A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity

Fabian or anarchist? n Letters and debate n Hong Kong protest limits Mike Macnair on the US n Communist University left’s ‘Kautsky debate’ n US: decline and constitution No 1264 August 15 2019 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union £1/€1.10 The two phases of communism weekly 2 August 15 2019 1264 worker LETTERS

has tried to maintain his position, taking Letters may have been true, but hardly constitutes a programmatic who wrote of the need for a revolutionary cases, throwing out bad cases and dodgy shortened because of entry. dictatorship. It was Lenin who defined evidence - not any more. Cases since forward the policy of last year’s conference space. Some names I have a copy of a more detailed version and defended the term in his battles with Savile show that the CPS works hand in and the Labour Party version (perhaps?) of  may have been changed of ‘What we fight for’ (I don’t know how Kautsky. For Lenin, dictatorship means glove with police officers in preparing the class struggle - For the many, not the old it is, whether the detail is still valid or rule untrammelled by law. charges and evidence. Vital pieces of few. The class struggle is still the most why only a drastically shortened version is Lenin’s definition of dictatorship is evidence are lost in huge court bundles important political struggle in the UK and Revolution now published), which adds: “They will correct; but, unlike the Roman republicans marked ‘not of assistance’. the world; whatever one’s views on Brexit, I was curious reading the Weekly Worker resist using every means at their disposal. - who had the wisdom to place some What makes matters much worse is it is a secondary or tactical issue rather than group’s Draft programme (2010) to Communists favour using parliament and limitation on the exercise of dictatorial that innocent people have the allegations a strategic matter see very little discussion, if any, about winning the biggest possible working powers, which may in fact be necessary in against them splashed across the media After all, why did people vote for the main expected characteristics of the class representation. But workers must be certain situations - Marx and Lenin used and spread wholesale before any trial or Brexit? The majority of them, I imagine, socialist revolution, which will be required readied to make revolution - peacefully if the term to mean the rule of the working a shred of evidence is presented. Worse were Tory fantasists, dreaming their to end the rule of the capitalist class and we can, forcibly if we must.” This does class, with no limitations on the dictator again, when the police then launch local imperial delusions that normally only get start to establish socialism - this despite sound more like the start of a programmatic whatsoever. or even national media campaigns, urging an airing at the last night of the Proms. But Chapter 4 being headed ‘Character of the statement ... The point I am making is that the witnesses and ‘victims’ to come forward, large numbers of working class voters saw revolution’. I have noticed in recent years some of worship of dictatorship in Marxist theory in recent cases they have added, “You an opportunity to hit back at those who (I use the term ‘Weekly Worker group’ your leading articles in the Weekly Worker fosters an intolerant, anti-democratic will be believed”. They often accompany have been hitting them for the last 40 years not in order to irritate or annoy, but simply have started to become more specific attitude in some people. So when in power this with door-to-door investigations, - there have been plenty of vox-pops in the because I think it is inappropriate for you to about the nature and characteristics Marxism can facilitate the development telling whole neighbourhoods about the press and on TV along those lines. use the term ‘CPGB’. While I completely of socialist revolution. A good recent towards totalitarianism. John Pym, who accused person and asking if anyone has For Corbyn to go for ‘remain’, a agree with your strategic aim of forging example was James Marshall in ‘A led the parliamentary struggle against anything they want to say about them. ‘Peoples’ Vote’ and all the rest of it would a single, united Communist Party, which company union?’ (July 4 2019), including: royal dictatorship in 17th century England, This is not unbiased investigation: it is be a vicious kick in the teeth for those includes the great majority of Marxists “Marxists are convinced that the was more progressive than most Marxists institutionalised and biased canvassing. people who have suffered at the sharp and revolutionary organisations, and while bourgeois state machine must be broken on this question. The lack of democratic So, when Tommy Robinson end of neoliberalism for all these years. such an organisation may well include the apart, demolished, smashed up”; “with values in Marxism is what helps photographs and slags off people who It would be the traditional Labour Party words ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’ a genuinely powerful workers’ militia it totalitarianism in a socialist context. are accused of sexual crimes as they go swerve to the centre - ‘We mustn’t frighten in its title, it will be for that organisation becomes a realistic possibility to split the Comrade Maynard also speaks about into the court and before any trial can be the voters’ - and the same old, same old of to decide. The Communist Party of state’s armed forces”; “Engels concluded artificial intelligence, but this is only part of held, that is slander likely to result in a the Blair, Brown, Mandelson consensus/ Britain is the political and organisational that the key to revolution was mutiny in the transhumanist agenda to fuse humans miscarriage of justice, for which he was triangulation. Apart from anything else, continuation of the original Communist the armed forces” (also in ‘Abolish the with technology, via the microchip, jailed. Tom Watson did exactly the same it could mean the loss of 30-60 seats in Party of Great Britain, established in 1920, standing army, establish a citizen force’, bringing us all under totalitarian state thing, heroically wading in to advocate the ‘Labour heartlands’, repeating the and also has legal ownership of the title October 5 2017). control. If you are troublesome to the the case of a poor victim against men he Mandelson/Brown triumph in Scotland. CPGB). Other examples include: “How can system, click-click, you are gone. If the left charged as vile and inhuman, before any The Lib Dems are flavour of the Chapter 3 - ‘Immediate demands’ - is there be a revolution if you have not split was truly conscious it would be researching such charges had been made, let alone month for centrist remainers, but these are a very detailed section, setting out a wide the army?” (Eddie Ford, ‘A very British and alerting people to the totalitarian, Borg- proved. The truth is, he likes witch-hunts, the same Lib Dems who brought in the range of what appear to be ‘transitional cover-up, June 7 2018); “Revolutions like, transhumanist agenda to prevent the trial by media and distortion, but hates bedroom tax, universal credit, closed down demands’, which respond to many of do not happen because a lot of people socialist transformation of society. common justice and I’m surprised Peter the Sure Start children’s programme, etc, the issues facing the class today and are are unhappy or have gone on so many Tony Clark finds space to defend the rat. as well as raising student fees to unpayable technically deliverable and affordable marches - there needs to be a split within Labour supporter This is not a case of protecting levels, further privatising health and under capitalism. But, because the the ruling class and, crucially, the army” members of the establishment, who are education, etc, etc, etc. The Tories led it all, bourgeoisie can never concede these (Eddie Ford, ‘The royal wedding and Defending a rat just as likely or unlikely to be guilty of as but they couldn’t have done it without the without questioning the existence and platonic republicanism’, May 17 2018); It’s not so much that “fine, upstanding many crimes as the general public: it is a likes of Vince Cable and Jo Swinson. operation of said capitalism, they point to “The overthrow of a modern state will members of the establishment should case of basic human justice that a person Chukka Umunna and co have gone the need for capitalism to be replaced by require that the state’s armed forces are automatically be believed by the police”, is innocent until proved guilty and that is to their natural home and there are plenty socialism and communism. broken up along political lines. This was which Peter Manson sarcastically carried out through unbiased and balanced of Labour MPs who should join them, Chapter 4 opens with a brief section a point already argued by Friedrich Engels suggests, but that alleged ‘victims’ should investigation with no suppression of but, as Gerry says, “the most precious about the main classes in the revolution in his 1893 Can Europe disarm? and his not be automatically believed by the police evidence and witnesses. The truth is, commodity the working class possesses and the need for the working class to 1895 introduction to The class struggles (‘Abuse and cover-ups’, August 8). despite now being instructed that they is their class independence” - submerging prise the middle class away from capital, in France” (Mike Macnair, ‘Arms and the Ever since the hue and cry which have to approach all accusations in a that into a “popular front”, even for a few taking advantage of the dissolution of man’, March 1 2018). followed the posthumous allegations balanced fair and impartial way, the police days, would be a terrible betrayal. its privileged positions and increasing So why no discussion within your Draft against Jimmy Savile, a moral panic has are still carrying on as they have done, Also those calling for such a turn like proletarianisation - and, of course, taking programme about the expected nature and been in full swing - the basic principle that as this is now an established part of their Mason don’t seem to know what comes advantage of and helping widen fissures character of the socialist revolution? My a person is innocent until proved guilty has training and outlook. next. So Corbyn comes out as a remainer and splits within the bourgeoisie itself. own view is that the capitalist class can been thrown out of the window. Police Peter should know, by the way, that - so what? The parliamentary arithmetic It then goes straight onto ‘The working only have their power and wealth removed were instructed that all people making of the 450 people who came forward doesn’t change. They couldn’t even get a class constitution’, which presumably can through force. Force does not necessarily sexual allegations had to be automatically to lay allegations against the deceased no-deal vote through. Johnson would have only be established following a socialist equal violence. The mass democratic believed. This meant anyone with a tale to Savile the number now shown to have a clearer target for cries of ‘Betrayal!’, but revolution, but there is no discussion of socialist movement of the working class, tell would be given a crime number and fabricated their stories in order to get the what else? There are plenty of comings how that revolutionary process might take including armed formations, are required - win, draw or lose (or no action) - they share of his vast estate now exceeds 250 and goings to watch in the next few place. The need for socialist revolution is to make socialist revolution - with, of could claim compensation. The fact is that and is rising. Apart from all this, there months, but crashing the Labour Party is a key distinguishing feature, separating course, the leading and guiding role of a ridiculous sums of money are being paid is the veritable child protection, sexual not one for socialists to encourage. Marxists and communists from reformists, mass Communist Party. out for ‘crimes’ which nobody has ever assault and harassment industry, which has Jim Cook even if some of the latter profess to believe It is possible that, faced with the proved took place. spawned a whole army of unscrupulous Reading in socialism. organised and armed might of the working But this also changed the entire way in compensation lawyers, and self-made Clearly, we can’t expect to predict, class, the capitalist class may choose to which the police investigated allegations. ‘experts’ and advisors. Step forward prescribe or map out in detail how socialist give up its power and wealth peaceably. The person being accused cannot be Nothing is worse than anyone of any Marina Mazzucato is correct in her view revolution might take place, but surely However, only through preparing to ‘innocent until proven guilty’ if you set age being raped or sexually assaulted and that public spending aimed at brightening we can discuss what might be some of carry out socialist revolution by force can off from the assumption that the person especially so when it happens to a child. people’s lives is a positive investment its universal features (learning from the we create the possibility of a relatively accusing them is telling the truth. So house Second only to that is being accused of in the public good (‘World’s scariest Paris Commune of 1871, the October peaceable transition to socialism. searches and confiscation of all electronic having done such a thing and seen your economist?’, August 8). Bolshevik revolution, the 1949 Chinese Andrew Northall devices, phone records, online records, life and that of your family and friends People are happier in their Revolution, among many others), and Kettering diaries, etc have been conducted not to shredded, when you are totally innocent. environment when they have attractive what the specific conditions and history of investigate whether the allegations hold Being found totally not guilty or that there public spaces, parks and recreational/ the United Kingdom might also mean for Dictatorship up or not, but in order to prove an offence is no case to answer will never undo the sporting facilities as a feature of their socialist revolution in practice. Comrade Jennifer Maynard says she has been committed. This seriously affects stain and damage done by such gross community. Community centres for both We might want to factor in the is doubtful that attributing the risk of what the police are looking for and what lies and distortions - often, as in the case the elderly and the young add value to experiences of the defeat of the 1919 totalitarianism to Marxism is correct. She they are not interested in. Objective of Carl Beech, it’s done for huge cash society. For the elderly there is care and German Revolution; the establishment of also says that we are sleep-walking into a investigation goes out the window and the handouts and publicity. companionship. For the youngsters there the people’s democracies in eastern and totalitarian world, which has nothing to do police act as prosecutors in endeavours Watson is an unscrupulous rat without is activity, guidance and mentoring that central Europe, following liberation by the with Marxism (Letters, August 8). to prove the crime they are already a shred of humanity in his worthless body might be lacking in their home life. Soviet Red Army, and their consequent She is, of course, right on both counts, convinced has been committed. In their and I certainly shall not be standing in his Tory austerity has slashed the budgets evolution to socialism; the 1973 Chile because I did not attribute the risk of headlong rush to bang up the accused defence. What we should be upholding for these good things - society has been coup; the 1975 victory in Vietnam and the totalitarianism to Marxism in my previous person, they have been less than thorough four-square the principle that a person hollowed out and is paying the price in establishment of socialism in that united letter, nor did I claim that the trend towards in investigating the character and evidence is innocent until proved - by fair and ever increasing national health service country; plus Laos, Cambodia and North it comes from Marxism. Marxism is not in from the person doing the accusing - in unbiased investigation - to be guilty, and costs to look after our old folk. The police Korea. power, so we can’t blame it for that trend a great many cases actually withholding that principle should also extend to the service, probation service, judiciary and We would want to consider the - which, however, can use it when it is in key pieces of evidence, which they know press. Witch-hunts are witch-hunts, no prison service are dealing with disaffected contribution of great Marxist theoreticians power. proves the accusation to be a lie. matter who they are directed against. young people who’ve drifted into to the body of work on the theory and The question is, which of these two In recent times cases have collapsed, Bill Connor criminality - their future lives now ruined practice of socialist revolution in addition trends - democracy or totalitarianism - as evidence emerges that the police have email by the taint of a custodial sentence. to Marx, Engels and Lenin, including does Marxism lean towards? I think it has withheld from the defence and the court In the long run spending pennies from Stalin, Mao, Luxemburg, Morris, Bordiga, a tendency to gravitate towards supporting itself key evidence which disproves the Popular front the public purse on the ‘good things’ will Gramsci and Togliatti. the totalitarian trend, rather than siding allegation. Their endeavour from the I largely agree with Gerry Downing - save pounds that don’t have to be spent Your declaration and summary of with democratic values, due to the central word go has not been to test the validity though, since his opponent is Paul Mason, on the ‘bad things’, leaving more money principles published in each edition of role it places on dictatorship. Marx never, of the accusations, but to construct a case that may not be saying much. But there are to be spent positively - for the common the Weekly Worker contains one cryptic to my knowledge, defined what he meant proving them in such highly partisan ways many calls now for Corbyn to ‘get off the wealth. reference to the fact that “The capitalist by the term, ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, as to rig the evidence and manipulate the fence’ and ally himself with the Liberal Ms Mazzucato gets this. It’s not class will never willingly allow their and sometimes used the phrase, ‘rule of court. One used to have a touching belief Democrats and co, and come out as a socialism, but it is a step forward. wealth and power to be taken away by a the proletariat’. I read somewhere that that the Crown Prosecution Service acted fully-fledged remainer (Letters, August 8). Robbie Leslie parliamentary vote” - which is certainly Marx borrowed the idea from Blanqui, as a sort of independent judge on these For all of his weaknesses Corbyn email BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07903 054393 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 1264 August 15 2019 3 HONG KONG

