A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity

Humans of one generation have n Letters and debate n Iran and the Donald to pass Earth on to succeeding n US Kautsky debate generations in an improved state n Stan Keable case No 1265 September 5 2019 Towards a Communist Party of the European Union £1/€1.10 Parliamentary cretinism weekly 2 September 5 2019 1265 worker LETTERS

Letters may have been usually followed the Labour Party line. the tremendous development of the shortened because of Professor Davis asked what the forces of production since Marx’s day, space. Some names principles, strategy and tactics were in capitalism can now be transformed into  may have been changed this struggle, and answered her own socialism/communism fairly quickly - Summer Offensive question in this way: and that exchanging quotes from Marx  Principle: the road to socialism (she settles only the academic, historical Leave now! did not specify if this was the British question of what Marx thought, not On September 2 I attended a public road ...). what should be done today. Over the meeting organised by the London  Strategy: Brexit was part of the Adam Buick district committee and North London necessary strategy to achieve socialism, Socialist Party of Great Britain Communist Party of Britain (before because it is impossible to transform the the events of this week in parliament current order within the EU. We (eg, the China programme finishing line obviously). left) want Brexit because we want that Paul Demarty’s article on the The leaflet for the event - entitled change to socialism. continuing crisis in Hong Kong ‘Brexit for the people. No to EU  Tactics: yes to a general election, yes undoubtedly raised the key problem of Austerity! Why Labour should to no deal, unless there is a good deal. the protest movement there - the lack support leave’ - promised an action- “We” are committed to parliamentary of a programme for China (‘We need packed discussion, proving that sovereignty, so the need is to oppose the a game plan’, August 15). However, Brexit - or Lexit, as proposed by prorogation of parliament. In addition the article didn’t put forward any such the CPB’s new front, Leave, Fight, “we” need an international Brexit, so programme, so we are left wondering Transform (LeFT) - was needed for that there is a social transformation if Paul has it in mind to write a second “the people”. The Marx Memorial leading to socialism. article, in which he might suggest the Library and Workers School meeting Questions and statements followed, outlines of such a programme. hall was crowded. which included a remark from the KKE If he does plan to do so, he may well International speakers had been speaker that the EU was passing laws need to start with a clearer analysis of invited. Thassod Mangelis from the leading to “modern slavery”. However, the class nature of China. Throwaway KKE (Communist Party of Greece) one question unanswered by this phrases such as “the capitalist elite” spoke about the situation in Greece, and meeting was how nationalist interest or “the Stalinist-capitalist dictatorship argued that the European Union cannot could be transformed into socialism, of China as a whole” just create more be democratised because of its relations and another asked at the end (which confusion than clarity. And an unclear with Nato - they are the leading anti- seemed to sum up the questions not analysis of the situation in China will communist organisations that equate asked or answered by this meeting) inevitably have a limiting effect on any fascism with communism - and that was: “How do we win the unity of the programme. the benefits go mainly to Germany. working class?” Actually, the Chinese regime’s own He ended his statement with the cry, There will be a fringe meeting of the definition of their system as “market “Workers of the world, unite!” LeFT group at the TUC conference, at socialism” is a reasonably accurate Next spoke Andreas Gregoriou, which Arthur Scargill will be coming assessment of the current system in secretary of the Cypriot Progressive out of retirement to speak, alongside the China. It is as if Lenin’s New Economic Party of Working People (AKEL) in general secretary of the CPB, Robert Programme of 1921 has been taken to Britain. He stressed the “needs of the Griffiths. the ultimate level. people” in Cyprus, with unemployment Gaby Rubin Given that the public sector is still and poverty rising; the shrinking of London dominant in China (80%, including the public sector. He said that austerity state ownership of the banks), the revealed the real nature of the system State capitalism central demand needs to be for the - one-third of the population is living Despite what Jack Conrad writes, democratisation of the state, society on or under a living wage and that the I have never claimed that Lenin and the economy. But not along unemployment rate for youth is 30%. innovated when he called post-capitalist the competitive lines of capitalist think that from many comrades’ hands of many SOs, so it was Mick Carty, general secretary of society ‘socialism’ (‘The two phases democracy: rather in a collectivist form, I point of view, this year’s extremely encouraging that the the Connolly Association, changed the of communism’, August 15). This based on participatory democracy. That Summer Offensive - the CPGB’s young comrade, OP, managed tenor by speaking about the situation was standard practice amongst first- is something we also need in the west. annual fundraising drive - was £590. Ditto our cohort of in Ireland with respect to relations generation Marxists and, in fact, shows Pat Byrne very encouraging. Not vintage, comrades from the Netherlands between the north and south, and that for them the words ‘socialism’ and Labour International (personal capacity) but a definite move forward from (who attended the CPGB’s the EU. He amused the audience by ‘communism’ were interchangeable. recent years. There are several Communist University and took claiming that the EU’s free mobility of Lenin’s ‘innovation’ was to see New world reasons for this. a lively and engaged part both labour gave Irish workers “a choice of ‘socialism’ starting at the beginning of Banks are closing down local First, there was the simple fact in the formal sessions and in the places to emigrate to”. He stated that the the period Marx envisaged when the branches and removing cash services. that we hit and went beyond our informal, boisterous discussions Connolly Association worked for Irish working class would be using its control Customers wishing to withdraw target of £30,000 over the two- that - occasionally fuelled by a unity and independence and as such did of political power to transform capitalist money as cash are directed to cash month period of the campaign. small sherry or two - stretched not take a position on the backstop. society into ‘communist society’ (or, machines, but the number of ATMs is When all the last-minute shrapnel on into the night). Our Dutch The long-awaited main speaker the same thing, ‘socialist society’): ie, declining. Mobile payments - either and notes had been totted up, comrades contributed £1,200 of the evening, Labour peer Maurice a period during which socialism (or for bill paying or person-to-person we had powered through to an to the SO and - reflecting the Glasman, spoke next. He argued that communism) had yet to be established. transactions - will be the last nail in impressive £31,257 (well over affection the comrades were held the difference between globalisation Lenin further ‘innovated’ by the coffin for cash. £6,000 more than the SO of in by CPGBers - were given a and internationalism was being eroded extending this period into what Marx In countries that lead this transition 2018). boisterous round of applause at in the discussion. The EU, he argued, had called the “first phase of communist to a digital economy - Iceland, Second, this successful our celebration meal to mark being a great capitalist enterprise, society”. As a result he has the state Norway, Sweden and Denmark - campaign was noticeable for a the ending of the fundraising “makes resistance to capitalism illegal”. and the wages system continuing to nearly all transactions, both in volume rather more rigorous approach campaign. The EU gives priority to capital over survive into socialism/communism. As and number, are digital. Today, to contacting comrades in our A small flurry of donations labour. he put it in State and revolution, in this less than three percent of consumer immediate periphery, plus from supporters and sympathisers Internationalism was solidarity phase “all citizens are transformed into payments in Norway are in cash. And the more distant friends our was also very useful in getting with the oppressed. Globalisation was hired employees of the state” (chapter what has happened in Scandinavia is organisation has. One recurrent us over the finishing line and defiance of working class agency, 5, section 3). In other articles from the now happening in the UK too. weakness of our culture that this beyond - many thanks for the despising working people. It is not same period Lenin frequently confused We must support the move to a year’s SO has reminded us of is last-minute donations by TDB the uneducated who are opposed to state capitalism and socialism in this cash-free society. But it should mean our amateurism, when it comes and JC (£200 each) and the Brexit (after all, teachers voted against way, as all Leninists have done ever that all people, including the unbanked to keeping active links with others who rushed cash to us, as Brexit): even the Labour leadership since. and the homeless, should be given the relatively large numbers of the finishing line loomed. was abandoning opposition to the EU I see that Jack and the CPGB follow access to a basic bank account, debit comrades who have sympathy Most Summer Offensives tell and so no longer represented working Lenin here, defining socialism as “the card and smartphone, as happens with the programmatic and us something about where our class democracy. He claimed that the rule of the working class”, whereas in Scandinavia. A cash-free society political project championed organisation is, politically and progressive left would, in this way, socialism means the disappearance will lead to a big reduction in the by the CPGB. So it was a step organisationally. It is clear that allow the right to win. We must honour, of all classes, including the working black economy, including organised forward for us that the SO 2019 this year’s shows that - perhaps he stated, the political views of those class. For you, as for him, ‘socialism’ and petty crime. Just like the call for had nearly seven times more non- because of the highly volatile who didn’t go to university. The EU starts when the working class win the legalisation of all drugs and of members contributing than our and unpredictable nature of this was the opposite of democracy. political power, not when the means of prostitution, this must be brought to actual membership (although the period - the CPGB continues to The last speaker of the evening was production have become the common the fore. relative size of what was raised grow its audience in the workers’ Mary Davis, speaking for the CPB. She property of society under democratic As the UK becomes more and more is tilted heavily in favour of our movement in this country and began her statement by reiterating that control - by which time the state, a cash-free society, a change in how members, of course). beyond. Moreover, there are some the CPB has always taken the position money, wages, profits, banks, etc will leftwing papers are sold will need to The biggest amount raised small, but encouraging, signs that the EU represents big business and have disappeared. take place. Paper-sellers will have this year - through political that our programmatic project is for the freedom of capital. The class Jack also talks of a “transitional to carry on them card readers, such activity, selling badges, working is gaining traction in other parts interest of the EU was to call for the society”, whereas Marx had written as iZettle or Square. The Socialist extra hours as well as digging of the world - as was illustrated ruling class to paper over the cracks only of a “political transition period”, Workers Party has already tried out deep into bank accounts - was by the hundreds of comrades in the system. So the need is to leave not a new form of society. For more card readers on its stalls in Bristol. comrade SK who collected a internationally (eg, the United and get rid of austerity for the majority on this, see the article I wrote decades Similarly, sellers of the Weekly Worker magnificent £7,385 and the States, Iran, India, etc) who of workers - who were, in any case, ago on ‘The myth of the transitional will have to acquire card readers for runner-up, YM, came up with watched sessions via livestream. opposed to the EU. No trade union, society’(https://bataillesocialiste. use on stalls, meetings, etc. a sturdy £3,580. Seven other We send our congratulations she stated, has had debates with their wordpress.com/english-pages/1975- We must prepare for a new world members come up with over a to all participants in this year’s own members on the question of EU the-myth-of-the-transitional-society- where cash is no longer king. £1,000 each. Of course, these Summer Offensive l membership. Social Europe is dead and buick). John Smithee comrades are mostly seasoned William Sarsfield buried, she averred, and unions have It only remains to add that, given Cambridgeshire BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07903 054393 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 1265 September 5 2019 3 IRAN

London Communist Forum Looking for foreign success Sunday September 8, 5pm: Weekly political report from CPGB Provisional Central Committee, followed by open discussion and Yassamine Mather asks what effect the presidential campaign reading group: study of August Nimtz’s Lenin’s electoral strategy from 1907 to the October revolution of 1917. This meeting: will have on US relations with the Islamic Republic ‘Conclusion: So what? Or today’s reality: Lenin versus Leninism’. Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Road, London WC1. Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk. Resisting war in the 21st century Saturday September 7, 9.30am to 3pm: Stop the War Coalition AGM, Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2. Decide the next actions for the campaign. Entrance £11.37 (£5.98). Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk. Don’t attack Iran Saturday September 7, 3pm: Rally, Bloomsbury Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2. Oppose British government support for Trump’s military brinkmanship. Speakers include Andrew Murray (Unite) and rapper activist Lowkey. Entrance £3 (£0). Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.facebook.com/events/872601313126969. Wigan Diggers Festival Saturday September 7, 11am to 9.30pm: Open-air free festival, The Wiend, Wigan WN1. Commemorating Gerrard Winstanley and the 17th Century Diggers movement with music and political stalls. Organised by Wigan Diggers Festival: www.facebook.com/events/460033934737521. Rally at TUC Congress Sunday September 8, 1pm: Rally, Holiday Inn, Kings Road, Brighton BN1. Defend jobs, fight for a pay rise and stop the cuts. Speakers The picture Trump tweeted include Len McCluskey (Unite), Dave Ward (CWU), Ronnie Draper (BFAWU) and Mick Cash (RMT). hen it comes to US-Iran deal is not reached by then. Washington. His frustration manifested Organised by National Shop Stewards Network: relations, we are truly in The Macron proposal, which is itself in Israel’s recent attacks against www.facebook.com/events/421637865360379. W volatile, unpredictable times - supported by Germany and maybe so-called Iranian proxy forces in Syria, Rescue Suffolk fire service a bit like Brexit. In late spring and early the United Kingdom, involves a three- Lebanon and Iraq. Thursday September 12, 1pm: Demonstration, Endeavour House, summer everyone was talking about an stage process with commitments by Russell Road, Ipswich IP1. Restore the cuts to the fire service. Speakers imminent attack against Iran’s military both sides that ends with an extended Launchpad include Matt Wrack (FBU). bases. The question was not whether nuclear deal (something Trump can It is in the midst of all this that on August Organised by Fire Brigades Union Suffolk: such an attack would take place, but sell as his ‘improved’ version of the 30 Donald Trump tweeted a photo www.facebook.com/events/2258666601110925. when. nuclear agreement), as well new of a crashed rocket and the damaged Of course, the threat of war is still pledges regarding Iran’s ballistic launchpad at the Imam Khomeini Space Labour and surplus value there. However, we have seen many missile programme and the country’s Centre, where, for the third time in a Thursday September 19, 6pm: Study session, Jack Jones House, flip-flops by the Trump administration involvement in regional conflicts. year, Iran’s satellite programme had 2 Churchill Way, Liverpool L3. and time seems to be running out for a No doubt the US is considering come to grief. The launch of Payam and Organised by Merseyside Socialist Theory Study Group: military attack, perhaps in the form of air some of these measures because various Doosti satellites in January and February [email protected]. raids. The 2020 US presidential election regional alliances against Iran are failed. Earth Strike UK campaign has already started and there faltering. Qatar was the first country to The photo was clearly taken by a US Friday September 20, all-day events: Venues all over the UK. are clear signs that Donald Trump is refuse to join the Saudi-led ‘alliance’ satellite and initial reports suggested Call for trade unionists to join with students and school students in eager for negotiations and a deal he can against the Islamic Republic, then the the secret services were none too taking direct action on the climate crisis and ecological catastrophe - sell as his foreign policy success. After United Arab Emirates pulled out, and happy with the president sharing system change, not climate change! all, if you can do a deal with the Taliban, now Kuwait is calculating the economic ‘classified images’. David Schmerler - a Organised by Earth Strike UK: why not with Iran? consequences of confrontation with researcher at the James Martin Center www.facebook.com/events/743860869302537. The reasons for wanting a war have Iran, as it becomes clear that severe US for Nonproliferation Studies stated: Marx Memorial Library not changed - the US administration sanctions are affecting the economy “A president tweeting out national Saturday September 21, 10am to 3pm: Open day, Marx Memorial is losing close allies, Trump’s poll of all Persian Gulf countries. The intelligence assets is a whole new 2 Library, 37a Clerkenwell Green, London EC1. Explore