& Workers’ Liberty

SolFor siociadl ownershaip of the branks aind intdustry y No 516 11 September 50p/£1 NOW WIN Understanding “PEOPLE’S VOTE” the new right Cathy Nugent reviews Dave Renton’s new book Page 10

Build-up to 20 September

Mike Zubrowski on plans for the next global student climate strike day Page 3

Peter Tatchell on For Labour, against Brexit — Robert Mugabe Tyrant not absolved by a militant past organise for general election Page 13 We’ve pushed Parliament into instructing Boris Johnson to drop Renew Labour his plans for a crash no-deal Brexit on 31 October. a Labour government. But the Labour leadership’s shift to a de-facto Remain stance has Next we must force the calling of a new public vote, Remain vs the beWenh selorew, and otsot etnhtea teioxutselnyt r ethluactt athnte. Labour leadership fails to No to “tactical available Brexit formulas. take up the anti-Brexit fight, local Labour Parties must make The healthier and more vital parts of the Labour left, and the ma - good, by clear “Remain and Transform” campaigns for the gen - jority of Labour members, have pushed the Labour leadership into eral election. voting” opposing the available Brexit formulas and pledging a new public vote with a Remain option. The way to get a “people’s vote” is to elect More on page 5 Page 5 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Beijing goes for attrition Iran condemns workers By Chen Ying to 110 years jail On the morning of 9 September, outside hundreds of secondary From the Shahrokh Zamani sentenced the May Day detainees. schools in Hong Kong, thou - Action Campaign Marzieh Amiri was sentenced to sands of students, supported by ten-and-a-half-year in prison and their alumni, held hands to form Seven workers and activists 144 lashes. Atefeh Rangriz was human chains. from the Haft Tappeh sugar- sentenced to eleven-and-a-half years in jail and 74 lashes. The This followed days of school stu - cane complex in Iran have been court will be sentencing Neda dent protests the previous week, at sentenced to a total of 110 Naji, another of the May Day de - the start of the academic year. years in prison and 74 lashes tainees, later. That previous week too, Chief after the industrial action there The Shahrokh Zamani Action Executive Carrie Lam eventually last year. Campaign strongly condemns announced the complete with - Branch 28 of the regime’s so- “the Iranian regime’s medieval drawal of the Extradition Bill. called Revolutionary Court has and reactionary judiciary. We con - Immediately the entire spectrum passed the following sentences: demn the arrest and continuing of the protest movement declared Esmail Bakhshi, Haft Tappeh detention of activists and support - this as “too little, too late” as they worker and workers’ rep: 14 years ers of the labour movement in Iran insisted that the Hong Kong Gov - in prison. and call for the immediate and un - ernment concedes to all five of their because it would be focusing only and dislocated or fractured limbs Sepideh Gholian, journalist and conditional release of workers and demands. on the police. while being held down and hog- student: 18 years. activists arrested on May Day 2019 Lam opposed the demand for a The conflicts between frontline tied. Protestors have continued to Amir-Hossein Mohammadi- and those who have supported the full public inquiry and instead protestors and the police has con - escalate their actions, including Fard, journalist: 18 years. strikes of the Haft Tappeh work - added two more local members to tinued every evening on a daily more large-scale use of fires and Asal Mohammadi, journalist: 18 ers. the special panel of the Independ - basis, and has affected over a third Molotov cocktails. years. “We call on all trade unionists, ent Police Complaints Council of the city’s Mass Transit Rail As we approach the 70th an - Sanaz Alahyari, journalist: 18 socialists and other political ac - (IPCC). The special panel of five in - (MTR) stations as well as the air - niversary of the founding of the years. tivists to help us in defending ternational experts is headed by Sir port. The brutal assault of protes - People’s Republic, China appears Amir Amirgholi, journalist: 18 the rights of all workers, social Denis O’Connor, who served as tors and travellers by the riot police to be playing a waiting game, wait - years. rights’ activists and political Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of on 31 August in Prince’s MTR sta - ing for more and more arrests to Mohammad Khanifar, Haft prisoners in Iran”. Constabulary in 2008-2012 (cover - tion has been widely condemned as wear down the protestors, while Tappeh Worker: 6 years. ing the 2011 Tottenham/UK riots). even worse than the 12 July triad launching its barrage of propa - In late August the same court • shahrokhzamani.com The protest movement stated attacks on protestors in Yuen Long. gaBndeiaji nangd s ienetmimsi dtoat bioen w. aiting for that this panel would have narrow The use of excessive force by the the Hong Kong economy to go terms of reference while lacking the police after arresting protestors has into recession as a means of power to summon witnesses. continued, despite numerous video grinding the city down. Those opposing the protestors reports showing people bleeding Against Salvini, against Conte also complained against this panel from truncheon blows to the head

By Hugh Edwards new government may signal a will - ingness to ease the pressure on the Israel votes again on 17 September Italy’s new government won its Italians.But the margins of ma - vote of confidence in parliament noeuvre are very tight in the pres - on 9 September. ent and worsening climate of By Ira Berkovic he could support some form of an - crack the stalemate, Benny Gantz, The Democratic Party (PD) of economic stagnation. nexation. As Meron Rappaport the leader of the Blue and White Nicola Zingaretti monopolises all The new minister of education Israel will hold new elections on asked in 972 Magazine : “Has Meretz party, seems to be betting on a of the principal offices articulating has already declared that any new 17 September, after right-wing given up on the basic principles unity government with Likud, but relations with Italian and European money for the already long-disinte - nationalist Prime Minister Ben - that have guided it for years? In an one that does not include its leader, “big” capital and with the appara - grating public education system jamin Netanyahu failed to form a agreement over ‘ideological guide - ‘King Bibi’. That would be a huge tus of the state — defence, econ - will not come from public expendi - workable governing coalition lines’ signed by the three parties and taboo move for Likud, as Ne - omy, infrastructure, agriculture. ture, and has announced the taxa - after he won elections in April. that make up the Democratic tanyahu has won his party more The Five Star Movement (M5S) tion of children’s school snacks. At the same time the government Just before those elections Ne - Union, the words ‘ending the occu - than a straight decade in power occupies those it already had in the pation’ or ‘two states’ do not ap - and become the country’s longest- preceeding governmental alliance plans new tax cuts for the rich, and tanyahu announced plans to for - new incentives for profits. mally annex to Israel some or all of pear.” serving prime minister.” with Salvini’s Lega, justice, labour, Hadash, the electoral front of the The April elections were charac - environment, and gains education The satisfaction of the world of fi - “Area C” of the West Bank (60% of nance and capital with the govern - its land area, surrounding the 160 Israeli Communist Party, is again terised by low voter turnout from and the Foreign Office. running as part of the Joint List, Israeli Arabs, many of whom boy - The “left” Free and Equal Party ment has a clear material base. cities, villages, and other areas of But the satisfaction of those who Palestinian-populated land which with a range of Arab parties of cott elections. Right-wingers at - (LeU) got the Ministry of Health, so varying political complexions. In tempted to intimidate more Arabs this abject orphan has dutifully re - claim to represent the Italian left, are Areas A and B). He has made who claim to speak in the name of overtures to far-right, Jewish-su - the April elections, the Joint List into not voting, including by in - turned to its PD home. split, weakening the Arab vote. stalling cameras in voting booths. The PD’s allies here have the task and for the working masses? LeU premacist parties. has been only too happy to return The left, which slumped to its This time it has reunited. The for - One Arab voter, interviewed in of managing ministries “at the coal mal leadership of the Joint List slate 972 Magazine , said: “In the 90s, we face”, of offering crumbs here and to base, once more, to offer service. worst ever results in April, remains Sinistra Italiana announces its in a weak position. The mainstream by Hadash’s Ayman Odeh, a yearned for peace and equality. The there to sustain the government, prominent Arab MK (Member of right has created a reality in which helped the collaboration of a trade “vote of confidence” in the “turn”. Labor Party, led by corporate mil - Rifondazione states, truthfully, lionaire and right winger Avi Gab - the Knesset), may help give it a there is, de facto, no peace and no union officialdom, craven before more left-wing character. equality. So, what do we want the bosses and their state, which “this is not our government”. bay, is running coalition with the Whose, then? No answer. liberal Geresh party. Meretz, a left- In April’s elections, Joint List par - now? What is our project as a na - has been impotent as the gangrene ties won 10 seats, Labor-Geresh tional minority?” of racism has devoured the pores Thus the so called radical left Zionist, anti-occupation party is Beyond the elections, perhaps drifts impotently while the Salvini- running as part of a new coalition won six, and the Democratic Union the best source of hope remains and sinews of class solidarity all parties won four. along the peninsula. led Right launches itself against with the Democratic party led by the growing Standing Together “the government of the Commu - former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, The main opposition to Ne - movement, an extra-electoral This government is preserving nisTths ea nedf ftehcet ievxetr esmileen Lceef ta”.nd col - and the Green Movement, led by tanyahu’s Likud party remains the left-wing social movement in - the dirty work of its predecessors. lective inaction of the Italian left Stav Shaffir, a leftish member of the centrist Blue and White coalition, volving both Jews and Arabs, The Salvini-inspired and murder - and trade union movement as a Knesset (the Israeli parliament) led by former IDF general Benny which campaigns not only ously racist security laws will be rising tide of racism swept the who has recently split from Labor. Gantz, which, while making occa - against the occupation and for barely reformed. country with the ascent of Salvini The coalition is politically contra - sional critical murmurings about Palestinian independence, but An undertaking to preserve the underlines the price to be paid dictory and fragile, with Meretz the occupation, often criticises Ne - on working-class social issues equilibrium of the public finances when the monopoly of opposi - maintaining its anti-occupation, tanyahu from the right on security such as wages, housing, and cli - signals the prolongation of the tion and political space is pro-Palestinian-independence issues, for example attacking him mate change. regime of austerity. The ecstatic re - handed to our most dangerous stance while coalition partner for not having taken a stronger line sponse from other European Com - enemies. Barak makes statements suggesting against Hamas. munity leaders to the birth of the According to the Guardian : “To Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Spread the action for 20 September!

Cambridge UCU activists and afternoon, planning to take many into all of our workplaces can. laid bare, and the tools to combat it Solidarity readers are organising a of them to join wider demonstra - The origin of the use of “green” advance, climate change is not mass lunchtime photo-shoot. There tions. One of the workers expects to mean “environmental” was the combatted. will have been school student walk perhaps 100 to join central London “green bans” in Australia. The New And more. The drivers of climate By Mike Zubrowski outs and rallies that morning, and demonstrations. South Wales (NSW) Builders change are being stoked ever another rally that evening. In the Concrete plans in particular Labourers Federation became in - harder, plunging us ever faster to - On 20 September, date of the same city, some schools are having workplaces are indispensable for creasingly militant and radical as a wards greater and greater climate next global school student cli - early “Power-downs” that after - building working-class environ - union, and exercised the power chaos, just when everything ra - mate strike, workers at a school noon – initiated by staff. mental activism. National vague they had built in the workplace to tional points in the opposite direc - in Lewisham will do a photo- Stevenage looks set to see their commitments or even more speci - environmental ends. On the re - tion. The absurdity of this situation shoot with their union group first yet student walk-outs, as fied stated days of action are impor - quest of residents or campaigning is a stark indictment of the irra - after school, and supporters of school students are getting more tant and useful, but don’t directly groups, the union would impose a tionality of capitalism. will then try to per - Solidarity organised. translate into the necessary action “green ban” on a proposed con - It’s even senseless by the logic suade as many of them as pos - Lambeth council workers will be and pressure. struction project. and vanguard of capitalists them - sible to join a local demo. walking out at 12:30 for the whole Bringing environmental politics This stopped many environmen - selves. As this paper goes to press tally – and in other ways – destruc - a report finds global preparation tive projects by going ahead, as for climate change “gravely insuf - workers would refuse to work on ficient”, warns of “climate Workers need right to strike on climate it. Where necessary to prevent apartheid” and a lack of “political strikebreakers from being used to leadership”. Its calculated “costs” This is a joint statement be - undermine these bans they would of inaction, measured in trillions of tween the UK Student Climate over the years the anti-union laws dom to take industrial action for have helped weaken the culture of political issues, most importantly threaten strikes across the compa - dollars, outweigh calculated costs Network and the Free Our nies. of action. Climate action gives, if Unions campaign. workplace organisation and work - a just solution to the climate crisis. ers’ direct action. We therefore call on all organisa - Striking over “political” issues as you like, good returns on invest - In 2019, school students’ strikes The urgency of the climate crisis tions who seriously want to fight this would be illegal under current ment. internationally have shifted the de - demands both bending and defi - climate change to call for the abo - UK law; campaigns such as Free The report does not come from bate about the climate crisis. Now ance of these laws – as groups of lition of all anti-union laws and Our Unions are vital for this reason. radicals or outliers. It comes from more and more school student ac - workers will undertake on 20 Sep - their replacement with strong legal But to attribute the lack of trade the “Global Commission on Adap - tivists recognise that they alone tember – and a renewed campaign rights for workers and unions, in - union climate action to this would tation”, an organisation led by the cannot tackle the crisis and win a for them to be scrapped com - cluding the right to strike quickly be to let the low level of activity, former UN General Secretary; by fundamental transformation of so - pletely. and effectively, in solidarity with confidence, combativity and ideas Bill Gates, the world’s second rich - ciety. In the context of climate chaos, others and for political demands. of the labour movement off the est person; and by the CEO of the A just transition to a new eco - workers urgently need freedom to We congratulate the Greens for hook. The issue in political. World Bank. nomic system run in the interests take quick and effective industrial taking a strong stand on these is - The scientific consensus that Yet the ludicrous acceleration global warming is occurring, that it into climate catastrophe quickens of people and planet, not profit, action to defend themselves suWese. call on Labour to carry out is human-driven, and that it will yet more. must have workers at its core. against dangerous and unstable the policy passed by its confer - bring severe consequences is now 20 September’s global climate For more than thirty years, working conditions. They urgently ence in 2017 and 2015. We wel - past 99%. strike will take a firm stand against workers in the UK have been need freedom to take solidarity ac - come the motion to the TUC Public concern in the UK about climate change and the irrationality fenced in by laws which make tion to support other workers in Congress submitted by the Fire climate change is at an all-time high of inaction. quick and effective strike action their communities, across the UK Brigades Union. In particular, workers’ collec - difficult, and action over political and – crucially in an intercon - – a large majority of people. The tive organising can be a weighty issues like climate change more nected world where the global technological means to halt further force in the fight for environmen - difficult still. Workers do take rad - poor are on the frontline – in other • To add support email contributions, to move rapidly to tal sustainability. ical action despite the law; but countries. [email protected] and net zero emissions, exists. And they urgently need free - [email protected] Yet, as the danger is increasingly Cool air, hotter climate?

