Letters

Sectarian SPEW

Under Peter Taaffe’s leadership, the Socialist Party in England and Wales has taken a sectarian attitude to other socialist organisations. The crunch time was its failure to support the setting up of the Scottish Socialist Party in 1998. This was followed by SPEW pulling out of the Socialist Alliance, letting the Socialist Workers Party wreck and finally dissolve it in favour of their new front organisation, the wishy-washy Respect.

The Committee for a Workers’ International, which links SPEW to similar organisations around the world, has taken a similar sectarian turn. It is not working. Joe Higgins was elected to the Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) and he was re-elected in the next general election, but the Irish SP made no further steps forward. They turned down moves to set up a socialist alliance in that country. In England, they have had success in getting councillors elected in two wards (in Coventry and London) but have failed to make further breakthroughs, apart from a member elected as an anti-NHS cuts candidate.

The Campaign for a New Workers’ Party, set up by SPEW, is a partial reversal of the sectarian turn. However, SPEW is not taking it seriously and want it organised on a federal basis rather than a far more democratic ‘one member, one vote’ arrangement. They also want it to be wishy-washy like Respect.

The Campaign for a Marxist Party, which wants a revolutionary party organised like the Scottish Socialist Party with rights for platforms, is a good development for English and probably Welsh regroupment. However, it should establish a revolutionary socialist party rather than limiting itself to those who consider themselves Marxists.

Sectarian SPEW
Sectarian SPEW

Philanthropy

I’ve just read your article on my fellow Respect member, Tafazzal Hussain, and I’m rather disappointed.

I’m presently campaigning alongside Tafazzal in the Sunderland local elections and have got to know him quite well. Granted, he is new to Respect and may not be fully clued-up on all our policies, but his heart is in the right place and he fully agrees with the major standpoints.

I think your attack on my comrade is unjustified. This sort of anti-solidarity can only help further the advancement of the British National Party in the Hendon ward in which Tafazzal is standing. What are you trying to achieve with this sort of negativity? There are far too few Asian candidates on the left in this area as it is.

Tafazzal is solidly opposed to war and racism. He has an empathy for the poor. He believes in philanthropy. He should not be lambasted for lacking the socialist vision only years of study and philosophising can bring. May I suggest you get off his case and let him evolve, as we all have. Or were you born perfect? I think not.

Philanthropy
Philanthropy

Old style

John McDonnell as Labour leader? ‘Well, what are the chances of that happening?’ - to quote (or paraphrase) comedian Harry Hill!

But it’s not just the unlikely scenario of John McDonnell being elected leader of Labour that’s the problem. It’s surely his old Labour ideas. Or at least the ideas of his Labour Representation Committee.

The LRC still supports the idea of nationalisation of at least parts of industry (workers get state bosses instead of private sector ones). At least, that’s the impression I get from LRC literature I’ve seen.

What we need is new, radical thinking, not old style Stalinism-lite.

Old style

Red letter day

Ross Bradshaw’s query about the fate of the Red Party deserves an answer. The Red Party is no more, but the revolution has not been cancelled - merely slightly delayed. The handful of us who were involved in the RP project are still fighting the good fight, but under different banners.

The story of our demise is sad, but, in retrospect, somewhat predictable. Too few people, too little money, too many other commitments and being scattered about the country did not help; but ultimately I personally think it was because each of our ideas evolved and we realised that, for different reasons, the RP was not the right vehicle for our respective journeys.

For those of you interested to see the political path we have travelled since the party fizzled out, former members occasionally post their musings on http://redstarcommando.blogspot.com and you can also see some continuity of the ideas that brought us together in the work that ex-RPers are now doing in the Socialist Alliance and the Class War Federation.

No regrets though. I learnt some very valuable lessons, from our mistakes as well as our successes, and I am very proud of the work that we did as the RP.

I would like to thank all those comrades who enjoyed reading Red Star and those who gave us support and feedback. If Ross and anyone else who paid a subscription would like a refund, please contact the Weekly Worker, whose very nice editor has agreed to forward your emails onto me, so I can give you your money back.

Red letter day

Modern opiate

Tommy Teutel makes some valid points about New Labour and the coming crash in house prices (Letters, April 5). However, I would like to make some further points as to the political implications of such a crash.

As the Weekly Worker has pointed out, Britain experienced a period of political reaction of a special type since the defeat of the miners’ Great Strike in 1985. The mass of the working class has turned to individual solutions to their problems - through working overtime, taking a second job, getting into debt, or all three.

