Letters

Sharpe pupil

I will not argue the toss over what I and the Democratic Socialist Alliance perceive to be errors in your report of the closure of the Campaign for a Marxist Party, including mistakes over the attribution of who said what. Instead I would like to comment on what I think is the real tragedy of the CPGB’s and Hillel Ticktin’s relations, or rather non-relations, with the DSA.

As Phil Sharpe said at the meeting, it was regrettable that there was no discussion of the rival manifestos on offer for a Marxist Party - they being Phil Sharpe’s, Steve Freeman’s, Hillel Ticktin’s, and the CPGB’s. I understand that Nick Rogers in his capacity as CMP secretary distributed these manifestos electronically to those who were fully paid-up members of the CMP before the closure meeting, and that was a good thing. But what has been so unserious on the part of both Hillel Ticktin and the CPGB over the past two years in which the CMP existed is their failure to engage in any way with the variety of documents that Phil Sharpe has produced in that period. Why should Phil Sharpe be the only one who critically analyses the others’ positions?

The ‘think tank’ you propose to set up would appear to be stillborn because the forces involved are not prepared to engage seriously, including losing arguments. Phil Sharpe taught me that it is better to be serious in argument and lose than not to be serious and emerge ‘undefeated’.

If anyone who was not a fully paid-up member of the CMP would like a hard copy of Phil Sharpe’s manifesto document, they can contact me at phil@pwalden.fsnet.co.uk. Otherwise that document will soon be available electronically on the DSA website at www.sademocracy.org.uk.

Sharpe pupil
Sharpe pupil

Reconciliation

It is strange how just two words - namely, ‘two states’ - can have such different meanings for different people. For the Israelis it is an empty phrase to disguise the fact that they do not intend to allow the Palestinians genuine independence. For the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty the Palestinians were fools for rejecting the Oslo agreement, because humiliating servility to Israeli power is the most they can aspire to. And for Tony Greenstein it is a red flag to a bull. Zionists are colonial settler oppressors who have no rights. Palestinians and Israelis can live together but only in a single, democratic secular state. Unfortunately neither Palestinians nor Israelis want to live in the same state because they do not trust one another enough.

The CPGB approach is premised on the fact that where a solution based on class relationships is unworkable because of racial, chauvinist or religious differences the best way to tackle the problem is through the concept of the rights of peoples to self-determination. This makes it possible to start the process of reconciliation without demanding that either side give up anything they consider to be in their essential interests.

If it becomes politically possible to reach a situation where there is enough trust and respect for them to set up two secular, democratic states, where Israelis can live in Palestine and Palestinians can live in Israel without fear, then they may just decide to call it a day and set up a single state. However, that is up to them and must be a free choice for both sides, not a matter of coercion.

In practice I do not expect that there is much chance of a solution to this problem in present circumstances because of the vast difference in military power between the Israelis and Palestinians. Such a solution awaits the working class-led Arab revolution for a positive outcome. Which means the single state we want would stretch from Iraq to Morocco.

Reconciliation
Reconciliation

Greek power

For more than a week anarchists, communists and trade unionists have been protesting and in some cases rioting on the streets of Greek cities. The bourgeois media has labelled the murder of Alexandros Grigoropoulos at the hands of riot police as the sole cause of the demonstrations. But it is in fact anger at the government’s neoliberal economic policies, high unemployment and expected education reform that has caused the Greek working class to take action.

Trade unions have warned that 100,000 could lose their jobs over the Christmas period. This will inevitably create more unrest. The show of force on the part of the workers could have a positive or a negative effect on politics in Greece and Europe. On the one hand, the government could fall, ending the current wave of privatisation, and the workers could seize power themselves. This would give massive encouragement to workers’ organisations across Europe. Already, European youth have begun to realise they can challenge the social and economic status quo, which had led to small riots across mainland Europe.

However, the Greek bourgeoisie may now throw their support behind a rightwing, authoritarian party to protect their interests. If the Greek workers do not seize this opportunity to deal a decisive blow to their national bourgeoisie, they can expect to be themselves crushed.

Greek power
Greek power

Third period

I think Tony Clark (Letters, December 11) slightly misunderstood my recent article (‘“Third Period” pains’, December 4).

