Letters

Indecision

Phil Sharpe protests too much about the accurate description of his criticism of the Campaign for a Marxist Party as ?fence-sitting?. On the one hand, we should not advocate a Marxist party because this might not be suitable for all conditions, which in any case might change, or reality could contradict the call and make a workers? party more popular. On the other hand, we should not regard a workers? party as preferable, or we cannot positively advocate it, since conditions might develop in a different direction towards a Marxist party.

So there are two ways to a Marxist party. Phil is at the crossroads, contemplating which direction to take.

This indecision - or inability to make a political choice - is raised to the level of political methodology. Flexibility is the thing to the point of incoherence. There may not be a workers? party stage; then again there could be. There are few workers? parties in existence; but workers do need political representation rather than a Marxist party specifically.

So, despite the vacillation, he appears to be about to take the route of the Socialist Party and Keir Hardie. When the Social Democratic Federation put forward a motion at the conference which really founded the Labour Party calling for a socialist party that recognised the class struggle, it was narrowly defeated by Keir Hardie?s motion leaving the political character of the emerging party open. Political representation, not socialism.

In his draft programme, Phil expresses his doubts that the form of a revolutionary party connects with the current logic of class struggle, but he is not sure the reformist form does either. He is unable to decide one way or the other and leaves the question of programme and party form open to the logic of class struggle or future spontaneous developments.

I think Phil should make up his mind. Comrades in the CMP made a choice last year.

Indecision
Indecision

Split!

Well, well, well! Four months into the overly abstract and - by some accounts more than just a little bit tendentious - min-max/trans mash-up re the CMP and the programme, and the Democratic Socialist Alliance offer a contribution to the debate to replace their People before profit, which was put aside at the founding conference. And what do we get? Cries of ?Split!? from the CPGB. I?m sorry comrades, but this just isn?t good enough.

So what if Phil Sharpe continues to argue that the time is not right - do the CPGB really think that the CMP is going to liquidate itself into exactly what it set out not to be on the basis of Phil Sharpe?s document? So what if he has some harsh words to say about the ideas of Hillel Ticktin, Jack Conrad and Mike Macnair? I?m sure all three of you can stand up for yourselves, especially when - as in the case of Hillel?s thinking - Mr Sharpe is flat-out wrong. And does anyone really think that this draft is either a ?programme? or a ?summary?, for all that Phil Sharpe?s work does add something positive to the ongoing debate about programme?

Now I might just be poking a bit of fun at Mike Macnair?s overreaction (and I am), but there is a serious point here. You see, I was seriously perplexed when I heard about the CMP-CPGB fusion talks agreed at last November. Fusion? At a founding? ?WTF!? I thought, ?if I?d wanted to join the CPGB I could?ve done that already.? My qualms went unassuaged. Meanwhile, in recent weeks my tensions were heightened by remarks - which I need not rehearse - here and there in the Weekly Worker and in CMP documents. So when the cry of ?Split!? went up a mere six months into the CMP, I really thought that the CPGB were pulling some kind of sectarian stunt. Seriously. And I half-persuaded someone else of this too. So shooting from the hip with this kind of crazy talk is just plain dumb.

So, please, the next time someone pushes one of your fundamental political or theoretical buttons - and it will happen, repeatedly - let?s have less of the alarums and excursions, eh?

Split!
Split!

No fool he

I was surprised by Jeremy Butler?s letter last week, where he accused me of having described him as ?foolish? (May 17). He deduces from this that the Alliance for Workers? Liberty, along with the CPGB, ?not only condones but actively encourages its members to insult people they disagree with, and that to object to such practice is seen as a sign of weakness?. I must admit, the idea of Sean Matgamna geeing me up to insult Jeremy in order to avoid looking weak in front of Weekly Worker readers is rather comical.

However, Jeremy?s claim is completely false because no version of the word ?foolish? or ?fool? - or any other ad hominem attack - appears in my letter (May 3). Yes, I describe his behaviour as ?sectarian?. That is not an ?insult? or a piece of personal rudeness; it is a purely political criticism of his organisational outlook and approach to left unity, which I am perfectly entitled to make.

