A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity weekly

Chris Knight offers an appreciation n Climate rebels workern CWI about to split of Velimir Khlebnikov, the prophet n Lessons of ISO and poet of the Russian Revolution n Debating strategy No 1248 Thursday April 25 2019 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union £1/€1.10 PROVIDING ‘LEFT’ COVER FOR THE FAR RIGHT 2 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker LETTERS

I’ve been interested in gender issues Letters may have been Margaret Hodge and contrasting it to the to this theory, biological sex might be a remedies for our members. We demand shortened because of treatment of Chris Williamson, arguing given, but ‘gender’ - one’s perception of and sexuality ever since a comrade (and that the WEP and its collaborators destroy space. Some names the case for natural justice, due process self - is a social construct and therefore trades council secretary) told me in 1981 immediately all footage obtained illegally  may have been changed and equal treatment for all. These and can be changed. that he would be the third person in inside clubs and apologise to the dancers. many others need to be discussed at local “Radical feminism applied the Britain to have a sex-change operation. Dancers have made it clear that level and carried through to the national Marxist theory of class struggle to the He said that he would soon be in the they don’t need rescuing, They need a Get stuck in conference. And reopening the debate on relationship between men and women. papers. The Eastern Daily Press did workplace where they can earn a living The perpetual grovelling and apologising open selection is of vital importance. According to this theory, women were a very sympathetic article, whilst The to support themselves and their families. in the face of the bogus anti-Semitism The old left has let the side down the first oppressed class and men used Sun had an article on page 3 headlined: Women choose to work in strip clubs smear campaign against Jeremy Corbyn badly in its pitiful response to the bogus the biological sex differences to invent “Union brother says call me sister.” He for the same reasons people choose a reached new depths last week with the anti-Semitism smear campaign. The motherhood as the task of women also told me that he would have to live as wide variety of jobs: funding university humiliating apology of Richard Burgon degrading and humiliating strategy and marriage as a way to secure their a woman for a year before he could have studies, family needs, a disability and MP for stating the blatantly obvious that of appeasement and apology is a power over women. Freedom from this his operation. This explained his permed a scarcity of other work options. All of Zionism is an enemy of peace. painful embarrassment that is totally oppression could supposedly be achieved hair and his diet, which included eating them are working because they need to Instead of standing by what was and is counterproductive. Conniving with by identifying the ways in which large quantities of cheese. make a living under increasingly difficult an accurate statement, he fell into line and the right to prevent discussion on open language and culture oppress women and Whilst transvestites make up a large conditions - extortionate housing costs, apologised, in step with heroic strategy of selection has been and is an absolute deconstructing the cultural supports for percentage of the male population, only inaccessible and inadequate benefits, lack appeasement at all costs that our fearless disaster. recognition of the differences between a very small percentage feel the need to of childcare and falling wages in other leaders have adopted. As is always the It is time for those new forces on the men and women. undergo gender reassignment surgery. industries. case, apologising makes it look as if you left, with their self-respect and backbone “This deconstructing of ‘gender’ It’s a pity that Amanda Maclean did We demand that the WEP cease its have done something wrong. It gives still intact, to stand up and be counted. is behind the radical feminist war on not mention the wide range of male campaign of harassment and intimidation confidence to the bullies, who have made The Corbyn project can still be saved, but marriage and motherhood, and their sexuality and fetishes. For example, a against dancers in Sheffield, Manchester you apologise for doing or saying nothing only if we all get stuck in and help him fanatical support for lesbianism and lady regularly advertises in the Wisbech and elsewhere. If the WEP wants to help that is inaccurate in the first place. It gives out. abortion on demand.” Standard/Cambs Times her specialist women, they should campaign against the impression that the left is weak and Steve McKenzie Dale O’Leary concludes: “We have correction and cross-dressing services. austerity measures and poverty wages - cowardly and consolidates the grip that email to defend patriarchy - which if you think As Amanda says, sex is very reducing women’s job options, as they are the right in the Parliamentary Labour about the word is men imitating the important. Sex nearly destroyed the attempting to do, is not only unhelpful, Party and the trade union bureaucracies Gender ideology ‘Father from whom every fatherhood British Socialist Workers Party over its but harmful. If they want to help dancers have over Corbyn. I read with sorrow Amanda MacLean’s takes its name’. God was a Father before mishandling of the ‘Comrade Delta’ rape working in clubs, they are welcome to Unless ordinary rank-and-file party article, ‘Decoupled from reality’ he made any fathers. We have to defend allegation. Sex has recently destroyed join UVW’s unionising efforts, listen to members rise up and come to the aid of the (Weekly Worker April 18). Like so many the natural division of humanity into male the International Socialist Organisation women and support them on their own leadership, the Corbyn project is destined contributors to the ‘debate’ around and female.” in the USA. But the ‘left’ is very prudish terms. to end in tears. Whether it is as a result transgender rights Amanda quickly Since around 2012 there have been when it comes to matters of sex. The We are a members-led trade union, of Jeremy being forced to stand down or moves from an argument ostensibly campaigns against gender mainstreaming, splits in the Committee for a Workers’ organising low-paid, precarious and, a Corbyn-led Labour government being about unintended consequences that the sexual education, LGBTQ+ and International (CWI) are over the attitude predominantly, migrant and outsourced brought down from within before it can Gender Recognition Act may have for the reproductive rights that have utilised the of its sections towards sexual politics and workers all over the UK. UVW supports implement any meaningful changes is rights of cis-woman, to one that presents concept of ‘gender ideology’ in Croatia, feminism. Ironically, the CWI is opposed members fighting for better pay and dependent on political developments. trans activists as out to get cis-woman and Germany, Italy, France, Lithuania, to prostitution in the same way that conditions and, often, for equality with What is clear is that, in either inevitable effectively questions trans, non-binary Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia. rightwing Christian fundamentalist are. directly employed workers. UVW scenario, any progressive reforms - so and intersex people’s right to exist - or The war on gender has also become They don’t understand that most women became the first union in the country to desperately needed by so many millions only exist as some sort of second-class a powerful force in the Americas. It is become escorts because escorting pays end outsourcing at a university when it of working class people in this country - woman or man or as a sufferer of a thought to have been decisive in the failure better that working on a supermarket forced the LSE to bring all its cleaners will be blocked. The aims and objectives “crippling condition”. of the peace referendum in Columbia, checkout. in-house after organising the then largest of the anti-austerity movement will not A central part of the creation of this and in Brazil it aided the election of the It is therefore very apt and brave that cleaners’ strike in UK history in 2017. have been achieved, and we will be back narrative is that evocation of the concept fascist president, Jair Bolsonaro. Finally the Weekly Worker can publish such a In 2018, UVW members in the to square one. of ‘genderist’ or ‘gender ideology’ - a it was utilised by Donald Trump in the fascinating article by Amanda Maclean sex industry started organising for The consequences of black theory that Amanda never really defines. run-up to his election as president of the on Genderist Ideology. More articles workers status and recognition of their September last year are coming back to She rather loosely alludes to it being United States. ‘Gender ideology’ is a on sexual politics and so-called post- rights at work, as well as for the full haunt us. First there was the unanimous “postmodernist” and that it claims that straw doll theory utilised by the Christian feminism would be of great interest to decriminalisation of sex work. Workers acceptance of the International Holocaust “transwomen are literally women”. It and far right in order not only to oppress me, and possibly other readers. are best placed to advocate their own rights Remembrance Alliance definition of anti- becomes a straw doll, with words put in transgendered people, but also lesbians, John Smithee and safety at work, and dancers across the Semitism, including the 11 examples, at trans activists’ mouths, that then can be gay men, bisexuals and cis-woman. Cambridgeshire UK are working with their trade union to the Labour Party national executive on knocked down. The rationale for this tactic of ensure that protections from harassment, September 4. Does anyone remember the An example of this is Amanda’s targeting transgender rights is explained Revenge porn intimidation and exploitation are in place. statement that Jeremy tried to move that critique of scientific research that suggests by Meg Kilgannon at the 2017 Values United Voices of the World, the trade UVW is currently seeking recognition in he was forced to withdraw? It should not that sex might be a wider spectrum, Voter Summit - an annual conference union representing strippers working a number of clubs in order to represent the be “regarded as anti-Semitic to describe which she implies, without evidence, is organised by the rightwing Family in clubs across the UK, is appalled workers’ collective interests. Israel, its policies or the circumstances somehow driven by “gender ideology”. Research Council in the United States. by the duplicitous ‘sting’ operations Shiri Shalmy around its foundation as racist because of She then goes on to dispute this new Kilgannon observed: “For all its recent orchestrated by the Women’s Equality United Voices of the World their discriminatory impact, or to support research with reference to a book written success, the LGBT alliance is actually Party in Sheffield and Manchester, which another settlement of the Israel-Palestine over a half a century ago - JZ Young’s fragile and the trans activists need the are targeting legal clubs, interfering with Feigning leftism conflict”. The full impact of the collective The life of vertebrates was first published gay rights movement to help legitimise workers’ rights and violating women’s “This was, of course, in the days political cowardice that totally isolated in 1962! them.” According to Kilgannon, “Trans right to privacy. when Sinn Féin was still socialist the democratically elected leader is now Perhaps more worrying than and gender identity are a tough sell, so In a misguided, self-appointed, ...”, explains Dave Douglass (Letters, being felt. Amanda’s intemperate words and focus on gender identity to divide and mission to ‘save’ dancers, the WEP April 18). As are the decisions that were seemingly outdated understanding of conquer … gender identity on its own is continues to put livelihoods at risk, while Of course, that very much depends imposed by the misuse of the bloc vote biology is her seeming complete lack of just a bridge too far. If we separate the T ignoring the explicit wishes of the women on your definition of socialism, by the trade union bureaucracies at awareness of the origin and political use from the alphabet soup we’ll have more involved. As a feminist trade union, we Dave. The late Richard Montague - a conference a fortnight later. The decision of the phrase ‘gender ideology’. Several success.” are extremely alarmed by this practice, former activist in the IRA during his to prevent debate on open selection has academics, including Roman Kuhar An important part of this strategy will continue to support our members younger years, until he came across meant that unaccountable elements in and David Paternotte, have traced the is to make common cause beyond the in clubs across the country and offer the Socialist Party of Great Britain - the PLP remain unaccountable. That has development of the concept as a response Christian right: “The feminists make solidarity to all dancers affected by this described the Sinn Feigners as simply led to increasing attacks on the leadership to the advancement of woman’s rights eloquent arguments that gender identity harmful behaviour. another party of reformists seeking to without the perpetrators having to answer within the United Nations and its agencies really is the ultimate misogyny and the In recent months, the WEP has run capitalism. And it always has been to the membership. The reason for the in the mid-90s. For the first time the UN erasure of women,” argues Kilgannon. contracted men to access clubs, the case, ever since its foundations imposition of a new method of electing recognised sexual and reproductive “And lesbians in the group are concerned undercover, and pay workers for dances. and through all the ensuing twists and a new leader, with more power vested rights, and the term ‘gender’ was adopted. that trans and masculine girls is a form of These included two former policemen, turns. Any lip service to socialism was in the trade union bureaucrats, becomes The Vatican was riled - worried that this lesbian eugenics.” who are regular punters at Spearmint ideological milk and honey to sweeten increasingly clear. would advance access to safe abortions It really is time for Amanda MacLean, Rhino, Sheffield. Unbeknown to dancers, the nationalist poison. As does the suspension, pending and LGBTQ rights. and other (although thankfully a minority) and against rules clearly displayed around National boundaries may be altered a disciplinary investigation, of Chris They set up a unit that worked closely feminists to recognise that not only is all strip clubs, the WEP’s contractors used - may even disappear - but such Williamson MP, on entirely spurious with Dale O’Leary, an American anti- their campaign against transgender rights hidden cameras and Google glasses to constitutional rearrangements can in no grounds. feminist, in order to study and counter malevolent, but it undermines all the film dancers fully or partially nude. They way abolish the misery of the many. The whole ‘Corbyn project’ is at feminist and queer thought. Drawing advances that have been won by LGBT then passed on the sensitive footage to The trading arrangement of the UK a critical juncture. The choice is quite on and misrepresenting the work of a people and all women, whether cis or their handlers at the WEP and, potentially, capitalist class is an irrelevant issue from simple. The usual suspects in the PLP diversity of feminists and queer theorists, transgender, over the last 50 years or others. a socialist point of view. It is a dispute and their unaccountable counterparts in such as Judith Butler, Shulamith Firestone so. Amanda MacLean may be happy to Filming people without their explicit between rival capitalist class interests. the trade union bureaucracies take back and Simone de Beauvoir - and then return to 1962, when the ‘natural division and direct consent is not just immoral: Sinn Feign is a prisoner of dogmas control and topple Jeremy Corbyn or blending it with the work of John Money, of humanity’ was taught and policed. sharing footage of naked women, inherited from yesteryear. If their the mass membership becomes a mass the controversial sexologist, and a bit of When uppity woman, along with those of obtained without consent and with the seven Westminster MPs took their movement and stops them. At the present mangled Marxism - they developed the us who have the “crippling condition” of explicit aim to undermine and harm seats they would counter the 10 time only a minority of the membership theory. being trans or queer, were imprisoned or them, constitutes harassment and misuse Democratic Unionist Party MPs, but is in any way active. It is critical that In an article in Crisis Magazine, a sectioned. of private information under UK law. they decline to do so, as they are not minority becomes the majority. reactionary Catholics website, Dale I, for one, don’t! As feminists and trade unionists, we are prepared to go through the empty There are no end of issues to be outlines her understanding of ‘gender Richard Farnos appalled by the fact that the WEP decided formality of swearing allegiance to the raised at a branch and constituency level. ideology’: email to violate women’s rights by using what crown - even though they are happy Resolutions supporting Chris Williamson, “Radical feminists took the idea could amount to revenge porn in order to enough to extend their handshakes to condemning the gross exaggeration of of gender and combined it with their Brave further their obsession with shutting down the royals. the anti-Semitism problem, pointing social constructionist (postmodernist I found Amanda Maclean’s article on legitimate and legal workplaces. United Alan Johnstone out the outrageous behaviour of Dame deconstruction) ideology. According genderist ideology most fascinating. Voices of the World will be seeking legal SPGB BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07903 054393 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly 3 1248 worker April 25 2019 CLIMATE

