For a Solidarity workers’ government For social ownership of the banks and industry

No 343 12 November 2014 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org

Tories plan to double cuts Their target: after slashing £25 billion, to cut another £48 billion Belgium and Italy show fightback 2 NEWS

What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? Oppose Pickles’ take-over! Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. By Gerry Bates Society is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to increase their ‘risk of bid manipulation’. A higher offer was rejected, wealth. Capitalism causes poverty, unemployment, the The take-over of Tower blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the contrary to independent ad - Hamlets Council by com - vice, and the winner was destruction of the environment and much else. missioners appointed by Against the accumulated wealth and power of the later allowed to change his the communities secretary capitalists, the working class has one weapon: contract.” solidarity. Eric Pickles entrenches a Allegations of communal - The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build worrying precedent with ism were also raised, with solidarity through struggle so that the working class can overthrow negative consequences the BBC reporting “that a capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership of for local democracy. proposal to award money to industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy much fuller The transfer of some of lunch clubs for Jewish, Sikh than the present system, with elected representatives recallable at any and Hindu communities re - time and an end to bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. the council’s powers came after a £1m report commis - sulted in £99,212 being We fight for the labour movement to break with “social partnership” awarded to Bangladeshi or and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses. sioned by Pickles and car - ried out by the accountants Somali groups, none of Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, which had applied for the supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping PricewaterhouseCoopers. The three commissioners money.” organise rank-and-file groups. It is not necessary to dis - We are also active among students and in many campaigns and will remain in place until 31 believe these allegations, as alliances. March 2017 and will report to the secretary of state some on the left will do, simply because they come We stand for: every six months. Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman from Eric Pickles. Independent working-class representation in politics. The report alleged that ● Nor, however, is it neces - A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the labour council, run by former ● sary to politically support makes the case against the As pressure on local gov - movement. Labour mayor Lutfur Rah - Rahman to realise that the over-powerful system of ernment budgets continues, A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to strike, to man, awarded more than ● takeover of parts of Tower elected mayors – with only we are likely to see more picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. £400,000 in grants to “ineli - Hamlets Council is no an - 18 of the 45 council seats, pressure for councils to Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, education gible organisations”, and ● swer to the problem and Rahman’s group Tower stand up against central and jobs for all. questioned the spending of should be opposed. Hamlets First can effectively government – whether Tory A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full public money on what could ● When it comes to prob - dominate the Council or TLhaibso fuigr.h t needs to chal - equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden be seen as party political ad - lems in Tower Hamlets through its control of the lenge the power of West - of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay, vertising. Council, it should be up to Executive. minster to impose their bisexual and transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity The report also raised con - the residents of Tower Ham - There is also a broader agenda on local councils, against racism. cerns about the sale of lets to sort them out demo - context. Local government including the ability of Open borders. Poplar Town Hall for ● cratically. As it is, Rahman services have been cut to the Pickles to take over coun - Global solidarity against global capital — workers everywhere have £875,000 to a political sup - ● was re-elected in 2014 and it bone under the Coalition, cil services and ride more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist porter of Rahman, “even is not for Pickles to over- and Labour-controlled roughshod over local rulers. though the bid arrived late, ride that. councils have simply man - communities. Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or and after rival bids had been ● Yet the situation also aged central government community to global social organisation. opened, which created a cuts. ● Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big and small. ● Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. Everything ● If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell — Devo Manc? No thanks! you ever and join us! wanted to By Bruce Robinson ing funds. Contact us: But there will be no fund- know about Following the Scottish ref - raising powers and no resti - ● ● 020 7394 8923 [email protected] erendum English devolu - tution of the cuts that have socialism... The editor (Cathy Nugent), 20e Tower Workshops, Riley tion has come to the top hit northern cities dispro - Road, London, SE1 3DG. of the political agenda and portionately hard. Rather: Are you interested in ● Printed by Trinity Mirror the Tories are trying to de - “In the context of the wider fine a framework which fiscal consolidation agenda, socialism? would suit their purposes the city region would be re - Do you want to as quickly as possible. quired to take a fair share of Get Solidarity every week! any reductions that are discuss ideas about Last week George Os - George Osborne ● Trial sub, 6 issues £5 o made to any of the devolved borne did a deal with the funding streams.” So, more how to change the ● 22 issues (six months). £18 waged leaders of the ten local coun - o cuts to come. And the purse It is not surprising that world? £9 unwaged o cils in the Greater Manches - strings still in the hands of the Labour councils who 44 issues (year). £35 waged ter region – all bar one the Treasury. have done nothing to fight ● o Labour-controlled – which £17 unwaged As for the mayor, it seems government cuts have o is seen as setting the bench - Osborne’s aim is to em - meekly accepted the first Come along to this ● European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) mark for other cities and re - o power one person without offer Osborne made. His dayschool, hosted by or 50 euros (44 issues) gions in the North as they even the minimal demo - talk of ‘“northern power - o “become ready” for de - Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: cratic accountability pro - houses” fits quite well with Workers’ Liberty volved powers. vided by the Greater the policy of business-led 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG The deal provides a mini - London Assembly. There “regeneration” favoured by Cheques (£) to “AWL”. mal amount of powers and will be no elected body to local leaders. There is little money in exchange for ac - 11AM — 4PM Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. which he or she is answer - in this package that will deal cepting the imposition of an able and the only resort the with the serious social prob - elected mayor – something Saturday 29 Nov Name ...... electorate will have is an lemNso rin i st hite are rgeiaoln p. lan for which was rejected in a election every four years, or Manchester referendum in regional devolution which Address ...... possibly some complex re - would start to redress 2012. The region gets pow - call mechanism. Between The Exmouth Arms ers over transport, planning, some of the major in - ...... now and the election in 2017 housing, policing, skills equalities between the Euston, London, a totally unelected pseudo- better-off (Tory-voting) I enclose £ ...... training and some business Mayor will be chosen from NW1 2HR support functions plus con - and poorer regions of among the existing council England. trol of £1 billion out of exist - leaders. 3 NEWS Why US pessimism goes Republican By Barry Finger many theories to explain the deficits dropped from the statistical slight of hand, more egalitarian society? and opted to raise the mini - Democratic rout. Some of nearly 10% of GDP to 3%? is still at 12%. No, they doubled down mum wage. And they In the American electoral them actually are rooted in Aren’t record high profits a Even Obama’s “Afford - on their “principles”, while elected a reactionary big system there are four fact. Yes, there was poor harbinger of a renewed able Care Act”, is a subsidy distancing themselves, os - business Republican. ways to register one’s dis - voter turnout. Yes, there prosperity to come? to insurance companies and trich like, from its lead au - In fact everywhere in gust with the status quo. was a lack of enthusiasm Is the electorate simply big Pharma. It reasserts the thor. It’s patently obvious which the electorate was of - among the Democratic base. ungrateful? Or is it thor - that Democrats, with few Cast a ballot, where possi - neoliberal principle that one fered the opportunity to ex - Yes, the electoral map con - oughly alienated by the exceptions, will not even go ble, for a radical third party should be able to access pre - press class solidarity by spired against them in so far massive and historically un - out on limb for a $15 mini - that raises the decibel level cisely as much health care as ratifying a hike in the mini - as the main battle ground precedented upward trans - you can afford, just not nec - mum wage, for card check mum wage, it did so. And it and gives shape to anti-cor - states in this cycle normally fer of wealth and income reform that would assist porate outrage; vote in de - essarily as much as you also did so while punishing De - lean right. that financed and accompa - happen to need. In places unions to organise, or for a mocrats and electing Repub - spair for the lesser-evil with None of this however nied the Obama recovery? desperately needed green the expectation that doing where the uninsured rate licans who denounce the speaks to the deep pes - Under the Bush recovery the dropped, the Republicans jobs program. minimum wage itself as a the same feckless act repeat - simism of the American top 10% captured nearly all Not a word will be heard edly will deliver progressive still managed to score mas - dangerous Commie plot. people in the midst of a sup - the gains. Not only was this sive victories. from liberal left for even It takes a special aptitude results; vote for the out posed economic recovery. again true under the Obama more radical departures and party regardless of what it to be defeated by a hated Almost half of those who recovery, but the bottom REPUBLICANS initiatives: Medicare for all, Republican Party obsessed stands for with the hope of voted still believe that life 90% also lost ground. There The Republicans were guaranteed federal employ - shaking things up; or sit on by a porous borders, Ebola for the next generation was employment growth, hardly twisting the truth ment or job training on de - contamination, the punish - one’s hands with a clothes - would be worse than it is but this growth was dispro - when accusing the admin - mand, the right to a basic pin fixed to one’s nose. ment of recreational sex, tax today. Two-thirds said the portionally concentrated in istration of being too cozy income, a debt jubilee for cuts for business, govern - This time, lesser evil-ism country was seriously on the the lowest paying service with Wall Street and a se - workers and the poor, the ment overregulation, restric - did not offer a winning wrong track. sectors. lect cohort of corporate elimination of college tuition tions on gun ownership, a hand. The Democrats lost All of which contributed Obama helped Wall Street cronies. in state schools, a fully Benghazi cover-up and the nearly every close Senate to the well-known fear of avert financial catastrophe funded national pension war on Christmas. race, with the exception of Obama contagion on the and furthered measures to How then did Democratic and affordable urban hous - But by falling on their New Hampshire. But if the part of Democratic candi - support business. He en - Party candidates react to ing. Democrats simply don’t sword, the Democrats Senate races were arguably dates. The Obama presi - dorsed much deeper cuts in this? Did they soften or re - believe that such things are once again proved them - fought on Republican ter - dency is widely seen as social spending and the pudiate the pro-corporate attainable – or worse. They selves noble paladins of rain, the re-election of hard- toxic. 59% of voters in na - deficit during the 2011 Obama agenda? Did they do not believe them desir - capitalism. Better to lose core reactionaries to tional exit polls asserted that budget negotiations than the offer a broad platform of able. power waging a common gubernatorial office and the they were angry or disap - Republicans. 5.5 million economic remediation, Most of what we need to defence of the corporate capture of state legislatures pointed with the Obama ad - more Americans live in which would give hope to know about this election, we status quo, than to break by Republicans can only be ministration. But hasn’t poverty today and median the American rank and file can learn from the Alaska ranks and threaten privi - explained by the national employment made impres - household income has de - that it too might share in the microcosm. There, voters lege. political climate. sive gains? Hasn’t the stock clined by 4.6%. The real un - economic recovery, and imposed restrictions on min - The liberal left has offered market recovered? Haven’t employment rate, despite begin to enjoy the fruits of a ing, chose to legalize pot “Alive we want them back!”

