John McAnulty of  Socialist Democracy (Ireland) provides an example, from the Stormont administration of education, to show  how the reformed set-up  helps to still maintains sectarianism  in Northern Ireland .

 

The journey from republicanism to administration of the Northern state rested on two main planks. One was the thesis first advanced by Michael Collins in relation to partition – that it was a transitional arrangement – a stepping stone to a united Ireland.

That plank was abandoned during the last election, when Sinn Fein came out of the closet as a populist Catholic party. What was left was a belief in the second plank – a belief that the Northern state can be gradually reformed – made more democratic and with greater rights for workers. It is a very popular and widely held view.

A key plank of this perspective was advanced by Sinn Fein when they took the education portfolio and announced that they would abolish the 11+. Alas, the reform fell on its face.

The Shinners were suckered out of millions for school building by the Catholic hierarchy, who first indicated that they would end selection and then expressed amazement at a “revolt” by Catholic grammars. The revolt was so acute that a member of the reform commission was simultaneously a governor of a “revolting” grammar.

Unofficial transfer tests were instituted. This being the North, the claim of a dying sectarianism was refuted when we ended up with two tests – one Catholic and the other Protestant.

At the beginning of May Sinn Fein education minister John O’Dowd attempted to breathe life into the reform by announcing that “action would be taken” against primary schools preparing pupils for the unofficial tests. The statement was purest bluster. The action proposed was writing a stern letter. The purpose of the statement was to remind Sinn Fein supporters of the party’s claims of radicalism.

Unfortunately for Sinn Fein, First Minister Peter Robinson also has obligations to the DUP. These are to assure them that Sinn Fein’s position is entirely subordinate and that the system of sectarian and class privilege that the DUP defend in education will be preserved. Within days he announced that there was no prospect of agreement on transfer and that he would take steps to introduce a single official transfer test.

So absolutely no sign of reform in an area where a large section of the population would support it. Even where reform is agreed, as with the creation of a single Education Authority, the process is hollowed out by building the old sectarian interests inside the new body. Even then fine tuning of the different class and sectarian interests means the agreement may never be implemented.

If reform isn’t working there are plenty of things that are working. The Sinn Fein programme of austerity and of privatization of school building and of nursery provision means thousands of teacher redundancies and many school closures, with the minister reduced to rare press announcements where limited spending is counted twice or three times to announce recycled  initiatives. The massive cuts agenda rolls on. In the absence of reform of the 11+ grammars will be protected and the cuts will fall on secondary schools and on working-class areas.

The mechanism that keeps the whole show on the road is the system of sectarian privilege sponsored by the British. Sinn Fein no longer blather about taking the first ministers position – such a development would be likely to collapse the agreement. Indeed recent amendments bar them forever from the justice ministry and they no longer bid for major financial ministries. The party has become a sinecure in education because of the endless opportunities for patronage. In outside society the community relations council report progress while recording the rise of sectarian peace walls from 22 to 88 and the increasing racism in civil society.

Claims of reform and of progress are now the new ideology.  Even suggestions by members of the administration of the humdrum banality of sectarianism and class war in golf clubs led to roars of disapproval and hasty retractions. All is well is the best of all possible worlds while sectarianism festers and austerity bites.

 16 May 2012

 

This section of our continuing debate on the Scottish Independence Referendum addresses the British Left.

The commune asked Allan Armstrong and Bob Goupillot to submit an article on the issue. This article, The Scottish Independence Referendum, appeared in the April, 2012 issue of the commune.

Barry Biddulph replied to this in the June issue with The Paradox of Nationalism as Internationalism from Below.

Allan and Bob provide a detailed critique, The Paradox ‘Non-nationalist’ British Left Unionism.

These three articles are posted below.

They are followed by three articles from other representatives of the British Left – Arthur Bough (Boffy’s Blog), Stuart King (Permanent Revolution) and James Turley (CPGB-Weekly Worker) outlining their own distinct positions on the referendum debate. This is followed by a short critique by Allan Armstrong.

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THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

To better understand our approach to this issue it is useful, by way of a preamble, to provide a thumbnail sketch of our understanding of the international context.

The modern form of capitalism is a developed imperialism dominated by the United States. US imperialism relies on a series of local allies at strategic locations around the world.  In western Europe the USA’s main ally is the UK state, which thereby provides a linchpin for the whole system.

In this context we see our role as communists to work towards the transformation of the existing states on these islands into becoming part of a federation of European socialist republics in a transition to a stateless world – a global commune.

At present we perceive a series of fault lines that run through the multinational, but unionist, UK state, especially the issue of a united Ireland and self-determination for Scotland.  We have developed a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’ to link the situation we face in Scotland, the UK and Ireland with the global struggle for emancipation and liberation. We promote the ‘break up of the UK state’ as a key tactic in pursuing this.  It is from this perspective, as communists, republicans and internationalists that we support the struggle for an independent Scotland.  We are not Scottish nationalists but Scottish internationalists seeking new forms of unity, which are not a mere reflection of how the ruling class or the British Left organises itself. We need to be able to take our own initiatives, not just react to those of others.

 

Independence-Lite or Devo-Max?

So how does the Republican Communist Network view the SNP and the forthcoming referendum?  Well, we summarise their relationship to the struggle for independence as analogous to that between the old Labour party and Socialism, i.e. opportunist.  The SNP reflects a small business, petty bourgeoisie outlook that seeks greater influence for its class backers within the existing corporate imperial order, i.e. ‘Independence-Lite’. Such a state, very unlikely to come about in the current political climate, would be a ‘Scottish Free State’, with a similar character to the Irish Free State, formed after the defeat of Irish Republicans in the British-promoted Irish Civil War of 1922-3. At present, however, many of the SNP’s business backers, naturally cautious about any radical political change and understanding of their lowly position in the current imperial pecking order, would settle for a restructured UK state, i.e. Devo-Max.

The SNP’s left wing consists of advanced nationalists, republicans and some who would call themselves socialists, although the majority of their left wing decamped into the SSP in its early days (though many have since returned). The SNP’s electoral base is politically broad ranging from social democrats seeking a home to the left of Labour to far right nationalists advocating some kind of Celtic purity.

Given this character the SNP leadership is keen to placate and charm corporate business leaders, the Scottish Establishment, the  British and US ruling classes – hence the retention of the UK monarchy (and more importantly the Crown Powers), the pound sterling and cooperation with the UK state over defence, foreign policy etc. They are particularly proud of the role played by Scottish regiments in serving British imperial needs for centuries.

In contrast the SNP leadership is fearful of rousing the people of Scotland and in particular the working class, in which they have shallow roots, in any active independence campaign. With the Labour Party having moved so far to the right, they have found an electoral niche. To appeal to Scottish workers, they make election ‘promises’ of traditional social democratic-type reforms. But these promises quickly evaporate whenever the capitalist class, including its Scottish SNP supporters, e.g. Sir Tom Farmer, call for greater austerity. The SNP’s role in Scottish government, and in many local councils, shows that they are quite prepared to administer Westminster cuts. They are also willing to privatise services and enforce major pay cuts, as the case of the Edinburgh street cleaners has shown.

 

The role of Communists, Socialists and Republican Democrats

Our role then is to initiate or participate in campaigns that raise the issue of the social and political character of such an independent Scotland, specifically raising the issues listed in the Declaration of Calton Hill and developing these as part of a specifically republican socialist campaign to reshape Scotland and hence the UK, along with partitioned Ireland.

In order to do this we will need allies beyond the borders of Scotland, in the rest of the UK and Ireland in particular, but also in the EU and across the world. We have already started this process by initiating the Republican Socialist Convention, drawing together socialist republicans, and communists from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (North and South).  We hope to organise another later this year.

Should an independent Scottish republic be torn out of the UK state we believe that this will weaken it, and the current US dominated imperial order, inspiring others to join us in delivering the fatal blow.  Such an event would be celebrated by all those consciously active in the cause of suffering humanity across the world.

 Allan Armstrong & Bob Goupillot (Republican Communist Network)

 

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THE PARADOX OF NATIONALISM AS INTERNATIONALISM FROM BELOW

In their own words, Bob Goupillot and Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network (RCN)  “are not in the business of trying to create an economically independent Scottish state, either under capitalism or socialism” (see part 3 of The RCN replies to Joe Thorne’s “The RCN’s ‘Internationalism from Below’ and the Case of Scotland: A Critical View” at:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2010/08/25/the-communist-case-for-internationalism-from-below/ They want to create a new global order. Yet their starting point for a communist transition is a national territorial framework in general, as they acknowledge, and Scotland in particular. But they argue that they are not nationalists, but internationalists with a strategy of internationalism from below, in which small nation nationalism can be transformed into internationalism. This is a rhetorical paradox. What is their tactical and strategic standpoint?

Bob and Allan locate themselves, not directly on capitalist crisis and class antagonism, but indirectly and strategically on the fault lines of anti imperialism. To prepare for revolution directly would be simply propaganda for the Comrades, so the RCN look for political weaknesses to undermine the British State. Scottish independence would break up the British state and weaken the USA, the major imperialist power;  since Britain, is its main political ally. This tactical stance is based on an analogy with the political support of Marx and Engels for various national movements against reactionary Russia in the mid Nineteenth century. Another influence is John Maclean’s politics of breaking up Britain and its Empire shortly after the First World War.  This shows the RCN that nationalism can be progressive, even proletarian, without having any illusions that it can overthrow capitalism, just like trade unions can be progressive and undermine capitalism, short of revolution. But in any case, they have a conviction in the right of Scotland as a nation to self determination.

Firstly, for the RCN to tactically stand on the ground of anti imperialism begs the question of what do they really stand for? Anti imperialism is not sufficient in itself for communists. What do the RCN support? In Allan’s view, oulined recently in a response to Eric Chester at http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/04/06/scottish-independence-referendum-debate-part-2/, to restrict oneself to communist principles would be abstract propagandism. That is Allan’s maximum programme. But in the here and now the RCN seek real leverage in high politics. Any kind of Scottish State would be a step forward, even Independence-Lite with the Scottish state sharing the Monarchy, Sterling, a banking sector, and the British army. Why would it be a real step forward? It would be anti unionist and weaken the Labour Party, Lib Dems and the BNP. This is a lesser evil argument. But there is a conviction that independence for Scotland would be a gain for the working class, in its own right, and begin to democratise the capitalist state in Scotland. While Scottish independence is considered strong the working class is considered to be weak, so Allan considers the only realistic battle can be on the terrain of SNP constitutionalism. This does reveal the narrow focus on democratising the state in the RCN’s practical politics .

