1. Three Left approaches to building a new world order

The Republican Communist Network (RCN) has mainly applied an ‘internationalism from below’ approach as a way to unite communists, socialists and revolutionary democrats throughout these islands around an immediate programme (1). This stems from our political opposition to the UK state, which acts as a junior partner to US imperialism and as a ‘licensed’ enforcer for corporate capitalist interests in the North East Atlantic, aided and abetted by its own junior partner, the ‘26 Counties’ Irish state. (Of course, there are many other reasons why we oppose this and other capitalist states) In this context, we have argued for an ‘internationalism form below’ approach to counter two other approaches offered by the Left – the Left unionism of the British Left, and the Left nationalism mainly found in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The purpose of this contribution, however, is to show that ‘internationalism from below’ flows from a global and specifically communist understanding of the best way to advance the struggle for ‘another possible world’ – a viable alternative to capitalism. We could call this ‘world communism’ or ‘the global commune’ – a less politically loaded term, given that the majority of people in the world equate communism with bureaucratic one-party states, such as the old USSR and China.

In making the communist case for ‘internationalism from below’ on a global scale, we have to recognise that there are another two major approaches to the National Question found on the Left. Some look to a future world with a classless confederation of nations, regions or communities; whilst others look to a future classless, single, planned global order but, in the meantime, largely accept the territorial frameworks already bequeathed by capitalism (with exceptions permitted, by some, for countries where there is significant political repression).

What is interesting, though, is that the division between these two approaches is not one between old-style Social Democrats/Communists on one side and Anarchists on the other. Social Democrats/Communists and Anarchists are themselves divided in giving their support to these approaches, each having advocates in both camps.

2. The confederalist approach

In one camp can be found most official, and some dissident Communists, along with some Anarchists. They share an opposition to a future single planned world system. Instead, they advocate a world of nation-states, or smaller non-state communities, hopefully living in harmony.  We could call their approach confederalist.

Supporters of the world of nation-states approach amongst the old official Communists, openly declared their support for ‘socialism in one country’. Their ultimate vision was still global, looking forward eventually to a worldwide confederation of independent socialist nation-states.  Certain federations, providing a greater degree of political and economic unity, might be supported, but the historical experience of the federal USSR and Yugoslavia, shows that these came to be dominated by their largest constituent republic – Russia and Serbia respectively.  However, some old official Communists might have still entertained the idea of an eventual world federation without dominant nation-states, where certain functions were performed by an overall federal state.

Some other socialists have adopted a nuanced version of the federal solution by advocating various regional socialist federations, e.g. the Trotskyist CWI. Despite coming from a tradition opposed to the old official Communism (which they style Stalinism), their future ideal world system remains somewhat nebulous, perhaps federal, perhaps after a long period, eventually unitary.

Hostility to a future integrated planned world order can also be found amongst some Anarchists. Works such as Schumacher’s book, Small is Beautiful, have influenced their thinking. These Anarchists emphasise the need for small-scale local communities, with an economy based on local renewable resources, but with some economic exchange between otherwise autonomous communities. Unlike, the official and dissident communists though, there would be no intermediate democratic or socialist states, just the slow expansion of non-state communities or communes. There are no doubt also differences amongst such Anarchists adhering to such an approach, especially over the organisational methods to be used to bring about greater territorial cooperation. But whether local, regional, national or worldwide organisation is envisaged, Anarchists tend to see confederal relations as the best way to bring about greater cooperation.

3. The cosmopolitan approach

Another camp holds up its own ideal for a future world order, which would be united territorially and have global planning.  This approach could be termed cosmopolitan. It can claim the support of the early Marx and Engels, especially in the lead-up to the 1847-9 International Revolutionary Wave. Michael Lowy has shown this in his chapter Cosmopolites in Fatherland or Mother Earth. It was only later, as will be shown, that Marx and Engels moved to a more ‘internationalism from below’ approach, and a possible multi-linear path towards the formation of a new world order.

