There are no messiahs

Some thoughts on British Perspectives

2009-07-15T19:52:00.010+01:00

I have just read Britain - a rotten system!, an article on the CWI website by Peter Taaffe, of the (England and Wales) Socialist Party. I was interested in whether the analysis of the current situation in Britain rang any truer than the ones I remember from 15 or 20 years ago.

Well, the economic analysis is, as always, spot on. Economics was always Ted Grant's strong point, and he taught his comrades well. The only thing missing, although it is implied, is a clear statement that, despite the current crisis, capitalism will find a way out, and will return to growth, as it always does (of course I'm ignoring the possibility of a revolution here, but see later for more on that). That growth will probably be based on ramping up even further the plundering of the third world, together with both planned and as yet unimagined renewals of the productive forces. Today, the UK Government unveiled a decades-long plan for the renewal of the energy industry on low-carbon lines, and of course this, while being environmentally necessary, will result in the working class paying higher fuel bills and environmental taxes, which will go straight into the pockets of the big business winners of the contracts to build and run the new power stations, etc. I am also certain that there will be massive new developments in the area of communications and information technology. The capitalist class will also continue from where it left off in the expansion of world trade and the development of massive new markets in the East, particularly China. And as Taaffe says, this will be all be oiled by a resurgent and unrepentant banking system.

As an aside, I am very interested in how the open-source software movement fits in with monopoly capitalism. It is artisanal in approach, by no means socialist in character. It incorporates co-operative as well as right-wing libertarian ideals. It is growing as a competitor to the global monopoly of Microsoft, and is based on a networked, world-wide workforce, people drawn from all sorts of companies from IBM to one-man-and-a-dog start-ups, and even volunteers. I wonder if there has been any substantial Marxist analysis of this as an economic phenomenon?

Back to the matter in hand, Peter Taaffe is probably correct to believe that the crisis might be very prolonged, and that the recovery may well stutter along at a low level for quite a while. But the point is that there never will be a "final crisis" of capitalism, in the sense that it will collapse under its own contradictions. Marx pointed out that an important difference between capitalism and previous economic systems was its ability to repeatedly transform itself. Of course the contradictions, between the private ownership of the means of production and the massively social character of production itself, and between the capitalist nation state and ever-larger and more powerful global corporations, will intensify, and eventually lead to further, deeper, but still non-terminal, crises in the future. Because of this, I believe that the title of Taaffe's article could be misleading - if he means "rotten" in the sense of unpleasant, fair enough, but he means rotten in the sense of terminally decayed, then I disagree.

Where I start to differ with Taaffe is when he appears to predict that the crisis will necessarily lead to an upsurge in class struggle: "Classes, like nations, fight more ferociously over diminishing rations than growing ones." This, I believe, is the old wishful thinking breaking the surface once again. I seem to remember the same writer, (perhaps it was Ted Grant, but Peter Taaffe agreed) saying in perspectives documents during capitalist upturns, that "appetite increases with the eating", that is that the class struggle intensifies as the economy grows, because the working class, less cowered by the threat of redundancies, fights for some of the spoils of the boom. I believe that it is more complex than either of these, contradictory, statements. There are, of course, elements of truth in both, but there is no necessity or inevitability involved. It all depends on the political conclusions drawn by the working class, which to a large extent are linked to the leadership of the movement. Now, Taaffe might believe that there are signs, at least in the trade union movement, that the leadership is undergoing renewal, and might, therefore, be able to play a positive role in developing the conciousness of the working class along socialist lines. He hints at this, but I would like much more detail and evidence on exactly what might support this conclusion. I am completely out of touch with the trade union movement - like many others, I work in a completely un-unionised environment. However, I was as uplifted as anyone by the recent victories in a number of local workplace struggles, mentioned by Taafe, but I grew up in the 1970s, and for me it seems small beer indeed.

Another aside: I work in the IT industry, and in the 21st century, it is hard to imagine a potentially more powerful group of workers than computer programmers and operators. It is also, at least in the private sector, almost entirely un-organised, as far as I am aware. As a section of the working class, we are definitely privileged, both in pay and conditions, and I'm sure that not a few socialists would write off this sector as effectively petit-bourgeois, and certainly an awful lot of my colleagues like to think that they are. However, I would think, that for a movement serious about changing the world, this sector would be an important one into which to make inroads, however difficult it might be. In my industry, change is coming, which quite apart from the recession, will threaten jobs, pay and conditions: the ever-increasing power of global communication networks is now enabling the outsourcing of almost any job in IT to the third world. What started with the helpdesks and call centres is now being applied to very skilled jobs indeed. Whether this would make possible the development of a class conciousness amongst such workers as a whole, I don't know, but it is true that these are the people who could bring capitalism to a halt, almost literally with the flick of a switch.

To sum up my position on the possibility of serious national struggles erupting in the workplaces, I believe we are a long way behind the situation in the 1970s. The trade union movement has a long way to go ideologically, even before it returns to the days of Scanlon and Jones. There is also the massive challenge of the terminal decline of the old organised industries and the need to organise the largely unorganised "new technology" industries, which might place it, historically speaking, further back still. I therefore do not see the immediate prospect, certainly not out of the current recession, of a generalised revival of industrial struggle. Of course there will be some struggle, and some victories, which I will applaud, but my point remains.

I now want to discuss the final section of Peter Taaffe's article, entitled "A new workers' party". I am afraid I cannot agree that the 150,000 vote for No2EU - Yes to Democracy in the European Election is credible in any way at all. This vote was less than two thirds that of the Christian Party "Proclaiming Christ's Lordship" and less than one sixth that of the fascists. And standing on a common platform with what I believe to be the Stalinist rump of the CPGB is likely to ensure that it will never "establish a presence in the eyes of the workers". If revolutionary socialism is to have any future at all it must disassociate itself completely from the slightest hint of Stalinism. I am all in favour of "broad left" alliances in the trade union movement, but to form a general political bloc with such people is a grave mistake. I also believe that even the name on the ballot paper: No2EU - Yes to Democracy is completely lacking in political content, and might even have attracted the mistaken votes of some who thought they were voting for something similar to UKIP. To my mind, this election result is simply confirmation of just how far back the movement has been set since the defeats of the 1980s. Please, can we not be honest and realistic about this?

In the final paragraph of the article, Taaffe says:

British politics is in an unprecedentedly volatile period. Capitalism has failed and that will be increasingly seen to be the case. A section of workers, in despair, has swung over in protest to support the BNP. But this will prove to be ephemeral, if the left gets its act together and provides an electoral fighting and campaigning alternative. Socialism, off the agenda during the neo-liberal dark night of the 1990s and early part of this century, is coming back. Marxism – which can provide a vital spine to a new mass workers’ formation – is appealing to a new generation. The Socialist Party intends to fully participate in the re-fashioning of the workers’ movement, which is vital for politically arming the new generation that will be compelled to engage in battle – as the workers of Linamar, Visteon and Lindsey have done – and draw all the necessary conclusions.

(my emphasis)

If the first part of this paragraph means that the fascists' support might be more than ephemeral if the left doesn't get its act together, then I'm in agreement. Unfortunately I don't see any immediate prospect of the "left" getting its act together. This isn't the fault of the Socialist Party, the blame must be laid squarely with the historically spineless leadership of our movement, and particularly the usurpers of the Labour Party. Incidentally, I believe it is an omission to ever refer to the BNP without using the word "fascist" in the same sentence. I hope it is true that most of the nearly one million people who voted for them were just confused and/or embittered, and if this is the case we must use every opportunity to call the fascist BNP by its right name. No-one who the left has the opportunity to talk to should be left with any doubt about the real character and agenda of those Hitler-loving, murderous thugs.

Finally, I want to draw attention to the two sentences which I have highlighted in the quote above. Unfortunately, Socialism is not, at present, "coming back". I would agree that the economic crisis, especially the role of the banks, has made it possible, perhaps, to begin to discuss socialist ideas with working class people without being thought of as a raving lunatic, but that is a long way from putting it on the agenda for the mass of the working class, the left is far too weak for that.

As far as Marxism appealing (present tense) to a new generation, well, that is fantasy, if this means anything more than the Socialist Party is picking up a few dozen new recruits. I would say that Marxism might appeal to a new generation, given time, if Marxists have the humility to accept the historical low point at which Marxism currently sits, and the imagination to move away from the old cliches and certainties and hyperbole.