By Thais Yáñez event. He was fi - nally found and On 26 September students arrested. But the at the Mexican Normal de investigation Ayotzinapa Rural Teach - shouldn’t stop ers’ College in Iguala, there. Did he give Guerrero, were planning the order alone? Is to go to Mexico City to the federal gov - join a protest. ernment trying to The students peacefully make him the only took over three buses, com - scapegoat? mon for protests in Mexico, Forty-three fam - and were asking fellow pas - ilies are looking Irish revolt on water fees sengers for money to fund for their children their trip when they were who went missing By Michael Johnson Opposition to water within Fine Gael about ambushed by the police whilst fighting for side Mexican embassies. In charges began with resi - Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s who started shooting indis - democracy and support for Mexico demonstrations are A movement against dents taking direct action handling of the situation. rural colleges and schools. very often held to cry, to water charges has led to criminately. against contractors in - Reflecting anger against Attacks from police and The forty-three families mourn, to protest, to de - some of the largest stalling water meters. It has the governing parties and were received by the Presi - mand the government to protests against govern - gunmen in civilian clothing since grown, with mass the main opposition, Sinn left six dead including one dent of Mexico, Enrique give us back our brothers. ment policy ever seen in protests shaking the Fine Féin are now the most pop - Pena Nieto and were prom - “Alive they took them. the Republic of Ireland. student who was skinned Gael-Labour coalition. ular party in opinion polls, and was left with no eyes. ised justice. It hasn’t been Alive we want them”. delivered. One of the fathers These events happened A system of domestic Around 120,000 people with around 26%. Fine Five were gravely wounded of a missing comrade would just five days before Mexico water charging introduced took to the streets on 1 No - Gael stands at 22%, Fianna (one is now brain dead) and later ask the President him - commemorated the 46th an - on 1 October could cost vember. About 20 protests Fáil 20%, Labour is at 7% 43 became “disappeared” self, face to face, for his res - niversary of the biggest hard-hit households more were staged in Dublin and Independents and Oth - comrades, whose where - ignation as he cannot massacre of students the than €500 (£390) a year. The alone, 10,000 demonstrated ersT ahte 2 e3l%ec. tion of Social - abouts are still unknown. control what his people do. country has seen scheme was part of the in Cork city and more than ist Party’s Paul Murphy in Initially many blamed the In the Tlatelolco mas - 8,000 people marched in the recent Dublin South- mayor, Abadal, whose his - All over the world sup - sacre of 2 October 1968 conditions attached to the port and solidarity has been November 2010 bailout. both Letterkenny and West by-election as part tory of corruption and in - between 30 and 300 stu - Drogheda. of the Anti-Austerity Al - volvement with cartels mounting for the families dents were shot by police The government set up a and the students of Ayotzi - new semi-state company, Polls show around a liance raises the issue of through his wife is well in Mexico City. Sadly, 46 quarter of the population uniting the far left to known. However this inci - napa, not only from Mexi - years later Mexico still Irish Water, in 2013, which cans abroad but from has already spent tens of are unwilling to pay the challenge all of the pro- dent goes beyond his small struggles with becoming a charges; on 9 November capitalist parties. office. In fact he went into progressive students every - democratic country. millions of euros on con - where. There have been sultants. The Sunday Independent re - hiding shortly after the ported internal dissent many demonstrations out - 84 CFOEMAMTUENRET Scottish Labour: vote Findlay!

war in Iraq. He has also voted in favour of a benefits cap for claimants. That sums up his politics: billions for war, but Scotland more attacks on the unemployed and low paid. In an earlier life as President of the National Union of Stu - dents Murphy railroaded through the dumping of NUS pol - By Dale Street icy opposing the scrapping of student grants. On a scale of one to ten, his chances of rebuilding support for Labour Over a hundred people turned up last Saturday (8 No - among young people are therefore zero. vember) to a rally in Fauldhouse at which Neil Findlay People in Scotland, like elsewhere, are disenchanted with MSP launched his campaign to be voted in as leader of politicians. Murphy is not going to restore their faith in them. the Scottish Labour Party (SLP). He rented out his property in London, and then exploited the Neil is the left challenger for the position, with Katy Clark parliamentary allowance of £20,000 to rent a property for MP standing as the left candidate for the post of SLP deputy himself. leader. Murphy has certainly won more nominations from career- Both of them are committed to rebuilding electoral support minded parliamentarians than the candidates of the left. He for Labour by a return to “the timeless Labour values of com - has also won nominations from small and poorly attended munity, solidarity, fairness and justice.” They want Labour to CLP meetings. And the right-wing media have boosted him adopt policies to attack poverty, unemployment, exploitation as the “odds-on favourite ”. in the workplace, and health and wealth inequalities. But, symptomatically, the only union backing Murphy to Both of them also have an established track record of cam - date is Community (although USDAW may end up nominat - paigning for such policies. Unlike one of their competitors in ing him as well) – and Community is very small, very right- the elections — Jim Murphy MP — they have not discovered wing, very bureaucratic, and renowned as the union for such issues only after the resignations of the previous SLP labour movement careerists. leader and deputy leader. The problem is not that Murphy has a lot of skeletons in Neil and Katy have won nominations from Unison, Unite, his cupboard. The problem is that he is the skeleton. GMB, UCATT, ASLEF and TSSA. If Murphy is elected SLP leader, the SLP should rename it - Constituency Labour Parties are meeting this week to de - self Dignitas Scotland – the only difference being that Digni - cide on their nominations. CLPs already backing one or both tas is about people dying with dignity whereas a Murphy-led of the candidates include Glasgow Kelvin, Cunninghame SLP would be more likely to die a lonely, miserable, poverty- South, Coatbridge and Chryston, Almond Valley, and Car - stricken death in the gutter of Scottish politics. ick, Cumnock and Doon Valley. The time is long overdue for SLP members to have a leader Hundreds of CLP and trade union activists have also al - who is not an embarrassment, one for whom they are not ready volunteered to help build support for their election constantly required to apologise. campaigns. The last SLP leader invoked Thatcherite language to attack Neil Findlay MSP is the left challenger for leader of the Scottish Scotland’s supposed “something for nothing culture”. Her In deciding which candidate to support for leader and Labour Party deputy leader, SLP members and members of affiliated or - predecessor ran away – quite literally – from political argu - ganisations need to face up to reality and recognise the tasks ment. And his predecessor, despite having overall responsi - slumped by a third. And although an overall majority voted now confronting the SLP. bility for the entire Scottish budget, could not even keep track “No” in the recent referendum, what had once been Labour Between 1997 and 2010 Labour Party national membership of the rental income from subletting part of his constituency urban heartlands voted “Yes”. fell by over 60% (from 440,000 to 180,000). Over the same pe - offNicoem. inations by CLPs, trade unions and affiliated soci - Recent opinion polls put Labour on around 23% of the vote riod Labour lost five million votes and two trade unions dis - eties close at midday on 14 November. The next stage and the SNP on 52%. In a Westminster general election this affiliated from the party. will be to win further support for Neil and Katy in the bal - would give Labour just four seats, and the SNP 54. SLP membership is now around one fifth of that of the loting period, running from 17 November to 10 Decem - The politics which have reduced the SLP to this pitiful state SNP. The SLP lost the 2007 and 2011 Holyrood elections. ber. are the politics represented and embodied by Jim Murphy. Electoral support for the SLP between 1999 and 2011 Murphy voted in favour of spending billions of pounds on The exaggerated death of the Scottish Labour Left