London Communist Forum Sunday April 28, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB Provisional Central Committee, followed by open discussion and reading group: study of August Nimtz’s Lenin’s electoral strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917. This meeting: chapter 2 (continued): ‘Opportunism and reformism in western Europe’. Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London WC1. Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk. Radical Anthropology Group Tuesday April 30, 6.30pm: Series of talks on social and biological anthropology, Daryll Forde seminar room, Anthropology Building, 14 Taviton Street, off Gordon Square, London WC1. This meeting: ‘Did matriarchy ever exist?’ Speaker: Chris Knight. Organised by Radical Anthropology Group: http://radicalanthropologygroup.org. Keep the guard on Southern trains Friday April 26, 12 noon: Demonstration, Evergreen Building More needed than civil disobedience North, 160 Euston Road, London NW1. Mark the third anniversary of opposing the extension of driver-only operation on Southern Railway. Organised by RMT: http://bit.ly/2OuA8ve. March for unity against racism Saturday April 27, 2pm: Demonstration, Dominion Road, Southall, UB2. 40 years since Blair Peach was fatally attacked by the Fill the jails? Metropolitan Police’s special patrol group. Organised by Southall Resists 40: www.facebook.com/Southallresists40. Extinction Rebellion’s fighting spirit is admirable. But a Britain is broken - end austerity now Sunday April 28, 1.30pm: March and rally, Firstsite, Lewis Gardens, viable strategy and programme is urgently needed, argues Colchester CO1. Organised by Colchester People’s Assembly: Eddie Ford www.facebook.com/events/331469450810068. ver 1,000 people were the Swedish 16-year-old ecologist who Party, set up Umkhonto we Sizwe, the Stop arming Saudi, stop bombing Yemen arrested as part of Extinction has especially enamoured the BBC armed wing of the African National Sunday April 28, 4.30pm: Public meeting, Ilford Central Library, ORebellion’s rolling series of and been described as a “role model” Congress - designed to “foment violent Clements Road, Ilford IG1. The Saudi-led war has devastated Yemen protests in London, which finally for worldwide student activism (three revolution” in the not inaccurate words and killed tens of thousands of people. Ending arms sales to Saudi ended on April 25. Given the nature of members of the Norwegian parliament of the prosecution at his trial. Martin Arabia is essential and urgent. Speakers include Fabian Hamilton MP. the ecological crisis facing the planet, have nominated her for the Nobel Peace Luther King’s civil rights movements Organised by Ilford Momentum and Redbridge Against the War: with a potentially catastrophic climate Prize). Symbolically, a place was left at had strong input from various leftwing www.facebook.com/groups/399177590631425. breakdown, communists can only the table for the absent Theresa May. groups, including the US Communist applaud their determination in blocking Party. Rosa Park’s famous 1955 bus May Day march roads, obstructing train lines and so on. Tactics ride in Montgomery, Alabama, was Wednesday May 1, 12 noon: Demonstration. Assemble Clerkenwell On April 23 ER protestors gathered Extinction Rebellion was initially a meticulously planned and prepared Green, London EC1 (nearest tube: Farringdon) for march to Trafalgar outside parliament to make their three established in May 2018, with about operation - not a spontaneous act of Square. Solidarity on International Workers Day. Speakers include John central demands: for politicians to “tell 100 academics signing a “call to rebellion, as implied in many liberal McDonnell MP. the truth” about the climate and wider action”. Its mass arrest tactic is very accounts of the incident. Organised by London May Day Organising Committee: ecological emergency; for the UK similar to that deployed by the anti- As for the suffragettes, they used www.londonmayday.org. to unilaterally cut carbon emissions nuclear ‘Committee of 100’ in 1961. In downright terroristic methods in Marx Memorial Library to net zero by 2025 and generally April of that year 826 were arrested in pursuit of their aims - arson, letter Wednesday May 1, 11am: Museum open day, Marx Memorial Library, reduce consumption levels; and for a protest in Parliament Square, while bombs, intimidation of MPs, and so 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1. Free tours, displays and a the formation of a national citizens’ in September the figure was 1,314 on. Civil disobedience, yes, but of a second-hand bookstall. assembly to “oversee the changes” as following a day of demonstrations. completely different type from that Organised by Marx Memorial Library: part of creating a “democracy fit for In essence, the Committee’s plan advocated by either the Committee www.facebook.com/events/353995138663273. purpose”. Since January, when ER held was to “fill the jails” by means of of 100 or ER. In this context, the old Why Palestine is still the issue a one-hour occupation of Holyrood’s non-violent mass civil disobedience, Chartist formulation still remains as Thursday May 2, 6.30pm: Public meeting, Hamilton House, Mabledon debating chambers, the organisation or passive resistance, in the hope of true as ever - ‘Peacefully if we can, Place, London WC1. Hold Israel to account and push for an end to the has raised £365,000 - mostly in small compelling the government to meet forcibly if we must’. oppression of the Palestinian people. Speakers include Lindsey German donations of between £10 and £50. their demands. Fixated by pacifistic civil and Tariq Ali. Register for free tickets. Even though there has been a large Like the more recent Occupy and disobedience, ER has no political Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition: number of arrests, police tactics have other such anarchistic formations, it strategy to guide it - it often seems to www.facebook.com/events/431867197569266. been relatively ‘softly, softly’. After eschewed formal membership and make things up as it goes along. For all, almost everyone is pro-green these any sort of disciplined, accountable instance, on April 18 four ER protestors Labour Against the Witchhunt days. Hence the police have engaged structure, in favour of decentralisation, chained themselves to a fence outside Saturday May 4, 1pm: Members’ meeting, central London (venue in a form of reverse kettling - ie, not self-selected “working groups” and the home of Jeremy Corbyn. What was details will be sent to members). Moving the campaign forward and hemming people in, but keeping others all the other trappings of ‘consensual the point of that, seeing how the Labour electing additional members to the steering committee. from joining them. However, one person democracy’. Yet in the end the leader, in his own way, is a strong Organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt: who does not appear to be enthusiastic Committee’s approach ended in failure. supporter of environmentalist politics? www.facebook.com/events/493682997827672. about the protests is the Labour mayor of The authorities merely imprisoned a Afterwards, one of those who took part Class struggles, the state and film London, Sadiq Khan - describing them few of the most important supporters in the stunt said: “We are here because Films followed by discussion, Organised by Marx Memorial Library, as “counterproductive” to the cause of and ignored the rest, the group we are supporters of Jeremy Corbyn 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1. Entrance £5 (£3). climate change, as they were “stretching” eventually folding up in October and he is the best hope this country has Wednesday May 8, 7pm: Miners, dockers and builders in a period of police resources. What a shame. 1968. In the meantime, the UK further got to get us out of this.” The idea that militancy: www.facebook.com/events/247509756132464. In some respects, Khan’s stance is at developed its nuclear arsenal. simply changing the prime minister in Wednesday May 15, 7pm: The ‘enemy within’ - the Thatcher odds with that of the Labour leadership, Given that ER’s method is modelled Britain could call a halt the ecological government attacks: www.facebook.com/events/268104377453694. which is keen to be associated with the on the Committee of 100, CND, damage to the planet is a little bit Wednesday May 22, 7pm: Women’s struggle: environmental cause. Labour does not Occupy, etc, it faces a similar problem misguided - to put it mildly. www.facebook.com/events/392972168163097. want to lose people to ER, but rather - and possibly the same fate too - Then we have Greta Thunberg. She Exist! Resist! Return! recruit from that milieu - definitely fizzling out after a brief explosion of damningly told MPs that the British Saturday May 11, 12 noon: National demonstration. Assemble get their votes. Jon Ashworth, the hyper-activity (or eventually getting government’s “active support” for fossil Portland Place, London W1, for march to Whitehall. No new nakba! shadow health secretary, addressed the thoroughly incorporated into the fuels and airport expansion is “beyond End the siege! Defend the right of return! protestors when they were congregated mainstream establishment). The ER absurd” - which is clearly true. She Organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign: outside parliament - pledging to make protestors gave themselves up for went on to castigate world leaders for www.facebook.com/events/260404684903442. climate change a “central focus” of arrest. not listening to the science and singled With banners held high Labour’s policy and expressing his Somewhat predictably, it has to be out the UK for having a “mind-blowing Saturday May 18, 11.30am to 5pm: March and labour movement support for a citizens’ assembly. Inside said, ER cites inspiration from Occupy, historical carbon debt”, a reference festival. Assemble Smyth Street, Wakefield WF1. Live speakers, music, the chamber, the shadow international Mahatma Gandhi, the suffragettes, to the cumulative emissions since the poetry and drama. Organised by With Banners Held High: trade minister, Barry Gardiner, said Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela industrial revolution. Thunberg called www.facebook.com/events/1159025200917201. that that, alongside the school strikes, and others involved in the history for a “general strike” to force leaders to the ER protests were reminiscent of of civil rights movements - with the act on climate change. Stop the London arms fair previous memorable struggles and obvious emphasis on non-violence Obviously, ER does not have an Events organised by Campaign Against Arms Trade. victories “won by citizens uniting and pacifism. But the strong suspicion anti-capitalist programme or anything Saturday June 15, 12.30pm: Network organising meeting, St Hilda’s against injustice”. Readers will recall is that many of those active in ER do remotely like it. Nonetheless, the East Community Centre, 8 Club Row, London E2. Planning the that about 1.6 million school students not understand the reasons that led to demand to reduce carbon emissions mobilisation against the global arms trade in London in September. worldwide went on strike to protest the success of these individuals and to net zero by 2025 is implicitly ant- www.facebook.com/events/432514417493720. against climate inaction in another movements. Indian independence was capitalist. Capitalism, after all, is based Saturday June 22, 11am: Training session, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a splendid display of militancy - the next secured not by Gandhi’s questionable on production for the sake of profit. Beswick Street, Manchester M4. Skill up to stop the DSEI arms fair. school strike is scheduled to take place spiritual teachings, but the Indian But to overcome capitalism requires www.facebook.com/events/591596081307911. globally on May 24. National Congress - a mass party of a serious organisation and a serious CPGB wills Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn and many millions that had a definite party- programme. Civil disobedience alone Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s name other party leaders (Vince Cable, political structure and collective leaders. cannot do it l and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your will. Ian Blackford, Liz Saville Roberts, For his part, Nelson Mandela, along If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. Caroline Lucas) met Greta Thunberg - with the South African Communist [email protected] 4 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker CWI Taaffe demands a split Further leaks from the CWI point to a parting of ways, writes Paul Demarty

hen we last addressed the ongoing divisions in the WCommittee for a Workers’ International - the international grouping still, barely, headed by the Socialist Party in England and Wales, née Militant Tendency - we concluded that things were headed for a split. Not, of course, that you would know it from a glance at the organisation’s website, or - so far as we can tell - any of its international press. This is not surprising, since it is one of many organisations that insists on deluding itself that its affairs can be conducted in secret - already laughable in the age of the photocopier, but beyond parody in the age of the internet. Nonetheless, it does force the rest of us to rely on whatever leaks happen to be forthcoming. On that front, it seems that our prediction - unfortunately - is holding true, and a split may be along sooner rather than later. A frothing, incoherent document from the London-loyal faction leaked to the Cedar Lounge Revolution blog (which covers Irish politics) all but declares the majority of the CWI’s international executive committee (IEC) outside the organisation. Their Two thousand members ... pull the other one crime? Daring to call a meeting. The story so far - in brief - is that of the CWI. We entirely reject this Taaffe’s characterisation of those should have legal access to abortion. other details. Taaffe’s final reason for tensions have been simmering between action, which is the declaration of differences, we can only conclude That does not excuse the barely- refusing to submit to the decisions of SPEW and its Irish sister organisation, a split from the CWI.2 that the aforementioned rights may be critical attitude taken by the Irish the meeting in August is that the IEC the Socialist Party, for years. A crisis exercised only if the IS deems them SP (and, for that matter, Socialist is - don’t you know - unrepresentative: point was reached when the leadership This is, to put it mildly, a rather strong to be done appropriately, according Alternative, the CWI’s American of the Irish SP decided that a London- claim. We do not have to hand the to its political judgement, and that all section) to bourgeois feminist layers; Its composition is weighed towards loyal member was preparing a split. constitution of the CWI, admittedly, polemic must be conducted according but Taaffe and his minions are a little the smaller groups like Cyprus, Some unspecified countermeasures but, if we had, we presumably would to the IS’s view of things. In short, it short on credibility when they make a Poland or Australia, with one were adopted, which caused an discover that the IEC has the right to is all very well that comrades should big deal out of it. full [IEC] member, whose active almighty ruckus, and, though the call a meeting of its members, and ‘propose’ changes, but quite out of Worse still, however, is Taaffe’s membership is less than some Irish leadership admitted it had acted that this right devolves to a working order for them to come anywhere accusation that several sections have branches in other sections! Or Russia, wrongly, this seems to have pushed majority of its members. What are near winning their proposals. made a “turn away from systematic with 25 members and two full IEC Peter Taaffe - the leader of SPEW and, Taaffe’s objections? Firstly, that the The idea that differences at the level trade union work”, indicating a members and not a single full-timer. in effect, the CWI - to pursue a split for NFF comrades are downplaying the of programme should be absolutely lack of “consistent orientation and Greece, with 302 members, has 4 real. Such is his luck at the moment political differences, which are very necessary for a change of leadership intervention to [sic] the working class IEC members - the same as England that he bodged it disastrously and, in serious: is bunkum. It is equivalent to saying and its organisations”. There can and Wales, with 2,000 members. trying to rally the various CWI sections that Theresa May should have to have be no greater such abdication than Three sections - Cyprus, Australia to teach the Irish a lesson, he turned Some sections of the CWI have some principled disagreement with SPEW’s disastrous failure to engage and Russia - have a total of 66 a majority of the IEC against him. In buckled to the pressures of Chris Grayling about the Irish border with the Labour Party in the last few members and four IEC members! response, he formed a faction with the ‘identity politics’. Others have question in order to sack him, rather years, decisively and deliberately rather unwieldy name - “In defence of a gone even further and have or are in than his manifest incompetence; or, turning its backs on a titanic struggle, This is as laughable as the other workers’ and Trotskyist CWI” - and the the process of capitulating to them for that matter, that members of the and diverting militant trade union reasons (OK, Peter, who was it who two sides agreed to have a showdown … This divergence is reflected by IEC should need to refer to the detail contingents from that struggle to boot. set up this particular arrangement?), congress next March. a turn away from systematic trade of Trotsky’s theory of permanent Again, Taaffe’s opponents at least but we want to highlight something There are many unresolved issues, union work in a number of sections revolution to get rid of an IS member have the excuse for their opportunism else. Remember, at the beginning of but the most important from a practical and abandonment of an orientation who had been caught siphoning funds that - say - abortion matters in this contretemps, both sides were very point of view is that the IEC majority and emphasis on the centrality of to his personal account. Ireland. No better excuse for SPEW’s proud of belonging to the “largest is against Taaffe, but the smaller the working class. This, of course, leaves open the criminal abstentionism has ever come Trotskyist international”. Look at international secretariat (IS), which question of how wide the differences forth than tedious stories of how those numbers (and, as for SPEW exercises day-to-day control, is firmly The NFF comrades’ claims to defend actually are. Without access to the some Labour councillor in Nuneaton having 2,000 members, pull the other in his grip. An operator as cynical as unity are given short shrift: “The IEC majority supporters’ recent voted to close a Sure Start centre, ad one, Peter - it’s got bells on). Add in Taaffe was always likely to treat the failure to debate the political issues documents, it is still rather hard to infinitum. It is plain to all observers the 100 or so in