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Letters may have been and the difference between the two is no families in mixed clan groupings. In before. The assertion that the proletariat, shortened because of more than the difference between speech central Asia, 30,000 years ago, bands of Miners in contrast to all previous class struggles, space. Some names bubbles of various shapes in a comic foragers came together and hunted from Dave Douglass has forgotten nothing, pursues its battles not in order to establish  may have been changed strip. Note, for example, that the notion a common ‘base camp’, where in that but by equal measure has learnt class domination, but to abolish all class of ‘truth’ would be impossible without cold climate somebody also invented nothing. Speaking on behalf of all domination. It is not a mere phrase … Distorted language. (For this view, see the very the method of keeping meat frozen in “battle-hardened, class-conscious It is an illusion, then, to think that the Chris Knight gives a completely interesting book by Wolfram Hinzen and large dug-outs (Finlayson, 2009). This coalminers”, he criticises our errors proletariat can create economic power distorted picture of Noam Chomsky’s Michelle Sheehan, The philosophy of ‘Gravettian’ culture, in achieving a and misjudgements during the miners’ within capitalist society. It can only view on the origin of human language. universal grammar Oxford 2013.) surplus which was location-specific, 1984-85 Great Strike (Letters, February create political power and then transform Knight claims that Chomsky is “arguing Note that the human language faculty became more settled - an innovation in 5 2015). Basically what they amount to (aufheben) capitalist property.” that humans are so utterly different also consists of subsystems which in safety which it probably wasn’t hard to are: If Macnair were to be honest, he from apes or monkeys that the question themselves are not devoted to language, convince the majority to accept. Same 1. Calling for the widening of the would have to admit that he not merely of evolution is irrelevant” (‘What can and which we share with other animals. with herding and agriculture - examples strategic battle between the Thatcher disagrees with Luxemburg, but indeed chimpanzees teach us about human One of them is memory, the other a of which were associated with and government and the National Union agrees with Bernstein - and not Marx. nature?’, February 5). capacity to categorise the outside world. therefore owned by some leading family, of Mineworkers by drawing in other Macnair has no use for Marx’s writings This is utter nonsense. Evolution is, Then there are the perceptual and motor like those of Abraham or Odysseus. sections of the working class. on the 1848 revolution, such as The of course, very relevant, and Chomsky systems, which are used to externalise Separate human societies probably 2. Thinking that a national strike ballot class struggles in France 1848-50, the has never denied it. Humans and apes linguistic expressions: hearing and developed differently and attained would have been advisable. ‘Address to the central committee of or monkeys and, in fact, all the species speech as the most common of them, an evolutionary advantage over other 3. Attacking the idea that nationalised the Communist League’, and The 18th of ‘higher’ vertebrates are very similar. sight and signing for deaf people, groupings, even without war. It is now industries were somehow ‘ours’. Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, nor for Taking a more abstract viewpoint of and even touch for deaf-blind, as, for accepted that Neanderthals were not Comrade Douglass says “we” had much of Marx’s and Engels’ Communist theoretical biology, the same is true of all example, the fate of Helen Keller shows. killed off by homo sapiens but died a strategy - indeed, he says “we”, with manifesto or Marx’s later political the living organisms: the existing forms One of the major tasks of linguistic out on their own. Down the millennia the help of brick-throwing anarchists, writings, such as The civil war in France of life have developed from earlier ones. inquiry is to sort out which component there have been losses and gains with “were winning”. Actually, of course, and Critique of the Gotha programme, This is evolution, an observational and, parts in the human faculty of language each development, but the sociable comrade Douglass is speaking on behalf on which Luxemburg, Lenin and Trotsky after the discovery of the genetic code, are specifically devoted to language, human can be convinced to accept that of no-one except himself. That aside, based their perspectives. But the 1848-50 also an undisputable descriptive fact of and which of them are shared with other a loss in one area is a gain in comfort or maybe he should take a little time to writings were dismissed by Kautsky as nature. physiological functions. security, especially if the arrangement think through a few problems with his those of Marx and Engels “before they The fact that humans have a specific Chris Knight’s story on the origin of is endorsed by compelling religion endlessly repeated account. turned 30”, on the basis of which Kautsky capacity - the faculty of language - does human language is sympathetic, but it and power-politics. In needing to be 1. The miners lost in 1984-85. They said sneeringly that the “communist not make us “utterly different”, any is just that - a story with no scientific convinced though - by mythologies and were left isolated by the TUC and theoreticians” like Lukács produced more than the capacity for echolocation basis. The greatest problem with tales new visions, by ideology - the human Labour Party misleaders. a “series of absurdities” in a “childish in some species of bats separates them like that is that they don’t analyse the animal shows that they are not inevitably 2. If you cannot get people to vote for game” (‘A destroyer of vulgar Marxism’, from the rest of nature. The sophisticated structure of human language at all. committed to one path. In being able to you, it is unlikely they will be willing to 1924). This is what Macnair accuses me ability of migratory birds to navigate, Such an analysis requires hard scientific change their mind, they show they are fight for you. That there were so many of doing. It is consistent with Macnair’s the behaviour of social insects, and all work. But without such an analysis it is not fleshy robots. scabs in Notts, the NUM’s second approach, which Luxemburg called the the specific properties of the various impossible to present any even slightly Our job now is to convince the largest area, was a huge problem. revisionist “opportunist method.” species of living creatures have evolved, reasonable account on how nature gave human animal that it would be better 3. Arguments about coal (and steel) Macnair adopts the Bernsteinian ultimately, from unicellular organisms. us the wonderful ability to organise our - more sociable, more self-satisfying being ‘ours’ came from the top. revisionist method of the supposed The tough question is how. thoughts and make them understandable - to try something other than living in Leaving aside Arthur Scargill, I am sure linear-progressive development of Chris Knight refers to the version to our fellow humans. an increasingly broken-down society, comrade Douglass has heard of Mick “evolutionary socialism”, in which of a lecture in Delhi (January 1996), Hannu Reime under the vampires of capital and the McGahey, George Bolton, Pete Carter, the “movement is everything and the where Chomsky writes about a “strange Helsinki mythologists of national community. Emlyn Williams and Kim Howells. goal nothing” because the movement cosmic ray shower [which] reorganised Mike Belbin They equated nationalisation with absorbs the goal, and thus Macnair the brain, implanting a language organ Losses and gains email common ownership and their dream of like Bernstein identifies the goal with in an otherwise primate brain”. This is In his discussion of the basis for human a British road to socialism. the movement rather than recognising, not science, Knight writes, but a slightly nature, I’m glad to see Chris Knight is Check your facts Jack Conrad as Marxists did, the real contradictions disguised biblical miracle account of focusing on the bonobos, those smaller In his article, ‘A well-ordered militia’ London that emerge between means and ends, human origins. relatives of the chimps. I also find myself (February 5), Jack Conrad, defending practice and theory, and social being He fails, however, to mention that convinced by his speculation about the the classic Marxist idea of the workers’ Bernsteinian and consciousness in capitalism. This Chomsky calls his “cosmic ray account” differences between the two primate militia, cites what he refers to as the I would not call Mike Macnair’s demands a dialectical approach to the a fairy tale. The whole point of the groups being down to the difference in “second stanza” (actually it’s the fifth) historiography “garbage”, as he labels struggle for socialism that Macnair passage is ironic: because of the lack of food habitat. of ‘The Internationale’. mine (Letters, January 29), because dismisses, as Bernstein and Kautsky evidence, all accounts on the origin of Of course, there is another difference May I point out that the English it is as good as far as it goes. I would did, substituting apologetics for Marxian human language are just stories. But a worth addressing: as geneticist Steve translation he cites (with some very only raise what Macnair leaves out, critical theory. For Macnair, the struggle relatively sudden emergence of language Jones has pointed out, bonobos have small typographical variations) was which I would not oppose to Macnair’s for democracy in the workers’ collective as a result of a genetic mutation in one largely separated sex and reproduction. made by myself, and was published perspective, but seek only to add to it. movement is a direct political line to of our ancestors some 75,000 to 100,000 Females choose to have sex not in the Socialist Worker diary for 1985. Perhaps it complicates it, but it does socialism, understood as democratic years ago might be more plausible than only when in heat and fertile, but for So I and the Socialist Workers Party of not necessarily “contradict” it. I have republicanism in society. Anything else a slow evolution during hundreds of recreation at other times, with both the 1980s, if not that of today, should tried to find what is useful in Macnair’s - anything contradictory - is understood thousands or millions of years. genders. In fact, the bonobos are famous not be numbered among the “cowardly, observations. He only dismisses mine. merely as an error based on the purported The same time frame of somewhat for their use of sexual play in all kinds economistic left”, whom Conrad Fine, then: opposition it is. Non- competing principle of bourgeois less than 100,000 years ago is also the of interactions. They often make love in denounces so vigorously. dialectically and polemically. individualism. Macnair thus identifies period when the first archaeological preference to fighting, unlike chimps, I realise that for people like Jack If I were to be honest, I would have socialism with democracy. evidence of symbolic behaviour, art, etc while like humans they do it face to face. Conrad it is psychologically very to admit that I derive my approach from For Luxemburg, such an affirmative on the part of our ancestors appeared, They are a more egalitarian and pacific important to believe that they alone hold Rosa Luxemburg’s pamphlet Reform or and not critical approach to bourgeois starting what paleoanthropologists call cousin all round. the truth and that everyone else on the revolution? and related writings, and social and political relations in capitalism a “creative explosion”. About 50,000 That other relative of the chimp, left is a coward or a traitor. Although that I accept Luxemburg’s claim to be was understandable, if not forgivable, years later, the hunter-gatherers of Cro- the hominin or human, also separated it doesn’t do much for comradely following Marx contra Bernsteinian for Bernstein et al in a period of rising Magnon people were surely like us - sexuality and fertility. The species relations, at least it provides a warm revisionism and, later, contra Kautsky. proletarian socialist organisation and anatomically and behaviourally modern achieved this even more effectively feeling inside. But please check your As Michael Harrington quoted consciousness. But that can hardly be humans. It is reasonable to suppose that by losing that natural signal of fertility, facts first. Luxemburg in his essay on ‘Marxism said of Macnair’s perspective today. this “creative explosion” had something perineal swelling, through evolution into Ian Birchall and democracy’ (1981): What Macnair leaves out and seeks to to do with the emergence of the faculty standing upright. Unlike chimps, male North London “Marx proved that each political repress about the history of Marxism is of language in humans. hominins didn’t know when females movement of a social class has a more important than what he says about As for the characterisation of were fertile and therefore couldn’t Self-appointed specific, economic basis. And he showed it. He thus conceals more than he reveals. language as an organ, this is innocuous as concentrate energy on corralling them I am not a Left Unity moderate. Where that all previous classes in history had Macnair is not a Marxist, but, like long as the term ‘organ’ is taken to mean at those times against rivals. What I differ with you is that you apply achieved economic power before Bernstein and Kautsky before him, an a system that can be studied in a relative is also possible is that a closeness of analysis derived from quite different they succeeded in winning political ideologist for democracy. Such ideology isolation from the rest of an organic bonobo-type physical relations may have historical circumstances to today. There power. This is the model which David, showed its limits in 1848: hence the need whole. So the respiratory, circulatory promoted solidarity, while those hands are no Squadristi, no Sturmabteilung Woltmann and Bernstein apply slavishly for Marxism, which was not opposed to and digestive systems together can be which were no longer feet were freed to and no flying pickets on the horizon; to contemporary social relations. And democracy, but recognised the need in said to form the organ of metabolism. make tools, throw spears, create art. This we are not in an era of socialist it demonstrates that they have not socialism to go beyond it. Chomsky has always criticised the is not to say that any group equilibrium, insurrection. This is not the inter-war understood either the earlier struggles Chris Cutrone very common view of human language with no single dominant alpha male, period. or those taking place today. What does it email as an organ of communication, stressing as with chimps, couldn’t be disrupted I am not saying wait for the pre- mean that the earlier classes, particularly that language is first and foremost an - that is, relations altered by new forces revolutionary situation, but wait for the third estate, conquered economic Perishable organ of thought. Language can be used of production. the class struggle to involve the type of power before political power? Nothing Possibly there is an astrological for communication, but it can also be I agree with Chris: humans are conflicts which make a workers’ militia more than the historical fact that all explanation as to why otherwise normal used for many other purposes. Basically, sociable and enjoy sociability, making relevant. Marxists are not fortune- previous class struggles must be derived and sane people seek to defend Gilad language permits “the free expression of for a closer group, but another thing tellers, but insisting on programmatic from the economic fact that the rising Atzmon, despite the abundance of thought over an unbounded range” (for about them is that they could also have demands that are not raised by struggle class has at the same time created a new evidence relating to his anti-Semitism. this quotation by Chomsky, see CP Otero been much weaker, relatively speaking, makes you look as if you believe you are form of property, upon which it will base Either that or stupidity - I will leave it (ed) Language and politics Oakland than other animals - the big cat, the some kind of self-appointed vanguard its class domination … to your readers to decide which of the 2004, p251). mammoth, even the alpha chimp - and possessing a set of timeless truths. “Now I ask, can this model be above best explains Ted Rankin’s and Some scholars go even further and so may have faced the necessity of At the moment, economic violence, applied to our relationships? No. Harry Powell’s letter denying that the say that linguistic expressions are, in inventing advantages. Some of these not violent coercion, is what western Precisely because to chatter about the jazzman is anti-Semitic and praising his fact, identical with thoughts: there is inventions might be useful for all - workers need a defence against. economic might of the proletariat is to “brilliant book” (February 5). no thought without language. Thoughts cooking, fishing. Some might have been John Tummon ignore the great difference between our Those who sought to eradicate are simply silent linguistic expressions, commandeered by chiefs or particular email class struggle and all those which went Atzmon’s influence in the Palestine BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 020 7241 1756 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly 3 worker 1045 February 12 2015

