Letters

Vision

I was really heartened to read Moshé Machover’s article, as it succinctly summarises important aspects of our class’s experience around political organisation (‘The party we need', November 7). Simply put, we need a vision of an alternative society which is concretised into a more detailed programme.

Further, he correctly states: “The other thing one needs is an organisation which pulls together the working class and its allies, an organisation armed with that alternative vision. That is what is missing and it is what we need.”

So far, so straightforward. I would call such an organisation a communist party rather than “Marxian”, as this acknowledges the contribution of the unnamed masses, as well as other significant individuals, in addition to Marx and Engels. I do, however, strongly agree with Moshé that Marxian ideas will form an important theoretical and practical cornerstone of such an organisation. Incidentally, I would not fetishise the term ‘party’ for this organisation, but such a term does have resonance within the working class and I suspect that this is what we will end up with.

I strongly agree with Moshé when he identifies the lack of understanding of the importance of working for, and practising, thorough-going democracy within working class and socialist organisations as a fatal block to our advance towards communism. This does not seem to stem from the theory and practice of Marx and Engels (see Marx and Engels: their contribution to the democratic breakthrough by August J Nimitz Jr). I suspect that it has a number of sources. Moshé correctly identifies one: “A purely instrumental attitude to democracy … There is no sense … of any advocacy of democracy as an aim, as an inherent and inseparable part of socialism. That is to say, I would define socialism in part as the generalisation of democracy; its extension into all spheres of social life.”

A related issue is the development of leaderships who see themselves as having the best understanding and answers to all political problems all of the time. Thus, there is a permanent temptation to short-circuit and subvert democracy when the ‘less enlightened’ majority make a mistaken decision.

Such an elitist approach is entirely counter to my own experience of genuine democracy in operation - eg, during the miners’ Great Strike of 1984-85 and the poll tax revolt, where less experienced comrades operating in an encouraging environment on occasion came up with solutions to issues that had stumped those with more experience, whether these solutions were slogans for a poster or strategic orientations. Democratic practice allows us all to make our best contributions in the present, develop as individuals and to best prepare for a society where ‘every cook can govern’.

Therefore, those who take a lead in our struggles and organisations must be thorough-going democrats. Further, they should take it as one of their responsibilities to nurture an organisational atmosphere where the full and free development of each can be a condition for the full and free development of all. I would call this emotional intelligence. This is sometimes caricatured as just being nice. However, it requires a certain personal and political discipline to commit to interact in a respectful, comradely and egalitarian manner towards others in the working class and socialist movement. It requires a vision of a communist society, built on new foundations, where we will act and feel differently than we do under the baneful shadow of capitalism.

Vision
Vision

Vicious admins

My reading of John Smithee’s comments is that he was not saying that PCS jobcentre workers are the equivalent of the SS, but, rather, that the same argument - ‘I’m only doing my job’ - is used to justify its members’ role in harassing the sick and unemployed (Letters, October 31).

Richard Tomasson (Letters, November 7) clearly takes umbrage at such a suggestion, even going so far as to spuriously suggest that there is an equivalent level of contradiction involved in any work under the present system of social relations, and touchingly calls upon us to stop attacking fellow workers and instead attack the capitalist class.

Just who is he trying to kid? Both the previous Labour and present Con- Dem governments have mounted a vicious attack on the welfare state, benefits being a prime target, with jobcentre workers being the purveyors of such policy. It is pretty obvious on which side of the divide between class solidarity and class collaboration comrade Tomasson stands, and it is equally obvious on which side of the divide PCS jobcentre workers stand: they are administering it.

However, according to comrade Tomasson, jobcentre workers (and presumably, by default, Iain Duncan Smith) “want to help people”, because “work really is good for your health”. Is it? Does that include work with low pay or even no pay? I’m sure if it did, the ruling class would want to keep it all to itself.

Vicious admins
Vicious admins

Enemy union

Richard Tomasson makes the sweeping statement that “work really is good for your health”. Does that include low-paid work, shift work, temporary, casual or zero-hours work, or work where excessive hours are the norm? Many benefit claimants on jobseekers’ allowance (JSA), along with an increasing number on employment and support allowance (ESA), are now expected to work for no pay as a condition of their continuing to receive benefits. I hardly think that this is conducive to physical and mental wellbeing.

