Letters
Stalinist response
Comrade Tony Clarke’s response to my letter (December 3) is a typical example of Stalinist amalgamation of historical half-truths, smokescreens and political fantasy.
Tony firstly states Trotsky was opposed to building socialism after the resurgence of the ruling classes in western Europe. He was, however, the first to propose a version of the New Economic Policy in 1919, he appealed for party unity at the 12th Party Congress in 1923, supported a policy of industrialisation and collectivisation and as late as 1928-29 gave Stalin critical support against Bukharin.
He differed from Stalin in his opposition to the creeping Russification of the Bolshevik Party and the rising tide of Great Russian chauvinism, which eventually engulfed the whole 1917 revolution and the strategy of international socialism.
With the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, Trotsky did indeed have reservations with regard to the tactic of consolidating socialism in one country, particularly in Russia, where ‘primitive cultural accumulation’ was as important as ‘primitive socialist accumulation’.
History has proved him correct. The prolonged tactic of ‘socialism in one country’ has its direct dialectical expression in the agrarian despotism of North Korea, which hangs like a millstone round the neck of the communist movement.
The second half of Tony’s letter is given over to criticism of the totalitarian nature of British Trotskyism, which may be a valid enough point. However, this evasion is preferred to any serious objective analysis regarding the nature origins and problems of Stalinism, which is of far greater fundamental importance to working class politics.
Such muddying of the waters is a classic Stalinist tactic to prevent clear and relevant debate within the communist movement.
Stalinist response
Stalinist response
Conference call
There has been a shift to the left in recent times, with hatred of bankers, the capitalist economic system generally, and politicians lining their own pockets. As well as helping Labour’s chances, this provides a big opportunity for the far left - and the left urgently needs to form an anti-capitalist party, preferably as a broad party of revolutionaries opposed to capitalism with a minimal programme.
I partly disagree with Peter Manson (‘Rival CNWP launched’, November 19) that Workers Power’s call for a new anti-capitalist party is aimed at forming “a halfway-house working class party”. If anything, the problem is the opposite: that they want to argue within the new party for it to adopt WP’s particular brand of Trotskyist politics, as can be seen by postings on the Facebook group, ‘Call for a New Anticapitalist Party in Britain’. Peter is correct in identifying the fact that Workers Power does not specifically argue for the new party to be revolutionary initially (a big problem in these times when capitalism is failing and the reformist idea of gradual changes to bring about socialism is clearly ridiculous).
I also disagree with Richard Brenner’s point at the rally during Workers Power’s weekend school that the new party should be specifically working class - what about middle class revolutionary anti-capitalists or those revolutionaries like myself who want a society controlled by everyone (with proportional representation) rather than just the working class in power? (This working class aspect is, I guess, inevitable coming from an organisation whose name specifies they want ‘workers’ power’.)
My main criticism of Workers Power’s approach is that they do not seem serious about launching such a party - indeed Richard Brenner at the rally ridiculously suggested collecting signatures (like the Socialist Party’s Campaign for a New Workers’ Party) rather than going ahead and organising a democratic conference at this vital time - with a possible general election in March. I suspect that they would prefer to be small fish in a big pond (and thereby want trade union support before launching a party) and build a faction around their political position, perhaps planning to split from reformists at a later date.
If Workers Power does not reverse this ridiculous position, then I will argue at the next Democratic Socialist Alliance meeting for us to call such a conference instead.
Conference call
Conference call
Rape reinvented
While I have no particular beef with Chris Strafford’s opposition to men’s societies at universities, his assertion that there is “a growing macho revanchism” and “the increasing trend to blame women for provoking sexual violence and rape, resulting in a low rate of convictions” surely needs some substantiation (‘Macho revanchism hides an ugly face’, December 10).
Last time I looked at the conviction rates, the majority of cases brought before the courts were found guilty - over 60%. The jury is, of course, drawn from a random cross-sample of men and women, so it’s hard to see how Chris’s assertion can be true. One wonders what sort of conviction rate above 60% Chris would consider fair or ‘just’, given that one is innocent until proven guilty, and not the other way round.
