18.11.2010

Good, bad, and middling Trots

Voting in the election to replace Derek Simpson as general secretary of Unite the Union ends on November 19. Gerry Downing reports on the attacks on the Jerry Hicks campaign from supporters of left bureaucrat Len McCluskey

The campaign to elect Jerry Hicks as Unite general secretary has provoked an outbreak of political bile from those elements on the left which have made the strategic decision to throw their lot in with the trade union bureaucracy and their Stalinist bagmen.

In the lexicon of the bureaucracy these are the ‘good Trots’. The ‘bad Trots’ are those who fight to overthrow capitalism and to defeat their agents within the labour movement: the Labour Party leaders and the trade union bureaucracy, who are the main barrier to the class struggle and so to the advance of the working class to revolutionary consciousness. The bureaucracy has various rightist, Stalinist and fake leftist ‘good Trot’ defenders - in reality renegades from Trotskyism, even as they understood it. For example Counterfire, a rightwing split from the Socialist Workers Party, supports McCluskey, as does the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty.

According to Counterfire, because rightwinger Les Bayliss might get elected, Unite members should “fight for as large a vote for McCluskey as possible - and build a network of rank-and-file activists to make sure that vote is a mandate for effective resistance to the cuts.”^[1] Note Counterfire is for a “network of rank-and-file activists”, not a movement independent of the bureaucracy, which Hicks supports and McCluskey bitterly opposes.

The purpose of this article is to fight for the political souls of those who are vacillating, those ‘middling Trots’ who are pulled both ways by the class struggle, by their political organisations and by the lure of quick and cheap political advantage over the heads of the working class via the structures of the union bureaucracy and via the bourgeois parliament - often by a combination of all of these. Of course there are many other Maoists, left communists and anarchist tendencies that are anti-Trotskyist and so ‘objectively’ act as a barrier, but who are nevertheless sincere class struggle fighters with whom we must ally in the traditional united front tactic to advance the struggle.

In the first place let us mention Dave Osler, the famous blogger and self-confessed renegade from Trotskyism, who puts forward the following reason for not supporting Jerry Hicks: “I must admit to having formed an unfavourable impression of the man after watching an extraordinary performance in which he addressed a meeting of around 200 people as if it was a mass rally, including the bodily gestures appropriate to a far larger gathering.”^[2]

This was a minor ‘crime’, one would have thought. But look at the petty bourgeois fears displayed in the words “mass rally”. They conjure up those tumultuous meetings of the soviets in Moscow in 1917 and Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies and, of course, those rallies associated with the Iranian revolution in 1979 which went so badly wrong. Economic collapse may well bring class conflict and mass mobilisations of left and right and where will it all end? Jerry Hicks and his ilk with his “bodily gestures appropriate to a far larger gathering” (making him appear far larger than he is via wild hand wavings, expansive and frightening gestures suggesting desire for revolution?) and ‘bad Trots’ who support him may awake the sleeping giant, the working class. And this may provoke the fascist monsters of the English Defence League to attack; where is a radical/conservative middle of the road former leftist to turn after his libel case victory? We mention Dave to highlight the dilemma of the petty bourgeoisie in general.

But the Socialist Unity blog run by Andy Newman has been the site of most of the Jerry-bashing and very little ‘official’ support from Andy for fellow Respect member Jerry. A number of writers launched their attacks on Jerry and this writer.^[3] According to Anonymous, “... Gerry Downing ... is a particularly nasty, sectarian armchair revolutionary. Whoever GD supports is akin to the kiss of death, but Hicks is happy to have him distributing his nasty London busworkers leaflets attacking Len McCluskey.

“The nasty attacks haven’t worked though, as most London busworker branches have nominated Len McCluskey, including, I believe, Gerry Downing’s own branch. Gerry Downing, the leader of no-one and responsible to no-one, dispenses with his poisonous bile at anyone who actually does have any responsibility or power, be it a shop steward or general secretary. If Gerry Downing, who is a bus driver, was such a leader of men and women, why is he not elected as a shop steward? Oh, I forgot - he was one a few years ago but only very, very briefly, as the members quickly voted him out” (September 5).