Having attempted to deflect criticism away from Public and Commercial Services union members in jobcentres (does he also include PCS’s Atos members as well?) and their part in delivering this brutal attack on unemployed and sick people, comrade Tomasson then makes the observation: “That’s not to say there won’t be many unfairly sanctioned, of course.” Presumably, then, some sanctions are fair. Since October 2012, an average of 69,000 sanctions per month have been applied against JSA claimants; between December 2012 and June 2013, 11,000 sanctions were applied against ESA claimants. So how many of these does comrade Tomasson think are fair? 10%? 20%?

The big lie, however, is that the current benefits regime - mooted by the previous Labour government and now being carried out by the present coalition - is all about getting people back to work. It is not. It is about slashing the welfare bill and manipulating the figures for un- and underemployment.

I’m afraid that until the PCS shows some basic class solidarity, by formulating a genuine campaign against the implementation of the current benefits regime, most claimants will continue to regard dole workers as their enemy, not their friend.

Enemy union
Enemy union

Cynicalists

In reference to Jack Conrad’s article about the class nature of the Soviet Union, in the late 1950s I had a discussion with Natalia Trotsky in Coyoacán, Mexico (‘Getting the Soviet Union right’, November 7). She emphasised that by 1924 nobody in Russia wanted to hear about ‘world revolution’ and that there was a general mood of cynicism.

We often focus on Stalin as an ‘evil genius’. But he did reflect the prevalent mood, which in the 1920s had moved away from internationalism towards nationalism. Some of the Bolsheviks purged by Stalin were not Trotskyists - ie, Bukharin - but they were still internationalists.

In a sense, Stalin was right: internationalism and nationalism are incompatible inside the same organisation. The degeneration of the revolution began with cynicism, which often passes as ‘realism’, which today we will have to overcome to build a new world revolutionary party.

Cynicalists
Cynicalists

Gambling fix

Tony Clark writes: “Jack Conrad believes that as long as the left remains contaminated by Stalinism we will never gain mass support” (Letters, November 14). I, too, disagree with Conrad’s proposed etiology of communist isolation, but I’m dumbfounded by his analysis of Lenin as a gambler. Conrad thinks the taint of Stalinism will repel the masses, but an (historic) policy of gambling on the fate of humanity will please them. The masses will ask, ‘What gave (this venerated) Lenin the right to take such risks on behalf of Russia and even the world?’

I read the Bolshevik assumption as, to the contrary, that an incomplete revolution, even one followed by counterrevolution, would, by removing the tsar and resolving the land question, advance the struggle for socialism. In a properly polemical mood, one might call the gambling characterisation a libel.

Gambling fix
Gambling fix

Take your pick

My proposed changes to the Left Party Platform submission for the aims section at the Left Unity founding conference, were, after discussion in Manchester, submitted as two separate amendments to those aims.

One of the problems of the debate between platforms is that it has, at times, become polarised between those who favour an electoral road to achieving socialism (with some such people accused, rightly or wrongly, of being content with positive reforms to capitalism) and those who favour a socialist revolution. The LPP is in favour of a broad socialist party encompassing both (but some members particularly favour elections and others hide some of their politics to accommodate them), whereas the Socialist Platform is much more openly revolutionary.

Most revolutionary socialists, including myself, also agree with standing in elections, but think it impossible or highly unlikely for socialism to be achieved solely by electoral means. We should also welcome participation from those with autonomous/anarchist views, such as many in the Anti-Capitalist Initiative, although I have used the phrase “(preferably peaceful) socialist revolution” in the second amendment below. We should not encourage the participation of people who encourage violence for the sake of it, as counterposed to defending themselves if attacked by the forces of the state - which the LPP’s Kate Hudson (general secretary of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) informed us at the foreign affairs commission at the policy conference in Manchester is consistent with CND’s position on violence.

Discussions around the formation of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in France included people of an autonomous/anarchist persuasion and, although they didn’t participate eventually, we should welcome members of the Anti-Capitalist Initiative into LU (especially because they are involved in merger talks with two organisations that are more keen - the International Socialist Network and Socialist Resistance). I have therefore included a paragraph in the second amendment below saying that those just interested in extra-parliamentary activity rather than helping with election campaigns (or vice versa) would be welcome.