electricity usage began to be to allow ventilation throughout the recorded in the summer rather than entire house. winter, as air conditioning was con - Over the decades there has been suming more power than winter a push towards more standard By Pete Boggs heating. This remains the case “American-style” brick-box homes, today. with air conditioning to make them Air conditioning was a landmark This technology has enabled habitable. As late as the 1990s air invention of twentieth-century buildings which would have other - conditioning was rare in Queens - capitalism, and has shaped the wise been untenable. Skyscrapers land houses, but nowadays it is world we live in. and shopping malls are ridicu - ubiquitous in new-builds. It gave rise to the summer block - lously energy-inefficient, with wide Geneva, in Switzerland, which is buster as movie theatres with air open indoor spaces and plate-glass not much cooler in the summer conditioning units were the main walls, so require extensive air con - than southern Queensland, has a place people could go in the heat. It ditioning to keep them habitable. It law requiring anyone installing air allowed capitalist modernisation to has also become “easier” to build conditioning to prove the need for transform post-colonial Singapore. homes which have reduced air it. So buildings there are still de - A mid 19th Century Queenslander home It even inspired H P Lovecraft’s flows, are architecturally simpler, signed to stay cool without air con - and cheaper in the initial construc - ditioning. But the more common short story Cool Air . tioning. As the planet continues to The primary cause of climate One of the most attractive fea - tion stage. trend is like Queensland’s — de - The state of Queensland in Aus - signing buildings on the assump - warm people will likely use it change is the production of energy tures of air conditioning units for more, contributing to a vicious cir - and materials from pollutive and American capital in the early twen - tralia, with its hot sticky summers, tion of air conditioning. provides a case study. Industries which might other - cle. However, building houses with world-altering resources: fossil tieth century was that it consumed creative architectural solutions to fuels. However, building a new so - a lot of electricity. Utility companies From the mid-nineteenth century wise go obsolete or shrink under the typical Queenslander (wooden) any rational system of planning are keeping down temperatures would ciety requires other steps besides had a strategy of selling electricity break that vicious circle and go a replacing fossil fuels with renew - cheaply whilst relying on high de - house was built on stumps raising given under capitalism the oppor - the ground floor off the earth, tunity and drive to justify their ex - long way as an alternative to the abCleo emnebragtyin sgo urncese. dless waste mand, and air conditioning being constant and indiscriminate use of marketed as essential for homes which cooled the house from under istence. and unsustainable practices will the floor. It had large verandas, and In many places it is very hard to this incredibly energy-intensive be essential. was a key part of that. technology. 1957 was the first year that peak (small) windows and doors aligned manage without some air condi - 4 COMMENT Email your letters to [email protected] “Actively foments antisemitism”?

too explicit and clear-cut statement of what it “We would see police investigations and sions on those making them. really believes. The article was taken down extensive monitoring by the security serv - In fact, Mary Davis and Phil Katz implicitly from the paper’s website and an apology ices.” rebuked their own paper in a piece published printed. Think about that for a moment: unless the in July of this year: Probably the most significant aspect of this cops and MI5 are involved, there can’t be any “Is the charge of anti-semitism in the By Jim Denham minor scandal was that the article was not so antisemitism about. Labour Party a fiction manufactured by a different in tone and content to many others The Morning Star routinely dismisses con - conspiratorial alliance between the Israeli A letter from Andrew Northall in Solidarity that had been published in the Morning Star cerns about antisemitism within Labour by government and anti-socialist forces seeking 515 takes issue with Sean Matgamna’s as a matter of course. calling into question the motives of all those to discredit Jeremy Corbyn, thereby under - claim (in Solidarity 509) that the Morning Mary Davis, it should be noted, had previ - raising the issue, perpetuating the conspiracy mining the prospect of a left-led Labour gov - Star “actively foments antisemitism.” ously written to the paper (in 2016) to protest theory that “combating anti-semitism is not ernment? at a regular column being given to Ken Liv - the primary motivation... No, their prime “Many writers in the Morning Star and Comrade Northall describes the claim as ingstone immediately after his suspension motivation is becoming clearer by the week. many pro-Corbyn left activists accept this “completely disgraceful” and something that from the Labour party: It is to prevent a rare parliamentary cham - view. They argue that anti-semitism has been “any reader” of that paper will know to be “It is thus hugely embarrassing on our pion of the rights of the Palestinian people ‘weaponised’ and thus vehemently deny all “completely untrue.” paper’s part to offer Livingstone this lifeline from achieving the highest political office in anti-semitic indictments as politically moti - As a daily reader of the Morning Star , I’d at the present moment and serves to muddy Britain… vated and mendacious. say Sean’s description is fully justified. the waters among our allies while at the same “This has been the common aim of leading “However, we have a problem. The fact The Morning Star has, by its own admis - time detracting from our own stated opposi - lights in the JLM and Labour Friends of Israel that the leadership of the Labour Party itself sion, published at least one clearly antise - tion to antisemitism”. and their associates in the Israeli embassy...” has acknowledged that there is an anti-se - mitic article: That quote, incidentally, comes from the mitic element within its ranks” In June 2018 the paper published an article NO PROBLEM paper’s editorial response (9 April 2019) to headlined ‘Rising antisemitism cannot be The paper’s coverage of the Chris the Sunday Times revelations about the mis - DOUBT tackled without addressing Israel’s crimes’. Williamson affair has been all too pre - handling of antisemitism allegations within I doubt very much that anyone other than The article said “mainstream Jewish com - dictable. the party. two leading CPB members would have munities everywhere... appear unwilling to Comrade Northall’s letter refers to a quote had such an article published in the Morn - accept the connection between developing Having dismissed all complaints about from the same editorial that appeared in my ing Star. international antisemitism (or anti-Israel sen - Williamson’s speech (in which he said Antidoto column at the time: “What appears timent) and Israel’s decades long … acts of Labour had been “too apologetic” over anti - Out-and-out, blatant, racist antisemitism to be undeniable is that no action has yet barbarism”. semitism), the paper’s editorial (28 Feb) the like the June 2018 article, is not that common been taken against some individual party It continued: “No amount of protestations Morning Star made its position clear on the in the Morning Star (though there have been members whose comments about Jews or Is - about the symptoms of rising anti-semitism substantive issue: other examples in recent years): what is com - rael are reprehensible, whether born of igno - or anti Israel sentiment in Britain and else - “The Labour Party does not have a wide - mon is denial that antisemitism is a problem rance, prejudice or both”, as though that where will end the problem until its root spread problem of antisemitism. If it did we within the labour movement, attacks on the absolves the Morning Star . cause — Israel’s criminal behaviour — is would see a substantial proportion of its motives of those raising the issue and re - But it doesn’t! dealt with.” membership facing prosecutions for acts of peated disparaging references to “Zionists” My point at the time was that this admis - Only when two longstanding Jewish Com - violence or intimidation against people, con - that effectively insult and belittle any Jewish sion that Labour does have a real problem munist Party members and Morning Star victions for hate speech in person or on social person who identifies in any way (however with antisemitism was tucked away near the supporters – Phil Katz and Mary Davis, media and an avalanche of evidence-backed critical) with Israel. end of an editorial 99% of which was devoted I’d say that amounts to “actively fo - wrote a letter of protest, did the paper seem instances referred to the party’s disciplinary to dismissing the claims and casting asper - ment[ing] antisemitism.” to realise it had made a mistake — running a machinery… How not to build anti-fascist activity

A “Free Tommy Robinson” demo in Leeds Not Mussolini on 7 September drew only 50 people. Tommy Robinson’s arrest last year was outside Leeds Crown Court, and since then there have been five “free Tommy” marches in the city by various combinations of ex- EDL, “Yorkshire Patriots”, “Yellow Vests”, I didn’t like the “Poundshop Mussolini” “For Britain”. They are always a few far-rightists filming headline of Solidarity 515. We continu - ously argue against lazy comparisons, all our left wing or anti-Brexit demos, and for calling figures fascists when they aren’t, a while there was a far-right demonstration and against SWP-style bold headlines of some sort or another in the city almost designed for shock effect. every weekend. There is a loose Labour network on What - Most people will just think “Mussolini” sApp and Facebook for anti-fascist mobilisa - is a synonym for “fascist”, and surely we tions, usually working with Stand Up to don’t think Johnson is a fascist). Racism or Leeds Anti Fascist Network. The headline was sensationalist and did - On at least one occasion this year, we got a n’t do anything to present how what we lot of Labour people to the AFN mobilisation have to say is different to the rest of the left. and managed for a while to block the far Seems like that week would have been the right’s demo route through town. perfect time for another “Stop Brexit” However, not all is good. headline. Anti Fascist Network have frittered away lunch table in a ‘90s US high-school comedy. nounced their rally point — the same as the Mussolini, I think, is in pretty much the good will and enthusiasm from that suc - I managed to get a copy of the leaflet. It SUTR one. everyone’s minds essentially a “less bad cess. When 5000 people were out for the re - didn’t have a mobilisation point on it because The anti-fascist demo was about 200 peo - Hitler”. I don’t see how our headline could cent Stop the Coup demo in Leeds, AFN were AFN didn’t want to give it away. ple, mainly Labour members. be interpreted as anything other than us Hopefully the experience will embolden leafleting only their mates or people dressed Stand Up to Racism had a poorly-pro - suggesting that Johnson is in some way a Labour itself to take the lead in future mo - like them. duced leaflet, but at least with a mobilisation lesser fascist. bilisations. Labour activists, Trotskyists, others, they time and place. Alex Juson, London ignored as if we were sitting at the wrong Late Friday evening the AFN finally an - Luke Hardy, Leeds Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty WHAT WE SAY 5 Vote Labour in all constituencies

The People’s Vote campaign, led by Alastair Campbell and other figures from Blair-era Labour, is pushing for “tactical voting” in the coming general election. Instead of backing Labour or Tories, it will name a leading “Remain” candidate to back in each constituency — Lib Dem in some, Labour in others, Plaid, SNP, or rebel-Tory sometimes. We need programs for advance, not just a negative avoidance of Brexit. Remain, in and of itself, promises no improvement on the NHS, on education, on workers’ rights, on migrant rights, or on climate change. The only way to open the door to those improvements at the coming election is to vote Labour and redouble efforts to make the labour movement a strong enough force to push a Labour government into carrying through labour-movement poli - cies on those issues. There is also a “tactical” problem with the oh-so-cunning “tactical vote”. Given the first-past-the-post system, very likely the result of the coming general election will depend heavily on the relation be - tween the slice of Tory votes taken by the Brexit party, and the slice of Labour votes takAe n“t bayc ttihcea lL”i bs wDienmgs o afn Lda Gbroeuern sv.otes to the Lib Dems could end up letting the Tories win the general election even with a mediocre vote. For Labour, against Brexit An extra call for funds We’ve pushed Parliament into instructing els of government about “no deal” planning, • It is suppression of the free movement In the coming months we will probably Boris Johnson to drop his plans for a crash no-deal Brexit on 31 October. the *Guardian* commented wearily: across borders within Europe which has ex - have a special extra cost to be covered “It does not seem likely that the govern - isted, and expanded horizons for millions of by fund-raising. Next we must force the calling of a new ment will comply… Last year Labour used [a people, for decades now similar parliamentary] mechanism to require • It will go together (Johnson’s govern - We have been in our current premises in public vote, Remain vs the available Brexit the publication of the attorney general’s legal ment has made this plain) with even harsher Bermondsey since 2011. (Before that, 25 formulas. advice about the withdrawal agreement. The measures against other migrants, especially years in Peckham; before that again, 14 The referendum of June 2016 was never a government initially ignored the request, and asylum-seekers years in Islington). The premises are a unit good way to make a decision on this (with it only complied a month later when MPs • It heightens borders between countries on an industrial estate owned by South - poor information, with EU citizens living in passed another motion finding the govern - and tensions between communities wark council. Britain excluded, with British citizens living ment in contempt of parliament... • It means reintroduction of a “hard bor - The council has been talking for some in the EU excluded, with 16-17 year olds ex - “Even if it were passed, a contempt motion der” in Ireland time about selling off the estate to property cluded). on its own would not force Boris Johnson’s • It can’t mean complete economic developers for residential redevelopment. It is no basis at all for Boris Johnson to government to comply. Theresa May’s gov - walling-off — not even the Tory ultras think Now the talk is speeding up. The council claim authority from it more than three years ernment did, but May respected the author - that possible — so it will mean economic has deliberately let the leases on all the later, when the choices are clearer and differ - ity of parliament…” linkages mediated by trade deals with Trump units run out. ent, and when the electorate is different. Johnson will try one way or another to and others on Trump’s terms Sometimes soon we may have to look for The warping effect of that referendum on flout the law. We must be ready to protest on • It makes it more difficult for the labour new office space. The rent is likely to be British politics can be undone only by an - the streets. movement in Britain to link up with labour higher. The one-off costs of moving and of other public vote, on the real choices. Labour The proroguing of Parliament will help movements across Europe for a fight against doing whatever renovations and adjust - has committed to call a new public vote with him a bit, because now, until 14 October, Par - capitalist and bureaucratic structures across ments are necessary in the new space may a Remain option if it wins office. liament has no way to call him to account. the whole continent. be high. Boris Johnson has been pushed back for Left-wing MPs protested in the Commons The healthier and more vital parts of the We can’t specify figures yet. But we now in his drive for a crash “no deal” Brexit. chamber when Parliament was shut down, Labour left, and the majority of Labour mem - know we need to build up our funds. Our He wants the “crash” effect of “no deal” to but the Labour leadership and the other op - bers, have pushed the Labour leadership into fund drive reached £10,375.60 this week. A open the way for economic and social “shock position parties let it pass. opposing the available Brexit formulas and donation of £110.60 from John in Glasgow, therapy”. Using the model of “disaster capi - We should demand Labour prepares to re - pledging a new public vote with a Remain plus several smaller amounts, added up to talism”, he plans for people to accept some convene Parliament — even without the option. The way to get a “people’s vote” is to £275.60 in the week. chaos and disruption as a mandate for the Queen’s approval — if necessary before 14 elect a Labour government. We are working to raise another improvised deals he will then seek and for October to check new ploys by Johnson. But the Labour leadership’s shift to a de- £14,624.40 by 9 December. erasing the modest social protections intro - One possible ploy is Johnson simply re - facto Remain stance has been slow and osten - As ever, we depend on the fund-drive in - duced in Britain under EU “levelling-up signing. In that case Labour should seek sup - tatiously reluctant. come we get on top of income from litera - rules”. port for a strictly single-shot caretaker That makes it difficult to convince voters. ture sales and from regular standing order His orientation is to a deal with Donald government which will send the Brexit-ex - Labour’s rank and file will seek to use contributions from Workers’ Liberty ac - Trump’s USA, which will mean adopting tension letter to the EU and call a general Labour Party conference, coming up on 21- tivists for everything beyond basic ticking- economic and social rules more like Trump’s election. 25 September, to straighten the lines on this, over (office rent and utilities, stipends for USA. As former Tory minister Amber Rudd ex - and commit Labour to a clear “Remain and some staff, printing and sending out the He still says openly that he wants to evade the law passed through Parliament on 9 Sep - plained when she resigned on 8 September, TraIfn, swfohrmer”e m, aesnsda gteo. the extent that the paApnerd) . now, on top of that, we need to tember instructing him to seek an extension there is no evidence that Johnson is seeking Labour leadership fails to take up that build up funds to give us options for new of the Brexit deadline if he doesn’t have a a Brexit deal. The alternative to Johnson’s “no fight, local Labour Parties must make premises. deal by 19 October. deal” is not May’s withdrawal agreement, good, by clear “Remain and Transform” When Parliament voted on 9 September to even tweaked or modified at the edges, but campaigns for the general election. to recognise the facts. • www.workersliberty.org/donate instruct the Government to release (by 11 September) the messages within the top lev - Brexit is regression. 6 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org When leftists argue that Labour should have voted with Johnson

