Letters

Splitting the vote?

I enjoy reading the Weekly Worker and have been following the debates, particularly in the letters column. But I think we spend far too much time slagging off other comrades on the left instead of concentrating our fire on the real enemy - the Tories.

For example, there has been a lot of talk about lack of democracy in the SWP. I am a member and have not attended branch meetings for some time now, but I have never been stopped from putting forward my point of view. I strongly disagree with SWP policy on Israel and have said so, but no one has tried to shut me up.

When it comes to supporting Labour in elections, there is a real danger of splitting the anti-Tory vote by standing yourself. I know that Labour won’t do a single thing for ordinary workers. The only time these bastards give you something is if you kick them in the teeth and then stand on their neck, but at least a Labour victory would give workers a boost in confidence - the belief that they can fight back.

Having said that, if I had the opportunity to vote for a communist candidate, I would do so.

Geoff Southern
Stockport

Narrow greed

Frank Lore (Letters, December 8) is too narrow in his approach to the struggle for democracy within the Socialist Workers Party. When I make the point that communists should “add their weight” to a fight for genuine democratic centralism in that organisation, I am not attempting to sow illusions in the leadership, antecedents or current nature of this sect.

Hardly. The fight for genuine democratic centralism within the SWP would inexorably pose the question of reforging the Communist Party, I believe. SWPers won to this perspective should fight in an honest and principled way to lead their comrades to this conclusion. The autocratic nature of the leadership is certainly something to be taken into account, but it should be a factor that determines particular organisational tactics, not the principle.

If we agree that a sizeable section of the reforged Communist Party of the future is contained within the ranks of an organisation such as the SWP (an idea I put forward in my original article of November 17), our approach as the nucleus of that reforged party should not be characterised by some narrow organisational greed for members. This is nothing to do with advocating that SWPers “waste their energies”, as Frank suggests. It simply recognises that they - like our own organisation - must learn through struggle.

Ian Mahoney
London

Majority decisions

On the question of factions I share Julie Hart’s concern in posing the questionof where we draw the line in the freedom to organise and express views publicly (Letters December 8).

If we mean by factions groups of members antagonistic to and free to struggle against both the leadership and majority decisions, then the organisation would wind up being worse than the Labour Party with members doing their own thing.

There would surely have to be acknowledged parameters within which they could operate. If not they could become a party within a party, particularly if they were allowed their own press.

There should be no restrictions on what can and cannot be debated within the party, but surely it must be incumbent upon the whole membership to fight publicly for majority decisions at all times.

As for members of the SWP or any other party, as long as they continue to support the Labour Party as it exists at present, they becoming members of a reforged Communist Party would be a negation of What we fight for as published each week in the paper.

I definitely support factions being allowed to express themselves and having the right to become the majority, provided they accept and fight for majority decisions as above.

Democratic centralism in itself does not make a communist party. It must be linked to our ultimate aim: communism, whose first stage is proletarian - or, as some prefer to say, working class - dictatorship. In fact I suppose that even the Tories could operate under such organisational forms.

So if the SWP wish to fight for more democracy in their party - good luck to them. But in the meantime we must seek the best recruits we can find, if necessary from the SWP and elsewhere, for the reforging of the CPGB.

On the question of the resignation of the comrades in 1993, I would suggest Julie reads Problems of communist organisation.

Ted Rowlands
Bishop Aukland

Final nail

The one thing you can say about the Labour Party’s clause four is that it is surprising it has lasted so long. It never expressed a genuine desire for socialism, but was taken up as a reaction to working class pressure after the Russian Revolution. “Securing for the workers ...” is of course very much a Labour position. It would never enter their heads that the workers must fight themselves for socialism.

The one thing that could be said in favour of a campaign to keep clause four is that it has the possibility of identifying the best people still in the Labour Party. But such a campaign today has no chance of success - not like in Gaitskill’s day, when the left could mobilise substantial forces.

In any case the real campaign should be built around the need to produce a party genuinely capable of leading the working class. Unfortunately, there is no sign of even the beginnings of that at the moment. Groups like the CPGB are so small as to be insignificant.

The rewriting of clause four should be seen by the left as the final nail in the coffin of the Labour Party as a vehicle for any sort of workers’ advance: they are even dropping the pretence of fighting for the interests of the working class. Comrades who previously saw it as such a vehicle should now rethink their position.

Richard Tisdell
South East London

Clause four sop

So much has been said in the past few months about the battle inside the Labour Party over clause four.

Blair and his cronies call it outdated, and say that it needs modernising. The Labour left claims its roots are deep in the history of the Labour Party and its ‘socialist’ traditions. This just goes to illustrate that it is Blair and his ‘modernisers’ within the Labour Party who understand its background and traditions far more than the ‘traditionalists’.

The plain fact is that, since the inception of the Labour Party from 1906, the leaders have always shown themselves time after time to be deeply committed to capitalism. Clause four itself was adopted in 1918 as a sop to the militants in Britain, who saw in the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 the way forward for workers and were seeking a revolutionary change in society. It was precisely because of the threat this represented to the new cosy lifestyle of the Labour Party leaders that they sought a ‘safety valve’ for the new revolutionary aspirations of working class militants.

The working class in Britain needs a real political voice in their struggle for emancipation - a party that won’t simply pay lip service to the need for public ownership and production for need, but will fight for it.

All militants need to break from a party that is showing itself in its true colours more brazenly than ever before, and join in the struggle to reforge the only true working class party - the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Cliff Owen
South Wales

Thin Weekly Worker

Congratulations to the new supporter mentioned in Lee-Anne’s interesting article in the Weekly Worker (December 1). She had the advantage of joining in with discussion at the Party school.

Some time ago a student read copies of The Leninist I lent him, and now receives the Weekly Worker from you. Like many others today he is looking for a way forward and for access to analysises and discussions which are intellectually satisfying and a rallying cause for action. He feels that the form of the paper is rather ‘thin’ and would prefer a theoretical journal or pamphlet even. There is much that he wants to learn.

One has to support the absolute need for a paper to represent the working class, and the costs and difficulties to be overcome are appreciated, but I think he has a point.

Mary Carter
Devon

Young pioneers

Young comrades who were at the CPGB summer school in Catalonia decided that they would like to reforge the Young Communist League.

We would like to hear from any young communist anywhere who would like to join with us in the task of creating the YCL. We have already started work and have produced stickers and badges.

All those interested should contact Nicholas Ward or Dave Taylor at the CPGB box number. It is important that young people join the fight for the Party because we are the future.

Nicholas Ward (age 8)
Dundee