Letters

Illegal

Hugh Kerr so eloquently informs us that one of the reasons the contract cannot be honoured is because this would be “illegal under the rules of the parliament”. Here we have it - respect for parliamentary procedures and legal arguments are more important than people’s jobs and livelihoods.

I look forward to Mr Kerr’s reply to concerns about those in work who have less right to redress merely because they have been employed for less than a year - after all, it’s the law. I would also refer to the roll call of MSPs getting their snouts in the trough with their publicly funded second homes which neither contravenes nor breaks parliamentary rules and procedures.

Illegal
Illegal

Preoccupation

Hugh Kerr claims that attacking Tommy Sheridan is the SSP’s “major preoccupation at present”.

Leaving aside his blatant disregard of workers’ rights, I would like to know if this is the same Hugh Kerr who claimed at a recent public meeting that he was on a mission to bankrupt the SSP, and who last week gave the party 24 hours to repay a “loan” that he was alleged to have made or be dragged through the courts again.

Preoccupation

Good PR

It was good to see Nick Rogers criticise “the classic Trotskyist model of indirect democracy - workers elect their local factory committee, which then elects a district committee, which in turn elects a city-wide committee, all the way up to a supreme soviet” (Weekly Worker November 23).

This, I think, is what the SWP says it stands for in every issue of Socialist Worker: “a workers’ state based upon councils of workers’ delegates and a workers’ militia”. (Incidentally, proposing a “workers’ militia” in a country where guns are hated so much after atrocities such as in Dunblane is a policy hardly likely to win mass support; instead, it suggests that a minority would have to use force to stop a majority from overthrowing the “workers’ state”.) It is also what the Socialist Party in England and Wales, which I was a member of from 1990 to 98, means by “workers’ democracy” - a term it uses fairly often, but hardly ever elaborates in its publications. Both of these parties describe themselves as “Trotskyist”, but I wouldn’t call this a “classic Trotskyist model”, because it is based on the “soviets” which took power in the October 1917 Russian Revolution - others who call themselves Marxists (including Stalinists) advocate that too.

I strongly agree with Nick’s point that a hierarchy of workers’ committees (soviets) is “eminently open to bureaucratisation”, in both allowing bureaucrats (of whom some may be potential ruthless dictators like Stalin) to rise up such a hierarchy and enabling them to stay in positions of power once they are there. Those bureaucrats may constitute a ruling class like in the USSR and eastern Europe before the collapse of Stalinism, or they may be infiltrators from conspiratorial organisations on the side of big business, such as the majority of the leadership of the SWP. The main flaw with such hierarchies is that it is mainly only people on the same committees as the bureaucrats who know that they are not genuine and what they are up to, making those bureaucrats much more powerful than in less hierarchical organisations or societies.

Nick goes on to say: “If we are to fight in the minimum programme for direct elections to parliament and the right to directly recall MPs, we can hardly expect workers after the revolution to tolerate less influence over national political affairs - and an arrangement that is eminently open to bureaucratisation.”

This is a point I have made myself, with the modification that socialists should and often do argue for proportional representation, not just because that is fairer than “direct elections to parliament” by first-past-the-post, but because it makes it easier for socialists to gain a foothold in parliament. Also, I don’t think I agree with “the right to directly recall MPs”, because I don’t know how that could work under PR: calling for annual elections is far more practical and would render the recall of the odd MP pointless. Of course, even with annual elections, a mass movement could force an entire government (that breaks an important manifesto pledge, for example) to resign, and it would be desirable to have some mechanism for the recall of the entire government and fresh elections without waiting for the year to be up, probably triggered by a petition signed by a fairly large proportion of the population.

If it hadn’t been for the Tommy Sheridan defamation trial and subsequent split in the Scottish Socialist Party, it would not be out of the question for the SSP to win a large number of seats on Glasgow city council in May 2007. Those elections will be conducted for the first time using PR by single transferable vote (which eliminates the need for tactical voting, because you can indicate preferences for your vote to be transferred to). Unfortunately, only three or four councillors will be elected in each ward, creating a large threshold to get anybody elected and thereby favouring the major parties.

I will be arguing for the SSP to stand a candidate in every Glasgow council ward like Sheridan’s new party, Solidarity - Scotland’s Socialist Movement. With STV, standing against each other shouldn’t harm the prospect of socialists getting elected, unlike with the inferior form of PR being used for the Scottish parliamentary elections, where each voter can only place a cross opposite a single party in a constituency and likewise for a regional list - the prospect of wasting their votes is likely to influence many to vote for a mainstream party (particularly the SNP, since it is being dubbed the ‘independence election’).

