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Lawrence Parker’s book: n Letters and debate workern Pharaoh Mursi llluminating the factional n Workers Power struggles of the CPGB 1945-91 n Rotherham fostering No 940 Thursday November 29 2012 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union www.cpgb.org.uk £1/€1.10

The madness of a dying system weekly 2 November 29 2012 940 worker LETTERS

Letters may have been version of socialist revolution? Not beforehand, avoided buildings of of revolutionaries on campus would Respect, but this has been sidelined shortened because of only will we all be dead by then: the political significance and proceeded be an important step in this direction. by our magnificent, positive space. Some names human race itself is likely to have down almost empty streets, as it Callum Williamson campaign with the Respect battle  may have been changed become extinct as well. meandered away from central London London bus, advertising truck and campaign Andrew Northall south of the river Thames. The rally groups in every ward. SPGB enigma email in Kennington Park did not go as the Loopy Polling conducted in the Croydon I was pleased to see Jon D White’s NUS would have hoped. President The Socialist Workers Party’s habit North by-election suggests that Lee quite reflective letter about the Sort it out Liam Burns was heckled and forced of bending in the wind to every Jasper, the Respect candidate, is Socialist Party of Great Britain, and I must thank Heather Downs to leave the stage. Liam will be passing screech of liberal outrage now neck and neck with the Labour his comments about sectarianism for correcting my error (Letters, counting on a continued ebbing of really does land it in some contorted Party to win the constituency. This and its twin, liquidationism (Letters, November 15). She is correct: the the student movement, the active positions. overturns a Labour majority of over November 22). women in the Assange case asked elements of which are beginning to And so it is that the good comrades 16,000 at the last general election. To its credit, the SPGB is the for an HIV test, not a paternity test. show their disillusionment. Unless found themselves yesterday in This is nothing short of astounding longest lasting genuinely socialist However, it makes no difference to there is a significant resurgence in the peculiar position of calling and is testament to the excellent party in Britain, and has pretty my argument that the real concerns political activity on campus, and the for a Labour vote over Respect’s campaign team, candidate and consistently advocated socialism as of the two women were ignored students see their supposed leadership Lee Jasper in the Croydon North brilliant policies we have. the only alternative to capitalism and by the law. If the women were as a fetter upon their struggle, he by-election. The reasoning was If Respect wins one of these the only remedy to its ills. As part concerned that they may have will avoid the fate of Aaron Porter, summed up succinctly: “Respect’s constituencies, it will make headlines of this, it has consistently defined contracted Aids it would be difficult who was barracked during the 2011 Lee Jasper has tapped into anger across the world. If we win both, socialism in the most clear and for them to practice their chosen protests and subsequently declined around police racism in the Croydon we will deliver the biggest blow simple terms, and which do not allow lifestyle responsibly. to stand for re-election as NUS run-off. But Socialist Worker is not to the squalid political consensus for any ambiguity or compromise. As for Chris Knight’s “just so” president. calling for a vote for him, following that has suffocated British politics It has, remarkably, published the stories on the human revolution, An article on the NUS website Respect leader George Galloway’s since the 1970s. It will mark the monthly Socialist Standard for the speculation is based on the entitled ‘Demo 2012 - what’s next?’ disgraceful and well-publicised transformation of our party into the virtually every year of its existence. best evidence available. I will stick gives an outline of NUS plans for comments on rape. Instead we fourth force in British politics and Although relatively small, the with his view that females were the 2013 and attempts to offer a narrative encourage supporters to vote for the most sustained challenge to three- SPGB in my view consistently adds driving force behind the creation of to students who were probably Labour in this instance” (Socialist party politics since it developed in value to the labour and progressive modern humanity. That sex was the asking themselves what the point of Worker December 1). the 1980s. movement by being a clear and fundamental relation between males ‘Demo 2012’ was. This excerpt reads There you have it - Lee Jasper For Respect, this is like a general consistent advocate of socialism and females, and that human culture like the PR material of a faceless represents yesterday’s hot-button election. We can deliver a damning and expressing a straight-talking was the outcome of our female corporation: “The demo should act issue (police racism); but the verdict on the path of British politics and straightforward language most ancestors’ struggle for the right to as the beginning, and at NUS we’ve publicity afforded to Galloway’s and society in the last two years. We people can understand. choose their own mates. And that the been busy putting together a calendar infamous comments on the Assange can deliver a challenge that shows Those of us who believe in a outcome of this process produced of campaigns for students to get case makes not only him, but any what real Labour means and what strategy to develop and unite the communistic social relations that involved in.” Respect candidate, too embarrassing real communities need. Please struggles against the effects of lasted everywhere until the coming Students are invited to enter to touch. It is almost Workers’ help us deliver Yvonne Ridley and capitalism, and to develop these into of agricultural societies, which student politics on the terms Liberty-esque. Lee Jasper to parliament to make a struggle against capitalism itself, reintroduced minority control over of the NUS leadership, within How do we deal with this loopy a formidable team with George are forced by the SPGB to consider society. the parameters of events and reasoning? Perhaps we should take Galloway. whether or not we risk tipping into Admittedly this argument is campaigns they have organised and it at face value, and this gets to the Chris Chilvers reformism and preservation of the convenient for a communist because control. The events listed include core of how the SWP makes political National secretary, Respect capitalist system. it implies that to be human is to be “shareholder activism training” (if decisions. A while ago, the Catholic I would like, however, to question communist. But hunter-gatherer only the capitalist class understood church came up with an ingenious Terry Liddle two elements of the SPGB’s case societies still exist. What lessons the importance of responsible ranking system for sins of the flesh. I knew Terry Liddle, who died on and practice. One, the SPGB is can we learn from them? investment) and a national It has achieved a certain degree of November 15, very well. He was a of the view that capitalism will Firstly that the mode of production constituency lobby (a bankrupt infamy for putting masturbation friend and comrade, someone I had of itself generate the political and is not just a matter of economics, tactic adopted by successive NUS higher in the sinfulness stakes than known since the early days of the socialist consciousness required to but its long-term existence depends leaderships as a substitute for serious rape - because, after all, rape can Socialist Alliance in the 1990s, when take the necessary revolutionary on the cultural superstructure of collective action) for January in plausibly lead to conception, unlike he was the secretary of Greenwich action to establish socialism. Yet its society, including myths and rituals. protest against reforms in further spreading one’s seed on the dry earth. SA. He regularly attended national principal yardstick, membership and The power of women comes from education for adults. The NUS The SWP, in the absence of any meetings once they started to take support remains microscopic. Given their role in society, which they claimed the march was about setting meaningful political calculus for off around 1996, and was on the SA several hundred years of capitalism jealously guard by active social the higher education agenda, but it taking such decisions, also seems to national council and other national (and over a hundred years in its solidarity. For example, control of is clear the leadership is looking to maintain a grand list of Bad Things, bodies. decaying, decadent phase), why is food preparation and childbirth make return to business as usual. ordered according to their Badness. I was always impressed by Terry’s socialist consciousness as defined them both essential and central to NCAFC is more and more trying Making an off-colour comment complete lack of sectarianism and his by the SPGB not very much more the social whole - unlike in class to assert itself as a rival to the NUS about alleged sexual assault registers determination to build left unity. He widespread? society, where they are condemned bureaucracy. Its supporters marched higher on the list than police racism always spoke in a most positive way Two, Jon refers to the fact that to a second-class status. under the slogan encouraging - this month, at least. to move the Socialist Alliance project the SPGB expelled the Socialist Lesson: women need a new reformist illusions - “Tax the rich to On the other hand, there is the forward. He was committed to his Studies Group in 1991. Both the economic role. A political struggle fund education” - that was adopted small matter that the SWP has work in Greenwich, where he was a SPGB and SSG call themselves the which includes positioning and at the NUS conference, but was later announced a general volte-face on tower of strength to those within his SPGB, both adhere to exactly the building alliances and the creation dropped by the leadership. Like much the issue of voting Labour these past community that he helped empower. same declaration and principles, of new cultural mores. This process of the student left, NCAFC is taking few years, reheating the tired old He was a genuine libertarian, and both put forward exactly the is already happening. It does not hope from the victory of students in business of placing oneself alongside environmentalist socialist - but a same political arguments. Given include relying on bourgeois courts, Quebec, led by a leftwing student those who have ‘illusions’ in Labour socialist first and foremost. that the number of SPGB-type which reduces people to those that union, against a proposed fees as a patronising step towards peeling Terry became part of the campaign socialists remains minuscule, is it are controlled. hike. The problem is that without the scales from their eyes. One almost to try and save the original SA from not ridiculous to have two separate Secondly, hunter-gatherers tend to a proper understanding of why that hoped that cynical motivations were being closed down by the then parties, claiming the same name and be extremely egalitarian. You cannot struggle was successful, the wrong behind this latest odd twist, rather leadership of the Socialist Workers politics, but apparently viscerally tell anyone what to do - not even lessons are learned and it becomes than the utterly incoherent ostensible Party in the early part of this century. hostile to each other? children. One outcome of this is that a justification for the student left to reasons given. He remained a member after it I think the real problem with the people are expected to sort out their continue what it has been doing for Too incoherent by half, in the was closed down, and when it was SPGB is that, despite its claims, it is own differences. years, but simply trying to be louder end - by the end of Wednesday, the relaunched in 2005. inherently sectarian and inveterately Others will express opinions, but and more ‘militant’. clause about voting Labour had He was treasurer of the relaunched hostile to any struggle against not intervene unless things get out of An alternative to the treachery of disappeared, to be replaced by a SA in its early years, and, until very capitalism which does not adhere to hand. Very different to the Swedish the NUS leadership, on the one hand, short note in square brackets. “An recently, I still received stuff from the its dogmatic schemas. It opposed and rape law, where trivial disagreements and the endless, fruitless ‘actions’ earlier version of this article called Electoral Commission in his name! rejected the first sustained breach in between consenting adults excuses of the left, on the other, is needed. for a vote for Labour in the Croydon Indeed, he remained a member until world imperialism represented by state intervention. From a hunter- Patient building and education is North by-election. This was an the end, being fully paid up, even the 1917 Great October Socialist gatherer viewpoint punishment is what is required in what looks likely editorial error. Socialist Worker is though deteriorating health meant Revolution. Indeed on the back irrational and morally unacceptable. to be a period of reduced activity. not endorsing any of the candidates he could no longer attend meetings. of complete hostility to Lenin Phil Kent The student movement needs to in the Croydon North by-election.” We would correspond regularly - by and the Bolsheviks it even rejects Haringey get itself into a shape where it can In other words, the SWP leadership phone, and more recently by email. any analysis of the evolution of actually resist future attacks and go has spun on a sixpence quicker than He was a true friend and a committed capitalism into its decadent phase Student split onto the offensive. Democratisation Joe Stalin could manage in his prime. socialist. of imperialism. Whilst the student demonstration and politicisation will be key. Top marks, comrades! Terry was a great asset to the It therefore continues to advocate on Wednesday November 21 did The forces driving the changes Harley Filben movement and he will be sorely strategies and tactics appropriate and not exactly shake national politics, within higher education today can London missed. My thoughts are with his relevant to the ascendant phase of it was a scene of a political struggle only be understood through an family and close friends at this very capitalism in the late 19th century, between elements of the student left analysis of capitalist development Earthquake sad time. and which are by definition over (led to some extent by the National and the power of capital within We are on the edge of a political Terry Liddle’s funeral will take 100 years out of date and largely Campaign Against Fees and Cuts) society. The fight around education earthquake in British politics. In place on Monday December 10 at ineffectual today. and the careerist bureaucracy of the must be one that raises the question polling conducted at the weekend, 3.30pm at Eltham Crematorium, If the British road to socialism National Union of Students. of who should own and control the Respect candidate in the Crown Woods Way, Eltham, London is to come via the SPGB, just how Most of the media has reported that it; and one which is based on November 29 Rotherham by- SE9. I would like to pay my respects long do they think it will actually around 10,000 students were there - the assertion that the key task of election, Yvonne Ridley, has the lead on behalf of the Socialist Alliance - take for the majority of the working as part of either the main procession revolutionary students in universities over Labour. Labour has panicked and all socialists generally. class to be imbued by their socialist or the NCAFC feeder march. The is to fight the influence of capital and launched a vicious and negative Pete McLaren consciousness and carry out their route, a subject of controversy within these institutions. The unity campaign of dirty tricks against email BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 020 7241 1756 l www.cpgb.org.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 940 November 29 2012 3 EGYPT