Having said that, these concluding words are a great improvement on the triumphalism of Militant or Militant Labour perspectives of the past, and I do understand how bitter a pill it must have been to swallow, that the movement has come to this after so many years of hard work, and after the peaks of the mid-eighties.

Liverpool Revisited: Was Militant Right To Appoint Sam Bond?

2009-07-15T01:55:00.002+01:00

Here's an old one which may or may not be relevant to other discussions:

“The inbuilt arrogance of this view was given a boost by Militant's puffed-up self-satisfaction after July 1984. They felt themselves all-powerful. In October of that year they launched themselves into an utterly destructive and divisive conflict.

Sampson Bond, a Militant supporter, was appointed as council race relations officer against the strong opposition of the Black Caucus, a committee of black groups set up to liaise with the council under the Liberal administration.

The Black Caucus said that Bond had got the job only because he supported Militant policies - policies that opposed any positive discrimination - and resolutely insisted that the problems of the black working class were no different from those of the white working class. Militant replied that the Black Caucus just wanted the job for their own people.

But the Black Caucus had after all been recognised by the Labour council as more or less representative of Liverpool blacks. Liverpool City Council NALGO boycotted Bond. The Trades Council, the council joint shop stewards committee, the regional TGWU, and most black groups, called for the appointment to be reconsidered. Militant climb down? Never!

The 'Marxist leadership' tried to bulldoze all the objectors. A year later, the issue is still inflamed. The Black Caucus has moved from objections to Militant towards hostility towards the whole labour movement. Militant, outraged that the Caucus will not recognise the enthroned 'Marxist leadership', denounces it as a gang of 'pimps and gangsters' and has called the police against black demonstrators. The council joint shop stewards committee has been seriously strained and disrupted by the affair.”

http://archive.workersliberty.org/publications/readings/trots/liverp.htm

Iran, the Committee for a Workers International and the International Marxist Tendency

2009-07-13T22:34:00.005+01:00

I remember the days well, when it seemed that even a film review in Militant would end with with a call to nationalise the top 200 monopolies. (OK, on a good day, it would only call for the nationalisation of the film industry.) As a strategy for attracting well-rounded, intelligent and thinking working class people to the organisation, this slightly obsessive and hectoring approach always seemed wrong.

Even in more substantial writings on political issues, often very good analysis over several pages would somehow work itself up into a frenzy by the end, and what started off in measured terms would end on an almost insane high, as if the author were addressing the masses outside the Petrograd Soviet, rather than writing in a journal with a circulation of a few thousand at most.

I have to say that the defeats of the last 20 years do not seem to have moderated this tendency. An example of what I mean can be seen in Tony Saunois' recent article on the crisis in Iran, on the website of the Committee for a Workers International . After several paragraphs of good analysis he finishes with the following:

However, the genie is now out of the bottle and a decisive new phase of the struggle has been opened in Iran. The struggle for genuine democratic rights, the right to strike, to hold free elections, form free trade unions, political parties and equality for women needs to be fought for by all workers, youth and socialists. The emergence of the working class into this movement can give it the necessary cohesion and power to defeat the regime. The formation of democratically elected committees of struggle from the workplaces and universities linking with the middle class and urban poor can form the basis of a united struggle. The calling of a general strike and forming a defence militia along with a class appeal to the rank and file of the army are steps which are necessary to take the movement forward to overthrow the regime. Such committees could also convene elections to a revolutionary constituent assembly to decide the future of Iran. The guarantee of democratic rights and a solution to the mass poverty and unemployment can only then be assured with the formation of a workers’ and peasants government on a revolutionary socialist programme to transform society in the interests of all working people.

Surely before writing this sort of thing, there should be some chance of it taking place, or at the very least the ideas should be on the agenda in some significant sense? Otherwise it might seem to be a bit like the advice of Harry Enfield's know-it-all father-in-law character: "you don't want to do it like that!" It is a long, long way from youth and students on the streets of Tehran, groping towards political conclusions after a fixed election result, to the establishment of dual power and the instruments of a workers state. A much too long way in my opinion.

It is true that the "reformist" establishment in Tehran is not to be trusted, and Saunois' prescriptions may very well be the only way to overthrow the theocracy, but to preach in this way is ultra-left adventurism, to coin a phrase.

An interesting contrast in approach can be seen in this piece by Alan Woods, heir of Ted Grant, and of course previously a colleague of Saunois', now of the International Marxist Tendency, on the same subject:

(it is, necessarily, a longer quote from Woods, as he doesn't sum up his position with anything like the condensed rhetorical flourish of Saunois, which is to Woods' credit)

Despite everything, the movement is continuing to display remarkable resilience. In addition to continuing protests in Tehran, there are reports of protests in Shiraz by university students and a strike in Tabriz. The only way to carry the movement forward would be a general strike, which, under prevailing conditions would put the question of a national insurrection on the order of the day. Mousavi has made vague references to a general strike, but no concrete proposal has been made, no day has been named, no preparations begun. People are going to work for the simple reason that no one has asked them to stay at home.

No one has called for a strike. But strikes could still break out. One report says: “The mood is tense and the environment for strikes is actually there. There is a lot of talk about it. Everyone is discussing the possibility of strikes. But so far no one has gone on strike. The banks are open for business. All the stores in the Bazaar were open.” Here we see the vital role of leadership. According to The Green Brief: ”There were sporadic reports of a more successful strike in parts of the Kurdish-inhabited areas of north-western Iran. In Kurdistan province, the cities of Sanadanj and Seqqez were reported to have had half their shops closed.”

The Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network reported that the workers of the service line unit of the Ferdowsi branch of the Sanandaj Communication Office went on strike on June 22, 2009 near the office. The workers struck when they were told that they were about to be sacked and that a new workforce with lower wages would replace them. Reports like this indicate that the Iranian workers are beginning to enter the struggle, putting their class demands to the fore. What is needed is to generalize the strikes and link them up into a national strike, together with mass demonstrations.

The Iranian Marxists have produced an excellent leaflet signed by comrade Maziar Razi which puts forward a number of apposite transitional demands:

(quotes leaflet)

Here we have the basic elements of a programme that, if it were taken up by the Iranian workers, would provide the necessary formula for victory. In the end, the Iranian Revolution will triumph as a workers’ and peasants’ revolution or it will not triumph at all.

To my mind, this is much, much more measured. (follow the link above to read the text of the leaflet, which appears to base its suggestions on the real experiences of the audience, and does so without recourse to overblown rhetoric, at least in English translation).

The central idea in Woods' article is the idea of the general strike, an idea which as we know was a real idea, actually being discussed amongst the participants of the protests in Tehran. I do have some criticisms of Woods' language: I think, as is usual for the left, there is an overuse of works like "excellent" and "inevitable", but Saunois is no different in that.

The general analysis in both pieces is similar, and in my opinion correct. But language is important, and on this occasion Woods gets it much more right that Saunois.

Critical Support for the 'Deformed Workers' States'

2009-07-13T00:00:00.011+01:00

I agree, Trotsky never gave any support to the Stalinist bureaucracy. But I think that time proved that he was wrong in his assesment that the Soviet Union continued to represent a step forward from capitalism because of its "post-capitalist" property relations. And I am not sure that we can be sure that, had he lived, he wouldn't have changed his mind. His wife, Natalia Sedova, certainly did. Here is an extract from her resignation letter to the American section of the Fourth International in May, 1951:

“It should be clear to everyone that the revolution has been completely destroyed by Stalinism. Yet you continue to say that under this unspeakable regime, Russia is still a workers state or with socialism. They are the worst and the most dangerous enemies of socialism and the working class. You now hold that the states of Eastern Europe over which Stalinism established its domination during and after the war, are likewise workers states. This is equivalent to saying that Stalinism has carried out a revolutionary socialist role. I cannot and will not follow you in this.

After the war and even before it ended, there was a rising revolutionary movement of the masses in these Eastern countries. But it was not these masses that won power and it was not a workers state that was established by their struggle. It was the Stalinist counter-revolution that won power, reducing these lands to vassals of the Kremlin by strangling the working masses, their revolutionary struggles and their revolutionary aspirations.

