A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity

Another fine mess: SWP n Letters and debate n China and Covid-19 embroiled in scandal n Lenin 150 years over sexual misconduct n CPGB 100 years No 1297 April 30 2020 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10

Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? Edmund Griffiths investigates weekly 2 April 30 2020 1297 worker LETTERS

Letters may have been common programme, but, rather, are the Reagan-Bush Sr drug war from impact of the pandemic on capitalism, (PCC) is looking to unite Marxists, shortened because of nothing more than a state-regulated the right by arguing for stiffer and on the working class, nationally however currently misguided, into space. Some names mutual-assistance organisation for penalties against drug users as well as and internationally (‘Crisis and such a party. United, not around a  may have been changed aspiring office-holders. By all means, drug dealers - but he’s also an arch- consequences’). The same concerns - charismatic leader or an esoteric let’s detach Democratic voters, and imperialist who’s been neck-deep for capitalism at least - are shared by reading of Marx or Lenin, but around Republican ones as well, from such a in every major US crime of the last politicians, academics and the media, a programme. There can be factions US democracy corrupt structure. But it’s impossible 30 years, from the invasion of Iraq as we can see each day, though with a and disagreements, but unity in action. In his March 12 article, ‘Lessons being to split the organisation, since the and Afghanistan to the destruction good deal less foresight and candour. To that end the Weekly Worker has learned’, Paul Demarty observed that politicians actually are firmly united of Libya, Syria and Yemen, covert What is going to happen to the regular critiques and analyses on the “The USA is born of two revolutions in pursuit of their own narrow self- assistance to al Qa’eda, and support airlines, to the leisure industry? multitude of grouplets that, loosely, so far.” The last two words set my interests. for the neo-Nazi-spearheaded coup What cheap pickings are going to be define ‘the left’ and also allows for teeth on edge because they suggested Similarly, Paul Demarty should in the Ukraine. If his first major available to the vultures and what reply - not only in letters but also, that the next revolution will be a understand that fighting for “a campaign ad was an attack on Trump is going to happen to jobs? As Mike from time to time, in articles. continuation of the other two. distinctive programme for actual for not being tougher on the Chinese, points out, long-term unemployment I am reminded that when I was This is why I characterised his democracy” means repudiating the it’s because American aggression is all over the world, even with a new to the paper (not all that long argument as “popular frontist” corrupt pseudo-democratic politics in his bones. So, while he’d be better few ‘pay-outs’, is likely to lead to ago) I looked at interesting articles (‘Democracy is central’, April that have characterised the US since in Wisconsin, he’d be worse when it starvation. online in the ‘WW archive’. A mate 17) - because it echoes the US the civil war - indeed, since before comes to the rest of the world, where We can see, in stark clarity, basic of mine used to be in the International Communist Party argument of the the civil war. Any such programme US power predominates. inequalities - often spoken of by Socialists, but left the Socialist 1930s and after - that leftists should must entail democratic centralism, Trump, it’s worth remembering, politicians, the pope and, of course, Workers Party because he reckoned fight on the basis of a specifically unicameralism, proportional won in 2016 because he opposed the Davos crowd. But that was just that it had become a sect. So, as a American programme of Jeffersonian representation, strictest political US misadventures in Syria and the something to regret, something to ‘do matter of curiosity I read the obituaries democracy, agrarianism and a equality and popular sovereignty Ukraine. While Daum and Roberts something about’ - or ignore, as the of Tony Cliff - not surprisingly there properly-interpreted constitution. over and above parchment documents say that Democrats took a stand more alert of us might have realised. was a lot of criticism. However, there It is this policy that established the like the Constitution and the Bill against “lawless authoritarianism” in These inequalities cannot be so easily was an obituarist (and I haven’t been CPUSA as leftwing supplicants of of Rights, all of which would have the recent impeachment trial, what ignored, now that people are dying able to find the reference again) who the Democrats, but it is the diametric people like Jefferson rolling over really infuriated neocons like Adam because of them (and more will do so). said that, although Cliff was wrong opposite of the Trotskyist concept of in their graves. (Demarty might be Schiff was Trump’s ambivalence with Also, in stark clarity, stands the in claiming that the USSR was ‘state a united front of the working class, in interested to know that, in addition regard to the imperialist war effort in incompetence and indifference of capitalist’, nevertheless he would be which workers set themselves athwart to being an industrialist, urbanist Ukraine’s eastern provinces. governments. In Britain, decades of proud to march shoulder to shoulder any such bourgeois tradition. This and early opponent of slavery, As for Bonapartism, it’s important defunding and privatisation have led with him to battle against the ruling doesn’t mean that they should turn Alexander Hamilton argued in favour to bear in mind that the trend is to dire straits - not just in the NHS, class. their back on the events of 1776 or of a unicameral national assembly systemic. Not only have checks and but in care homes, local authority The fight to build a party, as can 1861-65. But establishing workers at the Constitutional Convention in balances led to a 35-year cold war provision of all kinds, including also be illuminated in the archive, is as an independent political force Philadelphia in 1787.) on Capitol Hill, but the very logic the environmental health workers bloody hard work. Just how hard can strongly encourages them to criticise As for Walter Daum and Matthew of the system suggests that the only needed for proper ‘test and trace’ be glimpsed in William Sarsfield’s that tradition root and branch. Roberts, I agree that America will way to unlock the logjam is by the work. And then we have the closure series of articles over the last several But comrade Demarty’s letter is take a giant step toward Bonapartism executive taking the bit in its teeth and of women’s refuges and all sorts of weeks (eg, ‘Party and parliament’, evidence that he doesn’t quite grasp if Trump succeeds in stealing the next asserting supremacy over the other facilities desperately needed by some April 23) about the fight to unify what this entails (April 23). He says election (Letters, April 23). I also agree two branches. Is Trump behaving - unnoticed by most and ditched by disparate groups in the UK to form a that the American left should “fight that Joe Biden is better when it comes unconstitutionally in so doing? Or is government. Communist Party. And this was at a to split the Democratic Party on class to voter suppression, gerrymandering he simply taking the constitution to its Just on page 2 of last weekend’s time when workers all over the world lines” and that doing so “must involve and the like. But I think they also suffer logical conclusion? Financial Times (April 25-26) there were inspired by the example of the a distinctive programme for actual from an unduly national perspective. Daum and Roberts add: were four stories. The main one Russian Revolution. democracy”. This assumes that the If they would step back, they would “Republicans are trying to unfreeze the was about “overwhelmed” care We do not now have that example in Democrats are indeed a political party, see that the situation is more complex republic by securing a new majority in homes, another about government our direct and immediate experience, just as the pundits and academics all say. and ironic than they apparently realise. the Supreme Court committed to an incompetence in the delivery of which may make things harder in the But, as I’ve argued elsewhere in this For example, not only is Biden’s unprecedented, counterrevolutionary gowns from Turkey. A third was short term, but maybe better in the space (eg, ‘Explosive contradictions’, record in purely democratic reinterpretation of the constitution.” about the unusual (internationally long. But we do have an international February 23), they are not a party as issues atrocious - he joined with But since when do socialists line up speaking) failure of the UK to check working class with massively greater the rest of the world understands the segregationists in opposing school behind judicial precedent? As for the international travellers at airports. The numbers and with a massively greater term, since they lack anything by way bussing, he was a key architect of counterrevolutionary reinterpretation fourth concerned the lack of progress level of education too. The job is still of a rank-and-file membership or a mass incarceration and he opposed that Republicans are allegedly by the UK on Brexit - something to hit there to do and we must do it. promoting, the constitutional tradition the headlines on another day perhaps. Jim Cook is such an incoherent muddle by this There are clearly countries around Reading point that it’s impossible to know even the world who are having a much Fighting fund where to begin in determining what a worse time than we are. Thanks to Depravity correct interpretation means. Modi in India, Erdoğan in Turkey, The Conservative government’s offer So, yes, let’s oppose Trump’s Bolsonaro in Brazil, Lenin (bless him) last week of £60,000 in compensation power grab, and let’s be realistic in Moreno of Ecuador and, of course, to the family of any health worker Through the admitting that a Biden victory might, the main contender for ‘top clown’, “dying in the course of their duties” to a limited degree, “buy time for Donald Trump. from Covid-19 is not just akin to working class and oppressed people Mike ends with the call that so medieval blood-money. It also to use their rights to vote and to often ends Weekly Worker articles represents a new depth of diversionary barrier organise in unions”. But it will not and letters (including mine) - for the depravity, of macabre decadence - ith, as I write, a day still reason - but don’t worry if enable them to “struggle against the building of a Communist Party. As depths that anyone with an ounce Wto go before the end of our you’ve posted us something: it imperialist-capitalist policies of both far as I’ve made out (and I’m sure of revolutionary verve will wish to April fighting fund, I have some will still count. I’ll make sure parties”, since it will bind them all the there are plenty of readers here who strike back against with communistic good news: we’ve smashed our mail is collected in time for more securely to one such party and could put me right if necessary) from venom. through that £2,000 barrier! next week’s column, I promise. hence to the ‘Repocratic’ duopoly as reading the paper and from attending Bruno Kretzschmar As I noted last week, we still And let me take this opportunity a whole. The political independence Communist University, the CPGB email needed £463 to reach that monthly to thank all those subscribers of of the working class vis-à-vis both target, but over the last seven days ours who are still making their parties is still the prime goal. no less than £563 came our way, monthly payments, even though, Daniel Lazare meaning that we’ve exceeded it obviously, we aren’t sending USA Online Communist Forum by exactly £100. No doubt it will them what they really want: the be topped up a little by one or two Weekly Worker in print! We really Marxists unite! more last-minute contributions - appreciate this support, comrades I thought last week’s Weekly Worker I’ll let you know next week! - and, of course, we’ll extend your was extremely good: not surprisingly Anyway, pride of place this time sub for the appropriate length of the bulk of the issue was devoted to goes to comrade SK, who made one time, once we resume printing. the serious pandemic situation we of those interesting donations of Typical is comrade HJ, who are all in. One of the exceptions was his - this time for the unusual sum writes: “While I miss having the Moshé Machover’s article on the of £323. I know he has a reason for hard copy, I’m now getting used to ‘Labour leak’ and its background coming up with that exact amount, reading it online. You never know (‘Weaponising “anti-Semitism”’, but ‘Ours not to reason why ...’ I’m - I might even learn how to print it April 23). just pleased to get it. out on my partner’s A2 printer one Though Weekly Worker readers Rather more orthodox of these days!” She adds: “I’m not will be familiar with most of Moshé’s amounts came from seven cancelling my standing order, by material, I thought that the Venn standing-order or bank-transfer the way - take it as a donation.” diagram approach was extremely donors - thanks to DG (£60), Received with thanks, useful. This helps with analysis of JT (£50), ML (£20), GT and SS comrade! l the situation in the Labour Party and Every Sunday, 5pm (£15), AT and JM (£10 each). Robbie Rix beyond; it helps bring extra clarity to If you wish to take part, please email Stan Keable at Finally, there were two PayPal thought on the subject; and it provides [email protected]. gifts, from comrades DB (£50) a useful framework for argument - and DM (£10). However, I’m Fill in a standing order form when we get the opportunity to do Weekly political report from CPGB Provisional Central Committee, afraid I can’t report any income (back page), donate via our much arguing again - especially in the followed by open discussion. from cheques or postal orders website, or send cheques, Labour Party. Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and for the usual Covid-19-related payable to Weekly Worker Meanwhile we have Mike Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk. Macnair’s piece on the long-term BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07903 054393 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 1297 April 30 2020 3 SWP Another fine mess Once again the SWP is embroiled in scandal over historic sexual misconduct, reports Paul Demarty

