A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity weekly

Left Unity’s March 29 n Police corrupt to core workern Third camp polemic conference: pious n Miners 1984-85 indecision and irrationality n Prisoners’ solidarity No 1001 Thursday March 13 2014 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union www.cpgb.org.uk £1/€1.10 Bob Crow 1961 - 2014 2 weekly March 13 2014 1001 worker LETTERS

Letters may have been Finally, note that increased workers’ movement from without, other countries. I indeed attempted time he wrote border controls didn’t shortened because of productivity in the production of PCs via a section of the intelligentsia. In this when engaging in debate with exist (Letters, March 6). So no-one space. Some names will lead to reduction in their value, a society where 60% of the population pro-independence comrades, but was can definitively assert what he would  may have been changed and hence will decrease the organic of St Petersburg were illiterate, when told by comrade Mark Fischer that it have said then! I still await anyone composition of capital in the printing there was widespread censorship of was no more than a slogan. A search quoting anything Trotsky or Lenin Holy writ industry and every other industry the press and literature, at a time when for any analysis by the CPGB on this said in support of open borders after Comrade Bruce Wallace’s letter where PCs are used as capital goods the working class had yet to move vital question will be futile. 1905 - when Phil says the British (March 6) is an excellent illustration - in fact, in the entire economy. decisively as a class into political Comrades, if you cannot even state brought in the Aliens Act, the of the pitfall of reading Marx Moshé Machover action against autocracy, then Lenin’s take your own slogans seriously, first attempt to control immigration. uncritically and quoting him as holy email mistake is perfectly understandable. it is little wonder that the left in I doubt very much the Bolsheviks writ. However, to repeat today, with Scotland has washed its hands of advocated or practised open borders In my article, ‘Saving labour Class disdain almost universal literacy and the you. Unfortunately, your call for in 1917 or later, when engaged in a or capital?’ (October 6 2011), I Ben Lewis, in his response (Letters, works of Marx, Lenin and others the working class to recognise the civil war in defence of the revolution showed that raising the productivity March 6) to my letter defending Peter freely available on the internet, that importance of constitutional concerns - do correct me if I’m wrong here. of labour may be achieved by Taaffe (February 27), does very little the working class is “only capable of is exposed as hypocrisy. Phil moves on from workers being technological changes that decrease to clarify the points and injects plenty trade union consciousness” without Tam Dean Burn able to move anywhere in the world the organic composition of capital of confusion into the discussion. The the intervention of the intelligentsia email without any controls to defending rather than increase it. Arguing key point at issue here is whether from without, really is to hold the the movement of anyone starving - condescendingly against my article, Lenin’s claim in What is to be done? working class in disdain. Fourth degree quite another matter. I’d rather Phil comrade Wallace admits that “it is - that “the working class, exclusively Carl Simmons Toby Abse (Letters, March 6) makes (or anyone, actually) deal with the theoretically possible that an increase by its own efforts, is able to develop email many correct points in attacking the questions I raised in my letter of in the amount of labour per unit can only trade union consciousness … outfit that still calls itself the Fourth February 27. To repeat - do indigenous be more than offset by using much socialist consciousness is introduced Washed hands International, but hits the wrong peoples have any rights or privileges cheaper raw materials”, but asserts into the proletarian struggle from It’s been apparent for some target. Not his fault. they can expect to exercise in their that this is “not [possible] in the real without” - was an instance of considerable time that the CPGB The International Committee own country over and above those world by any manner of means, as polemical excess or an important and has washed its hands of the Scottish of the Fourth International (ICFI, entering from outside? I’d point out Karl Marx pointed out.” And here he fundamental principle of Leninism. question, with nary an article in the associated with the World Socialist to Phil that people in this country are invokes Marx: Lewis appears to be arguing the latter. Weekly Worker for months nor any Web Site) does not hold the views starving - look at the 300% increase “If, for example, productivity in However, even the Lenin quote from debate at Communist University 2013. that he attacks. It has been working in food banks. spinning increased tenfold … why 1907, cited by both Lih and Lewis, But suddenly, like the proverbial bus, under the name of the International Are the native Americans, the should not one negro produce 10 times indicates the former, as does the fact not one but two articles back to back, Committee since 1953, when it parted aborigines, the Palestinians all wrong as much cotton as 10 did previously? that Lenin did not subsequently use saying the same things, and even company with the International to complain about being invaded, In other words, why should the value the same formulation. inclusion in John Bridge’s political Secretariat of Pablo and Mandel, taken over and deprived of ‘their’ ratio not remain the same? … To Lewis ends his letter with the report podcast. which itself later became known as land, ‘their’ resources? Should they this it is quite easy to answer that astounding claim that “the Trotsky So what has provoked this rash the United Secretariat (USFI) when it have welcomed without question all some kinds of raw material, such of 1940 offers a retrospective account of interest? Perhaps the Radical merged with the US Socialist Workers who arrived to settle, regardless of the as wool, silk, leather, are produced that - not least thanks to Lars’s Independence movement and, Party in 1963. This should be the real culture and values they brought with by animal organic processes, work - has been shown to be simply specifically, long-term CPGB target for Toby to attack. them that were totally antagonistic to while cotton, linen, etc, are produced incompatible with those of the time”. debating comrade Steve Freeman’s The USFI used to be led by an the indigenous people already there? by vegetable organic processes, and I can only say that Lewis must have contribution to the RI conference international executive committee. Alan Johnstone (another whose capitalist production has not yet read a different Lars T Lih from me. at the end of last year? No, that’s Now, for whatever reason, clearly letter I enjoyed, even if I disagreed succeeded and never will succeed In Lenin rediscovered Lih deals with all been ignored, as far as I can indifferent to the confusion they with some points) tells us of how, over in mastering these processes in the Trotsky’s recollection in a footnote see. Surely, a critique of the Jimmy are causing, they have started 15 years Lithuanians in Lanarkshire same way it has mastered purely to page 27: Reid Foundation’s Commonweal issuing statements in the name of were unionised (Letters, February mechanical or inorganic chemical “In 1907, he responded to the project? Nope. Well, how about an an International Committee of the 27). Could they have done so if processes … As far as coal and metal Menshevik use of this comment: engagement with Bella Caledonia, Fourth International. This includes other nationalities also settled in (wood) are concerned, they become ‘The sense of these words is clear: National Collective or the myriad the notorious one in International even larger numbers, undercutting much cheaper with the advance WITBD was a polemical correction other blogs flourishing in Scotland Viewpoint on Ukraine. They can the Lithuanians? of production; this will, however, of ‘economism’ and to consider its right now? hardly claim to be ignorant of the How is it one nationality settles become more difficult, as mines are content outside this task of the book is No, I’m afraid not. What’s finally existence of the real ICFI and World in one area (and in London it is Latin exhausted, etc.” Marx then concludes: incorrect’ ... Lenin’s actual words thus provoked reaction is David Bowie’s Socialist Web Site, in view of a long cleaners unionising and organising “This rubbish is herewith disposed provide no justification for Trotsky’s remark, spoken by a model, at the history of differences, unless they in SOAS) to the apparent exclusion of” (Theories of surplus value Vol 3). later statement that ‘the author of What Brit Awards (‘Cyberspace oddity’, are truly lost in a fog of their own of other ethnicities/nationalities? So, this settles it: “Moshé, a reader is to be done? himself subsequently February 27). But even that couldn’t creation. The latter explanation is Is it because they get a toehold by in mathematical logic, erroneously acknowledged the biased nature and be reported correctly. It wasn’t five just possible, since as a tendency undercutting the rate for the job, revives the old ’rubbish’ disposed of’ therewith the erroneousness of his words, only four - there was no they have meandered all over the working hard, then bringing more of by Marx over 150 years ago.” Except theory’ … Note also that Lenin made ‘please’. This is indicative of the lazy place, adapting to various non- their own community over - to the that if you look at that quote critically his ‘bend the stick’ comment in 1903, Daily Mail-tailing nature of this entire working class forces, and long ago delight of the exploiting boss, but rather than religiously, you begin to at a time when all his fellow Iskra intervention - banging on about nasty lost whatever tenuous connection they edging out indigenous workers and have some doubts. For a start, one editors still defended WITBD. If the cybernats, when there was a huge once had with Trotskyism. I don’t other foreign workers? How does that should never say ’never’. Even before … comment meant a renunciation of range of opinion expressed about know whether they are dishonestly promote unity of all workers? Can the advent of genetic engineering, WITBD, then Lenin had renounced it Bowie’s plea (or was it demand?), flying the wrong flag or have simply Alan tell us what local unemployment capitalist production has been able before the party split of 1904. Authors much of it extremely funny. forgotten where they came from as a was like whilst the Lithuanians were to master organic processes to a who cite the ‘bend the stick’ comment The same uncritical acceptance as tendency. getting themselves established before greater degree than Marx apparently usually mean it to support the claim fact of Osborne’s or Barroso’s anti- I know the Weekly Worker’s editors they joined unions in their own anticipated. For example, a ton of that Lenin veered to the other extreme indy campaign salvos offers nothing take a relaxed view of what appears defence, and why it was Lithuanians raw cotton is much cheaper today in only in 1905.” to the debate, but comrade Sarah in the letters column, but they should dominating that area of work and not real value terms (the total number of While this may be a valid counter McDonald’s assertion that Scotland really not have let this confusion be a much wider mix of workers? worker-hours needed to produce it) to Cliff’s portrayal of Lenin as a could be reduced to the status of a reproduced without correction. The Why should indigenous people than 150 years ago. Besides, natural serial stick bender (for Cliff this was third-world country is a ludicrous Weekly Worker frequently holds in any country sit back and watch fibres have to a considerable extent actually something to be emulated), howler that not even the most these people (USFI) up as examples outsiders arrive and take the jobs been replaced by cheaper synthetic Lih appears to miss Trotsky’s point fanatical of unionists, like George of “Trotskyism” in order to create and, in so doing, ensure it is their ones. The same applies to wood and altogether. Trotsky was not arguing Galloway, have dared suggest (‘Pox an amalgam to discredit the whole own community that take over? Is leather. Some coal mines have been that Lenin had renounced What is to on both houses’, February 20). tradition. Please take the trouble to it acceptable to socialists that many exhausted, but a ton of coal today be done? as such - only the particular Another woeful level of reportage see what the World Socialist Web Site foreign workers coming here readily is still much cheaper (in real value formulations regurgitated by Stalin comes in the statement that the PCS is saying about the Ukraine crisis - line up with the employers and Tories terms) than in Marx’s time. And in August 1905. A reading of the union was widely expected to come and much else that you might actually by denigrating the British unemployed in any case coal has largely been full quote from Trotsky, included out for independence. No, this was agree with. as lazy and workshy? replaced by cheaper oil, which will in my letter, makes this clear. Lih entirely based on a ‘dirty tricks’ front- Mike Martin Can I have replies to the questions in turn most probably be replaced by is indeed correct that Trotsky and page article in the Glasgow Herald Sheffield I raise and not bland, utopian other sources of energy. Marx’s “easy Martov and most of those who found quoting an unnamed source the day assertions? For those who didn’t read answer” is refuted by the real world. themselves in opposition to Lenin before the union announcement. Opposed my last letter, I finished off by stating Also, as I pointed out in my at the 1903 congress shared Lenin’s What they and the rest of the unionist Toby Abse is wrong when he asserts: that if communism/socialism was a article, increased productivity opposition to the economists and mainstream media were afraid of “However, the position of the Fourth world system in place now, millions may sometimes be achieved by were in fundamental agreement with having to report is that not one single International stands out like a sore of people wouldn’t need to move introducing cheaper capital goods the criticisms of them in the book. PCS branch came out in support of the thumb” (Letters, March 6). elsewhere, as basic human needs other than raw materials, leading to However, this hardly proves Trotsky’s ‘no’ campaign. The PCS is the only There are many Trotskyist would be met. reduction in the organic composition account to be incorrect. trade union to conduct a democratic organisations that claim adherence to Dave Vincent of capital. As it happens, a real-world To recognise that one particular ballot of its members in Scotland on the Fourth International. The Socialist Manchester illustration is provided in an article by formulation of Lenin’s was flawed the referendum. Fight group, of which I am a member, Jack Conrad (‘Before this there was is hardly to portray Lenin as holding Two of the three recent CPGB is part of the Liaison Committee of Swing to right that’, March 8) published in the same workers in disdain, as Lewis suggests. interventions end with a call for the Fourth International and has a Phil Kent, a long-time CPGB issue of Weekly Worker as comrade It is a distortion to suggest that Taaffe, a federal republic as a solution to position diametrically opposed to the supporter, raises some valid points Wallace’s letter. Jack mentions the Trotsky or even Cliff has attempted the national question in Scotland. Mandelites on Ukraine. about Dave Vincent’s opposition to recent revolution in typesetting: hot- to do anything of the sort. Lenin’s This at least should merit being Laurence Humphries open borders. metal linotypes and monotypes were polemical excesses from 1902 are taken seriously. One should be able email However, as Phil admits, mass replaced by cheaper phototypesetting perfectly understandable, given the to look at this proposal in depth, immigration from eastern Europe to machines, which have in turn been context. There was even a certain particularly in regard to the obvious Please explain the UK since 2004 has led to a fall in replaced by much cheaper personal historical truth to the formulation, potential stumbling block of the size Phil Kent states that Marx didn’t the wages of all workers. At the same computers. in that Marxism came to the Russian of England in comparison with the advocate open borders because at the time, it has been well reported in the BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 020 7241 1756 l www.cpgb.org.uk l [email protected] weekly 3 worker 1001 March 13 2014