London Communist Forum Sunday August 18 and Sunday August 25: No forum. We need a game plan Sunday September 1, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB Provisional Central Committee, followed by open discussion and reading group: study of August Nimtz’s Lenin’s electoral strategy Protest politics always reach their limits and eventually fizzle from 1907 to the October revolution of 1917. This meeting: ‘Conclusion: toward an explanation of the silences’. out, argues Paul Demarty Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London WC1. Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and rotests in Hong Kong have lost Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk. none of their force in the last week; the international press Don’t attack Iran P Public meetings organised by Stop the War Coalition. Oppose British is full of images both of innumerable government support for Trump’s military brinkmanship. bodies crammed into streets and Friday August 16, 7.30pm: East Oxford Community Centre, invaded buildings, and of the 44 Princes Street, Oxford OX4. Speaker: Billy Hayes (ex-general increasingly violent police response. secretary CWU, now STWC national officer.) The police have now hit on the Organised by Oxford Momentum: technique of going undercover within www.facebook.com/events/916415475375935. the teeming crowds and snatching Saturday August 17, 11am: Bold Street Methodist Church, Palmyra people at the last moment. Add to Square North, Warrington WA1. Speakers include Billy Hayes. this clear cooperation with organised www.facebook.com/events/377086566274616. criminals, grotesque tear-gas attacks Tuesday September 3, 7pm: PRSC, 14 Hillgrove Street, Bristol BS2. and much else besides, and it is no Speaker: Sweta Choudhury, STWC officer. surprise that tensions are increasing www.facebook.com/events/412508799609110. across the board. The language Tuesday September 3, 7pm: York Room, Ilford Central Library, of official statements gets more Clements Road, Ilford IG1. Speaker: Mayer Wakefield, STWC. threatening every day. Yet still they www.facebook.com/events/2353938714686395. hold back, and the Chinese ‘nuclear Saturday September 7, 3pm: Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 option’ of deploying the army remains Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2. Speakers include Andrew Murray for the moment just a possibility. (Unite) and rapper activist Lowkey. Entrance £3 (£0). The protestors’ tactics have so far www.facebook.com/events/872601313126969. been successful in causing an almighty ruckus. It amounts to a decentralised Peterloo march for democracy wave of flash-mob protests, which Sunday August 18, 11.30am: March from 10 locations near central disorient the police and leave them Manchester to rally in Albert Square at 1pm. Commemorate the often with no obvious ringleader to But if you go carrying pictures of president Trump. Peterloo massacre of 1819, when 70,000 peaceful protesters were arrest (some have pointed out the You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow attacked, leaving 18 dead and hundreds seriously injured. contrast with the previous Occupy Organised by Peterloo march for democracy: Central movement, whose most from the particular to the general, and to centralise - to adopt leadership www.peterloodemocracy.com/map-of-march. prominent figures were quickly programmatically addressing a wider and normalise political structures - Democracy Roadshow rounded up). On August 12 and 13, variety of issues as an interlinked prevents the movement from taking Thursday August 29, 7pm: Public meeting, venue to be confirmed. another great success was chalked up whole. a healthy course of explicit political Speakers include Chris Williamson MP. for this approach, with the shutdown of Regular readers of this paper will not differentiation; the problem is deferred Organised by Bromley Momentum and Labour Left Alliance: the city’s airport - no small matter for be surprised to discover that we favour and, the longer it is deferred, the more http://labourleft.org. the capitalist jet-setters, who govern the third - but it is worth pointing out likely the movement is to shatter into End Tory austerity - general election now so much of the region’s economy. This that the three options are in ascending incoherent fragments, rather than Saturday August 31, 1pm: Public meeting, Church View, Doncaster is on top of a short general strike last order of difficulty. It is always easy, in divide into meaningful political blocs. DN1. Get the Tories out of office and end austerity. Speakers include week. all but the most paranoid state regimes, For Marxists, as Lam implies Chris Williamson MP. If the general character of the to slide back into ordinary life, to go above, the first important limitation Organised by Doncaster People’s Assembly: protests remains the same, the most home and dig one’s garden. It is a tough of the movement as it stands is its www.facebook.com/events/919515391717002. relevant model in recent years would job to get the momentum up again on constrained geographical horizon. The appear to be the gilets jaunes in France; some other single issue. But it is far denial of democracy in Hong Kong Burston Strike School like the Hong Kong protestors, the harder to step out of the framework of is not a phenomenon in itself, but Sunday September 1, 10.30am to 3.30pm: Commemoration rally, French movement was politically ‘mass protest for its own sake’; for to rather part of the wider phenomenon Diss Road, Burston, Norfolk IP22. Speakers include Mark Serwotka, heterogeneous, displayed considerable address politics in general is inherently of Stalinist-capitalist dictatorship in PCS general secretary. Entrance free. courage in facing down the state divisive. China as a whole. A principled stance Organised by Unite the Union and TUC: response, and brought into action on this immediately implies a taking of www.facebook.com/events/2346318492257759. substantial sections of the popular Differentiation distance from the sort of narrow-minded Stop arming Israel classes. Up until now, the Hong Kong chauvinism of Hong Kong Indigenous Monday September 2, 9.30am to 8pm: Day of action at the Defence The result, ultimately, was that the demonstrators have not had to confront and the like. It also, however, implies and Security Equipment International arms fair, east end of ExCel movement fizzled out. You cannot just the profound contradictions within a political break with those forces who Centre, Royal Victoria Dock, London E16 (Prince Regent DLR). protest forever, as has been shown by their movement. Comrade Lam Chi have faith in the hegemonic imperialist Demand a two-way arms embargo between the UK and Israel. countless movements (the anti-war Leung, writing in Socialist Worker bloc of the United States and its allies, Bring creativity, energy, banners, flags and drums. upsurge in this country against the last week, actually illustrates this very who are perfectly happy to break apart Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop The Arms Fair: invasion of Iraq is another example): nicely, in relation to the key question of ‘problematic’ regimes by tactically www.facebook.com/events/852120258506233. eventually, the numbers shrink, and the mainland China: supporting separatist groups and other Resisting war in the 21st century mood passes. methods. Saturday September 7, 9.30am to 3pm: Stop the War Coalition AGM, This may in the end be the best Some demonstrators have realised The other problem is to restore Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2. explanation for the relative non- that they need to unite with the the association of democracy with Decide the next actions for the campaign. Entrance £11.37 (£5.98). interference of the Chinese state so masses on the Chinese mainland. socialism - no small difficulty in Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk. far in the crisis of this semi-detached They distribute leaflets to tourists Hong Kong or mainland China, city-region. Though the government from mainland China to explain the for obvious reasons. In the defunct Wigan Diggers Festival has made an ominous show of moving purpose and significance of the mass Stalinist countries of the eastern bloc, Saturday September 7, 11am to 9.30pm: Open air free festival, The troop carriers to nearby Shenzhen, movement. However, there are also the political hegemony of ‘communist’ Wiend, Wigan WN1. Commemorating Gerrard Winstanley and the 17th Beijing’s tactic to date has been to weaknesses in the mass movement, parties was enough to make this century Diggers movement with music and political stalls. offer discreet material support and [including] a far-right threat. impossible and guarantee that popular Organised by Wigan Diggers Festival: diplomatic protection for the local Individual demonstrators rebellion would take a reactionary, www.facebook.com/events/460033934737521. regime of chief executive Carrie Lam, sprayed “Chink” outside the Liaison pro-capitalist form; however, there are Rally at TUC Congress as the Hong Kong police try to retain Office government building. Since signs - from periodic waves of labour Sunday September 8, 1pm: Rally, Holiday Inn, Kings Road, Brighton some tenuous level of control. So long mid-July, the slogan, “Liberate unrest to the revival of ultra-Maoist BN1. Defend jobs, fight for a pay rise and stop the cuts. as the movement remains contained Hong Kong - revolution of our ideology among students - that China Organised by National Shop Stewards Network: within the region, and so long as the times”, became popular among has travelled far enough along the road www.facebook.com/events/421637865360379. police maintain their discipline, there the demonstrators. The slogan to capitalism for things to turn out Rally at TUC Congress is little reason to send in the People’s was derived from the far-right differently. Perhaps a healthier Marxist Sunday September 8, 1pm: Rally, Holiday Inn, Kings Road, Brighton Liberation Army, to make yet another political group, Hong Kong politics could emerge; and perhaps BN1. Defend jobs, fight for a pay rise and stop the cuts. ironic contrast with its name. Indigenous [who promote] a form Hong Kong, with its generally greater Organised by National Shop Stewards Network: So long as those basic conditions of ‘ethnic discrimination’ against level of political liberty, could serve www.facebook.com/events/421637865360379. hold, moreover, the capitalist elite mainland Chinese residents and as an unlikely ‘red base’ for such a will be able to proceed with its new immigrants from China. But, politics. Labour and surplus value Thursday September 19, 6pm: Study session, Jack Jones House, at present, it is unclear how the But without a programme for business, and the political class can 2 Churchill Way, Liverpool L3. majority of young people who China, the left wing of the Hong Kong afford to wait things out. Those who Organised by Merseyside Socialist Theory Study Group: embrace this slogan interpret its movement is unlikely to prevail - either remain in the movement are ever [email protected]. more faced with unpleasant political meaning.1 over its competitors for influence in the choices, and the most obvious option city streets, or over the party bosses in CPGB wills is to simply demobilise, in a state of This is just one of the hairline cracks in Beijing l Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s name disillusionment. If that is not taken, the Hong Kong protests; others could and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your will. then the law of diminishing returns rapidly be found, dividing separatists [email protected] If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. must be countered somehow. Either from colonial-nostalgists, far-leftists that means picking up on the ‘next big from religious reactionaries, and so Notes Weekly Worker thing’ and trying to turn that into a mass on. The particular form the movement 1. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/48736/ There will be no issue on August 22 and 29 as we take our two-week summer movement too (this is the method of the has taken, however, makes this turn The+movement+is+at+a+critical+point+voice+ break. The next edition will be published on Thursday September 5. far left in most countries), or moving even more difficult; for the refusal from+Hong+Kong. weekly 4 August 15 2019 1264 worker STRATEGY Fabian or anarchist? Mike Macnair continues his critical discussion of the ‘Kautsky debate’ in the United States s I wrote last week in the first has infinitely greater legitimacy article in this series, for the with the population than European A past couple of years the US states did a century ago. Further, left has been debating strategy around its coercive power, its power of the figure of Karl Kautsky (‘Widening surveillance and the ruling class’s frame of debate’, August 8). I argued internal cohesiveness give the that the debate effectively began with social order a stability that is orders Vivek Chibber’s article published by of magnitude greater than it had in Jacobin in December 2017 under the 1917 ... Today, the political stability ‘Kautskyan’ title, ‘Our road to power’ - of the state is a reality that the left though the actual content of Chibber’s has to acknowledge ... argument is anything but Kautskyan. In the first article I began with Chibber This is Rip van Winkle stuff: we on the ‘party question’, which is where have to imagine that Chibber went to Chibber’s argument also began, but on sleep in 1988 and has just woken up. which I thought his critic Charlie Post The argument is the standard yawn- was unduly soft. yawn, cold-war-academic, Weberian The second half of Chibber’s piece and social democratic claim that makes a series of claims about ‘strategy’ the modern state is too solid to be - which consists in rejecting a “ruptural overthrown. There is not even a clear break with capitalism” in favour of attempt to differentiate between the gradualism; and about ‘institutional’ various ‘modern states’ overthrown by matters: first, to reject the one-party- ‘colour revolutions’ and so on, on the state model and the rejection of ‘liberal one hand, and the ‘advanced capitalist rights’; and second, to reject the idea world’, on the other, in order to defend of economic planning as unworkable, the thesis. and to propose an alternative “market Dear comrade Chibber, haven’t socialist” approach, which will differ you noticed that the pro-capitalist from capitalism in that: ideologues have abandoned gradualism, together with the  The market will be constrained, US’s abandonment of right social so it isn’t the arbiter of people’s democracy and become, instead, basic well-being. advocates of ‘human rights’, ‘colour’  Economic decision-makers will revolutions and ‘humanitarian’ military be democratically accountable. interventions to make ‘ruptural breaks’  Wealth inequalities will not be in the regimes inherited from the post- allowed to translate into political war period? Even in the ‘advanced inequalities. capitalist countries’ what the hell do you think is the meaning of ‘Tea Party’ Chibber’s gradualism is the old story mobilisations and the Trumpites in of the Fabianism of the Webbs, E the USA, Five Star and the Lega in Nesbit, George Bernard Shaw, and so Italy, the overthrow of the mainstream on, which formed the core ideas of the Fabian window designed by George Bernard Shaw, showing Sidney Webb and other members parties in favour of the bankster- British Labour Party from 1918. His Bonaparte, Emmanuel Macron, in anti-planning claim is, however, not to it by their loyalty to the nation- the arbiter of people’s basic well- possibility of compromise, concessions France (with Le Pen only 2% behind Fabian, but Eurocommunist - belonging state. The critique of planning, which being”. “Economic decision-makers may be made. in 2022 voting intention polls, and her to the period of the 1980s-90s political Chibber merely asserts casts a heavy will be democratically accountable” is The pattern of concessions in Rassemblement National actually 1% collapse of both many of the mass burden of proof on planning advocates, a fortiori to propose planning - and in response to threats to control is ahead in the EU parliament elections), communist parties and European social was a critique of social democratic addition to reject ‘liberal rights’, which absolutely routine politics - visible, the Brexit vote and the victory of the democratic parties. His attachment to planning and of British and European are centrally about the right to use your for example, in the major concessions no-dealers in Britain, and so on? the existing liberal constitutional order ‘slowdown’ and ‘stagflation’, as much own property as you choose (and only to the British working class in the Of course, what is now in question as ‘democratic’ is the only part of as it was of Brezhnevite ‘stagnation’.1 very much secondarily about freedom 19th and 20th centuries. We can see is the overthrow of the constitutional this politics which could be plausibly And Labour’s constitutionalism of speech and so on). it at work at a trivial level right now order from the right, not from the left. attached to Karl Kautsky, as it