Again, I shall reiterate: in what way is the AWL not internally democratic? Because of our culture of ?insult?? This won?t do, Jeremy. Not only am I trying to persuade you in a comradely and honest debate - I generally want you to say what you mean, other than using ?Leninist? as a swear word.

No fool he
No fool he

Bad grammar

I see that David Cameron?s new-look Conservative Party has come out against the building of any new grammar schools. For Cameron this new policy will be seen as a defining moment similar to Tony Blair?s replacement of clause four of Labour?s constitution.

Cameron knows that in today?s globalised, knowledge-based economy education policies should not be centred on the needs of 10% of the population. The ruling class in Britain has learnt over the last 200 years the importance of recreating and reinforcing the middle class as a bulwark against revolution.

Marxists therefore have to be sensitive to the needs of the middle class by having a correct policy regarding grammar and private schools. This means that Marxists do not call for their immediate abolition. Instead, standards in state schools should be raised to such a high level that parents no longer feel the need to send their children to grammar or private schools.

When such standards have been reached, grammar schools can be transformed into comprehensives, and private schools incorporated into the state sector.

Bad grammar
Bad grammar

Occupation

At 6am on Monday May 21, students from Sussex University locked themselves inside the premises of EDO-MBM, the Brighton arms factory, for several hours. EDO produces weapons components used by the Israeli military and by US and UK forces in Iraq. The students were protesting against EDO?s complicity in the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq and Palestine.

One man who was not directly involved with the action was arrested for aggravated trespass, while Dan Glass, Sussex student union president, was also arrested later for asking awkward questions of EDO managing director Paul Hills. Police used violence to confiscate two video cameras and protesters believe this was to suppress material that showed Hills intimidating, shoving and harassing an observer and that exposes the reality of police double standards.

Sussex University has been developing close links with Al Quds Open University in Tubas, Palestine. A delegation from Sussex, including Dan Glass, recently visited Tubas and heard what conditions are like for students living under occupation. The delegation was told that in 2004 two children were killed close to the university by Israeli forces firing Hellfire missiles from an F16. EDO-MBM manufactures components for both the Hellfire missile and the Israeli F16.

The British government subsidises the arms trade by up to ?900 million per year, while they continue to cut funding for higher education.

Occupation
Occupation

Respect error

In Peter Manson?s report of the Respect Tower Hamlets meeting in last weeks? paper, there was a mistake in the result of the deputy leadership election (?Two-way traffic and continued divisions?, May 17). Shahed Ali beat the SWP-backed Ahmed Hussain, not the reverse, as was reported.

This error does not alter the thrust of Manson?s article, which is a true representation of Tower Hamlets Respect. If Ali does have a glittering career as a working class fighter in the same vein as Lansbury, then this event is the first step in that process. However, appearances can be deceptive.

Respect error
Respect error

Neo-imperialism

I am a Marxist and have lived in France for more than 25 years as a political refugee from Iran.

In general I agree with Yassamine Mather?s position, as explained in the Weekly Worker, but would add that the dispersed Marxist groups were defeated because no revolutionary communist international existed then (or now!) to build a section in Iran. Even after nearly 30 years, the left is still divided.

I remember as a young, radical-left student that even in the Confederation of Iranian Students there were deep divisions after the great struggles against the shah?s puppet regime. This islamic fundamentalist movement was financed, just as Hamas was created by Israel, as a weapon against the revolutionary communist movement, not only in Iran, but Palestine, Kurdistan, Afghanistan, where a left government came to power, and against the pro-Soviet nationalist and socialist movements in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, South Yemen, etc ...

Many false theories remain today about the true fascist nature of the islamic republic of Iran. But not many researchers are trying to find out how these Hezbollah types got to power - how they were aided by the Syrian and Lebanese pro-imperialist governments, which provided training bases to create islamic militias from 1970.

