Letters
No easy money
No easy money I am from Greece and I am unemployed. The situation in my country is really bad and concerns us greatly.
The ''socialist' Pasok government, which has been in power for a little over a year, is trying to reduce the national deficit. The government's austerity measures are pillaging workers' incomes through unfair taxes and this is causing poverty. Not only the working class, but also the middle class, will suffer during the forthcoming years.
We don't have domestic production and the government has not made any moves to solve this problem. We have been under the International Monetary Fund's supervision since May 2010. If we take into account the role of the IMF and its policies in other countries that have borrowed money from it, this is dangerous for the Greek people.
Day by day, the public character of health, education and other services is being downgraded. In my opinion, the aim of this government is to attack and remove current communal rights. Under capitalism we have won many rights. Here in Greece, our parents fought for democracy, our grandfathers fought against fascism and the German occupation, and now I suppose that it is our turn to struggle against the economic establishment which controls our life without asking us.
My generation must seek human values again. Yes, we need jobs now, but we need a different society. The society of easy money must die.
No easy money
No easy money
Grassroots
At the January 23 meeting of comrades in the London and Eastern region of the campaign to elect Jerry Hicks as Unite general secretary, it was resolved to launch a British and Irish grassroots left organisation in April in either London or Birmingham with a pooled fare so that members can travel from as far away as Ireland.
Jerry spoke passionately of how his campaign had mobilised the ranks of union members with no backing from any section of the union's bureaucratic machine: "I got 100 nominations, McCluskey got 700. Seven times the nominations, but only twice the vote that I got."
Asserting that the grassroots left was now the official opposition in Unite, he said: "McCluskey would not be talking so left now if he wasn't frightened of us … and the illegal action of the students." Our willingness to confront the anti-union legislation is very different from McCluskey's 'opposition', observed Jerry.
Several London busworkers spoke strongly about the corruption of the United Left in Unite - "they are just shit", one female driver said and it provoked an immediate show of hands from almost all the bus drivers present, eager to give the details of just how "shit" their own 'United Left' rightwingers were.
Construction workers spoke of the willingness of the Unite legal team to accept minimum settlements in the blacklisting claims now going through the courts and London cleaners spoke of the record of the United Left cleaners candidate in the executive elections.
A slate was endorsed and the London campaign agreed to meet again on February 27 to discuss how we can assist the cleaners' campaign, the blacklisted construction workers and Abdul Omer, sacked convenor at Sovereign buses.
Grassroots
Grassroots
Hip hop action
Regional TUCs are expecting 300,000 to converge on central London on March 26. It should be an interesting day. While stewards are being recruited in liaison with police to stop any repeat of what happened to Millbank, there’ll be thousands of us with other ideas. If an NUS demonstration of 30,000 can accidentally demolish the Tory Party HQ, what might 300,000 achieve?
In January, anarchists from around Britain met in Manchester to form a ‘network of networks’ called ‘Network X’. It was agreed to mobilise for direct action on March 26. “This is a major step forward for the anarchist movement,” quipped Class War’s Ian Bone, “being the first time anarchist groups have agreed to a central command since Barcelona in 1936.” A kaleidoscope of groups, many of recent invention, is planning street theatre, effigies and spectaculars for the big day.
In one occupied art college I visited, a gigantic Trojan horse - inevitably a carthorse! - was being constructed by students as an ‘alternative TUC’; this will head an early morning feeder procession from Camberwell to join the march.
While sectarian divisions remain, most recognise that the best remedy is joint action. In addition to the various Trotskyist fronts, horizontal networks of all kinds are contributing to a rich tapestry of national and local anti-cuts coalitions. The big idea is that, whenever a town hall is occupied, it becomes a ‘people’s assembly’. A still bigger idea is to recycle schools, libraries, workplaces and housing estates as we approach March 26, perhaps even barricading whole neighbourhoods to host people’s assemblies and establish Tory-free zones.
Among other prominent bodies preparing direct action on March 26 is the London Student Assembly, initially led and inspired by students, but now open to everyone. A series of anti-EMA abolition and other anti-cuts demonstrations are being planned by this assembly as stepping stones toward the big day.
Direct action endorsements from trades union and Labour Party branches are yet to come, but I detect a dwindling appetite everywhere for the TUC’s determination to restrict us to their speechifying after marching from A to B. Too many of us remember the two million-strong anti-war demonstration of 2003, when we all behaved peacefully and were totally ignored. The RMT won’t be the only union to encourage some kind of direct action on March 26.
