Letters

We ain’t there

Ben Watson objects to this paper’s criticisms of Socialist Worker over its coverage of Margaret Thatcher’s death. “Uniquely among the left,” he argues, the Socialist Workers Party “picked up the mood of the best sections of the working class”.

One has to take issue, first of all, with the word “uniquely”. Really? Leftwing gloating at the death of Thatcher was everywhere. Class War had been planning its ‘Thatcher’s dead!’ party for at least a decade. Yes, many class-conscious workers exulted in the death of an old enemy, and groups like the SWP and Class War “picked up on” that mood (so, in fact, did the rest of us - we just responded differently).

The point is, surely, that first of all our job is not to passively reflect whatever happens to be in the heads of the workers - “best” or worst. The working class does not need our help, or (worse) our consent, to hate Thatcher. This hatred, however, is the residue of a historic defeat. Thatcher - and more broadly the ruling class - won the class battles of the 80s. One of the old clichés about the purpose of the party - ‘the memory of the class’ - is important here. The job of the organisations of the far left is to preserve and communicate historical memory, and memory of defeats above all else.

After the Thatcher street party comes the hangover, and the need for sober reflection on why we failed in our historic mission. The crime of Socialist Worker - a weekly which avoids self-criticism and sobriety like the plague - was to ignore this completely in pursuit of shallow publicity (and a welcome distraction from its internal difficulties). “Now get the others!” urged the front page, as if the mere fact of a frail old woman having finally expired was a hard-fought victory for the working class. (Perhaps the Grim Reaper is a PCS militant?)

Comrade Watson points out that he is hardly uncritical of the SWP, and a supporter of the International Socialist Network. Yet making an exception for this coverage is perverse - it, just like the bizarre behaviour of the leadership over the course of the SWP’s crisis, precisely exemplifies the inability of the SWP to take any responsibility for its stagnation and failure. (This inability is hardly unique to the SWP, of course, which is one of the many reasons why Thatcher managed so successfully to clobber the workers’ movement.)

This front page in a sense sums up everything that’s wrong with Socialist Worker. It reads the utterly understandable bitterness of the working class about the Thatcher era just like it reads everything else - as further evidence that the working class is broiling with revolutionary energy, and only needs a little bit of confidence to move heaven and earth. This delusion sings out from every page of every issue, and none more acutely than its claiming credit for this death from natural causes. Comrades, we ain’t there.

When the “best sections” are truly ready to take on capitalism, they won’t be consumed by the hatred of dead enemies; kowtowing to such sentiments now actually delays any revival in class combativity.

We ain’t there
We ain’t there

Unpublished

This is a letter I sent to Socialist Worker. It was not published - they can’t take any criticism.

“Can I draw your attention to the following sentences from your recent article: ‘There have been demonstrations across the country in solidarity with those in the square and park. Many have been awash with Turkish flags, as Islamophobic nationalists have tried to inject the movement with their poison’ (June 4). Are you aware how contradictory this is when the people who are protesting are Muslims themselves? The protests have clearly taken on a pro-secular agenda against a government who are the opposite of progressive and Islamic in outlook.

“If England was run by a deeply conservative party that supported Christian values and tried to move the country closer to a religious state, and anti-government forces called for different values, which they called nationalist and not religious, would they be described as ‘Christianphobic’, even if most of them were Christians themselves?

“It seems to me that since the Respect popular frontism the SWP has entirely muddled thinking. At a recent National Union of Teachers conference I heard a speaker booed by an SWP group because he used the phrase ‘Islamic terrorist’. The description seemed reasonable to me when acts of terror are committed in the name of Islam. This does not mean that all Muslims are terrorists. Nor does it mean the speaker was anti-Muslim.

“The so-called nationalists are in the main pro-secular workers who are against religious control, not Islamophobic. They are not spreading poison, but organising against the government. Are the SWP saying they should support the government? Are they saying that they should be fully formed socialists? The answer is obvious. Perhaps the SWP should recognise the true nature of the protests and stop spreading its distorted views.”

Unpublished
Unpublished

Still ignoring

Peter Manson quotes the SWP as saying it would be a mistake to “pretend there is nothing wrong and hope that by ignoring the problem it will go away” (‘Offering token concessions’, June 13). He comments: “Well, I am tempted to refer to that second conclusion as a breath of fresh air, although perhaps that would be overdoing things.”