solidarity movement never, at any stage, Where do you stand, comrades? Can I must say, it all smacks of Trotsky’s sought to ban Atzmon from airing his the LRC majority, Socialist Resistance Transitional programme. First it’s anti- views - still less to deny him the right and the AWL not distance themselves austerity, then we’ll get to opposing CPGB podcasts to earn a living playing jazz. However, even now from the far right of US Nato membership and imperialist Every Monday we upload a podcast commenting on the current there is no doubt as to Atzmon’s anti- imperialism and get behind the liberal wars and later form a workers’ state. political situation. In addition, the site features voice files of public Semitic credentials. If messrs Rankin bourgeoisie and European capitalism in And apparently there will be radical meetings and other events: http://cpgb.org.uk/home/podcasts. and Powell believe such accusations seeking to avoid war? inspiration across Europe - I cannot are a result of out-of-context, truncated We do not set any unachievable goals see it somehow. London Communist Forum quotations, then they can refer directly for you. No demands that you rise to He got enthusiastic applause at Sunday February 15, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB to my ‘Guide to the sayings of Gilad the political level of Karl Liebknecht the end from the audience of around Provisional Central Committee, followed by open discussion and Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman’ and seek the defeat of your own ruling 80. Illusions in a Syriza government Capital reading group. Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London (http://azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/ class. We are even conceding it is OK for delivering its promises have got people WC1. This meeting: Vol 1, appendix: ‘Results of the immediate guide-to-sayings-of-gilad-atzmon-anti. you to wrongly designate Russia as an very excited - although one naysayer process of production’ (continued). html). imperialist power, to make it easier for (I was told he was the son of a Pasok Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk. Perhaps Atzmon’s statement that you to adopt a pseudo-Leninist mutual member) said the reason for the Greek Radical Anthropology Group “I do not wish to enter the debate defeatist policy. But such politics are Communist Party’s behaviour, which Introduction to anthropology regarding the truth of the holocaust” has obviously a distant memory for you now. comrade Kouvelakis described as Tuesday February 17, 6.30pm: ‘My recent stay with the Hadza of been taken out of context. Perhaps the We do not ask you to support the “sectarian”, was its difference over the Tanzania’. Speaker: James Woodburn. Cock Tavern, 23 Phoenix Road, same applies to his statement in Truth, Donbass. You are obviously far too far EU and euro membership. London NW1. Talks are free, but small donations are welcome. history and integrity: “If the Nazis ran now from revolutionary socialism to Justin Constantinou Organised by Radical Anthropology Group: a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, take such a step and become the anti- Cambridge http://radicalanthropologygroup.org why would the Jewish prisoners join patriotic revolutionaries that all true them at the end of the war? We should international socialists are. We do not No surprises The sensory war 1914-2014 ask for some conclusive historical ask you to put the interests of the global The Rugby Trade Unionist and Ends Sunday February 22: Exhibition, Manchester Art Gallery, evidence and arguments rather than working class before the outlook of your Socialist Coalition is not surprised Mosley Street, Manchester M2. The impact of military conflict on the follow a religious narrative ...” Or own narrow trade union bureaucracy. to discover today that papers handed body, mind, environment and human senses between 1914 and 2014. “Why were the Jews hated? Why did That is obviously too much to ask now. to BBC Panorama and other media Organised by Manchester Art Gallery: www.manchestergalleries.org. European people stand up against their The very idea that the best interests outlets show that the HSBC bank, After Charlie Hebdo next-door neighbours? Why are the of the Ukrainian working class are best through its Swiss subsidiary, has helped Thursday February 12, 6.30pm: Meeting, Camden Centre, Judd Jews hated in the Middle East?” (Note served by the defeat of Kiev, that the its clients evade taxation. Street, London WC1: ‘Islamophobia and the war on terror’. how Atzmon seamlessly weaves the Donbass leaders themselves fear that It was the bankers who caused the Organised by Stop the War Coalition: http://stopwar.org.uk. Jews of Europe with the Israeli Jews’ because they fear their own working so-called economic crisis in the first treatment of the Palestinians. Both, after class more, hence the kidnapping and place by lending money they did not Save Hartlepool Hospital all, are unpopular!) exile of the Borotba revolutionary have. These same bankers, like many Saturday February 14, 11am: Rally, Victory Square, Hartlepool, part Apparently there is no “conclusive socialists, is far too complicated for other wealthy people, have always of the national day of action for the NHS. historical evidence” as to the existence true patriots, who see only what the found ways of avoiding paying their Supported by Teesside People’s Assembly: of the extermination camps. Perhaps bureaucratic Len McCluskey sees. We taxes - legally through tax avoidance www.facebook.com/TeessidePA. the Auschwitz protocols of two Jewish do not ask it of you. schemes or illegally by tax evasion. It is Solidarity with Greece escapees, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred The idea that by far the best thing for clear from the documents handed over Sunday February 15, 1pm: Demonstration, Trafalgar Square, Wetzler, is not sufficient? the British and American working class that the bank helped wealthy clients to London WC2. In his “brilliant” book, The is defeat in the Ukraine is very far from illegally evade tax worth billions of Organised by Greece Solidarity Campaign: http://greecesolidarity.org wandering who?, Atzmon informs us your minds. How soon we forget the pounds throughout the world, including that “The never-ending theft of Palestine Vietnam syndrome and the great leftist 7,000 clients based in Britain. Miners drama Wednesday February 18, 7.30pm: Theatre performance, Sheffield in the name of the Jewish people is part impulse this gave to the global working The records go back to 2007, when Trades and Labour Club, Duke Street, Sheffield, S2. The Miners’ of a spiritual, ideological, cultural and class after 1975, despite the liberal Labour was in government, so they Great Strike on stage with the Red Ladder Theatre Company. £7 (£4 practical continuum between the Bible, patriotism of the ‘Bring our boys home’ are no less guilty than the Tories in not concessions). Zionist ideology and the state of Israel peaceniks. The wisdom that defeat of seeking ways to prevent this happening. Organised by Red ladder: www.redladder.co.uk/whatson/going-back. … Israel and Zionism, both successful imperialism in a foreign war opens up Tax evasion and avoidance by wealthy political systems, have instituted the revolutionary possibilities is obviously individuals and companies costs the Has capitalism killed fashion? plunder promised by the Hebrew god long gone from the consciousness of British economy over £120 billion Saturday February 21, 12 noon to 6pm: Discussion, Cafe 1001, The Old in the Judaic holy scriptures.” those who once understood it. a year - collection of these revenues Truman Brewery, London E1. Part of Alternative London Fashion Week. Some of us see Israel’s theft of But at least join the peaceniks and would be enough on their own to pay Organised by Brick Lane Debates and War on Want: Palestinian land as being a consequence protest the launching of World War off the country’s economic deficit and www.facebook.com/events/432981450200249. of it being a settler-colonial state. III from the standpoint of British avoid public spending cuts. No arms for Israel Atzmon sees it as a product of the liberalism; you cannot continue as the The present Tory-Lib Dem Tuesday February 24, 7pm: Film screening, Passing Clouds, 1 Judaic god. agents of Joe Biden and his son’s oil government cannot hide behind Labour Richmond Road, Dalston, London E8: The lab, documentary about Atzmon, anti-Semitic? Perish the and gas company in the Donbass, or on this one. Her Majesty’s Revenue Israeli arms trade. Followed by Q&A. thought. still follow the vision of John McCain, and Customs recently informed the Organised by Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Tony Greenstein the modern-day Doctor Strangelove. government they had only contacted one https://hackneypsc.wordpress.com. Brighton Salvage some measure of self- in six people who were UK residents, respect even now after the disgrace of but had money in HSBC Switzerland. Greece: a way out? Don’t ask supporting imperialism in Libya, Syria Only small amounts of taxation have Wednesday February 25, 7pm: Meeting, John Smith house, 145/165 We do not ask the impossible, and the EuroMaidan. been collected. It is even the case that West Regent Street, Glasgow G2: ‘Austerity in Europe and Greece - is comrades of the Labour Representation ‎Gerry Downing HMRC and the government agreed there a way out?’ Speaker: Hillel Ticktin. Committee majority, Socialist Socialist Fight with the Swiss authorities, after the Organised by Glasgow Left Unity: http://leftunity.org. Resistance and Alliance for Workers’ leaks about HSBC were found, not to Exposing immigration myths Liberty. What say you now, comrades Step by step prosecute except where the cases would Thursday February 26, 6pm: Public meeting, London Metropolitan of the LRC majority, who backed the A Syriza central committee member, be virtually guaranteed to succeed. This University, room TM1-83, Tower Building, Holloway Road, London N7. EuroMaidan and the war against the Stathis Kouvelakis, addressed a helps explain why so little has been Organised by London region UCU: www.ucu.org.uk/londoncommittee. democratic rights of the people of the meeting in Cambridge earlier this week, recovered. Donbass? which was jointly organised with Left Ordinary working people have Housing and the class struggle It is now clear that a huge gulf has Unity. He said the Syriza government suffered increasing poverty since the Saturday February 28, 1pm: Public meeting, Red Shed, Vicarage developed between the US policy of was committed to a “renegotiation of banking crisis in 2007, with lower Street, Wakefield. Admission free, including a light buffet. arming their Kiev puppets to risk World the debt” and, when asked what would wages and massive cuts to their public Organised by Wakefield Socialist History Group: War III and the far more cautious happen if Greece defaults, he said services, whilst the wealthy have largely www.theredshed.org.uk/SocialHist.html. Merkel and Hollande, who know that they’re not aiming to default, but, if it got away with their criminality - which Campaign for Labour Party Democracy the USA is only too willing to fight to comes down to it, “difficult choices will is what tax evasion is. Saturday February 28, 11.30am to 4.30pm: Annual general meeting, the last European to defeat Russia. have to be made”. He didn’t elaborate, All this is yet further evidence that Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1. If the USA arms Kiev, Russia will but I think we can take a guess at what it is one rule for the rich and one for Organised by CLPD: www.clpd.org.uk. have no option but to go in. Thirty he meant. everyone else in Tory, Lib Dem and million dead in World War II is a Incredibly, he also said that the army Labour Britain. In a report published Music beats austerity recent memory. They will defend their is not the main issue and, although last week by Inequality Briefing, Saturday February 28, 7.30pm: Night of radical music to challenge motherland with everything they have, Syriza is against Nato membership, it’s since the year 2000 the pay of chief cuts and privatisation, Manchester Academy 2, Oxford Road, as they did against Napoleon and Hitler. not a priority right now. Anti-austerity executive officers has risen five times Manchester M13. They cannot concede being pushed was the main issue - hence the reason quicker than that for the average Organised by People’s Assembly: www.thepeoplesassembly.org.uk. back like this and will not accept the for the concessions to Anel. I wanted worker in Britain. Company pre-tax Going through the change neocon project to break up Russia itself. to ask, when would it be a priority? profits have also risen much more than Tuesday March 3, 7pm: Film, Bishopsgate Institute, 230 And Russia does not have to accept But unfortunately I wasn’t called to average pay. We are not all suffering Bishopsgate, London EC2. Made for the National Women Against defeat. They are a nuclear power. And speak. Comrade Kouvelakis said they from austerity in anything like the Pit Closures during the 1984-85 strike. Followed by discussion with the British ruling class itself is far would need to take things step by step same way. filmmaker Anne-Marie Sweeney and NWAPC speakers. £5. more split than the USA right now. towards a workers’ state and hopefully This latest banking scandal Organised by Bishopsgate Institute: www.bishopsgate.org.uk. The warmongering Garton Ash last this would lead to European solidarity is just one more example of the Monday laughed at the liberal Guardian and change across Europe. divided society we live in. Failure Dismantling racism Wednesday March 4, 6pm: Tom Hurndall Memorial Lecture, readership: “America does the cooking, However, at the end of the meeting, by successive governments to take lecture theatre C0.14, John Dalton building, Manchester Metropolitan but Europe does the washing up,” he while stressing the importance of tax evasion seriously simply adds to University, All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M1. crowed in a piece of wisdom from the giving solidarity to Greece in opposing the contempt so many people have Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign: www.palestinecampaign.org. pre-nuclear age. the troika, I asked him how a Syriza for the politicians in the main parties. The UK would be the first to get government would prosper, if it either We challenge any Tory, Lib Dem or CPGB wills the H-bomb dropped on them in the defaulted or ended up compromising Labour MP/PPC to defend what their Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s event of a war now so recklessly and caving in - especially given the fact government has ‘achieved’ on the name and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your being pursued by the USA. And they that it had to rely on a 50-seat top-up. question of tax evasion. will. If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. have their strong supporters here in He told me this was a false choice, and Pete McLaren Britain too. avoided me after that. Rugby Tusc 4 weekly February 12 2015 1045 worker greece No more Herr Nice Guy The question for the state regimes of Europe, meeting up with fellow the world was how to deal with it: a finance ministers, reflects above question more sharply posed for the all the need for an international relatively more hegemonic of those perspective here. It happens that states. Germany may be dominated this soi-disant “erratic Marxist”1 by the United States, but it was in a is happier cutting deals; but what good position to stamp its authority on alternative does he have? any European response to the financial Syriza’s left critics have only the chaos unleashed in 2007. most myopic of answers, encapsulated Greece epitomises the Germans’ in the advice of Alex Callinicos of choices in the years since. The electoral the Socialist Workers Party: “The victory of the self-styled radical left strength of the left in Greece depends coalition, Syriza, is partly an index of on the revival and further expansion the population’s inability to take much of the mass movement that developed more of that kind of brutality; but also so explosively 2009-12.”2 In other that, by imposing such programmes words, more strikes, more protests, on the ‘responsible’ parties in Greece, more action! Except that action does the troika have effectively strangled not feed the starving or shelter the the political mainstream. The parties homeless; it does not offer employment with which they could do business to those on the dole queue; it does not, have been brushed aside by others in short, offer a positive alternative to who, when Lehman Brothers fell seven a decaying status quo. years ago, were fringe concerns: Syriza Comrade Callinicos quite most dramatically, and Golden Dawn hilariously includes the Antarsya most worryingly. coalition his Greek allies have However one wants to parcel out foolishly backed in a total “radical the blame on the ‘purely economic’ left vote” of 42.5%: after all, without front, the present political situation the essential contribution of Antarsya, - that Greece has a government that that vote would have been a paltry is not only unable, but unwilling, 41.9%! There is a reason why the party to pay its debts in their present of ‘protest, protest, protest’ got such form - is as German a product as derisory support: because they have a Volkswagen. Berlin’s hard-line nothing to offer except … protest. By approach to trouble at its periphery contrast, Syriza has a programme, of led, first of all, to the destruction of a sort, and a plan - however desperate the last Pasok government, and the - to use the reins of government to replacement of George Papandreou alleviate the Greek crisis. with an unelected ‘technocrat’, A genuine alternative to Syriza’s supported by both main parties. approach would face facts squarely: The Samaras government which taking power in Greece alone is no followed tried repeatedly to get stronger a position than taking power some relief from the troika and the in the Cotswolds. The struggle of the northern European powers, pointing working class is an international one in the vague direction of Syriza as a at its very core, and quite plainly warning, but to no avail. so in the situation that obtains in Now, Samaras is out; Alexis Tsipras contemporary Europe. A million and Varoufakis are in. There was mass demonstrations in Athens are much talk in advance of the election not worth five that spread across - from Syriza and Anel alike - about borders; and all the protests in the destroying the corrupt, clientelist world will not suffice to achieve political establishment. We wonder the tasks before us. We need a if Syriza will keep to its words here. revolutionary political alternative to Or have they already fallen for the capitalist decay l temptation of handing out lucrative Paul