few weeks ago we had cause that, so far, this affair has not made in the case was when he read the court mode. disputes out of view of the ordinary to raise an eyebrow at the it to the mainstream media (which is documents linked in the blog posts. The suspensions of Bakhsh et al members until they cannot be ASocialist Workers Party’s rather busy with other matters just (Although he notes that some SWP would thereby be properly diagnosed ignored, generates the very power coverage of the conviction of Harvey at the moment); and there is little leadership statements about him would as panic; but the failure of that mode dynamics whose outworkings - in our Weinstein.1 enough enthusiasm at the best of imply that they had known earlier, he of dealing with sexual misconduct sexist society - will probably be to The comrades were in raptures times for operational transparency seems to think that these statements incidents in Bakhsh’s own branch the misfortune of a woman comrade at the outcome, as they were always at SWP leadership level. But then are straightforward lies.)8 (his bitter feelings are no doubt sooner or later. Therefore, there is no likely to be: as soon as the #MeToo another crisis broke out. A sizeable So, it seems undeniable that this exacerbated by the fact that the possibility of burying sexual crimes movement kicked into gear, SWP chunk of the Tyneside branch is yet another self-inflicted injury complainant in several matters is his and misdemeanours under a mountain instincts to tail any movement publicly resigned, with a barrage by the SWP. The leadership’s first partner) led to a subsequent crisis, of ‘Rich sexist scum’ headlines whatever in the hopes of recruiting of complaints about “a bullying, response to the Delta scandal was to which in turn meant that the SWP (what the far right today calls ‘virtue a few members necessarily dragged misogynistic and sexist culture”;6 shoot the messenger; its subsequent had to admit to its entanglement in signalling’). People have memories; it along in the wake of Weinstein’s among these comrades was one rubric for dealing with these matters Blackledge’s affairs, in a manner and, if they do not, they have the victims. As more and more spheres of Yunus Bakhsh, a very long-standing seems to have been on the same which lays bare its non-transparency internet to make up for it. social life had their unsavoury sexual SWP union militant, turned labour trajectory. Where, in 2013, it was and therefore untrustworthiness. Insofar as this case reflects economies exposed, Socialist Worker lawyer, who was witch-hunted in tough on messengers, by 2015 it was At this point, one almost despairs badly on the UCU or its broad could be relied on to denounce ‘rich Unison in a celebrated case that tough on the causes of messengers. to talk of lessons to be learned - there left, the lessons are essentially the sexist scum’ and the like from its tiny dragged on for years. Bakhsh notes in passing that, “since is surely little more one can offer to same. Nobody imposed a gag order bully-pulpit. The SWP did now break its silence the Delta case”, disputes committee the SWP than ‘We wouldn’t start from protocol on the UCU executive, There was, of course, just one to respond to the Tyneside resignation reports to conference “have been here if we were you’. But the comrades which now faces embarrassment small problem: the SWP was in a press release, which claimed anonymised and no details given”. are where they are; their leadership with calls for a new conference at infamous for cataclysmic failings on that the real cause of the crisis was He wants to know how he, and clique remains basically unchanged, the earliest possible occasion. In the same issue. In 2011-13, serious the fact that comrade Bakhsh had the two other comrades suspended which is basically problem number the end, the pervasive commitment allegations, including rape, against been suspended - for representing over involvement in Blackledge’s one. The villain of the piece, so far to confidentiality in proceedings - a leading member (Martin Smith, Blackledge before the certification case could be expected to cordon as Bakhsh is concerned, is Amy shared inter alia by Bakhsh, even as perhaps better known in anonymised officer, which risked bringing the themselves off from him, if the whole Leather - alongside Charlie Kimber, it comes back to bite him - speak to form as Comrade Delta) were party into disrepute. About the other case was kept under wraps. Whatever joint-national secretary - who led the a commonality to all organisations of dismissed by an ill-conceived internal allegations raised by Bakhsh et their personal errors, it seems that the wing of the SWP most defensive of the labour bureaucracy, be they tiny, investigation, and the hundreds of al, the SWP is silent, except to say SWP’s UCU fraction was set up to Martin Smith and most hysterical in like the SWP central committee, or members who rightly objected were that it is investigating and it would fail by a leadership that has never yet its demands for a reckoning for the smallish, like UCU officialdom. driven out for ‘factionalism’. Against not be “appropriate” to comment.7 made it out of ‘Keep your head down opposition. There is a pseudo-class interest in such a background, the strident This is at least a slight dodge, since and it’ll go away’ Problem number two is the artificial information scarcity that #MeToo-ism of Socialist Worker in some of the allegations date back to political outlook imposed by allows cliques within this layer the last couple of years has always 2018 and involve disputes that have that leadership, which is so to ‘punch above their weight’ by had an uncomfortable silence lurking been - at least formally - resolved, sterile as to offer basically controlling access. It is not in the under the sound and fury. but with lingering complaints about no critique at all to the end in the interests of the general It so happens, however, that the handling of them. Bakhsh’s identity politics movements membership, still less of the working yet another scandal was already suspension seems to have divided in which it seeks to swim. class as a whole. tightening its grip on the organisation the branch in a quite vicious fashion, Problem number three is Also not in those interests is when Weinstein got sent down. In however, and it is difficult to shake that the aforementioned the proscription of the SWP tout February, an anonymous blog post off the impression that the SWP approach does not work court. Even if we were to take male exposed a sexual assault scandal in press office is not doing too much - the SWP is intrinsically violence against women as our pre- the Universities and Colleges Union violence to the truth when it claims vulnerable to accusations eminent interest in political choices, in 2016.2 The allegations were made that this is indeed the central point of bullying and abuse, the fundamental basis for that is against Paul Blackledge, a UCU of dispute. since its instrumental social hierarchy in general - and, official who was also a leading SWP and centralised however hopeless a revolutionary intellectual for many years. The blog Self-inflicted political organisation it is, the SWP aspires in post claimed that, after complaints The other eye-catching feature of culture, and its self-understanding to overcome were made by several women (whom the SWP response is the timeline. its habit of that. Blackledge assured Bakhsh it calls Survivor A, B, C and so It claims that Blackledge was keeping that the leakers were on the right on), the union relieved Blackledge suspended from the SWP in 2015, of the UCU, and the extremely of his membership card, under its which would put him out of the SWP-focused content, combined rule 13, which mandates the NEC party for a year or so by the time with the timing of the leak shortly to “establish a procedure to censure the ‘rule 13’ affair began, and three before elections, suggests it may be or bar a member from holding any years before Bakhsh’s legal defence more than self-justification on his office for a specified period ... or of him. The beginning of the period part. The existence of a left in the expel a member from membership if is slap-bang in the middle of the unions indicates the possibility of it finds their conduct to be in breach roughest era in the SWP’s recent standing up to the incursions of our of the rules or is deemed to be a history, when it was under relentless enemies - in a UCU context, to the matter of significant detriment to the pressure as a result of the Comrade financialisation of education and its interest of the union”.3 Delta fiasco, with repeated banning reduction of all but the elite among Blackledge then appealed the orders on university campuses and academics to increasingly precarious decision, but a dispute over the witch-hunting in the wider labour circumstances, in which resistance date of his appeal led the union movement. Allegations of this to the sexual domineering of bosses to carry it out in absentia. He then nature against Blackledge - a long- becomes all the harder. further appealed to the trade union time member of the International That is not a reason to hold off certification officer, on the basis that Socialism editorial board - could not from criticising the SWP, of course: this amounted to a denial of natural have come at a worse time. There it is merely a reason to doubt that justice (among many other things). would, you would have thought, the SWP is at the root of sexism in The certification officer dismissed have been uproar internally. Except the UCU, never mind on campuses the case.4 that there was not. A year into generally, and that its exclusion from Subsequently, a blog purporting his suspension, Blackledge could the scene will improve things l to be written by survivors A and B (according to the whistleblower popped up, to support the original blog) count on the support of several [email protected] whistleblower’s account of things, SWP UCU activists, and others in though their practical conclusions the UCU left too. That means one of differ somewhat. Specifically, the two things: either the SWP’s UCU Notes 1. ‘Still in denial’ Weekly Worker March 5. whistleblower’s main conclusion fraction had gone rogue, or the 2. metooucu.blogspot.com/2020/02/an-account-of- is that the SWP should essentially SWP leadership sat on the affair to sexual-assault-in-ucu.html. become a proscribed organisation, save face. 3. ucu.org.uk/media/8225/UCU-rules-2015-16/pdf/ given its lamentable record in It seems very likely to be the UCU_Rules_2015-16.pdf. 4. The decision is a public document, available dealing with sexual violence and latter. Bakhsh claims he had no clue at: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ misconduct. The survivors focus that Blackledge was suspended from uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ more on structural change in the the SWP until two years later, and file/761736/D.31-37-18-19.pdf. union relating to the way these cases then he was given a Delphic answer by 5. survivorsrule13metooucu.law.blog/2020/02/11/ ucu-rule-13-case-2016. The whistleblower blog are dealt with. Specifically, they SWP joint-national secretary Charlie further notes that proceedings at Blackledge’s object to the confidentiality of the Kimber. Bakhsh’s suspension seems to then employer, Leeds Beckett University, were process put in place by the UCU have been a knee-jerk attempt to plug similarly laden with gag clauses. executive to satisfy rule 13, which the next crisis; CC members seem to This time 6. swpcrisis2020.blogspot.com/2020/04/our- statement.html. has resulted in the effective gagging have briefed that he must have known, it is all 7. swp.org.uk/press/statement-on-newcastle- 5 of all involved for many years. and did not tell them. He does not about Paul allegations. In response to all this, the SWP deny Kimber’s assertion that the first Blackledge 8. drive.google.com/file/d/1ZlKVkwrWzO3EzM_ maintained public silence. It is true he learned of Bakhsh’s involvement mcd8EwGJlPdsqdb5c/view. weekly 4 April 30 2020 1297 worker COVID-19

China was the source, but compares favourably with other countries Demonisation of China Attacks are driven not by pandemic concerns, writes Eddie Ford, but imperial pushback ou must have heard it said at blaming”. obviously modelled on the European mid-March or completely failing to “there is a hole where a superpower least a thousand times: things As for Donald Trump, we are all Research Group, which should tell prepare for a pandemic following used to be” - the “volcanic eruption Ywill never be the same again too familiar with his belligerent and you everything. Chaired by Tory MP the “terrifying” results of the 2016 of American imperialism” that after Covid-19. A better world will provocative stance on the issue - he is Tom Tugendhat, who also heads the Exercise Cygnus. Will there be an Trotsky foresaw in 1940 has emerge, with ordinary people valued still regularly referring to Covid-19 foreign affairs select committee, it “international investigation” into apparently “played itself out”. We and more international cooperation. as the “Chinese virus”, even though claims not to be anti-Chinese: rather, the conduct of the British, American are witnessing a new world order A nice sentiment, of course, but we the US has the highest number of aims to promote “fresh thinking about or Australian governments? After coming into being. can surely see the potential for things deaths in the world by far, with nearly issues raised by the rise of China”, all, when US deaths hit 22, Donald It is certainly true that, when to actually get worse. 60,000 fatalities and over a million as well as providing a “trustworthy Trump breezily said everything it comes to Covid-19, developing Hence the increasingly anti- confirmed cases. He has defunded source” of news. In the same way was under control: “It’s going to a vaccine, pioneering new forms Chinese nature of the discourse the World Health Organisation for the ERG exists only to promote disappear. One day - it’s like a of testing, unleashing the energies about the crisis, given the origins of being “biased” towards China and information about developments on miracle - it will disappear.” He of big pharma, recruiting the best Covid-19. Now there are aggressive openly mused recently at one of his the European continent. Giving the clearly had not a clue how rapidly minds in medical science, and so on, demands for an “international White House briefings about whether game away somewhat, however, the virus can spread. Then there the US is noticeable by its absence. investigation” into China’s role in coronavirus was a “mistake that Tugendhat told the BBC that Beijing was Boris Johnson boasting about We do not have Washington playing the pandemic, especially from the got out of control” or - completely “deliberately falsified the data” on shaking hands with everyone he met the same leadership role as it did US and Australian governments - not madly - if Beijing was “knowingly the pandemic - the Communist Party on a hospital visit, or him and his during the financial crisis with dissimilar in tone to the over-hyped responsible” for the outbreak. Now of China was putting its own survival partner, Carrie Symonds, attending George Bush Jr and Barack Obama - fears about Huawei 5G technology Trump is talking about seeking “ahead of that of the survival of the England versus Wales rugby Trump having no interest in playing being a mortal security threat to the damages, demanding Versailles- people”. match at Twickenham on March 7 in that game. But it does not therefore west, or Beijing’s claims to ocean type reparations from Beijing to the Demonising China is one an apparent show of defiance against follow that the US is no longer areas and islands in the South China sum of $165 billion for keeping the thing, but the plain truth is that the those calling for a lockdown. the global hegemon. It is certainly Sea. “world in the dark”, as it was “too country’s declared death rate makes We are the last people to whitewash very doubtful that Covid-19 is the Australia - though 32.7% of its proud and too nationalistic to tell the for an embarrassing comparison with the corrupt Beijing regime - stuffed as moment when China replaces the exports go to China - has fallen in truth” - a classic case of the kettle that of America, Britain and much it is full of billionaire ‘communists’. US as the global hegemon. Not only with Washington’s line. According to calling the pot black. of Europe. China reported 22 new Quite the opposite. But it is obvious is the US still the biggest economy, home affairs secretary Peter Dutton, it Further fuelling the anti-Chinese deaths on April 28 - rather enviable, that the current attacks on China are but, the dollar remains the global is “entirely reasonable and sensible” narrative, if not hinting at a you would think, given that the not motivated by genuine concerns currency - not to mention America’s to call for an investigation, citing the conspiracy, the White House trade USA and most of Europe are still in about the pandemic, or the science - system of alliances with other “extraordinary” impact of the virus advisor, Peter Navarro, denounced lockdown and suffering significant instead they are part of a much wider imperial powers and overwhelming on the global economy and the more Beijing for “profiteering” from the levels of fatalities. The UK, for imperial pushback against China. military might. than 200,000 deaths worldwide. It pandemic by selling “fake tests and instance, has an official death toll It is the US domination of the is “incumbent” upon Beijing, he counterfeit tests” to the US - whilst of 26,097 as of April 29. China just Hegemon? world finance which allows the US to says, to provide answers, as people a 57-page Republican Party memo 4,643 – with a population