25.10.2006
Military coups and soldiers' rights
We are revolutionaries, not constitutional democrats, says Jim Moody - and takes the Alliance for Workers' Liberty to task
Some who still like to pass themselves off as being on the left insist upon joining with Tory grandees and woolly liberals in defending the United Kingdom constitution, as if it were the embodiment of democratic values or a ready-made vehicle for socialism.
Take the editorial article in last week's Solidarity, the house journal of the pro-imperialist Alliance for Workers' Liberty. Its author - one presumes it is the AWL's patriarchal leader, Sean Matgamna - works himself into a lather about Sir Richard Dannatt's audacity in expressing political opinions in a Daily Mail interview, especially as they were at variance with those of the government. He says: "It is not the proper business of a general to have his own political line and publicly confront the government or the prime minister" (October 20).
Why not? Is it because the AWL believes that US-UK forces have a progressive role to play in Iraq? After all, the AWL refuses to demand the immediate withdrawal of British troops. Once they even dizzily wrote about the US exporting the benefits of capitalist civilisation.
For our part we are delighted to hear what general Dannatt has to say. Kicking down the door in Iraq was ill-advised. Now he desperately wants to get his men and women out before morale cracks and he faces growing insubordination, the killing of officers and even a full-scale mutiny.
Surely it is good to know if elements of the top brass are dissatisfied with government policy. Surely publicity gives our side the best chance of taking advantage of divisions and prepare for any moves against us, including, in extreme circumstances, a military coup.
But it is not just the Dannatts who must have the right to speak out: so too must every soldier, of whatever rank. That is why communists welcome and encourage armed forces blogs such as ARRSE and Rum Ration.
However, Matgamna dismisses these sites. Stupid, but revealing. He is much more concerned about the threat posed by Dannatt to the UK constitutional monarchy system. Matgamna complains that "Blair did not react as any self-respecting constitutional democrat would have acted, and dismiss him". Like the establishment itself, democratic rights for all members of the armed forces is the last thing our "constitutional democrat" is thinking about.
Never one to be outdone in terms of giving advice to our rulers, Mick Hume, editor of Spiked, also joined the fray. Formerly a leading member of the Revolutionary Communist Party - in the late 1980s he and his comrades became tired of stunt politics and claiming to be the replacement for the Labour Party. After publishing the glossy LM magazine, they morphed into a variety of entryist 'think tanks' loosely centred on their purely electronic publication.
These now rightwing libertarians have also taken up the current refrain about protecting the constitution: ""¦ we do not want to live in a British society where soldiers can make policy, or where democratically elected governments feel an 'overwhelming obligation' to follow a general's orders. Give me an elected government of warmongers led by Blair or George W Bush or David Cameron any day. At least we can try to get rid of them. However bad politicians might be, I do not want to see them given their marching orders by an unaccountable military commander via the Daily Mail" (Spiked October 18).
Once again, a concern only for the 'rights' of Blair and no mention at all of the rights, or lack of them, of ordinary rank and file members of the armed forces - no mention at all of the need for all ranks to be allowed to freely speak and organise themselves.
You would expect all Marxists (not a term that can be applied to Spiked at all, and to the AWL only with all manner of 'ifs' and 'buts') to know what the state is and what it is for. In his seminal Origin of the family, private property and the state, Fredrick Engels, for example, describes the state as "a public force which is no longer immediately identical with the people's own organisation of themselves as an armed power. This special public force is needed because a self-acting armed organisation of the people has become impossible since their cleavage into classes "¦ This public force exists in every state; it consists not merely of armed men, but also of material appendages, prisons and coercive institutions of all kinds "¦" (www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm).
Democratic rights and freedoms have been won in spite of the bourgeoisie, not because of it. The bourgeois state enables the rule of capital, and it enables this rule in such a way as circumstances allow, depending on the political struggles of those it oppresses: allowing democratic rights if it forced to do so, suppressing them when it can get away with it.
It is for such reasons that radicals and democrats - in Britain from the Chartists onwards - have demanded a qualitative extension of democracy, including the right to bear arms in order to defend hard won gains and to make further advances, crucially the advance to a socialist society. The First, Second and Third Internationals each saw a popular militia as a basic necessity if socialism was to be put onto the agenda. We cannot and should not bank upon the army loyally obeying the so-called rules of 'bourgeois democracy'.
Correctly, comrade Matgamna states: "Military 'intervention' in politics in Britain is neither unthinkable nor as remote from any real British experience of it as many people like to think" - although he is not really expecting it today, in conditions of relative social peace. He asks: "Is a military coup "¦ conceivable in Britain right now?" And answers: "No, it isn't. Yet the performance of general Dannatt must be seen against the role which real fear of a real "¦ coup played in Britain in the mid-70s."
That is why "it is outrageous that the army commander should publicly challenge the government". But Matgamna never in the whole article explains why this 'principle' of officers keeping quiet in public is so important to the working class, rather than to the liberal milieu. He merely seems to suggest that, because it is against the norms of the constitution, then it is dangerous to have senior military men telling us what they think.
In actual fact, the military top brass has ready access to government, where in private session its concerns are voiced and discussed in the frankest of ways. How else could the wheels of the state be oiled, except on the basis of the fullest knowledge and the keenest minds brought to bear for its specific needs and ends?
Why do politicians like Matgamna think it is a good idea to keep any disagreements private? Especially when general Dannatt's remarks come in the context of new splits in the ruling class over Iraq and the necessity of quickly putting in place an exit strategy. US-UK imperialism faces defeat over Iraq - for us at least that is an excellent outcome.
What the fake leftists, bourgeois liberals and conservatives alike hate, of course, is the cosy illusion (for the benefit of the masses) of a 'non-political' armed forces being exposed. In the last analysis the British armed forces are there to defend the interests of the capitalist class and that makes their business a highly political one. In the words of the 18th century Prussian soldier-philosopher, Karl von Clausewitz, "War is the continuation of policy by other, violent, means."
Yet the dozy liberals and their friends in the pro-imperialist left seem to imagine that there is no political education at Cranwell, Dartmouth, Lympstone and Sandhurst to fit the officer corps for their future roles. This is done not only through training them in military tactics and developing leadership skills. They are also taught a history and a particular version of politics which emphasises continuity and the importance of law and order. Something symbolised in close connections with the monarchy and the royal family (the armed forces swear loyalty to the queen, and by tradition male members of the House of Windsor join the armed services and many of them serve as honorary colonels, etc).
So those leading the armed forces are highly politicised. How else could they negotiate situations as complex as Afghanistan and Iraq? How else could they plan and argue about forthcoming hardware requirements? How else could they think strategically about future enemies abroad and at home?
What concerns communists is not liberal notions about 'keeping politics out of the army'. Rather it is another question: how do we ensure that there is the strongest connection between the rank and file men and women of the armed forces and the working class?
We demand the right of all to speak out politically on all and every question. The development of democratic structures and representation for ordinary members of the army, RAF, marines and navy is not only the best way to avoid a coup. It also holds the potential for the majority to see their future as bound up with that of the working class as a whole, not with that of their senior officers or, indeed, the state of exploiters that those institutions serve.