A paper of Marxist polemic and Marxist unity Another fine mess: SWP n Letters and debate n China and Covid-19 embroiled in scandal n Lenin 150 years over sexual misconduct n CPGB 100 years No 1297 April 30 2020 Towards a mass Communist Party £1/€1.10 Why do people believe in conspiracy theories? Edmund Griffiths investigates weekly 2 April 30 2020 1297 worker LETTERS Letters may have been common programme, but, rather, are the Reagan-Bush Sr drug war from impact of the pandemic on capitalism, (PCC) is looking to unite Marxists, shortened because of nothing more than a state-regulated the right by arguing for stiffer and on the working class, nationally however currently misguided, into space. Some names mutual-assistance organisation for penalties against drug users as well as and internationally (‘Crisis and such a party. United, not around a may have been changed aspiring office-holders. By all means, drug dealers - but he’s also an arch- consequences’). The same concerns - charismatic leader or an esoteric let’s detach Democratic voters, and imperialist who’s been neck-deep for capitalism at least - are shared by reading of Marx or Lenin, but around Republican ones as well, from such a in every major US crime of the last politicians, academics and the media, a programme. There can be factions US democracy corrupt structure. But it’s impossible 30 years, from the invasion of Iraq as we can see each day, though with a and disagreements, but unity in action. In his March 12 article, ‘Lessons being to split the organisation, since the and Afghanistan to the destruction good deal less foresight and candour. To that end the Weekly Worker has learned’, Paul Demarty observed that politicians actually are firmly united of Libya, Syria and Yemen, covert What is going to happen to the regular critiques and analyses on the “The USA is born of two revolutions in pursuit of their own narrow self- assistance to al Qa’eda, and support airlines, to the leisure industry? multitude of grouplets that, loosely, so far.” The last two words set my interests. for the neo-Nazi-spearheaded coup What cheap pickings are going to be define ‘the left’ and also allows for teeth on edge because they suggested Similarly, Paul Demarty should in the Ukraine. If his first major available to the vultures and what reply - not only in letters but also, that the next revolution will be a understand that fighting for “a campaign ad was an attack on Trump is going to happen to jobs? As Mike from time to time, in articles. continuation of the other two. distinctive programme for actual for not being tougher on the Chinese, points out, long-term unemployment I am reminded that when I was This is why I characterised his democracy” means repudiating the it’s because American aggression is all over the world, even with a new to the paper (not all that long argument as “popular frontist” corrupt pseudo-democratic politics in his bones. So, while he’d be better few ‘pay-outs’, is likely to lead to ago) I looked at interesting articles (‘Democracy is central’, April that have characterised the US since in Wisconsin, he’d be worse when it starvation. online in the ‘WW archive’. A mate 17) - because it echoes the US the civil war - indeed, since before comes to the rest of the world, where We can see, in stark clarity, basic of mine used to be in the International Communist Party argument of the the civil war. Any such programme US power predominates. inequalities - often spoken of by Socialists, but left the Socialist 1930s and after - that leftists should must entail democratic centralism, Trump, it’s worth remembering, politicians, the pope and, of course, Workers Party because he reckoned fight on the basis of a specifically unicameralism, proportional won in 2016 because he opposed the Davos crowd. But that was just that it had become a sect. So, as a American programme of Jeffersonian representation, strictest political US misadventures in Syria and the something to regret, something to ‘do matter of curiosity I read the obituaries democracy, agrarianism and a equality and popular sovereignty Ukraine. While Daum and Roberts something about’ - or ignore, as the of Tony Cliff - not surprisingly there properly-interpreted constitution. over and above parchment documents say that Democrats took a stand more alert of us might have realised. was a lot of criticism. However, there It is this policy that established the like the Constitution and the Bill against “lawless authoritarianism” in These inequalities cannot be so easily was an obituarist (and I haven’t been CPUSA as leftwing supplicants of of Rights, all of which would have the recent impeachment trial, what ignored, now that people are dying able to find the reference again) who