But in the context of the great recession or one of the longest and deepest capitalist crisis why would class struggle be refracted through constitutionalism? Most of the RCN theorising appears to have elaborated prior to the crisis or do not make the crisis central to their politics. But an independent Scottish state would  not be independent of global capitalism. Its independence would be nominal especially if there is a shared currency and banking sector. If Scotland applied for membership of the EU, again the state would have to toe the neo-liberal line. Scottish Nationalists can no longer point to an arc of prosperous small nations such as Iceland and Ireland. The powerlessness of the Greek government for its finances shows the hollowness of national independence. What will be the effects on the working class in Scotland of a small capitalist state fighting for economic survival. It will be a race to the bottom for working class living standards as corporation tax is cut. In any case there is no abstract right to self determination and Scotland has not been an oppressed nation as any comparison with the history of Ireland demonstrates.

Analogy is a weak form of theorising; but the analogy comparing American and British Imperialism with the empires of the Habsburgs and the Romanovs and the tactics of Marx and Engels, does not stand up. The lesson of the 1848 springtime of peoples was that the bourgeois were not revolutionary and the future was not national democratic revolution led by Bourgeois modernisers. Marx was in favour of German unity, but that unity was imposed by counter revolution from above by Bismark under the hegmony of Prussia. Marx tactically focused on the threat of semi feudal Russia to capitalist development and the embryo of a workers movement in Europe, not states that embody the most advanced forms of capitalism. This focus missed the growing antagonism between German and British capitalist imperialism which resulted in world war. Marx’s tactics on national movements are debatable. They rapidly became dated and were used out of a specific context – something Allan is also guilty of -  by the leaders of German Social Democracy to justify Germany’s so called civilising mission in the First World War. There was no argument by Marx for a genaral right to self determination, even for Poland. And Marx and Engels generally supported large units not small breakaways. Again, some of the arguments of Engels paticularly on non historic nations were, to say the least, dubious.

The analogy with John Maclean’s break up of Britain is no better. John Maclean stood for a Scottish Workers Republic and nothing less. Any strategy of phases or a constitutional road to a classless society would have been anathema to him.  While the future leaders of the CPBG focused on the practical politics of trade unionism or calling for peace, John Maclean was the only significant workers leader preparing for international revolution during the First World War. This cannot be dismissed as abstract propagandism. Rather than look for changes in the state, or focus on a narrow view of what might be possible, John Maclean looked to street meetings and economic classes to prepare for a Petrograd in Scotland. But Maclean was marginalised by Theodore Rothstein during the formation of the CPGB. But in any case, even though Willie Gallagher, Harry Pollitt and Rothstein proclaimed themselves revolutionary, Maclean knew from personal experience their tactics and strategy were far from revolutionary. Even if he joined he would have been expelled for independence of mind, like Sylvia Pankhurst.  So Scotland must lead itself in the context of what he expected to be a war between Britain and the USA over economic competition. With Scottish workers considered to be in advance of their English comrades, Scotland could follow the example of Ireland and fight to break away from Britain and help bring down the Empire.

Lenin also thought that the break down of Empires by Nationalism and Nationalists would clear the way to Socialism and Communism. Historically his critics have been proved correct. Attempting to link the national struggle with the workers cause resulted in historical defeats for workers movements. But Maclean did not theoretically link nationalism with the workers cause, unlike James Connolly, who did conflate Labour’s cause with nationalism. He considered the origins and rise of private property in Ireland was caused by an English invasion of Ireland; contrary to Marx and more importantly modern research.  But Maclean did seem to uncritically absorb aspects of Scottish identity. There were scattered comments such as: “don’t let Scottish lads fight for john Bull”; “We are justified in utilising our Scottish sentiments”; “the primitive communism of the clans must be re-established on a modern basis”. And so on. But the clans were more primitive feudalism. Although national sentiments in Scotland were growing in Maclean’s time, Scottish workers joined their English and Welsh comrades in the British Trade Union Movement and the  Labour Party, which CPGB helped to establish at a local level. Maclean tried, but failed to break this reformist mold.

Today, Scottish nationalism is on the rise again, with the decline of British Imperialism and Capitalism and the dismantling of the “welfare state”. Although polls suggest that support for Scottish independence is still minority politics. And the failure to win Glasgow in the recent local elections shows the high tide of nationalism might be ebbing. To criticise the SNP for not arousing the workers for Scottish independence, as the RCN do, or vote for Scottish independence even on a capitalist basis, seems to be more than engaging with nationalism. Voting for independence or critical support for a SNP referendum can only serve to help tie the working class to nationalism and the future of a capitalist state. Alex Salmond in alliance with Rupert Murdoch. It would weaken the working class not capitalism. Scottish identity was formed at the same time as Britishness. Scottish upper class people were at the heart of the British Empire as troops and politicians and at the top of the British Parliament in London. To say Scotland is oppressed because there is not a constitutional right to secede from the British state, as Allan does, is a utopian or constitutional view of revolution. To echo a critic of Karl Kautsky: a high politics road will not be a different route to the same destination – communism, but a track to a different destination.

Barry Biddulph, May 6th 2012

 

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THE PARADOX OF ‘NON-NATIONALIST’ LEFT BRITISH UNIONISM

 

i)            Introduction

Barry’s reply, The Paradox of Nationalism as Internationalism from Below, to our article, The Scottish Independence Referendum[1], is a further contribution to the debate over the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum, which the editor of the commune asked Bob and Allan to start off.[2] We are pleased that Barry has responded so quickly. There has been an undoubted frustration shown by some members of the commune about the organisation’s inability to intervene effectively in the growing class struggles precipitated by the ongoing capitalist crisis. However, we think a significant role that the commune can play is to encourage clarity of thinking amongst communists, as these struggles develop and manifest themselves in different forms.

The issue of national self-determination was first debated by the RCN and members of the commune at the second Global Commune[3]. With the election of an SNP majority government to Holyrood, in May 5^th 2011, this has become a more pressing issue in the UK. The SNP government is proposing to organise a Scottish independence referendum in 2014. This opens up the possibility of a constitutional crisis. We will argue that this just one aspect of the deepening crisis facing the corporate capitalist imperial order[4].

Barry, however, argues that struggles for national self-determination can not lead anywhere but to further defeats for the working class and to victories for capitalism[5]. He does not support the right of self-determination for Scotland, or for any other nation for that matter. The RCN has already written a critique of the type of arguments used in the first of these propositions[6]; whilst Allan has dealt with Barry’s attitude towards the ‘right to self-determination’, and the resort to calling for rights under capitalism in an earlier debate[7].

 

 ii)             No oppression in Scotland and no Scottish self-determination?

Despite repeating some arguments that RCN members have been already answered, Barry does add some new material, which means the debate can be further advanced.  Thus, as a back-up to his dismissal of the right of self-determination, Barry states that “Scottish identity was formed at the same time as Britishness[8]. Scottish upper class people were at the heart of the British Empire as troops and politicians and at the top of the British Parliament in London.”

We think that what Barry is suggesting here is that Scotland can not be seen as a potentially independent nation anyhow, since a Scottish national identity only emerged within the British state. One problem with this argument is that the first part could be said, with even more reason, of both Ireland and India.  Whilst the second part is also true of Ireland. The majority of ‘nations’, in the world, which went on to become independent states, have probably been formed in the context of empire or union[9]. Indeed, it is precisely this experience that has led so many national movements to fight for self-determination.

Barry supplements this argument with another frequently used on the British Left. “Scotland has not been an oppressed nation as any comparison with the history of Ireland shows.” Using the same argument about relative oppression, you could say that, for the last eighty years Ireland has not been an oppressed nation either as any comparison with Palestine shows. The RCN has already dealt with this type of argument over degrees of oppression, and the common Left conflation of oppression and repression, in our debates within the commune[10].

We have defined oppression as the denial of democratic rights. In the case of Scotland this takes the form of the lack of a constitutional right to secede from UK state. Barry somewhat mysteriously dismisses this “as a utopian or constitutional view of the revolution.” This particular instance of the denial of democratic rights is a fact stemming from the existence of the UK state, not from any “utopian or constitutional view of revolution.” It ranks alongside other facts such as the UK state’s constitutional ability, under the Crown Powers, to depose elected governments (e.g. that of Gough Whitlam’s Australian Labour Party in 1975), or to evict the Diego Garcia islanders (1968-73). Whether a particular example of UK state behaviour, under the Crown Powers, produces serious opposition, a constitutional crisis, or even contributes to a revolutionary situation can not be pre-determined. However to dismiss any communist support for opposition on the grounds of this being “utopian”, seems to be a sure fire way of letting the British ruling class and its UK state suppress any challenges to their rule.

Now, looking around the world today, the RCN would be amongst the first to agree that on the scale of oppression (and particularly repression) found internationally, Scotland does not figure very high on any list. What gives the seemingly modest demand for the exercise of Scottish self-determination a much greater significance is the likely reaction of a British ruling class, desperate to maintain its imperial profile in the world. For a declining imperial power like the UK, any perceived threat to its rule provokes a way-over-the-top response. It was not the demand for the withdrawal of British troops and a united Ireland that led to Bloody Sunday in 1972, but the demand for civil rights in a Northern Ireland within the UK.

It can not be determined, in advance, whether the UK state’s response to the demand for Scottish independence will create a deep constitutional crisis, or give rise to a revolutionary situation. However, already the public reaction of British politicians and other figures, to even the prospect of a referendum on the issue, has often been near hysterical. Given the fact that the British ruling class is almost unanimously opposed to Scottish independence, you can be sure that resort to those hidden measures constitutionally sanctioned under the Crown Powers, are already being quietly prepared.

Furthermore, the situation will not be determined solely by events in the UK, but by the widening class antagonisms emerging from the current international crisis of capitalism. However, we would like to think that the Left throughout these islands is better prepared than it turned out to be in Northern Ireland in 1969[11].

 

iii)            Capitalist crisis – just economic or political too?

Nevertheless, Barry does introduce new arguments, which can carry the wider debate forward. He claims that, “Bob and Allan locate themselves, not directly on capitalist crisis and class antagonism, but indirectly and strategically on the fault lines of imperialism”. For Barry there seems to be no direct connection between the current capitalist crisis and the fault lies of imperialism. Therefore, he raises the important question of what is meant by capitalist crisis and class antagonism and how, or if, these can be related to these “fault lines of imperialism”.

If we wish to advance this debate further still, then we need to account for the differences between Barry’s own thinking and our theory. To comprehend our understanding of the significance of national democratic struggle, you first need to examine our theory of capitalism and imperialism.

Our own view of capitalism begins by seeing it as system of both exploitation (the extraction of surplus value through the imposition of wage slavery) and oppression[12] (utilising a distinctive form of state to maintain a system of generalised wage slavery). We have argued this before in the commune[13], using an article by another non-RCN member, to illustrate our theory[14].

“Only the development of capital as a social relationship… brings about the separation of the political sphere from the economic… This makes the capitalist form of class exploitation different from the previous ones… A feudal lord… disposed of both… ‘economic’ and ‘legal’ power.”

