Letters

Indefatigable

To quote Ian Mahoney, the Weekly Worker does “tell it as it is” in certain respects (Weekly Worker November 10). It has the highest circulation of left papers in Housmans bookshop and on the web.

People like the Weekly Worker’s fly-on-the-wall and open columns approach. Unlike other left papers, it does not try to pretend that it is the only left paper or organisation in existence. Nobody is allowed to escape criticism. It appears that they may run, but they can’t hide from the Weekly Worker’s indefatigable news reporters. OK, some of this is gossip. Gossip reveals the difference between people’s real opinions and actions and their high verbal pretensions.

But, when it comes to more important questions, it is a different story. Everybody in the United Kingdom benefits from imperialism. That is why we are well-off and the bulk of workers in the third world are poor. Is there ever any mention of this in the Weekly Worker? Is there ever any mention of the exact mechanism of imperialist exploitation? No, there is not. And yet that is the only explanation of the extremely small number of communists in the UK.

Without the whole truth, or as close as we can get to it, there will never be a Communist Party of any significance.

Indefatigable
Indefatigable

Apology

George Galloway pulled me aside at the Respect conference over the weekend of November 19-20 and corrected an error I made in my reporting of the Hackney Respect meeting of November 15.

I wrote that “Galloway made it plain that that his support for the religious hatred laws was non-negotiable. He would act according to his conscience in parliament - however delegates to the … Respect conference [voted]” (Weekly Worker November 17).

Comrade Galloway stated that he would actually be bound by the conference decision, whichever way it went - something he was at pains to reiterate in his speech to delegates. Of course, there was never much danger of an SWP-dominated gathering disappointing him, but nevertheless I was wrong in describing this as a matter of conscience for the comrade. “There are very few matters of conscience for me”, he remarked. “And you know what they are …”

My apologies for the inaccuracy.

Apology
Apology

Social democracy

Graeme Kemp says in his letter that social democracy is the only future (Weekly Worker November 17). But there is no social democracy with a human face.

Welfare capitalism exists in rich nations because of their economic position globally. This is based on getting cheap resources from the less developed nation, particularly cheap oil. Any regime which is independent politically of the west is terrorised with war threats and embargoes.

The Nordic countries have small populations, natural resources and cultural traditions which make them successful at welfare capitalism. I can’t see British imperialism willing to pay high taxes to fund welfare for the proles.

The day will come when tabloids, football, soaps, shopping and mortgages won’t keep the masses quiet. They will want more from life than the system of wage-slavery and high taxes. They will chose human dignity and human grace over the triumph of capitalism. We have the technical means to create a people’s paradise, as opposed to a workers’ hell. That’s why social democracy is a short-term sell-out.

Social democracy
Social democracy

Trotsky

In response to Andrew Harvey (Letters, November 10), Trotsky saw the need for a strong state to win the civil war and safeguard the fledgling workers’ state. Militarisation of labour, disciplined trade unions and the crushing of a rebellion that the workers’ state could not tolerate all have to be put into the context of the circumstances in Russia in that period.

For those having lived their lives under a ‘liberal democracy’ it’s easy to criticise Trotsky’s actions as authoritarian.

Trotsky
Trotsky

Workers' aid

Over the last year, we have all seen one catastrophe after another devastate working people across the globe.

The south Asian tsunami, the two hurricanes that struck the Gulf Coast of the United States and the recent earthquake in the Kashmir region, the four most publicised of these events, have taken the lives of thousands of our brothers and sisters, and have made the attaining of basic necessities - food, clean water, shelter, clothing, etc - very difficult, if not impossible.

Over the years, many of us have organised, or attempted to organise, independent relief and aid for our brothers and sisters. These efforts have ranged from modestly successful to relatively insignificant. Nevertheless, the need for us to undertake these humanitarian efforts has only grown. In fact, that need has now grown to a point where concrete steps need to be taken to ensure future successes.

We propose the convocation of a conference to establish an independent international agency that focuses on providing aid and relief for working people in their times of need. We have launched this proposal under the working title of the International Committees of the Red Star.

Our conception of this body would be as a coordinating centre for the movement of money and supplies to regions of the world where working people are affected by catastrophes of a natural or human-made origin. It would be a non-partisan, non-sectarian organisation, unaffiliated to any particular political current or doctrine.

Workers' aid
Workers' aid

Kenya victory

The Orange Democratic Movement has achieved a ‘no’ vote in November 21 referendum on a new constitution. The outcome confirms our analysis that there is no government that can come to power in Kenya today without the support of all ethnic groups. The result also indicates that if elections were called tomorrow, Kibaki and his thieving clique of Mount Kenya mafia would be swept out.

