Letters

Back in the USSR

I was recently listening to the Beatles’ White album on my very much broken record player. I was filled with contradictory emotions as I played the first track, ‘Back in the USSR’. The revolutionary left remains ‘back in the USSR’ and the recent crisis in the Socialist Workers Party paints a pristine picture of the continued degeneration of the Marxist camp.

After much delay, Alex Callinicos, whose defence of the bureaucratic methods of the SWP has become synonymous with the internal crisis, published an article in Socialist Review titled ‘Is Leninism finished?’ His essay met with responses from opposition within and outside of the party. What is at stake is the very cohesion of Leninist theory.

Marxism is not a family tree. It is most certainly not the ideology of all of those who claim to hold up its banner. In fact, it is consistent with Marx’s fight for the “ruthless criticism of all that exists”, which in this case is the need to criticise the notion that all ostensible ‘Marxists’, from the International Socialists to the Spartacists, are bearers of Marxist thought. The left, in fact, has struggled to defend the legacy of Lenin because it has failed to properly investigate what that legacy is. The origins of the crisis within the SWP, thus, rest with their faulty understanding of Leninist democratic centralism and its relevance in the present.

The fact that the SWP punches above its weight is only relevant to its own sectarian delusions. As Ben Lewis of the Communist Party of Great Britain commented in his essay, ‘Rebellion, regroupment and the party we need’, in the pages of the Weekly Worker, “we have also pointed out that the underlying reasons for the current crisis can and should be located … firstly in the Stalinoid organisational norms and rotten practices that the SWP leadership shamefacedly pursues in the name of ‘Leninism’; and secondly in the organisation’s lack of serious and workable perspectives more generally” (January 17).

In the framework of this crisis, revolutionaries are not interested in how hard the SWP punches. Despite the political shortcomings of the CPGB, altering Lenin’s legacy in their own regard, the fact remains that their coverage of the crisis has been consistently supportive and encouraging to members of the SWP who feel disillusioned with what they have come to learn. This is the opposite of what the party’s leadership has done - attempting to preserve its methods in the face of widespread opposition.

The fact that the SWP has survived as a bureaucratically twisted organisation without any real internal opposition is quite telling. Much as this ruthless capitalist system can be patched and reformed to salvage its complacency, it would appear that ostensibly revolutionary groupings can also take whatever form needed to preserve the internalised bureaucracy. It should be argued that, even if the entire central committee of the SWP was replaced, it is highly likely that the same bureaucratic means that exist within the party today would be once again harnessed. The issue here is programme.

It is simple to suggest that Leninism as theory and practice is not applicable to the 21st century by pointing to the bureaucratic, sectarian and often times idiotic practices of groups like the SWP. However, the SWP is not an isolated bureaucracy on the left that can be quarantined. In fact, many different ostensibly Marxist organisations have chosen to remain silent on the issue, in the likely fear that their internal power grabs will be exposed to the public as well. We must make the distinction between the programme of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, on the one hand, and that of those who have gutted Marxist theory, on the other. The road to regroupment is not paved with phony unity, contrary to those who attempt to pluck the heartstrings of reformists.

For anyone who has eyes to see and ears to hear, it is glaringly apparent that the Cliffite conception of democratic centralism is not only phony, but also anti-Marxist. Democratic centralism requires open and consistent debate. ‘March separately, strike together’ has become the phrase that defines this idea, in contrast to the watering down of class lines that has become a trademark of the SWP. This is not an ‘original sin’ of Leninism, but instead a result of the ludicrous political orientation of the SWP and many other competing leftist organisations.

In truth, the roots of the International Socialist tradition revolve primarily around a few points.

1. The utter repudiation of Trotsky’s theoretical contributions, such as his unconditional military defence of the Soviet Union up until the time of his assassination.

2. The promotion of single-issue activism and popular front campaigns that often lead to the demoralisation of party supporters, which lends itself to the revolving door of membership that has become inescapable among the entire International Socialist Tendency.

3. The internal control of the organisation by a handful of individuals who have spent so much time as ‘full-time leaders’ that they have trouble integrating into the capitalist job market, which leads them to seek means to maintain their leadership positions.