The Communist Manifesto, written in 1848, shows Marx and Engels then believed that as capital brought more and more of the world under its sway, it eliminated the outdated classes associated with the past – the aristocracy, peasants and artisans – leaving only capital and labour, or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in contention.

Furthermore, the Communist Manifesto also argued that capitalism was already doing away with the material basis for separate nations. “National differences and antagonisms are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity of the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto” (2). “The nationality of the worker is neither French, nor English, nor German, it is labour, free {wage} slavery, self-huckstering {selling oneself}.  His government is neither French, nor English, nor German, it is capital.  His native air is neither French, nor German, nor English, it is factory air” (3).

Marx and Engels did acknowledge the existence of ‘historic nations’, as opposed to what they termed ‘unhistoric peoples’. However, they thought that these too would soon give way in the new cosmopolitan world order being prepared by the capitalist advances the ‘historic nations’ were busy promoting. “After industry in England, politics in France, philosophy in Germany have been developed, they have been developed for the world, and their world-historic significance, as also that of these nations, has thereby come to an end” (4). Furthermore, whatever other differences the Anarchist, Proudhon had with Marx and Engels, they still shared a cosmopolitan approach to revolution.

Today, a cosmopolitan approach, partly based on Marx and Engels’ earlier writings, is to be found amongst Luxemburgists, some dissident Trotskyists, the SPGB, and the Autonomists – most obviously Negri and Hardt in their book, Empire. Cosmopolitan thinking, drawing on a number of sources, can also be found amongst some Anarchists. David Broder’s review, The Earth is not flat (5), of the Anarchist Federation’s Against Nationalism, highlights such thinking in this regard.

Whatever differences still remain (and this isn’t to underestimate their importance), these Marxists and Anarchists share a belief that capitalism has already largely created a world of two classes, in which other classes either have no future, or have, at best, limited walk-on parts in the struggle for a better world.

Of course, most cosmopolitans do acknowledge the existence of continued divisions, including amongst the working class – e.g. sexual, ethno-religious and national. However, they claim these come about largely through false consciousness, as a result of ideologies actively promoted on behalf of the capitalist class, e.g. by the state machine, male chauvinists and feminists, competing nationalists and religious leaders, or by socialists who fail to adhere to their cosmopolitan approach.

Cosmopolitans tend to believe that such false consciousness and ideologies can be effectively countered by means of persistent propaganda and a shared involvement of workers in economic struggles. This will bring about a true class consciousness, which sees all struggles of the exploited and oppressed in terms of capital versus labour.  Many such cosmopolitans will acknowledge that this ideological battle is a labour of Sisyphus, but say that communists and workers should not be deflected into struggles over ‘secondary’ oppressions, since the Revolution will bring these to an end.

4. Historical antecedents of confederalism and cosmopolitanism

It is worth going deeper into the roots of these approaches and see how another approach, ‘internationalism from below’, has attempted to break free from the limitations of those who advocate confederalism (which either ends up tailing nationalism, or contents itself with purely localist initiatives) and those who advocate cosmopolitanism (which downplays, or even opposes, current democratic struggles against oppression and tends to fall back on propagandism, when economic struggles fail to lead to the hoped for class consciousness).

If we look to those broadly upholding a more con/federalist approach, we can see their antecedents in the American revolutionary, Benjamin Franklin, who believed that the original states, constituting the USA, were just the first in a new federal republican world order, which would be brought about by Enlightened leaders. Revolutionary democratic Jacobins believed that their new French republic was the first building block in a new European federation of republican nation-states. The Italian revolutionary democrat, Mazzini, and his supporters in Young Europe, envisaged something similar, only with the ‘historic’ European nation-states taking joint responsibility for building a new worldwide republican federation.

Mazzini also argued that his proposed republican federation would be based on “principles of national freedom and progress… in favour of the right of every people to self-government and the maintenance of their own nationality” (6).  Mazzini, though, supported the idea of ‘historical nations’ or, as he called them ‘nations with a mission’, so there was still scope for argument as to who constituted a ‘people’ or nation. The Anarchist, Bakunin, however, clearly declared that, “I demand only one thing: that to each people, to each large or small tribe or race should be accorded the right to act according to its wishes” (7).

