Letters

RWT and regroupment

Thanks for the copy of the Weekly Worker of April 27, which included part of my letter of April 19 in it. Also for your letter of May 11 in reply to this.

I first have to make a correction regards my letter in the paper of April 27. I am secretary of the Republican Worker Tendency and not the Revolutionary Worker Tendency, as you put it. As some of my letters are being published in the Weekly Worker as part of the debate on regroupment, I would appreciate it if you printed those which are in their entirety.

In your letter of May 11 you give the impression we are considering the question of regroupment at our aggregate in June in terms of deciding whether or not to join you in reforging the CPGB. If this is the case, then it is a serious misunderstanding of where we stand in relation to the question of regroupment.

You will notice in my letter in the paper of April 27 I very clearly write: “We feel very clearly that much ideological debate and clarity is needed”, on to “before actual regroupment itself can take place”.

What we will be debating and deciding at our June aggregate is what does revolutionary regroupment mean and entail. While doing this we will consider the opinions of other organisations and people on this and hope in the process to arrive at a definite political conclusion which will guide our involvement in the overall debate on this issue in the months ahead.

We will also be deciding upon a draft response to your very interesting and challenging document, Party, non-ideology and faction. This will include reference to the subjects in the three questions we asked of you in my letter of April 19 and your answers to date.

I hope and trust this clarifies the RWT’s position on these matters for you and the readers of your paper.

Stan Kelsey writes:

We accept that it is the RWT’s view that much ideological debate and clarity is needed before regroupment can take place. However, we wish to emphasise our view that ideological differences can co-exist (and be debated of course) within a disciplined democratic centralist communist organisation.

Brian Higgins
Secretary, Republican Worker Tendency

Instant communism

Clive Carr, in reply to my letter, asks, “What about China and Vietnam?” (Weekly Worker 92). In all the countries of the world there exists capitalism. It has never been abolished in any country of the world since the whole rotten thing began back in the 1700s.

The Bolsheviks did not end capitalism in Russia. They merely manoeuvred themselves into the bosses’ chair on the back of a workers’ revolution. This revolution was prevented from coming to full fruition around the world by the insistence on the need for the workers’ state, rather than the full-thrust transition to communism, a society with no bosses. Under communism ruling classes are made superfluous by the democracy of the new working class organisations, in which everyone has a vote in every decision.

Democracy in these organisations became non-existent just after the Bolsheviks made their mark on the revolution at the start of the civil war. From that point on ‘one-man management’ was back, but instead of a capitalist boss you had a communist one.

Mao Tse Tung did not end capitalism in China. He just slipped into the boss’s chair and started running the Chinese economy in the same manner as the Russians were running theirs. With Mao there was no workers’ revolution to conveniently lift him into the big boss chair, so he went chasing around fighting a guerrilla war - hardly the self-emancipation of the working class, as the revolution which was strangled in Russia started out.

For this reason China is not workers’ state capitalism - ie, a workers’ state with a capitalistic economy. Under workers’ state capitalism exchange value is determined by the new bosses, instead of in the manner that Karl Marx described in the ordinary capitalist economies. If there is a label to be attached to China, in which state intervention is less than in the USA, then the label must be ‘wolf capitalism’ in socialist lamb’s clothing.

Unlike Russia, where there were some advantages to the workers (a good health and education programme and the trains ran on time - rather like a certain Italian regime, and no reason in my book to defend the Russians), workers in China are being huddled into sweat shops known as enterprise zones and getting exploited literally to death.

The story is similar in Vietnam. All East Asia is a cheap labour paradise for the world’s capitalists and the great thing about investing in China and Vietnam is that there isn’t going to be a revolution (well, that’s what the capitalists think).

I am loathe to fight for any country, be it the UK, US or the old USSR; there is no lesser of two evils. The workers of the world, of which I am one, have no country and have had no country, apart from a brief time in Paris 1871 and parts of Russia in 1905 and 1917-18. The ‘counterrevolutions’ of the early 90s have not particularly changed much - bosses are still bosses, and workers with no more power over their existence than before.

Gary Salisbury
Stevenage

No votes for sheep

I would like to comment, as both a vegetarian and a communist, on the exchange between Mark Field (Weekly Worker 94) and Phil Railston (Weekly Worker 95). Being vegetarian or supporting ‘animal rights’ is no indication whatsoever of one’s position in the class war. Being a communist most surely is. Phil’s letter and the original article (Weekly Worker 92) identified sufficient reactionary vegetarians to illustrate this point.

When Mark claims that “social justice should apply to all creatures”, I hope he would agree that votes for cattle, or having sheep representatives on governing bodies would be absurd. The fact is that, short of claiming equality for animals, in human society they have only the conditions we put them in and no rights at all. Justice and rights are social concepts and cannot apply to animals, which play a role in social relations no greater than a motor bike or a torfu burger. Mark writes that humans should “ensure, as far as possible within their natural environment, all creatures have a right to a pain-free life.” Firstly, to the degree that humans intervene to ensure anything, the environment ceases to be natural and becomes social. And while humans can and should choose not to treat animals brutally, what animals do to each other cannot start to be described as brutal, because such concepts have no meaning outside of human society. To suggest that animals could have a pain-free life in nature is pure nonsense.

Humans should treat animals humanely because to do otherwise is bad for humans: it brutalises and dehumanises us. I became a vegetarian for social and financial reasons. While I am sure that there are some healthy meat eaters around, I remain a vegetarian because it is good for me, not for the good of the food.

Steve Riley
London

Tory mark II

Jack Dromey has sunk so low he uses Tory law to attack our union and its general secretary - he exposes his lack of political understanding.

The formation of the Labour Party was brought about by the suffering and deprivation caused by the class system in this country. When the Labour Party came to power after the Second World War, we were told: “We will build houses, have better education, better health, etc.” Some of these things did come about.

But, and this is the thing all Jack Dromeys forget, they left the class system untouched. The silence was deafening from the Jack Dromeys when Mrs Thatcher reminded us all what class war was all about: when she devastated industry, took out housing, hospitals and education.

The Labour Party’s response is: let us be Tory mark II. And, to add just one further insult - we will blame Bill Morris and the T&G.

Jim Carpenter
Crayford, Kent

T&G still great

We the undersigned would like to reply to Jack Dromey’s speech made at Chester to T&G members, attacking the general secretary, Bill Morris.

“The T&G used to be a great union” - is Jack Dromey suggesting that the union is no longer great? He implies that the T&G is always fighting the Labour Party. The T&G is not fighting the Labour Party, just exercising its democratic right to disagree with the spin doctors of Tony Blair in moving the Labour Party to the right in its attempt to get elected at any cost (if only the Labour Party should support the working class the same as the Tories support all their City friends).

The union is in crisis because its membership has been reduced over the last 16 years. Jack Dromey fails to say that Tory government policies were against the whole trade union movement during this period. He lays the blame at the door of the general secretaries past and present - Moss Evans, Ron Todd and now Bill Morris.

Jack says Bill Morris was against ‘one member, one vote’, fought Tony Blair over clause four and will fight him over his economic policies. Perhaps if we go down Jack Dromey Road, we will be tied into the Labour Party, doing only as Jack and Tony say - no thank you, Jack and Tony.

 Our members do want a Labour Government, but not one that cannot be distinguished from the Conservative Party.

But this is not what this election is about. It is about Jack Dromey seeking another chance to enhance his position within our union.

Jack, what we want is, when you are defeated, you do the honourable thing and resign your position within our union.

Frank Shilling, Vic Turner, B Cook
Rochester, Kent