The opposition in and around the SWP has shown an ability to rise even in the face of potentially violating party discipline and facing expulsion. Led by figures like Richard Seymour and informed of the facts by publications such as Weekly Worker, oppositionists have rallied for a new conference to address the issues of party democracy, women’s liberation and the rape case that sparked this crisis.

But the call for a British and even an American Syriza is merely a call to perpetuate the phony ‘unity’ of all shapes and sizes of ‘socialists’, ‘communists’ and ‘Marxists’, and seeks to water down the lines of political programme. From the socialists who defend the capitalist state, to the ones who capitulate to the union bureaucracy and the bourgeois populism of the Occupy movement, to the ones who line up behind the Democratic and Labour parties, a blanket leftist organisation is opposed to Lenin’s conception of the party. The point of the party is not to broaden a wide umbrella to cover everyone who considers themselves leftists. The revolutionary party, in the legacy of the Bolsheviks, must be the epitome of revolutionary struggle.

Much like the ageing 60s generation of more radical days, we are left ‘back in the USSR’. It is impossible to discuss the burning questions of our time without discussing past revolutionary struggles, especially the Russian Revolution. Without a socialist project as a point of reference, however bureaucratically degenerated, present generations are brought up amongst the chorus of the ‘death of communism’.

Back in the USSR
Back in the USSR

Focus

I read with interest Michael Copestake’s article on the recent CPGB aggregate (‘Seeking a positive outcome’, January 31). In many respects it is most welcome, and unfortunate, that CPGB comrades spent time at their aggregate discussing the ongoing situation within the SWP, the organisation I am a member of.

Due to the influence it carries among militant workers, the SWP is the most significant section of the British far left. True, there are faults, as there will be in any organisation, and, make no mistake, I’m not excusing them. It is because of the importance of the SWP that it is only right other left ‘tendencies’ discuss the ongoing crisis within the SWP and anti-central committee opposition.

For, while it is arguably to the credit of CPGB that it carries SWP oppositionist support within its press, the paper must go much further. Rather than simply suggesting members should continue to organise against the CC, which is well within our constitutional rights (though some would dispute it), concrete questions over tactics and strategy must also be raised within these pages as a means to best support the opposition.

From reading Michael’s article, I get the impression that CPGB members failed to discuss its own intervention within trade unions and anti-cuts campaigns at the aggregate. Whatever disagreements are held with the SWP CC, let’s not lose focus and get distracted, comrades.

Focus
Focus

Déjà vu

It all sounds very familiar. In 1974 I was secretary of the International Socialists Opposition faction, which vainly attempted to oppose Cliff’s drive towards centralism without democracy and the establishment of the SWP.

The apparatchiks used every dirty trick in the book to attack us and then expelled many members. Over 150 comrades, many of them leading members, left the organisation. Many years later, Jim Nichol, who is now a human rights lawyer (but still an SWP member!), had the decency to apologise to me about the dirty tricks used against me. Sounds like the current leadership haven’t learnt these lessons.

It was during this period that I realised that democratic centralism and Leninist vanguard parties were not only irrelevant, but positively dangerous - and, yes, comrades in the CPGB, this applies to you too. If, in the unlikely event any of the SWP leaders ever got near political power, democratic socialists would be the first to be put up against the wall.

What was it Marx said? “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”

Déjà vu
Déjà vu

Uncomradely

CPGB comrades noticed that Sheffield’s two SWP branches were each holding meetings on ‘The politics of feminism’. In light of the crisis which has engulfed the organisation recently, we thought this particular topic could make for an interesting discussion.

The five or so comrades waiting to start at Sheffield South must have low expectations for their 'all welcome' ‘public’ branch meetings, since they immediately twigged we were - shock, horror - other leftists! On being questioned, we admitted our affiliation, and were informed that “We don’t want people who blog [sic] about our members at the meeting”. Presumably a reference to the Weekly Worker’s scandal-free coverage of the crisis in the SWP, but the comrade did not wish to elaborate.

After being stonewalled for several minutes, we asked if they definitely didn’t want other comrades at the meeting. To which one SWPer replied, “I’m not feeling very comradely”. Perhaps understandable for a CC loyalist, given the awfully ‘uncomradely’ behaviour of so many in his own organisation who have had the temerity to stand up to the only permanent faction it allows. The same comrade at least had the decency to look embarrassed about the situation, and no-one was relishing the chance to defend the central committee. Not entirely surprised by our rejection, we went down the pub instead.