5. The beginnings of an ‘internationalism from below’ approach

In contrast, an early example of an ‘internationalism from below’ approach can be seen amongst the Fraternal Democrats, who were part of the Chartist Left. In 1847, the English Chartist, Julian Harney, protested against joint British, French and Spanish suppression of a revolt in Portugal.  “A blow against freedom on the Tagus is a blow against all friends of freedom on the Thames” (8).  Marx, a cosmopolitan at that time, would likely have seen the Portuguese people as historically redundant and destined to be absorbed into a larger ‘historic’ Spanish/Iberian nation.  It was Harney and the London-based Society of Fraternal Democrats who endeavoured to place Mazzini’s ‘internationalism from below’ on a proletarian footing, “giving life to a new Young Europe” (9).

It took Marx and Engels a considerable time before they arrived at an ‘internationalism from below’ approach. After the defeat of the 1847-9 International Revolutionary Wave, Marx and Engels had to back-pedal from their previous belief in the immediate prospect of a cosmopolitan ‘revolution in permanence’. ‘Historic nations’ were now given a more extended lifetime to perform their ‘historic duty’ of preparing the capitalist grounding for a future communist world order.

In the meantime, tactical support could also be given to those stateless ‘historical nations’ – Poland and Hungary – in the front line of the battle against that lynchpin of Reaction – Tsarist Russia and its Habsburg Austrian ally. Elsewhere, they argued that, whether in Ireland, Mexico, Algeria, India, China and Turkestan, the ‘historic nations’ of ‘England/Britain’, the USA, France, and even Russia when facing East, still had their ‘progressive’ role to perform in eliminating antiquated pre-capitalist societies, including bringing about the end of ‘historyless peoples’.

Events in India (the Indian Mutiny of 1857) and China (The Second Opium War of 1856-60) led to the first modifications in Marx and Engels’ earlier perspectives. They now switched their support to those fighting for political independence. New struggles in Poland and Ireland, reflected in the debates of the First International, pushed Marx and Engels towards a more definite ‘internationalism from below’ approach.

6. The distinction between nations and nationalities; and chauvinist superiority disguised as cosmopolitanism

When the debate over Poland came up in the First International, Proudhon-influenced Anarchists accused Engels of, in effect, abandoning their previously shared cosmopolitan principles, when he argued for solidarity with the Polish struggle. He was criticised for giving his support to the ‘nationalities principle’. He replied in the following manner. “Poland, like most other European countries, is inhabited by people of different nationalities” (10).  He identified four nationalities within the Polish nation – the Poles, Lithuanians, White Russians and Ukrainians. The Poles (meaning all the inhabitants of Poland) were a multi-ethnic nation not a nationality.

Thus Engels made a distinction between nations, which were territorial and tended to incorporate several peoples or nationalities; and nationalities, which were, in effect, ethnic (sometimes ethno-religious) groups. Ethnic groups could often be found widely dispersed and living mixed amongst others, particularly in cities. Marx and Engels would have been unhappy to concede an exclusive territorial state to “each small tribe or race”, as envisaged by Bakunin.  Their focus was upon nations.

This distinction between nations and nationalities was a clear step forward. Furthermore, Marx and Engels no longer limited their reason for supporting the Polish national democratic struggle to tactical considerations in relation to Tsarist Russia. This is why they didn’t oppose the Mazzini/Harney-type principle adopted by the First International. It declared for ‘the right of every people to dispose of itself’ (11) (an earlier version of the 1896 Second International congress policy of support for ‘the right of national self-determination’). As in Mazzini’s earlier case, there was still ambiguity and argument over who constituted a ‘people’ – although, clearly for Marx and Engels, it was nations not nationalities, which enjoyed this territorial right.