We take this early opportunity to congratulate the ODM for work well done. We also send congratulations to all Kenyan people at home and abroad who have demonstrated high political consciousness by voting down the mongrel Wako constitution, which was laden with political dictatorship, decrees and authoritarianism.

The defeat in the referendum is also a defeat for the ethnic chauvinists surrounding Kibaki and a clear message to the president that his time as leader of the Republic of Kenya is over. Despite his popular election in 2002, Kibaki’s defeat at the hands of the very Kenyans who put him in power with an overwhelming majority is a strong statement that the president should now be forced to resign or call a general election. But we believe that Kibaki will not leave power voluntarily.

This means that a campaign for a snap general election has to begin. In the view of Kesdemo, ODM leaders should immediately constitute themselves as an opposition movement/party to begin a struggle for power. MPs aligned to the Orange camp should make it impossible for parliament to operate - Kibaki and his lackeys must be weeded out. Their ethnic posturing, arrogance, murder tactics and other dirty schemes during the referendum campaign have proved that they should not be in control of the state machine.

During the campaign, eight Kenyans were murdered in cold blood after they were shot by police taking direct orders to “shoot to kill” from John Michuki, minister of internal security. With its brutal handling of rallies called by the Orange team, the government demonstrated that, in times of crisis, it will be prepared to unleash all instruments of violence against its own people. Kenyans witnessed with amazement how an Orange rally at Mombasa was banned by the government, how Kibaki referred to Orange campaigners as wapumbavu (stupid people), mavi ya kuku (chicken shit) and other expletives. Let Kenyans not have new wapumbavus and mavi ya kukus leading the country!

The referendum has exposed president Kibaki as a dictator who will try to bribe or buy voters during desperate times. He welcomed to State House one sycophantic delegation after another, to be bribed with money, promises of universities, roads, title deeds and other “development projects” to induce them to vote ‘yes’.

The Mau Mau defeated British colonialism before they were betrayed by home guards, who seized power to serve the interests of imperialism. Kenyans defeated Moi’s schemes of a one-party dictatorship and it is this defeat that ushered Kibaki to power. Now that he has shown his true colours, there is no more time to waste. Apart from the capitalist system, which is a major stumbling block in Kenya, president Kibaki is currently one of the biggest obstacles to the liberation movement. Let the real campaign for Kibaki’s overthrow begin in earnest.

The struggle against dictatorship, neo-colonialism and imperialist domination in Kenya must continue.

Kenya victory
Kenya victory

Simply pointless

I must again take issue with Dan Read. His letter (November 10), which was a response to mine and that of Carey Davies the previous week, is even more confused than his original contribution.

Dan says that drugs cause addicts to “commit all sorts of crime, including rape and murder - the former as a direct result of the drug (for instance alcohol); the latter possibly from the effects of the substance or the economic burden involved”.

To deal with alcohol first, I am sure it is possible for alcohol to cause its users to commit rape, but it is certainly not an aphrodisiac - it usually has the opposite effect. More disturbingly, however, we must conclude that Dan is indeed a prohibitionist! He implies that this is the case again later in his missive when he once more addresses the historic evidence of prohibition in the USA in the last century.

Dan points to some quite relevant evidence as to why prohibition was abandoned, concluding that “the law was simply pointless and its cost of ineffectual enforcement was too high”. Exactly! The prohibition of alcohol in the USA did not work and it would not work anywhere today. The criminalisation of people who use drugs (so-called hard or soft) is “simply pointless” and is not working.

To deal with the allegation that drugs - presumably alcohol, (so-called) soft drugs and (so-called) hard drugs - cause murder, the substances that might have this direct effect are few and far between. However, Dan is quite correct to say that the economic burden does sometimes cause murder and many other crimes. This burden, however, is a direct result of the legal ban on (some) drugs. The ban causes inflated prices and an underworld market for (some) drugs - in exactly the same way as the ban on alcohol did in 20th century America.

I do concede that - according to the definition supplied by Dan - that small-time addicts/dealers are indeed petty bourgeois capitalists. They are comparable to petty shoplifters - hardly the vanguard of the class enemy, I would have thought! Rather fallen people who are the victims of a non-caring capitalist system who deserve pity and help rather than the criminalisation that Dan advocates.