By Martin Thomas tactical votes in the coming election (vote Lib early-1930s Germany. There, a street-fighting Dem, Labour, Plaid, SNP, or rebel-Tory, who - fascist movement was heading for power in Since the big vote in Parliament on 3 Sep - ever is the best-placed Remain candidate in a country with a fairly wide bourgeois tember, most of the left press has made each constituency). We argue against that. democracy and a very strong labour move - its chief call for Labour to back Boris If the coming election produces a hung ment. Johnson’s call for a super-early snap elec - parliament, there will be pressure for a coali - The Stalinists called every one of the suc - tion. tion government (Labour with some combi - cessive conservative administrations in the The arguments, or the arguments on the nation of the Lib Dems, Plaid, SNP). We years before Hitler’s seizure of power “fas - face of it, are odd, at least. oppose that. We argue for Labour instead to cist”. They drew the conclusion that it would Labour and the other opposition parties do go for a minority government, and, if parlia - matter little if Hitler replaced those conserva - not want to give Johnson an easy get-out ment votes that down, to go for a new gen - tives. from implementing Parliament’s instructions eral election. Trotsky insisted that Hitler’s seizure of to avoid a no-deal Brexit. They want to “hold All that is standard. How and why does it power would mean the complete wiping-out his feet to the fire”, as they put it, and make rule out cooperation with other parties to of the labour movement (which it did, within him comply with the law. block Johnson in Parliament? Since the only months), and all the pre-Hitler regimes, how - They don’t want to give him a chance to way Johnson can be blocked in Parliament is ever bad, were radically different in the fact call a snap election, date it for after 31 Octo - by the opposition parties voting together that they allowed the labour movement still ber, and then confront the country with an ac - against him, does that mean that Labour to exist. complished fact. should have been duty-bound to let Johnson That is an important lesson. It did not They also know that Johnson has lost every get his way, just in order to show that it was mean that Trotsky preached indifference to Parliamentary vote he’s had since becoming independent? political shifts before Hitler. He denounced prime minister. He is in a clear minority in the move by the Centre Party [middle-of- ELECTORAL DEALS Cover of the latest Socialist , 4 September road Christian Democrat] chancellor Hein - the House of Commons. An election is certain That cooperation does not mean that soon, and postponing it to thwart Johnson rich Brüning to rule by decree from 1930. Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP, and Plaid (Parliament still existed, but could block the carries no real risk of leaving him in office in - “hard Brexit”. will do deals to withdraw candidates in decrees only by explicitly voting down Brün - definitely. The SP wants Labour to negotiate a good favour of each other in the coming gen - ing). When in 1932 Brüning was replaced by Yet Socialist Worker , for example, says: hard Brexit. “Having negotiated such a deal eral election. As yet, in fact, there are vir - the more right-wing Franz von Papen, Trot - “We should now be campaigning in a gen - it would not be wrong to put it to a confirma - tually no voices for such deals. sky described the move as “the Hindenburg- eral election to get Boris Johnson and the To - tory vote but Corbyn should be energetically Papen coup”. (Hindenburg was the ries out. “Can’t wait” and “oh dear, it might lead to arguing in favour of that deal, rather than the president). “But on Monday [9 September] Labour, the coalition” are SW’s “good reasons” for argu - alternative of continuing as part of the pro- If we look outside Germany, there have Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats ing against Labour thwarting Johnson’s in - capitalist EU”. In the SP’s desired future, we been many bloodless right-wing coups, and and Plaid Cymru and the Independent stant-election plan. The “real reason” seems can be part of a walled-off capitalist Britain many Mussolini-type attempts, even success - Group… refused to back an election... It was to be something else. instead, with lots of nationalisations but ful ones, which shift the axis of politics with - the second time they had rejected such an op - Elsewhere, the same SW article complains: fewer migrant workers. out installing outright fascism. portunity... “Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader, Liz Socialist Appeal is not for Brexit. It says that Take Hungary, for example. Today Hun - “The Tories are in ever deeper crisis… But Saville Roberts, said last week, ‘We need to Corbyn should be “explaining that, on a cap - gary still has elections, parliament, legal still Labour does not want an election. A mo - make sure that we get an extension to Article italist basis, neither being in or out of the EU trade unions. But Viktor Orban has drasti - tion to hold an election did not reach the re - 50. We have an opportunity to bring down will solve anything for working people”. cally degraded its democracy. quired two-thirds majority... Boris and to bring down Brexit’.” Well, no, not as such. They won’t. But what In 1919 Hungary had a Soviet Republic for “Labour has prioritised halting Brexit over Aha, exclaims SW. “Note that she said should a Labour government do? Declare four months. After its downfall, the right- the chance to drive out the Tories… Those ‘bring down Brexit’. The pro-business politi - Britain neither in nor out of the EU? Or too winger Miklós Horthy took over (as “Re - who want action over austerity and racism, cians who have always wanted to reverse the engrossed in high thoughts to know one way gent”: Hungary became a kingdom without and many other issues have been told they 2016 referendum now sniff their opportu - or another? a king). The Horthy regime gradually should wait for months more…” nity”. Rather like SW, Socialist Appeal proposes squeezed out all space for legal trade-union “Months” is hardly likely. The reason why The reason why SW wanted Labour to vote that we deal with the Brexit crisis by res - and political-opposition activity, and allied Johnson wants a super-quick snap election is with Johnson is that SW wants Brexit. It does - olutely not thinking about the issue. All that with the Nazis in World War 2. not some urge to self-harm. It is because that n’t say positively that it favours “no deal”, matters is getting Johnson out. It digs up a It established itself, in the first place, after could position him with a clear “no-deal and in fact its main argument is that socialists phrase often used by its predecessor, Mili - the Soviet Republic, by a very bloody White Brexit” profile enabling him to scoop up should shout about other issues loudly tant, in the 1960s and 70s, to explain evasions Terror. Brexit party votes. By the time the implica - enough to drown out all thought about or inaction on immediate issues. Such imme - Yet the Hungarian Social Democrats — tions of “no deal” become clear — so Johnson Brexit. diate issues would soon fade into insignifi - who led the unions, had a real working-class reasonably calculates — he could be in office But it identifies the opposition to Brexit as cance — “ when the masses begin to move ”. with five years to run before a new election. a matter of “pro-business politicians”. An - base, and had been part of the Soviet govern - SW’s other argument is that the opposi - other SW article arguing that “a radical EVASION ment — had ministers in the first Horthy tion-party collaboration against Johnson is Labour can win a general election” holds that And again today: “This is what we must be government, and negotiated a “pact” with promoting the idea of a “national unity” gov - Labour can win only if it backs Brexit. looking towards. We must not be dis - Horthy’s later prime minister István Bethlen. ernment, a conservative coalition of all the Can Labour win? “The answer is yes — but tracted by anything else. All of the frenzy There are many other examples of “inter - anti-Johnson parties. not if Labour becomes a ‘moderate’ party of Re - and fluster over this-or-that tactical minu - meAdni aates”s aduevlte olonp mdeemntos. cracy may be less The “People’s Vote” campaign is calling for main” . SW implies that backing remain tiae will soon be forgotten when the than a bloodbath, or full-blown fascism — makes you “moderate” (in plain words, right masses begin to move.” or even much less than those — and still wing), and so to be left wing you must go at need to be indicted as a “coup” or The dog that barks nowhere in the columns least part of the way with Johnson. “poundshop Mussolini” work. of SW, the SP paper The Socialist , or Socialist SW does not seem to have noticed that now Appeal , is the attack on democracy in John - the most active anti-Brexit forces in the son’s tactics. Labour Party and in society come from the SW has carried an article on “a better left. Big business does not like “no deal”, but democracy”. But the article in fact says noth - mostly would be willing to settle for Theresa ing about what better democracy SW pro - May’s Brexit deal. poses. Its purpose is only to contend that The Socialist Party has much the same ar - today’s parliamentary democracy is so poor gument as SW, with a stereotype SP twist. that it is not worth defending. The argument Back in the day, the SP was known for pro - combines oddly with agitation centred on the posing a 24 hour TUC general strike as the call for an election within exactly the terms answer to almost every problem. Now we of exactly that parliamentary democracy. have a milder version. An argument that could be made in favour “Left unions should demand it sets the of the SW/ SP/ SApp approach is that Soli - date for a mass demonstration as the first darity has exaggerated by talking about a This Workers’ Liberty pamphlet summarises step to getting the Tories out and the coming “coup” or describing Johnson as a “pound - our arguments on Brexit, Europe, to power of a Corbyn-led government with a shop Mussolini”. international solidarity, free movement, socialist programme”. Johnson is not a fascist. His proroguing immigration, and how to build socialist Exactly what the demonstration will de - Parliament is not the equivalent of the mili - politics cross-borders. mand — that Corbyn adopts the SP’s pro - tary seizure of power in Chile in 1973. gramme? what? — is unclear. But it’s clear To educate ourselves about fascism, Marx - • 40 pages A4, cover price £4: buy online at that the demonstration desired by the SP will Latest Socialist Worker cover, 11 September ists rely heavily on Trotsky’s writings about bit.ly/r-rebel not be to block Johnson bouncing through Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 7 When Tories threatened civil war

By Rhodri Evans “There are things stronger than parlia - mentary majorities”, said the Tory party leader. That was Andrew Bonar Law, leader of the Tory opposition, speaking about Irish Home Rule in July 1912. He added: “We shall not be guided by the considerations or bound by the restraints which would influence us in a normal consti - tutional struggle… “I can imagine no length of resistance to which Ulster can go in which I should not be prepared to support them”. He accused the Liberal government of “lighting the fires of civil war”, or, in other words, declared himself ready to use the fires of civil war against it. He encouraged the formation of a rebel army in the north-east of what was then a united Ireland under British rule, to resist by force the granting by Westminster to all-Ire - land of “Home Rule”. The Tories and their Irish allies made plans for a provisional government in north-east Ireland that would resist Dublin rule, if it was granted by Westminster. “Home rule” was little more than local government autonomy. It was not independ - ence. But the Anglo-Irish Protestant wealthy class throughout Ireland, and the compact Irish Protestant population of all classes in the north-east, saw it as a threat of “Rome Rule”. A Tory leader, Edward Carson, with armed Volunteers in 1914 In April 1912 Bonar Law and others re - viewed 100,000 militia volunteers in Belfast. ferent form. EU have softened it into near-invisibility. Potential for an agreement between the They had been rallied under an old law au - After the Irish war of independence, they Along the road in 1912-14 the Tory leader - two Irish communities — for something like thorising local Justices of the Peace to organ - would be resolved for the time being by an - ship had tried other ploys. They wanted the the “Home Rule within Home Rule” for the ise drilling. In January 1913 the militiamen other Tory-Liberal coalition government. In King to refuse Royal Assent to the Home north-east of Ireland advocated by the British were formally organised into the Ulster Vol - late 1921 it partitioned Ireland into a more- Rule Bill after it passed through Parliament. Marxists of the SDF and by some bourgeois unteer Force. or-less independent Irish Free State (26 coun - They got the King to demand from the Lib - politicians — was destroyed. Each commu - In March 1914 senior officers of the British ties) and a Northern Ireland Home Rule state eral prime minister that the Bill not be passed nity thought it could get its way and bypass Army in Ireland declared that they would re - of six counties, the maximum area compati - until after either a new general election or an the need for compromise with the “other fuse to act against “Ulster”, and in April 1914 ble with a clear (two-thirds) Protestant ma - “all-party conference” to amend it. The “all- Irish” by relying on a powerful English ally a large gun-running operation smuggled jority. party conference” took place in July 1914, — the Liberals for the Catholic nationalists, arms to them from Germany (with which The resulting border ran (and runs) for al - produced no agreement, but was soon over - the Tories for the Protestant Unionists. Britain was soon to go to war). most all its length through majority-Catholic, taken by the outbreak of World War. For decades after 1886 the issue was kicked The crisis was defused for the time being anti-Partition populations on both sides. The story shows us that Boris Johnson’s down the road. The Tories ruled from 1886 to in August 1914, when World War 1 broke out. The botched and undemocratic character poundshop-Mussolini act has roots in Tory 1892, and 1895 to 1905. The Tory-majority The Liberal government agreed to pass the of the settlement led to the Northern Ireland tradition, and shows us what the Tory party House of Lords vetoed the Liberals’ Second Home Rule Act into law but suspend it for state breaking down into 25 years of simmer - would do faced with a left-wing working- Home Rule Bill in 1893. When the Liberals the duration. The Tories joined the Liberals in ing civil war from 1968-9. It is central again class Parliamentary majority which threat - were elected to government in 1906, they a coalition government in May 1915. to the Brexit issue today, with the dispute ened capitalist wealth and power. sought to put the issue off. After 1916, when British government ef - over the “backstop” which bars the re-erec - It came to crisis in 1912 and after because forts to impose conscription in Ireland roused tion of a “hard” border where decades of in - DEEP the Liberals had lost seats in the general elec - mass opposition there, and after the end of tegration of both the UK and Ireland into the Bonar Law’s moves were not even about tions of 1910, and so came to rely on Irish Na - World War 1, the conflicts revived, but in dif - a threat to capitalism, but about a deep di - tionalist MPs for their majority. And now the vision within bourgeois politics. Lords could only delay a Home Rule Act, not Socialists supported national rights for Ire - stop it altogether. The Liberals had removed Rallying Labour’s anti-Brexit left land, as socialists today support migrant the Lords’ absolute veto in 1911 after the worker rights, lowering of borders, and “Re - Lords had blocked the Liberal “People’s Labour for a Socialist Europe is a cam - main and Transform”. But Home Rule for Ire - Budget” of 1910, introducing old age pen - paign by Labour activists fighting to stop land was not a threat to capitalism as such, sions. Brexit and build a socialist resistance to any more than Remain is, as such. As with Brexit, the crisis came through a the right-wing forces and ideas driving it. Since the First Home Rule Bill of 1886, the series of contingencies sharpening and focus - Liberals had been committed to Home Rule ing a longstanding rift in politics. It was launched from the Another Europe as the way to pacify rebellious Ireland. The labour movement had little independ - is Possible conference in December 2018, Then there were splits from the Liberals by ent role in the crisis of 1912-14. The Labour and held a formal constituting conference the “Liberal Imperialists” and “Liberal Party had been founded in 1900, and won on 9 March 2019. Unionists”. The Tory party was taken over, only 42 seats in the December 1910 general It produced independent pro-Labour, after 1906, by advocates of a tariff-walled election. It was not yet even nominally social - anti-Brexit publicity for the Euro-elections British Empire as against the decades-long ist, and operated largely as a tail of the Lib - in May 2019, and bundles of leaflets to - British policy of general Free Trade. eraTlhs.e labour movement today should re - talling some 50,000 were taken and used by Those developments sharpened the divi - spond with robust resistance to all John - locIta lh Laasb oaulsro c abmeepnai gancst iavned i nb yt hined eivffidourta tlso . sions. son’s “poundshop Mussolini” ploys, and get anti-Brexit, pro-free-movement pol - The divisions in English politics slotted with a fight for a broader and more re - icy motions to the Labour Party sched - into, reinforced, and were reinforced by, the sponsive democracy. uled for 21-25 September. communal divisions within Ireland between the Protestant “British-Irish” and the Catholic •labourforasocialisteurope.org “Irish-Irish”. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Rosa Luxemburg on 1905