We then went on to explain:-

“It is this understanding of capitalism, with its distinct ‘economic’ and ‘political’ spheres, through which exploitation and oppression are enforced, which also informs the RCN’s thinking.  The contradictions, which arise from capitalist exploitation and oppression, produce class struggles in both the economic and the political spheres of capitalism… Workers experience exploitation in the workplace, and oppression both in our workplaces and outside in our communities. Furthermore, others face oppression too – women, gay men and lesbians, certain nations, ethnic groups and religious minorities. All of these groups are class- divided, with a considerable proportion belonging to the working class.

Exploitation and oppression are rarely meekly accepted. There is nearly always resistance, either passive or active. Sometimes resistance takes ineffective or counter-productive forms – escapism, sectionalism, or various forms of chauvinism directed against others. It is the job of communists to push for resistance, which takes effective forms through class struggle, practical solidarity – including internationally, and most importantly, through the creation of independent class organisations.

When resistance to exploitation is targeted at capitalists, it usually takes the form of industrial struggles around immediate economic demands – e.g. better wages, improved conditions, defence of jobs, etc. When resistance to oppression is targeted at the state, it takes the form of political struggles around immediate democratic demands – e.g. the ending of anti-union laws, for abortion on demand, equal rights for women, gay men and lesbians, removal of occupying troops, etc.

Once you acknowledge that the division of capitalism into economic and political spheres produces both exploitation and oppression, which each give rise to resistance, then it is much easier to appreciate the significance of political struggles around immediate democratic, including national democratic, demands.”

Thus, the RCN sees a whole number of class antagonisms extending across that economic and political divide specific to capitalism. We have provided examples of resistance arising from these class antagonisms in the economic (e.g. industrial struggles) and political (e.g. democratic struggles) spheres[15]. Our comparisons between such struggles are something Barry might dismiss as making “analogies”. Barry does not like “analogies”. However, Barry’s own reply ignores the prior theory we had already outlined, which is summarised above. Thus, whilst we should always be aware of the limits of analogies, the examples given were not a substitute for providing a theory. They were given as illustrations of our theory of capitalism and its class antagonisms, which had been provided beforehand.

Nor does Barry really explain what he means by “Allan and Bob directly locat{ing} themselves not on capitalist crisis…” Perhaps what Barry is suggesting that today’s capitalist crisis has come about through a combination of the unfolding Credit Crunch, which has revealed the capitalist class’s inability to restore profitability; and the struggles that workers have been undertaking in response to this. We agree that these two features have contributed very significantly to the current phase of the capitalist crisis[16]. Yet the RCN still sees the ongoing capitalist crisis taking wider and deeper forms than the undoubtedly significant economic problems the system undoubtedly faces at present.

To move this particular part of the debate forward in a more positive way, Barry needs to outline his own understanding of what constitutes capitalism, its recent dynamic[17], and the resulting class antagonisms leading to the ongoing capitalist crisis (or point us to sources where it can be found).

 

iv) What do we mean by imperialism today?

In the second part of Barry’s sentence, concerning our alleged neglect of capitalist crisis (in reality, as we have just shown, a different understanding of all the forms of the present crisis), he criticises the RCN for concentrating “indirectly and strategically on the fault lines of imperialism.”  The RCN has already characterised the present stage of capitalism as corporate capitalist imperialism. We do not see the contradiction between capitalist crisis and imperialist crisis that Barry seems to imply above.

Now, there are two well-known Marxist theoreticians, who do make a strong distinction between the current global capitalist order (which they confusingly term ‘Empire’) and imperialism. Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt have argued in their book, Empire, that there is no longer any imperialism. Instead, the global multitude (in effect, the international working class) now directly confronts global capital (which has no national base). This view, whatever its failings[18], at least provides a theoretical underpinning to oppose struggles for national self- determination.

So, let us further develop our understanding of the development of the current imperialist phase of capitalism. Sam Gindis and Leo Panitch have provided a convincing theory of this in The Making of Global Capital. They do not see global capital rolling itself out uniformly over the world, following a compelling inner logic imposed by the alienated categories of capital[19]. They see the current world order as having come about through specific class struggles conducted within a hierarchically structured (i.e. imperialist) world of states, in which US corporate capital and the US imperial state work together and are dominant.

Somewhat confusingly, Barry does argue, a little later on, that, “Anti-imperialism is not sufficient in itself for communists.” We agree. However, does this not suggest that perhaps imperialism is still an important phenomenon facing us today? This means looking to those “fault lines of imperialism” and understanding the nature of the class antagonisms and resulting class struggles that have arisen from global corporate capitalist exploitation and oppression. These have led to the different forms of resistance we have outlined. Therefore, it is not immediately clear why Barry opposes communists who relate to “the fault lines of imperialism”. We think, though, this is because Barry’s thinking is trapped within certain fixed categories.

 

v)            Fixed categories prevent you from understanding the multi-facetted nature of the current crisis

We have already argued that class antagonisms are not confined to the direct wage/capital relationship at the point of production, or to the problems of capitalist profitability, vital though these are to our understanding. To use an analogy  (sorry Barry!) -  a car (capitalism) certainly does require an engine (surplus value) powered by petrol (our labour power); but there are also many other features that can cause breakdown (crisis)  – including a seriously damaged chassis (the state). This is why class antagonisms and any consequent class struggles appear in both the economic and political realms of the capitalist system. The ongoing capitalist crisis is taking place in a global corporate imperialist order, so these antagonisms and struggles have emerged on many fronts – economic, social, political, cultural and ideological.

Barry’s thinking does not allow him to see this though. He states, “In the context of the great recession or one of the longest and deepest capitalist crises why would class struggle be refracted through constitutionalism?” Our answer to this is – in the context of the great recession, or one of the longest and deepest capitalist crises, how on earth could the class struggle not manifest itself in all the arenas of capitalist control, leading, amongst other things, to a constitutional crisis within the state?

But we can see how Barry avoids this conclusion. He does not use the term ‘constitutional crisis’. This would opens up the possibility of an extra-constitutional challenge, but instead he falls back on his dismissive term ‘constitutionalism’. This attempt, to collapse a particular characteristic, its underlying contradictions and the oppositional challenge into one category, is a recurring feature of Barry’s arguments.

Barry follows this up by criticising the RCN for “more than engaging with nationalism”, in our support of democratic struggles for Scottish self-determination. Here, Barry’s term ‘nationalism’[20] is another example of his use of fixed categories. ‘Nationalism’ is also used very widely on the British Left, without a hint of self-irony, to stigmatise any democratic demand for Scottish independence.

Others on the Left have dismissed the struggle for women’s emancipation (which could also be characterised as women’s self-determination) as ‘bourgeois feminism’. Now certainly, nationalists (both bourgeois and petty bourgeois) and bourgeois feminists will try to place themselves at the head of these respective struggles against oppression and emancipation[21].  Trade union bureaucrats also try to place themselves at the head of workers’ struggles on the economic front. We could even designate those current advocates of ‘social partnership’ as ‘bourgeois syndicalists’ (although the old IWW term ‘labour fakirs’ is undoubtedly better). However, communists should not throw out the baby with the bath water, but relate to all partial struggles against exploitation and oppression. We need to show how these are linked, and how human emancipation and liberation can only come about in a generalised struggle for a global commune.

Furthermore, when Barry dismisses any democratic struggle as mere ‘constitutionalism’, it is a bit like having to argue with those academic managerial theorists who dismiss workers’ strike actions as nothing more than a problem of ‘industrial relations’. Yet, when it comes to workplace and immediate economic struggles, Barry is able to comprehend their wider political significance, and to see their potential to bring about independent class organisation.

The RCN, however, does not just view our class as being created, maintained and becoming aware of itself in the workplace and through economic or socio-economic struggles. This seems a rather restricted and sociological view to us. We live, for example, within specific communities and states. We also have a desire to lead more fulfilled lives, not only materially but culturally.  This is why there are so many partial struggles, in so many arenas, involving workers and other oppressed groups. These can also act as ‘schools of struggle’ for a more generalised challenge to capitalist rule.

 

vi)            ‘Revolutionary passivity’ and the Jeremiahs of the Left

Barry also tries to get to grips with what he thinks could happen if Scottish political independence came about. “An independent Scottish state would not be independent of global capitalism. Its independence would be nominal especially if there is a shared currency and banking sector.” And later, Barry states that, “Its independence would be nominal especially if there is a shared currency and banking sector. If Scotland applied for membership of the EU, again the state would have to toe the neo-liberal line. Scottish Nationalists can no longer point to an arc of prosperous small nations such as Iceland and Ireland… What will be the effects on the working class in Scotland of a small capitalist state fighting for economic survival. It will be a race to the bottom for working class living standards as corporation tax is cut.”

Now these are all points that the RCN has already made. Whilst being prepared to participate in partial struggles, including national democratic struggles, we do not argue for a subsequent ‘freezing’ of existing class relations within any new national state; just as we do not argue for the suspension of other forms of class struggle in the preceding struggle for national self determination. Indeed, we see such struggles as supporting and mutually reinforcing each other. We advocate ‘internationalism from below’ to extend independent working class organisation internationally, the better to prepare ourselves for when a revolutionary situation develops, in order to spread the communist challenge to the existing order across the globe.

To illustrate his own position, Barry draws an analogy for Scotland. Yes, even Barry thinks “analogies” can be useful at times! He states that, “The powerlessness of the Greek government for its finances shows the hollowness of national independence.” [22] Now, that would certainly be true for any future SNP or pro-capitalist government in an independent capitalist Scotland. But the formation of any new Scottish state would not be the endpoint for workers in Scotland. There is a strong possibility that we would be confronting a considerably weaker and, as yet, not fully consolidated Scottish ruling class. This would open up new prospects. However, this possibility would depend largely upon the working class mounting its own independent campaign beforehand.

Now, of course, you could join the many Jeremiahs on the Left, who pinpoint the ‘inevitable consequences’, if the SNP achieves its ‘Independence-Lite’ through the Scottish independence referendum. And, if communists stand back and fail to contribute to an independent class campaign, this is certainly a possibility. However, given the current balance of political forces, a more likely result is a victory for British Unionism and its allies – but then the British Left does prefer to deal with what is familiar to it. The many years of Left retreat have led to growing pessimism and ‘revolutionary passivity’. Instead, some reassurance is often sought in making self-fulfilling prophecies.

Furthermore, what is not clear from Barry’s analogy is whether or not the Greek working class should ever take power on a national basis. A failure to do so would be a sure recipe to encourage passivity and allow others to impose their own ‘solutions’ on Greece. If though, you support an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy, then you would hope to see Greek workers taking power[23], and to use this as a base to spread the revolution internationally.

 

vii)            The class contested nature of the demand for Scottish self-determination

The RCN has argued that a major aspect of the current constitutional crisis in the UK is the British ruling class’s inability to satisfy the demand for national self-determination. Furthermore, we have also emphasised that the SNP government will face considerable problems satisfying this demand too. To do this effectively would take far more fundamental changes than the SNP’s leaders could ever contemplate. This is why the wider demand for national self-determination can not just be written off as simply an SNP ‘con’, or be viewed as mere ‘nationalism’. The RCN rejects the argument[24] that only sees struggles for national self-determination as conflicts between existing and wannabe ruling classes, or their political representatives – the British Unionist parties and the SNP, in the UK case.