Demarty jobs to their supporters, now they are in government? In other words, will [email protected] Syriza merely replace Pasok when it comes to crony politics? Notes 1. http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/12/10/ Yanis Varoufakis, new hero: as depicted by Stefanos Papadatos Certainly Tsipras and Varoufakis, confessions-of-an-erratic-marxist-in-the-midst-of- are concerned to appear reasonable, a-repugnant-european-crisis. aving barely been in office two A country held in a permanent state of national humiliation and unending to reconsider privatisations they have 2. Socialist Worker February 3. weeks, the Syriza government utter penury does not have money to hopelessness, can hatch the serpent’s vetoed, and make other concessions. Hof Greece is wasting no time in spare on servicing odious debts. egg within its society. When I return It may not mean much, however, if forcing the issue that got it there. In those terms, it is reasonable to say home tonight, I will find a country they stick on the crucial point: Greece General election That issue is, naturally, the punitive that Greece is not entirely internationally where the third-largest party is … a cannot service its present debts, and bailout terms under which the country isolated. Calls to loosen the fiscal Nazi party.” Schäuble was not moved. should not do so, and will not do so fund suffers. And ‘suffers’ is the right word: chokehold have already come from the Indeed, he and his colleagues are in without substantial modifications there are countries hit by economic likes of Mark Carney of the Bank of no mood for moving at all. They had of the terms. It is difficult to see the sanctions, the modern form of siege England; on Tuesday, as the countdown already interpreted Mario Draghi’s €1 troika and the Germans acceding to warfare, which have not suffered so to euro zone finance ministers’ trillion quantitative easing programme this, and indeed pressure is piling on: much as Greece has these last few negotiations on the Greek question as a snub; one can only imagine the QE or no QE, the ECB has ruled that years. It is in hock to international rolled by, US treasury secretary Jack anger at hearing Jack Lew’s comments. Greek government bonds are no longer institutions and it is simply unable Lew weighed in, criticising “casual Are the Germans the last people alive accepted as collateral for loans, and to pay. And attempting to meet the talk” about forcing Greece out of the to believe in old-fashioned fiscal credit agency Standard and Poor’s has demands involves ever greater acts of euro, and suggesting that euro zone responsibility? The doctrine of ‘moral downgraded those bonds to B-, just social violence: all money raised by fiscal policy should be more generous. hazard’ looms large for the euro zone’s one notch above ‘junk’. slashing public expenditure is hoovered The target of these barbs is the largest and most politically dominant up greedily by the International German government, unsurprisingly - the country: if the EU relents to the (in Impatience Monetary Fund, European Central fiscal brick wall at the heart of Europe. absolute terms, modest) demands of If anything, the coming We are collecting Bank and the European Commission In particular, finance minister Wolfgang Greece, who will be next with the showdown emphasises the - Greece has an unsustainable debt- Schäuble is cutting an intransigent begging bowl? Every euro zone country immediately European dimension he Communist Platform is to-GDP ratio of 175%. It is difficult to figure. “The reasons,” he said after a south of the Alps, by the looks of it - and to Greece’s crisis. The economic Traising money towards Left imagine it ever being able to service meeting with Syriza’s finance minister, Ireland to boot. Even the French would tumult is spread across the euro zone, Unity’s general election campaign. such huge debts. Yanis Varoufakis, last Thursday, “for prefer a little more fiscal latitude than however trivial Greece’s GDP is So far five candidates have So the representatives of Syriza the difficult journey to be undertaken Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble compared to larger EU economies. been selected in key seats. and the Independent Greeks (Anel) by Greece … is to be found in Greece, are prepared to countenance. The concomitant political deadlock Obviously to run an effective are attempting to convince the powers and not outside Greece, and definitely is affecting many discrete polities, campaign Left Unity will need over them to acknowledge that which, not in Germany.” There would be no Dig your own hole from Spain to Finland. Most crucially, substantial finances. There is a to any reasonable observer, is merely compromise at the euro zone meeting: It barely needs to be said that Schäuble however nakedly desperate the £20,000 national target. We are obvious. The IMF, ECB and above Greece must meet its obligations. is talking horseshit: the notion that situation in Greece is, resolution calling upon Communist Platform all the German government - all must Varoufakis had raised the spectre Greece’s present predicament has cannot come within its borders alone. members to collectively make a see sense, and come to the negotiating of the 1930s in his appeals to the endogenous causes is as risible Varoufakis is coming in for contribution towards this target. table in good faith. They may yet see German government: “No-one and self-serving as, in the British leftwing criticism for his willingness some of the money; but if they insist on understands better than the people of context, Tories blaming Labour’s to junk Syriza’s election promises To donate, go to http:// asset-stripping every last inch of Greek this land how a severely depressed ‘overspending’ for our own. This for the sake of getting a deal on the communistplatform.org.uk. society, they will see almost none of it. economy, combined with a ritual was a global crisis from the outset. debt; but his merry jaunt around weekly 5 worker 1045 February 12 2015 Aftermath of Syriza’s election Azhdar Ashkan can see no long-term solution to the crisis within the current order ince 2007, the Greek addressed. future assistance, renegotiating the economy has experienced Parties, segments and groups debt structure and rolling over the Sthree recessions, which blame each other for the troubles. existing loans. sometimes approached depression- The austerity programme, the EU, Syriza’s ascension to power and like dimensions. Consequently, when Germany are among those identified the potential default and exit of Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio passed as the culprits, but no viable solution Greece from the euro zone will have 145%, Athens could no longer borrow to Greece’s problems has been several significant consequences money on the capital market to keep suggested. Nor has anyone accepted for the rest of the EU as well. The its system afloat. any responsibility for contributing to Greek election result could give all This fact, along with Greece’s the crisis. Some even talk about the anti-austerity parties a great boost other financial difficulties, created forgiveness of loans from Germany in and if Alexis Tsipras and co register a crisis that could have evolved into place of the World War II reparations any measurable success, voters in the country’s exit from the euro zone. that the Germans should have paid. The Spain, France, Portugal and Italy To avert that possibility, in 2010 the previous Greek government, instead might follow the Greek path. If Syriza European Commission, the European of addressing the crisis at its roots, fails, however, the chaotic aftermath Central Bank and the International resorted to a nationwide ‘distribution in Greece and across Europe Monetary Fund - the so-called troika of the burden’ through tax-raising and would provide the ultra-nationalist, - agreed to provide Greece with a reducing salaries across the board. rightwing, anti-euro parties fertile bailout. The quid pro quo was that The EU structure and Greece’s ground upon which to grow and even in exchange for implementing deep creditors are also contributors to the potentially assume power. That would structural reforms, along neoliberal current crisis. The prevailing neoliberal mean the ending of the euro zone and lines, and embracing an extensive paradigm of slashing government disaster for the world. austerity programme, Greece would activities and balancing the budget receive emergency bailout loans at all costs is the underlying factor Short-term of €246 billion, along with other in the Greek crisis and it constitutes Although the troika is taking a measures that would allow the Greek a major hindrance in the path to a hard line at present, the prospect financial system easy access to low- Wrecked by euro debt recovery. This prescription, and the of the potential repercussions of interest funds. creditors who subscribe to it, prevent Greek failure might persuade it to As I am sure readers will know, The government now wants to insolvency and the eventual collapse the Greek government from effectively be more accommodating. Syriza among the conditions imposed on renegotiate and restructure the debt of the Greek financial system. The intervening to stabilise the economy by itself is a coalition with appreciable Greece were the requirement to raise by rolling over the loans from short resulting chaos would be felt far beyond implementing an active fiscal policy. internal conflicts. In addition, the taxes, the cutting of government term to long term at a low interest rate. Greece’s borders. The possibility of this Greece is under an obligation to follow populations of other EU countries expenditure, the implementation It also wants some debt forgiveness, outcome itself increases uncertainty and an austerity programme that chokes the do not have unlimited tolerance for of structural changes, the raising of the adjustment of the terms of debt this in turn will make the recovery of economy and thwarts the possibility of austerity and will eventually insist on the retirement age, the running of a repayment, including a grace period, an already fragile Greek economy even any economic growth in the short or a permanent solution. Therefore, the budget surplus and a commitment to along with a relaxation of the strict more remote. medium term. window of opportunity for reaching repay government debts. Further, the austerity measures imposed on the A fundamental element in an agreement is not very wide and continuation of the bailout programme Greek populace. Resolution? economic development and growth will not be available for long. The was tied to progress in implementing Out of the total Greek debt, €53 Theoretically, the Greek debt is the level of investment. But an crisis in Greece, and its potential austerity, as determined by monitoring billion has been borrowed from various crisis could be resolved in several unstable environment adversely exit from the EU, substantially adds and audits acceptable to the creditors. euro zone countries. Any change to the ways. First, nationalisation of the affects that level, particularly in to the uncertainties about the future The bailout was scheduled to end in terms of these loans must be negotiated debt, accompanied by radical and relation to foreign investment. of the EU itself and its common December 2014, but was extended individually between Greece and the fundamental changes in the Greek Moreover, austerity measures currency, not to mention the viability by two months. A review of Greece’s country involved. This, obviously, is economy. Alternatively, Greece prohibit the Greek government itself of the EU as a reliable economic and success or otherwise in fulfilling its not an easy task and presents Syriza could declare bankruptcy. Under this from devoting resources to crucial political entity. Therefore, stronger commitments is due by the end of with a serious challenge. Another €142 alternative, it might see a positive elements of investment: namely members of the EU may assume a February. billion derives from the bailout fund cash flow, as it would stop servicing health and education. The austerity more proactive role in promoting Ever since the onset of the austerity and the renegotiation of the terms of its current debt. However, while prescriptions also negatively impact and facilitating general economic programme, the Greek people and the these covenants must be unanimously theoretically feasible, this option on consumer demand, which is growth in Europe. The whole Greek economy have experienced approved by all euro zone countries. cannot realistically be considered another engine of growth. Reduction quantitative easing programme and severe pain and hardship. GDP has A difficult task, to be sure, particularly viable at this time, since it would in wages leads to reduction in its continuation by the ECB, which shrunk by 20%, Greece’s main stock considering who the lenders are. lead to the immediate shut-off of all consumption. This, coupled with the effectively devaluates the euro, might index has shed roughly a fifth of The largest contributor to the fund is financing sources. decrease in government spending be viewed as a step in this direction. its value in the past three months, Germany, with €56 billion, thus making it Another theoretical option would and the requirement for a balanced For now, in all likelihood, after a depositors have withdrawn several the most important factor in the process. be to pursue a rapid growth and export budget, reduces aggregate demand period of tough negotiations, Greece billion euros from the country’s Angela Merkel has already signalled her path to bring the economy out of the and, just like the 1930s, transforms will get some short-term relief - both in banking system, and government debt rejection of any restructuring of the debt debt trap and the current crisis. But this a mild recession into a devastating terms of its loans being extended and stands at €323 billion, or over 175% and other countries in the pack - eg, the path too, by its nature, is a long-term depression. The current institutional renegotiated, and in the shape of the of the country’s GDP. Unemployment Netherlands, Finland, etc - are taking solution and cannot be implemented ‘deflationary bias’ inherent in the EU easing of the austerity measures. The is above 25%, with the rate for people a similar stance. The share of the ECB at present. The Greek government and only exacerbates the situation. Greek government could offer some under 25 standing at more than 56%. and other European central banks is €27 EU officials would have to address and The euro zone’s monetary system relief by reducing or even ending some Over 100,000 companies have stopped billion and the ECB has stated that it overcome several structural obstacles and its supranational currency, austerity targets, and implement some trading in Greece and many thousands would be illegal to renegotiate the terms. within both Greece and the EU. This controlled by monetary authorities reforms and house cleaning relating of small businesses have gone under. As for the IMF’s share of €28 billion, if renders this alternative unfeasible for not accountable to any nation-state, to tax organisation and collection, The average wage has fallen to €600 past practices are any indication, it too the time being. effectively removes monetary policy and government efficiency. The a month and many social welfare will reject any kind of relief. A further alternative would be tools from the hands of individual current de facto devaluation of the programmes have been slashed. One Greek banks, like other European currency devaluation and the creation governments. The actions of these euro through the ECB’s quantitative third of the population is living below banks, have access to funds under of inflationary creep. This is the monetary authorities will favour easing, pumping money into the the poverty line, with another third the Emergency Liquidity Assistance alternative that both the US and UK financial markets and stronger European economies, will continue barely above it. A substantial rise scheme. The ECB, however, has just have adopted somewhat successfully. members of the EU, while the and the Greek economy could show in homelessness, suicide, domestic decided that, effective from February Once again, however, since ‘denationalised’ euro renders the some signs of a mild recovery. violence, divorce and crime is evident. 