By considering that the Stalinist bureaucracy established workers states in these countries, you assign to it a progressive and even revolutionary role. By propagating this monstrous falsehood to the workers vanguard, you deny to the Fourth International all the basic reason for existence as the world party of the socialist revolution. In the past, we always considered Stalinism to be a counter-revolutionary force in every sense of the term. You no longer do so. But I continue to do so. In 1932 and 1933, the Stalinists, in order to justify their shameless capitulation to Hitlerism, declared that it would matter little if the Fascists came to power because socialism would come after and through the rule of Fascism. Only dehumanized brutes without a shred of socialist thought or spirit could have argued this way. Now, notwithstanding the revolutionary aims which animate you, you maintain that the despotic Stalinist reaction which has triumphed in Eastern Europe is one of the roads through which socialism will eventually come. This view marks an irredeemable break with the profoundest convictions always held by our movement and which I continue to share.

I find it impossible to follow you in the question of the Tito regime in Yugoslavia. All the sympathy and support of revolutionists and even of all democrats, should go to the Yugoslav people in their determined resistance to the efforts of Moscow to reduce them and their country to vassalage. Every advantage should be taken of the concessions which the Yugoslav regime now finds itself obliged to make to the people. But your entire press is now devoted to an inexcusable idealization of the Titoist bureaucracy for which no ground exists in the traditions and principles of our movement.

This bureaucracy is only a replica, in a new form, of the old Stalinist bureaucracy. It was trained in the ideas, the politics and morals of the GPU. Its regime differs from Stalins in no fundamental regard. It is absurd to believe or to teach that the revolutionary leadership of the Yugoslav people will develop out of this bureaucracy or in any way other than in the course of struggle against it.

Most insupportable of all is the position on the war to which you have committed yourselves. The third world war which threatens humanity confronts the revolutionary movement with the most difficult problems, the most complex situations, the gravest decisions. Our position can be taken only after the most earnest and freest discussions. But in the face of all the events of recent years, you continue to advocate, and to pledge the entire movement, to the defense of the Stalinist state. You are even now supporting the armies of Stalinism in the war which is being endured by the anguished Korean people. I cannot and will not follow you in this.

As far back as 1927, Trotsky, in reply to a disloyal question put to him in the Political Bureau by Stalin, stated his views as follows: For the socialist fatherland, yes! For the Stalinist regime, no! That was in 1927! Now, twenty-three years later Stalin has left nothing of the Socialist fatherland. It has been replaced by the enslavement and degradation of the people by the Stalinist autocracy. This is the state you propose to defend in the war, which you are already defending in Korea.”

Natalia Sedova Trotsky, May 9th 1951

The full text of her letter can be read at
http://www.marxists.org/archive/sedova-natalia/1951/05/09.htm

It was in response to the American Socialist Workers Party's 'critical support' of North Korea in the Korean War. Surely, time has proven, that North Korea, may have been the 'progressive' side according to Trotskyist theory, but that South Korea is where most people would rather live, including even the most impoverished sections of the working class? There have, after all, been very few examples of oppressed South Korean workers trying to escape into North Korea to take advantage of the post-capitalist property relations there.

Trotskyist "Critical Support" for Stalinism

2009-07-12T18:39:00.004+01:00

Frank, I don't think that Trotsky or Trotskyists ever gave "critical support" to the Stalinist regimes on the basis that life, at whatever point in time, was better than in the "West". The position always was (apart from our dear friends in the SWP) to support the absence of capitalist property relations in the "Soviet Bloc" while arguing for a political revolution in those countries. Consistent with that position, critical support was given to the Stalinist states vs capitalism. This flowed from the view that the fundamental gain of the October revolution, the planned economy, was still intact, despite the grotesque regime which superimposed itself on it, and that a return to capitalism would be a step backwards. Trotskyists also argued that the Stalinist bureaucracy would be, in the end, the death of the planned economy, and so it turned out. I don't think that anyone could ever accuse Trotsky of supporting the Stalinist bureaucracy. He did, I think, say something like "take away the planned economy from the Soviet Union, and you're left with something very similar to the fascist state in Germany". It could even be argued, with hindsight of the holocaust, that this position was overly critical of Stalinism.

This position always came under attack from the right wing of the Labour movement. "Get back to Russia" etc (that was actually once said to me in a Labour Party meeting). I argued at the time that a capitalist restoration in Russia would lead, for the mass of the people, to the capitalism of the third world, not that of western Europe. I see no reason to change this view now - look at every indicator: life expectancy, child mortality, alcoholism, unemployment, crime etc in present day Russia. Add to this the fact that the gangsterism and corruption in the regime if anything has got worse since the Soviet days, and they still seem to think it is permissible to murder "dissidents".

Let's not equate capitalism with democracy. or capitalism with freedom of speech. Or, especially, with economic prosperity for the majority of people. Only a minority of the capitalist world enjoys these things - never forget the women of Saudi Arabia, the child labourers from Vietnam to Uzbekistan (and many other places besides). The despotic regimes which run these countries are fully supported by the "liberal democracies" in the west - in fact the west wouldn't be half as wealthy as it is (and the ordinary people in the west would never have had the crumbs off the table, in the form of living standards, democracy and freedom) if it wasn't for the shafting of two thirds of the world by the west.

Today, I've just returned from a shopping trip, and have bought 4 new pairs of trousers and a new pair of shoes for well under £100, no more than I would have paid 20 years ago. They were all made in the far east or Africa and I shudder to think of the conditions in which they were manufactured.

Of course, none of this should not mean that we play fast and loose with the undoubted gains in living standards, democracy and freedom which have been won by people in the advanced capitalist world. Too many times the far left has given the impression that they do. But we shouldn't think for one minute that capitalism is in any way less brutal or exploitative than it used to be. And just because we might despair of the apparent alternatives, that doesn't make present reality any more palatable than it ever was.

Fascism and Stalinism: Not About Equivalence

2009-07-12T00:04:00.010+01:00

I don't think arguments about which was worse, the Third Reich or Stalin, are terribly constructive. I am glad that the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. No-one, with the exception of neo-Nazi nut-jobs, has any difficulty knowing which side to cheer for, when watching documentaries about the battle of Stalingrad and such like. The very much lesser evil won, and we all have to be eternally grateful for that. That is what politics is mostly really about: helping the lesser evil win. It should be remembered that the real hero of the hour during World War II was Winston Churchill. Unlike Stalin he made no deals at all with the Nazis. He saw that particular devil for what it was from the beginning and during the appeasement years of the 1930s was prepared to publicly oppose the majority of his own party and to face political isolation as a result. Yes, Churchill was wrong on many, indeed most other issues. He ordered the shooting of striking miners in the twenties, which was very wrong. He was the architect of the disaster at Gallipoli in the First World War, which led to the needless deaths of tens of thousands. And he opposed the formation of the National Health Service. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. But on the most important issue of to face humanity during the past two centuries - the need to face down and destroy the grotesque tyranny that was Nazism - Churchill got it more right than almost anyone else. And he was prepared to ally himself with anyone prepared to fight the Nazis, including the Soviet Union after the invasion by Germany in June 1941. This is more than can be said of most Trotskyists at the time, who tried to maintain some version of the argument that the war was a conflict between two imperialist powers, and far superior to the position of the Soviets who only declared war when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact broke down and they themselves were invaded. Every sane person on the planet is grateful that the combined military power of the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States in the end crushed the Third Reich. Applying similar logic, after the Second World War most rational people would definitely not have chosen to live in, say, the (ahem) deformed workers' state of Bulgaria rather than in, say, evil capitalist Denmark on the other side of the Iron Curtain. And yet this is the logic of the position which most of Trotskyism continued to try to sell with their policy of 'critical support for the Soviet Union', if we are to presume that they really believed that what they gave this 'critical support' to - the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe - was really, on a day-to-day basis, better than what they opposed: the NATO countries of Western Europe and the United States. Of course, to have dumped the idea of 'critical support for the Soviet Union' would very quickly have led us to come face to face with the truth that life in the UK or Holland or Belgium was in pretty much every way preferable to what existed in Hungary or Poland or Czechoslovakia. Liberal capitalist democracy has a lot going for it, and if we're to overthrow it, we better be sure that what's coming in its wake is an improvement.

The qualititive difference of fascism

2009-07-10T23:47:00.003+01:00

Fascism had the gas chambers. Stalinism had the gulags. But can we compare them? I think not, for this reason:

Fascism is political philosophy based (amongst other things) on the superiority of one race and therefore the inferiority and demonisation of others (particularly Jews). Hitler spelt it all out in Mein Kampf before he even started. In the sick and twisted world of Hitler's Nazi Party and the BNP, industrialised mass murder becomes possible because of this philosophy. Jews found themselves in the death camps not because of what they thought, or said, or did, but simply because of who they were.

