Letters

Sabotaged

In what was an interesting discussion on the tactic of the general strike, I take issue with only one point. Mike Macnair says: “A general strike can lead to a massive defeat, as in 1926” (‘Anarchist origins’, March 17).

While the miners’ strike was a massive defeat in both 1926 (a lock-out) and 1984-85, we can’t really suggest that it was the general strike which was defeated. It was never engaged. Less than half the unions had been called out. It only lasted eight days before the TUC general council pulled the plug before testing the power of the general strike and the trade union movement. The failure to launch the general strike in any meaningful way left exposed the forces which had taken strike action, and it left one million miners and their families to fight alone for another six or seven months.

We can’t say it was the general strike as such which was defeated; rather the general strike was sabotaged by the TUC leadership. Who gave them authority to do it? The bloody CPGB with their slogan, ‘All power to the TUC general council’. Not all power to the workers, the shop stewards, the councils of action, the branches or the trades councils - but the general council.

Having handed control of the general strike to men steeped in treachery, don’t blame the general strike as a tactic. Blame the leaders you put your trust and authority in.

Sabotaged
Sabotaged

Sexual freedom

I thought I had included enough disclaimers regarding Foucault, whose method I deemed “a more sophisticated variation of labelling theory” (‘Lady Gaga and the “gay gene”‘, March 3). This did not keep Richard Farnos from demanding that “as a supposed Marxist” I should make use of Marxist sources only - “such as that given by John D’Emilio”.

Actually, D’Emilio takes Foucault’s account as a starting point, while, much like myself, outlining the social conditions that gave rise to the scientific theorisation of separate sexual identities and the homosexual subculture. Investigating the beginnings of ‘homosexuals’ in the USA, D’Emilio’s essay, Capitalism and gay identity (1980), complements Foucault’s account rather than contradicting it. It is perfectly possible to draw on material from the postmodernist canon without succumbing to postmodernism.

Farnos’s reference to Terry Eagleton’s work is interesting, but has little to do with my article - I refer to the “gay-straight dichotomy” as “artificial”, but make a point of acknowledging the LGBT communities as real. It is correct that some accounts of early homosexual subcultures, such as d’Emilio’s, attribute a more active role to homosexuals than I have, though my formulation - the subculture “acquired its own cultural codes and practices, as well as its own sources of self-worth” in reaction to scientific and legal condemnation - suggests a more dialectical interplay than Farnos’s interpretation of my article would have it.

All of this might make for some fruitful debate, were Farnos’s polemic not so ill-intentioned. He writes: “Apparently the proles are so lumpen that LGBT workers need to climb back into the closet in order to counter the Conservative right, for whom it is a useful device to stir divisions within the working class.” This sentence features so much convoluted sarcasm, it ends up not making much sense at all, and one can only guess as to what precisely Farnos is attempting to insinuate.

In any event, our organisation does not believe that one and a half centuries of homophobic discourse, disseminated through the all-pervasive ideological state apparatuses of the bourgeoisie, have not left a mark on popular attitudes. While Farnos’s idealised workerism might lead him to think otherwise, our communist Draft programme acknowledges that “bigoted attitudes divide the working class and aid those advocating the authoritarian state”.

Farnos is welcome to study the ‘Sexual freedom’ section of our Draft programme’s immediate demands, which I believe set out some conditions under which the gay-straight schism can gradually dissolve, and submit his critique to our paper.

Sexual freedom
Sexual freedom

Abundance

I was pleased that it was Andrew Northall (Letters, March 17) who replied to my criticism of Paul Smith (Letters, March 10). The former is a supporter of the Stalinist regime in the ex-Soviet Union.

Northall belies Smith’s claim that ‘Stalinism’ is a barrier to thought and theory. Unfortunately, in his reply to me, comrade Northall makes the mistake which most Marxists are making at the present time. This is the failure to understand that society will soon face a serious discontinuity caused by the global peak in oil production.

My view is that, in so far as Marxism ignores the energy issue, it cannot be regarded as a science. But there are other problems with Marxism as well. The Marxist argument that communism is a product of the development of the productive forces is untrue. The truth is that communism comes from the ideological struggle. So I say to comrade Northall that all the productive forces in the world will not lead to communism without the ideological struggle. His view that that economic conditions will determine the potential of a society is uncontroversial and even a defender of capitalism will agree with him. However, what determines whether a society takes the form of, say, capitalism or communism is the ideological struggle.