the historic ratings are falling, some Republicans International Monetary Fund has cut level.” building. Also stalls and feature tours. are distancing themselves from the its growth forecast for the Middle East Trump’s words were also bizarre: Organised by Marx Memorial Library: president, the economy is doing worse to just 1% (down from April’s 1.5%). “The United States of America was not www.facebook.com/events/2341040216218645. than expected … It is assumed that US According to Forbes, involved in the catastrophic accident gross domestic product will slow down during final launch preparations for the Let’s talk about Palestine to near 2% in 2019, as opposed to 3% Concerns about geopolitical Safir SLV launch … I wish Iran best Sunday September 22, 6.30 pm: Labour Party conference fringe in 2018, and will drop further by 2021. instability and the impact of the wishes and good luck in determining meeting, Renaissance Suite, Jurys Inn, King’s Road, Brighton BN1. Meanwhile, the real unemployment rate recently-agreed extension to the what happened at Site One.” Some Speaker Haneen Zoabi - 10 years a Palestinian member of the knesset. is around 7% (as defined by bourgeois Opec+ agreement to cap crude interpreted this as a gesture of good Organised by Jewish Voice for Labour: economists, who include in their production are weighing on will, while others claimed that it was a www.facebook.com/events/965248610508259. statistics the ‘marginally attached’ or the sentiment. The latter issue is a sarcastic comment. What kind of Labour left do we need? ‘discouraged’ - those who have given up particular concern for one of the On September 2, Iran finally Monday September 23, 6:30 pm: Labour Party conference fringe looking for work altogether). Everyone region’s most important economies: acknowledged that an explosion had meeting, Friends House, Ship Street, Brighton BN1. Speakers include is now talking about recession. Saudi Arabia. Riyadh-based bank occurred and blamed a technical Chris Williamson MP. All of this adds up to uncertainty Jadwa Investment recently cut its malfunction. So far there is no reason to Organised by Labour Representation Committee: https://labourrep.com. in the United States and in these growth forecast for the kingdom’s blame any foreign power for the blast. Trump, Iran and the threat of war circumstances - as we know from history economy for 2019 from 2% to 1.6%, However, the US alleges that Iran’s Tuesday September 24, 12.30pm: Labour Party conference fringe - conflict abroad is a good diversionary due to weakness in the oil sector. It is satellite launches are related to the meeting, Charlotte Room, Grand Hotel, Brighton BN1. Speakers tactic. However, election time brings expecting the oil sector to expand by country’s ballistic missile programme 1 include MPs Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon. its own challenges. Yes, Trump needs just 0.3% this year. and the Trump administration has Organised by Stop the War Coalition: www.stopwar.org.uk. some clear-cut foreign policy success placed new sanctions on Iran’s space and the much heralded nuclear deal with More significantly, the Kushner ‘peace agency, claiming that such missiles Labour Against the Witchhunt North Korea does not really fit the bill. plan’ for Israel-Palestine - labelled the were being developed “under the guise Tuesday September 24, 7pm: Labour Party conference fringe meeting, Rather he needs a face-saving ‘peace “deal of the century” - which was to of a programme purported to launch venue to be announced. Fight the continuing witch-hunt against the deal’ - or at least a photo opportunity mark Trump’s presidency, has turned satellites”. left in Labour. Speakers include Ken Livingstone and Asa Winstanley - with Iranian leaders, so he can say to out to be a total flop. And, of course, As always, war and negotiations are (electronicIntifada.net). the electorate, ‘I didn’t accept Obama’s US confrontational policies against part and parcel of the same process. Most Organised by Labour Against the Witchhunt: “very bad deal with Iran”, but I achieved Iran never had the support of the Iranians still fear the launch of military www.facebook.com/events/363551141179855. my own agreement’. In this context we major European states or the European air raids by US or Israel. Sanctions Fully automated luxury communism have seen French president Emmanuel Union. are taking their toll and, although the Wednesday September 25, 7pm: Book launch, Housmans Bookshop, Macron’s ‘relentless’ efforts to mediate All this explains Trump’s U-turn. Iranian currency has not dropped any 5 Caledonian Road, London N1. A manifesto by Aaron Bastani: society between Iran and the United States, and However, we are still in the early stages further since 2018, utility bills have beyond work, scarcity and capitalism. Entrance £3 (£1). Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif’s of the talks and, as always, the two risen by 30% in 24 months, rents are Organised by Housmans Bookshop: https://housmans.com/events. visit to the G7 leaders summit in Biarritz. sides are pursuing conflicting aims. spiralling out of control, and prices for Is the ‘age of austerity’ neoliberal? The current semi-secret negotiations in As I have said, Trump will be happy food, clothing and medicine make life Thursday September 26, 7pm: Lecture, Marx Memorial Library, 37a Europe are part of these efforts. with a photo-opportunity, followed by extremely difficult for most Iranians. Clerkenwell Green, London EC1. Periodising UK capitalism. Speaker: After five hours of talks between vague promises of lifting sanctions. Unlike the leaders of the Islamic professor Simon Mohun. Entrance £5 (£3). Macron and Iran’s president, Hassan But for Iran’s leaders oil and secondary Republic, the last thing on their mind is Organised by Marx Memorial Library: Rouhani, it is widely believed that the sanctions must be lifted - otherwise the the country’s satellite launch capabilities l www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk/event/230. French leader is trying to launch a $15 temporary measures they have adopted billion credit line to purchase Iranian oil, to rescue the economy will not suffice. CPGB wills Notes Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s name while seeking US approval for this plan. As expected, Israeli prime minister 1. www.forbes.com/sites/ and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in your will. Iran has given a deadline of September 6 Binyamin Netanyahu is outraged by dominicdudley/2019/07/23/iran-oil-concerns- middle-east-economies/#4419084c4cda. If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. to the Europeans, threatening to resume the Biarritz negotiations and a possible 2. www.wired.com/story/trump-tweeted-a- its nuclear enrichment programme if a reduction of tension between Tehran and sensitive-photo-internet-sleuths-decoded-it. weekly 4 September 5 2019 1265 worker BREXIT Heads I win, tails you lose Stay focused, urges Eddie Ford. Prorogation was not a ‘coup’ and the central question still remains transforming the Labour Party - not a general election rankly, it is getting hard to happening on October 31 - it is Democrat leader Jo Swinson - have Brexit Party rebadged”. There are campaign is divided four ways - with keep up with events. First, almost embarrassing at this stage said they will immediately appeal many stories about the EU council of radically different policies once you F Boris Johnson declared on to pretend otherwise. against the ruling, but they do not ministers offering to extend article get beyond Brexit (even there you August 28 that he had asked the stand a chance. The same goes 50, but that has to be a unanimous do not have total agreement). Any queen to prorogue parliament from Calculations for the two other impending court decision of all the member-states. sort of national government cobbled September 10 until the opening For the record, the CPGB is not challenges - one in the High Court of Can you really imagine Johnson tougher under these conditions of a new parliamentary session remotely surprised about the Justice for an urgent judicial review signing up to an extension? It goes would be a weak hodge-podge and on October 14 - with the monarch prorogation - it has been obvious on the legality of the use of the royal without saying that he will veto any fall apart quickly, with Boris Johnson approving his request, of course. for some time that it was in Boris prerogative by Gina Miller and John such thing. Obviously, any such widely seen as our ‘national saviour’ Then, after MPs returned to Johnson’s toolbox. However, we Major; and the other in the High gesture from the EU would be pure - the ‘man of the people’ against parliament on September 3, as did not expect the actual timing - Court in Northern Ireland, where it is gamesmanship - it is Britain’s fault, the Guardian-reading, metropolitan expected, they inflicted what assuming that he would just run claimed that prorogation is a breach not ours (although, of course, that elite. looks like serious harm upon the the clock down until October 31. of the Good Friday agreement. is largely true). In turn, Johnson We in the CPGB advise people government - voting by 328 votes But instead Team Boris must have Furthermore, a group of members cannot row back now from his Brexit not to panic: a sense of calmness is to 301 (a majority of 27) for the calculated that allowing time for of the European Parliament, commitment - that would be political necessary when everyone around motion tabled by Sir Oliver Letwin parliament to create mischief was to representing all of the mainstream suicide. Therefore he has to blame you is losing their head - why do to seize control of the Commons their advantage - creating a ‘Heads political groups, plan to trigger an the EU for playing games. you get thousands carrying ‘Stop order paper in order to push through I win, tails you lose’ scenario, even inquiry regarding the suspension of If he somehow manages to the coup’ and ‘Save our democracy! a bill to effectively delay Brexit yet though they are the ones calling parliament, under article 7 of the EU secure a mid-October election - not Parliament must sit!’ placards? Why further. The bill states that, unless a for a general election that enables treaty, which requires member-states impossible using this or that trick else are there court cases, judicial deal is reached with the European them to secure Brexit “do or die” by to act in accordance with “rule- or device - he and his advisors are reviews, talk of a government of Union or parliament approves a October 31. of-law standards and fundamental confident of victory. Nigel Farage national unity, desperate clever no-deal Brexit by October 19, the The calculation is, of course, rights” - another long shot. The real has said Johnson will be a hero if he tricks in parliament? Because people government would be required to that, while there has never been a action is in parliament. goes full steam ahead for a no-deal are panicking. Stay focused. From write to the EU seeking an extension clear majority for any sort of Brexit Brexit, and so his Brexit Party would the communist point of view, the to article 50 until January 31 next among MPs, that does not reflect Overblown enter into an electoral arrangement immediate task is not backing the plan year. public opinion. Johnson believes that Perhaps this is an unpopular thing or pact of some description with to install Jeremy Corbyn at the head Twenty-one Tory MPs defied his insistence on leaving the EU by to say, but the prorogation of the Tories - something certainly of a “caretaker government”, going the whip and voted for the Letwin October 31 “do or die” has left him parliament was not the ‘death of advocated by Steve Baker of the to Brussels to “extend article 50” and motion - it would have been 22, but well placed to secure a comfortable democracy’ or a ‘coup’, or even that Economic Research Group. The then demanding a “general election Phillip Lee dramatically crossed the majority for the Conservative Party much of a ‘constitutional outrage’ polls currently look favourable. For and a Corbyn led government” floor to the Liberal Democrats earlier in a new election - finally voters will - such rhetoric is overblown, if instance, YouGov has the Tories on (editorial The Socialist September in the afternoon. Either way the 21 be able to defeat the ‘undemocratic not slightly hysterical, and totally 34% against Labour’s 22%, while 4 2019). The SWP, Socialist Appeal had the whip withdrawn meaning elite’ and make sure the 2016 unhelpful. If anything, it just makes the Lib Dems are on 17%, the Brexit and John Rees’s People’s Assembly that Boris Johnson now definitely referendum result is actually carried us into liberalistic defenders of the Party 13% and the Greens 8%. The have also been pushing essentially leads a minority government. through. existing constitution, which for combined total of the pro-‘leave’ the same ‘general election now’ line. Meanwhile two Labour MPs (Kate However, Jeremy Corbyn is communists is neither democratic parties adds up to not far short The CPGB hopes that the Hoey and John Mann) voted with not a fool and refused to play or defensible - who voted for the of 50% - enough to give Johnson Brighton conference goes ahead. We the government - will they also lose ball - indeed, a special meeting of queen, for example? Having said an absolute working majority to must keep up the pressure on Jeremy the whip, I wonder? the Parliamentary Labour Party that, Johnson’s move was obviously drive through Brexit, once you Corbyn for reselection - the most The next day, the bill itself was expressed the near-unanimous view motivated by the anti-democratic take into account Britain’s ‘first important task in this period remains passed by an almost identical margin that Labour should refuse to support intention to restrict and curtail past the post’ voting system. Even the fight to transform the Labour - 327 votes to 299. But now it must any snap election until after October parliamentary debate and therefore if Johnson makes one stupid gaffe Party into a vehicle for working class go to the Lords for approval and 31. Keir Starmer, shadow Brexit deserves to be condemned. after another, with Jeremy Corbyn advancement and the rebuilding of Tory peers have put down over 100 secretary, told the BBC’s Today Boris Johnson is making out that running another brilliant election the labour movement as a whole l amendments in an attempt to block programme that Labour wanted a the latest parliamentary manoeuvres campaign. as in 2017, the ‘remain’ it. In other words, Conservative general election, but “on its terms, are ruining his chances of getting a [email protected] peers are having a go at US-style not Boris Johnson’s” - the party deal with the EU - but no-one takes filibustering to sabotage the bill. did not “trust” the prime minister, that seriously. Whilst it is not totally They will almost certainly fail. suspecting that he might use his impossible for the EU to blink at Finally, after his first defeat on prerogative powers to change the the 11th hour and make some sort September 3, the prime minister election date until November at concessions on the backstop, this announced that, as it was clear MPs the earliest. This follows on from is extremely unlikely. Dublin is would now be able to block any no- Tony Blair’s warning that having a already building customs posts deal Brexit, he had no alternative general election before Brexit would on its side of the border, as but to call an early general election, be an “elephant trap”, which seems there is absolutely no way so as to gain a working majority to an accurate prognosis. According that the EU will allow force through an EU withdrawal by to some reports, Labour is now an open border with his October 31 deadline. A slight examining the possibility of using an external entity. Of problem, however: the 2011 Fixed- parliamentary procedure to force course, the Republic Term Parliament Act lays down that the Tories to hold an election on a of Ireland will suffer a two-thirds majority is required particular date, rather than leaving it under Brexit - but to dissolve parliament and call an in the hands of Boris Johnson. Northern Ireland will election before its five-year term has Meanwhile, the Court of be hit the hardest. The ended. Well, not only did Johnson Session in Edinburgh has ruled British government fall far short of that on September that Johnson’s prorogation of might start giving aid 4: he only won the support of 298 parliament is lawful - saying the to the Six Counties MPs - not even a majority of the 650 decision was “nonjusticiable”, as statelet, if only to keep the in the Commons. True, the votes it was matter of high policy and Democratic Unionist Party against amounted to only 56, but political judgment. Something else happy. that was because Labour (and many that was not surprising. The group In terms of the Tory Party as others) abstained - Jeremy Corbyn of 75 MPs and peers behind the it is now, we have a rightwing stating that the party would only legal challenge - headed leadership that is determined to vote for a fresh election after the by the Scottish satisfy its rank and file, which is He is using bill to prevent a no-deal Brexit had National Party even further to its right - in that way revolutionary become law. MP, Joanna becoming what Ken measures .... Anyhow, the intended prorogation Cherry, Clarke called “the Jeremy Corbyn - one of the longest in recent and should follow suit history - gives the government Liberal a certain level of plausible deniability, even if nobody believes a word of it: ‘What’s all the fuss about? It’s perfectly normal for a new government to prorogue parliament and have a queen’s speech. There was going to be a three-week recess for the party conference season anyway and you still have time to debate Brexit.’ But at the end of the day we all know the prorogation was about restricting parliament’s ability to prevent Brexit weekly worker 1265 September 5 2019 5 LEFT Outmanoeuvred by Johnson The left’s response to the prorogation of parliament betrays a shallow view of democracy, argues Paul Demarty