The RCN has certainly constantly highlighted how the SNP, in its attempt to place itself at the head of the struggle for Scottish self-determination, continues to accept the continued role of global corporate capital, the US/UK imperial alliance, the UK state’s Crown Powers, and the need to discipline the working class, including acceptance of the need to impose austerity measures in the face of the present economic crisis[25]. This is because the SNP leadership is desperate to create a wannabe Scottish ruling class, which needs constant reassuring that their interests that will remain paramount. Yet, the demand for more effective Scottish self-determination goes wider than the SNP. Even amongst many of its supporters, this is coupled to a very different vision of the future, compared to that of the SNP leadership and any wannabe Scottish ruling class backers.

However, Barry has decided to interpret the RCN’s thinking over this as amounting to “criticism {of} the SNP for not arousing the workers for Scottish independence… or {to} vote for Scottish independence even on a capitalist basis”. Now, the first part of this is another one of Barry’s straw men arguments[26], without any supporting quotes. The RCN has instead argued against those on the Left, who want a campaign to pressure the SNP into mounting a more effective campaign for a ‘Yes’ vote. Such a campaign could prompt the SNP to make some more social democratic promises. However, these would have as little substance as all those other promises they have already ditched in government, at the behest of their big business backers. More likely, though, the SNP leadership could cynically use Left Nationalists to try to persuade enough workers that “things can only get better” after ‘independence’[27]. In the meantime we should just ignore our own immediate needs, and confine our activity to placing an ‘X’ on the referendum ballot paper!

Therefore, our criticisms of the SNP (and their Left nationalist apologists) are addressed to the working class and to the Left, in order that we can act independently of the nationalists and develop the struggle for Scottish self-determination along a socialist republican ‘internationalism from below’ path.

The second part of Barry’s argument, ruling out such democratic struggles, because they do not replace capitalism, flows from what appears to be a kind of economistic split in his thinking. This has been already hinted at by his limited notion of the extent of the class antagonisms resulting from the current crisis.

Thus, Barry’s stance allows him to promote or defend certain economic reforms or gains under capitalism (e.g. over wages and conditions), whilst he stubbornly resists any political reforms whilst capitalism remains. The immediate practical demand for the abolition of ‘wage slavery’ can be delayed, whilst we conduct our economic struggles, because we are not in the revolutionary situation, which could allow this (and here we would agree with Barry); but political struggles, with aims short of the overthrow of the capitalist state have to be vehemently opposed (which is where we disagree). At least the SPGB, which opposes all “palliatives” short of the abolition of money, is consistent on this.

 

viii)            Relating to all struggles against exploitation and oppression

The underlying question we have to address, when a particular struggle emerges, is whether it is really against exploitation and/or oppression. Then, we have to determine how the struggle can be advanced on a communist basis, i.e. developing independent class organisation and increasing unity across our class.[28]

The struggle for greater Scottish self-determination has the ability to undermine the top-down imposed bureaucratic ‘internationalism’ of the British unionist state, with its formidable anti-democratic Crown Powers, at the same time as developing our own independent class organisations on an ‘internationalism from below’ basis. For RCN members living in Scotland, this can only be done effectively by also opposing the SNP’s constant attempt to build its own ‘internationalism from above’ alliance of big Scottish business leaders and the global corporations. For they are determined to maintain as much of the machinery of the British state as possible, including the Crown Powers -  albeit draped in tartan.

Achieving meaningful gains can not be guaranteed in advance of any struggle. During revolutionary situations, partial struggles can become more generalised, leading to the possibility of a more fundamental revolutionary challenge. However, even in thee  situations,  it is still possible to have ‘counter-revolutions within the revolution’. Those in the lead of a revolution may have intended to bring about wider emancipation and liberation, but either through an inadequate understanding of what they have to deal with, or through bring forced back on to the defensive, they end up placing further constraints on the revolution, before finally emerging as a new ruling class themselves. Barry has promised members of the commune his take on the ‘Russian Revolution’[29]. Hopefully, in the process, he will highlight the ‘counter-revolution in the revolution’.

Barry argues that the “attempts to link the national struggle with the workers cause resulted in historical defeats for workers movements”. As Allan has argued elsewhere, with regard to the followers of Rosa Luxemburg in Poland, and of the Bolsheviks in Finland and Ukraine, so also has the failure to link specific national struggles with the workers’ cause resulted in historical defeats for workers’ movements. Indeed this was one of the contributory causes of ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’ during the ‘Russian Revolution’. Allan has suggested that one of the reasons for this is that the majority of pre-First World War revolutionary Social Democrats and post-war official Communists failed to adopt an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy, which could adequately address the ‘National Question’.

Barry does not seem to appreciate that the criticisms he makes of those trying to link specific national struggles with the workers’ cause, because they failed to lead to sustain any gains, or encouraged new forms of inter-state competition, including wars, can also be made of many attempts, so far, to link struggles against exploitation with the workers’ cause. Capitalism still rules, and most gains are being snatched away from us. But, once again, the RCN has already addressed this type of argument[30].

 

ix)            Falling back on ‘abstract propaganda’ or fully engaging in the struggles of our class?

And this brings us to another argument used by Barry. “In Allan’s view… to restrict oneself to communist principles would be “abstract propaganda”[31]. Barry provides no direct quote, so let us see what Allan actually said. “What socialist propagandism seeks to do is to win over individuals to small organisations (e.g. SPGB), but is extremely wary of becoming involved in wider campaigns with others who might not agree with all their politics. One thing that socialist propagandists want to be able to say is that they have never betrayed their principles; but that is because they don’t engage in the actual struggles of our class”.

First, the RCN is very much in favour of communist propaganda. We are currently undertaking an organised discussion on how to put across the idea of communism more effectively[32]. Indeed, this is the reason why we co-sponsored the first Global Commune event – ‘What do we mean by Communism?’[33] – along with the Commune, held in Edinburgh on January 16^th, 2010. This certainly enthused Barry.

We would go further still. Since we one of the main jobs facing communists today is to develop independent organisations for our class, it would be a considerable step forward if, rather than communists just confining ourselves to episodic propaganda, more permanent schools of communist education could be set up – furthering the tradition established by John Maclean.

What Allan meant, though, by “abstract propagandism” is the failure to engage in the actual struggles of our class, around aspects of an Immediate Programme. We can be fairly sure, though, that Barry threw himself into the November 30^th 2011 Pensions Strike, rather than dismissing this in advance, because of its obviously limited aims and its even more obviously treacherous leadership. Did Barry condemn the strike because it could not lead to revolution, or failed to place ‘abolish wage slavery’ on its banners? We doubt it. Furthermore, we do not think that Barry confined himself to cheering on the strike leaders, asking for more of the same, as the SWP and SP did. Therefore, it is quite possible to become involved in partial struggles in a non-revolutionary situation without going over to the other side. The real issue is what should communists try to achieve in such situations?

 

x)            What are the possibilities in non-revolutionary situations?

So what was possible in this non-revolutionary situation on November 30th? Well, communists could still try to develop independent organisations for our class[34], and show how this could achieve the type of concerted action that might make some gains, albeit for a limited period unless class struggle developed on a much wider front.

But Barry appears to attack such an approach as believing “trade unions can be progressive and undermine capitalism, short of the revolution”. Once again, the wording is Barry’s, not ours. What we would say is that work within trade unions on a rank and file basis, coupled to militant action, can make limited gains for workers and undermine the position of the bosses. However, unless these struggles become more generalised, and that involves the creation of an ever-widening array of independent class bodies, leading to a revolutionary challenge to the whole capitalist class, then capitalism will recoup any such gains, and in the process neutralise or tame our own organisations.

Political polemics can have the effect of exaggerating differences. However, with regard to the socio-economic struggles of the working class, we suspect that Barry’s practical approach would not very different from our own in this case.

Quite clearly, though, the categories that Barry invokes to dismiss the democratic struggles of our class, do lead to a marked disagreement with us in this regard. Barry writes that for “the RCN nationalism can be progressive, even proletarian, without having any illusions that it can overthrow capitalism”. We know that Barry likes to avoid direct quotes, so it is not surprising that this is not our actual view.

What we would say is that certain national democratic struggles, especially those led by independent working class organisations, can help to remove sources of national oppression and division, and further widen independent working class organisation on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’. And, as in the case of militant action on the economic front, it may also be possible to make some limited democratic reforms, which are of benefit to workers and others. However, as with militant ‘industrial’ action, unless these struggles become more generalised, and are able to replace the capitalist social relations causing exploitation and oppression, then they too will be recouped.

Barry further adds that, “Most of the RCN theorising appears to have been elaborated prior to the crisis or does not make the crisis central to their politics”. The RCN was certainly elaborating a theory of ‘National Question’ for a considerable period before 2008.  However, the subsequent much deeper economic aspect of the crisis, heralded by the initial Credit Crunch, has badly damaged the USA and UK economies and their standing in the world. This deepening crisis has shown little sign of abating. It has helped to undermine the ideological credibility of neo-liberalism[35], which the political leaders of the US and UK (Republican or Democratic; Conservative or New Labour) have promoted for so long. However, the relative decline in these states’ economic positions has led them to resort to even more military force to compensate – hence the never-ending imperial wars. We have integrated the most recent aggravated phase of the capitalist crisis into our thinking.

Yet, as we have seen, Barry seems to hold a more limited view than us of what constitutes the current capitalist crisis. He does not seem to appreciate all the multifaceted class struggles we are confronting today, arising from the class antagonisms the capitalists face whilst trying to maintain their global corporate imperial order[36], including its increasingly stressed political framework.

 

xi)            John Maclean in revolutionary and non-revolutionary situations

It is good to see that Barry has some time for that very important Glasgow-born revolutionary – John Maclean. Barry does make some passing criticisms of Maclean, and more so, of that Edinburgh-born revolutionary James Connolly. It is not the RCN’s intention to create revolutionary idols, beyond challenge, although we would maintain that these two individuals still stand head and shoulders above their British Left contemporaries. Instead, we place ourselves in the tradition of ‘internationalism from below, which they developed to apply to the UK.

However, Barry creates some confusion, when he states that, “Maclean stood for a Scottish Workers Republic, nothing less”. Maclean only arrived at this position in the context of the 1916-21 International Revolutionary Wave. Indeed, it was not until the 1919 highpoint of this particular revolutionary wave, following Maclean’s visit to Dublin, where he witnessed the revolutionary potential of national democratic struggle that he moved decisively to a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire’ strategy.