For the 70% of the population who are home-owners, capitalism, as compared to the last days of Stalinism, seems to have delivered the goods over the last 15 years. With house prices in Britain over the last 10 years having tripled in value, Thatcher’s ‘home-owning democracy’ has had a big effect amongst the working class. Karl Marx famously remarked over 160 years ago that “religion is the opiate of the masses”. In 2007, house prices have replaced religion as a modern-day opiate.

However, the coming crash in house prices in all Anglo-Saxon economies will have huge political implications, which communists must be well prepared for. Politics will polarise between extreme left and extreme right. In Britain we are likely to see a growth in support for socialist organisations, as well as the left-fascist BNP.

House prices in all Anglo-Saxon countries today play a role similar to the speculative bubble in share prices that occurred before the 1929 Wall Street crash. Working class and middle class home-owners will not be very pleased to see houses bought with £200,000 mortgages falling by 75% in value to £50,000 or below.

It is in such circumstances that an end will be brought to the period of political reaction of a special type that was started by the defeat of the miners.

Modern opiate
Modern opiate

Cretinous

Anybody who thinks Gordon Downie’s Weekly Worker writing is anything other than contemptible counterrevolutionary trash is a cretin. If anyone asks, we said so.

Cretinous
Cretinous

String us along

Communists interested in science should familiarise themselves with the ideas of Dr Michio Kaku, co-founder of string field theory.

Comrades will find at www.mys pace.com/mkaku many easy-to-understand videos, all of which have been broadcast on the BBC, from a scientist who is considered to be the intellectual peer of Einstein.

If the latest scientific theory, ‘M-theory’, ever gets proven - and, according to Dr Kaku, satellite evidence in 2012 will prove or disprove string theory - then it has tremendous implications for philosophy and for the future evolution of the human species.

String us along

Imperialism

Simon Wood misses the point of my argument about imperialism.

It is not that imperialism is not a bad thing from the point of view of the working class as a class. I agree that it is. My point is that there is no such thing as a capitalism which is not involved in an imperialist global system: the Netherlands in the 17th century and Britain in the 18th were already imperialist. Hence, anything less than fighting for the overthrow of the imperialist system as a whole merely alters the power relations between capitals.

Comrade Wood seems to think that imperialism does not permit economic concessions to be made to (sections of) the working class in the imperialist countries. (I say ‘permit’ rather than ‘cause’, because before the rise of the workers’ movement imperialist superprofits are reinvested, used for display, etc, rather than used to make concessions, and because when competition intensifies, the capitalists seek to take the concessions back.)

If comrade Wood really thinks this, I have to say that it is simply indefensible on the evidence.

Imperialism
Imperialism

Take sides

In his recent letter about the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign, Stuart McDowell asked: “If the bombs drop on Tehran, will this group still be calling for regime change?” I note that in the four issues since then there has been no reply to his question.

I too would like clarification of your position on the coming imperialist attack on Iran. You are one of the main forces behind the HOPI campaign, but the material of that campaign is unclear on the central question of what side to take, if any, in the likely coming attack on Iran by the US-Israel.

Your more regular readers will no doubt remember that in every recent imperialist attack on a non-imperialist capitalist state the CPGB has been neutral in that conflict. In the case of Iraq this was changed after the occupation when you finally took the Marxist position of ‘better the defeat of the imperialists than the resistance’ - in effect siding with the various islamist and Ba’athist militias when they struck blows against the US-UK occupiers.

So if the US-Israel were to launch an attack on Iran, would your position be ‘Better the defeat of imperialism’? - ie, would you side with the Iranian government as the lesser evil, or would you be neutral in this fight between these “two enemies of the Iranian people”, as the HOPI statement describes the contending forces?

Take sides

Iraqi solidarity

The Scottish Iraqi Worker Solidarity Campaign is a group of trade unionists and socialists in Scotland supporting workers in Iraq (including those currently unemployed) and all the various forms of organised labour. It has had two successful public meetings, has Scottish Trades Union Congress support and is attracting a broad layer of Scottish Socialist Party members.

To get involved in the campaign, please email iraqunionsolidarityscot land@yahoo.co.uk or phone 07979 421475. For extensive news, reports and links on Iraqi workers’ organisations, see http://iraqunionsolidarity scotland.blogspot.com.

Iraqi solidarity

Socialist market

Nick Rogers’ ‘New scramble for Africa?’ was a great article. Very informative.

However, I think that the Chinese influence on the present African economy should not be compared with American imperialism in that region. Rather I would say that if the African working class really has a wish to continue the struggle for socialism in the current globalised capitalist system, they will have to compromise with China’s socialist market economy.

