03.09.2008

AWL cadre must rebel

Sean Matgamna's social-imperialism is not being challenged within his organisation, writes Peter Manson

When Mark Osborn of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty turned up outside the venue of the CPGB’s Communist University on August 9, the leaflet he was wielding was entitled ‘No to the mullahs’ bomb’. As I began to engage in discussion with him, I remember vaguely wondering why he should come along to a CPGB event with such a leaflet.

After all, everyone knows that the CPGB is resolutely opposed to the theocratic regime in Iran, supports the efforts of the workers’ and democratic movement in that country to overthrow it, and has fought within the Hands Off the People of Iran campaign against any notion that Hopi should not reject the Iran regime’s ‘right’ to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

It was only during our discussion that it dawned upon me that the leaflet and its arguments were indeed directed against the CPGB. However, it was useless simply to protest that we are against a “mullahs’ bomb”. Just as in Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at noon the unassailable ‘logic’ of the Stalinist interrogator, Gletkin, persuades old Bolshevik Rubashov that the non-existent crimes he is accused of are ‘proved’, I too was supposed to ‘confess’ to my (presumably subconscious) capitulation to Tehran.

Here is the AWL’s Gletkin-style ‘logic’, as revealed by the ‘No to the mullahs’ bomb’ leaflet, when it was finally transformed into a Solidarity editorial of the same title (August 21):

“An Iranian nuclear bomb should be opposed by all socialists - if they are socialists, and not vicarious Iranian or islamic chauvinists,” the editorial declares. “Yet it isn’t opposed … The Weekly Worker group (CPGB) and its front organisation, Hands Off the People of Iran, claim to be more critical [than the Socialist Workers Party]. But Hopi has a statement of purpose that includes: ‘The tasks of the anti-war movement in Britain and Hopi is threefold. One, to fight against any imperialist attack on Iran and support the Iranian people’s right to defend themselves by any means necessary.’

“‘By any means necessary’ in the current political context plainly means by nuclear weapons if that is their choice.

“By talking about the ‘Iranian people’ choosing the ‘necessary’ means to defend themselves, Hopi and the WW group disguise their political capitulation to the clerical fascist regime. The peoples of Iran do not have power. The clerical fascist regime does.”

Did you follow that? Despite the fact that the Hopi statement is headed, “No to imperialist war! No to the theocratic regime!”, Solidarity would have us believe that the campaign is really only serious about the first slogan and is secretly soft on what the AWL likes to label the “clerical fascist” rulers of Iran. Let us leave aside the nonsense about Hopi being a CPGB “front organisation” (I am sure supporting organisations ranging from the Green Party to Permanent Revolution would have something to say about that). Hopi’s founders - including, of course, the CPGB - chose its name with care.

They, and we, insisted on the need for an anti-war campaign which would specifically reject the idea that mobilising against an imperialist attack meant at best suspending opposition to Iran’s brutal anti-working class regime, at worse apologising for it. That is why the ambiguous ‘Hands Off Iran’ was ruled out as a name. Hopi’s solidarity is with the “people” of Iran: those who - yes - “do not have power”.

Perhaps it would be helpful to complete the quotation from Hopi’s core statement that the Solidarity editorial cut off so abruptly (I wonder why?). The paragraph reads: “The task of the anti-war movement in Britain and Hopi is threefold. One, to fight against any imperialist attack on Iran and support the Iranian people’s right to defend themselves by any means necessary. Secondly, not to flinch from publicising the reactionary nature of the Tehran regime and its attacks on the workers’ and democratic movement. Thirdly, to build links with all progressive forces fighting the regime - workers, women, trade unionists, socialists” (www.hopoi.org).

An obvious example of “political capitulation to the clerical fascist regime”, don’t you think?

‘Mullahs’ bomb’

At least Solidarity does quote Hopi’s actual position on nuclear weaponry: “Opposition to Israeli, British and American nuclear weapons. For a Middle East free of nuclear weapons as a step towards worldwide nuclear disarmament.” You might have thought that the call for “a Middle East free of nuclear weapons” is pretty clear. But not for the AWL core leadership around Sean Matgamna:

“That’s a statement about Israel’s bomb,” reads the Solidarity editorial. “It’s also a smart-ass way of deflecting the burning question of whether the Iranian regime develops nuclear weapons onto a general project for a nuclear-free Middle East. The implication is that, meanwhile, until there is a nuclear-free zone, it is not at all unreasonable for Iran, which they say should defend itself ‘by any means necessary’, to have nuclear weapons.”