During the non-revolutionary period, preceding 1916[37], Maclean concentrated on providing Marxist education classes to Scottish workers. He was also involved in the everyday activities of the British Socialist Party (BSP) – participating in elections and supporting strikes. Of course, Maclean thought that this political work was still developing the independent working class party needed for the future revolution he passionately believed in. However, when a revolutionary situation did develop, he soon appreciated how wrong he had been about the BSP – and maybe that first initial ‘B’ had something to do with this! Thus, it was only the emergence of the international revolutionary situation that changed Maclean’s political thinking, and led him to promote “a Scottish workers’ Republic, nothing less.”

The RCN does not make the particular analogy, Barry claims we do, between the non-revolutionary situation we face today and the revolutionary situation Maclean faced between 1919-23. What we would argue, is that the contradictions and tensions within the UK state (and British Empire), highlighted by the situation then, are very likely to reappear in a period of growing crisis. If this led to a new revolutionary situation, then you could attempt to create “a Scottish Workers Republic, nothing less”, coupled to an ‘internationalism from below’ perspective of having “a workers’ republic in every country and a World Council… to knit the various republics into one worldwide social organisation.”[38]

Now, just as Barry does not appear to appreciate the political difference between Maclean’s approach before and after the emergence of a revolutionary situation, neither does he see the full significance of the defeat of the 1916-21 International Revolutionary Wave, for Maclean’s ‘internationalism from below’ strategy.  The British government was able to contain the developing revolution in Ireland through pogrom-induced Partition in the ‘Six Counties’, and by backing the anti-Republican Irish Free State forces during the Civil War in the ‘26 counties’. It was this, rather than the failure of Maclean (who died in 1923 as the result of his many privations at the hands of the UK state), that turned socialist and official Communist politics firmly down the old Hyndmanite ‘British road to socialism’.

‘The British road to socialism’ took the form of supporting a Labour Party seeking Westminster office, or of the newly founded CPGB, mesmerised by another unionist state – the USSR. The degree to which the most conscious workers abandoned Maclean’s internationalism from below’ break-up of the UK strategy, was the degree to which they accepted British reformism[39]. Furthermore, this  ‘British road to socialism’ strategy became hardwired into the British Left. It was not confined to the CPGB, who formally adopted a particular variation of this for the name of their programme in 1951. The SWP, Militant/SP, AWL and CPGB-Weekly Worker have all adhered to their own versions of a  ‘British road to socialism’ strategy.

 

xii)            The relevance of analogies drawn from Marx and Engels

Barry also highlights the fact that our own theory of the significance of the ‘National Question’ in the UK (which has addressed the situation in Ireland fairly comprehensively too) has focussed for some time on an assessment of the longer-term role of US imperialism and its UK ally in propping up the current global order.

And Barry is quite correct in pointing out the historical precedent we make about Marx and Engels’ own understanding of the global order found in their day, and the central role of Tsarist Russia and Hapsburg Austria in upholding it. We do indeed argue that a similar role is currently played by US imperialism and its loyal UK state ally.

Barry is unhappy with this “analogy” and questions Marx and Engels’ understanding of the role of Tsarist Russia in particular. He makes some quite valid points about how the German Social Democratic Right later used Marx and Engels’ earlier reasoning to justify its participation in the imperial slaughter of the First World War. However, the Internationalist Left, which ranged from people like Pannekoek, Luxemburg, Trostky and Lenin to Yurkevich (a Ukrainian ‘internationalism from below’ advocate), was never taken in by such argumentation and strongly opposed it[40].

It is not widely appreciated though, that from the late 1860’s, Marx and Engels changed their previous understanding of the role of Tsarist Russia as the mainstay of reaction. They moved on from their earlier support for what Engels called ‘historic nations’ against those ‘historyless peoples’, whom they saw as allies of Tsarist Russia. In the process, Marx and Engels adopted a more ‘internationalism from below’ approach, and despite what Barry believes, they did begin to support the right of self-determination, or, as it was then styled in the First International, “the right of every people to dispose of itself”[41].

The “analogy” we invoke between the present role of US and British imperialism in upholding the world order, and that of Tsarist Russia and Hapsburg Austria, is confined to the period between 1815 and the late 1860’s. Barry claims that, “This focus missed the growing antagonism between German and British capitalist imperialism which resulted in world war.” However, this was hardly relevant in the period concerned[42].

Of course, our own assessment of the current role of US and British imperialism stands quite independently of this nineteenth century “analogy”. To undermine our stance, Barry would need to challenge our current political assessment of these two state’s roles in the world today, rather than our nineteenth century “analogy”. We invoked this comparison to demonstrate aspects of Marx and Engels’ approach, which we think could still be useful today, provided their context is fully appreciated.

 

xiii)            I’m British – so I can’t be a nationalist!

Lastly, bringing us up to date, Barry takes some heart from “polls {which} suggest that support for Scottish independence in recent events is still minority politics”. This is certainly the case at present, and is likely to remain so given the SNP government’s totally constitutional approach[43], and its desire to appease the Scottish and British establishments and US imperialism.

Barry began his reply by raising the paradox of ‘nationalism as internationalism.’ We have shown that the solution to Barry’s paradox lies in breaking out of his fixed category – ‘nationalism’ – which subsumes national oppression and the democratic struggle against it under the one term. It is certainly very important that we combat nationalism (both as an ideology and practice). It  does either promote working class disunity, or can see no possible future beyond the continued existence of nation-states. However, once you also examine the class antagonisms which national oppression (and repression) bring about, then you begin to appreciate the need for ‘internationalism from below’. You can also see why this is not, as Barry thinks, some variation of nationalism. Instead ‘internationalism from below’ offers a communist strategy that challenges both British unionism and Scottish nationalism, including its Left variants.

Many Left British unionists equate internationalism with the existence of a British Labour Party and British trade unions, or their preferred British Left political organisations. Barry does not take this particular British Left stance, although his comments, without further qualification, concerning Scottish workers joining British political parties and trade unionists, are ambiguous in their political intent.

More worrying, though, is Barry’s next comment that, “the failure {of the SNP} to win Glasgow in the recent local elections shows the high tide of nationalism might be ebbing”. If Scottish independence is indeed only supported by a minority in Scotland, as shown by the vote for the SNP on the May 3^rd local elections, then presumably, by Barry’s argument, the combined vote of the Labour, Lib-Dem, Tories and UKIP, shows support for British unionism and the UK[44]. Here, as with the rest of the British Left, Barry appears not to see British unionism as nationalist. This is why he views the ability of British unionism to contain the SNP’s advance as the ebbing of nationalism. This is the as yet unresolved paradox in Barry’s own thinking!

But some of us in the RCN were once Left British unionists (we have members who used to be in the Labour Party, CPGB and IS/SWP) – so we are very familiar with the kind of arguments Barry and others use. The fact that we have changed our minds, and have been able to reconnect with the communist tradition of ‘internationalism from below’, which rejects both British and Scottish nationalism, means we are still confident that others can change too.

In the meantime, we thank Barry for giving us this opportunity to further develop our communist case for applying the strategy of ‘internationalism from below’.

Allan Armstrong and Bob Goupillot, 17.5.12

[1]             Barry’s reply also deals with parts of The RCN replies to Joe Thorne’s “The RCN’s  ‘Internationalism from Below’ and the Case of Scotland: A Critical View” on             http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2010/08/25/the-communist-case-for-internationalism-from-below/ and Allan Armstrong replies to Eric Chester on             http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/04/06/scottish-independence-referendum-debate-part-2/

Album available at name your price with a minimum of £0

ONSIND are an acoustic pop punk band from Durham. Their name is in reference to the lack of abortion facilities in some areas of America.

I recently attended a gig put on by the Make That a Take DIY (anti-sexist, anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-homophobic) collective in Dundee featuring ONSIND and was blown away at how incredibly good their set was. Their gig had more people at it and more politics in it than most public meetings by parties.

The album is a really nice package which contains liner notes including full lyrics and each song accompanied by a quotation. Philosophers have only interpreted the world…the point is to change it – Karl Marx should give another taster at their lyrical content which also mentions weighty lefty tomes. The majority of the song are two male vocalists, one lead; one backing with acoustic guitars. Occasionally other instruments and backing singers pop up. But it should certainly be a more accessible punk album to those who don’t normally listen to the genre or it’s millions of sub-genres.

The album opens with the lines Homophobes are terrified to admit that during their lives there have been moments where they’ve wavered in their minds on the track heterosexuality is a construct. It fills you with incredible hope to be a straight male in a crowd of 90% straight males singing along to I’m not a heterosexual man, I’m not ticking your boxes, that’s not who I am and love is not a crime. To quote a recent comment on Twitter Yes, I support gay rights. No, I’m not gay. I’m against deforestation and that doesn’t make me a tree.. These kinds of attitudes and behaviour are surely a massive step forward and something possible in the kind of space provided by Make that a take that you may not get in less socially conscious live music spaces. Normally punk/metal/alternative shows are filled with macho posturing men faux fighting with their male friends. Most times it’s fine but sometimes it can spill over into the rest of the crowd and drives everyone else to the back of the venue or out of the music scene altogether.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped should be listened to by anyone on the left.

We have nothing to lose but our chains…I’m just another naïve prole, with revolution on the mind, but I’d fight a line of riot police if it’d help to clear the sky…Melancholia and Marxism, this must be where I belong…I’d bomb the Royal Bank if it’d blow the clouds away

A song openly calling for revolution shouldn’t need much more comment.

The other essential track to hear is That Takes Ovaries. A call at arms for men to help smash patriarchy from our position of burden and privilege as something more productive [to do with] all that spare testosterone you have to throw around. A welcome addition to the discussions around feminism and patriarchy I’m sure you’ll agree.

The closing song I could carve a better man out of a banana tells the story of a female victim of domestic violence resorting to killing her abuser. she took a knife and drove it through his back with all the strength she had left – the first song the band ever recorded showing from the start they intended to set powerful political lyrics to tunes.

Dave Spencer was a longstanding socialist activist based in Coventry. RCN members only came into brief contact with Dave, at a meeting of the Socialist Alliance and later of the commune. Whilst very much a committed activist in his own locality, Dave also contributed a great deal to attempts to being about principled socialist unity, particularly by challenging sectarian organisations and sectarian behaviour. We are pleased to print this brief outline of Dave’s life by Mark Harrison from the commune.

 

It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of our comrade Dave Spencer on the night of Tuesday 24th, less than a week short of his 72^nd birthday. Many shocked friends and comrades have written to us remembering his personal warmth and good humour, even when debating passionate issues, as he did so recently, he did so in a composed and relaxed manner that forced you to think more clearly and raise the level of your own argument. Dave’s life touched many outside traditional left wing circles, as an exponent of radical pedagogy he put his ideas into action in Coventry by running an adult education course, going out in the council estates of Coventry to teach parents in primary schools English, Maths, Psychology, cooking etc.

In Dave’s own words during a recent debate “My way of teaching English was to discuss a controversial topic for an hour or so to get everybody thinking. The women would then go home and write down their thoughts or experiences. Grammar could come later. One of the favourite topics was “All men are bastards. Discuss”. One day the women of my class in Bell Green came in to discuss the proposed closure of their local Primary School. What to do? I seem to remember suggesting in an abstract way occupation and joining the local Labour Party to get rid of their councillors. Three days later, on the front page of the local paper there was an article “Parents occupy Bell Green Primary School” and there in the picture were the smiling faces of my students!”

