Letters

Splitters

Nick Rogers makes a number of fair observations, but draws the wrong conclusion in his article, ‘All power to Chávez?’ (August 2). A split in the UNT (National Union of Workers) is hardly a disaster. It would be a step back from disaster. It is what revolutionaries must fight for. Chávez is demanding that the left and unions dissolve themselves into his party so he can discipline his ‘socialism’. He has won much popular support already.

Therefore, the UNT must split to retain its independence from Chávez and to break the popular front. If Rogers had applied the characterisation of Chávez as a ‘Bonapartist’ and correctly understood the ‘cross class’ PSUV as a popular front party, then he would have been obliged to call for UNT independence from that party, and the necessity of a split.

Splitters

Bravo

Nick Rogers’ piece on Chávez was really excellent, and unusually balanced, reporting on Venezuela. Bravo.

What a break from the knee-jerk liberal right anti-Chávez lines or knee-jerk liberal-left pro-Chávez lines. At last an intelligent critique, which I enjoyed very much.

Bravo

Perfect party

Bob Harding writes: “One of Michael Little’s letters talked about fighting not only imperialism, but reactionary anti-imperialism that would eventually murder socialist revolutionaries” (Letters, August 2).

Obviously, Bob is referring to my position that we must militarily side with the Iranian theocracy against imperialism should Iran be attacked. However, I never spoke about “reactionary anti-imperialism” because anti-communist reactionaries cannot possibly be anti-imperialist in nature. They may oppose the imperialists who are attacking them, but, their rhetoric notwithstanding, they have no problems with imperialism (the highest stage of capitalism) itself.

Bob writes: “He [Michael] wrongly imagines the one and true party will be totally different to all the others. He imagines ‘the party’ will perfectly reflect the working class, while dozens of other parties will reflect either one or the other classes.” What I said was that it is our task to build a revolutionary Communist Party, organisationally and programmatically independent of the bourgeoisie. In other words, no to popular fronts.

Perfect party
Perfect party

Russia today

David Morgan contrasts life in the USSR with the miserable existence of many in Russia today (Letters, August 2). However, he misses several points.

The first is that the present condition of Russia is a consequence of Stalinism, or ‘official’ communism. It all started to collapse before the changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Stalinism was inefficient and eventually the wheels fell off, creating the Russia of today.

Secondly, Russia today is a democracy, even if it’s a rather authoritarian one. You can actually choose between parties and vote out the government. The former USSR was not noted for this.

Thirdly, the present Russia offers far more options to workers, in terms of future change. The USSR offered a ‘one party suits all’ model. It limited control by workers over society and industry.

Perhaps the USSR was neither communist nor Marxist, really?

Russia today

Evil commies

The letter from a Russian called ‘Igor’ - whether it was a prank or not - did unintentionally reiterate a big problem for communism if it is to gain popular support (July 26).

The Soviet Union with its Stalinist regime was not true socialism - it was fascism. But the majority of people in the world, certainly those who lived through the cold war, now believe that communism is just that. Capitalist governments also like to mislead the masses into thinking that communism is evil. This can be overcome, but it will be a lengthy process.

Evil commies

Disingenuous

Eddie Ford writes that the International Bolshevik Tendency’s “whole history in the SLP had been to stubbornly oppose any united fightback” (Letters, August 2). I wasn’t in Britain at the time so wasn’t involved in the Socialist Labour Party myself, but, reading issues of the IBT’s Marxist Journal of the time, it would seem that this statement is a little disingenuous, to say the least.

The truth is that, apart from the Campaign for a Democratic SLP, the IBT were involved, and indeed often played a leadership role, in every fightback against the Scargill bureaucracy (there seem to have been a number of different organisational frameworks for this opposition). The IBT’s objection to the particular case of the CDSLP was that it included open external opponents of the SLP such as Workers Power, who had left the SLP and were calling for votes to Labour against SLP candidates. This argument seems completely valid to me.

Perhaps other Weekly Worker readers who were involved in the SLP project can help shed some light on the real history of the democratic opposition to the Scargill bureaucracy.

Disingenuous

PCSU left

I write with reference to some of the concluding remarks in Dave Vincent’s article on the PCSU left (‘Regional pay onslaught’, August 2). In what was otherwise an excellent and informative article, not just for Weekly Worker readers, but also for activists in the civil service union (as we are getting precious little information from the national executive on these issues), Dave once again felt the need to outline his plans for the Independent Left without being a member of it.

Firstly, Dave’s insistence on referring to “Lee Rock’s Independent Left” is a bit patronising to all other members of the IL. Dave also refers to “IL’s predecessor, Socialist Caucus” when the fact is that Socialist Caucus still exists.