capitalist press that the Labour cabinet I was quite surprised to see included produced a leaflet against in 2004 welcomed mass immigration in the front cover of the 1,000th issue McDonald’s, who sued two of their from eastern Europe for two reasons. of the Weekly Worker an image of members for libel, launching the The first, as mentioned above, was Trotsky, of all people, but not Lenin, infamous ‘McLibel’ trial, which CPGB podcasts to lower wages. The second was to and a banner calling on workers was a massive own goal in terms Every Monday we upload a podcast commenting on the current dramatically reduce union power. to join the Fourth (Trotskyist) of McDonald’s reputation. What political situation. In addition, the site features voice files of public This from a ‘Labour’ government. International. is important about that case is (as meetings and other events: http://cpgb.org.uk/home/podcasts. It is OK Phil calling on the trade You describe yourselves in favour revealed in Undercover) the fact London Communist Forum unions to organise migrant workers, of a mass Communist Party which that a special demonstration squad Sunday March 16, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB but this is clearly not happening. will unite communists, revolutionary infiltrator helped write the leaflet! Provisional Central Committee, followed by open discussion and Perhaps Phil could call on Len socialists and advanced working The book doesn’t mention Panther, Capital reading group. Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London McCluskey’s Unite to use the £1.5 class militants, yet you increasingly initially just a newspaper produced WC1. This meeting: Vol 1, chapter 26, ‘The secret of primitive million cut in its affiliation fees to explicitly reject the communist by black and Asian members of the accumulation’. Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk. Labour to take on an extra 50 full- tradition and actively exclude the very Militant Tendency, but later a group time organisers? Perhaps Phil could idea of such unity including comrades with its own autonomous structures. Radical Anthropology Group also call on Paul Kenny’s GMB to and militants from the communist When Panther split there were almost Introduction to anthropology: the science of mythology do the same? tradition. certainly state infiltrators on both Tuesday March 18, 6.15pm: ‘Introducing Claude Lévi-Strauss: the In the market town in which I That tradition includes a positive sides of that struggle. It even led to science of mythology’. Speaker: Chris Knight. live, the population has increased by appreciation of the role of Lenin, the farce of two different newspapers, 88 Fleet Street, London EC4 (next to St Bride’s church, 5 minutes walk 10,000 through mass immigration who elaborated and developed both called Panther, being sold on from Blackfriars tube). Admission free, but donations appreciated. from eastern Europe. The farmers and Marxism into a revolutionary theory a later anti-racist demonstration Organised by Radical Anthropology Group: factory human-resource officers love in the age of imperialism, and of the in London. Both splinters folded www.radicalanthropologygroup.org. this inexhaustible supply of cheap Soviet Union, which as a land without shortly afterwards, and to this day Media, police and the miners’ strike labour. Thirty years ago an unskilled capitalists was a country trying to the Socialist Party (as Militant has Thursday March 13, 7pm: Book launch and talks, council chamber, school-leaver could always get a build a society without exploitation, become) is almost entirely white as a Civic Hall, Leeds. Speakers: Nick Jones, former BBC industrial job on the production line of one of discrimination, deprivation and consequence. The state is not stupid correspondent; Barbara Jackson. Orgreave Truth and Justice the local food processing factories. instability. It made mistakes and - a large organisation of socialist and Campaign; Ray Riley, ex-miner, Frickley Colliery. In 2014, to do the same, one has suffered lapses but its motives always anti-racist black youths (as opposed Organised by Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom: to go through one of the numerous remained commendable. to a black nationalist grouping, who www.cpbf.org.uk. employment agencies, which have One might have thought the play into the hands of big business by People’s Assembly grown like weeds in a garden. The Communist Party to which you aspire, aiding its strategy of divide and rule) Saturday March 15, 10am to 5pm: National recall conference, result is that unskilled school-leavers which would include tendencies and would be an enormous threat. Emmanuel Centre, 9-23 Marsham Street, London SW1. Delegates languish on the dole and are at the even factions, would have room for The biggest flaw in Undercover from supporting groups, plus observers: £5. mercy of their parole officers - sorry, people who hold differing views on is that it suggests there is a very low Organised by People’s Assembly: www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk. personal advisers - at the job centre, the achievements of the Great October level of infiltration. Once, when I who use every trick in the book, and Socialist Revolution in creating a spoke to Annie Machon, co-author Real history of World War I more, to deprive jobseekers of their new society and a new civilisation, with David Shayler of Spies, lies Thursday March 20, 5.30pm: Daysh Building, 32 Claremont Tower, benefits through what are known as and even on the role of people like and whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 and Newcastle University, NE1. Speakers include Neil Faulkner. sanctions. Trotsky. But no. Your summarised the Shayler affair, she revealed that Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.www.stopwar.org.uk.. All mass immigration from eastern programmatic statement dogmatically there were 50 MI5 infiltrators within War for democracy? Europe has done is to shift UK politics declares that the Soviet Union was the Militant Tendency at its height. Thursday March 20, 7pm: World War I discussion, main building, to the right. Clear evidence for this “the opposite of democracy”. The more activists know about the Cardiff University, Museum Avenue, CF10. Speakers include: Lindsey will be shown on May 22, when the You thereby reject Soviet reality powers the state has to monitor us and German, Paul Flynn MP. UK Independence Party come top of and Lenin, who, with absolute clarity, try to subvert our organisations, the Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk. the poll in the European elections. argued that “proletarian democracy has easier we can defeat them. John Smithee brought a development and expansion Steve Wallis Israeli apartheid: a beginner’s guide email of democracy unprecedented in the Manchester Friday March 21, 6.30pm: Educational, Human Rights Action world, for the vast majority of the Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2. Free event, but please Living dead people, for the exploited and working Quran question reserve a ticket: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/israeli-apartheid-a-beginners- If we say, as Dave Vincent appears people. Soviet power is a million I thoroughly enjoyed Michael guide-tickets-10510921449. to do, that we are happy for capital/ times more democratic than even the Copestake’s article on the sentencing Organised by Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org.uk. goods/services (and whatever else we most democratic bourgeois republic.” of Jordan Horner (‘Asbo mania New frontlines of war want to include in the agglomeration We can debate the Soviet Union, threat’, February 20). While I found Saturday March 22, 11am to 6pm: Anti-corporate event, Rich of non-human elements in the global Stalin, Trotsky, the purges, etc, areas of agreement, as a new reader Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1. Speakers from Nigeria, economy) to be able to move more endlessly if that would be helpful and of the Weekly Worker I was left with Colombia and Palestine. freely over political frontiers than productive, but my main point is that questions that I hope Michael will Organised by War on Want: www.waronwant.org. people can, are we not saying in differences of view on such matters take the time to respond to. effect that we are happy for things to are legitimate and honest, and can and The suggestion made is that part of Revolution in South Africa have more legal rights than people? should be able to coexist in a genuine the problem with Horner’s reactionary Saturday March 22, 7.30 pm: Public meeting, Calthorpe Arms, I wonder whether, if there had been Communist Party. politics is his desire for a sharia state. 252 Grays Inn Road, London WC1. Speakers include: Peter Banda, more controls over the movement of I would happen to agree with I have to disagree. The problem isn’t General Industries Workers Union of South Africa; Shaheen Khan, people than over the movement of most of your programme and your the sharia, but Horner’s conception Bolshevik Study Circles, Latief Parker, Critique. capital, etc, in Marx’s day, he would Communist Platform, with the obvious of it. In an age far different to that Organised by Socialist Fight: www.socialistfight.com. have cited it as an instance of the exceptions of your references to Stalin of the prophet Muhammad (peace be Stand up to racism opposition of dead/congealed labour and the Soviet Union, and I am very upon him) it would be a huge error Saturday March 22, 11am: March and rally to mark United Nations to living labour under bourgeois clear that socialism means political to interpret the Quran from a literal anti-racism day. Assemble Mandela statue, Parliament Square, London property rights and therefore as and economic power in the hands of reading. Imperative is the context. SW1, for march to rally in Trafalgar Square. an instance of alienation and of the working class and therefore an Islam under the prophet Muhammad Organised by Unite Against Fascism: www.uaf.org.uk. fetishism of the commodity - ie, the “unprecedented” expansion of real (pbuh) was progressive and feminist: misattribution to things of social democracy. However, I would find women were allowed to own property Against austerity characteristics that ought to belong myself excluded from your ‘project’ and equal rights granted to all ‘races’. Wednesday March 26, 7pm: Book launch, Five Leaves Bookshop, to people. because I have differing views on Ultimately, however, sharia can never 14a Long Row, Nottingham NG1. Richard Seymour introduces Tim Reid Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and the be imposed, but has to be accepted. Against austerity: how we can fix the crisis they made. £3 on the door, London Soviet Union. When the prophet (pbuh) first redeemable against any purchase. By explicitly rejecting the totality embarked on calling people to Islam, Organised by Five Leaves bookshop: www.fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk. Party guy of the communist tradition, you he was victimised. It was only years The people vs austerity I was a bit perplexed to read comrade not only remove the right to call later that people willingly accepted. Thursday March 27, 7pm: People’s Assembly post-conference Matthew Hale’s reply to me (Letters, yourselves communist, but you also Even then, sharia was not imposed meeting, Central Hall, Oldham Street, Manchester M1. February 27). Rather than present an destroy any prospect of the mass upon non-Muslims and, as far as I Organised by People’s Assembly: www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk. honest account of the unity talks that Communist Party you claim to want. understand Quranic scripture, the Education under occupation the International Socialist Network You cannot have a Communist Party sharia can only emerge with the return Tuesday April 1, 6.30pm: Stories from West Bank and Gaza students. is engaged in, he instead opted to without communists. of prophet Isa/Jesus (pbuh). P21 Gallery, 21 Chalton Street, London NW1. parody my argument. Andrew Northall Without democracy there cannot Organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Does he honestly believe that Kettering be Islam. For example, imams - often www.palestinecampaign.org. building a reformist organisation mistakenly portrayed as leaders - are will in any way be fit for purpose? Infiltrators elected from the community. People’s How should we remember World War I? In reply to his question, though, it is Mark Fischer, at the end of his review ‘rank’ in society does not matter - we Thursday April 3, 7pm: Anti-militarist debate, St James church, true I believe Left Unity should be of Undercover: the true story of are all equal before Allah. 197 Piccadilly, London W1. Speakers: Julian Brazier MP; John transformed into a Communist Party. Britain’s secret police, says: “After My question though to Michael: in Blake (editor of Labour Teachers); Lindsey German (Stop the War Why? Because it is the only way of all, if groups as essentially harmless any future society, is it not plausible Coalition);Jeremy Corbyn MP. advancing the cause of working class as the likes of London Greenpeace, that Muslims - or followers of other Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk. liberation. the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel religions - are able to practise their LGBTQ People’s Assembly In the history of the working class Clown Army or Earth First can own religion free from others’ Saturday April 12, 12 noon: LGBTQ event, Ron Todd House, 33-37 and socialist movement, attempts to wobble the world view of some interference within reason? The Moreland Street, London EC1. With discussion, performances and build parties that want to tinker with undercover coppers, think of the reason I ask is that you appear to exhibitions. the present set-up have all failed. The damage that Marxism’s inspiring have suggested - and I’m more than Organised by People’s Assembly: www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk only party capable of setting about vision of the future can do - when we happy to be corrected - that an atheist the necessary course is a Communist Marxists clean up our act” (‘How to understanding of communism trumps CPGB wills Party. guard against state agents’, January all. Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s Bob Dunne 16). Secularism is fine, but it need not name and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your email I beg to differ that these mean ‘non-religious’. will. If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. organisations are “essentially Mohammad Ashraf What about me? harmless”. London Greenpeace email 4 weekly March 13 2014 1001 worker POLICE Rotten apples, reviews and flowers The entire police force is institutionally corrupt, says Eddie Ford chief whip, Andrew Mitchell - making up a cock-and-bull story about how he had witnessed a confrontation on September 19 2012 between Mitchell and police officers outside Downing Street. This fabrication involved at least seven other police officers, who have yet not been charged with anything. Mere “rotten apples”? At around the same time, Mark Duggan was found by a jury to have been “lawfully killed” - though he had no gun on him when he was shot by the police, and the gun found several metres away from where he fell did not reveal any of his DNA or fingerprints. Nor should we forget the newspaper vendor, Ian Tomlinson, who died after being forcefully pushed to the ground at the G20 protests in 2009 by PC Simon Harwood, the police shamelessly lying about coming under attack from “bricks, bottles and planks of wood”. More “rotten apples”? What about Jean Charles de Menezes, butchered by pumped-up armed police at Stockwell tube station? And, of course, there are only weeks to go before a new inquest into the Hillsborough disaster, which saw the police systematically altering witness statements in order to present their criminally negligent behaviour in a more positive light. That is a hell of a To the core lot of “rotten apples”. Previously there was the rumpus over the notorious hese days it is quite a job on the position of John Stevens, then murder. Which makes it all the more strenuously denies authorising ‘N81’, West Midlands police force, a byword keeping up with police scandals. the Met’s commissioner, who was curious that the Met told Ellison that or even knowing anything about such in flagrant corruption. Nothing new TThe latest revelations came on involved in ongoing high court action Davidson did not work on the original an agent - if he had known, he would under the sun. March 6 in the form of a review by by Doreen and Neville Lawrence inquiry. The murder victim’s brother, have “stopped this action immediately The fundamental problem with the Mark Ellison QC into the 1993 racist - attempting to sue Scotland Yard Alastair, has publicly stated that “the as inappropriate”. Right, Lord Condon, police is not “institutional racism”, murder of Stephen Lawrence, looking for “misfeasance in public office”. crossovers” between Daniel’s case so who exactly did sanction ‘N81’? as unconvincingly maintained by at whether the hunt for his killers and Implicitly, the memo appears to and the Lawrence murder are “getting Responding to the Ellison report, Macpherson in his report, particularly the subsequent public inquiry led by corroborate Putnam’s claims. worse and worse” - indeed, it was home secretary Theresa May said when you recall that his definition of Sir William Macpherson in 1999 was In the words of Ellison, given becoming increasingly clear that the that its revelations were “profoundly a “racial incident” was “any incident thwarted by police corruption and Davidson’s clear importance to the Met contained a “firm within a firm” disturbing” and - stating the obvious which is perceived to be racist by subterfuge. Ellison’s harsh verdict led Macpherson inquiry, the Yard should of bent coppers and he called for a full - lamented how “policing stands the victim or any other partner” (my Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the current have conducted a “proper” analysis investigation. damaged today”. She ordered yet emphasis). But the accusation of Metropolitan Police commissioner, to of all information it held, but instead For many people, perhaps the most another public inquiry, this time “institutional racism” was uncritically describe the review as “devastating” showed an “extraordinary lack of shocking finding of the Ellison review into the undercover infiltration of parroted by large sections of the left and said its publication was one of the curiosity” about Putnam’s sensational was the existence of ‘N81’, a police political groups by the SDS and other - that is, when it was not trying to “worst days” of his career. Truth hurts. claims - leading to a “failure” by the spy who had been planted amongst such units. out-Macpherson Macpherson by We discover, amongst many other Met to pass on the “full extent” of its Lawrence family contacts by the Met’s Meanwhile, it is more than likely dogmatically asserting that the entire things, that a detective sergeant intelligence on ‘OJ’ Davidson. In other highly covert special demonstration that that there will be a raft of UK bourgeois state (and capitalism John Davidson (nicknamed ‘OJ’, or words, they covered it up. squad - the SDS was established cases brought for review due to the itself) is inherently racist. In reality, ‘Obnoxious Jock’) - who had been in the 1960s to infiltrate groups of involvement of undercover officers. the modern-day UK state and all a key figure on the original team Police spy “political extremists”, including Solicitors for Andrew Clarke and Geoff its institutions - including the Met - conducting the Lawrence investigation Equally suspiciously, Ellison animal rights protesters, and was Sheppard, who were found guilty of operate a top-down, bureaucratic form - was in fact in the pay