Indeed, I strongly feel that this would be overdoing things. While I admit that I’m not deeply into SWP affairs, if the SWP and its international sister organisations are now willing not to ignore problems, they obviously do not regard spreading lies as a problem. I’m referring to their reaction - or rather non-reaction - to the fact that they have been informed for some time that a certain Simon Assaf, a regular writer for Socialist Worker, stated, in order to defend the pro-rebel line on Syria, that the Lebanese Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had called the Syrian rebels “takfiris” and that this meant “unbelievers/apostates”. This, according to Simon Assaf, meant that Hezbollah was inciting religious sectarian hatred. In my letter to the Weekly Worker (June 6) I pointed out that takfiris are not “unbelievers”, but those Muslims who call other Muslims unbelievers. So Nasrallah in fact said the opposite of what SW alleges.

Everyone can, of course, make a mistake. But not only haven’t I heard or seen a correction of this mistake, but shortly afterwards I found a translation of this same article on the website of the Austrian organisation, Linkswende. I wrote to them asking them to publicly correct this politically not so unimportant ‘mistake’ and/or delete Assaf’s article from their website. The reaction? None at all. So it is no longer a question of having made a mistake, but of lying to their readers.

These organisations are by no means the only ones inside the left camp acting like this. If the international working class bothered to take notice of them, such behaviour would certainly add to the prevailing cynicism both in regard to the bourgeoisie and their media and to the ‘revolutionaries’.

Still ignoring
Still ignoring

Back in the USSR

I have just returned from a fifth trip in the past four years to Moscow and would like to share some thoughts and comments.

I am no great expert, but my sense is that there is no trend in Russia advocating a ‘return’ to the USSR. Russia - certainly in the big cities like Moscow - is very much part of a highly modern and vibrant 21st century consumer society. Most people are well educated, well fed, well dressed, and have access to the most modern forms of communication. Sure, you will see examples of people who have ‘fallen below the net’, but no more, and I would say less, than in western cities like London. Local shops and supermarkets are plentiful and full, and well stocked with a full range of consumer goods, both local and, disconcertingly, western ‘own brands’.

Russia has recovered extremely well under the leadership of Putin and Medvedev and has largely overcome the economic, social and humanitarian disaster of the immediate post-Soviet collapse under Yeltsin. We insult and offend the Russian nation and people by failing to recognise this massive, strategic change and recovery. Moscow is today a major world capital, cosmopolitan, vibrant, exciting, individualistic, safe, green and clean.

Yes, there is a degree of nostalgia for the old Soviet Union. Yes, for many Russians, including perhaps, even especially, the younger generations, there is fairly unqualified admiration for Joseph Stalin as ‘the man who won the war’. But the idea of advocating the reversal of today’s modern consumer society, with its personal consumer choice and freedom to speak and write, to the image of what passed for Soviet society in the 1970s and 80s, is frankly nonsensical. It just is not going to happen and nor should it. Whilst Soviet society will be seen to have its gains and advantages, no-one today is going to opt out of the choices, freedoms and vibrancy of a modern consumer society, in favour of the limitations and basics of the 1970s and 80s.

It seems to me that modern Russia has made unbelievable and unexpected progress in re-establishing itself as a major world power and that should be welcomed by progressives and socialists as providing a powerful limiting factor for decadent, dangerous western imperialism and as providing a breathing space for modern, progressive ideas to emerge and develop in Russia.

We are Marxists, so understand that economics and technology ultimately determine the shape and diversity of human society and politics. A new socialism in Russia has to build from where we are now, proceeding from the existing economic and technological base - not going back two or three decades.

The idea that communists, of all people, should have been identified with people who tried to censor and restrict free speech and thinking is frankly appalling and disgusting. Future socialism in Russia - and in the UK - can never be based on empty shops or stopping people thinking or saying the ‘wrong’ things.

21st century socialism has to be based on the achievement of the most modern technological advances, behaviour and attitudes, and fundamentally has to be deeply pluralistic, diverse and democratic. As we used to say, socialism has to be based on and surpass the highest achievements of capitalism. Not a reversion to the past.

Back in the USSR
Back in the USSR

Polish link

I read your paper every week online and I find many of the topics interesting. As when you saw parallels between British and Polish “anti-sectarian sectarianism” (‘Anti-sectarianism Polish style’, May 23).

The UK fascist movement seems to be developing similarly to the Polish movement. As in the UK, it may evolve from some kind of moderate, parliamentary, democratic forms (like the UK Independence Party) to adopt a more radical, modern, popular style.