Comrades in the SWP face a stark choice; they can batten down the hatches and watch, as their organisation withers on the vine. Or, for the present crisis to be resolved positively, more comrades will need to remember their revolutionary basics and - rebel!

Uncomradely
Uncomradely

Left-talking

Jerry Hicks, the rank-and-file candidate in the Unite general secretary election, shows the nature of the bureaucracy in Unite by exposing their role in the recent construction dispute (Letters, January 31). In fact, Jerry Hicks is now on the ballot paper, having gained the required number of nominations.

The CPGB is now obliged to take sides in this election. Except in a podcast by Jack Conrad, the Weekly Worker has taken the decision not to mention the election campaign or give any mention to Jerry Hicks and his campaign. Why is this? The CPGB uses the columns of its paper to highlight the crisis in the SWP and its bureaucratic methods, but no mention of the SWP vote at the conference to support Hicks for general secretary. The central committee insisted that the whole conference take the decision because they were afraid of being overturned by the conference itself.

The reason, I suspect, that the CPGB has not mentioned the Hicks campaign for Unite general secretary is that they have no orientation to the working class. Has the CPGB recruited many workers and what is its influence in the trade unions? Why is there no mention of Grass Roots Left and its campaign against the bureaucracy in Unite and other unions? The CPGB may make correct criticisms of the Socialist Party in England and Wales and the SWP, but it does not really have the same number of workers in its own organisation.

The importance of these organisations is their ability to attract a sizeable number of workers to their ranks. This the CPGB has failed to do, and remains an organisation dedicated to left-talking, but not much else.

Left-talking
Left-talking

Face it

Arthur Bough opposes the programmatic demand for full employment by sharing the available productive work, with each paid the minimum of a living wage (Letters, January 31). He does so on the grounds that this somehow capitulates to ‘bourgeois right’ (ie, you get out what you put in) and, as a result, has dug himself into a hole out of which I no longer care to assist him.

Suffice to simply take this opportunity to reassure the working class that a workers’ state, their workers’ state, will enforce full employment and will ensure that each is paid the minimum of a living wage by their employer, out of which they will be able to meet their immediate needs and that those not capable of working will also have their welfare needs met out of the social surplus, whether from the taxing of profits or out of the surpluses created by the socialised monopolies. Of course, you will have to wait for full communism before you can start bathing in milk, if you count that as one of your immediate needs.

Naturally, as with all transitional demands, we must not wait for a workers’ state to begin realising it. Local trade unions and other labour movement and community groupings should be seeking to place all school and university leavers and unemployed workers into work with local employers, by coercion if necessary. In the course of such a struggle, the question of power will be raised. If the organised labour movement ignores the youth and the unemployed, it will eventually find them being used against it. Let’s face it - when it’s finished toying with white-elephant Keynesian projects, imperialism has only one serious job creation scheme open to it: fascism and war, funded from the massive reserves of the non-investing monopolies with nowhere profitable to put their cash, and a revolution looming.

Face it
Face it

Blat, blat

Adam Buick is quite right to imply that by 1928 the USSR was no longer a workers’ state (Letters, January 11). Indeed, the process of its bureaucratic deformation started in the early 1920s, as shown by Simon Pirani in his revelatory book, The Russian Revolution in retreat, 1920-24. By 1928 the workers’ state had deformed out of existence.

He is also right to imply that a new class society had been emerging there before 1928. The importance of 1928 is not as a starting point of the process, which clearly spanned a number of years, but as an endpoint. In that year the New Economic Policy was terminated by Stalin. To claim, as Adam Buick does, that this was merely a change of policy rather than a fundamental socio-economic change is disingenuous: a major sector of the economy, operating under capitalist relations, was liquidated.

The new economic order, which indeed started to emerge in the state sector well before 1928, but from then on encompassed the entire economy, cannot be regarded as capitalist.

First, labour-power was not a commodity; there was no market for it. A person capable of work, possessor of labour-power, was not legally free to choose not to alienate it. Work was compulsory - conscripted labour, certainly alienated, but not true wage labour. And the so-called wage was not really a wage. When I was a conscript in the Israeli army, I received a soldier’s pay and (after my daughter was born) a family allowance. But this was not a true wage, and what I was performing for the Israeli Defence Forces was surely not wage labour.