of Clifford found that the Met under Stevens’ eventually disbanded in 2008. This fire-bombing branches of Debenhams, of official anti-racism. Norris, the gangster father of one stewardship authorised the “mass police spy, posing as a supporter of said that the allegedly undeclared No, what is clear and obvious - of the prime suspects in the murder. shredding” of documents from the family, gathered “personal details” involvement of an undercover officer especially after the Ellison review - Nothing embarrassing there. The Operation Othona - one of the most about Doreen and Neville Lawrence in their cases made their convictions is that the police are institutionally claims against Davidson came from comprehensive anti-corruption - always handy to have a bit of dirt “unsafe” - which is surely true. It also corrupt, something that the his former colleague, Neil Putnam, a investigations in the history of in your back-pocket - and in general emerged that three other undercover Macpherson specifically ruled out corrupt officer turned supergrass. They Scotland Yard, running from 1993 to collected ‘intelligence’ that in the officers could be prosecuted over when his inquiry was eventually were part of the so-called ‘groovy 1998. The operation gathered a vast opinion of Ellison could be construed sexual relationships they formed whilst published. In that sense, the charge gang’, detectives based at the East database of intelligence on officers as giving the Met a “secret advantage” pretending to be political activists - of “institutional racism” let the police Dulwich office of the now disbanded suspected of wrong-doing. But, when over the family during the Macpherson recent investigations have shown how off the hook, because if all of us are South East Regional Crime Squad - the Ellison review sought to carry inquiry (the SDS agent also gathered police spies routinely formed sexual ‘unwitting’ or ‘unconscious’ racists Putnam disclosing how both of them out the “fairly fundamental task” intelligence on Duwayne Brooks, the relationships with those they had been - including readers of the Weekly routinely mishandled informants and of trying to establish what material friend of Stephen Lawrence who was sent to spy on in deployments usually Worker - then why single out the profited from confiscated drugs and should have been disclosed to the with him on the night of the murder). lasting four or five years (though in police for opprobrium? luxury goods. More to the point, he Macpherson inquiry, they found that Ellison sharply criticised a “wrong- some cases the spies went native, So what is the way forward when insists that in 1994 Davidson told nearly all of it had been destroyed in headed” and “inappropriate” meeting identifying more with the activists than it comes to tackling police corruption? him of his corrupt relationship with 2003 - what a strange coincidence. in August 1998 between ‘N81’ and the police). The fallout from ‘N81’ Well, one thing not to do is follow the Clifford Norris and that he revealed The only material recovered after a Richard Walton, who is now the head could be considerable. recommendations of Owen Jones, this fact to his debriefers in July 1998. year of searching was a small hard of counter-terrorism, but was at the sounding more like a ‘responsible’ However, the problem for the drive found in an IT department time part of the team responsible Compromised statesman every day. Writing in The Met was that Putnam started to spill last November and three reports for making the Met’s submissions Communists could not agree more Independent, he calls for a “royal the beans right in the middle of the summarising the intelligence held by to Macpherson. Walton’s account of with Doreen Lawrence when she commission” into the whole Lawrence Macpherson inquiry, where Davidson’s the Independent Police Complaints this meeting, according to Ellison, says, “You can’t trust the police”. scandal. It should be headed by an conduct had already been the subject of Commission and a senior detective. was “less than straightforward” and After all, only a few months ago we “independent figure” - as opposed to hostile questioning - initial suspicions Then we have the peculiar unsolved “somewhat troubling” - he noted that had the scandal about the Operation an “establishment patsy” - and should being that corruption could explain the murder of Daniel Morgan, a former there could have been no conceivable Tiberius inquiry - a secret Scotland seek evidence “from all sections of catalogue of police errors, including an policeman and private investigator, “public order” justification for the Yard report from 2003, which the community” (March 9). Comrade extraordinary two-week delay before found in 1987 with an axe embedded said meeting, which itself could have concluded that top criminals had Jones calls for a “new police force”, arresting the suspects in the early in his skull in a south London car led to “serious public disorder” if “compromised” multiple agencies which will be “designed from scratch” days of the investigation. Putnam’s park. As it happens, Davidson was knowledge of it had become widely of the state, including HM revenue - a “body stripped of prejudice and explosive allegations could only attached to the original investigation known. In a gesture to the public and customs, the crown prosecution bigotry” and one that “defends hard- threaten to bust the Met wide apart. of the murder and was “known to outcry, commander Richard Walton, service, the City of London police, won democratic freedoms, as well Thus the Ellison review includes a associate” with some of the suspects - who reportedly earns £120,000 a year, the prison service, the criminal justice as protecting people’s security”. memo written in 2000 by the Met’s as made clear by a recently unearthed has been temporarily transferred to a system, including juries and the legal Doubtlessly it will be armed with directorate of legal services, warning Met intelligence report from 2003 “non-operational role” - presumably profession, and so on. Crime pays. flowers instead of truncheons, tasers that disclosures about Davidson’s that mentions Davidson’s name on full pay. It’s a hard life. As for Lord The news about Operation Tiberius and pepper sprays l intimate connections with the Norris nine times in connection with the Paul Condon, who was in charge of the came in the same week that PC Keith family could have an “adverse effect” botched investigation into Morgan’s Met during the Macpherson inquiry, he Wallis admitted stitching up the Tory [email protected] weekly 5 worker 1001 March 13 2014 OBITUARY An intransigent fighter Bob Crow, June 13 1961 - March 11 2014 he death of Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime Tand Transport union and one of the most intransigent fighters for the rights of trade union members, represents a serious blow to the working class movement. Comrade Crow died suddenly, aged 52, following a massive heart attack on March 11. Not even the most rightwing commentators could avoid giving him back-handed compliments. For example, The Daily Telegraph website reported the news of his death in the following terms: “One of the most successful trade union leaders of modern Britain, the self-described ‘communist-stroke-socialist’ shrugged off the ire of commuters and was unrepentant in advancing his members’ interests. The basic pay for tube drivers rose to more than £50,000 under him, with generous compensation for working on public holidays.”1 They could have added that RMT membership increased from around 50,000 to almost 80,000 during his 12 years as general secretary. The reason for that is not hard to fathom. He was indeed “unrepentant in advancing his members’ interests”. He was one those trade union leaders who really did try his utmost to improve the wages and conditions of workers, despite the personal attacks from the hostile media that resulted: “If I can get job security and decent pay for my members, I couldn’t give two hoots about being unpopular” - that is a widely quoted remark of his. It was not unusual to see him on the picket line or Bob Crow: a loss for the working class handing out leaflets alongside rank-and- file members. to the effect that “The Soviet Union RMT in 2004, I suspect that he was not socialism. There are several senior rises every single year right the way Comrade Crow was working may have failed with communism, exactly devastated. Five of the union’s RMT figures - not least full-timer through austerity.” That comment class through and through - his east but capitalism has failed mankind.” branches in Scotland had given official Brian Denny of the CPB’s ultra- provoked the Daily Mail to run with London accent, simple (if sometimes And he added: “I think that’s what backing to Scottish Socialist Party nationalist wing - who share comrade a typical anti-Crow piece of union- disjointed) phrasing and direct manner it’s all about. People are going to candidates standing against Labour Crow’s views, and the union itself is bashing on the very day he died: “My said it all. He insisted on remaining in say, this system ain’t working - it’s and the union leadership had done officially backing No2EU. It is the £145,000 pay? I’m worth it, insists his council house despite being paid a not providing me with jobs, it’s not nothing to stop them. only union that is doing so, and the Crow: militant union chief defends salary that would have allowed him to providing me with homes, it’s breaking Perhaps surprisingly for an ‘official same goes for Tusc, which is also his six-figure salary during interview.”4 buy a detached house in a leafy suburb down socially, it leads to wars.” communist’, comrade Crow has standing candidates on May 22 - this Coming from the Mail, with its (see below). But, he was asked, being so upfront supported the efforts of the Trotskyists time in the local elections in England unstinting support for fat-cat capitalism He left school aged 16 to work for about being a communist - doesn’t that of the Socialist Party in England and and Wales. (not to mention the salaries paid to its London Transport and within a couple make you unpopular? “Nah,” came the Wales in their campaigning for a new The question now arises: for how executives and top managers), this is of years was active in the National reply. “If I were a worker and my trade “mass workers’ party”. He addressed long will the RMT continue backing the height of hypocrisy. Nevertheless, Union of Railwaymen. After the NUR union leader was a communist and he several rallies of the (now defunct) No2EU and Tusc, now that comrade the fact that comrade Crow not only merged with the National Union of was getting me good pay rises - bring Campaign for a New Workers’ Party Crow is no longer with us? There is no accepted such an inflated salary, but Seamen to form the RMT in 1990, on more communists.”2 from 2008 and up to his death he was doubt that this support was primarily attempted to justify it, points to a comrade Crow was soon elected to In fact comrade Crow joined the centrally involved, alongside SPEW, in due to Crow’s own drive and political big contradiction. Full-time union the new union’s executive, finally ‘official’ Communist Party back in both the Trade Unionist and Socialist commitment. But he was one of a kind officials should be paid no more than becoming general secretary in 2002. 1983, aged 22, and was part of the Coalition and ‘No to the EU, Yes to among even left union bureaucrats - it the average wage of the members they 1988 Communist Party of Britain Democracy’, for whom he headed is very difficult for members of this represent (plus, of course, legitimate Vision split. However, when in response to the London list of candidates in the intermediate layer between workers expenses). In this way we attempt to But what guided him - what stopped Blairism Arthur Scargill announced the 2009 European elections. He was and employers to resist the pull prevent them from acting first and him from “being afraid”, as he put formation of the Socialist Labour Party set to do the same again this coming towards the ‘middle ground’ of safe, foremost in their own caste interests. it - was his politics: his vision of a in 1995, comrade Crow was among May - although the ‘Democracy’ in Labour-type politics. The contradiction can be explained different, working class society. True, several high-profile union figures who No2EU’s name has now been replaced by his continued adherence to ‘official’ his vision of ‘socialism’ was in many followed him. But the SLP rapidly by ‘Workers’ Rights’. Contradiction communism - think what a leader he ways abhorrent, but in the clash of went downhill thanks to Scargill’s Less than a week before his death Bob Crow was able to do so on could have been had he been won to labour versus capital in the industrial control-freakery and dictatorial style, comrade Crow had an article published a purely individualistic basis: ie, the genuine article: to internationalism, struggle he was most definitely on our and within a few years comrade Crow in the Morning Star in which he urged without the support and direction of a to the fight for a Marxist party, to side. - like the overwhelming majority of readers to vote for the national-socialist principled working class party. It was the principle of a worker’s wage for As well as being an industrial trade those who had joined “Britain’s fourth No2EU on May 22. The article ended this individualism that accounted for working class representatives. union leader he was also a political largest party”, as Scargill ludicrously by reproducing the campaign’s bullet his own particular take on a number It is fitting that he was vilified by trade union leader. Here he is, when described the SLP in 1996 - was no points, starting with “Exit the EU on the of questions. He was in the news just the right to the very end. That says asked in 2009 if he still thought of longer a member. basis of socialist policies” and ending a few hours before his death thanks to more about him than the polite tributes himself as a communist: “Oh yeah. Since those days Crow has been with “Restore democratic powers to an interview he gave to Radio Four, made a few hours after his death by Absolutely, yeah. Communist-stroke- looking for a new political home - EU member-states”. Comrade Crow in which he not only restated that he leading Tories like London mayor socialist, yeah.” How would he define he has consistently called for a new assured us that “No2EU wants to see was a “communist-socialist” who Boris Johnson and transport secretary that? “I’d say it was based on a society working class party. But, in line with a different Europe - one made up of believed in “a society that is based on Patrick McLoughlin. Despite his of people’s needs. For example, I still his ‘official communist’ background, democratic states that value public need rather than greed”, but also came weaknesses, he was something of a can’t understand how in a world that this new party was not to be based on services and does not offer them to out in favour of official proposals for working class hero. produces enough food to feed the Marxism, but on the unions - a Labour profiteers; states that do not put the an 11% pay rise for MPs. Despite his Peter Manson world twice over every day, a third of Party mark two, as we have described interests of big business above that contempt for most of the occupants the world is going to bed hungry every such a formation. Like so many on the of ordinary people. We believe that of the House of Commons, he linked [email protected] night. How can capitalism be working? left, he had illusions in the nature of EU structures and rules make this their work to his own: “We are all civil I can’t accept that 50% of the world are ‘old Labour’ - not least the first post- impossible.”3 This totally ignores the servants - we are serving civilisation. Notes working for $2 a day and I can’t accept war government: “The achievements fact that the EU agenda is set by the That is what a civil servant does, and 1. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and- that 10% of workers are working for a of Labour in the years after World War very member-states to whom No2EU they should be paid accordingly.” rail-transport/10689336/Bob-Crow-leader-of-the- dollar a day.” II should never be underestimated, but wants to “restore democratic powers”. This led to questions about his own RMT-dies.html. In the same interview comrade they are now history.” But that is left nationalism for you. £90,000 salary (plus £30,000 pension 2. The Guardian June 20 2009. 3. Morning Star March 6. Crow went on to quote Joe Slovo, Although comrade Crow said he Of course, the No2EU anti-Europe payments, etc), which Crow defended 4. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2577866/My- whom he described as “the great was “very sad” when the Labour campaign is entirely based on the in this way: “I am worth it, yeah. Our 145-000-pay-Im-worth-insists-Crow-Militant-union- South African communist leader”, leadership decided to disaffiliate the CPB’s programme, Britain’s road to members, in the main, have had pay chief-defends-six-figure-salary-interview.html. 6 weekly March 13 2014 1001 worker LEFT UNITY Indecision and irrationality March 29 is very likely to be just as frustrating as the November founding conference, writes Mike Macnair ar designer Alec Issigonis national meetings. motions. In our recommendations famously said that “a camel Hence, LU’s policy conference on the motions submitted to the Clooks like a horse that was on March 29 will have another November conference, the CPGB planned by a committee”. The overcrowded agenda. This six-hour Provisional Central Committee said immediate metaphor is obviously meeting is planned to cover (1) 10 of Crouch End’s motion on electoral senseless beyond its aesthetic context: motions on “priority campaigns”, policy that it is “in substance a do- the camel is well-adapted to the covering five separate topics nothing motion, by making the best conditions in which it lives. But the (austerity and NHS, trade unions (election campaigns with mass local “planned by a committee” problem and work, housing, national question, support) the enemy of the good is real: or at least it is real where climate change), which the November (election campaigns as a means of the committee attempts to work by founding conference failed to reach, building local support and getting consensus, rather than recognising that and presumably the two motions on ideas across). The amendment real decisions require that some people “electoral strategy” also deferred then proposed by Huddersfield and West must accept that their preferences will - unless the movers have withdrawn London is a substantial improvement be rejected, or simply agrees to dodge their motions; (2) a further 31 motions on the original motion.”2 essential decisions. from branches and 16 motions from This remains true; but in a certain The Austin Champ was a story told individual proposers and seconders, sense, the poison in the original in the past as a classic case: war office covering 14 separate topics; and (3) if motion is left intact by the antidote committee negotiations ended with a there is time - which is pretty unlikely in the amendment. There is unlikely vehicle designed for conflicting goals, - five policy documents submitted by to be any way to get to mass local which was as a result too expensive for the ‘policy commissions’, on four support without engaging in the even the notoriously spendthrift British topics (economics, foreign policy, electoral process as a minority, fielding armed forces to buy and run, and was health, racism). candidates who initially get poor votes. abandoned in favour of the cruder and A rational agenda for democratic Crouch End’s motion thus plays to the cheaper Land Rover. deliberation and decision-making for far-left anti-electoralism likely to be The Left Unity party project is, in March 29 would select two of these common in LU and also expressed in a sense, founded on a similar refusal topics and allocate three hours to each the idea of ‘priority campaigning’. To to take necessary decisions. The most of them - or three topics and two hours adopt this policy has the logic that LU basic is the decision between loyalty each. The discussion of the individual mutates into just another far-left group, to the existing British state and topics could then include the relevant albeit one to the right of the existing constitutional order, on the one hand, policy commission documents and groups in its substantive policy. and an orientation for the working motions, whether put forward to the Bristol LU proposes adoption of an class to act as an independent class November conference or since. We eight-point plan and calling on Labour and internationally to replace this, would then defer discussing and voting and Green candidates to join us in and other, states with its own power, on other topics to later meetings. But campaigning for it. This is the method on the other. The first - constitutional LU’s procedural methods are aimed of the People’s Charter/People’s loyalism (commonly and misleadingly not at democratic deliberation, but at Assembly, and again within the called ‘reformism’) - is the foundation the opposed goal of compliance with framework of refusing confrontation of Labourism, but also of the ‘left’ rule-of-law constitutionalism; and Piety: no substitute for hard political decisions with overall policy issues and choices, British-nationalist illusions of ‘No to workable agendas would in addition and hence with electoral tasks. It adds the EU, Yes to Workers’ Rights’. The require potentially controversial There is, however, something political the ‘campaigning priorities’ is that to the problem the common confused second - proletarian class-political political choices. LU’s procedures are as well as procedural to be said about this reinforcement will inevitably be idea that the Greens are ‘part of the independence and internationalism also derived partly from the practices the framework in which most motions withdrawn when the party’s attention left’. At least Crouch End’s motion (commonly and misleadingly called of the Labour Party and trade unions - were placed in November. shifts to another newly fashionable recognises that electoral work has to be ‘revolutionary politics’) - is the historic delegate conferences lasting for several topic or movement, it provides no more based on “working class communities”. source of the anti-war, internationalist days, as opposed to six hours, and in than a ‘sugar rush’ to the campaign. Rugby LU proposed in November, and socialist beliefs (or in some cases which, in any case, the conference is Priority The root of the model is the anti- and Pete McLaren and Dave Landau residual prejudices) which many of an opportunity for the activists to let campaigning parliamentarism of the post-1956 propose again now, approaches to Left Unity’s leaders and members off steam, with the leadership left free The motions not reached in November ‘new left’ and its descendants in other left groups, coalitions and parties share from their histories in the to take the real operative decisions. were introduced under the head of the modern far left. Since electoral to avoid electoral clashes and move radical movement and in this or that March 29 is therefore - unfortunately ‘priority campaigning’. This is a activity is regarded as prima facie towards electoral pacts. This proposal left group. The aims adopted for LU at - very likely to be another messy and misconceived idea and one which can opportunist and the base-level work is obviously sensible if LU is to attempt the founding conference in November frustrating day like November 30. poison policy choices. in trade unions, cooperatives, etc as to do electoral work. But it has been 2013 intentionally avoid this choice - The motions contain many good LU has as yet neither the numbers ‘routinist’, the left counterposes strikes rejected by the transitional national comrades have been quite open about things as well as a good deal of nor the mass-circulation daily media and protest campaigns to these tasks. council; it is unclear whether this this evasion. redundant information (the result of which would allow it to actually But the left cannot set the political mistake flows from anti-electoralism Refusal to decide between these very the traditional practice of campaigns shape the national political agenda by agenda: strikes and protests come and or simple sectarianism. fundamental policy options cannot but and left groups in the trade unions, adopting campaigning priorities. As go, and so do ‘priority campaigns’. Moshé Machover and Steve Cooke affect - if only indirectly - the ability to Labour Party and student movement such it has - like the rest of the left - In reality, what a political party has from the Communist Platform propose decide on more immediate policy issues. using long preambles in motions as a to be reactive to this agenda, which to offer to trade unionists and people our agreed motion on participation in This is most obvious in the LU policy form of propaganda), and a few more changes not only from year to year, involved in protest campaigns is not government. Like McLaren/Landau, commissions documents on “economics problematic ideas. The Communist but also from month to month and more and better activism and militancy this obviously makes sense only if policy” and “foreign policy”, to which Platform will be meeting on March week to week. A conference therefore within those spheres. It is drawing LU is to do electoral work and to do we will return later. But the tendency 23 to discuss our views on the motions largely cannot determine ‘priority together the inherently multiple it successfully. The motion is one to paralysis was already incarnated in and any amendments to them, and I campaigning’. sectional experiences and threads for long-term orientation: to avoid, the elaborate ‘checks and balances’ will not try here to go through them LU members have rightly, if of the mass movement into a single if LU has real success, the sort of and ‘rights-based’ structure of the all in detail (in any case, 10 of the inexplicitly, rejected the model which political alternative to government in political disaster which resulted from constitution adopted in November. And individual motions were submitted by has been chosen by the Socialist the interests of capital. It is a matter, Rifondazione Comunista in Italy it descends - as was already apparent at Communist Platform supporters and Workers Party and far-left groups in other words, of proposing policy participating as a minority in the that time - to an inability to take clear are based on the platform’s previously spun off it or influenced by it: that for action of the society as a whole. ‘centre-left’ Olive Tree coalition. and rational decisions on the agenda of published proposals for LU policy). of having a central committee which And this requires electoral activity, freely directs rank-and-file members and forming and publicising policies to move from one strike support which are for legislation even if we Useless activity or protest to another from are a long way off being able to form consensus Voting in LU elections week to week in pursuit of what is a government and implement them.1 The policy commissions documents3 The Communist Platform is standing the following candidates for the moving, exclusively on the basis My point is not to suggest that LU fall into two classes. The first consists Left Unity national council (directly elected section). We recommend of the CC’s judgment, without any branches and members should not of the health and racism documents, that in this single-transferable-vote ballot members voted for candidates leeway for branches to take local be involved in trade unionism, strike in relation to which the commissions in the order stated below. You have until March 24 to cast your vote. All initiatives. This Cliffite model of support work and all sorts of protest have agreed clear lines (which are, in LU members should have been sent instructions on how to vote, so if you a party produces an organisation campaigns consistent with our goals. fact, pretty much the consensus of the have not received such an email please contact the LU office. which cannot sink long-term roots, On the contrary. But what LU can add left in its broad sense, including much and ‘doers’ at the base separated from to these projects is to work to develop of the Labour Party). The second 1. Yassamine Mather 8. James Turley ‘thinkers’ at the centre by bureaucratic the idea that an overall political consists of the “economics policy” 2. Jack Conrad 9. Tina Becker control (and thus, in the end, cases alternative exists. On this basis we and “foreign policy” documents. 3. Moshé Machover 10. Sarah McDonald like that of ‘comrade Delta’). should be aiming to discuss and vote As I said above, these have a 4. Ian Donovan 11. Emily Orford But this observation misses another not on ‘campaigning priorities’, but on ‘planned by committee’ character. 5. Mike Macnair 12. Dan Gray point about what is wrong with the long-term policy, which can form the The commissions are made up of 6. Lee Rock 13. Maciej Zurowski Cliffite model. This is that it is totally basis of election manifestos and orient volunteers, in the absence of a clear 7. Peter Manson 14. Robert Eagleton unclear why this sort of party should writers, artists and so on. political orientation of Left Unity as be any use to the people involved in a whole, and hence inevitably have to Communist Platform is recommending that the 15th preference is given strike, protest movements, etc, except Electoral strategy work by consensus. The result is not to Pete McLaren. We are also calling for vote for Dave Stockton in the insofar as the SWP (or its imitator It follows that the question of electoral just aesthetic ‘camels’, but political London regional section and Tim Nelson for trade union officer. groups) provide a temporary addition strategy is pretty pivotal to the future ‘Austin Champs’ resulting from the of committed and experienced activists of LU, and more so than almost any failure to take necessary decisions one to their ranks. Since the nature of of the substantive policy/campaigning way or the other. weekly 7 worker 1001 March 13 2014 ITALY

The health policy document is so- is at all possible under the regime of massively improved in the most recent powers. The Venetians became quite polarised views. The balance of so. It is ‘reformist’ in the sense that it financial globalisation). The question recension (March 4). But it remains dependent on luxury tourism. The opinion in the commission is that we assumes that the drive towards NHS of political economy immediately within the framework that a radical Genoese and the Dutch both tried should stay in the EU and join with privatisation, with a second-class poses the question of Britain’s place change in orientation is possible in to regenerate productive industries, other left parties in Europe in changing service maintained for the poor, which in the world. a single country, even if “we cannot but failed to do so because their the neoliberal policies and reforming has been going on for some time, could The “economics policy” and foreign put an end to capitalism in a single competitors’ wage costs were so the very undemocratic institutions of be reversed without overthrowing the policy commissions both make their country alone”. much lower than their own. Britain commission and parliament.” global capitalist order. But this drive proposals - which nonetheless remain The blunt fact is that capital flight is in the same situation today. The foreign policy document fundamentally emanates from the USA incoherent - within a framework of and investment strikes are not an The practical consequence is should be referred back. In its present and the US-led global turn towards socialism in a single country and unusual response of capital to leftwing that Britain has a large and standing form it represent fantasy politics. financialisation and liberalisation, peaceful coexistence. This may appear to policies, against which solidarity deficit in ‘visible’ trade (the country The reality is that the question of and reversing it would not just be in be an obviously untrue statement, given cannot readily and effectively be imports more than it exports; notably, Europe is the central strategic question. violation of the proposed EU-US Free that the economic policy document says mobilised. Indeed, we have seen as mentioned above, in food). This Britain, this US attack dog and offshore Trade Agreement, but of existing treaty explicitly that “we cannot put an end to the limits of international protest deficit is paid for in ‘invisibles’, financial centre with a moderately sized commitments of the UK in relation to capitalism in one country alone, nor campaigns very recently in relation which means the overseas earnings material economy attached to it, has public spending, non-tariff barriers abolish Britain’s reliance on exchange to the Iraq war, a much softer target of City finance (and to a lesser extent two strategic options. The first is to under the EU treaties (particularly and trade both with Europe and with the politically than the diffuse phenomena City law firms, accountants and so continue as it is. Not a good option for Maastricht and Nice) and the 1994 rest of the world.” of capital flight and investment strikes on). The sources of this income are the still substantial working class in General Agreement on Tariffs and The problem, however, is that (and, as Vietnam showed, a war can deeply obscure, but a substantial this country. The second is to join in Trade (Gatt)/World Trade Organisation. the commissions are still seeking be a softer target in relation to actual part in it must be played by the large and promote a project of reconstructing However, supposing purely for the national solutions which break with disruption of military operations if network of offshore operations, which, Europe as a whole in the interests of the sake of argument that in a couple of ‘neoliberalism’ - ie, the policy of US there is a determined and effective though they are formally based in the working class: which is the only realistic months time the reblown financial and British financial capital - within opposition). Excessive strengthening Channel Islands, Isle of Man and alternative to British financialism and bubble was to burst again, this the framework of the continuation of of trade unions normally evokes various British dependent territories, US-dependence. time irretrievably, and the resulting the existing world order. They refuse to investment strikes in relation to well- are actually run out of London. The Fortunately, if the foreign policy dislocation of money and banking recognise how tightly this framework organised factories and capital flight. abolition of tax avoidance devices document is useless and the ‘economics produced global mass mobilisations constrains the options of single states The extremely mild left rhetoric of the and international tax cooperation policy’ document badly inadequate which did unexpectedly overthrow the and their governments; and Britain is a Hollande administration in France has (proposed in the document) would on this issue, there are substantially hegemony of the US and the capitalist case a fortiori because of its historical evoked a (small-scale) capital flight therefore hurt Britain more than any better motions on offer on the question constitutional orders of the vassal states development and consequent present and investment strike; not much, other country other than the ‘treasure for March 29; and, since this is a (UK, etc), the new regime created dependence on financial services. but enough to cause a collapse in islands’8 themselves; indeed, in the fundamental orienting question, it would still be confronted with most Very early in the document comes Hollande’s popularity. absence of an immediate and radical is one that should be discussed at the of the NHS policy choices posed by the statement: “It is a myth that there Britain is exceptionally vulnerable restructuring of the productive conference if at all possible. Crouch this document; so that its ‘reformism’ is no money available. Private sector to such a shift. The reason lies in its economy, it would provoke famine in End proposes that LU should adopt the is a secondary matter. corporations were sitting on cash history. Achieving world dominance the short term. It is possible that all that declaration of the 4th Congress of the The issue which is absent from reserves of £671 billion (almost 50% after 1815, Britain held a global empire would be needed to trigger this effect European Left Party, which calls for a the document is what the workers’ of national income) in 2013, which they and was for a while