of well From the other end of the telescope, enforce sanctions on target countries. need “clarity” about what happened. advises candidates to aggressively over a billion people. A lot of the it is worth briefly mentioning That, even when those sanctions are Scott Morrison, the prime minister target Beijing - after all, Covid-19 barrage against China has more than the comments made by comrade widely opposed by allies. They have - after a “constructive” phone call was a “hit and run, followed by a whiff of the politics of envy. Daniel Lazare in last week’s Weekly no choice but to comply. Predictably, with Donald Trump - has suggested a cover-up that cost thousands of If Beijing’s statistics are simply Worker. He refers to the US as the the coronavirus pandemic saw a recruiting so-called independent lives”. This seems to indicate that fake, then fair enough: but that is “former hegemon”, believing that flight of capital … to the safety of investigators akin to “weapons the Republicans plan to make anti- unlikely. Yes, China did not act in the aftermath of the pandemic the US. inspectors” to determine the source China propaganda and the possibility quickly enough at first - hardly news. - just “as species rise and fall” - Yes, the US is showing all the of major disease outbreaks. Exactly of sanctions a centrepiece of the But, when it did, the regime acted the political line-up will change: symptoms of decline - not least in who would set it up or how it would presidential election campaign decisively and effectively - stopping “some countries will advance, and terms of the man who happens to operate remains undetailed. Beijing (assuming it stills goes ahead). the virus in its tracks. Again, in stark others will fall behind” (April 23). be president at the present time, was not impressed by Morrison’s You see, the Democrats are too soft contrast to either the US or UK - Meaning that instead of the unipolar who is sometimes reminiscent idea, saying that Australia was like on Beijing, just like they are on which have totally bungled the whole world we have all been used to since of Caligula in terms of his half- “gum stuck to the bottom of China’s immigration. thing right from the very beginning, the fall of the Berlin Wall, we can deranged and contradictory Tweets shoe” - with an editorial in the state- Closer to home and doing its bit making a series of often inexplicable expect “something more complex”, and statements l run Global Times accusing Canberra to vilify China, we have the creation policy decisions. Like Britain all in which China, Russia, Germany, of “panda bashing” and “victim of the China Research Group – but abandoning contact tracing in etc all jostle for control, as now [email protected] weekly worker 1297 April 30 2020 5 IRAN Upping the ante Yassamine Mather reports on the double standards, misinformation and stupidity of the ‘regime change from above’ advocates week before Donald Trump made his infamous comments Aabout drinking disinfectant as a cure for coronavirus, a self-appointed ‘Islamic medical expert’ in Iran had filmed himself on Instagram drinking camel urine. He claims it should be used to treat anyone suffering from the current pandemic. Exiled Iranian broadcasters - especially Saudi- and US-financed TV stations - were covering the story for a few days, as if this was the most important item of global news. It should be stressed that Mehdi Sabili, the man featured in the video, has no official position in Iran and the Arab News claim that his Instagram account is “popular among some of the regime’s loyalists”1 is meaningless. There are thousands of such social media cranks in Iran and elsewhere. Yet a week later, when the US president made a far more dangerous and stupid claim about curing coronavirus by drinking disinfectant and injecting bleach, Iranian Nightingale the same Persian-speaking media outlets (with the exception of BBC in combating Covid-19 than the (JCPOA) - the 2015 nuclear deal struck and amongst the Revolutionary make the same demand on others? Persian) were extremely quiet about UK. (Speaking earlier in a video between Iran and the five permanent Guards, have accumulated huge How about Trump himself financing this suggestion or the worldwide conversation with Tehran’s mayor, members of the UN security council fortunes, benefiting from the black the necessary anti-Covid-19 measures condemnation that followed. The Pirouz Hanachi, Khan had said most plus Germany - and wanted to trigger market and access to favourable rates in the US? Or Elizabeth Windsor exception was a tweet by a producer/ of the required measures taken in what is called a ‘snapback provision’ of exchange. Sanctions have given donating her fortune to the national presenter on ‘Saudi International’ London are similar to those employed that would bring back all the pre- them a unique opportunity to take health service, instead of just praising TV (the name given by Iranians to in Iran.) 2015 UN-related sanctions. Using this advantage of the hoarding of goods, the efforts of a 99-year-old to raise a Persian TV station broadcasting It is interesting to note that there mechanism, a country can complain price rises and a monopoly over funds? from London), who compared the has been no major outcry about about Iranian non-compliance and distribution. The way Iranian pro-Trump, two. this interview - by all accounts a demand that Tehran resolves the However, as a direct consequence rightwing pressure groups operate is This was a bizarre comparison. propaganda coup for the Islamic issue within 30 days; otherwise UN of sanctions, millions of workers also interesting. Both in Canada and Mehdi Sabili is a silly individual, Republic - as opposed to the treatment sanctions would be reapplied. Of have been made redundant and often the United States, organisations such whose claims were immediately Jeremy Corbyn received for an course, there is a slight problem here, they now have to rely on casual, low- as the Project for the New American rebuked by the Iranian government. interview with the same station a few in that two years ago the United States paid jobs to make ends meet. But, as Century - made up of neoconservative Trump is the president of the world years ago. unilaterally left the JCPOA. a direct result of the pandemic, even Republicans and Democrats, as well hegemon power - the man who under However, there is some doubt about Since then the threat of secondary these casual jobs are disappearing., It as Zionists - have created and funded normal circumstances many would the accuracy of Iran’s coronavirus sanctions, plus heavy fines imposed is estimated that three to six million a plethora of anti-Islamic Republic have expected to be leading global statistics. For example, on April 28 by the US treasury on banks and Iranians will be without work as a ‘foundations’, ‘institutions’ and efforts to deal with the pandemic. The it was claimed there had been 92,584 institutions which continue dealing result of Covid-19. ‘research centres’. A quick web search incident and the disparity in reporting confirmed cases, of whom 72,439 with Iran, has stopped most European And, in this situation, sanctions are allows you to see who is funding reflects in some ways the fact that the patients had recovered and 5,877 had countries and investors doing business increasing the death toll: as elsewhere, them. They all employ exiled Iranians ‘cold war’ (or media war) against Iran died. According to official figures, there. On April 27, Iran’s foreign there is a shortage of ventilators, (often with very limited intellectual started a long time ago and, as in any there have been 100 deaths amongst minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, medications, surgical equipment, capabilities), some ex-supporters other war, truth is the first victim. doctors and nurses, but many Iranians tweeted: protective clothing and masks - of the Islamic Republic, including Clearly, for all these pro-regime- believe the real figure is much higher. something that is impossible to resolve former supporters of the ‘reformist’ change media outlets, which promise Having said that, Iran’s enemies Two years ago, Pompeo and precisely because of sanctions. Yet faction of the regime who have the dawn of democracy following have made so many exaggerated his boss declared ‘ceasing US there is a relatively strong lobby of moved steadily to the right, and others a US-led military intervention, claims about the number of patients participation’ in JCPOA, dreaming Iranian exiles and Iranian-American who have always been supporters of criticising Trump is not on the agenda. dying from the disease that no-one that their ‘max pressure’ would supporters of Donald Trump who are royalist or other rightwing groups. Such criticism might be interpreted as believes a word they are saying. In bring Iran to its knees. Given that working day and night with the US These people are given exaggerated going soft on the main enemy: Iran’s early April Israeli prime minister policy’s abject failure, he now state department to make sure current academic titles in what are clearly Islamic Republic. Binyamin Netanyahu shared a fake wants to be JCPOA participant. sanctions stay and more people suffer: non-academic institutions. They are In the midst of all this video from the 2007 mini-series Stop dreaming: Iranian nation this would supposedly bring down the called ‘expert’, ‘senior researcher’, misinformation, when it comes to made by Hallmark, called Pandemic always decides its destiny.2 Islamic Republic and perhaps even ‘principal investigator’, etc, and given the number of victims of coronavirus and claimed it was evidence that bring the idiot son of the ex-shah, a platform to express their pro-Trump, or Iran’s response to the pandemic, Iran was covering up its coronavirus But last week, as tension between Reza Pahlavi, to power. This scenario pro-royalist opinions on the Persian- it is impossible to believe either the deaths. According to news agency the two countries escalated, Trump is truly bizarre, because so far it has speaking media. Islamic Republic or its pro-regime- reports, Netanyahu discussed the clip tweeted: “I have instructed the United had the opposite effect to what these They are regularly interviewed - at change opponents. According to the during an online cabinet meeting, States navy to shoot down and destroy royalists have wanted: increased times because of ‘the need to give a Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, saying he had seen a film of Iranian any and all Iranian gunboats if they pressure from the US has made the balanced view’ - even though you the country will now be divided up soldiers dumping dead coronavirus harass our ships at sea.” government more popular and united might think from some of the ill- into white, yellow and red regions patients into trash piles to conceal the So in the middle of a pandemic not the various factions of the regime. informed comments they make they based, on the number of infections country’s actual death toll. only are we unlikely to get ceasefires, have never read a book in their life. and deaths. The categorisation peace deals and the lifting of Propaganda They repeat ad infinitum exactly the will determine the level of activity Nuclear deal sanctions: the world hegemon power These royalists and the US state same thing (I would not be surprised permitted in each region: an area In the midst of all this Iran has asked is determined to increase tension, and department have also started a if some uneducated, low-ranking that has been consistently free of for a $5 billion dollar loan from the add to existing sanctions. Such threats concerted campaign calling on state department official had sent an infections will be labelled ‘white’, International Monetary Fund and a go down well with Trump’s support supreme leader Ali Khamenei to use his identical memo to all of them). They and there mosques will be able to lifting of US sanctions, at least for base at a time when the pandemic foundation’s external funds to pay for speak out for sanctions, for Reza reopen for Friday prayers. According the duration of the pandemic. But is supposed to have affected his the country’s response to the pandemic Pahlavi, and tell us how people inside to the deputy health minster, Iraj Trump and his secretary of state, presidential re-election prospects. instead of asking for sanctions relief. Iran really love Trump for imposing Harirchi, this means 116 areas will be Mike Pompeo, have not only ignored As we contemplate that possibility As a general rule, of course, it is not those sanctions. No-one seems to ask in the white sector. calls by US Democrats and European of additional sanctions, it is worth a bad idea that the rich should pay to why we have to listen to these fools. Last week Rouhani claimed Iran countries for a temporary lifting reminding everyone how, contrary alleviate hardship, but the problem is, No wonder the vast majority of was doing better fighting the various of sanctions: they actually plan to to Trump’s claims, sanctions affect why limit such a call to Khamenei and Iranians have no confidence in either pandemics than a number of advanced increase them and over the last few ordinary people, while those in power his foundation (worth an estimated the current regime or these pathetic industrial countries - a view echoed weeks we have witnessed a ratcheting are largely unaffected - in fact they $95 billion)? This is not his personal opponents l by none other than London’s Blairite up of threats. may become richer and more powerful wealth - he uses it to finance various mayor, Sadiq Khan. Speaking in an On April 27, The New York Times by taking advantage of their status. international ideological campaigns, Notes interview on Press TV, Iran’s English- reported on Pompeo’s plans to argue This has definitely been the case in but, if it was a personal fortune, why 1. arabnews.com/node/1662831/offbeat. language station, Khan claimed that the US remains a participant in the Iran, where those close to circles of should we single out Iranian leaders 2. al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/04/iran- that Iran had been more successful Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action power, both within the government when making such a call? Why not zarif-us-sanctions-nuclear-deal-coronavirus.html. weekly 6 April 30 2020 1297 worker LEFT

Mike Macnair looks at the treatment of the 150th anniversary of Lenin’s birth in some of the left press

Lenin avatars2 Socialist Worker and the Socialist Workers Party offshoot, Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century (RS21). The Morning Star carries 1,200 words from Jonathan White under the title ‘Lenin at 150: what can the great revolutionary’s thinking tell us today?’ The content is pretty predictable. Lenin in effect stands in for allegiance to the Russian Revolution and to ‘actually existing socialism’. The central issues are monopoly capitalism and the uneven development of the world market: “Lenin himself was among relatively few who saw that the development of the capitalist mode of production had reached a point where revolutionary outbreaks were an imminent possibility across the capitalist world.” In fact, this claim was a commonplace of the pre-1914 socialist movement. The problem with that movement was not lack of belief in revolutions, but the belief - argued in Karl Kautsky’s The class struggle exposition of the German ‘Erfurt programme’ and elsewhere - that they had to take place within a national framework: so that when European civil war was posed in 1918, the Germans, the Austrians, the Italians and so on each looked only to their own countries and decided that the relationship of forces meant they were too weak to contemplate taking power. By doing so they did not avoid civil war, but merely postponed one they could have won in 1918-21 until conditions arose where they could not (varying between 1922 in Italy and 1934 in Austria). And White’s conclusion is:

For all the flaws and failures of actually existing socialism, no alternative road to socialism has been discovered that can replace the need for some form of democratising dictatorship of the proletariat: some reckoning with the control and form of state power as a whole.

