A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity

Fighting Labour’s ‘anti-Zionism equals n Letters and debate n Football wars anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt: Mike Macnair n Iran oil strike explains why the courts are not our friend n Afghan polemic No 1356 July 15 2021 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10 ANOTHER FORCED SCUTTLE weekly 2 July 15 2021 1356 worker LETTERS

remained a much distorted form of revolution was possible in a single one of his best works. But we have USSR remained endemic despite Letters may have been the dictatorship of the proletariat - a country and those who waited for to remember the context. This was the best efforts of state agencies to shortened because of space. Some names mirror image of the rule of Hitler, it to happen simultaneously were the wholesale collapse and betrayal defend the new socialist order and  may have been changed but crucially based on working completely wrong. This is what he by western social democracy of legality. class property relations and not wrote after that chopped quote: the international working class Stalin did not make “Trotsky on bourgeois property relations. “… Only after we have and its support for the World War I and some of his supporters pay Dictatorship This remained the case until the overthrown, finally vanquished slaughter. The revolution had only with their lives for having political So Gerry Downing is as bad as ‘constitutional crisis’ of September/ and expropriated the bourgeoisie recently taken place in deeply differences”. Members of both the Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin (I’ll October 1993 - the political and of the whole world, and not merely backward Russia, and was under right and the left opposition were take that!), according to this liberal military stand-off between Yeltsin in one country, will wars become existential threat from powerful crushed and sometimes removed reactionary defence of capitalism and the Russian parliament, which impossible. And from a scientific reactionary forces within and from the Communist Party, not itself from one Tony Clark of ended with the defeat of the point of view, it would be utterly without. because of political differences, but the Campaign For Democratic parliament by an initially neutral wrong - and utterly unrevolutionary There is no question that, had due to extreme factionalism and Socialism - the new Hugh Gaitskell Red Army in a clear dual-power - for us to evade or gloss over the the counterrevolution succeeded extremely damaging conduct and and Gang of Four reincarnation situation. most important things: crushing in Russia, it would have been behaviour. A number of the leaders (Letters, July 8). And we are all as There were five successive the resistance of the bourgeoisie followed, as after the Paris were reinstated several times after bad as Al Capone, according to him; phases of the dictatorship of the - the most difficult task, and one Commune, by a holocaust of mass they acknowledged their offences and explaining historical events by proletariat in the USSR from demanding the greatest amount murder and destruction of not only and undertook to abide by the rules. telling us that Kerensky and the October 1917. of fighting, in the transition to the Bolsheviks, but hundreds of Tony rightly drew a straight tsar were stupid people is the same (1) The rule of the soviets, October socialism” (Lenin’s emphasis). thousands of their supporters - and line between ultra-leftism and as those who say Donald Trump is 1917 to the period just prior to the Lenin and Trotsky were not whole sections of the population rightwing opportunism. Bukharin stupid and Hitler was a madman. It death of Lenin (January 1924), national socialists like Stalin, but believed capable of harbouring any was a classic example - once an explains nothing - why do so many and the Fifth Congress of the internationalist to the core of their residual sympathy for socialism ultra-leftist, he flipped within a very people follow these mad, stupid Comintern (June-July 1924). A new political beings - as is obvious from and even for mildly progressive short number of years to becoming people? That requires some theory and far more progressive form of the subsequent quote which Tony’s democratic and social reform. The a rightwing opportunist, a capitalist - sadly lacking here. democracy (the soviets - workers’ chopping seeks to hide in defence Bolshevik regime was fighting for roader, seeking the defeat of the Let us take the issues he raises: councils) ruled. of Stalin. Conservative bureaucrats its life and for socialism in Russia, Soviet regime and the restoration of “First,” he says, “let’s look at (2) The Interregnum (1924-28). Joe Stalin, Chairman Mao and Hugh so it is not surprising that Lenin capitalism. His endemic defeatism the term, ‘dictatorship of the It was still relatively democratic Gaitskell join forces with Tony expressed the fact that it would and pessimism underpinned both his proletariat’. There are different to begin with, but an increasingly Clark against Bolshevism. use all means necessary to defend ultra-leftism and right opportunism. views about where the term came repressive period of political Gerry Downing itself and defeat reactionary and Unfortunately Trotsky’s and from, but we can be sure that Marx struggle between Zinoviev, Stalin, Socialist Fight counterrevolutionary forces. Bukharin’s straight lines did not wasn’t its originator.” Bukharin, Kamenev and Trotsky. But, as a principle, ‘dictatorship stop at simple right opportunism, Indeed, no. Joseph Weydemeyer, Zinoviev was dominant initially, Stalin was right of the proletariat’ means the class but went straight on to those who a close follower of Marx and Bukharin in alliance with Stalin I thought Tony Clark produced and state power of the working they thought could help them best to Engels, who participated in the latterly, and Stalin emerged at the one of his best letters in the July 8 class - nothing more, nothing less. regain political and personal power 1848 failed revolution with them, top in 1928. edition of the Weekly Worker. It was In western capitalist countries in the Soviet Union. coined the phrase in his article, (3) Consolidation of the rule of thought-provoking and insightful, the working class is clearly the Defeated repeatedly by and in ‘The dictatorship of the proletariat’, the bureaucracy, with Stalin as its and I agree with a fair bit of what majority of the population, so the party, marginalised politically published in New York in 1852. central representative (1928-34). he said. the dictatorship of the proletariat in wider Soviet society and held in He concludes the article with this This marked the end of the original I agree with Tony’s analysis and simply means rule by the majority contempt - hated even - by the Soviet observation, with which all serious Bolshevik Party as a political entity. characterisation of some of the in the interests of the majority. population for their behaviour, Marxists agree: (4) The Great Purges, etc: ridiculous positions, stances and I think this is the original Greek arrogance, destructiveness and “If a revolution is to be December 1934 (assassination of slogans put forward by Trotsky meaning of the word ‘democracy’: personal ambitions, it was only victoriously carried through, it will Kirov) to March 1953; the death and the ultra-left on socialism the ‘rule of the people’. It replaces when Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, require a concentrated power, a of Stalin and execution of Beria in in one country, on bureaucracy the state power of the bourgeoisie Kamenev, etc sought the external dictatorship at its head. Cromwell’s December 1953. and in relation to a host of mass, and the capitalist class. It has to hold assistance of the fascist powers to dictatorship was necessary in order (5) Return of the rule of bureaucracy, democratic and national liberation down and suppress the overthrown achieve violent ‘regime change’, to establish the supremacy of the 1953-93; the ‘Red Army’ smashes struggles, including Spain, capitalist class and their supporters through the assassination of party English bourgeoisie; the terrorism the rule of the NKVD and the secret Germany, China, South Africa, and simultaneously begin the leaders, sabotage and destruction of the Paris Commune and of the police becomes an arm of the entire etc, pointing out that ultra-leftism tasks of socialist construction and of state, public and social property Committee of Public Safety alone bureaucracy again, as in 1928-34. is frequently the simple flipside of transformation. and economic capacity, that the full succeeded in breaking the resistance The five successive stages of the rightwing opportunism (an analysis The more the mass of the working force of Soviet law and Soviet state of the feudal lords on French soil. dictatorship of the proletariat above actually made by Lenin). “How did class is organised and united in agencies was brought to bear on Without the dictatorship of the have another thing in common, Trotsky get away with it?” Tony favour of socialism and socialist them. proletariat, which is concentrated in apart from the economic plan and asks. How did Trotsky ever manage transformation, and the more This was not “above” or “outside” the big cities, the bourgeois reaction the welfare provisions mentioned to acquire any form of reputation strongly organised and focused its the law, but using the law - the law will not be done away with.” above. As a real dictatorship, the or standing as a serious socialist or state power, the less likely it would of the established and legitimate This then became the terminology separation of powers in the three revolutionary, I would ask. be that actual force or violence Soviet state. used by Marx and Engels. For sections of the healthy workers’ Tony makes a useful distinction would need to be used against the Andrew Northall instance, in 1891 Engels wrote a state was largely abolished under between defensive and offensive overthrown classes. Even in the Kettering postscript to the 1872 pamphlet, Lenin and the Bolsheviks up until forms of the class struggle. I agree most difficult circumstances, the The civil war in France: “Well and 1924, with the important exceptions that “stopping fascism means uniting actual use of force or violence Jews good, gentlemen, do you want to pointed to in phase 1, the rule of the everyone opposed to fascism in a against the overthrown classes “The times they are a-changing”: know what this dictatorship looks soviets. The soviets collapsed from defensive struggle” (discussing the would be pretty marginal, compared Tony Greenstein evokes Bob like? Look at the Paris Commune. the early to mid-1920s, due to the united and popular front strategies with what would happen if any Dylan in his article calling for That was the dictatorship of the defeat of revolution in Germany, put forward by Dimitrov in the counterrevolution managed to get the formation of a new Palestine proletariat … the Commune made Italy and Hungary and lost pre- 1930s). However, I would say there the upper hand. solidarity movement in Britain use of two infallible expedients. revolutionary situations elsewhere. is or should be a close relationship As socialism is established and (‘Poverty of solidarity’, July 8). In this first place, it filled all This retreat of the working class between the defensive and develops, the overthrown classes They certainly are! Criticisms posts - administrative, judicial and internationally and the dimming of offensive. A successful defensive will lose their economic, political, of Zionism that were considered educational - by election on the the prospects for world revolution strategy should also help lay the ideological and material power, taboo just a few short years ago are basis of universal suffrage of all demoralised the class. Stalinist broad basis for a renewed offensive and will become less of a threat now becoming so obvious that they concerned, with the right of the bureaucratic repression was the strategy, seeking significant and to the new socialist order. They will soon be mainstream on the left. same electors to recall their delegate expression of this. comprehensive social change. themselves will over time start Tony’s sharp characterisation of at any time. And, in the second Let us take the Lenin quote I agree with most of Tony’s to break down as a hostile class: Zionism as “Jewish supremacism” place, all officials, high or low, Tony supplies: “The development position on Spain - “The main some sections will remain deeply is to be welcomed; while this use of were paid only the wages received of capitalism proceeds extremely reason for the defeat in Spain was hostile and reactionary, while the J-word in conjunction with the by other workers.” unevenly in the various countries. lack of unity of the left, while the some may reconcile themselves Z-word (Zionist) was never entirely This 1871 Paris Commune is It cannot be otherwise under the fascists were disciplined and united to the new order. As this happens, absent from his earlier writings, the model for soviet democracy - commodity production system. around Franco, who had the support we can expect working class state this stronger emphasis on it is to as first appeared in 1905 and then From this it follows irrefutably that of Hitler and Mussolini” - but not power to establish more permanent be welcomed. Political Zionism again in a more developed form socialism cannot achieve victory with his assertion that “attacks on the institutions, structures, laws and is indeed a Jewish supremacist in February 1917 - enabling the simultaneously in all countries. It Catholic church” were “politically processes - a new socialist legality - movement. socialist revolution of October to will achieve victory first in one or stupid” and “strengthened the to govern and regulate the affairs of The old prejudice that Zionism establish the first workers’ state in several countries, while the others counterrevolution”. No, the church the state and socialist society. was simply a tool of western human history. Ah, but it was not will remain bourgeois or pre- was itself deeply reactionary and As we all know, in the USSR, the colonialism, and by that token ‘democratic’, complain our liberal bourgeois for some time”. counterrevolutionary, and was overthrown classes, the imperialists, not really Jewish at all, and had reactionaries and their third-campist The quote is familiar to me, “attacked” for its very real material the capitalists, the landlords, the no independent agency of its allies: it suppressed not only the because it was thrown at me back as well as ideological support for military top brass, the aristocracy - own, is being dissipated by the capitalist opposition and their press, in 1977 on a building site by a the fascists. all remained significant in number. radicalisation that has happened in but also all other working class Maoist. I did take the trouble to On the central issue of the It was only through the mass Britain as a result of the experience parties and it became a one-party look it up and found that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat, Tony industrialisation and collectivisation of the orchestrated role of Zionism state, which Stalin merely inherited complete distortion of what Lenin focuses on one specific comment launched in the late 1920s that in undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s from Lenin, with no need for that wrote, which can be found on p79, made by Lenin: that “dictatorship a majority working class was in leadership of the Labour Party - counterrevolution of which you Vol 23 of his Collected works. This is rule based directly upon force the process of being created. The Zionist smear campaigns managed Trotskyists always speak. was used to prove that Lenin meant and unrestricted by any laws”. balance of forces remained acute. to reach where ordinary British Joseph Stalin held absolute that building socialism in a single This was written in Lenin’s The Violence, disruption, sabotage, imperialist chauvinism was unable personal dictatorial power in his country was possible whereas he proletarian revolution and the mass killings in the countryside and to. This radicalisation has now been rule from 1934 to 1953. But it still was actually saying that the socialist renegade Kautsky - I have to say, in the more far-reaching parts of the deepened, and on a worldwide level, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX l 07379 532160 l www.weeklyworker.co.uk l [email protected] weekly worker 1356 July 15 2021 3