t is not surprising to find widespread bourgeoisie. I do not mean to impugn condemnation on the left of Boris the spirit of the wider far left on these I Johnson’s proposed prorogation of matters, which were engaged with parliament. sincere energy and care; merely the We are all, of course, (to put it limitations of political line. So anti- mildly) disinclined to admiration war activity was carried on under the for Conservative prime ministers sign of pacifism; objections to police - especially if they are old Etonian brutality as a matter of liberal defence dog-whistle racists who purchased of rights or anti-racism; and so forth. water cannons to use against our If that critique is no longer so demonstrations (toys the courts pertinent, it is - sadly - not because prevented him from playing with). anyone took much notice. Instead, Add to that his sociopathic ambition that core commitment to socialist and egotism, and you have a revolution itself has atrophied, and singularly unpleasant proposition: in many cases only the outer shell of his tricksy manoeuvres, once all the liberalism, pacifism and so on remains heroic-Brexiteer folderol is properly (in others it lives on as a sort of discarded, can only be in service to sectarian shibboleth). the career of one B Johnson. (Asked Rarely has this legacy been more once if he had any convictions, Boris obvious than in the AWL article quoted famously replied that he thought above, where a rote roll-call of working he might have picked one up for class protest is desultorily invoked to speeding.) try to stop the real danger: the final What the response ought to be - eclipse of the liberal bourgeoisie by now there is the poser. And posed, the nationalist-revanchist opposition on the face of it, as a question of the No sense of tactics, no sense of strategy it summoned against itself. The urgency of the threat of a no-deal proletariat is to engage in mass strikes Brexit. We may take the most worried as his incompetence at predictions. A in history” to such a threat. planning application to build a mosque, “against Johnson’s outrageous attack among us first of all - the die-hard left- month ago - between the coronation of So absurd, indeed, is this line that and the council were to say that it could on parliamentary democracy”. In this, remainers - and where better to start Johnson and his ‘coup’ - Mason turned his good faith in advancing it must go ahead, as long as it had no minarets the AWL writers confuse Britain as it than the terminally confused Alliance in his latest wizard wheeze to The be called into question. In a longer or copies of the Qur’an and was open actually is - a constitutional monarchy, for Workers’ Liberty, which made the Guardian: the need for a popular front. and mostly useful reply to his article, to Wiccan crystal healing types. not a parliamentary democracy, in mistake of believing the imperialist Some readers may already be in a huff: Socialist Worker writer Nick Clark That said, it so happens that the which moves like Johnson’s are establishment’s democratic rhetoric in ‘Typical Weekly Worker - always using points out apropos Mason’s treatment political lie of the land at this exact perfectly legal and, given particular the fat years and finds itself tangled up these scholastic insults against their of France and Spain: “... as a former moment is more apt to give Lexiteers circumstances, even normal - with the in its present crisis. targets. Ordinary people don’t even Trotskyist, he surely knows this is only a clearer view than left-remainers. The false democratic image in which the Thus shrieks an article on the know what a popular front is!’ Alas, half the story at best”.3 Surely indeed. latter are too wrapped up in panic, modern west presents itself. group’s website: “Boris Johnson is we quote Mason verbatim: Either Mason has suffered some kind too easily coopted by mainstream At the opposite end of the scale, shutting down parliament”, presenting of head injury, or he is merely trolling liberal rhetoric. Socialist Worker’s Robert Griffiths of the Morning “a long-term threat to democracy”. The popular-front tactic has deep his old comrades; far better to pull Tomáš Tengely-Evans is hardly unique Star’s Communist Party of Britain How serious a threat? Serious indeed: antecedents in the very political ‘clever’ tactics out of his arse in the among Lexiteers when he points took to that paper’s pages to bang “Johnson is acting as a Mussolini traditions the modern Labour left liberal media than submit to the grind out that “there would probably have through an old refrain of his, decrying figure”; and if Il Duce is a depressingly emerged from. In 1935 the Bulgarian of Workers Power paper sales. Mason been a parliamentary recess during MPs for “defending ‘parliamentary routine bogeyman, perhaps the reader communist leader, Georgi Dimitrov, enjoys rather too much the sight of the party conference season … so the sovereignty’ in order to overturn the might be titillated by an enigmatic single-handedly manoeuvred the himself in the big league, and cannot parliamentary shutdown will amount ‘popular sovereignty’ of June 2016 and reference to Austro-fascism? Communist International into resist scandalising the dwindling to MPs losing four to six sitting days”.5 to keep sovereign decision-making supporting calls for a “popular contingents of old-fashioned Marxists The comrade goes on to pick out the powers in Brussels”.6 In other words, History tells us what politicians front” against fascism. This was in the cheap seats. The rest of his most serious political danger of the the plebiscite is more democratic than that seek to rule by suspending about formal electoral pacts with audience he presumably holds in such situation: parliament, in comrade Griffiths’ parliaments are thereby doing. In centrist socialists, left nationalists contempt that he does not even expect view - an equally disastrous error. But, 1933 Christian Social chancellor and liberals - and it paid off within the most cursory Wikipedia fact- Labour is right to oppose a no- while few have openly argued, as he Engelbert Dollfuss suspended the six months. In Spain, to the fury checking exercise from them. deal Brexit. But lining up with does, that plebiscitary ‘sovereignty’ is Austrian parliament to cut through of conservatives, who had formed austerity-mongers and racists is no a higher form of democracy, nobody a parliamentary stalemate. Dollfuss their own electoral alliance with Confusion progressive alternative to Johnson. has correctly identified the referendum used that opportunity to block all the fascists, the Popular Front took Not that the Lexiteers manage to If anything, it could strengthen as anti-democratic as such - apart, that attempts to reconvene parliament, power in January 1936.2 avoid confusion. It is most acute in Johnson’s attempt to present is, from us in the CPGB, and the small threatening to use military force.1 Socialist Worker itself, which faces himself as ‘anti-establishment’. matter of the best contingents of our If the AWL’s treatment of Dollfuss is a very particular problem - there are The recent picture of Labour’s John movement back to Marx in the 1850s. Despite the scaremongering intent, oddly partial, Mason’s account of the mass protests going on, and mass McDonnell, Lib Dem Jo Swinson The Marxist critique of bourgeois this is a bizarrely tame picture of Herr French and Spanish popular fronts is protests against the Tory government; and former Tory Anna Soubry society’s democratic pretensions is Dollfuss; it does not even occur to the preposterously so. It escapes his notice it would be a poor show if the Socialist meeting to unite against no deal will well and truly buried among today’s AWL to mention the dictator’s brutal that the Spanish republic was defeated Workers Party could not get very, very make that easier. ‘Marxists’. In the best case, it was suppression of the Austrian social in the civil war and the components excited in its usual fashion. However, supplanted by an anarchistic conception democrats in 1934. Indeed, the labour of the popular front were suppressed on the particular issue that divides the This is a danger from which the of a workers’ democracy appearing movement is barely mentioned in the in a blood-tide of revenge (in fact his protestors from the government (as Lexiteers are immune by definition, at day zero after the revolution, like piece, despite its headline (‘Labour and account does not even include the understood by those protestors), the while left remainers are extraordinarily Minerva from the head of Jupiter; unions must organise workers’ action civil war at all, as if the election took SWP is on Johnson’s side. Not for the vulnerable. In the case of someone like but that rather threadbare conception to stop Johnson’s coup’) - the starring place and they all lived happily ever first time has the SWP’s ill-thought-out Paul Mason, the damage is already gives way to fatuous liberalism or role is for parliament as such, and our after … ). He also fails to note that Brexitism led it into this uncomfortable irreversible. else Bonapartism. Johnson’s non-coup class is to serve as a spear-carrier for it, the universal switch of the parties of position. Thus, in last week’s paper, has at least got us all talking about and the agenda of its ‘sensible’ wing. the Comintern to the popular front we find the following formulation in a Economism democracy; but, it seems, many on the “Jeremy Corbyn and Labour should tactic, despite tremendous expenditure piece by SWP leader Charlie Kimber: So much for the short-term political left have very little to say about it l clearly come out in opposition to Brexit of energy, failed to obtain material outlook. But both sides are equally and and demand a second referendum,” support for republican forces from The crisis has to be used to break disastrously wrong, once we start to [email protected] the comrades write, unaware that the the ‘democracies’, at the same time as Tory rule. It is crucial that these look a year (or 10 years) ahead. sentence contradicts itself - advocacy the political compromises - vis-à-vis protests are anti-Tory and for forcing When I first started reading this Notes of a second referendum being nothing Spain’s colonies, for example - which Johnson and the government out paper - some 13 or so years ago - there 1. www.workersliberty.org/story/2019-08-28/ stop-johnsons-coup. other than obfuscated opposition to were necessary to have a chance of - not protests against Brexit. And was a particular line of critique of its 2. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019 Brexit, albeit concealed so badly we gaining French or British support, they must be open to people who opponents on the far left, which very /aug/02/labour-boris-johnson-progressive-pact- are reminded of those joke-shop plastic ruled out many military strategies. voted ‘leave’.4 much dominated its polemics. greens-lib-dems. fake moustaches. He at least mentions the French That was the accusation of 3. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/48799/ Paul+Masons+popular+front+of+failures defeat to Hitler, but not the plain We might wonder, perhaps, if comrade economism. The far left had apparently +is+not+the+way+to+beat+the+right. Popular front role of sabotage and defeatism by Kimber has anyone particular in mind no interest in questions of democracy; 4. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/48862/ The AWL is not alone in apparently the reactionary officers - the heirs of when he says that people who voted we lived in a ‘bourgeois democracy’, As+Johnson+suspends+parliament%2C+protest inexplicable confusion about the Dreyfus’s tormentors - which made Brexit must be welcome. On the whole, the revolution would introduce +to+kick+him+out. 5. https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/48871/ course of the 1930s on the continent, the invasion and subsequent Vichy and however, even he must realise that this ‘workers’ democracy’, and the way to How+to+make+sense+of+the+Tory+crisis+over mind. There is a truly baffling article German regimes something almost like perspective is somewhat askew from the latter was primarily through direct +Brexit. This isn’t quite the whole story - a recess by Paul Mason, who has made the long a deflected coup; and, thereby, the total reality. These are ‘remain’ protests and class struggle against the employer. of this type would not usually stop the proceedings march from Trotskyist obscurity to the failure of the “popular front tactic” to their objection to Johnson’s move is Where issues outside that were dealt of parliamentary committees and so on, which will be affected by the prorogation. starry firmament of bourgeois thought- “[beat] an alliance of far-right populists its concrete meaning - that he is trying with - as they had to be - they tended 6. https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/how- leadership, resembling the common and conservative amoralists”, never to ram Brexit through a remainer to be taken care of simply by tailing can-todays-political-crisis-be-resolved-favour- run of his new caste in nothing so much mind being the “one proven response parliament. It is as if there was a elements of the bourgeoisie and petty working-class-and-labour-movement. weekly 6 September 5 2019 1265 worker ECOLOGY Climate change and system change Mainstream politicians, jetting royals, ‘progressive’ capitalists and their army of paid persuaders have no serious programme to avert runaway climate change. We on the Marxist left have. This article is based on a talk given to Communist University on August 18 by Jack Conrad limate change is a real and winds, oceanic currents, etc, kick in. present danger. But there is Second point. Scientific opinion C nothing new about climate is overwhelmingly agreed. The change. temperature rises over the last 100 Our planet dates back around 4.5 years or so are primarily due to billion years. Earth’s first atmosphere “human activity”.9 We really are in the mostly consisted of hydrogen and Anthropocene. Industry, agriculture, helium - unstable elements which transport and domestic heating release gradually drifted off into space. Even carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), after many millions of years of cooling, nitrous oxide (N2O) and other such surface temperatures are thought to greenhouse gases which have an have stood at a sizzling 93°C. observable climate impact. Because of the close proximity of the moon, churning volcanic activity and Paris countless asteroid and meteorite strikes, A recent report by the International a second atmosphere formed: ammonia, Panel on Climate Change projects that water, methane, carbon dioxide and warming will continue at the current carbon monoxide. According to the rate of ~0.2°C per decade and reach Oparim-Haldane hypothesis the 1.5°C above pre-industrial times around foaming, mineral rich, storm tossed 2040.10 However, 1.5°C could easily be seas acted as a primeval, or prebiotic exceeded in half that time - around 2030 soup. The first life forms appeared - and 2°C reached by around 2045. approximately four billion years ago. Though theirs is an inexact science, Some 500 million years later, tiny, climatologists fear that 1.5°C itself single-cell, blue-green algae were represents a boundary, a tipping point. converting carbon dioxide into oxygen If that is correct, after that we could see through photosynthesis. Earth’s third much reduced cloud cover, an end of the atmosphere is the product of co- ice caps, soaring temperatures, much evolution. Our planet’s climate results higher sea levels and the inundation from the interaction of atmosphere, Like a hockey-stick: little ups and downs and then a lurching rise of low-lying cities and fertile planes. hydrosphere, lithosphere … and Because this might happen within a, biosphere. provide almost perfect conditions for warmth. Between 1100 and 1300 CE, seams of south Yorkshire, south Wales, relatively speaking, exceedingly short The ozone layer formed 600 million ensuring an oscillation between cool for example, Europe experienced Lanarkshire and Nottinghamshire were period of time, it could conceivably years ago. That made the existence and cold conditions. The bulk of the temperatures which allowed more formed in tropical forests and swamps; threaten the “survival of human of terrestrial, complex, multicellular Earth’s fresh water lies frozen in two productive agriculture throughout the Dover’s white cliffs were laid down civilisation”.11 Given the continuation animals possible. But the evolutionary gigantic ice sheets. continent and saw flourishing English under shallow, warm seas; London’s of existing social relations, expect leap happened in the shallow, balmy Over the last million years there has vineyards. clay contains the remains of elephants, mass migrations, resource wars and seas of 540 million years ago. The been an interglacial-glacial 100,000- It is also worth recalling that the hippopotamuses and rhinoceroses. pandemics. Cambrian explosion had a time frame of year pattern. Each cycle has had its Thames regularly froze solid during So claims such as that the hottest True, there is the 2016 Paris climate a mere few million years - in geological own particular features and oddities. mid-17th century winters and that 10 years “since records began” have agreement. Its 195 signatories pledge terms a blink of the eye - and led to Understandably, though, as with the years from 1805 to 1820 were just occurred might apply in terms to limit emissions, so as to ensure that “virtually all major groups of modern any study of the past, data becomes comparably bleak and inclement. What of reports issued by the London Met temperatures do not exceed a 1.5°C animals”.1 ever more uncertain, with increasing we are experiencing at present certainly Office, but hardly when one considers increase. But the Paris agreement Temperatures tended downwards distances of time. So the best records we needs to be put into the context of the the geological timescale.5 is voluntary, vague and contains all through the successive geological possess go from the interglacial, known transition from the little ice age, which Nonetheless, runaway climate manner of get-out clauses. periods. Take 1960-80 CE temperatures as the Eemian, down to the present finally ended around 1880. change is now an almost universally And, suffice to say, the leaders of all as the benchmark. The Cambrian (600- Holocene period - the last 130,000 years Incidentally, the kaleidoscopic recognised danger. The global climate countries are in thrall to the mantra of 500 million years ago) was 14°C hotter. have in particular been revealed in some history of global atmosphere, system probably stands on a knife’s economic growth. Typically this is done The Silurian (425-405 million years detail with deep ice cores drilled from temperature variation and continental edge. Only the self-interested, the in the name of ensuring the wellbeing ago) 4°C hotter. The Devonian (405- Greenland to Antarctica. drift explains why those with even a downright stupid or the wilfully of all. But in reality outcomes are 345 million years ago) 12°C hotter. The In terms of climatic transition, the passing knowledge of the Earth sciences blind deny it nowadays. If we take extraordinarily unequal. The mass of Permian (280-230 million years ago) most reliable information is for what is consider the Campaign Against Climate temperatures in the northern hemisphere the world’s population barely ekes out a 2°C colder. The Triassic 10°C hotter. called the Younger Dryas-to-Holocene, Change such an odd choice of name. from 1000 CE to the present moment in living. Meanwhile, the few accumulate The Jurassic 8°C hotter. The Cretaceous which ended the last ice age. At its It conjures