We can argue (we do argue) whether Leninism necessarily leads to the gulags, but that was never the intention, I don't suppose even for Stalin. One could say, quite reasonably, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but nevertheless, this is a qualitative difference. There is no comparison to be made.

Moving beyond the family of the far left

2009-07-10T20:09:00.009+01:00

I actually agree with much of the last post. Yes, not referring to the BNP as fascist is an omission, which I won't repeat. And, yes, there is a direct link between the BNP and the gas chambers. There is also, though, in my view now more than enough evidence to scientifically conclude that there is a direct link between the reality of the centralist Lenninist mode of political organisation and the Gulags. As Nick Cohen says in his book, What's Left, one of the problems is the way the left tends to view itself as a kind of family, stretching all the way from Frank Dobson to the WRP. If the left can find its way to a better post-capitalist society that doesn't involve worshipping some dear leader or other, then no-one would cheer louder than me. We have to remember that, in the absence of the market, a real participatory democracy would be essential to the day to day functioning of any advanced post-capitalist economy. Is this possible? What would such a left look like? How might it come about? For me the old far left, with the exception of genuine refugees, would have to be explicitly excluded from any such project; their ways of doing things are absolutely part of the problem. If they are involved and up to their old tricks, I'll be on the other side. But if we're talking about some final departure from all that which really could deliver something that's better in practise, as well as in theory, than the current capitalist system, then I'm open to that, certainly.

Not even a hill of beans

2009-07-10T17:56:00.004+01:00

At the height of the Militant Tendency's power in the 1980's they had 3 members of Parliament, absolute control of one council and a large influence on the ruling Labour groups in others. And if the European elections has been run on proportional representation in those days, who knows how many MEPs they'd have had?

Of course this was done under the flag of the Labour Party - in Britain at that time, ruled by Thatcher and with a left-leaning mass Labour Party, it couldn't have been otherwise, but no-one was in any doubt as to the level of Militant's involvement. In Ireland, the Labour Party never developed to the extent of its sister party in Britain, so I wouldn't say that the left winning elections while running under their own flag in Ireland today is any more significant that the victories of the entryist Militant in the past in Britain, and look at where that ended.

The crass sectarianism described by Frank below, in relation to the Irish SWP, is precisely the reason why their influence won't last. People are not that stupid, well at least not all of them, that they will not notice what is going on. In fact, even the stupid ones are cynical enough that they will loose patience with the SWP or whoever when they realise that they are not going to provide limitless council grants and hand-outs to people who can't be bothered to help themselves. (Note to left wing liberals - I'm not saying here that all of the left's constituency is idle and feckless.)

(As an aside, one of the worst aspects of bourgeois democracy is the way that competing parties pretend to have all the answers, while simultaneously claiming that their opponents have none, and give the impression that the most the voters need to do to solve their problems is place a cross or two in the right place on a piece of paper. This leads to a permanently swinging pendulum, back and forth from one party to the other, as one gains office, is unable to deliver, so loses office to someone else, over and over again. Eventually the cynicism bites so hard that fascists can be elected.)

It is true that the little bit of power that they seem to have is too much, and it would be better all round if they didn't exist, but I'll go out on a limb here (and in the process, almost guarantee the attachment of electrodes to my genitals if I am wrong) and predict that even the mighty SWP will never win power. You can picture the scene - some spotty SWP apparatchik, in some basement, with a picture of Tony Cliff on the wall, coming over all sub-James Bond villain: "not so smug now, Mister Morris, eh?" - I don't think so.

A final point - no-one should ever refer to the BNP without using the word fascist in the same sentence. There is no comparison between fascism and any other political current. I've seen the stomach-churning literature that they produced in the recent UK elections and there is a direct line from the BNP fascists to the gas chambers, if they ever got their way.

SWP influence on local councils

2009-07-10T02:05:00.013+01:00

I understand where Nicholas is coming from. In the UK these groups have (with the possible exception of the SWP grip on the Stop The War Coalition) largely been consigned to the icy-wastelands of total irrelevance. However, in Ireland it's not so simple. The SWP front People Before Profit won five local authority seats in Dublin and they have close links with a couple of other Stalinist-leaning councillors around the country. And the Socialist Party (formerly Militant) gained a seat in the European Parliament in the Dublin Constituency; Ireland has just 12 seats in Strasbourg. So it's hard to apply the irrelevance argument here. I do think it's important to differentiate, yes. The Socialist Party is one thing. It has good people in it, but a tyrannical internal regime. The real leader being not their MEP and former TD, Joe Higgins, as most people would suppose, but the hack Kevin McLoughlin, whom no-one ever voted for. That said, the Socialist Party - their international re-embracing of Tommy Sheridan aside - don't tend to get involved in the exotic opportunism that is the trademark of the SWP. To put it starkly, SWP Councillors will judge things like grant applications to local authorities not on the basis of the merits of the case, but on the political leanings of the applicants. They are not corrupt in the sense of being out for personal financial gain, but are utterly croneyistic in terms of the way they operate. In concrete terms this means that if you, say, were applying for a grant to organise a festival - any festival you want - then, as long as you loudly maintain an 'anti-imperialist' position on Iraq and Afghanistan, then the SWP's opportunism (a reflex action at this stage, they don't even realise they're doing it most of the time) will lead the worst of them to zealously lobby on your behalf, even if you are a known sociopathic loony. The Charles Manson Songwriters' Festival; The Joseph Fritzl Childrens' Arts Festival; The Ian Brady Festival of Literature. If only Charlie, Joseph and our Ian hadn't been jailed by the evil bourgeois state they could have joined the Irish Anti-War Movement and some beautiful relationships could have been born... I exaggerate massively, but my essential point stands. They are certainly worse than Fianna Fáil in this regard, and that is saying something. Their lobbying will have an effect too. It will wear local government officials down and get them to make concessions that shouldn't be made. Genuine people and things that matter to them will lose out. The point I'm making is that even a few of these people getting onto local councils impacts on people's lives, just as the election of BNP councillors and MEPs has an actual material effect. Not that I'm saying the SWP are the same as the BNP, but they are both inherently undemocratic in ways that set them decisively apart from the mainstream parties.

The importance of not being ernest

2009-07-10T00:59:00.005+01:00

Frank's last post is interesting in that it mentions, in ascending chronology of degeneration, the 3 most "successful" post-war British Trotskyist general secretaries. I remember hearing of the splits in Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party (or whatever it was called at the time). The refuseniks always spoke of the mindless activism which seemed to stem from a kind of over-excitement at (relative) success and growth after a long period of existing as a "three men and a dog, and the dog's got doubts" type of organisation. It became a case of "never mind the quality, feel the width" and Healy (I don't think I can libel the dead) ended up feeling more than the width and engaging in a completely different kind of student entryism.

Tony Cliff's SWP, was, even in the 1980's, largely treated as a bit of a joke - more of a school for newsagents than a revolutionary party, with his members regurgitating his more-than-eccentric theories without having the slightest understanding of what they talking about.

Then finally, Militant degenerated to the point that it's founder Ted Grant found himself initially in a minority faction and finally expelled, which gave Peter Taaffe and his apparently hand picked "leadership" (according to Grant, young people with little political understanding and an inflated sense of their own importance) the room to turn it into the WRP mark 2.

We should feel sorry for these people. They didn't and will never amount to anything. I am quite sure they were/are all quite sincere in their beliefs and actually believed that anyone who disagreed with them was in favour of starving the children of Africa.

What stops us regarding them in much the same way as we regard a deranged and slightly embarrassing uncle is their ability to inspire fanaticism and therefore thuggish tendencies in their disciples. But let's not dignify their lunacy by taking them seriously on an intellectual level. Their legacy, in the end, will be nothing more than a few footnotes in history, to be file under sick jokes (the names Hatton and Sheridan come to mind).

Let's not allow this nonsense to divert the examination of the real problems of the human race, difficult problems about which Marx and many of his heirs had and have much of value to say.