So what exactly is the plan? One idea, dubbed ‘Battle of Britain’, is to distribute 30 or so direct action blocs all along the march - for example, an RMT contingent, a Lewisham Against the Cuts bloc, a Newcastle Student Assembly contingent, and so forth. Then, say, at 2.02 pm precisely, the ‘Battle of Britain’ begins. We hear a World War II air raid siren accompanied by smoke flares all along the route. At that point, in each bloc, everyone sits in a circle to convene a people’s assembly.
If all goes to plan, each bloc will have prepared by bringing its own megaphone, pair of stepladders, contingent of counter-stewards, hip hop sound system, tea-making equipment, etc. So there would be 30 different people’s assemblies along the route.
The idea is to demonstrate quite simply that we are ungovernable. We do this for an hour, before agreeing to move on. Among other things, the hour is a rehearsal for ‘Earth Hour’ later that same evening (‘Earth Hour’ is the World Wildlife Fund’s annual synchronised ‘switch off the lights’ action from 8.30 to 9.30 pm, aimed at cutting light pollution and combating climate change). Brendan Barber (or anyone else from the TUC) could be invited to explain to us why we should follow him to Hyde Park and go quietly home. Then those who wish can proceed in that direction. The rest of us may have other ideas arising from decisions made during the assemblies.
The cuts proposed by this Con-Dem government are savage. Should they succeed, everything we’ve built since 1948 will be destroyed. Yet there is much good news. School kids are now in the lead, with the rest of the country behind them. This is a weak government, riddled with divisions and lacking a shred of legitimacy. Together we can bring it down. Direct action on the streets - as shown during the poll tax riot of 1990 - is the only language these people understand.
Further information is available on the web at www.earthhour.org, http://networkxuk.wordpress.com and http://meltdown.uk.net.
Hip hop action
Hip hop action
Len's bluster
The Guardian's Matthew Taylor reports that Unite general secretary Len McCluskey has vowed to work with students to fight the government's austerity agenda. Noting that Unite has signed up to the Coalition of Resistance, Taylor quotes McCluskey as saying: "Unless people are convinced ... that there is a coherent alternative to the Cameron-Clegg class-war austerity, then getting millions into action will remain a pipe dream". After praising Ed Miliband for "drawing a line under the party's Blairite past", McCluskey said that a "key part" of that alternative must be a rejection of the need for cuts: "'What do we want? Fewer cuts later on', is not a slogan to set the blood coursing" (December 19).
But behind the bluster and rhetoric from McCluskey here is what he is really planning behind the scenes. This is from a report (anonymous, of course) of Unite's instructions to its councillors to carry out all the cuts by setting a legal budget, whilst hypocritically protesting:
"I was at a Unite councillors network meeting on November 12 and there were about 50 councillors present, including a number of council leaders, Labour group leaders, etc. At this meeting it was made very clear that Unite does not expect or support illegal budgets this time round. It was also made clear that councillors should implement the cuts, but what was expected was that they would involve the unions (all of them) to try and mitigate the effects. What Unite, along with the Labour Party, would do is continue to campaign against the cuts ... Gail Cartmell was the main union speaker and I must say I was surprised just how strong the 'toe the line' message was. But it went down very well with those at the meeting!"
In an interview with The Socialist after his rousing anti-cuts speech at the Coalition of Resistance conference in November, Len set out his vision of the road forward: "Our task is to reject the cuts - not only because they're morally wrong and economically dangerous: that's not good enough. We can't just sloganise against the cuts, we have to explain that there is an alternative." For McCluskey this consists of "economic growth and dealing with tax". He said: "We have to put people before profit. The People's Charter has demands about a fairer tax system and spells out alternatives" (December1).
Note, however, that this is a long-term strategy. In the here and now there is no alternative apparently, because that would involve refusing to set a legal budget and encouraging strikes and occupations to stop them right now! The People's Charter makes no demands on union leaders to resist the cuts right now - all is postulated on the parliamentary road to socialism, and getting a left Labour government elected some time in the distant future, which will put back what has already been taken.
In the real world, if these cuts succeed then Cameron will be re-elected with a massive majority, as 'reality' is recognised and the middle class blame the working class for making matters worse by their futile, uncoordinated resistance. And Len McCluskey's task - and that of the entire trade union bureaucracy - is to ensure that resistance is limited to just that.