More importantly for Dave, his suggestions on tactics for the recent elections were not taken up. The suggestions Dave has are not unique to him; they were ones considered by Socialist Caucus and IL members, but they were not adopted. It was our view that the Left Unity members and the PCS Democrats on the national executive committee have voted the same way on all the key questions and at this point in time are not supportable.

We also did not think that we would have gained the kind of vote that Dave suggests. Perhaps Dave could tell us the differences between Left Unity and PCS Democrats on the NEC? And also the number of votes at Left Unity conference against the Left Unity/PCS Democrat pact? Prior to Socialist Caucus withdrawing from Left Unity, the only votes against were Socialist Caucus and Dave Vincent! No doubt Dave will correct me and a couple of others can be added, but I think he will see my point.

It is also the case that comrades such as Dave and others could, in these recent elections, have voted for both IL and Left Unity candidates because the IL did not stand anywhere near a full slate. I assume they did this if that is their position - so how much of a difference would the IL endorsing this have made?

As regards my not replying to Dave, I had done so initially. The fact that Dave wished to carry on the discussion about the IL but not join the organisation did mean that, having given one reply, I did not feel the need to enter into an ongoing dialogue with him. I would still suggest that Dave joins the IL and plays a full role. Everything he argues in his article is in line with Socialist Caucus and IL positions and counterposed to the role of the Socialist Party/Left Unity leadership.

It is true that I did not circulate his proposals directly to Socialist Caucus members. But it is also true that Dave’s ideas were not unique or new, and had been discussed and considered. SC members had considered a variety of options prior to making the decision to initiate the IL. Dave is clearly not happy that his ideas were not shared by those who were members and thus making the decisions, but that is democracy for you.

His comment about me and the IL - “He ploughed on regardless” - does suggest a slightly Stalinist approach. Does Dave really think that I alone make the decisions for these two organisations and everyone else follows? If so, he should really give us some evidence of this. The members of the SC and IL are generally experienced and committed leftwing trade union activists who consistently tackle both an increasingly aggressive employer and the sectarianism of the SP and yet Dave seems to think they follow my every idea without any critical capacities of their own. I, for one, would not wish to be a member of such an organisation.

PCSU left
PCSU left

Stop digging

While Steve Freeman’s polemics do not always meet the highest standards of persuasiveness and logic, his article in last week’s paper must be the worst ever (‘Trust and workable democracy’, August 2).

Comrade Freeman was responding to a previous article by Eddie Ford, in which he was roundly criticised for proposing that the Campaign for a Marxist Party should adopt an anarcho-bureaucratic rule stipulating that “no group can have more than X% of the membership” - X% being, for the sake of argument, 40% (and most definitely less than 50%).

Comrade Ford correctly described this as “by far the worst, the most thoroughly anarcho-bureaucratic” proposal that is doing the rounds in the CMP. Comrade Ford noted that anarcho-bureaucracy “combines the anarchistic worship of the individual with a whole raft of bureaucratic rules, regulations and other such measures designed to protect the part, the factional minority, from the ‘tyranny’ of the majority” (‘Majority rights and minority duties’, July 19).

The CPGB stands for the right of the majority to decide. All other methods are clearly undemocratic and therefore not in the interests of the working class. When this home truth was pointed out to comrade Freeman on the London CMP email list, he appeared to pull back a little, stating that he was simply advocating some voluntary restraint on the part of the CPGB and that his ‘X%’ suggestion was not a hard and fast proposal.

On the basis of ‘When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging’, I advised comrade Freeman not to attempt to justify the unjustifiable in the pages of the Weekly Worker. Unfortunately, out of sheer stubbornness, it appears, that is precisely what he has attempted to do, and the result is a deeper, darker hole.

By sleight of hand, he compares his “40% rule” to the CPGB’s own proposal, made at the June conference of the CMP, that the new committee should consist of seven named comrades, of whom three were CPGB members. This, says Steve, having done a quick check on his pocket calculator, is a “42% rule”!

The CPGB was putting forward a recommendation regarding the composition of the CMP committee at a given moment. There was no “rule” about it - does comrade Freeman not know the meaning of the word? We were not proposing that such a proportion be enshrined in the CMP constitution. Members were free to vote for or against our proposal, or put forward something totally different (in the end we agreed to withdraw our suggestion under protest).