Second, the roubles with which the so-called wages were paid in the USSR were not true money: not a universal equivalent. No matter how many roubles you had, you couldn’t legally exchange them for labour-power or for means of production, as there was no legal market in these. Your roubles could not legally be turned into commercial, productive or financial capital. You could only exchange them for limited kinds of consumer goods, in limited quantities. They functioned rather like wartime coupons. To obtain a greater quantity and variety of goods, you needed blat (connections) rather than roubles.

What name you give to such a socio-economic system is a secondary issue; but it was most certainly neither any kind of capitalism nor of socialism.

Blat, blat
Blat, blat

Touchy

Pete McLaren’s letter about foreign wars highlights what is wrong with the current left (January 31). The old left would have welcomed the wars to change regimes in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, as Saddam, Gaddafi and the Taliban don’t have a lot going for them from a leftwing perspective. Perhaps Pete didn’t see the images of those liberated from these regimes? If so, then he missed that they were jubilant scenes. No worker was sad when those regimes fell. Even in Mali today, people in the towns and cities liberated from the Islamic terrorists breathe a sigh of relief.

So what is the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’s alternative to military action? Have they become modern-day appeasers, like Neville Chamberlain, frightened to fight against oppression in case its leads to further acts of terrorism?

If Tusc was against the wars in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps it could tell us all what it found so appealing in these regimes that it felt they should not be overthrown and replaced with democracy? But what can you expect from Tusc? Like the RMT, it exists to serve Bob Crow and not the other way around. I suppose the thinking must be that, if the Americans and the west oppose a regime, then ‘we’, the left, must be for it. But, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t wash any more. We don’t need leaders like Crow to think for us.

As for the Socialist Party of Great Britain, ooh, they are a touchy lot! As the old saying goes, if you can’t take it, don’t give it. Alan Johnstone does come back with a great response (Letters, January 31). Mind you, they have been saying the same thing for the last 100 years, so that is to be expected. I suppose no-one was listening to them in 1904 and nothing has changed.

Touchy
Touchy

Coalfest

There are none so blind as will not see. David Douglass emits a blinkered call for more coal to be burned worldwide, and not for the first time (‘Walking away from CO₂ commitment’, January 31).

Without one reference to back up his assertion that ‘clean coal’ is what it is cracked up to be, David flails around, condemning wind turbine power generation out of hand, but conveniently ignoring other non-fossil fuel modes of power generation, such as wave and solar.

Four years ago I wrote a lengthy article (‘Blowing smoke, or clean coal’, February 5 2009) that took apart the case being made for ‘clean coal’ and so-called ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS), which are misnomers for the burning of coal and the capture, compression and storage of its gaseous combustion product, CO₂. This article carefully explained the severe environmental problems and risks associated with CCS and outlined the resultant tasks for the working class. In an article seven months later (‘Geoengineered for growth’, September 10 2009), I also exposed a false dawn of techniques directed at atmospheric carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM).

Although David Douglass responded in 2009, he was as unconvincing as he is now. This should be unsurprising, as he has used assertions not grounded in the facts on both occasions. In all essentials, my evidence-based arguments from 2009 still stand, refuting David Douglass’s confidence in a coal-based future.

Two strands emerge from David’s article. Firstly, why phase out coal in the UK if its use is expanding elsewhere in the world? Secondly, ‘clean’ coal would mean much cheaper power generation than other fossil fuels, nuclear and windpower. And, to my mind, David’s third, implied, strand is: an expanding coal industry would bring more coalminers, and syndicalists like him could then use coal’s strategic economic position to lever toward revolutionary change. All these strands are of rotten fibre.

First, it is misleading to suggest that the Don Valley CCS project, or, as David calls it, “The Hatfield system, which could provide major clean-coal exports, can … be established within two years of development.” It is true that Don Valley has led the European Commission rankings for all European CCS projects, according to its owners, 2Co Energy. But even had funding for the project’s development continued, we would have been many years, if not decades, from implementing CCS on an industry-wide scale. And how are big coal burners - China and India spring to mind - to be persuaded to sign up to the gigantic investment costs of CCS anyway?