Len's bluster
Len's bluster
Millions died
Millions died Robert Wilkinson is correct to note that I am a critic of Trotsky's characterisation of Stalin's regime in the 1930s as a "workers' state" (Letters January 20). Nonetheless he misunderstands my response to Andrew Northall's letter on the purges (January 13).
I do not deny that scholars now have access to the state archives of the Soviet Union - nor that research has uncovered new facts about the period. Neither Northall nor I are one of these researchers. We cannot therefore challenge or confirm the accuracy of Oleg Khlevniuk's claims that there are 700,000 recorded executions in the period from 1937 to 1938. We must take these figures on trust.
On the other hand, I am sceptical whether the non-Marxist writers Wilkinson mentions (such as Sebag Montefiore) are capable of explaining the causes and nature of the purges. My letter suggested that a scientific explanation would place the purges in the context of the elite's attempt to extract a surplus from the labour-power of Soviet workers. It would look something like Hillel Ticktin's account in the journal Critique.
Wilkinson ignores the fact that I am a critic of Northall's use of Khlevniuk's figures to exculpate the regime (and presumably Northall's support for it). Northall's argument is that the purges were necessary to build a socialist society worldwide. I disagree with this and I asked readers to question the politics and morality of this interpretation. After all, Northall states that the majority of the victims were guilty (and therefore deserved to die). Besides - despite Putin's rehabilitation of Stalin as a patriotic hero - I would be surprised if even the most rightwing and nationalistic of scholars agrees with Northall that mass executions were the best means to save the regime from a fascist coup d'etat.
My understanding is that Stalin directed the purges against anyone who was or could become a critic of the regime. This included old Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, Trotskyists, left communists and anarchists. In other words one of the functions of the purges was to exterminate the left. Denouncing the victims as fascists and killing them off is consistent with this perception.
Finally, I reject Northall's suggestion that the extent of the purges can be measured by the recorded number of official executions. Accounts of the purges, such as Northall and Wilkinson's, that ignore deaths caused by torture and beatings (or through overwork, malnutrition and starvation in labour camps) are incomplete. Most conventional estimates of deaths are therefore in the millions rather than hundreds of thousands.
Millions died
Millions died
Petty
It was not until last year that I began to appreciate the nuances in the terms 'social formation' and 'dominant mode of production', courtesy of Paul Cockshott. Because of this, I'm not sure about the validity of Banaji's argument about rural proletarians, even if Maoists do tend to throw around the word 'peasant' quite loosely. Small tenant farmers and sharecroppers are no rural proletarians, as opposed to industrial farm workers.
Speaking of Maoists, it has been noted that much of the Trotskyist criticisms of the 'national bourgeoisie' concept are semantic and that it was and is a Maoist mistake to lump small business owners together with the 'non-monopoly bourgeoisie'. They do this so that their 'urban petty bourgeoisie', in the bloc of four classes/new democracy, comprises non-worker intellectuals, lawyers and suchlike, even if they do belong to other classes.
All that aside, the reason I'm writing this is that I do object to Mike Macnair's characterisation of Lenin's two-stage revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry, where he says that "the peasantry could only play a revolutionary role if the urban proletariat took the lead" against "peasant leadership in the revolution" ('Marxism and theoretical overkill', January 20).
Going back to his own video criticising the permanent revolution, Macnair himself repeats Kautsky when he says that the peasantry is not socially revolutionary at all (except to the extent that they can be thoroughly anti-bourgeois), but its 'national' sections can indeed be politically revolutionary on their own. This extends to the 'national' sections of the urban petty bourgeoisie via what Marxists typically call 'petty bourgeois democratism'.
Petty
Petty
Correction
Apparently, I made a mistake when reporting on the first meeting of the national council of the Coalition of Resistance on January 15 (Weekly Worker January 20). I wrote that a motion moved by Workers Power, which was seeking COR support for potential moves towards a general strike against the cuts, was defeated with the support of Counterfire and their former comrades in the Socialist Workers Party.
However, at the latest meeting of the COR steering committee, my comrade Tina Becker was approached by Amy Leather of the SWP who told her that this was not so: “I don’t read the Weekly Worker,” she said, “but I have been told that you got this wrong. We voted in favour of the motion.”
Of course, I am happy to correct this mistake, which was made in part because it was a very busy meeting and I could not see how everybody was voting at all times. In part though it was because SWP members like Mark Bergfield actually argued vehemently against “putting demands” on the trade union bureaucracy all the way through the meeting.
Correction
Correction