In fact my branch did not nominate McCluskey, because the first attempt was before the opening of the nominations with no notice and the second attempt did not follow the rules - no time or place for the nomination meeting on the notice despite repeated requests. But what were the “nasty” bits of the London busworkers leaflet^[4] and that Weekly Worker article,^[5] the “poisonous bile” that so upset our opponents? They were, of course, the best bits, which tell it like it is:

“Len McCluskey is a ‘left’ union bureaucrat; even his most enthusiastic supporters have to go back 25 years to find the last time he fought for the workers. Len is a career bureaucrat, one of the ‘elites’, his militancy is for election purposes only. The rightwinger Les Bayliss (an open and genuine bosses’ man) has no chance of getting elected. We deserve better! Elect a fighter to fight these Tory-Lib-Dem attacks on all of us. Jerry Hicks will take only an average worker’s wage.”

And from my Weekly Worker article: “Jane Loftus was the Socialist Workers Party member on the executive of the Communications Workers Union who voted for the sell-out deal against SWP policy after last year’s postal strike. How many more manifestations of the ‘Jane Loftus syndrome’ do we need before we put the working class before ‘influence’ and careers in the bureaucracy?”

Sharpened

Inside the United Left itself it was found necessary to clear its Aegean stables of any suspected ‘bad Trots’. Full-timer Rhys McCarthy sharpened his knife: “Jerry Hicks has been putting it around about setting up a new rank and file group in Unite. Will he and his little gang please go and do so, then we can all be spared the infantile, parasitical anti-union behaviour of many of his supporters.

“What is hilarious is that first they try and hijack and corrupt the Manchester UL hustings and when that fails they take the sectarian and undemocratic decision (putting their own ultra-left grouplet’s agenda before that of the working class trade union movement) to stand their own candidate, whilst wanting to stay in and disrupt the UL. Monty Python’s Life of Brian comes to mind. Stop your parasitical and infantile behaviour and have the decency and courage to set up your own group - or haven’t you got the guts?”

One Dave Quayle now weighed in, raising the question of what it is to be a ‘good Trot’: “... how do we, in the UL, relate to and interact with followers of Leon Trotsky’s Fourth International, commonly known as ‘Trots’? Many of us have grown old watching them split, re-form and split again, always showing the same love of conspiracy theory and secrecy. It has personally given me years of mild amusement, but, these days, I must confess that I have lost the plot as to who is what and where within their ranks.

“... When the election is over for GS we will need maximum left unity to fight the real enemy and that’s this Tory government and their Lib Dem flunkeys ... we had/have some particularly good and active comrades who came from the Trotskyite end of the political spectrum and in my view they should remain welcome in our ranks.”^[6]

Well, comrade Trot, you have been warned by the arrogant bureaucrat: you are here on sufferance. The heirs of Uncle Joe are running this show, But eyes (slightly) left to Bronwen Handyside (UL site manager), who might be suspect because of some ‘bad Trot’ actions in the past, like supporting the Liverpool dockers and exposing the class treachery of the Bill Morris leadership of the TGWU on that crucial struggle. However, she hastened to provide the required political grovel and establish her credentials as the best of the bureaucracy’s ‘good Trots’:

“‘By their deeds shall ye know them’ - whether 2nd, 3rd or 4th Internationalists. The deed of calling for a vote for Jerry Hicks in this period is criminally irresponsible in that the risk is that the left vote is split and Les Bayliss gets in. This deed has placed the interests of the SWP above the interest of the class - in this case the crucial leadership we need for our union which is historically placed in size and inclusiveness to decisively influence the future course of events in the next period in favour of the working class. I find it truly astonishing that they cannot size up the critical nature of this leadership election (EC as well as GS) and make the correct estimate of the nature of the candidates standing. Fascinatingly, they show themselves to have no clue as to what is at stake. The coming mass movement against the cuts is going to run right over the top of them.

“Having said that, I am in favour of lifting the suspension on the SWP on the strict proviso that they do not carry out a similar deed again - because I know with the utmost certainty that they will carry out a similar deed some time soon and then it will be clear to everyone that it is not the United Left who are the splitters, but the SWP who exclude themselves. I want it to be clear (as it will be) that is we in the United Left who seek unity.

“... I believe we also need to look at what any group or individual (Trotskyist or otherwise) shows through its actions it believes about unity. Rejecting a democratic vote at a left, union-organised hustings meeting because your political party knows better, and organising to split the left vote in the crucial GS election are actions which promote disunity. Though it looks on the surface that we promote unity by turning the other cheek - in my opinion it is not possible to achieve unity by linking up with groups that are opposed to unity. Those that are acting in the interests of unity are acting in the interests of the class as a whole - not in the interests of their own group. We have to make some choices.