is by was considerably narrower than Moreover, the capitalist class in the endeavours of the Conservative The left’s surrender on most of its both James Muldoon and Eric Blanc. that of ‘liberal rights’; the ‘political routinely coerces states on policy Party under both Theresa May and fundamental ideas and its fragmentation In this article I will consider Chibber’s constitution’ approach advocated questions through the flight of capital - Boris Johnson to offer (spurious) mean that it is only the right which and Muldoon’s arguments. by JAG Griffith - now widely witness, most recently, the defeat of the concessions to working class areas appears to offer a real alternative. disapproved - expressed the view extremely mild reform proposals of the in response to the unexpected victory This is a repetition in the ‘advanced Social democracy of ‘old Labour’,2 and this trend was Hollande presidency in France (2012- of Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour capitalist countries’ of the syndrome Chibber ends his argument for willing where necessary to expropriate 17). This is not a novelty. George leadership election and the equally which appeared earlier in the Middle gradualism with the observation: without compensation, to legislate Brown, Harold Wilson’s chancellor, unexpected inability of the press (so East, from the late 1970s on, where the retrospectively, and so on. famously complained of the “gnomes far) either to dislodge him or to drive left’s attachment (via Moscow) to the ... social democracy was a spent I have written at length on the of Zurich” in 1964 - and that in a Labour out of the running. nationalist, authoritarian regimes made force by the 1980s; its parties ‘planning’ issue before now,3 and will regime where exchange controls were A lot of British Eurocommunists the Islamists appear as the only ‘real’ degenerated into a managerial ethos; now repeat only a short point. This is in place. The USA forced British became Blairites, which was entirely opposition. But overthrow from the their reformist agenda was halted that planning in this context actually capitulation over Suez in 1956 by unsurprising. If the possibility of plan- right is still overthrow. and then reversed; and they have means any decisions taken on a non- organising a run on the pound.6 ning is to be rejected, the only politics Moreover, if “ruptural break” proven to be largely uninterested market basis. So, for example, the In fact, the 1989 ‘North-Weingast which is available is to maximise the means the Bakuninist strategy of in revitalising their own legacy. large-scale building of public housing thesis’ famously argued that what most ‘competitiveness’ of the nation-state the insurrectionary general strike For this phenomenon to be so for rent in the UK between 1900 and made industrial capitalism possible and then surreptitiously redistribute (misattributed to Luxemburg and the widespread and so pervasive means 19794 was part of the ‘planning’ which was institutional arrangements which small crumbs to the poorest - the poli- Bolsheviks by the post-1956 ‘new that it can’t have been because of was blamed for UK ‘stagnation’. In a allowed ‘credible commitment’: ie, cy of Gordon Brown as chancellor. In left’), to which this ‘revolutionary’ left individual failings and treachery. sense, rightly so: any intervention in gave state creditors veto power over the United States, such a policy would continues to pay lip-service - including There was something structural markets will prima facie reduce the government policy - starting with imply Democratic Leadership Coun- some of Chibber’s critics - he is right to behind it. And this means in turn profits potentially available to capital, tradable state debt securities, the Bank cil/Clintonista political commitments. reject it. This did not happen in Russia that the left needs to understand and hence growth of taxable revenues, of England and all that after 1688.7 It in 1917. In October the Bolsheviks and the structural roots of the failure to including speculative and monopoly is not necessary for North-Weingast’s Gradualist? left Socialist Revolutionaries and their at least have a fighting chance at profits, legal and accountancy fees, claims to be fully true for them to Equally belonging to the world of allies, having won a series of elections, avoiding the same fate. and so on; thus it will reduce the represent effectively routine creditor 1980s Eurocommunism and the persuaded army units who supported ‘efficiency’ in marginalist terms of the beliefs. decay of the mass social democratic them to take pre-emptive action This is true, but provides no answers, market. Taking that to be the case, how are parties is Chibber’s commitment to against the (unelected) Provisional because Chibber’s own commitments When we look at the world in the investors to be coerced against their Fabian gradualism. He describes the Government, which they believed was on the matters of ‘liberal rights’ and light of the historical and present normal use of capital flight to enforce Bolshevik revolution as “a strategy of intending to prevent the meeting of the planning are exactly the commitments consequences of ‘shock therapy’ in their preferred regime (of deregulation a ruptural break from capitalism” and upcoming Congress of Soviets.8 of the leaders of the social democratic the former Soviet bloc and the ‘market of capital, restrictions on trade unions, claims: ‘Ruptural breaks’ can take a variety and the Eurocommunist-controlled turn’ in the west, the attractiveness of and so on)? The answer is that even to of forms, ranging from the installation CPs at the period of their political the critique of planning is radically force capital to accept a limited mixed- ... starting in the 1950s, openings of a (majority or minority) government collapse. The older social democratic reduced.5 economy regime of the sort Chibber for this kind of strategy narrowed. committed to radical change and which parties, which - alongside the trade The problem this character of the recommends would require credible And today it seems entirely proceeds to execute it, to an invasion, unions and cooperatives of various critique of planning poses for rightwing threats to take economic activities out hallucinatory to think about and so on. One-day and similar general sorts - won major gains for the social democrats and Eurocommunists, of market control and/or to overthrow socialism through this lens. This strikes can be useful demonstrations. working class under capitalism, were like Chibber, who want to learn from the constitutional order - the ‘credible is indubitably true in the advanced But an all-out general strike committed to planning as an alternative the defeat of the USSR, is that “The commitments’ to creditor interests. If capitalist world, but it also holds for immediately poses the question of to the market, although they set limits market will be constrained, so it isn’t there are both credible threats and the much of the south. Today, the state government; and a left which embarks weekly worker 1264 August 15 2019 5

on one without a clear indication that of a one-party dictatorship and the Kautsky text as offering a third way professional army, he makes no domination and exploitation of both they have a political (not necessarily abrogation of basic liberties. between Bolshevism and reformism: mention of the professional police force top-down state socialism and liberal parliamentary) majority behind them It was a calamitous mistake or judiciary as independent political democracy” and hopes that “the council and can at least split the armed forces to denigrate liberal rights as Against reformists within the SPD, actors. This last was a considerable gap; movements could provide a germ and is engaging in adventurism. ‘bourgeois’, which many Marxists Kautsky argued that socialism the German judiciary under Weimar catalyst that inspires theorisation of Fundamental change generally of the early 20th century did, could not be reduced to progressive actively opposed social democratic new institutional forms and practices involves both ‘gradual’ and ‘ruptural’ implying that those rights were social reforms and must include governments and treated far-right for democratic self-government in processes. Consider, for example, illusory or fraudulent in some workers obtaining political power violence with undue leniency. This the present”. We are told that “The the gradual rise of movements for way. This rhetorical ploy made and transforming the economy. was hardly a new discovery: Kautsky return to public assemblies and direct parliamentary reform in late 18th to it far easier for those rights to be Yet, against the Bolsheviks, he may not have previously addressed democratic methods in the wave of the early 19th century Britain - and then extinguished by Stalin and, before contended that socialists should judicial political bias, but its existence global ‘squares movements’ since 2011 the abrupt ‘ruptural’ process in 1831- him, by Lenin himself. Liberal not reject democracy in the was a common understanding of at least has rejuvenated interest in libertarian 32 permitting the passage of the 1832 rights were all fought for and won name of some ‘higher’ form of British and US socialists before 1914. socialist and council thought.”21 Reform Act.9 by working class movements, social organisation, based on the “Subordinating” the central The trouble is that this is, in fact, Because the far left damns the not by liberal capitalists. Any left revolutionary Paris Commune of government bureaucracy to a national an appeal to ephemera. Muldoon German and Austrian social democrats worth its salt has to protect and 1871 or a ‘state of a new type’. assembly poses the question - how? comes close to admitting as much: for making ‘half-revolutions’ in 1919, deepen those rights, not throw Kautsky instead strove for a Kautsky provides no answers. What the history of ‘council democracy’ we forget that the Hohenzollern and them aside.13 deepening of democracy within underlay the degree of responsibility to is “a discontinuous tradition” - it Habsburg monarchies were in fact existing political institutions and an the elected assembly found in the old episodically reinvents the square overthrown and replaced by republics; The problem here is buying ‘liberal extension of democratic principles British constitution were the powers wheel. Jacobin’s headline for and this was the work both of military rights’ as a package. But the core ‘liberal throughout society, including to of impeachment and attainder (and the Chibber’s article would make Kautsky defeat by the Entente and of the action right’ - and the one on which, in fact, workplaces and other economic fact they had, in fact, been used) and of into a Bernsteinist; but Muldoon’s of the working class in Germany, all the rest are founded as justiciable institutions. the parliamentary detention of judicial version uses the ‘Guidelines’ as a Austria, etc. In this second aspect, rights, as opposed to constitutional officials for contempt of the Commons, support for a variety of anarchism l the ruptural change which occurred conventions or political aspirations - is Hence, rather than the workers’ as in the 1840s), together with the legal in 1918-19 was prepared by the long, the right of private property.14 To buy councils becoming sovereign, as the controls requiring authority for the [email protected] gradual development of the social ‘liberal rights’ as a full package is to Spartakists argued, there should be armed forces and taxation to be renewed democratic movements.10 buy also the unaccountable judicial a sovereign parliament elected by every year. Trial by jury in civil as well Notes It would make sense to say that our power and all the rest of the iron cage universal suffrage, but as in criminal cases supplemented these 1. On this point see, for example, A Offer, ‘The present tasks are those of gradually around politics of neoliberalism and legal rules by limiting (though not market turn: from social democracy to market rebuilding a workers’ movement and neoconservatism, created, under and Workers’ councils should also eliminating) the ability of the judges to liberalism’ Economic History Review Vol 70 parties of extreme opposition to counter since the Carter administration, in the remain as permanent centres for manipulate the law. (2017), pp1051-1071. Since Chibber in the book of his thesis, Locked in place (Princeton UP 2003), and delegitimise media, political and name of ‘human rights’. the mobilisation of workers, to In fact, the Weimar constitution credits his comrades in the US Solidarity group, judicial attacks. We are at present too Moreover, the undue expansion represent their interests and ensure created a powerful elected presidency he clearly was not a participant in the 1980-90s weak for an immediate struggle for of the field of rights (‘inflationary parliament was vigorously patrolled standing between the national ‘critique of planning’ debates; indeed, he hand- power; and this is as true of the ‘Corbyn rights’) creates the effect that they are by an organised citizenry. At the assembly and the executive - the waves away the substantial amount of ink spent on the issue (see among many others P Cockshott and surge’ of around a quarter of a million always in conflict with one another, same time, democracy must extend opposite of “subordinating” the central A Cottrell Towards a new socialism Nottingham into the Labour Party (but with limited and managing of these conflicts, the beyond the state level itself ... bureaucracy. Right Social Democrat 1993; B Ollman (ed) Market socialism: the debate actual mobilisation) as of the 55,000 of judiciary is in substance taking political Friedrich Ebert, the first president, among socialists London1998, especially the essay the Democratic Socialists of America decisions. This has been absolutely Muldoon’s paraphrase of Kautsky’s was elected by the national assembly, by H Ticktin). 2. J Griffith, ‘The political constitution’ Modern - let alone the various splintered micro- visible in the decision-making of the arguments understate the extent to but the constitution provided for direct Law Review no42 (1979), pp1-21. G Gee and C groups of the far left. European Court of Human Rights and which these were managerialist in election of his successor, and rightist McCorkindale remark that “over the past 40 years, But Chibber goes further than this, of the UK courts since the Human character. The existence of councils is general Paul von Hindenburg was Griffith might be said to have ‘lost the argument’”( insisting on a ‘gradualism’ excluding Rights Act 1998 - spectacularly in the supposed to substitute for the right to elected in 1925 and re-elected in 1932. https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2019/06/03/ graham-gee-and-chris-mccorkindale-the-political- ‘ruptures’ “for the foreseeable future”. Viking and Laval cases in the European strike, since, according to Kautsky, If Engels had characterised the French constitution-at-40). What, then, is the point of this Union’s Court of Justice, which Third Republic as the “empire of 1799 3. Particularly ‘Delusions of unplanning’ Weekly insistence, which is no longer even decided that the right to ‘freedom of In a state where authority is in the without the emperor”, the Weimar Worker May 11 2017; also, ‘Socialism will not part of the standard orthodoxy of the establishment’ (free movement of hands of the capitalist class, striking constitution was basically the Second require industrialisation’ Weekly Worker May 14 2015. pro-capitalist ideologues, as it was in capital) must take priority over the is an indispensable tool of the Reich without the emperor. 4. J Boughton Municipal dreams: the rise and fall 15 the 1950s-80s? right to strike. workers to defend themselves against Directly elected presidencies had of council housing London 2018. The answer is, in fact, the same as This is not to say that the working capitalist oppression and to eke out been condemned by Marxists from 5. P Nolan China’s rise, Russia’s fall: politics, the purposes of Bernstein in his 1890s class does not have interests in better living conditions. But this tool the time of Louis Bonaparte, and economics and planning in the transition from Stalinism (London 1995) was early in noticing argument for ‘revisionism’ - and the certain political, democratic rights: is a destructive one - like weapons in the institution of the presidency was the point about the disastrous consequences of the purposes of the French Communist that is, rights which are necessary war. A state where political power lies condemned by US socialists already in market turn under Yeltsin. On the ‘western’ market Party in getting the trivial Radical to democratic decision-making. For in the hands of the workers must strive the 1890s. So the point was not new to turn see Offer (note 1 above). Party on board for the people’s front example, freedom of communication to introduce other methods to protect socialists. 6. DB Kunz The economic diplomacy of the Suez crisis Chapel Hill NC 1991. in the 1930s. It is to give guarantees (speech and so on), freedom of workers’ rights in all those branches Kautsky’s ‘Guidelines’ makes no 7. DC North and BR Weingast, ‘Constitutions to the capitalist class that the workers’ association, freedom from arbitrary of production where it cannot yet get mention of these nuts and bolts of the and commitment: the evolution of institutions movement will restrict itself to arrest and imprisonment, the right to a rid of capital economically. These constitutional aims of accountability governing public choice in seventeenth-century working within the bounds of legality fair and public trial, the right to keep methods should not inhibit and he sets out. I raise these issues because England’ Journal of Economic History Vol 49 16 (1989), pp803-32. For some discussion and various and the constitutional order - even if, and bear arms, and so on. disrupt the process of production as they are precisely matters of present critical papers see DM Coffman, A Leonard and as in Germany in the 1890s, there were much as strikes do. pressing political significance - L Neal (eds) Questioning credible commitment coup threats from the right or, as in ‘Best of Kautsky’ without any need to argue right now Cambridge 2013. France in the 1930s, the far right was James Muldoon’s case for Or, on nationalisation, Kautsky writes: for ‘all power to wholly hypothetical 8. A Rabinowitch The Bolsheviks come to power 11 London 2009. actively engaged in militia operations. “reclaiming the best of Karl soviets’. Both the USA and the UK are 9. Eg, discussion in TS Aidt and R Franck, The underlying idea is that, if workers’ Kautsky” (presumably Jacobin’s Within an individual nationalised at present displaying serious symptoms ‘Democratization under threat of revolution: parties give such guarantees, that will choice of headline) is substantially company, production can then of judicial overreach and executive evidence from the Reform Act 1832’ Econometrica enable them to win votes and enter more ‘Kautsky’ than Chibber’s ‘Our be regulated similarly to private Bonapartism. Councilism has nothing Vol 83 (2015), pp505-47. 