Indeed, Marx soon found himself up against Proudhon-influenced Anarchists in the First International. When “the question of ‘nationality’ in general and the attitude we should take towards it”, was brought up, “… the representatives of Young France (non-workers) came out with the argument that all nationalities and even nations were ‘antiquated prejudices’…  The English laughed very much when I began my speech by saying that our friend Lafargue…  who had done away with nationalities, had spoken ‘French’ to us, i.e. a language which nine-tenths of the audience did not understand.  I also suggested that by the negation of nationalities he appeared, quite unconsciously, to understand their absorption into the model French nation” (12).

As Marx and Engels moved away from the cosmopolitan camp, which they originally shared with Proudhon, they did not move over into the confederalist communist camp. Certainly, Marx and Engels did envisage a developing world of multi-nationality nation-states, not nationality or ethnic states. They also sometimes advocated confederal or federal state arrangements. However, these state forms were only meant to be a transitional democratic phase in the development from capitalism to the lower phase of communism. In the upper phase of communism, however, such transitional political forms of state would be transcended as existing nation-states, confederations and federations themselves disappeared as part of ‘the withering way of the state’.

7. ‘Internationalism from below’ and secularism compared to cosmopolitanism and state-atheism, and to state-promoted multi-ethnicity and religious toleration.

A useful parallel for understanding Marx and Engels’ approach to the ending of nation-states and nationalism can be seen in their attitude to religions. They supported secular states. Within these, adherents of particular religions would enjoy the right to practice their religion, but no privileges were to be conceded to any religion by the state.

As a consequence of arguing for secularism, Marx and Engels were opposed to two other methods of dealing with religion. They opposed campaigns for atheist states on one hand, and states with established or recognised religions on the other (whatever degree of religious ‘toleration’ these states might also permit).

Official atheist states, such as the former USSR, Albania and China, have led to a growth of religious support amongst the oppressed and alienated, which has consequently acted as a focus for political opposition. Furthermore, such states have sometimes adopted their own personality cults as a substitute for religious beliefs, e.g. around Stalin, Hoxha or Mao.

Marx and Engels opposed the formation of nationality (ethnic) states, the equivalent of earlier pre-capitalist states with established religions (although some capitalist states, including the UK in England still maintain a Church establishment). The reactionary racist nature of nationality-states can be seen in the old pre-1972 ‘Six Counties’, in former apartheid South Africa, and in current apartheid Israel, which have favoured Protestant Ulster-British, Whites and Jews respectively.

However many today, including some on the Left, look little further in their minimum programmes or policies than offering support for the nation-state equivalent of religiously ‘tolerant’ states – only with ‘toleration’ extended to a number of ethnic groups instead. This can be found in constitutionally recognised and ethnically shared administrations, e.g. the post-Good Friday Agreement ‘Six Counties’. Another variation of this ‘tolerant’ approach can be found in state promoted multi-ethnic measures, e.g. those developed in the UK after the Brixton Riots of 1981. These tend to lead to the creation of privileged and unaccountable, state-recognised ‘representatives’ of ethno-religious ‘communities’.  Such approaches leave the state in position of broker, able to play one community off against the other, and when necessary, divide the working class and oppressed.

In contrast, communists should recognise the right of any members of a particular ethnic group to voluntarily pursue their own chosen cultural activities, whilst seeking to maximise the opportunities for wider mixing with others at work, school, college or in the community. We should oppose policies that lead to physical separation of ethnic groups, and instead support integration, voluntary assimilation and mixed relationships within nations. Such an approach could be called ‘multi-culturalism from below’.

‘Internationalism from below’ is the wider political manifestation of such an approach, helping to bring about greater unity between nations, without any one group having to subordinate itself to another – particularly to those from culturally dominant ethnic groups.