by the victory of the Palestinian imperialist powers. They illegally spent over £100,000 ACTION people in the Saif Al-Quds (Sword As we wrote recently on the (10 times what the Workers Party of Free Palestine, no to war and Islamophobia of Jerusalem) war of May 2021. For Consistent Democrats website, Britain spent) on election expenses, Friday July 16, 5pm: Protest rally, City Park, Centenary Square, the first time for decades this united “This is not some western arms including on union cars and putting Bradford BD1. As support for Palestine grows, Britain and the USA the Palestinian people ‘from the exporter supplying arms to a union officials up in hotels. At the continue to back Israeli aggression, and Islamophobia is used to river to the sea’ in a struggle against client, like Saudi Arabia in Yemen. same time, Kirklees Labour council, marginalise pro-Palestinian opinion. Speakers: Jeremy Corbyn MP, Zionism, and forced Israel to make This is an Israeli arms company at taxpayers’ expense, illegally Richard Burgon MP, Lindsey German and Salma Yaqoob. concessions and call a face-saving that supplies high-tech weaponry took down thousands of Workers Organised by Stop the War Coalition: ceasefire much earlier than planned to the west and its clients: to the Party of Britain posters three days www.facebook.com/events/845986209360748. in the face of such Palestine-wide British armed forces, those of the before polling day. The Workers resistance, which threatened the US, France, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Party of Britain now has over 5,500 Tolpuddle Martyrs online festival very stability of the Jewish state. Colombia, the Philippines; from members, supporters and affiliates, Friday July 16 to Sunday July 18: Discussions, debates, radical Tony gets it almost right when he military drones to night-vision 1,500 joining in the last three weeks history and music. Speakers include Laura Pidcock (People’s writes of the comparison between equipment and other military alone. Assembly) and Sarah Woolley (general secretary, BFAWU). Zionism and the earlier struggle surveillance equipment. Its military In the widely-expected general Organised by the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival group: against South African apartheid: hardware is marketed as tested in election that will take place on www.tolpuddlemartyrs.org.uk/festival. “… the campaign against Israel action: ie, against the Palestinian Thursday May 5 2022, Labour is is different in one crucial respect people. Israel is a far tougher nut likely to be reduced to having just Oppose the asylum bill from that against apartheid in South to crack than any mere colonial 150 seats in parliament. MPs such Monday July 19, 6pm: Online rally. What the new legislation will Africa. Whereas the latter had no outpost: it is an imperialist enemy in as Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and mean and how to organise the fightback to defend asylum-seekers. domestic support base, apart from its own right. Therefore, you get the Angela Rayner will all lose their Speakers include Diane Abbott MP, Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP and the capitalists, rightwing Tories and contradictory phenomenon where, seats. As Owen Jones pointed out in Mark Serwotka (general secretary, PCS). fascists, the Israeli state has a lobby while Israel sometimes acts like a an interview with an Asian Labour Organised by Stand Up To Racism: that is strong and powerful. western client state, at other times Party member and solicitor in his www.facebook.com/events/349651426522260. “True, Israel has support within the US and other western powers documentary on the by-election, Lift all Labour expulsions and suspensions the Jewish community. The last act like Israeli client states. The Labour has lost Scotland and the Tuesday July 20, 12 noon: Lobby the Labour Party’s NEC meeting, survey by Yachad of British Jews overlapping of the ruling classes ‘Red Wall’, and now the support Party HQ, 105 Victoria Street, London SW1. Restore the whip to in 2015 found that 59% identify means there is an element of truth of three million Muslims. At the Jeremy Corbyn; restore suspended CLPs; restore party democracy. as Zionists. Meanwhile, 31% said in both.” same time, in the cities and the shire Organised by Labour In Exile Network: that they were not Zionists - down Several of the points that counties, Labour is losing votes to www.facebook.com/LabourInExileNetwork. 13% on a similar survey five years Tony makes in his article put him its left, including to the Lib Dems, previously. very close to the analysis that I the Greens - and in the future the End the privatisation of railways cleaning “Despite the attempt to label formulated in 2014 of the distinct Workers Party of Britain. The Tuesday July 20, 12 noon: Protest, Old Palace Yard, Houses of BDS as anti-Semitic, 24% of ethnocentric nature of the bourgeois Labour Party in years to come will Parliament, London SW1. Cleaners on the railways are outsourced British Jews support some form of Israel lobby - a caste within the be lucky to get 60 seats, the same as to private companies; as a result they are low paid, understaffed and sanctions on Israel. Among secular imperialist bourgeoisie that regards the Lib Dems at the height of their overworked. Demand an in-house, integrated cleaning service. Jews this rises to 40% and among Israel as ‘its’ unique ethnocentric popularity in 2010. Yet Bernard Organised by RMT: www.facebook.com/RMTcleaners. the under-30s it is 41%. Compare state (with racist laws to match) Mattson puts all his eggs in the this with the Board of Deputies, and its role as an imperialist force Labour Party basket. 1871 and the fight to free our unions today which purports to speak for “British in its own right. Getting this right In my neck of the woods - Tuesday July 20, 7pm: Online meeting followed by discussion. Jews”, but never criticises Israel. and understanding what we are North-East Cambridgeshire (more On the 150th anniversary of the 1871 Trade Union Act, which fully Zionist organisations have hijacked up against in fighting Zionism is commonly known as Fenland) - legalised unions in the UK, what lessons can we learn from earlier the voice of “British Jews”. In the crucial for the future of Palestine Labour membership has halved, struggles to free unions from anti-union laws and state and employer words of Barnaby Raine, they are solidarity movements around the going from 400 members under interference? Speaker: Simon Hannah, Lambeth Unison. the establishment’s ‘favourite pets: world, not just in Britain. Zionism, Corbyn to less than 200 under Organised by Free Our Unions: heroic colonists in the Middle East and its international dimensions/ Starmer. In my home town of www.facebook.com/events/1818232921680960. and successful citizens in the west’.” lobbies in western countries, are Wisbech - which, together with Stop the freeports race to the bottom So the difference between South certainly driven by the project of its surrounding villages, has a Wednesday July 21, 7.30pm: Online organising meeting to plan Africa and the Zionist state is that maintaining Jewish supremacy in population of over 35,000 - there the campaign to resist the eight proposed freeports. These will be the latter has a powerful ethnic the Middle East and demolishing is no party branch. In the 2016 EU used to undermine trade union agreements that protect workers’ pay, lobby as its base of support in the any political force in the west that in referendum, 72% of Wisbechians terms and conditions, and pensions. west that the Boer/Anglo regime any way threatens to obstruct that. voted for Brexit. This provides Organised by National Shop Stewards Network: never had - separate and distinct We in the Consistent Democrats very fruitful territory for the new www.facebook.com/events/1671565229703908. from the run-of-the-mill bourgeois certainly welcome Tony’s call Fenland and South Lincs branch of forces that over South Africa, as for a new Palestine Solidarity the WPB. The fight against imperialism over Kenya, Malaya, Ireland, you movement in this country - I for Labour has no seats on the Thursday July 22, 6pm: Weekly online political education series. name it, backed the west’s colonial one was thrown out of the PSC in 18-member Wisbech council, and Organised by Labour Left Alliance: allies in all its more conventional 2020 after being a member since it is more than 20 years since it has www.facebook.com/events/211467213892082. colonial-type wars. 2005 for attempting, as a member had any councillors for any of the Support the oil workers’ strike wave in Iran The reference to the Zionist of our predecessor, Socialist Fight, nine seats Wisbech has on Fenland Sunday July 25, 3pm: Public meeting, Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Jewish establishment as “successful to address these questions, by District Council. The potential for Inn Road, London WC1. Support oil and petrochemical workers citizens in the west” can only refer to the Labour Party’s semi-Zionist the WPB in the Brexit-supporting on strike since June 19 - the biggest strike wave since the 1979 the Jewish-Zionist bourgeois layers quislings and disappearing deep areas of Fenland and South Lincs is revolution. that use the power of their property entryists like Socialist Action. immense. Labour, the Lib Dems and Organised by Socialist Fight: socialistfight.com. and wealth to give rise to the “strong Ian Donovan the Greens do not exist. The field and powerful” Israel lobby, which Consistent Democrats is wide open for the WPB as the 10 Years of winter since the Arab Spring is primarily an ethnocentric lobby only alternative to the Conservative Monday July 26, 6.30pm: Online film launch. Highlighting the or faction within the bourgeoisie. Long live WPB! Party, which has dominated local role played by UK weapons in suppressing the protests. Followed by It is disproportionate in size I must defend Tony Greenstein and national politics for far too long. panel discussion and questions. Register for free. simply because of the much higher from the attack by Bernard Mattson Perhaps Bernard Mattson, Organised by London Campaign Against Arms Trade: proportion of Jews who have risen (Letters, July 8). Whilst I have unlike me, can cope with all the www.facebook.com/events/522215722454914. into the western bourgeoisies over many disagreements with Tony, I psychological stress and turmoil a prolonged period - a historical do agree with him that the Labour of keeping one’s head down in The future of the left in Brighton and Hove legacy of the social role of the Party is finished. Marxists should the Labour Party so as not to be Thursday July 29, 73.30pm: Public meeting, The Rialto, 11 Dyke Jews as a class of commodity get back to using our most useful suspended or expelled, but, as with Road, Brighton BN1. To mark the fifth anniversary of the left’s traders under European feudalism. tool - dialectics. Just as humans are the CPGB PCC, I think he is wasting shortlived triumph in the District Labour Party AGM, join leading The younger, more secular Jewish born, live and die, the same process his time. The Socialist Labour Party protagonists to discuss the future of the left in Brighton and Hove. layers who are less enamoured with is happening to Britain’s Labour did not work because of Arthur Entrance £1 by ticket in advance only. Zionism’s crimes are obviously Party. Scargill; the Socialist Alliance did Organised by The Resist Event: outside this bourgeois, ruling-class To see the future, we just have to not work because it was not a party. www.facebook.com/TheResistEvent. layer. look at the decline and fall of the SPD Similarly, Respect was not a party; Online Communist University But the point about the J-Z in Germany, and the Socialist Party Left Unity was not a party, nor is Saturday August 14 to Sunday August 22: Online school of “successful citizens” as mere in France - the latter now regularly the Trade Unionist and Socialist Marxism. The Weekly Worker goes live for a week, with lots of time “pets” is a misreading: they gets just 5% of the vote in elections. Coalition. Through design or for debate and discussion. Timetable and registration available soon. are much more valuable to the The Labour Party under Starmer, accident, the left has now stumbled Speakers this year include: Jack Conrad, Chris Knight, Kevin Bean, bourgeois establishment than just like the SPD and the French on what I have been waiting for for Lawrence Parker, Sandy McBurney, Paul Demarty, David Broder, that; a class-conscious reserve, SP, is going through a qualitative the last 27 years - the Workers Party Mike Macnair, Marc Mulholland, Moshé Machover, Hillel Ticktin, previously mistakenly maligned change, where it is becoming just of Britain - the name says it all. Yassamine Mather, Tina Werkmann, Tony Greenstein, Ian Wright, from the standpoint of the gentile like the US Democrats. Whilst the The WPB has a 10-point Daniel Lazare, Anne McShane and Lars T Lih. bourgeoisie, now among their most trade unions in the US contribute programme for workers - a modern- Organised by Communist Party of Great Britain and Labour Party celebrated class brethren. hundreds of millions of dollars each day minimum programme, similar Marxists: communistuniversity.uk. Israel is more than a western year to the Democrats, they have to that put forward by Lenin’s pet in another sense, as typified no influence. The same will apply Bolsheviks, which its members Wigan Diggers Festival by the Israeli arms company, once Gerard Coyne is elected as the can fight and campaign for. At the Saturday September 11, 11am to 9.30pm: Open-air free festival, Elbit Systems, whom Palestine new general secretary of Unite this same time, it is filling the vacuum The Wiend, Wigan WN1. Commemorating Gerrard Winstanley and Action’s activists, including Tony, September. in British politics, which will the 17th century Diggers movement with music and political stalls. are organising against with great The Labour Party is finished. prevent any future rightwing force Organised by Wigan Diggers Festival: courage, while being maligned by The Batley and Spen by-election from developing. I therefore urge www.facebook.com/WiganDiggersFestival. the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. result will be seen in years to come all readers of the Weekly Worker CPGB wills Elbit is no subsidiary of the west: it as a watershed in the decline and to join, get active in and build the Remember the CPGB and keep the struggle going. Put our party’s epitomises the imperialist nature of fall of the Labour Party. During Workers Party of Britain. name and address, together with the amount you wish to leave, in Israel and its overseas lobbies as a the by-election, Labour threw the John Smithee your will. If you need further help, do not hesitate to contact us. distinct force within the pantheon of kitchen sink at winning the seat. Cambridgeshire weekly 4 July 15 2021 1356 worker FOOTBALL What did England expect? Following narrow defeat at the hands of Italy, the meaning of it all is being hotly fought over. Paul Demarty urges the left to think beyond gesture politics t had to end that way, of course. identity for such a thing to really It matters not that England take root. It needs to capture the Ihad long been capable of attention of the paid persuaders winning penalty shootouts, had in the media and elsewhere; and long developed the habit of - you it will never do that without a know - actually practising penalty threatening counter-force among kicks. The loss, at the death, is too the popular classes to make hardwired by too many memories: such diversionary concessions it is now confirmation bias raised to necessary. It is not, as galaxy- the level of ancestral trauma. The brain neo-Gramscian types seem face of the current manager is itself to imagine, a way to produce such a reminder of the curse. Twenty- a counter-force. five years ago, we watched Gareth There is a simple-minded Southgate place a penalty onto the left reaction against all that, gloves of the German keeper; on best exemplified by the soccer- July 11, he, along with the rest of phobic Socialist Workers Party. us, watched three excellent young “Remember when the left was players - all, indeed, younger against nationalism and flags?” than he was in 1996 - miss their began a Socialist Worker editorial penalties. of July 6. (All flags? What about The disappointment appeared the red flag? But I digress.) “A overwhelming, if not surprising. few successful England football This was certainly the most games later, that’s all forgotten.” favourable opportunity to sneak Instead we have Starmer, and that first major title since 1966 - old SWP enemy Owen Jones, this