burg developed at length in 1906 in her fa - mous pamphlet The Mass Strike : that mass strikes “can neither be forbidden nor arbitrar - ily triggered”. They were a form of class By Martin Thomas struggle shaped by history: the question was how socialists would shape and develop “The extent to which the party rises to the them. Mass strike movements would de - occasion [of a revolutionary upsurge] — velop organisation as much as prior organi - that depends in the greatest degree on sation would help to develop mass strikes. how widely [the Marxists have] known It is even clearer in this volume than in The how to make their influence felt among Mass Strike that Luxemburg rejected the idea, the masses in the pre-revolutionary pe - as she put it, of the mass strike “as the sole riod...” means of achieving bliss”. At a certain point, she was clear, the revolutionary upsurge ex - It depends on “the extent to which [they pressed in a mass strike movement had to were] already successful in putting together move on to an armed uprising. a solid central core of politically well-trained Nor would mass strikes be “spontaneous” worker activists with clear goals, how large in the sense of being “sent down to us from the sum of all their political and organisa - heaven”. At the start of the movement in tional work has been”. Russia Luxemburg wrote that “today’s revo - Volume 3 of the new Complete Works of lution... grew up historically out of the Social Rosa Luxemburg, published this year, shows Democratic [i.e. Marxist] movement”. how false the idea is that Luxemburg looked Mass strike movements were built on one of “political education”, or “political ed - She wanted to draw readers into party de - to spontaneous mass strikes to make party preparation, but would always be a “sur - ucation and organisation” in the sense in bates, rather than giving them just smoothly- organisation unimportant or secondary in the prise” because “the piled-up grievances, the which those “two tasks” are “better said, a processed “consensus” agitation. fight for socialism. mass of instinctive, half-unclear feelings of single task”. “Wilhelm Liebknecht said in his reminis - The volume is largely a collection of Lux - class antagonism, are commonly much more “Covering things up and smoothing over cences about Karl Marx that politics was for emburg’s day-to-day reports and comments pervasive among the people than the agita - contradictions”, which (said Luxemburg), him, above all else, a subject of systematic on the revolution in the Tsarist empire in tors themselves realise”. some West European socialist leaders had study. And in this respect, Marx should be a 1905, appearing mostly in Vorwärts , the cen - At the tipping point, only in action would made a habit of, in the name of sustaining the model for us all. As Social Democrats we are tral paper of the German Social Democratic “that which perhaps only yesterday was an organisation, cannot be the answer. “It is not and must always be learners”. Party (the SPD), or in the press of the small instinct, an obscure urge or inclination the organisation that comes before every - The volume contains surprisingly few Polish revolutionary socialist party of which among the masses [be] forged in the fire of thing else, but above all the revolutionary translations from the Russian Marxist press Luxemburg was a leader from exile, the SD - events into political consciousness”. spirit of enlightenment”. (which no doubt reached Berlin erratically KPiL. In the nature of the working class, “down - When taking on the chief-editor job at Vor - and with delay). Luxemburg translated a Throughout the year, Luxemburg looked ing tools and going out on strike... is the nat - wärts , she wrote an article for the paper as a manifesto-article by Trotsky from December after a regular “rubric” in Vorwärts , entitled ural first step” once it has decided to rebel. prospectus. She would make theoretical sup - 1905, but not much else. “The Revolution in Russia”. In November The question then is, what will the second, plements more frequent. “Along with de - It is clear, though, that Luxemburg aligned and December, until she moved to Poland on third, fourth steps be. tailed critical commentaries on outstanding herself much more with the Bolsheviks and 28 December to be active there, she was chief Then the Marxists “must aim at meeting newly published literature in the fields of so - with Trotsky than with the Mensheviks. She editor of Vorwärts . events head-on in a planned way, to try as cial science, history, politics, and belle lettres, still counselled conciliation between the two In that period especially she produced much as possible to take into their hands the we would also run short popular-science ar - facInti otnhse. heat of the revolution, that did many articles which were collations of what helm to steer the movements of the masses ticles. happen: it was more in the analyses and could be gleaned from bourgeois press and and give direction...” To us falls the task “of “We would like to arrange for critical com - drawing-of-lessons after the revolution’s agency reports, and occasional direct com - liberating the proletarian rising from the con - mentary on particularly notable events in our defeat that the division between the fac - munication from socialists on the spot, about fines of an elementary form of eruption”. party... so that our readers will obtain a defi - tions became politically clear. events in the Tsarist empire. That task is not an administrative one, but nite picture... of the intellectual life of our The articles sketch the idea which Luxem - party press”. The shape of revolution

Early in 1905, especially, Luxemburg ar - Prospects ), Luxemburg also explored how this which Luxemburg wrote up for Vorwärts scornful of the Russian bourgeoisie and lib - gued that “the kind of revolution that has revolution was different from the old model. even described bank officials and business - erals as Trotsky or Lenin were, she assumed broken out in Russia nurtures itself by This time, the working class, rather than men attending revolutionary meetings, the revolution, or this phase anyway, will end stretching for years and assuming an being drawn in eventually as an indistinct which “began around nine in the morning with them in power. In fact, she even de - ever-more radical character”. part of the general populace, was the distinct and stretched on until midnight”. scribed it as a merit of the Russian workers’ Sarcastically she advised the Tsar, who was leading force right from the start. That was From about October the peasants followed movement that it does “not have those apparently holidaying abroad in the hope shown by the demands of the movement — the cities into action. But the working class utopian socialist illusions” which emerged in that just a couple of months away would the eight-hour day was at the top from the was the leading force. the bourgeois revolutions of the past. spare him the turmoil, that he should “study start, together with freedom to organise and So “things are no longer as they were at “In Russia the proletariat does not now the English and the French revolutions”. a Constituent Assembly — and by the dis - one time in France... where there was a battle have as its goal the establishment of socialism Those revolutions, starting with limited tinctly working-class method of struggle, the for legal and political guarantees that would — it wants only to establish the capitalist- disputes in the top circles, had indeed gone mass strikes. allow the unhindered development of capi - bourgeois preconditions for socialism”. on for several years. And the French revolu - Broader sections were drawn in. The re - talism and the rule of the bourgeoisie...” Nowhere did she come to Trotsky’s idea tion of 1789-94 was still “the” revolution for ports often mentioned strikes by pharma - It was instead “a battle for political and that the Russian working class, by first lead - radicals when Luxemburg was writing: her cists. Meetings to organise the struggle were legal guarantees that would allow an unim - ing the fight for bourgeois democracy, could articles frequently report on strikers and generally reported as taking place in univer - peded class struggle by the proletariat end by taking power which could be consol - rebels in Russia singing the Marseillaise. sity buildings. High school students were against the economic and political domina - idated as workers’ revolution spread interna - Though not as clearly as Trotsky would in often active. Sailors and soldiers rebelled. tion of the bourgeoisie”. tionally, or even to Lenin’s more convoluted his summing-up of 1905 ( Results and A report from an informant in Moscow Although Luxemburg’s articles were as idea of a “democratic dictatorship of the pro - FEATURE 8-9 letariat and peasantry” events in our party... so that our readers will tionalist movement. And the working class tion among the peoples of the Tsarist em - Missing also was Lenin’s idea that even obtain a definite picture... of the intellectual could have no interest in nationalist demands pire”. when Russia was pushed into “establishing life of our party press”. if there was no bourgeois basis for them. As if workers of different nationalities unit - the capitalist-bourgeois preconditions”, Actually her record on that was patchy. This was a case of arguing too directly from ing in strikes solved the national question by working-class intervention could swing the Readers would have got little idea of the dif - economic trends to political conclusions. So itself, rather than (as it in fact does) improv - issue between radically different ways of ferences among the Russian Marxists during history would show when Poland became in - ing the conditions for solving it through a doing that: the “Prussian road” of bureau - 1905. dependent in 1918. And the strain in the ar - democratic program. cratic reforms from above (even if impelled Trotsky (in The Permanent Revolution ) com - gument was already visible in 1905. Correspondingly, she claimed in her re - by pressure from below) and the revolution - mented that before he became a Bolshevik he ports that other Polish socialists who sup - ary road clearing out feudal relics in a Jacobin had fallen into “a sort of social-revolutionary NATIONAL OPPRESSION ported Polish independence (the PPS) had Luxemburg did not dismiss national op - way. fatalism. I believed that the logic of the class become irrelevant sects bypassed by events pression. Even before the official state - struggle would compel both factions to pur - (which they hadn’t), rather than dissecting ments from her party, the SDKPiL, she FATALISM sue the same revolutionary line”. their arguments. There was even a strain of benign fatal - vigorously raised demands for national Luxemburg’s 1905 articles suggest a simi - She did something of the same with anar - ism. In previous revolutions, Luxemburg autonomy for Poland and for schooling in lar approach. More than once she recapitu - chists, claiming there were only a couple of wrote, “fatigue and exhaustion are un - the Polish language. lated the history of the Russian Marxist dozen of them in the whole of Russia, which avoidable phenomena”, leading to periods movement for her readers, always minus the again was not true. of regression after the revolutionary peak. But in her summary statements, presum - 1903 split. She presented the “Economistic” ably finding the learned “economic” argu - She reported frequently on antisemitic But, she claimed, since this worker-led rev - phase (mid-1890s to 1901) as if it dominated ment too cumbersome, she reduced herself to atrocities carried out in 1905 by the pro- olution knows more precisely what is about, the whole movement (it did not), and as if it suggesting that no special “national” de - Tsarist Black Hundreds — in November 1905 it “does not know, cannot know, regression was corrected almost automatically. mands were necessary. she reported 15,000 Jews killed and more or fatigue in combat”. The history, she claimed, “does not appear “Events... have already given a clear lesson than 100,000 injured in Black Hundred Towards the end of 1905, Luxemburg tried as a series of zig-zags... [but] as an entirely on the only way in which the national ques - poBgurot malsw. ays as if there could be by defi - again to define what was new about this logical course of development in which each tion... can be solved... The current revolution - nition no problem of antisemitism in the Russian revolution, and came closer to Trot - higher stage arose out of the preceding ary rising of the proletariat... in at the same workers’ movement. sky’s or Lenin’s ideas. one...” time the first act in the process of fraternisa - This revolution was not just Russian but Maybe, however, her “philosophical” de - also “a milestone in world history... a pro - tachment there was a product of uncertainty logue for other revolutions [in the West]... rather than of general attitude: on the na - A pamphlet from Workers’ Liberty, “The which can have no other conclusion than the tional question, as in her side-swipes against German Revolution: Selected Writings of Rosa Luxemburg”, has Rosa Luxemburg’s major much maligned dictatorship of the prole - conservative SPD trade union officials, she was not “philosophical” or “detached” at all. articles from 1918-9. tariat”. They span the time from when the German Long before 1905, Luxemburg had devel - Moreover, she says, “the proletariat is de - revolution of 1918-9 broke out, and she was manding the eight-hour day, a people’s mili - oped what she thought was a solid economic released from jail on 8 November 1918, tia, and a republic — propositions directed grounding for the idea that the restoration of through to her murder on 15 January 1919 by toward bourgeois society, not socialist de - an independent Polish state was an utopian, a right-wing militia operating under the mands. However, these demands are so sub - turn-back-the-clock demand. protection of the Social Democratic versive of the rule of capital that they can be Poland had been divided into three parts, government. regarded as forms that are transitional to the ruled by the Russian, German, and Austro- An introduction is provided by Paul dictatorship of the proletariat”. Hungarian empires. The bigger part, in the Vernadsky, author of the Workers’ Liberty book “The Russian Revolution: When Workers “And thus this revolution... has become a Russian empire, had been capitalistically de - veloped by the Tsarist state in a way inte - Took Power”. It tells the story of the German transitional form — in transition from the revolution and discusses the findings of grated and intertwined with the general bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the past recent scholarship on the events. to the proletarian revolutions of the future”. capitalist development of the empire. 56 pages A4. Cover price £5. With postage In her prospectus when becoming chief ed - The Polish bourgeoisie did not and could — non-UK £7, UK £6. Cheap rates for bulk itor of Vorwärts , Luxemburg had promised: not want to back out of that development. orders: four for £18, ten for £40, twenty for “critical commentary on particularly notable Thus there was no basis for a bourgeois na - £70. Buy online at bit.ly/rl-gr

Arguing for a The real Otto Rühle’s society based history of the abridged on human 1917 version of solidarity, revolution, of Capital, putting social the Stalinist aside current ownership of counter- factual material, industry and revolution, illustrations, banks, and and of the polemics, is a political, lessons good lead-in for economic learned. the full book. and social 131 pages , £6 democracy. 374 pages, £12 plus postage 182 pages. plus postage £5 + post.