This is merely to identify Lenin with the whole subsequent history of the USSR and its dependencies and imitators. Cadre Nick Chaffey in The Socialist - the weekly of the Socialist Party in England and Wales - writes at more length (2,500 words, plus some ‘further reading’). Lenin is again pretty much wholly identified with the Russian Revolution, and the article is mainly a narrative history of that revolution from a Trotskyist point of view, telling us, in that sense, nothing new. There are two striking features. The first is the argument that the party is the “cadre”:

Enormous sacrifices were made by hundreds of party workers, its ‘cadre’, in establishing the ladimir Ilyich Ulyanov - much This is not new. The original Lenin John Sullivan, “reads like a biography network of links between the better known by his commonly cult of personality, developed after of John the Baptist, written by Jesus embryonic groups and party Vused pseudonym, Lenin - was his death, was an instrument of the Christ”i: that is, that Lenin was to be cells, the circulation of papers, born on April 22 1870. There has Kamenev-Stalin-Zinoviev troika in read as foreshadowing Cliff. and the vital collection of funds. been a small crop of left press (or the factional struggles in the Russian Lenin fought for a professional, website) coverage of the anniversary. Communist Party of the time. Hence The real Lenin is much I am not going to offer an combative party rooted in the ‘Lenin’ here, however, serves the role the fact that the man’s corpse remained more interesting alternative reading of Lenin’s life, working class. of an ‘online avatar’1 for the groups (and remains) embalmed on display. but will merely interrogate to a The party ‘cadre’ - a French in question: the image the various More recently, Tony Cliff’s 1970s limited extent those offered by word for ‘frame’ - was the authors wish to present of themselves. biography of Lenin, according to the Morning Star, The Socialist, structure around which the party weekly worker 1297 April 30 2020 7

would grow: a party not only Thus, for example, “Lenin explored militant fighters”, or the ‘advanced György Lukács’s “actuality of process of thinking, therefore, built through struggle, but out ideas about war, imperialism, the part of the class’ - leading in turn the revolution” or Leon Trotsky’s as a process of concentration, of intense democratic debate state and support for oppressed to the requirement of personal trust “death agony of capitalism” as a as a result, not as a point of and discussion, through which people.” The actual content on offer in the ‘most advanced part of the dogma not capable of empirical departure, even though it is the decisions could be reached is very much the SWP’s standard party’: the central committee. The refutation; the Russian Revolution point of departure in reality and in party congresses, and then story. First, result is that Tengely-Evans cannot serving as the exemplar of the hence also the point of departure collective action agreed upon. engage with Lenin’s actual ideas, unpredictable outbreak, which for observation [Anschauung] These methods of Conflict between working class because to do so would violently reflects the working out of and conception. Along the first ‘democratic centralism’ were people and bosses is built into call into question the SWP’s left contradictions so far below the path, the full conception was the key to building a strong capitalism. Bigger revolts and economism and bureaucratic surface that the coming storm is evaporated to yield an abstract force that would not weaken nor revolutions start as spontaneous centralism. invisible except to the true experts determination; along the second, compromise under the pressure struggles often over specific of the revolutionary party (in the abstract determinations lead of revolutionary events that issues. RS21 reality groupuscule, even if it is a towards a reproduction of the were to follow. The February revolution in Charlie Jackson of RS21 provides groupuscule of some thousands). concrete by way of thought. Russia in 1917 began as a protest a bit more meat (2,514 words, plus It is from this background In this way Hegel fell into This is derived from James P over bread shortages … some “further reading”) under the that Jackson moves to rejection the illusion of conceiving the Cannon, rather than Lenin or Struggles can develop into a title ‘What’s left of Lenin?’4 But of Leninism as “a certain model real as the product of thought Trotsky. Indeed, Trotsky explicitly broader challenge to the system. Jackson is, in fact, still writing of ‘democratic centralist’ party concentrating itself, probing counterposed to this idea the point What’s not inevitable is that they within the general framework of building” and of turning Lenin’s its own depths, and unfolding that the party is ‘programme, win. Cliffism. Quite early on, we are words into dogmas. But, as with itself out of itself, by itself, organisation and tactic’. Chaffey In every struggle there’s a told that “The 1917 revolution Tengely-Evans, this entails not whereas the method of rising understands that programme is battle between reformist forces struck like a bolt from the blue, and engaging with Lenin’s actual from the abstract to the concrete fundamentally important. From that that limit changes within the it is this event which means that ideas and arguments. Nor can is only the way in which thought point of view, he is massively more system and those who want Lenin is remembered in the way Jackson explain positively what appropriates the concrete, advanced than the Socialist Workers revolutionary change. that he is.” sort of organisation the workers’ reproduces it as the concrete in Party and ex-SWP authors, to be A revolutionary organisation The second half of this sentence movement should use. the mind.6 discussed below. But the confusion on the model Lenin argued for is is plainly true. If the Bolsheviks Instead, what is to be celebrated is about cadre reflects the immediate vital to have a better chance of had not seized power in October the claim that “the soul of Marxism In Jackson, however, the concrete situation of SPEW, which has split success. 1917, Lenin would be as obscure is a concrete analysis of a concrete loses its character as worked- its own ‘international’ to protect the as the Bulgarian Narrow Socialist situation”. This quotation is, of up from abstractions. Rather, interests of its “cadre” - meaning But what is this ‘model’? Tengely- leader, Dimitar Blagoev Nikolov course, here being fetishised as a “Developing a ‘concrete analysis of its full-time staff. Evans jumps to What is to be done? (1856-1924). If they had not won Lenin dogma. Where it comes from a concrete situation’ means meeting Associated with this issue are two and opposition to the economists; the civil war in 1917-21, Lenin is Lenin’s June 1920 review of the people where they are, and taking points. First, we are told that “The and from there to (without would be remembered as much as, journal Kommunismus, published them where they need to go.” break between the Bolsheviks and acknowledgement) the theses of and in the same way as, Béla Kun in Vienna as a Comintern journal This is more of Cliff’s ‘nose’ and Mensheviks in the RSDLP occurred the Second Congress of Comintern (1886-1938) and his associates for south-eastern Europe, and in the SWP’s actual practice of tailing first in outline in 1903, then became on the role of the party in the from the short-lived Hungarian particular the anti-parliamentarist whatever moves and avoiding formalised in 1912.” It is a standard revolution: Soviet Republic. articles of György Lukács and Béla saying anything which might be story but, as Lars T Lih and others The first half, however, is flatly Kun in that journal. Here is the imagined to separate you from have shown, substantially false: It flows from how working false. That a Russian revolution was quotation in more context: ‘what moves’. Thus in Globalise the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks class people’s ideas are uneven. likely in the relatively near future Resistance in the early years of reunified in 1906; in 1912 there Some want to tear the head was an absolute commonplace from No14 (April 17 1920), carries an this century the SWP pretended to was an attempt to unify Bolsheviks off capitalism, while others the later 19th century on. Marx and article by comrade BK, entitled be anarchists. In Respect the SWP and ‘pro-party’ Mensheviks against are reactionaries who buy into Engels had already considered the ‘The events in Germany’, in (perhaps surprisingly) preferred to ‘liquidators’, who wanted to abolish the system. The majority sit possibility in the 1882 preface which he criticises a statement pretend when canvassing to be left the Russian Social Democratic (ie, somewhere in between with to the Russian translation of the made by the central committee Labourites, rather than - as would Marxist) Labour Party in favour of progressive and backward ideas. Communist manifesto. 1917, of the Communist Party of probably have worked better - a British-style Labour Party; in fact, A reformist party - such as moreover, took place 12 years after Germany on March 21 1920, simply saying ‘Respect is the anti- in Siberia (and probably elsewhere the Labour Party - reflects all the revolutionary crisis of 1905, which statement I too criticised war party’. And so on. in the provinces) Bolsheviks and of those contradictions and which displayed in full flower the in the pamphlet mentioned Lenin’s argument in the passage Mensheviks were still working in panders to backward ideas. A importance of the working class in above. However, our criticisms with the ‘soul’ quote was that common local organisations in 1917.3 revolutionary party organises the Russian revolutionary process. differ radically in character. it was right for the Spartacists/ Second, 1905 is supposed to tell together the most militant The renegade Parvus was able to Comrade BK criticises communists to try to fight to us that “in a few short months … a fighters. obtain millions of Reichsmarks on the basis of quotations win over the Independent Social small party was able to become a from the German government from Marx, which refer to a Democratic Party of Germany, mass force, through its party cadre, This still has not told us what Lenin’s (and later organise the transit situation unlike the present one; rather than simply denouncing to draw in the most combative “model” of party organisation of Lenin and others to Russia he wholly rejects the tactics it as Kautskyite on the basis of leaders from the working class is. The nearest approach is the through Germany on the famous of the German Communist the character of its leaders (the and organise them into a cohesive statement a little earlier that “The ‘sealed train’), because the German Party’s central committee and line Béla Kun and Lukács were political movement that would be precise way a revolutionary party government was readily persuaded absolutely evades what is most arguing). Ben Lewis and Lars decisive in the revolution of 1917”. organises depends on the political that Russia could be brought important, that which constitutes Lih have helpfully translated the Russia is by no means the only such circumstances and Lenin was down by revolution. In fact, fear the very gist, the living soul, of speeches of Zinoviev and Martov case; the Chinese Communist Party flexible about the specific features of revolution was not unique to Marxism - a concrete analysis at the USPD’s Halle conference,7 similarly grew very rapidly to mass …” Russia: fear of revolution in their of a concrete situation. Since and from these we can see that the proportions in the early 1920s, We move at once into soviets and own countries formed part of the most of the urban workers have tactic of intervening in the USPD’s as did the German SPD in the the 1917 slogan, “All power to the motivations of several of the Great abandoned the Scheidemannites debates did not involve the sort 1870s-80s. But what is common to Soviets”. The reason is that Lenin Powers for going to war in 1914 for the Kautskyites, and since, of political protective coloration these organisations is that they were “consistently argued for revolution (including the UK). within the Kautskian party (a which the SWP and its offshoots the first workers’ parties in newly … because he understood the role What is Jackson doing with party ‘independent’ of correct adopt when they try to ‘meet people developing urban proletariats. The of the state in capitalist society.” this fantasy? In the first place, revolutionary tactics), they are where they are’. RSDLP in 1905 was also backed And so to State and revolution. we have the standard Trot-stuff continuing to abandon its right In all these cases, then, by the prestige of the SPD and the Hence, “The Russian Revolution that 1917 showed for the first wing in favour of the left - ie, in what Lenin actually argued is Second International, and the CPC of 1917 was a genuine socialist time that modern states are not fact, of communism - since that is consistently subordinated to the in the 1920s by the prestige (and revolution, where workers seized invincible and “that this should the case, is it permissible to take current political conceptions of material support) of the Russian power and briefly ran society by have been demonstrated, not in no account of the transitional the groups which have published Communist Party. The idea of small themselves. Lenin had always been the advanced capitalist countries and compromise measures to the articles: for the Morning minority left groups, by virtue clear that it had to spread to other of western Europe with their mass be adopted with regard to such Star, loyalty to ‘actually existing of their ‘cadre’ and the purity of advanced countries or ‘we perish’ parliamentary workers’ parties, but workers? socialism’; for SPEW, standard their thought, transitioning to mass …” in ‘backward’ Russia, scandalised Is it permissible to disregard Trotskyism with fetishism of parties and marginalising the rest of Since it did not spread, “By 1930 the orthodoxy of early 20th century and to gloss over the experience ‘cadre’ and delusions of grandeur; the existing workers’ organisations the bureaucracy led by Stalin had Marxism”. In fact, SPD leader of the Bolsheviks, who, in April for the SWP and RS21, Cliff’s nose and the left is just a fantasy. developed its own class interests. August Bebel had been arguing and May 1917, pursued what was and ‘If it moves, salute it’. This fantasy prevents the Russia became a state capitalist since the 1870s that the German in fact a policy of compromise, It is the present-day political militants of the groups affected country, which exploited workers state was bound to collapse, and when they declared that the choices which drive the historical by it from doing what they could and competed with rivals in the Bebel’s intellectual hit man, Provisional Government (Lvov, silences and falsifications l do: which is to say, unifying their west.” Karl Kautsky, had been arguing Milyukov, Kerensky and the rest) forces to a level which might have This is in substance hopeless - (following Marx and Engels in could not be overthrown at once, [email protected] some real ‘snowball effect’ impact, in part because the constraints of 1882) that a revolution in Russia since in the soviets, they still as we saw - briefly and in the end Socialist Worker’s attempt to talk could trigger revolution in western had the backing of the workers Notes unsuccessfully - with Rifondazione down to its readership prevent Europe. What was ‘scandalous’ was and it was first of all necessary 1. ‘As soon as this pub closes’ (1988): Comunista in Italy and the Scottish actual developed argument. But not the idea of a Russian revolution, to bring about a change in views whatnextjournal.org.uk/Pages/Sectariana/Pub. Socialist Party. the more fundamental problem but the idea that it was possible in the majority, or a considerable html (searching for ‘Baptist’ will get to the quote 5 quickly in this long document). is the ‘Lenin as John the Baptist to build socialism in a peasant- part, of those workers? 2. The monthly Socialist Review, though claiming that Talking down to Cliff as Jesus’ problem. Cliff majority country. it “outlines his [Lenin’s] core beliefs, and defends his Socialist Worker prints what is for saw Lenin as a man with a ‘nose’ More generally, the argument is The “soul of Marxism” is here a legacy”, in fact merely prints Alfred Rosmer’s account it a longish article (1,450 words) by for ‘turns’ which would keep the a standard far-left one: that beneath bit of an overstatement (to put it of his meeting with Lenin from his Lenin’s Moscow (1953), using Ian Birchall’s 1971 translation. Tomáš Tengely-Evans, under the party in contact with the most the surface appearance of a stable mildly), since, as Marx puts it early 3. LT Lih, ‘A faction is not a party’ Weekly Worker May 2 title, ‘Lenin and his ideas today’. advanced militants: to this, Cliff political regime (1950s-60s) or on in the Grundrisse, 2012; RE Snow The Bolsheviks in Siberia New Jersey 1977. Though the article is longish, was happy to sacrifice the idea of a massively defeated workers’ 4. rs21.org.uk/2020/04/22/whats-left-of-lenin. Tengely-Evans definitely talks a strategic programme. With no movement (1990s-2010s) are The concrete is concrete because 5. marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/12.htm. 6. marxists.org/subject/dialectics/marx-engels/ down to the reader, who is taken to strategic programme, the ground of revolutionary aspirations just it is the concentration of many grundisse.htm. have a substantially lower reading existence of the party is nothing but waiting to be brought out by the determinations: hence unity of 7. B Lewis and LT Lih Head to head in Halle age than those of the Mirror or Sun. its members’ self-trust as “the most right tactics of the revolutionaries: the diverse. It appears in the London 2011. weekly 8 April 30 2020 1297 worker CONSPIRACY Truth shall make you free According to the latest conspiracy theories, Covid-19 is a bioweapon leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, introduced into China by a US spy team or caused by electromagnetic radiation. There have been dozens of attacks on 5G masts and engineers in Britain. Why do people believe in such nonsense? Edmund Griffiths investigates