The quote (actually a misquote) attributed to Mark Twain that reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated, sis and socialist solutions. jobs; could equally well apply to the Scottish Labour Left. “The root of the problem is class society; the root of the • undertake a wholesale review of the Scottish NHS — re - problem is inequality; the root of the problem is in-work cruiting enough staff and rewarding them to ensure an NHS The vast majority of socialists in the Scottish Labour Party poverty; the root of the problem is unemployment. The root for the 21st century and ending the increasing spend on the (SLP) campaigned for and voted “no” in the referendum of the problem is avaricious capitalism and our job and the private sector; campaign. This in itself was enough for many in Left groups job of the Labour Party, surely, is to root it out.” • and, finally, build a charter of workers’ rights and new outside the SLP to consign it to the dustbin of history, rather Neil Findlay spoke next, suggesting in some detail how legislation on equalities. perversely given the long anti-nationalist history of the so - Scottish Labour might go about the tasks that Elaine Smith Neil Findlay’s contribution was all the more important cialist movement. had outlined arguing that Scottish Labour had to commit to: given the announcement on the day before the conference Of course, and here I have some sympathy, this sat along - • a policy of full employment; that Johann Lamont, leader of the Scottish Labour Party had side other accusations that the Scottish Labour Left had made • establish a national house-building programme to build resigned, citing unacceptable interference from the UK little impact ideologically on the SLP, was numerically small, council houses and social housing on a grand scale; Labour leadership, and ensuring a Scottish Labour leader - and showed little sign of challenging for the political leader - • set up a living wage unit in the Scottish government that ship contest. ship of the party any time soon. would use grants, procurement and every lever of govern - Neil Findlay has since announced his intention to stand for On Saturday 25 October, all of that changed. ment to raise the minimum wage to the living wage; the vacant post allowing the Scottish Labour Left to test the It wasn’t just that the room booked for the Campaign for • re-democratise local government, financing services, support for a Left agenda in the wider party. Socialism’s post-referendum analysis in the STUC in Glas - freeing councils to set their own taxes again and be held to ac - The anticipation of this challenge on 25 October generated gow had standing room only; it was the renewed sense of count for doing and so beginning to reverse the 40,000 job coTnhsiidse lreafbt lpe roopgtrimamisme. is far from the Utopian promises purpose and commitment from so many of the speakers and losses across Scottish councils; of the Yes Left because it is actually deliverable and this participants. • end the social care scandal by making social care a re - Labour Left is far from a historical footnote. It may actu - First up among a high powered list of political, trade union warding, fairly paid career and ending the indignity of short- ally be on the verge of its most important hour. and local council speakers were Elaine Smith and Neil Find - timed care visits; lay, both MSPs. • create quality apprenticeships and new college places Elaine Smith argued that the reason for Scottish Labour’s that set young people up for life and develop an industrial Vince Mills, poor performance in its heartlands of Dundee, Glasgow, La - policy that promotes manufacturing and new sustainable Campaign for Socialism and Red Papers Collective narkshire and West Dumbarton was a lack of socialist analy - 95 WHATF EWAET USARYE Tories plan to double cuts

The Tories’ declared budget plans mean more and more cuts, and at an accelerating rate, in 2015-20. On top of the £25 billion cut from annual budgets between 2010-11 and 2014-5, they would cut another £48 billion from those budgets by 2018-9. The Financial Times estimated the numbers from official sta - tistics and the Tories’ declared intention to have the govern - ment budget in overall surplus (current income covering both current and capital spending) by 2020. The Tories plan to do that by cuts, not by taxing the rich. They have offered tax cuts to the rich, on inheritance tax for example. They may increase taxes hitting the worse-off, such as VAT, but have announced no plans for that. The Financial Times conclusions are in the same ballpark as a 19 September study by the conservative Institute for Fiscal Studies, which estimated that Tory plans mean they would “cut spending by government departments by a further 10.6% in real terms (or £37.6 billion) between 2015–16 and 2018–19. This is on top of the £8.7 billion cut that has already been set out for 2015–16”. Both the IFS and the FT debunk David Cameron’s claim on 30 October that Tory plans imply much milder cuts in 2015- 20. To make the £48 billion cuts just from administration ex - penses of government departments would imply virtually shutting down some departments, drastically cutting civil service wages, and passing on even sharper cuts to local councils. Even the Tories are unlikely to do all that. Tory chancellor George Osborne has said that some cuts will come through reducing welfare benefits for working-age people even more. Probably the Tories will increase their benefit cuts, take cuts into benefits for pensioners (so far less affected), and scrap or subvert their supposed ring-fence for health, schools, and overseas aid. Already the NHS is stretched because the Italian workers plan strikes “ring-fence” assumes large “savings”, does not allow for in - creased medical costs and an ageing population, and does not allow for the extra admin costs coming with the Tories’ In fact, economic depression calls for increased public says: “We make everything, they make nothing. Everything drive for contracting-out to private profiteers. spending rather than cuts. And what budget-balancing is they have, they have stolen. Redistribute working hours, re - The Lib-Dems, anxious to differentiate themselves from the necessary should be done by taxing the rich, whose wealth is distribute wealth!” Tories in the run-up to the general election, have said they spiralling, not by freezing wages and cutting services and The social-democratic union confederation (Belgium has want a looser budget-balancing target. benefits for the majority. two “TUCs”) plans regional strikes between 24 November So have Labour. But the Labour leaders, terrified by opin - The union leaders sometimes echo that message, and and 8 December, and a national one-day strike on 15 Decem - ion polls showing most people say the Tories are more “eco - should be made to fight for it. beIrn. Italy, a million people marched on 25 October nomically competent” than Labour, still say they will The Tories’ policy is only a more extreme version of what against prime minister Renzi’s attack on job-security continue cuts, only more softly. is being done across Europe. In some countries, unions are laws. The metalworkers’ federation FIOM has called a At the Labour Party’s National Policy Forum in July 2014, now fighting back. series of regional protest strikes between 14 November all the big unions joined with the Labour leaders to vote In Belgium, 120,000 workers joined a demonstration on 7 and 27 November. down a move from constituency activists to commit a Labour November against the cuts plans of the new right-wing coali - government after 2015 to refusing cuts. tion government. Even the Catholic union confederation Labour needs anti-cuts policy, not a Blairite new leader

that too has nothing to do with Ed Miliband, though a sec - ond leadership contest in the UK party would make matters By Jon Lansman even worse. The idea of a smooth, consensual transfer of the leader - Labour MPs are their own worst enemies. ship to Alan Johnson, the man who told Kirsty Wark in 2007 that he wasn’t up to the job of Leader and who demon - Many of them are panicked about losing their seats, and strated through the gaffes of his short period as shadow are sufficiently stupid and disloyal to blame Ed Miliband chancellor than he lacked a grasp of basic economics, is just and brief the press accordingly. Deputy chief whip, Alan plain daft. Campbell, rather than feeding reports of discontent to his He may be working class, whose humble origins and leader, is whipping it up. tough upbringing are now well known. Len McCluskey And yet, if Labour MPs keep their cool, there will be no may have suggested he be given a role in Labour’s cam - Labour meltdown in England or Wales in 2015. UKIP may paign. But he’s still a leading Blairite who backed privatisa - take a seat or two from us, and prevent us winning a few tion of the industry in which he worked. Without question, marginals. But we shall still win others from the Tories and he would face a contest if he stood for the leadership. Lib Dems, whose problems are worse than ours. And no There is no alternative candidate who could command short-coming of Ed Miliband is responsible for the rise of such widespread support that a simple transfer of the lead - Replacing Ed Miliband by a Blairite would not help UKIP. ership is possible. Six months before an election, just forget Scotland is a different story. Labour could face meltdown it. And those who continue to speculate about it do there in 2015 and 2016. And it will be worse if Jim Murphy nothing but undermine and damage their own party. • From www.leftfutures.org and Kezia Dugdale win the current leadership contests. But 86-7 FEATURE Kobane: tide What Turkish Marxists