Healy only the worst, not the exception

2009-07-09T17:12:00.004+01:00

Gerry Healy is only the worst example recent British Trotskyism has to offer. What would a Britain ruled by Tony Cliff or Peter Taaffe have looked like? In such a Britain I doubt we'd be allowed to publish this blog. Or maybe you think Tony and Peter, had they come to power, would have departed from the habits of a life time and not moved to demonise and crush all dissent? The idea that Gerry Healy is an exception is the sort of rationalisation that only lets the duller (and ultimately more successful) tyrants of the far left off the hook. Healy is at the extreme end of a continuum of which most if not all British Trotskyism is part. In terms of 'socialism', the question has to be what do we mean by that word? If we still mean the elite centralist party taking power in a revolution/coup in the belief that it is the messiah with all the answers to the world's problems, then it is certain that 'socialism' would lead to us both ending up in the interrogation room. It is this sort of thinking which allowed the Taaffes and the Cliffs to accuse anyone who asked them an awkward question of being in favour of children starving in Africa and all the rest. If though, when we talk about 'socialism', we mean something else, something really new, which departs from the old crap, then let's talk about that.

Socialism and democracy (again)

2009-07-09T01:01:00.002+01:00

There is no doubt that the tragedy which was the Stalinisation of the Bolshevik Party repeated itself as farce in the many post-war Fourth Internationals. All of us who have been involved in left groups and parties can recount horror stories (and some of them are truly horrible). But I think that arguing against socialism because of Gerry Healy is a bit like arguing against cellars because of Joseph Fritzl.

Let's not confuse the issue. Guantanamo Bay shows us that the apparent attachment to liberal democracy of those who rule the world at present is purely incidental. What we need is a serious debate about the future of mankind - the debate should be informed by history but not imprisoned by it. More later.

More on Democracy and Socialism

2009-07-02T01:20:00.005+01:00

There are many good points in the post below on this subject. The problem though with the argument that the denegeration of internal democracy was, in the case the Bolsheviks, caused by the special conditions of them having to operate under the secrecy imposed by Czarist rule and, in the case of the Militant Tendency, caused by the secrecy imposed by the fact that they were an organisation operating within the hostile body of the British Labour Party is that those other Trotskyist organisations who were operating openly in the relative freedom of post-War Western Europe also tended to develop fairly tyrannical internal regimes. The Irish Socialist Workers Party has been known to expel members by text message. This is obviously a result of the pressures of them having to operate under the brutal regime of Bertie Ahern. I don't think so. Similarly the Workers Revolutionary Party with its dear leader, Gerry Healy. In 2006 the mostly UK-based group Workers Power expelled about one third of its membership for the crime of plotting to leave and set up another organisation. Where they guilty? Who knows or cares. But I think it is fair to surmise that had Workers Power been in power in the UK (fantastical, I know, but bear with me) then the people who now make up the group Permanent Revolution would have mostly been put up against the wall and shot. And there'd have been no House of Commons inquiry, no questions to the Home Secretary, we can be sure of that. But thanks to the failure of the group they were members of to seize power these former members of Workers Power (some of whom are very nice people, it has to be said) are free to wander this green earth a little while longer.

More Alan Woods on art

2009-06-28T22:16:00.004+01:00

I thought it was worth searching for more material on art from Alan Woods, particularly on the esssential question for socialists - his attitude to Stalinism vis a vis art. Here are a couple of extracts from Woods' An Introduction to Trotsky's Writings on Art:

"I am by no means opposed to partisanship in poetry as such," wrote Engels. "Both Aeschylus, the father of tragedy, and Aristophanes, the father of comedy, were highly partisan poets, Dante and Cervantes were so no less, and the best thing that can be said about Schiller's Kabale and Liebe is that it represents the first German political problem drama. The modern Russians and Norwegians, who produce excellent novels, all write with a purpose. I think however that the purpose must become manifest from the situation and the action themselves without being expressly pointed out and that the author does not have to serve the reader on a platter the future historical resolution of the social conflicts which he describes." (Marx and Engels, On Art and Literature, p. 88.)

There is such a thing as committed art. In many cases artists and writers feel passionately involved in the subject matter of their art. This applies especially to the greatest art, which is inevitably connected in one way or another to the big questions, the questions of life and death which move the lives and thoughts of millions. What Engels warned against was the debasement of such art to mere empty pamphleteering. A great message can be present in a work of art, but it must not be something imposed from without. It must emerge naturally from the subject matter itself. In Lev Tolstoy's great novel Anna Karenina we have a powerful indictment of the treatment of women in society, as well as a searing criticism of the soulless nature of tsarist bureaucratic and serf society. Yet the message is not imposed from without or tacked on arbitrarily at the end. It emerges with extraordinary force from the narrative itself. Moreover, Tolstoy's characters are not mere ciphers but living men and women who strike us both as real flesh and blood and at the same time typical characters representing specific individual types.

This is committed art. There is also what we might call didactic art, which more clearly sets out to deliver a message and "educate" us. This we see in the worst examples of so-called Socialist Realism. This almost always fails because art is not very suited to this purpose. For that we have politics and philosophy. Finally, there is propaganda. Propaganda is not generally considered to be art at all, or in the best case is seen as a very inferior form of art. Even here there can be exceptions. The best poster art of the period immediately following the Russian revolution can be accepted as an art form that derives from the Russian Constructivist school. In general, however, propaganda is mainly interested in delivering a message that is entirely external to the art-form utilised. Thus the element of artistic expression is secondary. It is a convenient peg upon which the message is hung. From such a medium great art is unlikely to flow.

It is also clearly absurd to judge art from the standpoint of an entirely different intellectual discipline, such as philosophy or politics, in the same way that one would not judge nuclear physics from the standpoint of sociology or psychology. A work of philosophy may be written in a good literary style; it may or may not move us to tears or laughter. But that is not its primary function. Philosophy appeals primarily to the intellect; art and literature appeal fundamentally to our emotions.

Plekhanov, polemicising against Tolstoy, insisted that art does not only appeal to the emotions but also to the mind. In a general sense, that is correct but it misses the point. The question we must ask is: what is essential and what is non-essential in art and literature? It is true that some works of literature, arguably the greatest ones, also appeal to the mind and contain profound philosophical ideas. Shakespearean tragedy is the best example. But one should not judge art from the standpoint of philosophy, or philosophy from the standpoint of art. A good philosopher may have a poor style. But a writer with a bad style is just a bad writer and nothing else, however correct his or her philosophical ideas. And if we are to judge art and literature on the grounds of "political correctness", we would be left with very slim pickings indeed! No, literature and art must be judged according to their own inherent laws and essence, and not from external considerations which fall outside the scope of art proper.

and

The revolutionary artists who emerged from October were able to base themselves on a very rich tradition. Here was the influence of French Cubists and Italian futurists. Symbolists, Futurists, Constructivists, Proletkult and a myriad of other schools vied with each other in a bewildering array of artistic variety. Even before the Revolution Russia was already a hotbed of artistic invention, experiment and avant-guardism. Their way had been paved by Russian pre-revolutionary artists such as Valentin Serov, Mikhail Vrubel and Victor Borisov-Musatov, who had experimented with exciting new art forms. A passionate search for the truth motivated these Soviet artists, and although the results were often uneven, there is a kind of fearless honesty and integrity about all of them. This was a priceless tradition which could have been built upon. Only in recent years has this remarkable period of art been given the attention it undoubtedly deserves, both in Russia and in the West. Yet this beautiful flower was trampled in the dust by the Stalinist political counter-revolution.

The launching of the AARR (the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia) represented the first move of the Bureaucracy to "establish order", that is to establish its control over the artists and writers of the Soviet Republic. The budding Soviet bureaucrat, conservative and unimaginative in art as in all other matters, looked with distrust and suspicion on the new experimental schools of painting and writing. His attitude to this "chaos" was the other side to his reaction to the storm and stress of the Revolution itself. The idea of "socialism in one country" was only the theoretical expression of this petit-bourgeois reaction against October.

So-called Socialist Realism was in effect the art of the bureaucracy. Pictures of "heroic workers" and happy collective farmers, all done in a traditional representational style, similar to what is known in the West as chocolate box painting. Ernst Fischer, the noted Austrian Marxist art critic, once described Socialist Realism as "the artist's or writer's fundamental agreement with the aims of the working class and the emerging socialist world". But this description is very far from the truth. Needless to say, the Soviet workers were never consulted about the official doctrine of art-or anything else. Such art was neither realistic nor socialist. It did not convey the reality of life in the Soviet Union, but only a saccharine utopia corresponding to the dreams and delusions of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Bolshevism and Stalinism are mutually exclusive opposites. In the same way that Stalin had to murder all the Old Bolsheviks in order to consolidate the rule of a privileged bureaucracy, so in the realm of art, music and literature, the Stalinist counter-revolution left not one stone upon another of the artistic gains of the October revolution. The chief intellectual hallmark of the bureaucrat is conservative philistinism, national narrowness, total lack of imagination, an aversion to innovation and experiment, and a strong tendency towards conformity and control. After all, conservative routine is the guiding principle of every bureaucracy. Rules and regulations take the place of revolutionary initiative: the routinism of the apparatus replaces the freedom of the innovator. The Revolution succumbs to reaction, the philistine replaces the rebel. On such a barren soil, the promise of early Soviet art is slowly suffocated and throttled. The suicide of Mayakovsky in 1930 is a clear turning-point. His suicide note an epitaph on the tomb of revolutionary art.