11, Greece is no longer exempt from management of the currency resides Greek government incapable of These actions, nonetheless, will not Against this background, Syriza ran the rules forbidding banks from holding with monetary authorities outside meaningful intervention in economic provide a long-term solution to the its election campaign on a platform low-grade bonds. Accordingly, Greek Greek jurisdiction, this alternative is affairs through monetary policy. Greek crisis. The bomb will still be of ending the austerity programme, banks can no longer use government not open to Greece while it remains Currently, most of the bailout money ticking. Due to the fact that structural improving the economic conditions of bonds as collateral for loans and thus in the euro zone. received by Greece is used to service obstacles, both in Greece and within the people and renegotiating Greece’s are deprived of a major source of low- There are many internal obstacles its loans. That is, Greece borrows the EU itself, are not addressed, long- debt. Syriza promised a great deal - interest-rate funds. All the while, the that stand in the way of a sustainable, money to pay its debt. That, essentially, term solutions remain elusive. Unless the reinstatement of discontinued February 28 debt service deadline long-term resolution of the Greek turns the Greek bailout into a bailout these issues are satisfactorily resolved, or scaled-down social programmes, is looming. (Some of the IMF loans crisis. The short list includes of its lenders. Similar to Germany and the burden of carrying Greece and reversal of some structural changes, are due in March and August, while corrupt institutions, inefficient and eastern European countries after World keeping the euro zone intact will be an increase in pensions, a rise in €7 billion in bonds held by the ECB bureaucratic government apparatuses, War I, Greece is being crushed under heavier, as time goes by. The threshold general and minimum wages, the matures in July and August.) an unfair tax system, inefficient tax the weight of its foreign obligations. of tolerance for the EU countries and granting of tax relief to low-income All indications point to Greece’s collection, inadequate budgetary The currently imposed measures of their populations, sooner or later, will people, loans to small businesses, inability to meet the repayment schedule. and fiscal procedures, insufficient cutting government expenditure, be crossed and Greece will eventually job creation, a halt to the sale of However, the troika seems unwilling recognition and enforcement of raising taxes and producing a surplus of be forced to leave the euro zone. government assets and privatisation, to consent to any major change and property rights, a populace that now more than 4.5% of GDP, along with the The probability of resolving the keeping social programme spending this deadlock could cause creditors distrusts government, and widespread present debt service structure, makes obstacles are currently next to zero. off the balanced budget calculation, to decline Greek bonds, which would expectations established over many it impossible for Greece to recover Accordingly, the likelihood of a dropping the commitment to run further limit the country’s access to years of working class struggle. These from its malaise. Any serious plan to long-term resolution to the Greek a high budget surplus, and many low-interest financing. Such a scenario cultural, historical, social and political resolve the Greek crisis must include crisis is about the same. The stronger similar propositions. In short, Syriza would cast doubt on the survivability factors prevent any meaningful loosening the grip of the austerity members of EU are well aware of this, promised to deliver relief to Greek of the Greek economy and lead to an resolution of the problems faced by programme, allowing some relief to and quite possibly are, behind the citizens, while keeping the country in unavoidable default, with ensuing Greece. The underlying causes have the Greek people, reducing the level scenes, preparing themselves for this the European Union and the euro zone. capital flight, a run on Athens banks, not been, and probably will not be, of the required surplus, guaranteeing eventuality and realignment l 6 weekly February 12 2015 1045 worker europe Making a beginning The left should campaign for a Europe-wide constituent assembly, argues Chris Gray f Sir Walter Raleigh, Richard demand as of right. Resilience Centre and Will Steffen Hakluyt and their associates could Energy policy and sustainable at the Australian National University. Idevise and implement a project production These boundaries are thresholds or for England’s aggrandisement at the Without detailed investigation of tipping points, which indicate a risk of expense, primarily, of Spain, can each country’s energy requirements “irreversible and abrupt environmental we in the 21st century envisage a no viable policy can be specified, change” should they be exceeded.11 project whereby English people and but some basic choices need facing. Clearly there is much more to be said the other three nations traditionally Obviously we would want to maximise on this topic, which is bound to grip grouped with them can join with clean and safe energy production. our attention from here on. For now I continental neighbours to arrest the Chris Goodall in his book Ten would merely draw readers’ attention to bureaucratisation, Balkanisation and technologies to fix energy and climate a useful article by Seumas Milne. One immiseration of Europe? Can we open thinks that it might be possible to have cannot but agree with his conclusion: the way to a society within which all can a mixed portfolio of renewable power enjoy freely the benefits of democracy sources, providing most electricity The intervention, regulation, and, at the very least, an international without carbon emissions by 2025. In taxation, social ownership, civil minimum of wellbeing? his version this would consist of: wind redistribution and global Yes, it is a very tall order, but an power (25%); solar power (mostly cooperation needed to slash carbon important contribution to the debate concentrated solar power in Africa, emissions and build a sustainable on the kind of immediate demands we 25%); marine (tidal and wave, 15%); economy for the future is clearly ought to be raising in relation to the fuel cells and biomass combined heat incompatible with a broken European Union can be located in the and power, 10%); carbon capture and economic model based on self- Communist Platform of Left Unity. storage (CCS)/nuclear (25%).6 interest and the corporate free-for- This makes clear that the aim should There are some problems with this all that created the crisis in the first be “not a quasi-democratic, confederal list. For one thing, African countries place. Given the scale of the threat, EU, but a united Europe under the rule might legitimately wish to use the solar the choice for the rest of us could of the working class”. The demands it power generated on their territory for not be more obvious.12 proposes are: their own benefit. Perhaps such power in the form of electricity could in part Unemployment  Power to the EU parliament. Continental unity be exported to Europe, but an amicable The basic principles here are that all Replace the EU Commission arrangement would have to be worked those capable of working should do by an executive democratically majority (either on its own or combined out. Also, CCS is problematic, as so, and that paid work should only be responsible to the parliament. with some other party or parties) certain 1. A common European economic Goodall himself acknowledges. engaged in if it satisfies some valid Abolish the Council of Ministers. MPs from it are selected by the prime plan, focusing on a solution of The other components in the existing human need (what is validly  For a democratically controlled minister to act as ministers, but their the sovereign debt crisis and mix are hinted at by the Australian needed is, of course, inevitably a European Central Bank. responsibility is to the UK parliament sustainable development, and environmentalist, Ted Trainer, who question for argument and democratic  Towards indivisible European and electorate only. including democratic control of has laid down six principles which decision). Consideration should be unity. Natural justice demands that they banks need applying. I reproduce five of given to the proposal put forward  For the free movement of people. should have an opportunity to express 2. Energy policy them here: for a basic income as of right (ie, a Against all immigration controls.1 a view on any particular EU legislative 3. Agriculture and fishing security minimum), as advocated by proposal through the UK government, 4. Climate change 1. A simpler, non-affluent way of Guy Standing.13 This goes to the heart of the matter but why should they be given the right 5. Unemployment life. Such an approach is a far cry from and in my view the focus should to interpose their views (along with their 6. Workers’ rights 2. The development of many small- that of apologists for capitalism, definitely be the parliament. At the opposite numbers in other EU states) 7. Women’s rights scale, highly self-sufficient local such as Walter Eltis, who urges us very minimum it needs to acquire the in a topsy-turvy legislative process, 8. Taxation economies. to “recreate the conditions where full powers of a legislature, which whereby potential laws originate in the 9. Health 3. More communal, cooperative widespread private-sector job creation at present it lacks, since “it cannot Commission and are then considered 10. Education and participatory policies. used to occur”.14 directly introduce proposals for new by the Council (if the CPR has not 11. Defence 4. Alternative technologies. Eltis sees this happening, under laws; it cannot enact laws on its own already pronounced on them) and only 12. Languages and international 5. An almost totally new economic capitalism, via lower levels of taxation and it cannot raise revenue”.2 then by the European parliament? The problems system. [You bet! Production for and “greater flexibility in Europe’s Another power which the proper, democratic way would be to need rather than for profit].7 labour markets”, but there is absolutely parliament does not have is the ability have the proposals originate in the What might the left recommend in no guarantee of it. Keynes was right to reject individual nominees for the parliament and then be implemented these areas? Most of the necessary EU His sixth principle is simply “New in this regard: the economy is likely post of commissioner - it has to accept under executive supervision. reforms have already been mentioned, values”, but what does he mean by that to revolve around a situation of less all the commissioners or reject them Last, but possibly not least, it but we would surely insist on our phrase in practice? The moral seems to than full employment - indeed there is en bloc: might be a good idea to replace the political representatives receiving be: experiment, and if it works it works. a tendency for less labour to be used as Council of Ministers with a directly a level of remuneration in line with Agriculture part and parcel of a rise in the technical Under the circumstances, it is elected second chamber, giving equal the earnings of a skilled worker, As regards agriculture, the left needs to composition of capital. unlikely to reject the college [ie, all representation to all member-states, plus legitimate expenses. We would turn its attention to wasteful practices It is obviously easier to achieve full the proposed commissioners] unless in view of the disparities in size - the also almost certainly wish to end the indulged in by farming on a large employment and full maintenance in it has serious reservations about population of Germany is around 200 shuttling of the parliament back and scale (aka ‘agribusiness’). George a situation where the working class is one or more of the nominees. This times bigger than that of Malta, for forth between Brussels and Strasburg. Monbiot has shown the need for this dominant and production is not subject happened in 2004 when the nominee example - as suggested by Moshé Let us look at these topics in turn. and another person who has written on to the pressures of competition between from Italy - Rocco Buttiglione, who Machover.4 the topic is Guglielmo Carchedi, who enterprises. Such arrangements will be was to have been the new justice Common economic states that malign agricultural subsidies conducive to commissioner - commented … that Constituent lead to “reduced crop diversity, the (a) a reduction in obligatory working homosexuality was a “sin” and that plan overproduction of crops that are highly hours “the family exists in order to allow assembly It is impossible to anticipate the erosive, the cultivation of marginal (b) work-sharing women to have children and to have To change the EU set-up will take a content of such a plan. To draw lands that tend to be more subject to (c) programmes of public works the protection of a male who takes colossal effort by the whole European it up would involve discussion in soil erosion and moisture deficiencies, This would serve as a continuation care of them”. The resulting outcry left and any allies it can rope in. every single country, with the fullest and the conversion of wasteland and of a desired movement arising under led to Buttiglione being replaced as Agitation and propaganda cannot be possible participation. What would forestland to agricultural production.”8 capitalism, the essence of whose the Italian ...3 confined to EU countries, but needs most definitely be included would be On a European scale the results of demands was spelt out in Trotsky’s to include such states as Norway and a mechanism whereby funds centrally untrammelled pursuit of profits have Transitional programme: There is also a strong objection to the Switzerland, where the working class collected and available, in addition been pretty devastating. According to Council of Ministers. First, it is in has interests in line with working to the resources of banks in each Carchedi, “For the whole of Europe, Under the menace of its own practice subordinate to the CPR, the people in EU countries. Hence it is member-state, would be disbursed to including the former USSR, 23% disintegration, the proletariat Council of Permanent Representatives worth trying to organise a Europe-wide those regions and enterprises in need of total agricultural land (that is, cannot permit the transformation of (from individual states), which gets to constituent assembly. Ideally this should of investment. This would, of course, 2,188,000 square km) is degraded (ie, an increasing section of the workers discuss the Commission’s legislative be a labour and trade union movement require social ownership of banks unfit for agriculture) because of erosion into chronically unemployed proposals before the Council of assembly, at least in the first instance, with a degree of workers’ control, plus or pollution.”9 This confirms Marx’s paupers, living off the slops of a Ministers gets a look-in, in effect but if the established organisations of the control by the EU parliament over the observation that under capitalism (and crumbling society. The right to dealing with some 90% of its business European labour movement, such as the European Central Bank. production methods borrowed from it) employment is the only serious before the latter meets. Secondly, it European Trade Union Confederation It would also be necessary to the art of robbing the labourer is also right left to the worker in a society gives national government ministers and the Second International, are take steps to deal with the existing the art of robbing the soil.10 based upon exploitation. This right an input which is beyond what they are unwilling or unable to countenance solvency of banks and governments Climate change today is being shorn from him at specifically elected for. such an initiative, then ‘unofficial’ and remove the crushing debt burden More and more people are surely every step. In our UK system, MPs are elected enterprise must step in. (There is a being carried by the peoples of Europe. waking up to the fact that this is a Against unemployment … ostensibly to look after the interests of a parallel with the oppositional meetings This is no easy task, but a prerequisite serious issue threatening to get really the time is ripe to advance, along certain geographical constituency, and, against World War I held at Zimmerwald for its solution must be a thorough serious very shortly. Climate change with the slogan of public works, in the vast majority of cases, they do this in Switzerland in 1915 and Kienthal in democratic debt audit, as advocated is one of the several “planetary the slogan of the sliding scale in practice, uniting with like-minded 1916). Such an assembly could discuss by the Committee for the Abolition boundaries” being investigated of working hours. Trade unions individuals in a particular political (in addition to constitutional reform of of Third World Debt.5 This process by a group of scientists led by and other mass organisations party. If that party wins a parliamentary the EU) such policy areas as: is something which citizens should Johan Rockström at the Stockholm should bind the workers and weekly 7 worker 1045 February 12 2015

the unemployed together in the article 1 of the Rome Treaty, which democratic will of the working class, solidarity of mutual responsibility. Tax harmonisation declares such frontiers as exist to be He goes on to add, most pertinently: organised on a continent-wide basis, On this basis all the work on hand It almost goes without saying that sacrosanct. To quote Shachtman again, “This plan will succeed only if popular should prevail within it. would then be divided among all a socialist United States of Europe struggles radically change the balance To whom, after all, does the existing workers in accordance would institute a uniform taxation The very essence of the democratic of forces” (my emphasis). European continent rightfully belong? with how the extent of the working system in order to ensure adequate demand for the right of self- Then we have the Greek socialist, Does it belong to the entrepreneurs, the week is defined. The average state funding at international, national determination for an oppressed Savvas Michael-Matsas, who issued a capitalists, the government ministers, wage of every worker remains and regional levels. people is the democratic resounding call: the bureaucrats, the generals, the as it was under the old working Defence determination of its frontiers spin-doctors, the press barons, the week. Wages, under a strictly The traditional left policy in this area on an irreproachable basis, for The working class, employed, police chiefs, the fashion editors, the guaranteed minimum, would is for a people’s militia. To this we the purpose of establishing the underemployed or unemployed, advertising executives, the merchant follow the movement of prices. should add the necessity of retaining democratic will of the majority of all the deprived masses, bankers, the hedge funds, the vulture It is impossible to accept any and investing in all possible means of the population within these well- immigrants and ‘locals’, funds, to what remains of the landed other programme for the present defence against nuclear, chemical and defined frontiers.18 urgently need a programme, aristocracy - or even to the ‘Leninist’ catastrophic period.15 biological weapons, as well as new a collectively developed plan leaders of some obscure leftwing sect? nano-technological ones. This would We are left with the question of tax of action, coordination and No. These lands belong to us, to the Workers’ rights mean, for the UK, retaining the Sea havens and feudal survivals on the anti-bureaucratic organisation common people who possess little or As Lenin emphasised in 1920, workers Captor missile system introduced by European mainland, plus the Channel on national and international no property, the plebeians, the workers, will need protection from their own state the Royal Navy in March 2012. Islands. Specifically, we