up notions that humanity time, we see alternating ups and downs, staggering riches. Forbes reports that 4°C hotter. The Palaeocene (66-55 maximum, some 15,000 to 20,000 years can, if there is the will, act like some but then, around 1880, a sudden and 1% of the world’s population own 45% million years ago) 10°C hotter. ago, the Arctic ice sheet extended all almighty king Canute and command very steep upward curve occurs. The of the wealth.12 Doubtless, some of these temperature the way down to Chicago, New York, nature to stand still. We can’t and it result resembles a hockey stick. Already Then there is Donald Trump. He changes were due to volcanic activity Moscow and London and saw much won’t. average global temperatures are 1°C threatens a US withdrawal from the Paris and sun spots. There is also continental lower sea levels. What is now Britain above pre-industrial times6 - given the climate agreement in 2020. The 45th drift. Three billion years ago the vast was joined to France, the Netherlands Natural and time span, very big in climatic terms. president has already rolled back the mass of the Earth’s surface was covered and Denmark. And, using the 1960- Two additional points. Obama administration’s environmental with water. There were only a few spots 80 CE benchmark, we have a -10°C unnatural Firstly, while the climate constantly measures and is on record as saying that of dry land. The first supercontinent, difference. ‘Climate’ and ‘change’ go together undergoes change, that happens within global warming is a hoax concocted by the Arctic, arose some 2.5 billion years The qualitative transition to our like ‘weather’ and ‘change’. The a relatively stable equilibrium, within a the Chinese government in an attempt ago. Eventually it broke apart, but after present-day climatic regime occurred two are inseparable. The weather self-adjusting system. Till recently most to hold back US industry.13 He is, of many more millions of years there were 11,650 years ago and coincided with alters from hour to hour, day to day scientists thought that all large-scale course, one of many influential climate- other superseding supercontinents: the retreat of the great ice sheets. The and month to month. Climate is just global and regional climate changes change ‘sceptics’ operating in high Kenorland, Columbia, Rodinia, tipping point seems to have taken big weather. Nasa gives this useful took place over a timescale of many politics. Pannotia. only a decade or two. “The speed of definition of climate: “average weather centuries or millennia: ie, at rates hardly Jair Bolsonaro, Matteo Salvini, Beginning in the Neoproterozoic, this change is probably representative for a particular region and time period, noticeable during a human lifetime. Marine Le Pen, Nigel Farage, Hungary’s about 550 million years ago, most of similar but less well-studied usually taken over 30 years”.4 So there Gradualism was the ruling orthodoxy. Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński in of the Earth’s land masses are found climate transitions during the last few is nothing unusual about climate change That is no longer the case. Poland all come from the same mould. joined together in the Gondwana hundred thousand years,” argue the per se. In fact climate without change Scientific opinion nowadays All view action on climate change as supercontinent. Meanwhile, in the environmental scientists, Jonathan is impossible. Climate change has never recognises that quantitative change an imposition on national sovereignty seas, giant plankton blooms resulted in Adams, Mark Maslin and Ellen ceased, is ongoing and must therefore reaches a trigger point and then flips and a barrier to growth. These a significant increase in atmospheric Thomas.3 These transitions include be considered inevitable. Or, to use a over into qualitative change. Adams, counterrevolutionary revolutionaries oxygen - conditions ripe for terrestrial sudden cold events (Heinrich events/ loaded phrase - it is natural. Notions Maslin and Thomas vouch: “All the seek to undo the ‘evils’ of the October animals. Probably, the invasion began stadials), warm events (interstadials) of fixing in place the climate as it now evidence indicates that most long-term Revolution, roll back democratic in the Ordovician approximately and the beginning and ending of long is, or returning it to a pre-industrial climate change occurs in sudden jumps rights, stoke up blood-and-soil national 440 million years ago.2 It shuffled, warm phases, such as the Eemian ideal, through some kind of technical rather than incremental changes.”7 chauvinism and extinguish even the clambered, crawled and slithered interglacial. wizardry or a human exodus, are half- Such conclusions were long anticipated possibility of socialism. That is the onto the land and rapidly evolved to There are less dramatic, but childish, half-sinister and, crucially, are by Marxism. Frederick Engels in his meaning of the so-called populist right. occupy every conceivably niche. nonetheless significant, patterns of bound to fail. Dialectics of nature described the jump There are many brilliant scientists, Something like our present climate change on a smaller scale Consider Britain’s climate - a solid or leap: “qualitative change takes place engineers and technologists who are configuration of continents appeared 60 too. During the present (Holocene) record of it lies in the ground, mud ... it is determined by a corresponding busily working away, using their million years ago. Doubtless this helped interglacial period, there have been and rocks beneath our feet. As well as quantitative change.”8 Given the right considerable talents, to develop, refine establish our contemporary climate cold and dry phases occurring over a periodic glaciations over the last 20 or conditions, climate change can be and invent. They offer the wonders of regime. The American and Eurasian roughly 1,500-year cycle, and climate 30 million years - in the Quaternary triggered by some relatively “small nano-technology, stunning computer land mass more or less encircles the transitions on a decade-to-century and Tertiary periods - as already perturbation”, the entire system tips advances, electronic aeroplanes, novel northern pole; that and the continental timescale. There have been little ice noted, temperatures have in general over into another system. New, radically power sources, automated vehicles and plate centred on the southern pole ages, as well as bursts of relative been far higher than today. The coal different weather patterns, prevailing genetically modified crops and animals. weekly worker 1265 September 5 2019 7

However, as shown by William counted Jorian Jenks amongst it leading 10 it is reckoned that children are fully of a metabolic rift between capitalist and the ruinous industrial practices, Stanley Jevons back in the mid-19th members. He edited its journal Mother paying for their upkeep. From then on it production and nature. See ‘Large scale which caused chocking air pollution, century, such innovations lead to a Earth till his death in 1963. He is also is gain. Male heirs are also expected to industry and agriculture’ in Capital poisoned rivers and dead lakes. paradox. Increased efficiency results considered something of a founding maintain parents into old age. Children volume 1 and ‘The genesis of capitalist In the second half of the 1940s in cheaper commodities, which in figure of the green movement. However, are therefore unpaid labourers and a ground rent’ in volume 3. Driven by its Stalin proposed his ‘great plan for turn results in increased demand, and in the mid-1930s he became a regular form of social insurance. Given high lust for profit, capitalism pollutes the the transformation of nature’. This with that comes the increased use of contributor to the Blackshirt and stood infant mortality rates, it can easily be water and air, destroys forests, exhausts was in response to the 1946 drought, resources. The Jevons paradox is his as a candidate for the British Union appreciated why it is a case of ‘the the soil and creates deserts. The natural which in 1947 left an estimated one and only worthwhile contribution of Fascists. He was the BUF’s official more, the better’. metabolic cycle has to be restored. There 500,000-one million dead. Tracts of to human knowledge. Amazingly, early advisor on agriculture: “fascism alone Apart from capitalism’s more has to be sustainable development. land were forested in the southern Fabians, such as Sidney Webb, George could make agriculture prosperous primitive, unrestrained and brutal forms, As a step towards that end I steppe to provide a gigantic network Bernard Shaw and Herbert Somerton again”.16 No surprise - the language children are an enormous expense for would recommended this immediate of shelterbelts. Rivers feeding into Foxwell, considered Jevons and his Jenks used about Jews “is very close to the proletarian family - from the cradle programme - ie, what can be technically the Aral Sea were diverted - once marginal utility economics far superior genocidal”.17 and now well into adulthood. During the achieved under capitalism. the world’s fourth largest lake, it has to Karl Marx’s labour theory of value. The origins of the Green Party in industrial revolution, it is true, parents  Nationalise the land. Nationalise the now virtually disappeared. Irrigation Deservedly, however, Jevons is now England and Wales lie in the feudal ideal sold their children into work from a banks. Nationalise water, electricity, canals, reservoirs and countless nothing more than an obscure historic of Oliver Goldsmith and the PEOPLE tender age. Children of eight or nine gas, railways and other such natural ponds were to improve soil fertility. footnote. party. Aristocrat and commoner alike did 12 and 14 hour days (until factory monopolies. Crop rotation would ensure high However, the point has been made. would once again know their place. acts limited hours). Families could  Industrial, transport and agricultural yields. Scientific oversight was given Capitalism treats increased efficiency And let’s not forget Jonathon Porret and only survive if all available members polluters must be progressively taxed to the now thoroughly discredited merely as an opportunity to increase David Icke. They advocated halving brought in some kind of wage package according to the emissions they agronomist, Trofim Lysenko (he demand. Exchange-value rules. Britain’s population. (the wife was frequently pregnant - and, produce. That includes shipping and air considered the Mendelian theory Not use-value. Capitalism moves There are royal greens too. Speaking lacking reliable birth control and with flight. Carbon, methane and other such of gene inheritance an example of according to a single-minded formula: barefoot - wow - at a recent Google the peasant mentality still lingering on, greenhouse gases must be minimised. “metaphysics and idealism”27). Due M-C-M’. Money is laid out in order ecocamp in Sicily’s exclusive Verdura she was also typically burdened with a Set a date for the banning of fluorinated for completion in 1965, the whole to secure materials and labour-power resort, Harry Windsor promised to limit brood of young children hanging on to gases. End tax breaks for the oil and gas project ended in disaster. The trees with a view to one objective and his family to no more than two children her breast and skirts). industry. Phase out fossil fuels. died. Crop yields were disappointing. one objective alone: gaining more - his contribution to saving the planet. What of the present-day proletarian  Boost solar and wind power. The soil was soon exhausted and money. That law of political economy The irony is unmistakable. The 300 family? It is a unit of consumption.  Those who produce harmful waste blown away on the wind. controls the capitalists themselves - A-list guests flew into Verdura aboard With universal primary and secondary materials should be made to safely Khrushchev had his virgin land even the greenest of greens amongst 143 private jets, landed in luxury yachts education, and around half the school dispose of them. Supervision to be scheme. In the 1960s the black earth belt them - and makes capitalism the most and stayed in luxury apartments - each population expected to go on to carried out by committees of workers, was put under the plough. However, uncontrollable, the most rapacious, the with its own swimming pool. The university, the financial outgoings are local residents and elected specialists. crop yields steadily declined. And to most polluting, the most short-termist total carbon footprint must have been considerable. Prudential, the insurance Recycling must be enforced. The export irrigate the arid south Khrushchev system imaginable. Frankly, if one hundreds of tons. More importantly company, estimates that on average of waste material for dumping abroad looked at proposals to divert 12 rivers wanted to design a system with the - much more importantly - the royal children cost over £40,000 each.21 Even must be banned. that were “uselessly” flowing into intention of wrecking nature, it would parasite legitimised the toxic notion that after graduation many mums and dads  Reduce meat and dairy consumption. the Arctic ocean. Reversing the flow be capitalism. Capitalism is a mode of ‘people are the problem’. go on to help out their offspring with Encourage a vegetable-based diet. of the Pechora was not only going destructive reproduction. In that ominous spirit (Saint) David mortgages, etc.  Free urban transport. Restrict to boost agricultural production: Should the left rally to the defence Attenborough backs Population Matters Certainly nowadays, for the simple international business air flights. the shrinking Aral and Caspian seas of the Paris agreement and seek allies - a charity which opposed Syrian reproduction - not expansion - of the Encourage conference calls. Shorten would be replenished. Part of the amongst greens, NGOs, liberals and refugees coming to Britain because proletarian family, it requires two adult the distance between home and work. project envisaged the digging of a new ‘progressive’ capitalists, such as of its insistence on zero migration.18 incomes. Average individual hours Facilitate cycling and walking. channel, using 250 nuclear devices. Bill Gates, George Soros and Mark Another Population Matters sponsor is might have been forced down - in 1846  End the housing shortage. Build Three 15-kiloton devices were actually Zuckerberg? Absolutely not. There are Paul R Ehrlich, the US biologist and parliament passed the first 10-hour good-quality, energy-efficient, well- detonated - inevitably causing fallout. two main reasons. author of the bestseller The population act (for what was a five and a half- insulated council houses. The harebrained scheme was finally Firstly, we have already bomb (1968). Back then Ehrlich day week). Full-time male workers  Encourage urban parks, small farms abandoned in 1986 - who knows what demonstrated the criminal inadequacy apocalyptically announced: “The battle in Britain now notch up an average of and roof gardens. the dreadful consequences would have of the Paris agreement. Its maximum to feed all of humanity is over.” Instead 39.2 hours.22 But the workforce has  Rewild selected areas of the been if it had been fully implemented? goal could actually represent the tipping of giving aid to the needy and feeding expanded significantly; not least by countryside. Native species should Our maximum programme begins point that brings civilisational collapse. the hungry, responsible states should drawing in more and more women. The be reintroduced. Restore flood plains, after the overthrow of the capitalist Why uphold that? We stand for henceforth put in place hard measures total number employed is now over 32 marshes and wetlands. Turn grouse state and involves the epochal working class political independence. designed to dispose of surplus people million. Roughly a threefold increase moors and upland estates back to nature. transition to communism. However - That requires developing our own on a global scale.19 over the 1930s. At the beginning of the There must be a concerted programme and it needs to be emphasised - even programme - not calling for a general Indira Gandhi sought to implement 20th century females made up 29% of of reforestation. the associated producers can make strike and the formation of soviets to that Malthusian programme. During the workforce. Now it is 48%. Women  Establish no-fishing zones in the seas. disastrous choices. Nature must be ensure the implementation of the Paris her 1975 emergency six million men workers today do on average 34.3 hours.23 Create a sustainable fishing industry. treated with respect and care. The agreement. were forcibly sterilised. And, of course, Add those figures together and what it humans of one generation have to pass Secondly, it should not be China imposed a one-child policy. tells you is that the family unit is more Prometheanism on the Earth to succeeding generations assumed that protests, declarations Selective abortion has robbed China exploited nowadays and is certainly Historically too many on the left in an improved state. They should and speechifying against the of 11.9 million females. Even with the under more psychological pressures have taken for granted a kind of therefore act as responsible guardians. danger of runaway climate change abolition of the one-child policy, today (put another way, an intensification of technological Prometheanism, They are not the Earth’s owners l leads to progressive conclusions. there is a 100:117 disparity between the labour and relative exploitation). Not whereby human beings can do what Environmentalism usually comes with number of girls and boys.20 least due to these extra drains and life- they like with nature - an approach Notes an ingrained acceptance of capitalism limiting pressures, on average women that can be seen in the Soviet Union. 