He also crucially fails to note that the Blair-Brown government brought in a whole flurry of new meanings for the word ‘rape’, which hitherto hadn’t applied. They in fact reinvented ‘rape’ and then imposed this in law and on the courts. This had two main impacts: firstly, a person having voluntary consensual sex with a person under the state’s legal age is now charged with a far more serious offence - previously a charge of ‘unlawful sexual intercourse’ might have been brought. This was widely accepted as a technicality (even in the US, where the law is lifted from, the offence is termed ‘statutory rape’ rather than rape proper) and, while not approved of in general society, was clearly distinguished from actual rape, being the forceful, violent and non-consensual imposition of sexual acts on an unwilling person. A person under-age, but willing and consensually engaged in an ongoing relationship with someone older, wasn’t by anyone’s definition ‘raped’. Not so now. The result is that, whereas the accused person would have owned up to the lesser charge and lesser stigma, no way on earth is anyone in a voluntary relationship going to admit to rape, simply because the government wanted to increase the severity of the offence.
The other ‘problem’ for the current rape figures is that the other person in a voluntary relationship will not come forward and testify, which means the case fails at first post, or later in court. Juries will not convict in cases of mutual voluntary relationships, which involve no threats, violence, bribery or force. This is even more so in cases concerning children - a nine-year-old and 10-year-old discovered engaging in the kind of childish sexual adventure which we have all engaged in over centuries of childhood will now see the older child charged with ‘rape’. Rape in the case of children doesn’t mean sexual intercourse: it means any sexual activity, no matter how minor and again consensual. Juries just will not see this as ‘rape’, no matter what the judge is forced to direct them as to what the law now is.
The biggest ‘failure’ in rape cases, however, is where there is no independent evidence - only two people in private: one accusing, one denying. This is made more difficult where there is a previous history of a consensual relationship with the same partner over a long period, with one accusation at the end or, worse, in the middle of the relationship. It is even harder to establish, the more distant the alleged incident occurred. Not being able to find the accused person guilty in these circumstances is nothing to do with “macho revanchism”, but simply that the balance of evidence has to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ and that duty falls on men and women jurors. One cannot simply give the balance of doubt to the women because it’s a woman. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen: simply that its incredibly hard to prove.
The number of allegations taken forward to court is small mainly for this reason, but it is not as small as the number of allegations against police officers and teachers brought to court. Is there any new big initiative to process more of these cases? Are there any new laws and procedures to ensure more of these allegations are proven? Not on your life.
Sadly, some women do make up allegations of rape, which are unfounded. Sometimes there are underlying mental health problems, sometimes financial inducement from criminal injuries compensation. Sometimes an easy and particularly nasty way of getting back at the man for something which has offended or annoyed. In these cases the man is innocent, but the woman is protected from publicity, even if this is a regular thing she does. The man is burned at the public stake. The press and sometimes the TV splatter his image across the country. His life is wrecked, his family abused, and he often loses his job and his family, but when he is found not guilty the press never ever say ‘sorry’ or give the same publicity to his innocence as his alleged guilt. Worse, he is still guilty of ‘something’. He will for the rest of his life be on the sexual offenders’ list. Yes, even when proved innocent - and this is true if the case doesn’t even proceed to court, or he isn’t even charged. He will always have to declare this when applying for jobs and will be de facto banned from any work with children or young people.
Sorry, Chris, none of this is justice. I do not agree with the feminists who believe all men accused of rape have done it, and all men found not guilty have ‘got away with it’. Rape is a serious charge - too serious for the way the current laws are drafted. Rape is being used as a punishment for sexual behaviour which the government doesn’t approve of. It is used to socially manipulate little kids away from normal human sexual discovery. It is also used to punish men who have done nothing whatever wrong but cross the path of the wrong women.
Rape (the original definition) against women is the worse offence which can be committed - for many it is worse than death. The seriousness of this offence should not be trivialised by having the word used for social control or moral enforcement. Those are the points Chris should have included in his piece. All a long, long way from silly men’s societies, I agree.
Rape reinvented
Rape reinvented
Misandrism
Chris Strafford’s article does make some useful points about the recrudescence of crude male chauvinism on college campuses and elsewhere in society.
Nevertheless, he makes a serious error when he writes: “These developments must be seen within the wider context of a growing macho revanchism and the recent attacks on women, such as through the Welfare Reform Bill, which essentially seeks to impoverish single mothers, new measures against sex workers, the continuing inequality in pay and life opportunities, not to mention the increasing trend to blame women for provoking sexual violence and rape, resulting in a low rate of convictions.”
The inclusion of the recent government measures against sex workers in this list of supposed crimes of revanchist male chauvinist piggery is completely at variance with reality. Everyone who knows anything about the measures against sex workers and clients in the Policing and Crime Act 2009 knows that they were driven by authoritarian feminists in the Labour government, such as Harriet Harman, Fiona McTaggart and Vera Baird, together with radical feminist brain-trusters like Julie Bindel (author of the celebrated Guardian article, ‘Why I hate men’) and a number of puritanical male ministers and MPs, such as Vernon Coaker and the odious Denis McShane, a corrupt neo-conservative and the partner of radical feminist journalist Joan Smith. The ideology of these people is an authoritarian neoliberal form of feminism, both lived and vicarious, not male chauvinism.