Ireland. According IS as factional property, and so it has and only call for ‘revolutionary unity’ tell. Certainly the Irish Socialist Party that the real issue is SPEW’s sect- to Wikipedia, Socialist Alternative proven. In our last article, in fact, we without political agreement is the has made great play of the women’s coherence. has 1,000 members, which may be advised the IEC faction to “replace receipt [sic] for a split.” question recently, in a manner that The stage is set for the split, then, an exaggeration, but say it is 500. [the current IS] with a representative could certainly be fairly described as and we should be very surprised if Suddenly it does not seem so grand - body and, if Taaffe’s faction threatens Regime change ‘buckling to the pressure of identity Peter waits around until August to and many of those numbers are about to walk, its bluff should be called”.1 It is You may be wondering what this politics’. But much the same thing is drive it through. A commenter - one to get a lot smaller in short order. in response to an apparent attempt to do discussion has to do with whether on offer at Socialism, SPEW’s annual ‘Joe’ - on the document suggests: The unembarrassable comrade exactly that that the new Taaffe-loyalist the IEC should meet in August, and school, when someone condescends “it looks like there’ll be two Taaffe will no doubt motor on document has been written. Calling frankly so are we. There is little to talk about it. ‘internationals’ coming out of this regardless, believing as he apparently the IEC majority and its supporters enough in the document about the You could balk, as Taaffe does, split. With the Irish in one and the does in his indispensability for the the ‘non-faction faction’, Taaffe and procedural issues - presumably at the suggestion that “the women’s English in another.” This is possible, success of international socialism. co set out to respond to an open letter because Taaffe’s faction does not have movement was detonating the but the trouble is that Taaffe is wrong, But his remaining members will circulated by their opponents: a leg to stand on. According to Taaffe, struggles of the working class” - and the supposed ‘non-faction faction’ have to face the reality that their Trot the NFF - devious conspirators that which certainly seems a rather over- does not have a coherent alternative international is just like more or less In their statement the NFF rejected they are - deny being out for ‘regime rosy assessment of the impact of anti- political direction. The paradox is all the others - an oil-slick sect in the decision of the international change’, but several of their members Trump feminist protests and #MeToo that this may make Taaffe’s criticisms hock to its founding section. secretariat to convene a meeting openly raise the demand for a certain - but Taaffe’s cronies routinely assert ‘come true’: formal membership of a How many of the “2,000” will in November 2019 and appealed “Peter T” to be removed from the IS. that nationalist agitation is just such a Trotskyist ‘international’ in itself will stick around for the next chapter of for the IS and the openly declared Quite a scandal! ‘detonation’, in Scotland, Spain and have offered countervailing pressure this dismal story? l international faction [ie, Taaffe’s Indeed, he is lamely reduced, elsewhere; and if the one amounts to the wider atmosphere on the left, faction - PD] to reconsider later on, to acknowledging that to denying “the centrality of the which is - indeed - utterly dominated [email protected] its position and commit to “it is comrades’ right to propose” working class”, so does the other. by liberal identity politics. There is no participating in an IEC meeting regime change of this sort; and If anything, Taaffe’s softness on reason to suppose that the sections, Notes in August. Now they have taken indeed that “all comrades have the national separatism is worse, since or fragments of sections, that ‘place 1. ‘Taaffe goes for the throat’, April 4. the decision to convene a meeting right to oppose the IS”. His only separatism is plainly a reactionary themselves outside the international’ 2. https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/ of the IEC in August themselves. basis for objecting is that they have dead end, whereas it certainly is according to the IS should proceed to to-all-cwi-members. Though the authorship of this document is unknown, we will assume, for This action is part of the objective not been open enough for him about in the interest of the working class form a continuity CWI of their own. brevity’s sake, that it is Peter Taaffe. If he wishes of the NFF to carry through a their political differences; but, that women should not be sexually Not that we expect the mothership to distance himself from it, our letters page is ‘regime change’ in the leadership given that the NFF does not accept harassed as a matter of routine and to fare much better. Here we turn to always open. weekly 5 1248 worker April 25 2019 ISO Full-timers and ‘cadre’ Mike Macnair discusses the managerialist version of ‘democratic centralism’ revealed by the collapse of yet another sect n April 4 I wrote about the ‘rape leadership core with job and other overwork, on the one hand, and serious 1920-21 decisions, to which Lenin and its full-timers. Already in 1931 Cannon cover-up’ aspect of the collapse patronage possibilities.5 poverty, on the other. The result is that Trotsky were unequivocally parties, wrote that the Communist League of of the US International Socialist Conversely, ‘permanent factions’ it is hard to do the work required to in the hope of finding a ‘pure form’ America’s conference should O 1 Organisation, while a week later Peter (existing outside the formal pre- publish papers, run campaigns, organise of Leninism and preserving ‘T is Moody wrote more generally about its conference period) were banned; with meetings, and so on, without full-timers. for Trotsky the hero’. Secondly, the Begin the actual formation of a politics.2 This article is concerned with the effect that horizontal communication To the extent that we do do without full- ‘scapegoat Zinoviev’ approach leaves cadre of professional revolutionists, another specific aspect of the collapse: beyond the single local branch, though timers, we are generally forced to rely out the reasons for the decisions taken who put themselves entirely at the the claim of several participants and not formally banned, was liable to be on people who have other advantages (even if those decisions can be seen in disposal of the organisation. Select online commentators that it is due to treated as ‘factionalism’. And a sharp under capitalism - with the same risk retrospect to have been mistaken). a group out of the younger and ‘democratic centralism’ or the ‘small line was drawn between what could of inequality as when employing The original idea that the class has foot-loose elements, and train them party model’. be published (the leadership’s line) and full-timers. The second prong is that to be ‘represented’ by its advanced part, deliberately for full-time professional This sort of line has been sharply dissent, which had to remain internal capitalists are generally unenthusiastic the party, flowed from the Bolsheviks’ work.12 argued (among others, no doubt) only. about employing people whose CVs loss of majority support in spring 1918 by blogger Louis Proyect, by Brian This is the basic frame of the include periods of full-time work for left as a result of the peace of Brest-Litovsk I guess that this peculiarity reflects Chidester from the 2013-14 ISO organisational model of the British organisations (or even trade unions). - and as a result, their rigging of soviet Cannon’s pre-Communist Party opposition, by David McNally, the SWP. Although the forms vary, it Between these two prongs, there is, elections at the same period, and then the background as an itinerant organiser former Canadian co-thinker of the was the common inheritance of the therefore, a natural pressure of capitalist turn of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries for the Industrial Workers of the World ISO, by the pseudonymous blogger, ‘International Committee of the Fourth society on workers’ organisations to to terrorism against the Bolshevik - which he himself later saw as a proto- ‘Failed Harvest’; and no doubt by International’, created in 1953; and employ long-service full-timers. The regime, and the Bolshevik response of party formation, but which operated others.3 Meanwhile, other authors have so was also found in the Workers larger the organisation, the more these Red Terror.8 They now had to justify through itinerant organisers, with a tried to save at least part of the Cliffite Revolutionary Party in Britain, long-service full-timers are needed, and what had become a dictatorship over the very low stability of the rank-and-file inheritance: notably, Paul Le Blanc, and the Organisation Communiste also the more they are drawn into the proletariat. membership.13 Steve Leigh, Helen Scott and Brian Internationaliste/Parti Communiste common political culture of capitalist- The drive for ‘military’ discipline in Cannon was not himself fully Bean.4 Internationaliste in France. The idea bureaucratic managerialism. This is the party, most clearly expressed in the consistent in using this concept in this I think that ‘democratic centralism’ that the full-time apparatus is the ‘cadre’ not a particular problem of far-left 1921 theses, flowed from the problem way. He did, however, use it to justify the is a phrase, like the words ‘communism’ - the indispensable core of the party - groups: the Webbs already noticed it in of military insubordination by local split of 1953, which reverberated down and ‘socialism’, which needs to be was central to James P Cannon of the the British trade unions in their 1894 leaderships, notably in the Tsaritsyn the subsequent history of Trotskyism. It rescued from both misuse and obloquy. US SWP, and his British and French History of trade unionism, and Robert affair in autumn 1918, and the political also fitted in with the enthusiasm of late And the usual alternatives actually co-thinkers, when they organised a split Michels overargued it (as ‘natural struggle round the ‘military opposition’ 1960s-early 1970s radicals for What is to produce more top-down control and in 1953. They claimed that the (alleged) elites’) from observation of the massive at the Eighth Congress of the party in be done?14 ‘them-ocracy’. support of the ‘Pabloites’ for opposition Social Democratic Party of Germany, in March 1919.9 Under clandestinity, going full- Peter Moody correctly made the groupings in the US SWP, the French his 1911 book Political parties. The decision to ban factions, as is time was not merely sacrificing point that sex abuse scandals, and PCI and British ‘Club’ amounted to well-known, was part of the turn to earning potential (as it is to this day attempts to cover them up, are not an attack on the ‘cadre’ and hence to ‘Zinovievism’ the New Economic Policy in 1921: for most leftwing full-timers), but also unique to ‘Leninist’ organisations. We ‘liquidationism’. The ideology has two threads to it. the expectation was that economic taking on a high risk of arrest, and so can take this further: ‘#MeToo’ started General bans on factions were The first - and fundamental to the later liberalisation would strengthen the on. The same was true for the itinerant with powerful Hollywood figures, common to the ‘official’ communists tradition - is Comintern’s 1920 Theses hand of small capital, which would IWW organisers of the early 20th who may be individual entrepreneurs and the Maoists. They were the on the role of the Communist Party naturally find political expression; in the century. That does not mean that the or corporate executives; the power to inheritance of the 1921 ban in the in the proletarian revolution (Second circumstances, if the proletariat - a small clandestine full-timers should control abuse can inhere directly as market Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) Congress), with the claim that the party minority in Russia - was to hang on to the party - the idea that an actually power over potential contractors and its congeners in the decisions of the as the advanced part has to represent the power until the expected revolution in the functioning party could consist only (as opposed to present employees); Communist International. In practice, class, and its 1921 The organisational west caught up, opposition parties had to of itinerant organisers, without the ‘Pestminster’ was about the conduct of however, ‘official’ communist parties structure of the Communist Parties, the be more systematically banned, as did local activists who supplied the individual MPs - here the power came in the ‘west’ tolerated a great deal of methods and content of their work (Third factions within the Communist Party. funds, the safe houses and so on, was from political seniority. informal factional activity. Congress), which concretised the idea of With the benefit of hindsight, all of illusory. But it did give Cannon’s idea What underlies all of this is The particular grotesqueries of the leadership as the most advanced part these decisions were mistakes. They a sort of plausibility. The application primarily institutionalised inequality, the ban on ‘permanent factions’ and of the party, which ‘represents’ the whole were mistakes made under conditions of an analogy of this sort to the full- which is secondarily protected by ‘factionalism’ were not shared by against the backward ‘parts’.6 There are of war, counterrevolutionary foreign timers of a legal leftwing group in the rights of privacy and ‘non-disclosure the International Committee’s great many good things in these sets of theses, intervention and civil war - and in late 20th century was and remains agreements’, and behind these, the rivals in the ‘Pabloite’ International but they both make a fundamental error. an overwhelmingly peasant-majority misleading. sale and denial of justice by the legal Secretariat of the Fourth International The party may be wrong - as against the country. But it needs to be clear that the Under legality, using ‘cadre’ to mean profession through the ‘free market in and its descendants in the European working class masses, or even as against Bolsheviks would not have had these the full-timers is merely an ideology of legal services’. wing of the Unified Secretariat of the a particular group. The leadership may problems if they had adapted their party managerialism. And the same is true This is a crisis for the left groups Fourth International (now the official be wrong - as against the party ranks, to the needs of civil war in a peasant- of the 1920-21 ideology of the party affected by it, not because they do Fourth International). But the control or even as against a particular branch or majority country before they obtained question l worse than official society, but because of information flows by the party centre fraction. political power: in that case they would they have imagined that they can do remains present in these organisations, This error is characterised by not have built a serious workers’ party [email protected] better - and finding that they too have and the factions function as in bourgeois several authors in the discussion of the in the first place, or obtained political exploitative management is then more political parties: that is, the full-time ISO collapse as ‘Zinovievism’, from power in October 1917. Notes sharply a betrayal. apparat usually remains undislodged. Grigory Zinoviev’s role in introducing 1. ‘Transparency and solidarity’ Weekly Worker I have very limited time to write at Behind this phenomenon is both a the Second Congress theses and his Cadre April 4. 2. ‘Learn the lessons’ Weekly Worker April 11. the moment, so this already delayed practical problem and an ideology. The role in the Fifth Congress and after The second thread of the ideology is 3. Proyect: www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/04/ second piece in a series will be followed practical problem is the equivalent of in ‘Bolshevisation’. Indeed, in 2014 from 1960s-70s radicals’ naive readings notes-on-the-dissolution-of-the-iso; Chidester: by two more. This week I look briefly two prongs of a fork. The first prong Joel Geier of the old ISO leadership of Lenin’s 1902 What is to be done? https://externalbulletin.org/2014/07/01/le-cadre- at the organisational forms of the ISO is that capital generally offers devoted a piece in the ISO’s Lars T Lih has written at great length, du-militant-socialiste/#more-404; McNally: https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/22/the-period- and their origins, and how these forms workers the choice between International Socialist attempting to dispel the standard the-party-and-the-next-left; https://failedharvest. give ideological cover to unaccountable Review to ‘Zinovievism readings of this book and its relationship com/blog/socialism1org. management. In the next article I and the degeneration of to the 1903 split in the Russian Social 4. LeBlanc: https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/27/ will look at the pre-1914 and western world communism’.7 Democratic Labour Party.10 But what we reflections-on-coherence-and-comradeship; Leigh: Ahmed Shawki: https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/28/what- origins of democratic centralism as an 35 years This concept is are concerned with here is later radicals’ models-of-organization-can-guide-us-now; Scott: organisational form, to detach it from badly misleading. reading of the book out of context. And https://socialistworker.org/2019/03/21/separating- the ‘Russian’ facts and fantasies. A In the first place, here the core was the idea of ‘professional whats-good-from-whats-rotten; Bean: https:// third article will examine the defects it is personality- revolutionaries’ - understood not as socialistworker.org/2019/03/29/critical-thoughts- about-drapers-micro-sect. of the federalist ‘labour movement cult reasoning: meaning ‘revolutionaries who are 5. https://newmilitant.com/the-crisis-and-collapse- tradition’, network alternatives scapegoating skilled at the work’ (as Lih reads Lenin’s of-the-international-socialist-organization. and ‘anti-small-partyism’. Zinoviev argument), but as “full-timers”. 