The Chinese socialist model of a harmonious market economy must be considered as an alternative to the American globalised, capitalist market economy and could be helpful for the struggle of the African working class movement.

Socialist market
Socialist market

Distorted

Phil Walden’s report of the first Campaign for a Marxist Party meeting in Sheffield uncritically concentrated on the contributions of Phil Sharpe, and this distorted the discussion and debate that 12 comrades had at the meeting with the speaker, Hillel Ticktin.

Hillel succinctly nailed Phil Sharpe’s fudge on the campaign’s call for a revolutionary party. A ‘workers’ party’, or reformism, was not the solution. What was needed was a Marxist party.

Phil Sharpe’s view is that it would be wrong to call for a Marxist party in the here and now. What is primary is the organisational form of a workers’ party, which leaves open the question of revolutionary programme - the spontaneous action of the class will enable us to develop this in the future. The majority of the meeting did not share Phil’s view.

Hillel also strongly dismissed Phil Sharpe’s suggestion that there could be a role for the market in allocating resources in a socialist society. Planning would be based on the abolition of the market. The fundamental categories of Marx were based on planning by the associated producers - not the market.

The majority of the meeting’s participants agreed that any Marxist party had to be democratic. Most agreed with the CPGB’s Ben Lewis that what was needed was a version of democratic centralism in which the right of criticism, including public criticism, and the right of factions with open debate and discussion, were allowed, but, once a majority decision was arrived at, there would be unity in action. Gerry Downing said the discipline from unity in action was essential for any revolutionary party.

Ben Lewis placed a stress on developing and educating the members, so that, in a sense, every member became a leader. I made a few points about the problem of leaders defining an action in narrow terms. Lenin in 1905-06 said any dispute about whether something was an action or not would be decided by the party conference. But at the time Lenin’s faction was in a minority, with the Mensheviks in a majority, and this view helped the Bolsheviks organise as a party within a party.

Phil Sharpe’s position was that the phrase ‘democratic centralism’ was no longer useful. In his draft programme, Phil Sharpe sees the problem as essentially philosophical, as one of knowledge formation, and that factional rights and a high cultural level are not enough. Hillel was in favour of the toleration of different tendencies of thought - a revolutionary party would reproduce the flaws of capitalism to a certain extent, so personality clashes probably could not be avoided.

Most of the meeting, including Hillel, were of the opinion that an action programme was not enough. Chris Gray voiced the majority view when he said that an aspect of the programme was propaganda against capitalism and explaining communism. I argued that the view of the programme as an action manual for party members was elitist. The programme had to appeal to the class beyond the party for support. Trotsky’s Transitional programme was an action manual which assumed the productive forces of capitalism had reached a dead end and could not develop. This was wrong even for the 1930s.

Hillel and a Critique supporter from Brighton came out against the slogan of ‘self-determination’. Nationalism was anathema to socialism. Despite Lenin taking up Woodrow Wilson’s bourgeois call for the right of nations to self-determination, in Russia the situation was a fight between revolution and counterrevolution. The Bolsheviks rightly trampled on the rights of self-determination in the Ukraine and elsewhere.

Gerry Downing defended the use of the slogan in fighting imperialism and developing class struggle. I pointed out that the Third International had accommodated to nationalists before the onset of Stalinism, which assumed some form of bourgeois stage prior to socialism. Trotsky went along with it and did not apply his theory of permanent revolution internationally until 1928.

The meeting displayed the toleration of differences required if we are to campaign for a Marxist party. Despite those differences, there was a general agreement about the kind of party and programme we need, although Phil Sharpe was out of step with his call for a ‘workers’ party’ and on the role of the market.

But, in a sense, he went out of his way to be different with references to John Maclean and Bukharin. Bukharin had formulated the theory of socialism in one country for Stalin, as Hillel and I emphasised, although I stressed Bukharin’s important contribution on the state and economics before 1918.

The point is to discuss differences as they naturally arise, but not to make a point of being different.

Distorted
Distorted

Inside job

Tam Dean Burn wrote that the Weekly Worker ought to recognise the 9/11 Truth Movement and discuss its claims. However, I feel that TD Burn’s wishes are most inadvisable.

The 9/11 Truth Movement is inherently anti-intellectual, pseudo-scientific and reactionary. Rightwing, vain misogynists such as Alex Jones, Lyndon LaRouche and Webster Tarpley remain its most ardent supporters. The organisation’s various speculative theories of ‘controlled-demolition’, ‘space beam weapons’, cruise missiles and ‘mini-nukes’ have served the purposes of the Bush administration in deflecting responsible, realistic criticism of governmental incompetence and neo- conservative imperial foreign policies.