Dan is, I am sure, a good Marxist. But we all need to remember that “the philosophers have interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it”. This presupposes that we understand the world we live in. I am afraid that, with all comradely respect, when it comes to the phenomenon of drug use, Dan does not understand.

Simply pointless
Simply pointless

Islamophobia

Over many, many weeks Ian Donovan (Letters, too numerous to mention) has made himself look a laughing stock. Eg, one letter has him loudly announcing that as a man of high principle he will not vote for any CPGB-sponsored motions at the Respect conference! Why? Because the CPGB is “islamophobic”. Yet, his next letter ends with the quiet admission that he will vote for the motion on open borders.

Such nonsense just illustrates how comrade Donovan has lost his moorings. He is politically adrift.

What makes it particularly comical is that, as he moves further and further to the right, the comrade finds its necessary to shout more and more insults at the CPGB. Perhaps this provides inner solace. Perhaps self-justification. Either way, he kids no one but himself.

The simple fact of the matter is that Respect has rightwing politics for what ought to be a leftwing organisation. Why? The SWP calls it an amalgam of “secular socialists and muslim activists”. In other words, Respect is a cross-class formation.

Categorising Respect as a popular front is indignantly rejected by comrade Donovan. He parries the charge by inventing his own definition. Popular fronts do not support armed resistance against their own state. But in the 1930s the popular fronts did support the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union no longer exists. So what? He reminds me of Humpty Dumpty. He tries to escape from the horns of reality by changing the meaning of words so that they mean what he wants them to mean.

The essence of popular fronts lies in class composition and the resulting conservative pull on the left. The Muslim Association of Britain has a bourgeois programme and the islamic clergy in Britain constitutes a petty bourgeois stratum. Yes, form practical alliances with such elements on this, that or the other issue. But do not form a joint party, do not cobble together a joint programme!

The SWP and its outriders are committed to a joint party with “muslim activists”. Though largely phantom, this right wing provides the excuse needed for the left to vote down leftwing motions.

It is Respect’s miserable fudging, empty platitudes, underhand prevarication and lack of anything approaching a revolutionary Marxist programme that comrade Donovan is trying to cover for. The louder he shouts, the more insults he uses, the more obvious that becomes.

Respect opposes open borders and the free movement of people, it refuses to advocate abortion on demand. Respect supports Tony Blair’s religious hatred legislation and fears to even mention the vital question of a republic. Respect opposes the idea of workers’ representatives only taking an average skilled worker’s wages or even controlling its elected members. Conferences are gerrymandered and internal channels for debate and discussion are non-existent. Not surprisingly, Respect’s socialism is non-class and therefore a complete and utter sham.

Instead of protesting against this backsliding, this scabbing, this catalogue of betrayal by the SWP, comrade Donovan turns on the CPGB. To protect his own self-image as a revolutionary he wants to kill the messenger.

His only effective weapon appears to be Iraq. The CPGB is accused of being pro-imperialist and islamophobic when it refuses to support what he calls ‘the resistance’.

Let us calmly look at the facts. The CPGB stands for the defeat of its own side in Iraq. Hence the slogan for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of British troops. In the May general election this was one of the CPGB’s main criteria for judging candidates. It is why the CPGB unhesitatingly urged a vote for George Galloway.

Is that stand an example of pro-imperialist politics? Only if one is abandoning accepted language or being monumentally dishonest.

What of the resistance? Comrade Donovan picks and chooses between its various components. But his main argument is that we in Britain have a duty to offer solidarity.

If he means by that building a movement for the unconditional withdrawal of British troops, supporting withdrawal candidates in elections and, all in all, fighting for the defeat of the British government, then I for one can only but wholeheartedly agree. And it seems to me that that is what the CPGB has been saying and doing.

However, if he means going to trade union meetings and onto the streets and organising collections in order to purchase arms for sunni fundamentalists, the pro-Iran militias or the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime, then I disagree. And, as far as I can tell, so does Respect. Nothing of the like has been organised, unless I am very much mistaken.

These forces are fighting a combined war. They are against the US-UK occupation; though even that needs qualification. Within the Iraq parliament there are many factions who oppose the US-UK occupation, but these very same forces would do a deal with US imperialism at the drop of a hat, if it suited their class and sectarian interests to do so. Ditto, the armed groups who at present stand outside the Iraqi parliament and the coalition government.

Each group is simultaneously fighting a civil war. There are those who want to oppress the Kurds once again. Others want to see the newly assertive shias put down and back in their place. And then there is the little matter of the Iraqi workers and their trade unions and political organisations.

