Letters

Badge of honour

Obviously the choice of article title and the points you put on your front page reflect the main issues you wish to emphasise. In your political competition with the Socialist Workers Party, last week’s front page can only help them suggest your main enemy is not at home.

Your front page asserts that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. I’m reminded of the Spitting image puppet of Saddam Hussein who kept insisting how he hadn’t got weapons of mass destruction when our liberal intelligentsia knew he did. .

Yassamine Mather claims that many Iranians blame the regime as much as the United States for resulting hardships and that the US is only imposing sanctions and threatening war because it was provoked by a regime that actively encourages conflict (‘Bellicose diversions’, September 20). She writes of workers in the oil industry being worse off than they would be under American occupation (‘For principled solidarity’, October 25). Anne Mc Shane (‘Smearing solidarity, September 13) bemoans the fact the “real” anti-imperialists don’t actually raise anti-imperialism slogans.

The problem here is having illusions in the inherently anti-imperialist nature of opposition movements in Iran. Anyone remember how Solidarity and the people in the eastern bloc were the real anti-imperialists? Remember how the CPGB had allies in the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe? It can be useful for leftists in a patriotic Britain to use a Marxist understanding of ‘imperialism’. This can allow them to dismiss anyone fighting against national inequality and oppression if they don’t also support an anti-capitalist maximum programme.

In contrast to the Hands Off the People of Iran motion, it seems the resistance to occupation in Iraq would make British involvement in a similar invasion of Iran less likely rather than more. Mather is wrong to assert it is “obvious” that the lack of mobilisation in the anti-war movement is because of the apologists disorientating the movement. It’s all to do with what working people really think, see on TV, are interested in, and what dramatic political and military changes they expect in the near future. Far from diverting attention from the disaster in Iraq, threats to attack Iran may annoy and remind people of how terrible they thought the war on Iraq was.

Badge of honour
Badge of honour

Hopi hatchet

Interesting that Gerry Healey’s hatchet man, Cliff Slaughter, is now one of Hopi’s illustrious signatories.

Hopi hatchet

Only fair

It’s a pity that your correspondent on the history of the Socialist Labour League/Workers Revolutionary Party didn’t mention that the only left organisation to stand up to them, and defy their wealth and legal might, was the International Communist League, forerunner of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.

As the article in question was attempting to draw a parallel between the WRP of the 1980s and the present day Socialist Workers Party, it seems only fair that it should be recorded that the AWL (and its forerunner, the ICL) have been at the forefront of fighting and bringing down both of these obstacles to a serious revolutionary organisation in Britain.

Only fair

Manners

Edward Eisenstein describes his impressions of the anarchist book fair, which I also attended. Yes, memories do “run deep” with anarchists. Why should they not, considering the brutal mistreatment of anarchists and other dissidents after the 1917 revolution - being variously jailed, executed and exiled as their reward for their support prior to and during the revolution?

The “remember Kronstadt types” would not have felt the slightest need to hide themselves in the “woodwork” in the first place nor bow to the superior wisdom of a visiting communist. And I’m sure you weren’t blamed personally for all those unfortunate events, Edward! It’s just unlikely that such feelings would have been kept under wraps now, is it? Perhaps we should some learn manners.

Platformism is popular with and practised by the Irish World Solidarity Movement, the Anarchist Federation to a degree and a few other groups. It is not ‘Leninist’, although it is often criticised as such by other anarchists less enamoured of the idea of the necessity of organisation. Anarchists come in all shapes and colours: some dubious like the primitivists and deep ecologists; others, mostly the very young, naive and over-idealistic. That includes anarcho-communists, by the way, along with the tendencies you describe. So there is certainly a healthy degree of disagreement and difference of opinion within the milieu, sometimes robustly expressed.

Thank goodness then that there is a lack of the kind of discipline you describe. Mind you, it’s unclear what particular organisation you had in mind, since it was a book fair you were attending, along with its accompanying meetings, workshops, general socialising and so on.

Going back to the theme of the Platform for a moment, Leninists and Trotskyists are prone to cite Victor Serge, dubbed “the Bolsheviks’ pet anarchist”, though a look at his memoirs would illustrate how disillusioned and disappointed he later became with Leninism and the whole Bolshevik project. One can only say he had mislaid his libertarian impulses in the epoch immediately following the revolution.