hat is a ‘conspiracy theory’? now we only need to decide who we belief I choose as a conspiracy theory, not be surprised to find that some people The naive interpretation would think the conspirators really were.’) There is a widespread just because I disagree with it: it would oppose it. But, if we are firmly convinced W be that it is any explanation And there are even acknowledged group belief that any sound very strange to call Keynesianism that the government - or at least the of an event that makes reference to conspiracy theories that barely contain or Methodism a conspiracy theory - or at establishment - is indeed a paragon a conspiracy - that is, to two or more anything we would really want to call a disorder, failure or least you would expect me to justify it of excellence, then the hidden spite people planning in secret to carry out conspiracy. Take the claim that the US dissent is explained by with some novel analysis of those belief of its enemies becomes a very useful some illegal or malign action. government retrieved a crashed flying systems, showing how the label was explanation, whenever difficulties do But this does not come close to saucer outside Roswell, New Mexico the secret machinations applicable after all. Conspiracy theories arise. Nor need this always be a conscious capturing the distinction between ideas in 1947 and performed autopsies on the of a Dr Fu Manchu, certainly cannot be defined simply as attempt to mislead or make excuses. we are inclined to label as conspiracy bodies of its alien occupants. It is not theories involving conspiracies, given Very probably a lot of white racists in theories and those we are not. There illegal, or even discreditable, for public a professor Moriarty that involving a conspiracy is neither a the American south did sincerely believe is, for example, no plausible or even authorities to investigate the site of an air ... or even sufficient nor perhaps even a necessary that all the fuss about civil rights had possible account of the 9/11 attacks that disaster, recover the wreckage and carry condition; but the term does not function been got up by ‘outside agitators’, so does not involve somebody conspiring out appropriate forensic work on the 5G technology purely as an insult. To see more clearly as to cause trouble. (In general, people with somebody else to carry them out dead passengers and crew - they might what these ideas have in common, and who benefit from a social order are quite (we are hardly to imagine the hijackers even expose themselves to criticism if why they enjoy such current popularity, likely to regard its rightness and justice all just happening to board those flights they did anything else. The Roswell story we shall need to examine a few cases in as beyond reproach: they will not usually on the same day and discovering to their only becomes a conspiracy theory at all slightly more detail. be consciously lying when they affirm surprise that other people had come up because of the claim that what happened that they deserve everything they have.) with the same idea). So, if a conspiracy was then elaborately covered up. Sinister The wise and benevolent authorities theory simply means a theory that there And something similar can be said It makes sense to begin with the who feature in these ‘Moriartian’ was a conspiracy, we cannot use it to about the widely-rehearsed conspiracy widespread group of beliefs in which beliefs need not always be identified distinguish the belief that the hijackers theory to the effect that the Apollo moon any disorder, failure or dissent is put with the specific personnel occupying conspired with George W Bush from landings were faked. It is not a crime to down to the secret machinations of particular political offices. In the the belief that they conspired with fail to send space rockets to the moon: it professor Moriarty or Dr Fu-Manchu Trump-Russia case, believers in the all- Osama bin Laden - or merely with is something all governments do most of - outside agitators, Russian hackers powerful machinations of the Kremlin one another. Every description of 9/11 the time, and most governments do all of or the Trotskyite-Zinovievite gang of certainly do not intend to shield Donald necessarily mentions a conspiracy, but the time. Once again, the alleged cover- diversionists and wreckers. Trump himself from criticism. On the we would not ordinarily use the term up is the only conspiracy in question. This kind of outlook obviously relies contrary, they view him as a monstrous ‘conspiracy theory’ in relation to all It would be understandable to on a very strong sense of the existing anomaly, whom they are reluctant even of them indiscriminately. (The only conclude that ‘conspiracy theory’ is authorities’ competence and self-evident to acknowledge as their president. The circumstances under which we might simply an insult, and does not point to goodness. Without that, it loses its conspiracy theory serves to defend not would be if we were ourselves believers any definable group of belief systems coherence. If the government were not his honour, but that of the Obama-era in ‘9/11 Truth’ and wanted to pull a beyond ones which the person using so wise, a certain level of accident and status quo, by allowing believers to assert rhetorical move along the lines of ‘All it wants to portray as deluded. But this conflict would seem natural; if it were at once that Trump is an abomination the theories are conspiracy theories - is not quite right. I cannot describe any not so shiningly benevolent, we would who needs to be resisted with all possible weekly worker 1297 April 30 2020 9

vigour and that American politics was must therefore be suspected of coming of the ‘9/11 Truthers’ do not claim that opposition to the canonical text, the creator somebody in charge.’ This fails utterly nonetheless broadly on the right track from Satan. Bush killed more people in New York here is portrayed as ignorant, selfish and to account for the affective or emotional up until the very moment when he came Witches do not in fact exist, than he uncontroversially admitted to infantile. The real God is far away, outside character of negative esotericism, as we down the fancy escalator in the summer but political activists and foreign have killed in Iraq, or that the victims in the prison world of the creator: his agents find it in the published material. The of 2015. governments do - and on occasion they the World Trade Center were any more can at most occasionally enter this world best explanation I have heard for its The emergence of a victorious mass act without advertising the fact, so that innocent.) In principle, any secret will in disguise, bringing knowledge of the true prevalence is that it is not really even movement for Trumpism is not, on this the allegation they are behind some do. Any ‘glitch in the Matrix’ is enough state of affairs to the souls who are trapped trying to be an accurate analysis - it is a reading, symptomatic of any wider particular event will not always be false. to reveal that things are not what they here. Jesus was one such agent, breaking bit of veiled polemic, designed to annoy social ills that might call for any wider Neither will it inevitably be driven by seem, that the world we think we live in through into the fake world of the ‘rulers’ conspiracy theorists who hear it (‘You social change to put them right: in fact, Moriartianism of the kind we have been is a fabrication; and the main secret truth (archon) and the ‘authorities’ (exousia). think you’re so anti the system, but really it tells us nothing about America. Were discussing. The clearest indication that - the one on which all the others depend But the serpent in the Garden of Eden was you just want a comfort blanket’). it not for the diabolical cleverness of we are dealing with a belief system of - is that there are secret truths in the first another (‘the serpent, the teacher’): why We should not, however, overlook Moscow’s internet-enabled puppet the ‘witch-hunt’ or ‘Moscow trials’ place. else would it encourage Adam to eat of the fact that believing in negative masters, all might have been well. type is when the putative underground Ideas of this kind can best be described the tree of gnosis of good and evil? And esotericism can be enjoyable in other As it happens, this closely resembles network of agitators starts spreading as a particular variant of esotericism - the why else would it be right (“Your eyes ways. A secret is extremely attractive and ideas that enjoyed wide circulation out and ramifying from accusation to belief in secret truths that are radically shall be opened”, Genesis iii:5) and God interesting in itself, even when the actual among the ‘red-brown’ opposition accusation, in the process becoming ever distinct from the exoteric public truth. The wrong (“in the day that thou eatest thereof content is trivial or thin. And well-written in Russia itself following the Soviet more powerful - and ever more blatantly nature of the distinction varies. In some thou shalt surely die”, Genesis ii:17) about esotericist propaganda often interweaves collapse. For people whose dearest wish motivated by sheer malice, rather than by esotericisms - the mystery religions, the the consequences of eating it (“the eyes of the alleged cover story with the putative was somehow to return to the old days any identifiable agenda. Church of Scientology - the public truth them both were opened”, Genesis. iii:7)? inner truth in such a way that we keep - the old, golden days, when an honest “Trotskyism is not what it was, let us is not exactly a lie: it may be the closest The attitude of the Gnostic writers to the recognising things we have always politburo had presided benignly over say, seven or eight years ago,” said Stalin approach to the truth that the uninitiated Bible is precisely that of ‘9/11 Truthers’ known, but in an intriguingly different the affairs of the USSR and the hand of in a 1937 speech (published as Defects in masses are able to handle. But the type and so on to the output of the news media. context, where the moral valuations are Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko had party work and measures for liquidating of esotericism that is relevant at present They do not simply disregard it: but they all inverted - Nag Hammadi II, 5 does guided the tiller - it was unsettling to Trotskyite and other double-dealers). is the type (which it is reasonable to call treat it as a tissue of misrepresentations this brilliantly. reflect that the whole magnificent system “Trotskyism has ceased to be a political ‘negative’ esotericism), where the two and cover stories - one that must be read Even in day-to-day life, we are had been only a few years away from tendency within the working class” and truths - the public and the private - are consistently against the grain to uncover probably all sometimes inclined to spontaneously unravelling. Gorbachev’s instead “has transformed into a frenzied indeed fundamentally opposed, where the real truth about the unattractive being imagine that whatever is private and rise to high office had already begun. and unprincipled band of wreckers, the public truth is a malicious deception. who is presented there as the God of secret is more likely to be true than the How can the stagnation-era Soviet diversionists, spies and killers,” whose Just as with Moriartianism, a specific Heaven. things we are told to our faces. If you Union have been the good society we real programme is “concealed [...] not allegation that people in power have been Fully-fledged negative esotericism is tell me (very kindly) that you enjoyed all yearn for, if it contained the seeds only from the working class, but also conspiring or lying is neither always analytically distinct from the Moriartian my article in the Weekly Worker, and of its own destruction in such a state of from the Trotskyist rank and file as well; esotericist nor always false. Members of belief in a sinister, plotting opposition: then I happen to overhear you saying ripeness? The answer is the familiar one. and not only from the Trotskyist rank and the ruling class do sometimes conspire; but it can grow out of it - and in fact I to somebody else. ‘What a load of old It did not really collapse: it was cut down file, but even from the upper Trotskyist the left, too, has been known to conspire. suspect that is the usual case. Certainly rubbish. The Weekly Worker’s really by the nefarious plots of its enemies. leadership, comprised of a small group Nobody disputes that conspiracies the floridly esotericist Russian ‘imperial gone downhill if it’s printing that’, I Perestroika was a trick dreamt up by of 30 or 40 people” (shades of Cotton sometimes happen. But, as with patriotic’ movement of the 1990s will almost certainly conclude that agents of the CIA. Discontent in the Mather and the military government Moriartianism, it is when the allegations subsequently developed like that, as the second one represents your actual republics and at the centre was artfully among the devils). become systemic and universal, when soon as it was no longer possible to opinion. In fact, it may not. Perhaps fanned by networks of manipulators: The crimes of which Trotsky’s the particular lie grows into a whole believe that any ‘deep state’ was about to you want to ingratiate yourself with Yeltsin-America. followers are accused have become secret world order, that we can conclude come to the rescue. someone you think has a grudge against If we now transpose these ideas from so multifarious and exotic that they we are in the presence of an esotericist The historical origins of Gnosticism me or the paper; perhaps you find a pose the earth to the heavens, so that we are no longer make any sense as attempts belief system. are obscure. But it would be convenient of general carping and disgruntlement talking about plots against the Kingdom to implement Trotsky’s programme: I do not, incidentally, mean to imply to agree with the hypothesis of the gains you a reputation as an incisive of God rather than (exclusively) against the whole faction is painted as an when I use the word ‘esotericism’ that late RM Grant (Gnosticism and early critic. All I know for sure is that you said worldly governments, we will obtain a army of malevolent dupes, seduced esotericists must always believe they Christianity, 1959) that it began as one thing to one person and the opposite reasonably good account of the ideology by the old Adversary into waging war know what the secret truth is. They often a version of Jewish apocalypticism, to another, so that you were certainly that underpinned the great witch-hunts. In for its own sake against everything do believe so; but all they need to believe modified by the experience of defeat in speaking insincerely to at least one of itself, belief in the existence of witchcraft progressive and admirable. And, when is that a secret truth exists and that the the revolt against Rome in 66-70. The us. (It could, of course, be both: you is very widespread. The anthropological ‘Russian hackers’ come to be blamed public truth is a veil preventing us from war of the ‘sons of light’ against the may not have got to the end of the article literature has sometimes distinguished for an ever wider range of political and seeing it. It is perfectly possible to be ‘sons of darkness’ had finally happened at all, or have formed no strong view witchcraft from sorcery, on the basis that cultural phenomena, it is hard to escape an esotericist, to believe that the truth is - a war in which the sons of darkness about it.) But the instinct to imagine that in one case the alleged power to do harm the conclusion that the same mental a secret, without claiming to know it in had enjoyed a great preponderance of people must be lying to our faces and is innate in the practitioner, while in the processes are at work. (I have even seen full: ‘I have no idea who really did kill worldly strength (as it had always been telling the truth behind our backs is not other it requires the use of particular it put forward, in apparent seriousness, Kennedy, but it wasn’t Oswald acting anticipated that they would), but in always an easy one to overcome. magical ingredients. This nicety seems that Russia is behind all these conspiracy alone - that’s just the cover story!’ which the creator and ruling power of the And the instinct is much strengthened to be more relevant in some cases than in theories.) This is why we should not be surprised universe had quite unexpectedly failed to when the hope that the people in power others, however, and it would be a shame to find that people who blame 5G masts intervene on the side of the sons of light. are competent and benign becomes to have to insist that the weird sisters’ Sinister authorities for the symptoms of Covid-19 are also Such an outcome was almost bound increasingly difficult to sustain, while reliance on eye of newt and toe of frog Much of the logic of these Moriartian open to the idea that, say, the virus does to raise difficult questions about the non-esotericist explanations (such as meant Macbeth had really only met three belief systems is also discernible in the really exist, but it was cooked up in a lab management of creation as a whole. The Marxism) enjoy only a limited audience. ‘sorcerers’. (perhaps more interesting) ‘moon hoax’ somewhere. The driving emotional force devils and demons and the powers of the The wide dissemination of negative But, while witches have often or ‘Bush did 9/11’ variety of conspiracy behind such claims is not usually a firm lie were not just a scheming opposition, esotericist belief systems today has been thought to be real and while their theories - but in these the sinister plotters commitment to any specific doctrine in destined to be crushed underfoot by the the effect of diverting many people’s supposed activities have often been are identified no longer as an opposition, virology or electromagnetic field theory, true god: perhaps they were themselves stirrings of discontent into channels feared and deplored, these attitudes but as a government. It may be the visible any more than advocates of ‘9/11 Truth’ the ‘rulers’, the ‘authorities’, of this that are potentially highly dangerous have not generally led to systematic government, but it does not have to be. typically hold other, unrelated opinions world, and God was a distant exile. (conspiracy theories of both main types witch-hunting, as we know it from early The visible government in its parliaments about the properties of structural steel: The similarity between witch-hunting have been used to scapegoat innocent modern Europe and North America. The and palaces is just as commonly seen as it is a much more general sense that the and aspects of Gnosticism was perceived or imaginary groups, with catastrophic extra element required for something like a mere façade, with the real decisions authorities are covering up the truth, as early as the 16th century by Reginald consequences) and at best ineffectual. the classic witch-hunts is the proposition being taken behind the scenes by about this subject as about everything Scot, whose The discoverie of witchcraft If the power of the evil authorities is that witches constitute an organised authorities (the Illuminati, the Bilderberg else, so that - whatever the real truth (1584) contains sceptical arguments intimately bound up with their secrecy, if movement, with its meetings and Group) whose control and even existence about Covid may be - it will certainly not against the “witch-moongers” of the day, evil power is in fact by its nature a power internal discipline, under the leadership may be concealed from the trusting be the story we are officially told. as well as instructions on a selection of veiled in secrets and cover stories, then it of the Devil. Witches here are not private population. Either way, the witches and conjuring tricks readers could use - if comes to seem natural that exposing the criminals motivated solely by greed, devils and frenzied wreckers are now in Gnosticism they were brave enough - to amaze and secret will itself cause the dreaded power malice or vendetta: they are militants in power, the Napoleon of crime sits on the Once again, we only need to perform a entertain their friends. Scot writes that to dissolve. a worldwide (in fact, a cosmic) army, throne of the real Napoleon, and we all simple transposition from things earthly the Marcionists (followers of the Gnostic So negative esotericists frequently drawn up and placed under centralised find ourselves in the unfortunate position to things heavenly to unearth a rich vein or Gnostic-adjacent theologian, Marcion devote themselves to trying to publicise command to do battle for evil against of the neighbourhood that was being of historical forerunners for the belief of Sinope) “acknowledged one God the the secrets they believe they have good. pillaged by Hell’s bloody dragoons. systems we are examining. Gnosticism author of good things, and another the uncovered: if everybody knew the truth, Cotton Mather, the theorist of the If the witches are in power, then it (from gnosis - knowledge) is an umbrella ordeiner of evill: but these make the the secret rulers would be rendered Salem witch trials, writes in The wonders follows that the way the world is publicly term applied to a number of religious divell a whole god”. powerless. We would all emerge blinking of the invisible world (1693): presented to us is one vast cover story movements that flourished in late His argument could have been a into the sunlight of a world where we designed to screen the hellish reality antiquity, and that have become better little stronger if he had had access to the knew who had really assassinated ... there is a sort of Arbitrary, even from our eyes; and the truth - the actual known in modern times since a library Nag Hammadi material, where we find president Kennedy, and where we would Military Government, among the identity and purposes of our rulers - must of broadly Gnostic documents was a variant of cosmological dualism that therefore be liberated from the reign of Devils ... Think on vast Regiments be a closely-guarded secret: unearthed in 1945 at Nag Hammadi in has more in common with the “witch- the lie. “And ye shall know the truth, of cruel and bloody French Upper Egypt. The Nag Hammadi library moongers” than Marcion’s necessarily and the truth shall make you free” (John Dragoons, with an Intendant Tell me now [to misquote Henry contains a range of texts, not all of them does; but the general point is a valid one. viii:32). over them, overrunning a pillaged Wadsworth Longfellow] in mournful originally Gnostic - even an extract from And a very clear case of the development A Marxist must retort to this that it Neighbourhood, and you will think numbers, Plato’s Republic is included. from one type of conspiracy theory to will not, or at least not on its own. Power a little, what the Constitution among Life is but an empty dream! Fortunately, the detailed literary the other is provided by the Protocols depends on real material relations, not the Devils is. For the soul is dead that slumbers, history of the documents does not need strand of anti-Semitism, where an image on secrecy and tricks; and the things the And things are not what they seem to concern us here. For our purposes, the of Jews as secret rulers of the world is conspiracy theories are not telling you I do not have all the evidence to hand, (‘A psalm of life’, 1838). most relevant aspect of Gnosticism is superimposed onto the older idea of Jews certainly include how capitalist society but I would hypothesise that organised, the account of the creation of the world as saboteurs, criminals and opponents of actually works, along with how it might large-scale persecution of alleged The alleged lies or conspiracies that and of humanity, as we find it set out, the legitimate Christian monarchy. be possible to change it. The challenge witches is only found in the context of are exposed do not always need to be for example, in Nag Hammadi II, 4 (The for socialists and communists is to a monotheist world view, where there very dramatic or even very evil. (They hypostasis of the Archons) and II, 5 (The Our challenge find ways of countering the undoubted is little room for the existence of minor, would, in any case, struggle to outdo untitled writing). The Gnostic creation People occasionally say that the appeal appeal of esotericist conspiracy theories independent spiritual powers, and any some of the atrocities governments story draws heavily on the first chapters of of conspiracy theories is that they offer with this-worldly, material analyses and power that does not come from God commit publicly: the most enthusiastic the biblical book of Genesis - but, in sharp a kind of comfort: ‘At least there’s solutions l weekly 10 April 30 2020 1297 worker DEBATE Only choice we have Rex Dunn argues that the left must unite around the Transitional programme if it is going to get anywhere eon Trotsky’s Transitional working class could not impose sector; otherwise the whole system programme, which was written in its rule, there was no reason why will collapse in chaos. But central L1938, has to be seen within the humanity should break out of the banks cannot go on chucking trillions context of the Marxist theory of decline existing order. The resistance of of fictitious capital at the problem, and transition. the working class prevented the in advance of that which has yet to The transition to communism recovery and further development be produced in the real economy, requires a conscious movement on the of capitalism, but that is all. especially if the lockdown continues part of the masses. But the equilibrium Barbarism was in fact the likely for a long period. that had been achieved in October outcome. Indeed, the conditions But history does not repeat itself in 1917 between the subjective and that Trotsky identified [in 1938] the same old way. What will happen objective factors - consciousness, on as the objective conditions for the next time the system crashes? the one hand, and the need to break socialism look more like those of Maybe we will have a breakdown of the imperialist chain of exploitation barbarism [today].7 civilisation itself. In the meantime, we by means of a socialist revolution, can expect more rightwing populism on the other - was broken. In the - ie, a new round of nationalism, plus first instance, this was achieved by Crises demands for more border controls an imperialist counterrevolution Today, instead of the threat of fascism to keep the foreign ‘virus’ at bay - organised from without. Secondly, as and another imperialist world war, the but less leftwing nationalism, given a result of the betrayal of reformism Leon Trotsky: spontaneity breakdown of the system is becoming that the latter is unable to offer in the west, an increasingly isolated more frequent; each new breakdown any alternative to bourgeois and and bureaucratised Soviet state laid Cox. Gorman makes the following to separate them. [He repeats this is more serious than the previous one. democratic prejudices: ie, chauvinism the foundations for the Stalinist five points: mistake in the TP.] The result Despite these crises, the ruling class is and parliamentarism. The right can do counterrevolution from within. That 1. He cites Hillel Ticktin’s essay, is that the catastrophism of the reluctant to go back to using elements that better. produced a state which was neither ‘Trotsky’s political economy of [latter] is also present in Trotsky’s of socialism in order to sustain itself. It seems more like the decline of socialist nor capitalist. capitalism’.1 The latter argues that, initial formulation of the category Add to this the elephant in the room capitalism without transition; because Of course, this was unsustainable. following the downturn in the world of the transitional epoch ... It is - the ongoing threat of capitalist of the ongoing impasse between The revolution had to go one way or revolution, Trotsky evolved his theory only in the period before 1921 [ie, ecocide. the contending classes. The ruling the other: transition towards socialism of transition as follows: “the old a period dominated by an upturn I would also add that, as in 1938, class is behaving like a rabbit in the or back to capitalism. Therefore, by order is objectively declining, but the in the world revolution, starting in instead of a dialectical unity of headlights, because it does not want to 1921-22 Trotsky had to revise his revolutionary forces of the working class 1917 and ending in 1920-21] that objective and subjective factors, go back to Keynesianism long term, theory of transition (see below). have yet to defeat the old ruling class”.2 Trotsky put forward the kind of leading to the dominance of the whilst the working class is atomised Trotsky’s TP is criticised by some According to Ticktin, says Gorman, analysis in which subjective and subjective factor - ie, socialist and lacks adequate consciousness. Marxists as ‘catastrophist’ - in particular although Trotsky “never produced a objective factors are unified.4 revolution led by a vanguard party - Given the huge disconnect between his statement, “Without a socialist political economy of the transitional we have the dominance of objective the objective and subjective factors, revolution in the next historical period epoch, it may be pieced together”. Gorman concludes his introduction by factors. Apropos point 2 above, the only choice we have is to opt for the … a catastrophe threatens the whole This has three aspects: “capitalism has saying that he disagrees with Ticktin, the class struggle continues, even “catastrophism” of the Transitional culture of mankind.” But this has to been overthrown in a part of the world, because the latter argues that we need though it is at a very low level. This programme and the “mechanical be set against the betrayal of Stalinism without the introduction of socialism to go back to the Trotsky circa the is the driving force of the tendency of Trotsky” of the Fourth International. and reformism, which allowed fascism itself”; but “capitalism continues to 1920s. capital to rely more and more on new Events have made this so. - as an excrescence of capitalism in decline”; finally: 5. After the defeat of the revolution, forms of parasitic or fictitious capital, We have to find a way to outflank crisis - to grow, because of capitalism’s “Trotsky [tried] to elaborate a theory such as short-termism and the rise of reformism, which separates the need to smash the organised working the subjective aspect plays a crucial of transition … At the back of his hedge funds. minimum form the maximum class. This drove the system towards a role, as the leaders of both social mind lay the fate of the Russian So finance capital itself is decaying: programme: ie, it promises reforms second imperialist