the Democrats, but it is the diametric people like Jefferson rolling over really infuriated neocons like Adam because of them (and more will do so). said that, although Cliff was wrong opposite of the Trotskyist concept of in their graves. (Demarty might be Schiff was Trump’s ambivalence with Also, in stark clarity, stands the in claiming that the USSR was ‘state a united front of the working class, in interested to know that, in addition regard to the imperialist war effort in incompetence and indifference of capitalist’, nevertheless he would be which workers set themselves athwart to being an industrialist, urbanist Ukraine’s eastern provinces. governments. In Britain, decades of proud to march shoulder to shoulder any such bourgeois tradition. This and early opponent of slavery, As for Bonapartism, it’s important defunding and privatisation have led with him to battle against the ruling doesn’t mean that they should turn Alexander Hamilton argued in favour to bear in mind that the trend is to dire straits - not just in the NHS, class. their back on the events of 1776 or of a unicameral national assembly systemic. Not only have checks and but in care homes, local authority The fight to build a party, as can 1861-65. But establishing workers at the Constitutional Convention in balances led to a 35-year cold war provision of all kinds, including also be illuminated in the archive, is as an independent political force Philadelphia in 1787.) on Capitol Hill, but the very logic the environmental health workers bloody hard work. Just how hard can strongly encourages them to criticise As for Walter Daum and Matthew of the system suggests that the only needed for proper ‘test and trace’ be glimpsed in William Sarsfield’s that tradition root and branch. Roberts, I agree that America will way to unlock the logjam is by the work. And then we have the closure series of articles over the last several But comrade Demarty’s letter is take a giant step toward Bonapartism executive taking the bit in its teeth and of women’s refuges and all sorts of weeks (eg, ‘Party and parliament’, evidence that he doesn’t quite grasp if Trump succeeds in stealing the next asserting supremacy over the other facilities desperately needed by some April 23) about the fight to unify what this entails (April 23). He says election (Letters, April 23). I also agree two branches. Is Trump behaving - unnoticed by most and ditched by disparate groups in the UK to form a that the American left should “fight that Joe Biden is better when it comes unconstitutionally in so doing? Or is government. Communist Party. And this was at a to split the Democratic Party on class to voter suppression, gerrymandering he simply taking the constitution to its Just on page 2 of last weekend’s time when workers all over the world lines” and that doing so “must involve and the like. But I think they also suffer logical conclusion? Financial Times (April 25-26) there were inspired by the example of the a distinctive programme for actual from an unduly national perspective. Daum and Roberts add: were four stories. The main one Russian Revolution. democracy”. This assumes that the If they would step back, they would “Republicans are trying to unfreeze the was about “overwhelmed” care We do not now have that example in Democrats are indeed a political party, see that the situation is more complex republic by securing a new majority in homes, another about government our direct and immediate experience, just as the pundits and academics all say. and ironic than they apparently realise. the Supreme Court committed to an incompetence in the delivery of which may make things harder in the But, as I’ve argued elsewhere in this For example, not only is Biden’s unprecedented, counterrevolutionary gowns from Turkey. A third was short term, but maybe better in the space (eg, ‘Explosive contradictions’, record in purely democratic reinterpretation of the constitution.” about the unusual (internationally long. But we do have an international February 23), they are not a party as issues atrocious - he joined with But since when do socialists line up speaking) failure of the UK to check working class with massively greater the rest of the world understands the segregationists in opposing school behind judicial precedent? As for the international travellers at airports. The numbers and with a massively greater term, since they lack anything by way bussing, he was a key architect of counterrevolutionary reinterpretation fourth concerned the lack of progress level of education too. The job is still of a rank-and-file membership or a mass incarceration and he opposed that Republicans are allegedly by the UK on Brexit - something to hit there to do and we must do it.