absurd, pandemic-mocking, photographing themselves with continent-wide tournament had the English flag. somehow conspired to send England to Wembley repeatedly, It’s a diverse team, they say. Its giving them something close to Team England: putting Tories on wrong foot players take the knee. We can home advantage; and there really all unite behind this progressive are a lot of good English players condemning such ravings. Keir real conscious national sentiment; ideology. We could mention, since it patriotism. It’s plastic nowadays. Starmer and Angela Rayner wasted those who supported the team and is in the news, Cuba, whose regime rubbish … National unity - no Yet reaching the final certainly no time in making that connection. also took the opportunity to make a survives in part because the fierce matter how twee and fluffy - counted for something, and really Likewise Gary Neville, quietly big show of patriotism; and, finally, desire for freedom from the Yankee unites us with those at the top this will be remembered at least as growing into the conscience of those whose big show of patriotism jackboot remains tied to Stalinism. and sets us against those from a successful campaign. The press football punditdom, who said: was explicitly chauvinist, racist Real faultlines were exposed ‘outside’. If football comes on July 12 largely trod this line. “when we get racist abuse after and what have you. Outside the by the politics surrounding the home, it’s going to Johnson’s “Pride of lions”, saluted The Sun, a football match at the end of a circle were small numbers who English Euro 2020 campaign. The house. and reminded us all that the World tournament, I expect it - because it consciously did not support the attachment to ‘Queen and Country’, Cup is, after all, only a year away. exists, and it’s actually promoted team: the ‘anyone but England’ supposed by our Tory refuseniks For communists, the fight The improvement over the 2018 by the prime minister”. And brigade - but also perhaps, in the to be the natural national mood, is against nationalism is crucial, World Cup was obvious, which in indeed, Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi, old days, ‘official communists’ who so obviously partially an invention ultimately because production turn was a marked improvement who is often called upon to be the would support the USSR or other that it could never exist outside the is internationalised, and so over England’s capitulation to only rightwing voice who views teams from the ‘actually-existing imagination of especially moronic socialism in a single country, or Iceland in Euro 2016. Excepting these questions as more than raw socialist’ bloc. Mainstream English Daily Mail readers. Nationalisms a few disconnected countries, is any dreadful career-ending injuries, material for a culture-war strategy bourgeois pontificators would are constructed quite artificially; extremely vulnerable to defeat we expect the squad to be stronger of tension. Even Johnny Mercer, the certainly advocate supporting the thus they are periodically prone by the remaining capitalist order. next year. Today, if you can believe inveterate militarist Plymouth MP, team as part of a hearty patriotism, to embarrassments, sometimes Even the most ‘progressive’ it, is a good time to be an England retrospectively criticised the actions while ritually condemning the trivially (as with the bungled culture- nationalism must, in the end, deny fan, which is a welcome change of Johnson and Patel. hooligan or racist element. war offensive against the English this truth. By the same token, a from the directionless mediocrity There is certainly some justice The ‘taking the knee’ culture national team) and sometimes very world divided into national states of the first 15 years of this century. to these accusations, and the war narrative threw this whole severely (as when the contradictions implies competition for narrow same could be said of the various arrangement out of whack. We between northern capitalists and advantage between those states, Nationalism rightwing papers which connived were treated to the spectacle of southern slave-owners in the USA with the result that our being ‘set Also in the news, however, was the at promoting the idea that a totally Tory ideologues refusing to support divided the national mythos into against those from outside’ is depressing, but not at all surprising, anodyne anti-racist gesture was the national team - in the name of two rival class-national ideologies not a clever trick accomplished fact that the three players who had some kind of basic assault on patriotism, of course. The prime and set them to four years of brutal by sporting pageantry, etc, but missed their crucial penalties - Englishness or Britishness. If that minister, no less, equivocated on the warfare). inherent to the world system. We Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka is your attitude, then - whatever matter. And, as usual, it was in the The fact that the ‘ideal type’ of need, as it were, a better offer and Jadon Sancho, all black - impact your actions actually had name of patriotism that the racism English patriotism is, in point of for the masses than the beggar- had been subject to the usual on the abuse - you are exposed as was both committed and condemned fact, a rightwing ideology, not a thy-neighbour policy of the barrage of racist internet abuse. the most laughable hypocrite if (we fought the war over this sort of ‘blue Labour’ type, does not follow bourgeois states, not merely ever The controversy over this abuse you go on to condemn it (not that thing, didn’t we?). from the fact that nationalism is more histrionic gestures of anti- is a good place to start unpacking such exposure ever seems to do any This peculiar situation, of course, reactionary. It follows from the fact racist symbolism. A meaningful the political meaning of all this, of these creatures any harm). The revived the occasional hopes among that, though the content of particular movement towards concrete since it is so very prominent in the question of exactly what difference certain sorts of Labourites and nationalisms is artificial, it is not international political action of the discourse. The condemnation of it does make is rather harder to social democrats for a ‘progressive’ arbitrary. The surrounding society class will make a real impact here; the abusers is, naturally, universal grasp. Frankly, black footballers are reimagining of English national matters. In the English context, we ever more tedious petitions from - Southgate and the England setup, often the object of racist taunts, and identity. It is not the first time in live in a declining post-imperial Stand Up To Racism will not. the respective clubs of the three if the policing of fans in grounds has recent history that sport has figured power whose labour movement The political defeat of players, and, since they insist on reduced such incidents considerably into this. Danny Boyle’s opening is decimated and whose economy nationalism need not entail the weighing in on these things with since the bad old days of the 1970s ceremony for the 2012 Olympics is essentially based on financial obliteration of national cultural banal ‘concern’, the political class. and 80s, the advent of social media was an acute embarrassment to parasitism. Moreover, thanks to signifiers like, for instance, Boris Johnson used his opening simply gives angry and alienated the government of the day, being a the Irish border fiasco and the national football teams, any remarks at a press conference on people a giant, world-spanning solidly Labourite and sentimental- intimidating levels of support for more than pervasive nationalist Monday to tell these unknown terrace from which to make monkey socialist spectacle from beginning separatism in Scotland, the rather ideologies are inconsistent with internet trolls to crawl back under chants. Perhaps there were more to end. Was there, perhaps, a more grander ideology of Britishness is the existence of local rivalries the rock they came from (forgetting racist tweets this time around than humane patriotism being born - one looking a little wobbly. All these between football clubs. What the perhaps that the great advantage of usual, but it is not as though we that loved this country for its cultural factors push us towards an atomised, SWP approach does is insist on internet abuse is that one need not could do some kind of double-blind melange and its subterranean history resentful form of English national fighting nationalism as a culture ever crawl out in the first place!). experiment. of radicalism and common-sense chauvinism, and a general situation war issue, indeed as gesture But that piece of rhetoric rang Somewhat obscured by this communitarian values? Would Blue in which Boris Johnson will find politics, as Priti Patel put it (as hollow for many. Johnson, and spat over explicit racist abuse is Labour be the wave of the future? the St George’s Cross easier to bear if her government was not doing home secretary Priti Patel, who also the peculiar interaction of England From the vantage point of that than will Keir Starmer. the same thing). But fighting this got a few swipes in, had refused football fandom and English same future, the whole thing looks way is utterly hopeless. It involves to condemn the booing of players (and British) nationalism in the rather silly - or would do if the Class replacing the sectional, backward, who were ‘taking the knee’. When last few weeks. The relationship, same false dawn was not being Above all, this is not a matter of beggar-thy-neighbour politics of his MPs started claiming that the until recently, seemed rather more announced by the same kind of bourgeois-political wonkery, but nationalism with nothing but fine national team was under the spell straightforward - something like a people at just this moment. But it of deflected class politics. It is not sentiments. That particular trophy of an anti-British, Marxist ideology Venn diagram of three concentric is not wholly silly. There are, after enough for Billy Bragg or Maurice really is coming home to Johnson’s and therefore not worthy of support, circles. There were those who all, societies where nationalism has Glasman to stand up and declare house, not to SWP headquarters l Johnson mildly urged people to get supported the team, but whose crystallised into a leftwing rather that there should be a progressive behind the boys without specifically support was not connected to any than a rightwing form in official reimagination of English national [email protected] weekly worker 1356 July 15 2021 5 IRAN

Oil is vital for the economy Our strike is spreading fast his statement, translated been going on for over three - the majority of Iranians have encountered setbacks this respect the government’s from Persian, gives an weeks and the workers are are well aware of the harsh in, for example, failing to attempt to divide and rule - Tinsight into the many more determined than ever to conditions this crucial section gain support from permanent separating permanent workers challenges faced by the Council continue their action. of the working class has to live employees of the National from contract workers - has for Organising Protests by Oil Tens of thousands in at least and work under. Iranian Oil Company, where succeeded to a certain degree. Contract Workers in standing 82 centres are taking part and This is an important factor apparently, post-privatisation, But there is no doubting that up to employers and the they seem to have the support of in shielding the strikers from the majority of jobs have now overall support is very real l government. The strike has large sections of the population open state repression. They gone to subcontractors. In Yassamine Mather Statement from Council for Organising Protests by Oil Contract Workers elow are a few important Workers need to know that the The first negotiations or that are decided in negotiations with consider how to progress our points. Given the fact that time for trusting others is over. agreements that will probably employers. protests. Bour strike is spreading fast We have to decide for ourselves. take place between workers and The local Council for Organising We would like to thank all and workers from other sections are Such groups want to control employers in several contracting Protests must act as a channel for organisations, workers and other joining it, and we have received great everything and label anyone who companies are important and can be discussions regarding negotiations people who have supported our support and solidarity, we are in a says something different as divisive the basis for negotiations with other with the employers. Send your protests and demands. Our urgent good position to win important parts or worse. We have to say clearly: companies. So we have to be careful demands and ideas to the local duty is to cooperate with any of our demands. Thanks to all those we don’t need self-appointed about this, because, once these first council, introduce them to your group and institution that backs the factors, there is great pressure on the representatives. Representatives of agreements are signed and workers friends and encourage them to interests of the striking workers. exploitative contractors, and we have each section should be elected and in those companies return to work, become a member. At the same Our emphasis is on unity and the reached a situation where it is in their must be involved at every level of the goals of the strike will have time, create networks wherever solidarity of labour. Here’s to interests to end the strike soon. decision-making. been determined for the rest of the you can, so that we can regularly victory! l It is clear that we need to make Considering the fact that workers workforce. It is very important that some decisions about what we are on strike in Assaluyeh and Kangan we take the initiative in these cases aiming for: how to achieve our have left their bases, it is impossible and try to make sure our initial and demands and under what conditions to elect a representative or group of immediate demands are clear and Online Communist Forum we are going to negotiate. However, representatives tasked to negotiate form the basis of negotiations with we must avoid hasty decisions and with employers in those locations. contractors. entering into negotiations too early. In these areas, we should establish Our demands are: The main dangers threatening our our own Telegram groups as soon n Wage increases based on our nationwide strike are the possibility as possible and elect our own suggested figures for different that the enemy will create divisions representatives. This is our right. levels of skilled workers: no worker amongst the workers and confusion Gathering in a group, discussing our should be paid less than 12 million over our plan of action. Employers demands and choosing our genuine tomans (£2,000); there should be and officials will try their best to representatives is not controversial. permanent work contracts and job create such divisions by, for example, One way to maintain unity is to security; and wages should be paid accepting minimal demands from determine a single set of national on time each month. some workers and urging them to demands, so that, once there are n The working environment should return to work, then forcing the rest negotiations, we do not consent to be safe and workplaces as well as of us to follow suit. We need to be less than those demands, which workers’ dormitories should be air- vigilant against such plots. must provide a model for other conditioned. We call for a substantial The way the administrators sections. Meanwhile, right now as a improvement in the condition of of the Telegram groups, ‘Kariabi first step, we must put pressure on workers’ dormitories, restrooms and Piping’ and ‘Arkan She’, address the employers to state their position bathrooms, the allocation of suitable Sunday July 18 5pm the workers is like the way a regarding workers’ demands with food, plus the provision of medical commander would address soldiers: complete transparency and in a facilities in workplaces, as well as Joint meeting with Hands Off the People of Iran they give orders and forbid us to written public format (as stated in the free health insurance for workers. The oil workers’ strike in Iran take this or that action, and clearly 5th statement of our Organisational n Our main demand is for an end they are happy to accept minimum Council). On that basis, we too will to contract employment and the Speaker: Ruben Markarian concessions and the end of the announce our collective decisions. abolition of special