In Poland it is the same. On May Day there was a nationalist demonstration under the slogan, “Jobs in Poland for Poles!” (sound familiar?). There were 500 people on this demonstration, whereas the radical left could manage 200 at best.

Do you think the situation in the UK is similar to Poland in this respect? If so as Marxists we should discuss together how to fight the rise of the right.

Polish link
Polish link

Abortion error

There was a small technical error in an otherwise very good article (‘No ifs, no buts … a woman’s right to choose’, June 13). It is the newly established Abortion Rights Campaign who are organising the national activists meeting on Saturday June 22 (which I will be attending as the representative from the Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group).

Abortion error
Abortion error

Inept term

Comrade Michael Copestake reports that the suggestion that the term ‘democratic centralism’ should be abandoned, because it carries too much negative baggage, was countered by comrades who claimed: “Using that argument, one may as well stop talking about ‘socialism’, ‘communism’ and so on - these are terms that had also been misused and are associated with the Soviet Union under Stalin” (‘The left must aim higher’, June 13).

This counter-argument is unconvincing. The terms ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ were indeed besmirched by Stalinism; but their true, untainted meaning is clear from classical discourse that predated Stalinism, and was upheld by anti-Stalinist socialists during the heyday of Stalinism.

Not so with ‘democratic centralism’. Its authoritarian interpretation and application - prohibition of factions and of open debate - cannot be blamed on the Soviet Union under Stalin, as it has been shared by many anti-Stalinist groups. Moreover, the most authoritative interpretation of this term is in the ‘Theses on the role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution’, promulgated by the second congress of the Comintern, July 1920. Although this overly authoritarian text, which predates Stalinism, is clearly addressed to the exceptional context of the civil war, it has nevertheless been taken as a blueprint by most Leninist organisations in normal times.

It seems to me that, instead of appealing to the false prestige of this tainted formula, it would be much better to explain in detail why ‘horizontal decision-making’ is in fact anti-democratic (it means minority rule!); and why a federal mechanism for decision-making at a national level should be avoided (an overall minority can win majorities in a majority of federated branches!).

Inept term
Inept term

Socialist-lite

The ‘anti-austerity bus tour’ of England has just started and you may have already witnessed the curious spectacle of communists of the Morning Star variety clamouring to get on board. But what is the alternative to austerity that the bus is hawking? Keynesian economics!

In times of unemployment, Keynes said that governments must raise taxation to spend money to create jobs: in other words, governments must run a deficit. Yet if employment is high but inflation is rising, the way to deal with this, said Keynes, is that governments must make cuts and run a budget surplus, using this to pay off the national debts and lower inflation.

Yet what happened in 1976? Unemployment and prices were rising, but no government can run a surplus and a deficit at the same time. So the then Labour government abandoned Keynesian policies and introduced monetarism. I hope communists who read the Weekly Worker do not fall into the trap of thinking that Keynesian ideas are socialist, socialist-lite or somehow a necessary step towards socialism.

Socialist-lite
Socialist-lite

Remember 1913

The Great Dublin lockout, which began on August 26 1913, pitted two powerful antagonists: Jim Larkin, leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, and William Martin Murphy, leader of the Dublin Employers’ Federation.

Dublin was the second city of the empire when the Act of Union came into force on January 1 1801. By 1913 the south was a rural backwater, taxed out of all proportion to its ability to pay, its industries and commerce suppressed and its peasantry reduced to subsistence living typified by the Great Famine of 1845-52.

The Dublin Lockout was different from and yet part of the great unrest that swept Britain and its Irish colony in the years before World War I. On August 26 1913, drivers and conductors abandoned their trams in protest. The employers drew up a pledge for workers to sign: “I hereby undertake to carry out all instructions given to me by or on behalf of my employers and, further, I agree to immediately resign my membership of the ITGWU ...” Those who refused to sign were sacked.

There was tremendous solidarity support in Manchester - 130 NUR rail union branches called for action. In south Wales, rail workers and dockers went on unofficial strike. But on December 9 1913 the TUC special conference met and predictably there was a sell-out and betrayal of the Dublin strikers.

The Dublin Lockout Organising Committee in London have organised an event on the August bank holiday weekend to celebrate the centenary, from Friday August 23 to Sunday August 25. The main event is an all-day conference in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. Confirmed speakers include John McDonnell MP, Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT trade union, Sheila Coleman, chair of the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, Cillian Gillespie of the Irish Socialist Party and Michael Holden of the Irish Republican Prisoners Support Group.

Remember 1913
Remember 1913