Letters

Dual duel

Dave Douglass’s latest reply to me is an exercise in delusion and evasion (Letters, October 13). Dave deludes himself that nationalisation of coal was in some way done to benefit the workers rather than capital. He further deludes himself that there existed some meaningful ‘dual power’ within this haven for the British working class. Yet, on every occasion when any such benefit is tested, he has to accept that it did not exist and find excuses for why it did not.

He accepts that there was a surplus of coal, but says that it could have been removed if British coal had been priced lower, if a market had been created for it, etc. I agree that, had British miners, as Kathy O’Donnell argued, been able to create a market for coal, then there need not have been a surplus. But that is the point! For all Dave’s claims about the benefits of state capitalism, and about the power of the National Union of Mineworkers and ‘dual power’, it did not have control over any of those things that mattered. And, as Trotsky pointed out, no capitalist, let alone a powerful state capitalist, is going to cede those kinds of control to any group of workers outside a revolutionary situation - ie, outside a situation of real dual power within society as a whole.

Dave goes on to talk about early retirement and shorter hours as a means to reduce the surplus production, but, of course, the consequence of that would have been to raise the unit costs of production and it would have undermined the very economic basis of low cost that he founds his argument upon. Nor am I unfamiliar with the arguments about social benefits but, as O’Donnell and other socialist economists have pointed out, it is only relevant if miners were unable to obtain alternative employment. During the late 40s, 50s and 60s, when the majority of pits closed and jobs were lost, there was little opposition, precisely because miners could quickly find alternative jobs.

Dave then gives us a picture of the NUM, having suffered one of the most crushing defeats of the working class in living memory in 1984-85, mystically coming back more powerful. Dave asks us to believe that by the time of Major the NUM had learned to use ‘the force’ so effectively that only complete annihilation of the industry by the dark side was sufficient to break its power.

Then, having laid out just how little real control the miners had over pricing, production, markets, etc, Dave returns to his role as apologist for state capitalism. Having explained at length how successive governments had viewed the mines in strictly capitalist, profit-and-loss terms, to the chagrin of the NUM, and insisted that loss-making pits be closed, he seems to forget all this in order to claim that nationalisation had meant “the lowering of the individual profit motive”. He’s forced to do this to explain the improvement in working conditions as being due to nationalisation rather than simply the kinds of changes that Fordism brought everywhere it was introduced.

But the contradiction of Dave’s position is exposed in his last comment in relation to BAe. The NUM even in its prime did not have the kind of ‘workers’ control’ that Dave says is necessary in BAe. So on what basis does he believe that an appeal to the Cameron government to nationalise BAe, under real workers’ control, is likely to be successful? Surely, on the basis of Dave’s previous argument, the first thing they would want to do, faced with such a revolutionary group of workers, would be to close the industry down immediately.

The only way that workers at BAe could have the kind of control that Dave speaks about would be if they owned it themselves. Short of the revolution, the only way of achieving that is to occupy and turn the firm into a cooperative, along the lines that the Argentinean workers at Zanon and elsewhere have done.

Dual duel
Dual duel

Knockers

Mark Fischer is slipping if he feels the need to twist my words (Letters, October 13). I didn’t say I “couldn’t be bothered” to reply. I said: “I’ll not bother responding to Mark Fischer in any detail again.” There is a world of difference.

Having set out, in my letters of September 1, September 22 and October 6 an alternative view, a different perspective and other sources of evidence on the nature and motive of that march, I was happy to let readers decide for themselves what view to form about it, and leave it at that. Since that time, Mark comes back and kicks me in the shin, prompting this further reply. Considering that he is unable to come across any contrary facts in the whole of that correspondence, chances are he will likewise ignore any in this contribution too.

The Jarrow march in this region is hailed not as an establishment-approved, ‘apolitical’ demonstration, but one which is part of a deeply felt class identity and a symptom of class struggle and defiance. It is seen as an attempt by the impoverished and ignored peasants of the north to break the indifference of a distant southern ruling class. That is a million miles from the ‘typically English’ and safe scenario painted by Mark. Perhaps he and Matt Perry, and others like them, simply want to set some record straight, to prove how the march wasn’t all that we thought it was. But Mark is trying to make the march into its opposite: a demonstration of allegiance to the system.

