29.08.2007

Coming home to roost

The central question of Iraq simply will not go away for the AWL, says Mark Fischer

Over the recent period, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty has banned a member of its 'troops out of Iraq' minority from speaking on a CPGB platform; it has suspended mailings to its website from one critic of the majority's 'troops in' stance and on August 11, it dispatched a number of comrades to picket the opening session of this year's Communist University, supposedly to expose our cowardly refusal to debate the issue of Iraq ... then somewhat spoiled the effect when the hapless AWLers lamely refused all offers from leading CPers for them to move their stall inside and to contribute to the debate from the floor.

Here is an organisation in a considerable amount of trouble, in other words. The clampdown on open discussion initiated by the group's core leadership is clearly an attempt to hunker down and wait for a political storm to pass - a classic sect response. As is the clumsy diversionary tactics on display in the August 9 issue of Solidarity, the group's peculiarly amateur paper, where readers are subjected to a flatulent polemic against the CPGB from Sean Matgamna (all quotes from Solidarity August 9 unless otherwise stated - see www.workersliberty.org/node/8998).

Now, this attack is ostensibly prompted by our recent digs against the shameful pro-Iraq occupation majority (we have not spared the only semi-shameful stance of the minority, of course). However - instructively - the AWL's patriarch devotes hardly any of his 3,500-plus word polemic to Iraq.

Instead - as is the comrade's wont - he attempts to chuck muck in the eyes of his readership with an artless repetition of accusations and distortions he deployed a number of years ago to draw a sharply defensive sectarian line between his group and ours. Thus topics he picks upon - and on which he demands "answers" from us - include the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; the Hungarian uprising; the third period ultra-leftism of Comintern; the Stalin-Hitler pact; the betrayal of the Spanish revolution; the parliamentary illusions of the opportunist trends of the 'official' CPGB, etc, etc.

Of course, the notion that the Weekly Worker has not written on these and related questions, or that it would be difficult to glean our attitude is not serious. What this rather sad sect leader is clearly attempting to do is discredit the messenger because he really does not want to hear the message - a thoroughly disreputable manoeuvre, but generally in keeping with the man's polemical probity. Concretely, the comrade has tried to prove to the satisfaction of his troops that the present-day CPGB is still attached to Stalinism - or at least has only partially broken from it.

'I' for irony

The Matgamna piece is heavy with laboured attempts at humour - which fall flat. Sean adopts the pose of a friend of our organisation, someone who is part of the "growing number of people in the AWL who are campaigning ... for closer links with the CPGB" (obviously Sean's 'learn a word a day' regime has got him as far as 'irony' in his dictionary).

To illustrate what an uphill task he is facing, he gives us a taste of some of the internal comments on us he has to contend with - the CPGB is apparently described as "that ridiculous little gossip-mongering cult with the preposterously inflated name"; entertainingly, I find myself characterised as a "pompous, oily little twerp" in one place; "Yellow Streak Mark" and "Yellowstones Fischer" in another and our people in general as "amoral, fantasy-addled idiots".

CPGBers and others will no doubt call this bile-fuelled rant to mind when in future AWLers take it upon themselves to lecture anyone on harsh polemical tones, of course. The purpose is not to bring clarity to the question, but the opposite.

The issue of Iraq is supposed to be obscured in a shit-storm of accusations and nonsense around other questions. In the process, the organisation that has pointed to the AWL's pro-occupation politics - the CPGB - is demonised afresh. As is generally acknowledged on the revolutionary left, this method is part of the DNA of the central leaders of this sect.

I do not want to get too distracted by these shoals of red herrings. However, it is worthwhile very briefly dealing with comrade Matgamna's suggestion that the leading comrades of today's CPGB were "unashamed ultra-Stalinists ... until well after the collapse of the USSR" (meaning we were turbo-charged, no-nonsense fans of Uncle Joe and all his works, any sane reader can only assume).