CPGB podcasts Showing his true colours Every Monday we upload a podcast commenting on the current dissolved National Democratic Party political situation. In addition, the site features voice files of public and the forces of the counterrevolution, meetings and other events: http://cpgb.org.uk/home/podcasts. Ahmad Shafiq”. London Communist Forum Without specifically urging Sunday December 2, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB a Mursi vote, it declared: “We Provisional Central Committee, followed by discussion and Capital therefore call on all the reformist reading group. Caxton House, 129 St John’s Way, London N19. and revolutionary forces and the This meeting: Vol 1, chapter 9, section 2: ‘Representation of the remainder of the revolutionary components of the value of the product’. candidates to form a national front Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk. which stands against the candidate of counterrevolution”. It noted the Radical Anthropology Group “magnitude of the error in failure to Tuesday December 4, 6.15pm: ‘Did the Neanderthals have art and discriminate between the reformism language?’ Speaker: Camilla Power, of the Muslim Brotherhood and the St Martin’s Community Centre, 43 Carol Street, London NW1 (two ‘fascism’ of Shafiq” and pledged to minutes from Camden Town tube). £10 waged, £5 low-waged, £3 “join in the widest possible struggle unwaged. among the masses of our people Organised by Radical Anthropology Group: against the candidate of the old www.radicalanthropologygroup.org. regime” (Socialist Worker May 28). Queers Against the Cuts Worse, instead of rejecting lesser Thursday November 29, 7pm: AGM, Vida Walsh Centre, 2b Saltoun evilism, and joining a clear majority in Road, Brixton, London SW2. a ‘pox on both sides’ boycott, the RS Organised by Queers Against the Cuts: pleaded for Mursi and MB to declare www.queersagainstthecuts.wordpress.com. Mursi/Mubarak themselves in favour of a “national Cinema Palestino front” government, which would Friday November 30 to Sunday December 2: Films from and about he huge mistake of the Socialist RS (Socialist Worker December 1). include representatives from “across Palestine, Showroom Cinema, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1. For Workers Party in urging a vote Mursi, of course, was riding on a the whole political spectrum”. In other details and tickets: www.showroomworkstation.org.uk. Tfor Mohammed Mursi and the wave of national, regional and western words, a grand coalition uniting all Organised by YPCE: www.ypce.org.uk. Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and acclaim after he helped broker a classes, all interests, all parties - Justice Party in the second round of ceasefire in Gaza. And he has definitely excepting only the “fascists” of the Speak out for justice the Egyptian presidential election has gone up in imperialism’s estimation “old regime”. Friday November 30, 8pm: Palestine solidarity event, SOAS, been clearly exposed by the events of - he has now been confirmed as Speaking at the SWP’s Marxism Thornhaugh Street, London WC1. the last week. someone you can do business with. school earlier this year, RS leader Organised by SOAS Palestine Society: www.facebook.com/ On November 27 around 200,000 According to Jane Kinnimont of Hossam al-Hamalawy did not explain events/167930716683701. demonstrators poured into Tahrir Chatham House, a “world-leading why his organisation did no more than Get Brons out Square in Cairo. They were, of source” for “independent thinking on imply that Egyptian workers should Saturday December 1, 10am to 2pm: Meeting, Swarthmore Centre, course, protesting against Mursi’s foreign affairs”, western governments vote for the MB candidate. In fact Leeds LS3. Begin mobilising to prevent Andrew Brons from being re- assumption of sweeping new powers have been “pleasantly surprised” by he did not mention the RS position elected to the European parliament in 2014. on November 22. He is now free the Muslim Brotherhood: “… the at all. But he was not so reticent on Organised by Yorkshire and the Humber UAF: www.yhuaf.org.uk. to take any measures he says are first impressions of many westerners the “reactionary” nature of the MB Up the anti necessary to “protect the revolution”. is that the articulate, suited and often leadership (seemingly in contradiction Saturday December 1: Anti-austerity conference, Mile End campus, He has decreed that no presidential US-educated businessmen they to RS talk of MB “reformism” just two Queen Mary University, Mile End Road, London E1. decision can be challenged by the meet are easier to talk to than many months earlier). Speakers include: David Graeber, Mark Fisher, Ewa Jasiewicz, Hillel courts until a new constitution is expected. This honeymoon has been The truth is that the RS, which is Ticktin. established. The same applies to the largely sweetened by the discovery not actually affiliated to the SWP’s Organised by Anti-Capitalist Initiative: http://uptheanti.org.uk. constitutional assembly, dominated by that the leaders of Egypt’s Muslim International Socialist Tendency, had Islamists, which will be free to write in Brotherhood seem largely centre- been divided over its position on the Coalition of Resistance as many reactionary religious clauses right on the economy” (The Daily election between, on the one side, Sunday December 2, 10:30am to 4:30pm: National conference, as it chooses. Telegraph November 23). those who were for the current “two Regent High School (formerly South Camden Community School), This has enraged thousands who On last week’s presidential decree, sides of the same coin” line and, on Charrington Street, London NW1. voted for Mursi in the June 16-17 Kinnimont says: “The timing will con- the other, those who were prepared Organised by Coalition of Resistance: second round of the election. They vince his critics that he has had a US to vote for the so-called ‘lesser evil’. www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk. say he is Egypt’s “new pharaoh”, green light to take on more power in For the SWP itself, however, Unite Against Fascism who has carried out a “constitutional return for brokering the ceasefire.” For the choice had been immediately Sunday December 2, 10.30am to 4.30pm: North-west conference, coup” and “betrayed the revolution”. its part, the International Monetary “clear”: “A vote for Mursi is a vote Unite regional office, Jack Jones House, 2 Churchill Way, Liverpool Although for a time he seemed to be Fund has implied that Mursi’s “con- against the legacy of Mubarak and for L3. £10 /£5 concessions. ready to retreat in face of the mass stitutional coup” will “have no bear- continuing change in Egypt. Now it is Organised by UAF: www.uaf.org.uk. protests, stating that he would only ing” on the approval of a pending $4.8 time to put Mursi to the test - and to No attack on Iran employ his new powers in relation to billion IMF loan to Egypt. continue struggles over jobs, wages, Tuesday December 4, 7pm: Public meeting, Room GO2, Leeds “matters of sovereignty”, in reality he The views of the imperialists can union rights and for radical political Metropolitan University, Broadcasting Place, Woodhouse Lane, has not renounced any of them. hardly be ignored by revolutionaries. change” (Socialist Worker June 2). In Leeds LS2. ‘The looming Israel-Iran war and Palestine’ with Moshé Mursi has implied that the If it is true that the US gave Mursi justification, Mursi was presented as Machover. protestors are paid supporters of the the “green light”, then that ought to a vacillating reformer, a reed willing Organised by Leeds PSC and Leeds Coalition Against the War: old regime - a ridiculous charge. mark him out as an opponent of “the to bend before mass pressure. By [email protected]. While the backers of former president revolution” just like Mubarak. So it contrast, to vote for Ahmed Safiq Hosni Mubarak continue to condemn is gratifying that the Revolutionary would be a vote to finally snuff out Stop the cuts his Muslim Brotherhood successor, Socialists’ November 23 statement on the revolution. Wednesday December 5, 5.30pm: Anti-austerity protest coinciding they would certainly not be shouting the new situation correctly describes While the SWP continues to give with the government’s autumn statement. March from King’s College, slogans accusing Mursi of ‘betraying’ the MB and supporters of the fallen space to its Egyptian comrades, The Strand to Downing Street. the movement they opposed - the regime as “two sides of the same it has clearly not yet renounced Organised by Unite the Resistance: www.uniteresist.org . movement which toppled Mubarak coin”. They both represent “tyranny its identification of the MB as a Film from Palestine in February 2011. In fact the and enmity towards the people”. (perhaps reluctant) contingent of Friday December 7 - Sunday December 16: Film festival, demonstrators seem to be a mixture In relation to Mursi, the statement “the revolution”. The latest Socialist various locations. Programme: www.bristolpff.org.uk/festival- of religious and secular, including declares: “… you and your organisation Worker contends: “In fact, the show programme-2012. leftwing, opponents of Mursi. Many of are the real threat to the revolution, as of strength by the revolutionary Organised by Bristol Palestine Film Festival: www.bristolpff.org.uk. them would have voted for Hamdeen you embrace Mubarak’s businessmen, movement in the streets suggests that Save adult education Sabbahi, the leftwing Nasserite and run panting after loans from the IMF, the Muslim Brotherhood remains Saturday December 8, 11am to 3.30pm: Second national delegate opponent of Mubarak who finished trade in religion, threaten national under immense pressure from conference, Leicester Adult Education College, Leicester LE1. third in the May 23-24 first round unity and sell the revolution.” But “we below” (December 1). Implying that Organised by Local Associations for National Action Campaign: of the presidential elections - not will not accept remnants of the old Egyptians had been correct to vote for www.nutlan.org.uk. Ahmad Shafiq, Mubarak’s last prime regime returning to the revolutionary Mursi, and not for “a president cloned minister and effectively the candidate scene under the pretext that ‘we are from the dictator they overthrew last Manchester against austerity of the Supreme Council of the Armed all against the Brotherhood’. We will year” (June 2). Saturday December 8, 12.30pm: Protest march and demonstration. Forces. It is likely that in the second not work with anyone who worked In contrast to this, the Weekly Assemble All Saints, Oxford Road, Manchester M13, for march to round most of the demonstrators hand in glove with the deposed Worker had from the start upheld the rally at Manchester Cathedral Gardens. would either have voted for Mursi dictator. We call on our comrades in independent interests of Egyptian Organised by Greater Manchester Association of Trade Union or boycotted the ballot, along with the revolutionary march to step back workers. We declared our opposition Councils: www.gmatuc.org.uk. thousands of others who could not from this game of shuffling the decks to “any form of political rule that Socialist films stomach choosing between two anti- of cards” (www.socialistworker.co.uk/ denies us the light and air we need Sunday December 9, 11am: Screening, Renoir Cinema, Brunswick democratic reactionaries. art.php?id=30081). to turn the situation to our advantage. Square, London WC1. UK premiere of Eran Torbiner’s Bunda’im The SWP’s co-thinkers in Egypt, Unfortunately the idea that the The … second-round Hobson’s choice (Israel, 48 minutes); and Adela Peeva’s Whose is this song? (Belgium/ the Revolutionary Socialists, report MB and the old regime are “two … lines up two prospective presidents Bulgaria, 70 minutes). that people whom they call feloul - sides of the same coin” was not quite who can both be expected to impose Organised by London Socialist Film Co-op: supporters of the Mubarak regime - the position the comrades adopted draconian rule, if allowed to get their www.socialistfilm.blogspot.com. tried to join some of the demonstrations before the presidential second way. Heads I win, tails you lose” CPGB wills that have been reported in Cairo, Port round. In a statement published in (Weekly Worker June 7) l Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s Said, Suez and Alexandria. In the Socialist Worker the RS talked only Peter Manson name and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your capital “We drove them out of the of its “opposition on principle” to “the will. If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. square”, claims Hatem Tallima of the candidate of the Military Council, the [email protected] weekly 4 November 29 2012 940 worker OUR HISTORY Illuminating the factional struggles of the CPGB Mark Fischer welcomes the second edition of a book which uncovers some long-hidden history

