replete with examples of the comrade’s no doubt hard-won ‘theoretical’ insightfulness: eg, “But economics does matter to the US even when its leaders are thinking strategically” (Weekly Worker December 9).
The article falls well short of an “examination of theoretical questions”, as you state in your introduction. In this evolving moment of decline, light-weight articles do socialist theory a disservice. I direct the comrade to more substantial thought in the shape of contributions from Hillel Ticktin: ‘Where are we going today? The nature of the contemporary crisis’ Critique No30-31; ‘Theses on the present crisis’ Critique No32-33. ‘The third great depression’ Critique No34; ‘The US war on Iraq and the world economy’ Critique No35.
Disservice
Disservice
Malthus socialism
There is more than a passing resemblance between the strands of Nathaniel Mehr’s arguments on the subject of African starvation and old Malthus (‘Thank god it’s them ...’, December 16).
Malthus, we recall, caused a collective sigh of relief among the well-heeled upper class christian folk when he ‘proved’ that giving to the poor not only did no good (they just used the aid to buy food and then bred more): it was positively bad for them. Of course it hurt them more than the poverty-stricken wretches they would no longer render assistance to, but better to be cruel than be kind in the short run.
I guess what we tell the starving families in Africa is that us giving aid to feed your kids will just make matters worse, so the children must die, because it will only be communist revolution worldwide which will solve these problems for good. Sorry, comrades, no rice or water today; take back your country and you won’t need it any more, starting now. There is no short-term solution to premature death, disease, malnutrition and a mountain of little corpses. We steely-eyed western revolutionaries can be tough, you see; us letting you starve by inaction in the present will assist your future generations - if there are any left.
If you think sending parcels of food off to starving people in the third world is just a conscience trip for middle class western folk, what do you call not sending anything for fear of being labelled politically incorrect or something equally as stupid? Giving aid through charity, it seems, is a distraction - from what? Class consciousness? I can’t see why the two are so totally mutually exclusive. Supporting Oxfam, for example, is not the political answer, is not the long-term solution, but it’ll save a few kids right now. This is basic communist humanitarianism, despite the fact that, no, it will not and cannot solve the problem on its own.
Yes, we make the point at the same time, there is no Band Aid for the new European fighter bomber is there? You don’t see many Trident submarine charity shops. Somehow there is always money for those things, but we have to get the begging bowl out to feed folk. Yes we can make those points and still want to assist dedicated charities at the same time. What do we lose that’s so bloody precious?
Recently Freedom, the anarchist paper, ran a similar article on its front page, announcing, “Thank god it’s them instead of you - it is us, Geldof, you twat!” If the point is there is poverty in this country and relative deprivation sorely felt, that’s true, but is anyone in their right mind suggesting the poverty of Africa and other third world countries is what we have in poor working class areas here? Sorry, I do not see corpses lying in the gutter, I do not see lines of starving people waiting for a drink of muddy, diseased water. It is them, and not us, by and large, but it’s not the fault of the working class internationally: it isn’t a choice of them or us, but all of us against the system of capitalism worldwide in all its different shades and hues of oppression.
Who the hell thinks that the poor single mum in a slum has to feel grateful she’s not living in Africa? Why would she draw that conclusion rather than one that poverty is relative but the root problem is the unequal distribution of wealth and power and our need to change the system? I do not think anyone thinks Feed the World is telling us to be grateful for what we’ve got; that is not the point of Geldof’s observation, is it? Even if he is now a recipient of the new year’s honours list with privileges - and, no, obviously he is not a communist. I do not think, however, his concern for third world poverty is fake, or, as claimed by Mehr, the same as actions of Nazis in the gas camps!
Our communist humanity will not allow us not to try and render assistance in the here and now. While we work to change the whole bloody system, people are dying now and assisting them is a simple act of solidarity. The argument put forward likewise reminds me of that wing of the anarcho movement and some crazed Trots, who see trade unions as obstacles to class war per se: we shouldn’t join them, shouldn’t organise through them; fighting for better wages and conditions now just perpetuates the system of wage-slavery. So ignore such ‘reformism’ and preach the revolution instead; you don’t need wages, comrades: it’s a distraction. Just ignore poverty and low pay and concentrate on bringing down capitalism. It’s tough, but it’ll be better for all of us in the long run.