economic zones, Register in advance for this webinar: strike. That is why they campaigned We do not accept secret where employers can impose their us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MA78RwDKQpSY4LmjI-0FBw to evacuate workplaces. They say: negotiations held behind closed own rules. ‘Have fun with your family. We are doors, which ignore actual workers. By fighting for these demands we Organised by CPGB: www.cpgb.org.uk and here, so trust in us’. Wherever there Decisions made between negotiators, can reduce the power of contractors Labour Party Marxists: www.labourpartymarxists.org.uk is a protest or a rally, they come employers and contractors will only and declare that from today the For further information, email Stan Keable at out against it and create a security be recognised if the workers are government must oversee the [email protected] ‘incident’. notified and approve them. implementation of all agreements weekly 6 July 15 2021 1356 worker AFGHANISTAN Another forced scuttle There have been lies and lies and yet more lies. Daniel Lazare savages what has been a comprehensive failure, from the ‘light footprint’ military model to the final humiliating pull-out s I said in April, the United criticism when they are desperate to to its neighbours and to the wider States did what we went to maintain a show of strength. So the world.6 Ado in Afghanistan - to get US suppressed a 28-page chapter in the terrorists who attacked us on a joint congressional report dealing Nearly every word of that forecast 9/11 and deliver justice to Osama with the question of Saudi complicity, proved false as well. The US- bin Laden and to degrade the conducted a hunt for bin Laden that installed Afghan government terrorist threat to keep Afghanistan was no more than cursory, and then failed to stabilise, it failed to find from becoming a base from bided its time until it could strike out acceptance among its neighbours which attacks could be continued at a target more to its liking: Saddam - Pakistan would work steadily against the United States. We Hussein. to undermine it - while poppy achieved those objectives. That’s It was rather like invading Mexico cultivation has risen a stunning 28 why we went. We did not go to in response to Pearl Harbour, as times since the US takeover.7 As Afghanistan to nation-build … Noam Chomsky once remarked. The for ‘terrorism’ - a catch-all term war in Afghanistan was unwinnable for freelance political violence that This was Joe Biden explaining at a due to the low quality of the pro-US lacks America’s stamp of approval July 8 press conference why he was forces among other factors, while - it remains unconstrained. As Biden putting an end to America’s disastrous the invasion of Iraq would unleash a admitted on July 8, 20-year war in Afghanistan. Nearly nightmare of destruction in a country every word was untrue. that had absolutely nothing to do Today, the terrorist threat has The US did not go into Afghanistan with 9/11. While 4,600 US troops metastasised beyond Afghanistan, to capture those responsible for Twenty-year war ends in abject mission failure would die over the next two decades, so we are positioning our the World Trade Center attack. If estimates of violent Iraqi deaths resources and adapting our it had, it would have spared no United States has been engaged with (albeit Sunni rather than Shi’ite) or range as high as 208,000, with excess counter-terrorism posture to meet effort in apprehending Osama bin the Afghan people in an ambitious perhaps a CIA takeover. Or, on the deaths from all invasion-related the threats where they are now - Laden, once US-backed forces had programme of state-building.”3 other hand, it could send in troops - causes estimated at over a million. significantly higher in South Asia, succeeded in cornering him in Tora Biden sang the same tune as the the upshot of which would be anti- For Afghanistan, the relevant figures the Middle East and Africa. Bora - the mountain cave complex six chairman of the powerful Senate guerrilla warfare on difficult terrain, are: 2,400 US military deaths, miles from the Pakistani border - in foreign-relations committee: “I’m for which the European-oriented Red another 1,100 deaths among pro- But it is always someone else’s fault December 2001. Yet, as a 2009 post- reluctant to use the word ‘nation- Army was ill-prepared. It would also US coalition forces, plus as many as that terrorism is spreading - that of mortem by Senate Democrats makes building’, because it is such a loaded mean an end to détente and growing 69,000 Afghan military and police the Taliban, of unreliable politicians clear, secretary of defence Donald political term these days,” he said in strains on an increasingly stagnant deaths and more than 47,245 Afghan in Kabul or of Islam in general. It is Rumsfeld and his top commander, October 2001, when US intervention economy. civilian fatalities as well. never, ever the fault of the US. general Tommy Franks, held back was just getting underway: As bad as the choices were, In retrospect, it is apparent that because they were committed to a Moscow recognised that it would Biden then and now 2001 marked the start of a precipitous risk-averse “light-footprint” military But if we leave Afghanistan in have no option but to go for one or While it is easy to blame the debacle slide in American imperialism model that was heavily dependent on chaos, it will be another time the other. on Republicans with their well- - a process that began with US local militias - themselves of dubious bomb waiting to explode … But what will leave historians known contempt for reality, the intervention in Afghanistan and then loyalty - and did not want to commit They’ll need to de-mine the most scratching their heads for generations fact remains that it never would moved on to the invasion of Iraq, US- more US forces.1 Getting bin Laden heavily mined nation in the world. to come is the fact that the United have happened if Democrats had led intervention in Libya, the US- was not the top priority that the Bush They’ll need crop substitution States faced nothing comparable. To not helped pave the way. It was a backed proxy war in Syria, the neo- administration made it out to be. programmes to rid themselves of be sure, 9/11 was a shock that would process in which Biden would play a Nazi-led coup d’état in the Ukraine Similarly, America did not go the title of the world’s foremost have sent any government reeling. vital role as a member of the Senate and the Anglo-American-backed into Afghanistan to keep it “from producers of heroin and opium. But, instead of a carefully calibrated Democratic leadership. Saudi air assault on Yemen. It was an becoming a base from which attacks And they’ll need wells, water- police action aimed at apprehending The party’s role is still not widely imperial rampage that left death and could be continued against the purification centres, hospitals, bin Laden in his mountain hideout, understood, but basically it can be destruction in its wake and exposed United States”. It was already evident village clinics - even simple roads the Bush administration opted to summed up as an example of the the fundamental incoherence of US by that point that al Qa’eda was a that link one town to the next.4 send special forces halfway around obsequious ‘me too’ bipartisanship power for all to see. diffuse network with subordinate the world to overthrow a government that is a Biden speciality. Unable Biden’s Afghan pullout marks branches not only in Pakistan, Crops, wells, clinics, roads … if that was only indirectly implicated to oppose a war against an Iraqi yet a further bounce downhill. Not Indonesia and Malaysia, but also in this isn’t nation-building, then what in the Twin Towers attack, while dictator whom Democrats had done only does it leave the fragile Kabul Hamburg, Germany, where eight of is? Indeed, Washington would pour allowing the real perpetrator to slip as much as anyone to demonise, government marooned, but it also the most important 9/11 conspirators $133 billion into Afghanistan over away when he was all but within its party members offered Bush a leaves the United States almost were based and which functioned the next two decades - more than it grasp. Since the Rumsfeld doctrine compromise: first deal with bin completely shut out of central Asia - as the operation’s real command invested in western Europe under the required heavy reliance on local Laden before moving on to other a strategically vital area that Russia, centre. Rather than emanating out of Marshall Plan after World War II. warlords who were brutal, corrupt targets. Afghanistan became the China, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey will Afghanistan, terrorism could arise While the money would fund aid and disloyal, the ultimate effect was good war in Democratic eyes, while now carve up among themselves. throughout the globe, as subsequent programmes, infrastructure and not only to allow bin Laden to escape, Iraq became the bad, even though It is an immense victory for the events would make clear. military modernisation, it would also but to empower forces that in some a majority of Senate Democrats, Taliban, who can now brag that As for Biden’s astonishing fuel a tidal wave of corruption that ways were even worse than those including Biden, Hillary Clinton and militant Islam has humbled the US statement that “we did not go to would leave the country even weaker they would displace. It is not easy John Kerry, talked themselves into just as thoroughly as it humiliated Afghanistan to nation-build”, the than it was previously. This is why making the Taliban look good, but voting for it regardless. When Bush, the Soviets in the 1980s. Although historical record is unmistakable: Biden is now rewriting history to somehow the Bush administration Rumsfeld and co allowed bin Laden the impact on al Qa’eda and its once it succeeded in decapitating suggest that nation-building never managed to pull it off. to escape, they were too timid to say militant offshoot, Islamic State, is the Taliban government, the Bush took place at all - because he does not Which raises an important a word. uncertain, it is likely to provide them administration recognised that it want to be associated with policies question: did the White House want Biden turned himself into a White with a shot in the arm too. would have no choice but to help that turned out to be a colossal flop. to get bin Laden at all? The answer House cheerleader in the process: The big question is whether the put Afghanistan’s shattered political is bound up with the twisted US- “I’ve been surprised and pleased the US will depart quietly from central and social structure back on its Irrationality Saudi partnership, America’s oldest way the administration has handled Asia, strike out in another paroxysm feet. Indeed, the semi-official line An American president spewing such alliance in the Middle East. this,” he said of Afghanistan just a of blind imperial rage, or perhaps in ‘the Blob’ - the network of think out lies and disinformation - how Whether or not bin Laden had actual few weeks after 9/11. “They have stumble into an even worse military tanks and lobbyists who comprise shocking! But it is not just Biden. contact with the CIA, there is no been measured, they have been misadventure in the South China the Washington foreign-policy What stands out about the bizarre doubt that the agency regarded him thorough, they have been patient.” Sea. The only thing that is certain establishment - was that America’s US experience in Afghanistan is the as a significant asset in the 10-year Bush would “go down as a great is that the Afghan crisis will prove failure to build Afghanistan back up incredible irrationality of the entire US-Saudi effort to topple the Soviet- president,” he added in late October.5 more and more explosive in the after the expulsion of the Soviets was enterprise from the top players on backed government in Kabul. Even He said in another talk in October months to come l the reason why the country would down. Even by imperial standards, it after al Qa’eda bombed US embassies 2001: sink into anarchy in the early 1990s. was insane. in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Notes The line was more than a bit self- This was not the case with 1998, killing more than 200 people Our hope is that we’ll see a real 1. ‘Tora Bora revisited’, Senate Foreign Relations serving, since it assumed that the US the Soviet intervention back in in all, US attitudes toward the group stable government in Afghanistan, Committee, November 30 2009: www.govinfo.gov/ content/pkg/CPRT-111SPRT53709/html/CPRT- had intervened in the 1980s in order December 1979, US propaganda remained surprisingly complacent. one that does not harbour terrorists, 111SPRT53709.htm. to turn the country into something notwithstanding. An Afghan Conceivably, the disaster on is acceptable to the major players 2. georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/nsc/ other than a reactionary hellhole. But revolution that was taking a disastrous September 11 2001 might have jolted in the region, represents the nss/2002/nss1.html. the implication was clear: the US turn had presented Moscow with Washington awake. It had relied on ethnic makeup of the country and 3. www.jstor.org/stable/42895752. 4. www.c-span.org/video/?166841-1/us-response- could not walk away a second time a Hobson’s choice. It could stand highly dangerous elements as part of provides the foundation for future terrorist-attacks (quote begins at 12.28). around. by and do nothing, at which its anti-Soviet campaign - elements reconstruction of that country … 5. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/ Thus, George W Bush vowed in point the new government would that had then turned around and We need to deter any potential specials/attacked/transcripts/nbctext_093001. 2002 “to rebuild Afghanistan, so that collapse in fratricidal bloodletting, dealt its former backers a monstrous state sponsor of terrorism from html; see also edition.cnn.com/2001/ ALLPOLITICS/10/24/ret.hastert.biden/index.html. it will never again abuse its people, while an Islamic-fundamentalist blow. Since evidence was mounting providing support or a haven to 6. www.c-span.org/video/?166841-1/us-response- threaten its neighbours, and provide jacquerie gathered strength in the of high-level Saudi involvement in future bin Ladens. We’ll work terrorist-attacks (quote begins at 6.00). a haven for terrorists”.2 Zamay countryside. The result would be the attack, it was also clear that the with others and try to help rebuild 7. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, ‘Afghanistan Khalilzad, Bush’s ambassador to chaos in a country with which the alliance with Riyadh was overdue a politically and socially stable opium survey 2020’: www.unodc.org/documents/ crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/20210503_ Afghanistan, added in 2005: “For Soviets shared a 1,400-mile border, for a reappraisal. Afghanistan that does not export Executive_summary_Opium_Survey_2020_ the past three and a half years the an Iranian-style Islamic republic But empires do not do self- terrorism, narcotics or a militancy SMALL.pdf. weekly worker 1356 July 15 2021 7 POLEMIC