The Turkish revolutionary socialists of Marksist Tutum mass around it. Their support for Kurdish movement is not is turning have responded to questions put to them by Solidarity. principled and they abandon Marxist principles in their ap - proach. They seem to have forgotten the task of Marxist rev - By Simon Nelson What is your assessment of the Turkish government’s pol - olutionaries to bring socialist consciousness to workers and icy with regards to ISIS? organise them. The situation in Kobane has been boosted by the ar - Despite official denials and recent back-steps, the Turkish rival of Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga fighters, whose com - government supported ISIS wherever it suited their interests. What activities have you and those you work with carried mander Ahmaf Gardi has stated that: “We will not leave It did this in various ways: providing them shelter, arms aid, out around these questions? until the city is wiped clean of ISIS”. training facilities, treatment of ISIS militants, providing safe We have been doing a variety of things in regard to this passage to Syria via Turkey etc. Recently it abandoned ap - question. First of all, we organised marches in working class A representative of YPG, the military wing of the PYD, is parently some of these at least. neighbourhoods and invited other groups and institutions to quoted as saying that the “existence of peshmerga in The government followed this policy as part of its general join. Aside from publishing articles and statements in our Kobane changed the balance of power. We are advancing policy towards the Middle East. That policy is a consequence publications, we keep our independent work in factories, in - towards ISIS positions, and now the majority of the city is of the new level of development of Turkish capitalism. Being dustrial areas and working class neighbourhoods by setting under our control”. the 17th biggest economy in the world and a member G-20, up stands for a robust agitation, and distributing leaflets to Figures released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Turkey has been a sub-imperialist country for some time. break the chauvinist wave among workers. We keep holding Rights estimate that over 1,000 people have now been AKP’s particular ideological background produces aspira - educational seminars and events every week and regularly killed during the siege of Kobane. The majority of those tions to establish dominance over the region as was in the visiting workers’ homes in working class neighbourhoods. killed have been Islamic State (ISIS) fighters, and the total past exercised by the Ottoman Empire. Apart from our independent work, we take part in general does not include those killed in the US-led airstrikes. However, supporting radical Islamist groups is only one protests, demonstrations and campaigns in support of The Iraqi Kurdish Rudaw website reports that the Turk - form of this general imperialist policy. Before the mass revolt Kobane. We are part of the HDK (People’s Democratic Con - ish state has killed a pro-Kobane activist when she and 12 and civil war in Syria, Turkish government was following a gress) which is a kind of front including the Kurdish move - others rushed the border during a brief stand-off between different policy. They tried to establish friendly relations with ment and many socialist parties and groups. Syrian Kurds and Turkish troops. Assad with a view to transforming the regime in a peaceful We joined the marches and demonstrations called by HDK They were on a demonstration, not just to show support way from top down. Assad seemed to agree. and HDP (People’s Democratic Party). for the PYD (Democratic Union Party) and PKK (Kurdistan With the wave of popular revolts in the Arab world, Workers Party), the two largest forces now engaged in Turkey became alarmed and changed course in relation to fighting ISIS, but to monitor Turkish state complicity with Syria. First, it was because of the Kurdish question in the con - We read on your website that various trade unions in ISIS, who are believed to have up to 4000 fighters sur - text of Syria. The Turkish government was aware that Syria Turkey called strikes in support of the Kurdish struggle rounding Kobane. was in a process of being divided up. And they did not want against ISIS. Can you say more about this, whether it was In Iraq the US has announced the next stage in their pro - the Syrian Kurds to take advantage of the Syrian civil war surprising to you, what the response from workers was, posed fight against ISIS. 1600 US military advisors are cur - and gain some kind of autonomy like in Iraq. etc? Are there any more such actions planned? rently in Iraq and will be joined by 1500 more US troops to Keep in mind that Syrian Kurdish movement is dominated Yes there were those calls, but they were unfortunately in - assist and “rebuild” the Iraqi Army. by the PYD, which is part of the wider PKK movement. Any effective. No strikes took place. It was a token move having There has been a wave of car bombs in Baghdad target - PYD gains in Syria would certainly strengthen PKK’s hand in almost no substance. ing Shias, and distrust of the security forces amongst the the talks going on between the Turkish government and the This is mainly because trade-unions in Turkey are gener - Sunni minority and sectarian tension are steadily rising. PKK. And secondly, not to lose ground to gain a position in ally ineffective and “weightless”. They are extremely disor - US President Obama has tried to reassure public opin - Syria after Assad’s expected overthrow. They expected a rel - ganised and bureaucratised. They have almost no contact ion that he does not intend to commit combat troops to atively fast overthrow of Assad as in the examples of Ben Ali, with their membership, resulting in workers having no trust fighting IS directly. Speaking to CBS he said: “Our troops Mubarak and Gaddafi. in them. are not engaged in combat… we are taking four training To implement its imperialist policy in practice the Turkish centres… that allow us to bring in Iraqi troops, some of the government decided to capitalize on sectarian divides in the Sunni tribes…. giving them proper training, proper equip - region. As they needed actual local forces on the ground, What is your assessment of why the US government has ment, helping them with strategy, helping them with lo - they chose to support the Islamist groups, like many other undertaken bombing, e.g. in support of Kobane, and what gisBtiucts ”t.he US troop surge in 2007 which managed to imperialist and regional powers in the region do. slogans would you raise with regard to this military inter - evoke and sustain Sunni militias fighting against ISIS’s vention? predecessor Al-Qaeda in Iraq was soon replaced with We think the question is formulated in an erroneous way US support for the Shia-sectarian government of Ma - How have Kurds in Turkey reacted to the ISIS-Kurdish which rules out an integral answer. We will try to give our liki which helped to disenfranchise and exclude those conflict? answer by splitting up the question. Sunni fighters from the new Iraqi state. Kurds in Turkey are very sensitive over the question of a) As for the reason why the US imperialism has under - Kobane. ISIS attacks on Kobane with Turkish government taken bombing: the US imperialism has its own interests in backing caused fury among the Kurds in Turkey. They the region. It actually provided the basis for the rise of ISIS launched a broad campaign to make solidarity with Kobane and now is making use of it as a pretext to re-intervene in the under siege. region. It turned a blind eye to the growth of ISIS up to a cer - There have been also many mass protests across Turkey. tain stage. But when ISIS seized Mosul and began attacking Apart from these many Kurdish youth went there to join the Iraqi Kurdistan, the US imperialism became alarmed and fight. Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people joined the started its campaign. mass demonstrations called by HDP. But even now we don’t think its goal is to eradicate it com - During mass demonstrations on October 6-7, more than 40 pletely. It seeks to reduce ISIS into a more controllable level. people were killed by the police and fascists. And, to do that it needs forces on the ground. After many cases of defeat suffered by other forces against ISIS, the example of Shengal resistance led by the PKK and What have the different responses on the left in Turkey Kobane resistance by the PYD showed that the PKK and its been? wider movement are the only serious force that proved itself In general the left sided with the Kobane resistance against in the fight against ISIS on the ground. ISIS. But there are differences in attitude and approach. And the US imperialism seized the opportunity to re-im - For example, those sections of the left with Kemalist lean - pose itself on the region by showing its support for the ings expressed their uneasiness with the US support for Kurds. Keep in mind that the wider PKK movement is almost Kobane. So they have been more distanced in their support the only secular Muslim force in the region having a mass for Kobane. And on the other extreme, we have those left base. groups who act as appendages of the Kurdish movement and Also, in regard to the Kurdish question in Turkey, US im - 9 KURDIFSETAATN URE s say about Kobane and PKK

This belief is an illusion, and the perception of the PKK as Berlin demonstration in solidarity with Kobane an organisation waging the socialist struggle of the working class does not strengthen the revolutionary struggle of Turk - ish and Kurdish workers, but weaken it. As it grew stronger, the bourgeois democratic national character of the PKK has become more apparent. However, the burning character of the Kurdish question, especially tak - ing the present disorganised situation of the working class into account, keeps this movement as the most important democratic dynamic of Turkey. Another reason for our support to the democratic demands of this movement is to break the nationalist prejudices among the Turkish working class. Considering the existing wide - spread Turkish chauvinism, this position is a hard one to maintain, but we do not have the slightest intention to sub - mit to chauvinism and compromise our internationalist prin - ciples on this issue. As for the second part of your question, different political groups in Syrian Kurdistan, i.e. Rojava, agreed to establish a cantonal structure under the leadership of PYD. They de - clared three cantons in Rojava, which are territorially sepa - rated from one another. A relatively democratic system of government practice has begun. In the assemblies of cantons not only Kurds but Arabs, Turkmen, etc. are given certain quotas and women’s representation is also considered. They implement a co-chair system in many levels of government, allowing women to actively take part in government business. It is important to emphasise that the steps taken by Rojava government are in the sphere of bourgeois democratic re - forms. It would not be correct to equate these kinds of re - forms with a commune-like structure or with socialist perialism was very keen to be in the game. The Kobane issue finding a justification for this argument in the Stalinist con - reforms. was a perfect opportunity for it to get involved. It seized the ception of revolution in stages. Some groups on the Turkish left are very keen to label opportunity to present itself as the protector of the Kurds. After the 1980 military-fascist coup in Turkey, the fascist these reforms as a kind of commune, even surpassing the ex - b) We do not think the second part of the question is posed regime inflicted heavy blows on all left organisations and im - perience of the Paris Commune, the soviets, and the work - correctly. There is an imperialist war going on and what we posed a suffocating repression over the whole society. The ers’ councils. This is an extreme exaggeration which is experience at present are instances, moments of it. They are PKK launched a guerrilla war in Turkish Kurdistan against harmful. within the logic of an imperialist war. the Turkish state in 1984. You do not need to do that in order to extend your support Revolutionary Marxists are not in a position to say “yes or After the collapse of the USSR at the beginning of 1990s, to the struggle of the Kurdish people and their democratic no” to these kinds of turns and moments and raise specific the PKK began to strip itself of the burdens of the ML label. achievements. But the level of some of the Turkish left is so slogans in regard to them. We reject this “yes or no” di - It declared that it did not assume the ML label anymore, low that they could even talk about the existence of a “com - chotomy. We must not lose sight of the greater picture. These dropped the hammer and sickle from its flag, and even mune” in the Gezi Park protests. kinds of instances are simply part of imperialist war. changed its name several times in the following years. We must stress that saying no to US bombing in this par - Thus it placed itself on a political line corresponding to its ticular bombing is not necessarily anti-imperialist. One must real nature (peasant-based petty-bourgeois). What do you think the left and workers’ organisations in - remember that it is not a rarity that national liberation move - Despite this, we emphasised, on the basis of the fact that ternationally can and should do about all this? ments receive support from this or that big power. Kurds are a people deprived of their democratic rights, the First we must repeat that there is an imperialist war in While this bombing helped the Kurdish forces in Kobane, democratic and relative historical progressive character of progress. And the Middle East is the main battle ground. This we know that imperialists do not carry out this out of good the national liberationist struggle of the PKK against the is the greater picture to understand the deep nature of devel - intentions towards the Kurds and that later it might mean racist-chauvinist and eliminationist Turkish state. We have opments and put them in context. Without understanding something completely different. This is a very slippery defended the necessity of unconditional acknowledgement this fact no-one can take a correct and consistent attitude. ground. We must expose the essence of the imperialist war of Kurdish people’s right to self-determination, including in - Marxists across the world should expose and act against and express our support to the resistance of the Kurdish peo - dependence. We have regarded the Kurdish movement fight - the imperialist intentions of their own governments in the ple. ing for this demand as not a socialist but a democratic and first place. They must carry on serious activity within the progressive movement. working class to explain to them the nature this imperialist We knew from the start that the PKK was not a Marxist war. And they must fight nationalist sentiments within the How would you assess the character of the PKK and its and socialist movement based on a proletarian class ground. working class and swim against the current if necessary. movement and, in so far as you can judge, the forms of so - For us the PKK was a national liberation movement waging Part of the Marxist attitude towards imperialist wars is the cial and political organisation in the areas of Syrian Kur - a legitimate and rightful struggle. Like every progressive na - duty to support the right to self-determination of the op - distan it controls, e.g. Kobane? tional movement it had a bourgeois democratic character, pressed peoples and support their national democratic de - The PKK was founded at the end of 1970s by Kurdish rev - programme and aims. We have never found it right to attach mands and movements against their oppressors. In the case olutionary intellectuals. At a time when the USSR still existed socialist labels to it. of the Kurdish national movement in Rojava, and Kobane in and many national movements around the world called We must underline that, for us, those approaches that as - particular, the left can organise various activities to raise this themselves Marxist-Leninist (ML) to be able to get its sup - sume the PKK as socialist and then blame it for betraying so - question in all working class organisations, particularly in port, the PKK followed the same path. cialism are fundamentally wrong. Also we need to make it traTdhee-uren iiosn asl.so a campaign led by the Kurdish movement In the beginning this movement appeared as a revolt of the clear that as the PKK gained strength and spread its influ - to aid besieged Kobane. We know that some left groups radical urban petty-bourgeoisie and poor peasants, adopted ence over various cities all around Turkey, a wrong belief joined the international day of action in support of the strategy of people’s war, claimed to be socialist, but ar - that the PKK is a socialist organisation of the working class Kobane. This is a good example. gued that the first task to be given priority was to create an gained influence among Kurdish workers and particularly independent and united Kurdistan. It had no difficulty in Kurdish left youth. ● http://en.marksist.net/ 8 FEATURE The PKK and Rojava