My only objection to Perry’s work is that it is part of a current wave of academic debunking of dearly held icons of working class history. It follows closely a similar one on 1926, which I exposed in some detail in this paper (‘Class, blackened faces and academic muddle’, September 9 2010). Perry’s work is clearly better researched and it remains sympathetic, yet critical. Whatever the motive, the result is one of diminishing class identity at a time of growing hopelessness among the class. My critique is not essentially of Perry, whose conclusions fit the march into a tradition of working class radicalism in the region, but of Mark, who leaves this conclusion out and goes on to gazump Matt’s criticisms with little or no added evidence. So it is Mark who has adopted the disreputable polemical method, not me.

Which points does Mark ignore? Well, chiefly the fact that, despite his claim it was an anti-communist march set up in opposition to Wal Hannington and the NUWM, the men of Jarrow, along with Ellen Wilkinson and her comrades, had in the first instance gone to those very forces and people with a view to them organising it. That it was Wal and the NUWM who turned the Jarrow men down. How do you square that with the much vaunted assertion that they were anti-communist and anti-NUWM?

Many in Jarrow, thanks to the horrendous impact of unemployment, faced literal starvation, the highest death rate in the country and the second highest child mortality rate. Paddy Scullion, one of the march’s organisers, said their intention was “to expose the government to the people throughout the length and breadth of the country”. Scullion says “he once or twice” chaired a meeting on a pit tip for Wal Hannington, while David Riley, the march steward, expressed solidarity with the NUWM hunger marches taking place elsewhere along the route. Both of these men were founders of the Class War Prisoners’ Fund in the wake of the 1926 struggles, which they were deeply involved with.

The march comprised men well known for their left and communist sympathies, but tactically they disagreed with NUWM and the CPGB. Having been turned down by the CPGB and NUWM, and deciding to go ahead with a march in the teeth of opposition by the government and labour and union establishment, they did then start on a popular front-style protest, but the CPGB in this period can hardly claim the high moral ground on that issue. From here on in, there were disagreements with the CP, and one member, Fred Harris, was temporarily thrown off the march, though later readmitted. The CP attempted to take a leading role as the march entered London, and it was at this point that a public disassociation from them was made by Riley.

Mark suggests this is an establishment-endorsed march, ignoring the facts I set out illustrating ruling class and government condemnations of it. The government had wanted the march stopped and the cabinet discussed ways of doing so. They set up a misinformation body to feed the press with anti-march stories and make sure any coverage in the press talked of its futility. That special branch officers who monitored the marchers along the route, with a view to finding excuses to stop it, could only report on how well behaved and non-threatening the march was doesn’t take away the role of the state in trying to prevent it happening.

Mark proudly proclaims: “… we reject the legacy of Jarrow and counterpose to it that of the communist-led National Unemployed Workers Movement” (‘They obeyed the rules’, September 29). However, the sum total was the same. As Lewis Mates says, “All hunger marches were basically legitimising the government of the day in their attempts to get it to provide work, which for many leftists is merely to line the pockets of the capitalists in capitalist society” (North East Labour History No38, 2006, pp171-79). That the marchers were mistaken in this tactic is understandable, but that they had borrowed it actually from the prevailing CP strategy is also fairly evident. So it’s not a question of high principle and class division versus a strategy of PR populism.

Perry makes the very clear point that all of those on the march (with the exception of the Tory agent for the impoverished town) were militant trade unionists on the left. The ‘non-political’ tactic was only struck on, when all other efforts through the left, right and centre of the working class movement hit a brick wall. It was clearly a tactic aimed at dodging the ‘far-left mob’ tag, and gaining a national platform. No matter how ill-advised that may seem, it was never a sign of the political coloration or motive of the march, neither of the rank and file nor its organisers.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, Mark continues to assert that this desperate march was “officially lauded and actively manufactured by the establishment as the epitome of the plight of the depressed areas”. So much so in fact that all the marchers, and their families back home, had their dole and benefits stopped for the duration because they were not actively seeking work. Some kind of ‘lauding’, I’m sure.

Mark and others make much of the story that the Jarrow men cheered as the king passed in his carriage down the Mall. Knowing who these men were and their class credentials and political outlook, I cannot but conclude this was working class irony, which was clearly misunderstood by the professional press recording it. What is certain is that none of the men on the march who have ever told their stories were actually royalists - far from it. It is simply another stick seized upon to beat a march which was at odds with the prevailing CP authority of the period.

All four of the Labour town councillors who organised the march tore up their party cards in disgust at the obstruction and lack of support that organisation gave them, as did many of the marchers and their families in the town. They joined instead the Independent Labour Party, which they saw as more radical and principled. Is this the sign of an anti-communist ethos?