Looking back over the ruins The final withdrawal of American troops must be put in the context of the April 1978 revolution and the subsequent reaction. The USA and Saudi Arabia armed, financed and promoted a counterrevolution, which included Osama bin Laden and al Qa’eda and ended in the triumph of the Taliban. This is an edited version of an article written by Jack Conrad and first published in June 2003. Its main target is Sean Matgamna, patriarch of the social-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Nowadays, the AWL describes the Taliban as “Islamo-fascist”; back then, though, they were “our kind of people” et us revisit the arguments over Max Shachtman (1904-72) went of Noor Mohammed Taraki ushered which actually “strengthen the Afghanistan. Sean Matgamna from being a dedicated communist in by the April 1978 revolution. position of the khans, landowners, Lcharacterises the overthrow of revolutionary to backing the CIA Leonid Brezhnev’s panic-stricken mullahs, etc”.2 Mohammed Daoud’s - republican- directed Bay of Pigs landing by decision, in December 1979, to order The mujaheddin groups in the royal - regime by the Peoples Miami-based Cuban contras in 1961 a massive airlift of Soviet troops 1980s fit this category as fingers into Democratic Party of Afghanistan in and opposing anti-war demands for into Afghanistan and the subsequent a glove, as does the Taliban in the April 1978 as a “Stalinist military US forces to get out of Vietnam. decision by first the Jimmy Carter 1990s. Nowadays, Matgamna has no coup”, which brought upon the heads Matgamna’s contempt for the and then the Ronald Reagan love for the Taliban and was right, of the masses nothing but decades of April 1978 revolution and support administrations in the US to turn like us, to lambaste the Socialist terrible suffering. for the US-Saudi-funded mujaheddin The urban revolution did not the country into a sacrificial pawn Worker Party’s miserable pro- Exactly the same message pushed stems from a combination of in their second cold war against the Taliban apologetics, when they first by the White House, CIA, BBC, Eurocentrism and Sovietphobia. coincide with a rural Soviet Union did not dictate or cloud defied and then fought the full might Hollywood action films, The Sun Nevertheless the AWL sided with revolution. April 1978 had a our judgement. of the invading US armed forces in and the whole well-oiled imperialist the Afghan PDPA government after 2001. propaganda machine. Certainly, after Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the mass base in the cities - What about April? But, he maintains, a parallel can the full-scale Soviet intervention in humiliating withdrawal of Soviet above all the capital, Kabul Fantastically, the AWL says that, by be drawn between his “support” for December 1979, Socialist Organiser armed forces in 1988 (completed in designating the April (Saur) 1978 the “peoples of Afghanistan, led by - precursor of the AWL’s Solidarity the spring of 1989). A bizarre circle - but failed to ignite the Revolution a revolution, and not various mujaheddin groups”, against - proudly sided with the mujaheddin of Matgamna’s own making, which countryside, where the a mere coup, we equate it with the Russian “colonial conquest” and the against Soviet “expansionism” and he still has to square. After all, he says October (November) Revolution of Communist International’s support its “puppet” government in Kabul. A that you cannot at the same time be a mass of the population 1917. Martin Thomas - junior half of of Afghanistan against “British sad parody of the paid persuaders of democrat and “support the Afghan lived. There, fed by the USA the AWL duumvirate - claims that on invasion in 1919” (he also cites the the bourgeoisie. Another prominent Stalinist coup of 1978”, let alone such a basis the CPGB believes that so-called Fourth International’s AWL leader even referred to the “describe it as a real revolution!”1 and Saudi Arabia, the 20th century witnessed only two support for “very backward feudal mujaheddin as being “our kind of Every phenomenon develops counterrevolution quickly revolutions. Ethiopia against Italian invasion in people” during a debate with me. from itself and according to its own Pathetic, nonetheless, AWL 1935” - we shall, though, leave aside The AWL claims an almost logic - ABC dialectical materialism. gained the upper hand hacks have proceeded to stone their that old chestnut). unique commitment to ‘third camp’ So was the final PDPA government own self-serving creation. A small According to Matgamna, the Marxism - increasingly the rest of headed by Mohammed Najibullah problem. Our actual position is far difference between the USSR the left is pooh-poohed as ‘fake’. (1947-96) a direct, albeit degenerate, removed from the AWL’s caricature. and the USA was that the former However, the fact of the matter is continuation of the April 1978 The CPGB’s Provisional Central wanted to conquer Afghanistan, that Sovietphobia drove many of revolution? The only honest Committee - and before that The while the latter did not. But what of the AWL comrades into a worrying answer must be ‘yes’. Communists Leninist faction of the CPGB - has his supposed parallel between the softness towards the ‘first camp’ - - authentic communists, that always taken it as axiomatic that, Soviet Union’s attempted “colonial note the AWL’s dreadful stance on is - supported the PDPA under when it comes to backward countries conquest” in 1979 and British the rightwing witch-hunt against Najibullah on the basis that in some in the Muslim world, we oppose imperialism in 1919? Frankly, the George Galloway, the IRA’s guerrilla way, no matter how hamfistedly and reactionary pan-Islamism. Lenin parallel completely misses the mark. war, involuntary Bosnian unity, the contradictorily, it defended certain was certainly emphatic on this score. In 1919 the Soviet government claim to be “a little bit Zionist”, etc. key social gains and progressive His 1920 draft thesis on the colonial expressed its solidarity with, what As with Matgamna’s historic mentor, principles. question insists that communists the respected historian, EH Carr, there is a real and present danger of By that very same logic we must “combat pan-Islamism” and calls the “young and would-be a complete flip to the other side. His supported the original PDPA regime fake anti-imperialist movements, progressive amir”, Amanullah Khan. weekly 8 July 15 2021 1356 worker POLEMIC

He came to the throne as a “result of and only altered things at the top of modern industry. Another 300,000 a palace revolution” and had then society? laboured in small-scale workshops “denounced” the onerous treaty and artisanal enterprises. However, obligations imposed upon him by Irish lessons the overwhelming majority of the the British empire. What followed Lenin’s discussion of the Irish population lived in the countryside. was known as the ‘third Afghan rebellion - under the military Agriculture remained woefully war’. This, the Afghan “national command of James Connolly, but primitive and rural society was movement” headed by Amanullah, politically dominated by nationalists viciously unequal. Forty percent of was “comparable” to, though - in Easter 1916 is instructive. the irrigated land was in the hands more primitive than, the Persian This was in opposition to the Sean of four percent of the population. revolution of 1906 and the ‘Young Matgmanas and Martin Thomases Employing 85% of the workforce, Turk’ revolution of 1908, and owed of his day - the leftist pedants and it accounted for just 5.9% of total its “inspiration” to the Bolshevik doctrinaires, who dismissed the output. revolution, in the same “indirect 1916 rising as the last song of Irish Nevertheless the economic and way” in which those movements had nationalism and nothing more than educational development that took to the 1905 Russian revolution.3 a “putsch” (ie, the German word for place - in particular since World In 1919 the Communist a coup), which “had not much social War II - created an alienated urban International supported a crowned backing”, Lenin warned against intelligentsia and a small, but revolutionary who advocated and “treating the national movements militant, working class, around put into practice a raft of progressive of small nations with disdain”.12 It which much wider forces could be measures - in 1925 Amanullah “first was not only representatives of the rallied. Factories were established began to introduce a civil legal imperialist bourgeoisie who looked and schools promoted, including a code”, which partially eclipsed down their noses at the Dublin much expanded Kabul university. the “deeply rooted” Sharia law in uprising, but Karl Radek and Leon Between 1953 and 1963 terms of legal process.4 In the 1980s Trotsky. Lenin urged these comrades Afghanistan suffered a whole period Matgamna supported forces which to open their eyes to shocking of oppression. Yet discontent could he readily admits “were on almost all “accidental” coincidence of opinion not be bottled up indefinitely and issues ultra-reactionary”. No prizes - Matgamna and Thomas ought to in the mid-1960s the monarchy for spotting the difference. take note. was forced to grant one concession Matgamna’s willingness to back What of the term “putsch” - or after another. In 1964 some limited mujaheddin forces that “were on “coup”, to use French-English? For democratic rights were officially almost all issues ultra-reactionary” Lenin the term “may be employed recognised and an electoral system stems entirely from his inability only when the attempt at insurrection was introduced. In the countryside and unwillingness to admit that in has revealed nothing but a circle of the traditional rulers could often April 1978 the PDPA carried out conspirators or stupid maniacs, and fix the ballot and force opposition a revolution and that what Soviet has aroused no sympathy among the candidates to stand down. That was forces did in December 1979 was masses”. even true for the smaller towns and not so much an invasion designed The Irish national liberation some of the cities. The exception was to colonise the country and grab its movement did not come out of thin Kabul, the capital. Here alone there raw materials: rather a blundering, air. It had manifested itself in street was something approaching political conservative intervention in what fighting conducted by the petty liberty. was an ongoing civil war. bourgeoisie and a section of the Under these promising conditions In the aftermath of Vietnam, working class after “a long period” the PDPA was founded - in 1965 Matgamna reckons that the Soviet of mass agitation, demonstrations, - under the overall leadership of Union embarked on a strategy suppression of newspapers, etc. Nur Muhammad Taraki (1917-79). of imperial expansion - besides Our kind of people: women were granted formal equality and Hence for Lenin anyone who calls The party gained four MPs in the Afghanistan other colonial gains are hugely benefited from the drive for literacy and education the Dublin uprising a “putsch” is elections of that year. A mass rally supposed to include Guinea Bissau, either a “hardened reactionary” or a was called by the PDPA to mark its Mozambique, Angola, South Yemen, badly in Afghanistan. can only but be the product of “doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of triumphant entry into parliament - Ethiopia and Nicaragua. Again and How did we assess Brezhnev’s revolution that either has failed or envisaging a social revolution as a government forces killed three of again we find him repeating almost move? In 1988 I wrote of the that for one reason or another stops living phenomenon”.13 the demonstrators. In the annals of unquestioningly the propaganda Soviet Union behaving as a “great short. Afghanistan’s April 27 1978 Lenin famously rounded upon his the PDPA this was a highly symbolic line pushed by the CIA. He darkly power bully”. Its action “hardly revolution is no exception. leftist doctrinaires as follows: event that was marked every year suggests that “maybe” the KGB strengthened the confidence of, and In many respects, yes, this thereafter by demonstrations and triggered the April revolution.5 This support for, the revolution”. Soviet Afghan revolution indirectly echoed To imagine that social revolution meetings. despite all the generally accepted aid was vital, if the revolution “was to the Persian revolution of 1906 and is conceivable without revolts by The SWP’s Jonathan Neale evidence that the uprising took the survive”, yet in saving the revolution the ‘Young Turk’ revolution of small nations in the colonies and describes the PDPA communists as Soviet Union by surprise and did not it extinguished the revolution. 1908. However, it owed its direct in Europe, without revolutionary “brave men and women”, who were accord to its likings. We were against any offloading “inspiration” not to the 1917 October outburst by a section of the the “flower of their generation”.15 Yet in none of the cases cited above or trading of revolutions, such as Revolution, but the post-1928 Soviet petty bourgeoisie with all its He was a visiting research student did the Soviet Union initiate what in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, in Union. The PDPA sought therefore prejudices, without a movement in 1971. Neale recalls standing on was, in my opinion, the progressive order to appease imperialism. In to follow a path already trodden by of the politically non-conscious a street in Lashkargah, in the south and supportable overthrow of the old Afghanistan that could “only” mean Yugoslavia, China, North Korea, proletariat and semi-proletarian of the country, and how he watched regime: ie, Portuguese and British the “collapse of the government in Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc - in other masses against oppression by a demonstration of pro-communist empire colonialism, the Somoza and Kabul, the reverse of the gains of words, an Afghan version of Soviet landowners, the church and school students. They called for Haile Selassie dictatorships. True, the April 1978 revolution (not least bureaucratic socialism. Under the monarchy, against national the death of the hated landlords, a left-nationalist organisations such the ending of the enslavement of different, more benign, historical oppression, etc - to imagine modern developed economy and an as the Socialist Party of Yemen, the women) and the wholesale massacre circumstances Afghanistan might all this is to repudiate social end to corruption. Sandinistas, Frelimo, the MPLA and of the PDPA’s membership”.8 have settled into becoming another revolution .... Whoever expects a Yet, while the PDPA could build the Derg were ideologically strongly Admittedly a common premonition - Mongolia. But the Soviet Union was ‘pure’ social revolution will never support in village schools, the khans, inclined towards the Soviet camp. what Matgamna calls the majority of already living on borrowed time. live to see it. Such a person pays the landlords, would frighten the However, they were the product of “orthodox” Trotskyite groups shared As a freak society, an ectopic social lip service to revolution without poor peasants, the sharecroppers, internal struggles and developments the same sort of anxieties.9 formation, it was nearing the end. understanding what revolution is.14 who might be tempted to join the and exercised varying degrees of Over a decade later we again wrote The April 1978 revolution was communists. They were godless and independence. that Soviet aid “saved the revolution carried out from above. Of that The task of the advanced section of anti-Muslim. Anyone who dared Brezhnev did not send the Soviet in Afghanistan for a time - but in a there can be no doubt. But that can the working class - the Marxists, the promote the politics of the PDPA in army into Afghanistan in order to thoroughly counterrevolutionary also be said of many revolutions communists - is not to belittle the the countryside “could easily die for extend the imperium, as claimed by way”. Hafizullah Amin - the in the 20th century. Eg, Egypt and efforts of the petty bourgeoisie in the speaking out of turn”.16 It is therefore the CIA and other cold war warriors. effective organiser of the April 1978 Gamal Abdel Nasser’s free officers backward countries, but to critically quite remarkable that one of the The move was defensive. In his revolution - and 97 other leaders movement of July 1952, which defend them, to side with them and PDPA’s leaders, Barbrak Karmal, report to the 26th congress of the of Khalq wing of the PDPA were forced king Farouk to abdicate, and to extend efforts to lead them. managed to get himself elected as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union summarily butchered. Outrageously, Abdul Qasim’s overthrow of the MP for a rural constituency. in 1981, Brezhnev complains that after their deaths they were charged Iraqi monarchy in July 1958. Even Poor Afghanistan The PDPA was deeply divided western imperialism had launched with being CIA agents - a slander Matgamna occasionally admits The conditions which eventually factionally between the right around an “undeclared war” against the mindlessly repeated by the ‘official that the Afghan revolution was “a produced the April 1978 revolution the said Barbrak Karmal and the Afghan revolution. He adds that this communist’ press in Britain, political revolution”.11 in Afghanistan date back to at least left around Taraki and Amin. In “also created a direct threat to the including the Morning Star. Already Yet the April 1978 revolution the mid-1960s and the failures of 1966 it published the first edition security of our southern frontier”, surrounded by a reactionary Vendée was not led by a small military the Zahir Shah monarchy to carry of its paper Khalq (masses), which which “compelled” the Soviet Union in the countryside, from then on the group or clique. Nor was it the through the modernisation of the the government banned after six to “render the military aid asked for revolution “endlessly retreated” until final, decisive blow delivered by country. Neither healthcare nor issues. In