As Dave would say, truly ‘communism from below’.

In later life Dave became chair of his local residents’ group and managed to secure national lottery funding to build a play area for the children in the park. He told a recent aggregate of the commune that this felt like the biggest achievement he was ever a part of in politics and was very moved by the experience.

Dave was a revolutionary for over 50 years, in which time he was a constant champion of the rank-and-file ‘from below’ through factory bulletins and organising local discos but was also prepared to stand up to petty bureaucrats.

One of the final unity campaigns Dave was involved in was the Campaign for a Marxist Party, where he saw that the CPGB wanted to wreck the initiative after they had gained all they could from it, as the SWP did in the Socialist Alliance.

As one comrade remembers, “At one conference of the campaign the CPGB brought a hand raising mob, some of whom had joined days before and some who were not even members. Jack Conrad of the CPGB ignored the chair (Dave) and signalled that the verbal abuse and nonsense could begin. Dave raised himself to his full height and stature and put courtesy aside as inappropriate and bellowed ‘sit down and shut up you silly boy!’ This caused the self-styled hard Bolshevik to look rather upset and one of his supporters called for the chair to show some respect. In response, Dave, in his best headmasterly voice’ explained that first he would have to have respect for others….

On another occasion during a national committee meeting, two comrades drank two pints of beer each over four hours. The next issue of the Weekly Worker had a very large pint of Guinness next to an article on the committee that implied the committee were all drunks. I wrote hundreds of words denouncing the CPGB. But Dave simply said, ‘A cult creates its own reality’. Exactly”

We in the commune hope to republish some of David’s articles in memory of him. Below is a message from David on the failure of the left.

“On the SWP’s “Left Unity” initiative, I don’t see why we can’t afford to ignore it – the electorate certainly will.  The main reason for the vacuum on the Left is the behaviour of the SWP and SP.  They destroyed both the Socialist Alliance which had over 90 candidates in the 2001 general election and the Scottish Socialist Party which had over 70 candidates in 2001.  Neither group can stand any rivals or any form of democracy. The SWP could not keep Respect together and the SP were too frightened to launch the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party as a membership organisation in case they got outnumbered.  I can’t believe they have changed their approach unless for tactical reasons.

The only way to beat the BNP is by consistent political work in working class communities – that is by building from below.  In the recent County Council elections 3 comrades in Northampton put up as Save Our Public Services candidates.  Dave Green got the best result in New Duston with 950 votes, 39.6% of the vote and 61 votes short of the incumbent Tory councillor.  Harry Tuttle in Lumbertubs ward got 277 votes, 16.5% of the vote and Norman Adams in Delapre got 219 votes, 10.2% of the total.  These are good results compared to the pitiful 0.9% for the NO2EU candidates in the European elections, all of whom must have lost their £5,000 deposits in each region.

The Northampton votes are the result of week by week campaigning to defend council housing, open public spaces and opposing the PFI building of schools.

Because of the economic recession there will be attacks on the living standards of the working class and certainly cuts in public services. There will be a need to build more community campaigns.  This is where the Left should be.  As I understand it the BNP’s tactics are to be visible and active in working class areas.  That’s where we should defeat them not in some last minute unity scheme for the general election which will cost a lot of money and get nowhere.”

 

Mark Harrison, the commune

 

 

 

An important topic for discussion by the Left today is labor  organization as we know it under capitalism, and as it could be under socialism and communism. Below are statements from our radical history, and one that is an outgrowth of that history. Taken together, they offer guidance.

In the conclusion to his commentary on Socialism Triumphant (Commonweal, 1888), William Morris provides the context for such a discussion: namely, the goals, values, visionary perspective, and determination that motivate our actions as revolutionaries living and working within a reactionary and powerful capitalist system. In ’60′s  lingo, we keep our eyes on the prize.

Within a decade after Morris’s death in 1896, the IWW was founded on the same dictums, presented succinctly in the preamble to its constitution: stay true to the principles and lessons of class struggle, and carry on the fight until our class overthrows capitalism and takes control of production and the wealth we create, however long that may take. For both Morris and the IWW, this requires vision, education, organization, agitation, and perseverance.

Today, increasing numbers of people have arrived at the gateway of communist consciousness. Through the vast range of horrendous and joyous experiences of the 20th Century, up to the present day, most of us realize that global injustice and inequality run rampant. An example of this is the successful effort of a health care worker in the U.S. to make links between health care workers, health care center management, the state, mainstream media, the business unions, and global capitalism.

The writer’s analysis is put forward in an article written in response to an IWW discussion paper on the theory and practice of direct unionism, a statement from which is quoted below. In it, the writer calls for a definition of workplace organizing that includes the interpersonal, social, and cultural facets involved. This would not only reaffirm the beauty and certainty of the views of Morris and the IWW founders, but also deepen them. As now and in the past, workers in the future will no doubt have differences of opinion and find themselves in conflict, at times, over personal, political, and management issues. Workplaces, like families, are microcosms of society, and even when communism is achieved, certain personal and political matters will continue to get played-out there.

As we try to live our lives as socialist militants helping pave the way for the triumph of communism, we should give attention, as the IWW writer suggests, to replacing destructive and exploitative structures and systems simultaneously at our workplaces and within our families and communities– and by extension to, and between, our countries and regions. With an eye to a future communist society, and through collective effort, we should experiment with forms of social organization that assume people’s desire and capacity to support, show compassion toward, and get along with each other, while creating mechanisms designed to enable us to do so.

As in the past and the present, this process relies on education, solidarity networks, street actions, and the creation of alternative means of political and cultural expression and new forms of organization in our workplaces and homes– all springing from resistance to existing power structures and directives.

Capitalism has perfected and continually reinforces the compartmentalizing of our lives. By doing all we can to reintegrate ourselves as workers, family members, and carers of the community, we can come to appreciate how an injury to one part of ourselves and our lives is an injury to the entire organism- personal and social. In this way, we’ll be taking a big step from individual and social militancy toward collective triumph for our species and the earth.

 

From William Morris’s commentary Socialism Triumphant (Part 2), in the 19 May 1888 issue of Commonweal, the publication of the Socialist League

“We may be asked, since we have been putting forward the doctrine of evolution throughout these chapters, what Socialism in its turn will evolve. We can only answer that Socialism denies the finality of human progress, and that any system of which we can now conceive of as Socialism must necessarily give way to a new development of society.But that development is necessarily hidden from us by the unfinished struggle in which we live, in which for us the supreme goal is the Socialism we have been putting forward. Nor do we repine at this limitation of our insight; that goal is sublime and beautiful enough which promises to us the elevation of the whole of the people to a level of intelligent happiness and pleasurable energy, which at present is reached, if at all, only by a chosen few at the expense of the misery and degradation of the greater part of mankind; and even by those few, is held on such a precarious tenure that it is to them little better than a pleasant dream disturbed by fantastic fears which have their birth from the terribly real sufferings of the ordinary life of the masses on whom they live.”

 

From the Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World (founded 1905)

“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

“Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the earth… Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

“… It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalism, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing  industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”

 

From Direct Unionism and Beyond, by healthcare worker Jomo, in April 2012 issue of Industrial Worker, the monthly publication of the IWW

“We need to have a discussion [within the IWW] about how our organizing, over the long run, can prepare for a qualitative shift from a capitalist mode of production to a new form of society – one that is not a transitional state controlled by bureaucrats. This qualitative shift is a process that involves changing capitalist social relations. Even though this process can only take place during revolution, we need to agitate and educate around it now as we fight.

Our demands should be directed not only at the necessity of better working conditions and wages, but also at breaking down the division between mental and manual labor, between gendered and racial divisions at the workplace and the like… Direct unionism as an activity is only the beginning. We have much more, in theory and in practice, that we need to discuss and work on.”

 

Susan Dorazio, May Day, 2012

Frontline sends May Day greetings

to all readers of Emancipation and Liberation.

 

No to austerity.

Organise to fight the Con-Dem coalition.

Rebuild the forces of socialism in Scotland.

For an independent Socialist Scotland.

MAY DAY GREETINGS

from

EMANCIPATION & LIBERATION

 

 

THE SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM TAKES PLACE IN 2014

 

The British unionist parties and the SNP government

both want a Scotland which is:-

* part of the UK under the Crown Powers

* part of NATO and participates in imperial wars

* dominated by the City of London banksters

* at the beck and call of the global corporations

* imposing cuts and austerity to buttress capitalism

 

SOCIALISTS HAVE TWO YEARS TO MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE

 

This May Day join us in the call for a

SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN FOR A SCOTTISH REPUBLIC

 

Freedom Come All Ye

 

 

The current crisis of capitalism has found the majority of the the Left offering neo-Keynesian ‘solutions’ which go no further than attempts to reinvigorate a system that is long past its sell-by date. However, those who try to promote a vision of a new social order to replace capitalism have to confront arguments that ‘There is No Alternative’ – arguments tacitly accepted by most of the Left, whose socialism remains as distant a prospect as the realisation of ‘Clause 4′ did for old Labour.

The RCN, in contrast, argues that the current crisis of capitalism means that the Left  has to provide  a real, viable alternative. Unless we do this, all those struggles, which inevitably occur in response to current ruling class attacks, will be self-limiting in their objectives. They will be either defeated or recuperated unless the exploited and oppressed believe that there is really an alternative way of organising society. The RCN thinks that it is time to retrieve that alternative – communism – and make it relevant once more to today’s world.

This is why we have started a debate which we ask others to join. We begin this debate with two articles – Is Communism Possible? and Beyond Neo-Keynesian Props for Capital to the Abolition of Wage Slavery.

__________________________________________________________

IS COMMUNISM POSSIBLE? 

Communism and Human Nature

One of the more common arguments put up in relation to the question ‘Is communism possible?, goes like this: ‘Communism is great in theory but it won’t work in practice’.

The claim is made that ‘human nature’ is such that the altruism and cooperation required would not be forthcoming. In reality, altruism and cooperation are the underlying characteristics of human behaviour.  It appears not to be the case because, ironically, of the perverse and parasitic nature of the very capitalism which claims, for all its faults, to truly embody the essence human nature. It is capitalism that forces competition in place of cooperation. It is capitalism that maintains patriarchy in society, that imposes working practices that are damaging to the development of healthy relationships within families, gives us the ‘rat race’ and the worship of money.

In contrast, it is communistic/cooperative relationships that have always been there in human societies that make living worthwhile. Capitalism is a parasitic economic system that sucks the life force out of us. It is the degree to which we behave in a communistic/cooperative fashion that determines the degree to which we can be human beings.