the ‘workshop of would be the removal of the various “refoundation of Europe ... based on movement should do in the event that were unwilling to invest productively.” the world’, and London the world’s exemptions given to the City under US solidarity, social justice and popular capitalist collapse leading to revolution This statement is quite extraordinary. financial centre. But world dominance offshore regulation, money-laundering sovereignty”. Perhaps not very radical in does not arrive in the very near future, Suppose that it were said of an carries with it costs - as financial legislation, etc. Certainly capital flight the continental context, this declaration and in consequence the capitalists individual, ‘I have plenty of money: I inflows push up land prices, and as could ‘do for’ Britain much faster than would be a major step forward in relation succeed in forcing through their have in a deposit account half a year’s enormous wealth among the elites comparable countries. to the dominant nationalism of the privatisation agenda. The consequence wages’, we might regard this person delegitimises them - which in turn The “economics policy” document British Labour and far left. would then be, unavoidably, that the as pretty well-off as long as their job push up local labour costs and lead should be referred back. In spite of Going into more detail, the Alliance working class needed to construct continued, but would hardly regard to foreign investment and offshoring. the recent improvements, it still fails for Workers’ Liberty’s model motion its own healthcare system based on them as effectively insured against the The result is a shift of industry, which to face up to the real situation faced has been adopted by Lambeth and the trade unions, mutualism and loss of it. The blog UK Public Spending creates competitors in production, by Britain (and therefore by workers Manchester and proposed by Nik cooperatives (as in fact existed gives the admittedly estimated figures which in turn creates a shift towards living here) or to present real choices. Barstow and Ruth Cashman. And the before 1940, and exists in some other for total UK public spending in 2014 high-end production and a further shift Communist Platform’s model motion countries to this day). The movement as £718.8 billion, including pensions from production towards finance. Foreign policy has been adopted by Milton Keynes needs to make contingency plans now (£144.1 billion), healthcare (£129.7 By the later 19th century British Once we see this point, it becomes and proposed by Sarah McDonald and for this possibility.4 This would not, billion), education (£88.6 billion), productive capital - including shipping apparent that the foreign policy Phil Kent. There are differences of however, be an objection to passing defence (£46.6 billion), welfare (£112.5 - was in relative decline, though British document is even more an example detail here - perhaps important ones - this document as it is. billion). The £671 billion is then less world dominance could continue on of fantasy, hand-waving and refusal but discussion and compositing should The anti-racism documents than a year’s spending. the basis of financial and military to take necessary decisions. It is in principle be possible. Southwark’s consist of a long version with more It is certainly true that the cuts could dominance. 1914-18 nearly saw entirely constructed on the basis of resolution, which commits LU to motivation and a short version be reversed; partly because in spite of the end of this world empire, but it an independent British policy in a dodging the question in the 2014 Euro mainly on immigration. The main their brutal impact on individuals, they continued on a shaky basis until 1940, world that remains much as it is. It elections, should be rejected: yet more policy prescription - opposition to are largely cosmetic (aimed to win when the whole geo-strategic structure overstates the degree of decline of the deliberate indecision l all immigration controls, and to votes from Daily Hate Mail readers) at came crashing down. In 1940 it was US hegemony, which has by no means ideas like ‘British jobs for British the level of total government spending. agreed between Britain and the US that given way yet to an effective multi- [email protected] workers’ - are sound. The problem is It is also true that that there is money in the latter would take over as world- polarity. It also, implicitly, overstates that the documents are characterised the economy which could be extracted dominant power; and, though elements the extent to which Britain - a country Notes 1. Some of the arguments are well made by Gavin by the consensus left view of making to pay for state spending by higher of the British elite tried to squeeze out which has for the last 74 years been Mendel-Gleason and James O’Brien in the second ‘racism’ the source of all sorts of income and property taxes (which of the implications of the deal, in 1944 a dependent ally of the US - could part of their ‘Strategy of attrition’ article, entitled objectionable phenomena, thereby the document duly proposes, though at Bretton Woods and in 1956 in the manoeuvre between the supposed ‘Extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside of the church missing altogether the role of not quantifying the expected take). It Suez crisis the US enforced the terms multiple poles. Indeed, several of its there is no salvation): emancipation through organisation’: www.thenorthstar.info/?p=11769 (I official ‘anti-racism’ and the various is also true that the UK could run a of the transfer of power. foreign policy prescriptions are merely do not mean by this to endorse the first part of the mechanisms by which ‘communities’ much higher public debt, as it did in the Britain was retained as a traditional ‘official communist’ policy article, which is badly confused on the state and are taken to be led by elders and post-war period. But it is certainly not subordinate ally of the first rank, modernised: for example, “We should the constitutional order). religious leaders and divided up the case that corporations’ cash hoards playing the role in Europe that the recognise the historic concern of the 2. ‘How to vote at conference’ Weekly Worker November 28 2013. as supplicants by the state. This provide the solution. The document is Netherlands and Portugal had played ruling party in China to better their 3. Available at http://leftunity.org/submitted-con- document should be referred back. thus making an attempt here to pretend for Britain in the 18th century. The own population [!] and the historic ference-motions-commission-documents. that there is a national solution which full implications for British industry fear of Russia about the encirclement 4. Arthur Bough argues that this would be a supe- ‘Economics policy’ will immediately only affect the British were deferred because the US, after by ‘western’ power.” rior policy for the present: http://boffyblog.blogs- pot.co.uk/2013/07/the-nhs-another-failure-of-state. “Economics policy” is a very odd elite and not implicate a government adopting the policy of ‘containment’ Equally, the document fails to html (and other posts). I am not persuaded that it expression, which on its face means in direct conflict with the US and the of communism in 1946, had to keep recognise that Britain’s imperialist is feasible to argue for beginning again, as if the a party policy about economic theory global capitalist elite. the European working classes onside history makes it decidedly odd NHS had never existed, until the point at which and the teaching of economics in “The response of Labour to threats and thus accepted extensive statisation for those on the left to argue that the capitalists have succeeded in privatising it; even then, the general feasibility of cooperatives is schools and universities. This might of capital flight and investment and protectionism under the 1947 “Reducing military intervention does greatly reduced by the land price bubble. not be an entirely bad idea - perhaps strikes”, they say, “has always been Gatt I. After its defeat in Vietnam, the not mean withdrawing from our still 5. ‘Once again on the trade unions’, January 1921: LU should advocate a general purge to capitulate. However, we would Portuguese revolution and so on, the considerable influence in the world” www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/ of the editorial boards of the top help to build international networks of US moved from ‘containment’ to ‘roll- (emphasis added). jan/25.htm. 6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_the_econ- academic economics journals and solidarity to support any government back’ which was the beginning of the The document refuses decisions on omy,_stupid. a general visitation of university introducing such measures within policy of ‘neoliberalism’ and financial two fundamental issues. The first is 7. www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html#refs, economics departments, to break the Europe and elsewhere.” All very globalisation. Under Thatcher, that, while proposing to abandon the citing the 2008 report ‘Food matters: towards a stranglehold of the mathematical- well, and a good idea for present therefore, domestic industries were replacement of Trident (a decision strategy for the 21st century’ (http://webarchive. nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130128101412; marginalists and enforce pluralism tasks - long before any possibility hammered and the British economy which would now involve either www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/strategy/work_areas/ in economics teaching. But this is of a LU government arises. But how became - as the policy document paying off the US contractors, or if food_policy.aspx). not what the document is about: it is will merely political solidarity from recognises it is - more overtly and they were not paid, US sanctions), it 8. N Shaxson Treasure islands London 2011. about what is conventionally called movements themselves out of power completely dependent on finance. To leaves open the question of retaining ‘economic policy’. - short of parallel seizures of state the extent that there has been a revival Trident itself as a bargaining chip Preparing for policy Lenin famously said that “politics power - allow the British to pay for the of productive industry since, it has for multilateral disarmament - the is a concentrated expression of massive adverse balance of material been largely in the form of foreign old argument of the ‘multilateralists’ conference economics”5 and more recently James trade, and in particular the 40% of all direct investment aiming to sell into against CND and the Labour left in the National meeting of Left Unity’s Carvill said of election campaigning, food consumed which is imported?7 the EU without the costs of the labour 1980s. This is a very odd position for Communist Platform “The economy, stupid”.6 The political- The problem, as with the reference to regulations of France, Germany, etc. a party in which Kate Hudson plays a Sunday March 23, 12.30pm economic framework is thus central corporate cash hoards and the failure This is not a novel or peculiar leading role. Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn to all other policy decisions. But to do the numbers on tax, is that the phenomenon: the same was true of Road, London WC1 Britain is not just any old middle- document is characterised by too much 16th-17th century Venice and Genoa, Europe All CP members and supporters rank industrialised country, with an hand-waving. and of 18th century Netherlands - all The second is, of course, Europe. welcome economy dominated by an internal Very incoherent as originally former Europe-leaders in shipping “We debated Britain’s relationship http://communistplatform.org.uk market (to the extent that such a thing published, the document has been and declining or former imperial to the EU in some detail, but with 8 weekly March 13 2014 1001 worker DEBATE Not a matter of style CPGB interventions are marred by a serious theoretical flaw, argues Ian Donovan response to Daniel Harvey’s from the political closeness to the national/colonial oppression. The CPGB’s error was is third campism. A prerequisite of report on the Communist social-chauvinist, pro-imperialist This is not an abstract debate, as compounded by its support for the third campism is the existence not of Platform founding meeting is Alliance for Workers’ Liberty that shown by some important events in SWP’s sectarian and idiotic Left List two classes contending for hegemony A 1 in order. Some of the contradictions they had in the early 2000s when I the Iraq war. In the spring of 2004, less against Respect on this third camp and ultimately world domination, but of the CPGB’s leadership’s claim to was a member and indeed a member than a year after the US and British basis in 2008, on the grounds that the three. And hence there must be room represent a consistently communist of the Provisional Central Committee. imperialists proclaimed ‘mission SWP represented the ‘left wing’ of for a ‘third system’ theory, even if it programme are shown in the But many of the political issues that accomplished’ with their conquest Respect, against George Galloway has not been properly formulated yet. discussion around my amendments. became rather explosive at that time of Iraq, obviously coordinated mass and those independent leftwingers The problem is that this concept It is good that the platform is remain, in latent fashion, in some of uprisings took place in two important who supported him, whom it alleged has implications, which put it at odds committed to “stand on the historic the amendments that were put and regions: Fallujah in Sunni north- were popular frontists opposed to with key aspects of Marxism. For examples of the Paris Commune of defeated at the Communist Platform central Iraq, and Najaf/Kerbala in the class politics (though in reality instance, in the Communist manifesto, 1871 and the Bolshevik-led revolution meeting. Shia south. In Fallujah the uprising because the CPGB viewed Galloway Marx and Engels wrote: in October 1917 as the first attempts For instance, there were the was led by the Association of Muslim and his supporters as ‘reactionary of the working class to dispossess the amendments that I moved to the Scholars, a mainly Sunni umbrella anti-imperialists’). Our epoch, the epoch of the capitalists and begin the construction resolution on ‘The danger of war’, group; in Najah/Kerbala, it was led The false nature of this analysis is bourgeoisie, possesses, however, of socialism”. on the question of so-called ‘weapons by the Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, evident today, when you look at where this distinctive feature: it has However, it is worrying that this of mass destruction’, and also on and the Army of the Hidden Imam (al- those involved stand now. The most simplified the class antagonisms. amendment was so controversial. support for mass-based anti-colonial Mahdi). These started off a chain of outspoken of those in favour of the Society as a whole is more Despite the reasoning about the uprisings. Daniel writes: events that led to the US and Britain SWP’s Left List fiasco at the time, and more splitting up into two ‘minimalism’ of a maximum eventually, at least formally, retreating and who have not retreated entirely great hostile camps, into two programme coming from leading Ian’s amendments meant adding from Iraq, albeit several years later, into Counterfire-style movementism great classes facing each other, CPGB comrades like John Bridge a couple of sentences about the after embedding a fragile and unstable away from the fight to build a leftwing bourgeoisie and proletariat. and Mike Macnair, it seems to me interests of imperialist states to puppet regime, which still totters on. party that stands in elections include that even within the framework “enforce an effective monopoly” At the time that these events … the likes of Richard Seymour and This is the crux of the matter. The of the CPGB’s own approach of a in weapons of mass destruction, happened, in the spring of 2004, I many of the others who make up a notion of a ‘third camp’ in class terms revolutionary maximum-minimum and their being the “chief purveyor wrote front-page agitational-type large contingent of the right wing of is what is fundamental to third-camp programme, there ought to be a of such obscenities”. It would also articles in the Weekly Worker, which Left Unity. politics; thus ‘space’ has to be left in positive, even if critical, reference to have committed the CP to opposing explicitly called on the international On the other hand, what of the any putative communist programme previous revolutionary events. “military ‘policing’ actions aimed left to solidarise with these uprisings. supposed ‘right wing’ of Respect formulated by third campists, for a One of the arguments for this at enforcing such a monopoly”. There was an extensive debate around that backed Galloway? Some of the third force, a third class camp - even ‘minimalism’ was to emulate the His other amendment would have these issues, expressed in the most most political, independent elements if its nature is as yet unknown! method of Marx in his formulation added to what was contained in the political terms between myself and later initiated the Socialist Platform The CPGB’s polemics against of the programme of the Parti Ouvrier, motion about our support for “just comrade Mike Macnair.3 of Left Unity, which the CPGB itself ‘reactionary anti-imperialism’ (the which the CPGB leadership hold up wars, above all revolutionary civil These differences were fought out rightly welcomed with open arms. Iraqi resistance, for instance), and as a model of how a revolutionary wars for socialism”, to include concretely, but hardly conclusively, Nick Wrack has spoken at Communist ‘reactionary anti-Zionism’ (eg, maximum-minimum programme “mass-based struggles against over the Iraq war a decade or so ago. University and for a while at least was Hamas), are in the third-campist vein, should be formulated. national oppression, imperialism However, they are still current: similar regarded as a CPGB semi-ally. And, and show this theoretical flaw and What is intriguing is that when and colonialism”. These issues are posed by any number of of course, as a separate case, I am a programmatic error. Of course, the you go back and read this document, amendments were