Under Stalin art and literature were made to serve the interests of the ruling bureaucratic caste, just like every other aspect of life. Totalitarianism and bureaucracy represent the death of art. The Nazis used to forbid certain artists to work and ban their work as "degenerate art". An exhibition of such art was set up in Munich, presenting abstract and constructivist art as "total madness and the height of degeneracy". In Stalinist Russia, although the bureaucracy did not succeed in destroying the nationalized planned economy - the fundamental socio-economic conquest of October, the democratic regime of workers' power established by Lenin and Trotsky in 1917 was replaced by a hideous caricature, which blighted the development of Soviet art and literature. Bureaucracy, with its inevitable consequences of toadyism, conformism and red tape, undermines all creative thought and action. This is the very antithesis of the democratic traditions of October. It has nothing whatsoever in common with socialism.

Clear enough, I think.

Democracy and Socialism

2009-06-28T19:30:00.007+01:00

There is a common criticism of revolutionary socialist groups and parties, that their "Democratic Centralist" model of organisation, and the idea of the "Vanguard Party", as first practiced by Lenin's Bolshevik Party in the Russian Revolution, is flawed to the point that it will necessarily degenerate into Stalinism. This view is common, not only amongst those who are clearly against all flavours of socialism, but among those who, as active socialists, have fallen foul of the machinery of various revolutionary parties and tendencies. This issue needs to be discussed, as if this criticism is true, we must discount all such organisations and either look for a better way, or just give up.

I should say now, that this article raises many questions, and answers very few. But I hope that it at least begins to step beyond an analysis based only on personal experience and attempts formulate the issues in a scientific, historical way. I hope to be able to post further thoughts on these issues in the future.

Perhaps, as a starting point, we might consider the Bolshevik party as a more-than-typically democratic army, rather than a less-than-typically democratic debating society. We should remember that at about the same time that Lenin was suppressing factions in the Bolshevik Party, the British Army was executing dissenters for "cowardice".

Political parties are more than debating societies. Having formulated a programme, they exist to put it into practice. There is a tension, a contradiction even, between the democracy required to discuss policy and hold leaders to account, and the single-minded unity required to actually achieve anything. This is equally true in the politics of capitalism, and so the ruling Cabinet of the UK government operates under "collective responsibility" and the idea that divided parties never win elections seems to be born out in practice.

In my opinion, the Leninist model of party organisation was a genuine attempt to resolve this contradiction, in the context of the environment in which the Bolshevik Party was attempting to win power. (One which might make the present day Iranian regime look positively liberal.) And then, after the Bolsheviks won power, they found themselves under attack not only from the forces of the old regime, but from a large part of the capitalist world as well. Lenin's young Bolshevik government was operating in an extreme environment. We should view the measures they took, some of which were, frankly, very repressive, in this context. And we should also be able to state clearly that they got some things wrong, without being branded as "revisionist" or "counter-revolutionary".

And therein lies the problem. For too many of Lenin and Trotsky's successors, the episodic tactics and expediencies of the Bolshevik Party have been elevated to the same level as the guiding economic and political principles of Marxism, and then cast into the same tablets of stone. It is understandable why that happened - when a political ideology finds itself isolated and under attack from all sides, including the revolution from which it arose, the temptation to defend its every last detail is overwhelming. But that does not make it right.

Marx called his socialism "Scientific Socialism". The defining feature of science (and the answer to those who, for example, dismiss Darwinism as just another religion) is that the only "faith" that science has is in the scientific method (even this "faith" is not the same as religious faith, as the scientific method is constantly being developed and refined). Theories are developed, and then tested against reality, and amended or discarded in favour of better theories, using the scientific method. Thus, the greater part of Marx's work was a quest to discover the "laws of motion" of human societies, especially capitalist society, in the same way that Newton before him discovered the laws of motion in physics. As an aside, who, after the economic events of the last year or so, would argue with the basic premises of Marx's analysis of capitalism? Marx still stands as one of the greatest, possibly the greatest, political and economic thinker in history. In the field of natural science, Marx could be compared to Darwin. Charles Darwin arguably made the most important contribution to natural science that has yet been made. But no serious evolutionary biologist these days bases their arguments on a literal textual analysis of The Origin of Species. On the contrary, science over the last 150 years has refined and corrected Darwin's original work.

In this spirit of scientific enquiry, we must consider and criticise the theory and practice of the revolutionary party, as it has developed (or not!) over the last century or so. Simply defending for all time (with greater or lesser justification) the tactical decisions of the Bolshevik Party and its heirs will not do, and in my opinion would have nothing to do with Marxism.

One of the major factors which has tended to limit open discussion and democracy in socialist organisations has been that they have often operated under repressive regimes, therefore making secrecy and security essential considerations. However necessary clandestine organisation has sometimes been, in order to protect the existence of the party and even the lives of its members, it is clear that such a mode of existence creates problems for the internal life and democracy of the party. Even under these conditions, a balance must be struck, for if the party degenerates democratically and emerges from a period of state repression already half way to Stalinism, it has become worse than useless, it might as well not exist and its members might as well have kept themselves even safer by not engaging in political activity at all.

Of course, in post-WWII western Europe, state repression was not the issue it once was. Socialists were able to take advantage of the hard-won struggles of the past which secured freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, etc., across much of Europe, and organise openly. However, the advent of a stable liberal capitalist democracy and the rise of reformist social democratic parties into power, made possible by the economic boom, together with the continued degeneration of the Soviet Union, led to the almost complete isolation of the revolutionary left. As mentioned above, the tendency to go "back to the books", and in some cases elevate those books into holy texts, was strong.

Then there was the tactic of entryism, where the revolutionary party would publicly dissolve itself into a mass social-democratic party, while maintaining a secret organisation and structure. For an entryist organisation, many of the restrictions of operating under a repressive state apparatus returned, albeit no longer as matters of literal life and death. So secrecy and the mindset of conspiracy lived on. One might point out a classical dialectical contradiction, that in order to maintain its links with the masses, the revolutionary Party, organisationally at least, had to hide itself from the masses. Leon Trotsky's conception of entryism was much more one of a "smash and grab" raid on a social democratic party than the long-term entryism practiced, most famously, by Ted Grant's Militant Tendency. There were, of course, good reasons for the development of entryism into a much longer-term tactic than that envisaged by Trotsky. If one looks at the convulsions which shook Europe in the 30 year period between 1915 and 1945, and then compares that with the stability of the 30 year economic boom from 1945 to 1975, the need to adapt and change the tactics of the revolutionary party from those of the pre-war period are obvious. It says something very positive about Ted Grant, that he was able and willing to take this turn, in contrast to those for whom the words of Lenin and Trotsky had already ossified. But, there is a price for everything, and sometimes the price is not immediately apparent, or immediately payable. Roll on to the upheavals of the late '70s and early '80s, when support for the Militant Tendency blossomed, and we must ask whether the effects of long-term entryism on the democratic apparatus of the party had an effect on its ability to rise to the challenge of increasing membership from the hundreds to the thousands, while maintaining a healthy, democratic internal life? Another possible contradiction - perhaps the very tactics which placed Militant in a position to benefit from the upheavals which came out of the eventual economic slump contributed to the eventual squandering of the opportunity.

Grant and his supporters were eventually expelled from Militant, on the question of that organisation's turn away from the Labour Party (that is the abandonment of entryism). A document produced by Grant's faction at the time of their expulsion is illuminating, as it widens the argument from a question of tactics, and discusses the bureaucratic degeneration of Militant, in a self-critical, if very careful, way.