David Riley, leader of the town council and chief march marshal, said on his return: “I am not so ready as I was to support an ordinary march ... now I think we should get down to London with a couple of bombs in our pockets ... These people of Westminster … do not realise that there are people living in Jarrow today under conditions which a respectable farmer would not keep swine ... We must do something so outrageous that it will make the country sit up. If people in other distressed areas … would march to London with us, we should be such an army that government could stem the tide only by one way - by shooting us down - and they daren’t do it.”

That quote just doesn’t match the image that Mark has tried to have us accept of the march and its leaders. That there were multifarious and contradictory elements in this march, that it was far from the red procession to shake the London establishment, as some of the marchers had originally hoped, is without question. Its purpose and complexion changed as it hit political disagreement, obstruction and bureaucratic control. All of that is true, but the people on the march and the workless masses back in Jarrow saw this as a militant working class demonstration, critical of capitalism in general and government policy in particular. That is still how it is perceived in the northern working class.

Knockers
Knockers

Do the maths

Chris Knight relies a great deal on averages of various kinds when explaining the connection between human menstruation and the lunar cycle, which he then claims can yield ‘exact’ results, such as the average length of one being exactly the same as the length of the other (Letters, October 13). But the variation in length of menstrual cycles is actually what gives rise to the false assumption of synchronisation.

If woman A has a cycle of 25 days and woman B’s is 30 days, the average is 27.5 days. After they each have three periods (75 and 90 days), they are 15 days apart. Wait another couple of months and, at 150 days, they synchronise. Basic arithmetic. If the researcher was looking for synchronisation, they’d stop watching now. But in another few months the women will be 15 days apart again.

Chris still maintains that synchrony of menstruation was the fundamental basis of the ‘human revolution’ by which women collectively undermined the power of the alpha male through sexual control of men and self-denial to achieve material benefit. At no point are we offered any testable mechanism by which this synchronisation could be achieved, and scientists attempting to assess it are dismissed as “men in white coats”. This seems to me a fragile basis for the explanation of nothing less than the origin of humanity. I am aware that some strands of feminist thought would be sympathetic to this mistrust of male scientists, but I do not believe that women playing ‘nature’ to a ‘male culture’ holds out any hope of progress.

Chris suggests that my criticism of the reactionary aspects of his theory means I am not interested in women’s solidarity. Not so; I’ve just organised an event in support of the day of action (Saturday November 19) called by the feminist campaign group, the Fawcett Society, together with my local, women-dominated, anti-cuts group and a female Unison rep whose union’s membership is predominantly female. I am strongly in favour of women taking conscious collective political action to defend our interests. I just don’t believe the manipulation of men’s sexuality is the way to do it.

Do the maths
Do the maths

Fingered

I am gobsmacked that the Weekly Worker has virtually ignored the rapidly developing, worldwide movement sparked by ‘Occupy Wall Street’ - except to describe the “latest bit of political ephemera” such as the “square occupation movements” as “in truth quite often politically dubious” (‘Not so memorable’, October 13).

The action has been reported worldwide and ‘Occupy’ has now reached meme proportions. But, for some reason, the Weekly Worker alone ignores it and leads with the ever-so ploddy “It’s that time of year again” on SWP pre-conference bulletins! (‘The tiny cog and its mechanical mindset’, October 13).

The degree of self-sacrifice being displayed by those taking part in Occupy Wall Street - and, I would suggest, the mass prison hunger strikes across the US - is inspiring forces across the globe. I would have expected all communists to applaud and support such actions and be at the forefront in offering Marxist solutions to the problems this movement is laying bare and taking on.

Come on, Weekly Worker, get your collective communist finger out now!

Fingered
Fingered

Never away

I’ve followed with great interest the recent debates in the Weekly Worker about how Marxists should relate to the Labour Party.

A few months ago, I rejoined Labour after being in the political wilderness for nearly 17 years. I have the Socialist Party in England and Wales to thank for that. The awful experiences I’ve had with many organisations during that time, including SPEW and its mirror-image, Socialist Appeal, mean that I now have a very low opinion of all the far left. I’ve concluded that most of them do not live in the real world.

This contrasts with the active members of my Labour Party branch, who have their feet very much planted firmly on the ground. After all the anti-Labour propaganda I have written in my local newspapers over those 17 years, I have been pleasantly surprised by the friendly response of party activists to my renewed membership. It’s as though I’d never been away.

Never away
Never away