world war, the death democracy and Stalinism are seen Revolution itself.”5 ie, it is beginning to undermine the within the framework of bourgeois of millions of civilians, the holocaust to be saving capitalism in this period I would like to add two further system, because capital is investing society, whilst it postpones socialism and the use of nuclear weapons. But ... Trotsky’s crucial perspective points. less and less in the productive sector to the distant future - or quietly drops the unprecedented devastation that is one of declining capitalism First, Trotsky left it too late to try of the economy. Marxists like Ticktin it altogether. As the TP says, our ensued necessitated massive post- desperately seeking a way out and build a new Fourth International. are right to talk about an investment “strategic task in the next period” war reconstruction across the world. of its old age. At certain periods This is understandable, given his strike, because capitalists are reluctant is to overcome “the contradiction Thus capitalism is in a bind: its it was able to find a temporary position as the “prophet unarmed” to go back to long-term investment: between the maturity of the objective “death agony” is prolonged, whilst it alleviation through imperialism, and “prophet outcast”. He found eg, to create a Green New Deal, which revolutionary conditions and the continues to degrade the planet. fascism, war and Stalinism/cold himself as the isolated and impotent would provide hundreds of thousands immaturity of the proletariat and its The above scenario raises two war, but the palliatives [including witness to the ineptitude and treachery of new skilled jobs, along with the vanguard”. We need to “find the bridge related questions: firstly, apropos the latest one: ie, neoliberalism] of a Stalinised Third International, expansion of the education sector. between present demands and the Marx, humanity needs to transition have become ever more useless which led to the historic defeat of On the other hand, decaying finance socialist programme of the revolution”. from a declining capitalism to a over time. the revolution in Germany (1933), capital leads to unemployment or On this basis we have to try and win new and higher form of society, or and again in Spain (1936-38), along low wages and greater inequality of the most advanced layers: eg, those communism; secondly, we also have 2. Gorman continues: “Ticktin claims with the purge of the old Bolshevik incomes and wealth. Hence we are who work for big tech companies. to consider the dialectical relationship that Trotsky was ‘the only Marxist leadership - not forgetting the final seeing more frequent, deeper crises. Already some of these workers have between objective and subjective theorist to put the subjective into destruction of the Left Opposition. As Yanis Varoufakis says, the 2008 formed new unions and refuse to factors. On the one hand, the forces political economy’, analysing ‘the So by 1938, he had no option but financial crisis “never went away”. It work for the US military. Meanwhile of production under capitalism have movement of capital’ as ‘part of to try and build a new - Fourth - deepened and accelerated the public/ others create algorithms which can be created a worldwide proletariat - which the class struggle and not just the International. private debt crisis that erupted in used for capitalist surveillance. We is potentially a revolutionary class. On unconscious movement of rates of Secondly, the long post-war 2008.8 The return to ‘normality’ was have to convince them, along with the other, capitalism is racked by its own profit’.”3 boom gave reformism a new lease a flimsy veneer: central banks reflated the Corbynistas, that their ‘socialist’ internal contradictions - between use- 3. But at this point, says Gorman, of life. On the one hand, Labourism the financial markets by printing demands, such as nationalisation and value/exchange-value; overproduction Ticktin was able to continue the illusions in trillions of dollars and giving this to a Green New Deal, are confined to of unnecessary wants (such as many a minimalist programme, based on the private sector (so that the latter within capitalist political economy, items of mass consumption, along draws a clear distinction between ‘parliamentarism = socialism’. On the could buy back their shares!). But this Instead of fighting in our own with the military-industrial complex), Trotsky’s “dialectical work of other, reformism was able to promote only boosted finance capital and sent corner, we have to try and create a and underconsumption vis-à-vis real the 1920s” and the “rigid and ‘democratic socialism’ in opposition it into the longest bull market of the new international on the basis of a human needs. mechanical” approach of the later to Stalinist totalitarianism. Meanwhile 21st century. At the same time, adds transitional programme that unites This disequilibrium has now 1930s, and speaks of Trotsky’s Stalinism was able to compete for Varoufakis, the bailout was “depleting revolutionaries in every country. reached a point whereby capitalism “dialectical decline”. This enables control over the working class. So investment in quality jobs” - in health, By doing that, we will be in a better is unable to raise the level of human him to separate the category it is not surprising that after 1945 a education fixing the environment - lack position to make a revolutionary culture further. Therefore it becomes of the transitional epoch from marginalised and isolated FI began of jobs and a decline in real incomes intervention around the demand for a declining system. In the absence of the catastrophist perspectives to split into warring factions - all of led to a rise in populism, both on the workers’ control of all institutions a conscious movement which leads contained in the Transitional which subsequently degenerated.6 left and the right (especially the latter). within society l to the transition to communism, we programme. Thus we now need to fight for a new This was reflected in the victory of the reach a point where we have decline fifth international! “great disrupter”, Donald Trump, who [email protected] without transition - which could end 4. Gorman disagrees: To return to Trotsky, as Gorman did nothing other than offer massive with the ruination of both contending correctly points out, the theory of tax cuts to boost the markets further, Notes classes, whilst the spectre of ecological I intend to challenge Ticktin’s transition must include a description as well as start a tariff war with China. 1. H Ticktin and M Cox (eds) The ideas of Leon catastrophe looms. distinction between the dialectical or account of movement from one So, when the coronavirus pandemic Trotsky London 1996, p201n. Trotsky of the 1920s and the form of society to another. In Trotsky’s erupted, “capitalism was sitting on a 2. D Gorman, ‘The political economy of defeat: Transition mechanical Trotsky of the Fourth account such movement is absent: gigantic bubble of private and public Leon Trotsky and the problems of the transitional epoch’ in H Ticktin and M Cox (eds) The ideas of Enter Trotsky’s theory of transition. International. In particular I want debt”. Leon Trotsky London 1996, p201. At this point, I shall defer to David to show that, while the subjective Instead … he offers absence The International Monetary Fund 3. Ibid p202. Gorman’s ‘The political economy and objective factors were indeed of movement, a condition of says that the great lockdown has 4. Ibid p202-03. of defeat: Leon Trotsky and the present in Trotsky’s formulations stalemate, the mutual ruination caused the worst downturn since the 5. Ibid p217. 6. See my article, ‘Trotskyism and May 1968’ problems of the transitional epoch’ of the early 1920s, he did not of the contending classes ... great depression. Unlike 2008, the Weekly Worker June 14 2018. in The ideas of Leon Trotsky (1996), theorise them as two aspects of a insofar as capital could not capitalist class has to bail out the 7. D Gorman op cit p217. edited by Hillel Ticktin and Michael unified whole, but tended always defeat the working class, and the working class as well as the private 8. youtube.com/watch?v=OLfHpvJKNg0. weekly 11 worker 1297 April 30 2020 What we CENTENARY fight for n Without organisation the working class is nothing; with the highest form of organisation Fundamental principles it is everything. revious instalments in this least because of the decamping should be a debate for and to corruption and reinforce n There exists no real Communist series have illustrated just of Sylvia Pankhurst and her against parliamentary action. parliamentary illusions in the Party today. There are many how divisive the question of farcically misnamed ‘Communist Amendments would be left masses. so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In P reality they are confessional sects. parliamentary participation had Party - British Section of the until after the debate had been The chair, comrade Arthur been to the initial participants in Third International’). concluded. MacManus, called a total Members who disagree with the the negotiations that led to the The resolution on The essence of the argument of 19 speakers during the prescribed ‘line’ are expected to formation of the Communist Party parliamentary action at the was not whether parliamentary debate: 13 for engagement gag themselves in public. Either of Great Britain. As the outlines of 1st Congress of the CPGB (the legislation could usher in genuine with parliamentary work, six that or face expulsion. some of the congress contributions Communist Unity Convention), socialism. Almost all agreed that against. When it came to the n Communists operate according illustrate, there were still comrades which took place over the parliament had to be superseded votes, the resolution passed by to the principles of democratic who had not shifted from their weekend of July 31-August 1 by workers’ councils of some sort. 186 (representing 4,650 votes) centralism. Through ongoing debate narrowly economistic, anti- 1920, was moved by comrade However, the majority recognised to 19 (475). A summation of all we seek to achieve unity in action parliamentary stance. Tom Bell for the Joint Provisional that elections and parliament the speeches - as reported in the and a common world outlook. As True, the question was now Central Committee. The itself could facilitate that aim: the official account of the congress - long as they support agreed actions, one of the least controversial resolution was seconded, and minority judged that this political is reproduced below l members should have the right to at the founding congress (not then it was agreed that there template would inevitably lead William Sarsfield speak openly and form temporary or permanent factions. n Communists oppose all impe- rialist wars and occupations but ‘You’re a liar!’ constantly strive to bring to the fore C Abbott (Southwark Herald we could not bring about a revolution the fundamental question–ending war League): It seemed to him that most without having a certain number of the is bound up with ending capitalism. of those in the unofficial section of the masses to support us. n Communists are internationalists. Socialist Labour Party and the British G Roberts (BSP Stalybridge): It was Everywhere we strive for the closest Socialist Party wanted this question of the duty of a member of the Communist unity and agreement of working class parliamentary action pushed and, when Party not only to attack the capitalist and progressive parties of all countries. they had done, they would go on with system, but to defend the working class We oppose every manifestation the old game of coming in with the politically, as well as industrially; he was of national sectionalism. It is an Labour Party. A man sent to parliament aware that we could never hope to bring internationalist duty to uphold the would not be recalled, but would sit in the revolution by the parliamentary principle, ‘One state, one party’. there as long as he liked. In the factory, machine, but he recognised also that where you talked to the workmen, was the strength of the socialist movement n The working class must be the point where organisation should did not depend on the numerical state of organised globally. Without a global take place. the vote, but rather on the tenacity with Communist Party, a Communist Harold Macmillan (Glasgow which we defended the working class International, the struggle against Garngad Independent Labour all the time. He believed in defending capital is weakened and lacks Party): The class war must be the working class, not because he coordination. conducted in every country very much wanted to standardise their slavery, n Communists have no interest as any other kind of war - we must take Tom Bell: mover but because in defending them he was apart from the working class into consideration the geographical attacking capitalism and because they as a whole. They differ only in situation of the country, its economic and parliament could be used to good the man in the street was not so critical were the class that would bring about recognising the importance of position and the temperament of the effect if we got the right man ... We as the average member of a Socialist the revolution. Marxism as a guide to practice. people. Taking all these points into did not want men who would go there Party and was not so hidebound A Siffleet (BSP Tooting): In favouring That theory is no dogma, but consideration, he had come to the to ameliorate the conditions of the theoretically as all that ... parliamentary action because we must be constantly added to and conclusion that it would be a great workers, but men whose object was to Circumstances had so worked it that simply could not afford to omit its use, enriched. mistake to cut ourselves adrift from smash the machine. a crisis would be forced upon us, and he did not imply that he attached undue n Capitalism in its ceaseless bodies who undertook to run the masses J Hamilton (Liverpool Communist whether we should take full advantage importance to it. He was of the opinion search for profit puts the future by electoral methods. Unity Group): Political activity and of that crisis would not depend upon that there was no time for us to convert of humanity at risk. Capitalism is TJ Watkins (Trethomas Communist agitation could be carried on in other the measure of perfection of our the electorate to any extent and get synonymous with war, pollution, Unity Group): If he had not been an directions than by putting up candidates organisation, but it would depend on our men on the floor of the House of exploitation and crisis. As a global anti-parliamentarian before coming for parliament ... Undoubtedly it was the amount of propaganda we had done. Commons in any number. He believed system capitalism can only be to the convention, the mover of the the industrial machine that would have That propaganda could be done at the the revolution was too near for that. superseded globally. resolution would have made him one. to function if revolution took place, and workshop gate, inside the factory, inside Answering comrade Stewart’s n We should not be such fools as to face not the parliamentary machine, which the public house, at general elections reference to guns, we did not want The capitalist class will never guns armless, and we knew that, so would be on one side. and at all times; and he was prepared to guns if we could avoid them; but willingly allow their wealth and long as we used a weapon as obsolete as H Webb (Ashton-under-Lyne advocate the use of the parliamentary force would not be withheld so far as power to be taken away by a parliament, we were not going to bring Communist Unity Group): If we weapon, so as to get at the workers’ the master class were concerned. The parliamentary vote. satisfaction to the working class. are eventually to have some form minds. workers must consider the question of n We will use the most militant JR Stead (St Helens Socialist Society): of parliamentary activity along Bob Stewart (Socialist Prohibition armed force if necessary, to meet what methods objective circumstances Said he had always understood that obstructionist lines, we should see to it Group): There would be elections, would be brought against them. It was allow to achieve a federal republic it was the economic power outside that the men who had to move along these whether