A socialist approach Defending within the the new Bolsheviks “wave” of and their feminism. relevance today. 102 pages, 312 pages, £5 plus £10 plus 40 pages, £4 + post 408 pages, £12 + post postage The Two Trotskyisms £20 ; Fate of the Russian Revolution £8 ; postage Miners’ strike £9 ; Democracy, direct action... £5 ; In an era of wars and revolutions £9 ; Anarchism £5 ; Can Socialism Make Order from www.workersliberty.org/books. Add £2 per book for postage, or 50p for 1919 book. If you buy three or Sense £12 ; Gramsci in Context £6 ; How Solidarity... £6 . All more books, post is free, and the third and subsequent books are half-price. Pay at www.workersliberty.org/payment plus postage. 10 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org Convergence on the right

By Cathy Nugent The right has changed; it has embraced the ideas of its outliers, argues Dave Renton at the start of The New Authoritar - ian, Convergence on the Right . By em - bracing the outliers, Renton says, Trump and others have radicalised their con - servative message. At the same time Renton says, the left has failed to reassess the shape of the new right spectrum and have been weak on challeng - ing its central ideas. The most important of these, for Renton, is its particular form of racism, how the ″right seeks to restrict wel - fare benefits to members of the [invented] na - tional community, excluding migrants and Muslims.″ The weakness of the left has The Great Replacement is a far-right theory that western governments conspire to encourage non-white immigration to replace “white Europeans” helped create the conditions for the right to flourish. Renton has written a serious book, which from fascism – and Renton discusses this erase, do not refer to, or simply do not pick cusing on the alternative egalitarian socialist should help the left better understand what process. up on, how the establishment of Israel was politics (my words, not Renton’s) that we it is up against He presents three detailed Overall, the bigger elements at least of the shaped by the experience of the Holocaust need to counter the right’s ultra-neoliberal - case studies of the shift to the right — in new right spectrum are electorally-focused, and continuing antisemitism after the Second ism. France, US and UK — on the grounds that rather than street agitators. They take their World War. •The left should break the alliance between these countries have a position to influence cue from the neoliberal era. They and do not Renton tracks the way in which the right the centre and the right by exposing the anti- the growth of the far right in other countries. see enlarged state power as the means to has been shaped around anti-Muslim dis - democratic nature of the further right. True, In each of the “big three”, in the last period, push through their programme. They do not courses. These are, he argues reasonably, but, as we have seen with Johnson recently, there has been “the collapse of the old meth - try to “transcend class”. based on exclusively on psychopathy, seeing the mainstream right are not always ods by which the centrist leaders kept them - That last part of Renton’s definition is de - Islamist terrorism as based various forms of guardians of the bourgeois democratic selves in power”. batable. A great deal of highly dangerous na - anti-Western resentment, rather than political process. In Britain the long-running campaign for tionalist politics does aim to “transcend responses. •The left must defend itself. Absolutely. class”. •The left must provide an electoral alter - British departure from the European Union, ISLAMISM once the preoccupation of Tory cranks, has But Renton is right to try to make distinc - native, and be better. This is true but Renton tions between the new right and fascism. Unfortunately he has no better alternative is imprecise and ineffectual here. For exam - gradually been brought into the mainstream, analysis of Islamism. He sticks to the through a Tory vanguard and UKIP, although Sometimes the fringe of this broader “new ple he describes Mélenchon as part of that banal definitions of his Socialist Worker Cameron gave that constituency a spectacu - right” category, such as UKIP, can seem very left, then condemns him as being wholly in - fringe to our lefty eyes and ears. But they are roots, pointing up only the “part played by adequate (willing to adapt to the anti-mi - lar opportunity during the referendum. Western military incursions in encourag - In France, the centre-right (Republicans) not fascist. grant agenda in France), then seems to wish UKIP, as Renton says, were “born from the ing anti-colonial responses, including po - that nonetheless Mélenchon could decide to and the left (Socialist Party) over years litical Islam.” courted the votes of the Front National (now Conservatives”. Renton’s concern, rightly, is be better and have a more egalitarian agenda. Rassemblement National) by, for example, that the component parts of the spectrum are In fact political Islam is everywhere a quite Getting Labour elected at the next general supporting the ban on the veil; but this did shifting, and that there is a consequent over - localised phenomenon, a complex reaction to election is going to be a huge battle. It will be not, as they calculated it would, succeed in all drift to the right. We have to understand, the different forms of domestic political a battle to ensure Labour has the policies that undermining the Front. Marine Le Pen won relate to, and challenge the actual shifts. bankruptcy. For example Al Qaeda was as need to fight the new right. Far too slowly 33.9% of the vote in the second round of the much a reaction to conditions of the Saudi Labour (and now the TUC) have drifted into WORLD WAR II a quasi anti-Brexit position – against no-deal, 2017 Presidential election. They did succeed One of the important contextual problems Arabian regime as anything, in which that in pulling mainstream politics to the right. regime’s support for western military adven - for a second referendum with the option to for the left’s challenge is the fading into remain. Trump′s partial incorporation of the con - distant collective memory of fascism and tures was just one dimension. But Labour needs to do much more, to spiracy-theory right was initially a booster to the Second World War (and, I would add, This seems to me to be an important flaw clarify where it stands on actually-existing his electoral ambitions. In 2011 he carved out the role of the Stalinist USSR in the war). in an otherwise very useful book. Islamism is Brexit and to tackle head-on its racism, space for himself against Barack Obama by surely a stable part of the global right-wing nationalism and anti-migrant agenda. claiming Obama was not an American citi - One of the problems for us, as Renton spectrum, also feeding off its marginal ele - zen; then after his election he fully embraced points out, is that the historical experience of ments, even if it doesn’t fit easily, or even at that strategy by appointing Steve Bannon as the war was never adequately dealt with in all, into the dynamics which Renton de - his Chief Strategist. Events in Charlottesville the immediate decades after. scribes. forced him into sacking Bannon but he has Renton mentions the Kurt Waldheim story. More than anything, argues Renton, the continued to straddle what he sees as a win - Waldheim, who served as President of Aus - current elements of the new right spectrum ning combination of mainstream and far tria between 1986 and 92, lied about his war are racists who are interested in erecting new right politics. record, claiming to have got a medical dis - and taller borders on the edges and inside so - What distinguishes this new right spec - charge in 1942. In 1986 the World Jewish Con - cieties – making strangers out of people who trum where electoral forces combine with the gress accused him of serving as a special were once citizens, turning health profession - further right from fascism? missions staff officer in the German Army als into border guards. Challenging and ex - Renton defines fascism as a distinct and from 1942 to 1944 and being implicated in posing those ideas is the left’s central task. “holistic” mass political movement, headed reprisals against partisans in Yugoslavia and However, if, as seems true, hard-edge fas - up by a leadership cult, that wants to drive Greece. There was a huge public scandal. cism is a minority position within today’s far Arabs Jews and Socialism: The socialist out any possibility of an “egalitarian order”; The “Waldheim affair” led to antisemitic right, what is the meaning, status and future debate in the 1980s and 90s on Israel and ergo a drive against the labour movement is statements by Austrian politicians, Austrian of “anti-fascism” of “Antifa”? Renton does Palestine, and the development of Workers’ key. This definition seems to be a less precise, Jews leaving Austria (after a struggle to re- not tackle this problem of definition head-on Liberty’s ideas . or modernised, iteration of Trotsky’s analy - establish their community in the country), but does make some comments about what We recently reprinted this pamphlet, with sis. but also a public debate about the issues. the left should do. an additional introduction by Sean In contrast, Renton argues, the new right Public debate is precisely what is missing He says: Matgamna. spectrum has fluid boundaries. Some groups, today, and generalised public ignorance is •The left should not cry fascism at people £5 cover price, £6.20 including postage. such as the MSI in Italy, have journeyed away one of the reasons why a big part of the left who are not fascist, as this stops it from fo - Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 11 Werner Scholem: Trotskyism, Zinovievism, antisemitism

government, which arose from the bitter triangles overlaid to resemble the Star of experience of the early 1920s and was David. On 17 July 1940, Scholem was mur - distilled by the Communist International. dered by an SS guard in the Buchenwald quarry. The KPD “left” of which Scholem was a By Paul Hampton leader in 1923-4 rallied around a complete re - ANTISEMITISM jection of any sort of agreement or alliance Scholem is the Yiddish spelling of the He - with social democracy or the trade unions. The socialist life of Werner Scholem de - brew term shalom, meaning peace. How - (They did oppose KPD members quitting the serves to be better known. The publica - ever the tumult of the early twentieth SPD-led unions, for which there was a strong tion of Ralf Hoffrogge’s exhaustive century would prove anything but peace - mood at the time, and at least on paper ac - biography, A Jewish Communist in ful for the people of Jewish descent. Weimar Germany (Haymarket 2018) cepted the united front “only from below”). They instead advocated “organise the rev - Scholem was central to preparations to means that English readers now have the Werner Scholem was born into an assimi - found the Leninbund in April 1928, deliver - opportunity to appreciate his contribution. lated middle class German-Jewish family, olution” as the immediate slogan. In 1923, Sc - holem denounced the Thuringia SPD-led ing the organisational report. He claimed that who owned a printing firm. new group had 100 local branches, several Werner Scholem was born in Germany in Werner’s two eldest brothers took over the government as a “purely bourgeois govern - December 1895. He joined the Socialist Work - ment”. He narrowly defined a workers’ gov - thousand members and 100,000 sympathis - business, only to lose it after the Nazis came ers. Hoffrogge highlights the Leninbund’s ers’ Youth group as a teenager in 1912 and to power. His family were forced into emigra - ernment as one that would “blast apart then the Social Democratic Party (SPD) on bourgeois democracy and the commence - ongoing self-deception concerning its rela - tion in Australia and England after the Nazis tionship to the KPD. turning 18. came to power in 1933. Werner’s younger ment of civil war”. Scholem opposed the First World War but Hoffrogge identifies a crucial weakness of Urbahns proposed that the newly founded brother Gerhard (Gershem) emigrated to group stand candidates in upcoming Reich - was conscripted, wounded on the Eastern Palestine in 1923 and became a world- Scholem’s leftism: he never (or not until he front and then imprisoned for anti-war activ - dropped out of activity) questioned the no - stag election. Scholem opposed that, arguing renowned scholar in Israel. that they should remain an external, (ex - ities. He was sent to the Western front and Hoffrogge’s biography does an outstand - tion that the masses were ready and waiting missed the November 1918 revolution – for the revolution. pelled) faction of the KPD and call for votes ing job explaining the significance of anti - for their erstwhile party. The issue split the much to his disappointment. At that time he semitism throughout Werner Scholem’s life. Scholem was an exceptionally capable or - was a member of independent social demo - ganiser. In 1924 he reorganised the KPD ap - Leninbund. Scholem resigned on 7 May 1928; He was subjected to the antisemitism that Fischer and Maslow followed two days later. cratic USPD, which had been excluded from was rife throughout German society. Scholem paratus, running the highly effective the SPD during the war. campaign for the Reichstag elections on 4 The Leninbund got 0.26% of the vote in the received antisemitic insults whilst a represen - May elections. In 1919 Scholem became a USPD local tative in the Prussian Landtag. He also suf - May 1924, when the KPD won 12.6% of the councillor in Hanover and then editor of the fered when the German and Austrian Alpine vote and secured 62 deputies. He was less TROTSKYISM Volksblatt newspaper in Halle. In November Club allowed some branches to insert an successful in the Reichstag elections in De - As early as late January 1928, Scholem 1920, he was part of the USPD left majority “Aryan paragraph”, which excluded Jews cember 1924, when the KPD got 9% and 45 publicly sided with Trotsky, vehemently that voted to fuse with the Communist Party from their hiking chalets. deputies. denouncing his deportation to the Russ - (KPD), creating a mass party of more than Scholem was also the target of the Nazi The debate around the 1925 presidential ian hinterland. From that time onward he 300,000 members. In 1921, he became one of racial antisemitism, which would ultimately election also has contemporary relevance. In was regarded as a “declared Trotskyist” the KPD representatives to the Prussian take his life. the first round the KPD candidate Ernst Thäl - within the Leninbund. Landtag and nominal editor of the party cen - He was personally caricatured in Nazi an - mann came fourth out of 17 candidates, win - tral newspaper, Die Rote Fahne . tisemitic propaganda as early as November ning 1.8m votes (7%). In the second round the In 1928 Trotsky himself had opposed Scholem was a leader of the left within the 1924. The Nazis’ so-called “Law for the right stood Field Marshal Hindenburg. standing Leninbund candidates and instead KPD and a key organiser in the Berlin-Bran - Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” Both the Comintern and the Fischer- proposed backing the KPD in the elections. denburg region. In the aftermath of the failed in April 1933 banned Jews from all forms of Maslow leadership wanted to support the Hoffrogge offers some tantalising sugges - seizure of power in October 1923, the left led employment in the state apparatus, including SPD candidate, but were opposed by Sc - tions about Scholem’s relationship to Trot - by Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow became Scholem’s position as a legal clerk. holem and Arthur Rosenberg. When the SPD skyism in the last decade of his life. Scholem the new leadership of the KPD. Scholem be - Even while Scholem was imprisoned, his withdrew to support the Centre Party candi - is said to have published articles under a came the Organisationsleiter, the central bust formed part of the exhibition “The Eter - date, the KPD stood Thälmann again. Hin - pseudonym in Trotskyist publications such party organiser, and was responsible for the nal Jew” in Munich’s German Museum in denburg won with 14.6m votes (48%) against as Permanente Revolution . A letter from “Bolshevisation” of the party. In April 1924, 1937. 13.7m (45%) for the rival Centre Party candi - Roman Well to Trotsky from 1931 states as he also became a Reichstag deputy, in part to Scholem also encountered left antisemitism date. Thälmann fared badly, getting 1.9m much. Alas, as Scholem’s pseudonym re - give him some legal protection from impris - in the labour movement. In December 1914, votes (6.4%). mains unknown, it is impossible to say how onment. while still a member of the SPD, Werner Scholem was criticised for being the “party many articles he published. The Fischer-Maslow-Scholem leadership wrote to his brother Gerhard: “For what it’s executioner” because he was not squeamish Ernst Federn, a fellow inmate in the was soon ousted to make way for the Stalinist worth, the party is rife with antisemitism, al - about dealing with supporters of the former Dachau concentration camp met Scholem in Ernst Thälmann. Scholem was the organiser though the people themselves are oblivious leadership. As the head of the Zinoviev-in - 1938 and described him as a follower of Trot - of the “The Letter of the 700”, in solidarity to it.” The trade union leader Carl Legien at - spired “Bolshevisation” campaign, Scholem sky, albeit one who was sceptical of the with the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union. tacked SPD deputies like Hugo Haase who restricted democracy within the party. The united front policy. KPD-affiliated camp in - In November 1926, Scholem was expelled came out against the war in 1916, saying: KPD under his leadership even printed Der mates recalled that Scholem promoted a Trot - from the KPD and became a founder of the “The Jew gang must be brought to an end”. Funke , a special bulletin for party functionar - skHyiostf fprogsigtieo ns. tates that Scholem aligned Leninbund in 1928. Nor was the KPD immune from anti - ies rather than party members. himself with Trotsky’s views in early 1928 The Leninbund was the Left Opposition semitism. The Berlin left were derided as Yet he soon became a victim of the increas - and “stuck to this orientation over the group in Germany. It was more Zinovievist “Jew louts”, while the Fischer-Maslow-Sc - ingly powerful Stalinism bureaucracy within next ten years, even under the most se - than Trotskyist, and in 1930 the Trotskyist mi - holem leadership were disparaged as “a gang the communist movement. Scholem had vere conditions”. nority round Anton Grylewicz parted ways of Jews that stick together”. failed to criticise Stalin’s policies in terms of with it. Hoffrogge is clear that the labour move - democracy and authoritarianism. Scholem left the Leninbund soon after its ment was not on the whole antisemitic. Many Scholem was deposed as Orgleiter in May foundation, training to become a lawyer, al - socialists with a Jewish background came to 1925 and removed from the KPD Politburo in THE “BOLSHEVISATION” OF THE though he maintained links to Trotskyists on play a leading role within it. However the September 1925. He was the central organiser KPD, 1924-5 the German left. book underscores the longstanding nature of of the “Declaration of the 700” (published 11 Scholem was an early victim of the Nazi the problem even within one of the most pro - September 1926), which came out in solidar - terror. He was first arrested the night after the gressive labour movements in the world. ity with the Russian opposition (Zinoviev- The “Bolshevisation” campaign can be Reichstag fire. Although briefly released, be - That is something the left today must learn Kamenev-Trotsky). seen in hindsight to have been a pivotal tween 1933 and 1935 he was held in “inves - from and fight. Scholem was expelled from the KPD on 5 step in the reduction of the Communist tigative custody”. Scholem was incarcerated November 1926. He supported the left com - Parties to frontier-guards of Moscow. The in the Colombiahaus, Lichtenburg, Dachau COMMUNIST POLITICS munist newspaper Mitteilungsblatt , pub - most important Communist Party outside and Buchenwald concentration camps, sub - Werner Scholem’s politics exhibited a per - lished from January to May 1927 and then the the USSR, the German CP (KPD), was jected to violent assaults, long hours of forced sistent leftism throughout the 1920s. He Fahne des Kommunismus , a weekly from June central in the campaign. rejected the turn towards transitional de - labour and arduous tasks such as cleaning 1927. This included the former KPD Fischer- • See bit.ly/bols-kpd the cesspit. mands, the united front and the workers’ Maslow leadership, but its most prominent He wore a combination of yellow and red figure was Hugo Urbahns. 12 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org