Good PR
Good PR

Boring

Dario Knezevic notes: “What the elitist CPGB really object to is normal working class people joining in a debate and putting points in their own words”.

I fear it goes deeper than that. When I was chatting to Tina Becker outside Socialism 2006 she asked me if I fancied attending the CPGB’s weekend school on ‘War and revolution’. Seeing as I had already committed to the People United to Save Hospitals launch, I said I wouldn’t be able to make it even if I wanted to. But instead of enquiring about the campaign she asked me why I wanted to go to such a “boring” meeting!

As an former, albeit relatively inactive, CPGBer, I couldn’t believe my ears. What a ridiculously haughty attitude to take towards workers moving into political activity in defence of their jobs and the NHS.

Comrades, if we are to take the class from where it is now to the point where it can make a socialist society it means Marxists have to intervene wherever the class begins to move, even if such movement initially assumes ‘economistic’ forms. Otherwise how are we to influence the class and gain credibility within it?

Boring
Boring

Silly mid-off

It would seem that the Hampstead scribbler is too busy, so one of his acolytes goes into battle for him. Unfortunately it is Phil Kent who comes out to bat and he is as much use as an England cricketer on the Ashes tour of Australia!

Phil implicitly accepts my criticism, as he advocates a two-stage approach to internationalism. First it is necessary to build a “substantial organisation in your own country” and without this it is impossible to even “imagine that you can build one worldwide”. So we have confirmation that the CPGB’s so-called ‘internationalism’ is a neo-Stalinist, two-stage affair that is nationalist in the concrete here and now, with their ‘internationalism’ being a completely abstract concept for the far-off future.

Phil also fails to impress with the ball in hand when he attempts to defend the CPGB’s support for Respect. Phil thinks it would have been a “narrowly based” decision for the CPGB to have moved a motion arguing for working class independence at this year’s Respect conference, but he is unable to offer any explanation for how this squares with the Weekly Worker article previewing the motions to the conference that commented: “As can be expected, there is not a single mention of class struggle, capitalism or the need to put forward a vision for an alternative socialist society” - not something you can complain too much about if you don’t do it yourself, I would have thought!

Phil asks for the CPGB’s entire record to be looked at, so I would remind him of one example from that proud record when the CPGB called for votes to Galloway, Rees, German and co in 2005 on the spurious grounds that they were “working class politicians”. Here was a chance, in one of the most public arenas available, for the CPGB to make their supposed opposition to popular frontism crystal clear. But instead we only got political confusion. At the same time you were so keen to draw an absolutely clear line on opposition to the Iraq occupation that you were unable to include Jeremy Corbyn among the anti-war candidates you voted for.

So we had the bizarre situation of this well-known anti-war activist being declared as pro-war and unsupportable while the popular frontist leaders of Respect were supportable as politicians promoting the interests of the working class. Truly an outstanding example of Bridge/Conrad ‘dialectics’ if ever I saw one.

Phil is right about only one thing in his letter. I am not interested in what the best motions to put to Respect conference might be - apart from one calling on them to disband the whole project! It is sickening when so-called ‘communists’ think it is their job to put forward motions that would move Respect’s platform to the left - to the extent you are successful with any of your motions it would only make Respect more of a political problem for the working class by increasing its fake-left credentials.

The idea that the CPGB are being effective in fighting popular frontism because of their membership of Respect is an absolute joke - well, I am fairly certain that the Liberal Democrat councillor who joined Respect last week will think it is a joke!

Silly mid-off

Colonial

Tony Greenstein’s asked a simple question: “Can someone give an example of a settler working class that has allied with the oppressed indigenous population?” Unfortunately it was not an entirely fair question because a working class that adopts the perspective of another class cannot be considered to be fully working class in a political sense; merely wage slaves with an economistic outlook.

My example of the United Irishmen was a fair point, in that it demonstrated what people galvanised by a revolutionary programme for universal liberation can do. If the Irish bourgeoisie can unite peoples across class divisions and religious bigotry, then why is it impossible for working class revolutionaries armed with a superior programme of universal liberation to do the same?