Following its historic military defeat at the hands of communism in Vietnam, imperialism was effectively forced to restructure, becoming neo-imperialism, especially after Vietnam and the semi-successes of the Cultural Revolution drive towards socialism in China. Fascism has been the ultimate weapon of imperialism since 1917, but nowadays raw fascism and neo-fascism is exercised to an even greater degree by the genocidal wars of restructured neo-imperialism.

Islamic fundamentalism, like the christian heavy propaganda networks, is propped up by the neo-imperialism of fiduciary credit capitalism. The CIA?s declared ?green belt? policy of supporting and financing islamic fundamentalist groups to destabilise the USSR brought Khomeini to power and led to Iran?s so called islamic republic. Yes, I firmly believe that the CIA and MI5 created this islamic revolution (the word ?revolution? is absent from the Koran!).

Neo-imperialism is the period of genocide against all the oppressed peoples and nations resisting its world system. The islamic republic of Iran is as much the work of neo-imperialism as imperialist aid to Hitler?s Germany helped to arm it against the USSR.

Neo-imperialism

Flexible?

Although Mike Macnair did indeed present his arguments as an ultimatum, they were based on what the CMP had already decided was the basis of its existence (?No more freaks and halfway houses?, May 3).

Nevertheless, we have to accept that his polemic was focused on what so far has been agreed by the CMP majority. Comrade Macnair has only gone so far as to defend the gains made by the CMP to accept in theory the principles of Marxism.

Comrade Phil Sharpe seems to accept the current theoretical basis of the CMP - but only so far as he can challenge what has been gained. However, he has expressed open disagreement with comrade Macnair?s conception of the organisation of the working class party, calling it ?Leninist? and by implication alien to Marxism, but at the same time repeating platitudes of organisational flexibility per se - somehow presenting Leninism and flexibility as in contradiction (?Prepare for marathon?, May 17).

Comrade Sharpe informs us that we must organise within both the CMP and the Campaign for a New Workers? Party, but he doesn?t explain the basis by which Marxist should organise independently of the CNWP majority. My charge therefore is of liquidationism. If under current conditions Marxists are not to organise under the principles of comrade Macnair?s ?Leninism?, I ask comrade Sharpe, what does he consider to be the appropriate Marxist method of ?flexible? organisation?

Flexible?
Flexible?

Max mirror

Having just read his article, ?Hostage crisis and reactionary schemes?, I must take issue with the CPGB?s position, as stated by Eddie Ford (April 12).

Ford writes: ?In the event of an open conflict between Washington and Tehran, the existing slaughter in Iraq would look like a children?s party. Communists would not side with Washington against Tehran, nor would they side with Tehran against Washington. We would certainly prefer the defeat of Washington; but the best way to achieve that would be the overthrow of the theocratic regime in Tehran by the working class in Iran.?

This is called trying to have your cake and eat it. First he states that communists would side neither with Tehran nor Washington, adding as a footnote and afterthought, that the best way to defeat Washington would be through the overthrow of the Iranian theocratic regime. Well, of course, this would be preferable, but to not take a side militarily until/unless the working class gets off its ass is to sit back and let the Iranian working class, which will be defending Iranian territory, take it on the chin (in a lethal sense) from the American imperialists.

Leninists (Trotskyists, if you will) see the victory of imperialism over Iran, even with its theocratic regime, to be the ?greater evil?, because the defeat of Iran at the hands of imperialism would not only strengthen imperialism, but would further exacerbate national tensions in the region. That would drive the working class further into the fold of ?their? rulers. Imperialism exacerbates national tensions to boiling point, and Leninists schooled in dialectics (and understanding it) have no difficulty comprehending the need to resolve the national question even before the class question. This is because the national question must be resolved so that the class question will become the order of the day.

To take a ?no sides? policy between the imperialists and non-imperialist Iran is to mirror the position that Max Shachtman took by refusing to take a side in the conflict between Hitler?s Germany and Stalin?s Soviet Union. Invoking self-determination for Iran is a tactic used to demonstrate to the Iranian working class that, while we would prefer that they overthrow the theocracy, our opposition to terror attacks by the United States and its wannabe allies is unconditional.