Second, companies aplenty have scrambled for a piece of the CCS pie, in a manner comparable, if grosser, to those manufacturing heavily subsidised wind turbine systems. Of course, their company reports glow with the bright future for humanity if society continues to burn coal. Do I even need to sound a note of caution about their motives? Factoring in the full costs of energy-producing industries is absolutely essential, but easier said than done, given the vested interests of capital to turn a profit as quietly and covertly as possible. It is not ‘cheaper’ for humanity to pay the eventual cost in destruction of quality of life or even of life itself. It would not just be miners’ blood on the coal, were this blithe rush to the most polluting of fuels to be allowed to continue.

One of the major costs and certainly the major risk of the whole CCS process is precisely the storage of the waste combustion product, CO₂. This is totally unproven technology and will remain so until full-scale attempts are made to store compressed CO₂ beneath rock formations on land or under the sea bed. The extraction of hydrocarbons - gas and oil - is obviously fraught with risk, as we saw during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Almost 150 years after the oil extraction industries started, such serious problems still occur. What hope then for the soundness of storage of CO₂ beneath the ground or waves? Stored CO₂ will have to stay there while there are humans on Earth. One new fissure in the overlaying rock or a vent through an old and supposedly plugged drill hole and the CO₂ so painstakingly stored will find its way into the atmosphere with catastrophic results. CCS will then have been for nothing - except for making CCS-associated companies profits. The consequences for global warming - and thus humankind - hardly bear contemplating.

Instead of imagining the Tories are dribbling “eco-liberal policies” (what a laugh!), David needs to wake up and smell the coffee. There ain’t gonna be no new British coalmining industry soon in this universe. And, as there is no Planet B, we have to set to and mobilise the working class here and now to tackle one of the highest priorities for all humanity - the supremely democratic question of reducing drastically, eventually to nothing, the use of coal and hydrocarbons (gas and oil) for power generation and vehicular propulsion.

Coalfest
Coalfest

Ha ha

Maciej Zurowski offers a fascinating analysis of the way that Marxist groups compartmentalised feminism without attempting as much as a critical exchange (Letters, January 31).

I am flattered to be mentioned, and enormously entertained by his characterisation of me as believing that women always speak the truth except when they disagree with me. Which women do I think speak the truth, Maciej? You’re probably not referring to Teresa May, Nadine Dorries and Lynne Featherstone. The members of my local anti-cuts group and various left organisations I have been involved with would find it quite surprising if you were.

I suspect you might be referring to that troubling habit many feminists have of pointing out uncomfortable facts - for example, that two women every week are killed by their current or ex-partner. Around one in five women suffers domestic violence. The left is much more comfortable discussing the failure of the state to provide adequate refuges than looking at why men batter and murder their wives and children at such an alarming rate. Feminists make a point of taking seriously women who say they have been raped or sexually assaulted by men - some 23% of women in Britain.

According to organisations which have done some actual research, only 10%-15% of these crimes are reported, so that equates to about 0.8% of actual assaults. Unless, of course, we seriously believe the other 99.2% - almost one in four women - are liars. I don’t.

Anyway, do tell us more about the problem of Marxist groups compartmentalising feminists - which, of course, has not happened here. Especially that bit about feminism stepping in where the organised left had failed - which again has not happened here. We feminists enjoy nothing more than being told we’re emancipating ourselves all wrong. Oh, how we laugh.

Ha ha
Ha ha

Cheerleaders

Regarding last week’s Weekly Worker review of the film Argo, I would like to add a couple of points (‘How to distract the masses’, January 31).

This is one in a series of Islamophobic, pro-CIA films promoted before this year’s Oscars - all produced by ‘liberal’ US directors. Clearly Hollywood is of the opinion that, under a Democratic black president, it is legitimate to become cheerleaders for the CIA.

Argo portrays most Iranians as brutal, ignorant bullies: the only Iranian shown to possess any humanity in the film is a housekeeper/maid who ends up fleeing to Iraq as a refugee (note this is Saddam Hussein’s Iraq), wearing a dark red scarf - an essential component of the Mujahedin-e- Khalq (MEK) uniform. So director Ben Affleck, who starts the film as a critic of the Mosaddegh coup in 1953, ends it by supporting another form of regime change from above by promoting MEK, who are now an integral part of the US’s plans for regime change from above.

Cheerleaders
Cheerleaders