Such arguments are about as credible as Mehr’s, although his method seems to be to put forward conflicting views at the same time: “Some people will argue that even though it’s not going to change the world, it’ll raise lots of money and that can’t be a bad thing, and they might be right - it’s better to save one child than none at all.” But then he goes on to say: “… the philanthropist is a reactionary in the tradition of the SS death-squads and the tanks of Tiananmen Square - he is, if anything, more of a danger because of the moral legitimacy ...” You can’t have it both ways.
People who support such things as Band Aid and Oxfam are our people: they are people concerned about their fellow workers and wish to demonstrate a little basic human solidarity. They can see the disproportion of wealth and privilege, against the abject poverty and deprivation of the bulk of the world. They know damn well their pounds in the box aren’t going to permanently redress the situation. They basically know a radical, worldwide solution must be the long-term answer, however we organise it, but meantime, right now, they are trying to help.
I can’t for the life of me see why Nathaniel and the rest of the ‘holier than thou’ gang on the left see it as impossible to hold both views, and why helping in this way necessarily means you can’t have just as high a class consciousness as them. All the people I know who are concerned enough to support things like Band Aid are also heavily involved in political struggle and are well aware of how the system works. You know working class people worldwide always try and give each other a hand up, always try to ease the burden a little, always offer assistance to each other. That’s not patronising - its the way we live. No, it’s not enough. Who said it was?
Malthus socialism
Malthus socialism
Imperialist Balls
John Ball’s uncritical summary of The politics of empire rehashes some ‘anti-imperialist’ conventional wisdom, but misses the flaws of the book - its distortion of reality and its terrible political conclusions (‘Globalisation or imperialism’, December 16).
Alan Freeman, one of the book’s editors, is also a bag carrier for London mayor Ken Livingstone, associated with Socialist Action and the recent European Social Forum. The book reflects these politics. Beneath its urbane pessimism, it is nothing less than a manifesto for second-camp ‘socialism’ that abandons the central role of the working class.
The book contains a pastiche of analysis, concluding that the world is entering an age similar to classical imperialism (1880-1914) - of protectionism, rivalry and war. But the evidence for this is noticeably thin. Just because the Kirchner government in Argentina has rescheduled its debts with the IMF doesn’t prove that the ‘third world’ is ungovernable. The Kirchner government might represent its own national capital, but it is not an ‘anti-imperialist’ force. It is certainly hostile to the occupied factories, the unemployed movement and the socialists active in the assemblies.
And differences over the Iraq war don’t prove that the rivalry between the US and Europe today is on anything like the scale of the divisions that led to World War I. There are of course enmities between the imperialist powers - but to ignore other tendencies towards interdependence is to falsify reality. And to simply cram existing reality into theories of imperialism developed nearly one hundred years ago does no service either to the Marxist tradition or the working class today.
In fact the foreboding about globalisation is a device to rationalise the book’s anti-working class political strategy. Freeman spells this out explicitly in an interview in Labour Left Briefing: “If the working class globally was a force for defeating imperialism, it would have done so. But non-working class movements have meanwhile inflicted important defeats on imperialism. This has to inform strategy” (November 2004).
For the advanced capitalist states, the book promotes the kind of populism found in the Stop the War Coalition in Britain. For example the chapter by Kate Hudson justifies the STWC’s silence on Saddam and the Kurds, and its alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain fundamentalists.
For the rest of the world, the politics of nationalism dominate. The editors argue: “In the third world, social advance and national sovereignty are indissolubly linked ... It is imperative for such movements that their state itself should be a part of the resistance ... Working class movements of the third world have to defend the sovereignty of their state” (pp40-41). Freeman spells out what this means concretely in the Briefing interview: “movements such as Bolivarianism [in Venezuela] or the intense desire for Arab unity are supremely important”.
And the book peddles a peculiar soft Stalinism, lamenting the collapse of the USSR and claiming that China and Cuba represent an alternative (p12). Another contributor, Patrick Bond, sums up the political perspective, suggesting a “global popular front against the United States” (p211). More importantly, the book largely ignores the working class, not only as the subject of exploitation in the ‘dominant’ states but also in most of the ‘dominated’ states as well. The relative social weight of the working class in almost every country of the world is greater now than it was a century ago, even if the level of organisation and political consciousness is lower in places. Yet the idea that workers of the world are the crucial force against the empire of capital is simply absent from this book.