Comrades, however, should bear in mind that these particular "ultra-Stalinists" from the beginning of our factional CPGB publication in the early 1980s, The Leninist, explicitly rejected socialism in one country, popular fronts, the Stalin-approved reformist programme, the British road to socialism, moved to the call for political revolution in the USSR and - in a 1983 speech reproduced in the 'warts 'n' all' collection From October to August (a work comrade Matgamna is not generally fond of citing as a reference book on our 'ultra-Stalinist' nature) - identified our own political trend with that of "the left oppositions of the 1920s", which we said corresponded "broadly to the long-term interests of the proletariat" (From October to August, p35).

Now, the original nucleus of our group did indeed evolve from backgrounds in the left Stalinist opposition in the Communist Party. So, like every other manifestation of matter - including its conscious element - we bore/bear trances of where we came from. (If we were being uncharitable, we might recommend comrade Matgamna's own origins in Stalinism and Healyism as being worth a quick ponder). For a comprehensive response to all this, comrades should visit the seven-part Jack Conrad Weekly Worker series (beginning November 28 2002) that answers a previous more or less carbon-copy Matgamna bilge polemic (www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/458/index.html).

Matgamna must be thought of as an extremely loose cannon in the AWL itself, I would guess. Does he just jot odd thoughts on bits of paper as they occur to him and attempt to lend them some credence by his seemingly random insertion of quotation marks? I can guarantee that an article of this quality simply would not make it past the Weekly Worker editors. (Decent, orderly polemic between groups should quote properly, should reference sources. Where on earth, for instance, am I supposed to have said Jack Conrad has "a beautiful mind"? In a frivolous private email? In an article? In a public meeting? On a T-shirt? This is not serious politics; and this from the group that tells us that our paper is a gossip-mongering rag).

The personal idiosyncrasies of comrade Matgamna aside, his all-too-brief comments on Iraq underline the total political disorientation not simply of himself, but of the AWL pro-occupation majority.

Troops in

At one point in his ramblings, he states: "... I do not, in fact, support the occupation of Iraq." Later, he chides us that "Having opposed the invasion, we [are being asked to] now concentrate all our efforts on demanding those who control the occupying forces act in such a way as to maximise the chaos and bloodshed and increase the likelihood of new - Iranian, Syrian - foreign intervention, by scuttling immediately and letting Iraq dissolve, most likely, in far worse chaos and carnage than anything known now."

Let's get this straight, comrade. The AWL majority believe that the demand for the immediate withdrawal of troops would make matters "far worse" for the working class and progressive movements. Yet your official position is that the issue of withdrawal of troops "is in reality a question between the ruling class and reactionary factions" (Iraq position paper passed at the organisation's May conference). That is, the working class - in Iraq and globally - should abstain from even commenting on it.

How can this be a principled stance? If you believe an imperialist withdrawal would make matters "far worse", you should throw what weight you have in this country into a campaign to oppose troops out. Surely, if their presence is a necessary evil, it would be criminal negligence on your part to remain silent?

We have previously characterised this pathetic disarray as the bitter fruits of the AWL's economism. In an effort to cohere its ranks, it has moved not simply to limit the debating rights of its minority, but those of users of the comments section on its chaotic website too. On August 20, Arthur Bough - an ex-member and (mild-mannered) critic of majority's line - reported that "my user account "¦ was deleted, and all my posts going back more than two years were deleted. Even if one were to accept the argument raised that my posts were too numerous and too long ... and that this discourages others from contributing (which I don't) - this wouldn't explain all of those old posts being deleted, which to my mind is something equivalent to electronic book burning."

Paul M - another ex-member, but decidedly more loyal than comrade Bough - suggests that "the AWL website is the place people interested in the AWL's politics will seek out for information about current campaigns, historical pieces and the chance to leave reasonable comments, etc" (www.workersliberty.org/node/8970#comment). A dumbed down space, in other words, where really tricky issues like controversy over the occupation of Iraq should be avoided (a similar ethos seems to rule the editorial approach to the group's paper).

True, comrade Bough did at times post quite lengthy contributions. Call me cynical, but it seems obvious that the fact that the bulk of them were critical ones on Iraq is more pertinent than their length.

Can readers see a worrying pattern emerging here? More to the point, can AWLers?