By Simon Nelson The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was founded in 1977 by a small group of students who had previously been involved in the banned Dev-Genç (Revolutionary Youth) organisation, one of several revolutionary organisations that formed in Turkey in the 1960s. PKK defined itself as a “Marxist-Leninist” organisation prepared to wage armed struggle for an independent Kur - distan, and its base was mainly the Kurdish peasantry in the mountains of South Eastern Turkey. It found auxiliary bases of support across Europe among Kurdish workers who had emigrated. At that stage the PKK described its mode of operation as “revolution in the coun - tryside” which would have to take a “national character”. Since the PKK’s formation, over 30,000 people have been killed in fighting between their fighters and Turkish state forces. In 1980 a guerilla group called the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party–Front (DHKP/C) assassinated Turkish Prime Minister Nihat Erim. A general crackdown on armed and opposition political groups forced the PKK leadership and much of its militia to flee to Syria and Lebanon. Abdul - lah Öcalan, one of PKK’s founders and its current leader, had to the theory of “democratic confederalism” has not widened refers to as “Democratic Confederalism”. This is influenced already set up bases there and began to build contacts with the democracy within the PKK itself, which retains a strictly by the American leftist Murray Bookchin, who mostly de - other movements. hierarchical and largely military apparatus. scribed himself as an anarchist but in his later years rejected The PKK had uneasy relationships with Kurdish groups Murders of former members and rivals have continued, the label. and parties in Syria, Iraq and Iran. However, in the late 1980s and Öcalan himself has had to request that no more of his Öcalan is quoted as saying this rests on replacing the basic and early 1990s it was able to operate across the borders of supporters go on hunger strike for his release or repeat the elements of modern society, “capitalism, the nation-state, and those states particularly during the 1991 Gulf War. It was act of six of his supporters in self immolating in order to get industrialism” with “democratic nation, communal econ - heavily associated with the importation of heroin through his release. omy, and ecological industry”. Iraq. The BDP (Peace and Democracy Party), which is currently To do this requires three distinct programs for a “democ - Early attempts by the Turkish government at peace nego - the largest legal Kurdish party in Turkey, calls for Öcalan to ratic republic”, for “democratic-confederalism”, and for “de - tiations fell apart in 1995 following the death of Turgat Ozal, be the lead negotiator with the government on a peace deal. mocratic autonomy”. This means in short, the granting of a half-Kurdish Turkish Prime Minister. In the mid 1990s, Alisia Marcus, an expert on the PKK, has said that if Öcalan Kurdish civil rights, and a move from representative forms of after Kurds in Iraq gained a form of regional self-govern - were to die in prison then the Turkish state would be seen as democracy to a “more direct… political structure”. ment, the PKK restarted its campaign against the Turkish complicit and this would make any deal much harder to ne - Some of the British left believe that this is being achieved state with a series of bombings, coupled with thousands of gotiate. in parts of Syrian Kurdistan and in Diyarbakir, the largest PKK prisoners going on hunger strike. Former members of the PKK who have been expelled or city in Turkish Kurdistan. Following clashes with the two major Iraqi Kurdish par - left have also made claims about the PKK’s attitude to On the ground, assemblies exist, but they are dominated ties, the PKK was forced to retreat from its bases in Iraq. It women. Many women are involved in combat operations by the PYD, which also control all the arms and military ac - was then largely forced to operate from Syria and under in - and that they play a major role in the fighting against ISIS in tions in the area. In a report by the Crisis Group, a resident of creasing international pressure to use peaceful methods to Syria. Qamishli is reported as stating in an interview: “People’s fulfil its aims. Further international pressure increased fol - However Mehmet Cahit Sener, a founder of the PKK, has councils are for everybody, not only Kurds. In Qamishli, lowing several suicide bombings, largely conducted by claimed of Öcalan that: “[He] has forced dozens of our fe - Christians have their own council leader responsible for gas women within Turkey. male comrades to immoral relations with him, defiled most distribution who is selected by the PYD…. Members and Relations between Turkey and Syria were increasingly and declared the ones who insisted on refusing to be people leaders are selected by the PYD and report to the PYD-con - under strain as the Government of Hafez al- Assad had shel - ‘who haven’t understood the party, who haven’t understood trolled police”. tered Öcalan and the PKK leadership and allowed their mil - us’…The relations between men and women within the party Another is quoted as saying: “I was in the YPG since before itary and intelligence training as well as drug trafficking to have turned into a harem in Apo’s palace and many female the uprising... Since last year, at least 400 new PKK military continue with relatively little interference. comrades were treated as concubines by this individual”. personnel came from Turkey and Iran. They are not At various points the PKK has sought and been supported Syrians,and they want to control everything”. by Syria, Iran, Iraq and Armenia. Under increasing pressure DROPPED The PYD, whilst tolerating opposition parties and activists, from Turkey and Germany, where there is both a large Kur - In a widely available quote from Öcalan’s 1992 book, remains in full control of the state. Salih Muslim, the PYD dish and Turkish community, the Syrian state confirmed it Analyses, Orders and Perspectives he writes: leader, has also made statements suggesting Arabs may be would assist Turkey in driving out the PKK. “On these subjects, they leave aside all the real measure - forcibly expelled from Kurdish areas. The Syrian regime incurred Turkish ire for its lack of ac - ments and find someone and gossip, say ‘this was attempted David Graeber, in his widely-read Guardian article “Why is tion, but when Turkey broke off diplomatic relations in 1998, to be done to me here’ or ‘this was done to me there’! These the world ignoring the revolutionary Kurds in Syria?” Syria reacted and Öcalan was deported. shameless women both want to give too much and then de - (bit.ly/graebr), says in passing: “Clearly, authoritarian ele - From exile in Rome, Öcalan declared that he wanted an velop such things… I’m saying it openly again. This is the ments remain”, but does not expand on what this means and end to the war and to get a political solution to Kurdish au - sort of warrior I am. I love girls a lot, I value them a lot. I love how or whether this will be overcome. tonomy through a “process of peace and democracy”. all of them. I try to turn every girl into a lover… I define my - The KCK contract which is part of the political basis for Ro - He was arrested in Nairobi by the Turkish intelligence self openly. If you find me dangerous, don’t get close!” java states that: “This system is one that takes into account forces and has remained in a Turkish prison in Imerli ever The PKK dropped the hammer and sickle from its flag in ethnic, religious and class differences on a social basis... Three since. He was sentenced to death, but pressure from the EU, 1991 and now does not consider itself a nationalist organisa - systems of law will apply in Kurdistan: EU law, unitary state which Turkey was hoping to join, commuted his sentence to tion as it no longer calls for an independent Kurdistan. It law, democratic confederal law”. life imprisonment. Through his lawyers, he remains the views itself as the military wing of the “Kurdish freedom Whilst the Rojava cantons are vastly superior to the me - PKK’s leader. movement”, and although it remains committed to armed dieval barbarism of ISIS we should not have illusions that He is commonly known as Apo, meaning uncle. His pub - struggle in defence of Kurds it no longer describes this as its such a system has somehow abolished class antagonisms, or lished books, particularly since his arrest are extensive, and main field of activity. that a guerrilla movement with a Stalinist background has his image adorns the yellow flags of Kurdish protestors and Like the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein the PKK has now been able to transform itself so readily and with little oppo - activists across the world. moved towards gaining wider political legitimacy. The sitTiohne i nPtYoD p raontdec ittosr sa lolife ad l ifboerrcteasri aanre a udteofneonmdionugs tzhoen Ke. urds Zaher Baher of Haringey Solidarity Group and Kurdistan Union of Communities in Kurdistan (KCK) is now the um - from IS fighters and protecting the right of Kurds to self- Anarchists Forum has commented that the work of Öcalan brella organisation that brings together the PKK and all its determination. That is enough to mandate international is treated almost as “sacred”, and that schoolchildren are told international affiliates, political parties and campaigning or - solidarity; but the need for independent working-class about him as the great leader of the Kurdish people. ganisations. and socialist politics among the Kurds is still very real. His control of over the PKK and its affiliates from prison Following Öcalan’s arrest and imprisonment there has remains very strong. The apparent shift in their ideology been a supposed change in his ideology to something he from a nationalist variant of “Marxism-Leninism” (Stalinism) •Sources: bit.ly/refpkk 9 FEATURE Never go down The gothic reaction to without a fight How I became a socialist industrial capitalism by Karina Knight