10. into coalitions with centre groupings, road to power’. Muldoon offers a companies (as described above). to say about these issues. The ‘half revolution’ judgment is, I think, justified which in turn will allow them to somewhat ‘innocent’ reading of The only difference is that the Kautsky’s silences on them in - but only justified because of what happened in carry out reforms. ‘Gradualism’ is Kautsky’s January 1919 ‘Guidelines manager is not a private owner or ‘Guidelines’ - in spite of his elaborate 1933. It is not unlike ‘Leninism led to Stalinism’: thus actually code for the workers’ for a socialist action programme’. his representative, but an official discussion in the series ‘Republic and we need to be much more concrete about the relationship between the events. movement announcing loyalism He cites it from the translation on the deployed by the relevant industrial social democracy in France’ - points up, 11. For coup threats in Germany, see DE Kaiser, towards the existing state. But, for Marxists Internet Archive, but does council. Bonuses and profit-sharing as Ben Lewis argued, that this is a text ‘Germany and the origins of the First World the reasons already indicated, this is not reference the source - Ben Lewis’s can serve to keep management and transitional towards the right. Kautsky War’ Journal of Modern History Vol 55 (1983), actually less likely to win concessions. translation in this paper (November workers interested in carrying out discusses economic management as a pp442-74. 12. T Corfield, ‘Why Chamberlain really fell’ The capitalist class itself from time 10 2011). The referencing point is the most diligent and attentive work task of the workers’ councils to evade History Today December 1996. to time promotes extra-legal activity significant, because Ben gave the text possible. the issues of constitutional order, 13. Chibber (or Jacobin) links two articles by - or asserts that formally legal state an introduction providing a critical which were being resolved in favour JM Schwartz, neither of which exactly supports action is unconstitutional. Equally, reading of the text, showing how it of the inherited state. The effect of the points made in Chibber’s text, since they are polemics against rightist claims that socialism is the Labour rightwing trade union represented movement to the right on Silences the councils self-limiting to economic undemocratic. 17 leader, Ernest Bevin, in May 1940 was Kautsky’s part. Kautsky’s silences are particularly self-management was precisely to 14. M Macnair, ‘Law and state as holes in Marxist reported addressing a mass meeting As Ben remarked, Kautsky began important. I leave aside those Ben avoid confronting the undemocratic theory’ Critique Vol 34 (2006), pp211-36, and with the demand for a new government. with the claim that “On November referred to in 2011, as relating to the character of the state regime the SPD ‘Free association versus juridification’ Critique Vol 12 39 (2011), pp53-82. The Chamberlain government fell. 9 1918 the German proletariat political conjuncture of the Russian, right was busily rebranding. 15. The point is mainly used by the right against Nationalist in content, Bevin’s speech conquered political power” - a German and other revolutions in Muldoon does not have a web- ‘social rights’ - Googling ‘human rights inflation’ stretched the boundaries between claim which wholly ignored his own 1918-19. The fact is that the 1919 visible, political-activist history, unlike produces above 9,000 hits, many of this sort - but parliamentary and direct action. To previous arguments about the nature ‘Guidelines’ proposes democratisation Blanc.19 He appears to have started that does not actually prevent it being valid. 16. I have argued this point further in ‘Democracy give guarantees against ‘rupture’ is of the working class taking power. He of the state only in relation to, first, with general political theory, moving and rights’ Weekly Worker July 9 2017. to guarantee more subservience to went on to advocate the dissolution of replacing the army with a people’s into the sphere of workers’ councils via 17. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1919/01/ convention than regular constitutional the standing army and the creation of militia (which would nonetheless retain the study of ‘totalitarianism’ theorist guidelines.html. For Ben’s commentary, see B politics demands. a workers’ militia - implicitly noting a professional higher command and Hannah Arendt.20 His introductory Lewis, ‘From Erfurt to Charlottenburg’ Weekly Worker November 10 2011. that the Junkers’ army was still intact, instructors); second, “The power of the essay to his 2018 edited collection 18. M Jones Founding Weimar: violence and the ‘Liberal rights’ in spite of the defeats on the western centralised government bureaucracy Council democracy: towards a German Revolution of 1918-1919 (Cambridge Because of his insistence on gradualism front and the naval mutiny which had must be broken by subordinating it to democratic socialist politics draws 2016) is the most recent account. and the rejection of planning, Chibber triggered the revolution. This army, a national assembly elected by free and more heavily on the anti-party ‘council 19. As indicated above, Chibber’s activist involvement is given by his acknowledgments in has less to say about democracy. and paramilitaries drawn from it, democratic suffrage”; and, third, this communism’, which influenced his first book. It is invisible online. Merely: were deployed against the working power is also broken by “immediately Arendt’s flirtation with councilism; 20. ‘The lost treasure of Arendt’s council system’ class in the same month that Kautsky granting the right of extensive self- the volume “draws upon the practices Critical Horizons Vol 12 (2011), pp396-417 - with ... the lesson from October is in was writing.18 government (within the framework and writings of council communists, a lot of hat-tipping to fashionable ‘post-Marxist’ authors of one sort or another. many ways a negative one - we Muldoon’s argument is not about of state laws) to the municipalities, social democrats, libertarian socialists, 21. www.academia.edu/36092239/Council_ have to reject wholesale the political Kautsky in his early 20th century administrative districts and provinces”. anarcho-syndicalists and radical Democracy_Towards_a_Democratic_Socialist_ model generated by the Bolsheviks, political context. Rather, he sees this While Kautsky targets the liberals who were critical of the Politics. weekly 6 August 15 2019 1264 worker DEBATE The two phases of communism Trying to explain Stalin’s counterrevolution within the revolution through literary exegesis is an obvious absurdity. Jack Conrad replies to Nick Rogers ccording to his own account, and ‘social democracy.’ In the mid- It introduces no socialist measures. Nick Rogers “first engaged 1840s Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels A scholastic, narrow and hopeless A with how Marx’s discussion in declared themselves for communism perspective. One must assume also the Critique of the Gotha programme (from the Latin communis). They that the first phase of communism had been misinterpreted” back in persuaded the League of the Just to functions without a state. 2010.1 Here, in this circular letter, change its name to the Communist The comrade worried that our Marx presented, maybe for the first League. Included amongst their early formulation carries the danger of time, the idea that communist society opponents were socialists and social “spreading a degree of confusion in would have two phases - lower democrats. Yet by the mid-1870s the the ranks of the Marxist left”. But, and higher. The first phase being followers of Marx and Engels were as I have already amply illustrated, communist society, “just as it emerges calling themselves social democrats. there is enormous confusion already. from capitalist society, which is thus in In private correspondence Marx and Nonetheless, in an implicit defence every respect, economically, morally Engels agreed - a “pig of a name”. of existing confusion, the comrade and intellectually, still stamped with Meanwhile, having once disguised complained that our Draft programme the birth-marks of the old society”.2 themselves as social democrats, the “differs substantively from the Comrade Rogers’ engagement anarchists began calling themselves conceptual framework most Marxists with Marx’s Critique took place in the communists. will bring to any discussion of these context of our debate over redrafting In 1917 Lenin included in his ‘April issues”. Maybe, but so what? the CPGB’s Draft programme. He was theses’ the proposal that the Russian In 2010 comrade Rogers cited not a member then. Nearly a decade later, Social Democratic Party should call only Marx’s Critique of the Gotha his arguments around socialism and itself “Communist Party”.5 The “soiled programme (1875) … but Lenin’s communism seem to have worsened shirt” of social democracy had to be State and revolution (1917). In these considerably - not least with the discarded. The Socialist (Second) two historically important works, remarkably silly claim that Lenin’s International had betrayed the working one certainly finds the perspective State and revolution (1917) provided class. In 1919 the Communist (Third) of an evolution of “communist the “conceptual framework” for the International was founded in Moscow, society” from a “first” to a “higher” Stalinite counterrevolution within each affiliate being required to change phase. Comrade Rogers confidently the revolution in the late 1920s.3 He its name to Communist Party of … (eg, maintained that both Marx and Lenin might as well blame Marx. After all, United States, Germany, Great Britain, “clearly distinguish” all the phases of as we shall see, Lenin’s “conceptual Turkey, India). communism from the dictatorship of framework” came directly from In light of the horrors of the 1930s, the proletariat and that this is what the Marx’s. many Trotskyites sought to establish a “majority of Marxists have understood There is no crime in lack of moral distance between themselves and by ‘socialism’ ever since”.10 consistency, but what is telling, what ‘official communism’. They stopped Leaving aside Marx and Lenin for is sad, is that comrade Rogers refuses calling themselves communists. They the moment, it is quite erroneous to to acknowledge or even reference the preferred to be known as socialists: treat the “majority of Marxists” as if arguments that saw him go down to the same as Labourites in Britain and they are orthodox in their Marxism. a resounding defeat within our ranks. rightwing social democrats in Europe. Unfortunately, they are not. Over I do not know if that ‘humiliation’ Inevitably, all of this causes the course of a tumultuous century, caused him to leave the CPGB. If it considerable confusion amongst the Marxist tradition has suffered did, that response would have been the inexperienced, the unwary and opportunist infection, mutation, profoundly irresponsible. the uneducated. After all, Marx and branched out in all manner of directions The main question in British Engels authored the Communist and produced the strangest fruits: politics is the ‘party question’. manifesto and, needless to say, exploitative state powers, conservative That is the necessity of building although the Soviet Union associated bureaucracies and weird revolutionary a mass revolutionary party based itself with ‘communism’ through cults. As a result, not a few of today’s on a Marxist, minimum-maximum its massive propaganda machine, The “two old men in London” ‘Marxists’ are, in fact, eerily close, programme. Being in a minority is the same can be said of ‘socialism’. in terms of spirit, organisation and rarely a happy experience - I know. The Union of Soviet Socialist class struggle continues, albeit under contradictions, these contradictions outcome, to anarchistic socialism; But we allow minorities considerable Republics should be a giveaway. radically altered circumstances, until need to be solved with a correct others to bourgeois socialism, and rights. Including, of course, the right Not surprisingly then, substituting the state, classes and the hierarchical political line and the development others still to religious socialism. Only to become the majority. But with ‘socialism’ for ‘communism’ did not division of labour wither away with the of mass, active democracy. This is by going back to the trunk - the central that comes definite responsibilities provide protection from cold war realisation of general freedom. essential, as communism is not a logic, method and programme - can we and obligations. The left is cursed by red-baiting. Everyone was tarred with Anyway, here is how section five of spontaneous development. regrow a healthy Marxism. premature, unprincipled, untheorised, the same brush. However, linguistic our Draft programme, dealing with the Social strata will only finally Nonetheless, comrade Rogers was often secretive resignations and splits. retreat almost certainly compounded ‘Transition to communism’, reads: disappear with full communism.6 right in the sense that some who call Either way, comrade Rogers’ two- linguistic confusion. themselves Marxists today consider part article has a sterile, disembodied, Our approach is different: engage Socialism is not a mode of Back in 2010 comrade Rogers raised it axiomatic that there must be an slightly odd feel to it. in an unremitting fight over ideas, production. It is the transition the bog-standard objection. Placing entirely separate stage before the lower including the fight over language from capitalism to communism. an “equals sign between workers’ phase of communism commences - a Words (and thus meaning). Of course, we Socialism is communism which political power and socialism” is “not stage which they call the ‘dictatorship Throughout history words have cannot issue decrees. Language, as emerges from capitalist society. It correct”. “Otherwise,” he continued, of the proletariat’. Overwhelmingly, migrated, shifted meaning and illustrated with the word ‘nice’, is begins as capitalism with a workers’ “we are left with the nonsense of however, this - the so-called first of sometimes turned into their opposites. decided by actual usage. Nonetheless, state. Socialism therefore bears the suggesting that the two months of three phases - is understood in the Take ‘nice’. It began as a negative communists can through their own moral, economic and intellectual the Paris Commune were socialism. anti-Marxist sense of violent methods, derived from the Latin nescius, efforts rediscover, reappropriate and re- imprint of capitalism. Or that socialism began in Russia in oppression, contempt for democracy, meaning “unaware”, “ignorant.” establish in actual usage what is ours. In general socialism is defined as October 1917.” Well, Marx wrote: one-party rule, etc. Starting in the late 1300s, ‘nice’ referred The vocabulary of Marxism stolen, the rule of the working class. “Working men’s Paris, with its But then we in the CPGB do not to “conduct, a person or clothing that misused, fouled and discredited by The division of labour cannot be Commune, will forever be celebrated agree with the “majority of Marxists”. was considered excessively luxurious ‘official communism’ can be cleansed abolished overnight. It manifests as the glorious harbinger of a new Our Draft programme stands four- or lascivious”. By the late 1500s, ‘nice’ and put back into good service. itself under socialism in the society.”7 Its aim of “expropriating square with Marx and Engels, not became softened somewhat, describing The CPGB is determined to restore contradictions between mental and the expropriators”, organising workers the epigones. Here Hal Draper can something “refined”. In the late the emancipatory, inspiring, meaning manual labour, town and country, into cooperative associations and be mentioned. His painstaking and 18th and early 19th centuries ‘nice’ given to the term ‘communism’ by men and women, as well as social, combining those associations into one illuminating intellectual labours became the positive term we all know. classical Marxism. The same goes for regional and national differences. great union, must, necessarily end in proved beyond a shadow of doubt Nowadays, though, there appears to be how Lenin used the term ‘socialism’, Classes and social strata exist “communism”.8 Real communism, not that when Marx-Engels used the another shift going on. ‘Nice’ used … not least in State and revolution under socialism because of different nonsense communism! As for Russia, term, ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, ironically.4 (1917). If we are to succeed we need positions occupied in relation to Lenin concluded his speech to the 2nd that denoted winning the battle for The same has happened in politics. millions of people to understand the the means of production, the roles Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ democracy, the democratic republic ‘Democracy’ counted as a swear word classic works of Marxism. True, until played in society and the way they Deputies with these immortal words: and majoritarian rule by the working in polite society during the 17th and we have convincingly won the battle of receive their income. “We shall now proceed to construct the class. Nothing autocratic. Nothing 18th centuries. An abomination, an ideas, not least through building mass Class and social contradictions socialist order.”9 sinister. Nothing elitist.11 affront, an invitation to chaos. Now communist parties, there can be little necessitate the continuation of Instead of treating socialism as Since the death of Marx and Engels every mainstream politician claims doubt that confusion will continue. the class struggle. However, the transitionary phase, spanning the the “majority” of Marxists have to be a democrat - as long as it is Class enemies and false friends will this struggle is reshaped by the entire period from where working spectacularly got the dictatorship of not extended to the workplace. The ensure that. overthrow of the capitalist state and class rule first begins, all the way to the the proletariat wrong. Plekhanov, language of the left has changed too. the transition towards communism. final realisation of full communism, Martov, Kautsky and Trotsky too. They ‘Dictatorship’ has gone from meaning Transition The class struggle can, in the comrade Rogers proposed three counterposed the dictatorship (rule) of ‘regime’, ‘rule’, ‘decisiveness’ - even Programmatically we envisage the last analysis, go in two directions, phases. The first being the dictatorship the proletariat to democracy. Amongst ‘ruthlessness’. After the Russian successful workers’ revolution - depending on the global balance of of the proletariat; only after this does the greats Lenin was mostly sound. Revolution it increasingly came to be perhaps with the main opening salient forces. It can go backwards or it can the first phase of communism begin. From 1905 onwards he stood for the used as the antithesis of ‘democracy’. provided by Europe - growing into advance towards communism. Presumably his dictatorship of the revolutionary dictatorship (rule) of Similar migrations and switches can full communism. Beginning with While socialism creates the proletariat exists purely to overcome the workers and peasants: ie, majority be seen with ‘communism’, ‘socialism’ working class rule over capitalism, the objective basis for solving social capitalist threats of counterrevolution. rule. Only after the Brest-Litovsk weekly worker 1264 August 15 2019 7