The very fact that the 9/11 Truth Movement can’t gain the support of a relevant structural engineer goes a long way to describing the invalidity of the ‘inside job’ theories. George W Bush and his warmongering imperialist allies have committed plenty of crimes and injustices without the need of attributing to them deeds they did not do.

Inside job
Inside job

Part of problem

The Weekly Worker (and socialists generally) would do well to give 9/11 conspiracy theories a wide berth.

A look at the UK’s 9/11 ‘Truth’ Movement reveals an unholy alliance of ex-spooks; anti-semites; muslims unable to accept the reality that there are some members of their community, influenced by wahabbist ideology, who do indeed support, and in a few cases have carried out, bombings like 7/7 and 21/7; and the nuttier fringes of the green and new age movements. Add to this the bizarre cult-like behaviour of 9/11 ‘truth seekers’ (where 9/11 truth advocacy is seen as some sort of ‘year zero’ that trumps every other political cause, at all times) and you have a movement that should be avoided like the plague.

The Bush-Blair project can only be beaten politically. That means building progressive political alliances and carrying out serious investigative research into the work of our enemies. We have a website (www.911cultwatch.org.uk) devoted to doing exactly that, and explaining why the 9/11 ‘Truth’ Movement is a growing part of the problem, not the solution.

Sadly such concepts of research are alien to Mr Dean Burn and his cohorts.

Part of problem
Part of problem

Weekly luxury

Compared with other left papers, the Weekly Worker has always been open not just about its own activities, but those of others on the left. This is often not the case with smaller revolutionary groupings who do not operate under the same transparency or even in the Marxist revolutionary tradition.

The letter from Wladek Flakin regarding the so-called League for a Fifth International grouping gives a very good illustration of this. It is often the case, regrettably, that those propaganda groups that claim to espouse a high level of political theory often collapse into a bitter personalised feud and I suspect that this is now being worked out on these pages, as the parties concerned have no other outlet.

Stuart King’s comments on “sloppy journalism” in the Weekly Worker can be dismissed out of hand, as his small but perfectly formed grouplet does not yet have the luxury of a weekly paper and is unlikely to.

In fact the offer of a quick two-minute phone call to Permanent Revolution somehow conjures up the image of their political committee eagerly staffing some form of a call centre to handle enquiries regarding their pre-revolutionary period.

I have only come across the Workers Solidarity Movement on the web, but to imply that its politics are somehow a specifically Irish phenomenon is exhibiting chauvinistic nationalism at the highest level. Revolutionary ideas and labour know no state boundaries, so it is perfectly possible for the politics of the WSM to have supporters over here.

Weekly luxury

9/11 ‘truth’

Tam Dean Burn asks for some kind of commentary on the “cultural phenomenon” of 9/11 conspiracy theories. And, perhaps unintentionally, he asks the right question - not ‘Was 9/11 an inside job?’, but ‘What can account for so many people wanting to believe that it was?’

After all, the scanty case he does offer is fairly typical of the speculative nonsense offered by the so-called “9/11 Truth Movement” - apparently, it’s against the “laws of physics” for steel structures to collapse as they did. One assumes he is referring to the oft-made claim that, since the melting point of steel is above the temperature caused by the collisions, the collisions themselves cannot have been responsible. This falls down only because nobody bothered to measure the temperature at the hit floors, as they were too busy fleeing for their lives and, in any case, steel loses most of its strength well below its melting point. Our comrade could go on, I imagine, and so could I - numerous websites exist on both sides for interested parties.

But the 9/11 Truth Movement as a “cultural phenomenon” - now, there’s something. Essentially, the conspiracy theorist is the same as he or she ever was. Some catastrophic event occurs; the official write-up leaves as many questions as it answers; and without any more plausible explanation a certain kind of person will decide that there must have been some Hollywood false-flag operation involved.

A scientific analysis of the social forces involved will always provide a far more coherent picture of how such events happen - but this is never available to the conspiracy theorist. A terrorist attack of this kind appears absolutely incomprehensible without some bizarre narrative, with suitable ‘bad guys’ mapped onto it.

In short, such phenomena are every bit as trapped in bourgeois ideology as the chauvinist ‘Never forget!’ flag-wavers they oppose, down to the very language in which the conspiracy theories are couched, torn straight from Tom Clancy novels. The fundamental issue confronting such a world view is distinct from any wranglings over the melting point of steel: who needs a conspiracy to blow up your landmarks when the logic of imperialism has provided you with bin Laden?

9/11 ‘truth’
9/11 ‘truth’