Max mirror
Max mirror

Taking sides

Jim Grant asks: ?If there are no particular instances where you can find the ?blatantly anti-Marxist? straw method supposedly used by the CPGB at work, in what sense is it their position?? (Letters, May 17).

I would suggest that he looks at the CPGB?s positions on the imperialist attacks on Serbia and Afghanistan and indeed their position leading up to the actual invasion of Iraq (my error was one of timing of the change in position not of substance) - where they argued against taking a side. And in the context of the impending imperialist attack on Iran, Dave Isaacson argues that, ?unlike most of the left, we certainly refuse to side with the small criminal against the big criminal? (Letters, April 19).

Jim may not like it, but this is indeed the anti-Marxist position of the CPGB. It is absolutely clear what Lenin?s position was - in what way am I vulgarising Lenin? Jim?s musings on the fact that Iran is not a directly ruled colony are completely irrelevant to the discussion unless he and the CPGB are arguing that Iran is an imperialist state and a conflict between the US and Iran would be an inter-imperialist conflict. As far as I am aware, this is not the case and the CPGB recognises that Iran is a non-imperialist state and that US imperialism ?is the greater enemy?, to quote Anne Mc Shane?s report on the Irish meetings of Hands Off the People of Iran, where this question was apparently also debated (?Genuine solidarity?, May 17).

I completely agree with Jim and Mehdi Kia (Letters, May 17) that the reactionary Iranian regime is seriously ?weakening the anti-imperialist potential of Iran? by its repressive policies. It must be overthrown and replaced by a revolutionary workers? government as part of the world socialist revolution. I have never argued for any political support to the Iranian regime and it is a cheap debating trick to say that the Iranian regime are my ?pin-up heroes of the day?.

I have instead discussed what to do in the situation of an imperialist attack on Iran if the Iranian regime were to fight back against that attack. Would independently organised working class forces have a military side in that conflict? The CPGB says ?no? - Marxists say ?yes?. Describing US imperialism as a greater enemy than the Iranian regime is meaningless if you, unlike Lenin, don?t want to take a military side with the lesser enemy against the greater enemy.

This is completely different from the popular frontism of the CPGB?s Stalinist heirs who gave political support to reactionary regimes like Iran?s by describing them as genuine anti-imperialists and argued for the working class to organise under the control of those reactionaries - a criminal policy that has led to tragic results for our class every time.

Marxists never stop arguing that these reactionary regimes are our enemy who must be overthrown. However, such a position does not mean it is impossible to find our independent detachments in a military bloc with them if they, for their own reasons, come into military conflict with the ?greater enemy? of imperialism.

Taking sides

Domination

The views that Jim Grant criticises me for bear little relation to the actual views I hold. I don?t consider a nation?s misleaders are identical with a nation at all. I also don?t delude myself that a Marxist party will be identical to the working class.

Unlike Mehdi Kia, I don?t imagine ?the students?, ?the women?, etc are homogeneous wholes either. Those actually fighting against the occupation in Iraq are - and this is new to Marxism - those actually fighting against the occupation! (Jim Creegan?s April 19 article, ?Ken Loach?s use of Irish history?, is correct about the temptation to conflate nationalists with socialists).

I?m against all inequality based on class, gender or nationality, but don?t delude myself there are ?goodies? who are equally concerned with all forms of oppression. It is not as basic as ?baddies? like Ahmadinejad who is from the bourgeoisie and is equally against women as he is against any Iranian resistance to American domination!

Throughout history people have been fighting various forms of domination, whilst ?Marxists? explain how one?s sociological position predetermines their views and activities. They have tried to ?educate? people how evolution will bring a higher stage of capitalism that will get rid of those nasty pre-capitalist remnants.

Those who fought against formal apartheid in South Africa deserved support regardless of the current economic apartheid. It was right to support the Tolpuddle martyrs regardless of today?s consumer society and absence of any socialist movement. Whilst the better communists have written about striving to be the best fighters against all forms of oppression, ?the Marxists? aren?t.