treaty of March 3 1918, when the demand to fight for under capitalism. society containing both capitalist certificates (which, I would argue, managed to further improve it. Not Lenin government became a minority As to the future society, readers will and communist elements. Two, the could not work until the middle all his suggestions were incorporated, in the soviets, due to the defection of probably know this celebrated passage dictatorship of the proletariat differs classes have been absorbed into the but many were. Globally the Erfurt the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, did in the Critique backwards: from other class states because this working class). But that is the subject programme became the model for he throw in his lot with the dictatorship (semi-) state is the oppressive apparatus for another day. Suffice to say, from other revolutionary social democrats - (= proletarian rule) in contradistinction … what transformation will in the hands of the majority of the the above quotations one thing is - including, of course, the RSDLP. to democracy (= bourgeois rule) the state undergo in communist population, a majority which positively or should be - perfectly clear. Marx narrative. Rosa Luxemburg provides society? In other words, what social seeks to wind down, to minimise state considers that “communist society” Two societies the only consistent exception, at least functions will remain in existence functions. Nevertheless, though itself emerges not from the dictatorship of There are those who believe, or claim to my knowledge. But then she got lots there that are analogous to present a carryover from the past and slowly the proletariat (a form of the state), but to believe, that, by calling the first of other things badly wrong (eg, the state functions? This question can withering away in the first phase of from capitalist society itself. phase of the future society ‘socialism’ party - not to be examined here). only be answered scientifically, and communism, the workers’ state is a So, albeit with various qualifications, and the second phase ‘communism’, one does not get a flea-hop nearer necessary feature of the transitionary I would, yes, describe both the Paris Lenin committed some kind of heresy. Critique to the problem by a thousand-fold society. Commune and the October revolution Supposedly he was proposing two Now let us turn to Marx himself and see combination of the word ‘people’ Yes, the dictatorship of the proletariat as aborted examples of communism. “entirely different” societies. A line of what he has to say about communism. with the word ‘state’. is needed in order to resist and In and of themselves both revolutions thought which joins Nick Rogers with Above all, that means examining his overcome capitalist power nationally were dreadfully premature. Neither in the anarcho-communists and Adam Critique. After all, here, Marx gave his Marx goes on: and internationally. Simultaneously France nor in Russia was the working Buick of the Socialist Party of Great fullest, though still extremely limited the workers’ state persists so as to class anywhere near a majority. And in Britain.18 But it is nonsense on stilts. and brief, treatment of the subject. Between capitalist and communist keep the petty bourgeoisie and middle 1871 that was true across the whole of Suffice to say, when Lenin wrote Both Marx and Engels studiously society there lies the period of the classes in line. Though slowly being Europe - Britain alone excepted. State and revolution, he considered avoided detailed speculation about the revolutionary transformation of the absorbed into the working class, these Working class rule in Paris lasted it entirely unproblematic to note that future - unlike the utopian socialists, one into the other. Corresponding intermediate classes cannot be allowed a mere two months. Politically it the “first phase of communism”, they eschewed futurist blueprints. to this is also a political transition to rebel. Nor should we forget the role was dominated by the forces of petty albeit in parenthesis, is “usually It should also be pointed out that period, in which the state can of the workers’ state in maintaining bourgeois socialism - Blanquists and called socialism”.19 He was not being Marx penned his Critique for a select be nothing but the revolutionary discipline over the working class itself. Proudhonists - and therefore suffered “original”. He was merely repeating group of comrades. Not only was dictatorship of the proletariat.13 In other words, even once capitalism from severe limitations when it came to Second International orthodoxy. it meant to stiffen the resolve of his has been superseded globally and the consistent democracy and aggressively August Bebel, Karl Kautsky, even compromising Eisenacher followers I take this to mean that the dictatorship petty bourgeoisie and middle classes pursuing the revolution. Nevertheless, Joseph Stalin can all be cited. They all (eg, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August of the proletariat is the state form have been entirely absorbed into the because of proletarian revolutionary write about the first phase of the future Bebel) as against the Lassallean that corresponds to the “transition working class, the workers’ state, instinct, the Commune introduced society and call it ‘socialism’. Take General Association of German period”. Self-evidentially, a period though progressively diminishing many measures that mark out the the then obscure Georgian Bolshevik, Workers. He was also trying to guard which begins with the working class in scope and power, remains an transition from capitalism: abolition of Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. himself - and his historic reputation - assuming state power and ends when unavoidable necessity until all its the standing army and the police, the Writing against the anarchists, in against the ongoing attacks of Mikhail the working class state, the division of residual functions are finally absorbed arming of the people, the election of 1905, he quotes Marx’s Critique and Bakunin: specifically his Statism and labour, the compulsion to work, and into society itself. all officials and limitation of their pay insists that there must be an “initial anarchy (1873). Bakunin portrayed other capitalistic carry-overs, give way to that of a skilled worker, the removal stage of socialism”. Under the “initial Marxism as being synonymous with to freedom and the real beginning of Need of religion from public education, the stage” there will still be survivals of the “founding of a people’s [a free] human history (ie, full communism). Marx explains that “bourgeois right” transformation of clerical estates into capitalism that remain to be eradicated, state”.12 One of many Lassallean So Marx envisages two, not three, continues under the “first phase of public property, the recallability of etc.20 formulations, which, to secure unity, stages. communism”: ie, you receive back delegates, cooperative production, etc. True, in Women in the past, present Liebknecht and Bebel were “cleverly” The dictatorship of the proletariat from society according to what The Russian Revolution carried and future (1879 and 1883) Bebel prepared to accept. And that is how is for Marxists a specific form of the labour you contribute. Such “defects on the tradition of the Commune refers mainly to the higher stage. Yes, things turned out. Liebknecht and state. To employ a well established are inevitable in the first phase of - but taken to a higher, national, mainly. Nonetheless, he does write Bebel refused to follow the advice of metaphor, the workers’ state constitutes communist society” admits Marx. level. However, the Soviet regime about the transition - what he called the “old men in London”. Thankfully part of society’s superstructure. Ditto Years later Engels discussed the suffered defeat too. Not through socialism: hence we read that “state - because they needed to, because the slave-owning state, the feudal question of whether “distribution of counterrevolutionary armies and organisation as such gradually loses its they wanted to - the mass of German state, the bourgeois state. Each form products” in the society of the future mass butchery. Rather the Russian foundations”.21 workers read the programme of the corresponds to a particular society: ie, will be carried out “according to Revolution, having been isolated by What Lenin did in State and newly formed party in a communistic the ancient (slave) mode of production, the amount of work performed or in imperialism, having failed to spread to revolution was to give the higher and manner. The Social Democratic Party the feudal mode of production, the some other way”. Wisely, he says the Europe (crucially to Germany), having lower phases two names. Returning to grew in leaps and bounds. capitalist mode of production, etc. answer “depends almost entirely upon being forced into full-scale retreat with the Marx-Engels usage, he wrote about Marx did not want the ‘Marx party’ The dictatorship of the proletariat how much there is to distribute”. The the New Economic Policy, turned in the higher phase as “communism”. in Germany to play into the hands of is, though, categorically distinguished new society will introduce sweeping on itself. Stalin’s doctrine of socialism But, given the existing common usage, his sworn enemies. Instead of a “free from other forms of the state for changes in methods of production and in one country was a nationalist he referred to the lower phase of the state” and other such twaddle, the party two main reasons. One, the “first social organisation. What is available adaptation to isolation. His first five- future society as “socialism”. should champion the “democratic phase of communism” is not a mode for socially useful consumption year plan unmistakably marked the If that was an innovation, it is a republic” as a minimum demand: ie, a of production. It is a transitional increases. He goes on to stress that horrendous counterrevolution within pretty modest one. Lenin was not all one can rationally do now is: (a) the revolution. After that, reform - proposing two societies. No, he was “discover what method of distribution even a political revolution - became reiterating the standard idea amongst should be used to start off with,” and impossible. Marxists of the time. There were (b) “find out what the general trend of two phases of the future society: Fighting fund future developments is likely to be.”14 Socialism a beginning and a full realisation. Exactly what Marx did. After the Clearly it was the Second International, What Lenin was really doing was re- subordination of the individual to the most likely following the lead of the establishing the word ‘communism’ division of labour - and with that also German SDP, which was responsible amongst Marxists, but, by continuing the “antithesis between mental and for rebranding ‘communism’ as with the name ‘socialism’ for the Back in three physical labour” - has vanished; after ‘socialism’. Marx and Engels might first phase, he provided a bridge labour has become not only a means not have liked it. But by and large between the Socialist (Second) and the weeks of life, but “life’s prime want”; after they went along with it. The general Communist (Third) International l the cultural level of the population acceptance of the future society having s I have noted several times taking out a subscription, so it’s has been qualitatively raised - then two stages - a lower and a higher stage Notes before, the second week only right to throw some money the narrow horizon of bourgeois right - came, however, from what I can A 1. N Rogers, ‘Communist transition’ Weekly of the month is not exactly the our way, isn’t it? can be crossed in its entirety. Society gather, through Engels’s Critique of the Worker August 26 2010. most productive in terms of the The only other contributors inscribes on its banners: “From each draft Social-Democratic programme 2. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London 1989, Weekly Worker fighting fund. this week were the three standing according to their ability, to each of 1891 (aka Critique of the Erfurt p85. 15 3. N Rogers, ‘Lenin’s misreading of Marx’ Weekly That’s because, for some reason, order donors - NH (£30), DV according to their needs!” programme). Worker August 1 2019; ‘Marx’s vision’, August 8 our standing order donors - who (£25) and SN (£10) - plus DB, Until then, when it comes to Engels stresses that the “working 2019. Both were originally published in the well easily account for the vast bulk who, a bit like comrade RL, feels consumption, while there exists class can only come to power under known Journal of Global Faultlines. of regular contributors - prefer he ought to pay for his paper, even the principle of need, it is at least the form of a democratic republic. 4. www.dictionary.com/e/nice-guys. 5. VI Lenin CW Vol 24, Moscow 1977, p24. weeks 1, 3 and 4. though he now reads us online. partially checked by the “bourgeois” This is even the specific form for 6. CPGB Draft programme London 2011, pp47-48. And August has not bucked He continues to pay us the same principle of work done. The reason the dictatorship of the proletariat, as 7. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 22, Moscow the trend, with just £172 coming £7.20 monthly sub via PayPal I highlighted partially should be the Great French Revolution [ie, the 1986, p355. our way in week 2. Not a lot - as when we sent him the paper obvious. Even in present-day society Paris Commune] has already shown.”16 8. Ibid. 9. www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ especially when you consider overseas! there is the provision of all manner of There can be no a “cosy” road to oct/25-26/index.htm. 17 we need £2,000 each and every But now we could do with a services based on need: primary and “communist society”. Interestingly, 10. N Rogers, ‘Communist transition’ Weekly month and, with just under half bit of acceleration - especially secondary education, health services, socialism is only referenced three Worker August 26 2010. the month gone, we’ve received as you won’t be getting any social security, etc. Doubtlessly, the times. All negatively. 11. See H Draper Karl Marx’s theory of revolution Vol 3, New York 1986, and The ‘dictatorship of the only £498. Well, the last two more reminders from me until workers’ state would swiftly act to The Critique of the Erfurt proletariat’ from Marx and Engels New York 1987. weeks of the month will certainly September 5. That’s because improve and greatly extend the scope programme amounted to a double- 12. www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/ be better, but will that be enough this is the last issue of the of such provisions. Nonetheless, the barrelled blast against the opportunist works/1873/statism-anarchy.htm. to take us to our target? Weekly Worker before our two- principle of work done remains. Marx forces in the German SDP. Engels 13. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London 1989, p95. But it has to be said that this week August break, so in three explains why. What we are “dealing insisted on the simultaneous publication 14. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 49 New York week has not been without its weeks time I hope to be able to with here” is a “communist society”, of Marx’s Critique of the Gotha 2001, pp7-8. highlights - namely in the shape report that we achieved the full but - and this he emphasises - “not as it programme. Till then Marx’s letter was 15. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 24, London of two £50 donations. Comrade £2,000! l has developed on its own foundations, known only to a few top leaders. While 1989, pp85-87. 16. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 27, London LT send us a cheque for that Robbie Rix but, on the contrary, just as it emerges those still in thrall to the memory of 1990, p227. amount, while RL used PayPal from capitalist society, which is thus in Ferdinand Lassalle objected, this time 17. Ibid. for the second of the three “catch- Fill in a standing order form every respect, economically, morally, the surviving ‘old man’ in London 18. A Buick, Letters Weekly Worker December up payments” he’s decided to and intellectually, still stamped with was listened to. Even in draft form 15 2016. (back page), donate via our 19. VI Lenin CW Vol 25, Moscow 1977, p472. make. After all, he kept reading website, or send cheques, the birth-marks of the old society from the Erfurt programme represented 20. JV Stalin Anarchism or socialism? Moscow the Weekly Worker online before payable to Weekly Worker whose womb it emerges”. a considerable improvement over 1950, p80. He goes on to discuss labour the Gotha programme. But Engels 21. A Bebel Women and socialism London 1988, p178. weekly 8 August 15 2019 1264 worker COMMUNIST UNIVERSITY A week of heightened brain activity ommunist University is the annual summer school of the C Communist Party of Great Britain and is jointly sponsored by Labour Party Marxists. This year’s event will take place from August 17- 24 at Goldsmiths University, Loring Hall, St James’s, London SE14 6NW. Just follow the signs to Communist University 2019. CU is different from the run- of-the-mill schools put on by other left groups, in that plenty of time is allocated to contributions from the floor. Controversial debate is positively welcomed and, needless to say, there are no one-minute time limits. Moreover, critical thinking is encouraged, as can be seen by our impressive list of speakers. These include Moshé Machover, a co-founder of the Israeli socialist organisation, Matzpen, and Tony Greenstein - like comrade Machover a Jewish anti-Zionist. Their debate on the existence or otherwise of a Hebrew nation promises to be very interesting. Then there are Hillel Ticktin, who has edited the Critique journal for 35 years, and author and anthropologist Chris Knight, who has developed a ground-breaking theory relating to the origins of human culture. Like Marxist economist Michael Roberts, they have been regulars at CU over the years. Graham Bash of the Labour Representation Committee will be focussing on the fight to transform Labour, while Lawrence Parker will be looking at Labour’s historical relation to Marxism. We have three first-time speakers in the shape of Ian Wright, US author on ‘social architecture’, Pauline a fascinating week of debate. the things we learned during the day. Full week, including Day: £10 (£5). Single session: £5 Hadaway, a founder of the Liverpool At the same time, the collective It is, without a doubt, the highlight of accommodation in en suite single (£3). Reservation: £30. Salon forum for leftwing debate, and aspect of CU is very important to us: our political year. Be part of it! rooms - £250 (£150 unwaged). PayPal: Go to the CPGB website: Ed Griffiths, an author on conspiracy everybody helps out with preparing For a flavour of last year’s event, Solidarity price: £300. www.cpgb.org.uk. theories. Finally there are prominent food and organising the event. And check out the videos on the CPGB First/final weekend, including members of the CPGB and LPM - all in the evenings, we chill out together, website: www.cpgb.org.uk l one night’s accommodation: £60 Nearest stations: playing their part in what ought to be often carrying on discussing some of David Shearer (£30). New Cross and New Cross Gate Timetable 10am-12.30pm Lunch 2pm-4.15pm Break 4.45pm-7pm Fringe sessions: 8pm How can we transform Labour Brexit, elections and Saturday Registration and access from No into a vehicle for socialism? the Labour Party 12 noon lunch August 17 Graham Bash Jack Conrad One state, two states - two The social architecture of Climate change and the necessity Class struggle in France and Sunday impossibilities capitalism of system change ways out of capitalism August 18 Moshé Machover Ian Wright Jack Conrad René Barthes Brexit: are politics transcending Turning the tables on Modern Monetary Theory The situation in the US Monday left and right? the witch-hunters August 19 Pauline Hadaway Tina Werkmann Michael Roberts Peter Moody Can the Good Friday deal hold? When Eve laughed: What the conspiracy theories Extinction Rebellion and climate Tuesday Ireland’s crisis over Brexit the origins of language. aren’t telling you change August 20 James Harvey Chris Knight Ed Griffiths Alan Gibson Why the US wants war. The decline of socio-economic Labour’s historical Why Iran needs the The situation in the Netherlands Wednesday systems in our epoch relationship to Marxism threat of war August 21 Emil Jacob Hillel Ticktin Yassamine Mather Lawrence Parker

Predicting the collapse of the Identity politics and economism: Noam Chomsky and me Stalinism and the new left Thursday Soviet Union two sides of one coin August 22 Hillel Ticktin Chris Knight Mike Macnair Platypus

The rise of machines. Will AI, Israeli Jews: are they a Hebrew Russian Revolution: women as quantum computing and robots nation? Friday the barometer of social progress make capitalism impossible and Summer Offensive socialism certain? Moshé Machover and celebration dinner August 23 Anne McShane Yassamine Mather Tony Greenstein

The programmatic bankruptcy of 1.30pm-3.30pm Short Saturday the left and the urgent need for a Aspects of the 3.30pm-4pm thorough-going rethink lunch German Revolution 1918-19 Evaluation of Communist University August 24 break Mike Macnair James Harvey weekly worker 1264 August 15 2019 9 USA Russiagate and what it says about America The US is in decline, writes Daniel Lazare, and making matters worse it is saddled with an antiquated constitution

t is easy to make fun of the respectively, note that a dysfunctional CIA-National Security Agency coup sway - has grown more and more US Foreign Affairs magazine, political system “is generating a doom d’état, US politics are coming apart at undemocratic, as the Supreme Court’s Ibimonthly journal of the Council loop of polarisation, as partisan forces the seams. This is why the eagle is so role expands. on Foreign Relations. It is staid, run up against institutional guardrails bedraggled - because the republic is Then there is the Senate, which middle-brow and endlessly servile to and emerge from the collision not Putin-Trump, fracturing and dragging it down. gives each state equal weight the needs of capital. What it has to chastened, but even more determined Trump-Putin. regardless of population and is now say would be appalling if its soporific to tear them down”. Diagnosis more malapportioned than at any prose did not cause eyelids to droop in “How could things fall apart But if Foreign Affairs is incapable of a point in US history. In 1790, the mid-sentence. so quickly?” asks editor Gideon diagnosis, Marxists are not. Structure ratio between the most populous and But sometimes it comes within Rose. “In the early 1990s, the era is indeed the place to begin, as Julia least populous state - ie, Virginia and spitting distance of the truth, and of American post-war dominance Donald Trump began his Azari suggests. Other countries Delaware - was less than 12 to one. the current issue, dated July-August segued into an era of American post- have their quirks: eg, parliamentary Today, the ratio between California 2019, is one such occasion. The cold war dominance. Now that era is presidency determined sovereignty in the UK or a quasi- and Wyoming is 68 to one and rising. cover shows a bedraggled bald segueing into something else, as yet to repair relations with monarchical presidency in France. The 54% of the population that lives eagle alongside the question, “What unknown. Sic transit gloria mundi.” But, as an 18th-century republic that in just 10 states finds itself outvoted happened to the American Century?” Yes, power is fleeting, and when Russia ... but he was has somehow survived into the 21st, four-to-one by the minority that lives Inside are a half-dozen articles an haut bourgeois organ like Foreign hardly a puppet the US is in a class by itself. It is not in the other 40. In 20 years, the ratio surveying the wreckage, from foreign Affairs deigns to take notice, then just a matter of failing to keep up, but will rise to 4.5 to one.1 policy to Capitol Hill. “Some time some kind of Rubicon has definitely of Putin of political institutions that are still It is an antiquated mess, yet in the last two years,” writes Fareed been crossed. Still, the issue falls short stuck in the days of silk knee britches what is worse is that it is absolutely Zakaria, “American hegemony died.” in two respects: it fails to explain why and powdered wigs. unfixable within anything like the Americans are “losing confidence an array of mini-crises are coming Not everything is unchanged. existing constitutional confines. in their own futures, their country’s together in such an explosive manner, Slavery has been abolished, and US While the preamble - the famous future, and the ability of their political and, notwithstanding its alarmist tone, senators are no longer appointed by opening paragraph beginning leaders to do anything about it,” it understates the problem. their respective state legislatures. But with the words, “We, the people” laments Larry Diamond of the Hoover The problem is more than much is the same, if not worse. An - suggests that the constitution is Institution. Marquette University’s polarisation. Rather, with Democrats arcane system of checks and balances a tool of the citizenry, article five, Julia Azeri says that “the structures of still convinced that Trump is a Russian and separation of powers has grown the so-called amending clause, American democracy have failed to agent despite Robert Mueller’s verdict increasingly unmanageable, as federal sends a different message, which keep pace with the changes in politics of no collusion, and Republicans power has metastasised. Judicial is that the constitution is not a and society”, while Jacob S Hacker equally persuaded that the president review - a system that gives nine servant, but instead is on top. The and Paul Pierson, of Yale and Berkeley is the victim of an attempted FBI- lifetime judges near-total political amending process is complicated, weekly 10 August 15 2019 1264 worker USA but the bottom line is that 13 states death and chaos across the Middle began taunting Trump as Putin’s the posts may have “reached as many  June 12 2016: Wikileaks founder representing as little as 4.4% of East, while sparking a powerful “puppet” in the final presidential as 126 million persons”. Ominous as Julian Assange announces on British the population can block any nativist reaction in Europe, America debate.9 Then people took notice. this may seem, he also testified that TV that “leaks in relation to Hillary constitutional reform, no matter and beyond. American Facebook users received Clinton” are on the way. how minor, in perpetuity. The Convenient a total of 33 trillion posts over the  June 15: Guccifer 2.0 - allegedly barrier is effectively insuperable, Enter Trump When Clinton lost in November 2016, same period - a figure more than 400 a stand-in for the Russian military- which is why, with one minor There was another effect as well: she had any number of potential targets million times greater. The IRA ads intelligence agency known as the exception, the document has not to pave the way for Donald Trump. for her ire. She could have blamed were a drop in the bucket.13 GRU - goes online to claim credit for been amended in half a century and Trump was regarded as little more than the Electoral College for naming Moreover, there was no evidence the hack. why no significant structural reform a joke when on previous occasions he Trump the victor even though he that the Russian government was  June 22: Wikileaks establishes has occurred since direct election of threw his hat into the ring. But this trailed by nearly three million popular involved. Mueller’s February 2018 contact with Guccifer via his Twitter senators in 1912.2 “We, the people” time he had an advantage: he was the votes. She could have blamed the indictment of the company made no account. are powerless to alter a document only Republican with any sense of the constitution for saddling the country mention of a Kremlin connection  July 14: Guccifer sends Wikileaks made in their name. depth of the crisis. Consequently, he with an 18th-century mechanism that and, while his report 14 months an encrypted file. The result is a “frozen republic”, had no trouble barrelling past bland was impossible to remove. She could later described the IRA effort as a  July 18: Wikileaks confirms it has as this writer described it more and vacuous establishmentarians like have even blamed herself for not “Russian interference operation”, opened the file up. than 20 years ago.3 The effect of Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, campaigning in Wisconsin - a state it provided no evidence - at least  July 22: Wikileaks releases some such constitutional constriction on while, across the aisle, Bernie Sanders Democrats took for granted until it not in the expurgated version made 28,000 emails and other electronic development has meanwhile been gave Democratic leaders a fright by went for Trump. public in April - other than a single documents indicating that the DNC curious. Instead of hindering it, nearly doing the same to Clinton. Instead she blamed Russia. New York Times article stating that rigged the nominating process to as one might expect, it channelled Both candidates’ appeal was According to one campaign account, Prigozhin is known as “Putin’s cook”, block Sanders.17 it in different directions. One is strongly ideological. Sanders offered because the Russian president dined But how could Wikileaks physical expansion - the one thing a brand of reformist socialism that That strategy had been set within at a restaurant he owns a few times announce that leaks were forthcoming that political factions in Washington was mild by European standards, 24 hours of her concession speech. in 2001-03.14 So glaring was the before hearing from the source? Why could agree on. Physical expansion but shockingly radical from the [Campaign manager Robby] discrepancy between the indictment would it release a massive file just first occurred to the south and west point of view of the US Democratic Mook and [campaign chairman and the report that a federal judge eight days after receiving it and as and then overseas with the formal elite. The programme that Trump John] Podesta assembled her presiding over the trial of an IRA little as four days after decryption? closing of the frontier in 1890 and assembled was more complex: a communications team at the sister company recently threatened How could an organisation known the acquisition of Cuba, Puerto Rico, left-right amalgam with more than Brooklyn headquarters to engineer to hold Mueller in contempt if he for its meticulous curatorship ensure Guam and the Philippines just eight a dash of Bonapartism. Thrusting the case that the election wasn’t made any more statements about a that the material was genuine? “If a years later. America’s vast natural out his jaw like Mussolini, he railed entirely on the up-and-up. For a supposed Kremlin link.15 single one of those emails had been resources, its super-strong legal against Washington, throwing a bone couple of hours, with Shake Shack The other half of the interference shown to be maliciously altered,” framework and its incomparable to conservatives by championing containers littering the room, they campaign involved Russian military observes blogger Mark F McCarty, geographic position - bounded, it is the second amendment, while went over the script they would intelligence’s efforts to hack the “Wikileaks’ reputation would have said, by insignificant powers to the attacking pillars of the conservative pitch to the press and the public. Democratic National Committee been in tatters.” Quite right - and four north and south and fishes to the east commentariat, such as Charles Already, Russian hacking was the (DNC). The claim may be true: to eight days are hardly enough for a and west - were among the factors Krauthammer and George Will. centrepiece of the argument.10 cyber security was so poor that thoroughgoing review. Bottom line: that propelled it to superpower status He promised to invest in any number of intruders may have the chronology does not make sense, in 1945 and then global hegemony in infrastructure, swore to protect social With Trump on shaky ground by rummaged through the DNC’s files.16 which is why Assange’s insistence 1989. Generally, expansion abroad security and vowed at one Republican virtue of losing the popular vote, the But Mueller’s contention that it was that “our source is not the Russian brought peace at home. But, since debate: “I will not let people die on way was cleared for a constitutional responsible for a massive Wikileaks government and it is not a state party” 1989, the formula has changed. the streets for lack of healthcare” - a crisis of the first order. Russiagate email dump that seriously damaged remains uncontroverted.18 Despite the heady utopianism that stunning statement in a hard-right was the belief, shared by millions of Clinton’s campaign rests on a timeline Nothing adds up about Mueller’s followed the fall of the Soviet bloc, GOP.4 Where Republicans usually liberals, that Putin had intervened in that does not add up. Here are the key case - not collusion and not Russian the consequence domestically was try to out-hawk one another when the 2016 election to block Clinton elements: interference either. In the end, what a powerful rightwing offensive that it comes to foreign policy, Trump and that Trump had colluded in soon had Washington in turmoil. was different. Not only did he attack the effort. Corporate media outlets The 1994 ‘Republican Revolution’. Clinton’s regime-change wars in the flogged the story day and night, with in which the Grand Old Party (GOP) Middle East, but he defended Russian the four horsemen of the Russiagate Summer offensive gained 55 seats in the House and nine president Vladimir Putin and his apocalypse - CNN, MSNBC, the in the Senate, thus led to back-to- efforts to rein