The extremely undemocratic (misnamed) first-past-the-post electoral system makes it extremely unlikely that socialists can make as much headway as socialist parties/coalitions on the continent, particularly Syriza in Greece. The Con Dems have also passed legislation for fixed-term parliaments of five years - without LU playing a key role in massive extra-parliamentary action forcing a capitalist government to resign, or otherwise forcing them from office by a general strike leading to ‘dual power’, we would be betraying the masses who look to us to provide a lead.

If there is suddenly another massive economic crisis, on the scale of the 2007-08 credit crunch or worse, which some financial experts predict, it would be vital for socialists to respond by leading a revolutionary movement - if not, the far right will have a field day. Waiting for another general election is not an option!

It should also be emphasised that the massive gains in support Syriza achieved, which led to it almost becoming the largest party in the Greek parliament in 2012, could not have been achieved without the mass movements of ordinary working and lower middle class people, including strike waves, demonstrations and particularly general strikes - in which members of Syriza played important roles.

I am in favour of standing in elections in situations where we can create an impact - but we must avoid becoming the polar opposite of the UK Independence Party standing against Labour everywhere (or in most seats at a general election), with the serious possibility of letting the Tories back in (perhaps in a coalition with the Lib Dems or Ukip). In general, we should stand in ‘safe’ Labour seats (a strategy which has been extremely fruitful in getting George Galloway, Salma Yaqoob, Tommy Sheridan, Dave Nellist and Michael Lavalette elected for example, though mostly at a council level or in a by-election, where far less is at stake). We should avoid clashes with other socialist organisations and the Green Party, in situations where local agreements can be made. Rushing into a highly expensive and almost certainly unfruitful intervention in the 2014 European elections, where our vote would be massively squeezed, particularly due to ‘No2EU - Yes to Workers’ Rights’ and the Greens planning to stand everywhere (which is necessary for them to get an electoral broadcast) would be a big mistake in my opinion.

The combination of standing in elections and extra-parliamentary activity would give LU a big advantage over the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, whose main participants, the Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party, prefer to campaign under their own name between elections, with a major motivation being recruitment to their own parties, and with Tusc only being used at election time.

A major problem with many previous unity projects (and those that still exist like Respect) is that they have been based on lowest-common-denominator, reformist politics, with organisations and individuals within such projects hiding many of their true views (particularly if they are revolutionary socialists). This has been the main criticism of members of the SP when arguing against the LPP.

However, LU has already operated in a very inclusive way, with nearly all comments on the website approved by a moderator and with a forum on which contributions appear immediately without waiting for moderation. Part of the motivation for the second amendment below is to ensure this continues. We should also have publications, such as a newspaper/ journal (preferably called Left Unity if the party decides to adopt a different name at the founding conference), in which free and open debate between people with different political viewpoints is welcome, rather than making it a bland publication which doesn’t satisfy the incredible thirst for ideas amongst the population of Britain.

Paragraph 7 of the LPP statement on trade unions is extremely vague, and contains nothing that even the Labour Party would disagree with! There is no mention of strikes (and certainly not general strikes, which have a key role in changing society), occupations or solidarity between workers in different unions or workplaces. The unamended version reads as follows:

“We work for and support strong, effective, democratic trade unions to fight for better wages and salaries, for improved living standards, for better working conditions and stronger, more favourable, contracts of employment. We believe that the strength of the union is the people in the workplace; that what each person does at work matters - to make the job better, to make the service provided more effective, to persuade workers to combine for greater strength.”

The amendments passed by Left Unity in Manchester are as follows:

Add to the end of paragraph 7: “Going on strike (including mass/general strikes), occupying workplaces and solidarity between workers (in different unions and/or workplaces) can be effective tactics in winning individual disputes and changing society.”

Add new paragraph (11): “In line with the party being a broad socialist party, it should reflect a wide variety of views in our literature and on our website and forum. Our members will include:

(a) reformists in favour of gradual change towards socialism and revolutionaries who believe some sort of (preferably peaceful) socialist revolution is necessary, while supporting such reforms in the short term (and, of course, those who don’t know how socialism can/will be achieved).

(b) those who believe in change through elections and/or extra-parliamentary activity. Those who want to join the party but only take part in one of those types of activity would be welcome.”