Luke Hardy reviews ‘The Art of the Gothic’, BBC 4. century as a nightmarish, I was born in 1974 and grew up in the north east of What have Karl Marx, Dracula, a modern robotic produc - smog-smothered, warren of England in the 70s and 80s. tion line and St Pancras station got in common? Accord - slums, prisons, degradation, poverty and despair, beside It was a properly matriarchal family. My mother was ing to Andrew Dixon, they all have more then a touch of the gothic about them. a diseased and polluted one of six sisters. Their deceased father and their mother river. had been solid Labour supporters. I was told stories by In this three part series, Dixon makes a convincing and fas - It was in the final instal - Lesley (my mother) of them stitching rosettes for the party cinating case that the gothic sensibility has become a way of ment that Dixon’s idiosyn - when they were young “until their fingers bled” — there responding to and critiquing industrial capitalism and the cratic vision came fully into may have been some exaggeration, maybe not! urbanism, technology and pollution that comes with it. its own. Dixon points out There were also socialist feminist politics about — my Dixon points out that the modern, world-wide obsession how much gothic imagery is Scarlet Women auntie Anna had been involved in , a social - with the irrational, deranged, morbid and spectral that makes suffused through Marx’s cri - ist feminist zine, copies were knocking about the house. up gothic started out as little more then an aristocratic fash - tique of capitalism. The cap - We had posters of Victor Jara and the FSLN (the ion in mid-18th century Britain. Those fed up with “classi - italist is “vampire-like”, Nicaragua Sandinista National Liberation Front), courtesy cal” architecture and literature were drawn to medieval ruins spectres haunt Europe and of a couple of my uncles. and the bloodthirsty tragedies of William Shakespeare. Lost commodities are congealed, As I became politically aware in the early 80s, my earli - texts of the middle ages were re-discovered or made up and dead labour transmogrified est influences were anti-nuclear activity. Lesley was in - passed off as ancient. into voodoo-like fetishes. Dixon also talks about William volved in Coast CND (Whitley Bay) — we did flag days, However these ruling-class fads took on a very different Morris and his critique of modern production techniques and street theatre (which involved lots of dying) and I got dimension with the coming of industrial capitalism, the the factory system for dehumanising production. taken down to Greenham Common twice. I remember French revolution, and the scientific and a technological rev - Like Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s monster, technology being scared shitless a lot of the time. olution. Dixon introduces us to the painter Joseph Wright, under capitalism can sometimes seem to be beyond our con - Although socialist politics were present in the back - from Derby, who captured the new mills and foundries as trol and become a means of humanity’s own destruction. ground and were a fundamental influence on my concepts every bit as horrific and forbidding in the landscape as the Dixon also saw a gothic critique of empire in Joseph Conrad’s of right and wrong, we weren’t generally labour move - castles of Hamlet or Macbeth . Wright makes a scientist seem Heart of Darkness and in TS Eliot’s response to the First World ment activists. The miners’ strike went by on the telly. more like a dangerous sorcerer as he suffocates a bird in a War; The Wasteland . That’s not to say that members of my extended family elaborate but cruel experiment. Dixon’s history of Gothic was not definitive and left out weren’t involved, but if they were that knowledge didn’t Dixon expands his definition of gothic far beyond the usual many of influential artists and thinkers who inspired the filter through to 10 year old me. definition — horror stories and medieval style architecture gothic sensibility. The politics of gender and sexuality that My early teenage years were taken up with vegetarian - — to become by the nineteenth century a whole sensibility are so evident in the gothic writings of Ann Radcliffe, Oscar ism and animal rights. I knew the world was deeply un - and world view as contradictory as the age. There were reac - Wilde and Christina Rossetti were not even touched upon by fair and had a strong sense of morality, but it hadn’t found tionary utopians like Augustus Pugin and John Ruskin who DiYxoent .a s a partial short history of modern capitalist soci - political direction and was fundamentally individualistic. wanted to use gothic architecture to return to what they saw I flirted briefly with radical feminist ideas in my mid- ety through the fever dreams and nightmares of the as the certainties and social cohesion of the pre-capitalist gothic, it was a excellent piece of television. teens, but these were only attractive in that they gave po - middle ages. Dickens shows us the London of the mid-19th litical cover and justification in my mind to my lesbian sexuality — a psychological defence against internalised homophobia, if I’m brutally honest. I met the AWL in 1991. I learnt then about socialist ideas, about solidarity, about class unity. I came to under - The horror is in our own society stand that capitalism exploits the whole planet as well as the working class, that women’s structural oppression de - veloped in tandem with private property; that lots that we Harry Davies reviews ‘The Babadook’, in cinemas now. hold dear and important was won through class struggle; ‘The Babadook’ is an unexpected box office hit which that class society must end before we can become free, seems to have left some of its audience rather confused, physically, economically and psychologically; and that the to judge by online comments. is it a Nightmare on Elm working class has the power within it to radically trans - Streetstyle ghostly slasher film? An homage to The Shin - form the world. ing? An indie psychological horror? Actually I’d call it I stayed in the group until 1995. It wasn’t political differ - one of the finest horror films ever made. ences that made me fall out of activity. In 1995 I was in a minibus crash with our Lancaster comrades that ulti - ‘The Babadook’ tells the story of Amelia, struggling to raise mately claimed the lives of three of our young comrades, her “troubled” son whilst barely clinging onto a precarious one of whom was my partner, Jo Walker. Guilt, grief and zero hours nursing home contract. The mechanistic forces of depression took me out of functioning life for a few years. an uncaring, target-driven state surround her; the teachers In some ways, it was easier during the period of the who don’t seem to know her son’s name and want to exclude Labour government to not think too hard. Yes, they ex - him from mainstream education, the police who giggle tended privatisation of the NHS and other public services openly at her fears even as she weeps in front of them, the but the investment was there, you could get an NHS ap - supercilious social workers, so clearly judging everything pointment within target time, I had a well enough paying they observe in her troubled home. job to insulate myself. Amelia is broke, depressed and isolated. It’s a powerful Then the Tories came back, fighting for their class with performance by Essie Davis, a deeply affecting account of all their might, to destroy our limited gains and send our what it is to be working class and in pain in a society that class back to penury. would rather not think about either subject. And then there’s Mister Babadook himself, a rather nasty When they were elected I felt like we had a stark choice: Amelia struggles to raise her son in a society that doesn’t care either roll over and die, or fight back. No escaping the bit - piece of work, inclined to communicate through the medium ter fact of class war now, it was right on our doorstep. It of an unpleasantly graphic pop-up book, or occasionally was time to re-engage with socialist politics seriously, and whispering his name late at night. Represented by a combi - Soon, we’re almost desperate to see the focus shift back to to become organised again. It’s taken a couple of years to nation of puppetry and stop motion animation, the Babadook the Babadook again; his supernatural frights are somehow get back to where I was — some long-term mental health is everything that children are irrationally scared of. He’s the far more palatable than the grim and all too common domes - issues needed sorting, but here I am. monster under the bed, the dark in the wardrobe and also tic situation which unravels with painful inevitability, until Even when we lose a battle there are some things to the manifestation of some very adult terrors too. the unexpected and (almost original) ending which carries a be gained: knowledge, confidence, the forging of links The power of this extraordinary film lies in its ambiguity. powerful and unsettling resonance, especially for anyone and solidarity between sections of our class; the per - Like all good horror films, it balances the oldest fears of the who’s ever had to deal with overwhelming personal issues of sonal and collective dignity of every victory, and in night with a believable set of very contemporary real life ter - their own. every defeat, the knowledge that we could not, and The tagline is a gift to reviewers: “You can’t get rid of rors. We’re shown a situation tragically all too common, as the Babadook”; I couldn’t agree more. absolutely did not, go down without a fight. Amelia’s identity collapses under external economic and so - cial pressures and internal psychological trauma. 810 FEATURE De Leon: a revolutionary pioneer

