Letters
Lip service
In reply to Phil Kent’s letter (May 6), I do not argue that past differences in the revolutionary camp are of no importance. To take this view would be petty bourgeois opportunism. We must relate to these past differences dialectically. For instance, the Soviet Union no longer exists, so differences about this issue assume the character of a non-antagonistic contradiction. Therefore, I am not opposing demarcations. What I argued was that Paul Smith is seeking to impose his demarcations without a correct understanding of the nature of the present crisis.
Phil Kent also suggests that it is sectarianism which prevents Paul Smith and I from joining the CPGB, based on the proposed Draft programme. I can’t speak for Smith, but it is my opinion that the left in general does not recognise the real problems that society will face in the near future, as the contradictions of capitalism merge with the worldwide impending energy crisis. In my view, understanding this is more important than joining any particular group in the short term. Having said this, it is clear that the CPGB is ahead of the other left groups in promoting open debate, and also in opposing sectarian Trotskyist demands for forming a new workers’ party to replace Labour.
The next point is that Kent rejects the view that the Soviet Union was a workers’ state, so that he can deny any progressive role for it. At the same time, he argues that “the defence of the Soviet Union from imperialism did not depend on it being a workers’ state”. This is a good point, which presumably allows him to defend the Soviet Union from imperialism, while denying it any positive features. The struggle over the Soviet Union was between those who believed it had a progressive side and those who denied this. Trotsky tried to bridge the contradiction between the two sides by calling for the unconditional defence of the USSR, while advocating a political revolution to remove the ‘Stalinist’ bureaucracy - a position that Kent falsifies by claiming Trotsky only sought the overthrow of the leadership.
Those who deny that the Soviet Union had any progressive role to play are simply denying reality. I was recently told that before the revolution, in the Caucasus, women were sold in cages. Communists lost their lives in putting an end to these practices. Nevertheless, Trotsky’s position is superior to both Kent and Paul Smith because he rejects the one-sided view that there was nothing progressive about the Soviet Union, which made it worthy of defence in its own right.
The problem is that, while Trotskyists pay lip service to dialectics, this is unceremoniously discarded when it comes to Stalin and his period in office. When we consider the concrete context of the Soviet Union, we are faced with a choice of blaming capitalism and backwardness for most of its problems or blaming Stalin. Kent argues that “Stalin created and recreated the bureaucracy. Why is he not to blame for it?” Kent is probably unaware that bureaucratisation began even before the Bolshevik seizure of power.
Kent claims my defence of ‘socialism in one country’ rests on selective quotes, not on analysis. But my defence is based on Lenin’s analysis of uneven development, which leads to the possibility of socialism in one country to begin with. Kent’s position of either world revolution or nothing is ultra-leftist. The Bolsheviks did not start out with the intention of building socialism in one country; it was forced on them by uneven development. Kent also argues that the working class has the right to overthrow any regime and this presumably applies even if workers are manipulated and led by counterrevolutionaries. This is a total capitulation to spontaneity and a rejection of the view that different levels of political knowledge exist in the working class.
Kent suggests that much of what the Bolsheviks did before Stalin became the leader can be excused because they were acting out of desperation. Afterwards, however, nothing can be excused, since these were times of the relative stabilisation of the Soviet Union. This is a misreading of the situation. The surface may have been calm, but beneath was the preparation for war. Stalin was forced by this external threat to implement a crash programme of industrialisation. We all know the consequence in terms of repression.
As a critical defender of the Stalinist regime, I am not obliged to defend any reprehensible acts or mistakes. However, Trotsky’s ruthlessness in dealing with political opponents when in power is well known. He ordered the taking of hostages and, during the Kronstadt uprising, warned the rebels that they would be “shot like partridges”. He advocated the universal militarisation of labour and supported the banning of factions in the party. An interesting debate would be: to what extent did Trotsky’s political behaviour help shape Bolshevik political culture?
On the issue of political repression, Mao suggests that Stalin’s weak point was confusing the differences within communism with the differences between communists and their enemies. In other words, Stalin had problems when it came to handling contradictions. However, Stalin’s letter to one Etchin (Works Vol 13, 1931), at least suggests a grasp of the dialectical contradiction within the party. The problem here is that the correct handling of contradictions takes time, and time is precisely what the Soviet Union did not have.
It is reasonable to argue that racing against time may have forced Stalin to ride roughshod over the correct handling of contradictions in party and society. Arguably, with no threat of invasion, the Stalinist leadership would have had the time and opportunity to deal with political and social contradictions in a manner more appropriate to socialism. There is little in Trotsky’s biography to suggest that he would have been better at resolving political and social contradictions than Stalin. Indeed his complete loss of power can be partly blamed on his lack of diplomacy; that is, if we leave aside his incorrect stand on socialism in one country.
Finally, comrade Kent claims I believe that “only an economic crash brought about by peak oil will motivate workers out of desperation to embrace socialism”. If a permanent crash of capitalism does not motivate workers to embrace some form of socialism, what will?
Lip service
Lip service
Left slight
Peter Manson writes: “There are strong reasons why a shift to the left is likely. Whenever Labour has been beaten in an election, there is a tendency to move, however slightly, to the left. It is not only the luxury of opposition, but the pressure from the rank and file, trade union affiliates and the necessity of winning back the party’s working class base” (‘McDonnell blocked by NEC bureaucrats’, May 20).
SPEW confusion? Probably not, since there are two contemporary precedents for lack of left turns: the French Socialists and the SPD. Precisely because these parties do not meet the criteria Marx and Engels ascribed to real, worker-class parties, any potential ‘left’ turn is in rhetoric only, and even then slight.