VIDEOS: In Defence Last stand for Bolshevism of Bolshevism A series of videos covering some of the The surrender of the Soviet Union to Stalin the Mensheviks to the Bolsheviks or, indeed, themes in the book was the result of his fellow Bolsheviks disre - Shachtman and Burnham to the Socialist workersliberty.org/idob-videos garding the need to limit their power either Workers’ Party. We might have known more, organizationally or temporally. Indeed, the had the editor not excised pages concerning ban on factions was an example of their party him. By Donal Rayner O’Connor Lysaght seeing the way forward as one involving in - As it is, In Defence of Bolshevism resembles creased absolutism, if only for a time. This a steam hammer crushing a peanut. This is There is little that is new here, good or was a conclusion that, of course, Stalin was particularly notable in the first chapter where bad. happy to support and interpret for perma - Shachtman takes forty pages to defend the The most provocative stuff is contained in nence. scientific definition of the state against one Sean Matgamna’s introduction, and this is a This ban is mentioned by Shachtman as the who has made no effort to refer to Engels’ rehash of themes that he has presented better major mistake that caused Soviet Russia’s de - Origins of the Family, Private Property and the elsewhere, the unrelieved badness of the So - generation. He does not record the other er - State or Lenin’s State and Revolution . viet Union, the equation of antisemitism with rors that made it toxic (and helped Stalin). Nothing in this is incorrect, but Shacht - anti-Zionism, as well as his failure to provide He is quite correctly defensive of the Bol - man’s tendency to long windedness is all too even a skeleton of a programme for the semi- sheviks’ refusal to tolerate opposition parties apparent; it would have benefitted from the colonial world, and, of course, more justifi - unless they lay down the arms they were editor inserting sub-headings. As it is, the ably (and enjoyably) his attacks on the using against them. He does not consider se - book transmits a sense of weariness with the leaders of rival organisations to his Alliance riously Rosa Luxemburg’s idea that there task of preaching “the third way”. for Workers’ Liberty. should have been new elections for a con - Though parts of the work are useful edu - Well, repetition is effective propaganda, no stituent assembly, such as may have neu - cational pieces, it is probable that its overall doubt, but it cannot change its matter’s accu - tralised sections of the opposition. long-term value will be as a contribution to racy or otherwise. Nor does he ask whether Dzherzhinsky’s understanding the career of its author. By comparison, Shachtman’s analysis is organization of the necessary security appa - Shachtman was a very gifted individual and unexceptional. It would make a useful text - ratus was all that different from that of a skilled populariser of Marxism. Agnostic on book of “orthodox” Trotskyism, bar certain Yagoda, Yezhov or Beria. dialectics, he succumbed to the politics of the gratuitous additions and bigger omissions. These conundrums have to be faced when last Stalinite atrocity. Among the first is Shachtman’s occasional workers’ republics rise again. Above all, he This was reinforced by the belief that the sneer at the concept of ‘Workers’ States’. does not face the basic and, in the circum - Second World War victory of the Soviet Presumably, he is referring to the concept stances, unavoidable weakness of the Bolshe - Union proved that it was the malign equal of of deformed/degenerated workers’ states as viks’ seizure of power: the fact that they were liberal democracy. He preached a third (gen - Debating the left developed by Stalinism. Otherwise, it raises the world’s only Bolshevik Party. uine Communist) way against both, only to a number of questions, most notably what This did not mean that they should not conclude each was more powerful and liberal Workers’ Liberty has written to the new the hell was the Soviet Union before it be - have led the workers to take state power, not democracy a lesser evil. This book was his at - Socialist Alternative group (a product of came “bureaucratic collectivist”? only because the alternative was abominable, tempt to lay the theoretical base for making expulsions from the Socialist Party) as On the other hand, if Shachtman’s mean - but because the time was overdue. Today the his way viable. The editor has inserted a letter of eight follows: ing refers to the workers’ states deformed/ problem is just the opposite; there are too years later that expresses Shachtman’s degenerated, then he is displaying precisely many would-be Bolshevik Internationals abandonment of his hopes. “We’re writing to offer you space in our the lack of dialectic for which Trotsky re - under too many would-be Lenins. weekly paper Solidarity (say 500 words? but buked him. Shachtman’s defensiveness is interesting. we could discuss details) to tell our readers There was a dialectic in these states be - His book appeared roughly half way in his about your plans as a new element in the tween their economic (and, in many cases, so - period as an “heterodox Trotskyist” between socialist left. cial) structure and their regressive politics his departure from the Socialist Workers’ “We would like, then, to follow up on which destroyed that structure in the end. Party and his surrender to social democracy. what you publish in that space with an in - “Bureaucratic collectivism” explains only one He seems to be making an effort to defend his terview in which we would discuss with dimension. Bolshevism, not least in the fact that he is pre - one of you about what it says. Less obviously significant is the dismissal senting his argument as a polemic against “We’d also like to arrange a meeting — a of the renegade Sidney Hook’s reliance on Ernest Erber. deputation from our organisation and a This reviewer does not know whether Acton’s dictum “Power tends to corrupt and £12 including UK deputation from ours — to discuss how Erber deserved to be given such a tribute. absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Linking postage and where your organisation and ours may Certainly, he seems to have been a minor it to Hook ignores the fact that his use of it www. workersliberty. be able to collaborate on particular issues”. threat to Shachtman’s party compared to that We await their reply. was a case that “the truth that’s told with bad org/idob intent, beats any lie you can invent”. of Dühring to the German Social Democrats, Immanuel Wallerstein 1930-2019

By Martin Thomas (1957) was, I think, the founding text of “de - “Dependency theory” shifted the axis of labour. Its chief economic relation is unequal pendency theory”. Like Frank’s, Wallerstein’s radical politics from class against class to exchange, unequal because of power rela - Immanuel Wallerstein died at the age of 88 affinity to the nationalisms of poorer coun - what it called “periphery” against “core”. tions, not exploitation of labour through for - on 31 August. He was one of the last great tries was more distanced from orthodox Stal - Many would-be Marxists took on “depen - mally equal exchange. exponents of the 1950s-60s theory of im - inist politics than Baran’s. dency theory” as a reworking of the theory He sympathised with working-class move - perialism known as “dependency theory”, His major works were historical: four vol - of imperialism developed by Lenin and oth - ments, but saw them and Third World na - and continued to write until only a few umes on The Modern World-System , published ers in the early years of the 20th century, but tionalist movements as fundamentally the years ago. in 1974, 1980, 1989, and 2011, covering the pe - in fact the questions it asked, the concepts it same sort of movement against the system of He was born in New York, the son of Polish riod from the 16th century to 1914. used, and the answers it gave were very dif - unequal exchange and of concentration of Jews fleeing antisemitism, and worked al - As main influences Wallerstein named ferent. riches at the centre of power. most all his life in US universities. He named Frantz Fanon, Fernand Braudel, and Ilya Pri - In a short summary of his ideas, Historical To him the classical Marxist view of capi - Marx first among those to whom he “ac - gogine. Fanon, a writer for the Algerian FLN Capitalism , Wallerstein developed his theory talist development across the world seemed knowledged a continuing intellectual debt”. independence movement, “represented... the into a picture of a “modern world system”, simThpeli srtaicp, iudn dileinveealro, pamnde n“ot voefr -coapptitmailisstitc i”n . - He described himself as one of a “gang of insistence by those disenfranchised by the created in and around the 16th century, with dustry in many ex-colonial countries in re - four” with Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi, modern world system that they have a... its basic structure of “periphery” and “core” cent decades, and the evolution of and Andre Gunder Frank, all also now dead. claim... to intellectual valuation”. continuous since then. regimes like Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe, has Gunder Frank was the most prolific and com - From the historian Braudel he took a focus For him, capitalism is that “world system”, pushed “dependency theory” somewhat bative writer of “dependency theory”. on the very long sweeps of history. The phys - not a mode of production which may or may to the sidelines. It did not convince Waller - In his preface to The Essential Wallerstein ical chemist Prigogine, said Wallerstein, not exist in this or that area. So capitalism, for stein to change his historical overview. (2000), Wallerstein did not mention Paul “forced me to face the implications of a world Wallerstein, has never been historically pro - Baran, whose Political Economy of Growth in which certainties did not exist — but gressive. It does not rest fundamentally on knowledge still did”. wage-labour, but on “semi-proletarian” Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 13 Mugabe and the left

By Peter Tatchell In the last three years there have been fre - pression must be resisted. quent suppression of strikes and arrests of Now moral and cultural relativism is gain - On a number of issues sections of the left trade union leaders — some of whom have ing ground on the left. We are told every have abandoned the principles of univer - been beaten and tortured. Where is the left community is different — with different val - sal human rights and social justice. solidarity movement with Zimbabwean ues, different histories and therefore different Over a number of years I have done soli - workers? ways of dealing with issues. darity work with Zimbabweans struggling Sadly much of the left no longer appears to It is true you can’t impose a blueprint. But for democracy, socialism and human rights. believe in the principles of international so - there are universal socialist values. When They have not had much support from the cialist solidarity. Even those who do, haven’t people in developing countries are fighting mainstream left. done much about it when it comes to the abuses like female genital mutilation, it’s Why Zimbabwe? I have a copy of ZANU’s abuses in Zimbabwe. clear where we should stand. We wouldn’t 1970s political programme: its goals were a And worse, it has become fashionable for tolerate such barbarism here, so we shouldn’t socialist democracy with a free press and some left-wingers to say that those of us who tolerate it there. workers’ rights. That is why I supported Mu - Peter Tatchell spoke on Zimbabwe at a are trying to build solidarity with progressive Southall Black Sisters and Women Against gabe and ZANU in their liberation struggle. Workers’ Liberty meeting in 2005. What he movements in developing countries are Fundamentalism have long campaigned It is also why I now oppose the present said about Robert Mugabe has remained true racists and neo-colonialists. I’ve been at - against honour killings, domestic violence tyranny. Mugabe has abandoned the left val - for the following 14 years, up to Mugabe’s tacked so many times by black and left ac - and genital mutilation in the UK. Quite right ues he once stood for. death on 6 September at the age of 95. tivists (mostly members of the SWP). They too. So why shouldn’t we show solidarity Comparing Zimbabwe today and South cannot accept that Mugabe, once a liberation with women in other countries who are re - Africa under apartheid, the police state meth - hero, has now turned into the opposite, a sisting the patriarchal practices of excising ods are not dissimilar. There was a huge were not insurgents, they were civilians. tyrant; that he has followed the political tra - young girls’ clitorises and sewing up their global movement to isolate apartheid. But, Where were the left-wing protests? Where jectory of a one-time socialist like Stalin. vaginas? despite 20 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, was the campaign for sanctions against Mu - Mugabe started out a good guy, with good However, when human rights violations there is no organised left solidarity campaign gabe? ideals, but he has become corrupted by are perpetrated by people who happen to be with Zimbabwean oppositionists. At the Under ZANU-PF’s tyranny, rape is now power. A leader’s good actions in the past non-white, much of the left does run a mile. weekly protest outside the Zimbabwean used as a political weapon — against both cannot exonerate them from criticism when They are fearful of being accused of racism High Commission, I’ve never seen any or - men and women. A journalist who surveyed they betray the very values for which they and neo-colonialism. Does that help op - ganised left group. Why not? Zimbabwean political refugees in South originally fought. pressed people? Of course not! Their oppres - If you make a roll-call of deaths and de - Africa found that two-thirds of the men had We are witnessing a real crisis on the left. soMrs uregjaobicee . must be thrilled that the inter - struction, the sad fact is Mugabe has killed been raped by Mugabe’s henchmen. A Zim - There is so much moral equivocation, com - national left has not campaigned to iso - more black Africans than apartheid ever did. babwean opposition member of Parliament promise and uncertainty about what used to late him. He can point the finger and say, In the 1980s alone in Matabeleland — just one was among those raped. Even in apartheid’s be very clear left values. it is only the western colonialists who op - region of Zimbabwe — 20,000 black Africans worst days I can’t remember rape being used We used to say: we stand in solidarity with pose them. were massacred because they were deemed on such a massive scale against political de - the oppressed; it doesn’t matter what race supporters of Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU. They tainees. they are, or the race of the perpetrator. All op - Sweden in the 1930s: a “shithole country”