I should declare an interest at this point: I joined Militant in the early 1980s, through the Labour Party, but fell away from activity in the aftermath of the defeat of the miners, becoming increasingly tired of Militant's refusal to acknowledge the defeat of the miners as an historic setback for the movement, and linked to this, their increasingly sectarian behaviour in the Labour Party. Inexplicably, given my history in the Labour Party, I came back to Militant on the side of the "open turn", right in the middle of the faction fight. All I can say is that Peter Taaffe's faction was blaming Grant's "minority" for bureaucratism and promising a much more open and democratic organisation. I must have believed them, I couldn't have been more wrong.

So, how have the alternatives to democratic centralism faired? Not very well, it has to be said. While the revolutionary left often used centralism to stifle the rank and file, and impose a view from the top, The traditional mass organisations have simply ignored their members. Perhaps the most extreme example is when Tony Blair took Britain to war, without the support of the country, or his own party. And who, in the current economic crisis, would support the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile system above hospitals, schools and homes? Very few, I think, except the leaders of the main political parties, but nevertheless the replacement for Trident will be built. There is a crisis in both representative and participatory democracy which goes far beyond the revolutionary left. The record of the left on questions of internal democracy may be open to question, but I do not think there is anything to learn from the established institutions of liberal democracy, apart from in one area, and it is important, very important.

We, in Britain and most of the developed world, are generally free to say what we want, to as many people as will listen, and to organise around our ideas. We may be ignored by the powers in society (in fact, any socialist ideas will definitely be ignored), we may be drowned out by the outpourings of the established media, but that is much, much better than being arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed. Freedom of expression, one of the crowing glories of the French Revolution, the hard-won right of the masses in at least the developed world, has to be unambiguously championed by socialists. We must argue for its extension, never its suppression. The revolutionary left must show through it's internal practices, as well as through its programme, that this freedom is just not negotiable, because it isn't. Not for people in the developed world who enjoy it, and not for masses elsewhere for whom such freedom is an inspiration to their struggle. Socialists must recognise the dead weight of Stalinism which taints the movement, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly. Otherwise this dead weight may kill us, or at least stifle our growth permanently.

I said at the beginning, that I didn't think that I would come up with many answers, and I think that was an understatement. But I prefer just raising the questions than pretending that there are easy answers. I believe that as with many issues in politics, science or life, anyone who comes up with an easy answer just didn't understand the question. After all, if it were all so easy, someone would have got it right already. The beauty of the internet is that I can easily add to my arguments, or even retract some of them, tomorrow. In the spirit of the democracy that I believe is necessary, then, this is my work in progress.

Response to Alan Woods lecture

2009-06-28T00:47:00.006+01:00

The Alan Woods lecture on the neccesity of art is hugely impressive in as far as it goes. He clearly knows his subject and has a genuine love of art. There is much to agree with here. The bit at the end about the possibility of building a paradise on earth (socialism) does make me queasy. Though it may not the case with Alan Woods, it is certainly the case that many others on the revolutionary left have been prepared to sacrifice millions of human beings on the altar of the promised earthly paradise. In Russia and China and Cambodia the promise of earthly paradise resulted in a pile of corpses only exceeded by the even bigger pile made by the Third Reich. Wouldn't it be better to hedge one's bet a little and promise that things could be much better rather than promise paradise? Much better would be, well, much better. And you'd be less likely to attract the social misfits and cultists so often drawn to the idea of paradise on earth. Woods is good on the issue of artistic freedom. But there's one big omission: the ghastly recent history of the Stalinist suppression of art and artists of every type. He mentions Stalin, but doesn't go into the issue. The elite vanguard centralist party - of which Alan Woods is presumably still an advocate? - seems to be the problem here along with the earthly paradise thing. If he dumped both of those ideas without embracing the venal opportunism of the SWP and Galloway, what he has to say about the absolute freedom for the artist, writer and musician would certainly represent a big step forward from the neo-Stalinist line which the far left (including those with Trotskyist origins) in practice peddle when it comes to issues around the arts.

Art is neccessary

2009-06-27T01:07:00.007+01:00

To move away from the Iran crisis (I think for the first time on this blog), I noticed this video on the marxist.com website - it's Alan Woods lecturing at the Chelsea College of Art. Watch with an open mind, whatever your preconceptions of Marxism, Trotskyism or the legacy of Militant.

Marxist.com: The Iran revolution has begun

2009-06-26T23:40:00.004+01:00

"The revolution has started - it will take some time, it will take years..."

A speech by Alan Woods (International Marxist Tendency), which is the best analysis I have yet found on the situation in Iran. Unconditionally in support of the current movement, Woods argues that it must lose momentum unless it is developed in the direction of a general strike, but even if the movement does wane for now, this is but the first act in a drama of many acts. This is an analysis which is optimistic, but sober. He avoids falling back on the old cliches of "inevitability" and accepts as one possibility for the future, a period of liberal democracy. This is on a different level to the arguments of his erstwhile comrade Tony Saunois of the Committee for a Workers International, linked to below by Frank.

There is also written material in the same vein here.

John Simpson on the Iranian crisis

2009-06-26T19:32:00.004+01:00

"Forget the stuff you sometimes read in the West from the contrarians, the ones who say all this fuss is just generated by upper-middle class pro-western people from the expensive suburbs of North Tehran, and that Ahmadinejad actually did quite well in the election. Not so. For a start, I've never seen so many working class and lower-middle class people at an anti-government rally in Tehran since the revolution... (in the) poverty-stricken areas of South Tehran, more people seem to be against Ahmadinejad than for him. There has been a major shift in the way people think, and there's no going back to the old way."

A personal analysis of crisis in Iran, by the BBC's old warhorse John Simpson, is available here. Very interesting listening, he speaks of evidence of profound splits in the regime, with Rafsanjani driving an attempt to modernise and open up the economy, and believes that the Iranian society has been irrevocably opened up by the effects of the "new media". However, even if the reformist leaders win the power struggle, the people will be left wanting more.

HOPI (Hands Off The People of Iran) group

2009-06-26T00:44:00.004+01:00

In the interests of fairness and truth, it's important to highlight the role of the HOPI (Hands Off The People of Iran) group in Dublin. They appear to be at least partly Stalinist inspired, but are taking a fair enough position of clearly calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic in Iran while opposing Western intervention. For more see http://www.hopi-ireland.org/ It is good that they are saying what they are doing and organising the protests that they are. I too oppose US intervention in Iran. But it is a tactical question not one of principle. It wouldn't work, would lead nowhere good. If I thought it would work, as the NATO intervention basically did in Kosovo in 1999, I would support it.

BBC interview doctor who tried to save Neda Soltan

2009-06-25T21:51:00.006+01:00

Everyone should hear what Dr Arash Hejazi has to say. A plea to ideologues of all persuasions: Take a moment to listen to the story of a real human tragedy. Then remember, the next time you are expounding your clever positions and programmes in the debating hall or on the street corner, that Neda Soltan, and perhaps hundreds like her, have died this week in Iran, simply because they asked for the rights that you take for granted.

On who Socialist Unity are

2009-06-25T02:52:00.003+01:00

Don't know who Socialist Unity are. Likely they were expelled from some other far left group during these past few years. They're a great addition in any case. The thing to remember about what they say is that it's what much of the far left think. Difference is they're dumb enough to say it.

Words (almost) fail me

2009-06-24T22:31:00.003+01:00

There is a site on the internet which goes under the name of Socialist Unity. Contained within it is this piece of writing on the current crisis in Iran. I don't know who Socialist Unity are, neither do I know anything about the piece's author, John Wight. Perhaps my fellow blogger Frank can enlighten me.

First of all, a very condensed summary of the article:

Ahmadinejad supports the poor peasants and the working class, and is anti-imperialist. Mousavi represents the middle class and is supported by the west.
The protesters are from the privileged middle class and have no support outside of Tehran or amongst the working class.
The Iranian regime deserves some mild criticism in the area of women's rights, for example, but this only causes minor problems. "No democracy is without its imperfections".
The Iraqi communists were wrong to co-operate with the American occupation (so by implication the current challenge to the Iranian government is organised by the West).
The left should therefore support Ahmadinejad and Khamenei.

I really can't bring myself to relate any more of this drivel, if you don't believe me, or you want to confirm that it is even worse than this, follow the link above.

All right then, just one quote:

Furthermore, while women in the US and Britain can stand for election, even sit at the heads of their respective governments, the reality is that both of the aforementioned nations have been responsible for depriving women throughout the Middle East and beyond of a far more fundamental right – namely the right not to be slaughtered or see their families slaughtered in the cause of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.