Left slight
Left slight
Premature
Oops. Readers of my letter (May 20) disputing the ‘race’ element of the South Shields seamen’s riots of 1919 will notice that I made the mistake of transporting the Communist Party of Great Britain back into that year.
I should have said that the Arab seamen were influenced by, and part of, the process which would shortly bring around the CPGB and the Minority Movement. I’m aware, before you all kill me in the rush, that the CPGB wasn’t formed in 1919.
Premature
Premature
Dates
Dave Douglass is undoubtedly an excellent historian when it comes to the National Union of Mineworkers and the Mineworkers Federation that went before it. But not perhaps when it comes to the ins and outs of the organised left. His otherwise useful letter on the South Shields seafarers strike of 1919 is a case in point (May 20). He seems to be under the impression that the CPGB was already in existence.
It ought to have been. But unfortunately it took another year and a bit before it was formally established and another year on top of that to bring over comrades from the left of the Labour Party.
That unnecessary delay cost us dear. And it resulted from the sectarian refusal to countenance unity with the British Socialist Party by comrades such as Sylvia Pankhurst and organisations such as the Socialist Labour Party. The footdragging and excuses came despite the urgings from Lenin in Moscow. He wanted communist unity in a Communist Party.
The delay in forming the CPGB and getting it running properly made a big difference to the class struggle and the class balance of forces in Britain. Surely a lesson here for today in 2010.
Dates
Dates
International
Comrade Gelis totally misunderstands our position on the European Union (Letters, May 20).
Capital organises itself across national borders and the working class needs to organise itself on the same basis if we are to combat capitalist attacks on us. We need European-wide unions, we need our representatives in the European parliament to fight for the same (highest) standards of welfare for all workers and for the actions of the unions and parliamentary representatives to be coordinated. In other words, it is obligatory for our side to take advantage of capitalist unity to forge our own wider unity and to beat them at their own game.
It is illusory to believe that capitalists would not organise internationally if only the European Union did not exist. They could either do it behind closed doors or set up some other institution which could totally exclude the working class. To call for the restoration of ‘national sovereignty’ for all European states will not strengthen the hand of the working class, but encourage national exceptionality and fuel futile attempts to solve international problems from localist perspectives through trade barriers and trade wars.
I am reminded how before 1914 French and German workers were united against warlike manoeuvres by their ruling classes. But eventually they were won over to patriotic sentiments with disastrous consequences. Is comrade Gelis attracted to such patriotic sentiments? The capitalist class can only be overthrown by a working class which consciously organises itself on an international basis. Hence the importance of organising across Europe if the revolution is to succeed.
It would be untrue to describe European revolutionary history as being exclusively national. Even Greek independence was won with international support - for human freedom, not just national rights. From the fractious Balkans there is the example of Yugoslavia. Check out Karl Marx’s position in the German and central European revolutions of the 1830s and 40s. You will find a strong internationalist current. And what about the Russian revolution? Even in our own lifetime 1968 demonstrates the interconnectedness of revolutionary movements. Perhaps the revolution that initiates the overthrow of capitalism will start in one country, but it will require a coordinated international response for victory.
The Russian uprising of 1905 was marked by a series of significant actions stretching from the Baltic to Manchuria - and not only in Russia, but in Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania. However, each one faded away without really combining effectively with the others. If it had been possible to unite that revolutionary impulse, the tsar might well have been overthrown then. The lessons learned by the Bolsheviks from this period influenced their decisions during the July days to hold back the revolution. Revolutionary success depends on coordinating and uniting revolutionary activity across the whole canvas. This cannot be achieved with a national agenda.
International
International
Absurd
VN Gelis thinks the idea of coordinating revolution throughout Europe is “absurd” (Letters, May 20). The comrade even insists that the idea “goes against the whole history of Europe”. True, in a way, but profoundly wrong all the same.
All working class revolutions to date have failed. Why? The Paris Commune of 1871because it was isolated. The 1917 Russian Revolution became the Stalinite counterrevolution within the revolution in 1928 because of isolation. But a revolution in one country undoubtedly impacts on all other countries to one degree or another and results from often deep- seated systemic causes.
Take the year of revolutions in 1848, the springtime of the peoples of Europe. The first signs of those great events were the rumblings of 1846 in France and Poland. But raising its snout first in Sicily and then the northern Italian states, the mole resurfaced in France in February, ending the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe. From France it spread to Germany in March, then Denmark, then Austria, then Hungary, then Poland, then ... Switzerland.
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels had a clear premonition of the 1848 revolutions in 1847. Take a look at the Manifesto of the Communist Party and note that they urgently sought to get it translated into as many European languages as feasible: ie, English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish.
They certainly believed that the coming revolution in Europe should be as closely coordinated as possible. Chapter four is devoted to the relationship between the communists and the existing opposition parties in Europe.
The First International, of which Marx was the effective leader, was established to coordinate the struggles of the working class. Primarily in Europe ... but also in the United States. The Second International was based on the principle of ‘one state, one party’, but sought to bring workers together globally through symbolic actions such as May Day strikes and demonstrations. The Third International put the communist parties under firm, centralised leadership ... and adopted the slogan calling for a “United States of Europe” in 1923 at Trotsky’s urging.
What is really absurd is not the idea of coordinated revolution. It is the idea promoted by comrades such as Gelis who believe that small states such as Greece can escape pending bankruptcy and domination by France and Germany by breaking away from the European Union and dropping the euro. For what? Splendid isolation ... like Albania under Enver Hoxha?
No, the communist revolution is necessarily international because it overthrows international capitalism positively. We take over what capitalism has created. Our revolution might begin in an isolated country. A Brazil, an Iran or a Turkey. But by its very nature it is international ... and the idea of not planning, not consciously directing, not timing that revolution strikes me as either anarchistic or plain stupid.
Absurd
Absurd