I therefore reject Marx’s view that the bourgeoisie made communism possible by developing the productive forces. In principle, communism has always been possible when humans join together in groups. It is ideology, not productive forces, which will determine whether communism will exist or not.

Comrade Northall argues that the 20th century created the conditions for abundance. To be more exact, it was the industrial revolution - meaning mass production, made possible by a plethora of cheap energy resources - that caused Marx to speculate about a future communist society of abundance. For Marx, the term ‘communism’ became interchangeable with the term ‘abundance’.

Those who think that the essence of communism is abundance will have to wake up to the real world, where irreplaceable resources are constantly being used up. I am not saying we should give up on abundance where it is possible, but we should stop defining communism by this term, which smacks of gluttony.

We should begin to recognise, as Mao did, that communism comes from the ideological struggle, not the means of production. It is more about quality than quantity. Marxism has dominated communist thinking for so long that I fear this lesson will be the hardest to learn.

Abundance
Abundance

No comment

The Legal Defence and Monitoring Group (LDMG) has updated and republished No comment: the defendant’s guide to arrest. This little booklet is essential reading for anyone at risk of arrest, which means anyone involved in protests.

You can download a copy of No comment from our website at www.ldmg.org.uk. Or send a self-addressed envelope with a second-class stamp on it to No comment, c/f BM Haven, London WC1N 3XX, and we will send you a copy. Groups wanting bulk copies should email us.

No comment
No comment

Welcome them

The imperialist air and sea attacks on Libya since Friday can only be welcomed by readers of this paper. Without them the anti-Gaddafi rebellion would have been crushed, with slaughter in Benghazi. That’s the truth. To believe otherwise is fantasy.

The democratic hope in Libya requires the defeat of the Gaddafi regime. Of course, it would be better if Libyans did it all themselves, but last Friday afternoon showed it wasn’t going to be possible. The armoured raid, penetrating to two miles from the city centre, was never going to control Benghazi: it simply demonstrated the promised mayhem and destruction. The rebels were facing a bloody defeat, and the imperialists saved the day. All Marxists and anti-capitalists should applaud this, as should all who believe in representative democracy.

So what are the facts?

1. There is no evidence that the Interim Transitional National Council in Benghazi does not speak for the rebels throughout the country.

2. An aim in the founding statement of the TNC was “to accomplish international recognition of all [sic] the Council.”

3. That statement concludes by saying: “We request from the international community to fulfil its obligations to protect the Libyan people from any further genocide and crimes against humanity without any direct military intervention on Libyan soil.”

Marxists believe in the self-determination of a non-oppressor people - even more so when they are in revolt against dictatorship. So when the TNC’s pleas for foreign help are answered - and no-one doubts survival was at stake - Marxists can only be pleased. It was what the rebels wanted, and it was the only way they could live to fight another day.

It’s not a surprise the imperialists are exercising a double standard, refusing to act decisively against the Bahraini and Yemeni regimes. Also no-one doubts that the imperialist governments are also acting in what they judge are their own national interests. But all this is no reason not to applaud, be thankful and support the continuation of a de facto military alliance between the rebels and the imperialist armed forces. It is the choice forced upon the rebels by dint of circumstance.

And it is also why we should support the hastening of their victory through violation of the Libyan arms embargo. Marxists in Britain, and especially in France and Portugal (the only countries to recognise the TNC, moreover deeming it the sole representative of Libyans), should campaign for their governments to supply weapons and train the rebels. Marxists need to be logical, speak plainly, and follow through what they analyse to be true. Pat responses are an insult to the brave fighters for democracy in Libya. Their sacrifice demands clarity and a recognition of the existential threat they faced from the middle of last week. Their saviour was the imperialists.

Marxists may not like this, but that’s neither here nor there: it’s simply true. Sometimes the imperialists are progressive: in the post-1945 decolonisations they decided not to create a bloodbath everywhere, and that was good. Likewise we should rejoice with the rebels and welcome the aid they are now receiving.

Welcome them
Welcome them

Flexible

Nick Rogers has distorted the argument I made for proportional representation in my article on the alternative vote electoral system (‘Socialism mean winning the majority’, March 10).