Our Movement attended by Eugene V. Debs and Bill Haywood, and agreed De Leon and the SLP were amongst those who continued to set up a new labour organisation — the Industrial Work - to advocate political action. As he wrote in Reform or Revolu - by Michéal MacEoin ers of the World (IWW). tion : “The capitalist is organised on both lines. You must at - In its scope and aims, the IWW was far beyond any of the tack him on both.” Daniel De Leon (1852-1914) was a pioneer of the Ameri - unions in the US at the time — and in many ways, since. The SLP then split from the IWW in 1908, and formed its can socialist movement, educating a generation in the As the American Trotskyist James P. Cannon wrote: “The own Workers’ International Industrial Union. It never made basics of class-struggle revolutionary politics. men who founded the IWW were pioneer industrial union - much of an impact and the SLP continued as a propagandist ists, and the great industrial unions of today stem directly sect. Born in the Dutch colony of Curacao, off the coast of from them. But they aimed far beyond industrial unionism as De Leon’s attempts to combine industrial and political ac - Venezuela, on 14 December 1852, he was educated in law in a bargaining agency recognising the private ownership of in - tion count in his favour, though they were not without prob - Germany and the Netherlands. He moved to the United dustry as right and unchangeable. They saw the relations of lems either. His brand of “Marxist-syndicalism” contained a States in 1874, finding work as a lecturer. capital and labour as a state of war.” conception of politics that was narrow and overly legalistic Settling in New York, De Leon became influenced by the The idea of class war and the irreconcilability of class inter - writings of the socialist novelist Edward Bellamy. He joined ests was at the heart of the IWW, as enshrined in its famous and schematic, with the main constructive element residing the Knights of Labour, a fraternal organisation which never - preamble: “The working class and the employing class have in the industrial organisation. theless began to act as a trade union, organising railroad nothing in common.” In his reckoning, workers would use the ballot-box for the strikes and demanding the eight-hour day. As well as fighting the class struggle on the economic front purposes of attaining and then destroying political power; at Despite his well-off background as the son of a colonial of - and popularising the idea of industrial unionism — that all the same time, their unions would “take and hold” the econ - ficial, De Leon threw himself into left-wing political life. His workers in a given industry should be united together omy at a workplace, and power would be simply transferred enthusiastic support for Henry George, United Labor Party against their employers — the IWW was also, in effect, a rev - to a new “industrial form of government.” candidate in the 1886 New York mayoral election, may well olutionary political organisation, making propaganda for the In reality, the dynamics of revolution (as in Russia in 1917) have cost him his part-time teaching job at Colombia Univer - overthrow of capitalism. proved more fluid, with new structures (such as soviets) sity. However, as Cannon wrote: “One of the most important emerging in the course of struggle. This required a revolu - In 1890, De Leon joined the Socialist Labor Party (SLP), be - contradictions of the IWW, implanted at its first convention tionary party with a more expansive conception of politics coming the editor of its newspaper, The People, and its candi - and never resolved, was the dual role it assigned to itself. Not than simply the ballot box, organising the most advanced date for governor of New York the following year. He soon the least of the reasons for the eventual failure of the IWW workers around a programme which could see the working- established himself as a prominent figure in the party, advo - — as an organization — was its attempt to be both a union of class navigate its way to power. cating a form of revolutionary Marxism. all workers and a propaganda society of selected revolution - Nevertheless, those like De Leon and the IWW, were rev - De Leon was a vociferous critic of the shortcomings in ex - ists — in essence a revolutionary party. Two different tasks olutionary pioneers, operating at a time when the US labour isting American trade union movement — especially the and functions, which, at a certain stage of development, re - movement was in its relative infancy. That the subsequent American Federation of Labor (AFL), dubbed by some radi - quire separate and distinct organizations, were assumed by generation saw further was because the IWW had already cals as the “American Separation of Labor” on account of or - the IWW alone; and this duality hampered its effectiveness in laid much of the important groundwork. ganising workers along narrowly-defined craft lines. both fields.” De Leon died in New York on 11 May 1914. His politics In 1895, the SLP set up the Socialist Trade and Labor Al - Indeed, it soon suffered a number of splits on an explicitly contained many of the necessary elements – class strug - liance (STLA) after the party was ejected from the Knights of political basis which shattered its industrial unity. The 1905 gle, revolutionary political organisation, and the unity of Labour. Although the new union was never much more than version of the IWW constitution mentioned that the working the working-class on the industrial front. Yet they were an extension of the SLP, it was a precursor for an altogether class should “come together on the political as well as the in - arranged awkwardly, like a Cubist portrait, and it was for more important development in US labour history. dustrial field”. Almost immediately, however, there were his successors to render a clearer and more coherent On 27 June 1905, De Leon took part in a convention of mil - some who wished to remove the reference to the political picture. itant trade union activists in Chicago. The meeting was also field and focus instead on strikes, boycotts and direct action. “Stalin renders commendable service to Fascism”

Another day

Benito Mussolini ad - dressed to Joseph Stalin last week, the felicitations of one butcher to another. He wrote in his own paper, Popolo d’ltalia , that Stalin “had become a fascist” and, in effect, that Stalin was doing more than any other to destroy the faith of the workers of the world in the communist movement. For cutting down thousands of revolutionists as “fas - cist spies,” Stalin has won the gratitude of the fascist dic - tator, Mussolini. Let those who still think they can believe in the monstrous frame-up-terror system of Stalin, who think they can ignore the heavy blows the Stalin terror is dealing the whole revolutionary move - ment, ponder the brutal irony in the words of Mussolini: “Stalin does not resort to castor oil to punish Commu - nist leaders who are so stupid or criminal as still to be - lieve in Communism, Stalin is unable to understand the subtle irony involved in the laxative system of castor oil. He makes a clean sweep by means of systems which we“rSet abloinrn r einn tdheer st eap cpoems omf eGnednagbhlies Ksehravnic ..e. to fas - These front pages are from the American Trotskyist newspaper Labor Action, cism.” published in the 1930s and 40s. Socialist Appeal, March 12 1938 311 REPNOERWTS

Labour’s NHS bill: not good enough Cleaners strike over

By Jill Mountford, by Unite, Unison and the gather some cross-party support for the Bill but more Save Lewisham GMB leaders, it’s an attempt support and none of the importantly raising our own bosses’ racism Hospital Campaign, to show Labour mean to re - sponsors come from any independent demands for Cleaners working for In - store bits of the NHS with - party other than Labour. the NHS. terserve at Waterloo sta - rience low pay, unsafe and personal capacity. out committing to any In the run up to second Repeal of the Health and tion struck on 10-11 unpleasant conditions, and spending and without chal - reading on 21 November the Social Care is top of the list, November after a man - substitution by agency After months of specula - lenging the crippling PFI unions are organising town- followed by calls for the re - ager claimed “we workers. tion and vague promises debts accumulated by hospi - centre street stalls to tell versal of cuts and a massive shouldn’t be employing Cleaners on the Eurostar Labour’s Clive Efford MP tal trusts under New people about the Bill and cash injection to meet grow - black people.” fought a campaign this has published his NHS Labour. Labour’s commitment to the ing healthcare needs; re - year over pay, workload (Amended Duties and The Bill says it will restore NHS. But this is a really moval of the PFI burden on The strikes will take and staffing levels. Clean - Powers) Private Members the powers of the Secretary tepid, half-baked approach the NHS, an end to privati - place between 3pm on ers on London Under - Bill. of State for Health (to en - to campaigning. sation and the market in the Monday and 3pm on Tues - ground’s Jubilee, Northern sure there is a national There’s speculation that NHS; a decent living wage day, and for a further 24 and Piccadilly lines battled Was it worth waiting for? health service) but in fact the Bill could be amended to for NHS workers; a guaran - hours starting at 3pm on hard to resist their em - With the political limits of will give the Secretary of include more radical and far tee of safe staffing levels; an 21 November. ployer’s imposition of bio - the Labour Party and the State the duty to commis - reaching demands. Some of end to blaming migrants for The RMT union says metric booking on. practical limits of what a sion. the demands in Allyson Pol - the NHS crisis. After the bosses have refused to ad - Cleaners fought a dispute Private Member’s Bill can It will repeal Section 75 lock’s NHS Reinstatement protest there will be a meet - dress the allegation with contractor Voith on achieve, it was never going (bringing in competition to Bill which she and others ing inside to discuss how we through agreed proce - Virgin West Coast over the to repeal the 2012 Health the NHS) and that is good. are campaigning for Labour can organise to win our de - dures. The union also says victimisation of a work - and Social Care Act , nor re - It stops any UK govern - to commit to could be incor - mands. Clive Efford and Interserve has underpaid mate. Merseyrail’s clean - verse the cuts and privatisa - ment agreeing to any legally porated. But these are big ifs Andy Burnham are among wages, as well as victimis - ing contractor Lorne tion of the NHS. The Bill enforceable procurement or and as it stands, the Bill invited speakers. ing, bullying and harass - Stewart faced strike action mitigates some of the worst Join us outside Parlia - competition provisions for does not go far enough and ment and come along to ing staff. after tabling a below-infla - bits of the Health and Social the NHS in the current doesn’t stand much of Cleaners at Waterloo are tion pay offer. Care Act, but not nearly the meeting at 2pm in the Workers on all grades Transatlantic Trade and In - chance of becoming law. House of Commons. Join not the only ones facing should support the dis - enough. vestment Partnership treaty On 21 November cam - these conditions, or fight - Backed by the Labour the fight to save our NHS! putes of cleaners in their negotiations. paigners will be outside Par - ing back. Across various union. leadership and supported The Bill still needs to liament encouraging contractors, cleaners expe - German train drivers strike again Care UK offers deal