have Gibraltar, levels to fight back the on- the anonymous heroes and heroines of (since the state is oppressive by nature). Languages and nations Andorra, Monaco, Luxemburg, going catastrophe, and open modern times. Hence they are everywhere entitled There are some 40 languages spoken San Marino and Liechtenstein. a revolutionary international It was our predecessors, our to full trade union representation, by peoples who are native to Europe (Switzerland and Norway are in a socialist way out: to abolish the ancestors, who built Europe. They plus freedom of speech, freedom of historically, plus many more tongues different category, even if Swiss banks debt to the international usurers, made the farms, the villages, the association, right to due process of law, used by more recent immigrants. play a role, which needs looking into). to bring down the dictatorship cities, the castles and the cathedrals. etc. Minimum wage entitlement should Obviously, for practical purposes all Tax havens require suppressing in the of the ‘markets’ and nationalise They shed their blood on the continue and be kept under review the inhabitants of a given ‘state area’ interests of a uniform taxation policy - the banks under workers’ battlefields, they gave their lives in order to ensure that it is adequate. should be fluent in the language of that which consideration leads one to think control, to end unemployment in the struggle for freedom. We are Enterprises should be run under country, but, with that proviso, there that these territories should merge with by nationalising all industries the heirs of all those who fought for workers’ control: ie, if management should be no special privileges for any one or more neighbouring states. Here that fire workers or ‘de-localise’ the liberation of the enslaved - of wants to introduce some practice that the one language. This necessarily entails again every case is different: eg, Spain or close down, under workers’ the earliest Greek democrats; of the majority of the workforce are opposed counter-measures to offset the power is surely entitled to Gibraltar, but in control and workers’ management slaves who rose with Spartacus; of to, the workers can veto it. of the dominant world language, that case it should surely hand back [Actually the two should be seen the Ciompi, the wool-combers of Workers’ control must not be English. (Why should Icelanders be Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco. as distinct, “control” in this case Florence; of the English peasants of understood in a purely anarchist or deprived of a computer programme leaving the management in place, 1381; of the Commune of Salonika; anarcho-syndicalist sense, however: in Icelandic just because that involves Conclusion the other replacing it - CG], to of the Dutch in their struggle against if the issue is one affecting more than an additional expense for the company These suggestions for a programme expropriate the expropriators. Spanish-Habsburg oppression; of the one enterprise, or the class as a whole, providing the programme?). In are meant as a basis for discussion A decisive struggle is needed Scots Covenanters; of the Levellers then the will of the majority in the Ireland, where Irish is one of two and not as some form of ultimatum. to bring down the architects, and Diggers in mid-17th century given constituency - that is to say, of official state languages, more support There is an old Irish saying which managers and gendarmes of England; of the Sans culottes in Paris, those having the right to vote, not in for it is no doubt needed. runs: “Every beginning is weak” people’s misery, the governments the impoverished artisans of that great the sense of ‘parliamentary division’ This is not to denigrate the and the above is only a beginning. and state power of capital, to city; of the United Irishmen of 1798; - should prevail, with those opposed advantages that flow from an extended I am also reminded of a story about establish workers’ power and of the Luddites, of the Chartists; of having the right to try to alter it at some use of English - and, to a current lesser David Lloyd George, who, as a young replace the imperialist European the Silesian weavers of 1844; of the future date. extent, French - as a lingua franca trainee solicitor, developed the habit Union by a United Socialist Communards in 1871; of the Russian Women’s rights within Europe, but there is a potential of reading sections of Hallam’s States of Europe.”22 workers and peasants of 1905 and All the various demands on this topic cultural loss involved in the erosion Constitutional law during his lunch 1917; of the French resistance, the cannot be specified here in detail, of other languages resulting from the break. When asked why he did this, Another manifestation of a possible Yugoslav Partisans, the Warsaw since the situation in each country spread of English and the attendant he replied: “Achos mae arnaf eisiau revival in the fortunes of the European Ghetto fighters, of the Slovak national is different. However, my feeling suppression or marginalisation of dyscu” - “Because I want to learn”. left is the emergence of Podemos uprising of 1944; of the Hungarian is that the (UK-based) CPGB Draft non-English cultures. We are not Truly we all have a lot to learn in in Spain. Both Podemos and Syriza workers in the revolution of 1956, and programme has the right basic thrust: in favour of blanket or exclusive relation to the state of Europe. are members of the grouping in the many more. promotion of national culture, or Of late there have been some European parliament which goes by the We are the heirs: we should step Women carry the main burden of even a plethora of competing national encouraging signs that the need for name of European United Left/Nordic forward and claim our inheritance l feeding babies, house management, cultures: on the contrary, we favour a Europe-wide initiative on the left Green Left. As the name implies, this is supermarket buying, family the enhancement of any democratic is being recognised. A resolution something of an umbrella organisation, Notes cooking, child ferrying, etc, which elements and influences arising within passed at the November 2011 AGM formed by a merger of the Confederal 1. Weekly Worker February 13 2014. 2. See J McCormick The European Union: politics is performed gratis. Given the ever each and every ‘national culture’, and of the UK Labour Representation Group of the European United Left and policies Boulder 2008, p155. increasing pressure on time, such see Europe as the collective creation Committee roundly declared that “The with the Nordic Green Left group in 3. Ibid p114. work is often frantic, demoralising of all its nations, including those least Europe-wide capitalist crisis requires a January 1995. According to Wikipedia, 4. Letters Weekly Worker February 27 2014. and allows no kind of rounded known or understood outside their Europe-wide working class response” “the group is ambiguous between 5. See E Toussaint and D Millet Debt, the IMF 23 and the World Bank: sixty questions, sixty answers cultural development. own borders (the Baltic, Balkan and and outlined in summarised form a reformism and revolution”. New York 2010; Question 56: “What is debt Advanced capitalism has Portuguese peoples, for example). programme much the same as that put The call for an all-European auditing?”, pp304-07. created the material prerequisites Nor are we in favour of the continued forward here.19 Then, in response to a initiative is by no means new. CLR 6. C Goodall Ten technologies to fix energy and for the liberation of women. suppression and marginalisation of ‘Common appeal for the rescue of the James wrote that, while the American climate London 2008, p261. 7. See S Newman (ed) The final energy crisis However, women cannot be peoples currently not possessing a state peoples of Europe’ issued by veteran Shachtmanites in 1943 supported London 2008, pp300-08. fully emancipated until the of their own. That is why, following a Greek socialists Mikis Theodorakis and the various European liberation 8. G Carchedi For another Europe: a class disappearance of the division of successful overthrow of capitalism in Manolis Glezos, Balázs Nagy urged that movements from Nazism in the analysis of European economic integration labour and without going beyond Europe, the presumption is that existing name of democracy and national London 2001, p224. 9. Ibid p227. bourgeois right, which entails: to nationalities in such a position will have Working people of every country independence, his own tendency urged 10. K Marx Capital Vol 1, in part 4, section 10: each according to work done …. a chance to acquire their own state if should organise columns which can that the proper aim was for proletarian ‘Modern industry and agriculture’: www.marxists. Communists say: they wish - unless there is good reason converge on Brussels to express power under the slogan of the socialist org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S10. Turn formal equality into genuine for the (temporary?) abrogation of this their determined opposition to United States of Europe. Further: 11. See the UN’s Resilient people, resilient planet: a future worth choosing: www.un.org/ equality. Socially, economically, right (see below). the predators and their desire to gsp/sites/default/files/attachments/GSReport_ politically and culturally there must In speaking of nations (and reduce their first victim, Greece, to Since 1943 the Fourth International unformatted_30.Jan.pdf. be substantial equality. nationalities), we refer to “a distinct the status of a colony. In Brussels, has been ceaselessly warned of the 12. ‘Refusal to accept global warming is driven  Open free, 24-hour crèches community of persons with common they should organise a huge necessity for giving as concrete an by corporate interests and the fear of what must be done to try to stop it’ The Guardian February and kindergartens to facilitate historical traditions, a common demonstration. expression as possible to the slogan 20 2014. full participation in social life language, a common cultural and a In preparing to defend the of the United States of Europe. 13. G Standing The precariat London 2011 and A outside the home. Open high- common economic life, a common people of Greece and in order to get Precisely because of its complete precariat charter London 2014. quality canteens with cheap prices. historically defined territory and rid of the permanent threat hanging failure to do this, it has suffered 14. W Eltis Britain, Europe and EMU London 2000, p103. Establish laundry and house- above all what Lenin called the ‘will over all working people and all and continues to suffer a series of 15. L Trotsky The transitional programme: 17 24 cleaning services undertaken by to separate existence’”. peoples, we should build support terrible blows. www.marxist.net/trotsky/programme/p2frame. local authorities and the state. We do not, as socialists, wish to box for the main central demand: for a htm?wages.htm (emphasis in original). This to be the first step in the up European nations separately: we are working people’s Europe!”20 Similarly in November 1943 Max 16. CPGB Draft programme section 3.13, ‘Women’: www.cpgb.org.uk/home/about-the- socialisation of housework. in favour of international cooperation as Shachtman asserted: cpgb/draft-programme/3.-immediate-demands.  Fully paid maternity leave of a matter of course. On the other hand, Then there is Syriza, whose leader, 17. M Shachtman Communism and the negro 12 months, which the mother can we are not in the business of suppressing Alexis Tsipras, explained: Europe’s only hope for survival, to published as Race and revolution London 2003, p71. choose to take from up to three legitimate national demands when put say nothing of progress; its only way 18. Ibid pp79-80. 19. See ‘Europe: bring arguments out’ Labour months before giving birth. The forward by a majority of members Europe needs a new plan to deepen out of the barbarism, into which it Party Marxists November 2013 partner to be provided with six of any particular nationality - unless European integration. Such a plan is sinking; its only weapon against (http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/wp-content/ months’ fully paid paternity leave the exercise of such rights threatens must challenge neoliberalism and being exploited, disenfranchised uploads/lpm3_nov2013.pdf) - three months of which should be the revolution of the international lead European economies back to and degraded, either by British, 20. M Theodorakis and M Glezos, ‘Common appeal for the rescue of the peoples of Europe’: compulsory - to encourage equality working class. What we favour is the recovery. It should prioritise the American or Russian imperialism https://arirusila.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/fw- and bonding with the child. self-determination of nations within needs of workers, pensioners and [sic], or by a combination of them, common-appeal-for-the-rescue-of-the-peoples-  Free abortion and contraception a cooperative framework - which the unemployed, not the interests is the economic and political unity of-europe. on demand. means, ideally, that in any given case of multinational companies of the continent. Such unity is an 21. The Guardian October 9 2012. 22. Critique August 2013, p443.  Provision for either parent to be national independence should be freely and bankrupt bankers. Syriza- essential necessity for the life of the 23. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_ allowed paid leave to look after conceded by the oppressor nation (the USF [United Social Front] has old world now. It is realisable only United_Left%E2%80%93Nordic_Green_Left. sick children. example quoted by Lenin with approval committed itself to this road. We in the form of a United Socialist 24. CLR James State capitalism and world  Maximum six-hour working day was the separation of Norway from know it is a difficult one. But it is States of Europe.25 revolution: www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/ works/1950/08/state-capitalism.htm. for all nursing mothers. Sweden in 1905). the only plan that can restore the 25. Reprinted in M Shachtman The bureaucratic  Full support for women fleeing Agreement on frontiers is obviously European vision of social justice, Whatever the outward political form revolution: the rise of the Stalinist state New York violence within the home.16 needed - this is what is wrong with peace and solidarity.21 of Europe, what is essential is that the 1962, p136. He reiterated the call in 1944 - see p147. 8 weekly February 12 2015 1045 worker swp Did free speech allow the Nazis to come to power? Eddie Ford criticises the SWP for misunderstanding history and insisting upon the ‘principle’ of no-platforming

eading Socialist Worker these mistake to elevate no-platform into days is a rather depressing a principle. Rexperience, and it appears to Furthermore, our insistence on be getting worse and worse - even if freedom of speech is programmatically it still has some way to go before it linked to our overall conception of gets as excruciatingly boring as the socialism - which is rooted in the life-sapping The Socialist. Instead entire Marxist world view. Plainly, of a publication that is trying to to reject freedom of speech is to constructively engage with the actually reject Marxism itself and hence the existing left and critically examine its entire project of universal human own traditions and practices, we enter emancipation - it is hardly an optional into an ideological alternative universe: add-on. Why? Socialism, the first stage a dreary, philistine world, where all of communism, can only be the act of that matters is the next demonstration self-liberation for the great majority, or strike, where spontaneity is by the great majority - not merely the everything and programme is nothing. winning of a parliamentary majority. Indeed, where history itself is junk. Therefore it follows that the working Nowhere is this more apparent than class cannot be treated as little children when it comes to the linked questions incapable of handling awkward and of fascism, free speech and ‘no- complicated questions - children who platforming’. This sees the Socialist need to be protected from bad ideas. Workers Party totally abandon the Marxist approach, embracing a form of Punishment hysterical ‘anti-fascism’ that hopes to The Socialist Worker article claims act as the extreme leftwing conscience It wasn’t UAF that did for the BNP that Le Pen’s presence at Oxford can of the bourgeoisie - moralistically help “revitalise” the forces of Nazis pushing it to take this or that action off the air”. Yet the debate went ahead What our SWP comrades still refuse state, which is never neutral; in fact, in the UK: the “fascists will take any against the scourge of fascism. As anyway and Griffin was “humiliated to recognise is that it was not Weyman it is objectively pro-capitalist, which freedom they are offered and use it to regular readers of the Weekly Worker on the programme, as his racist and Bennett or UAF shouting themselves ultimately means at a certain juncture rampaging [sic] through the streets, as will know, for the SWP it is an article bigoted arguments were torn apart”. hoarse outside the Television Centre it can be pro-fascist. the EDL did in its heyday” (whenever of faith - a ‘principle’, apparently - Here is the first time ever, at least that led to the BNP’s demise, but rather In an article on the anti-Le Pen that was). Of course, the FN came that fascists or “Nazis” (seemingly to the knowledge of this writer, that Griffin’s co-panellists - especially protests outside the Oxford Union, first in last year’s European elections identical, interchangeable, terms for the Griffin’s disastrous Question time Bonnie Greer - in what was clearly The Guardian quotes an illuminating in France on 24.86% of the vote and is comrades) must be denied a platform. performance has ever been mentioned a carefully stage-managed set-up. At remark from Weyman Bennett expected to do well in this year’s local/ A sacred shibboleth - unlike, what we by Socialist Worker - but what it says the end of the day, Nick Griffin was (February 5). Fulminating at the regional elections. saw in Respect when the SWP headed clearly contradicts, or at the very more discredited by