6. Both available on Marxists Internet Archive: for what There is a link here to the idea of www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/ index.htm, under the pages for the relevant Ideologies were in ‘cadre’ - originally a military term. The congresses. Part of the ISO story is that fact cadre of an army or particular military 7. https://isreview.org/issue/93/zinovievism-and- Ahmed Shawki and his unit consists of the officers, specialists degeneration-world-communism. collaborators remained in and instructors, who train up the 8. All this at various points in A Rabinowitch The Bolsheviks in power Indiana 2008. charge for 35 years; that full- incoming short-service conscripts. The 9. Convenient discussion in G Lonergan, ‘Where time regional organisers were expression was in communist use by was the conscience of the revolution? The military (as in the British Socialist 1930 at the latest - presumably having opposition at the Eighth Party Congress (March Workers Party) appointed spread from the Red Army, to the cadres 1919)’ Slavic Review No74, pp832-49 (2015). 10. Lenin rediscovered Brill 2005. from above, not elected (specifically trained and specialist 11. Oxford English Dictionary ‘cadre (n)’, from below; and, further, that industrial workers, villager leaders, and numbers 2 and 3. behind the official structure was an so on).11 Still not full-timers, though, and 12. www.marxistsfr.org/archive/cannon/ independent financial apparatus with a way below the ‘top leadership’ level. works/1931/sep/discussion02.htm. 13. www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/ very substantial turnover. This was not It is James P Cannon who seems to works/1955/iww.htm. financially misappropriated as such, have been responsible for the idea that 14. Compare also M Elbaum Revolution in the air but it did provide an unaccountable the ‘cadre’ of the organisation meant for the US Maoists of the same period. 6 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker CULTURE Prophet and poet of Russian Revolution Chris Knight looks at the legacy of Velimir Khlebnikov. This is an edited transcript of a talk given to Communist University 2018 elimir Khlebnikov is almost the other schools of art and literature unknown in the west, but to dithered, taking a long time making Vthose Russians who know a up their minds about the revolution. little bit about literature and poetry But, for the futurists, it was their in their own culture he is the greatest revolution right from the start. Russian poet since Pushkin. With his conservative tastes, Lenin He had an unusual childhood: a was uncertain about all this, to put it tribal upbringing, with ethnic music mildly. Trotsky was more progressive and wonderful, colourful traditional - or at least prepared to cope with costumes. He was born into the unexpected novelty. But of all the Kalmyk tribal group (originally Bolsheviks it was Lunacharsky who Mongolian Buddhists) in 1885 near most appreciated the futurists. Of all the Caspian Sea. His father was of them, Mayakovsky7 is the most a tsarist administrator. As a child famous. In the early days he would Khlebnikov grew up with animals in wear a gaudy yellow jacket and paint the house and with camels wandering his face. Whenever the futurists had around outside. Nearly all the homes a poetry recital, there would be a riot in the village were yurts1 - his was and the police would turn up. Their the only solid building. Kalmyk idea of a piano concert was to haul a instruments and dancing had a huge grand piano up to the ceiling on ropes effect on him, and his childhood and, when the audience turned up to environment was very relevant to his listen, they would cut the ropes. You later life. would hear an almighty crash, as the As a boy, he was used to ride whole thing fell to the ground. That horseback. He would go to a stable was the recital! and liberate a horse by riding it away. Internationally, there were two He considered horses a lot more wings of futurism: the Italians versus intelligent than many humans he had the Russians. The Italians worshipped met. He once noted: the machine age, as represented by war, aeroplanes, machine guns, motor I have discovered the fundamental cars and electric lighting. Celebrating laws of time and I believe that now violence, many of these moved it will be as easy to predict events towards the far right and their leader, as to count to three. If people don’t Filippo Tomasso Marinetti,8 was want to learn my art of predicting already a fascist by 1914. They ended the future, I will teach it to horses. up supporting Benito Mussolini. However, in Russia things went Here is a typical, innocent, in quite the opposite direction. Khlebnikovian poem, ‘When horses Khlebnikov was a futurist in a die’: very personal way. His motto was something like Back to the future - When horses die, they breathe. which takes me to his early childhood, When grasses die, they wither. with the Kalmyk camel herders. When suns die, they go out. He was sure that the future would When people die, they sing songs. mean a return, on a higher-level, to a romantically envisaged Stone Age, to a period before writing. He hated Futurism writing, considering it the language Anyone who knows a little about of bureaucrats and executioners. He the Russian February and October thought all poetry should be sung and revolutions will know that they were spoken aloud, considering it his anti- more than just political upheavals. capitalist mission to lead an army of The period was also the culmination songs: of an immense scientific, intellectual and artistic ferment. If you think of Today I will go once again cubism, you may think primarily of Into life, into haggling, into the Picasso and Braque. But in Russia market, the movement of art into abstraction And lead the army of my songs and modernism went further than To duel against the market tide. anywhere else. You only have to mention Kandinsky,2 Prokofiev,3 His whole idea was that, thanks to Shostakovich4 or Meyerhold.5 These technological progress, the human and so many other geniuses race was poised to return to our propelled a spectacular outpouring of prehistoric roots, taking us to a higher revolutionary, iconoclastic art. and more collectivist moral, political Khlebnikov prophesised the date and spiritual level. Khlebnikov’s of the Russian Revolution back in supersagas are constantly wafting 1912 - he was crazy enough (and he us to some distant period of cosmic was completely crazy!) to think that time: he had worked out the laws of time. He used mathematical calculations, The sea. A shoreline spurting dates going back to the age of the golden fire ... dinosaurs, and different periodicities Three suns burn in the sky … and wave lengths of history, and Those were the first days of concluded: ‘Ah, it’s going to be existence on Earth. 1917!’ After this, his friends bestowed Sea horses playing in the waves. on him the honorific title, ‘The King A solitary naturalist walks by of Time’. One of the loveliest books them carrying a tin can, in English on Khlebnikov is titled The studying the dry whale bones … King of Time: selected writings of the Russian futurian.6 In those years, there was huge When the February revolution excitement around the invention took place in 1917, Khlebnikov had of radio. And radio for Khlebnikov worked it all out - the whole thing most enthusiastically rushed to its leader. was going to get rid of writing. was his revolution! The metaphor of defence. These artists were the ones Pathfinder: There was a lot of laughter about Who wanted writing, when you a liberated horse came immediately who invented the term agitprop to it all, because Khlebnikov was could have this? Radio would to his mind: “The tsar abdicates. The describe what they were doing. As Velimir Khlebnikov not an organiser of any sort. He restore the human voice to its white mare of freedom. A wild gallop, the Bolsheviks resorted to art, drama influenced Roman was painfully shy, to the point of ancient centrality. It was in this a breakthrough.” and music to spread the flames of being inarticulate. Because he was sense that Khlebnikov and the When the Bolshevik revolution revolution following October, their Jakobson, who socially awkward and strange in his futurists were ‘primitivists’. broke out a few months later, it propaganda was overwhelmingly influenced Noam behaviour, he was regarded not only Picasso and his fellow cubists were was Khlebnikov’s wild, anarcho- the work of these futurists. And as a genius, but a kind of holy fool. equally primitivists, as shown by feministic, cubo-futurist artists, Khlebnikov was the genius of Chomsky All of the futurists looked up to him their enthusiasm for traditional musicians and playwrights who futurism - they all treated him as their as their main inspiration. Nearly all African art, but Khlebnikov took weekly 7 1248 worker April 25 2019

that idea much further than anyone lake, a waterfall, a forest glade or a Laughlets, laughlets. convention. the message. Khlebnikov illustrated else. For him, the tragedy was that spectacular sunset! Don’t let nature’s O, laugh, laughers! Well, Chomsky was not interested the same principle by writing a long music, dance, colour, laughter and wiles seduce you! Unmask her, strip O, laugh out, laughers. in that and neither was Khlebnikov, saga consisting of chapters which magic had all become set aside by her of her magic! Salvation depends who hated the very idea of convention. followed one after another, without the rise of patriarchal religions, on disenchantment!’ The only comfort You can see what is happening here. Convention means business as usual, the slightest connection between states, class society and the you’re allowed after all this, once the If you take the word ‘laughter’, it has more of the same. It is mindless them. enlightenment. It all had to come magic in life has been stripped away, a strange spelling (not ‘larfter’!). The habit. When you think about it, if you Khlebnikov was no scientist, back. If the revolution was not is the promise of salvation, through ‘augh’ is telling us something about are a poet you do not want to get into although he had studied mathematics musical and full of laughter - as one thing alone: the blood of Jesus. the history of the English language. the habitual use of the words. You at Kazan University, and loved well as full of science - then it was Elaborating on this idea, Weber This translation plays around with want to let the sounds sparkle with physics and chemistry. For him it was not their revolution at all. writes that disenchantment is also that. The difference is that a Russian their own intrinsic meanings - that the magic, the aesthetic of science that In my book on Chomsky9 I point central to the ideology surrounding reader cannot recite Khlebnikov’s is how poetry works. So maybe at a was so powerful. In fact you could out that Khlebnikov was a poet who modern science. Calvinism lives on original for more than a few lines, deep level there is just one language say of the whole futurist movement in his creative writing effectively as the doctrine that to study nature because they will be consumed by - human. Then again, according that it was inspired by an aesthetic invented modern linguistics. Shortly you must take the magic away. Don’t laughter before reaching the end. to both Chomsky and Khlebnikov, of science. They wanted to paint it, after World War II, Chomsky fall into that trap. You must somehow this universal language reflects the draw it, hear it, make music out of took much of his inspiration from strip nature of her own voice, making Borders architecture of the mind itself, which it. Science should be the dominant Roman Jakobson, who was then sure that she behaves the way you Khlebnikov’s fundamental political might be captured in a mathematical motif in the new culture. Everything recognised as the world’s foremost want, submitting to your will. You are position was that the world should formula. In Khlebnikov’s words: we thought we knew about time, scientific linguist. But everything in charge with your experiments, your have no borders. That was partly due “Beautiful are the sounds of the space, matter and energy was to be that Jakobson knew about language torture, your vivisection, your felling to his upbringing: the camels and mind! Beautiful are its clear crystal completely revolutionised. had come from Khlebnikov. So, of the trees. When Khlebnikov spoke horses in the camp where he grew sounds.” Khlebnikov foresaw not just the unbeknown to Chomsky, he was in of restoring to nature her own voice, up were not interested in borders. Anything habitual is likely to Russian Revolution, but also our effect Khlebnikov’s student. he had all this in mind. His mission Throughout his life, he remained become boring, and boredom was current situation in facing climate Khlebnikov was a poet, but he was was to reverse the entire project of committed to the nomadic values of something that Khlebnikov hated catastrophe. He wrote these strangely also a thinker about what language is: the enlightenment by deliberately re- the Kalmyk people. more than anything else. Like prophetic lines just before he died: enchanting the world. But, although Khlebnikov hated Mayakovsky with his outlandish The earth’s axis splashed out Mikhail Bakhtin11 is another territorial borders, he loved the idea yellow jacket, these iconoclasts Man has taken the surface of another day, Russian genius from the same of borders in time. He did not want all hated what they call in Russian Planet Earth away from the wise Night’s bulk is closing in. revolutionary stable. I want to fences, customs posts and certainly byt. This word roughly translates as community of animals and plants I dreamed I saw a salmon-girl mention him here because he had not trenches (remember this is going ‘boringness’ or ‘business as usual’. and now he is lonely; he has In the waves of a midnight many of the same revolutionary on during World War I, when people Byt meant more of World War I, more no-one to play tag or hide-and- waterfall. instincts concerning the deepest were fighting for a few yards of bureaucracy, more issuing of death seek with. In his empty room, nature of language. You could call squelching, blood-stained mud). But warrants by some tsarist minion. surrounded by the darkness of Bakhtin the scientist of carnival and what about borders in time? When Khlebnikov wanted to explode the non-being, there are no playmates Linguistics laughter. His trenchant criticism of people sing together, they must all whole thing from the inside out - and no games. Who can he play In his poetry, Khlebnikov often the underlying ideology of bourgeois keep to the same beat and sing each completely shatter it. So in linguistics with? He is surrounded by an played with sounds in ways which science was that it started out by note together. Synchronising the we should not be interested in byt - empty ‘no’. The souls of animals were quite astonishing. The nearest silencing nature, depriving it of its voice means being aware of borders the habitual, familiar meanings of banished from their bodies have you can get in English is to think own authentic voice. “The entire in time. Once the whole planet is words. We should find instead that invaded him, and the plains of his of James Joyce in, say, Finnegan’s methodological apparatus of the singing, the only borders will be in the deeper voice, when the tongue by being are now subject to their law. wake or Ulysses. He was interested mathematical and natural sciences,” dimension of time. Natural rhythms, its own nature is allowed to make its They built animal cities in his in the intrinsic properties of different wrote Bakhtin, “is directed toward such as human heartbeats, the sun, the own unexpected sounds. heart. vowels and consonants, each with mastery over mute objects, brute moon and the tides, would be used to Every child is a creative genius Man seems to be choking to its own voice, as opposed to mere things, that do not reveal themselves set up these borders. He considered from birth - that is a Chomskyan idea, death on his own carbon. habitual, conventional meanings. in words, that do not comment on it vital not to transgress borders in but it is also another of Khlebnikov’s It was his luck to have a printing But that Joycean modernism was themselves.”12 Bakhtin went on time - they were needed if the world’s insights. It is the anarchistic idea that press that did not have enough of anticipated and taken a lot further by to argue that the same approach, inhabitants were to get on with one schoolteachers are going to be drilling the many twos and threes needed Khlebnikov. depriving others of their voice, has another. By contrast, borders in space rubbish into you, when it would be to print a reckoning. For without Khlebnikov died in 1922 at the always been the method of the state were in his eyes just bloodshed and better to build on what you already these numbers the Beautiful age of only 37, during the post- and its ecclesiastical servants. The murder. know. A child understands all kinds Program could not be written. As revolutionary civil war and famine. meaning of carnival is that it turns As well as being an administrator of things about laughter, play, jokes, animals fell into extinction, each It was one of the early disasters for all this upside down, empowering the for the Kalmyk people, Khlebnikov’s humour and imaginative games. And took with him to the grave the the Russian artistic movement. One powerless and giving a voice to the father was a noted ornithologist, at school it all gets drummed out private numbers of his species. after the other, the futurists died - silenced. studying birdsong in particular. of them. If only each child’s innate Entire entries in the ledger book they committed suicide, ended up in Bakhtin came to the fore during Khlebnikov was inspired by his genius were allowed to develop, of fortune vanished like pages one of Stalin’s concentration camps the Stalinist terror, some years after father and followed him in making education would be so much better. torn out of a manuscript. Twilight or got shot for some purported Khlebnikov’s death, but there is a careful observations of the notes of The way Chomsky translates that loomed on the horizon. deviation. One of the few to escape sense in which he continued down birdsong. From his poetry you get the is to say that every child possesses But a miracle happened: was Roman Jakobson, who got out a similar path. With his futurist feeling it might possibly be a form a language organ, which is pre- courageous minds have awakened early by becoming an emissary to the project for a universal language, of human language, but if so it is on programmed with language. And so the sleeping soul of the sacred gray Red Cross in the Soviet embassy in Khlebnikov pushed back against the the cusp, like a dawn chorus on the there is no need to learn a language - clay that covers the earth in layers, Prague. whole enlightenment project. He was verge of speech - almost articulate, it is there already. That is a somewhat awakened it as bread and meat. When Khlebnikov was reciting urging: ‘Let’s go the other way and but not quite. Khlebnikov wanted to extreme version of a rather lovely, Earth has become edible, and poems in St Petersburg and Moscow, be real revolutionaries, back to the connect human speech with birdsong anarchistic idea which contains much every clay pit has become a table the teenage schoolboy who was prehistoric future - to laughter, the and animal cries, using the scientific truth. laid for dinner. The beautiful gift following him around was Roman magic of dance, the lost voices of methods of an ornithologist. In his of the right to live has been given Jakobson, busily taking notes and animals, children and trees.’ This line own words: “Only the development The shift back to animals and plants. storing up ideas for his future as the in particular haunts me: “And does of science has permitted us to Then there is another Russian word - And once more we are happy: world’s leading theoretical linguist. the land not cry out within us: Oh, discover the full wisdom of language sdvig - which is interesting, because a lion has curled in my lap, asleep, Jakobson devoted the rest of his life to give me a voice! A voice! Give me a - which is wise because it is itself a it can nowadays be connected with and I sit here smoking my supper the task of taking Khlebnikov’s crazy, voice.” part of nature.” digital computers. On a computer of air13 l unformulated and unfinished, but But he was not arguing for the Khlebnikov was not by any means you press a key and the whole screen brilliant, work and making a science rejection of science. He thought a Marxist. His inspiration came from shifts from one state to another in an Notes out of it in the shape of modern you could take the core of science physics, chemistry, mathematics and instant. It is like switching a light 1. The Kalmyk yurt is a round, portable, self- linguistics. There is lot in Chomsky’s - the mathematical part - and turn it the natural sciences. And he did not off or on - it does not gradually get supporting structure composed of lattice walls, rafters, roof ring, felt covering and tension bands. linguistics which is equally brilliant. round. All the mathematics that had have much of a feel for the laws of lighter or darker. So this word sdvig 2. Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Russian Most of his formalism actually comes previously served to disenchant the history in a sociological sense. Any means a shift, sudden transition - or pioneer of abstract art. via Jakobson from Khlebnikov, and world would now be placed in the scientific laws had to be expressed in sudden quantum leap, if you like - 3. Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953), Soviet Chomsky’s linguistics is an extreme service of a quite different agenda: mathematical form if he was to feel and it is linked to the idea of a digital composer, conductor and pianist. 4. Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), Soviet version of formalism. Khlebnikov’s own revolutionary comfortable with them. system of communication. Almost as composer and pianist. Khlebnikov’s aim was to deploy project of cosmic re-enchantment. For Khlebnikov, the interesting if he was anticipating the computer 5. Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-1940), Soviet laughter, animal cries, birdsong, the Khlebnikov wanted the revolution features of language had nothing age, Khlebnikov had the idea that theatre director, actor and producer. rustling of forest trees and every to be magical and for revolutionaries to do with social agreement, habit language is intrinsically digital. Take 6. V Khlebnikov The King of Time: selected writings of the Russian futurian Harvard 1990. other sensory resource in a sustained to be like shamans. He saw himself in or convention. If you were an consonants and vowels. Deleting just 7. Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), Soviet revolutionary project to re-enchant those terms. He believed it essential ornithologist, you would just listen to one can suddenly shift a word from poet, playwright, artist and actor. the world. To understand where to get everyone laughing. Both ideas the sound of a given word and break one state to a completely different 8. Filippo Tomasso Marinetti (1876-1944), Italian he was coming from in all this, we are illustrated in this, his best-known that sound down. You let the bits of one: poet, editor, art theorist and author of the Futurist manifesto (1909). He co-authored the Fascist need to know something about the poem, ‘Incantation by laughter’: sound speak to you via a meaning manifesto in 1919. historical and cultural background. intrinsic to each vowel and consonant. Wind is song 9. C Knight Decoding Chomsky: science and In his classic text, The Protestant O, laugh, laughers! In other words, the meaning is Of whom and of what? revolutionary politics London 2016. See chapter ethic and the spirit of capitalism, the O, laugh out, laughers! inseparable from the form. Roman Of the sword’s longing 10: ‘Russian formalist roots’. 10. M Weber The Protestant ethic and the spirit of sociologist Max Weber described You who laugh with laughs, you Jakobson had very similar ideas, To be the word. capitalism - originally published in German as a how bourgeois ideology emerged who laugh it up laughishly passing some of them on years later series of essays 1904-05; translated into English in out of Protestantism in general O, laugh out laugheringly to Noam Chomsky. Remove one letter from a word and 1930 by American sociologist Talcott Parsons. and Calvinism in particular.10 The O, belaughable laughterhood Of course, in real life, you get another. So it is not like mixing 11. Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975), essence of Calvinism was the Russian philosopher and literary critic. See - the laughter of laughering once a language has become black and white to get grey. Each especially Rabelais and his world, translated by H desire to disenchant the world, laughers! conventionalised, form and meaning switch is a total shift, not a gradual Iswolsky, Indiana 1984. eliminating the last traces of pre- O, unlaugh it outlaughingly, have only an arbitrary link. There slippage. Khlebnikov considered 12. M Bakhtin The dialogic imagination: dour Christian belief in magic. It was belaughering laughists! is no logical reason why the letters the Russian Revolution itself to be essays Texas 1982, p35. 13. V Khlebnikov, ‘A cliff out of the future’, in C as if these gloomy preachers were Laughily, laughily, ‘d’, ‘o’ and ‘g’, when combined, a massive sdvig or shift. Nothing of Douglas (ed) and P Schmidt (translator) Collected warning their followers, ‘Don’t be Uplaugh, enlaugh, laughlings, should mean the creature that wags the recent past should be retained into works of Velimir Khlebnikov Vol 1, ‘Letters and fooled by the deceptive majesty of a laughlings its tail and barks at you. That is just the future, because that would muddy theoretical writings’, p399, 1987. 8 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker BREXIT Next step hard right George Galloway, Claire Fox and Alka Sehgal Cuthbert are providing a ‘left’ cover for Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, writes Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

Brexit Party: Richard Tice, Christina Jordon, James Glancy, Nigel Farage, Matthew Patten, Claire Fox and Lance Forman

igel Farage is back. Again. And back: in the hope of stopping other MPs from momentum. Former Tory MP Ann happens to be the guy who during the the need for tougher immigration controls: it looks like his fourth (or is it splitting because they fear being deselected Widdecombe is the latest ‘celebrity’ 2016 referendum campaign unveiled “Being opposed to mass immigration is Nhis fifth?) incarnation might by the local membership, Labour HQ has to join the former Ukip leader. All his ‘Breaking Point’ poster, which not (necessarily) racist,” he writes - “only be his most successful one yet. A still not published a timetable to implement things being equal, it looks as if the depicted threatening masses of Syrian Trotskyites and globalised capitalists really YouGov poll for the May 23 European the reformed trigger ballot system - the only party will do as well as - if not better refugees bound for the UK. So she believe in ‘open borders’.”8 Union elections has his Brexit Party realistic way local Labour members can get than - Ukip did at the last European quickly and unconvincingly points out: This is nothing new, of course. He already on 27% (sharply up from 15% the rid of their sitting MP. elections in 2014, when it came first “That poster, or anything else Brexit outlined his reactionary beliefs in 2005 week before), followed by Labour The undemocratic selection method with 27.5 % of the vote. The Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage may have when he was still allied with the Socialist on 22%, the Tories on 15% and the for Labour’s EU candidates underlines Party already has a sizeable fraction in said, pales into insignificance compared Workers Party in Respect. The SWP kept UK Independence Party on 7%. the problem: ordinary members had zero the European parliament - 14 of the 24 with the egregious racism of the EU.”4 schtum when he wrote an infamous article The Greens are on 10%, the Liberal input. In a brief email they have been MEPs elected as Ukip members have So Farage is not quite as bad as the EU in the Morning Star, where he called for Democrats on 9% and the saboteurs informed - after the fact - that, “sitting already switched allegiance since it was then. Not much of an endorsement. “an economic-social-demographic plan for of the snappily titled ‘Change UK’ - MEPs who wished to stand again have launched in January.3 Claire Fox, on the other hand, overplays population growth based on a points system formerly known as The Independent been re-selected. Candidates for remaining Nigel’s former party, Ukip, meanwhile, her leftie credentials just a little bit when she and our own needs” (ie, the needs of British Group - are languishing at 6%.1 There places on the list have been appointed by has Tommy Robinson, Carl Benjamin (he assures us in an article for the Daily Mail capital). He claimed that the scrapping of was an expectation that Change UK joint NEC and regional selections boards who “wouldn’t even rape” Jess Phillips MP) that she has been a “leftwing campaigner immigration controls would mean “urging and the Lib Dems would get it together following interviews earlier this week.” and Mark Meechan, also known as Count for 35 years. I’ve been arrested on picket all the most accomplished and determined in some kind of ‘remain’ alliance That means 16 out of Labour’s 20 sitting Dankula - the man who was fined £800 for lines, led anti-imperialist demonstrations and people to leave the poor countries of the - perhaps with the Greens, Plaid MEPs have automatically been reselected. teaching his dog to perform a Nazi salute spoken at anti-deportation protests outside world and come to the richest, [making] Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist The newcomers include Jeremy Corbyn’s when he shouted things like “Sieg Heil”. police stations.”5 It’s been a while though, the poor countries even poorer and the rich Party. After all, fighting for a second right-hand woman, Katy Clarke, and They seem to be aiming to win the votes hasn’t it, Claire? countries richer”.9 referendum was officially one of the Momentum organiser Laura Parker, who of - how to put this? - a particularly narrow She leaves out the fact that Spiked No doubt, Farage will have some key reasons for TIG’s split from the has been heavily promoted by her boss, and alienated section of the working class, has been arguing for years that the labels success in appealing to Brexit-supporting Labour Party (along with Labour’s national executive member Jon Lansman. which tends to be male and very white. ‘left’ and ‘right’ are oh so wrong and old- members of the working class who usually alleged widespread anti-Semitism, of But overall the selection process has Compared to those clowns, the Brexit fashioned, because, don’t you know, “We live vote Labour and would probably do so in course). demonstrated yet again that the Corbyn Party really does look rather sane. Farage in a world beyond left and right politics”.6 a general election - in fact, we have been But, somewhat surprisingly, it is not leadership is continuing to try and appease is, of course, a Tory at heart, albeit a very In her article, she briefly references this rather disturbed to see evidence of that in to be, as Chuka Ummuna explains: the right in the party - even though this rightwing one. He has assured people that position by claiming that, “the left-right Corbyn-supporting Facebook groups. Not demonstratively does not work. he is “sorry to be taking votes from the divide has been replaced by democrats vs because of Claire Fox posing unconvincingly Change UK-TIG has not been It seems unlikely that those elected Conservatives” and that his main target are anti-democrats”, before describing herself as a leftwinger, but because the Labour formally approached by any of the on May 23 will remain MEPs only until “disappointed Labour voters in the northern as a “lefty” a few more times. To top it all, Party will have to continue to ‘sit on the other pro-EU parties with a view to October 31; we expect there will be more heartlands”. she claims to be acting in the tradition of the fence’ for as long as possible, if it does not running one list of candidates. That ‘deadlines’ and more extensions of Britain’s And a certain Claire Fox is supposed to “Levellers during the Civil War, the Chartists want to seriously alienate large sections is because it is impossible to run EU membership. And the fact that we are be covering his left flank. Fox was a leading in the 19th century or the suffragettes in of its electoral base on either side of the one list of candidates unless you the middle of a huge constitutional crisis member in the Revolutionary Communist early 20th”. Brexit divide. merge to form one party, which, clearly makes this an important election. Party and all its transformations since: For Claire Fox and her ilk, “sovereignty” In the EU poll (as well as the local not unreasonably, none of us are When have candidates for MEP positions Living Marxism, Spiked and the Institute is the key, because we “remain shackled to elections), we urge our supporters to prepared to do. ever received so much coverage in the of Ideas, which is now the Academy (!) of Brussels”. She cannot see any problem with vote Labour - despite the many, many national press? Ideas. Her sharp move to the right has been standing alongside Farage, because this is shortcomings of the Corbyn leadership. Various disappointed bourgeois Only one thing seems clear: unless characterised by the belief that capitalism is a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to save There remains a window of opportunity commentators have already pointed the Tories get shot of Theresa May a really good thing and that the world needs “our democracy” from those evil foes in to radically transform the Labour Party out that there were other methods with pronto - replacing her with somebody more of it (for example, to end hunger in the EU. Fox has a problem only with the into a united front of a special kind l which pro-‘remain’ parties could have who looks like he/she could make Africa). For the last decade or so, the output EU version of capitalism, because it is too presented a more effective challenge: Brexit work (a miracle) - they will of Fox and other co-thinkers like Frank regulated and Spiked very much believes in Notes for example, by dividing up regions receive an absolute trashing on May Furedi and Mick Hume could at best be the free market - free for the capitalists, not 1. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles- between them. 23. A questionnaire of Tory members described as rightwing libertarian. for immigrants, obviously. Some “lefty”. reports/2019/04/17/brexit-party-leading-eu- parliament-polls. Overconfident public schoolboy that he for the Conservative Home website Another candidate on Farage’s list is Slightly more sad - though not 2. The Independent April 23. is, Ummuna tries to assure them that “there found 62% were planning to vote Spiked contributor Alka Sehgal Cuthbert. entirely surprising - is George 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_ is already a grassroots, ‘remain’ alliance - for the Brexit Party, and only 23% She unconvincingly explains how she, “as Galloway’s support for Farage. On Party#MEPs. Change UK-TIG is it.”2 But, as they have intended to vote for their own. And a an Indian”, can support a party committed April 17, he declared on Twitter: 4. www.spiked-online.com/2019/04/22/why-im- standing-for-the-brexit-party. also buggered up their application to stand poll of Conservative councillors for to keeping out refugees and foreigners: “Given the nature of Labour’s Euro- 5. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6952797/ in the local elections, these anti-Corbyn the Mail on Sunday found that 40% of fanatic candidates list and the crucial CLAIRE-FOX-explains-reasons-standing- rightwingers continue to make headlines them were planning to vote for Nigel The EU is not a haven of social juncture we have reached in the fight European-election-candidate-Brexit-Party.html. only for their ineptness: in the first 24 hours Farage’s party, and only 52% for the justice - it is a thoroughly racist for the full implementation of the Brexit 6. www.spiked-online.com/2017/10/05/how-the- left-and-right-switched-places. after the launch of its EU election campaign, Tories. Sure, a lot can happen in six institution. In order to maintain referendum result and for one time 7. https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/ two of Change UK’s European candidates weeks and these polls are clearly biased EU free movement, it has to ensure only, I will be supporting Nigel Farage status/1118560481785065472?fbclid=IwAR have already been forced to step down for - but undoubtedly they are telling a its borders are kept tightly sealed in next month’s elections.”7 Clearly, he 2FdtZXGEWCKFXXpzMFgktasxv10i posting racist tweets. The only real ‘success’ certain truth. against non-EU people. has given up hope of ever getting back JOMalhVktiEW0FxK13vALCGq7XBxs. 8. www.rt.com/op-ed/457228-farage-galloway- they can claim is the fact that they got the Nigel Farage’s latest organisation into the Labour Party. vote-elections-eu. Corbyn leadership to take yet another step certainly has a lot of forward She is obviously aware that Farage Galloway seems to agree with Farage on 9. Morning Star February 12 2005. weekly 9 1248 worker April 25 2019 REVIEW Israel and the ‘new anti-Semitism’ Paul Kelemen The British left and Zionism - history of a divorce Manchester University Press, 2012, pp227, £16.99