felt generally situations that we could be confronted member of the Communist Platform. politics of such forces are reactionary. which was drawn up in 1880, nine to be redundant and to weaken the with today, as the implicit thrust of If the analysis that had led the But, insofar as they resist the years after the Paris Commune, there original formulation stylistically. even the unamended resolution CPGB to take the stance it did on domination of ‘their’ population by are clear, positive references to that They were both defeated. testifies. these questions had been accurate, an imperialist/colonialist occupation experience. Both the political and one would have expected this line- force, in that narrow sphere they economic sections of this programme This misses the point about what Respect up to be reversed. are fighting against oppression, and contained quotations from decrees this debate was about. The questions The debates between myself and The CPGB’s third campism led it that aspect of their actions deserves of the Commune, and point (5) of were not matters of style - if that comrade Macnair were intertwined to take the wrong orientation on a very support, just as it would if it were the political section calls for the were all it was about they would not with a difference of opinion on important leftwing development in being carried out by more superficially Commune “to be the master of its have generated so much passionate the nature of Respect, with myself British politics. Respect was fatally attractive, ‘democratic’ bourgeois administration and its police” - which disagreement from both sides. They considering Respect as an anti- flawed indeed - though not in the forces. Neutrality on such struggles in late-19th century France was as are issues of substance, about the imperialist, working class left split way the CPGB analysed it - and is a capitulation to the demonisation clear an evocation of the Commune right of existing bourgeois states and from Labour with a base among thus ultimately doomed without an of the oppressed by political agents of as any.2 movements in backward or dependent oppressed, mainly working class organised and collective communist the oppressor and can only undermine In the current context, one countries to resist outright imperialist Muslim immigrants and subsidiary intervention. Nevertheless, it inflicted the authority of communists among wonders what is really driving conquest. far-left support; while comrade an important political blow against the oppressed. those who wish to avoid positive These things have been posed in Macnair and others considered it the ruling class at Bethnal Green There is no third class camp. These references to the Russian Revolution several recent wars - over Serbia, to be a popular front - equating the and Bow in 2005, and was thus far forces - from the Stalinist regimes and the Paris Commune as the two Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, for immigrant, political-Muslim petty more important than the Socialist (some of which were imperialist in premier examples so far in history of example - over the last decade and a bourgeois element in Respect with Alliance. The CPGB’s third-campist their own right, which obviously specifically proletarian revolutionary half. They are also posed today over a wing of the British ruling class. A analysis meant its intervention was requires a different attitude; some events. This does not seem to me to Iran and the campaign to deprive it of false equation, in my view, and linked directed at the wrong people, and of which led oppressed nations), to be some sort of accident or quirk, the means of enriching uranium for with the other differences. thus an important opportunity for old-fashioned, ‘democratic’ petty but must represent at some level an domestic nuclear energy generation, The debates between comrade a communist organisation to grow, bourgeois or bourgeois nationalists, adaptation to social pressure. on the grounds of the dual usability of Macnair and myself took place influence this formation and win new to today’s Islamist movements - are It is one thing to produce a this for nuclear weapons generation. concurrently with a situation in the forces to communism was lost. manifestations of petty bourgeois and maximum programme that speaks It is a serious political weakness CPGB involving a small faction These are all issues contained, bourgeois politics that are compelled abstractly about communist goals. that the Communist Platform voted (which comrade Macnair was not in microcosm in the dispute about to use radical rhetoric and sometimes It is quite another to link that with not to specifically oppose imperialist involved in), some of whose leaders “mass-based struggles against carry out real acts of resistance to the Russian Revolution today, when attempts to enforce their monopoly of were intent on splitting (and did so), to imperialism and colonialism”. Not maintain mass support among workers imperialist propaganda and the crimes such weapons, in favour of a vanilla- form something called the Red Party, an issue of style at all. and other sections of impoverished of the Stalinist regimes have managed style position on the horror of such whose politics were an eccentric people where they do lead masses in to obscure the original liberatory aims weapons, even if such observations variant of those of the AWL. I was Crux of the matter oppressed and dependent countries. of that revolution behind a mountain of are factually true. Whether or not the probably the most consistent and Which brings us back to my other To build a strategy for communism vilification. This retreat to abstraction imperialists’ casus belli in such cases outspoken opponent of their politics. contentious amendment on historic/ on the contention that there is a third was not the method of Marx. are fabricated, not to specifically Unfortunately the response of the international questions, the one class camp, and to promote neutrality Here it appears to represent - oppose them in principle is a CPGB leadership to the eruption of regarding my supposed attempt in struggles between imperialism particularly with the central question concession to social pacifism and an something close to open factional to ‘smuggle in’ a state-capitalist and alleged ‘second camp’ forces of the October revolution - a tendency evasion of the duty to defend the right warfare was a political disorientation, analysis. But in fact it was pretty leading oppressed peoples, is a to throw the baby out with the to self-determination of dependent and a temporary deviation from openly stated. My amendment read: fundamentally flawed strategy that bathwater, given the undeniably rapid countries targeted for conquest and their norms of open debate - even “An isolated socialist government can only lead to stagnation and an degeneration of the revolution due to subjugation by imperialism - which introducing a pre-moderation regime will either be crushed by capital or organisation that fails to spread backwardness and isolation. But that have become more frequent since the on the internal e-caucus. forced by material circumstances, beyond the imperialist centres l does not make the October revolution collapse of Stalinism. These were unfortunate political despite the best of initial intentions, one iota less worth defending, Likewise, the other amendment errors, not so much as they led to become a surrogate capitalist force Notes 1. ‘Solid basis for intervention’ Weekly Worker particularly as part of a programme Daniel is referring to was not a to the loss of comrades from the in its own right.” February 13. that seeks to address the ‘maximum’ matter of style either. The whole organisation, but they also stymied the This is contrasted with the 2. See www.whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Back/ demands of communists - centrally point of including the formulation possibility of intervening correctly in discussion on part of my previous Wnext11/Prog.html. the question of power and what we about “mass-based struggles against the anti-war movement and Respect. amendment, where there were 3. For an example of such an article, see ‘Imperi- alism out of Iraq’ (May 13 2004). For a response aim to do with it. national oppression, imperialism and That opportunity could have come strong objections to using the word by comrade Macnair, see ‘Imperialists, Islamists colonialism” in the definition of what to fruition a few years later, when ‘degenerated’ for describing the and communists’ (May 20 2004). For further Third-camp politics constitute “just wars” that we support, the inevitable clash came in 2007 Soviet Union, on the grounds that contributions to this very extensive debate over This is a symptom of the CPGB’s alongside “revolutionary civil wars for between the Socialist Workers Party it sounds too much like the term, questions of principle, see Mike Macnair’s ‘The politics of “taking sides”’ (June 10 2004) and my main weakness: namely third-camp socialism”, is to commit us to a basic and the serious, if often flawed and ‘degenerated workers’ state’. The response, ‘Political Islam and surrogate national- politics. It is good that the comrades communist position of concretely, confused, elements which contributed two concepts are hardly compatible. ism’ (June 17 2004). There are others that can be have moved a considerable distance and not merely abstractly, opposing the core of Respect’s ‘native’ support. But the common thread here, again, searched out at www.cpgb.org.uk. weekly 9 worker 1001 March 13 2014 IRAN End all sanctions, free the prisoners Now is the time to step up the pressure, writes Yassamine Mather atherine Ashton’s first visit Two other labour activists, Rasoul to Iran’s Islamic Republic as Badaghi and Shahrokh Zamani, who CEuropean Union representative are already in prison, were summoned marked the beginning of the second to a court in Karaj and informed about phase of Iran’s negotiations with the new charges. They are accused of P5+1 powers, which, according to both inciting prison riots and provoking a sides, will be far more “difficult and clash with guards. Zamani is serving challenging” than the initial phase. an 11-year sentence for establishing a There is still confusion about the “socialistic group” and “propagating results of the interim deal, as well as against the regime”, and now he is ambiguity about aspects of it. Over the be tried once more on a charge of last few months International Atomic insulting the supreme leader. Energy Agency inspectors have been On top of all this, the regime is granted access to nuclear plants and carrying out an unprecedented number on January 20 the IAEA reported of executions - 135 took place between that Iran has disconnected centrifuge January 1 and February 19. Most of cascades used to enrich uranium those facing public hanging are charged to 20% and destroyed its already with drug offences (government enriched stockpile of uranium. It has officials admit the country has two also stopped installing any additional million drug addicts), as well as rape centrifuges, and ended work on the and murder. Amongst those executed Arak heavy water reactor. However, have been some political prisoners, as far as the future of Iran’s nuclear including Hashem Shaabani, a 32-year- programme is concerned, there are old poet from Iran’s Arab community, two interpretations of the initial who was executed last month after agreement. Iran’s foreign minister a forced confession, filmed on state insists that the Geneva agreement of television, of moharebeh. November 2013 accepts Iran’s right Pro-war and regime-change to enrich uranium up to 5%, but the activists have tried to blame Rowhani Americans deny this. for the renewed repression in order to Nevertheless, in return for these undermine the current negotiations. It Iranian moves there has been a is true that Rowhani must take some of limited lifting of economic sanctions, the blame, but the main source of power including allowing access to $4.2 is in the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, billion of Iranian cash frozen in foreign and his team of powerful clerics. banks. In addition sanctions targeting Rowhani cannot even get the slot he petrochemical industries, precious wants on national radio and television. metals, the auto industry, passenger The head of the Islamic Republic of plane parts and services have been Iran Broadcasting company, currently lifted over the last few months. Ezatollah Zarghami, is appointed by However, most Iranians have yet to see the supreme leader. any improvement in their daily lives. Over the last year of ‘targeted’ Regime split? sanctions oil exports fell by 60% Every now and then leaders of the - equivalent to a loss of around Islamic Republic are reminded that $80 billion. Iran’s currency, the Striking Iranian steelworkers the overwhelming majority of the rial, plummeted in value. Inflation population are not ‘followers’ of increased to 45% and, according to the This gave Israel the opportunity direct confrontation with Assad’s main The state’s response to most of the imam’s line, that a considerable central bank, the economy contracted to claim that the nature of the Iranian backer, Iran, and Qatar is keen to stop these protests has been as harsh as ever. proportion of those who consider by 5.8% last year, to a level not seen regime had not changed. Israel claimed further rapprochement between that Security forces have arrested over 20 themselves Muslims do not practise since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. But that rockets with a range of between country and the US. workers of the Chadormalu mine in Islam, they prefer to watch satellite now a number of countries, including 90 and 160 km had been shipped into the central province of Yazd, including TV and the internet, they drink Japan and India, have finally paid Iran from Syria. Netanyahu claimed: Unpaid the secretary of the unofficial workers’ alcohol and disobey regulations for oil imported at the height of the “We are revealing the truth behind the In late February, the International organisation. For several months, regarding sexual segregation, sanctions in 2011 and 2012. deceiving smiles of Iran.” He claimed Monetary Fund visited Iran for the more than 3,000 workers have been wearing the hijab, etc. The Tehran stock exchange rose that the “international community” first time in the last three years. Its demanding a pay increase compatible The reality is that after 35 years the by 130% in 2013, following the new wants to “ignore Iran’s ongoing subsequent report describes the with the rate of inflation, as well as Islamic regime is struggling to control government’s promises of negotiations aggression and its part in the massacre Iranian economy as “weak” and overtime which has been unpaid for a population of whom 75% percent regarding the nuclear issue. But this in Syria”. called on the Iranian government four months. Despite the arrest of 20 are aged 25 or under. In December hardly showed confidence in the Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad to implement “drastic reforms” workers “instrumental in launching the 2013, Iran’s minister of culture, Ali Iranian economy - Iranian capitalists Javad Zarif, responded in the form of to stop serious economic decline initial protests”, the strike continues. Jannati, admitted that more than have not been investing in property, a tweet: “An Iranian ship carrying caused by international sanctions and Iran Khodro workers have protested 70% of Tehran’s population watch or dollar and gold markets, which arms for Gaza. Captured just in time mismanagement. According to the over health and safety following the banned satellite channels. Last week have been doing poorly, which leaves for annual AIPAC [American Israel IMF, if its policies are followed the death of a worker who was attempting Khamenei himself expressing concerns nowhere else but the stock exchange. Public Affairs Committee] anti-Iran Iranian economy will instead grow by to clean a machine, which failed about “current cultural issues in the While in December 2013 there was campaign. Amazing coincidence! between one and two percent in 2014. to operate correctly. His comrades country” and called on officials to “pay record trading, things have fallen Or same failed lies.” Whatever the And Rowhani’s plans for economic walked out and security guards were attention to religious and revolutionary back since mid-February mainly due truth, this was by no means an Israeli reform so as to “ameliorate the deployed to suppress the protest. culture”. But the next day Rowhani, to uncertainty about a long-term deal coup. The ship had been under US conditions for business” are music Meanwhile, labour activists in addressing a symposium on the media, with the west. surveillance throughout its journey to the ears of international capital. Iranian jails continue to endure harsh partly blamed Iran’s “closed society” In the last couple of weeks, as from Iran and it was the US airforce The implications are clear: increased conditions. Reza Shahabi Zakaria, the for a “lack of public confidence” and events have unfolded in Ukraine, that supplied the Israeli navy with exploitation, this time with more rigid treasurer of the Syndicate of Workers the fact that people follow “foreign president Hassan Rowhani has come details of the ship’s cargo and its legal structures, under empowered of Tehran, has been imprisoned on information sources”. It was time to under pressure from Islamic hard- whereabouts. capitalist managers. Tens of thousands political charges since June 2010. He “secure freedom of speech”. liners, who accuse his government of This week also saw claims from the of Iranian workers have not been paid is currently held in Evin prison. In A marked difference of opinion, selling out. Some clerics have gone Qatar-based Al Jazeera that Iran was for up to 18 months and very few April 2012 he was sentenced to six then, from the two leading figures in so far as to say that, had Iran resisted responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie expect payment in the near future, years imprisonment by an Islamic the Islamic regime. However, at the US pressure, Russia would have bombing. Of course, many of us who their daily protests falling on deaf ears. Revolutionary Court - five years for end of the day both are committed to its stepped in to support it, as it did in followed the Lockerbie saga have In fact, in