The article was not meant to be a detailed defence of the stance of The Leninist on this stage of ‘official communism’, rather it was meant to simply show that neither The Leninist faction nor today’s CPGB have ever evinced any particular attachment to ‘third period’ politics. Thus, it was disputing the opposite assertion made by the likes of Paul Hampton of the AWL and Kenny Coyle of the CPB.

However, I do note that Clark does at least have the residual good sense to spot an analysis influenced by Trotsky and that was pretty much what the interpretation of the ‘third period’ by The Leninist was, much to the spluttering indignation of Hampton and company.

Clark says: “Parker needs to explain to Weekly Worker readers how Stalin promoting world revolution through class against class was at the same time subordinating world revolution to socialism in one country.” Is this a joke? I ask because I am struggling to see how any intelligent person could describe the sectarian disaster zone that was ‘official communist’ politics in Germany in the early 1930s as “promoting revolution”.

In terms of developing a more sophisticated analysis of the ‘third period’, that, with the future indulgence of the Weekly Worker editor, needs a fuller exploration than can be offered in a short letter.

Third period
Third period

Their solution

Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report was astute politics from Labour, clearly positioning the party to the left of the Tories and Liberal Democrats. Without the fiscal stimulus package, there would be £97 billion of borrowing, so the Tory ‘do-nothing’ proposal is hardly a solution!

The dire state of the British economy is largely due to the Tories, with it now mainly dependent on financial services in the City of London (rather a problem with the weak pound and the City’s credibility undermined after the nationalisation of Northern Rock).

The Tories closed down virtually all the mines, leaving perfectly good coal in the ground, due to the militancy of the National Union of Mineworkers, which had brought down a previous Tory government. They decimated manufacturing industry, also motivated by their desire to smash the trade unions.

However, Darling’s claim that the books can be balanced by 2015 is laughable, without some sort of massive reorganisation of the world’s economy, on a capitalist if not socialist basis. If us socialists don’t get our act together, there may be a capitalist solution involving nationalisation of all the banks, closure of tax havens and an international agreement on harmonisation of tax rates (for the rich). I believe Hyman Minsky (who predicted the current economic crisis) proposed something on those lines.

A recent opinion poll has put Labour just 1% behind the Tories, which would give them a 20-seat overall majority in the House of Commons (rather undermining the argument that we are living in a democratic country methinks). I’d prefer a hung parliament, with the Liberal Democrats insisting on proportional representation (preferably by single transferable vote) to get their cooperation.

The New Labour agenda of enshrining capitalism forever by curtailing civil liberties has not ended, as can be seen by them going ahead with ID cards and by home secretary Jacqui Smith’s dismay at a European court ruling against keeping the DNA of people not convicted of a crime. There is still a battle to be won within the Labour Party, however, and its lurch to the left will give socialists inside the party renewed hope.

It would be naive to expect to transform Labour into a socialist party, but we should try our best in that regard, although a sizeable split-off party uniting with far left parties and non-aligned socialists is a more likely outcome.

Their solution
Their solution

Revolution, yes

Arthur Bough’s letter (December 11) commenting on my review of The devil’s whore raises a number of important questions, some of which I shall answer here.

He objects firstly to my describing the English civil war period as a time of social revolution. Although, as comrade Bough says, the “commercial bourgeoisie was still largely tied to sections of the old aristocracy”, I must agree with most Marxist writers on these times and reassert their revolutionary character.

In Eric Hobsbawm’s 1952 essay, ‘The machine breakers’ (published in his Labouring men in 1964), he says, “... the revolution of 1640-60 marks a turning point in the state’s attitude towards machinery. After 1660 the traditional hostility to devices which take the bread out of the mouths of honest men gave way to the encouragement of profit-making enterprise, at whatever cost. This is one of the facts which justifies us in regarding the 17th century revolution as the real political beginning of modern British capitalism.”

This was, of course, like all revolutions, a process over time. Just because capitalism became unequivocally supreme only much later does not disqualify 1640-60 as its revolutionary commencement. For if not then, when would the bourgeois revolution in England/Britain be dated?

Next, the idea that capitalism grew in Britain in total antagonism to the aristocracy and landlords is anyway wrong. Surely, Arthur is aware of the work done by Ellen Meiksins Wood in debunking this idea; see her The pristine culture of capitalism, for example. In this work, Wood asks, “What, then, is the dominant paradigm of progress and historical change? It can be expressed in a few simple oppositions: rural vs urban, agriculture vs commerce and industry ... and, above all, aristocracy vs bourgeoisie.” I share her scorn for such a curious paradigm, since, as she continues, “it does not correspond to any actually existing pattern of historical development. In England, there was capitalism, but it was not called into being by the bourgeoisie.”