One can send islamic groups money so that they can purchase more arms. One can hope that they will use them against US occupation forces. But one thing is sure, those arms will be turned on the working class … and not tomorrow, but today.

And, of course, the CPGB is perfectly consistent in terms of its tradition. Not comrade Donovan. Unlike most of the left, the CPGB does not, and never has, automatically supported reactionary anti-imperialists. Eg, over the Falklands and Kuwait. The CPGB refused to lend even an ounce of solidarity to either general Galtieri or Saddam Hussein.

But the CPGB did support the working class and progressive movements in Argentina and Iraq and oppose its own ruling class. That is what principle demands and that is what the CPGB delivered.

What of islamophobia? This is a disgusting slur designed to discredit, intimidate and silence opponents. It is cynically used against almost every opponent nowadays by the SWP and its allies.

Supposedly we communists hate or fear all muslims. Obviously a foul lie. The CPGB backed working class Respect candidates in the general election who also happen to be muslims. Fact.

Comrade Donovan supports New Labour’s religious hatred legislation. He also defensively attacks the CPGB for being islamophobic.

Presumably he relishes the day when writers, editors and publishers of the Weekly Worker will be hauled before the courts, tried, convicted and duly sent down for hurting the feelings of muslims and promoting hatred against islam.

Sadly, given his generally honourable past, it appears that comrade Donovan has become just another pathetic renegade.

Islamophobia
Islamophobia

CPGB-phobia

Peter Manson and Phil Kent pull a series of bizarre contortions to justify the CPGB’s islamophobic renunciation of the elementary duty of socialists to support the anti-colonial resistance in Iraq (Letters, November 17). All they can do is make a series of laboured points, at best tangential to the issue, and often simply irrelevant, to justify their capitulation to chauvinism.

Peter tries to counter my view that Respect cannot be a popular front because it holds a position of support for armed resistance to its own ruling class with an irrelevant criticism - it is not upfront enough in promoting this position. This may even be a legitimate criticism - it is hardly new for the left to play down ‘difficult’ positions and tend to substitute somewhat economic-centred agitation for them - though if that is a criteria for calling Respect a ‘popular front’ then someone so minded could probably use the same argument to say that the Socialist Workers Party has always been a ‘popular front’. Indeed, comrade Manson comes close to doing just that when he writes: “This is totally in line with the Socialist Workers Party’s policy of watering down its own principles in deference to those to its right. And that, of course, is the very essence of a popular front.”

A theoretical and political absurdity, in line with his insistence that a popular front is not “necessarily” a bloc with a wing of the ruling class - citing as an example the CPGB’s blocs in the 1930s with “bourgeois elements” - that is, aristocratic and clerical elements of the British imperialist ruling class, such as the Duchess of Athol and the Dean of Canterbury. Peter does not, of course, mention that the ultimate price of this alliance with a wing of its own ruling class was that the CPGB opposed the independence of India. This hardly bears much resemblance to Respect, and the attempt to make such an equation is simply an attempt to exploit ignorance of history among the CPGB’s periphery.

In his desperation to counter my supposed “CPGB-phobia” (a bizarre allegation, since I fought for these positions as a CPGB member - and was witch-hunted and gagged internally on the CPGB discussion list) he tries to prove too much. He quotes a public document of Respect - its main policy statement on the war from the 2004 conference no less - that calls for support for the Iraqi resistance. He also cites a speech from George Galloway where he “strongly implied” support for the resistance, and was witch-hunted in the media for doing so, and laments that Respect failed to “report” it. Given the fact that they had already been ‘reported’ much more widely that Respect could ever dream of being able to do, I would venture that the fact that they failed to dissociate themselves in any way from these remarks is more significant. Galloway has made many such speeches as Respect’s most prominent public representative, and Respect has never dissociated itself in any way from any of them.

Incidentally one example of an important statement Peter does not quote is the Respect tabloid mass-distributed at the European Social Forum in late 2004, which certainly made Respect’s position clear, to give one example of such blunt formulations finding their way into a widely-distributed published document. But Peter is so desperate to ‘prove’ the CPGB’s position on Respect being a ‘popular front’ that he is constrained to try to prove that black is white. ‘Proving’ that Respect does not support resistance in Iraq is like trying to prove that Respect is not Respect. A laughable endeavour.

Peter makes the point that the Muslim Association of Britain, which does not, as a whole, support Respect (it endorsed some, though not all Respect candidates in the general election and some individual members of it play a significant role in Respect), is a “bourgeois organisation”, composed of “capitalists and businessmen”. Something of an exaggeration - in fact MAB is a petty bourgeois formation, derived from an oppressed immigrant community, which is excluded from the British ruling class due to deeply embedded racism.