Ahvaz, sugar cane workers “colluding against state security”, and survival. The difference is about how the Crimea. Others have argued that known for a very long time that Iran’s have not been paid for 20 months, yet one year for “spreading propaganda best to ensure it: through repression or because Ukraine gave up its nuclear role in this terrible event cannot be they continue going to work every day against the system”. He has also been the acceptance of reality and toleration. weapons it was subsequently invaded. dismissed. However, the Al Jazeera for fear of losing their jobs in an area fined 70 million rial ($5,700) and Clearly a debate is currently taking During Ashton’s visit to Tehran, documentary presents no new evidence of high unemployment. banned from all trade union activities place within the regime. Benyamin Netanyahu said that she and its timing cannot be a coincidence. In the last few weeks there for five years. According to his lawyer, Now is the time to step up the should ask the Iranians about a Qatar remains one of the main backers have been workers’ protests at the the prosecution is seeking to bring a pressure. We must demand that the merchant ship Israel seized last week, of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt Mazandaran textile factory, calling fresh charge of moharebeh (‘enmity US and EU end all sanctions with which was said to be carrying what and in fact Qatar has fallen out with its for unpaid wages to be made good. against god’) for alleged contact with immediate effect, and that the Tehran Israel described as an Iranian shipment neighbours over this. Last week Saudi In Isfahan workers at the Hadid banned opposition organisations. regime ceases its acts of terror against of weapons intended for Palestinian Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and steel plant demonstrated for the Shahabi’s health has deteriorated in the population. No more executions! militants in the Gaza Strip. In late Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors same reason. Workers occupied custody, but prison authorities have Unconditional release of all labour February Israeli commandos boarded from Qatar following a dispute over the Khoramshahr soap factory and denied him appropriate medical activists languishing in Iranian jails! and seized a merchant ship in the Red its support for MB and other Islamists, prevented the owner from entering. treatment. In November 2011 he went Pay workers what they are owed! Full Sea allegedly carrying a shipment including jihadists in Syria. Qatar’s In Bane, workers at the Jahad Nasr on hunger strike, protesting against the trade union rights! l of “advanced weapons destined for support for sections of the Syrian company were paid part of what they prison authorities’ failure to provide Palestinian militant groups in Gaza”. opposition has also brought it into were owed after a two-day strike. him with treatment. [email protected] 10 weekly March 13 2014 1001 worker OUR HISTORY Rival politics of the miners’ strike An important spur to the it was incumbent on itself to take grouped the largest number intellectuals”, but was actually all the undeveloped and launch of The Leninist as a on responsibility for transforming of class-conscious workers the “vital concern of the working ‘unconnected’ feel they have in monthly newspaper was the its organisation and publication in the UK, organised in the class itself”.2 some places, these two articles slightly sobering recognition by into what it dubbed in its first orbit of a party that continued The article we reprint have huge political strengths. our comrades that their small, monthly issue - itself a result of to wield relatively enormous below from the May 1984 As we shall see over the youthful and relatively isolated our faction upping its game - the influence. The theoretical edition of our monthly actually coming months, the material tendency in the Communist “motor of pro-partyism”.1 This and political campaign of underlines just how “vital”. we reprint from The Leninist Party of Great Britain was April 1984 edition reads as a sort The Leninist was not to be Obviously, on one level it will become more authoritative ranged against competing of extended mission statement an “open struggle” because it (together with the article we and knowledgeable. However, factions that were all, to one for the paper and its wider role ticked some politically correct republished last week from the these two initial articles extent or another, liquidationist. in reaching out to advanced ‘democratic’ box, but because same issue) is simply our first correctly identified some the The gerrymandered 38th workers in the movement, with it had the potential of “drawing tentative attempt to make that key political issues that, left (liquidationist) congress of the the intention to draw them as new forces into the party from link between the Communist unresolved, would come to party dramatically confirmed this. Leninist partisans into the inner- the working class” itself - it Party’s programmatic crisis cripple the miners’ fight and A victory for the Eurocommunist party struggle. was a recruitment drive for a and the advanced part of ultimately lead to their defeat. faction hardened divisions in the The Communist Party and strategically important factional the class a living, reciprocal Despite their historically organisation and quickly paved its crisis were a central factor war. Given the key position one. And true, they still specific nature, it is remarkable the way for bitter clashes over the in the disarray of the broader of the CPGB in the workers’ reflect the nature of the how contemporary these articles political direction of the Morning workers’ movement in the face movement, the “ideological comrades who were penning still feel. They work as critiques Star, mass expulsions and splits. of an implacable Tory class struggle” that The Leninist them at the time - young, of the illusions and political So despite its organisational war offensive. In and around was waging was clearly not relatively inexperienced absurdities of the left today l weakness, The Leninist group felt this organisation were still the esoteric “preserve of and isolated. However, for Mark Fischer Three cardinal sins of opportunism nless a Communist Party is vanguard for the miners, pointing out to else can only weaken the miners’ fight. firmly based on the most rigorous them that their struggle must go to the So in the place of Eurocommunist Uscientific world outlook, it is point of challenging the capitalist state calls for the miners and the working destined at best to tail events and at if it is to succeed, they have joined the class to discuss community policing worst to actually hamper a developing ranks of the cheerleaders. we pose the need for workers’ defence struggle. Today our Communist Party is This might have some limited effect corps to protect picket lines, meetings dominated by opportunism; this has led on the morale of those in the thick of the and demonstrations. it to utterly fail to give a firm communist fight, but this can only be limited; for But it is not in just the case of lead, which today’s unfolding struggle what the miners need is not flattery, but the police that the opportunists sow demands. What is more, it has come direct aid from the rest of the working illusions about the state: they do the out with political positions which if class. This is where the vanguard party same for the courts. It is not that they followed by the miners and working comes in; it does not content itself with actually support what they do. It is more class can only make total victory an uncritical tailing of the miners’ leaders. that they claim that with sweet reason, impossibility. We would point out in It warns that offers of solidarity are a petition or two and even a protest particular three cardinal sins that have meaningless unless the rank and file demonstration the nature of the beast been committed by our opportunists. have been mobilised. can be fundamentally altered. Above all, the vanguard party can Thus when the high court refused act as the general staff of the class in an application from two Kent miners to 1. Sowing illusions the developing class war. Police force: an arm of the state prevent the police turning miners back about trade It is because of this perspective at the Dartford Tunnel, the Euros cried, that we do not agree with the idea that miners. They contend that the miners reconcile the interests of the working class ‘Unjust, unjust!’, but offered not the unionism ‘ballots are weapons of the bosses’. We are defending ‘our industrial base’, with the interests of a capitalist system, slightest practical measure to overcome While the Euro3 industrial organiser, do not rejoice with joy every time a trade that pit closures will mean ‘disastrous which is increasingly in crisis. In the police coercion in the here and now. Pete Carter, has been strangely silent union leader proclaims his ‘solidarity’ consequences for Britain’. So in the place face of arguments about profitability and This approach by the Euros is, of about the miners’ strike, apart from with the miners, as the Morning Star of class solidarity they place ‘national efficiency, we raise the slogan, ‘Begin course, based on their perspective of a few pious calls to mobilise the does, even when the opposite is the case interest’ and appeals to patriotism. with what the working class needs, not building socialism in Britain on the ‘communities’ - perhaps because he - as it was with that rightwing excuse For us the idea that because the coal what capitalism can afford’. basis of reforming the state, the police, cannot stomach the ‘bully boy’ tactics for a workers’ leader, Bill Sirs.4 industry has been nationalised it is the army and the courts, through the of the flying pickets - the rest of the We call upon trade unionists to somehow ‘ours’ is a dangerous illusion, use of parliament. We have always opportunists have fallen uncritically support their leaders only as long which can be positively lethal, since it 3. Sowing illusions said that such a programme is utterly behind the trade union leadership in as they fight for the interests of the ties the interests of the workers to the about the state utopian, but - more important than general and the NUM in particular. working class as a whole. At the same interests of state monopoly capitalism Few miners who have acted as flying that that - such a perspective actually The problem with this is twofold. time it is vital to begin to organise the - for that is what the coal industry and pickets will have any illusions about the diverts and disarms the working class Firstly even the best, the most militant minority independently of the other nationalised areas of the economy police. They know that they are vicious, and the Communist Party in the face honest trade union leader is limited leadership; this is the way to really are. Unless the workers fully realise this determined and well-drilled opponents, of the real class struggle. In place of by the nature of trade union politics, ensure solidarity means solidarity from they can find themselves sacrificed on who, far from being neutral, act fully castles-in-the-sky reformism we pose which, while it seeks to enhance the unions such as Aslef, the TGWU, the the altar of capitalist production and the in the interests of MacGregor7 and the practical revolutionary measures conditions of the workers, cannot NUR. This is the way to fight the likes needs of profit. Tory government. proved in the class war, proved in present a systematic challenge to the of Ray Chadburn in Nottingham5, the The coal industry, like the railways, And yet in the light of the experience their practical success. Thus we say capitalist system itself. Secondly, we way to unite the miners. It can also be steel, the post office, BL and a host of of the miners’ strike, the NGA dispute that the police, the army, the courts, must plainly state that most trade union the key to obtaining solidarity from other areas of economic life, must be with Eddie Shah8 and the summer 81 parliament itself are components of leaders have no intention of challenging rightwing unions such as the EEPTU, seen as the collective property of the riots,9 all the Eurocommunists can do is our enemy’s state machine, which it is the capitalist system: indeed many of and forcing the TUC off the fence and capitalist class, not the British people, moan and groan, declare that the police our task to shatter, in order to replace them are fully committed to it. forcing it to call a general strike against let alone the working class. Nationalised are not being fair and that they ought with organs of a workers’ state based During industrial disputes most all pit closures and against the anti-trade industries in general provide cheap to listen to the dire warnings about on workers’ councils, protected by a trade union leaders are quite capable union laws. raw materials and services to private Britain drifting into becoming a ‘police workers’ militia l of making militant declarations of industry. They are a method with which state’. So in the midst of the miners’ James Marshall ‘solidarity’, but, when it comes to the capitalist class keep down their strike (shortly after it was announced implementing that solidarity, many fail 2. Sowing illusions individual and their collective costs that the police had already arrested Notes 1 The Leninist, no8, April 1984, p3. to deliver. What is more, if a struggle about nationalised in order to boost their rates of profit. a total of 1,000 pickets) we have the 2 The Leninist no1, winter 1981, p7. looks like challenging the capitalist Nationalised industries can have certain Eurocommunist ‘expert’ on the police, 3. The Eurocommunists, or Euros, of the 1970s and state itself, most desert the field of battle industries advantages for workers, but these Brenda Kirsch, writing with seeming 80s claimed to stand for a version of ‘socialism’ and run for cover. Most reformists project the idea that should in no way be exaggerated, and naivety in the Morning Star in April, that was ‘more relevant’ to western Europe than Soviet-style ‘official communism’. In reality they It was to overcome the innate Britain is somehow ‘ours’. Thus certainly not elevated to the level where that we “should be discussing what type were on their way out of the workers’ movement limitations of even the most extreme on the balance of payments, or the workers are called upon to consider of policing we want” (April 14 1984). altogether. form of militant trade unionism that development of North Sea oil, they their interests compatible with the Well, comrade Kirsch, we would say 4. Sirs was general secretary of the Iron and Steel our Communist Party was established. talk endlessly about ‘our’ balance interests of ‘our’ industry. to you that the 1,000 arrested pickets, all Trades Confederation from 1975 to 1985. 5. The Notts area of the National Union of Its founders fully realised the limits of of payments and ‘our’ North Sea oil. Such a position has in it the seeds of those miners who have been prevented Mineworkers, under its rightwing president, Ray trade union politics: they knew that This idea applies especially to the defeat. For, whether we like it or not, from moving into other areas because Chadburn, refused to join the strike and in fact was for the working class to win liberation nationalised industries: therefore a capitalism is entering a period of crisis of police road blocks, indeed we would at the centre of organised scabbing. required a vanguard party, which, using state takeover of shipbuilding, or steel, and intensified international competition; guess all militant miners who have 6. British Leyland was partly nationalised in 1975. 6 7. Ian MacGregor was appointed National Coal Marxism-Leninism as a guide, could not or British Leyland, is proclaimed as this demands, amongst other things, that struggled against the massed ranks of Board chairman by Margaret Thatcher in 1983 only point the class in a revolutionary a great victory for socialism, which costs are cut drastically. It is this fact the thugs in blue, would agree with in order to ‘transform’ the NCB by taking on the direction, but take an active, day-to- workers ought to defend as if they of capitalist life which demands the us when we say that it is not the type NUM. day lead. This heritage has been totally were islands of socialism in the sea of ‘pruning’ of the steel, car and shipbuilding of policing we should be discussing: 8. Eddie Shah’s Messenger group took on the Na- tional Graphical Association printing union in 1983. abandoned by all the opportunist capitalism. industries down to the bone, as it demands that is a diversion. What we should be 9. Rioting provoked by a combination of poverty tendencies in the Communist Party. It is this fallacy which underpins massive closures today in the coal discussing and organising is how to and police heavy-handedness broke out in several Because of this, instead of acting as a the opportunists’ ‘solidarity’ with the industry. We can never win if we try to combat the police, as they are. Anything urban centres with large black populations. weekly 11 worker 1001 March 13 2014 What we PRISONERS fight for