Chris tries to prove too much when he pooh-poohs the idea that any of this is driven by misandrism. These new attacks on sex workers (and attacks on clients are really a disguised attack on the sex workers themselves, aimed at depriving them of their customers) may be grossly misogynistic in their consequences. But their driving force is a reactionary, misandrist feminism, which, by the way, only plays right into the hands of more traditional male chauvinists.
Misandrism
Misandrism
Veracity
Paul Smith argues that socialism in a separate country came into existence as a nationalistic response to the contradiction between the market and planning in the former Soviet Union, and not as a tactical outcome of uneven development (Letters, December 10).
This is the Trotskyist school of falsification at work, seeking to distort Leninism into ultra-leftism. Rather than a nationalistic response to the contradictions between planning and the market, the debate about socialism in one country begas:n before the 1917 revolution and emerged out of another debate concerning the merits of two slogans: the ‘united states of the world’ and the ‘united states of Europe’.
During this debate in 1915, Lenin argued for a position which Trotskyists still cannot face honestly because it would demolish the very foundations of the Trotskyist opposition. Lenin opposed the first slogan in 1915 conditions, because it “merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to others” (VI Lenin CW Vol 21, p342).
Trotskyism is clearly seen to be founded on the “misconceptions” which Lenin warned against. Readers should study these lines very carefully and take note because this is where Leninism and Trotskyism part company on the nature of the world revolutionary process. Trotskyism became an ideology which combined ultra-left rejection of the tactic of socialism in one or several countries with the strategy of world socialism. In other words, Trotskyism seeks to combine ultra-leftism with Leninism.
According to Smith, the former Soviet Union played an important role in stabilising capitalism during the cold war. When this argument is applied to the Stalin period after World War II, it fails to explain why Stalin supported the removal of Earl Browder from the leadership of the Communist Party of the United States when the latter argued for the continuation of the wartime alliance against fascism and stabilisation. When applied to the post-Stalin period, the argument contains elements of truth, but is still extremely flawed because it fails to take into account that the primary concern of the Soviet leadership was to avoid thermo-nuclear war with the imperialists. This was a generally correct strategy, although serious tactical mistakes were made, flowing from the revisionist nature of the Soviet leadership at this time. Nevertheless, the Soviet leadership resisted the ultra-leftist pressures from Trotskyists and others to spread socialism by precipitating nuclear war.
Smith charges me with avoiding a discussion of the nature of the Soviet Union, which he claims I regard as a model for the post-revolutionary society of the future. For me there is little point in discussing the nature of the Soviet Union with people who are not honest enough to admit that the tactic of socialism in one country originated with Lenin in the 1915 debates about the ‘united states of the world’ slogan. if Smith is prepared to mislead people on something, the veracity of which anyone can check for themselves, why should he not mislead us on other matters?
Finally, he says my use of the epithet ‘totalitarian’ to describe most of the British left, particularly the Trotskyists, allies me with rightwing journalists and academics. But the constant expulsion of individuals who have difference with the leaders of the sects or parties on matters not relating to fundamentals, and individuals who seek the slightest pretext to resign, suggest a totalitarian mindset. It is therefore no surprise that Paul Smith should spring up, like a Jack-in-the-box, in the defence of totalitarian mentality, which is anti-democratic and undermines the formation of a democratic working class party committed to progress and socialism.
Veracity
Veracity
Globalise
The issue of ‘open borders’ is an issue in the United States, where the ‘liberal’ Obama government is about to propose a new law that would allow some degree of ‘amnesty’ for immigrants within the USA, while shutting down the border to prevent future ‘illegal’ immigrants from winning amnesty.
The liberal policy of ‘amnesty’, advocated by non-governmental organisations and human rights groups, means accepting this one-shot deal in exchange for closed borders.
Yes, we should advocate open borders. But it is a political conception rather than a slogan. That is, the conception of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a political conception, but not a very good slogan. Similarly, we need to approach our slogans carefully.
We need to clarify that open borders will only work under socialism. Under capitalism, rightwingers may actually advocate open borders to destroy the unions. The Wall Street Journal has been an advocate of open borders, but for different reasons than Marxists.