Finally, I hope you are not suggesting censorship of the internet, and the bewildering amount of forums and discussion groups to be found there, in the name of democracy or anything else. It is an anarchic environment in itself, with the areas favoured by anarchists, aptly enough, being especially anarchic. Though having described them as such, you will find many of those kinds of forums are quite effectively self-policed. No need then for the ‘left’ to offer assistance at all, thanks.

Manners

Irrelevant

I notice in the Weekly Worker that the CPGB is discussing programme. I was just in Chile where the comrades asked me to write a programme for them (I had accused them of being flippant about the question). I’m writing something but not specifically for Chile. They are working mainly with unemployed women and youth. They fell into mass work rather than have a perspective.

I got the impression that the discussion in the CPGB is about slogans and organisations on the eve of taking power. Okay. However, I think the primary task of a programme is to outline what to do now. This is particularly important because, while capitalism is entering a period of crisis, the left is irrelevant to most of the exploited. (I sometimes think our newspapers on the left are written half in Russian - ie, Bolshevik, Menshevik, etc - and about dead Russians such as Lenin and Trotsky.)

I believe that Lenin was wrong (though he was quoting Plekhanov) when he separated propaganda and agitation into separate compartments. In practice, they become stages that are alien to one another. I think the task is to combine them, particularly in this period.

In Argentina I work with the Liga Socialista Revolucionaria, which has a Morenite-Trotskyist past but at least is not as sectarian as most groups and genuinely tries for unity. But in the elections on Sunday, there were three Trotskyist candidates for president, plus another radical nationalist. The three Trotskyist groups received a miserable 2.5% of the vote and together with the nationalist a total of 4%. The LSR ran local candidates only and got 4,000 votes.

Comrades here are trying to understand this defeat. Certainly, the stupid division between Trotskyists played a role but another factor is the support that Chávez has given to the Kirchner government, indirectly implying that Castro also supports Kirchner. So a good part of the former left vote went to a government that is not even radical.

Irrelevant
Irrelevant

Clarification

In the report on the CPGB’s October 28 aggregate I am listed with those calling for the CPGB to pull out of the Campaign for a Marxist Party (‘Debating perspectives’, November 1). In fact, I argued that the CPGB should remain in the CMP if the national conference on November 24 produces a national committee that is more focused on facilitating discussion on the theoretical and strategic differences among its key strands than on constructing bureaucratic castles on the sand.

I certainly share the frustration of many in the CPGB and CMP with the course of action the campaign has taken over the last year and its general lack of purpose. I reported to the aggregate on the meeting of the CMP committee the previous day at which Hillel Ticktin explained that Critique would walk away from the CMP unless it put its house in order.

I endorse Hillel’s sentiments and do not believe that the CMP can continue in the absence of Critique. However, November 24 presents the CMP with one last chance to reorientate. I believe that the CPGB should seize that opportunity.

Clarification
Clarification

Anti-semitism

I don’t know whether Paul Smith was feigning stupidity or merely acting according to character in response to my article of October 18.

What I thought I’d made clear is that today in the west anti-semitism is a marginal form of prejudice. It is not a state form of racism - Jews are not subject to organised attacks by fascists or the mass media. That is why the term ‘anti-semitism’ is used as a form of abuse and defamation against anti-Zionists, including Jewish anti-Zionists, by those whose only purpose is to defend the racist and apartheid practices of Israel and Zionism. Clearly in the west anti-semitism does not take the form of a belief in international Jewish conspiracies. That is self-evident. Even the BNP has disowned such nonsense.

Nor did Paul Smith understand what I said about Hamas and Hezbollah. I do not accept that Hamas is an anti-semitic organisation. What is clear is that in response to the horrific atrocities, including a starvation siege, against the Palestinians, they have taken on board the claims of the Israeli military that what they do is in the name of ‘the Jews’ and responded accordingly. Clearly this is a concept that Smith finds difficult to understand. If someone were to shoot his children/parents, etc in front of his eyes in the name of ‘the Jews’, chances are that he might become equally ‘anti-semitic’.

More interesting than Smith’s tortured logic was the article ‘Inside Hamas’ by Chancy Chassay in The Guardian describing the view of a Hamas ‘pragmatist’: “‘Switzerland is the model,’ the pragmatist said with certainty … he insisted that binationalism in the entire area of Israel and Palestine was the only solution - ‘One state for two peoples’. He outlined the Swiss experience, enthusing over the potential for a state made up of localised cantons of control where all citizens would hold a common passport but would have to respect the individual laws and governance of each canton. ‘We believe there is a historical precedent for friendship between Jews and muslims. We can live together again.’” (October 27).