I do not claim that the Bolsheviks were an example of working class colonial settlers, but their programme contained provisions to deal with great Russian chauvinism - which is how Lenin referred to the colonial attitudes that were so common in Russia. So prevalent, in fact, that I think it is reasonable to call the Russian empire an example of a colonial settler state.

The revolution neutralised the colonialist-minded Cossacks and convinced at least a part of them to throw in their lot with the Soviet system. The full name of the Soviet republic included, after all, workers’, soldiers’, peasants’ and cossacks’ soviets. When, for example, in Tashkent, the Russian social chauvinist elements on the revolutionary left excluded the indigenous people from the soviets, on the grounds that they were reactionary, Moscow interviewed to get the decision reversed. They also introduced special measures to protect the interests of minority peoples, so they could more fully participate in state and social affairs. Where appropriate they were offered political autonomy and even the right to secede.

As in Russia, a democratic programme for self-determination is what is needed to break both Palestinians and Israelis from social and religious chauvinism.

Of course the Russian Revolution was the result of world conditions, not just those within one country, which is why we emphasise the need to develop a communist outlook worldwide as part of the answer and most particularly a struggle for socialist unity within the Arab world.

Colonial
Colonial

Closed borders

Gerry Downing’s assertion that immigrant labour isn’t recruited on lower rates of pay and that unions have a specific policy of ensuring all are on the same rates is just pure fantasy.

He clearly lives in another city - one where bosses are not openly recruiting in eastern Europe (British job centres opened - eg, in Poland) and as far afield as north Africa for bus drivers. The EU-Bolkenstein directive has been passed and is in operation almost everywhere, from Irish ferries to City cleaners.

I have a Transport and General Workers Union leaflet which states the following: “Every worker has the right to come to London looking for work.” A copy can be sent to him. A capitalist law states that an oversupply of labour leads to workers being forced to work for less and less. This is clearly the case in whole industries in London, where union leaderships actively scab on their members: eg, Gate Gourmet. Workers require overtime pay when their wages don’t match their daily needs.

Defending the bus management in its open border recruiting policy is the T&G’s role. Gerry seems to be agreeing with it, by pretending it doesn’t exist.

Closed borders
Closed borders

Innocent thoughts

Just a short note on a historical point arising from Esen Uslu’s informative article on pope Benedict’s visit to Turkey.

He writes: “In those days [the early European Middle Ages] Rome might send the crusaders to sack orthodox Constantinople on their way to rescue the holy lands from the clutches of the infidel muslims” (‘Holy diplomacy amid coup rumours’, December 7). This refers to the sack of Constantinople by the armies of the fourth crusade in 1204.

In fact the situation was a bit more complex. Pope Innocent III was genuinely in favour of a crusade and was not trying to gain control over additional territory, whose ruler was a christian, even if a schismatic. It is true that Innocent was at first delighted to hear of the capture of Constantinople, but then he had second thoughts. His misgivings increased when he learned of the sack, which he denounced, and he was somewhat put out that the crusaders had set up the Latin empire with its capital at Constantinople without consulting him.

Perhaps pope Innocent ought to have been aware of the voracious appetite for lands displayed by the European feudal barons, however. Perhaps he should also have been aware of a propensity on the part of his subordinate to put catholic control of Constantinople higher than catholic control of Jerusalem - an attitude which, for a short time, he himself had been ready to embrace.

Innocent thoughts

Christian names

Tim Paulden appears to confirm my assertion that the dispute over the name of the christian union at Exeter University is so much hot air (‘No bans on christian fundamentalists’, November 23).

He writes as if the poor catholics and other more orthodox christians are explicitly excluded from organising their own societies, simply by an admittedly duplicitous pinching of a name by a smallish group of evangelicals - as if, at Exeter and elsewhere, there were not already a Catholic Society and an official catholic chaplain. He writes as if it were absolutely impossible for christians of all denominations to organise their own ‘ECU’ (with the ‘E’ standing here for ‘ecumenical’) - or a similar ‘universal’ name (Christian Society, Christian Fellowship, etc).

In fact, the only thing that could possibly stand in the way of this would be the student guild’s rather bureaucratic manner of dealing with affiliations, as seen in the dispute with Student Respect - exactly the means which Paulden is using to pursue his short-sighted obsessions. Reliance on the powers-that-be to solve matters of self-organisation is a dangerous hobby by any measure.