out the quality from the run of the mill. Sev - In him, Holmen has established an openly Industrialisation and a general rise in wage eral Swedish writers have given us stories gay leading character who has done time for levels significantly reduced emigration in the with a distinctly leftist narrative. acts of gross indecency and GBH. Kvist falls inter war years, and Swedish neutrality dur - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo set the bar foul of the anti-gay laws in the inter-war ing both world wars also aided economic high in the 1960s with their Martin Beck nov - years before same-sex activity was legalised growth. By Barrie Hardy els, which showed that all was not well be - in Sweden in 1944. Britain would wait a fur - Serious industrial conflicts had broken out neath the surface of Sweden’s supposed ther 23 years for such a legal reform. in the 1930s, most notably during the saw “It’ll be a pleasure to leave this impover - social-democratic paradise. Henning Mankell Holmen evokes Sweden in the 1930s well. mill strike in the Adalen district, during ished shithole of a country behind,” says dealt with social inequality and injustice in The Swedish police swagger around in their which five protesters were shot dead by the the main character Harry Kvist in the Sweden mainly through his Wallander greatcoats, the pommels and sides of their army. The mass protests which followed this Stockholm Trilogy of historical crime nov - books, while making donations to charitable sabres keeping the Stockholm underclass in encouraged the state to tone down its repres - els by Martin Holmen. organisations in Africa and spending a lot of check. sion and buy off an increasingly militant Sweden is now reckoned one of the top ten his time there. We get fascinating details like the fate of working class with social welfare concessions of countries in the world for quality of life, In 1986 the Social-Democrat premier Olaf Sweden’s last state executioner, Albert Dal - instead. but eighty years ago much of the population Palme was assassinated as he walked un - man, who was run over by a tram. (Sweden’s Trump would like to see more migration to lived in abject poverty. guarded through the centre of Stockholm, last execution was in 1910, more than five the USA from Scandinavia and none at all Holmen’s three novels — Clinch, Out For then regarded as an ultra-safe city. This still decades before Britain’s). We also learn of a from Central America or the Caribbean. Yet The Count and Slugger — paint a grim picture unsolved murder pointed investigative jour - sexual scandal involving the septuagenarian Norway and Sweden have not been subject of the life of the urban poor in 1930s Stock - nalists in the direction of the ever present reactionary monarch Gustaf V, which was to countless invasions by the US marines holm. Most of them suffer flea bites, their Swedish far right and their alleged links with covered up at the time. over the years nor suffered ruthless exploita - bedsheets doused in strong vinegar to keep elements of the secret state. Each of the three novels end with varying tion by American agro-business corporations. the pests away. The late Stieg Larsson, a dedicated anti fas - degrees of disappointment for Kvist. In the Swedes enjoy universal health care and sub - Summer months bring massive lice infes - cist who regarded himself as a Trotskyist, did final one he doesn’t make in to the ship stantial social welfare benefits which most tation in the slums. Street urchins collect rats much research into extreme right and racist which is going to take him to America. Which American workers can only dream of. They tales and turn them in for a reward from the organisations, in particular the Sweden De - brings us back to Kvist’s designation of Swe - are not inclined to migrate. city council. Unemployed men earn their mocrats. In Larsson’s time, the Sweden De - den as a shithole country. Most of the major waves of migration to bounty by shooting stray dogs. A street mocrats were a small neo-Nazi outfit. They In the latter half of the nineteenth century, America in the past were the result of dire child’s idea of a treat is to buy five Ore worth have since “reinvented” themselves as a Sweden experienced emigration to the USA economic circumstances, such as the Irish of pastry scraps from the neighbourhood right-wing “populist” party. In last year’s on a colossal scale, with around 25% of the famine, anti-Jewish pogroms in Tsarist Russia bakers. general election they came third, with a 12% population making the Atlantic crossing. A — or the “involuntary migration’ of millions Retired boxer, ex con, debt collector and all vote share. similar proportion went from Norway in this of Africans on board slave ships. round thug, Harry Kvist is the anti-hero par Larsson became famous for his interna - period. In 1850s America the Native American excellence of these novels. He has a liking for tional best selling Millennium trilogy, which A succession of crop failures, famines and Party emerged as the main party opposing rent boys, cheap cigars and violence. focused on rogue elements in SAPO, the rural poverty in general were the major the Democrats. It was anti-Catholic, xeno - Severe physical damage would ensue Swedish Security Service. His novels move causes for this, along with a general dislike phobic and hostile to (Irish) immigration. Its should anyone get on the wrong side of him. the action along at a cracking pace, and their of the Swedish aristocracy, which still members were commonly and appropriately On the plus side he hates scabs, coppers, heroic protagonist Lisbeth Salander is very wielded considerable political and economic duIbnb Terdu mthpe aKnndo whi sN footlhloinwgesr. s we see to the pimps and Nazis. sympathetically drawn, though some of her power. The haemorrhaging of people was modern reincarnation of the party of prej - The market for Scandinavia noir fiction is feats of combat tend to stretch the reader’s held to be so serious that the government set udice and ignorance! somewhat overcrowded, but it pays to pick credulity. up a special commission to investigate the The same cannot be said for Harry Kvist. problem in 1907. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Where we stand

Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour Lessons from McStrike power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of By Justine Canady on 4 October. We had no union time chosen for the Brixton picket Brighton gave a good example of production. members signed up. People were (8-9am) was to fit into the media what branches should actually look Last year the “McStrike” cam - The capitalists’ control over the interested in some of what we were cycle, not the workplace timetable. like in these work places — made paign got an enthusiastic re - saying, but we were still in the One organiser’s entire job was up entirely by people who were economy and their relentless drive sponse from many labour to increase their wealth causes early stages. more or less to go around the coun - working there and got fed up, not movement left and labour move - I was told that it was important try to talk about how great the Mc - with people sent in to “salt” the poverty, unemployment, the ment activists. blighting of lives by overwork, for the whole McStrike campaign to Strike was. It’s no wonder that the workplace. imperialism, the destruction of the But now, for a long time, there get Brixton McDonalds on strike. union quickly lost so many mem - It took about a year for them to environment and much else. haven’t been any local branch The union had lost the Crayford bers after a strike day- the union get most the workers on board, but Against the accumulated wealth meetings for fast food workers, any and Cambridge stores because they didn’t actually do anything for it’s quite strong, and they are really and power of the capitalists, the meetings for workers in the “Mc - had pulled out their main organis - them, so why stick around? keen to build the campaign. working class must unite to Strike” campaign, or meetings with ers from there, and had them work - The way in which the campaign The answer is to follow the ex - struggle against capitalist power organisers about the direction of ing on the wider McStrike was organised — by finding one ample of the Wetherspoons work - in the workplace and in wider the campaign. What went wrong? campaign. key organiser in every store — ers, actually build union branches society. Over the last year or so I’ve On the 4th we got no-one to walk meant that no other workers got in McDonalds workplaces, and or - The Alliance for Workers’ worked in Wetherspoons, and be - out with us. Management hadn’t the experience of trying their hand ganise strikes for a Saturday night. Liberty wants socialist revolution: fore that in Brixton McDonalds. scheduled on workers who they at it or stepping up. So when one This would genuinely disrupt busi - collective ownership of industry Another worker previously in - thought were sympathetic to us. person left a store, it fell apart. ness and could also be fun. and services, workers’ control, volved in cinema worker organis - We had an effect, but it wasn’t a Look at what the Unite union did Expand the demands of the and a democracy much fuller than ing was already working at Brixton real strike. No one in that store was in New Zealand. They didn’t just strike to include workplace harass - the present system, with elected when I started there. ready to take strike action. If the go in and declare that they would ment. Use the #metoo campaign to representatives recallable at any From the start we were told by strike had been scheduled for a be striking over pay or some other raise genuine workplace issues. time and an end to bureaucrats’ the Bakers Union to get the store month later, I think it would have issue that they felt was going to get Workers do care about getting and managers’ privileges. out on strike for 4 October 2018, an been different. people out. They talked with the higher pay, but it was not the im - We fight for trade unions and international day of action for fast The other locations where there workers in the fast food places and mediate issue which workers at our the Labour Party to break with food workers from various coun - had previously been strikes only built up their demands from that. store feel motivated to organise “social partnership” with the tries. managed to bring out one or two The McStrike campaign could around. Workers in ten McDonalds bosses and to militantly assert I was keen to sign up members to people from each store. Where usefully publish more information stores in the USA did strike over working-class interests. the union but was told by organis - there had previously been a grow - on what Unite actually did. Unite, sexual harassment. ers that signing up new members ing union branch, there were only after all, is the only union to ever Plan organising meetings with In workplaces, trade unions, wasn’t a priority. The priority was one or two members left. gain recognition with McDonald’s other workers. Organise joint and Labour organisations; to get them to commit to strike ac - except in countries where recogni - events like fundraisers and talks. ONE-STRIKE WONDERS tion is more or less mandatory. Produce joint materials setting among students; in local tion. The Bakers Union, for in - After strike action, key organis - campaigns; on the left and in stance, only has paper membership Here, it was not only expected, out what we have achieved and ers had been pulled out of but enforced, that the union nation - want to achieve, how we will do it wider political alliances we forms (no online facility). It took a stores, or the union didn’t keep stand for: long time even to get the forms I ally and its full-timers made the de - a long-term vision for workers on pushing activity because in their cisions and ran the campaign. the high street • Independent working-class needed to sign myself up, let alone eyes when one strike happened representation in politics. for my colleagues. This could sound miserable, but Organise joint days of action — then their job was more or less I’m not disheartened though. 4 Oc - for example focusing on Interna - • A workers’ government, The two of us at Brixton repeat - done. based on and accountable to the edly asked to be put in contact with tober 2018 did bring together the tioWnael nWeoemd ecno’os rDdainya atned iMntaeyr vDean y- labour movement. other McDonalds workers in the The McStrike campaign was not strikers at Wetherspoons and TGI tion into our unions (mainly in • A workers’ charter of trade union, but were fobbed off. Instead a workers’ campaign aimed at Friday’s, the couriers, and others this case the Bakers’ Union) and union rights — to organise, to we ended up cancelling a meeting building a strong and lasting union who were all taking part in actions. to get local Labour parties and strike, to picket effectively, and to in Brixton arranged for local work - presence in the fast food industry The Spoons workers want to local labour movements actively take solidarity action. ers because we were told this and winning day-to-day issues for build a rank-and-file network to campaigning. • Taxation of the rich to fund would clash with a union meeting. workers in stores. It was largely a take control of the campaign. The decent public services, homes, I raised concerns about striking PR campaign. For example, the two Spoons union branches from education and jobs for all. • A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full equality for women, and social provision to free women from Anger over mail workload domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on demand; By Gerry Bates getting the work done in terms of privatisation. Although this dis - increases that often mean we’re the right to choose when and getting materials out and contact - pute is about a range of issues, wo“rWkein gc apnas’tt oburirn sgh ifmt fainil isbha tcimk etso . whether to have children. Full Postal workers’ union CWU is ing individual members. A key where I am people feel it most cen - the office, so we have to keep equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual preparing to ballot its members mechanism is the ‘gate meetings’, trally to be a dispute about work - going until it’s all delivered, even and transgender people. Black in Royal Mail for strikes. meetings of large groups of work - load. The agreement to reduce the if that means working past the and white workers’ unity against ers outside the workplace. working week stalled after a year, time our shift ends.” racism. The dispute is over a range of is - sues arising from what the union “These have been taking place and we’re experiencing workload • Open borders. this week and last at depots and of - • Global solidarity against says is Royal Mail bosses’ failure to implement an agreement reached fices in my locality, and there’s one global capital — workers due at my workplace on 11 Septem - RMT Region opposes no-deal Brexit everywhere have more in in 2017, for which strikes planned then were suspended. A key plank ber. common with each other than “One area where things could be with their capitalist or Stalinist of the agreement was a commit - By Ollie Moore deal Brexit “will have a signifi - ment to reduce the working week, improved is the engagement of rulers. part-time workers. Because of their cantly detrimental impact on our which has been reneged upon. The London Transport Region • Democracy at every level of working patterns, the gate meet - members’ lives, especially our mi - The union is also in dispute over of rail workers’ union RMT, the society, from the smallest ings aren’t necessarily accessible grant members”, and that John - Royal Mail’s plans to restructure union’s largest region, dis - workplace or community to global for them. Most of the new hires re - son’s plans represented “a lurch parcel delivery work, with its cussed Boris Johnson’s proro - social organisation. cently have been part-time, and towards authoritarian national - Parcelforce arm possibly being sep - gation of Parliament, and • Equal rights for all nations, they’re also overwhelmingly ism.” arated off. The CWU says this re - no-deal Brexit plans, at its against imperialists and predators younger workers, so it’s important The motion also argued for structure could threaten thousands meeting on Thursday 29 Au - big and small. to engage them. Labour MP Kate Hoey, who has of jobs. gust. • Maximum left unity in action, “We need a continual presence at campaigned alongside Nigel and openness in debate. The ballot runs from 17 Septem - Farage, demonised migrants, and ber to 8 October. the gates of workplaces to speak to The meeting endorsed a policy people as they’re coming in. from the RMT Jubilee South publicly supported Johnson and If you agree with us, please A postal worker in South York - “People are incredibly pissed off branch, opposing both Johnson’s no-deal, to be expelled from the take some copies of shire spoke to Solidarity about the Solidarity with management. There’s a deep manoeuvres and the prospect of a RMToT ’s rPeaardli amtheen tamryo Gtiroonu,p . visit to sell — and join us! campaign: “There’s a huge mood around feeling of resentment at the way no-deal Brexit. bit.ly/ltrc-coup-motion this ballot. In my area, the union is conditions have worsened since The motion argued that a no- REPORTS 14-15 Bev Laidlaw for PCS gen sec! Keep HSST boycott alive By a PCS member rently have to claim Universal ing him above the pay rates of 99% By David Pendletone most universal despising of the Credit to supplement my earnings. of civil servants, only earning less testing system and a real will to The nomination period for the The amount that I will take for the than some of the top bosses who School workers cannot let the fight to remove them. However, the post of General Secretary in the role of General Secretary will reflect run the civil Service. momentum of the ballot on a anti-union laws which require a civil service trade union PCS has my current income including bene - When supporting Lynn Hender - boycott of all high stakes sum - 50% turnout and 40% of the entire now opened. PCS branches fits, and I will return the rest of the son, another very well paid full mative testing in primary schools membership to vote yes to any ac - should be organising to debate current GS salary to the union’s time official, against the rank and be wasted. We must build for as tion meant that much more work which candidate they wish to Fighting Fund.” file candidate John Moloney, Mr wide a boycott as possible in be needed to get an active boycott. support in the actual elections, Bev recognises that the majority Serwotka was very keen to see a 2020. The Education Solidarity Net - which will open on 7 November. of civil servants in 2018 (64%) were woman in high office. But he has no But there is a problem. The Na - work (ESN), a rank and file activist organisation which Workers’ Lib - Bev Laidlaw, a DWP rank and paid below £30,000, that nigh on a intention of surrendering his won - tional Education Union (NEU) ex - fifth (19%) were paid under derfully salaried position to Bev — ecutive, meeting on 13 July, blocked erty school workers are central to, file activist and NEC member, will is intending itself to organise a con - be contesting the election as a PCS £20,000, and that many of our out - a rank and file woman with an ex - calls for a conference of rank-and- sourced members are even lower cellent record within PCS. file primary members and district ference of primary activists and dis - Independent Left candidate. All se - trict officers to discuss how we can rious socialists and PCS activists paid. She does not want to lead the Ms Lloyd, who occupies a senior officers to consider the way for - membership while pulling down a management grade role in the civil ward. Instead they promised to get a boycott for this academic year. who yearn for a departure from the The indicative ballot suggests many years of failed, bombastic, boss’ salary from their membership service, is insisting that if elected consult the districts that reached or dues. she will “only” take the high salary got close to the vote thresholds. As that a number of districts could get top down bureaucratic leader lead - a boycott if it were seriously built ership should campaign to nomi - Bev wants to build an alternative she already earns as a senior man - yet that hasn’t happened. within PCS to the failed PCS Left agerial grade – a position quite con - The NEU held an indicative bal - for. The testing system is vulnera - nate and vote for Bev. ble to even a partial boycott as its We should do so taking inspira - Unity model – which the Socialist trary to the Socialist Party’s lot of its primary school members Party wishes to recreate in its propaganda for worker’s represen - between 4 June and 2 July. The na - most significant purpose is to tion from the election earlier this gather data for league tables. year of the rank and file working newly launched PCS Broad Left. tatives on a worker’s wage. tional turnout was 39%, with 97% The more partial the data, the class activist John Moloney to the Bev wants a rank and file move - Mr Serwotka and Ms Lloyd are voting against the testing system more discredited the tables are. post of Assistant General Secretary, ment of members that elects and the PCS establishment figures in and 59% voting yes to boycott. who beat the PCS establishment controls its leadership, a leadership the election. The election of either The result demonstrated an al - candidates in the process. which will live the same lifestyle as one of them means more of the Like John, Bev is committed to the membership. She wants a same for members. For sixteen refusing the outrageously exorbi - joined up fight against office clo - years you could not get a sheet of tant full General Secretary salary sures – opposed by the leadership paper between them as they effec - “I’m in the House of Lords at last” and argues for a radical change in of PCS – and for national pay rates tively proclaimed that the Ser - the culture and policies of PCS. and national pay bargaining. She wotka/Left Unity leadership of Christine Blower, former general wants equality to be at the heart of PCS – a leadership that has lost the secretary of the National Union the late 1960s, but run by a series of Her manifesto states, “The mate - truculent old-style right-wing gen - rial interests of workers and the PCS’ work. major battles and many of the of Teachers (NUT), has been Her PCS establishment oppo - smaller ones – was the best possible made a peer in the resignation eral secretaries (Edward Britton, employer are… fundamentally op - Fred Jarvis, Doug McAvoy). posed. Whilst all who work for the nents in the election will be incum - leadership in the trade union honours list. bent General Secretary Mark movement. Blower challenged McAvoy for union should earn a wage they can general secretary in 1999 and lost. live on, they should not be on Serwotka and Socialist Party mem - They have fallen out in the un - She follows other once-left union ber Marion Lloyd. principled, courtier, bureaucratic leaders into the halls of privilege, She won deputy general secretary amounts which put them closer to in 2005, against a candidate of the Mark Serwotka pulls in well in cuIltt uisre t iomf eth feo Pr CchS alenagdee:r Eshleipc.t Bev people like Hugh Scanlon, once the bosses they negotiate with than Morning Star Broad Left (which excess of £100,000 in salary and Laidlaw! left-wing leader of the engineering to the workers they represent. was increasingly becoming the right “As an EO in the DWP…I cur - benefits from the members – plac - union (now part of Unite), who be - come Lord Scanlon soon after retir - wing in the union). ing from the union in 2008. In 2008 a new soft-right general It’s a sad and telling milestone secretary, Steve Sinnott, died unex - Noise ballot UCU ballot opens TUC says: “Free for the decay of the once-radical left pectedly, and Blower got the job. in the union, which is now merged Soon the ostensible radical left — By Cath Fletcher Our Unions” with the smaller ATL to form the the Socialist Teachers’ Alliance and success National Education Union, NEU. the CDFU — had a clear majority at University staff belonging to By Darren Bedford Christine Blower had a substan - the top of the union. By Jay Dawkey UCU are being balloted for tial record on the left of the NUT. Workers’ Liberty voted with the strike action this autumn over The annual conference of the Not just the usual Morning Star left in all those polls. But we RMT Drivers on the Northern, pay equality, job security, Trade Union Congress, held in type “Broad Left”, but a more radi - warned that “the job… [is] to build Central, Victoria and Jubilee workload and pay deflation. Brighton from 8-11 September, cal left. the sort of genuine rank and file lines have returned a yes vote for unanimously passed a motion She had been associated with the that can ensure that we don’t rely action short of strike due to ex - Working conditions in higher from the Fire Brigades Union far-left group Big Flame, and she on the strengths and weaknesses of cessive track noise. education have been deteriorat - (FBU) committing the TUC to was prominent in the Socialist Al - individual leaders to organise a ing. The gender pay gap is over fight for the abolition of all anti- liance (a coalition of almost the militant and effectively organised Tubeworker congratulates the 15%; over 100,000 staff across the union laws, and positive legisla - whole radical left, including Work - unTiono” . true. The record of the workers who voted yes and sector are on fixed-term con - tion to ensure the right to strike. ers’ Liberty) in 2000-3. When the supposedly radical left in the bizarrely those who voted no. tracts; academic staff work over SWP trashed the Socialist Alliance NUT and NEU since then has Without them the ballot would not 50 hours in a typical week; and in The TUC’s position will be a wel - in 2003-4 in order instead to line up been no better than the record of have made it over the ridiculous the past ten years pay has de - come source of pressure on the next behind George Galloway in Re - the supposedly Marxist Socialist 50% threshold that the Trade Union clined by 20% in real terms. Labour government. Despite suc - spect. Blower refused to go with Party in its era of domination in Act imposes on unions. In 2018 an impressive strike cessive Labour conferences passing them, for left-wing reasons. the PCS civil service union. Since the issue was first raised forced pre-92 universities to back policy in favour of the abolition of The NUT had been increasingly miraculously management say down on massive pension cuts, all anti-union laws, Labour leaders, militant at rank and file level since they have found an extra £10 mil - but since then employers have re - and the party’s 2017 manifesto, lion to “tackle the issue”. Why they fused to compromise and now only refer to repealing the 2016 couldn’t see problems with the they’re trying again to impose Trade Union Act. Outsourced workers’ strikes continue Pandrol Vanguard system in the higher pension contributions. As Solidarity went to press on 10 first place we don’t know. Either Staff in those universities are September, FBU general secretary way workers should not have to also being balloted on that issue. Matt Wrack was due to speak at a By Ollie Moore As BEIS is one of the depart - endure track noise any longer. The 2018 strikes mobilised many fringe meeting organised by the ments responsible for delivering Tubeworker says the RMT should new activists into the union, who Free Our Unions campaigns, on a PCS members at the Depart - the government’s climate change start the slow down in noisy sec - have since taken over the leader - panel that also includes UCU gen - ment for Business, Energy, and policy, the union also plans to high - tions immediately. Neither drivers ship, promising serious organis - eral secretary Jo Grady, Lambeth Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are light climate change issues on the of passengers should be suffering ing against the employers not just Unison joint branch secretary Ruth continuing an indefinite strike for picket line on 20 September, to co - anSyt laotniogner .s taff can use the op - warm words. A good turn-out in Cashman, and a PCS activist and living wages. incide with the global climate strike portunity to explain exactly why the ballot is vital to meet the striker from the BEIS outsourced calOleudt sboyu srccheodo lc sletuadnenrts ainct iHvMistRs.C As well as organising lively the service is being disrupted, threshold and stop further cuts to woMrkicehrse’l ldei sRpoudteg. ers, the national offices on Merseyside are also picket lines, a group of strikers also and this kind of action will be paTyh aen db acollnodt iotiponesn. s on 9 Sep - president of the RMT, which striking from 16-20 September, joined anti-prorogation protests in very disruptive, let’s use the op - tember and runs until 30 Octo - backed the Free Our Unions and will be joining local climate Parliament Square, near their portunity to push the bosses ber. Vote Yes/Yes! campaign at its 2019 AGM, was strike mobilisations. workplace, on Tuesday 3 Septem - back and put safety first. due to chair. ber. SolidaFor a workers’ giovertnment y No 516 11 September 2019 50p/£1

How Labour should end austerity

By Chris Reynolds dards applying to local authority hit the disabled and families for housing, to provide local authority Deal. That — plus reducing the schools. whom the “bedroom tax” and housing at cheap rents for all who overwork of those already em - Since 2010 austerity has ground Academy chain bosses have es - housing-benefit ceilings have need it. ployed — is the way to get people down working-class living stan - tablished elaborate management made rent unaffordable. Tenants renting housing from into jobs. dards for the benefit of the ultra- hierarchies, and paid themselves Homelessness has soared. private landlords should have Local government autonomy, rich. Life has been made meaner huge salaries. From academy chain The benefit cuts have been pack - rights of secure tenure and to have whittled away for decades now, and more insecure. CEO to Executive Principal to Prin - aged into Universal Credit. Uni - “fair rents” set. since Thatcher, should be restored, Boris Johnson now says he will cipal to Head of School to an army versal Credit itself has added Labour should also commit to Labour should also commit to a end austerity. But that is all a mat - of Vice-Principals is now not an suffering because of the difficulties repair the damage to structures crucial measure underpinning all ter of previously-budgeted money atypical superstructure of suits-in- of applying (online only), the de - done by the Tories. The Blair and the others. The anti-union laws, being “recycled” and called expan - offices to find on top of the actual lays in payment, and erratic effects Brown governments, in a period of dating from Thatcher’s day, which sion, and random promises to try classroom work. of wage schedules on what relative economic boom, expanded outlaw solidarity strikes, political to win a general election after In repeated scandals, some of claimants get. NHS and school budgets signifi - strikes, quick-response strikes, and them have been found out scoop - cantly, but did great structural effective picketing, must be re - which he will be free to do his LOCAL GOVERNMENT right-wing worst for five years. ing out of school funds for per - damage, which has since been pealed. sonal expenses, or granting lush Local government services have worsened by the Tories. A strong trade union movement The NHS and social care have been cut worst of all. Social care been squeezed so that waiting lists contracts to companies controlled The NHS should be restored as will be an enforcer and a guarantor by their friends or relatives. and libraries have been hit espe - an integrated public service, for revived public services and expand and A&E wait times ex - cially hard. plode. Hospitals routinely run at Meanwhile basic school budgets closely connected with adequately- benefits. It will counter and tame the upper limit of capacity, so that have been squeezed. Provision for In 2017 Labour pledged to take funded, publicly-run social care. the punitive and overprivileged an epidemic, or an unusually harsh students with special educational about £50 billion a year more in All schools should be brought managerial hierarchies which have winter, would throw them into needs and disabilities has been taxes from the rich and well-off in back into democratic local author - grown up across the public sector. chaos. squeezed especially. order to rebuild the “social wage”. ity control. Student fees should be Without a strong trade union Resources are wasted by elabo - Further education has been It should reaffirm that pledge. abolished. movement, a simple increase in rate bureaucratic procedures for squeezed even more. And more. NHS, school, benefit, The whole welfare system public-service funding can be si - “contracting out” services to pri - Universities have expanded, but and local government budgets should be reoriented to provide for phoned off into increased manage - vate profiteers. on the basis of ever-swelling stu - should be restored to their levels need, rather than designed as a rial salaries and more elaborate Market forces have also dam - dent debt and worsened pay and before the cuts. punitive bludgeon to force people contracting-out procedures. And it aged education. More than half all conditions for staff (other than a And more again. The housing into insecure low-wage jobs. will be vulnerable to shrinkage schools in England are now “acad - few “star” professors and money- squeeze cannot be dealt with just The expansion of the public whenever world capitalism runs emies” or “free schools”, funded grabbing Vice-Chancellors). by reversing cuts. A Labour gov - services necessary to restore the intFor ecrei soisu. r unions! directly by central government, Benefits, especially working-age ernment needs to launch a big pro - “social wage” will create good new and exempt from many of the stan - benefits, have been cut again and gram of building and converting jobs. So will the decarbonising again. These cuts have particularly measures of a socialist Green New Contact us Subscribe to Solidarity To: ...... (your bank) ...... (address) Account name ...... (your name) 020 7394 8923 Trial sub (6 issues) £7 o Six months (22 issues) £22 waged o, £11 unwaged o Account number ...... 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