contrast, when Karmal by that friendly country”.6 its final demise in 1992.10 a party-army along the lines of education existed for the mass of the published his paper, Parcham (flag), Of course, the Soviet Union Revolution produced and met Mao Zedong’s Communist Party population. Over 90% were illiterate. it was allowed to continue without was inherently an unstable social its counterrevolutionary nemesis. of China-Peoples Liberation Army According to the United Nations, let or hindrance. Whereas Khalq formation, riven with many social Only by grasping that elementary or Ho Chi Minh’s Communist Afghanistan was among the poorest opposed and criticised the monarchy, - and national - antagonisms. proposition can one get correct Party of Indochina-Vietminh. The 20 countries in the world. Parcham was supportive. The Doubtless that is why Hillel Ticktin programmatic bearings and PDPA was a predominately civilian Afghanistan was an example of monarchy pursued a policy of close offered the opinion that the Soviet understand why the Najibullah party that illegally organised secret Asiatic feudalism with the tincture of friendship with the Soviet Union and Union acted in Afghanistan to stave regime could survive the withdrawal cells inside the armed forces of the industrial capitalism, sponsored by willingly accepted aid and grants off the “danger of breaking up”.7 With of Soviet forces for three years and existing state machine, which it a weak state. Actually capitalist - or from Moscow … just as it accepted the ousting of the shah in Iran in 1979 was then replaced by a chilling then managed to decisively split. any kind of industrial - development aid and grants from Washington. and the imam’s counterrevolution, barbarism, which culminated in So was Afghanistan’s revolution barely existed. Before the revolution Between 1964 and 1973 the the dissatisfied southern republics the 1996-2001 rule of the Taliban. a mere coup - a conspiracy which there were only some 100,000 growing mood of anger gave birth to could go the same way if things went Counterrevolution is always and lacked popular support or sympathy, workers in what could be called organised movements amongst the weekly worker 1356 July 15 2021 9 POLEMIC workers, students and peasants. In masses knew more about the Afghan adult literacy campaign was put in thoroughly counterrevolutionary fragmentation, al Qa’eda and the 1965 there were student boycotts of government than Matgamna. In place - directed especially at women way. The results were disastrous. Not Taliban. The US had little interest in classes and strikes in the mining and terms of Kabul’s existing political in the countryside. Higher education only did the policy of bombing and the post-PDPA Afghanistan. It was electrical industries. Even Matgamna life the demonstration was huge. was encouraged - women came to terrorising the villages continue, but content to leave the ruined country concedes that in 1971-72 “the PDPA Some sources write of 50,000, occupy over 50% of places in Kabul it was massively increased. Though to its awful fate. The descent into led a wave of strikes”.17 In Paghman a others of 15,000. True to dismal university. Amin had repeatedly requested barbarism continued unchallenged peasant movement began to demand form, Matgamna comes up with a The country’s numerous increased Soviet aid, he would not and unchecked. land redistribution. All in all, many mere 10,000. The size and militancy nationalities were from now on to be have expected to be its first victim Ethnic divisions between Pashtun, thousands were arrested and scores of Khyber’s funeral certainly treated with strict equality, declared when it came - Soviet special forces Uzbeks, Tajiks, etc within the killed. Unrest began to manifest “frightened” the - royal republican - the PDPA government. Oppressed executed him and most of his fellow counterrevolution were overlaid by itself in the army too. Daoud government and triggered the language groups heard their mother central committee members. Karmal religion, the rival interests of outside Things came to a head in 1973. high-risk decision to arrest leading tongue on Kabul Radio for the first was installed as a pliant satrap. In powers and the various ideologies of There were, admits Matgamna, members of the PDPA. time. Pashtun domination officially disgust, it is widely reported, not a pan-Islam and fake anti-imperialism. “conditions for revolution” in “urban At midnight on April 25 1978, ended. Constitutionally the country few Khalkis deserted and joined the The Taliban were not only mainly Afghanistan” (my emphasis).18 He is Taraki and Karmal were both lifted became a multinational state - and mujaheddin groups or simply went Pashtun, but militantly Sunni. Where correct. The rulers could not rule in by the police. However, before a secular one too. Sunni Islam was into an obscure exile. Pakistan guided, supplied and the old way and those in the cities, he was seized, Amin - who was not subjected to any attack, but the What was a civil war now became jealously protected the Taliban, in especially Kabul, refused to be ruled responsible for the party’s illegal state promised neither to promote intertwined with a war against their turn Iran and India backed the in the old way. The result was a pre- work in the army - managed to nor interfere with any religion. foreign domination. Opposition Northern Alliance. emptive army coup led by Daoud - issue instructions for an uprising. Never before in Afghan history grew and Afghanistan spiralled The US only woke again to former prime minister and a member “As crowds gathered” in Kabul’s “had there been such a ruthless into a horror which saw perhaps a the situation in Afghanistan after of the royal family. Daoud came to central park “in protest against the attempt to push through so many million deaths. The countryside bled Osama bin Laden and his al Qa’eda power with the active help of the imprisonment of PDPA leaders”, basic reforms”, says Indian academic and huge numbers sought refuge in terrorist network murderously Parcham wing of the PDPA. It was Soviet-made Mig 21 fighter aircraft Bhabani Sen Gupta.25 In other words, Kabul or in the mammoth refugee struck at its Kenyan and Tanzanian rewarded with a range of ministerial struck the presidential palace and it is vital not to confuse the form first camps in Iran and Pakistan. embassies. Tomahawk missiles positions. Nevertheless, though tanks moved into the city.22 After taken by the April 1978 revolution The US saw its chance to turn rained down on Afghanistan in Daoud came out with a stream of some hard-fought engagements, with its content. What began as an Afghanistan into the Soviet Union’s punishment. September 11 2001 worthy promises, his government especially in Jalalabad, the Daoud action by a section of the armed Vietnam. Weapons and money and the spectacular attacks on New failed to resolve the underlying regime was swept away amid forces had, as shown by subsequent poured into the country. In 1986 the York and Washington were the discontent and the social malaise widespread rejoicing. Matgamna events, a radical social content. shoulder-launched Stinger missiles final straw. After that the days of affecting Afghan society. writes improbably of 10,000 deaths. But the PDPA lacked roots in the wrought havoc with Soviet planes the Taliban were numbered and a He pledged to reform agriculture Film footage shown on the BBC countryside, where the majority of and helicopters. Hundreds were shot new American century was about and redistribute land, but nothing tells of a less bloody scenario - the the population lived. The cadre were out of the skies. The decrepit Soviet to begin l practical happened. Indeed Daoud common people of Kabul, on foot urban in social background and its Union could not afford the political quickly turned to the oppressive and horseback, taking to the streets cutting edge were Soviet-trained or economic costs of staying in Notes measures witnessed under the and a sea of red flags. army officers, the radicalised lower Afghanistan. In 1988 Gorbachev 1. All Matgamna quotes, unless otherwise stated, monarchy. Strikes were banned and Undoubtedly the PDPA’s elements of the state bureaucracy and decided upon a withdrawal. are from ‘Critical notes on the CPGB/WW’: www. workersliberty.org/files/tour.pdf. progressives and revolutionaries overthrow of the Daoud regime the semi-proletarianised poor of the The overthrow of the PDPA 2. VI Lenin CW Vol 31, Moscow 1977, p149. gunned down. Parcham was eased was carried out using alternative cities. Nor did the revolution in Kabul government - now led by Mohammad 3. EH Carr The Bolshevik revolution Vol 3, aside and - much to the chagrin of hierarchical lines of command in the coincide with an agrarian revolution Najibullah - marked the triumph of Harmondsworth 1977, p239. not only the PDPA, but wide layers army and airforce. PDPA officers amongst the peasantry. Land reforms the countryside over the city. Ideas of 4. A Rashid Taliban London 2001, p83. 5. Workers’ Liberty Vol 2, No2, nd, p45. within the intelligentsia and lower were given orders by PDPA cadres - the key to the revolution - were 20th century progress were buried. 6. LI Brezhnev Report of the central committee elements of the state bureaucracy and then themselves gave orders therefore to all intents and purposes The values of obscurantist mullahs, Moscow 1981, p22. - he began to distance himself and to the conscripts under them. The bureaucratic and like the decrees of traditional village headmen and gun- 7. Critique No12 autumn-winter 1979-80, p25. his regime from the Soviet Union. revolution was therefore an uprising the 1871 Paris Commune largely toting banditry replaced those of 8. J Conrad From October to August London 1992, pp123-24. Conditions for a revolution began to organised by a mainly civilian, remained on paper. Despite that, the national equality, women’s liberation 9. Workers’ Liberty Vol 2, No2, nd, p86. mature once again. ‘official communist’ party, which revolution and its reforms managed and secularism. 10. See ‘Should we defend the Taliban?’ Weekly Khalq significantly outgrew had aligned to itself a section of to enrage all elements within the old That the PDPA government Worker November 15 2001: weeklyworker.co.uk/ Parcham in terms of membership. the officer corps and enjoyed the ruling bloc, but failed to launch a survived till April 1992 - after the worker/408/should-we-defend-the-taliban. 11. Workers’ Liberty Vol 2, No2, nd, p47. The ratio was in all probability sympathy of the politically advanced counterbalancing peasant movement Soviet Union collapsed - testifies to 12. VI Lenin CW Vol 22, Moscow 1977, p355. five to one in favour of the former. masses in the cities, above all Kabul. below. A fatal flaw. a residual, but nonetheless real, base 13. Ibid. Nevertheless, when the party was Does that mean we should Many peasants felt themselves of popular support. The Workers 14. Ibid pp355-56. formally reunited in July 1977, there dismissively classify the April 1978 compelled to return “their new land” Power group, which - true to form - 15. International Socialism No93, December 2001, p34. was a 50:50 division of the central revolution as a ‘coup’? That is what because the village headmen, or characterised the 1978 revolution as 16. Ibid. committee. Hard membership figures the imperialist bourgeoisie say - a khans, still controlled the “irrigation a “coup”, owns up that “the PDPA 17. Workers’ Liberty Vol 2, No2, nd, p42. are impossible to come by. True to line repeated by many on the left in systems”.26 Passages in the Koran demonstrated that it did have a 18. Ibid p42. form, Matgamna writes of an 8,000 Britain and elsewhere. A coup d’état forbidding the theft of another’s serious base in Afghanistan”.28 Ditto, 19. Ibid p49. 20. World Marxist Review January 1979, p76. total for both factions as the “highest by definition involves a plot against property might have proved to be a contradicting everything it had said 21. B Szajkowski The establishment of Marxist PDPA claim”, but guesses that “the the existing state from within the material factor in its own right too. before, Socialist Organiser - yes, the regimes London 1982, p125. real figure” before the revolution existing state: eg, a military or palace Indeed the fact that the country’s forerunner of the AWL’s Solidarity 22. Ibid. “may have been half of that”.19 coup. Examples from European 300,000-strong clergy, the harkim, states: “... the fact that the Afghan 23. F Engels CW Vol 26, Moscow 1990, p479. 24. Quoted in B Sen Gupta Afghanistan London I make no such pretence to know history would include Louis held largish estates ensured that, once regime the Russians left behind 1986, p50. what exactly the membership of the Bonaparte and Otto von Bismarck. attempts to implement land reforms them did not collapse for over three 25. Ibid p55. semi-legal PDPA was. Nonetheless, They elevated themselves into began in October 1978, they took years indicates that it was not only a 26. G Chaliand Report from Afghanistan if we are talking about PDPA claims, dictators by relying upon “organised a leading role in organising armed creature of the Russians”.29 Harmondsworth 1982, p37. 27. International Socialism No93, December 2001, we have in the World Marxist state power”, not the “unorganised, risings alongside the village headmen Having fed the mujaheddin p34. Review - a thoroughly turgid journal elemental, power of the popular and elders. Counterrevolution counterrevolution, the US 28. Workers Power September 30 1992. of what was then the ‘official’ masses”.23 - royalist, merchant, tribal and inadvertently promoted heroin, 29. Socialist Organiser April 23 1992. world communist movement - and In 1978 there existed a rural - became, through that vital a January 1979 article by a certain revolutionary situation in the urban ideological mediation, a jihad. Afghan comrade named Zeray. Here centres of Afghanistan. The old The PDPA responded by turning we find the PDPA boasting: regime was turning to bannings, to bloody oppression. That only Fighting fund arrests and assassinations. The multiplied their enemies and supplied ... we have worked actively masses for their part were mobilised recruits to the mujaheddin groups. amongst the people for 13-14 and demanding radical change. When the PDPA was physically years; we have led the popular Under such circumstances revolution driven out of villages, it fell back Acceleration! movement. Before the revolution is a matter of art and, while the form on the methods employed by the old wrote last week that we were via PayPal, plus there were our party was a significant force, of an uprising can be that of a coup - royalist governments - artillery and I lagging a bit behind where monthly standing orders from with 50,000 members and close like the October Revolution of 1917 airstrikes. As Jonathan Neale points we needed to be if we’re PB (£60), HN (£30) and DV sympathisers, and this frightened and the storming of the Winter Palace out, it is “not possible to wage class going to meet our £2,000 (£25). In addition BW added the regime.20 by red guards and sympathetic army war by bombing a village”. Bombs fighting fund target in July. an excellent £40 to his £60 units - the key question is social hit rich and poor alike … and united But unfortunately that’s still annual subscription, while Maybe that figure was made up of content. them. Hence in one area after another the same situation after the comrade Hassan flashed his 8,000 members and 42,000 close The newly installed PDPA the PDPA “found themselves fighting second week of the month: the regular notes to one of our sympathisers. What is beyond doubt government - overwhelmingly the people they had meant to free”.27 running total now stands at comrades - this time a fiver. though was that the PDPA did indeed civilian - enacted far-going reforms. In turn the fragile unity of the just £675. But, as I say, now we need constitute a “significant force” Usury was abolished in the villages PDPA began to unravel. The Parcham True, that’s about a third a bit of acceleration to get us historically. - debt had crippled the peasantry. wing urged a policy of compromise of the target in the bag, but back on track, with only 16 Rigorous ceilings on private and bringing back people from the we’re just a day away from the days left to make sure we get Coups land ownership, along with the defeated Daoud regime. The Khalq halfway stage, so now we need that vital £2K. Feel free to The spark for the April 1978 encouragement of cooperatives and wing responded by turning on the a bit of acceleration, comrades! either send us a cheque, click revolution came with the state- offers of cheap credits, fertilisers, Parchamis and imprisoning or I hope next week will see a on that PayPal button or - best organised assassination of Mir seeds and agricultural implements, exiling its leaders. In the end even marked improvement on the of all - make a bank transfer Akbar Khyber, a university professor were intended to free “millions of the Khalq wing suffered ruinous £310 that came our way over (sort code 30-99-64; account and former editor of Parcham. toiling peasants from the yoke of internal divisions. Taraki - having the last seven days - although, number 00744310). You can Matgamna - taking his cue from the exploitation”.24 The government been convinced by Soviet advisors to of course, that doesn’t mean do it! l CIA - blames the killing upon the envisaged land confiscation and dump Amin and turn to compromise we’re not grateful to the Robbie Rix Khalq wing. Others claim he was redistribution, not collectivisation. - was killed in a murderous shootout. comrades who helped us raise popular with both factions. Equal rights between men and Amin - the Robespierre of the Afghan that. Fill in a standing order form Either way, Khyber’s death women were announced with much revolution - briefly took command. Among them were three (back page), donate via our did not lead to factional war, but fanfare. Another decree banned As already said, the Soviet - MF, SB and RL - who each website, or send cheques, “massive demonstrations” against forced marriages and set limits on intervention of December 1979 contributed a very handy £50 payable to Weekly Worker the government.21 Perhaps the dowry and marriage expenses. An saved the revolution, but in a weekly 10 July 15 2021 1356 worker LABOUR Courts are not our friend Failure of legal attempt to challenge the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt exposes broad-left illusions in ‘fairness’ and ‘playing by the rules’. Mike Macnair explains