we participated in them or not, not enough to say, ‘Wait until the time’, of England, Scotland and Wales, parliament that controlled the inevitable lines were real revolutionary fighters; and the chances were that we should because we should find the other man a united, federal Ireland and a development of working class and a vote against parliamentary action spend more time telling the other fellow armed and ourselves with nothing but United States of Europe. conditions. now would enable us to get this. that it was not worthwhile than it would ideals. We must avail ourselves of the n Communists favour industrial Robert Williams (BSP national W Mellor (Guild Communists): take to do the job and be sure that it was parliamentary weapon, but not overrate unions. Bureaucracy and class branch): Supported the general Said he took it that no delegate at the not worthwhile. We should not keep it. Its only utility was for the education compromise must be fought and principle of the resolution. To be a conference regarded this question as out of parliamentary elections, however of the masses to bring about the social the trade unions transformed into revolutionary did not imply either that a matter of principle; it was one of much we wanted to do so: people revolution. schools for communism. one was a utopian or an impossibilist. We expediency and tactics. However much congregated to hear what the candidates Tom Bell replied to the discussion. He n Communists are champions of must have some regard in contemplating we might fear the contamination of had to say at election times and the said there had been nothing substantial the oppressed. Women’s oppression, revolutionary possibilities to the capitalist machine, we had to work opportunity for propaganda ought not advocated against participation in combating racism and chauvinism, revolutionary occurrences elsewhere. inside that machine if we were going to be missed. parliamentary elections; the main and the struggle for peace and The convention had already agreed to to smash it. We must look at the matter Beyond this, it was our business to point was that such participation ecological sustainability are just affiliation with the Third International, not from the high peak of Marxian go where laws were made so as to annul was not vital. Not vital to what? Not as much working class questions and affiliation with that revolutionary dogma, but from the low ground of all the laws that sanctioned theft and to vital, he presumed, to the communist as pay, trade union rights and organisation would impose duties and Marxian analysis. Marx showed that substitute a law by which theft would movement. But all spheres of life demands for high-quality health, obligations upon us, as well as entitle us we had to use the instruments that were be sanctioned no longer ... A great many where the working class mind was to be housing and education. to claim rights and privileges ... at our disposal at the moment. These people talked about guns who would influenced were vital to the communist Would anyone tell him our included, on the one hand, industrial run away when they saw one. He was movement. n Socialism represents victory movement would not be considerably organisation and, on the other hand, the more interested in folks having brains in We had got beyond the frame of in the battle for democracy. It is stronger if we had a man like Karl power that came to the workers in local their heads. mind that looked to conditions at the rule of the working class. Liebknecht in the House of Commons? and national assemblies. L Manoin (BSP Sheffield): Supported some future date to determine what Socialism is either democratic or, It would be a considerable accession of Mrs DB Montifiorre (Glasgow College the resolution. we were going to do. The Communist as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it strength if we had only one man in the BSP): Reminded the convention that E Marsh (BSP Central Hackney): It Party in the near future was going to turns into its opposite. House of Commons today who, every one of the messages read that morning was necessary to use every weapon be, above all, an active, decisive and n Socialism is the first stage time a cabinet minister got up to make a was from Clara Zetkin. There was at our command to fight the master consciously working organism in the of the worldwide transition to statement, would repeat, ‘You’re a liar!’ no doubt about Clara Zetkin being a class. Anyone who supported industrial labour movement. We were not going communism–a system which That in itself would be sufficient to revolutionary ... Yet on the first chance action but not parliamentary action, or to leave things to chance or time, knows neither wars, exploitation, intensify our propaganda. If half a dozen of getting to the Reichstag Clara Zetkin vice versa, was like a man going into a but would seek to direct them in the money, classes, states nor nations. men were championing the cause of the had presented herself and had been boxing match with one arm behind him. direction we thought they ought to go, Communism is general freedom proletariat in the House of Commons, elected ... Important as the industrial FL Kerran (BSP Central London): so far as our communist purposes were and the real beginning of human we could make it possible to use the method was, at the same time we must Delegates were in too much of a hurry. concerned. history. pages of Hansard as revolutionary go into parliament and work there. They talked as if they had the whole He appealed to all present, whatever The Weekly Worker is licensed by propaganda. EW Cant (BSP Paisley): It had been of the masses of the people at their decision might be made in this matter, November Publications under a Creative W Hill (Oldham Communist Unity asked, how were we to justify ourselves disposal; but, as a matter of fact, they to subordinate these minor and Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence: Group): We should be prepared to participating in parliament and at the only represented a very small fraction secondary aspects of the movement to creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ take every instrument of capitalism and same time arguing that parliament was of the workers of this country. We could the fundamental principles of an active legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. use it to smash the capitalist system, no use as a means of emancipation? But not make bricks without straw, and Communist Party l No 1297 April 30 2020 After 26 years of the ANC Hitting the poor Peter Manson welcomes the limited success in restricting the pandemic, but it is clear that the problems are structural n my last article I predicted that Accordingly, from that date the “national Joyce Moloi-Moropa admitted that “due “many thousands” would “pay coronavirus alert level” will be lowered to financial flow challenges” the party Ithe ultimate price” because of the from level 5 (“drastic measures”) to level has failed to pay its staff since March. South African government’s belated 4 (“extreme precautions”). At the same time, she condemned those and inadequate response to Covid-19 That means that people will now members who had made this problem (‘Surplus to requirements’, March 26). be permitted to leave their local area, public. However, while that could still turn although “No travel will be allowed But, returning to the reaction to out to be the case, at the moment things between provinces, except for the Ramaphosa’s measures, at least Cosatu do not look too bad - at least when it transportation of goods and exceptional in its April 28 statement attempted comes to fatalities. It is true that, while circumstances”. Public transport to place the problems posed by the at that time there had been no officially restrictions will continue, however, coronavirus within the context of the recorded Covid-19 deaths, that is no with “stringent hygiene requirements, general failure of the African National longer the case, but they still number less including that all passengers must wear Congress government (including its than 100. a face mask”. In addition. “Our borders substantial SACP component) in the The explanation for this is that, for will remain closed to international travel, quarter-century following the end of reasons peculiar to South Africa, the Army heavy hand except for the repatriation of South apartheid. According to Cosatu, particular lockdown measures enforced African nationals and foreign citizens.” have been effective - despite their often increased child support grant, but this including one man who was shot in So what has been the response of The outbreak of Covid-19 has horrendous consequences for millions brings the total monthly sum received the neck. But in the end not only were the main organisations of the workers’ exposed the inefficiency of some of of impoverished people. On March 15 to the equivalent of just £39. Similarly their homes demolished: several had movement - not least the South African our policy choices. Twenty-six years president Cyril Ramaphosa declared a there is a ‘social relief grant’ awarded to personal possessions either destroyed or Communist Party and the SACP- later many people do not have access “national disaster”, but it was not until unemployed adults - a magnificent £15 confiscated. controlled Congress of South African to water; our housing and human a week later that he enforced anything per month. The Daily Maverick reported how Trade Unions? As you might expect, settlement system is inefficient and approaching severe restrictions. In addition, Ramaphosa has one resident reacted: the day after Ramaphosa’s April 21 inadequate; our health system is Following that, we had a situation committed to supplying regular food broadcast, the SACP issued its own poorly funded and our economy is where no-one was allowed to leave their parcels to people in “dire material need” The young man stood motionless, statement, in which it “welcomes the imploding because of poor energy local area without a special permit. The - those who cannot get to work (or leave gaping, rooted to a plank of wood generally pro-poor and pro-worker supply. We need to learn lessons from idea seemed primarily to be to cordon home to raise money in whatever way that, 30 minutes before, had held up measures announced by president this crisis, so that we make better off the heavily populated areas - the they can). But in many areas nothing the small zinc shack he called his Cyril Ramaphosa”. Especially when choices going forward. townships and ‘informal settlements’, whatsoever has been received since home. From there he had sold fruit you consider that the “social relief and mainly consisting of tightly packed the lockdown began a month ago. and vegetables, gum, snacks and economic support package” of R500 So it was just “some of our policy shacks. It was clear that all those who Many people have been going to local airtime to his neighbours to make billion amounts to “about 10% of our choices” that were inadequate, was it? had been infected were people who had tips, trying to scavenge discarded food a living. Red Ants personnel with gross domestic product”. Was that why, out of a population of either recently returned from abroad or of whatever quality. But some in the weapons took it all, he said, along But the SACP seems to be more 58 million, no fewer that an estimated those who had been in contact with them: townships have begun to mobilise and on with the R1,800 [£78] in cash for concerned with what happens after the 12 million now live in “informal in other words, not the shack-dwellers. April 27 in the Johannesburg township of new stock he had in his pocket, his pandemic: “In particular, we cannot go settlements” (ie, shacks) and 6.7 million Ramaphosa was well aware that, Booysens hundreds came onto the streets phone, furniture, stove and even bits back to the crisis before the crisis.” But (27%) are officially unemployed? once those areas became infected, the to demand food. They blocked the main of the structure. What was left lay at its conclusion is dismal: what is needed But, apart from the vague statement pandemic would be uncontrollable. street with rocks and burning tyres. The his feet.1 is an overall policy switch towards state about the need to “change the nature and When you are living half a dozen to police responded in the usual way - firing capitalism: structure of the country’s economy, so a single-room shack, when you have rubber bullets and injuring dozens. Another resident is quoted as saying: as to improve the lives of the majority to queue up every day for water (and At the same time, incredibly, the “Everyone was in their shacks for In order to turn our economy around, for the better”, Cosatu, like its parent cannot afford to buy soap or sanitiser), campaign to demolish ‘unauthorised’ the lockdown. Where must we run to we need a massive investment in political organisation, has no answers then ‘social distancing’ is just a joke. So settlements has continued - even though now?” public infrastructure, a stronger role - except for what amounts to more of the answer was to separate off such areas evictions - let alone the destruction for and capacity in the state, in part the same: “Workers need to influence completely in a coronavirus version of of people’s homes - is supposed to Response through well managed and thriving and support government efforts and apartheid. be suspended during the ‘national On April 23 Ramaphosa broadcast state-owned enterprises, and state programmes that are meant to mobilise But this meant the intense and often disaster’. Last week, well over 500 a statement, in which he claimed a intervention in the economy on resources and reorganise our economy brutal policing of townships, and for that shacks, together with a dozen or so brick degree of success from the initial stage behalf of the people as a whole, the into an inclusive one that benefits the purpose around 76,000 troops have been buildings, were ruthlessly demolished of the lockdown implemented a month majority of whom are the working majority.” deployed to reinforce the police. There in settlements south of Johannesburg - earlier: “By delaying the spread of the class and poor. It is true that the current crisis has have been numerous instances of attacks leaving around 1,000 men, women and virus, we have had time to prepare our exposed the dismal failure of the last 26 on people simply for standing outside children homeless. In this the police health facilities and mobilise some of the In fact, “The outbreak of Covid-19 years, but it has also exposed - just in case their homes, for instance - several have were aided by a private company, which essential medical supplies needed to meet and global responses to it underline the you had any doubts - the absurdity of the actually been killed by ‘law enforcement is ludicrously named ‘Red Ant Security, the inevitable increase in infections.” important role of the state in leading SACP’s support for the pro-capitalist agents’. At the same time, public Eviction and Relocation Services’ - However, it was obvious that the development and serving the people.” popular front that is the ANC l transport has been severely restricted ‘relocation’ does not come into it! nationwide lockdown “cannot be It is important to note, by the way, - all to prevent the great majority of There was a stand-off lasting several sustained indefinitely”. After all, “Our that the SACP seems to be undergoing [email protected] inhabitants from moving in and out of hours, when police again fired hundreds people need to eat. They need to earn some kind of financial crisis despite an their townships. of rounds of rubber bullets at residents a living.” He noticed! So from Friday official membership of around 300,000. Notes On top of that, a good number of the trying to protect their homes, sometimes May 1 “we should begin a gradual and Following various rumours and leaks on 1. dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-22-gauteng- minority of inhabitants who had jobs and at close range. Several were injured, phased recovery of economic activity”. social media, last week national treasurer demolitions-red-ants-in-all-out-war-on-the-poor. had managed to get to their workplace despite such huge difficulties have been Subscribe Name:______Standing order arrested for allegedly breaking lockdown 6m 1yr Inst. 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