the BBC bosses’ decision to invite the “notorious True, a Le Pen government would be it - abortion rights, secularism, open least throws into serious doubt, the decision to ‘platform’ him than UAF’s Islamophobe”, Marine Le Pen, he highly unpleasant, and the left should borders, etc: these can be sidelined in SWP’s dogmatic interpretation of the frantic no-platforming. mentions how her father, Jean-Marie, make every effort to mobilise against the service of getting votes. no-platform tactic (an approach that “once called the holocaust a ‘detail of it - overthrow the bastards if possible. Anyhow, this ‘principle’ is is shared to one degree or another Intransigent history’” - which proves that fascists But the idea that it would be a “Nazi” hammered home again in a recent by large sections of the left, alas). All of which brings us to the broader “should never be allowed a platform”, government is patently ridiculous. No editorial article prompted by Marine Previously, the comrades had insisted political point about freedom of as one thing leads inexorably to the doubt in the past forces within the FN Le Pen’s February 5 appearance at the that giving the ‘oxygen of publicity’ speech and why communists fight other. talked about the ‘politics of the street’ elite Oxford Union and the English to Griffin would have all manner of for it so intransigently. Needless Comrade Bennett’s throwaway and physically confronting the left - Defence League march in Dudley two dreadful consequences: setting off a to say, communists do not bend comment offers a revealing insight into and some diehards probably still do days later (‘Should fascists be allowed chain reaction of increased attacks over backwards to help reactionary the SWP mentality, which essentially after a few bottles of wine. But that is freedom of speech?’, January 27). We on mosques, physical assaults on organisations, fascist or otherwise, is to build a popular-frontist coalition clearly not the strategy of the current are ritually told that fascists “should members of the left, and so on. Now spread their views - we aim at all against fascism - nothing must be done FN leadership, nor would it define or never be allowed to speak publicly we discover that, far from having times to politically defeat all backward to alienate ‘progressive’ bourgeois characterise any future Len Pen-led or organise openly”, as whenever stormtroopers on every street corner ideas. We most certainly do not have opinion. But what the SWP is really government; the left should deal with “Nazis” are “allowed the space to and swastikas flying from every a relaxed, ‘live and let live’ attitude or doing is handing over the right to what is, not indulge in fantasy politics. organise” they will build a “hard core building, Griffin’s views were “torn suffer from libertarian complacency. decide which political discourses are Interestingly enough, while Ukip of street-fighting thugs” that will carry apart” - ripped to shreds in front of Fascism is distinguished from other acceptable or not to the bourgeois state does not want anything to do with out “murderous attacks” on ethnic millions of people. As a result, he lost reactionary streams of thought, after and its courts, police, armies, etc. By the FN, the two are actually similar minorities and the left as part of an all credibility, and eventually his job all, by being the last line of defence - a doing so you are granting these powers organisations: xenophobic, chauvinist, attempt to physically “take control as BNP leader - he was finally kicked desperate rearguard action - of class to a state apparatus which in times of rightwing. Yet curiously the SWP says of the streets”. The most obvious out of the organisation just to make society in times of severe crisis, and extreme crisis will itself turn to fascism. Ukip is not fascist - though apparently it example being, we are informed, his downfall complete. Obviously, the chilling brutality which it deploys It is, after all, what the ruling class will is “racist”, because it calls for a tighter, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party in the early something does not compute about is not an accidental or contingent ultimately deploy against us when we points-based, immigration system. In 1930s that attacked Jewish people on the SWP’s analysis. phenomenon, but a necessary function threaten its rule. Therefore, we must fact that makes it little different, when the streets and smashed up meetings Naturally, Socialist Worker goes of its counterrevolutionary social role: demand of the bourgeois state that all all is said and done, from the Tories, of trade unions, social democrats and through a few contortions in a desperate to crush the working class and its opinions must be permissible - open to Liberal Democrats, Labour or, for that communists. In other words, freedom effort to retain the old ideological line organisations. debate and contention. matter, George Galloway and No2EU of speech leads directly to the gas - making out that a “record” 3,000 From this understanding it follows The main political lesson of (rest in peace). Are they all “racist” too? chambers. That is because “Nazis” people “reportedly” enquired about that communists are the most vocal Marxism is that this state, at any and Additionally, could the SWP central are “not like other political forces” or BNP membership that night and and steadfast opponents of fascism. all times, is the main enemy - not “the committee please explain what the “even other racist parties”, such as the droning on about how the explanation And one of our most powerful Nazis”. Nick Griffin or any other far- fundamental difference is between the United Kingdom Independence Party - for the organisation’s demise is due to weapons is precisely exposure, right crackpot should be perfectly FN and Ukip? rather they are an utterly alien menace, UAF “campaigning to smash it” - not debate, criticism: ie, free speech. free - as far as the police and state Whilst we wait for these and other a deadly virus that if left unexpunged because it was “defeated in debate”. With that in mind, communists are concerned - to expound their answers, it is obvious that the SWP will infect the entire body politic. Truly pathetic stuff. You need only recognise that the bourgeoisie is not garbage. Laws against ‘extremism’ leadership completely misunderstands Of course, the SWP’s basic premise have looked at the BNP’s website a champion of free speech. Indeed or ‘radicalisation’ are just as much a the history of the 1920s and 1930s, or is laughable nonsense - but we shall after the Question time show ended, it is a thoroughly anti-democratic threat to communists as they are to at least pretends to. As Clara Zetkin return to that a bit later. However, as Weekly Worker journalists did, to class. The SWP/UAF, on the other fascists or political Islam - far more famously said, quite correctly, fascism what is most noteworthy about the see the flood of angry comments from hand, has historically concentrated so, in fact, as we have a fundamental was a punishment inflicted on the above article - for all its thumping supporters/members who had found on getting ‘respectable’, mainstream class hostility to the bourgeois state. working class for not having taken SWP orthodoxy - is that it includes Griffin’s performance a complete opinion on its side - whether forlornly Yes, we in the CPGB are perfectly power. But we are not in the 1920s or a very brief discussion about the embarrassment: their “overawed” or not - and at its very worst has made prepared to use the no-platform 1930s. As things stand now, there is implosion of the British National leader had been fucking useless, when direct, and rather revolting, appeals tactic under certain circumstances, no immediate threat to the ruling order Party, now thankfully facing electoral he should have been “fully prepared” to the bourgeois establishment’s ‘anti- but we oppose the traditional far-left from the working class - accordingly, extinction. We are reminded of Nick for questions relating to his past - ie, fascist’ credentials. This has involved approach, which boils everything there is absolutely no possibility of the Griffin’s 2009 appearance on the his description of the Nazi genocide as UAF openly calling for the state to down to often pointless displays of bourgeoisie ceding political power to BBC’s Question time show and the fact a “holo-hoax” or defence of the “totally ban EDL marches or imprison far- physical force or, in the shape of fascist thugs l that Unite Against Fascism and other non-violent” David Duke, former Ku right figures for ‘hate speech’. This UAF, a liberalistic, ‘something must campaigners “fought hard to keep him Klux Klan leader. is peddling dangerous illusions in the be done’ howl. But it is a profound [email protected] weekly 9 worker 1045 February 12 2015 miners 1984-85

Stillt is hard to believe now, but of these was notthe Socialist the SWP constituted too itself as 1925 or 1926. This is morelate Weekly Worker - even at this during the miners’ Great Workers Party, a self-regarding one of the most conservative, like 1927” (that is, the miners’ very late stage in the strike IStrike of 1984-85 the bulk sect whose leaders viewed the bureaucratically sluggish were already defeated - the fought to harness the latent of the left in this country at strike with the interests of the organisations in the solidarity situation during the miners’ energy and élan of the miners best “toyed” with the idea of SWP and the defence of its movement.2 strike was akin to that after and the networks of solidarity a general strike, as this Alec narrow perspectives foremost Perhaps the most explicit the strategic defeat suffered by around them to launch an Long article from The Leninist in their minds. This epic - and ghastly - expression the British working class with all-out, class-against-class of February 1984 puts it. That, battle was thus characterised of this came from the pen the failure of the 1926 General struggle for victory l or groups actively campaigned as an “extreme example of of leading SWPer Chris Strike). Mark Fischer against the demand. … the ‘downturn’ in the Harman, who, in the midst of In vivid contrast, The Possibly the most craven movement”.1 Consequently, the strike, wrote: “This isn’t Leninist - forerunner of the [email protected] With or without the TUC: general strike! “But if you do so [call a general Militant and Socialist Organiser who strike],” went on Mr Lloyd George, would seek to straightjacket such a “have you weighed the conse­ mass upheaval even before it begins: quences? The strike will be in defiance of the government of the A general strike forged in advance country and by its very success will within the fetters of legality is like precipitate a constitutional crisis of a war demonstration­ with cannons the first importance. For, if a force whose charge has been dumped into arises in the state which is stronger a river within the very sight of the than the state itself, then it must be enemy. ready to take on the functions of the state itself, or withdraw and accept Militant’s timidity is an inevitable the authority of the state.” product of its congenital Labourism. “Gentlemen,” asked the prime For this group, despite all its minister quietly, “have you ‘revolutionary’ pretensions, the considered, and, if you have, are activity of the working class and its you ready?” striving towards revolution must be “From that moment on,” said subordinated to the election of the [TUC negotiator] Robert Smillie,3 ‘next’ Labour government “com­ “we were beaten and we knew we mitted to socialist policies” (with lots were.”4 of Militant backbenchers, hopefully). This Labour government, like During the course of the miners’ strike tomorrow, never comes, of course. a number of different political groups However, in the meantime, Militant and individuals have toyed with the insists that the working class confront general strike idea, most without any the capitalists with fists firmly thrust real notion of what such a call entails. in pockets: it sets workers up for a real We, however, have been unique in the pasting. Communist Party in advancing this Others on the left are actually slogan. The Morning Star, true to form, actively hostile to the call for a general has been so far behind the struggle that strike. Yet the mere fact that groups as it has not even informed its readers as Left to fight alone disparate as the staggeringly irrelevant to why it would oppose the demand Revolutionary Communist Party, for a strike wave of general strike the National Union of Mineworkers, can sometimes result, but also of the for what capitalism can afford. On through to the economistic Socialist proportions. In this article we shall and this explains why the full forces of immense possibilities: its foundation in August 1924 it not Workers Party, have combated the idea explain why we have called for this the bourgeois state have been ranged only represented 200,000 workers, but, illustrates that the call is far more than action and why we believe it to be both against the striking miners. When the government rejected the as can be seen from its programme, a throw-away one-liner from the likes necessary and realisable. Militant5 of December 14 1984 general council’s offer to run food it was under no illusions about the of Tony Benn. It is being debated, For us, the general strike is an cretinously claims that: “To some trains, this question resolved itself reformability of British capitalism. The both pro and anti, because the struggle objective requirement of the strike extent it [the miners’ strike] has into the issue of permits for the road NMM committed itself “to organise itself is throwing up the question as in two ways. First, in the ‘narrower’ already taken on features of a general transport of food. Headquarters the working masses of Great Britain for an objective need; we do not have to sense it is a need in order to win this strike situation.” What Militant is tried to systematise the business by the overthrow of capitalism ... to carry invent it. The lame-brains of the British ‘sectional’ dispute. The 70s are dead attempting to describe in its typically instructing the localities that the only on a wide agitation and propaganda ... left thus choose to ignore reality and and gone forever: the crisis of British ham-fisted way is the feature of the authority to issue permits was the against the present tendency towards vilify the call for a general strike as imperialism has upped the stakes and strike we have pointed to above: the Joint Transport Committee, to consist social peace and class-collaboration ultra-leftist. Instead, apparently: “It is has led the bourgeoisie to sharpen mobilisation and the placing on a of delegates from the transport and and the delusion of the peaceful more important to talk first of all about its claws and stiffen its backbone. ‘war footing’ of the full might of the railway unions. In very many cases, transition of capitalism to socialism ...” what the miners themselves can do to Increasingly therefore it will become state. So the miners have now been on however, this authority was assumed The raw material for such a bring about victory.” necessary to mobilise the power of the strike for 11 months in defence of their by the local trades council or council movement exists not only in the miners As if the miners alone have not labour movement as a whole in order jobs and communities, but this battle of action ... (p142). support committees, but especially in the done enough already! We have called to win sectional battles. is only part of an overall offensive 25% of workers that The Sunday Times for a general strike in this dispute This is especially so with the miners, first to remove the ‘bottleneck’ of the The councils of action, which were revealed last year would be prepared to not to sound impressive or to warm as their fight is in that sense a test case. miners and then against the living themselves embryonic soviet-type take industrial solidarity actions with the ourselves with our rhetoric. We have The outcome of this dispute will set the standards of the working class as a organisations, in some areas assumed miners. This 25% are the pacemakers, called for it simply because it is tone for and the character of the class whole. Therefore to pit the undoubted responsibility for the administration of the opinion formers - a militant minority needed. The miners’ fight is a fight for struggles to come. A defeat for the strength, guts and sheer will to win large areas of civil life, a prelude to who, if nationally organised and given all workers. Let all workers join the miners would mean a massive wave of of 140,000 miners against the fully and an augury of the way the working a cutting political edge, can sway the struggle alongside the miners. They demoralisation among the best elements activated power of the bourgeois state class will one day take control of the mood of the majority. have suffered alone for all our sakes of our class and consequently a stepped- is heroic, but inadequate. running of society as a whole. The TUC are not going to organise a too long and too much. up onslaught from the buoyed-up Tories In the wider sense also, the general Some in the workers’ movement general strike. What we need therefore  Don’t let the miners stand alone! on the living standards of all workers; strike is an objective requirement of have timidly backed away from the is an alternative organisational centre  For a general strike against pit a victory, on the other hand, could see this struggle. The miners’ livelihoods perspective of a general strike for fear that can establish sufficient authority closures and the Tory anti-trade union our class imbued with a confidence and and right to work is being destroyed by that it might prove impossible to win with the class to win one. That is the key laws! militancy unparalleled possibly since a moribund, irrational system, which workers to back one. This, of course, task and one that is intimately linked  For a militant, organised fighting before 1926. has moved into inevitable crisis. The is the totally wrong way to pose the to the fight to reforge the Communist minority movement. This perspective has been fully phenomenon of the general strike question; we ought to think in these Party, the organisation that set up the Alec Long recognised by the ruling class. The is the highest expression of class terms - we need a general strike, now original National Minority Movement. Financial Times of April 6 1984 cohesiveness and combativeness short how do we go about getting one? It would be wrong to close this Notes reported the highly significant fact that of revolution itself. As Lloyd George Concretely, we have argued that the article without commenting on the idea 1. T Cliff Socialist Review April 1984. the Confederation of British Industry is knew (see the opening quote), such ideal vehicle for winning this action floated most notably by Militant, but 2. See, for example, the report in The Leninist “telling its member-companies to aim a mass action can paralyse not only is a National Minority Movement- also by others in the labour movement: of the 1984 Mineworkers Defence Committee for zero increases in unit labour costs the economy, but also the normal type organisa­tion, springing from a that of a 24-hour general strike. In our conference, reprinted in the Weekly Worker (January 8 2015). during the next 10 years and where administrative functions of the transformed miners’ support movement. view this would be, in the words of 3. Robert Smillie (1857-1940) was a miners’ possible to seek actual reductions of state. Workers are then posed with The National Minority Movement the great Polish revolutionary, Rosa leader who played an important role in breaking about three percent.” the practical difficulties of running (NMM) sought to bring together all the Luxemburg, to turn the “thunder of the union from the Liberal Party to Labour. Central to this struggle to drive a society day to day. In his book, workers in rank-and-file organisations a general strike into a damp squib”. 