As for comrade Bough’s suggestion of “premature” revolution leading to downfall, it sounds suspiciously like the Mensheviks before and during the Russian Revolution. Of course, there may be times for revolutionaries in our era to hold back for tactical reasons from attempting to seize power, but this and his argument that there are strong parallels between Cromwell and Bonaparte and the “degeneration into Bonapartism” of the Russian Revolution of 1917 is too facile. These oversimplifications do not help us understand any of these revolutions.

Finally, Arthur’s conclusion that we should start forming cooperatives is off the wall: Robert Owen tried that over 150 years ago and look where it got him (mired in the muck of a windswept Hampshire farm in one instance).

As such, cooperatives do not function as precursors for socialism or as preparations for revolution, but as idealist, dead-end failures. Even Ken Coates has abandoned the idea.

Revolution, yes
Revolution, yes

Poles

Tony Greenstein cannot and will not see any qualitative difference between the CPGB and the social-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (‘Beyond Zionism or continuing Zionism?’, December 11). And that seems to be the main motivation behind his article, in which he takes me to task for making all kinds of elementary mistakes and factual blunders.

I very much respect the fact that comrade Greenstein has been involved in the solidarity movement with Palestine over many years. He is also much more widely read on the subject of Israel and Palestine than I am. But having had the pleasure of reading his piece I cannot say I would alter anything in my two original articles. I get the feeling that if I said ‘black’, he would say ‘white’.

I certainly do not buy into his single state ‘solution’, which simply reverses the poles of oppression. A perspective which, given the balance of forces, the comrade clearly no longer believes is a realistic option.

So, whereas I call for a programme based on Arab unification led by the working class which reaches out to solve the Palestine question, he clutches at the dim and distant prospect of oil running out. When that finally happens, he hopes US imperialism will lose interest in the region and drop Israel. Only then will progress be possible.

To me this smacks of despair and surely amounts to political surrender in the here and now.

Poles
Poles

Futile

Tony Greenstein criticises Jack Conrad for proposing a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Conrad sketches what is at stake in terms of the geopolitical history of anti-semitism and the fate of the Jewish people.

The Jewish culture and society in Europe was almost destroyed by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. Before that, pogroms had made a mockery of the enlightenment and the emancipation of the Jews from the ghettoes.

Greenstein’s argument for a ‘one-state solution’ is simple schematics, typical of the mechanical Marxism of the ultra-left, misleading another generation into a coalition of ‘Marxist’, Arab nationalist and Islamist reaction against the state of Israel: the vilification of Israel and its delegitimation. “No-one I know calls for the ‘abolition of Israel’ ... No-one on the left calls for the destruction of Israel,” he writes. Moreover: “Where Conrad goes seriously astray is in his assertion that ‘At its most perverted, the call for the destruction of Israel by the left in Britain ... blurs over into the kind of anti-semitism preached in the 19th century by Mikhail Bakunin.’”

Yet Greenstein is once again caught as slippery as an eel and in bad faith to boot: is this not the same Tony Greenstein who wrote “Yes, I want the state of Israel to be destroyed” and called Zionists “Judaeo-Nazis” (Letters, July 20 2006)? Comrades may ponder the ‘any bent stick to beat a dog’ approach - devoid of consistency, but determined to pick up any rock, large or small, to throw at the Jewish state, and wonder what is going on here.

Is there a serious basis to Greenstein’s mistakes or just bad faith? One key, I would argue, is a schematic view of history and the reductionist approach of Abram Leon’s The Jewish question: a Marxist interpretation, which forms the basis of Mr Greenstein’s argument. Secondly, an undifferentiated analysis of the Zionist and anti-fascist movement in the 20th century, which led to the founding of the state of Israel. Greenstein writes in the same letter, for example, that “Zionism was a movement of the most reactionary section of the bourgeoisie.”

Yet a more accurate and complex picture can easily be found by reading Israel: a history by Martin Gilbert and The Marxists and the Jewish question by Enzo Traverso - useful correctives to the misleading arguments of Mr Greenstein, which lead not to a solution, but, sadly, confusion and further futile conflict when a solution is, in fact, in sight.

Futile
Futile