General secretary Harry Pollitt and his master t is a pleasure to recommend activists in the movement today can my very first articles forThe Leninist, I party was officially consigned to the distilled positives and negatives of the second, expanded edition of glean from them. concluded a survey of the dismal state history books in 1991. To be frank, those groups and individuals into a ILawrence Parker’s The kick inside, However, given the subject matter, of the YCL with a passage of which, we did not even come close. Parker is strategy that avoided the sectarian which will be launched at a London I should really come clean from the nigh on 30 years later, I am still rather correct to write that we remained “a wilderness inhabited by the ‘Marxist- meeting on December 8. outset. From the late 1970s I was an proud, in a slightly embarrassed, tiny group... confined to London and Leninist’ sects, while not allowing its I do not agree with all of the active soldier in the factional battles parental sort of way: its immediate surrounds”.4 However, struggle to ... [to be] cooped up in author’s political conclusions or the that eventually tore apart the CPGB “Previous left-oppositional forces unlike those previous left-opposition the tiny space the CPGB allowed its emphasis he puts on particular trends and the Young Communist League. within the YCL have been flawed groups in the CPGB (such as the dissidents.”6 or developments. These are quibbles, I became the national organiser of by their inability to challenge the forerunners of the New Communist This is an important point and however. Comrade Parker has provided The Leninist faction some time in descent into liquidation on a political Party and those around Straight Left), underlines the fact that the comrade’s a service to the workers’ movement. my early 20s (around 1984, so my rather than an organisational level,” who tried to defeat “today’s reformist methodological approach to this aspect He has raised to the surface something wobbly, 50-year-old memory prompts I thundered. Then, more sotto voce, revisionism with yesterday’s reformist of the party’s history is the correct of the real history of the Communist me, probably unreliably). This is a with resolve - and possibly with an revisionism”,5 The Leninist comrades one. His declared aim is to explain Party of Great Britain, illustrating position I have held, with some brief 007-style raised eyebrow as I typed traced the degeneration far further why the CPGB “continually threw its life, colour and vitality in a way interruptions and evolutionary leaps the words - I promised: “This time, it back. up revolutionary militants and ideas that the dull official histories do not.1 in the name of the organisation, ever will be very different.”3 The author is spot on to describe in a period in which it had formally He has thrown light on the factional since. Well, actually, yes and no. Of course, us as a dialectical break and a ditched a revolutionary programme”. struggles that started to disaggregate It follows from this, and as the history records that the rather intense, continuation with the left party Comrade Parker treats these groups the party, particularly from the 1950s reader might expect, that I have a confident young things grouped inThe oppositions of the past: “... The and individuals as “an organic onwards, and also - crucially - shown pretty firm set of opinions on the Leninist faction actually failed to stop Leninist was the inheritor of previous product of the ‘official’ communist why they still matter and what lessons subject matter. For instance, in one of “the descent into liquidation” - the revolutionary oppositions, in that it movement”,7 a point I have made weekly worker 940 November 29 2012 5

about the nature of The Leninist the crude caricature of the CPGB and if anything, most groups have internal faction on a number of occasions. its internal life that most had lumbered regimes more restrictive, more opaque The tragedy was that almost themselves with. (The smarter soon and more bureaucratically suffocating all these oppositional trends got themselves up to speed courtesy of than the CPGB of yesteryear. worked within the sterile paradigm The Leninist and, with unseemly haste Time to recycle the front-page Communist of Stalinism. In this they were, in some cases, dropped their view of headline from the first issue of The ironically, the mirror-image of the the battle line being ‘tankies versus Leninist as a newspaper in April 1984; revolutionary sects and grouplets that Euros’.)11 we told the CPGB membership of the worked outside the party, hampered As comrade Parker shows, the time: ‘Comrades, rebel!’ We say the by a rigidity of thought moulded by reality was much more complex and same thing today to comrades in the Party Books adherence to particular versions of multi-layered. Essentially, the 1980s left groups that generally claim some ‘official’ Trotskyism. saw a split in the right opportunists sort of lineage from the Trotskyist Quite apart from the broader (associated with the party apparatus), tradition. We really could do with a programmatic problems associated as this trends stability “became few more rebels these days. Instead, a with the Trotskyist alternative, it increasingly tenuous to the point where degenerate cultural norm has evolved was also posed with a tricky political ... it is disintegrating as it becomes which sees individuals or groups conundrum when The Leninist polarised between centrism [the pro- that develop differences with their emerged: how to characterise it? I Soviet left of the party - MF] and comrades - be they serious or relatively recall a founding member of Workers Eurocommunism over the Morning trivial - simply leave and, if they set Power (a comrade now sadly no longer Star crisis”.12 The revolutionary left up yet another fragment, generally with us) telling a me on a late-night needs to be better informed about we see them presenting themselves Northern Line train in the capital, that the history of the CPGB, even if in as the product of some political he had never before encountered, in hindsight. More than that, it should immaculate conception, without this country or internationally, an have had an active, engaged interest history, antecedents or baggage. oppositional “Stalinist trend” such in its internal battles at the time. At best, this is a frivolous attitude as The Leninist that had traced the The crisis created fluidity and to the workers’ movement. Our call political origins of the decay of opened up possibilities for change. for CPGB members to rebel in 1984 ‘official’ communism as far back as The Leninist faction issued ‘A call was prompted by a loyal attitude we had. to all communists’, an editorial that to that important organisation in I recall burbling something in reply explained the thinking behind the the movement. Today, we criticise that certainly did not convince him; slogan that was to subsequently appear the politics of the left; we call on hell, it did not sound all that plausible on the journal’s cover - ‘The place comrades in the SWP, in Workers to me. In fact, if I could relive that for all genuine communists is in the Power or SPEW to overthrow their moment again I would tell the Communist Party of Great Britain’. organisations’ regimes of bureaucratic comrade that this was not something (True, some of the revolutionary centralism; and we polemicise against that I found particularly challenging; groups that ‘A call’ targeted were a this or that light-minded split. but it was a development that should tad obscure - for instance, does anyone We want the contradictions inherent perhaps prompt him to thoroughly re- know not simply what happened to the in the contemporary revolutionary interrogate the notion of Stalinism that John MacLean Collective, but what on groups to be resolved positively: just n Zinoviev and Martov: Head to head in Halle was offered to him by his version of earth it was in the first place?) as we did in the CPGB of yesteryear. Would the German Independent Social Democracy, with its 700,000 mem- Trotskyism. Again, as comrade Parker The intention was clear, however. And that means - when it is at all bers, opt for the Third International or remain a halfway house, floating in part refers to, here were ‘Stalinists’ It was a message to the left that the possible - staying in alongside your uneasily between communism and official social democracy? Lars T Lih that: crisis in the CPGB was not simply comrades and fighting to win. As and Ben Lewis make this key debate at the 1920 Halle congress available  rejected the ‘theory’ of ‘socialism the proprietorial concern of its comrade Parker puts it, as he surveys in English for the first time. in one country’;8 membership, but of vital importance the admittedly peripheral, politically £14.00/€16.00  critiqued the related opportunisms for the whole advanced part of the flawed, left-oppositional groups in the n Remaking Europe of both the ‘third period’ and the class. It called for the revolutionary CPGB, his book “does not treat their Jack Conrad argues that the working class can and must establish a fully popular front;9 left to break “from their sectarianism” struggles as inevitably doomed”.15 articulated programme with a view to wining our own, social, Europe.  advocated a version of democratic through “comradely discussion and And quite right too, comrade l A Europe stamped by the working class, which is ready for its domination centralism that was qualitatively debate” with the comrades of The and rapid emancipatory extension. £5.00/€6.00 more ‘permissive’ than our Trotskyist Leninist and actually join the party as Notes n comrades thought appropriate for conscious fighters for revolutionary 1. See, for example, J Klugmann History of the Which road? their own organisations; politics: “The revolutionary sectarian Communist Party of Great Britain Vol 1: Forma- The programmes of ‘official communism’ were designed to serve those in  came - towards the end of the groups emphasise the importance of tion and early years, 1919-1924 London 1969; the workers movement who had no interest in revolution, those who pre- Soviet Union’s life - to call for a ‘ideological purity’ and point to the Vol 2: The General Strike 1925-1926 London ferred compromise with capitalism rather than its destruction. 1969; and N Branson History of the Communist £6.95/€8.30 political revolution to establish opportunism in our party today ... Party of Great Britain 1927-1941 London 1985. n genuine socialist democracy.10 Merely pointing to a sin does not cure See also pp12-14 of The kick inside itself for a From October to August Over the 10 years of its factional it, and in only doing this they commit review of more recent CPGB histories. Articles by Jack Conrad, charting the rise and demise of the USSR from struggle, The Leninist was able to the greatest sin for a revolutionary: 2. The majority of the left sects that litter the Stalin’s monocratic dictatorship to the twists and turns of Gorbachev’s pere- political landscape in today’s Britain claim some stroika and Yeltsin’s counter coup. Throughout the stress is on the necessity show incontrovertibly that the CPGB that is, standing aloof from the sort of lineage from Trotsky, the arch-enemy of had been politically liquidated as a workers’ movement.”13 Stalinism. Yet, almost without exception, they for democracy. revolutionary vanguard long before That seems to me one of the have internal regimes that are worse than that of £6.95/€8.30 the final coup de grâce was dealt by core lessons to take from Lawrence the Stalinist CPGB. In recent years, we have seen n In the enemy camp the SWP create a Legoland-scale popular front in Examines the theory and practice of communist electoral work. Particular a special congress convened by the Parker’s excellent book, especially for the form of Respect; we have also had the unedi- Eurocommunist-dominated leadership comrades who may find themselves in fying spectacle of SPEW effectively adapting to attention is paid to the Bolsheviks anti-boycottism and their strategy for - “death by a thousand opportunist today’s revolutionary left - members national chauvinism via No2EU. In my opinion, revolution. Vital for principled activists. cuts”, as The Leninist dubbed it. This of groups such as the Socialist we have even had a rerun of the Eurocommunists £4.95/€6.00 in the Counterfire split from the SWP. After n is something that the majority of the Workers Party or the Socialist Party tragedy and farce, what comes next? Problems of communist organisation factions and groups that comrade in England and Wales. The demise of 3. T Wright, ‘YCL congress’ The Leninist No4, What is the correct balance between democracy and centralism? Parker discusses would have been the CPGB was celebrated by many of April 1983. Jack Conrad explores this thorny issue and shows that unity in action is unable to admit. the revolutionary sects, as they held 4. See p99 of The kick inside. only sustainable when minorities have the right to organise and become 5. Ibid p90. the majority. This is one reason why I welcome that, with the party out of the way, 6. Ibid p98. The kick inside as a service to the the time had come for their group at 7. Ibid p11. £4.95/€6.00 whole workers’ movement: whatever last. In the 1990s generally, a similarly 8. See J Conrad From October to August London 1992, pp20, 53-54. Buy all 6 books for £36/€44 and save £6.80/€6.60 its other intentions, it addresses a sanguine view was common: the death 9. ‘Open the fight against liquidationism on all specific aspect of the contemporary of the ‘official’ world communist fronts’ The Leninist No5, August 1983 - available Delivery free within the United Kingdom left’s general philistinism - its movement was not an ideological online, along with all issues of TL, at www.cpgb. Please send me a copy of: ignorance of the genuine history victory for imperialism, but, rather, org.uk/assets/files/leninistpdf/The%20Lenin- ist%20(5).pdf. Head to head in Halle p and political dynamics of the most their particular brand of Trotskyism 10. Parker quotes Jack Conrad on p101: “In our important working class organisation - who can forget Peter Taaffe and his writings up to 1989 on the USSR, there was a lot Remaking Europe p we have so far created in the UK. truly stupid “red 90s”? (A gaffe that, of similarity between the orthodox Trotskyists The CPGB was always small in in recent years, the comrade has taken and us.” Which road? p 14 11. See pp13-14 of The kick inside for a more p comparison to the mass parties in to airbrushing out of history.) contemporary view of this misreading. From October to August Europe. It was, however, a genuine All profoundly misplaced. 