4. Quotation taken from Aneurin Bevan’s book, In place of fear (London 2010). down the living standards of all The post-war history of the British around a national structure and unitary Writing on the abortive 1902 general 5. Forerunner of today’s paper, The Socialist, workers is the battle against the working class, Alan Hutt gives some demands for an unremitting fight for strike in Belgium, Luxemburg journal of the Socialist Party in England and traditionally most powerful union, idea not only of the confusion that what the working class needs, not effectively demolished those like Wales, of course. 10 weekly February 12 2015 1045 worker review Machiavellian manoeuvres in the dark Peter Kosminsky (director) Wolf Hall BBC2, Wednesdays 9pm s this edition of the Weekly has the power to annul his marriage Worker lands on your doormat to Catherine. The Commons vote is Aor graces your browser window, orchestrated by Cromwell to take place the fourth episode of the BBC’s six- in full view of the king, ensuring a part dramatisation of Hilary Mantel’s significant majority. novels, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Rumours that Anne’s prized virginity bodies, will have been aired. It will had been long lost to the once amorous be interesting to see if viewing figures Harry Percy cause Cromwell to pay the have held up. latter a visit. Cromwell leans on him, Following much fanfare and hype informing Percy that the world is no from the Beeb, 3.9 million viewers longer run by armies, but by bankers. tuned in for the first instalment. And, of course, Cromwell knows all of By episode two this was down by Percy’s debts and his creditors. about a million and episode three Meanwhile Cromwell’s own sex saw 2.6 million viewers stick with life is becoming intriguing. His affair it. Perhaps those who switched over with sister-in-law Johane ends when to Midsummer murders on ITV her mother finds out (this would have were hoping for more Downton been regarded as semi-incestuous by Abbey-type period soap opera. Catholics at the time). It is implied that While Mantel’s hefty books have he sees her as a substitute for his late been overwhelmingly well received, wife, accidentally referring to her as winning two Man Booker prizes (Wolf “Liz”, as she leaves. Hall 2009; Bring up the bodies 2012), There are others on Cromwell’s many critics have been less taken ‘list’ of affections. In a scene prior with the BBC’s adaptation, which to Anne’s marriage, when it is clear has received a mixed bag of reviews. she and Cromwell have won, Thomas While there have been some glowing and Anne watch the courtyard below responses and few who rubbish it them from a balcony. There is a fairly entirely, there is a significant number erotic shot with Cromwell, stroking of the commentariat of the opinion her heaving breasts. Although the that - well, it’s good, but not all it was next cut sees him standing further hyped up to be. I think some of this back, indicating that this was a mere can be put down to impatience. fantasy on Cromwell’s part, this is In an attempt at 15th century so incongruous with the style of the authenticity, director Peter Kosminsky series that we are left questioning if has filmed indoor night-time scenes the liaison took place at all. in candlelight, which seemingly In a later scene, Thomas is in the flummoxed a lot of viewers, who gardens at Calais (while Anne is at failed to make out what was going last naked in bed with Henry). Mary on. Another commonly held criticism Boleyn offers herself to Cromwell, is that the plot is not explicit. albeit as her second choice, having Kosminsky’s minimal introductory believed she was stood up. When her titles and reliance upon dialogue tardy suitor arrives unexpectedly in the between characters, completely darkness, Thomas puts a knife to his avoiding monologues or voiceovers, neck before anyone can realise what is leaves the audience having to work happening - Cromwell’s past in Europe at what is happening. While reading has made him more than just a man of some reviews of Wolf Hall, I could words. Thomas leaves Mary with her not help but wonder if critics would lover and goes to bed “to pray”. have preferred Thomas Cromwell Not satisfied with the Boleyn to have had a cringe-worthy Carrie sisters, Cromwell also appears to Bradshaw-style voiceover narration Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell have an interest in Anne’s young ... The Daily Telegraph’s Michael maid, Jane Seymour, whom Anne Leapman criticised Kosminsky’s eventual lack of heads ... and then the his background. Wolsey is up north in Yorkshire, but treats dismissively. We met Seymour failure to make use of the energy of fight with Rome and the reformation receiving far too much of a following for earlier in Anne’s chamber, where she actor Mark Rylance (playing Thomas of the Church of England. What we The story so far … comfort. Cromwell’s decision to remain had been sent as an ineffectual spy Cromwell), who confined himself see in Wolf Hall is the high stakes, the In the first episode, Three-card trick, in London could have been taken, as (not understanding any French). Then “largely to a single facial expression” Machiavellian political power-plays we watch the fall of Wolsey, as he fails he claims, in order to fight Wolsey’s she appeared naive; now she seems (February 6). Quite what Leapman had of the Tudor court. The moron who to get annulment for Henry’s marriage corner in the corridors of power - or marginally more worldly, but still a in mind for the character is anybody’s equated prince Charles’s Clarence to Catherine of Aragon. The loyalty of perhaps it was to distance himself from bit wet. guess: ‘Shaolin Tudor’? Court with Wolf Hall clearly has no Cromwell to the cardinal, his master, Wolsey, whose fate is looking grim. As the third instalment closes, For what it is worth, I have found understanding of real politics. The while others jump ship, is also featured. Harry Percy, who Wolsey once tried to Anne, now, pregnant, believes herself the direction of Wolf Hall to be skilful. petty desire for backhanders and Much mention is made of both stop marrying Anne Boleyn, is sent to secure. The so-called ‘Holy Maid of The story is ostensibly told from the knighthoods among those who grovel characters’ ‘humble’ origins: Wolsey bring Wolsey back to London for his Kent’ is prophesising against Henry’s point of view of the lawyer and advisor before the royal family today bears is a butcher’s son; Cromwell the son execution. Wolsey dies on his way back, marriage and claims to see his daughter to Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell. no comparison to the life-and-death of a blacksmith (perhaps this is seen refusing to eat. to Catherine, Mary (later to be known With that in mind, we are rarely privy gambles, plays and manoeuvres that as the reason for Cromwell’s loyalty). Meanwhile, Thomas More, the lord as Bloody Mary, on account of her to anything said beyond the earshot could see you to either massive wealth We meet and then watch the departure chancellor loyal to the Catholic church, burning of heretic Protestants), taking of Cromwell. The audience tends not and influence or your head on the block of Cromwell’s wife and children - this is portrayed as eccentric, cunning and the throne (incidentally, we first meet to enter a room before he does. We under Henry Tudor. is done remarkably movingly, given powerful. More is traditionally viewed, the weak and shrimp-like Mary when are told the story mostly through his Wolf Hall portrays the political we have known the characters for especially in Catholic accounts of she is suffering from period pains). experiences. calculations, vengeances and sexual little more than 20 minutes. We also history, as the ‘good man’, who And James Bainham is burned at the Rylance is a skilled actor and gives desires and frustrations of the key meet the shrill and calculating Anne righteously defends his faith at his stake after, having been released, he a strong performance as Cromwell characters through subtly themed Boleyn and her more affable sister, own cost. In Mantel’s portrayal, More was unable to keep quiet about his through well written dialogue and episodes. Thomas Cromwell is depicted Mary (Henry’s previous lover). We do is the villain, the torturer of ‘heretics’ convictions and was re-arrested. This subtle expression. His co-star, Damien affectionately by Rylance. He is not not meet Henry himself until the first who would have the Bible translated subtly thematic circle of events is a Lewis, who readers may remember shown as a kind of Peter Mandelson of episode is drawing to a close. from Latin. His lackey, Stephen good example of the director’s well- from HBO’s Band of brothers or the day - spinning events, his loyalty But there is more of Henry in Gardener (played by Mark Gatiss), crafted story-telling. more recently as Sergeant Brody bought; but as passionate man with episode two, Entirely beloved. Here Cromwell’s nemesis, provides witty, So far, Wolf Hall has been intriguing, in Homeland, is also very strong as progressive views. We see tenderness begins the emergence of trust towards curt and knowingly cynical exchanges if at times slow in pace. Mostly Henry VIII (though I do struggle not and pain, as we witness the death of Cromwell by the king, who takes him with Cromwell that would befit a 15th well cast, with clever, sometimes to think of him as Brody). Lewis’s his wife from sweating sickness, and into his confidence. Cromwell, in century version of Yes minister or The understated dialogue, written by Peter handsome demeanour is at odds with especially so, as we watch his children typical form, plays a tactical hand, thick of it. Saughton. It is thoughtfully produced the stereotypical image of Henry suffer the same fate. His character’s advising Henry to tax the corrupt Episode three, Anna Regina, is and carefully, yet subtly staged. It is as a portly, gout-ridden man - even humanity and passion are developed monks and monasteries. Cromwell where the series really gets going. It not the most visionary or hard-hitting in Holbein’s painting he’s far from through his affair with his sister-in- is now on the inside. Later Henry is set two years later in 1531, when work, nor is it the best thing I will ever pretty. Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal law (trapped in a sexless marriage) summons him in the middle of the Cromwell is better off, yet engineers watch on TV, but it is worth taking Wolsey was a bit stiff, but, given that and his slightly steamy flirtations with night - the household fears that he is himself a job as ‘keeper of the jewels’. the time to appreciate and digest the his character soon became exactly both Boleyn sisters. This Cromwell being arrested. Instead he is taken to James Bainham, Cromwell’s barrister, nuance, the writing and the craft that that, it is not massively off-putting. is not Leo McKern’s A man for all the king’s bedside, as he has woken is arrested for promoting William has gone into it. Incidentally, Wolsey would have been seasons: a cold, calculating bureaucrat. from a nightmare in which his dead Tyndale’s English version of the Bible However, those looking for 57 at the time, not the octogenarian he Undoubtedly, the real man was a brother and heir to the throne has (copies of which had been smuggled something that is instantly accessible appears to be on screen. clever, astute politician, whatever visited him. Cromwell eases Henry’s into England from Germany). and demands nothing of its audience As to the plot, we all know the his flaws. A player in the court who worries, spinning the dream to show Henry takes matters into his own would do better to switch over to general history. King Henry, his lived a lavish lifestyle, but who never the king as a courageous leader. He hands, asking parliament to endorse Midsummer murders l desire for a male heir, his wives, their reached the heights of power, due to has Henry’s ear - and his trust. him as head of the church, so that he Sarah McDonald weekly 11 worker 1045 February 12 2015 What we debate fight for n Without organisation the working class is nothing; with Thoughts on Karl Marx and art the highest form of organisation it is everything. arx’s ideas about art began hand, the bourgeois division of labour n There exists no real Communist to take shape in his 1844 permits an increase in the productive Party today. There are many so- MEconomic and philosophic forces/man’s power over nature. On the called ‘parties’ on the left. In manuscripts. But they also recur and are other hand, it is mind-crippling for the reality they are confessional sects. developed further in his later writings, workers, given its hierarchical character: Members who disagree with the including Capital. We live in an age ie, it separates intellectual, spiritual, prescribed ‘line’ are expected to when artistic decadence has reached from practical labour - the latter being gag themselves in public. Either its nadir, whereby art as a commodity assigned to the workers. Therefore it that or face expulsion. is the only thing that matters; be that the “divides concrete, real man, degrading n Communists operate art of the old masters or today’s anti-art. and debasing him”. Hence we have according to the principles of In other words, it is time Marx’s ideas “the exclusive concentration of artistic democratic centralism. Through were re-examined. talent in particular individuals, and its ongoing debate we seek to achieve Artistic labour is creative and suppression in the broad mass, which unity in action and a common free work: the subject (artist/creator, is … a consequence of division of world outlook. As long as they consumer of art) establishes a particular labour”.6 support agreed actions, members relationship with the object (creation Under the commodity form, there is should have the right to speak “in accordance with the laws of beauty” also the problem of the inverting power openly and form temporary or or the “artistic assimilation of reality” of money: “It transforms loyalty into permanent factions. in the form of the work of art1). Initially treason, love into hate, virtue into vice n Communists oppose all the artist transforms the materials, the … nonsense into reason and reason into imperialist wars and occupations ideas at his/her disposal, by giving raw nonsense”7 - compare mass art, which but constantly strive to bring matter a determinate form. The result is commercially determined. It presents to the fore the fundamental is a new, aesthetic object, in which the most profound human problems question - ending war is bound the human wealth of the subject is only in the most banal and degraded up with ending capitalism. objectified or revealed. forms (which is hierarchical, because n Communists are The aesthetic relationship evolves on it separates intellectual/spiritual from internationalists. Everywhere a socio-historical basis, in the process Superior labour practical labour), or it merely affirms we strive for the closest unity and of humanising nature by means of work them, in order to keep man in his agreement of working class and and objectifying the human being. The the imitation of form in nature/human and a subjective state. It is at once place, thus closing the window to his progressive parties of all countries. formal elements of art undergo change in constructions, as an effective means to form, when we judge it, and also life, understanding of a truly human world - We oppose every manifestation line with a change in the socio-historical express the work’s content, and, at the when we feel it …”3 This means that and with it “the possibility of becoming of national sectionalism. It is an conditions: eg, classical, medieval, etc. same time, the artist’s point of view/ we need to have an objective standard conscious of his alienation, as well as internationalist duty to uphold the (But this occurs dialectically: it is not a feelings about his subject. It cannot of taste. Of course, this is fraught the means of abolishing it”.8 principle, ‘One state, one party’. mechanical process.) exist outside of humanity. Beauty is with contradictions. This subjective/ On the question of the objective n The working class must be Art as superior labour reaches not an attribute of a universal being: objective nature of art is analogous side of art, or the need for an objective organised globally. Without its most developed stage during the it is created by man in artistic objects. to Marx’s discovery of commodity standard of taste, Marx writes: “If a global Communist Party, bourgeois epoch - although the artist Moreover, because