Let us look at an example from the ‘heart of the capitalist beast’, the USA.  There is a huge gap (as in most countries) between the demand for organs for transplant and their supply. The capitalist ‘solution’ is to increase the price paid to donors until the supply matches demand. Two problems arise. First, those who cannot afford the price die and this is the majority of the population. Second, the majority of voters and, indeed, of capitalists themselves, are opposed on moral grounds to the sale of organs.

Yet hundreds of life-saving organ transplants are carried out every year in the USA. In 2011 an amazing chain[1] involving 60 people allowed 30 lives to be saved through the altruistic donating of kidneys from 30 healthy, living people. Even more amazingly, none of these kidneys were given to a direct relative! It started with a single decision of one man to donate one of his kidneys to an unknown recipient. The recipients’ niece then felt moved to donate one of hers’ in return. Subsequently, 28 more people, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, cousins, mothers-in-law, ex-boyfriends, friends, out of gratitude and altruism, donated a kidney to a complete stranger. The kidneys were given as a gift of life, not a commodity to be sold at a profit. This is communistic living in action in the here and now.  Communism is not a future utopia, it is what sustains us today and helps us survive the distorting, parasitic economic system called capitalism. There are many examples of these human and humanising chains in other spheres of activity where no money exchanges hands, and no exploitation occurs. People with skills and trades cooperate in building each other’s houses and carrying out repairs.

In many early European settlements in the USA the people cooperated in building a schoolhouse and feeding and clothing the teacher. We forget that before capitalism, before feudalism and slavery, and in those parts of the world where these perversions (exploitative forms of social organization) never occurred, communistic/cooperative life styles were the public lifestyles. In most parts of the world today these communistic/cooperative lifestyles have been made invisible. They go under the name of the blood transfusion service, lifeboat and mountain rescue teams, good neighbour schemes, some charity work, and a host of other names that deny their essence.

The reality is that communism as a way of life is very much in existence in the here and now – if it were not for this reality, unfettered capitalism would have surely destroyed us by now. The real question is for how much longer can the underlying and latent communistic strands in our society withstand the destructive force of the capitalist economy?

We are trapped in a mind set schooled into us since birth. The Incas ripped the hearts out of children in a mistaken belief that only this would guarantee the rising of the sun. The children, their parents, the wider family, and society, had no answer to what the priests said so submitted themselves to the sacrifice. Today, we allow the heart to be ripped out of our society in the false belief that we need to ensure that profits will rise again (i.e. there will be another economic revival) because the politicians tells us so and we don’t recognise any alternative.

 

Communism and Abundance

In arguing for communism, one question we often face is, ‘What would a communist society look like?’ One of the many aspects we may consider when answering this question is that of Abundance. We focus on Abundance because, ultimately, if the material basis is not secured there is no sustainable society.

The basis of all societies is their ability to meet the material needs for food and shelter. Through the division of labour the earliest societies were able to build up surpluses which, today under capitalism, along with most of the land are in the control of and are the property of, a ruling class. Under their direction this surplus takes the form of huge military stockpiles, luxury cars, boats, planes and clothing, an ‘entertainment industry’ and the concomitant commoditisation of everything. The utilisation and distribution of resources to meet basic human need does not happen. When we say that communism offers the opportunity to achieve abundance, the common perception will be much distorted for the term will be understood through the refracting prism of capitalist experience and ideology. It will be taken to mean ‘as much as you want of everything you want’.

One reaction to this is Green fascism where, in response to environmental degradation, ‘environmental protection’ legitimises the strict control of human activity and levels of consumption through legal and fiscal controls.  While under capitalist production these controls are necessary, perversely, under capitalism it will be those most in need who suffer the effects of any rationing.  As capitalism continues on with its destructive pursuit of profit, this will lead to further environmental degradation and pollution. Corporations pass on their pollution costs to others – the polluter doesn’t pay.

Furthermore many Greens focus on the issue of overpopulation with their solution resolving down to the control of women’s fertility and their wider lives.  Our view is, on the contrary, the issue of population can only be addressed when women have economic security and control of their fertility.  Greens will increasingly be forced to choose between the socialist road or the fascist road. Those who see humanity at the heart of our environment will choose the former.

Before continuing with the environment and abundance, we should reflect on another dimension to the issue of abundance. Abundance could be understood both as a negative and a positive.  It is the absence of poverty [having sufficient food, heating, housing, etc.] and this could define its material dimension. But abundance implies a more positive presence -‘quality of life’ and emotional security.  It is here that communism might begin to differentiate itself. For quality of life we might address those aspects of the human experience more usually monopolised by religion – an understanding of ourselves individually and socially, a knowledge of ourselves biologically, emotionally and psychologically – for us the ‘spiritual’ dimension to human experience is a very human quality rather than something bestowed upon us by a deity. For us it captures the material fact that we are part of nature.  It incorporates the feeling of connection to other humans and the natural world so very much denied and degraded in the atomised ‘society’ of capitalism.  Do we, as communists, feel embarrassed talking about ‘these human experiences’?

Anthropological studies suggest that under conditions of abundance much of human endeavour involves communicating with others and celebrating life.  Capitalism involves the whittling away of holidays and popular celebrations.

A hugely important dimension to this is human social relationships, how they are distorted under capitalism and how these relationships can be repaired and developed. Perhaps one of the more subversive activities we can advocate in the here and now is to consciously change the way we relate to each other as friends, as families and as work colleagues and for socialists to commit to actually acting in a genuinely comradely manner.

We can act like Communists now. Once everyone does this in a conscious, organised way we will be at or near a communist form of society.  However, there are non-material barriers to this and this is where the insights of psychology/psychotherapy have to be integrated into our understanding and practice despite this being anathema to many on the Left. Such a conscious change would also have to include the lessons to be learned from feminism e.g. that the personal is political and that we can learn to act in an emotionally intelligent manner.  We could travel even further leftfield here and talk about ‘Love’ meaning wanting to share in another’s growth, to promote their wellbeing alongside and as part of your own.  Importantly, Love can be thought of as action orientated i.e. it’s what we do more than what we feel, although ideally the two should be in harmony. This aspect of abundance – an abundance of quality in human relationships – should be one of our most powerful rallying cries.

Again, it is a demand we should make in the here and now and, in fact, is an ever present, communistic/cooperative approach to life that even David Cameron supports (if only he recognised it!).  We should celebrate the example of David Cameron’s attitude to his disabled son.  Mr Cameron, quite rightly wanted the best that society could provide so that his son could have the best quality of life possible.  In this he acted like a Communist.  If we all insisted on this in an organised militant fashion capitalism would crumble overnight.  If Mr Cameron had insisted that his son was not economically viable or belonged to some undesirable sub class of humanity then he would have been acting as a true representative of inhuman Capital.  This example also serves to illustrate the way that the capitalism/communism struggle is not only external but goes on within ourselves. Capitalism colonises our emotions and shapes our desires.  It runs right through us and so does the negation of this – as Cameron’s feelings about his son demonstrate.

Through being more in contact with who and what we actually are, the issues of ‘What is abundance and how can our environment support it?’  begin to resolve themselves. Abundance for a 12 old girl, brought up in a capitalist society, is usually about having the latest mobile phone and clothes, and all the TV, MTV, make-up and chicken burgers you want. Abundance is defined for her by the very TV shows and magazines she ‘wants’ more of and her ‘want’ is fuelled by the ads in them.

People who have attained a level of ‘at-one-ness’ or contentment seem to be free[er] from the compulsion to consume, to surround themselves with ‘things’.

This has nothing to do with vows of poverty. A real understanding of communism requires an emotional maturity toward material possessions.  Capitalism beguiles us with its ‘Mountains of Things’ (from the album ‘Tracy Chapman’).  Real communism is about providing a secure material base (enough) so that we can focus on individual and collective human development, self expression etc.  It’s not about having and possessing. Who really needs 3 houses, 10 TVs and 4 cars?  It’s about freedom from material scarcity, freedom from fear and the freedom to be and become.

Eric Fromm points to this distinction between “To Have or to Be” in his book of that name.  Abundance can be seen as freedom – freedom from cravings that can never be satisfied, freedom from spending enormous amounts of our time earning money to satisfy these cravings. Watch the Channel 4 documentary[2] about Ed Wardle who spent 50 days in the wilds of Alaska living off the land with no human contact. It was an experiment to see how long he could last. At 50 days, through lack of food and lack of human contact, he radioed to be rescued and cried at his ‘failure’. Next day, he looked around the hotel room, at the TV, electric kettle, telephone, the chair saying, ‘There is nothing I want here at all’. He began smiling. He had realised he hadn’t failed; he had learned something enormously important about himself and what his human ‘needs’ were.

Abundance is fundamentally an issue of ownership of time, literally, the time of our life. With time we can reconstruct ourselves, and our society. We have time to talk in social gatherings about what we need, about what we really want and whether the things we want are really worth the price in terms of time, in terms of the environment.

So, Communism involves rebalancing our relationship with the natural world.  We are part of nature, we have co-evolved with planet earth, it is our natural home.  One of the crimes of capitalism is to rip us out of this ‘natural’ relationship and alienate us from our ‘true’ selves (our ‘species being’ as Marx called it).

Because of our social intelligence and technical skills, nature provides for us humans an environment of superabundance but we need to (re) learn how to work with the grain of nature in order to allow this superabundance to be permanently sustainable.

For example this requires organic farming methods and the creation of good quality furnished homes made from renewable/sustainable materials wood, bricks, earth, straw and natural stone.  We can also use plastics/alloys but this needs to be done in an extremely thought out, measured way.

What Communism won’t solve

We also need to be clear that Communism is not a magic wand.  Some existential issues are not solvable e.g. mortality, relationship breakdown, damaging accidents, the ultimate meaning of existence.

We referred earlier to those aspects of the human experience more usually monopolised by religion – an understanding of ourselves individually and socially, a knowledge of ourselves biologically, emotionally and psychologically – for us the ‘spiritual’ dimension to human experience is a very human quality rather than something bestowed upon us by a deity.

Communism and ownership of time would allow us to address these issues and learn how to manage their effects.  It is likely that this would lead to the developments of new social practices, (forms of rituals and celebrations) that help us negotiate these areas of life.

When we look at human history what do we find?  Lo and behold we discover that such rituals were the central heart beat of pre-class societies even one step away from absolute poverty and insecurity, never mind material abundance.

It could be useful, then, to explore the content of the anti-capitalist uprisings led by indigenous peoples in Central and South America.  Surely we have much to learn from these struggles and their 500 years of resistance.

It seems clear from the above that touching on any one aspect of what we think communism has to offer by way of abundance for human kind quickly leads on to a consideration of many others. Abundance in terms of material comfort tempered by a greater self knowledge (i.e., knowing what we need rather than being driven by what we have been made to feel we want) and by greater knowledge of what the environment can support.   Abundance in terms of unstructured time to create the society we want. Abundance in terms of emotional/psychological well being.