I mean, let’s expand the logic of this approach - should, say, the Socialist Party of Great Britain be forced by the British state to go under a different name simply because they represent a tiny, idiosyncratic section of British socialism? Should the Conservative Party rename itself because some conservatives are fascists, and these are (at least officially) excluded from the organisation?

Paulden and his comrades were right to raise a stink at the CU’s dishonest name and practices. Their contribution has at least been valuable in publicising, among the student body in Exeter and the nation as a whole, the true nature of these societies. But instead of proceeding to a positive step - that is, aiding non-evangelical christians in organising their own groups - they instead resorted to various unfortunate solutions which serve only to make student organisation more difficult for everyone.

Christian names
Christian names

Christian names

Tim Paulden appears to confirm my assertion that the dispute over the name of the christian union at Exeter University is so much hot air (‘No bans on christian fundamentalists’, November 23).

He writes as if the poor catholics and other more orthodox christians are explicitly excluded from organising their own societies, simply by an admittedly duplicitous pinching of a name by a smallish group of evangelicals - as if, at Exeter and elsewhere, there were not already a Catholic Society and an official catholic chaplain. He writes as if it were absolutely impossible for christians of all denominations to organise their own ‘ECU’ (with the ‘E’ standing here for ‘ecumenical’) - or a similar ‘universal’ name (Christian Society, Christian Fellowship, etc).

In fact, the only thing that could possibly stand in the way of this would be the student guild’s rather bureaucratic manner of dealing with affiliations, as seen in the dispute with Student Respect - exactly the means which Paulden is using to pursue his short-sighted obsessions. Reliance on the powers-that-be to solve matters of self-organisation is a dangerous hobby by any measure.

I mean, let’s expand the logic of this approach - should, say, the Socialist Party of Great Britain be forced by the British state to go under a different name simply because they represent a tiny, idiosyncratic section of British socialism? Should the Conservative Party rename itself because some conservatives are fascists, and these are (at least officially) excluded from the organisation?

Paulden and his comrades were right to raise a stink at the CU’s dishonest name and practices. Their contribution has at least been valuable in publicising, among the student body in Exeter and the nation as a whole, the true nature of these societies. But instead of proceeding to a positive step - that is, aiding non-evangelical christians in organising their own groups - they instead resorted to various unfortunate solutions which serve only to make student organisation more difficult for everyone.

Christian names
Christian names

Wage labour

Having listed off examples of where there are “armed civilian militias” (Iraq, Somalia, Sudan), where people have a constitutional right to bear arms (USA), where church and state are separated (France, Turkey and the US), where the land was nationalised (Cuba and the former USSR), Paul Smith concludes that we will be more “successful in attracting workers to the movement for socialism by calling for the abolition of wage slavery than the abolition of the British monarchy”.

What a brilliant idea … or maybe not. After all, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Castro’s Cuba, Mao’s China and the Kampuchea of Pol Pot famously did just what Paul recommends. Equally to the point, there was not much wage slavery in ancient Egypt, the Athens of Pericles or in Inca Peru.

Of course, as Paul knows, the CPGB is fighting not simply for the “abolition of the British monarchy.” Like Marx and Engels, the CPGB is for the democratic republic. In the 19th century it was the anarchists who dismissed that demand in the name of an apolitical road to socialism. I fear comrade Paul has decided to join them.

Wage labour

Against a Marxist Party

Peter Burton’s comments on the CMP are generally correct. You cannot build a Marxist current than through a collective intervention in the labour movement.

Marxists ought to be in the vanguard of the fight to keep the labour party-trade union link, of the fight to build a rank and file movement in the trade unions, and the campaign to support John McDonnell. Without this there’s very little basis for joint work.

Projects, like the “Campaign for a New Workers Party” were doomed from the outset given their sectarian basis.

The British working class certainly needs a revolutionary party but Marxists can only lay the basis for that by collectively intervening into the class struggle as it unfolds.

Against a Marxist Party
Against a Marxist Party

NUJ support

Hugh Kerr claims that the National Union of Journalists does not support Scottish Socialist Party parliamentary staff in their dispute with MSPs Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne. Rather than giving my opinion on the NUJ’s stance, perhaps we should heed what they themselves say. Here is the public statement of the NUJ’s national executive member from Scotland, Pete Murray:

“The SSP staff chapel at the Scottish parliament has issued a deadline of this Friday (December 1) for management officials and the two MSPs who unilaterally withdrew from a collective agreement covering staff salaries to offer an acceptable formula to make good on the financial shortfall which has created the threat of redundancy for 11 NUJ members of the chapel.