1. SJ Gould Wonderful life: the Burgess shale and as the natural order and easily leads to Laws have children later and fewer in number In Literature and art (1924) Leon the nature of history London 1990, p24. demonising the urban and rural poor, In fact, each society possesses its compared with the recent past. Trotsky breathlessly writes: 2. www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-life- especially females, in the so-called third own population laws. Put simply, the In 2018 the average woman in on-land. 24 3. J Adams, M Maslin and E Thomas, ‘Sudden world. This is decidedly the case with reproduction of the human species Britain had 1.7 children - down from The present distribution of climate transition during the Quaternary’ Progress the so-called ‘population problem’. takes place within different social 2.6 in 1960. What is true of Britain is mountains and rivers, of fields, of in Physical Geography March 1999: www.esd. formations and under different historical also true of other so-called developed meadows, of steppes, of forests and ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html. Population circumstances - something the reverend capitalist countries. of seashores, cannot be considered 4. www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/ climate_weather.html. In class terms greenism amounts to a Thomas Malthus palpably ‘forgot’. His final. Man has already made changes 5. The Daily Telegraph July 31 2019. disenchanted petty bourgeois rebellion theory of population floats outside a Technoquackery in the map of nature that are not 6. www.climatecentral.org/gallery/graphics/the- against capitalism’s accelerating theorised history and therefore took no Then there are the many and varied few nor insignificant. But they are globe-is-already-above-1c. despoliation of nature. Yet, whatever account of the fundamental distinctions technological solutions on offer. In all mere pupils’ practice in comparison 7. www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html. 8. K Marx and F Engels CW Vol 25, London 1987, the good intentions, greenism carries that exist between one society and probability though they would release with what is coming. Faith merely p358ff. a deadly barb. Its denunciations of another. Eg, 11th century feudalism a Pandora’s box of demons. What is promises to move mountains; but 9. See climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus. ecological destruction are joined had significantly different population being contemplated is proudly upheld technology, which takes nothing 10. www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar5. with talk of “overpopulation” and dynamics compared to present-day by Cambridge University’s Centre ‘on faith’, is actually able to cut 11. D Spratt and I Dunlop Existential climate- 25 related security risk: a scenario approach the limited “carrying capacity” of the capitalism. for Climate Repair. Amongst the down mountains and move them. Melbourne 2018, p6. planet: “population growth … must be The peasant family - indeed broadly suggestions are sucking CO2 from Up to now this was done for 12. inequality.org/facts/global-inequality. addressed to avoid overpopulation”, speaking patriarchal production as a the atmosphere, spraying salt water industrial purposes (mines) or for 13. friendsoftheearth.uk/climate-change/what-are- says the Green Party.14 Alan Thornett, socio-economic system - has an interest over clouds, seeding the oceans railways (tunnels); in the future this donald-trumps-policies-climate-change-and-other- environmental-issues. of Socialist Resistance and Campaign in maximising the number of children. with iron filings, firing dust into the will be done on an immeasurably 14. https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/pp.html. Against Climate Change, likewise Put more accurately, maximising upper atmosphere, stationing a giant, larger scale, according to a general 15. A Thornett Facing the apocalypse: arguments argues that a “major contributory the number of male children - a vital 2,000-kilometre-diameter eye patch in industrial and artistic plan. Man will for ecosocialism London 2019, pp161-62. factor” to the ecological crisis is distinction. Sons are treasured because space to deflect 2% of the sun’s rays, occupy himself with re-registering 16. Quoted in PM Coupland Farming, fascism and 15 ecology: a life of Jorian Jenks London 2017, p95. overpopulation. they remain within the family and growing huge algae beds in the oceans mountains and rivers, and will 17. beastrabban.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/jorian- Greenism has a very dark side through marriage bring in extra wealth in to absorb carbon dioxide, building earnestly and repeatedly make jenks-and-the-fascist-arguments-for-a-jewish- too. The Nazis had their green wing. the form of dowries, wives, inheritance massive cloud-generating machines, improvements in nature. In the end, homeland. Hitler’s agricultural expert, and later and in due course their own children. etc. Carbon capture belongs in the he will have rebuilt the earth, if not 18. Open Democracy September 23 2016. 19. Quoted in www.overpopulation.com/faq/ a Reichsminister, Walther Darré, was Girls leave the family and marrying same category. Holding, transporting in his own image, at least according people/paul_ehrlich.html. a nature-worshipper. Hitler himself them off costs a small fortune … their and storing all have considerable costs to his own taste. We have not the 20. ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio. expressed his longing for a new faith birth is often the cause of mourning in - in total an estimated $70-100 per ton slightest fear that this taste will be 21. news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4482441.stm. rooted in nature. He fervently believed pre-capitalist social formations. Female - and, especially given the vast lacunas bad.26 22. www.statista.com/statistics/280749/monthly- full-time-weekly-hours-of-work-in-the-uk-by- that humanity - authentic Aryan infanticide was therefore frequent. in our knowledge, could easily produce gender-year-on-year. humanity, that is - must eventually The family is a unit of production. completely unintended results. And the heedless technological 23. Ibid. break with Christianity and fully merge Boys and girls alike labour in their Prometheanism preached by Trotsky, 24. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46118103. with nature. His alternative religion father’s fields from the age of five or six Programme Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev 25. i May 10 2019. 26. www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/ ended, of course, in the holocaust and and, of course, not in return for money Influenced by Justus von Liebig, tried to put into practice. Leave aside lit_revo/ch08.htm. the extermination of millions. wages. Food, clothing and shelter are the founder of modern organic the radioactive waste littered over 27. TD Lysenko The situation in biological science In Britain the Soil Association provided - little more. After the age of chemistry, Marx developed his theory Kazakhstan, the open-cast mining Moscow 1951, p24. weekly 8 September 5 2019 1265 worker STRATEGY Organisation or ‘direct actionism’? Mike Macnair takes issue with Charlie Post over his critiques of Vivek Chibber and James Muldoon on strategy

his is the third article in my series Mass mobilisations, centred in the celebrated - Kautsky’s 1919 ‘Guidelines on the US left ‘Kautsky debate’. workplace, will be crucial to creating for a socialist action programme’. TI began with Vivek Chibber’s the social power that can compel the Rather, it is mainly addressed to arguments for Fabianism published state to grant substantial reforms. denouncing Kautsky for not being a by Jacobin under the ‘Kautskyan’ At the same time, the left will need mass-actionist. title, ‘Our road to power’ (‘Widening to ‘gain power within’ the existing There is one oddball feature which frame of debate’, August 8), and went state in order to implement ‘non- does address 1919. Muldoon wrote: on to James Muldoon’s arguments for reformist’ reforms that will effect Kautsky, version 1919, as a ‘councilist’ multiple breaks in the logic and Kautsky diverged from both the SPD ‘third way’ between social-democracy power of capital. and the Spartacists. He believed that and Bolshevism (‘Fabian or anarchist?’, universal suffrage and parliamentary August 15). This strategy is, he argues, institutions should form the basis In a certain sense, the next issue is “fundamentally unrealistic”. In the of the new republic. But he did not Eric Blanc’s ‘case for Kautsky’. But first place, the “rules of reproduction” see any compelling justification for since Blanc’s arguments responded in prohibit it, because all capitalist state restricting suffrage to paid factory the first place to Charlie Post’s critiques activities are dependent on taxes and workers, which would disenfranchise of Chibber and Muldoon, these have to hence on profitability, and in periods of large elements of the lower classes, be the first port of call. declining profitability the state is forced including many women, peasants Post is a professor of sociology at the to pull back concessions. Secondly, and the unemployed.8 City University of New York, and a long- standing activist in US Solidarity and The capitalist state is also a Post responds: “Kautsky’s argument writer for its journal Against the current bureaucratic institution, structurally that a republic based on workers’ (ATC). This organisation was founded separated from the private sphere councils would exclude significant in 1986 as a result of an ‘opening up’ of exploitation and accumulation, groups of workers was demagogic and to regroupment of the remnant of appearing as an impersonal ‘public wrong.” That is because “The councils the US International Socialists, after power’. While most contemporary organised the unemployed, and clerical the 1977 split of the supporters of the capitalist states are parliamentary Karl Kaustky: could not, would not, break with the right and retail workers.” British Socialist Workers Party to form democracies, real political power This point is, in fact, not in the the International Socialist Organization resides in the unelected permanent tactics. Successful movements when capital made reform concessions, ‘Guidelines’. In The dictatorship of the (dissolved earlier this year) and other officialdom - the civil service/ always involve rising levels of led to increased mass confidence, proletariat in the same year, Kautsky splits.1 The regroupment included the executive agencies, judiciary and, confrontation with the established which triggered mass action, which in wrote: ‘broad-frontist’ wing of those who were ultimately, the military. These political and economic order, and turn led to further major (temporary) expelled from or left the US Socialist institutions - popularly referred to tend to radicalise many of their concessions. Even in a country so highly Workers Party (not connected with the as the ‘deep state’ - have historically participants. In fact, the result of the far left’s developed economically as British organisation) after its open break been the centre of resistance to anti-electoralism is precisely to yield Germany, where the proletariat is with Trotskyism in favour of Castroism attempts by the socialist left to ‘use’ I have quoted these passages at length the initiative to the right wing of the so numerous, the establishment of a in the early 1980s. elected positions within the capitalist to display the plain character of the workers’ movement or to forces further Soviet Republic would disfranchise The name ‘Solidarity’ was taken state to implement meaningful argument as what Trotsky called right. Thus Trotsky in 1931: great masses of the people. In 1907, from the Polish ‘trade union’ formation reforms, much less to break with the “anti-parliamentary cretinism”. Post the number of men, with their (as it existed in 1980-82) to express the logic of capital. says that “Clearly, those committed Parliamentary cretinism is a families, belonging to occupations common position of the ISers and ex- to the primary task of building mass, revolting sickness, but anti- which comprised the three great US SWPers in identification with this Hence, he continues, “Only a decisive disruptive movements have and should parliamentary cretinism is not much groups of agriculture, industry formation and with Hungary 1956. rupture in the institutional structure of engage in electoral politics.” But his better. We see this most clearly in and trade - that is, wage-earners Their ‘About Solidarity’ page carries the state - the dismantling of the old further description shows an inability the fate of the Spanish anarcho- and salaried persons - amounted this statement: state and the construction of a working to distinguish between winning election syndicalists. The revolution poses to something over 35 million, as class counterpower - can allow working as a representative, on the one hand, political questions directly and against 17 million belonging to other We do not attempt to put forward a people to win significant reforms and and winning governmental office, on at the present stage gives them a sections. A party could therefore monolithic platform which we all begin the construction of socialism.” the other. The result is that it is not at parliamentary form. The attention very well have the majority of wage- have adapted to; rather, we rely on And: all obvious what point an electoral of the working class cannot but be earners behind it and yet form a the richness of our traditions and the intervention which aims not to win concentrated on the Cortes, and the minority of the population. creativity and newer experiences of Ultimately, socialists will have could have. The role of the elected MP anarcho-syndicalists will secretly On the other hand, when the our younger members to foster and to choose between one or the or senator as a “tribune of the people”, vote for the socialists or perhaps workers vote together, they need develop a forward-looking socialist other as the dominant method of who uses the parliamentary platform to the republicans. To fight against not fear the united votes of their thought. struggle, when faced with capitalist speak from opposition - well understood parliamentary illusions without opponents. By obliging them to Solidarity was founded in 1986 resistance to any left government. by the Second International, including fighting simultaneously against the fight their common foes, universal by revolutionary socialists who Put simply, these governments will the Bolsheviks5 - wholly disappears. anti-parliamentary metaphysics of suffrage causes them to close up stand for ‘socialism from below’, have to choose between ‘playing Post claims that only “massive, the anarchists is less possible in their ranks sooner than if the political the self-organisation of the working by the rules’ of the capitalist state disruptive movements” can win Spain than anywhere else.6 struggle were confined to the class and oppressed peoples ...2 (respecting ‘constitutional legality’, reforms. That statement is plainly soviets, from which the opponents etc) or mobilising working people untrue. Winning reforms certainly The point has been strikingly visible in are excluded, and in which the ATC has been hospitable to the and building a counterpower to the requires that capital is faced with both the British SWP, which started from the political struggle of a socialist party ‘political Marxism’ of its lead editor, existing state. a carrot - the willingness to settle a same basic ideas about ‘electoralism’ takes the form of attacking another Robert Brenner, the late Ellen Meiksins particular struggle for reforms - and as those Post has defended, but then socialist party. Instead of class- Wood, and others. Charlie Post’s major He argues that in fact the same is true of a stick - the possibility of something moved in 2000-07 in the Socialist consciousness, sectarian fanaticism book The American road to capitalism the struggle for reforms: worse (more expensive to capital) than Alliance and Respect exactly into is thereby induced. (2011) is within this theoretical conceding the reforms. The ‘something opportunist political interventions framework. Post’s March 2018 polemic Unfortunately, the logics of worse’ can be “massive, disruptive which tried to pretend to be ‘old This is part of a more extensive polemic, against Chibber on strategy3 is thus movement building and electoral movements” - as in the early 19th Labour’ - and then back to evasion of the gist of which is that forms of denying a Solidarity polemic against an ex- and legislative politics are often in century ‘Ned Ludd’, winning temporary the issues of electoral politics. Most the suffrage to the bourgeoisie and petty comrade: Chibber was still in 2003 contradiction to one another. On the union legalisation in 1825, or the 1860s recently, the SWP’s oscillation between bourgeoisie both excludes sections of acknowledging help with his theoretical one hand, election campaigns whose ‘Sheffield Outrages’, that gained more opportunist electoralism and anti- the working class who supplement their work from comrades in Solidarity.4 primary goal is winning office prolonged legalisation. But it can also parliamentary cretinism has largely income by letting rooms to lodgers and prioritise getting 50% plus one votes be the fear of losing political control - as silenced it in relation to the mass other ‘petty bourgeois’ activities, and Post v Chibber on the lowest possible political basis. the First International and the suffrage movement into the Labour Party around gives the working class a false sense of I said in the first article in this series Legislative politics involves coalition campaign of the 1860s contributed the election of Jeremy Corbyn, and the its own strength.9 that Post was unduly ‘soft’ on Chibber building that leads to continual to the extension of the vote to the top savage, coordinated capitalist campaign This is a very different point from on the ‘party question’, and I will add concessions on policy. Neither layers of the working class in the 1867 of media defamation in the endeavours that made by Muldoon. Muldoon’s only one point on this issue. This is requires the mass of voters to be Reform Act, and as the appearance of to win back control of Labour, if not point is, I think, taken from one of my that - following a strong tradition of active participants in democratically the Labour Party produced the 1906 destroy it. Here the struggle between own critiques of ‘councilism’, or from the ‘third camp’ left - Post treats the setting programme or strategy, and Trade Disputes Act and the ‘Lloyd the classes has for the moment taken the some similar source, rather than from officials and elected representatives generally discourages confrontation George’ provisions of school meals form of a struggle over control of the Kautsky. In 2007 I wrote: not merely as having interests which and political radicalism. (1907) and old-age pensions (1909). Labour Party. No doubt this will not be are partially opposed to those of the By contrast, disruptive social On the other hand, adverse market the case forever; but the point is that - as The point is that the ‘classic rank and file, but as inherently being movements - in particular those conditions for capital do not invariably Trotsky pointed out - the class struggle image’ of the soviet/workers’ uncontrollable by them, so that it is only rooted in the workplace - require result in the refusal of reforms. This is does, part of the time, take electoral and council form - as applied to a external mobilisation - wildcat strikes building solidarity across the racial transparently visible, not only in the US parliamentary forms. state, as opposed to an organ for and suchlike - which can win reforms. and gender divisions capitalism 1930s ‘new deal’, but also in the French struggle - would disenfranchise On the question of strategy, Post constantly creates and recreates, and People’s Front government - in both Post v Muldoon a large part of the proletariat as a argues that Chibber taking risks in confronting capital cases situations where bad economic In March 2019, Post offered a polemic class … The proletariat as a class and the state to win the movement’s conditions and demoralisation over against James Muldoon on Kautsky.7 is defined in Marxist theory by envisions a socialist movement demands. This requires active union action produced a movement Unlike my critique of Muldoon in my its separation from the means of capable of struggle both inside and participation in a democratic process into electoral politics. That did not second article, Post’s argument is not production: not by being at any outside the existing capitalist state. of crafting demands and deciding in itself produce reforms, but rather, addressed mainly to what Muldoon particular moment employed, weekly worker 1265 September 5 2019 9