In his letter last week, comrade Rogers says: “… according to Peter Manson, the way in which representatives to the [Paris] Commune were elected should have made that body incapable of representing the working class” (March 17). I neither stated nor implied any such thing. Nor did I say that “only in a factory or office do workers have sufficient ‘common interest’” for the election of their own individual representatives (emphasis added).

The quotations from the article which Nick reproduces do not bear out his claims. I wrote that in the workplace it is “often appropriate that [workers] should elect their own representative to union bodies or, in a situation of much greater class-consciousness, soviets”. By contrast, “council wards or parliamentary constituencies rarely have common factors that give their inhabitants … a common interest based purely on where they reside” (emphasis added).

I should have thought this makes it pretty clear that I favour a flexible approach and am open to different electoral systems according to concrete circumstances. As Nick well knows, democratic electoral systems fall into two basic categories: proportional representation and what comrade Moshé Machover terms “district representation” (see ‘Proportional representation and Brown’s opportunist ploy’, April 1 2010). The former aims for an elected body that accurately reflects the political views of electors in proportion to those who hold them, while the latter results in individual representatives associated with a particular electoral unit - be it a council ward, parliamentary constituency or workplace - who can in theory be recallable by their electorates.

The problem is, of course, that these two equally valid systems are for the most part mutually incompatible. Under PR it is either impossible or impractical to allow for representatives to be recalled by their electors (as opposed to the parties that selected them as candidates). This is because, depending on the form of PR adopted, either representatives are not associated with a particular constituency or, if they are, they will often have been elected by a minority of its voters in the first place.

On the other hand, district representation (DR) does make it possible for representatives to be recalled by their electorate, but in no way guarantees that the overall majority view of the electorate will prevail. DR systems, whether ‘first part the post’ or AV, also make it difficult for sometimes quite substantial minority viewpoints to gain any electoral representation at all.

Comrade Rogers, as he has made clear in this paper (see ‘Electoral reform and communist strategy’, May 27 2010), comes down firmly against PR. He argues strongly that recallability and therefore some kind of DR must take precedence over the proportionality of political viewpoints in legislative and administrative assemblies both now and in the future. Consequently he fails to address the point I raise about the difficulty of any individual ever being able to truly ‘represent’ all the electors in a current council ward or parliamentary constituency, with “all their disparate, often antagonistic interests and views”.

For my part, I am open to persuasion about the type of electoral system we ought to favour in different circumstances. That is why at our CPGB conference in January I voted for an amendment to our Draft programme which leaves open the type of voting system we should advocate under the rule of the working class (the new version of the Draft programme will be available very soon, by the way).

However, right now we need to end the system whereby the establishment parties enjoy a virtual monopoly over political representation. That means a system of genuine PR, where recallability is exercised by parties and the voters can give their verdict on the performance of those parties through annual elections. We recommend a critical ‘yes’ vote in the May 5 referendum on AV, not because AV is a form of PR - it most certainly is not - but because it at least allows for the genuine support for small, anti-establishment parties to be recorded and would demonstrate that FPTP is not set in stone.

Flexible
Flexible

Labour revival

Around 50 members squeezed into the premises on Sunday March 20 for the Chipping Barnet Labour Party annual general meeting - a considerable advance on the 16 of the previous year and well beyond the quorum figure of 20.

Following the usual election of officers, the main part of the proceedings was the nomination of a contender for the Barnet-Camden Greater London Assembly seat, to stand against Tory smart alec Brian Coleman. There were four candidates: Tom Copley from Camden (a Kentish Town resident); Andrew Dismore, ex-MP for Hendon; Kathy McGuirk, a councillor from Finchley; and Neil Nerva, chair of Hampstead and Kilburn LP and vice-chair of the Jewish Labour Movement.

All four candidates were naturally and commendably in favour of specific reforms for the area and anxious that the party should mend its fences with the electorate. To this end, a certain left rhetoric emerged, including the use of that long-forgotten word, ‘comrade’ (for example, Andrew Dismore began by saying, “Well, thanks for inviting me, comrades”). Kathy McGuirk promised to “put people first and not the market” - not exactly what she was saying in defence of the NHS during Tony Blair’s administration. She also steered clear of any comment about the current behaviour of banks, but did at least come out in support of rent control in housing. Dismore, in response to a question about the loss of UK tax revenue through tax havens, observed interestingly that in his view the UK should adopt the approach of the current Greek government and tax assets as well as income.