8. Engels opposes an early British Left upholder of the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle

It was the growing struggle in Ireland, which pushed Marx and Engels further towards ‘internationalism from below’ as an organisational principle in the First International.  Here Engels came up against, not Proudhonist Anarchists, but an early trade unionist adherent of a ‘British road to socialism’ – John Hales. When Engels argued for Irish independence and a distinct Irish section, Hales contended, “that the International had nothing to do with liberating Ireland” (13). He tried to bring the Irish sections of the International under the control of the London/British Federal Council.  In reply Engels stated that: -

“The position of Ireland with regard to England was not that of an equal, but that of Poland with regard to Russia… What would be said if the Council called upon Polish sections to acknowledge the supremacy of a Council sitting in Petersburg, or upon Prussian Polish, North Schleswig {Danish} and Alsatian sections to submit to a Federal Council in Berlin… that was not Internationalism, but simply preaching to them submission to the yoke… and attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak of Internationalism.  It was sanctioning the belief, only too common amongst English {British} working men, that they were superior beings compared to the Irish, and as much an aristocracy as the mean whites of the Slave States considered themselves to be with regard to the Negroes.”

“In a case like the Irish, true Internationalism must necessarily be based upon a distinctly national organization: the Irish, as well as other oppressed nationalities, could enter the Association {the IWMA} only as equals with members of the conquering nation, and under protest at the conquest” (14).

There was a further reason for Marx and Engels wanting to maintain independent Irish organisations.  “They were more advanced, being placed in more favourable circumstances, and the movement in Ireland could be propagated and organised only though their instrumentality” (15).

Hales countered that,  “The formation of Irish branches in England could only keep alive that national antagonism which had unfortunately so long existed between the people of the two countries” (16).  He was arguing from a position, which maintained that, as far as advanced socialists were concerned, workers of all nationalities had already achieved equality in their British organisations.  Hales thought that English/British socialism was the model that the Irish should aspire to. Such an attitude is today deeply engrained amongst the British Left.

Engels, in contrast, appreciated the different position of Irish migrant workers and their descendants, who formed a significant part of the unskilled working class in Britain. Engels’ political stance was linked to attempts to maintain the unity of the politically advanced sections of the working class, and win the support of the unskilled, particularly Irish migrant workers.

In other words, where minority nationalities suffered from oppression within a dominant nation, they too had the right to form their own independent organisations there.  This has continuing relevance today, particularly for recent migrants, who still remain subject to various forms of discrimination within the imperialist countries. One current example stands out in relation to activities of the commune – the Latin American Workers’ Association.

9. ‘One-state/one-party’ – a cover for social chauvinism; separatist parties a cover for social patriotism

Marx and Engels’ ‘internationalism from below’ organisational principles, of course, fly in the face of later Second International, Luxemburgist and Bolshevik orthodoxy – the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle.  Kautsky (the Second International’s ‘Pope of Marxism’), Luxemburg and Lenin were assiduous collectors of Marx and Engels’ quotes since they wished above all else to appear ultra-orthodox in debates with other Marxists.  Yet, they studiously ignored Marx and Engels’ writings and practice on this matter.

Marx and Engels legacy of ‘internationalism from below’ as an organisational principle was to be lost in both the Second and Third Internationals.  Instead these organisations’ support for the principle of ‘one-state/one-party’ led to real political degeneracy.  In the hands of many Second Internationalists it became a thinly disguised cover for dominant nationality chauvinism and imperialism.  Later, Stalinists, Maoists and some Trotskyists even ended up duplicating the fascist principle – ‘one state, one party, one leader’!

Supporters of the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle have pointed to the social patriotism, which undoubtedly did emerge whenever some parties, drawing their support from workers amongst the oppressed nationalities (e.g. the Polish Socialist Party), departed from this organisational principle. What supporters of the ‘one-state/one-party’ approach fail to appreciate is that much of the openly displayed social patriotism found in some of the parties rebelling against this principle was a response to the thinly disguised social chauvinism (and sometimes social imperialism) found in dominant nationality parties, e.g., the SPD, RSDLP and SDF.

Thus the social chauvinism encapsulated in ‘one-state/one-party’ organisations and the social patriotism involved in separatist parties are not really opposites, but mutually reinforcing dead-end forms of organisation. What is needed is an International, or, until that is achieved, more limited federations based on the principle of ‘internationalism from below’.