t is not often that a book can be in Israel either. Although they could considerations of the Soviet Union - Party which subscribed to the ideas correspondent who was not dazzled classed as indispensable to an marry abroad, their children would which did a 180-degree turn in 1947 of Whig historian Thomas Babington by the messianic hysteria that Iunderstanding of Zionism - the be considered bastards - effectively by supporting the creation of the Macaulay that colonisation was for accompanied Israel’s conquest of the ideology of the movement that Mischlinge, to use the Nazi term for Israeli state. The CPGB was afflicted the benefit of the colonised. This West Bank. I vividly remember BBC established the Israeli state - and its those of mixed race. by what Kelemen terms “Yishuvism” belief in a ‘constructive’ imperialism correspondent Michel Elkins5 barely relationship to the left and the labour In view of the fabricated ‘anti- (the Yishuv being the native Jewish was the basis of the support for containing his joy, as Israel won the movement. But The British left and Semitism’ campaign battering community in Palestine before Israel Zionism. Between 1917, when the 1967 war. Guardian editor Alistair Zionism is one. the Labour Party today and the was created). Labour Party first declared its support Hetherington censored a report of There are many books which allegations that Labour has been The CPGB saw the Jewish for a “Jewish home” in the War Aims Adams on Israel’s destruction of three have been written about the history ‘overrun’ by anti-Semitism, it is working class in Palestine as like any Memorandum, and 1949 the party Palestinian villages, from which their of Zionism - most of them tedious worth noting the comments of other: “The communist movement’s conference declared its support for inhabitants were expelled (p161).6 and repetitive - whose conclusions Sydney Webb, a founding Fabian Marxism furnished no insight into Zionism on 11 occasions. were formed before even a word was and colonial secretary between 1929 the specificity of settler colonialism.” During the nakba, when three- Pivotal written. Books under this heading and 1931: “French, German, Russian One leading member of the party’s quarters of a million Palestinians A pivotal change in Labour’s pro- include David Vital’s The origins of socialism is Jew-ridden. We, thank National Jewish Committee went so were expelled, the Labour press was Israel attitude took place in the wake Zionism and Zionism: the formative heaven, are free.” And why? “There’s far as to describe the Jewish working full of articles such as that in the New of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, when years. By contrast, anyone wanting no money in it” (p20). class in Palestine as oppressed. While Statesman by David Kimche, who Ted Heath froze British arms sales to a comprehensive Marxist analysis It is worth noting, in view of the the CPGB depicted the Yishuv “in described Jewish farmers watching Israel. In response Harold Wilson put of Zionism could not do better than reports that Jeremy Corbyn and ‘anti- crude, instrumentalist terms as a tool with “tears in their eyes”, as the Arabs down a motion supporting the supply Nathan Weinstock’s Zionism: a false Semitism’ have been responsible for of British imperialism” (p93), it failed left Haifa and Jaffa. What Kimche of arms to Israel, but after a backbench messiah. Unfortunately Weinstock putting Jews off voting Labour,3 that to see that the Jewish working class did not mention was that they were rebellion Labour MPs were given himself underwent a “personal and as early as the 1959 general election was privileged in comparison with leaving because the Zionist militias a free vote and 15 voted with the political crisis”1 and became a Zionist! Jews in Finchley supported the Tories Arab workers and that it was Jewish had bombarded them with mortars government, while 70 abstained. For an understanding of the origins by a ratio of 3:1. In the 1964 general institutions that were spearheading (p126). David Watkins saw this as the end of the Zionist labour movement, Zeev election Jewish voters still preferred the exclusion and dispossession of In the 1960s the few MPs of 50 years of Zionist domination of Sternhell’s The founding myths of the Tories by 2:1. As Kelemen the Arabs. sympathetic to the Palestinians were Labour policy (p163). Unfortunately Israel is groundbreaking. Sternhell, a noted, “The Jewish community’s Zionism in Britain made very little on the right of the party - Christopher he was a tad too optimistic! childhood survivor of the Nazis, tells embourgeoisiement would also alter impact among Jewish workers or Mayhew, George Brown, David Until 1982 and the Lebanese the story of the endemic political and its interaction with Zionist politics.” trade unionists. A correspondent in Watkins ... This contrasts with the war, the Labour left had been financial corruption of the Histadrut Those who therefore suggest that all the Young Zionist complained that the position today when the Labour right overwhelmingly pro-Israel. At that union confederation and its lack of was fine with the Jewish community Jewish working class had no interest is solidly behind Zionism in all its time Tony Benn and Eric Heffer left democracy. As Golda Meir noted, and that the only thing preventing it in Zionism and preferred to join the racist glory. In fact, Kelemen shows Labour Friends of Israel, though Ian Histadrut was not so much a trade from supporting the Labour Party, Communist Party. It was not until the how the left of the party was up in Mikado never renounced his Zionism. union as a “great colonising agency”.2 as it had done in the past, was war years that Poale Zion (forerunner arms about Nasser’s nationalisation Kelemen states that LFI was launched However, if you want a history of the advent of Jeremy Corbyn are of the Jewish Labour Movement) of the Suez Canal in 1956 - prominent in the wake of the Suez war with the Zionism and Israel from both a being disingenuous, if not outright increased its membership from less among them was Aneurin Bevan. support of 40 Labour MPs and that it cultural and political perspective, dishonest. than 500 to 1,500. In 1946 Jews made Kelemen skilfully shows how was created by Poale Zion. Kelemen employing the tools of comparative The Jewish community today is up 10% of the CPGB’s membership the growth of anti-Zionism on claims that at that time Poale Zion history, then Gabriel Piterberg’s not that of the 1930s. The East End (p98). the left owed nothing to Soviet was a Jewish-only organisation, The returns of Zionism cannot be Jewish working class simply does Kelemen described how in 1948 propaganda - as alleged by Zionist whereas today I estimate that at least bettered. Meanwhile, Joseph Gorny’s not exist today. As Jews have moved the CPGB supported Israel in its war propagandists and its echo chamber, two thirds of the JLM are not Jewish. The British labour movement and to the suburbs, so they have moved against the Arab states (p101). The the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. It When Tony Blair took over the Zionism 1917-1948 never once up the socio-economic ladder, and reason for this U-turn lay in Stalin’s was a consequence of Vietnam, 1968 Labour leadership, LFI came back into questions the fundamentals of their politics have also changed. crude analysis, which saw Britain as and support for third-world national favour. Blair declared that it was “one Zionism. It is essentially a functional Support for Zionism is part of that the main obstacle to Soviet interests liberation movements. of the most important organisations and descriptive history. political shift to the right: “While in the Middle East. The Arabs One of the great myths of labour in the labour movement” and Gordon Paul Kelemen’s book is the first Anglo-Jewry’s Jewishness was were seen as British pawns and the Zionism was that, regardless of Brown declared that LFI had more comprehensive account of the history redefined by Zionism, its Englishness future Israeli state as being in revolt its colonisation, it was internally support among MPs than it had ever of the British left and Zionism. It was reshaped to mirror the social against imperialism rather than just socialist. It operated the collective had in the 40 years since its formation is written from an avowedly anti- conservatism of English suburbia” British imperialism. It was a gross kibbutzim and owned a major chunk (p179). Zionist perspective and because of (p71). miscalculation, which undermined the of the Israeli economy. It was a new In his concluding chapter on this it provides an essential and unique On the other hand, Jewish working position of the Communist Parties in generation of historians such as Baruch ‘A new anti-Semitism?’ Kelemen insight into the twists and turns of the class residents of Hackney in the late the Arab east. The CPGB’s position Kimmerling, Zachary Lockman and notes that the 2006 report of Dennis Communist Party, as it had to adapt its 1970s were found to hold similar helped consolidate support for Zeev Sternhell who demolished this MacShane’s all-party inquiry into understanding of Zionism to the needs racist views of their black neighbours Zionism in the left wing of the Jewish theory. Labor Zionism’s colonisation anti-Semitism had recommended that of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy. as non-Jewish, white inner-city community. took a collective form, although in the “the Jewish community itself ... Today, when ‘anti-Semitism’ is a residents. This is the elephant in the process it gave birth to capitalism. is best qualified to determine what principal weapon of the right in the the room. Amidst all the nonsense Labour Party ‘Collective colonisation’ was simply does and does not constitute anti- Labour Party, this book is essential about ‘anti-Semitism’, what is In his chapter on ‘Social democracy the most efficient form of colonising Semitism”. As Kelemen comments, to understand how the British labour omitted is the growing Islamophobia and Israel’ Kelemen noted the Palestine. this represented a “considerable movement came to adopt and support and racism amongst a section of attitude of the Labour Party towards The new left, unlike the slippage” from the Macpherson Zionism from August 1917 onwards. the Jewish population (p74). This the British empire. Far from Communist Party, was not hindered report, which stated that initial reports This was an essential component reflects the finding of Geoffrey supporting the movement for colonial by the foreign policy requirements were only prima facie evidence and of Labour’s support for the British Alderman, an academic and Jewish independence, Labour leaders of the Soviet Union and its crude not conclusive as to whether a racist empire and the weaponisation of Chronicle columnist, that nearly 2% rationalised imperialism into ‘good’ understanding of Zionism, which incident had occurred. ‘anti-Semitism’ is nothing more than a of the Jewish community in 1979 and ‘bad’. The party’s handbook for shaded into anti-Semitism. Anti- Indeed the very idea of a rationale for Labour support for British were voting for the National Front.4 speakers stated: “Imperialism is dead, Zionism was never a part of Soviet ‘community’, which in reality is a foreign policy in the Middle East. The Jewish Chronicle of March 3 but the empire has been given a new opposition to Israel. Kelemen political group determining what 1978 cited a Jewish primary school life. Socialist planning is developing describes the first Palestine solidarity constitutes anti-Semitism, is an Jews and Zionism headteacher in London, who claimed it not for personal profit, but the march held in Britain in London in obvious recipe for a politically Kelemen begins by noting that the that Jewish parents did not wish Common-Weal” (p118). 1969, organised by Tariq Ali’s Black inspired definition, such as that character of Israel was determined to send their children to the same Labour’s support for Zionism was Dwarf, when 500 were expected and of the International Holocaust by the circumstances of its birth schools as black children (p77). at one with its overall support for 2,000 turned up. In November 1969 Remembrance Alliance, which - at its centre the expulsion of the In his chapter on British empire. Whereas the Tories did not there was the first Palestine Solidarity conflates Zionism and anti- Palestinians. Its formation as an communists and Palestine Kelemen bother to hide their belief that the Conference of 300 people, although Semitism. Kelemen notes that the ethno-nationalist state “carried a began by noting that the Mile End empire was a source of wealth for the organisation seems to have then political context for so-called “new strand of the ideological legacy that constituency in the East End, which capital, Labour’s imperialists dressed disappeared (pp159-60). anti-Semitism” was the decline of the state’s existence was meant to was heavily Jewish, elected England’s up Britain’s role in the language of This was a time of considerable traditional anti-Semitism and the rise refute”. In other words, the Israeli only Communist MP, Phil Piratin, trusteeship and benevolence. Even so, ferment, with the emergence of an of Islamophobia (p193) l state was the bastard offspring of in 1945. This was a consequence of on August 20 1948 Tribune’s editorial Israeli anti-Zionist organisation, Tony Greenstein European fascism. the leading role that the Communist was headed, ‘Let’s stay in Africa’. Matzpen, and the idea emerged of a Hannah Arendt observed in 1961, Party had played in the anti-fascist The reason being that “Africa offers democratic, unitary, secular state in Notes 1. www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/meet-the- when reporting on the Eichmann trial struggle and that of the Soviet Union huge material resources, which can the whole of Palestine, although the trotskyist-anti-zionist-who-saw-the-errors-of-his- for the New Yorker, that there was in defeating Nazi Germany. be exploited for the benefit of Britain Communist Party was constrained ways-1.62661. “something breathtaking in the naivety” As Zionism, in the wake of the and the world” (p122). by its previous support for the 2. The Observer January 24 1971. with which the prosecutor, Gideon holocaust, began to gain a base In practice what happened was Israeli state. In 1972 Ghada Karmi, a 3. www.tabletmag.com/scroll/236063/why-just- 13-percent-of-british-jews-say-they-will-vote-for- Hausner, had denounced the infamous among the Jewish working class, that Africa, etc was superexploited by Palestinian doctor in London, formed labour-in-the-general-election. See also ‘Labour’s Nuremburg laws, which had prohibited the Communist Party had great the Attlee government in order to pay Palestine Action. first Jewish leader is losing the Jewish vote’ The intermarriage and sexual intercourse difficulty in coming to terms with for reforms, such as the creation of Kelemen mentions the travails Daily Telegraph October 30 2014. between Jews and non-Jews. The better Zionism, which it saw as just another the national health service. Thus the of The Guardian, which employed 4. G Alderman The Jewish community in British politics Oxford 1982, pp159, 163-67. informed among the correspondents form of nationalism. This problem British working class was tied into the first pro-Arab Middle East 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Elkins. noted the “irony”, which was that Jews was compounded by the CPGB’s support for imperialism. It was the correspondent, Michael Adams. 6. https://mondoweiss.net/2017/06/picnicking- and non-Jews could not get married Stalinist politics and the geopolitical left as much as the right of the Labour Adams was the only western israelis-palestinian. 10 weekly April 25 2019 1248 worker POLEMIC Revolution or the ‘democratic road’? Things are changing in the US. The ‘socialist’, Bernie Sanders, gave Hillary Clinton a close run for her money in 2016, leftwing Democrats won congressional seats this year and the Democratic Socialists of America have grown substantially. This has triggered an interesting debate. The Jacobin magazine has featured James Muldoon, Charlie Post and Eric Blanc reassessing Karl Kautsky’s political strategy and counterposing “democratic socialism” to what is called Leninist “insurrection”. Here we reprint Donald Parkinson’s rejoinder