“Scottish national organiser Paul Holleran is seeking further information from all sides in the dispute, but says he is making progress towards a settlement. This is in line with the call from the NUJ national executive earlier this month. The NEC wholeheartedly and solidly backed the chapel in their fight to secure their jobs. It called on the national organiser to negotiate on behalf of the chapel with the two MSPs, Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne, and with the parliamentary corporate body, with a view to securing a settlement that lifts the threat of redundancy from the SSP staff”.

NUJ support
NUJ support

Not political

Hugh Kerr makes several assertions that I would like to question.

First of all, though, why is the press officer of Solidarity writing on this subject? Why does he direct us to an account of Solidarity’s position on their website and why does their website state that Rosemary Byrne is negotiating on behalf of Solidarity?

As one of those involved in the dispute, I can categorically state that we did not have a collective contract with Solidarity. We are not in dispute with Solidarity, and we have never mentioned Solidarity in any negotiations with Rosemary Byrne. He then goes on to mention the SSP four times. Why? The SSP are not involved in this dispute.

The reasons, of course, for all these assertions by Mr Kerr is that Solidarity are embarrassed by the actions of their MSPs. However, rather that getting them to settle with those who have had their contract torn up, they would rather muddy the water and try and pretend that this is just a squabble between two groups who have fallen out. It is not: it is an industrial dispute between the SSP parliamentary staff and Rosemary Byrne and Tommy Sheridan.

His statement regarding so-called offers of redeployment is a joke. Prior to removing the money no staff member was consulted, no union official was informed and the staff only found out that it was happening through another MSP. Hardly the actions of lifelong committed socialists and trade unionists.

If Hugh Kerr is serious about defending the reputation of Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne, his time would be better spent advising them to return the wages they took, leaving us high and dry and looking at redundancy.

Not political
Not political

Not nationalist

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, US imperialism has spread like a cancer around the world, intent on forcing that extreme variant of capitalism - the free market - to every part of the planet.

Where this economic or capital penetration is resisted, military power is used to smash open the door. We’re currently witnessing the savagery of this military power being unleashed in Iraq, a project initiated to control that nation’s vast oil reserves in order to break Opec control over prices, in addition to ensuring the maintenance of US dollar hegemony.

We also witnessed a recent example of this military power unleashed on the former Yugoslavia - a state which during its existence accorded the highest level of social and economic justice to its citizens of any in Europe, a nation where over 80% of industry and agriculture was state-owned. It was broken up for two reasons - to get rid of a good example of an alternative economic and social model at the heart of Europe, and to spread the prerogatives of the free market, thus gaining new sources of natural and human resources for global corporations.

A coup has also been attempted against a popular people’s government in Venezuela in recent years, Cuba continues to suffer the depredations of an embargo designed to starve it out of existence, and the DPRK continues to exist in obscurantist isolation - all as a result of attempts by the US ruling class to smash any and all resistance to its desire and need to feed an economic system which must constantly grow or stagnate and die.

This brings us to the British state and its place in global terms. The British state performs the same role on behalf of the US as Israel in the Middle East, South Korea in Southeast Asia and Colombia in Latin America. Each is a bastion of free market fundamentalism and a guarantor of US power in their respective regions of the world.

This British state has a ruling class comprising Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish members. It is a state that must be broken up in the interests of working and poor people, not only in Scotland, but also around the world who are under a vicious and sustained attack by the same enemy, US imperialism. Break up the British state and US imperialism, with the power of its major ally in Europe gone, is significantly weakened.

The struggle for Scottish independence must be aligned with anti-imperialist struggles currently taking place around the world. The minimum demand for any independence movement must be a republic. Any call for independence which allows for the retention of the monarchy, the institution which acts as the glue binding the British state’s various component parts and institutions together, is not a call for independence, but rather enhanced devolution. It will produce no qualitative change.

Nationalism is by definition an isolationist ideology rooted in the past. The Scottish saltire, a symbol of this past, has been forever tarnished by its association with slavery and oppression, from Ireland to India and every other far flung corner of the former British empire. The only flag our struggle for independence should be waged under is the red flag of international sister and brotherhood, the red flag of socialism.

Not nationalist
Not nationalist