in US recklessness. New York Times and Jeff Bezos’s back federal shutdowns, as speaker When Russia intervened in Syria Washington Post - publishing some Last lap of the House Newt Gingrich tried to to prop up Bashar al-Assad, Trump 8,500 articles on the collusion ram through his rightwing ‘Contract was unconcerned: “I say there’s very theme in all, according to a White with America’ despite White House little downside with Putin fighting House count.11 Chance encounters payments comrades have made for objections. Republicans followed up Isis. And Putin wants to keep Isis out with the Russian ambassador or that forthcoming CU. As I have with the impeachment of Bill Clinton of Russia, and therefore he’s become with a Russian graduate student previously mentioned in this column, over the Monica Lewinsky affair in very active with respect to Isis, and I were touted as treasonous. Feverish 2 the CU itself generates cash - and 1998 and then, in 2000, with what has think that’s to our benefit.” When Fox speculation mounted about a secret not simply through the fees for become known as the Brooks Brothers News host Bill O’Reilly countered communications link between the sessions, the sale of literature, Riot, in which dozens of well-dressed that Russia’s real aim was to take over Trump Tower on New York’s Fifth 0 T-shirts, mugs and badges (or even GOP enforcers shut down the vote Syria and “own” it, Trump replied: Avenue and a Russian bank or about refreshments in the evenings after count in Miami, so that a Republican- “Do you want to run Syria? Do you secret meetings in Prague. “I am so 1 the sessions have ended). Our school controlled Supreme Court could steal want to own Syria? I want to rebuild depending on our special counsel embodies a democratic and open the presidential election on behalf of our country. I want to rebuild our Robert Mueller to connect the dots ethos that is glaringly absent from George W Bush - even though he was bridges.”5 so that he can prove the collusion,” 9 those of our opponents on the left. It trailing by half a million votes. It is hard to count the number of Maxine Waters, a California takes ideas seriously, in that debates The ‘oughts’ saw worse with foreign-policy canons the candidate Democrat, said in 2018.12 are given the time and space to be bigger wars in Afghanistan and Iraq managed to violate in the course of Democrats were therefore properly aired and minorities with and even more poisonous warfare on a seven-minute television interview. speechless when Mueller announced something worthwhile to say are Capitol Hill. Barack Obama, who had He showed sympathy for a man that, after 22 months of looking, “the given the space to say it. opposed the invasion of Iraq (but not with whom America was virtually investigation did not establish that Thus, we make new friends and of Afghanistan), promised a respite, at war. He said that Putin wanted to members of the Trump campaign sympathisers at this key event, and if only on the foreign front. But he fight Islamic State when the official conspired or coordinated with the that, in turn, translates into financial allowed his neocon secretary of state, White House line was that Russian Russian government”. But they support - especially as reports of Hillary Clinton, to take advantage of intervention was a ruse because Putin, took solace from the fact that the debates and transcriptions, or articles the 2011 Arab Spring by organising Assad and Isis were all somehow special prosecutor’s report found that he grand total for this year’s that take the CU discussion further, an air war against Muammar Gaddafi, on the same side. He suggested that Moscow had waged a “sweeping and T Summer Offensive (the CPGB’s will often appear in this paper. which provided an opening for Assad was preferable to US-backed systematic” interference campaign, annual fundraising drive) will be So we are in a relatively strong Saudi- and Qatari-backed Sunni ‘moderate’ rebels and expressed even if Trump was not party to it. announced at the celebratory meal position as we go into the last week jihadists, who soon reduced the support for keeping Isis out of Russia But even this was misleading that marks the close of our annual (and a bit) of the campaign. But, country to anarchy. Obama then despite CIA support of Islamist forces and overblown. To be sure, the school, the Communist University, as I have cautioned all the way gave his secretary of state the go- in the Russian province of Chechnya.6 Internet Research Agency (IRA) - a on Saturday August 24. through, our £30,000 target is the ahead to organise a second Saudi- He was remarkably insouciant about St Petersburg troll farm owned by a However - and just for the minimum that we have committed backed jihad - this time against the the prospect of Syria falling into Russian billionaire named Yevgeny sake of comparison - at the same our organisation to achieving. That Ba’athist government of Syria, with Moscow’s hands. Prigozhin - did purchase misleading moment in last year’s fundraising means there is still £7,764 to claw consequences that proved even more To say that the foreign-policy ads in Facebook. But not only was campaign (ie, on the verge of the in before we can pat ourselves on devastating. establishment was taken aback would the roughly $44,000 that the IRA Communist University 2018), the back for a successful Summer Following Clinton’s departure be an understatement. GOP leaders spent paltry compared to Clinton- our SO had reached only £16,236 Offensive this year. in February 2013, her successors were “gobsmacked”, while former Trump social-media expenditures of after a “magnificent” week’s The last lap is often the most backed a Nazi-spearheaded coup in acting CIA director Mark Morell $81 million, but the ads themselves intake of £4,092, as the author of important, comrades! l the Ukraine that led to civil war and labelled Trump “an unwitting agent of were so amateurish and inept - eg, a the report in the Weekly Worker William Sarsfield Russia’s takeover of the Crimea, the Russian Federation” in a New York drawing of a muscle-bound Bernie correctly described it. But this while, in March 2015, the Obama Times op-ed.7 In its desperation to Sanders in a Speedo or a picture of year, after another excellent seven Cheques: Make payable to CPGB administration greenlit a Saudi- overcome voter resistance, Democrats Jesus arm-wrestling a pro-Clinton days of fundraising, comrades and and send to: BCM Box 928, UAE assault on Yemen that would had run through dozens of slogans, Satan - that it is hard to believe anyone friends of our organisation have London WC1N 3XX. soon bring that country to the verge each one emptier than the preceding: was persuaded at all. collectively squeezed £1,408 of of catastrophe as well. Along with  A fair shot and a fair deal Facebook general counsel Colin new cash out of their beleaguered PayPal: Go to the CPGB website: the 2015 refugee crisis and terrorist  Hillary - for fairness. For families Stretch testified before Congress that bank accounts, bumping the www.cpgb.org.uk. outrages like the Bataclan theatre  Building a fairer future today 470 phony IRA accounts “collectively running total up to a very robust attack in Paris - a case of direct  Fairness worth the fight made 80,000 posts between January £22,286. Bank transfer: Pay ‘CPGB’ blowback from US wars along the  Fairness first …8 2015 and August 2017” (ie, 10 Of course, a decent chunk of sort code 08-92-99, account southern rim - the effect was to spread But nothing clicked until Clinton months after election day) and that this week’s total is made up of 65109991. weekly worker 1264 August 15 2019 11 What we fight for constitution is paralyzing democracy New York we are left with is a case of mass attractive woman as well - a research right and that America’s triumph over 1996. n Without organisation the hysteria involving politicians, the assistant calling herself Azra Turk, the Soviets merely put off the reckoning 4. See www.newsweek.com/trump-breaks- working class is nothing; with press and innumerable TV talking who the New York Times would later to another day. orthodoxy-435751; www.newyorker.com/ the highest form of organisation heads. confirm was an FBI spy.22 The upshot is not only an imperial magazine/2016/02/01/the-duel-faceoff-ryan-lizza; https://qz.com/625552/for-a-moment-donald- it is everything. crisis, in which the US is weighed trump-was-the-most-compassionate-candidate-in- n There exists no real Communist Role of CIA Coup d’état? down by wars in the Middle East that tonights-debate. Party today. There are many 5. For the full exchange, see https:// But then there are the intelligence Mueller mentions none of this in his are constantly threatening to explode so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In agencies, which is where the depths report. He also says nothing about into something worse, but much else www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=367&v=gdhgmb0iBRo. reality they are confessional sects. of the American breakdown come Christopher Steele, the ex-MI6 agent besides: a constitutional crisis; a social 6. Top neocons who have lined up behind the Members who disagree with the fully into view. Although the Mueller whose ‘golden showers’ dossier drove crisis, as ‘diseases of despair’ like Chechen rebels include Richard Perle, Elliott prescribed ‘line’ are expected to Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank report manages to say nothing about Russophobia to new heights when suicide and opioid addiction proliferate; gag themselves in public. Either the entire topic, we already know a it was leaked in January 2017. Yet a technological crisis, thanks to climate Gaffney, Michael Ledeen and R James Woolsey. See www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/08/ that or face expulsion. good deal from other sources. people like these - assets, ex-agents, change and overreliance on fossil fuels; usa.russia. For a detailed overview of the US role, n According to a report in The informants, etc - were ubiquitous a housing crisis, as armies of homeless see https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/russia- Communists operate according Guardian, for instance, intelligence throughout the Russiagate saga, as descend on cities like Los Angeles and united-states-chechen-war-geopolitical-battle. to the principles of democratic agencies in Estonia, Poland and they fed information to the press and San Francisco; an economic crisis due to 7. See www.politico.com/story/2015/12/ centralism. Through ongoing debate gop-trump-putin-216949; www.nytimes. we seek to achieve unity in action Germany were exchanging chatter urged on Democrats on Capitol Hill. a widening gap between rich and poor; com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i- about Trump-Russian contacts by late The result had all the earmarks and so on seemingly ad infinitum. All ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton. and a common world outlook. As 2015. The Guardian is not the most of a classic CIA disinformation involve an archaic republican structure html?_r=0. long as they support agreed actions, reliable source, obviously.19 But there campaign - one whose ultimate goal that is over-extended and therefore 8. A Chozick Chasing Hillary: ten years, two members should have the right to presidential campaigns and one intact glass ceiling speak openly and form temporary may be something to it, since various may have been a ‘seven days in May’ breaking down - and, in the process, is New York 2018, p101. intelligence assets were swinging scheme to force Trump to step down. taking society down with it. The US has 9. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjgpsahLa8. or permanent factions. into action by the following March. The New Yorker reported last year, not collapsed yet, but the outlines of a 10. J Allen and A Parnes Shattered: inside Hillary n Communists oppose all impe- This is when a 28-year-old London- for instance, that one plan was for terminal crisis are becoming apparent. Clinton’s doomed campaign New York 2017, rialist wars and occupations but p395. based energy consultant named super-hawk John McCain to confront At root, America is caught up in a 11. www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/ constantly strive to bring to the fore George Papadopoulos signed on as an the president-elect with the Steele legal tangle of almost mind-bending business/media/mueller-report-media. the fundamental question–ending war unpaid Trump foreign-policy advisor dossier “in the hope that Trump would complexity. The claim that “we, the html?searchResultPosition=32. is bound up with ending capitalism. and found himself befriended by resign”.23 It is hard to figure out what people” established the US constitution 12. Adam Schiff, the California congressman who served as the Democratic point man on n Communists are internationalists. an Anglo-Maltese academic named then FBI director James Comey was is a convenient fiction. Meeting in Russiagate, was equally convinced: “Well, look, Everywhere we strive for the closest Joseph Mifsud, who wined and dined up to when he confronted Trump with secret, America’s founders in fact there’s clear evidence of an attempt to collude,” unity and agreement of working class him and told him that Russia had Steele’s more salacious allegations invoked the people in order to give he said in 2017. “The evidence is pretty clear that and progressive parties of all countries. “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form just 10 days prior to inauguration - a the proposed new government an air there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians,” added a no-less-confident We oppose every manifestation of “thousands of emails”. Although strange incident that attorney-general of legitimacy, and it was only after Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. of national sectionalism. It is an the Mueller report hints that Mifsud William Barr is now looking into - this sleight of hand that a new nation See www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/ internationalist duty to uphold the is a Russian asset, the opposite seems but the goal may have been the same arose. Rather than the people creating two-years-of-obsessive-media-coverage-later-the- principle, ‘One state, one party’. to be case: his contacts with western end. Trump’s dismissal of Comey the constitution, in other words, the russian-collusion-conspiracy-theory-falls-apart. 13. Stretch’s testimony before the Senate judiciary n The working class must be intelligence were far-ranging and prompted acting FBI director James constitution created the people - which committee can be found at www.judiciary.senate. 20 organised globally. Without a global deep. McCabe and deputy attorney general means that it is hard to imagine what gov/imo/media/doc/10-31-17%20Stretch%20 Communist Party, a Communist A couple of weeks later, a diplomat Rod Rosenstein to hold a series of would be left of American identity if the Testimony.pdf. See also https://techcrunch. friend invited Papadopoulos to have ‘crisis meetings’ in May 2017, in constitution were somehow removed. com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend. International, the struggle against 14. www.nytimes.com/2018/02/16/world/europe/ drinks with Alexander Downer, which they also discussed forcing It would be rather like Islam without capital is weakened and lacks prigozhin-russia-indictment-mueller.html. coordination. Australia’s high commissioner, or out Trump - this time via the 25th the Qur’an or Christianity without the 15. D Lazare, ‘Concord management and the ambassador, to the UK, who also amendment. Gospels - the concept would simply end of Russiagate?’ Consortium News July n Communists have no interest appears to have intelligence links. Such a remedy may seem collapse. 