So, in response to the question, ‘What would a communist society look like?’, we can say, ‘Imagine you had the time to spend bringing up your kids to be emotionally and psychologically saner and happier, the time to get in touch with yourself in order to find out what ‘things’ you really wanted, the time to think about agreeing and planning what and how much should be grown and manufactured to meet these needs, to think about the bigger questions in life and how our feelings can be given social expression.’

In presenting a vision of Communism through the prism of Abundance, perhaps we can rehabilitate the tarnished image of the hammer and sickle, the union of workers and peasants, by placing them in the hands of lovers strolling in the company of friends and family carrying musical instruments on their way to a gig.

 

Allan Armstrong, Bob Goupillot, Iain Robertson, 15.4.12

---

This is an interview originally entitled, Without Socialism There Can be No True Feminism, made by Rachael Boothroyd with feminist activist, Meglimar Melero, from the Insumisas Collective and the Feminist Spider network, discussing the feminist movement in Venezuela today. The above quote is from the interview. It was first published on:- http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6886 and on RCN member, Ewan Robertson’s blog. Ewan is currently working in Venezuela. His blog can be found at:-

http://theewanrobertsonblog.wordpress.com/

 

Can you tell us something about your collective, Insumisas and the Feminist Spider?

MM: The Feminist Spider is a communal space for discussion in which numerous collectives and social movements participate. We at Insumisas are participating as a collective within that space in different ways. The Spider is still not what you could describe as a feminist movement with militants just yet.

For instance, we at Insumisas carry out numerous events in Carabobo state, we participate in Mission Sucre with our student-comrades, with comrades from the communities, comrades who are organized in the communal councils. Basically what we are trying to do is carry out a type of political education with respect to feminism and socialism through the women’s organization processes in the communal councils, that’s to say, using whatever methods possible to promote and build gender equality and justice committees.

Venezuela celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8. Can you comment on the significance of the day and why it is important in Venezuela?

MM: I think it’s necessary to re-conceptualize International Women’s Day from the important perspective of being a working class woman. We need to win the day back from capitalism, which has tried to commercialize it. It’s now a day about buying flowers and saying, “Oh, look how great women are”. I think that we have to rescue its educational meaning, its message of struggle and rebellion, its concept of participation and organization, basically its revolutionary character, no?

On March 8 we celebrated the day (in Venezuela) and the atmosphere of enthusiasm was tangible, really militant. It seemed to me, being in the epicenter of the march with all the other women, from Mission Madres del Barrio and other working women from all over the country, you could really feel the spirit of the politically organized woman, the woman who is participating in the community, the woman who really believes in this revolutionary process.

In short, I think the day is really important on a global level for working class women, and it’s important to give the day its original character back, which is that of class struggle. Because historically, this day started to be commemorated because of working class women’s struggles, from their labor demands.

Can you comment a little bit about the politics of the Bolivarian government with respect to women? Have you noticed a change in terms of this government’s policies and those of previous governments?

MM: It is thanks to the revolutionary process that women’s participation is even taken into account, obviously we are grateful to the revolutionary process, because as women, we have greater participation and greater opportunities, not just in terms of our role but also in practice, because we have all those instances of popular power and participation.

The revolution has generated the spaces for us women to organize, and to respond to, debate and reflect over our reality within capitalist society, in which we are still living, no? I think that the communal councils have gender equality, as well as other spaces such as the governmental federal committees, the party, and in the recognition that social movements can generate policy. All of these are tools for participation in which women are recognized and which try to drive forward the participation of women.

What would you say to the feminists in other countries who criticize Venezuelan feminism for being too class orientated, as opposed to focusing on issues specific to women?

MM: I think it’s really about carrying out a historic revision of feminism. What has happened to feminism as a global movement?

I think that women from other places in the world, especially the West, should reflect at length about what has happened to the Marxist-feminist proposal, socialist-feminism; what has happened to those proposals in their respective countries? Because let’s say that we have had some currents which have broken away and have stayed within the arena of simply making liberal demands. They don’t organize towards the transformation or the surmounting of exploitation or the patriarchy, viewed as the complimentary functional system to capitalism.

Feminism has suffered from, just like the global left, ideological deviations that can’t be hidden. I think, what we are trying to do in Venezuela is to recover all of that material and those feminist proposals, Marxist-feminism with class consciousness. Because without feminism, socialism can’t exist, and without socialism, true feminism cannot exist.

Venezuela is famed for its beauty competitions. As a feminist collective do you have a position with respect to this?

MM: The culture of the media has had a really profound effect on society, and obviously there is a culture, not just in Venezuela but in other countries in Latin America and Europe, which seeks to market women’s bodies. It converts women into an object that is bought and sold, it dehumanizes women completely, it turns them into merchandise.

I think, in this sense, the struggle should be about opening more spaces in the media which reflect how diverse we are as women, in every sense, and that we become more aware. That’s a successful political strategy because (in Venezuela) there is alternative media, which little by little is starting to promote the fact that another type of woman exists, a woman who builds things, creates things and has things to contribute. Not the stereotypical woman that is sold by capitalism.

The Feminist Spider has been organizing workshops from a gender perspective for the new Labor Law which is due to be passed by the government in May of this year. What are the principal proposals that have been developed through these workshops?

MM: We as socialist feminists, with respect to the discussions surrounding the new labor law, are worried and concerned over the issue of women and the work environment. We are conscious that we as women have particular conditions in our work environment, whether we are on a salaried wage or working as part of the informal economy, which is made up of a lot of women.

Those are the kind of issues that we have been discussing at the workshops. We have tried to orientate the discussion towards how to regulate our working environments and what we can do for the huge mass of women inside the informal economy, such as women selling products in a catalogue, street-sellers, hairdressers, etc. This is all indirect work.

Our main preoccupation is how to regulate and guarantee labor rights for the female working population. Because our work also goes above and beyond the working day, our work also includes the intellectual and productive work that women carry out at home. We have a lot of challenges, above all because a lot of responsibilities fall onto the shoulders of women, a lot of social responsibilities.

It’s important to point out that these responsibilities aren’t just women’s responsibilities, but they are in fact social responsibilities; looking after children, the sick, the old, education. These are responsibilities that historically have fallen upon each one of us as women. We have to create, evaluate and socialize the concept of these tasks as social responsibilities, so that these areas become collective spaces of work and education. That is basically the focal point of our proposals towards the new labor law.

Source: Correo del Orinoco International

 

Jim Aitken is a regular contributor to Emancipation & Liberation. He has published several books of poetry. Here Mary MacGregor, also a teacher of English, reviews Jim’s Last Calendar of Events, which covers his last year of teaching.

“And I gave them ideals

and have held on to then still

a youthful spirit unbroken.”

On finishing Jim Aiken’s The Last Calendar of Events, there is no doubt in my mind that Jim Aitkin is a “youthful spirit unbroken”. Political integrity is a rare commodity especially in politicians but Jim’s book oozes with integrity and commitment, which is inspirational in its honesty and emotion. This is far more than a diary of a final year’s teaching; reminiscing in a dewy eyed fashion about decades of struggle and achievements. Nor is it just a polemic against the bureaucracy and box ticking which has defined teaching in the last few years. It is something much more important. It is a book about the complex relationship between a man and his life’s work. It is a monument to the fact that despite the brutalisation and alienation that capitalism throws at us, human beings are capable, through the very essence of their humanity, of living a life imbued with justice and compassion and are capable of sharing that with those around them.

I don’t remember ever meeting Jim Aitkin; never had a conversation with him; never watched him teach. But I know. I know that he has changed the lives of so many young people and colleagues over the years. His daily acts of revolution – passing on e-mails to staff on the economic inequalities of 21^st century Britain, bringing the relevance of the Arab Spring to disaffected school students, representing staff as a union rep, challenging trade union bureaucrats – show not only what needs to be done but what has to be done. I have spent a lot of my life with people who talk the socialist talk but Jim walks the walk.  Through this diary, we have a tremendous insight into the ways so called “ordinary people” live and think and act in their daily lives in an unselfish and conscious way to try to improve the world we live in. That is part of the inspiration of this book, it shows that we can all further the cause of socialism in the here and now and we must not wait till the great revolution before we begin.

The style of the book is interesting. As a diary, we see the mundane juxtaposed against the huge geopolitical events of our time. We see the personal and the political inextricably intertwined. At times this could seem banal but instead, it makes the politics all the more profound and real. It is a style reminiscent in its power and application to Tom Leonard’s poetry.

The love that Jim feels for his family is palpable, particularly for his baby grandson Michael. Yet he links this love and concern to the need to maker a better world for them all. He dreads that education in its current form will knock the imagination and wonder out of Michael and process him like so many others: skills not imagination being the order of the day. This is no grey faced ranting lefty devoid of feeling and sentiment. This is a man who is not afraid to speak of love or his ill mum as well as speaking out against the Afghan war, the bombing of Libya or the trams in Edinburgh.

As he contemplates another union sell out, he still finds the joy of going out for a curry with his department and laughing and going to see a play. Thus, Jim’s humanity shines through. He does not lecture or scold – he is not that kind of a teacher – he gently allows us to form a picture of what is wrong with our society and how it can be put right.

There are great touches of humour in this book and I don’t think you have to be an English teacher to laugh out loud at his “lost scene from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men”. I will be sharing this with colleagues and classes!

For me, the fact that he is so conflicted about his retirement is particularly relevant. I have only 5 years to go – if they don’t change the goalposts again! I recognise these mixed emotions, “Marx makes the distinction between working time and living time ……I should welcome the chance of living rather than working…. but my emotional part does not feel entirely like this.”

As teachers, we are very lucky that despite the undoubted ridiculous workload and educational nonsense imposed from on high, so many of us enjoy our jobs – the daily acts of rebellion when we can go off message and actually encourage young people to think! We have access to sensitive, sometimes damaged students who can with our intervention at times show creativity and insight, which defies the grey fog of capitalism. As the months progress, the retirement niggles then looms then eventually is embraced by Jim. But it is not a simple process. Sometimes on the left, we fail to recognise the complexity of our relationship with work. Jim talks about the work ethic that is so much part of his character. Rarely off sick, a sense of responsibility wanting to do the job well – so many of us have that schizophrenic relationship with a job that is often killing us. It will never be any different under capitalism which will squeeze every drop of productivity out of us but it is the wonderfully subversive act of remaining human which confounds the system completely and it is that which Jim exemplifies.

There is no doubt in my mind that with more time on his hands, we will see even more of Jim’s poetry and that his activism will continue in various forms. He just is that kind of man. He will not give up the fight. There are things that I disagree with Jim about particularly on the nature of young people now compared to back in the day. Maybe some time I will be lucky enough to have a blether with him about this. But until then, I will recommend his The Last Calendar of Events as a book, which shows what teaching should be about and what kind of future we should strive to create,

 

“Nothing short of changing the world,

was where I started and now end,

drying my face in the towel.

See Emancipation & Liberation interview with Jim Aitken at:-

http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2007/09/29/lyrical-delicacy-and-political-toughness/