12. ‘Open the fight against liquidationism on all In the enemy camp p party of the class, with a real influence Stalinism reinvents itself. Having fronts’ (see note 9). in the workers’ movement and wider once performed a limited historical 13. ‘A call to all communists’ The Leninist No3, Problems of communist organisation p September 1982. society. A haughty refusal to properly service in dark political times by 14. See M Fischer, ‘Soviet “planning” and bolt-on engage with its history implies a at least maintaining formal links democracy’ Weekly Worker November 12 2009. frivolous, light-minded and stupidly to the earlier, healthy traditions of 15. See p11 of The kick inside. I enclose a cheque payable to CPGB for £/€ ______sectarian attitude to the actual history Bolshevism, we now see sections of our class in the 20th century. of the revolutionary left promoting L Parker The kick inside: Name ______For example, the revolutionary left versions of the degenerate politics for revolutionary opposition in the outside the party took an extremely which they once (quite rightly) blasted CPGB, 1945-1991 November Address ______passive, intensely insular and - the CPGB. From most, the response Publications, London 2012, initially - factually inaccurate view to the global economic crisis has been pp118, £6 when large-scale factional war in the essentially Keynesian, nation-centred ______CPGB broke out openly in the 1980s. ‘solutions’ - in effect a recapitulation If I were feeling charitable, I might of the CPGB’s Alternative Economic Launch of second ______say that this was at least partially Strategy. We have had the SWP edition explained by the troglodyte existence take popular frontism a step beyond Saturday December 8, 6.30pm, Email ______of the oppositional trends - with the Stalinism when it actually tried to Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn exception of The Leninist, of course. form a popular front party with the Road, London WC1. Send payment to: BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX However, I think the real reason was Muslim Association of Britain! And, weekly 6 November 29 2012 940 worker ECONOMY The madness of a dying system The ruling class has no alternative to austerity and the drive to create a pristine capitalism. Not only is that impossible, but, as shown by South Africa, the working class is beginning to revolt. This is an edited version a speech by Hillel Ticktin, editor of Critique, on November 17 In this country it is obvious that Ed Miliband has more or less accepted that line as well. In fact it is the line that was set in the 1930s - the Austrian line, as it was called. Paul Krugman has said that austerity is in effect a means of control. Behind the word ‘austerity’ one can hide the form of control, hide the fact that there is a ruling class that is doing very well, and that society is, if anything, becoming more unequal, not less so. That can be hidden behind the word ‘austerity’ - that is what Keynes said and what Krugman has been saying. One might have expected Keynes to have said that if he had been a reformist. But he was nowhere near the left, and was strongly anti- working class. However, one has to accept that the ruling class, in order to survive, has to make concessions at certain times. And in order to make concessions they have to recognise their own real position, and make it clear that by making concessions they are retaining control. It amounts to removing the veil of commodity fetishism and saying, ‘Yes, we are here in control, despite these concessions’. However, the austerity line is the reverse: it amounts to a refusal to accept what is real. Yet it is the dominant viewpoint now. In 2007 I attempted to analyse the different forms of capitalist control - both those that are inherent in the nature of capital itself and the substitutes employed at this time - and see how far they could be maintained. Austerity is part of that. At the present time no alternative policy is being put forward. Krugman is isolated and the Keynesian approach is not being advocated, except in a very limited sense. Obviously, it was used in 2008-09 to pump money into the system, and it did save the world economy from going into a bottomless slump. Without that taking place the system really would have collapsed. What would have happened afterwards we do not know. But they simply had to act, but, having done so, they are now reversing the line. They are not prepared to countenance the Keynesian solution, and so the only place left is austerity. Various people, including Krugman, are saying that the policy is mad. It is mad because it is impossible. Welfare cannot simply be abolished, which is what it requires. Apart from anything else it would mean a collapse in demand, and at a technical level it would mean reintroducing debtors’ prisons. How else do you deal with a situation where millions of people are near to starving and where there would be riots? So, it is impossible, simply because the population would not accept it. Of course, the ruling class understands that, and a number of economists who advocate austerity are not that stupid either. But I have to say many of them are - much of what has appeared in the press is simply nonsense. Capital will kill and destroy: that is its nature In attempting to balance the budget, they are actually restoring f one looks at the current situation, worse. Why is he saying that? One expressing. austerity is not the same as the Tea the reserve army of labour. In other one would have to conclude not could say, of course, that he is coming The second aspect of the situation is Party austerity, which seems to rule in words, they are returning to a classic Ithat we are coming out of a crisis, to the end of his term, and that he has that austerity has more or less become the Republican Party and would have form of capitalism, as outlined in but that the ruling class is becoming to say how bad everything is. But it the dominant mode of discourse. been the policy if Romney had won. Capital volume 1. This is particularly more and more afraid. Mervyn King, is clearly more than that. There really Barack Obama represents the left wing Nevertheless, there will be a form of prominent in volume 3, where Marx the governor of the Bank of England, is a degree of pessimism now within of the ruling class, and even he frames austerity, whichever side you take in examines the nature of crisis, although says that the real position is getting the ruling class itself, which he is his policy within it. Except that his mainstream politics at the moment. it is also present in volume 2 of weekly worker 940 November 29 2012 7 The madness of a dying system Theories of surplus value. much worse today, in terms of income In fact why is it ‘responsible’ to pay Stalinism: the way they actually control is no accident that quite a significant However, there are at least some distribution, for example. tax? Why do we want to pay for more the unions and the propaganda they are number of Trotskyists come originally sections of the ruling class who see The most important aspect of the wars? putting forward. When the government from South Africa. The late Neville that it is impossible to actually do it. crisis is the fact that money is not arrived in 1994, and before then, there Alexander came from that tradition, That if they try to do it, it will increase capital. That is to say, there has been South Africa were slogans all over the place calling and was immersed in it in Cape Town. the momentum towards change, or a build-up of money which cannot An interesting aspect of this is that for socialism - there was a level of But now it has been degraded, and the cause riots; as in South Africa. The be invested, and when that happens in the third world we can see control socialist consciousness. But the overall level of discussion is very poor. So I trade unions and working class may value does not create more value. beginning to fray. There is an obvious understanding of what socialism would do not think you can expect very much start to act as a unified class and that There is no self-expanding value and case of this in South Africa, and I mean and how it would take place was more to happen at this time, but it does would be highly dangerous. This is the money which does not self-expand is would like to say a few words about very low, and a lot lower than it was in give hope: if the working class is acting contradiction at the heart of capitalism not capital. This build-up of trillions that. A central question is the crucial the 1950s. The level of understanding as a whole, then that provides impetus itself. around the world is obviously the role of Stalinism in maintaining the among the left was very poor. for a left to be formed. One that is to the It was not like that in 2007. They problem today - the reason why system. Now obviously, the Soviet Unless you understand the nature left of the Communist Party, of course. had not yet got to this point, and things are getting so desperate and system no longer exists, and the of Stalinism, you will not understand nobody knew people were quite so people are starting to demand the Chinese Communist Party is a kind of what has happened in South Africa. mad. That the Tea Party is mad is government adopts a different policy. afterlife - market Stalinism, Stalinist And unless you have a more general Control obvious, but that the mainstream However, the level of capitalism, or whatever one calls it. It theory of the global economy, with undermined ruling class would actually proceed unemployment has not risen in the is a form of derived Stalinism. Stalinism bound up in it, then you Global profits have tended to go up in this manner - the Conservative way it did during the great depression. In South Africa, Stalinism is still will not understand the current since 2009. But here you have an Party in the UK and the CDU in In America it may not be wonderful, playing a key role. The fact is - and economic situation either. The world important source of those profits - the Germany - was totally unexpected. but it is a lot better than it was in I have to say this because people do is in transition - away from capitalism, third-world extraction of minerals That is a paradox and, of course, a 1933. That is so precisely because not generally understand it - in 1994, whilst remaining within capitalism - - being threatened. If you look at weakness. It does serve the purpose of of the policies adopted, which in the capitalist class preferred to put in and there are three sets of laws in the FTSE 100, the Financial Times providing a cover, as it puts forward a part has meant that around the world, a non-racist government. The whole operation: the laws of capitalism, the bellwether of companies, a large false enemy. It appears to be a policy particularly western Europe and the concept of racial capitalism is simply laws of transition and the laws of proportion of those whose profits which can be reversed, but they do United States, companies have tended wrong. The theory was that, in order for decline. are under threat are in mining. There not want the alternative policy: that to keep workers on, while effectively capitalism to develop in South Africa, In South Africa there are people is an acceptance that capitalism is in is to say, they cannot re-inflate the decreasing their wages, or have the capitalist class had to use racial now in power who talk about socialism, trouble, which is not surprising: they economy; they ruled that out from the allowed workers to retire early. discrimination. who have spent many years in jail are in trouble and they are going to be 70s onwards. The effect is that, although I do not intend to go on about this, fighting the apartheid regime and who in trouble. Why was there a shift towards unemployment has risen, it has as I have written a book about the appear to be honest. Some of them Hence the importance of South finance capital at that time? Some not done so as fast as it did in the question,2 but it does appear to me to are honest and genuine, of course, Africa technically, politically and people argue in terms of the falling rate great depression. That is why most be simply wrong. But it was the basis of although many are now millionaires. economically. The interaction between of profit, but there are many arguments economists do not refer to the current the South African Communist Party’s There is the wonderful example of South Africa and other countries on against that viewpoint. I think that situation as a depression, although ideology that took a nationalist line Cyril Ramaphosa, the former general the continent means the revolt will they simply ruled out reflation because it does constitute one from Marx’s rather than a line against capitalism, secretary of the National Union of spread. There are many migrants in it would lead back to the 70s. If the point of view - a point also made putting off the day that capitalism Mineworkers, who is now a multi- South Africa because even the low working class got back to anywhere by Krugman. A depression is not a could be overthrown to some time billionaire and director of the company wages paid to workers there are higher near full employment, it would start matter of one or two quarters without in the future. That, as you know, is against which workers in Rustenberg than in other African countries. So it is being able to act collectively as a growth, but long-term stagnation, in the hallmark of Stalinism - there is have been on strike. He is not the only not surprising that workers try to get class again; it would become far too which there are ups and downs. always some reason why communism one. into the country, and that is why the powerful. So it is not that they cannot The point is that in the recent is always something for the day after The point is that there is a highly population has grown so fast in spite do it: they will not do it. They simply period the capitalist class has been tomorrow. complex situation, with obviously a of the Aids epidemic. In the 50s, the will not take the Keynesian road. doing very well: profits have actually In South Africa the SACP adopted very low level of education, including population stood at around 12 million, gone up during a depression. Well, the line that the essential thing was socialist education. The ANC and now it is over 50 million. Life Redistribution? that cannot last, but it is actually what to end racial discrimination, but the government has one of the worst expectancy went down under president One can also look at the question has happened. So if Bill Gross were capitalist class would be unwilling to records on education. According to Thabo Mbeki, dropping to something more generally. I am thinking to repeat his remarks today (although do so. In fact, it meant that they could The Economist, it comes somewhere like 45, but, now that proper HIV in particular of what was said in I am not sure he would) he would stop paying white workers between like 120th in the world. So it is not medicine is available, it has gone back 2007 by Bill Gross, head of Pacific have to go even further. 