Future socialist governments in the advanced countries would need as a revolutionary duty to raise the standard of living of our brothers and sisters in the less developed countries. Most of the immigrants I know would prefer to live in their own countries, but they now face unemployment and sometimes starvation in their homeland.
Without the necessity to emigrate, the youth of Africa and South America should be invited, without going through bureaucratic regulations, to visit our countries to globalise the new socialist society.
Globalise
Globalise
The knowledge
Peter Manson writes: “SWP membership is open to anyone who fills in an application form and if such people, as opposed to wise, experienced comrades like Martin Smith and Alex Callinicos, were allowed collective control over the whole organisation, inevitably huge errors would be made” (‘Email thought crimes and the Left Platform’, December 17).
The Socialist Party of Great Britain will not allow a person to join until the applicant has convinced the party that s/he is a conscious socialist and this is done by what we call the ‘knowledge test’. But this is not because we have set ourselves apart as an intellectual elite and permit only those well versed in Marxist scholarship to join. The reason is that, once admitted to the SPGB, all members are equal and it would clearly not be in the interest of our organisation to offer equality of power to those who are not able to demonstrate equality of basic socialist understanding.
The SPGB prides itself on being an organisation of equals without a leadership. We possess an executive committee that cannot determine policy or even submit motions to conference. It has a simple housekeeping, administrative function. Decisions are made through branches, at conferences and by referenda. All EC meetings are open to the public and all EC minutes can be read on our website, in full keeping with our practice of democracy and transparency.
Our general secretary is a general dogsbody. All political parties registered with the electoral commission must name a party leader, but ours was picked by lottery and I doubt that any member can remember who it was. In the years of our existence, we have had many charismatic speakers and learned writers, but never have these members formed a hierarchy within the organisation or held undue influence over the party. Whatever failings the SPGB has, they are the failings of its members and not of a leader. There are no continual recriminations about sell-outs or betrayals. No eternal search for the correct political guru. There is no leadership, so no division into leaders and led.
The principles of democratic self-organisation can be applied, given a sufficient consciousness, to any working class organisation, including organisations to contest elections and to control parliaments and councils.
The candidates, including those elected, would be subject to continual control and, if need be, instantly recalled or repudiated. They could be strictly mandated to fight for socialism and not to pursue the reform of capitalism.
The knowledge
The knowledge
Offshoots
Jack Conrad’s article, ‘Origins of religion and the human revolution’ (December 17), is very interesting.
I would like to offer a simple hypothesis for the “overturn of the old hierarchy, a point of transition, a reorganisation that made us anti-hierarchical”: this was due to the ‘discovery’ of the homicidal weapon from the simple hand tool.
Assuming modern hunter-gatherer society to be representative of ancient human society is flawed. Hunter-gatherers are merely an offshoot of the main line that went into a dead end and stayed put for thousands of years. Mainstream society continued to evolve into the most complex one that is here today. The same flaw exists in trying to infer early human behaviour from chimps or gorillas. The apes diverged and evolved out of recognition and it would be impossible to identify traits that remain unchanged.
It would be better to study our own society dispassionately to understand our origins. We still exhibit several behaviours that remain unchanged for tens of thousands of years and which point specifically to our early societal structure and evolution.
Evolution of religion most likely succeeded evolution of modern society. Religion, as we know today, evolved to attract the masses as a panacea to the sufferings inflicted upon them by their own fellow beings - the political leaders. Religious leaders emerged probably 10,000 to 25,000 years ago to counter the clout of political leaders who, until then, were unopposed tyrants.
Offshoots
Offshoots
Green turn
While perusing the CPGB's website, I came across Jeff Leese's letter about the demands of "the green movement", which is, in reality, a loose collection of organisations with sometimes quite differing opinions and aims (December 17).
The writer was clearly hostile to some of the arguments put forward by greens and I was particularly interested in his take on their opposition to airport expansion. In some ways, the conclusions that this contributor puts forward in his letter crystallise for me the failure of certain sections of the radical left to adequately respond to the threat of climate change, or to contribute to the dynamic and important campaigning movements that this threat have spawned.
He says: "Nor do I think it very radical to attack airport expansions. I wish to see a world where there is far more human mobility and travel beyond national borders, and I believe that eco-attacks on air travel will help further price poorer people out of international travel."
This argument, in my view, entirely fails to deal with the realities of the debate. It is dogmatic and idealistic in the worst senses of those words. It is the wealthiest people in our society who hugely and disproportionately generate the most carbon. The notion that cheaper air travel has significantly benefited those on low incomes is a fantasy. In fact, cheaper air travel has benefited the relatively wealthy and the very wealthy, while, perversely, when it comes to short flights in particular, incentivising an inefficient mode of transport over more efficient modes (such as trains).