Some of the most revealing comments from the candidates were in response to questions concerning relations with the far left, with trade unionists and with Ken Livingstone as candidate for the post of London mayor. Ken was roundly advised to shut up about foreign policy issues and plug his real achievements for the city: viz bikes courtesy of Barclays, Crossrail and the Olympics, all of which mayor Johnson claims the credit for. Before that, however, Tom Copley had drawn attention to the appeal of the Socialist Workers Party and similar organisations for students. This prompted a questioner to ask all four candidates whether they were in favour of united action with the “hard left” in any shape or form.

Kathy McGuirk, Neil Nerva and Tom Copley all voiced their opposition to the SWP. Kathy said that, in her experience, “SWPers are rich”. Neil Nerva censured them for working for Respect against Oona King in Tower Hamlets and for attacking industrious Labour councillors. Tom Copley bemoaned the apparent non-existence of SWP trade unionists, denounced the organisation for welcoming worst-case scenarios because they would accept “nothing short of revolution” and stated outright: “We should not work with them.” Andrew Dismore was more diplomatic, but did point out that he joined the Labour Party in 1974 and supported it on the basis of the actual reforms achieved by the Wilson government between 1974 and 1978. He also reminded the meeting that he had voted against top-up fees in universities under Blair. All these attitudes are no doubt evidence of a lack of revolutionary zeal on the candidates’ part, but also appear to indicate a failure by the SWP to get its basic political message across to Labour supporters, so that when, as on rare occasions, the SWP actually specifies a series of reforms it would like to see put in place, the average Labourite is unaware of them.

Andrew Dismore emerged the clear winner in the ballot, as was to be expected, picking up a total of 30 first preferences against a combined figure of 22 for the other three. In the circumstances, a wise choice, in this writer’s view, since he looks clearly best placed to take on Brian Coleman by threatening to make inroads into the latter’s core vote.

Labour revival
Labour revival

Nuclear future

In response to the current nuclear crisis in Japan, Sadie Robinson commented in Socialist Worker: “The latest crisis has shown what many people have argued for decades - that nuclear power poses a horrific threat to our lives and the planet. We don’t need nuclear power. We should demand that every nuclear plant is shut down now” (March 15). To me, this is not a reasonable response to the situation or to nuclear power in general, but simply anti-science hysteria.

We are also starting to see a response along these lines from several parts of the world, with the European Union member-states agreeing to perform stress tests on the 153 reactors around Europe, and the German government going several steps further by declaring that for the next three months eight reactors will be offline whilst they undergo checks. German nuclear policy may even be reconsidered. This is also the case in China, where the government has announced that it will suspend the approval previously granted to several proposed nuclear plants. We can expect other countries to follow suit.

I think that it would be more helpful to approach this event logically and carefully. Japan is a densely populated country, and it experienced an earthquake measuring over 9 on the Richter scale. This scale is logarithmic, which means that a quake measuring 9 is 10 times as powerful as one measuring 8, and 100 times greater than a quake measuring 7, etc. The Japanese earthquake was therefore around 100,000 times more powerful than that which Christchurch experienced recently, and there have only ever been three other earthquakes recorded that measured 9 or above. Is it not a testament to the safety of nuclear power that a 40-year-old reactor was able to cope so well with such an extreme catastrophe as this?

This is not to say that we shouldn’t review the safety of ageing scientific projects, such as nuclear power stations. There has undoubtedly been a huge amount of development in the industry since these reactors were built. It seems to me that the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has been exacerbated by cost-cutting techniques, such as the stacking of spent fuel rods too closely together in pools near the reactors. Throughout this catastrophe, the integrity of the containment structures, which surround the reactor, has been maintained. The reactor buildings contain the core of nuclear fuel, and these have also remained intact.

The fact of the matter is that nuclear energy still presents the only immediately available, reliable and cheap, low-carbon-energy source. It is well documented that we have to move beyond burning fossil fuels to provide energy for a growing global population and, as desirable as some of the renewable energy sources are (wind, solar, tidal, geothermal are all candidates), at the moment these are simply not able to fill the hole that is going to be left, as we migrate from coal, oil and gas, unless vast sums of money are to be spent on energy. We also must consider the future and how we see our energy needs being met as we become a planet that is increasing its energy consumption. The strongest candidate that we have to meet this need is nuclear fusion.