The CPGB, an organisation that echoes the reactionary propaganda of Blairite and Tory reactionaries that ‘multiculturalism’ is some sort of malign influence on British society, sees no social and political significance in that exclusion from the ruling class and the opening that thereby exists to win such radicalised immigrant workers and petty bourgeois to a working class project, particularly in this period of sharp-edged anti-‘terrorist’ witch-hunting. Elements in MAB support Respect and its clearly pro-working class platform. And actually, if comrade Manson wishes to deny that Respect has such a pro-working class platform, then why are the CPGB advocating any electoral support for any Respect candidates?

Meanwhile, so desperate is Phil Kent to refute my historically and contemporarily correct critique of the CPGB’s islamophobia over the Iraqi resistance that he is reduced to citing Hal Draper on the difference between ‘military’ and ‘political’ support for national liberation movements. This is rather an opportunist citation, I would venture, given the acres of space the CPGB have given over in the past to polemicising against this kind of distinction.

And, yet again, Phil attempts to exploit the antics of Zarqawi and his “Al Qa’eda in Iraq” to justify rejecting support for the entire spectrum of those resisting imperialism in Iraq. He baits me for not supporting Zarqawi, noting that occasionally, as a diversion from sectarian murders of ordinary shia, his forces may take the occasional pot-shot at the Americans. He should address the same rebuke of “dishonesty” at the bulk of the Iraqi resistance, who also regard Zarqawi as a pro-imperialist provocateur.

There is no categorical imperative that one must support every single small grouping that claims to be ‘opposing’ imperialism. There is, however, a duty to support all genuinely mass-based struggles, those that have a real democratic content. Those who provide hack ‘theoretical’ justifications for refusing to extend such solidarity deserve to be branded with infamy.

This fundamental capitulation to imperialist islamophobia by the CPGB render its pseudo-’left’ criticisms of Respect essentially worthless.

CPGB-phobia
CPGB-phobia

Ireland unity

The strength of the recent discussion in the Weekly Worker about the Irish question lies in its attempt to use Marxist categories to review Ireland. However, an immense weakness is the ease with which it slips from this attempt into a sort of idealism. Very quickly the debate moves to what a socialist government in Ireland would do to reassure northern protestants rather than addressing the reality - the steps that the working class in Ireland has to take to even begin bidding for power. These tasks would of course involve the defeat of Orange reaction.

Very quickly the search for working class unity becomes a thing in itself, rather than a platform for class independence and unity around a programme of revolutionary socialism - a policy of ‘don’t mention the war’, which inevitably promotes a backward political understanding already defined by imperialist and sectarian hegemony.

What we know from hard experience is that a republican ideology is not sufficient to defeat imperialism in Ireland. We also know beyond a shadow of doubt that episodic periods of working class unity around economic issues are quite easily defeated by deploying the mechanisms of sectarian division.

A working class movement emerging in Ireland would oppose the Good Friday agreement. It would have to do so because its sectarian mechanisms are a massive barrier to working class unity. It would have to also oppose the ‘social partnership’ policy of the union bureaucracies, because these leave workers’ interests totally subordinate to those of capital.

If there is one positive element in the current situation, it is the increasing involvement of Irish capital in the attempts to stabilise imperialism in the north by directly supporting the demands of the Orange bigots for further accommodation of their sectarian privileges. The further inevitable collapse of this attempt at capitalist stability in the north will do them great damage.

Ireland unity
Ireland unity

RePurdiation

Regarding Bob Purdie’s repudiation of republicanism, see his ‘Reconsiderations on republicanism and socialism’ in B Purdie and A Morgan Ireland: divided nation, divided class (London 1980).

I believe that more personal factors, like marrying the daughter of a B-Special and becoming a born-again christian and a Scottish nationalist, may also have influenced his evolution. Purdie still produces interesting material, including the definitive study of the civil rights movement in the north.

We should all respect his right to change his views and not judge him as some form of renegade. His case is not unique. Co-author Austen Morgan, formerly of the Anti-Internment League, is now a legal advisor to David Trimble. Similarly Stephen Howe (now married to Daphna Vardi, the senior correspondent of the Israel Broadcasting Authority in Britain) writes erudite studies attacking anti-imperialism and the idea that Ireland was ever a colony (to simplify his argument).

RePurdiation
RePurdiation