There are certainly problems with some sections of the environmental movement. One sometimes sees nimbyism in relation to local issues and there are conflicts and contradictions within the green movement's broad philosophy. However, the thrust of the arguments being put forward in Copenhagen by groups like Friends of the Earth, as well as activists from around the world (particularly from equatorial nations like Uganda and Ecuador), are correct.
The high consumption of goods and inefficient management of transport infrastructure in the United States (with communities built around heavily car-reliant models) does nothing to benefit poor Americans. However, this model of consumption does materially affect those living in the most precarious conditions, particularly in the most climatically sensitive areas of the globe. Similarly, in London, much of the most flagrant expenditure of resources is linked to living arrangements that benefit the most wealthy at the expense of the least well-off (large under-occupied houses and reliance on car ownership rather than investment in public transport).
Which is why I find Jeff Leese's statement that "Marxism has nothing in common with the western, Malthusian, middle class movement that is modern environmentalism" to be doctrinaire and irrelevant. A model of development in which everyone can consume like middle class Americans or even Europeans is impossible. There are simply too few resources in the world. The fact that environmentalists may seem cranky or pious does not negate the central truth that radically new models of community, in which the wealthiest will be required to consume far less, are urgently necessary. If Marxists have nothing to contribute to a debate about resources, inequality, power structures and politics - a debate that is of central importance to all our lives - then I would question their right to describe themselves thus.
In the interest of clarity, I would like to reiterate that the CPGB itself does, in fact, take a very sound line on climate change, as evidenced by Eddie Ford's article in the same issue ('There is no planet B', December 17).
Green turn
Green turn
Way forward
Ted Hankin wants the left to consider the possibility that population increase fuelled by ‘immigration’ might be one immediate cause of working class immiseration (Letters, December 17).
He is certainly right to demand that the left offer some immediate solutions or suggestions to the problems that beset working class people rather than advising them to wait until after the revolution. (In my experience, this is not often advocated. Sneers at socialists who are trying to find limited solutions as ‘reformists’ or ‘do-gooders’ are much more common.)
From the tone of Ted’s letter, I think he is suggesting that the answer to working class problems - mass unemployment, housing shortage, erosion of public services - might be for the state to beef up or at least maintain its programme of immigration controls and deportations.
Ted has not suggested any material context for the proposed debate on population increase, so I will suggest, arbitrarily, the housing issue. Firstly, is the increase in population by immigration responsible for the desperate housing situation today? I would suggest that the reason property prices have soared in the private sector has nothing to do with new arrivals from Europe or the third world, who certainly don’t carry the asking price of a house or apartment in their back pocket. It has everything to do with the so-called property boom and the buying and selling of properties for speculative purposes or as ‘safe investments’.
Is immigration responsible for the shortage of public sector and social housing? You don’t have to be a ‘lefty academic’ to know that the housing stock has been reduced by the ‘right to buy’ policy, by the demolition of tower blocks and the razing of whole estates to the ground in the name of regeneration, and by the failure of a neoliberal government to devote any resources to building new public housing. But it is true, of course, that if there were no people or less people on the housing list then the shortage of housing would not matter. By definition, population/people are one cause of housing shortages as where there are no people there is no demand.
So what practical down-payment on our socialist commitment can we offer people on the housing list? Let’s consider campaigning for beefed-up immigration controls and increased deportations as an answer. Many ‘immigrants’ are barred by law from accessing the housing list, so their removal would not help. In fact, in order to match the housing list population to the existing public housing stock, a lot of those described by Ted as “British working class people” would have to be kicked off the housing list!
Then there’s the little matter of the practicality of such a campaign. Without withdrawal from the European Union there can be no end to eastern European immigration. Many workers would consider a campaign for such withdrawal an extremely roundabout way to get a roof over their heads or have badly needed repairs carried out.
The practical way to get immediate improvements in the housing situation is working class struggle. The struggles initiated by Defend Council Housing have actually saved public housing stock. There have been numerous grassroots struggles up and down the country to defend threatened council estates, and militant tenants’ associations have fought for improvements. Squatters have actually housed themselves and highlighted the scandal of capitalism’s empty properties in the course of their struggles. In east London, the London Campaign against Poverty is challenging councils’ gatekeeper practices of turning away homeless people.
This is the way forward. This is the way people can begin to stop feeling “oppressed by circumstances beyond their control”. And none of this is incompatible with campaigning for open borders and an amnesty for undocumented workers.
Way forward
Way forward