In passing, it is interesting to note that this section, in its previous incarnation as a leaflet, originally read: “… it is a smart-ass way of deflecting the burning, immediate question of the acquirement of nuclear weapons by the Iranian regime …” (my emphasis). As we have already noted, describing the potential acquisition by Iran of nuclear arms, perhaps within the next decade or so, as “the burning, immediate question” - at a time when an Israeli/US, possibly nuclear, attack on that country is being openly discussed in the here and now - is quite simply insane. No wonder the Solidarity editors decided to rephrase this - the AWL’s upside-down notion of priorities is thus rendered marginally less eccentric.

However, returning to the argument, where is the “implication” in Hopi’s call that “it is not unreasonable for Iran … to have nuclear weapons”? We say it is unreasonable. A “Middle East free of nuclear weapons” means what it says. “Opposition to Israeli, British and American nuclear weapons” is specified because - in case the AWL leadership has forgotten - these are the only powers with a presence in the region that currently have such weapons. The CPGB and Hopi demand that they disarm and that no other Middle East power develop nuclear weapons.

As a matter of fact, at Hopi’s launch conference in December 2007, there was a move by Permanent Revolution to delete from the launch statement the demand for “a Middle East free of nuclear weapons as a step towards worldwide nuclear disarmament”. PR’s Stuart King argued that the campaign “does not really need to take a position on the issue”. According to the Weekly Worker report of the conference, PR, said comrade King, “defends the right of what he called semi-colonies, like Iran, to develop nuclear weapons. This is a matter debated among socialists, not something on which a campaign should take a position” (December 13 2007).

The report went on: “In the general discussion, Gerry Downing from the Campaign for a Marxist Party said that the demand for a nuclear-free Middle East was unworkable, as Israel already has nuclear technology and that any demand against nuclear weapons should be aimed at Israel’s nuclear weapons programme. Comrade Downing argued that the reason why Iraq was attacked was because it has no weapons of mass destruction and presented an easy target.”

But these speakers were very much in a minority. Charlie Pottins of the Jewish Socialists Group was typical: “He reminded conference of the ‘workers’ bomb’ idea held by orthodox Trotskyists in the 1960s about Soviet nuclear weapons. He said that with hindsight the cost of the nuclear arms race helped in the collapse of the Soviet Union, so the bomb should not be seen as an effective defence against imperialism. It would be wrong to support the Iranian regime getting its hands on nuclear weapons and as socialists we must be against the proliferation and maintenance of nuclear weapons.”

What about the CPGB? “Mike Macnair agreed with comrade Pottins, but argued that the nuclear-free demand should refer explicitly to Israel, and US and UK nuclear-armed forces in the region. Steve Freeman from the Revolutionary Democratic Group said that we should concentrate on being against nuclear weapons in Israel. But comrade [John] Bridge asked whether socialists should be advising the Iranian regime to nuke Israel if they entered into a conflict, while comrade [Anne] Mc Shane argued that the workers’ movement should not support arming our class enemies.”

The PR amendment was overwhelmingly defeated and Hopi in this way comprehensively rejected the notion of a “mullahs’ bomb”. Transcripts and videos of all this can be found on the Hopi website, so there really is no excuse for the AWL leadership’s utter dishonesty on this question.

By any means necessary

That is all very well, I can hear Mark Osborn responding, but Hopi’s commitment to “support the Iranian people’s right to defend themselves by any means necessary” must surely allow for the possibility of their using nuclear weaponry.

Er, no. Firstly, the question does not arise, since the Iranian people “do not have power”. (In fact, the evidence also shows that the theocratic regime in a long way off having that capacity and may even have abandoned such an attempt.) Ironically, as CPGB comrades have pointed out, the most effective thing the Iranian left, workers’ and democratic movement could do to defend Iran is to mobilise simultaneously against both their clerical oppressors and the imperialist-Zionist threat. The working class, unlike political islam, is the only consistently anti-imperialist force.

In any case, what progressive forces consider “necessary” to achieve their goals is by definition totally different from what reactionary forces might be prepared to do. This is because of the dialectical relationship between means and ends. For example, our aim of universal human emancipation cannot be achieved by generalised oppression! Similarly our aim of a socialist peace cannot be achieved through nuclear slaughter. Which is why communists oppose all nuclear weaponry, irrespective of who controls them.