Expecting judges to take our side is naive in the extreme n July 8 Mr Justice leads to the intense support for merely increasing the costs).2 From is presumably for this reason that a particular type … Butcher handed down a Israel. It was this US and British the judgment, the points claimed it was considered appropriate to [I]t is not enough for [the Ojudgment comprehensively state interest which lay behind which actually reached hearing assign a commercial law specialist applicants] to persuade the dismissing the claims of several the smear campaign, with the were three. The first was that the (Butcher J) rather than a public court that some procedure Labour party members victimised result that the mass media - disciplinary proceedings against law specialist to hear the case. other than the one adopted by in the ‘anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt- liberal, Labour-rightist and state the claimants were unfair because Chapter 2, Clause II.7 of the the decision-maker would be cum-smear campaign that their (BBC), as well as Tory - remains the ‘code of conduct’ under which party’s rules says: better or more fair. Rather, they Labour ‘disciplinary proceedings’ thoroughly disciplined in refusing they were charged had not been must show that the procedure is were unfair. On July 12, the court to give any significant voice to any disclosed.3 The second was that Members have the right to actually unfair …4 awarded the party £110,000 in doubts about the ‘anti-Semitism’ the Equality and Human Rights dignity and respect, and are costs, which will function to deter narrative. Commission had found that the to be treated fairly by the These two points together were further litigation of the same sort: The second reason is that the disciplinary procedure was unfair, Labour Party. Party officers decisive against the first claim. part of the routine modern practice claimants and their lawyers sought that the party had accepted that it at every level shall exercise While the code of conduct had by which the monarch franchises to defeat the Labour leadership in was unfair, and that, having done their powers in good faith and not been published, the evidence to the English legal profession the court, rather than merely to expose so, it was unfair to the claimants use their best endeavours to showed that the claimants (or selling and denying of justice in them: the politics of the claim to proceed against them under the ensure procedural fairness for their associates) had general violation of Magna Carta chapter were subordinated to its legalities. existing disciplinary procedure, members. knowledge of the contents before 29. And there are two consequences. rather than terminating the the proceedings. So they were The claimants have not even First, the claims Butcher J proceedings and starting afresh. Butcher J made the point that this not prejudiced by lack of detailed achieved the “day in court” rejected would, if accepted, have The third was that the party had express requirement of procedural knowledge of it - in particular, by which would expose the abuses had an utterly marginal impact. misrepresented the extent of the fairness in the rules ousted any their inability to rely on paragraphs of the Labour Party’s disciplinary Second, the claimants gave a obligation of confidentiality under possible implication of terms [13]-[16] of the Code of Conduct, procedures. There are two reasons quasi-endorsement to a part of the the disciplinary procedures. All as to fairness, ‘natural justice’, which purport to protect debate for this. The first is that really smear campaign, the Equalities three claims were rejected. ‘due process’, or whatever. The about the legitimacy of the state of fundamental British state interests and Human Rights Commission’s The line followed by Butcher J’s case-law on ‘fairness’ tells us (in Israel as well as of its actions from lie behind the ‘anti-Semitism’ biased report on anti-Semitism in judgment generally is that, to particular, through Lord Mustill’s accusations of anti-Semitism, witch-hunt. The US alliance is Labour. start with, the Labour Party is an lead judgment in Doody - a 1994 though they contain extensive essential to the British state - all unincorporated association. Hence case on the operation of life ‘weasel words’. the more so since Brexit; and the Judgment it is governed by its rules as a sentences): On the second claim, Butcher J US has a fundamental geopolitical What seems to be available directly contract between the members - simply found as fact that the EHRC interest in negative control of the online is simply Butcher J’s what the French call a contrat The standards of fairness are report did not condemn the Labour Middle East oil taps, the most judgment.1 In earlier procedural d’adhésion, in which the terms are not immutable. They may Party’s disciplinary procedures fundamental weapon of modern manoeuvrings the claimants were non-negotiable. Hence, they are to change with the passage of as unfair, but merely demanded war, against the continental more successful (although not be interpreted in the same way as time, both in the general and in that they be ‘strengthened’ for Europeans and China, which losing at the earlier stage ends up commercial contracts generally. It their application to decisions of the benefit of people making weekly 11 worker 1356 July 15 2021 What we fight for complaints of anti-Semitism. by virtue of their position free form of commitment to the work, operating indirectly within n Without organisation the Hence the report, and Labour’s from these temptations. They Atlanticism which is commitment and through the Labour Party, to working class is nothing; with acceptance of its conclusions, had are different from arbitrators, in to Zionism, in the form of the maintain Labour as a state-loyalist the highest form of organisation no implications for the fairness that their decisions have coercive claim that “The Party is clear organisation which pretends to it is everything. of the procedures against the power. They have this power that the Jewish people have the represent the class as a whole. And claimants. because, if you do not obey the same right to self-determination thus, though these disciplinary n There exists no real Communist The third point was extremely court order, sheriff’s bailiffs as any other people. To deny that proceedings are not properly Party today. There are many narrow. The claimants challenged will come to enforce it. If you right is to treat the Jewish people judicial, and though Labour so far so-called ‘parties’ on the left. In what they had been told about use enough force to resist the unequally and is therefore a as it is a voluntary organisation reality they are confessional sects. the supposed duty to keep bailiffs, the police will turn up. form of anti-Semitism” (Code of has the right to choose to be Members who disagree with the information about the disciplinary If you use enough force to resist Conduct, para [12]).6 Atlanticist if it wants to, the case prescribed ‘line’ are expected to process confidential. They did the police, police marksmen will What is dishonest is for the displays precisely the vices of gag themselves in public. Either not challenge some right to keep come and shoot you. In the USA, party to claim simultaneously ‘fairness’ as diluting the rules of that or face expulsion. the disciplinary proceedings the escalation can go further …5 to be an Atlanticist and loyalist due process and thereby enabling n Communists operate according confidential. In this context, The coercive power of the judicial party, as it does by these measures, its abuse in state interests. to the principles of democratic the claim also fell foul of the judgment thus depends on the and to claim to be the political centralism. Through ongoing debate objections to the first claim: the coercive capacity of the state, and representative of the working Wasted claims we seek to achieve unity in action claimants had not shown that judges should be expected to be class as a whole - as it does by its The political ‘realism’ of the broad and a common world outlook. As they were prevented from taking biased in favour of the state and name, and by its affiliate structure, Labour left is, in fact, unrealistic. long as they support agreed actions, advice, so they had not shown state officials. especially the affiliation of the It makes false assumptions about members should have the right to actual unfairness. In addition, The rules of ‘due process’ are trade unions. The party needs either the willingness of the state and speak openly and form temporary then safeguards against the abuse to abandon the claim to represent the capitalists to ‘play by the or permanent factions. If there was a breach of the of process by officials and judges, the class as a whole or to abandon rules’, and hence supposes that if n Communists oppose all impe- fairness term, which, as I have by insisting on certain procedural the pre-emptive commitment to the workers’ movement ‘plays by rialist wars and occupations but said, I do not consider that there protections, whose effect is to loyalism, by getting rid of witch- the rules’ it will win. The falsity constantly strive to bring to the fore was, it would undoubtedly be ensure that the abuse of process, hunting operations like the old of this approach was displayed the fundamental question–ending war at the less consequential end though it cannot be prevented, anti-communist witch-hunts and spectacularly in the December is bound up with ending capitalism. of the spectrum. The courts has to be visible. ‘Fairness’ is a the present ‘anti-Semitism’ smear 2019 general election and by n are very reluctant to intervene ‘boiling the frog’ phenomenon campaign. The CPGB has argued the failure of the Labour left’s Communists are internationalists. in ongoing disciplinary because it replaces the concrete that the second is the right choice, response to the ‘anti-Semitism’ Everywhere we strive for the closest proceedings, and will only do so rules with a general conception, thereby opening Labour up to witch-hunt. unity and agreement of working class if the matter in question is such which, as can be seen in Doody real (limited) unity of the class The defeat of the attempt to and progressive parties of all countries. a breach as cannot be remedied quoted above, becomes ‘flexible’ movement, as a ‘united front of a use litigation to fight back is We oppose every manifestation in the proceedings themselves, and discretionary for the judges. special kind’. another example of the same of national sectionalism. It is an and will not micromanage the The relevance of this stuff In this context of Labour Party phenomenon. The claimants were internationalist duty to uphold the disciplinary process (para [60]). to the Labour Party is indirect. doublethink, the disciplinary forced to use ‘possibly winning’ principle, ‘One state, one party’. Labour is not the state, but a proceedings in the ‘anti-Semitism’ arguments - which inevitably n The working class must be voluntary organisation, and if it witch-hunt are, in fact, classic meant not challenging the EHRC organised globally. Without a global Boiling the frog wants to make commitment to examples of the abuse of process report element of the smear Communist Party, a Communist At this point it is necessary to step the Atlantic Alliance a condition for collateral purposes of the campaign, but instead trying to International, the struggle against back slightly. For a considerable of membership, it is entitled to sort against which the rules of use it. And it inevitably meant not capital is weakened and lacks time, governments and the do so. It follows that the same is due process are directed. They directly challenging the method coordination. judiciary have been engaged in true of making it a requirement of are not on their face state action of secret disciplinary proceedings n Communists have no interest boiling the frog of the democratic membership to accept the indirect - but, in fact, it is the state at based on secret delation, but apart from the working class elements of the UK’s ‘mixed trying to nibble at the edges. And as a whole. They differ only in constitution’ (falsely called it also meant accepting the series recognising the importance of ‘democratic’) so slowly that the of legal steps by which ‘fairness’ Marxism as a guide to practice. frog does not jump out until it is has displaced the rules of due That theory is no dogma, but too late. Butcher J’s judgment in War on members process, by which the temperature must be constantly added to and the case on Labour’s disciplinary undreds of suspended which has now been shelved - has been gradually raised to a enriched. proceedings is, on this front, HLabour Party members - indefinitely. It’s clear now he point at which the frog can no n Capitalism in its ceaseless not innovative: but it, and the victims of an ongoing purge never meant the truth to come longer jump out. The result is search for profit puts the future narrowness of the claimants’ against the left - plan to hold a out. then another brick in the wall of of humanity at risk. Capitalism is claims, reflect how far the public shaming of Keir Starmer What’s happening in the the arbitrary power of the Labour synonymous with war, pollution, democratic elements have already in London on Tuesday July 20 Labour Party has implications Party’s central bureaucracy, exploitation and crisis. As a global been undermined. at 12 noon. for the whole democratic protected by the judiciary’s system capitalism can only be ‘Fairness’ is a modern As one of the organisers process in Britain. Free speech, rewriting of the “not immutable” superseded globally. concept which substitutes for the of the event, I was chair justice and democracy are “standards of fairness”. The costs requirements of due process, as of my local party of South under attack as never before in outcome will deter others, while n The capitalist class will never they were called in the 1300s, Thanet until I was suspended the Labour Party. Starmer and the judgment will become citable willingly allow their wealth and which began in the 1700s to be in December of last year. his allies are flagrantly abusing against others. power to be taken away by a called rules of natural justice. Two That was because, like many the disciplinary processes As I said at the outset, there is parliamentary vote. of the rules involved have been other party officers, I allowed to suppress all dissent. An not even an exposure effect, since n We will use the most militant traditionally expressed in Latin my members to debate a unrepresentative minority have the tepidity of the claims (to make methods objective circumstances maxims: nemo iudex in causa sua motion in support