Letters

Labour attacks

I think our friends Shilling, Turner and Cook (Letters 96) should read, as I am sure they will, the article by Arthur Lawrence in the same issue on the TGWU leadership contest. To be proud of one’s union is commendable, but trade unions are only reformist organisations which struggle for wages or conditions within the framework of capitalist society.

If the union finds it necessary to fight the Labour Party or any other party, then it should obviously be applauded. All unions are having problems with membership because of the rationalisation of capitalism, which began to assume an acute form during the Wilson years. The plea of our comrades - “If only the Labour Party would support the working class as the Tories support all their City friends” (such a party being only a figment of the imagination) - must be seen against the actions of the Labour government. It introduced the policy of ‘In place of strife’, which opened the door for Heath to try further attacks with his Industrial Relations Bill.

The fight against this bill and other related struggles was probably the greatest since World War II. But the leadership of the unions, TGWU included, left much to be desired. It was the rallying of the struggle by the lay members of the unions by the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions that brought victory. The TGWU members may want a Labour government, but is it what they need? I would suggest that the needs of all trade unionists at the present time is an organisation like the Liaison Committee, which can only be provided by a reforged Communist Party.

Ted Rowlands
Bishop Auckland

Rightward drift

I feel more at home when I read the Weekly Worker, because what is happening in this country resembles what is happening in Britain. The so called leftist parties in Italy seem to me to be a photocopy of the things you point out about the Labour Party and its present leader.

I received the Weekly Worker containing the article, ‘Labour woos the bosses’, the day the present leader of the PDS (‘leftist’ democratic party) was ‘gratefully admitted’ for the first time to a conference of the Industrialists’ Confederation. This was news indeed for Italian state television, which reported it as one more positive step towards the “liberalisation” of the ex-Communist Party. Cheers! The “modernisation” Eddie Ford speaks about and the great move towards an era of free-market supremacy is apparently a contagious disease, a virus which is spreading, irrespective of national and historical diversity.

This country is still in danger of a new form of dictatorship, more subtle and perhaps more dangerous than the one we suffered under fascism; a new ‘modernised’ form of totalitarianism, which rests firmly on the image the media construct of its leaders. They are presented as smiling and charming people who love their wives and children and have nuns and priests in their families to grant them vicinity to god.

To stop Berlusconi at the next general election is therefore vital for us. But this will mean fatally accepting the final sell-off of what is left of the welfare provisions and, I am afraid, an irreversible change in the attitude of the left. The slogan of the campaign against Berlusconi is “a light state”. No words are needed to explain what this formula will mean.

Paola Pugliatti
Italy

Necessary evil

Comrade Gary Salisbury is perfectly correct of course, when he states that the October Revolution was “prevented from coming to full fruition around the world” (Weekly Worker 96) - much to the misfortune of the twentieth century, without a doubt.

Yes, I too regret the fact that there was not a “full-thrust transition to communism” in Russia after the revolution (which, to be more precise, would have made democracy itself “superfluous”, by virtue of the fact there would have been no state or antagonistic classes).

This places comrade Salisbury in very good company, as Lenin and Trotsky (and the Bolsheviks in general) were of the same opinion as well. Hence, the overriding importance which the Bolsheviks placed on the advent of socialist revolution in the advanced capitalist states, particularly Germany. Without external assistance from the more advanced states, Lenin was well aware of the fact that Russia could not proceed to genuine socialism, let alone communism. Meanwhile, for the ‘interregnum’ during which the revolution was isolated, the workers’ state was a necessary evil.

Unfortunately, as we all know, the October Revolution remained isolated and the “full-thrust transition to communism” (or even socialism) was made impossible. However, that did not prevent Stalin from declaring that it was possible to build socialism in one country (ie, in the Soviet Union) and even proclaiming at the 18th Congress of the CPSU in 1939 that “we are going ahead towards communism”.

More recently, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge enthusiastically made the “full-thrust transition to communism” (sic) within the national boundaries of backward and isolated Kampuchea. Comrade Salisbury is probably well aware of the fact that the trains seldom ran on time in ‘communist’ Kampuchea.

Still, I am quite confident that comrade Salisbury would not associate himself with the views of either JV Stalin or Pol Pot. Rather, he stands for world revolution and a truly rational world economy - where the trains always run on time, and are free of charge.

Eddie Ford
South London