it is social and fetishism: it is an objective, you wish to enjoy art, you must be an a Communist International, is cut off from the majority of other human, the aesthetic object reveals its scientifically determined observation, artistically cultivated person.”9 the struggle against capital is workers (ie, alienated labour to create essence only to man; it exists only for which Marxists hold to be true; but Judgement of taste was once the weakened and lacks coordination. use/exchange value). Unlike the latter, ‘natural human beings’ - that is, for it needs to be overcome, because preserve of the (semi-autonomous) n Communists have no interest artistic labour is freely undertaken, and social beings: the masses are ruled by commodity bourgeois art institution. But in the apart from the working class tends to satisfy the artist’s inner need fetishism at the subjective level (the period of late capitalism the old as a whole. They differ only in to objectify, express and reveal his/her Aesthetic consciousness … is need for money in order to live, etc). consensus, based on the enlightenment recognising the importance of essential powers in a concrete, sensuous not something given, innate or The two most important ideal of art as a ‘free activity of the Marxism as a guide to practice. object. By freeing itself from the narrow biological; rather it emerges contradictions are the commodity form spirit’, which elevates it above prosaic That theory is no dogma, but material reality of (alienated) labour, art historically and socially on the and the bourgeois division of labour: reality, has been exchanged for post- must be constantly added to reaches a higher level of objectification basis of practical, material labour; structuralist theory: ie, the ‘logics of and enriched. and affirmation of man as a human the subject exists only for the object The need for money is … the disintegration’. Judgement of taste is n Capitalism in its ceaseless being. These powers are realised in and the object exists only for the real need created by the modern purely a subjective matter. What matters search for profit puts the future practical aesthetic objects. subject. [But] the aesthetic object economic system, and the only more is that art’s value is monetarised, of humanity at risk. Capitalism What is beauty? Aesthetic objects cannot be reduced to the subject; it need it creates. The quantity of be it a Rembrandt, a Picasso drawing is synonymous with war, exist only for social beings. Man elicits exists independently of subjective money becomes more and more its dashed off in a few minutes, a soft-porn pollution, exploitation and crisis. the aesthetic from things by means perception or evaluation.2 sole important property. Just as it picture of Jeff Koons and his wife, or As a global system capitalism of his material, practical activity, reduces everything to its own form anti-art (eg, Koon’s set of basketballs, can only be superseded globally. giving determinate form to material The “aesthetic” therefore is not of abstraction, so it reduces itself or Tracy Emin’s Unmade bed). The n The capitalist class will never nature with the aim of expressing a purely subjective. It is also objective. in the course of its own movement obsession with anti-art objects, in which willingly allow their wealth and spiritual (imaginative), human content. According to Mikhail Lifshitz, Marx to something quantitative. Lack the distinction between the art object power to be taken away by a Beauty is consciously produced form; agreed with Schiller’s observation: of moderation and intemperance and consumerism is blurred, means parliamentary vote. ugliness is absence of form. Beauty is “Beauty is simultaneously an object become its true standard.4 anything can be art. n We will use the most militant But not everyone can be an artist. methods objective circumstances This idea is developed further in For that, one needs the backing of allow to achieve a federal republic Capital. The tendency to amass the art institution, albeit one which of England, Scotland and Wales, capital is the essence of capitalistic is increasingly tied to the art market. a united, federal Ireland and a Fighting fund progress: ie, production for Thus the artist becomes a productive United States of Europe. production’s sake (compare ancient labourer, whose product “comes n Communists favour industrial society); but the contradictory nature into being only for the purpose of unions. Bureaucracy and class of the development of the productive increasing … capital”.10 compromise must be fought and If your phone rings forces is “clearly inimical to some If the schism within real and concrete the trade unions transformed fields of spiritual activity - art, for man is to disappear - for art not to be an into schools for communism. ne comrade who has that way was £160. That’s from instance” (Theories of surplus value). exclusive, privileged sphere, decadent n Communists are champions Oresponded to our appeal nine donations, ranging from £10 So spiritual production calls for a or otherwise - we need a successful of the oppressed. Women’s for new or increased standing to £40 (thank you, AD!). different kind of labour than that used communist revolution. If not, art and oppression, combating racism and orders is MS, who states: “I feel I But that’s not the only way in material production. Marx writes: society continue to decay. Where does chauvinism, and the struggle for should contribute to this excellent of contributing to our monthly this leave man as a species-being? l peace and ecological sustainability publication.” And he is as good as fighting fund. For instance, over Only through the objectively Rex Dunn are just as much working class his word, for the accompanying the last seven days there were three unfolded wealth of human nature questions as pay, trade union rights SO form payable to the Weekly PayPal donations from NW (£20), can the wealth of subjective human Notes and demands for high-quality Worker is for £40 a quarter, starting DF and KD (£10 each). Then there sensitivity - a musical ear, an eye for 1. According to Walter du Halde: http://dialecti- health, housing and education. in March. Another form just is the good, old-fashioned other the beauty of form, in short, senses ca2epoca.cybersite.nu/text_100542.html. n Socialism represents victory received is from comrade DC, who ways - £10 cash from Hassan and capable of human gratification - be 2. A Sánchez Vázquez Art and society London in the battle for democracy. It 1979, chapter 3. is increasing his current payment cheques from CN (a fantastic £50) either cultivated or created ... The 3. M Lifshitz The philosophy of art of Karl Marx is the rule of the working class. by £1 a month. Every little helps! and LP (£20) - all helped up this cultivation of the five senses is the London 1973, p96. Socialism is either democratic Those new payments will be week’s tally to £270. That takes work of all previous history. [But 4. K Marx Economic and philosophical or, as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, too late for our February fund, but the running total for February to under the commodity form] sense, manuscripts: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ it turns into its opposite. works/1844/epm/3rd.htm. n the idea, of course, is to swell that £523, but once again we’re lagging which is a prisoner of crude practical 5. Ibid. Socialism is the first stage list of regular donors and/or the behind - we need to raise well over need, has only a restricted sense. For 6. A Sánchez Vázquez Art and society London of the worldwide transition amount they pay, so that we make £1,000 in just over two weeks! a man who is starving, the human 1979, p282. to communism - a system our £1,750 target every month. At That’s where you come in. form of food does not exist, only its 7. www.academia.edu/7443151/The_Sense_In_ which knows neither wars, Which_Communists_Must_Be_Communitarian. the moment, we’re struggling a bit, Let us have your contribution by abstract form exists [as a means to 8. A Sánchez Vázquez Art and society London exploitation, money, classes, but I’m confident that this situation cheque, PayPal, bank transfer or an end; to live, work - in this sense, 1979, pp254-55. states nor nations. Communism will soon be reversed. A team of … yes, standing order! l man is reduced to an animal. But the 9.My emphasis - www.marxists.org/archive/marx/ is general freedom and the real comrades are currently ringing or Robbie Rix idea of food in the literal sense also works/1844/manuscripts/power.htm. Unlike Adam beginning of human history. emailing our contacts, soliciting applies to food in the metaphorical Smith, Marx sees the artist as an unproductive labourer; but only as long as his labour is part The Weekly Worker is licensed by November new or increased SOs. So if your sense: eg, art.] The man who is of his nature: ie, not intended to be “subsumed Publications under a Creative Commons phone rings … Fill in a standing order form burdened with worries and needs has under capital … for the purpose of increasing that Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Just to stress how important (back page), donate via our no sense for the finest of plays 5… capital”; and not just for himself, but for the art Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ website, or send cheques, industry as a whole. by-nc/4.0/legalcode. those regular standing orders are, 10. K Marx Theories of surplus value: www. ISSN 1351-0150. the total we received last week in payable to Weekly Worker In Wage labour and capital, as well as in marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1863/theories- Capital, Marx points out that, on the one surplus-value/add1.htm. No 1045 February 12 2015 Labour left weekly remains short on ideas and worker divided Wishful thinking rather than hard truth Stan Keable of Labour Party Marxists was at John McDonnell’s Labour Left Platform roundtable discussion on February 7 n air of desperation and self- first be truthful about where we are conditions for the working class to through the national policy forum!” trade unions and the Labour Party into deception hung over the 200 at. Our class is in a weak condition overpower capitalism. The key to developing an vehicles for socialism, of “breaking Aor so left activists, MPs and at present - confused, disorganised Commendable though it is to attempt effective workers’ movement, and to the stranglehold of the bureaucracy”, ‘policy experts’ gathered together in and disorientated; and so is the left to bring the weak, divided, disorganised transforming the party and the unions, as Brent and Harrow LRC activist the big hall at the University of London itself. There is no quick fix for this and rudderless Labour left into the same is democracy - and democracy starts Steve Forrest put it, will be hindered Union at the invitation of leading condition, no short cut, no easy road room - “the first time in a long while that at home, in the organisations of the by Labour taking government office. left MP John McDonnell, under his to socialism. A protracted struggle all of the left organisations in the Labour left. The ineffective, pretend unity of We need socialist MPs elected, to give Labour Left Platform umbrella. Simon must be undertaken to democratise Party have come together”, in comrade fudged consensus ‘decisions’ made a voice to the workers’ movement. Hewitt, a young member of the Labour and rebuild our movement and re- McDonnell’s words - this gathering was without transparency, motions, debate But we need a Miliband Labour Representation Committee’s Labour educate our class in socialist ideas evidence, to any objective observer, of and voting, will not do. We need government like a hole in the head. Briefing editorial board, expressed this and politics before it can deliver the palpable weakness of the left and organisational unity in action, based on Unfortunately, sectarian divisions desperation: “Labour will be dead in five effective solidarity to anyone, let alone of the workers’ movement as a whole, freedom of discussion and acceptance amongst the Labour left are every bit years if we don’t sort ourselves out.” approach the question of taking state not our strength.2 As Aslef national of majority decisions. as alive as between the left groups The fragile nature of the lowest- power away from the capitalist class. organiser Simon Weller remarked, Comrade McDonnell, opening the outside the party. True, the Campaign common-denominator (ie, undemocratic) Much more than a simple majority the speeches complaining about anti- meeting, said: “People understand for Labour Party Democracy had consensus type of left unity achieved of MPs is required: socialism working class coalition government that they are being ripped off, and signed up amongst the Labour Left was illustrated when former Lambeth cannot be delivered from above by policies amount to “preaching to the are desperate for a real Labour Platform sponsors, and I spotted its anti-cuts councillor and Unite activist an enlightened elite. A genuinely choir”. Privatisation of public transport government”, but they are “not seeing secretary, Pete Wilsman, in the hall. Kingsley Abrams announced that he had socialist government in Britain (not has been going on for 40 years, he said a display of real Labour politics”. The But there was no sign of its leading resigned his Labour Party membership a Miliband/Balls Labour government - in other words, under Labour as well purpose of the Left Platform, as stated light, Ken Livingstone, while Christine and defected to the Trade Unionist and trying to run an imagined ethical as Tory administrations. The question on its website, is to “demonstrate Shawcroft only ventured as near as the Socialist Coalition in disgust. He had capitalism) implementing its minimum not being answered was, “How do we practically what a Labour government pavement in Malet Street, as the brave taken a stand against cuts on Lambeth programme of immediate measures set about changing the Labour Party? could do in office”, and “to consolidate lone seller of the so-called ‘original’ Labour council in line with Unite policy, in the interests of, and empowering, - and it is not a common left policy platform that can Labour Briefing - in competition with but Unite did not fight his suspension the working class, could not survive give people hope”.3 the one produced by the LRC, whose from the Labour group, which was now the inevitable counterrevolutionary But fostering hope in a Labour sales team was out in force.4 Comrade implementing cuts. The ‘emergency efforts of capital, unless it was based government under present McDonnell alluded to these difficulties budget’ anti-austerity motion to Labour’s on the active, conscious support of a realities means setting people when he commented that the event had national policy forum had been voted substantial majority of working people. up for disillusionment. “showed that we can work together”. down by the affiliated trade union Nor could it last long on its own, if the History shows that Labour The next step, said comrade delegates. And, to cap it off, Unite had workers’ movement in Europe had not governments running McDonnell in his summing up, is just made a £1.5 million donation to also matured to a similar level, capable capitalism undermine and to “ask every Labour candidate” to Labour’s election fund, on top of its of delivering real solidarity action to a disempower the workers’ support the Labour left’s “alternative affiliation fees. socialist government here, under attack. movement, setting the narrative” of “what needs to be done”, Comrade McDonnell remarked scene for more rightwing which had been the achievement of the that he had handed the microphone to Alternative Tory governments. The event. And we will reconvene in the Kingsley because “several others have A notable lacuna in the left’s ‘official communist’ first week after the general election done the same” (eg, Warrington anti- “alternative narrative” (comrade programme (Britain’s road to take the campaign forward, as that cuts councillor, Unite activist and LRC McDonnell’s words) was the omission to socialism) of a series of is the time, he claimed, when a new national committee member Kevin of any demands for democratisation increasingly leftwing Labour Labour government (if that is the Bennett also defected to Tusc recently), of the state. The three themes were administrations is a pipe result) will be most susceptible to and, ominously, “we do talk about the austerity, rail nationalisation and trade dream. Our movement must be pressure from the left l philosophical question whether to be union rights. It was left to the Socialist built in opposition to whatever in or out of the Labour Party”. Since Campaign for a Labour Victory capitalist government is Notes the meeting we have learned that RMT (promoted by the Alliance for Workers’ in office, and the task of 1. See www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east- president Peter Pinkney has joined the Liberty) to proclaim, on its leaflet, the transforming the news/rmt-union-president-im-standing-8598307. Green Party and will be standing as abolition of the monarchy and the 2. See also Jon Lansman’s useful summary of a Green candidate for Redcar in the Lords, a federal republic, what was said in each session, and his pertinent 1 criticisms of the left: “While the Labour left general election. and a worker’s continues to work in the amateurish manner Can the left persuade Labour’s wage for described above, the right has little to fear” (www. front bench to adopt an alternative, MPs. These leftfutures.org/2015/02/reflections-on-the-left- anti-austerity economic programme, demands platform-meeting/#more-41075). 3. http://leftplatform.com. in the short time available before May may not be 4. When the 2012 AGM of the Labour Briefing 7? Or will Labour continue alienating doorstep magazine voted to merge with the LRC, Jenny good class-struggle fighters with its vote- Fisher, Christine Shawcroft, Richard Price and austerity-lite commitments, promising winners three others, instead of accepting the democratic decision, turned the merger into a split. They to make the working class carry on today, but set up Labour Briefing Cooperative Limited and paying for capitalism’s crisis? 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