12: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/07/12/ apart from the working class concord-management-and-the-end-of- as a whole. They differ only in (He is a former director of a private constitutional, but it is not. The 25th Similarly, article five - the clause russiagate/#comments. See also www.law.com/ London intelligence firm known as amendment - adopted two years after that allows just 4.4% of the population nationallawjournal/2019/07/08/judge-warns- recognising the importance of Hakluyt and Co, which is closely the 1963 Kennedy assassination - to veto any and all constitutional change prosecutors-about-public-statements-in-case- Marxism as a guide to practice. associated with ex-MI6 chief Richard deals with the problem of presidential - is not just a law either, but holy writ against-russian-firm. That theory is no dogma, but 16. “The DNC had a standard email spam-filtering must be constantly added to and Dearlove.) After Papadopoulos let incapacitation due to illness, injury that the chosen people have no choice service, intended to block phishing attacks and 24 slip about Clinton’s emails, Downer or the like. It outlines a complex but to obey. If it says that fundamental malware created to resemble legitimate email. enriched. informed Canberra, which informed procedure, in which the vice-president structural change is out of the question, But, when Russian hackers started in on the DNC, n Capitalism in its ceaseless Washington, thereby triggering a and a majority of the president’s that abolishing the Electoral College the committee did not have the most advanced systems in place to track suspicious traffic, search for profit puts the future formal FBI investigation. cabinet must first certify that “the or democratising the US is impossible, internal DNC memos show” (www.nytimes. of humanity at risk. Capitalism is Thus, western intelligence assets president is unable to discharge the then that is that - in the absence of a com/2016/12/13/us/politics/russia-hack-election- synonymous with war, pollution, appear to have planted the seeds powers and duties of his office” and higher authority, there is no basis for dnc.html?searchResultPosition=8). exploitation and crisis. As a global for Russiagate and then enlisted the which Congress must then confirm appeal. Americans cannot democratise 17. Special counsel Robert S Mueller III Report on the investigation into Russian interference in system capitalism can only be FBI. Three other such assets tried by a two-thirds vote. But what is the political structure, because a the 2016 presidential election Washington 2019, superseded globally. to cultivate Papadopoulos as well: important is that incapacitation was few dozen merchants, lawyers and Vol 1, pp42-46: https://www.documentcloud.org/ n The capitalist class will never Stefan Halper, an ex-CIA man who the last word to describe Trump at that slaveholders forbade them to some 230 documents/5955118-The-Mueller-Report.html. willingly allow their wealth and still took on jobs for the agency; point - a man who, in the eyes of his years ago. 18. See https://caucus99percent.com/content/ how-did-crowdstrikeguccifer-20-know- power to be taken away by a Sergei Millian, a Belorussian- critics, was all too capable of selling But this is impossible as well. No wikileaks-was-planning-release-dnc-emails. For parliamentary vote. American, who was a source for the out the country to the Russians. This parchment document can prevent a an excellent summary of the holes in Mueller’s Christopher Steele ‘golden showers’ may seem like an academic fine point. society from saving itself. The only account, see www.realclearinvestigations.com/ n We will use the most militant dossier; and an Israeli-American But twisting the clear meaning of the question is when and how events will articles/2019/07/05/crowdstrikeout_muellers_ methods objective circumstances own_report_undercuts_its_core_russia-meddling_ allow to achieve a federal republic businessman named Charles Tawil, constitution in order to force out a force the people - led, of course, by the claims.html. whom a 2006 diplomatic cable sitting president, while sidestepping working class - to do the unthinkable 19. See www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/ of England, Scotland and Wales, describes as a US intelligence source. the impeachment mechanism, means by removing archaic institutions that apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team- a united, federal Ireland and a Halper paid Papadopoulos $3,000 to putting a legal gloss on what is little are dragging it down. No-one knows, links-russia. Luke Harding, the author of United States of Europe. Collusion: secret meetings, dirty money and how write a paper about oil drilling in the more than a coup d’état. Attorney although the process is unquestionably Russia helped Donald Trump win (New York n Communists favour industrial eastern Mediterranean and then flew Alan Dershowitz described it as “a accelerating, thanks to the Russiagate 2017), was one of the authors of that article and unions. Bureaucracy and class him to London. Millian offered to pay despicable act of unconstitutional debacle and Trump. he was also the lead writer on an equally spurious compromise must be fought and him $30,000 a month under the table power-grabbing”25 - one that was only Be practical - demand the impossible. Guardian story alleging that Paul Manafort the trade unions transformed into met repeatedly with Assange inside Ecuador’s if he continued working for Trump. forestalled when Trump agreed under It is out of such contradictions that London embassy. See www.theguardian.com/ schools for communism. Tawil presented him with $10,000 in extreme duress to appoint Mueller as revolutions are born l us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks- n Communists are champions of cash, which Papadopoulos was smart special prosecutor. with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy; and https:// the oppressed. Women’s oppression, enough to leave with a Thessaloniki Dershowitz’s name is poison in Daniel Lazare blogs at https:// theintercept.com/2019/01/02/five-weeks-after- the-guardians-viral-blockbuster-assangemanafort- combating racism and chauvinism, lawyer before flying to Dallas, where certain quarters, but on this he could not Daniellazare.com. scoop-no-evidence-has-emerged-just- and the struggle for peace and an FBI team was waiting to place him have been more correct: the McCabe- stonewalling. ecological sustainability are just 21 under arrest. Rosenstein discussions show the Notes 20. Stephan Roh, a Swiss-German lawyer as much working class questions The obvious goal was to entrap degree to which normal constitutional who hired Mifsud as a consultant, writes in 1. Based on projections by the Demographics a self-published book that he has “only one as pay, trade union rights and Papadopoulos and then use him procedures were coming undone. Research Group at the University of Virginia’s master: the western political, diplomatic and demands for high-quality health, to entrap other Trump campaign The bureaucracy was in revolt, the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, 52.6% intelligence world, his only home, of which [sic] housing and education. he is still deeply dependent”. Mifsud has been workers. Papadopoulos says Mifsud FBI was contemplating seizing the of the US will live in just nine states by the year n introduced him to a young Russian reins of power, while ex-CIA director 2040. Instead of 68 to one, the ratio between photographed with Boris Johnson and veteran Socialism represents victory the most and least populous state - by this point diplomat Claire Smith, a top British intelligence in the battle for democracy. It is named Olga Polonskaya, whom he John Brennan was muttering darkly California and Vermont - will be nearly 79 to one. official, with whom he taught a course for Italian falsely billed as Putin’s niece (the on Capitol Hill about treason in high the rule of the working class. The Senate is thus growing more unrepresentative, military and law-enforcement personnel in Rome. Socialism is either democratic or, Russian president does not have a places: “Frequently, people who hence more anti-urban, racist, homophobic, etc, See SC Roh and T Pastor The Papadopoulos case: niece). He says Halper bombarded go along a treasonous path do not etc, rather than less. See https://demographics. an investigative analysis London 2018, chapter 4; as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it him with leading questions: know they are on a treasonous path coopercenter.org/index.php/national-population- see also the Mueller report, Vol 1, p83. turns into its opposite. projections. 21. G Papadopoulos Deep state target: how I got n until it is too late,” he told the House 2. The exception is the 27th amendment, which caught in the crosshairs of the plot to bring down Socialism is the first stage It’s great that Russia is helping intelligence committee.26 And it was shows how ridiculous such hoary old procedures president Trump New York 2019, pp99-111, 114, of the worldwide transition to you and the campaign, right, all because Trump was allegedly soft have become. Drafted by James Madison in 1789 161-63. For the diplomatic cable describing Tawil communism–a system which as part of the original Bill of Rights, it says that, as a US source, see www.wikileaks.org/plusd/ knows neither wars, exploitation, George? George, you and your on the empire’s enemy du jour. while members of Congress can raise their own cables/06PRETORIA5018_a.html. campaign are involved in hacking salaries, the change cannot go through until after 22. Ibid pp101, 105, 107; see also www.nytimes. money, classes, states nor nations. and working with Russia, right? It Overstretch the next election. The measure initially failed to com/2019/05/02/us/politics/fbi-government- Communism is general freedom seems like you are a middleman A once-mighty republic was in growing win approval from enough states. But then Ohio investigator-trump.html?searchResultPosition=1. and the real beginning of human signed on in 1873, while other states clambered 23. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/ history. for Trump and Russia, right? I disarray. Thirty years earlier, historian on board, beginning in the 1970s. A University christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump- know you know about the emails. Paul Kennedy had warned of the of Texas student named Gregory Watson wrote dossier. The Weekly Worker is licensed by problem of “imperial overstretch” in a paper about it in 1982 - for which he received 24. Full text available at https://constitutionus. November Publications under a Creative “I don’t know what the fuck you’re his bestselling Rise and fall of the great a ‘C’ - and then began circulating it among state com/?t=Amendments. Commons Attribution-NonCommercial legislatures. It finally passed the 38-state threshold 25. For the full exchange, see www.youtube.com/ 4.0 International Licence: http:// talking about,” Papadopoulos says he powers. He was ignored, as American in 1992 - more than two centuries after it was watch?time_continue=168&v=Tqfzz7odWfs. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ replied. power ascended to new heights. Now, drafted. 26. www.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/us/politics/ legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. Halper introduced him to an however, we can see that Kennedy was 3. D Lazare The frozen republic: how the john-brennan-russia-trump-campaign-cia.html. No 1264 August 15 2019 Parliamentary cretinism on full display

No playing by Queensberry Rules The political establishment now faces a blunt choice of either crashing out of the EU or forming a national government, writes Eddie Ford ith the Brexit clock ticking country, but still retain free movement loudly, Jeremy Corbyn with member-states, is a non-starter. W wrote last week to Sir As we can see, Boris Johnson is Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, not on the phone day and night to complaining about what Boris Johnson EU leaders, nor are his civil servants seems to be proposing: refusing to in Brussels engaged in intense resign if he loses a no-confidence negotiations. The writing is on the wall motion and instead calling a general for a disorderly no deal on October 31 election after October 31 - probably in - unless the anti-Brexiteers get their act early November. together and cohere around a common According to the Labour leader, plan. this would be an “unprecedented, unconstitutional and anti-democratic Volatility abuse of power” and he went on to The establishment is now confronted demand “urgent clarification” of the by a blunt choice: either Britain rules around so-called ‘purdah’, which crashes out of the EU on October 31 are meant to prevent the government or the political establishment prevents taking major policy decisions during it through the formation of a national an election campaign. Now Corbyn government. This would include Tory is proposing a no-confidence vote remainers like Philip Hammond, the and relying on Tory, Lib Dem and Liberal Democrats, Caroline Lucas of SNP votes to form a “temporary the Green Party and maybe the Scottish government” to stop Boris Johnson’s National Party - but also the PLP right. a no-deal Brexit. He would be prime This might not add up to a thumping minister. Panic sets in amongst the Remainers majority, but could be sufficient for the If you want an example of task in hand. parliamentary cretinism, then Corbyn’s is certain is that any cobbled-together about a “clear majority”, a majority resurgent UK Independence Party and Who will lead this government? approach is hard to beat. Yes, what alternative government within the 14- of one is actually all that is needed. split the Labour Party - things did not For whatever reason, the name ‘Keir Johnson has in mind is undemocratic day ‘cooling off’ period laid down Surely the real significance of Long- go exactly to script, especially from Starmer’ keeps turning up in this in the sense that it is explicitly going by the FTPA, which is the only way Bailey’s statement lies in the fact that the viewpoint of the establishment and context - along with Yvette Cooper and against the will of parliament. Then to get out of this Brexit hole, will not Corbyn supporters in the Commons big business. Considering the opinion Hilary Benn. But Hammond might be again, parliament did vote to trigger be led by Jeremy Corbyn - just forget know that their own numbers do not polls and the economic downturn, in the running too, particularly after he article 50 - Jeremy Corbyn himself it. If in doubt, ask those dissident add up to more than 20. They are a tiny plus the general political mood of the said on August 14 that no deal would be was demanding back in June 2016 Tories, Liberal Democrats or Labour minority within the PLP and, having country, things do not look particularly a “betrayal of the referendum” and any that it must be “invoked now” - and it rightwingers who might be prepared done the wider arithmetic, they do not auspicious for those who want to attempt to bypass parliament would did support extending the process to to bring down the Johnson government want anything to do with a SANDB reverse Brexit - which, of course, is the provoke “a constitutional crisis”. October 31. And, of course, Labour’s - they will never back such a move. national government ... precisely only reason why the anti-Brexiteers But it has to be someone acceptable 2017 election manifesto did say the In other words, all talk of a national because it is also about stopping a want a second referendum or ‘final to all sides, making the most likely party “accepts the referendum result”. government is not only about stopping Corbyn government. say’. They would not be so keen on candidate less than obvious. The idea Furthermore, the government could Brexit: it is also about preventing a Perhaps it is not entirely an accident the idea if they thought it would not go has even been floated of Caroline argue with relative ease that leaving the Corbyn-led Labour government. that the Morning Star ran an editorial their way. Lucas becoming acting prime minister European Union on October 31 would urging non-participation in a national Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has - though she did herself no favours not be a “major policy” decision, as it Winging it government, as that would represent cancelled holiday leave for all his with her daft idea of forming an all- has already been agreed by MPs and is In this context, the recent Channel 4 “the defeat of the socialist left” and ‘spads’ (special advisors) and has female emergency government (that set in law. interview with Rebecca Long-Bailey, “surrender of control of the Labour told civil servants that the main thing was also all-white!). Therefore the idea that the prime the shadow business secretary, was Party to the right” (August 6). Losing to concentrate on is the October 31 With a general election coming minister is being “unconstitutional” is quite interesting. She said that “we a “significant number of MPs, argues deadline - nothing else really matters. soon, opinion polls are providing a simply wrong: rather he is exploiting wouldn’t countenance a national the paper, “would do less damage Anyone who thinks that some dramatic mixed picture. Most have the Tories the voids and ambiguities in the Fixed- government of unity”, as that would than meek participation in such a 11th-hour deal will be struck with the ahead, but not by much. Yes, there has Term Parliament Act (FTPA). Do we “need to have a clear majority” in government”. We wholeheartedly EU is clutching at straws. No meetings been a ‘Boris bounce’ of sorts, as he expect Johnson to follow Queensberry parliament. Otherwise Boris Johnson agree with this statement - which is are lined up between Johnson and the has eaten into the support of the Brexit Rules and step aside for the opposition would get “some sort of ‘get out of not something we often say about EU and there is no movement on either Party (which could be lumbered with like a gentleman? Maybe there will be jail free’ card”, because, “as soon as the Morning Star: there should be side. It took years for May to negotiate an unfortunate name post-October 31). a judicial review - more than 70 MPs Brexit’s been sorted out, he can sail no support for, or participation in, a her withdrawal agreement, so the idea On the other hand, Labour is either and peers in Scotland have mounted a back in without any problems at all, national government full stop. that Johnson will get the backstop narrowly ahead in a few other polls. legal challenge against the proroguing without a sufficient parliamentary Whether such a government removed and strike a new deal before It would be foolish to underestimate of parliament - but the anti-Brexiteers majority”.1 John McDonnell made would hold a second referendum is October 31 is unicorn thinking. In Jeremy Corbyn - his message of appear to be running out of options: similar - albeit a bit obfuscatory doubtful. Recent such polls have not the real world, the EU will never radical reform could resonate again, as they lack the ideological cohesion, - remarks, when he said that any done what they are supposed to do - agree to having an open border with it did in 2017 l conviction and passion of the Brexiteer government formed if Boris Johnson ie, give overwhelming affirmation to a non-member country. It originally camp. is defeated in parliament “would the people asking the question. You agreed the backstop as a concession [email protected] But, on the other side, Corbyn and be a Labour government” aimed at only have to look at Scotland, which to the British government, as that his allies seem increasingly aware stopping a no-deal Brexit, because the was a near-run thing, and then David would mean two years or more where Notes of what - as far as the establishment party “wouldn’t enter into coalitions or Cameron’s disastrous decision to call Britain essentially remains within the 1. www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political- is concerned - is the only viable pacts”. a referendum in order to stave off structures of the EU. But for Britain parties/labour-party/news/105795/rebecca-long- alternative to a crashout Brexit, which Regarding Long-Bailey’s statement his right wing, deal with a seemingly to leave the EU, become a foreign bailey-says-labour-will-not-join. is opposed by an overwhelming majority in parliament and big Subscribe Name:______Standing order business. 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