“Last and least - FYI. I am one of the aforementioned Trotskyists, and we prefer to be known as that, rather than ‘Trots’ or ‘Trotskyites’, which are most often used as a term of abuse. I am sure you will agree with me that in the face of the coming battles, when we are in need of the maximum unity, that we shouldn’t use terms of abuse to each other, which only tend to make people pointlessly angry.”

How good it must feel to be in a position to attack the SWP from a position of authority within the union bureaucracy, apparently just as old Gerry Healy used to do from within the Workers Revolutionary Party, with your assistance, Bronwen. Only he attacked them ostensibly, and often in practice, from the left (mostly in a sectarian way, of course). You are attacking them from the opportunist right to facilitate your advance in the structures of the union.

Socialist Party

And there are good class fighters within the ranks of the SWP (‘middling Trots’), as well as those who see the only way forward in accommodation with the bureaucracy (‘good Trots’). That fight is ongoing, as is the fight within the Socialist Party, who are supporting McCluskey.

As the Weekly Worker article said, “Last month the SP wheeled out one of its foremost Unite ‘lefts’, Kevin Parslow, to justify its line ... He admitted that Hicks’s “programme appears more ‘left’ than Len McCluskey’s”, explaining: “Jerry is in favour of the repeal of anti-union laws and confronting them when necessary. He would like to see the election of all officials and the general secretary on an average member’s wage. He would prioritise public ownership and pensions, and puts forward the need for a public works programme.”

A fair degree more “left” than Len, then, but what is the real problem with Hicks? Well, according to Parslow and the SP, he just does not play the bureaucrats’ game: “He is seen as not wanting to explain his policies” - ie, he walked out of a stitch-up hustings in Manchester. “Socialists have influence inside the left by vocalising the pressure for action. This will be absolutely necessary in the next period. Excluding ourselves at this stage is a mistake” (The Socialist July 30).

Jerry wrote a detailed reply to Kevin, which effectively demolished the SP’s case for McCluskey. Rob Williams defended the line weakly and apologetically, showing that the left in the SP are still ‘middling Trots’ - unlike the Nellistists, who are almost purely electoralist and hanker to be like the German Die Linke.

Rob concluded his July 30 article thus: “The UL is still a new organisation and is still to be tested. Just because you call something ‘United Left’ doesn’t make it so. What is important is the UL having its own internal democracy, with full-timers having the right to attend meetings and speak, but not to vote. We continue to fight for this programme within UL. For this and the reasons above we subsequently agreed to support Len McCluskey.”

However, as Tony Fox pointed out in Socialist Fight No2, “... you will not get to change anything [in the rules] in future meetings because they have nobbled that too.” He noted what would happen if there is no consensus or the “establishment of at least an overwhelming majority of opinion” (what comrade Fox called the “clapping mechanism”). The UL national coordinating committee has agreed that, “In the event of the need for voting mechanisms, a weighted system designed to reflect the relative numerical strength of the regions shall be considered ...”

Tony Fox concluded: “In other words, at the AGM, if by some fluke or explosion of the class struggle, those present succeeded in overturning the Stalinists, the Woodleyites and the Simpsonites, then they would simply produce a ‘weighted vote’ from their pockets, as King Arthur [Scargill] so memorably did with his 3,000 [retired] miners’ votes [in the Socialist Labour Party], and vote everyone down.”

The UL has no internal democracy and there is no chance of ever getting it. It is dominated in terms of personnel and ideology by full-timers and union employees, whose career advancement depends on doing the bureaucracy’s bidding. They guard the portals of the organisation. If you ever looked like democratising that body and allowing in the ranks in struggle, it would be ‘Goodbye, gobshite’. You must know this, Rob. The class struggle will oblige those ‘middling Trots’ to become either the ‘good Trots’ of the bureaucracy and their Stalinist bagmen or the ‘bad Trots’ of the working class and the revolution: ie, genuine revolutionary Trotskyists.

Notes

1. A Cousins, ‘Unite election: vote McCluskey, build grassroots resistance to cuts’ (www.counterfire.org/index.php/features/38-opinion/7435-unite-election-vote-mccluskey-build-grassroots-resistance-to-cuts#comments).
2. ‘Unite: Len McCluskey or Jerry Hicks?’ July 29 (www.davidosler.com/2010/07/unite-len-mccluskey-or-jerry-hicks).
3. Comments in response to ‘Jerry Hicks in today’s Sun’, September 4 (www.socialistunity.com/?p=6595).
4. www.scribd.com/people/.../1544314-gerald-j-downing
5. G Downing, ‘Jane Loftus syndrome’ Weekly Worker August 26.
6. See www.dearunite.com/2010/11/united-left-ban-another.html