Domination
Domination

Library wars

As someone who could not make out what the heck was going on in the Marx Memorial Library, or how it related to previous tussles over the Morning Star, I am grateful for the information the Weekly Worker has provided, but annoyed that we should have had to wait for this (?Less than charitable?, May 17).

My union branch is affiliated to the MML, and my trades council made use of its resources when preparing our Grunwick commemoration last year. Staff at the library were friendly and helpful. Having come to appreciate its facilities, I was looking forward to visiting again. Any Schadenfreude I might have felt as a Trot in seeing our Stalinist foes in worse disarray than that for which we are notorious has quickly been outweighed by recognition that this is a valuable asset for the workers? movement and should be better used, not abused.

I have known Mike Squires for some years. He was a loyal if critical member of the old Communist Party of Great Britain until, as he said, ?I did not leave my party: the party left me?. Mike recruited me to Wandsworth history workshop when I lived in south London and, besides his book on Shapurji Saklatvala, he wrote a booklet on Battersea aid for Spain. He has also been a pillar of the Socialist History Society, which is a continuation of the old CP historians? group, albeit widened.

Though we might sometimes disagree, Mike has never been uncomradely or sectarian, and somehow I cannot imagine him subordinating his principled communism or dedicated interest in history to a factional intrigue.

I shall be expecting more explanation from the MML at my next union meeting - we receive their bulletin. I shall be interested to know how their ?20,000 bill was incurred, for example, and whether they can justify the expense. What is it really all about?

Library wars

Charity case

I had to laugh when I read the Islington Gazette?s May 17 report on Mike Squires? expulsion from the Marx Memorial Library. Library chair Mary Rosser told the paper: ?As far as I am aware, no members of the MML are communists.? Of course, it would be a bit weird for a library named after Karl Marx to have communists as members - whatever next?

But, joking aside, Mary, I know of a dozen people who class themselves as communists and are members of the MML - and I haven?t exactly gone out to hunt them in dark corners. It would also be a reasonable assumption that communists would be members and users of the library, given the nature of its history and stock. Since you objected to Mike Squires? call in the Morning Star for trade unionists to join the library, who exactly do you want to join? Perhaps the MML might be better without any members or users at all?

Maybe I could include you on my list of communist members. After all, you have written articles for the (admittedly infrequent) Marxist Forum on a number of occasions down the years. Some of these are listed at www.marxistforum.com/page7.htm if you want to remind yourself. Perhaps those such as Mary no longer wish to call themselves communist. If that is the case, then I?m sure nobody would object too strongly.

The problem with the MML is not that communists play a role in its affairs. In the Islington Gazette article, Rosser once again attempts to justify herself by suggesting that the charitable status of the library has been threatened by the ?political? activities of Mike Squires and company. In fact, advice from the Charity Commission - regulator and registrar for charities in England and Wales - would suggest that there is considerably more scope in this arena that Rosser lets on.

In guidance available on its website, the commission says: ?Provided that an organisation exists for charitable rather than political purposes, it is a matter for the trustees? discretion whether and to what extent they pursue their charitable purposes by political means. Trustees are free to take the decision that political activity should be a core part of the charity?s work, for as long as they believe is reasonable. You have very considerable scope for undertaking political campaigning and other political activity, as long as what you do furthers your objects and is a reasonable use of your resources.?

In other words, so long as the library is being run as a library and not as a political organisation designed to specifically further a political party?s aims, there is no problem with the rules. In any case, how such broad definitions would work in an infinitely more blurred practice is anyone?s guess. Presumably, the Marx Memorial Library, given its very nature, would need to be given more latitude on such points than many organisations.

There is certainly no complete ban on ?political activity? by the commission and nowhere in this advice does it suggest a member of a charitable organisation being a member of a political party is problematic. Presumably that would mean an awful lot of existing supporters of charities would be precluded from involvement.

Charity case
Charity case