Would that Smith’s Zionist friends agree to such a state!

I have no problem with condemning the recitation, without any understanding, by Hamas and Hezbollah of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. However, these are meaningless in practice and are simply borrowed without understanding. I prefer to condemn actual racism and actual genocide rather than tilting at windmills.

Nor do I suggest that “Jewish self-hatred” is the dominant form of anti-semitism. I merely stated, from my own experience, that the most virulent expression of anti-semitism I have encountered has been from Zionists. However, these same Zionists don’t as a rule deface cemeteries with swastikas (though there have been occasions when they did this to blame muslims) and therefore their internalised acceptance of anti-semitic stereotypes is not an example the predominant form of anti-semitism.

Yes, Trotsky was right in his time to identify anti-semitism as something that grows in economic crises. He was speaking about Europe in the 1930s, where many states were still partly feudal and where there was - for example in Germany - a mass peasantry. That situation does not pertain today, but I do understand that some people are convinced that nothing changes except their own desires.

Smith describes anti-semitism as an objective phenomenon caused by a “relationship to money”. This is on a par with the rest of his absurd letter. Jews today have no different a relationship to money than non-Jews, unless there is something that he hasn’t revealed. Historically, Jews were a trading people, a caste, but we are not living in a feudal era where production is primarily for use, so Smith’s ramblings are irrelevant.

The idea that anti-semitism unites Hezbollah and Hamas is merely Smith’s flight of fancy. What unites them is a common imperialist enemy, the Israeli state. There is no need to reach for murky conspiracy theories, beloved of the very anti-semites Smith purports to condemn, when there is an obvious explanation.

Anti-semitism
Anti-semitism

Kiwi repression

On October 15, 300 police stormed homes in several cities and towns in New Zealand, acting as if conducting a siege against aggressive enemy snipers. Having tipped off television stations, the cops smashed their way into houses, while cameras were rolling. This was a conscious, deliberate act of intimidation by the capitalist state. Political activists were dragged out of their beds and by the end of the day 17 people had been arrested and were facing firearm charges. Police report they had been carrying out surveillance operations on a range of activists for many months.

The arrestees are accused of taking part in military-style training in the Bay of Plenty forests. Police claim to have photographs of training camps and seized as “evidence” sleeping bags, camouflage clothing and woollen hats. A week later Labour prime minister Helen Clark chipped in to claim some of those arrested were training with napalm.

Despite police shouting “terrorists”, no-one so far has been charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act. Nor does it seem big caches of arms have been found. However, on November 2, the cops announced they wanted to lay terrorist charges against long-time Maori activist Tame Iti. They are alleging he planned to start an “IRA-style” campaign for independence for Tuhoe territory in the North Island.

Many of the arrestees are linked to anarchist, anti-war, environmental and Maori sovereignty groups. If they are denied bail, as appears to be happening at present, they could face many months in jail awaiting trial. Indeed, trials may be a year away, meaning that the holding of these activists is essentially a form of internment. Several of those arrested have already been assaulted while being held in prison.

The spectre of “terrorism” is being used consciously by the police to cast political activists in a particular light. The last time there was armed struggle in New Zealand was in the 1860s, and the state is facing no imminent threat today. One group that is armed and shooting members of the public, however, is the police. On September 26, for instance, a man having a psychotic episode in a Christchurch street was shot dead by police.

At the time of the raids, amendments to the ‘anti-terrorist’ laws were advancing to their second reading in parliament. The government here took advantage of 9/11 to adopt new repressive legislation. Its Terrorism Suppression Act was widely opposed before being introduced in 2002 and drew around 150 opposing submissions. The latest amendments give the prime minister the right to label people or groups as terrorists, uncritically accept the UN’s list of designated terrorist targets and enable the state to lock up people for considerable amounts of time without trial.

The raids point up the lack of protection of civil liberties in New Zealand. Beneath the veneer of being one of the most liberal democracies in the world, the fact is that we have relatively little in the way of constitutional protection of the right to dissent and to organise against the policies of the state and the ruling class, whose interests the state manages. Both major political parties - Labour and National - are responsible for this state of affairs and both are prepared to use the full coercive powers of the state against dissent.

Kiwi repression
Kiwi repression