or employed in industry. The (‘freedom of the press’ and so on) recognised. It should be restricted Kautsky’s evolution to the right, but The Bolshevist revolution was based unwaged, including ‘housewives’ and also proposed to increase the to its first function, in performing completely irrelevant to Post’s anti- on the supposition that it would and pensioners, are part of the bureaucratic and judicial power which it cannot be replaced: that is, electoralism. There is no reason to be the starting point of a general proletariat.10 through forms of state control (no mean the administration of trade union suppose that anything less than the European revolution, and that the achievement at the end of the Second funds, the extension of organisation actual seizure of power, involving bold initiative of Russia would David Broder, criticising my Reich). and the giving of advice to the soldiers ceasing to obey their officers, summon the proletariat of all Europe Revolutionary strategy in 2008, made workers in their struggles. But it is can prevent any state from going to war. to rise ... against this argument the same point that Anti-electoralism unsuitable for leading that powerful Mass demonstrations certainly did not The revolution which would Post makes against Muldoon: that the I have spent more space on this mass strike, which tends to become do the job in 1914. bring about socialism in Europe Russian soviets were not mere councils constitutional issue than either the characteristic of the times. Post’s integration of this issue in his would also be the means of removing of workplace delegates. I replied, in Muldoon or Post did, because it is an By virtue of their experience and anti-electoralist line invites reference the obstacles to the carrying that blog discussion, that my argument important one. But Post’s critique is knowledge, trade union officials to Alan Shandro’s argument, in his through of socialism in Russia, was directed against the modern far mainly addressed to supporting his anti- and parliamentarians may here Lenin and the logic of hegemony, that which are created by the economic left’s fetishism of councils of factory electoralism, already developed in his successfully assist, but the initiative focussing on Kautsky’s alleged fatalism backwardness of that country. delegates as being ‘proletarian’, because critique of Chibber. It is, hence, more tends to fall into the hands of or electoralism diverts attention from This was all very logically thought they were based on the workplace, as about Kautsky’s overall record than workshop committees. In various his actual over-valuation of unity - in out, and quite well founded, provided opposed to territorial suffrage, rather about the ideas Muldoon wants to use. countries outside Russia, such as 1914 and after, with the pro-war right the supposition was granted, that the than against the much broader ad hoc Post argues: in England, these institutions (shop wing of the party.18 Kautsky could have Russian Revolution must inevitably expedients created in 1917.11 stewards) have played a big part in pursued a defeatist policy in 1914 - unchain the European revolution. So far this appears to be just a story Fundamentally, Kautsky’s strategy mass struggles, side by side with though it should be said that only Lenin But what if this did not happen? of trivial sloppiness on both Muldoon’s of ‘combining’ the independent ordinary trade unionism. and Zinoviev pursued this argument ... It is an old Marxist saying part and Post’s in not looking up working-class organisation and The soviet organisation is, at this stage. He could certainly have that revolutions cannot be made, Kautsky’s actual arguments.12 But there winning ‘power’ through elections therefore, one of the most important pursued some sort of anti-war policy. but arise out of conditions. The is a point of very considerable substance was based on unrealistic ideas about phenomena of our time. It But it would inevitably have been, conditions of western Europe are, posed by it. both working class consciousness promises to acquire an outstanding at the beginning, a propaganda line. however, so different from those My basic conclusion in 2007, and and organisation. The notion that significance in the great, decisive A substantial chunk of the ‘direct of Russia that a revolution there again in 2008, was that the idea that the working class would gradually struggles between capital and actionist’ left, led by long-time leftist would not necessarily provoke one the working class’s organs of struggle accumulate its forces through the labour, which are before us.14 Parvus, actually went over to support here.21 under capitalism form the natural building of larger and larger unions for the German war effort.19 basis of the proletarian dictatorship is and popular organisations and I do not mean to celebrate this passage 1919 and the following period is In the light of 1918-21 across Europe, misconceived. Rather, the very features increasing its vote until it became the as true: it fails to recognise the need for a very unambiguous case of Kautsky Kautsky’s reasoning in summer 1918 which emerge from the character of majority party ignored the episodic the creation of institutional forms for scabbing, arguing evasively in relation was plainly unsound. It was already these organs as organs of struggle nature of working class struggle and the subordination of the bureaucracy to the Majority-SPD’s alliance with the falsified by the outbreak of the German prevent them, when used as organs of consciousness. to the members. It offers in substance far-right generals, and rapidly moving Revolution. power, from mobilising the full weight While social democratic party and spontaneity and workers’ councils as back to support for the Majority-SPD, But again, none of this is actually of the proletariat as a class and from union officials believed that power a way of going round the bureaucracy as the Independent Social Democratic about electoralism versus mass exercising an effectual oversight and would come through ‘slow and without overthrowing its rule in the Party of Germany majority went over to actionism/strikism. Once we recognise accountability over the developing steady accumulation of forces’, the movement (like Post!). But Kautsky is the communists. In this case we actually that the real issues are Kautsky’s a priori bureaucracy. reality is that working class struggle here, precisely, celebrating spontaneous have Kautsky’s explanation: The exclusion of civil war in a ‘democracy’ Kautsky’s argument is a very under capitalism takes the form of mass actions and arguing against the dictatorship of the proletariat, written and his commitments to ‘socialism different one, and it rests on the massive and discontinuous upsurges. trade union bureaucracy’s opposition to in spring-summer 1918 against the in one country’/‘national roads’, it much larger claim that the proletariat It is during these periodic upheavals spontaneous mass actions. dissolution of the Russian Constituent becomes apparent that mass actionism cannot adopt constitutional means that working people can win gains Assembly, before the outbreak of the is no solution to the practical problem. for the institutional subordination and build democratic organisations Three episodes German revolution. The Chilean Cordones Industriales, of the capitalists as a class without that cement solidarity and overcome Post argues for the rejection of Kautsky Kautsky’s basic claim was that the though widespread, could not defeat the destroying its own political support. the divisions and fragmentation of on the basis of three episodes. The first Russian Revolution was premature - coherent army in the coup. The problem This is to misunderstand radically the the class. is the Prussian suffrage movement of neither the society as a whole nor the is to split the armed forces - which mechanisms of the dictatorship of the 1910-11. The second is Kautsky on proletariat in particular being ready requires, precisely, a substantial period bourgeoisie. This is, of course, rubbish, for the World War I and the Social Democratic for socialism; and that in consequence of political undermining the legitimacy Certainly, Kautsky was right that reasons I have already given in relation Party of Germany (SPD). The third is the Bolsheviks, though starting with of the constitutional order to which they formally disenfranchising the small to the critique of Chibber. Working the German revolution of 1918-19. Marxism, by the decision to take are loyal. employers and petty rentiers - as the class consciousness develops both He concludes with the argument political power against the Provisional Constitutional loyalism disguised as 1918 Soviet constitution did - does not through gradual work - building up that Kautsky’s perspective is politically Government, were driven to Blanquism. gradualism, like Chibber’s, promotes disenfranchise the capitalists; but the unions, cooperatives, parties and so on unrealistic because an elected left There were two basic elements of this the unity of the armed forces against the reason for this is not primarily petty - and through episodic mass struggles government would be faced in the first argument. working class. ‘Socialism from below’ bourgeois and working class support and upsurges. To argue that it develops place with flight of capital (correct) The first was Kautsky’s rejection a direct-actionism, like Post’s, simply for capital, as Kautsky argues. It is only through mass-struggle upsurges is and then with a Chilean-style military priori of the idea that the proletarian leaves this unity untouched. And, like the rather that capital rules immediately pure Bakunin against Marx. coup, which it could only overcome by revolution would pose the question of Spanish anarchists in the 1930s, it hands through corruption, lobbying, the But it also radically misses its creating workers’ councils. civil war: the political initiative to the right l corrupt, advertising-funded media, the Kautsky target. Here is Kautsky in On the Prussian suffrage movement, ‘rule of law’ and the normal sale of the notorious The dictatorship of the Post claims: Many people confuse civil war with [email protected] justice through the ‘free market in legal proletariat: the social revolution, considering services’, and more mediately through History would prove Luxemburg this to be its form, and are therefore Notes flight of capital as a means of coercing The Russian Revolution of 1905 and her comrades correct on the prepared to excuse the acts of force 1. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_ Socialists_(United_States). governments. In Russia flight of capital brought the idea of the mass strike suffrage issue. The SPD leadership, inevitable in a civil war. This has 2. https://solidarity-us.org/about. started in 1917; corruption and lobbying to a head in the German social with the active support of Kautsky always been the case in revolutions, 3. www.jacobinmag.com/2018/02/socialist- persisted through ‘war communism’ democracy … it resolved that when - the spokesperson of the emerging they say, and ever will be. organization-strategy-electoral-politics. and emerged into full visibility in the the executive should consider the ‘orthodox Marxist centre’ - derailed We social democrats are decidedly 4. V Chibber Locked in place Princeton UP 2003, pxv. 5. A Nimtz Lenin’s electoral strategy from Marx post-1921 New Economic Policy. necessity for the political mass the militant movement for suffrage not of the opinion that that which has and Engels through the revolution of 1905 and The problem of creating the strike to exist it should get into reform in Prussia. The ‘three-class’ been must always be. Such ideas Lenin’s electoral strategy from 1907 to the October dictatorship of the proletariat - meaning touch with the General Commission voting system remained in place of the revolution are formed on the Revolution of 1917 London 2014. by this working class rule or a state of the Trade Unions, and concert until 1919, when massive strikes and examples of previous bourgeois 6. www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/spain/ spain01.htm. subordinated to the working class - is to all measures necessary to secure mutinies and the threat of workers’ revolutions. The proletarian 7. www.jacobinmag.com/2019/03/karl-kautsky- overcome these mechanisms of capitalist successful action. revolution finally produced universal revolution will be accomplished socialist-strategy-german-revolution. control without creating a dictatorship After all our experience with the suffrage in Germany. under quite different conditions from 8. www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/karl-kautsky- of the state bureaucracy, which will mass strike, we know today that these. german-revolution-democracy-socialism. 9. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/ inevitably be more susceptible to such this resolution was fundamentally This is pretty certainly wrong. Both The bourgeois revolutions broke dictprole/ch07.htm. capitalist control. To give a couple wrong. For one reason because Lenin and Trotsky at the time judged out in states in which a despotism, 10. ‘What is workers’ power?’ Weekly Worker of immediate and not ostensibly a mass strike is likely to be all that Kautsky was correct that there was supported by an army separated August 5 2007. Stalinist examples, the Political Parties, the more successful by breaking insufficient mass support to go over to from the people, suppressed all 11. https://thecommune.wordpress. Elections and Referendums Act 2000 out unexpectedly in a particular the all-out general strike, which would free movements, in which freedom com/2008/08/29/revolutionary-strategy. 15 12. Neither provides citations, so my hypothesis is very unambiguously anti-democratic situation, with spontaneous result in defeat. The experiment of of the press, of public meeting, of above about where Muldoon’s point came from is both in imposing the Führerprinzip post suddenness. Its organisation by party ‘driving the class struggle forward’ with organisation and general suffrage necessarily tentative. of ‘leader’ on all parties, and in allowing and trade union machinery would insufficiently broad mass support was did not exist, and in which there 13. M Macnair, ‘Leveson, libel and lucre’ Weekly the Electoral Commission to prevent make necessary such preparations as tried in Saxony in March 1921, with was no real representation of the Worker October 17 2013. 16 14. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/ parties standing under their own names would lead to its frustration. disastrous consequences. people. There the struggle against dictprole/ch07.htm. - a power which has been selectively We, therefore, understand why Further, Jens-Uwe Guettel has the government necessarily took the 15. L Trotsky, letter to Kautsky July 21 1910, exercised against the far left; and the trade union bureaucracy tends shown that the SPD leadership was in form of a civil war.20 quoted in extenso by P Nettl Rosa Luxemburg Berlin 1989, p433. recent British proposals for state press to oppose all spontaneous action the summer of 1914 actually planning 16. There is a convenient short discussion at regulation have been designed in a way on a large scale. Trade unions are a general strike to demand universal The historical reasoning here is plain www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/broue/ which will penalise small presses, while absolutely necessary. The proletariat suffrage in Prussia; which was pre- nonsense. Consider, without looking works/1964/summer/march-action.htm. the large-scale media can avoid the is the stronger, the greater the empted by the war.17 And Post’s further, the American Civil War - 17. ‘Reform, revolution, and the “original 13 catastrophe”: political change in Prussia and problem by hiring expensive lawyers. number of its members, and the characterisation of 1918-19 as a mere one of the most destructive wars in Germany on the eve of the First World War’ Journal In the USSR, of course, trusting the larger the financial resources of “threat of workers’ revolution” is history - characterised by Marx as a of Modern History Vol 91, pp311-40 (2019). state apparatus produced both police its trade unions. Widespread and radically mistaken: this was the actual ‘slaveholders’ revolt’ against the results 18. A Shandro Lenin and the Logic of hegemony: tyranny and economic chaos, and in permanent organisations, with revolutionary overthrow of the Second of an election, and the sort of thing the political practice and theory in the class struggle Leiden 2014, pp75-79 (addressing 1910; but the the end the decision of the bureaucratic many ramifications, are not possible Reich - although the Majority Socialists workers’ movement could expect if it other side of the coin is 1914 and after). gatekeepers to restore capitalism. without a machinery for permanent proceeded to create a republic which won an election. 19. M Macnair, ‘Die Glocke or the inversion of Kautsky’s approach in The administration: that is, a bureaucracy. was, like the French Third Republic The second was Kautsky’s explicit theory: from anti-imperialism to pro-Germanism’ dictatorship of the proletariat and The trade union bureaucracy is as as “the empire of 1799 without the commitment to socialism in one country. Critique Vol 42, pp353-75 (2014). 20. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/ the ‘Guidelines for a socialist action essential as the trade union itself ... emperor” (Engels), the Reich without This formed the ground of his claim that dictprole/ch05.htm. programme’ both left in place the This is not, however, to say the kaiser. the Bolsheviks’ gamble on the European 21. www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1918/ mechanisms of capitalist control that all its pretentions must be The war question is important to revolution was unacceptable: dictprole/ch06.htm. weekly 10 September 5 2019 1265 worker COMMUNIST UNIVERSITY Spaces for left thinking Despite witch-hunting attempts, CU saw a full week of open and frank debate, reports Danny Hammill or this year’s Communist once he got his name on the ballot that right applies only to oppressed items such as a ballpoint pen. economy”. But from her talk it was University, the CPGB’s annual paper, comrade Conrad had, until now, nations. Michael Roberts informed us about unclear whether she supported a no-deal F summer school, we returned to the never taken the idea of Brexit seriously, As usual, Mike Macnair gave two ‘Modern monetary theory’, which Brexit or would back Boris Johnson’s very convenient location of Goldsmiths as the parliamentary numbers just did richly detailed openings grounded is neither new nor radical - though it attempts at a “do or die” Brexit. University in South London. However, not add up - plus big business and the in history - ‘Identity politics and influences the likes of Chris Williamson, In a positive development, there for a while it seemed touch and go as to establishment were generally hostile. economism’ and ‘The programmatic John McDonnell and Bernie Sanders. I were five fringe meetings put on by non- whether the event would even go ahead But things have changed radically since bankruptcy of the left’. In the former do have to note that comrade Roberts CPGB comrades - even if the quality thanks to a little flurry of witch-hunting the 2016 referendum - primarily there the comrade pointed out that the does seem unduly enthusiastic about was somewhat uneven (there was a anti-red scare stories in outlets like the was the election of Donald Trump as recent split in the US International seizing the ‘commanding heights of the rather incoherent opening on ‘Stalinism scurrilous Guido Fawkes blog and the US president, who seems determined Socialist Organization was partly to economy’, which ultimately is a variant and the new left’ from members of the high-Tory Daily Telegraph (August 15). to break up the European Union. And do with intersectional politics, where of socialism in one country: in today’s Platypus group). In his fringe on climate According to the Telegraph, the then, of course, there is the advent of the essentially each group of the self- truly interlocked global economy, what change, Alan Gibson of the Bolshevik campus was hosting an event which Boris Johnson government, headed by identified oppressed has a veto over the exactly is a British company or firm? Tendency in Ireland, who is now includes a “number of individuals someone determined to deliver Brexit by other - leading to paralysis and endless Lawrence Parker talked on ‘The working inside Extinction Rebellion, who have a history of baiting Jews or October 31, “do or die”. splits. The ‘anti-Semitism’ slander Labour Party’s historical relationship to expressed the opinion that a left split outright anti-Semitism” - naming Tony Comrade Conrad remarked that campaign inside the Labour Party is Marxism’. Yes, Labour famously owes will emerge from such a movement, Greenstein of the Palestinian Solidarity Jeremy Corbyn’s recent letter to a mutated form of identity politics, he more to Methodism than communism, obviating the need to get involved in Campaign for his crime of “accusing cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill - added, with the right saying that anti- but it is significant that the party Jeremy Corbyn’s “reformist” Labour Zionists of collaborating with the complaining that Johnson’s seeming Zionism is ‘anti-Jewish identity’ and republished the Communist manifesto Party. Naturally, as communists, we Nazis”; Graham Bash, editor of Labour intention to refuse to resign if he hence anti-Semitic. But, of course, in 1948 (albeit with a disingenuous strive to give CU an internationalist Briefing, as guilty for having “spoken lost a no-confidence motion was an the essence of the Marxist programme introduction by Harold Laski). flavour, and we must especially at events” organised by Labour Against “unconstitutional abuse of power” - was was “for equal rights and equal duties Anne McShane discussed ‘Russian commend the constructive contributions the Witchhunt; Moshé Machover, born a pristine example of “parliamentary of all, without distinction of sex or Revolution: women as the barometer of from comrades representing the Marxist in British-mandate Palestine and a cretinism”. If we do have an early race”. In the communist conception of social progress’, focusing on Zhenotdel left within both the Socialist Party in “notorious” anti-Zionist campaigner, election, with a totally unpredictable working class organisation (democratic - the women’s department of the the Netherlands and the Democratic who is Hampstead and Kilburn Labour outcome, the comrade was adamant that centralism), everyone has a voice and Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - and Socialists of America in the US, who Party’s elected political officer, and Tina there must be no collaboration with the vote, but no veto - we need common the Communist Women’s International, stayed for the entire week - as did Werkmann of Labour Party Marxists - Liberal Democrats and Tories - the very action. both closed down in 1930 as part of the comrade René Barthes of the Pole of giving a talk at CU about ‘Turning the people who imposed austerity on the As for the all too obvious Stalinite counterrevolution. Communist Revival in France. tables on the witch-hunters’. working class. Not for the first time, nor programmatic bankruptcy of the left, Ed Griffiths, author of Towards Throughout CU Socialist Fight The fact that three of these comrades the last, Jack rejected the ‘lesser of two comrade Macnair pointed out that the a science of belief systems (2014), members, dogged as always, made are Jewish is neither here nor there, of evils’ approach to politics regrettably ‘mass strikism’ associated with Rosa covered a topic never explicitly frequent interventions - even if course - they must be self-hating. We were favoured by much of the left and warned Luxemburg and so favoured by the discussed before at CU - conspiracy that meant repeating the same old also invited to believe that Goldsmiths is of the dangers of Millerandism - ie, Socialist Workers Party and others on theories. He identified two main types: formulations whether on ‘a party no longer a “safe space” for students of ‘ministerial socialism’, which VI Lenin the left frequently leads to tailism. On the “less interesting” one that involves of the whole class’ or the so-called “Jewish heritage” due to the presence of denounced as “practical Bernsteinism”. the other side of the coin, you have a super-villain like Professor Moriarty ‘transitional method’. And there were these terrifying individuals. Naturally, More broadly, the comrade reiterated the the fetishisation of soviets, especially or Fu Manchu manipulating events, the usual inimitable interventions this made the university authorities classical Marxist principle of hostility by Trotskyists - a feature that was on and those that involve some sort of evil from the eccentric Economic and very twitchy because of its lawful to referendums/plebiscites (so-called display at CU - as if that is the only ruling power that is really running the Philosophical Science Review group, commitment to ‘safeguarding’ polices - ‘direct democracy’), which divide parties form of working class rule. But the world behind all the cover-ups. Pauline who consistently warn us about an nobody should be made to made to feel and the working class - as obviously real Leon Trotsky, as opposed to the Hadaway’s session on ‘Brexit: are impending fascist takeover. uncomfortable or have precious beliefs demonstrated by Brexit. imaginary one, warned against this politics transcending left and right?’ Apart from patience, this challenged, with the so-called Campaign On the following day, comrade Conrad fetishisation, writing in 1931 with was unusual in many ways. She is a demonstrates our insistence on open Against Antisemitism agitating for the gave another talk, titled ‘Climate change regards to the situation in Spain that regular contributor to Spiked Online, and frank debate with our political university to cancel the summer school. and system change’ - nothing could “parliamentary cretinism is a revolting whose origins lie in the Revolutionary opponents and different tendencies. In the end CU got the green light from be more important. Programmatically, sickness, but anti-parliamentary Communist Party - which left behind This could not be more different Goldsmiths, but the furore highlighted comrade Conrad insisted, we need to cretinism is not much better”. working class politics decades ago, from the dull summer schools of how the Marxist left could well find it move away from the mega-intensive Instead, said comrade Macnair, we embracing rightwing libertarianism. the left, the various sect leaders increasingly difficult to book venues or nature of capitalist agricultural practices need a minimum-maximum programme: Pauline is also a member of the Full having no interest in developing spaces for debate, especially in corporate that inevitably involves despoliation of the minimum section specifies the Brexit group, which is “committed to the membership theoretically bodies like universities. the soil, as Marx noted - saying that we nature of the transfer of power to the seizing the historic opportunity Brexit and politically. While the overall need to heal the “metabolic rift” created working class, the institutions of the offers for restoring popular sovereignty, attendance was just over a hundred, Tipping point by capitalism, being uniquely ‘designed’ working class, and how we exercise repairing democracy and renewing our many more joined us online l Appropriately then, the very first speaker to destroy the natural world, driven as it control over society. The maximum at CU was none other than Graham Bash, is by production for profit, not use (see programme is the “imagination of the who spoke on ‘How can we transform pages 6-7 of this issue). future society”, as Mike put it - how we Labour into a vehicle for socialism?’ - envisage the first and second stages of Fighting fund a very timely question. Comrade Bash Israel communism. What definitely should immediately referenced how the left Moshé Machover gave an excellent not be in the communist programme is will find it harder to find places to gather opening on ‘One state, two states - two a series of tactics - which should always and talk. In his view, Jeremy Corbyn’s impossibilities”. The comrade outlined be supremely flexible and can only be ascension to the leadership thanks to his theory that both ‘solutions’ are decided in the concrete. Unfortunately, a Kind words “the morons” marked a “shifting of the illusory as nothing can be resolved lot of the left adhere to the reverse view tectonic plates” in the Labour Party. “within the box” of Palestine/Israel - - tactical intransigence, programmatic e narrowly failed to make £5 in appreciation. Since then though, Corbyn and his allies that “deception is coming to an end”, flexibility. Wour £2,000 fighting fund Finally comrade OG sent have been surrounded by hostile forces he predicted. Nor is there any way target for August, falling short us £15 - admittedly “a small and the left has been “firefighting” in the of overthrowing the Zionist regime Willingness by just £68. Still, the second cheque”, she wrote, but that’s midst of a witchhunt and the “slow coup” “without the consent and participation Now a CU stalwart, and entertaining half of the month marked a vast “better than no cheque at all”! We against the Labour leader designed to of the Hebrew working class”. The only as ever, Chris Knight of the Radical improvement over the first - no ended August £1,932 better off. restore the “primacy” of the PLP. One viable way forward is within a wider Anthropology Group gave two openings less than £1,434 came our way And now we’re into September of the central tasks now, argued comrade Arab context that sees the Hebrew (or - ‘Noam Chomsky and me’ (describing from August 15-31! and, as usual, the month has Bash, was to build a “left alternative” Israeli-Jewish) people become part of a very fraught relationship) and ‘When Let me highlight several started with a good number of to Momentum, which as a national a wider, new, regional working class. Eve laughed: the origins of language’. outstanding donations. Pride of standing orders - no fewer than organisation has become purely a In what the Jewish Chronicle described The latter session intersected to a place goes to comrade EG, who 17 of them, ranging from £6 from bureaucratic tool of Jon Lansman in the as “hugely inflammatory remarks”, certain extent with Yassamine Mather’s contributed a magnificent £300 DC to the £30 contributed by service of the anti-left witch-hunt. comrade Machover said the idea that session on ‘The rise of machines, by PayPal. Then there were CG and ST, EW’s £40 and AC’s But the comrade stressed that “time is the Jews were expelled from the region AI and quantum computers’: both three substantial standing order £50. Finally, HT sent us a handy running out”, both for the Marxist anti- 2,000 years ago under the Romans was a comrades agreed that machines/robots/ payments, each of three figures, cheque for £25, which means that Zionist left within the Labour Party and “historical invention”. AI will never understand humour or from, KB, PM and SK. Other we start September with £327 in also in terms of looming catastrophic Later in the week, the comrade can be consciously self-aware - they do standing orders included those from the kitty after just four days. climate change - a recurrent theme debated with Tony Greenstein on the not possess or understand language in MM (£75), DG (£60), GB, TB and But now we need to make up throughout the week. Comrade Bash issue, ‘Israeli Jews: are they a Hebrew any true sense, which seems a uniquely JT (£50 each) and TR (£40). for August’s shortfall, so we can feared we were reaching the “tipping nation?’ This was a curious debate in human attribute. Then there was comrade PB, continue to put out the weekly point” in every sense of the term and some respects, as comrade Greenstein Hillel Ticktin gave a talk on who handed over £60 in cash to our paper, about which so many of worried too about a national government conceded in his opening remarks capitalist decline - we are already in editor at the CPGB’s Communist our readers have nothing but kind from above designed to prevent both that the Hebrew people in modern a depression, he stated - and another University. On top of that, two US words l Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn’s installation Israel could indeed be viewed as a entitled ‘Predicting the collapse of the comrades clicked on the PayPal Robbie Rix as prime minister. nation - something he had previously Soviet Union’ - something he had done button. In addition to regular donor In a related session, Jack Conrad consistently denied. However, decades before the USSR actually fell. PM (£25), comrade WE, who has Fill in a standing order form discussed ‘Brexit, elections and the according to comrade Greenstein, it As a student in Kiev in the early 1960s, been reading the Weekly Worker (back page), donate via our Labour Party’. While he had predicted did not matter that the Israeli Jews are he was confronted daily by the appalling for “seven or eight years” now, has website, or send cheques, from the very beginning that Jeremy a nation, as they still ought not to have backwardness of the Soviet Union. For set up a new monthly donation of payable to Weekly Worker Corbyn would win the leadership contest the right to self-determination, since example, it was near impossible to find weekly worker 1265 September 5 2019 11 What we TRIBUNAL fight for n Without organisation the working class is nothing; with the highest form of organisation Reputational self-harm it is everything. n There exists no real Communist Party today. There are many Hammersmith and Fulham council is appealing against the employment tribunal’s so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In reality they are confessional sects. decision that its dismissal of Stan Keable was ‘unfair’. Ed Kirby reports Members who disagree with the prescribed ‘line’ are expected to tan Keable was sacked by his views and beliefs. The claimant, gag themselves in public. Either Hammersmith and Fulham as other employees, had the right to that or face expulsion. borough council for the critical freedom of expression and assembly, S n Communists operate according words on Zionism he spoke during a which would normally include civilized exchange at the ‘Enough is attending rallies and expressing their to the principles of democratic Enough’ demonstration and Jewish views there.” As Justice Michael centralism. Through ongoing debate Voice for Labour counterdemonstration Briggs commented in the High Court we seek to achieve unity in action on Parliament Square in March (Smith v Trafford Housing Trust and a common world outlook. As 2018. He was fully exonerated by [2013] IRLR 86, HC), long as they support agreed actions, an employment tribunal, but council members should have the right to officers have decided to appeal. If that The encouragement of diversity speak openly and form temporary appeal is allowed to go ahead, not only in the recruitment of employees or permanent factions. will more precious funds be wasted inevitably involves employing n Communists oppose all impe- on lawyers’ fees, but the council’s persons with widely different rialist wars and occupations but reputation will be further damaged. religious and political beliefs and constantly strive to bring to the fore The appeal is, of course, politically views, some of which, however the fundamental question–ending war motivated. Stephen Cowan, the Labour moderately expressed, may cause is bound up with ending capitalism. leader of the council, wants to uphold distress among the holders of n Communists are internationalists. the British’s establishment’s ‘Anti- deeply felt opposite views. The Everywhere we strive for the closest Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ false frank but lawful expression of unity and agreement of working class narrative. In this Stan Keable is not the religious or political views may and progressive parties of all countries. real target. That is Jeremy Corbyn - and Stan Keable: calm, reasonable and vindicated frequently cause a degree of upset, We oppose every manifestation the entire Labour left. In the attempt to and even offence, to those with of national sectionalism. It is an see the back of Corbyn, the Labour Hands, but well known to Cowan, who movement from the beginning was deeply held contrary views, even internationalist duty to uphold the right is quite prepared to extend the seized the opportunity to extend the saying that they accepted that Jews where none is intended by the principle, ‘One state, one party’. ‘Anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ scope of the anti-Corbyn witch-hunt are not acceptable here” (ie, in the speaker. This is a necessary price to n The working class must be witch-hunt from the Labour Party into to the workplace. Cowan was, at this countries where they currently live). be paid for freedom of speech. organised globally. Without a global the workplace. stage, the only complainant - joined Stan Keable’s Jewish former wife, Communist Party, a Communist The council’s failure at the five- later only by Greg Hands himself. His Hilary Russell, had already very Quite so. International, the struggle against day tribunal hearing in May - a full Twitter campaign to drum up a storm helpfully emailed the council: “I can Unable to dismiss Stan for capital is weakened and lacks year after Stan Keable’s dismissal of protest - and of BBC Newsnight say absolutely confidently that he is no anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism, coordination. - was humiliating. Judge Jill Brown journalist David Grossman, who first anti-Semite … it is not anti-Semitic to the council’s attempt to establish found that the dismissal, for “serious tweeted the video publicly - produced be opposed to Zionism, as many Jews “misconduct” for being “offensive” n Communists have no interest misconduct”, was “both procedurally zero results. Tens of thousands viewed are, or to criticise the government of failed at the tribunal. The judge “took apart from the working class and substantively unfair” and “well the offending video, Stan Keable’s Israel.” into account the line of case law which as a whole. They differ only in beyond the range of reasonable comments were reproduced in the says that for a single act of misconduct recognising the importance of responses of a reasonable employer”. Evening Standard and Mail Online Keep digging to justify dismissal it must be serious, Marxism as a guide to practice. Stan Keable has asked for - surrounded, as usual, by reports of This would have been a good moment wilful and obvious”: That theory is no dogma, but reinstatement, and his work colleagues unsubstantiated allegations of anti- for Smith to climb out of the hole he must be constantly added to and are looking forward to welcoming Semitism in the Labour Party - but had been dropped into and close the The misconduct must be obvious; enriched. him back into the housing team. no-one complained to H&F council. case. But he chose to keep digging, it must be such that the employee n Capitalism in its ceaseless Departmental director Nicholas Austin Hands and Cowan were alone. adding the Equality Act 2010 to the would plainly recognise it as search for profit puts the future - the man who formally sacked him By labelling Stan Keable’s allegations. If anti-Semitism won’t conduct which would merit of humanity at risk. Capitalism is - told the tribunal that he had “an comments “anti-Semitic” and saying stick, let’s try anti-Zionism. summary dismissal if discovered synonymous with war, pollution, entirely clean disciplinary record”, was “gross misconduct”, Cowan effectively He wrote: “If Zionism constitutes a by his employers. Such recognition exploitation and crisis. As a global “good at his job” and described him as instructed council officers to suspend belief under the terms of the Equality might be either because the system capitalism can only be “good, thorough, dogged in pursuit of and dismiss him. Judge Brown found Act, then the statements made by the employers had expressly made superseded globally. landlords in trying to improve housing that they were “clearly put under very claimant that the Zionist movement known to their staff that a particular n The capitalist class will never conditions”. The issue of reinstatement considerable pressure by Mr Hands collaborated with the Nazis and that it type of misconduct would be willingly allow their wealth and was due to be resolved, along with MP and by councillor Cowan to accepted that ‘Jews are not acceptable treated as a dismissible offence power to be taken away by a appropriate compensation, at an dismiss the claimant”. here’ might be deemed to have or because the employee, judging parliamentary vote. October 2 “remedy hearing” - which Four hours after Cowan’s email, breached the Equality Act” and “do not the matter for himself according may now be postponed, extending Stan Stan Keable was unceremoniously promote inclusion nor treat everyone to the ordinarily accepted n We will use the most militant Keable’s time in limbo. Hopefully, suspended from work - on charges with dignity and respect and … have standard of morality of the time, methods objective circumstances the tribunal will refuse permission to which did not include anti-Semitism. breached the council’s Equality, would recognise dismissal as the allow to achieve a federal republic appeal. Criticism of Zionism and Israel One presumes that the council’s Diversity and Inclusion Policy”. predictable consequence of such of England, Scotland and Wales, should be calmly debated, not gagged lawyers had pointed out that telling Subsequently, whether a belief in misconduct (Bishop v Graham a united, federal Ireland and a and banned. well documented, historical truths Zionist ideology should be considered Group plc EAT 800/98). United States of Europe. On March 27 2018 - the morning about the Zionist movement did a protected characteristic under the n Communists favour industrial after the ‘Enough is Enough’ not constitute racism. That would Equality Act was neither claimed by The basis of the decision to dismiss Stan unions. Bureaucracy and class demonstration, supposedly against have been a good moment to tell the council nor determined by the Keable was Nicholas Austin’s personal compromise must be fought and Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Jewish racism Cowan that he was wrong and tribunal. In any case, the act does not view that “the average person would the trade unions transformed into - Cowan forwarded to the council’s advise him to drop the matter. But an forbid criticism of a protected “religion interpret the claimant’s comments as schools for communism. chief executive officer a 105-second instruction is an instruction. Omitting or belief”: it outlaws harassment, suggesting that Zionists collaborated n Communists are champions of video clip - an extract from a political the leader’s unsustainable “anti- discrimination and victimisation of with the Nazis in the holocaust and that the oppressed. Women’s oppression, conversation in Parliament Square Semitism” complaint, the suspension believers. But the council “did not find that was highly likely to cause offence”. combating racism and chauvinism, between Stan Keable and an unknown letter described the comments as that the claimant had made anti-Semitic However, the judge disagreed: “Mr and the struggle for peace and man, which had been publicly tweeted “inappropriate”, “insensitive”, “likely or racist or discriminatory remarks”, so Smith had not interpreted the claimant’s ecological sustainability are just by Chelsea and Fulham Tory MP Greg to be considered offensive” and having this seed fell on stony ground. comments in that way, nor had Mr as much working class questions Hands. Cowan’s email stated: “the potential to bring the council into In his zealous search for a case Hands in his tweet or letter … and nor as pay, trade union rights and disrepute”. to answer, Smith concluded his had the other evidence which Mr Smith demands for high-quality health, LBHF [London Borough of The tribunal, however, took a investigation report by adding a had relied on from the Mail Online or housing and education. Hammersmith and Fulham] different view. Judge Brown “found truly Orwellian allegation to the the Evening Standard.” n Socialism represents victory employee Stan Keeble [sic] that the claimant’s demeanour charge sheet, effectively saying that Why is a Labour council pursuing in the battle for democracy. It is making anti-Semitic comments. throughout the video clip was calm, council employees must not attend this pathetic case - wasting public the rule of the working class. I’ll let Mr Keeble’s words speak reasonable, non-threatening and demonstrations: money in pursuit of the restriction of Socialism is either democratic or, for themselves. I believe he has conversational”. our hard-won rights of freedom of as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it brought the good name of LBHF Stan Keable was not told that the That, in attending a counter- speech and assembly? These rights turns into its opposite. into disrepute and committed complainant was the council leader, demonstration outside the houses are the products of, above all, the class gross misconduct. Please have nor the substance of the complaint of parliament on March 26 2018, struggle of the workers’ movement, n Socialism is the first stage this looked at immediately and act - that it was explicitly about “anti- Stan Keable knowingly increased from the Chartists onwards. This of the worldwide transition to accordingly and with expediency Semitism” - those embarrassing the possibility of being challenged case illustrates the fact that the class communism–a system which … Please advise me at your earliest facts were only revealed a year later, about his views and subsequently struggle is taking place at present in a knows neither wars, exploitation, opportunity what action you have shortly before the tribunal hearing. proceeded to express views that sharp form within the Labour Party - money, classes, states nor nations. taken. Nor did the suspension letter specify were in breach of the council’s councillor Cowan has placed himself Communism is general freedom which comments were considered Equality, Diversity and Inclusion firmly on the side of the ruling class. and the real beginning of human Hands’ malicious tweet, tagged to “offensive”. The original complainant Policy and the council’s Code of One can only assume the council is history. Cowan and Hammersmith Labour MP (Cowan) had not done so. Two Conduct … counting on the legal strategy of “deep The Weekly Worker is licensed by Andy Slaughter, was not a complaint “offensive” comments were eventually pockets wins”. Stan Keable’s legal November Publications under a Creative to the council, but a public attack on selected by the investigating officer, Unsurprisingly, the tribunal upheld costs, if the appeal is permitted, are Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence: http:// the Labour Party, smearing the party as Peter Smith: (1) “the Zionist movement the right to demonstrate. The judge likely to rise above £10,000. Readers creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ a home for anti-Semites. Stan Keable’s at the time collaborated with them” (ie, concluded that Stan Keable’s are urged to contribute at www. legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. employment at LBHF was unknown to the Nazi regime), and (2) “The Zionist comments were “an expression of gofundme.com/ReinstateStanKeable l No 1265 September 5 2019 Turkey forced to hold back

Main enemy is at home ... and abroad Erdoğan’s attempts to crush the Kurds face constant frustration, reports Esen Uslu s the temperature rose to an unprecedented high at the A beginning of August, the Turkish army was poised to invade Rojava in Syria. While this was not intended as a game of brinkmanship with the US, it certainly forced the Americans to act to stop the foray, which would have completely upset existing arrangements. In the first week of August a tentative agreement was reached with the US to establish a security corridor along the eastern section of the Turkish- Syrian border. The Ankara agreement forestalled any unilateral intervention, and in return the US made a few token gestures in Turkey’s direction. A joint operation centre was established in the Urfa province of Turkey allowing for joint helicopter patrols along the Syrian border. Turkish infantry units were withdrawn five kilometres from the border and heavier weaponry a further nine kilometres. A compromise not fully accepted by the Turkish side, since a 40-kilometre security zone had been sought. Now Turkey may join land Kurdish fighters in Syria: allied with US patrols along the border, but not take independent military action or move generals were stuck in the mud and elections despite vigorous security an affront to their independence. More Vladimir Putin. Another ceasefire was against democratically elected councils they were not happy about that. vetting. Nor have they been charged. significantly, 12 justices of the court hastily arranged. However, the jihadists in Kurdish areas of Rojava. In this way But this is Kurdistan. Nobody worries of appeal also stayed away. A sign of in Idlib regarded that as a betrayal. A the US wants to appear as an ‘honest Seek, find, kill about such niceties. growing opposition. large group of their supporters crossed go-between’ - brokering an agreement Despite the Ankara agreement, Turkish The Erdoğan regime cannot over the Syria-Turkey border and between Turkey and the Kurds without armed forces are engaged in Iraqi survive without keeping the support Idlib staged a demonstration in Cilvegözü actually bringing the parties together. Kurdistan. Now the third Operation of the security bureaucracy. Therefore While Kurds are the main focus of against the new Turkish-Russian The Ankara agreement was met Claw is underway near Iraq’s border new military campaigns and police the military and diplomatic efforts of agreement. Troops fired into the air with scepticism in some circles of the with Syria. clamp downs against the Kurds are the Erdoğan regime, the actions of the and used CS gas to disperse the crowd. Turkish armed forces, as well as by Turkey’s air superiority over the considered indispensable. The ‘rule Syrian government in Idlib province In the same area a large group of many politicians. Their main fear was entire region allows its planes, as well of law’ has long been suspended in has revealed the fallacy of Turkey’s refugees fleeing from areas controlled that the US might force Turkey to accept as army helicopters and unmanned Kurdistan, and the threat of extending ‘security through force’ approach. One by the Syrian regime are also gathering a Kurdish-dominated administration drones, to fly with impunity - bombing this situation over the whole country is of the 12 Turkish observation posts along the border, demanding to be let as a legitimate partner in negotiations raids to ‘eliminate’ hostile targets are a ever-present. was hit during the Syrian attack on into Turkey. The pressure from such in the future, which would eventually daily occurrence. Selahattin Demirtaş, the former the town of Khan Shaykhun. A militia refugees is also being felt by Greece, lead to an independent Kurdish entity In parallel to the cross-border president of the pro-Kurdish People’s vehicle attempted to reach the post because since the start of new Syrian along the southern borders of Turkey. actions two successive military Democratic Party (HDP), who had been but was precision-bombed. A Turkish offensive in Idlib there has been an The most pro-US amongst the operations on the Turkish side of the remanded in custody on a trumped-up convoy was dispatched. Russian forces increasing number sailing into the Turkish top brass is the minister of border have been launched. These so- charge for just under three years, has came to the rescue. They surrounded Aegean Islands aboard small boats. defence, Hulusi Akar, who was military called ‘Decimate’ operations are under finally been released. This was just the observation post to avoid any The calm summer seas are a bonus commander during the coup attempt of the command of the Gendarmerie - before his application to the European further escalation. for the human traffickers, especially 2016. Now he is the preferred trouble- troops under the control of the ministry Court of Human Rights was due to be The ministry of foreign affairs is as the Greek authorities are turning a shooter of president Recep Tayyip of interior - covering almost all the heard on September 18. While in jail, claiming that no observation post will blind eye in order to put pressure on Erdoğan. Akar has succeeded in Kurdish provinces. According to the he was convicted on another charge be relocated while one of them remains the European Union to force it to act. keeping in check extremist nationalists military, the orders issued to the troops and sentenced to four years and eight marooned behind enemy lines, but in All this has laid bare the untenable and ‘Eurasians’ within the top ranks of are “Seek, find, kill”. months imprisonment, pending an reality the relief convoy has been position of the Erdoğan regime in trying the armed forces. And, while military operations appeal. According to the rules, the stopped in its tracks, and two more to perform a balancing act between During the negotiations that led have dominated the agenda, the sentence must be offset by his remand observation posts are in the line of new Russia and the US, which are attempting to the Ankara agreement his pro-US ‘civilian’ struggle against the Kurds period. So he should now be released offensive. Foreign minister Mevlüt to re-establish their spheres of influence stance met with distinct unease. As has gained a new vigour. Mayors of under judicial control. But we will see. Çavuşoğlu has reminded his Russian in the Middle East. Every move and a result, towards the end of August, three principal Kurdish cities, elected The court’s decision to release counterpart of the ceasefire conditions posture pretending that Turkey is in when promotions and demotions were in March this year, were summarily Demirtaş came at the beginning of the signed by both states. The Russian a position of strength leads to yet decided at the traditional summer dismissed by the ministry of interior judicial year, which was marked with ministry of foreign affairs responded another stumble. However, Erdoğan is meeting of the Supreme Military and ‘administrators’ appointed. They a ceremony held in the presidential curtly that the Sochi agreement does able to maintain a strong grip at home Council, many of the usual procedures promptly dissolved the elected city palace in Ankara. But 51 of the 78 not provide for a ceasefire with despite this - mainly because his loyal were bypassed in order to create a councils, and dismissed officers and provincial bar associations declined “terrorists” and that Turkey is not opposition is as reluctant as he is to give command structure fit for the Erdoğan workers. The dismissed mayors had to attend, claiming that holding such fulfilling its obligations. an inch to the democratic demands of regime. More mumblings among the not been disqualified before the local an event in the seat of the executive is Erdoğan acted quickly and visited the Kurdish people l generals. Five senior generals resigned within Subscribe Name:______Standing order a week of the SMC announcements - 6m 1yr Inst. 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