he recent debate hosted on John This general strategy has come has to be prepared for this before Riddell’s blog1 (and reprinted to be known as the ‘democratic road taking power, which means that a mass T on the US website, Cosmonaut) to socialism’. Kautsky’s own work party has to have its own defensive between Eric Blanc and Mike Taber is is a reference point for this project, wing. As Alexander Gallus shows in not only an argument about the details but it was exactly on the issue of his article on Red Vienna,7 defensive of Marxist intellectual history, but the bourgeois state that Kautsky was and paramilitary organisations, such one about the correct revolutionary weakest. It was therefore necessary for as the 1923 Schutzbund of the Austrian strategy for Marxists today. his disciple, Lenin, to reconstruct the Social Democratic Party, must be To summarise the argument, Blanc Marxist view of the state. For Lenin successfully organised before the argues that from the work of the early in State and revolution, Kautsky was appearance of revolutionary situations, Kautsky one can find a strategy for overly vague about the need to smash at which point a mass party becomes taking power through parliament that is the bourgeois state and replace it a major social influence and thus an alternative to the ‘insurrectionism’ of with a workers’ state. Kautsky, in his subject to police and fascist violence. Bolshevism, and that, while Kautsky’s early works, certainly saw a socialist While the Austrian Social Democrats method is no less revolutionary, it revolution as something initiated by were committed to a strategy that is offers a “democratic road to socialism” the election of a revolutionary party, very similar to Blanc’s conception that avoids insurrection.2 Taber, in his but was ambiguous on the need of a ‘democratic road to socialism’, response, argues that Blanc is raising to smash the existing order - this they had failed to prepare their party a spectre when he cites a specific alone would transform the nature of and paramilitary organisation for a Bolshevik strategy of insurrection, and the state. Whether there was a real successful civil war against fascism points out that his own example of the rupture between the bourgeois state precisely because they refused to Finnish revolution saw armed conflict and a state based on the organised utilise insurrection and hone a militant between classes.3 Furthermore, there power of the workers, as Marx argued proletarian defence of democracy. are issues with Kautsky’s own politics in The civil war in France, was not even in his early pre-revisionist years, spelled out by Kautsky. Outmoded? such as his wavering on the question This is not to say that Karl Kautsky The assumption that bourgeois of coalition governments and his lack was not a great Marxist with much democracy makes insurrection of clarity on the need to smash the to teach us, and I do believe that his outmoded and thus allows for a bourgeois state. Taber also points out classic works are essential reading. democratic road to socialism also how the Bolshevik revolution was Kautsky in his prime was certainly greatly exaggerates the extent that democratically legitimated and that a revolutionary, but, unlike Lenin, bourgeois democracy is tolerant of the Bolsheviks utilised parliamentary he never led a successful revolution subversion by the working class. Just elections. nor gained, or apparently really recently a Turkish communist was The response from Blanc to Taber attempted to gain, crucial experience elected to office and was blocked goes on to make a more detailed as a revolutionary statesman. On from taking up his post.8 This is just argument against a “dual power/ the topic of revolutionary strategy, one example of such dirty tricks, insurrection strategy” that is implicit Kautsky issues a good set of basic and it is easy to imagine that, with in Taber’s positive view of the principles for a party-building the ascendance of a mass workers’ Bolsheviks, claiming that one either strategy (adhering to democratic movement, the capitalist state will supports Blanc’s “democratic road” republican principles and defending shed much of its democratic facade, as or has an unrealistic belief in “dual Marxism), but the actual nature of a workers’ party grows and threatens power”, which is represented by the revolution and the process of building the smooth functioning of capitalism. Marxist center organisation.4 a revolutionary government are better The hope in a ‘democratic road to understood by Lenin. socialism’ has too much faith in the Poulantzas It is absolutely true that Lenin permanence of bourgeois democracy, The debate is now framed by Blanc made mistakes, but Blanc would not seeing that this is just one method of as one of dual power/insurrection have us dismiss Lenin’s career as a bourgeois rule. It almost assumes that vs a democratic road to socialism, statesman because “really working the democratic parliamentary state is a where a socialist party is elected to class democracy only lasted six Standing for parliament not the same as parliamentarianism telos that states head toward - a sort of parliament. This dichotomy is one months”. It is easy to criticise the ideal form. We must not fall for the trap established by Nicos Poulantzas in Soviet republic as not meeting the although terribly timid in his demand from a socialist party. that socialists respecting democracy his work State, power, socialism. ideal of a workers’ state, as outlined predictions about the nature of In a revolutionary situation, the will necessarily lead to the bourgeoisie While Blanc does not explicitly in State and revolution, but this any future revolutionary civil war, military and police must be splintered respecting a socialist movement. mention Poulantzas, his affiliates in avoids the question in the first place recognised in his 1902 book Social and disbanded, the old, corrupt state This is, of course, not a call to The Call 5 promote his work. In State, of why bureaucracy, militarisation revolution that: bureaucracy put under the oversight abandon participation in elections. power, socialism, Poulantzas argues and restrictions on democratic rights of the armed and prepared proletariat. Blanc is certainly right that we need to that the authoritarianism of Stalinism occurred - the country was thrown We have also, as we have already The old constitutional order is to run in elections, and Kautsky tells us was incipient in the very idea of dual into civil war, while already in a said, no right to apply conclusions be torn down, and representative much about the correct way to do this. power as creating a new state, and period of economic collapse. drawn from nature directly to institutions must be made to embody Kautsky, unlike Blanc, did not believe that the Bolshevik revolution went Any workers’ movement taking social processes. We can go no the mass democracy of the working the workers’ party should campaign for wrong with the attempt to take the power - even through fully legal further upon the ground of such class. This is what smashing the state bourgeois parties like the Democrats. soviets from a form of dual power to means, as in Chile and elsewhere - analogies than to conclude: that, entails. This must be clearly articulated The important lesson from Kautsky the form of the state itself, so as to will have to deal with the problem of as each animal creature must at and communicated. and Marxist Social Democracy is establish a “class dictatorship” of the civil war, as the Bolsheviks did, and one time go through a catastrophe If Blanc is merely rejecting their focus on party-building around proletariat by replacing parliament of building a new state. This makes in order to reach a higher stage of putschism or the strategy pursued by a minimum-maximum programme. with the soviets. clear the appeal of the ‘democratic development (the act of birth or of the Communist Party of Germany in This type of party must run its own For Poulantzas, power from below, road to socialism’: it avoids having the breaking of a shell), so society the March Action of 1921, I have no independent candidates under the like the soviets, must be balanced to deal with the fact that any can only be raised to a higher disagreements. However, stating that central discipline of a workers’ party by power from above exercised in a revolutionary rupture - be it the US stage of development through a insurrection is off the table, while that has a clear revolutionary agenda. parliament. He argues that, instead of civil war, Bolshevik revolution, catastrophe.6 saying you will do whatever is possible Elections are a means of gathering trying to build a counter-sovereignty Finnish civil war - will have to deal to defend a revolutionary government, power and mass support, spreading that will take the mantle of state power, with an element of catastrophe that Blanc, of course, realises that a is contradictory, if not dishonest - or the Marxist message of the party and socialists must struggle within the state may require extreme measures. This revolutionary government elected at least a confusion of legitimate consolidating its influence in society. by democratising its own institutions. is perhaps not a great selling point to power will face resistance from insurrection with putschism. The While Mike Taber shows that On this view, the state is not controlled if we want the undecided masses on capitalism and reactionaries. He Finnish Red Guards could have simply Kautsky did waver on the issue of or ruled by the dominant class, but board, but it would be cripplingly vaguely calls for whatever is given power back to the capitalist coalition governments, Kautsky did, is a sort of political expression of dishonest to conceal this reality. necessary to defend this government, class, for example, but instead they in fact, maintain as a rule that the all classes in their interactions. For The history of the 20th century has to be achieved in alliance with a mass armed themselves and fought back. party should not enter into coalitions Poulantzas, socialist politics is a shown to what barbaric depths the popular movement, yet he also clearly They heroically attempted a revolt with capitalist candidates, nor enter struggle within the bourgeois state ruling class’s fear of socialism will rejects insurrection. This indecisive against the illegitimate authority of government. The legislative rather than for the working class to become the throw society if needed. The strength vagueness is what is so disturbing. the capitalist state: ie, they attempted the executive branch was the target of dominant power bloc, or at least a of reaction, the widespread irrational It is exactly armed conflict and insurrection. electoral campaigns, so the workers significant faction within it. Power propaganda of conservatism and a insurrection that would be necessary Any real attempt to make inroads could send representatives to parliament from below has an important role in nascent number of active rightwing to defend a government genuinely on private property will most definitely without entering government itself. keeping the parliamentary government paramilitaries in the United States dedicated to undermining capitalism, find itself coming into armed conflict This is, however, not the strategy of the from being corrupt and in pushing it to are among many indicators of this and we must be conscious and clear with the capitalist class, especially in Democratic Socialists of America or more radical ends. historical continuity. Kautsky, about what this implies for and will the United States. The working class The Call, who believe that the current weekly 11 1248 worker April 25 2019 What we fight for aim of socialists should be to push bourgeois society that overtook the adherence to the principles of class It is assumed that after the civil war n Without organisation the debate vaguely ‘leftwards’, fall behind Venezuelan government - something independence. It also means being there was no movement within the working class is nothing; with any candidate who is generally of the no power from below in the communal aware of the limitations of elections. USSR to extend the gains of the early the highest form of organisation left, and campaign for left Democrats. movement has been able to check. The party winning an election to the revolution, or there were no gains of it is everything. Running in elections should not be More likely is that the military point of being able to take government the revolution left in the first place. n There exists no real Communist seen as a way to build workers’ power would not side with the socialists, does not in itself transfer power to the It is a view of a workers’ state as an Party today. There are many ‘within’ the state. The tendency to see and we would end up with a Pinochet working class: it is merely a means ideal that is born as a true democracy, so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In class struggle as an intra-state conflict or a technocratic military regime. of provoking a crisis of the bourgeois and not an achievement of a protracted reality they are confessional sects. is a major problem, because a socialist Do the workers simply stand by? Or state and its legitimacy. Transferring process of smashing and replacing the Members who disagree with the movement needs to actually build a do they take up arms to defend their power to the working class requires bourgeois state with new institutions prescribed ‘line’ are expected to counter-sovereignty to the capitalist party and legitimate government? the successful application of a governed by the working class. In gag themselves in public. Either state, not become integrated into it. It One could argue that simply acting minimum programme that actually the USSR, this process indeed saw that or face expulsion. is important to be explicitly clear and in self-defence against a rightwing leads to a rupture with the existing a bureaucracy that would drive the n honest about this necessary component coup is not insurrection, yet at some state institutions. Winning an election system into capitalism developing and Communists operate according of socialist revolution and of ‘building point, there must be a decision on can mean the party simply enters into taking hold, but this process was not to the principles of democratic a state within a state’, as Kautsky states whether or not to engage in military government and manages capitalism - if one that simply began and ended after centralism. Through ongoing debate - one that maintains the working class’s confrontation with the bourgeoisie. the party is allowed to enter government the Bolsheviks made certain mistakes. we seek to achieve unity in action independence. Not engaging with the concrete reality at all. Yet winning elections is in fact a The best of Karl Kautsky can be and a common world outlook. As Some, of course, let their fear of that a revolutionary state in its infancy tool of great importance, and offers us seen in his general strategy of patiently long as they support agreed actions, integration into the state lead to a will likely see conditions of civil war, an unparalleled method of spreading building a revolutionary, oppositional members should have the right to complete rejection of electoral politics, and that this will necessitate a level propaganda, while breaking up the counter-sovereignty in the form of speak openly and form temporary which is a mistake. Kautsky’s own of insurrection and militarisation smooth running of capitalism. a mass party. It is not seen in his or permanent factions. original electoral strategy was meant that will conflict with some ideals of ambiguity on the transition to socialism n Communists oppose all impe- to avoid a situation where the party democracy, can only create confusion. Government or his faith in capitalist democratic rialist wars and occupations but was elected to merely be a manager The flawed ‘democratic road to The ability of elections to create a institutions. On these questions, constantly strive to bring to the fore of capitalism. The point of elections socialism’ endorsed by Blanc also crisis of legitimacy that allows for Lenin was far clearer than Kautsky. the fundamental question–ending war was to build the party, not maintain expresses a certain kind of faith in the a revolution is not to be ignored or Lenin does not theorise a strategy of is bound up with ending capitalism. parliamentarism, the party serving as institutions which make up modern undervalued. However, the point is insurrection, but revolution in general, n Communists are internationalists. a ‘state within the state’ that had its democracy, that violent revolutions can that a socialist party can only enter where insurrection is simply a means Everywhere we strive for the closest own working class alternative culture. be avoided and are simply a product of into government if it is willing and to an end. His strategy is aggressively unity and agreement of working class In other words, it was what those who revolutions against absolutist states. It able to carry out its full minimum unoriginal in its faithfulness to Marx and progressive parties of all countries. advocate base-building call dual power is an assumption that politics has been programme, which lays the basis for and Engels, but visionary in its ability We oppose every manifestation - something Blanc rejects as a strategy. civilised, but the rise of right populism a workers’ republic. We must not fall to organise the working class for of national sectionalism. It is an While Blanc does follow Poulantzas in and violence shows this is anything but into the trap of modern left parties revolution in difficult circumstances. internationalist duty to uphold the calling for a struggle “from below” to the case. In fact, the extent to which we that see getting into government as On the question of insurrection, principle, ‘One state, one party’. complement the struggle internal to the actually have functioning democratic the only means of accomplishing Lenin was not a putschist, but simply n The working class must be state, how is such a struggle supposed processes to work within is severely anything. recognised that the class struggle organised globally. Without a global to be developed without patient base- questionable. As the Harvard Electoral The bourgeois state is not broken could, and in some cases would, 9 Communist Party, a Communist building, some kind of dual power? Integrity Project states, the United up overnight either, and a simple necessarily take a military form. The International, the struggle against Here we fall into the assumption States has the most corrupt elections parliamentary victory leaves the more we deny this, the more we set l capital is weakened and lacks of Rosa Luxemburg’s The mass in the entire industrialized world, with entire state bureaucracy and military ourselves up for failure coordination. strike that the workers’ movement the majority of primary and general intact. Attempts to engage in even Donald Parkinson will spontaneously throw up such a elections being completely rigged. radical democratic reforms will meet n Communists have no interest struggle, which will provide solutions On the question of “workers’ resistance from the bourgeoisie and This article first appeared at apart from the working class to the problems of the workers’ government” - and this slogan, taken necessitate the decapitation of their the Cosmonaut blog: https:// as a whole. They differ only in movement. In this sense, there is a up at the Fourth Congress of the armed forces and power. This brings cosmonaut.blog/2019/04/13/ recognising the importance of strange mix of ultra-left spontaneism in Comintern - Blanc sees a move towards us to the question of the Bolsheviks. revolution-or-the-democratic- Marxism as a guide to practice. these arguments within the framework a proper recognition of the need for a While Lenin and the Bolsheviks may road-to-socialism-a-reply-to- That theory is no dogma, but of an electoral approach which aims to democratic road to socialism. Yet the not have replaced the bourgeois state eric-blanc. must be constantly added to and gradually build workers’ power within “workers’ government” slogan was with ideal forms (something Lenin enriched. the state itself without ‘smashing’ the a confusing addition to the strategy would admit), they nonetheless Notes n Capitalism in its ceaseless bourgeois state. of the united front that generally understood that the old state 1. https://johnriddell.wordpress.com. search for profit puts the future 2. https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/karl-kautsky- discredited a legitimate strategic turn. institutions had to go and that relying democratic-socialism-elections-rupture. of humanity at risk. Capitalism is Counterposition The “workers’ government” called on ‘experts’ from the old regime was 3. https://cosmonaut.blog/2019/04/10/kautsky- synonymous with war, pollution, Eric Blanc essentially counterposes a for more than joining the Social not desirable. They actually dealt lenin-and-the-transition-to-socialism-a-reply-to- exploitation and crisis. As a global strategy of dual power and insurrection Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) with the concrete issue of trying to eric-blanc. system capitalism can only be 4. https://cosmonaut.blog/2019/04/11/the- to a strategy of electoralism. Yet it in joint struggle: it also called for oversee a rupture from one form of democratic-road-to-socialism-reply-to-mike-taber. superseded globally. is necessary to struggle in electoral the Communist Party (KPD) to form the state to the other, and how this 5. https://socialistcall.com/2018/08/30/race-class- n The capitalist class will never politics, as well as to build a counter- an electoral alliance with the SPD process itself would at times be one and-socialist-strategy. willingly allow their wealth and sovereignty to the bourgeois state, in and even enter government with it. of violent class struggle, as well as of 6. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/ pt1-1.htm. power to be taken away by a the form of a party movement that is This was to be a sort of halfway- concessions and retreats. While for 7. https://cosmonaut.blog/2019/02/24/the- parliamentary vote. willing to defend working class gains house toward the dictatorship of the Blanc the Bolshevik regime was only democratic-bolshevik. n We will use the most militant by all means - naturally not limited to, proletariat, but in fact only served to a “true workers’ democracy” for six 8. www.peoplesworld.org/article/turkeys- but including, insurrection. The idea of create confusion. The KPD and SPD months and after that was essentially communist-mayor-blocked-from-taking-office. methods objective circumstances 9. www.electoralintegrityproject.com/eip- allow to achieve a federal republic base-building is simply that we need did not have programmatic unity - their defeated, the Bolsheviks did not even blogs/2017/1/7/its-even-worse-than-the-news- to organise institutions in working politics were inherently at odds at this consolidate power and develop some of England, Scotland and Wales, about-north-carolina-american-elections-rank-last- a united, federal Ireland and a class communities that serve the needs point and, even if the SPD was part of kind of stable regime until 1921. among-all-western-democracies. of workers. There are many ideas on the labour movement, its politics were United States of Europe. how it fits into a broader strategy, yet the politics of managing capitalism. n Communists favour industrial base-building has been part of what To enter government, a workers’ unions. Bureaucracy and class all successful workers’ parties have party can only go into coalition with Fighting fund compromise must be fought and done in order to build up strength. As those with whom it shares sufficient the trade unions transformed into Blanc would likely agree, it is through programmatic unity to fight together schools for communism. organisation that the working class for the dismantling of the capitalist n Communists are champions of becomes strong and capable of leading state and the formation of an actual Not complacent the oppressed. Women’s oppression, society; but it must be accompanied workers’ republic. This basic level of combating racism and chauvinism, by the development and eventual unity was not shared with the SPD, ith just under a week still to ideology’ - it made me think.” and the struggle for peace and leadership of an explicitly Marxist so a “workers’ government” between Wgo, we are within touching And finally there were two ecological sustainability are just party - one which defends and openly the KPD and SPD could only be distance of our newly increased PayPal donations - £10 from KC as much working class questions declares our fundamental principles a confused coalition, paralysingly fighting fund target for April. and £6.20 (!) from TT. Don’t ask as pay, trade union rights and and lessons from history. standing in contradiction with itself - In view of recent increases me what the extra 20p is for! demands for high-quality health, Promising a road to socialism with this contradiction either resulting in postage and printing costs we What gave us a boost this housing and education. without insurrection is a form of in a breakdown of the coalition or the decided to up that target from month was, of course, the n Socialism represents victory wishful thinking - a dangerous hope KPD making shifts to the right in order £1,750 to £2,000, starting from response of readers to my appeal in the battle for democracy. It that we can avoid anything like the to accommodate its coalition partner. this month, and we already have for extra regular donations, and is the rule of the working class. catastrophes and difficult situations When the KPD attempted this strategy £1,993, with six days still to go. I this week comrade PG has sent us Socialism is either democratic or, of revolutionaries in the 20th century. with the SPD in Saxony in 1923, don’t think I’m being complacent a standing order authority for £20 as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it In speaking of a democratic road forming a municipal government in when I assume that Weekly a quarter. Thanks to him and to turns into its opposite. to socialism, we are only speaking partnership with it, the result was the Worker readers will come up with others previously mentioned who in terms of ideal situations, not discrediting of the KPD, as it attempted the £7 we still need by April 30! have committed themselves to n Socialism is the first stage actual situations. If a party seeking a to use the situation as a launching point The monthly standing orders making such a regular payment. of the worldwide transition to ‘democratic road to socialism’ was for taking power. Blanc’s attempt to use we received over the last seven Mind you, if we don’t want this communism–a system which elected, what would it do if it attempted the makeshift “workers’ government” days amounted to £390 - thank month’s success to be one-off, we knows neither wars, exploitation, to nationalise key industries, only to be slogan as an example of something you, comrades TB, PM, SK and could do with quite a few more money, classes, states nor nations. faced by a rightwing coup? One could good in the Comintern does not PM. Then there was the £20 bank standing orders. Communism is general freedom hope they have sufficient friends in the match up with history, and rather than transfer from GB, with the single- Any offers?l and the real beginning of human bourgeois military to avert the coup, a ‘return to form’ towards orthodox word message - “contribution”. Robbie Rix history. which Hugo Chávez was able to do Marxism, the “workers’ government” One that is very much appreciated. The Weekly Worker is licensed by with the help of popular mobilisation. was a predecessor to future failures like On top of that we received a Fill in a standing order form November Publications under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Yet then one has to deal with the the popular front. £25 cheque from RC, who writes: (back page), donate via our 4.0 International Licence: http:// issues of the military becoming a Using elections to advance the cause “Thanks for publishing Amanda website, or send cheques, creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ dominant force in the government, of socialism requires that such efforts MacLean’s article on ‘genderist payable to Weekly Worker legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. bringing with it all the corruption of are led by a party with an intransigent No 1248 April 25 2019 Silencing the weekly right will be followed by silencing the worker left First Iran, then Britain Yassamine Mather looks behind the social media bans imposed in the name of ‘democracy’ ast week if you tried to access groups and their Saudi and United Arab occurred.6 In it Ryan Crocker, former the Instagram accounts that Emirates supporters are allowed to US ambassador to Afghanistan, Lare supposed to belong to top show horrific images on social media Syria, Kuwait and Lebanon, amongst figures of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary and they remain exempt from such others, describes secret talks with a Guard Corps, you would have seen bans, many Iranians - who day in day representative of the Revolutionary the message: “Sorry, this page is not out are told the US is concerned about Guards. According to Crocker, the available”. This was only a day after their ‘human rights’ and democracy discussion took an unusual turn when Donald Trump labelled the IRGC a - found the whole episode quite he was presented with a map covering “foreign terrorist organisation” and disturbing. all of Afghanistan showing Taliban a day before both Instagram and All this was followed by the Trump positions, with recommendations Facebook banned some British far- administration’s announcement that on specific targets. In the end, when right groups and individuals. all countries importing Iranian oil will Crocker asked if he could take notes When the social media outlets were be subject to US sanctions. In other about the map, his Iranian counterpart asked about the ban on Iranian groups, words, Donald Trump had decided not said he could keep the map! the reply was clear: “We work with to reissue waivers regarding sanctions Another BBC documentary appropriate government authorities to against countries importing Iranian oil recalled meetings between the two ensure we meet our legal obligations, when they expire on May 2. According sides in New York and Geneva about including those relating to the recent to the White House, “This decision is the invasion of Afghanistan. An designation of the IRGC.” intended to bring Iran’s oil exports to IRGC representative showed the US The list of banned pages zero, denying the regime its principal delegation precise Taliban targets in included those of IRGC commander source of revenue.” Secretary of state No longer available northern Afghanistan and this was Mohammad Ali Jafari, major-general Mike Pompeo stated: used in US air raids attacking Taliban Qasem Soleimani (who only a couple Steve Bannon, has invited Marine Le example, one that aims to impose strongholds. In Hossein Bastani’s of years ago was praised by some in How long the exports remain at Pen’s far-right party to join his populist regime change in Tehran. article there are also references to Iran the US media for his role in fighting zero depends solely on the … Iran’s project.2 And last year The Guardian US national security advisor John and Hezbollah supporting Bosnian Islamic State), Iran’s former foreign senior leaders. We have made our commented that Bannon was visiting Bolton has warned: “The Iranian regime forces in cooperation with US military minister Ali Akbar Velayati, as well demands very clear to the ayatollah Europe to encourage a “national should understand that it must change plans. as the English-language version of the and his cronies: end your pursuit populist revolt”.3 its behaviour now or continue to pay Then there is Iraq. In 2007, when supreme leader’s official website on of nuclear weapons, stop testing However, the point is that the UK the cost for its destabilising behaviour, Ryan Crocker was the US ambassador Instagram. The last three were later and proliferating ballistic missiles, ban represents a dangerous attack which only hurts the Iranian people.”4 to Iraq, he had talks with Hassan reinstated because, as always with stop sponsoring and committing on freedom of expression by the Here at least there is an admission of Kazemi Qomi, his Iranian equivalent. White House directives right now, terrorism, halt the arbitrary detention ‘moderators’ of social media groups sorts: sanctions hurt ordinary Iranians! This was admitted by supreme leader chaos and incompetence lead the way. of US citizens. Our pressure is working with the British government. However, even after the disastrous Ali Khamenei, who at the time said he Although most Iranian users would aimed at ending these and others The fact that at this time it is the right failures of US policy in Iraq, Libya and had “no objection to direct talks with not be able to access Facebook and and it will continue to accelerate that has been targeted is irrelevant. Syria, Washington has not learned the the US in order to avoid chaos in Iraq”. Twitter in any case, both sites are until Iran is willing to address them Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out that it dangers of promoting regime change. There are many recollections of these officially banned. However, Instagram at the negotiating table.1 is not just the far right which has been President Rouhani’s response talks, which demonstrate how Tehran, is available and it is by far the most accused of ‘hate speech’ - what about to these threats came on April 24, eager to support fellow Shias, was popular social media outlet in Iran, with However, Saudi Arabia and the UAE Momentum and its “anti-Semitism”, he when he summed up the current cooperating with the US following the some 24 million users. Many of these have agreed to “ensure an appropriate asked. Iranian government attitude towards invasion of Iraq. have reacted strongly, even though the supply” in order to make up for the loss In fact the government is planning negotiations with the US: if a thug Finally there is the recent Revolutionary Guards are not a popular of Iranian oil on the global market. to impose new social media controls wielding a knife invites you to discuss cooperation in Iraq and Syria between force in Iran. This is not just because on what it calls material deemed to be future relations over a coffee, you would the Revolutionary Guards and what is of their repressive character, but more UK bans “harmful, but not necessarily illegal”. be stupid to accept. He added: “The US loosely called the US coalition against importantly because the group’s leaders It so happened that it was the very next The white paper issued by home is not ready to hold negotiations at all IS. The IRGC hardly comes out of all of and their immediate relatives are day that Facebook banned a host of far- secretary Sajid Javid and culture and and its measures are aimed at breaking this as a radical, anti-US organisation, beneficiaries of neoliberal capitalism right individuals and organisations in media secretary Jeremy Wright does up the Iranian nation.” as the Trump administration is eager to and amongst Iran’s rich elites. They the UK, accusing them of “spreading not make it clear who will decide that In this he is right - although, of portray it. own 20%-30% of Iran’s ‘privatised’ hate”. The list included Facebook and a particular item is “harmful” or how course, Tehran has been more than In this context we can understand capital, and they are hated as employers Instagram pages associated with the such a decision will be made, while willing to negotiate and cooperate with the frustration felt by Tehran. We are and exploiters of the working class. British National Party, the English its assurances about ‘freedom of successive US administrations since not just talking about social media bans However, in the last few weeks lower- Defence League, the National Front, expression’ are deliberately vague. The the establishment of the Shia republic and severe sanctions. Plans for ‘regime ranking members of the guards have Britain First and the militant Christian regulations would cover not just social 40 years ago. I am not going to detail change from above’ are now well been praised by Iranian Instagram users group, Knights Templar International. media, but independent websites. In the initial contacts that led to the underway l for their involvement in flood relief Nick Griffin, former leader of the other words, far from celebrating the Irangate scandal, but it is worthwhile across the country. British National Party, and Jack current restrictions and bans, we should summarising the history of relations Notes And the Instagram ban has - in Iran, Renshaw, a far-right activist jailed in forcefully oppose them. between the IRGC and the United 1. www.state.gov/secretary/ as elsewhere - started a debate about June for plotting to murder Labour MP The Iranian bans and the subsequent States, as explained in Farsi by Hossein remarks/2019/04/291283.htm. the independence of social media Rosie Cooper, were also banned. additional economic penalties also Bastani of BBC Persian.5 2. www.ft.com/content/57749590-bb3b-11e8- 94b2-17176fbf93f5. and the west’s claims of upholding Many on the left rushed to celebrate have sinister aims. As I have pointed One of the most important 3. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/ freedom of expression. Rightwing these bans, but clearly such a reaction is out, an embattled US president, facing examples of this cooperation was the jun/06/steve-bannon-far-right-radicalise-europe- pro-censorship forces celebrated the ill-considered. Leave aside the fact that a Democratic-led Congress continuing help provided by the IRGC in 2001 trump. ban with the hard-line paper Javan many associated with the current US to question his conduct after the in the US war against the Taliban, 4. www.teletrader.com/bolton-urges-iran-to- change-behavior/news/details/47592522. renaming Instagram “Insta-Trump”. administration have close relations with Mueller report, would be happy to who at the time controlled Kabul 5. www.bbc.com/persian/iran-features-48016253. But ‘reformist’ bloggers took a British and European far-right groups. divert attention from his own behaviour and most of Afghanistan. A recent 6. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0003871/ad/ different attitude. Information minister For instance, Trump’s former advisor, through a war in the Middle East: for BBC documentary showed what shadow-commander-irans-military-mastermind. Mohammad-Javad Azari Jahromi used his own Instagram account to post Subscribe Name:______Standing order a Game of thrones quote criticising 6m 1yr Inst. To ______Bank plc ______Instagram’s decision: “When you tear Address:______UK £30/€35 £60/€70 £200/€220 Branch address ______out a man’s tongue, you aren’t proving Europe £43/€50 £86/€100 £240/€264 ______him a liar. You’re only telling the world Rest of £65/€75 £130/€150 £480/€528 Post code ______Account name ______world that you fear what he might say.” ______Sort code ______Account No ______Accusations that Instagram is New UK subscribers offer: practising double standards and 3 months for £10 ______Please pay to Weekly Worker, Lloyds A/C No 00744310 sort code 30-99-64, the sum of ______every month*/3 months* advancing a particular political agenda UK subscribers: Pay by standing order and Tel:______until further notice, commencing on ______This replaces any previous order from this account. (*delete) gained further momentum when the save £12 a year. Minimum £12 every 3 Date ______ban targeted non-IRGC figures, among months... but please pay more if you can. Email:______Signed ______Name (PRINT) ______them chief justice Ebrahim Raissi, who lost the 2017 presidential elections to Send a cheque or postal order payable to ‘Weekly Worker’ at: Sub: £/€ ______Address ______Hassan Rouhani. Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, ______Given the fact that many Salafi London WC1N 3XX Donation: £/€ ______