Comrade Freeman goes on to assert that, unlike his “40% rule”, our proposal for the new committee would have adversely affected “the rights of members”. In what way? “Those members who might want a CPGB majority on the committee are denied that option”! This is so absurd, I cannot believe Steve actually wrote it. He might just as well say that taking any democratic decision infringes “the rights” of those who disagree with it - but only an anarchist would suggest such a thing.

By contrast, continues comrade Freeman, his “40% rule” should be viewed as a “democratically agreed and voluntary treaty” that does not affect the rights of members: “The 40% rule is a rule about who can join. It affects the rights of non-members” (my emphasis). Well, that’s all right then. It is perfectly OK for a minority to artificially maintain dominance by denying membership to those it disagrees with.

And what if CPGB comrades like Eddie Ford object? Well, Steve has an answer to that: “He [comrade Ford] wants the CPGB to have freedom from this particular rule in much the same way that the SWP wants freedom from programmes. This is itself an anarcho-bureaucratic argument.”

If it is possible, this is even more ludicrous than comrade Freeman’s pronouncement on our proposal for a new committee. Yes, that’s right - we want “freedom” from a rule which discriminates against our comrades, a rule designed to give far smaller groups the opportunity to undemocratically hold sway. In other words, comrade Freeman wants us to agree to “‘democratically’ decide to remove someone’s democratic rights” (his words).

It is rather ironic, amongst all this, that the 40% limit on CPGB members which comrade Freeman believes would completely remove the disgruntlement of the CMP minority is in fact a rough approximation of the current situation - actual CPGB members made up about 40% of those attending the June 23 conference.

True, every vote went our way, almost all by an overwhelming majority. It is understandable that those who were defeated were disappointed. But disappointment has led some comrades to persuade themselves that the votes were somehow unfair, since the minority was faced with a CPGB steamroller crushing everything before it. It seems comrade Freeman is hoping to gain allies by pandering to such backwardness.

Peter Manson
South London

No faction

Steve Freeman has claimed me as part of his anarcho-bureaucratic “42% faction”. Poor man. Clearly he is unable to distinguish between his rule that would artificially cap CPGB participation in the Campaign for a Marxist Party and the proposal I made for a seven-person committee (in which three were CPGB and four non-CPGB).

The fact that John Pearson and Dave Spencer of the Democratic Socialist Alliance huffily refused to serve on such a committee obviously means that we will have to rejig our proposal for the CMP’s November conference.

Stop digging
Stop digging

No faction

Steve Freeman has claimed me as part of his anarcho-bureaucratic “42% faction”. Poor man. Clearly he is unable to distinguish between his rule that would artificially cap CPGB participation in the Campaign for a Marxist Party and the proposal I made for a seven-person committee (in which three were CPGB and four non-CPGB).

The fact that John Pearson and Dave Spencer of the Democratic Socialist Alliance huffily refused to serve on such a committee obviously means that we will have to rejig our proposal for the CMP’s November conference.

No faction
No faction

Tactics

Simon Keller (Letters, July 5), has raised objections to my (and more generally the CPGB’s) rejection of the military/political support schema as a guide for communists in their relations with non-imperialist formations. This is a staple of orthodox Trotskyist doctrine, and has become particularly associated with the Spartacist/ex-Spartacist milieu.

My major objections are as follows. Firstly, the nature of the theory is quite ad hoc and rather than slotting neatly into Marxist theory in general it serves principally to reinforce political positions already taken in a dubious, ex-post facto manner. Secondly, it tends to take two separate tactical questions - how communists are to deal with war within a conflict zone and abroad - and mash them up into a single question of overall strategy. The result is nearly always opportunism, ranging from the relatively innocuous (eg, cheerleading the likes of Nasser or Chávez) to the very depths of treachery (eg, the Workers Revolutionary Party ‘Jew-spotting’ for Gaddafi).

Keller accuses me of my own “conflation” of controversial positions (I used the example of the Spartacists and Solidarnosc) and what he characterises, rightly, as the “outright scabbing on leftists” of the WRP. Of course that is on one level quite true, and this must be stressed - however, the one thing that doesn’t see this difference is the military-political split - since ‘military support’ is not a literal statement, and almost no limits are set on potential allies, it really is no less appropriate a justification for the latter than the former.

He also objects to splitting the problem of support into two questions of tactics inside and outside the invaded territory. Surely, he asks, there must be some guiding strategic principle? Of course, enforcing a rigorous division here would be idiotic and anti-Marxist, as would rejecting an overall strategic perspective. We are internationalists, after all. However, the question of support for alien class forces in the conflict is not strategic, but tactical - thus it will inevitably come out with contradictory results across geography, political circumstances, etc.

Tactics
Tactics