Once the technological obstacles that stand in the way of fusion are overcome, this option will be the outstanding candidate for comparatively cheap and clean global energy production. Do we abandon nuclear research because of this incident in Japan? At the time of writing, it looks possible that as a result of this disaster there may be almost (if not exactly) zero deaths from radiation, and extremely low levels of radiation released that is dangerous to human health, apart from short periods to those working within the facility, and no significant, long-lasting environmental damage.

We need to spend more on nuclear power and produce energy - without the emphasis on saving money, but on safely and efficiently providing energy with a minimum amount of carbon emitted (and also a minimum amount of radioactive waste - another argument for fusion). We need to push scientific development to help us meet the energy challenges we are going to face. The potential of fusion, the process that drives the sun, is so great that we simply have to keep developing our understanding of, and our ability to harness, nuclear power.

Misinformation about nuclear power is common in the media, but in this case it has provided a distraction from the real disaster in Japan - namely the death toll, which is currently expected to exceed 20,000.

Nuclear future
Nuclear future

No heroes

Over the last year or more, an organisation called Help For Heroes has been active in support of the British armed forces involved in the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. The military wing of British imperialism and the boot boys of the ruling class caused the dislocation of millions of people in both countries and death and destruction on a massive scale.

These British armed forces, in collusion with the USA and other Nato members, dropped thousands of tons of high explosives in both countries. They used B52 and other fighter bombers, helicopter gunships, hell-fire missiles, tanks and guns to kill and maim, terrorise, torture and abuse many hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghani men, women and children. The night raids on Iraqi and Afghani families were intended to terrorise and cower these people. The use of the death squads of the SAS and SBS to carry out the secret assassinations of alleged insurgents in both countries has often ended with the deaths of innocent men, women and children, reminiscent of the way that the British army behaved in Ireland.

I ask the question, do the above atrocities carried out by the conquering British armed forces make them ‘heroes’? Are the British soldiers who threw an Iraqi youth of 17, an asthmatic who couldn’t swim, into a canal, walked away and watched him drown, also ‘heroes’? Are the British squaddies who kicked and beat to death the Iraqi hotel receptionist, Baha Mousa, leaving 98 assault marks on his body, also ‘heroes’? No British soldier has yet been arrested and charged with his murder. Are the British paras who murdered 14 unarmed civil rights demonstrators in Derry in 1972 also ‘heroes’?

The Help For Heroes campaign attempts to normalise and legitimise the state terrorism carried out by the British armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seeks to glamorise and make acceptable the actions of the British armed forces by calling these military actions ‘heroic’ and those doing the terrorising ‘heroes’. This jingoism and glorification of war and death is best encapsulated in the macabre ritual at Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire for the returning dead soldiers and in the parades by the military regiments in the towns and cities of Britain. How arrogant and superior these squaddies must feel, full of pride, returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with no respect and scant regard for the feelings of the people that they occupied, oppressed, killed, orphaned, tortured and abused.

Racism, jingoism, reactionary nationalism and war-mongering have always been at the forefront and at the heart of all British imperialism’s wars of conquest against many countries down the years of its ‘glory’ days of the British empire - or should I say the darkest, inglorious days of empire in South Africa, India, Ireland, Egypt, Aden, Cyprus, Malaya, Palestine, Kenya et al. The British armed forces are made up in the main of working class youth who are brainwashed, indoctrinated, dehumanised, lied to, groomed and brutalised into becoming killers for capitalism and imperialism - mere cannon fodder in the cause of ‘queen and country’. These same squaddies, whilst in the service of imperialism, are also the sworn enemy of the working class and its interests.

The interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, like all imperialist interventions, were carried out in order to seize control of the oil and gas and other raw materials such as minerals. In a sentence, to steal the natural resources in Iraq and Afghanistan and to use both countries as bases from which imperialism can protect its strategic, economic, political and military interests.

Sad to say, but not surprisingly, all trade union leaders in Britain and the Labour and trade union bureaucracy support unconditionally imperialism’s wars of conquest. While the Stop the War Coalition adopts a pacifist and non-revolutionary position on imperialism, any Marxist worthy of the name would call for the defeat of imperialism and campaign in the working class on the slogan, ‘The enemy is at home’ - not the poor, oppressed and exploited masses in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No heroes
No heroes