No mention of course of the slaughter of Iranian women by their own government over the past few days. Perhaps Mr Wight believes the claims of the Iranian government that Neda Soltan's murder was organised by the expelled BBC journalist Jon Leyne so that he could make a documentary.

And perhaps, in Mr Wight's world, the unfortunate demonstrators who were paraded on Iranian state television yesterday, stating that the BBC and Voice of America made them "riot", were telling the truth rather than saying anything and everything they were told to say in order to avoid another beating, or worse.

Even the so called facts in the piece (no demonstrations outside Tehran, no support from the unions etc) are easily refutable by anyone who has enough independence of mind to carry out their own google search.

This is the old, old "anti-imperialist at all costs" refrain of so much of the left, taken to absurd and inhuman lengths. With friends like Mr Wight, the left destroys itself and abandons what little influence it has in the post-Thatcher/Reagan world. (And if Mr Wight's swivel-eyed amoral philosophy, of ends justifying means, gives us any indication of how a regime containing people like him might behave, that might be a good thing.)

Comments below his post rightly ask if he would have supported Hitler on the basis that the Nazis were challenging the established imperial powers.

Freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are hard-won rights which Mr Wight enjoys to his own advantage and well-being (I doubt that the Obama or Brown militia will be battering down his door tonight, although if they did... no, let's not go there). Yet he would deny these same rights to Iranians, they should subjugate themselves to their oppressors in the name of anti-imperialism.

But even in terms of his own argument, he is completely wrong. Freedom of speech, freedom to organise, freedom of assembly, freedom to strike, these are demands supported by every socialist revolutionary throughout the ages. This does not change just because the President of the United States of America now calls for these things - that is a victory, for all but the most blinkered sectarian ultra-left.

Perhaps the reality is that Mr Wight has given up hope, perhaps he really believes that western capitalism has already won, and he just needs to assuage his guilt at having been born in a liberal democracy. No matter, for him, that price of the regimes he ends up supporting can be calculated in the blood of ordinary people.

Fuck off Mr Wight.

Irish Anti-War Movement silent on Iran

2009-06-24T00:28:00.005+01:00

The Irish Anti-War Movement is to date silent on the issue. Rather than comment on events there it prefers to give space on its site to an article by John Pilger in which he outlines the evils of Obama. Good to see them aiming at the right targets and not being sidetracked by the demos in Iran which are of course, as the great anti-imperialist government in Tehran informed us today, inspired by David Miliband. For more, or should that be less, click on http://irishantiwar.org/node/515

More on George Galloway

2009-06-23T01:26:00.009+01:00

British MP George Galloway hosts a weekly program on Press TV, an English language internet and satellite channel controlled by the Iranian government. He claims, on his program, to "shoot from the hip" on the essential issues of the day. On the edition broadcast at 9.30pm BST on Sunday 21st June, over 24 hours after the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan (see below), all that Galloway said on the subject of Iran was:

The story of the week as far as the western media are concerned, was the Iranian elections and the resulting street protests. If you ever believed that the BBC, that's the Bush and Blair Corporation, and the US media like Rupert Murdoch's Fox network were impartial, then here was the mountain of evidence against. Opinion masquerading as fact, at length, and usually on shaky-cam. For the record, here's my declaration of interest. Press TV is Iranian owned, but that doesn't influence my opinion, which is that until there is even a scintilla of evidence that the election was fiddled we have to accept the verdict of the Iranian People, however much some of us may not like it. But there's a track record of Britain and the US not accepting democratic decisions, as the starving people of Gaza, who put their crosses in the wrong places, can testify...

Now, it is more than justifiable (in fact it is essential) to point out the West's history of interference and support of despots, in order to question their motives, in, for example, the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and their support of Israel's illegal occupations on the West Bank, etc.

But the current events in Iran are completely different to this. The demonstrations are not being orchestrated by Britain and America, however much the increasing deranged-sounding representatives of the Iranian government try to claim otherwise. Much to the likely disappointment of the Iranian leadership (and to the stated disappointment of the Neocon warmongers in his own country), Obama is simply making general remarks supporting the freedom to protest.

However disgusting the history of Western interference in the Middle East (and it is disgusting), it is no excuse for supporting criminals like the current Iranian regime. To do this is to do the same thing in reverse as was done by Imperialism when they supported Saddam Hussein and the Taliban against Iran and the Soviet Union respectively. If all sides in a conflict are wrong, then simply say so. There are no messiahs. That is the philosophy (such as there is one) of this blog.

Even if it wasn't morally repugnant (and it is), it does the left no favours at all when a leading spokesman supports, through his silence, the barbaric acts being carried out in the name of the "Islamic revolution". In fact, for many people, it will completely invalidate anything Galloway says about anything. To campaign against Israel's repression and murder of Palestinians and say nothing of the Iranian Government's repression and murder of its own people is rank hypocrisy.

The legitimacy (or otherwise) of the declared result of the Iranian election (we may never know the truth) is no longer the issue. The tear gas and water cannon and bullets and blood saw to that.

The most charitable thing that could be said of Galloway is that his understandable hatred of the undoubted crimes of the West is leading him into very dark places. But let's not be charitable. Instead, look again at the video of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan below, and then resolve to never listen to anything Mr Galloway says, ever again.

The Left and Iran: Galloway, the SWP and Tony Sanois dreaming of a Socialist Iran

2009-06-23T00:22:00.010+01:00

The positions of the Left in the UK in relation to the Iran crisis vary a fair bit , but are all flawed. George Galloway seems to be emerging as an outright apologist which, to be fair, has more or less been his position for a while. For more on Galloway's position see here http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/06/22/galloway-v-chatham-house/

The Socialist Workers Party have it seems done a complete about face from their previous position as regime apologists and now loudly support the demos. For more see here http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18229 No doubt their North Tehran branch are busy printing the We Are All Neda Now! placards as I write. It reminds me of a similar, if rather less despicable SWP turnabout in 1990, when they suddenly came out in favour of non-payment of the poll tax, just as the movement was picking up speed, and proceeded to mop up the recruits.

The statement of the SWP influenced Stop The War Coalition indicates, though, some hesitation about supporting the uprising. They have this to say: “It would be wrong for us to take any position on the disputed outcome of the Iranian presidential election.” No it wouldn't. It is obvious from the figures released that the Iranian election was at least tampered with if not stolen. To stay on the fence in this way is like saying you'd need to hear all the facts before supporting workers in a dispute with their employer. Of course the SWP have also done this in their time, but that's for another day. For the full Stop The War Coalition statement see http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/1310/1/

The Socialist Party (formerly Militant) comes out best in the sense that it is clearly on the side of the demonstators and, unlike the Stop The War Coalition, make no attempt to undermine their claims re: the rigging of the election. This is good. However, in his article on the issue Tony Sanois goes on to say this "The guarantee of democratic rights and a solution to the mass poverty and unemployment can only then be assured with the formation of a workers’ and peasants government on a revolutionary socialist programme to transform society in the interests of all working people." There is, it goes without saying, no prospect of the formation in Iran of "a workers’ and peasants government on a revolutionary socialist programme". Outside of the Socialist Party's dull collective mind, that idea has no reality to it at all. Worse though is the comforting lie (comforting at least for the Socialist Party) that the only hope for democratic rights in Iran is for a Socialist Party style regime to take power. To anyone who has experienced the internal machinations of said Socialist Party it is simply laughable to hear it argued that Mousavi is an opportunist and imposter, and what the Iranian people really need to properly achieve their democratic rights is an Iranian version of the dictatorship of Peter Taaffe. For the full article click on
http://www.socialistparty.net/index.php/news/international/194-iran-mass-protests-erupt.html

Neda Agha-Soltan (1982-2009)

2009-06-22T19:41:00.008+01:00

No comment necessary, except that anyone who even attempts to justify the regime in whose name this was done should never be listened to, on any subject, ever again.

A tribute site here includes the poem When I Die by 13th Century Persian poet Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī.

The Los Angeles Times has published an article on Neda Agha-Soltan's life and death here.

You couldn't make it up...

2009-06-22T18:58:00.003+01:00

Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, spokesman for Iran's Guardian Council:

"Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate -- the incident has happened in only 50 cities"

Well that's all right then. Perhaps Messrs. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have more in common with some of the more unsavoury characters in American history than they would like to think, and their supporters are following Al Capone's purported advice to "vote early and vote often". It is also possible that they are following a more detailed guide, freely available at this website. The authors are really missing a trick by not charging for their advice.