By Gemma Short By Gemma Short over anything to do with a shorter working week of terms and conditions or 37 hours. Unison members at Care pay, effectively meaning we German train drivers Train company Deutsche UK are being balloted struck again from can’t strike.” Bahn took a case to a labour over an offer from man - Unison is recommending Wednesday 5 November court in Frankfurt trying to agement. to Saturday 8 November. that members accept the gain an injunction which offer. would rule the strike “dis - After 90 days on strike in Drivers’ union GDL called a dispute over Care UK On their facebook group the strike off early on Satur - proportionate” and force some strikers have ex - drivers back to work. slashing pay by 35% and re - day as a “conciliatory ges - cruiting new staff on a pressed their disappoint - ture”, meaning the strike Lawyers for Deutsche Bahn ment. One said “None of us claimed the strike was cost - much lower wage, manage - did not disrupt celebrations ment have offered an imme - are celebrating at all, each of the anniversary of the fall ing the German economy and every one of us deserve €100 million a day. The diate 2% increase, followed of the Berlin wall. by 2% in both 2015 and 2016 a lot more!” in response to The strike is the sixth in strike has knocked out Unison’s claims that work - about two thirds of Ger - or an increase equivalent to recent weeks, following a 50 the Consumer Price Index if ers are celebrating a victory. hour strike in late October. maGnDyL’s itsr ayient s teor vaincen. ounce Another said “So we’re now more action. that is higher. The union is demanding a Andy Squires, Unison celebrating having our five per cent wage hike and steward, said “it is generally wages cut by up to 33% in - speaking a good offer for stead of 35%. Celebratory the private sector, but does - drTinhkes ?b Nalolo tth calnoks eyso uo!n” 24 n’t come anywhere near to November. Appeals for Housing charity workers win on pay recouping the 35% lost.” donations and messages However, he said, “the offer of solidarity are still on comes with a three-year no going. By Charlotte Zalens The offer sees workers on Mungo’s Broadway will also Unite regional officer strike deal, we cannot strike a two tier system, following honour an existing recogni - Nicky Marcus said: “This is Unite members at St the merger of two charities, tion agreement Unite had a significant victory not just Mungo’s Broadway cele - leveled up to the better set with one of th pre-merger for staff, but for the service Defend Julie Davies brated on Wednesday 5 of terms and conditions. St charities. users our members work so Teachers at two schools November after manage - tirelessly to help. It is a tes - in Haringey, London, taking action. ment made concessions tament to what can be struck on 5 November to Teachers in two more in ACAS talks. achieved when workers defend suspended branch schools, Park View and Hornsey, are being balloted Workers were set to strike stand shoulder to shoulder secretary Julie Davies. to join the strikes. for another 10 days, follow - and say enough is enough.” There will be a lobby of ing 7 days on strike in Octo - During the strike in Octo - The teachers at Fortismere Haringey council at 6pm ber, in a dispute over pay ber Unite members organ - and Highgate Wood schools on 24 November and fu - and union rights. Manage - ised 19 pickets, covering all gathered on Crouch End ture strikes on 12-13 No - ment have reversed their de - the London-based charity’s and Muswell Hill Broad - vember at Fortismere and cision to change pay, terms offices as well as lobbies and ways, handing out leaflets Highgate Wood. and conditions for frontline protests at the Town Hall to explain why they were buildings of councils who workers. Unite says that St Cineworld: pay your staff a living wage! Mungo’s Broadway man - woUrnki twei tmh ethmeb cehrasr iwtyil. l be agement have “agreed to balloted on the offer. Sign the petition: chn.ge/1wOEgrN 99.9% of our demands.” No 343 12 November 2014 Solidarity 30p/80p We can win free education!

By Tom Harris going. edge that their parents will begun looking 16 years later, those pre - stump up some cash if into hiring The British student move - dictions have been vindi - things get too grim. overseas ment should take its lead cated. An undergraduate But hundreds of thou - bailiffs to try from its counterparts in course will now cost a sands of students from and track Germany, Chile and other British or EU student £9,000 poorer backgrounds are less down students countries, which suc - a year — three times as able to rely on family sup - who have ceeded in overturning the much as it did five years port when money is tight. moved abroad introduction of a sham - ago, nine times as much as it Instead, more and more are without alert - bolic, transparently unfair did in 1998. pushed into working long ing the Student system of tuition fees. The principle of education hours to keep themselves Loan Com - as a universal right and a afloat, work that takes place pany. And it must go further, public good has been deeply during what are supposed Before that, and demand that the debt undermined, and the higher to be full-time degrees. they consid - hanging over millions of education sector is now rife The problems don’t end ered selling off students who have already with privatisation. with graduation. When the £12 billion left study is abolished. Under the current fees government moved to treble worth of loan On the introduction of tu - regime, students will have fees in 2010, ministers debt into pri - ition fees in 1998, many pre - an automatic debt of £27,000 brushed aside concerns vate hands. dicted that the change from three years of under - about the burden of debt, That plan was would further entrench uni - graduate study. claiming that since a univer - abandoned in versity education as the pre - sity degree enables students the face of a serve of those wealthy DEBT to enter well-paid profes - combination of enough to pay. In reality, debt accrued sions, the debt could be rela - student protest Students on the 18 October TUC demonstration It was predicted that the through the cost of living tively painlessly paid off. and coalition loan system would saddle over that period of time is Unfortunately, this argu - in-fighting. It is terms. The system seems un - much of the responsibility millions of students with often over £50,000. ment rests on the idea that a likely the government will debt that would take degree more or less guaran - continue to devise ways of workable and shoddily exe - for funding education away decades for them to pay off. It is much worse for post - tees access to a high-paying raking back the debt, which cuted. from collective public fund - It was predicted that once graduate and international job. In fact young workers is predicted to amount to But in a sense, the intro - ing based on taxation and individual fees, rather than students — many have to are often employed in badly £330 billion by 2044. duction and rapid increase towards contributions from public funding, had been es - resort to commercial loans paid and precarious jobs. Considering the stated of tuition fees has worked prIitv ahtaes i nodpievnideuda alsn. enor - tablished as the means by to support them in their The government is start - motivation for trebling fees very well for the Tories, the mous gateway for private which education was studies. ing to get a bit panicky was to help reduce public neo-liberals in the Labour companies to enter the funded, its inexorable logic For some students, con - about the prospects of ever debt and make higher edu - Party and the ruling class higher education sector would lead to students pay - cerns about the cost of living getting the money back. Ac - cation less expensive to the they represent. and run it for profit. ing higher and higher sums during their studies are at cording to the Daily Mail , taxpayer, it would seem the The restructuring of edu - in order to keep the system least limited by the knowl - the government has recently policy has failed on its own cation funding has shifted MARCH FOR FREE EDUCATION Free Shahrokh Zamani and Reza Shahabi! Wed 19 Nov, 12pm Malet St, London Workers’ Liberty are campaigning for the re- including that of Irish TD WEDNESDAY 3 DECEMBER lease of Shahrokh Za- (MP) Ruth Coppinger. Co- mani and Reza Shahabi, median Kate Smurthwaite What you can do to help: Walk out of lectures, organise occupations and two trade unionists jailed also tweeted her support protests on your campus to spread the word in Iran. forS Soh faahrr wokeh h aanvde Rceozla-. • Take a petition around your union branch meet- about the free education movement lected 1543 signatures of ing, ask your work colleagues to sign or pass a pe- Shahrokh is part of the the 10,000 we aim to col- Tehran paint-workers’ tition around a university lecture you are in. SATURDAY 6 DECEMBER lect by Febru- • Organise a regular street stall; make banners union, Reza is the treasurer ary 11 2015. Make noise in your local town! Organise within of the Tehran bus-workers’ and placards, ask members of the public to sign union. Both have been your local community to keep up momentum the petition. from the national demonstration jailed on charges of “acting • Share the online petition — bit.ly/free- against national security by establishing or membership shahrokhandreza 13/14 DECEMBER of groups opposed to the • Change your facebook and twitter pictures to The annual national conference of NCAFC — the system” and “propaganda support Shahrokh and Reza. only democratic student-left group in the move - against the state.” • Write to your MP and ask them to sign the ment. Submit motions and stand in elections. This week activists col- Early Day Motion tabled by John McDonnell. lected signatures at Shape the movement for the coming year! Labour Representation • Join us outside the Iranian Embassy, Lon- Committee (LRC) confer- don on February 11 to hand in our petition [email protected] ence and at the Socialist signatures. Party’s “Socialism 2014”, anticuts.com