10 and 20 times what black workers surprising that it has taken 20 years up to 51. Investment Management, which This affluence does not just apply were paid. From the point of view of for people to react. It is little wonder South Africa is an example of what holds more than $1 trillion in to the top of the capitalist class; it the capitalist class, this was simply an that people do not understand socialism is happening, and the degree to which government bonds. It may only be also applies to managers. The income incubus that they did not need. The when there is a government of multi- they control is being challenged. What half of what the Chinese hold, but of the top percentile in Britain, the result was that the rate of profit was not millionaires proclaiming themselves to I have argued is that, on the one hand, it is still pretty important. It was he top 11,000 earners, has increased by high and they regarded it as preferable be communists and socialists, presiding there are the classic means of control: who declared that British bonds were 50%. As a result, top managers who to abolish the wage difference, which over an economy where the majority commodity fetishism and the reserve toxic, and it was this that justified the were previously receiving, say, £2.5 is what they did. As a result, profits have very low wages. army of labour; on the other hand, they government’s policies of austerity. million a year are now getting five have gone up, and so it was a successful That includes the opposition within have already been partly shot through. The influential viewpoint of that million. Not bad. So for some people change from the point of view of the the African National Congress milieu. In the period from 1945 to, say, 1972, company was one of the reasons that it has been a rather good depression. capitalist class. Even someone like Julius Malema, there was no reserve army of labour in the US credit rating was downgraded. There is increasing antagonism The South African government the expelled former leader of the Britain: it is hard to talk of what existed Speaking at the 2007 annual towards people who pocket so includes not only members of the ANC Youth League, who calls for the as a simple reserve army, when there general meeting of his company, he much money, although it is not class Communist Party, but those who to a nationalisation of the mines, is simply were welfare benefits and what Marx said that it was “far better to recognise antagonism as such. Yet the whole large degree they have been influenced, an opportunist. He is personally very would have called a surplus population. that only twice before during the last argument around companies that are or controlled, by the Communist Party. well off and in fact seems to act as a But now the intention is to fully restore century has such a high percentage avoiding tax is really a blind alley. The major trade unions have also been spokesman for outside interests. the reserve army of labour - and for that of national income gone to the top That is the nature of capitalism - controlled by the SACP. So when there Despite this complexity we are now the reduction of welfare benefits to the 0.1% of American families”. This companies and individuals must is an industrial dispute it has been seeing the beginnings of a revolt. So absolute minimum is necessary. was long before Occupy, and not always strive to minimise their tax compared to ‘playing tennis with far it is taking a trade union form - Any such attempt will, of course, from a person on the left. It was “far bill. Instead of making a big deal yourself’ - on one side of the net there demands for higher wages, for more result in big problems for the capitalist better to understand”, he continued, about a managing director who is is a minister who belongs to the SACP workplace control and so forth; and class. Workers will fight for their rights “that society should place an initial making 10 million, why not just and on the other an SACP union leader. concessions have been made. And it and the fact that capitalism has been emphasis on abundance, and the state tax them at say 95% or even 99%? The unions are closer to Soviet- is not just in the mines. It began in the overthrown, even if the result was should continually strive to distribute They would still be doing very well style unions, except that it is cleverer platinum and other mines, but now it Stalinism, has meant that it can be the abundance more equitably”. One compared to most of us. than that, because they do go on has spread throughout industry and seen through and exposed, and this might think that the following might The reason that will not happen demonstrations, they do demand even agriculture. There is a generalised will continue to happen as long as perhaps be a quote from Skidelsky, in can be explained by the nature of higher wages and they go on strike. But revolt of workers in South Africa, capitalism exists. Anyway, the point his phase as a leftwinger, but it is still capitalism itself. Obviously, the it is easy to put wages up every year precisely because of the conditions is that the revolt will spread - it must Gross: “… when the fruits of society’s logic would not just be to tax the because the real wage is something they have to endure, and without there spread. The stories of what happened, labour becomes maldistributed, when capitalist class, but for the state to different. Although it is hard to work being any understanding, any theory that people were shot down and the rich get richer, and the middle and redistribute their entire wealth to the out the real figures, one could argue that whatsoever, about the underlying tortured, are well known. So we can lower classes struggle to keep their working class. But that would not be sections of the workforce have either causes. expect the revolt to spread to other heads above water, as is clearly the capitalism. So campaigning on the the same wage as in 1994, when the Since perhaps the 50s and 60s, countries on the continent - and I would case today, then the system ultimately basis of this or that company, or this government came in, or a lower wage. there have been perhaps two countries think to other continents too l breaks down”. He continues: “… or that terrible capitalist who does not That is the way South Africa has where Trotskyism has been some boats do not rise equally with the pay their taxes is really just a way of been run for the last 20 years, and why kind of force. One was Ceylon, Notes 1 tide; the centre cannot hold.” avoiding fighting the system. people should have put up with that is where a Trotskyist faction entered 1. ‘Enough is enough’ Pimco Investment Outlook: This from a member of the However, that is the kind of form not very clear. But things have finally into government, and the other was http://media.pimco-global.com/pdfs/pdf_sg/ Republican Party who has to be that resistance has taken, and that snapped. South Africa. In the Western Cape in IO%20August_07_SGP%20Final.pdf?WT. cg_n=PIMCO-SINGAPORE&WT.ti=IO%20 considered an integral and central clearly is where we are today. But The point of going through this particular Trotskyism was dominant August_07_SGP%20Final.pdf. figure in the ruling class. But that the left just seems to go along with description is to show that the form on the left, even when it was not 2. H Ticktin The politics of race: discrimination was in 2007. The situation is clearly this miseducation of the population. of control rested to a large degree on dominant in the country as a whole. It in South Africa London 1991. weekly 8 November 29 2012 940 worker WORKERS POWER Sticking with old dogmas that have failed time and again Workers Power The degenerated revolution: the rise and fall of the Stalinist states Prinkipo, 2012, pp584, £13.90

Leon Trotsky: the Stalinist system was still in its infancy. But we do not have the same excuse

he rise of Stalinism and the if the potential of the economy was to War II and its expansion afterwards, is entirely counterrevolutionary on the accept the idea that Stalinism did emergence of the Soviet socio- be fully realised. and of Trotsky’s analysis by Ernest basis that this led, on the one hand, to have a progressive side: otherwise Teconomic formation under the When Workers Power emerged Mandel, Michel Pablo and Joseph Mandel considering that, as Tito did why should it implore us to “defend first five-year plan posed some very from a split in the International Hansen led many Trotskyist currents seize power in Yugoslavia, he could the post-capitalist economies against difficult questions for revolutionary Socialists back in the mid-1970s, it to adapt to Stalinism not merely in not have been a Stalinist, and, on the attack by imperialism or its agents” Marxists, and started a debate that has still adhered to the state capitalism the Soviet bloc, but also in Tito’s other, to the Lambertists in France (p233)? This desire to have it both continued to this day. of its parent organisation, but within Yugoslavia, Mao’s China and, espe- adapting to anti-communist forces ways arises from the fact that the basic Unlike those who considered that a few years it had come to accept cially, Castro’s Cuba, and to consider within the labour movement. It also problem did not start so much with the Soviet Union had become a state- Trotsky’s analysis, and the original that Stalinist regimes could play a pro- demurs from the idea that Stalinism the Trotskyist movement’s various capitalist society, and others who edition of this book, published in gressive role once they were in power has a dual nature, as this leads to ‘the distortions of Trotsky’s theory, but claimed that it represented a new form 1982, was intended to demonstrate and even be very positive players in petty bourgeois eclecticism of choosing is inherent in the theory itself, which of exploitative society, Trotsky viewed its continued validity. However, this the global struggle for socialism. The the ‘good’ or ‘positive’ acts or aspects certainly does promote the idea that it as a degenerated workers’ state: al- adoption of a basic tenet of conven- book also shows that the split in the of Stalinist policy and supporting them Stalinism has a dual nature. though, he argued, the Soviet leader- tional Trotskyism did not mean that Fourth International in 1953 and the uncritically, while rejecting the ‘bad’ The fact that the property relations ship had politically expropriated the the group endorsed any of the vari- ensuing demonisation of ‘Pabloism’ or ‘reactionary’ ones (p209), with the in the Soviet Union “were not capi- working class, it had nonetheless laid ous permutations of Trotsky’s analysis in various international Trotskyist cur- result that some of those taking this talist and that economic policy was the economic basis for a workers’ state presented by Trotskyists in the dec- rents not only did not really come to standpoint ended up endorsing the determined by central planning did by establishing a planned economy. ades following his death in 1940. terms with this theoretical confusion Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the not mean that this statified property Despite its political powerlessness, the The degenerated revolution pro- and ensuing adaptation to Stalinism, suppression of Solidarność in Poland. in the USSR had a socialist charac- proletariat remained the ruling class, vides a detailed account of how the but actually extended it, albeit in dif- ter”, The degenerated revolution states and the bureaucracy was a parasitic Trotskyist movement managed to be ferent ways. Dualistic theory confidently (p52). However, this sits growth upon society which the work- continually wrong-footed in respect of The degenerated revolution marks However, despite this disavowal, The unhappily with the veritable rhapsody ing class had to remove from power the survival of Stalinism during World itself off from the idea that Stalinism degenerated revolution in fact does to Stalinist industrialisation, which weekly worker 940 November 29 2012 9

kicked off Trotsky’s most substan- essary result of the property relations ety in its interest. This was a task as nation that was soon to affect the ried out? There have been relatively tial and in places incisively critical established under the first five-year thoroughly revolutionary as anything Soviet economy, and the dynamism coherent examples, such as in the analysis of Stalinism, The revolution plan, and therefore never eradicated. facing the working class under capi- of the Chinese economy after it in- British dominions and South Korea, betrayed - and which is cited here To call this dysfunctional mess ‘plan- talism. The Stalinist state could not troduced market measures, one might but the process here was encour- approvingly on p62: “Socialism has ning’, even if qualified by the word be taken over ready-made and used ask whether the Soviet bureaucracy aged by imperialist states and carried demonstrated its right to victory, not ‘bureaucratic’, is to demean the very in the interests of the working class could have avoided its fate by fully out under their aegis. In most of the on the pages of Das Kapital, but in meaning of economic planning under any more than the state in capitalist engaging in a thoroughgoing process non-imperialist world, modernisation an industrial arena comprising a sixth socialism: any similarity between the society. It was not a question of the of market reforms in the 1960s, when has been patchy and lop-sided, and part of the Earth’s surface - not in the Soviet command economy and the working class overcoming the ob- the economy still had some life left in modern industry, where it exists, sits language of dialectics, but in the lan- planned economy of a socialist society stacles “to the full realisation of the it and had not yet slipped irreversibly incongruously alongside primitive ag- guage of steel, cement and electricity.” was therefore purely coincidental and potential of the property relations of into stagnation. Unfortunately, despite riculture and vast, barely productive Trotsky’s analysis of Stalinism superficial. This book dismisses all too the USSR” (p89), but the replacement covering in some detail both the ter- shanty-towns. The national leadership ensured that the movement he cre- easily those who concluded that the of those property relations by those minal decline of the Soviet economy in India has proved unable to root out ated was hobbled from the start. Soviet Union suffered from ‘planless- of socialism, the replacement of the and the move to the market in China, pre-bourgeois social forces; the cur- Notwithstanding the very valid criti- ness’, a concept that first appeared in regime’s systemically inefficient and this is a question that The degenerated rent industrial development of Brazil cisms that the book makes of the the early 1930s and which looks all wasteful bureaucratic administration revolution does not ask. is largely dependent upon investments Trotskyist movement on this question the more valid in the light of historical of the economy by economic plan- from the big powers, with a great deal after 1940, it is nonetheless unable to observation. ning, democratically elaborated and coming from China. escape from the consequences of this implemented by the producers and National The irony of the Soviet-style flawed theoretical framework. Faulty analogy consumers. development socio-economic formation is that, The degenerated revolution stand The