Take your pick
Take your pick

Ethnic hypocrisy

“We stand shoulder to shoulder with migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in their efforts to live here in freedom and safety, to contribute to society, and be treated as equals. As Jews, we stand together with all communities seeking to combat racism and fascism here and elsewhere” (my emphasis, Letters, November 14).

I rejoice that Jewish Socialist subscribes to the worthy sentiments quoted above. But one word stands out to me, and that is ‘here’ - meaning, it is assumed, in the UK.

If only the ‘standing together’ applied to the minority there - in Palestine - and refugees had the right of return. If only the Jewish state would consider the inhabitants of the imprisoned land of Palestine as equals, before the court of world law. If only this exclusivist, ethnic hypocrisy from Jewish comrades could be subsumed in a genuine socialism from below.

Ethnic hypocrisy
Ethnic hypocrisy

Out of touch

We have been following the recent debates in relation to the invitation extended to Mother Agnes to a conference of the Stop the War Coalition. It has caused a degree of alarm among many in Britain’s Iraqi and Syrian community to see that the STWC has since revoked the invitation as a direct consequence of allegations regarding Mother Agnes’s work in Syria.

Having examined the allegations closely, Syrian and Iraqi sources abroad have conducted investigations into Mother Agnes’s work, and the following information has been obtained. Mother Agnes is viewed by many in the Free Syrian Army as a humanitarian aid worker who has walked a fine line in the Syrian conflict and is viewed as being an aid worker rather than a politician, with many leading members of the FSA holding her work in high regard. Mother Agnes has also been noted for her lack of sectarianism towards either the regime of Assad or rebel forces, but has always insisted, when negotiating with either government or opposition forces, that they be native-born Syrian forces and not outside elements, which have entered the country as a result of the conflict.

According to rebel sources inside Syria, Mother Agnes is not viewed as being an agent of the Syrian regime, but it is felt the allegations made against her derive from spurious claims by foreign-backed Jihadists, who have a history of attacking both religious minorities and opposition forces. Large elements of the Syrian rebel movement would have welcomed the opportunity for Mother Agnes to speak at the anti-war conference in London, which they would have viewed as helping to highlight the current humanitarian crisis that is now facing the Syrian people.

The removal of Mother Agnes has also led to the view being expressed among the Iraqi and Syrian community that the STWC is sectarian and obsessed with promoting violence in the Middle East. It has reinforced the view that the STWC is out of touch with the reality of the Middle East and is felt to be more concerned with the careers of British politicians and journalists.

Those actively involved with the rebel movement in Syria have described the removal of Mother Agnes as a provocative act of British religious intolerance towards Middle Eastern Christians, with the overall consensus being that the Stop the War Coalition has done nothing substantial or of meaning for the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or Syria.

Out of touch
Out of touch

Read up

Great article by Pat Smith, again showing how much of the left commit political suicide (‘Why I am leaving the AWL’, November 7).

Articles like Sean Matgamna’s show that his personal nationalism (by this I mean white Eurocentric) is the guiding force behind his so-called socialism. Ah, Ed Said, wish you were. Perhaps Matgamna should read Said’s Orientalism? Just a thought.

Read up
Read up

Mick Renwick

The trade union activist, anarcho-syndicalist, anti-fascist internationalist and Geordie working class hero, Mick Renwick, has died.

I met Mick first when I just turned 14. We were in the first flush of that revolutionary generation that Bob Dylan had promised would soon “shake your windows and rattle your doors”. We were part of that huge current for change, revolution and peace which began to subvert our whole generation. Mick was in its vanguard.

It was he who, sitting in the small wee hours in his living room after an under-age drinking session, had revealed to me the sacred Bob Dylan LP, The times they are a-changing. I had heard nothing like it in my life. I thought those concepts were addressed to me. It was, in the words of the Christian revivalists, a revelation. We became aware of ourselves as part of a worldwide wave of youth rebellion, intent on shaking the system till it changed its ways or died.

First up was Heaton Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, then the faction that became the Tyneside Direct Action Committee, and later the Committee of 100, demonstrating up at Holy Lock on the Clyde and down on numerous Aldermaston marches against the bomb. It seemed like we had come to the very wire of nuclear war and we were convinced of our premature departure from life before we had the chance to live it.