Therefore as an analysis of reality it is one-sided and deficient, and the political conclusions it draws are downright reactionary.
Imperialist Balls
Imperialist Balls
Dishonest
Readers will be relieved that I do not intend to prolong the exchange with Brian Miller beyond this brief reply. The comrade’s last contribution had the feel of the shrill, high-decibel rants you occasionally get from mock-outraged Socialist Workers Party loyalists (Letters, December 16). The style and substance of both are designed to preclude rational debate - tempting though it is to dive in, it is normally wiser to walk away.
So just two points.
First, it does make me smile when I read comrades like Brian sounding off in our paper about the CPGB’s lack of openness, in this case evidenced by our decision not to publish recent material from Ian Donovan. The irony of what they are saying and where does not seem to occur to them. From what I can glean, the argument boils down to the complaint that a writer can produce whatever they want, at whatever length, and then have the automatic right to see it published by us. We have the temerity to appoint editors, in other words. Now, we have answered these sort of objections repeatedly, but it is clearly worthwhile reiterating for impervious skulls.
Our paper is not some notice board, where any point of view can be posted. All contributions are editorially judged in the light of the political project that we are in business to serve - reforging a revolutionary Communist Party. Ian’s material is politically incoherent and represents nothing more than the sad political degeneration of a disorientated individual. If we publish it, we have to squander space (his last offering would have taken up two pages) and energy replying to it. We have already given readers a web reference if they want to read Ian’s contribution for themselves (see Letters, September 30 2004). We ain’t exactly running scared, comrade Miller.
Second, Brian evidences a polemical method which, in its cavalier attitude to truth, is - well - Sparty. Here are two examples:
1. He accuses me of “hypocrisy” in “trying to make out that [my] critics are all the same person”, even though I sometimes use a pen name myself when writing for this paper (true). In the past, he says, I have demanded “the exclusion of people from public internet lists run by (then) CPGB members for matching up the aliases of CPGB comrades”.
The incident referred to here is an exchange on the UKLN e-discussion list involving a spat between myself and one Harry Steel - a provocateur against our organisation engaged in the public dissemination of fabricated material that could have led to serious personal, political and even legal consequences for CPGB members. I repeatedly challenged this wretch to substantiate such claims or withdraw them. In the absence of this, I did indeed demand the man be removed from the list.
But, Brian, why take my word for the nature of Mr Steel? After all, at one point Ian Donovan became so infuriated by this politically putrid individual that his flaming e-demons possessed him for a time and he was suspended from the UKLN by the “(then) CPGB members” you refer to.
2. The same dishonest method is evidenced in comrade Miller’s attempt to imply that - effectively - the CPGB took “the side of the Telegraph over what it now belatedly admits was a blatant frame-up” of George Galloway.
To substantiate this, the comrade cites Weekly Worker articles on the Galloway affair he does not like - including by a non-CPGB member. These he dubs “the gut response of the CPGB leadership to the attack on George Galloway”, the collective CPGB “record on the Galloway witch-hunt”. Against these, he contrasts the articles of Ian Donovan, which become disembodied ‘good things’, emptied of political context or reference. Of course, Ian produced these commissioned Weekly Worker articles as a member of that very same leadership of the CPGB, as a prominent member of this organisation. Indeed, I have often encountered comrades who attacked the CPGB’s “softness” on Galloway … citing Ian’s articles as proof.
Lastly, I admit I have revised my ideas in the light of the rest of Brian’s letter. In this, we are told that attacks on the democracy of Respect by the CPGB are “ill-informed” and “grossly hypocritical”; that complaints against the crassly bureaucratic campaign of the SWP leadership to ensure that CPGB comrades were not elected as delegates to last October’s Respect conference is just “whinging”; that the ranks of the CPGB are dominated by “islamophobia” and “social chauvinist” first-camp politics, etc.
In view of all of this, and notwithstanding the uncanny knowledge comrade Miller displays of the timetable and inner world of comrade Donovan, I repudiate any implications that Brian and Ian share anything other than a political DNA. ‘Brian Miller’ is not Ian Donovan. He is obviously Chris Bambery …
Dishonest
Dishonest