degenerated revolution follows If the Soviet Union was not a state- whilst it can forcibly modernise a big, firmly in the traditional Trotskyist Trotsky in the insistence that “the capitalist country, did not represent backward country, there is a limit to theoretical framework. It insists that, working class remained the ruling Question of a new form of class society and its ability to maintain the process of “while the bourgeoisie under capital- class because the property forms reform was not a workers’ state, however modernisation. As the Soviet econ- ism is a necessary component of the in existence were those that the The degenerated revolution devotes degenerated, what was it? Hillel omy matured under Stalin’s succes- relations of production”, the bureau- working class requires in order to barely half a dozen pages to two key Ticktin has provided an analysis sors, its growth rates declined, but cracy was “not … a necessary element build socialism” (p89). But how events in Soviet history: the process which convincingly argues that the the Soviet elite backed away from in the planned property relations of the indeed could the Soviet Union be a of de-Stalinisation after 1953 and the Soviet socio-economic formation embarking on the programme of Stalinist economy” (p89). Is this the ‘workers’ state’ if the working class abortive Liberman market reforms of was an historical accident that was market reforms that it considered in- case? The Soviet bureaucracy did not was cruelly oppressed by the ruling the 1960s. Trotsky considered that the the result of the bureaucratisation of troducing as a means to reverse this seize power from a working class that bureaucracy, stripped of practically all insecure social position of the Soviet an isolated workers’ state, and was process. The result was stagnation was in control of a functioning planned of its democratic rights? elite as result of its being a parasitic inherently unstable and historically and ultimate collapse: the transition economy. A genuine planned economy Trotsky’s explanation - that the excrescence necessarily made its rule unviable because it did not constitute under Gorbachev and his post-Soviet requires as an absolute necessity the working class was only politically chaotic and convulsive, and that the a new mode of production. That the successors was not to a modern capi- democratic involvement of producers expropriated by the bureaucracy and extreme violence of the Soviet regime Soviet economy lasted barely six talist society, but to Russia becom- and consumers in the drawing up and that, because the economy was not during the 1930s was symptomatic of decades from the promulgation of ing more akin to an impoverished, implementation of the plans, but the capitalist and rested upon an eco- that insecurity. His insistence upon the first five-year plan (with the last gangster-ridden third-world supplier Soviet working class had been stead- nomic foundation ultimately made the centrality of terror to the Soviet decade being one of terminal decline of primary products. ily excluded from exercising politi- possible by the success of the October regime implied heavily that any following one of stagnation), that the The institution of a serious pro- cal and economic power through the Revolution, it was nonetheless the rul- genuine measure of liberalisation of tendency towards declining growth cess of market reforms in the 1960s 1920s; by the time the first five-year ing class - is unconvincing. His anal- the regime was an impossibility, and rates was both immanent to the may well have enabled the Soviet plan was inaugurated in 1928-29, the ogy with fascism - that a victorious this book duly points to “the inability system and irreversible within it, and elite to embark upon a far more bureaucracy was already confronting fascist party politically expropriates of Stalinism to survive as anything that the Chinese bureaucracy openly successful transition to the market. the working class as a ruling elite. the bourgeoisie, but that, as capitalism other than a regime of terror” (pp90- went for the market a little more than Success would not, of course, have The abandonment of the largely still exists, that stratum thus remains 91) - after having denied that Stalin’s two decades after the ‘great leap been guaranteed; but the results could capitalist New Economic Policy, the the ruling class - is also unconvinc- malignant personality was responsible forward’, show that we did not have not have possibly been worse for the establishment of a massive industrial ing. While the bourgeoisie does not for the great terror (p80). an historically viable social formation. rulers than what actually happened. base and the breaking of the power of require democratic structures to be Firstly, unlike the violence that was It is worth placing the Soviet- The Chinese elite, however, keenly the peasantry by means of forced col- able to rule, and the capitalist classes a central feature of the first five-year style socio-economic formation in watching the stagnation to the north, lectivisation enabled the bureaucracy in fascist countries have broadly ap- plan - which was inevitable once the the broader historical context of the realised that, if it were to survive, let to become a fully-fledged ruling elite, preciated the fascists’ suppression of decision had been made to engage in development of capitalism on a world alone thrive, it needed carefully to standing in opposition to the working the working class, socialism requires a breakneck industrialisation and forci- scale. Well over a century ago, Marx guide the Chinese economy back to class and peasantry. As this new eco- workers’ democracy as a prerequisite. bly collectivise the peasantry - that of wrote in the third volume of Capital the market. This it has done with con- nomic infrastructure was not organ- Without workers’ democracy, not the great terror was the policy choice how capitalism was forced to distort siderable aplomb and, even if success ised on a capitalist basis - the law of only does the working class lack po- of Stalin himself as a means of dealing its own laws of motion in order to is not guaranteed, China is in a better value being firmly suppressed - but by litical and economic power, but the with his rivals in the party leadership advance, by means of suppressing position than most of the developed way of top-down targets, commands socialist nature of the society goes into (the show trials) and disciplining the competition through monopolies and capitalist powers to confront today’s and allocations, and specifically ex- abeyance. Should the working class bureaucracy as a whole (the wider joint-stock companies, and Engels ex- parlous economic situation. cluded the involvement of the working for whatever reason relinquish its purges). Had Stalin been replaced tended the analysis in Anti-Dühring by So what we actually had was a class other than purely as subordinates political and economic power, some by Kirov around the time of the 17th investigating the use of the state with- temporary process of non-capitalist with less rights than those that workers other social force must take over the Party Congress in 1934, it is extremely in capitalist society. The experience national modernisation that would have won in bourgeois democracies, reins of state power - either a revived unlikely that the great terror would of the Soviet-style socio-economic enable the Soviet and Chinese elites it is fair to consider that the bureau- capitalist class or a new elite emerg- have occurred. formation enables us to take their ob- to build up their societies - not to cracy was an “indispensable part” of ing from the state machinery that the Secondly, the Soviet leadership servations to a new level. build a socialist society (why would the Soviet socio-economic formation. working class can no longer control - did manage to forgo mass terror and If one strips the Soviet-style socio- any ruling elite wish to relinquish its It created it, dominated it and man- and this cannot but have a substantial arbitrary rule after Stalin’s death, and economic formation of its ideologi- social power?), but, whether they re- aged it on a day-to-day basis, to the effect throughout society. it did liberalise the regime to a con- cal facade, and considers it as what it alised it or not, so that they could at exclusion of all other social strata. The degenerated revolution en- siderable degree. De-Stalinisation really was - a programme of intense some point rejoin the capitalist world. To consider the bureaucracy as an es- dorses Trotsky’s accusation that to was not “an attempt to return to the national economic and social devel- To paraphrase Marx’s The holy fam- sentially superfluous excrescence is to view the victory of the bureaucracy norms of pre-1934 Stalinism” (p78). opment, in a country in which a state ily, it is not a question of what this make a mockery of Marxist analysis. as signifying a change in the socio- Although after 1953 the Soviet Union apparatus under a forceful leadership or that Stalinist bureaucrat, or even It involves the wrenching apart of the economic nature of the Soviet Union remained a police state with consid- takes the place of a non-existent or the whole bureaucracy, at the moment economic infrastructure from the po- is to predicate such a shift originating erable restrictions upon democratic failed bourgeoisie - then some in- regarded as its aim; it is a question litical superstructure, as if there were in the superstructure of society, rather rights, the regime never again resorted teresting factors come to light. The of what the bureaucracy was, and no essential interrelationship between than in its economic infrastructure. to the degree of coercion seen during Soviet Union and China were the what, in accordance with this being, them in a Stalinist society. But this accusation is based upon a the first five-year plan, let alone that last significant countries to undergo it would historically be compelled to As a result of the absence of market crude, schematic reading of Marxism. of the great terror. The suppression of a profound process of indigenous do. Compelled to rejoin the capitalist relations and their only viable replace- Changes initiated in the superstruc- the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and modernisation. Both were huge states world, the Soviet bureaucracy fatally ment, democratic planning, the Soviet ture can impact upon the infrastruc- the repression of rebellious workers in containing vast amounts of natural and misjudged its re-entry; its Chinese economy was institutionally and oper- ture. The tremendous transformation Novocherkassk in 1962 were excep- human resources. Both had at their counterpart has timed it well. ationally dysfunctional from the very of the economic infrastructure in the tions, not the rule. helm a national leadership that was The degenerated revolution de- start of the first five year plan. Even Soviet Union after 1928-29 was in- The proposed Liberman reforms of determined to push aside all internal fends a theoretical construct which after the extremely precarious situa- augurated by the bureaucracy - that the 1960s were the result of consider- resistance and external opposition in was faulty when it was conceived tion of the early 1930s had passed, it is, by a conscious decision within the able discussion within the Soviet ap- order to carry out its programme. And during the 1930s and which has was affected by a wide range of prob- superstructure - and these changes in paratus during Khrushchev’s time as under this leadership, and with these consistently misled the Trotskyist lems at every level. Plan targets were turn impacted back upon the bureau- leader in respect of the slowing down essential resources, these countries movement and underpinned many rarely met, and perennial problems cracy: they provided the material base of the rate of growth of the Soviet were indeed transformed into mod- of its major miscalculations over included a lack of coordination and by which the bureaucracy could be- economy. Nonetheless, despite their ern industrial societies. The process many decades. Back when Trotsky disproportions amongst the different come a fully-fledged ruling elite. This modest nature, these proposals for a was often haphazard, wasteful and was evolving the theory, he did have sectors of the economy and within was not unique to the Soviet Union: an degree of marketisation in the econ- inhuman, but, all in all, the basis for the mitigating circumstances that he individual sectors; falsified statistics; analogous process occurred in 19th- omy were soon abandoned because, a modern industrial society was indeed was confronted by a socio-economic poor product quality, resulting in vast century Japan and Germany, when the although the Soviet leaders recognised laid down. Within a world dominated formation that was only just coming quantities of defective goods; poor la- ruling elites consciously decided to that all was not well in the economy, by a few imperialist powers, the far- into being and that his knowledge of bour discipline and lack of skills; lack develop a capitalist economy and by they instinctively understood that any reaching modernisation in the Soviet it was constricted to some degree by of innovation and discouragement of so doing transformed themselves into major move towards introducing the Union and China required the suppres- the relatively limited amount of in- initiative; and poor maintenance and authentic bourgeoisies. market would have unpredictable con- sion of the law of value. The changes formation available, exacerbated by storekeeping. The working class in a Stalinist sequences. The last thing any Soviet that took place under Stalin and Mao the difficulties of working in exile. Irrespective of the considerable state did not need to expropriate a bureaucrat wanted was uncertainty, could not have occurred if the ruling Marxists today do not have those quantitative and to a lesser degree capitalist class, but nonetheless was and the bureaucracy was loath to try criterion in their societies had been excuses l qualitative achievements of the Soviet required to seize state power from the anything even slightly risky, let alone profitability. Paul Flewers economy, these factors were not isolat- bureaucracy and assert its control of something that could undermine its Where else since the dawn of A longer version of this review ed occurrences or teething problems, the means of production and distri- entire social foundation. the 20th century has this process of will appear in the next issue of but were inherent in the system - a nec- bution in order to start running soci- However, in the light of the stag- indigenous modernisation been car- Revolutionary History weekly 10 November 29 2012 940 worker ROTHERHAM Who’s fit to be a parent? If members of ‘mainstream’ parties should not be barred from fostering, asks Eddie Ford, what about us ‘extremists’? ast week’s headlines were “any real knowledge” of the case, they However, it can be a very different dilemma raised by a letter to the Actually, Ukip is fundamentally dominated by the furore over might possibly have a point. story indeed if you are talking about Telegraph, which asks: “Would Joyce no different from the mainstream La Rotherham couple who had Nevertheless Rotherham was the person next door or someone you Thacker … take similar action to parties - it only differs by degree, their foster children removed from hardly going out of its way to regularly drink with down the pub - prevent children from being fostered not qualitatively. It currently has their care after the council was dispute the parents’ version of which is not to say, of course, that you by members of the SWP, which 12 MEPs, 31 councillors and three “tipped off” about their membership events. Joyce Thacker, the council’s automatically love them. But most calls for revolution and supports peers in the House of Lords (all of the United Kingdom Independence £130,000-a-year strategic director of people get on with most people most law-breaking by its members?” Tory defectors). Ukip describes itself Party. They had been approved foster children and young people’s services, of the time. Therefore people who (November 26). as a “libertarian, non-racist party parents for seven years and had been told the BBC’s Today programme utter racist nonsense can have black The CPGB, on the other hand, seeking Britain’s withdrawal from the caring for three young children. that she had come to the decision to friends and happily eat an Indian has no problem in giving a straight EU”. No wonder party leader Nigel Rotherham council was worried, remove the children after a “lot of takeaway. We all know that. answer. Unlike some on the left, we Farage is “very angry” and “very so it seems, that since the children soul-searching”, but what the listeners will not torture ourselves about the upset” at the suggestion that Ukip is were “not indigenous white British” had to understand was she had been Alienated nature of the ‘Nazi’ BNP. What is against immigration - let alone David (rather from an eastern European “criticised before for not making sure” The question does not end there sauce for the goose is surely sauce Cameron’s famous 2006 LBC comment “migrant background”) the couple that the cultural and ethnic needs of though. Given that we all live in a for the gander. We can think of no that the organisation is a “bunch of would not make appropriate foster non-indigenous children were being thoroughly alienated, perverted and earthly reason why BNP members fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists parents, given Ukip’s stance on met. The council had to be seen to be distorted society, none of us - sadly should automatically be ruled out as mostly”. Replying, Farage indignantly immigration. Telling their story to trying to cater for those needs of the - are fully human. No exceptions. potential foster parents - officially declared on the Today show that he The Daily Telegraph, the couple children under their care in order to Therefore in that sense none of us are ‘no-platformed’, so to speak. But, of believes in “controlled immigration” - quote a social worker saying Ukip avoid the possibility of censure. For fit to be parents - whether ‘naturally’ course, their attitudes and sensibilities yes, just like Tories, Liberal Democrats “does not like European people” and instance, she explained, if the Ukip or by fostering/adoption. would, naturally, have to be taken into or Labour. And, of course, there are “wants them all out of the country to “party mantra” is for “ending the Yet we would fight tooth and nail account. It would be inhuman to hand no “loonies” or “fruitcakes” in any of be returned to their own countries” - active promotion of multiculturalism” against any legislation or decree, or over kids from a ‘non-indigenous’ or those parties - god forbid. hence the assertion that they would (to use her own words), then she has even the merest suggestion, to the migrant background to people who While it goes without saying that not have been the “right cultural to “think about that”. effect that only those who have passed think that they and their parents Ukip is more extreme than the Tories match” for the children. Furthermore, Similarly, the leader of Rotherham some sort of test will be allowed to should be repatriated or treated as or Labour, ultimately it shares the another social worker, they say, council, Roger Stone, was at pains to have children or become parents. The second-class citizens. national chauvinism of the mainstream claimed Ukip has “racist policies” emphasise that this remains a “very fact that you are gay, straight, Tory, parties l - the implication being, presumably, complex case involving legal advice” Labour, Liberal, Socialist Workers that the couple must hold racist views - not least the “particular features” Party, CPGB, etc in and of itself [email protected] themselves. Seeing how the council of the children’s background and an means you are no more or less has to consider the “needs of the “external agency” responsible for likely to be a loving parent children longer term”, the couple providing the foster carers concerned. than anyone else. Society were told, it had no choice but to take Naturally, the council is now working may be fucked-up, but the children away from them. hard to “establish the facts” and despite that we can still The couple went on to tell “make sure all the correct procedures manage to express our the Telegraph that they had been were carried out” before the decision humanity by helping “stigmatised and slandered”, denying to remove the children was made. to bring up the next they were racists. In fact, “we were However, a council spokesperson generation. Just actively encouraging these children said “issues” had been raised as importantly, to speak their own language” and regarding the “long-term suitability” people’s ideas “enjoyed singing one of their folk of the Rotherham couple fostering change - even songs in their native language” - “these particular children”. Because if they are and, having been told the religious of their Ukip membership? Absolutely members of the denomination of the children, “we not, they insisted - being a member of British National took steps to ensure that a school Ukip “should not bar someone from Party or Ukip. of their denomination was found”. fostering” and the couple would be Politics is not fate. Unsurprisingly, the couple have allowed to foster other children in Logically, this called on the council to make a the future. can only mean that “public apology” and “clear their Anyhow, specifics aside for now, we should - and this record” as foster parents. the Weekly Worker is entitled to speak is not something I Apparently, the siblings were about the general questions and issues say very often - agree subsequently split up - the boy thrown up by the Rotherham row - with education secretary placed with one family, while the which for us are relatively simple. Michael Gove (himself two girls, one of whom is a baby, There is no inherent reason why adopted), when he said were sent to another. These families, Ukip members cannot make good the decision to remove the it is reported, are “white British” and and effective foster parents. To say Rotherham children was we can only assume that - unlike the anything else would be absurd, if not “arbitrary, ideological and couple - they can meet the ‘cultural inhuman. In terms of principle, people indefensible” - if, that is, it needs’ of the children. They might should be judged purely on their was taken purely on the basis even be members or supporters of ability to look after kids and cater for of Ukip membership and not for ‘respectable’ organisations like the their needs (and that would certainly some other reason that we do not yet Labour Party, Liberal Democrats involve encouraging them to speak know about. But Gove also said that or the Conservative Party, which the language of their parents and any council or agency which decides doubtlessly would be a great source understand their culture - otherwise that support for a “mainstream” party of comfort to the children. how could they communicate with and disbars an individual from looking relate to their mother, father, aunts, after children in care would be Funny grandparents, etc?). It is perfectly “sending a dreadful signal that will The first thing that has to said is a lot possible that a Ukip member could only decrease the number of loving of hot air and righteous fury has been do that, whilst a Labour Party member homes available to children in need”. generated by this matter. Another could not. This should be obvious. It obviously would. But what about precautionary note to strike is that the After all, people are funny and non-“mainstream” parties? ‘scandal’ has been generously milked having truly dreadful politics does Predictably, but interestingly by the Telegraph and other rightwing not necessarily make them truly nevertheless, Gove ducked a direct newspaper such as The Sun, which, dreadful people. Have you read the question from a BBC presenter of course, have their own reactionary Labour manifesto recently? Thanks who asked whether a BNP couple axes to grind - the inequities of ‘loony to the narrow, class-based ‘education’ could also make “acceptable” foster left’ councils, ‘political correctness’, system and the regressive mass media, parents. The hapless Gove, of social worker ‘do-gooders’, and so people inevitably have all manner course, had no choice but to on. of irrational ideas. Sometimes next huff and puff about the But at the end of the day we in to madness, as far as communists “unacceptability” the CPGB have no more idea than are concerned - the recent Church of racism and anyone else as to what Rotherham of England synod debate and vote suchlike. He council’s case notes say. The social over women bishops amply confirms fudged workers concerned may have access that. When it comes to thinking or it. A to information that we simply do not dealing with people you do not have. In other words, we are ignorant personally know or events beyond of the facts. When a senior councillor your immediate environment, there at the Labour-run Rotherham council is a tendency to make sweeping warned about people “wading in to prejudicial judgements - they are not Nigel Farage: furious pass judgement” on the row without like us. Scroungers. Lazy. weekly worker 940 November 29 2012 11 11 REVIEW What we fight for n Our central aim is the organisation of communists, revolutionary socialists and all politically advanced workers into a Communist Party. Without organisa- Rapid development tion the working class is nothing; with the highest form of organisation it is everything. n The Provisional Central Committee organises mem- bers of the Communist Party, but there exists no real Communist Party today. There are many so-called and workers’ struggle ‘parties’ on the left. In reality they are confessional sects. Members who disagree with the prescribed ‘line’ are expected to gag themselves in public. Either Minoru Yasumoto The rise of a Victorian ironopolis: that or face expulsion. n Communists operate according to the principles of Middlesbrough and regional industrialisation Boydell Press, 2011, democratic centralism. Through ongoing debate we seek to achieve unity in action and a common world pp250, £60 outlook. As long as they support agreed actions, members have the right to speak openly and form temporary or permanent factions. n Communists oppose all imperialist wars and occu- pations but constantly strive to bring to the fore the fundamental question - ending war is bound up with ending capitalism. n Communists are internationalists. Everywhere we strive for the closest unity and agreement of work- ing class and progressive parties of all countries. We oppose every manifestation of national sectional- ism. It is an internationalist duty to uphold the prin- ciple, ‘One state, one party’. To the extent that the European Union becomes a state then that neces- sitates EU-wide trade unions and a Communist Party of the EU. n The working class must be organised globally. Without a global Communist Party, a Communist International, the struggle against capital is weakened and lacks coordination. n Communists have no interest apart from the working class as a whole. They differ only in recognising the importance of Marxism as a guide to practice. That theory is no dogma, but must be constantly added to and enriched. n Capitalism in its ceaseless search for profit puts the future of humanity at risk. Capitalism is synonymous with war, pollution, exploitation and crisis. As a global system capitalism can only be superseded globally. All forms of nationalist socialism are reactionary and Middlesbrough: workers’ recognition anti-working class. n The capitalist class will never willingly allow their ot for the casual reader, this board had introduced a sliding scale to above all in the first half of the 1870s there wealth and power to be taken away by a parliamen- comprehensive work charts the fix wage rates. Unlike the coal industry was a sharp rise in ironworkers pay and in tary vote. They will resist using every means at their disposal. Communists favour using parliament and Nremarkable rise of Middlesbrough, where a similar sliding scale had ensured real earnings on Teesside” (p191). winning the biggest possible working class rep- Britain’s foremost iron town. the systematic forcing down of wages to Lest anyone draw the conclusion resentation. But workers must be readied to make Middlesbrough was a town which grew poverty levels and lower, causing mass that paternalist incorporation and kindly revolution - peacefully if we can, forcibly if we must. like Topsy seemingly overnight. It was said upsurges of industrial militancy and anti- employers are the answer, we should note n Communists fight for extreme democracy in all it was not discovered: it was manufactured bureaucratic struggles, in the iron industry, that this response resulted from fear - fear spheres of society. Democracy must be given a social - “Cincinnati and Chicago are perhaps doubtless as a result of the insights gained that the workers might adopt militant tactics content. the best specimens of American-made from observing the coal industry, things or develop less conciliatory organisations. n We will use the most militant methods objective towns with which Middlesbrough can be did not work in this way. The sliding scale, Another interesting fact revealed by the circumstances allow to achieve a federal republic compared: but these do not equal in self- though tying the union into the corporate book is that the whole period of migration of England, Scotland and Wales, a united, federal sustaining vigour or rapidly of growth of body of the industry, seems to have been saw a massive imbalance of gender Ireland and a United States of Europe. the Pease-founded colony on the banks advantageous to the workers, at least when proportions - overwhelmingly it was young n Communists favour industrial unions. Bureaucracy of the Tees” (L Praed History of the rise compared to other industries and regions. men who were on the move and sinking and class compromise must be fought and the trade and progress of Middlesbrough Newcastle “In 1869 its first verdict was to raise new roots. The scene must have resembled unions transformed into schools for communism. 