n Without organisation the working class is nothing; with the The only effective weapon highest form of organisation it is everything. Life prisoner John Bowden writes from HMP Shotts n There exists no real Communist Party today. There are many mprisonment as a human experience so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In probably has its closest parallel reality they are confessional sects. Iin slavery. People in prison are Members who disagree with the systematically stripped of basic prescribed ‘line’ are expected to human dignity and bodily integrity gag themselves in public. Either and reduced to the condition of that or face expulsion. caged animals. In terms of their n Communists operate according relationship with the state and those to the principles of democratic who directly oversee and enforce their centralism. Through ongoing captivity, prisoners are disempowered debate we seek to achieve unity to the extent where even their most in action and a common world elemental of human rights are outlook. As long as they support frequently treated with contempt and agreed actions, members should are in reality non-existent. have the right to speak openly and By its very nature and intrinsic form temporary or permanent purpose, imprisonment denies the factions. imprisoned their very humanity. As n Communists oppose all a system and institution, prison is imperialist wars and occupations incapable of being reformed and it but constantly strive to bring to most definitely doesn’t ‘rehabilitate’ the fore the fundamental question those held within it, and neither is it - ending war is bound up with intended to: how can degrading and ending capitalism. humiliating a human being improve n Communists are the condition of their minds and internationalists. Everywhere we characters? How can imprisoning strive for the closest unity and and desocialising someone make agreement of working class and them more able and inclined to progressive parties of all countries. integrate back into ‘normal’ society We oppose every manifestation when they’ve emerged from such a of national sectionalism. It is an brutalising and alienating experience? internationalist duty to uphold the Prison’s prime purpose is to punish principle, ‘One state, one party’. and suppress and enforce social and n The working class must be political control - it is nothing more organised globally. Without than a weapon of the state. a global Communist Party, It derives its legitimacy as an a Communist International, instrument of ‘law and order’ or ‘public the struggle against capital is protection’, when in fact it manufactures weakened and lacks coordination. anti-social behaviour, as evidenced n Communists have no interest by high rates of reoffending and the apart from the working class transformation of young petty offenders as a whole. They differ only in into seriously alienated, angry and recognising the importance of violent criminals. In that regard, prisons Marxism as a guide to practice. are actually a danger to public safety, That theory is no dogma, but and in any case only imprison working must be constantly added to and class people, leaving untouched and Brutalising and alienating enriched. unpunished the behaviour of corporate n Capitalism in its ceaseless criminals, which has a far more socially man from the slums of south London, They demand that I now surrender struggle against a system that treats search for profit puts the future and economically damaging effect on who, with two other men, brutally my political integrity completely and them as something less than human, of humanity at risk. Capitalism is society and the lives of ordinary people. killed a fourth man. All existed on unquestioningly comply with their and the solidarity of those who, while synonymous with war, pollution, Like slavery, prison is an inhuman the margins of society and on the edge power and authority. When reviewing not sharing their physical captivity, exploitation and crisis. As a global and anti-human system, and in any of existence. my continued imprisonment last nevertheless share a common desire for system capitalism can only be genuinely civilised society would I remain imprisoned long beyond year, the parole board said there freedom is absolutely crucial if the state superseded globally. be relegated to a museum piece, an the length of time stipulated by was no question that I had changed violence that prison represents is ever to n The capitalist class will never example of man’s inhumanity to man. the judiciary and 20 years after the fundamentally as a human being be significantly resisted and overcome. willingly allow their wealth and Instead neoliberal capitalism has release of the two men imprisoned during my long imprisonment and I therefore ask all those who power to be taken away by a created a prison industrial complex with me - not because I continue to now embraced the cause of prisoners’ identify with the prison struggle parliamentary vote. that feeds on the suffering of prisoners represent a risk to society but because rights, but it refused to order my to add their names to the petition n We will use the most militant as a source of profit and corrupts any the prison system, or some of those release because I continued to question supporting me; by doing so they are methods objective circumstances basic notion of prison as a ‘public enforcing it, believe I should be and challenge the authority of the making a statement to the prison allow to achieve a federal republic service’. detained indefinitely because of my prison system, which it nevertheless system that its authority is by no of England, Scotland and Wales, I have been imprisoned for 34 activities during the 1980s and 1990s conceded was often characterised by means universally recognised and a united, federal Ireland and a years. Originally, I was sent here as a in organising prisoner resistance and a clear abuse of power. that I am not completely alone and United States of Europe. violent and extremely damaged young creating struggle in prisons. The board refused to order my isolated. By isolating prisoners and n Communists favour industrial release because it considered my surrounding its treatment of them unions. Bureaucracy and class defiance of prison-system abuse an with secrecy, as well as walls and compromise must be fought and inappropriate response from someone bars, those operating the prison the trade unions transformed into Fighting fund who should, on the contrary, be system believe they possess an almost schools for communism. completely broken and compliant omnipotent degree of power that is n Communists are champions to official authority, no matter how accountable to no-one. By publicly of the oppressed. Women’s corruptly it is administered. It also supporting those prisoners targeted by oppression, combating racism and Generosity condemned my use of the internet the prison system and victimised by it, chauvinism, and the struggle for through radical groups on the outside groups and individuals on the outside peace and ecological sustainability ride of place in the fundraising Then there was a total of £70 to expose and highlight abuses of can significantly challenge that power. are just as much working class Phonours this week goes to in the shape of standing orders power against prisoners and publicly Just by adding their name to this questions as pay, trade union rights the band of London supporters (thank you, GD, SM, DV and ST). name some of those responsible for it. petition, supporters are making a and demands for high-quality who got together to celebrate Finally three cheques came via the I remain in prison, therefore, significant contribution both to my health, housing and education. the 1,000th issue of the Weekly post - £40 from JM (added to his exactly because of what the Parole own struggle and that of prisoners n Socialism represents victory in Worker last week and raised £60 annual subscription), plus £25 Board described as my “impasse” with everywhere, whose isolation and the battle for democracy. It is the £100 for their paper. Thanks, from HF and £20 from PC. the prison system, or my refusal to powerlessness is significantly rule of the working class. Socialism comrades! And I hear that one Thanks to one and all. The remain silent in the face of its abuse of diminished when solidarity is is either democratic or, as with of them has agreed to match that £325 raised this week takes our power. I am told by those responsible extended from those beyond the belly Stalin’s Soviet Union, it turns amount herself! (I haven’t seen fighting fund running total for for my continued detention that unless of the beast l into its opposite. that second £100 yet, but I’m sure March to £556. But despite all that I acknowledge and accept the total n Socialism is the first stage it will arrive in time to boost next generosity we are lagging behind authority of the prison system over me of the worldwide transition week’s total.) a little bit. We need £1,500 every then I will remain here until death. So Sign the online to communism - a system I also received a rather nice month, so we are just over a third the price for my release is total and petition which knows neither wars, £50 PayPal donation from BL, of the way there with almost half abject surrender of the very thing that Please sign the petition to the Parole exploitation, money, classes, who tells me he has finally come of March already gone. has provided me with the strength Board for England and Wales and the states nor nations. Communism into some money, plus £20 from Anyone else fancy matching to survive the last three decades of Scottish Prison Service calling for the is general freedom and the real NW using the same method. That’s that £100? l my imprisonment - my personal and release of John Bowden: beginning of human history. going to be a monthly donation on Robbie Rix political integrity. I must effectively https://secure.avaaz.org/en/ top of his subscription. Brilliant! die as a principled and thinking human petition/The_Parole_Board_ Printed and published by BL and NW were two out of Fill in a standing order form being before I am granted physical for_England_and_Wales_and_ November Publications Ltd (07950 416922). (back page), donate via our Registered as a newspaper by Royal Mail. ISSN 12,560 online readers last week, freedom. That I cannot and will not do. the_Scottish_Prison_Service_ 1351-0150. © March 2014 by the way. website, or send cheques, Solidarity is the only effective Release_John_Bowden_from_ payable to Weekly Worker weapon that prisoners possess in their prison/?copy No 1001 March 13 2014 weekly Workers and poor must worker mobilise Don’t trust Maduro There is a danger that the Chávista regime will arrive at a compromise with the right, warns Daniel Harvey ver the last two weeks in rhetoric at his inauguration was for Venezuela there has been no a deepening of the revolution in Olet-up in clashes between Venezuela - although the reality is rather the rightwing opposition, led by the different - an increasing militarisation Democratic Unity Roundtable (Mesa of the regime, as it merges more closely de la Unidad Democrática), and the with the armed forces (Chávez himself governing United Socialist Party of was, of course, an army general before Venezuela (PSUV) led by president taking power). Meanwhile, members of Nicolás Maduro. Almost exactly a year the corrupt elite within the government ago his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, have formed a powerful bureaucracy, died of throat cancer, leaving the future intersected by rival fiefdoms funnelling of the regime in the balance, as the money into the pockets of different right began to make electoral ground. cliques. The wealthy opposition candidate, But the most worrying development Henrique Capriles Radonski, was in Maduro’s strategy of negotiations defeated last year in the presidential with the opposition has been his election by a narrow margin of just over engagement with the prominent one percent. Since then the opposition plutocrat, Lorenzo Mendoza, has been more convincingly defeated ostensibly for talks about currency in municipal elections in December, speculation. But it seems that they with the government winning 49% discussed a possible agreement over versus the opposition’s 43%. Middle classes: empty pots? a number of economic “points of Following this failure to dislodge consideration”. Maduro seems to the PSUV, the opposition switched killed. the majority of Venezuela’s working saw Chávez temporarily ousted until be attempting to reach a negotiated tactics, with Capriles calling for street Among the dead was a leader of class and poor remain loyal to the popular protests got him reinstated. settlement and, although none of the demonstrations in protest at the dire the student movement in Venezuela, Chávistas, and Chávez himself is still Sections of the opposition have main leaders of the opposition were economic situation. There has been Daniel Tinoco, who was shot in the the object of adulation. been implicated in the 2002 events, present, Mendoza was undoubtedly a dramatic increase in the rate of chest during clashes in San Christóbal No-one can deny that the lives including Capriles himself. There acting as its representative, advocating inflation, currently officially at about on March 10. So far well over 300 of poor Venezuelans have been is also the threat of secession from a dialogue between private capital and 50%, but for many this has been people have been shot and wounded. transformed for the better; extreme wealthier regions - just as in Bolivia the government. compounded by shortages of staple Protestors have taken to setting up poverty has fallen by two thirds since fascist groups tried to lead the richer Clearly, a settlement with the goods. Many Venezuelans have been barricades and throwing rocks and 1999 and infant mortality has nearly south in a breakaway from the poorer opposition along these lines would queuing for hours before shops open in other missiles at police. halved, as oil revenues, which rose Andean north. In Venezuela Trujillo, not be to the advantage of the working order to have a chance of buying what To further complicate matters, from $14.5 billion to $60 billion Mérida and Zulia are possible class and poor - precisely the forces becomes available. organised criminal gangs, typically over the same period, have financed candidates for a copycat action. that have kept the government afloat, Venezuela has been hit by a centred on drug and oil trafficking social programmes (as well as corrupt having loyally turned out to support collapse in production, which means over the border with Colombia, officials). Despite the opposition’s Conciliation it whenever it has faced difficulties that the country has been able neither have merged with some opposition attempts to convince working class As things stand then, Maduro looks in the past. It is these forces that to provide for itself nor export goods to protests - they are identifiable thanks Venezuelans that it represents the safe in his job for the time being (his must now be mobilised - firstly, as an balance against necessary imports. Oil to their black masks. At the same time, ‘national interest’ and the entire term expires in 2019) - that is, unless immediate priority, in order to defeat is virtually the only export still flowing elements loyal to the government have population, the suspicion of the right the opposition can start convincing the immediate rightwing threat and satisfactorily, but car production, organised into colectivos - armed remains deep and well-founded. sections of the working class to switch then to organise for power in their for instance, has completely flat- groups typically riding on motorcycles The adoption by the opposition of sides, which is unlikely. But Maduro’s own name. lined. One often cited statistic is that who harass and assault opposition ‘empty pots’ protests, where mainly actual response has been mixed. It has However, there is very little sign Venezuela has produced only a couple protestors. The country is awash with women bang saucepans at prearranged vacillated between hard, repressive of the Venezuelan working class of hundred cars since the year began guns, so the potential for an escalation times in protest at food shortages, policies - locking up oppositionists, organising in this way. There is a - which is half the production for a is very high. recalls the tactic employed by the including one of its leaders, Leopoldo lacklustre response to the rightwing single day under normal conditions. At the moment, however, the main right in Chile prior to the military coup López Mendoza - and offering talks protest movement from Chávista Foreign direct investment has been bulk of protests are taking the form of against the popular front government (there has even been talk of a coalition supporters, who are being marshalled coming from China in the recent past, assemblies confined to mainly middle of Salvador Allende in 1973. in some quarters). by bureaucrats. There is a real but it is clearly not enough to offset the class areas. Protests in central Caracas PSUV loyalists have been very Maduro has been vociferous in his possibility of the government arriving current problems. have been fairly well attended, but successful at reminding Venezuelans condemnation of opposition leaders as at a comfortable compromise, which At the moment, demonstrations nowhere near large enough to seriously of this history, as well as of the more US stooges, which they undoubtedly would likely line the pockets of the seem confined to the student movement worry the government. As things stand, recent coup attempt in 2002, which are for the most part. Similarly, his state bureaucracy even more l and the rightwing opposition. Originally Capriles called for a day of protest on the February 12 ‘Day of Youth’, and UK subscribers: Pay by standing order and save £12 a this brought the students out onto the Subscribe year. Minimum £12 every 3 months... but please pay Standing streets with slogans about the lack of prospects and shortages. The mostly more if you can. Your paper needs you! middle class protestors who joined them here order have demanded action against crime, which has escalated sharply during 6m 1yr Inst. I enclose payment: To ______Bank plc ______the Chávista period, and corruption, UK £30/€35 £60/€70 £200/€220 which, it is fair to say, is endemic. Sub £/€ ______Branch Address ______On the one hand, the murder rate has Europe £43/€50 £86/€100 £240/€264 increased from 25 to 79 homicides per Rest of £65/€75 £130/€150 £480/€528 Donation £/€ ______Post code ______100,000 since 1999 and, on the other world hand, one widely cited figure is that $2 New UK subscribers offer: Total £/€ ______Re Account Name ______billion have disappeared from public accounts in the last year alone in the 3 months for £10 Date ______Sort code ______Account No ______form of bribes. Name ______Please pay to Weekly Worker, Lloyds TSB A/C No 00744310 Clashes sort code 30-99-64, the sum of £ ______every month*/3 months* The Maduro government has Address ______until further notice, commencing on ______employed heavy-handed tactics to This replaces any previous order from this account. (*delete) crack down on street demonstrations ______Post code ______using the National Guard and riot Signed ______Name (PRINT) ______police. For the most part they have Email ______Tel ______been using tear gas and truncheons, Send a cheque or postal order payable to ‘Weekly Worker’ to: Date ______Address ______but shots have been fired in some Weekly Worker, Box 928, London WC1N 3XX, UK. ______situations, and 23 protestors have been