of Jeremy taken over our party. How them ‘winnable’) makes them allow to achieve a federal republic (no-one can be judge in his own Corbyn. Months later I remain can you have a proper party boring news; and in any case the of England, Scotland and Wales, cause); and audi alteram partem suspended without a clue as to of opposition if it does not state and advertising-funded media a united, federal Ireland and a (hear the other side). They are my fate. So many others in our represent its members? has shown rigorous discipline in United States of Europe. not the only rules, though modern party are in a similar state - it The London protest follows commitment to the ‘anti-Semitism’ n Communists favour industrial legal writing tends to subsume is an appalling situation. That on from a demonstration held smear campaign. To overcome this unions. Bureaucracy and class others under these. There is also is why we have been driven to outside Labour’s regional silencing effect, what is needed compromise must be fought and the right to notice of the case this action - to publicly shame offices in Bristol last month, is workers’ independent media, the trade unions transformed into against you, which was central to the leadership of our party. when members protested which is not committed to state schools for communism. the ‘due process’ statutes of the The protestors will be against what they claimed was loyalism or labour-bureaucratic n 1300s, and notoriously violated lobbying Labour’s national a “corruption of democracy” control. That means we need a Communists are champions of by the Court of Star Chamber executive committee, calling going on in their party, Communist Party, as opposed to the oppressed. Women’s oppression, abolished in 1641. Again, the right for the reinstatement of all including the alleged rigging not just the hopeless attempts to combating racism and chauvinism, to confront the witnesses against unfairly suspended members of internal elections and manipulate our enemy’s media, but and the struggle for peace and you was already in the Bible and and the restoration of the “bullying” by local branch also the mess of sects with their ecological sustainability are just (some) Roman legal writing; it whip to former leader bureaucrats and Keir Starmer’s own bureaucratically controlled as much working class questions was argued for by Christopher St Jeremy Corbyn, who lost it national leadership team. papers that we have now l as pay, trade union rights and German in the 1530s, against the in November, and there is no Many of the Bristol demands for high-quality health, secret accusation procedure of the sign of him getting it back. members will be taking part [email protected] housing and education. church courts, was legislated for in Hundreds of other members in the protest in London and n Socialism represents victory (among other places) the Treason have also been expelled or will attempt to hand their Notes in the battle for democracy. It is Trials Act 1696, and adopted in suspended on the flimsiest of complaints to a member of the 1. www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2021/1909. the rule of the working class. the ‘confrontation clause’ as part grounds. It’s obvious that Keir NEC. And there will be more html. Socialism is either democratic or, of the Sixth Amendment to the US Starmer and his allies have action to come - including at 2. ammarkazmi.uk/labour-on-trial-the-slow-death- as with Stalin’s Soviet Union, it of-blairism-5168f15f0609. turns into its opposite. Constitution. The right to open embarked on a purge on the the Labour Party conference 3. It was, in fact, disclosed in March after the public trial was similarly part of left in the party. in September. This is just the party had lost at the interlocutory stage; but n Socialism is the first stage St German’s arguments, reflected Starmer won the leadership beginning of the fightback. Butcher J found that the explanation of the earlier of the worldwide transition to in the Heresy Act 1534. promising he would unite the We are fighting for the future non-disclosure offered in an affidavit by Labour’s communism - a system which ‘executive director of legal affairs’ as unconnected The background to all these party. That was a lie. In reality of the Labour Party. We won’t with issues of procedural fairness had to be taken knows neither wars, exploitation, rules is that state, or church, he has declared war on most stop until we take it back into to be true, and the decision not to disclose hence money, classes, states nor nations. officials are prone to invent of its members. Last year an democratic control. “not … in bad faith”: para [35], sub (4). Communism is general freedom criminal or civil cases against internal report was leaked, The protest will take place 4. R v Secretary of State for the Home Department and the real beginning of human ex parte Doody [1994] 1 AC 531, Lord Mustill at people for collateral purposes - which included allegations that at Labour Party head office - 560D-561B, cited by Butcher J at para. [31] (3) history. whether extortion, in response to unelected party officials were 105 Victoria Street, London from the Labour Party counsel’s arguments. The Weekly Worker is licensed by bribery, for personal or politically actively trying to undermine SW1E 6QT (nearest tube/ 5. Eg, www.vox.com/the- November Publications under a Creative motivated revenge, or other the leadership of Jeremy station: Victoria) l highlight/2019/8/8/20747198/philadelphia- Commons Attribution-NonCommercial bombing-1985-move; www.npr. 4.0 International Licence: political purposes. Corbyn. Starmer ordered Norman Thomas org/2019/10/30/774788611/police-owe-nothing-to- creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Contrary to common modern an inquiry into that report Labour In Exile Network man-whose-home-they-blew-up-appeals-court-says. legalcode. ISSN 1351-0150. beliefs, judges are not merely 6. Quoted by Butcher J para. [15]. No 1356 July 15 2021 Relaxing in midst of third wave Masks for Freedom Day Derek James has no time for the government’s mixed messaging or Starmer’s constructive opposition fter weeks of upbeat media the reaction to the likely increase briefings and comments in Covid cases. The experience Aby government ministers of other countries, such as the promising ‘Freedom Day’, the tone Netherlands and Israel, which and the reality of the announcement have reimposed restrictions after that restrictions would be lifted in some relaxation, will colour the England on July 19 turned out to be reaction to the new situation. rather different. There has been an initial pushback This was best encapsulated in the against the ambiguous nature of headlines in the Tory press, which the government’s ‘expectations’ had previously been cheer-leading and ‘recommendations’, with some for ‘freedom’ and calling for an transport operators and retailers end to the remaining constraints on saying they will continue to regard business and social life, originally face masks and other restrictions imposed by the Johnson government as compulsory.8 Many continue earlier this year to contain the Covid to support continued restrictions pandemic. Instead of the gung-ho through a sense of social, not calls for getting back to normality and individual, responsibility and a the feel-good boosterism associated strong desire to do the best for the with the success of the vaccination collective good. campaign, there was a much more Workers and medically vulnerable circumspect approach, mirroring the Tories seem to view wearing a mask not as a matter of public health, but an infringement on their groups are right to be suspicious unusually measured and cautious liberty to infect others of the intentions of ministers and tone adopted by Boris Johnson during employers who loudly proclaim his press conference announcing the office’ made by Tory backbenchers other support for British capitalism, and the state will indeed tear up the their commitment to ‘freedom from changes to the lockdown rules. Thus, in the Covid Recovery Group alongside the mobilisation of the textbooks and do whatever it takes restrictions’ and ‘getting back to the Daily Express hailed, “Green and the attempts to minimise the resources of the state, in partnership to keep their system afloat during an normal’ as soon as possible. The light for Freedom Day, but go easy!”, seriousness of Covid in the early with the drug companies and medical emergency. labour movement must, of course, whilst the Daily Mail in its headline phases of the pandemic can be linked researchers, to develop an effective The question now is how all this defend the health and safety of the asked: “Freedom … but for how to the particular interests of specific vaccine. As we know, despite the will be paid for. There will inevitably working class, along with the rest of long?” Other headlines took up the sections of capitalism. incompetence of individual ministers be a post-lockdown boom as pent- the population. responsible approach, emphasising and the cronyism associated with up consumer demand is released But the pandemic requires the potential risks associated with the Johnson’s gamble the implementation of the policy, and deferred purchases are made, much more from us than simply easing of the restrictions. The Times For many on the left this clash the gamble paid off and the rollout but the impact of such a ‘boom’ on defending our immediate interests. led with: “Thousands in hospital between profit and the health of a mass vaccination programme tax revenues is open to question. There are valuable lessons here each day if UK is hasty”, whilst The and safety of workers and the has been successful. It has also It is also certain that state support for the politics of the left: we must Guardian talked in a similar vein general population, along with the paid political dividends for the has propped up what are, in effect, build on the valuable collective about “fears of ‘exit wave’ and 200 initially tardy response and general Tories, who have benefited in the zombie businesses that will go to the experience of ‘Covid socialism’. deaths a day”.1 incompetence of the Johnson opinion polls from a vaccine bounce. wall when that support is withdrawn, If a capitalist government can take A closer look at Johnson’s government, were the key political However, now comes the hard part increasing unemployment and radical action to save its system statement and the detail of the policy issues from the very start of the crisis. for the government - the tapering off further reducing the tax take. It is and defend the interests of its class, explains the political dynamics and Much of the ‘constructive and ending of the furlough scheme these economic uncertainties and the we must do the same. If we really contradictions behind the change opposition’ by Labour MPs focused and the easing of the lockdown. demand for reductions in the deficit want to offer an alternative to the in emphasis. The legal requirement on similar issues - although If uncertainties remain about the made by fiscal hawks in the cabinet anarchy and failures of a capitalist to wear face masks in certain areas, frequently reduced to rather pathetic future trajectory of the pandemic like Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid system so starkly revealed in the such as public transport and shops, parliamentary point-scoring. The and the possibilities of rising cases that will help to frame the debate four million deaths globally during will be scrapped, but is replaced response of trade union leaders and and hospitalisations in the coming about how quickly ‘Covid socialism’ this pandemic, the rule of the by a government “expectation and disability rights’ groups representing months, at least the politics of the should be wound down.6 working class internationally is the recommendation” that people will the medically vulnerable to the pandemic are becoming a lot clearer. However, other sections of the only way l continue to wear face coverings ending of restrictions has been If the easing of the restrictions Tory Party and the capitalist class in confined spaces. Similarly, similarly critical: Mick Lynch of and the emphasis on ‘personal will also want to have their say about Notes nightclubs and large indoor venues the RMT has dubbed the policy a responsibility’ seems to indicate a the speed of this return to normality, 1. www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the- will reopen, but owners will be “free-for-all for the bosses”, whilst resumption of business as usual by not least because of the impact of papers-57814894. 2. www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-coronavirus- strongly ‘encouraged’ to demand others have described the easing of the Tories, this return to normality deficit reduction on public spending restrictions-what-you-can-and-cannot-do. that people present Covid certificates the lockdown as a gamble that goes still rests on the deficits and the and Johnson’s much vaunted 3. www.ft.com/content/1436c55b-2074-46d4-84bb- to gain entry. Social distancing will against much medical and scientific state intervention in support of ‘levelling up’ agenda. The political 74e208916ca6. be scrapped, as will the ‘work from advice.4 British capitalism that characterise reaction to Sunak’s hints that the 4. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/pm-giving- bosses-not-workers-right-exercise-judgement- home if you can’ order, although The policy of the Johnson Johnson’s ‘Covid socialism’. It was triple lock on state pensions may be covid-safety. it appears that the government is government throughout the pandemic this intervention, along with the relaxed in the autumn are an echo 5. www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/23/ ‘expecting and recommending’ that has been one big gamble. After collective medical provision of the of these wider policy disagreements greed-and-capitalism-behind-jab-success-boris- employers carry out a gradual, phased initially downplaying the seriousness NHS and the involvement of tens within the government and perhaps a johnson-tells-mps. 2 7 6. www.cityam.com/boris-johnson-free-market- return to work over the summer. As of the situation, like other rightwing of thousands of volunteers - not sign of the shape of things to come. budget-rishi-sunak-covid-crisis. the Financial Times put it, Boris governments such as Trump in the “greed” and “capitalism”, as Boris 7. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9712065/ Johnson’s statement urged “extreme US and Bolsonaro in Brazil, Boris Johnson would have it - that turned Lessons for left Rishi-Sunak-clashes-big-spender-Boris-Johnson. caution” after the restrictions are Johnson turned 180 degrees and went the tide and kept the economy and Surely a key factor in the next few html. 5 8. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pressure-mounts- lifted, but “shifted responsibility for for full ‘Covid socialism’. This took society going for the last 16 months. months will be the public response on-transport-firms-to-make-covid-19-masks- tackling the rapidly spreading virus the form of the furlough scheme and It shows that the capitalist class to the easing of restrictions and mandatory-nhxv8dh6t. to companies and individuals”.3 Much of the early pressure on the Subscribe Name:______Standing order government to end the lockdown 6m 1yr Inst. To ______Bank plc ______restrictions came from particular Address:______UK £30/€35 £60/€70 £200/€220 businesses, such as hospitality, Branch address ______Europe £43/€50 £86/€100 £240/€264 ______leisure and the wider service Rest of £65/€75 £130/€150 £480/€528 Post code ______Account name ______sector. Demands that theatres, bars, world ______Sort code ______Account No ______nightclubs and other entertainment New UK subscribers offer: venues reopen as quickly as possible 3 months for £10 ______Please pay to Weekly Worker, Lloyds A/C No 00744310 sort code 30-99-64, the sum of ______every month*/3 months* reflected both the importance of until further notice, commencing on ______This replaces any previous order from this account. (*delete) these sectors to the economy and UK subscribers: Pay by standing order and Tel:______save £12 a year. Minimum £12 every 3 Date ______the widespread desire amongst Email:______many people to get back to normal months... but please pay more if you can. Signed ______Name (PRINT) ______life after a grim 16 months of Send a cheque or postal order payable to ‘Weekly Worker’ at: Sub: £/€ ______Address ______restrictions. Likewise, the frequent Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, ______calls for workers to ‘get back to the London WC1N 3XX Donation: £/€ ______