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The Two Phases of Communism Weekly 2 August 15 2019 1264 Worker LETTERS

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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).
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