For the purposes of AWL polemics, however, the phrase “by any means necessary” is so twisted, distorted and turned into its opposite that our overriding aim is negated. After all, provoking ‘mutually assured destruction’ is actually not an effective form of ‘defence’!

To say we will pursue our aims “by any means necessary” is to militantly proclaim that we will fight for them using the means that are compatible with the ends we envisage. The most famous use of the phrase is surely that of Malcolm X, the fighter for US black liberation. He said this, in a celebrated 1965 speech: “We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”

AWL-style twisted logic would perhaps interpret this as giving the green light to the Pentagon to launch a nuclear war in the name of ‘human rights’.

Workers’ movement

At the August 30 meeting of the AWL’s national committee, the following motion, moved by the executive, was carried:

“In face of the political hysteria directed against the AWL in the last month or so, we declare that issues such as those raised in the ‘discussion piece’ in Solidarity 3/136 can, should and will be discussed openly and frankly on the left, without heresy-baiting and attempts to stifle rational discussion by uproar. We will continue to debate among ourselves. The NC initiates a discussion which will include educational schools, discussion bulletins, etc.

“Against the outcry from our enemies, we assert our right to discuss, and assert, in particular, the following points:

• We stand against Iran having nuclear weapons. We will oppose any response to an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations that implicitly defends the ‘right’ of Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
• Of course we do not advocate, nor will we endorse or take political responsibility for, an Israeli attack on Iran. We are against such an action.
• Israel has the right to exist and, therefore, the right to defend itself. This does not imply support before or after the event for any particular action by the Israeli state.”

Apparently the wording above contains an amendment from Bruce Robinson, one of those who came out most strongly against Sean Matgamna’s “discussion piece”, to which the motion refers. In his Solidarity article Matgamna excused and in effect justified in advance any Israeli ‘pre-emptive’ strike against Iranian nuclear facilities - a strike which would, as we show in this paper, almost certainly necessitate nuclear-armed bunker busters.

The August 30 motion carries a watered down version of the disgraceful politics contained in Matgamna’s piece. It does not list a whole number of reasons why an Israeli attack should not be condemned, as his article did. But its pro-Zionist social-imperialism is just as evident.

Note that the motion does not “stand against” Israel’s actual nuclear weapons (it has around 140 warheads) - only against the possibility of Iran obtaining them some time in the future. It comes out for Israel’s “right to defend itself”, but not Iran’s. It does not begin with the very real threat of an Israeli (possibly nuclear) attack on Iran, but with Iran (which is nowhere near having any such capacity to mount an attack against Israel).

The motion uses Matgamna’s original weasel words to the effect that the AWL “do not advocate, nor will we endorse or take political responsibility for, an Israeli attack on Iran”. Sitting uncomfortably at the end of this bullet point is the phrase (presumably comrade Robinson’s amendment), “We are against such an action.” Big deal.

Matgamna’s article represents a working out of the logic of his first camp politics. Those like Bruce Robinson have so far done little more than object to the symptoms of crossing class lines. Unless there is a successful rebellion against the location of the AWL in the first camp then not only Matgamna but the organisation as a whole can no longer be considered part of the left.

Weekly Worker writers have stated that such politics “should have no place in the workers’ movement” (Ben Lewis) or “have political implications for the AWL’s position as part of the workers’ movement” (James Turley and Mark Fischer). In my view these correct statements (carried in Weekly Worker July 31) need elaborating.

We shall strive to defeat the ideas of first campism and seek to drive them out of the workers’ movement. Hence we not only fight the AWL minnows, but the rightwing and Blairite parasites who dominate the Labour Party, the TUC and many trade unions. Of course, that does not mean witch-hunting the AWL (as they accuse us of wanting to do). We are against proscribed lists, bureaucratic bans, etc. But, yes, because we recognise that the AWL’s politics represent alien, reactionary, anti-working class ideas in our movement and have a terrible and treacherous logic, it is quite right to clear out those leaders who insist on upholding them.

Alexander Millerand was expelled from the Second International after he joined a bourgeois republican government in 1899. Henry Hyndman was driven out of the British Socialist Party in 1916 for supporting British imperialism in World War I. When it was founded in 1919 the Communist International set terms and conditions for entry which were specifically designed to keep out not only the social-imperialist right, but the social-pacifist centrists.

Sean Matgamna should be treated no differently.