Mick was a key character in a city movement - always around, always on the scene. Sex and drugs and rock and roll and revolution - that was us. Mick was ‘a lad’ right enough. As our beatnik and mod strange new wave confronted the old culture - the teds, the biker gangs still in their white socks and greased back hair - we were often attacked. We represented something strange and scary: politics, beat poetry, peace campaigns. Mick was no mean street fighter and, although we aspired at first to pacifism, he was a handy lad to have around because he wouldn’t easily see his friends attacked without wading in.

Mick had been born into a unique and dying community, for his dad wasn’t simply a Northumbrian pitman: he was a Geordie pitman. Mick lived in back-to-back Heaton - miners, railwaymen and shipyard workers. He was raised in the strongly militant trade union tradition of the miners’ union and communities.

My life has been marked by Mick’s presence and Mick’s comradeship; we were together at Grosvenor Square, as we tried to storm the US embassy in solidarity with the Vietnamese people. On anti-fascist mobilisations and punch-ups with the National Front. He was for a time the secretary of the Gateshead Trade Union Council and organised some of the best Tyneside May Day rallies. He was shoulder to shoulder with every battle the miners had in the 70s, 80s and 90s, raising funds, joining pickets.

He developed a deep and lasting love of Bulgarian and Greek culture and spent every spare holiday there, becoming a self-taught expert in all aspects of Bulgarian and Greek culture and history.

Me and Mick started our political careers as anarchists, and then took brief detours through the woody glades of Trotskyism in the 70s - Mick to the Socialist Workers Party, me to the Revolutionary Workers Party. By the time of the miners’ Great Strike we were both headed back to anarchism. We both became enthusiastic founder-members of the Industrial Workers of the World when it refounded in Britain and it was this organisation that Mick worked for heart and soul for the last 15 years. Mick was as proud as punch to man the only ‘political’ stall to be invited to the annual sports and gala day of Lingey House School - selling badges to the children and literature to their parents.

Mick’s last fight with cancer has been his hardest, and he wouldn’t yield. He smoked and drank to the end; he paraded and demonstrated when he could scarcely stand. Indeed he very nearly died at last year’s Durham Miners Gala, but, clinging onto the railings to hold himself up, he refused to take a taxi to hospital, insisting that the Cole Pits pub was the only destination he was heading for. He went through hell this last year. He refused to give up, always believing he’d beat this and come back.

Mick was my friend and comrade for over a half a century. We shared so much. We had the extreme privilege of being teenagers in the 1960s and to setting ourselves a benchmark for freedom, for justice, whatever the law said - until in our own 60s we still aspired by those same values, because we couldn’t live any other way.

Mick was a character roond the toons - Gateshead and Newcastle were his stomping grounds, where he met tens of thousands of people, debating with whole cities over the bar table. People all over Tyneside knew Mick; he will be a huge loss. I will miss him in ten thousand ways.

A memorial wake will be held for comrade Mick on Saturday December 7 at the Black Bull pub in Gateshead (opposite the metro and bus stations), beginning at 12 noon.

Mick Renwick
Mick Renwick

Hunger strike

Revolutionaries in Greece must not be extradited to the fascist Turkish government. By extraditing them, the Greek government will be sending them to their deaths. Our four comrades, Erdo?an Çak?r, Mehmet Yayla, Ahmet Düzgün Yüksel and Hasan Biber, have been on hunger strike in Koridallos prison in Greece since September 29 due to the Greek government collaborating with the Turkish state.

The Greek government is committing yet another crime by force-feeding them. The revolutionaries have been taken into hospital without their permission. Their family and friends are attacked and some have been taken into custody themselves. The government believes that the hunger-strikers will be deserted, but they are wrong. People all over the world stand alongside those fighting for justice, human rights and freedom.

Mehmet Yayla’s family and friends have also started a hunger strike in front of the Greek Embassy in Taksim, Turkey. But the fascist police have attacked the protestors by spraying them with chemical gas. This is the AKP government’s understanding of democracy!

We demand that Greece ends this cooperation with the fascist Turkish state. Long live the revolutionary prisoners. Down with fascism, long live our resistance!

Hunger strike
Hunger strike