1863, p3). wages from 8s to 8s 6d per ton. In 1872 the frontier and gold rush towns of America n Communists are champions of the When the owners of the estate started came an increase in puddlers wages of one and Australia. oppressed. Women’s oppression, combating rac- planning the town in 1831, it had only shilling per ton, followed by a further rise Middlesbrough’s contribution to the ism and chauvinism, and the struggle for peace and 383 inhabitants. As it began expanding, of 2s, bringing the puddlers pay to 2s 6d per industrial development of Britain and ecological sustainability are just as much working migrants came from Yorkshire, elsewhere ton. The following year they had a further the world is in many ways pioneering class questions as pay, trade union rights and demands for high-quality health, housing and in England, Ireland and Scotland. As the 9d. While these improvements in pay did and unique. This study, although largely education. process continued, the Irish population not proportionally match the ironmasters a statistical and economic history, n Socialism represents victory in the battle would be greater here than any other increases in profits, and of course there will doubtless become an authority on for democracy. It is the rule of the working class. English town other than Liverpool. were intermittent falls, the institutions’ the town’s industrialisation and rapid l Socialism is either democratic or, as with Stalin’s Middlesbrough was originally a railway effectiveness in rising wage levels should development Soviet Union, it turns into its opposite. town, used to transport coal from south- not be dismissed. Between 1870 and 1880 David Douglass n Socialism is the first stage of the worldwide transi- west Durham, but after the discovery of tion to communism - a system which knows neither rich iron ore deposits in 1850, the town wars, exploitation, money, classes, states nor grew swiftly through the expansion of iron nations. Communism is general freedom and the and steel manufacture. Fighting fund real beginning of human history. A whole chapter is devoted to a case n All who accept these principles are urged to study of the initially voluntary North join the Communist Party. Ormesby Hospital, and the development £164 needed in two days of medical facilities provided by workers [email protected] themselves through popular subscription. ith this month’s fighting fund those regular standing orders - eight of The town’s working class spearheaded a Wending on November 30, we are them, ranging from £5 to £75 (thank wide range of forms of self-organisation, still £164 short of our £1,500 target. But you, JT!). They amounted to £197. Then Become a driven by the rapid industrial development, there are two efficient ways in which there were three cheques in the post: £20 as well as the human causalities of the you can help us out and make sure we each from KN and FC, plus £15 added manic industrial process. get that essential cash in time. by OG to her resubscription. So the £242 Communist Party The great strike and lockout in 1865- First, there is the Weekly Worker received over the last seven days takes member 66 had deep and lasting effects on the PayPal facility on our website (the our November total to £1,336 - thanks Name industrial relations culture of the steel number of visitors it had was down a to one and all. But we still need to finish industry. Iron and steel were among the first bit last week, by the way, at 9,142). off the job! Address industries where workers’ organisations Just get out your card and we’ll have So if you’ve been thinking of helping won recognition, but the employers your donation within minutes. Second, our paper’s fight for a single, united ensured they were tied into a binding you can transfer money directly to the Marxist party, but haven’t yet got round arbitration process. However, the nature of paper (account number: 00744310; sort to doing so - well, there’s no time like the plants and ongoing industrial processes code: 30-99-64) from your online bank the present! l made them highly vulnerable to wholesale account. Another speedy operation. Robbie Rix Town/city unofficial industrial action. The great Either way, we could do with that money strike of 1866 had led to the creation of - we don’t want to add to the shortfall Postcode the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation from earlier in the year after we’ve been Fill in a standing order form Telephone Age for the North of England Manufactured doing so well recently. (back page), donate via our Iron Trade, aimed at heading off class The bulk of donations received this website, or send cheques, Email Date conflict. From the late 1860s to the end week once more came in the shape of payable to Weekly Worker Return to: Membership, CPGB, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX of the 19th century the joint arbitration Printed and published by: November Publications Ltd (07950 416922). Registered as a newspaper by Royal Mail. ISSN 1351-0150. © Month 2012 No 940 Thursday November 29 2012 weekly Establishment is furious with worker its church Irrelevant? If only The Church of England’s failure to accept women bishops is embarrassing, but solutions short of disestablishment are absurd, argues Paul Demarty hatever else may be said about the requisite moral authority to bring always a counter-intuitive matter, it, the Church of England is the lay synod members (to which body but it is surely rational even from the Wterribly English. England is new elections will not take place until religious point of view to disestablish part of a modern, capitalist nation, yet 2014) to heel. In fact, it may reduce the church, freeing it from the need to the image it sells abroad is of palaces the vote simply in protest. The most track the political exigencies of the and pageantry, the stuff of a dead likely outcome would be the one the bourgeoisie. aristocracy preserved as a marketable church bureaucracy fears the most, even Many a true word is spoken in jest, symbol. England is permanently in a now - a split. however, and those who joke about the quiet, polite identity crisis, which is For similar reasons, veiled threats faithlessness of the Anglican clergy primarily of a temporal nature. from the government to enforce gender have a point. The church does not Nothing embodies this more parity are unlikely to amount to much. exist primarily as a religious, but as a eloquently than the established church. In Britain, it is said, politicians ‘don’t state, institution. It benefits enormously It, too, has the patina of timeless do god’. This is utterly false, though from this arrangement in a thoroughly continuity to it (despite stemming, in it is true that we do not make such a worldly manner. The church is one of a basically contingent way, from the song and dance of it as the Americans; the largest landowners in the country. grubby power-politics that grew up but in this particular case, dabbling in It enjoys enormous state subsidies and around the reformation and counter- the internal affairs of the church is best privileged access to power. In return, it reformation). Yet it is infamous for Monstrous regiment? avoided. Cameron would inevitably need only do one thing - put a brake on being the church of liberal vicars, of the face a rebellion from his own right the forward motion of society, act out touchy-feely individualist spirituality for conscientious objectors to female direction of the church to sit through wing, which would serve to remind its purpose in the dignified part of the that characterises our age, and of people bishops. The agreed provisions were the interminable dullness of the parish the country that his party remains the British constitution, spread obedience who can barely be said to believe in quite generous enough already; but it and deanery committees which, in turn, natural home of misogynistic wing- to authority and other fine and noble god at all. is the C of E mainstream that suffers if elect the general synod. nuts. Splitting the Church of England Christian doctrines. Mostly, this is the cause for beatific the policy is not passed, not the lunatic The response from the establishment would not be a particularly good mark The issue of whether women should tolerance. We tolerate this tottering fringe, which are quite happy to cock a has been, on the whole, a forceful on a Tory CV either. be entitled to be bishops is something institution with an ironic but affectionate snook at modernity. They have outgoing collective facepalm. David Cameron, a More to the point, the direct of a distraction. Yes, a single dent smile, because its quaintnesses are - in archbishop and self-proclaimed lay Anglican (by his own admission, not governance of a religious institution in a reactionary institution and its the national myth - our own. Not so ‘bearded leftie’ Rowan Williams over especially observant), urged the church by state power - while it is written in reactionary ideological base is better this week: the C of E general synod a barrel. to “get with the programme” - a very the Church of England’s DNA - looks than nothing. Yet it is no more than a failed to ratify a tortuous compromise This is the ‘salami slice’ tactic so C of E, trendy-vicar phrase. Politicians pretty ridiculous in this day and age. dent. Defence of patriarchy is hard- plan between the trendy vicars and beloved of anti-abortionists, only in of all stripes (barring the Tory right, of We no longer persecute heretics and wired into every major world religion. traditionalists, which would allow reverse - every inch of ground the course) are deeply embarrassed. The non-established faiths, shaky relations Progressive-minded women of faith, women to become bishops. traditionalists concede, they do so only principle of women’s equality has been with Islam notwithstanding. Faith is instead of trying to smash the stained- The decision-making process itself is with the most vigorous guerrilla battles. conceded in just about every sphere of ostensibly a private matter - indeed, glass ceiling, might want to wonder quite a spectacle, somewhat reminiscent They fight hard and they fight dirty. In life, even where the reality remains that very ‘privacy’ is the main means why that is, and why such ideology is of the tsarist duma, with its class-divided this case, they fought just hard and dirty stubbornly resistant to change. The whereby theologically inspired so hard to shift in religious institutions; curia structure. Three bodies had to pass enough. church sticks out like a sore thumb. reactionary politics are insulated from they will not find the answer in the the vote by a qualified majority - the Who, anyway, is the house of There have been suggestions that criticism. (George Carey, with his Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, but in a houses of bishops, clergy and laity. A laity? The bishops and clergy are the church may be brought to book infamous comparison of himself and materialist analysis of religion. majority of each voted in favour - most self-explanatory - and rigorously on under existing equalities legislation. others opposed to gay marriage to the As far as the Church of England overwhelmingly the bishops. But the message. The house of laity is supposed In fact, it may already be - just as the victims of Nazi concentration camps, goes, such an analysis has one key vote in the house of laity did not meet to represent ordinary churchgoers (in British National Party had its whites- provides a graphically stupid example.) lesson. Disestablishment of the church, the two-thirds threshold, missing it by fact, it embodies the notion, so central only membership rule overturned by Who the hell is David Cameron to the seizure of all its lands and property an agonising six votes. to the C of E, that the highest ‘lay a European court, so it may be that tell the Church of England that it should not directly connected to worship, and ‘Agonising’ is the word of the week. member’ of them all - the monarch - putative women bishops may have not enforce sexist mumbo jumbo as a the enforcement of full secularism in The debate on the day lasted for nine is the supreme authority). There is no a case before the European Union matter of its dogma? (Never mind the society - that is, the absolute separation hours, and was by all accounts turgid. such thing as an ordinary churchgoer, judiciary themselves for discrimination. European courts!) Surely it should be of church and state across the board This is primarily due to the dishonest however; the system of elections That would be a fittingly absurd the choice of the church itself. Yet it - is an essential part of overturning tactics of the opponents of women inevitably favours evangelicals, who outcome. Yet it is difficult to imagine cannot be - precisely because it is an bourgeois power l bishops - a motley bunch of bible- disproportionately make up the forces it coming to pass. EU law may be established church. Looking for rational thumping fundamentalists, Anglo- sufficiently invested in the future judicially binding, but it would lack solutions to religious difficulties is [email protected] Catholics and other oddities. They are all opposed in principle to women UK subscribers: Pay by standing order and save £12 a having authority over men. What they make of the formal head of Subscribe year. Minimum £12 every 3 months... but please pay Standing the church - her majesty the queen, fidei defensatrix, to whom everyone from here more if you can. Your paper needs you! order the parish vicar to the archbishop of Canterbury is in theory answerable - is difficult to gauge. Biblical references in 6m 1yr Inst. I enclose payment: To ______Bank plc ______support of this stance are of a piece with UK £30/€35 £60/€70 £200/€220 all ‘traditionalist’ biblical references. Sub £/€ ______Branch Address ______The Good Book will be taken at face Europe £43/€50 £86/€100 £240/€264 value where it reconfirms already-held Rest of £65/€75 £130/€150 £480/€528 Donation £/€ ______Post code ______prejudices. Where it does not - eg, the world Re Account Name ______sanctification of genocide in the Old New UK subscribers offer: Total £/€ ______Testament - some clever theological construction will be pressed into service 3 months for £10 Date ______Sort code ______Account No ______as a convenient dodge. 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