Supporters of ‘internationalism from below’ are just as opposed to separatism, and as just as keen to unite with others. However, we realise that the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle goes hand in hand with accepting subordination to social chauvinism.  Indeed, as the majority of the British unionist Left has shown – from the Labour Party, old (and new) CPGB, the SWP, CWI to the AWL – their hard-wired sectarianism seem to mimic the anti-democratic, bureaucratic practices of the UK state. Therefore, coming together on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’ is a much better way of bringing about meaningful unity.

10. The contradictions of the Second International, Luxemburg and Lenin in their pursuit of the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle

The majority in both the Second and Third Internationals claimed that the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle was the best way to confront existing states by uniting the members of the various nations and nationalities forming the working class within a particular state.

Those who adopted this principle in the Second International usually ended up as apologists for the actions of the leaders of the dominant nationality in, or as subservient agents of, the states they sought to reform – the collapse of the social imperialist Social Democratic leadership of the Second International, in the face of the First World War, being the most obvious example.

However, some who still fought strenuously against the Second International’s capitulation to imperialism, such as Luxemburg, also helped to undermine ‘internationalism from below’, through their relentless pursuit of the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle. Luxemburg allied herself with the Right in the SPD to break the influence of the party’s ‘autonomous’ Polish section, thus aiding a thinly disguised German chauvinism. Lenin and the Bolsheviks also doggedly pursued a ‘one-state/one-party’ principle, claiming it created the centralised political instrument needed for the overthrow of existing states.

In relation to the National Question, there was a political difference between Luxemburg and Lenin. Luxemburg, particularly after 1905-6 Revolution, vehemently opposed the Second International’s policy of ‘the right of nations to self-determination’, whilst Lenin insisted that Social Democrats (and later official Communists) should give this policy their support in party programmes. Before the 1905-6 Revolution, Lenin held to a more ‘Luxemburgist’ approach over this issue.

However, the apparent difference between Luxemburg and Lenin, after 1905, hides an underlying shared assumption. Both agreed with Kautsky that capitalism was continually undermining the basis for the continued relevance of the National Question.  The more ‘advanced’ the capitalism, the less relevant the issue of national self-determination. They fell back on the sort of arguments Marx had utilised in his cosmopolitan phase, especially in The Communist Manifesto.

Thus, Lenin initially argued that the National Question no longer had any relevance in the advanced capitalist West, but only in Central and Eastern Europe (particularly Tsarist Russia and Hapsburg Austria-Hungary), and the Balkans and Asia, where feudal and other despotic relics had not yet been eliminated. Luxemburg disagreed with Lenin over the significance of the National Question in Central and Eastern Europe, but agreed with him about its irrelevance in the West and its importance in the Balkans and Asia.  She supported the struggles of the Greeks (in Crete) and the Armenians against the Ottoman Empire.  It was only in the First World War, that Bukharin and others in the Radical Left arrived at a neo-Luxemburgist position, which opposed the struggle for national self-determination everywhere.

However, like Luxemburg, Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not want to see the territorial break-up of existing states, even in Central and Eastern Europe.  They thought that that any wish by workers (and peasants) to exercise a ‘right of national self-determination’ would no longer be necessary when outdated, anti-democratic dynastic rule was overthrown. So, in the meantime, workers (and others) should concentrate their efforts on fighting for all-state wide revolution.  In practice this led to an abstentionist attitude towards participation in the actual national democratic struggles that did emerge.

This could clearly be seen in Lenin’s pre-First World War attitude to the exercise of national self-determination in Poland, where there was a longstanding national movement. Lenin agreed with Luxemburg that Social Democrats in Poland should oppose such a course, whilst disagreeing with her opposition to the RSDLP in Russia adopting the right of Poland to national self-determination. Nevertheless, Lenin still hoped that such a right would never be exercised. If there were to be any future referendum, Poles should vote ‘No’ and Russians should vote ‘Yes’. Such ‘zero-sum internationalism’ provided no basis for socialists/communists taking the lead in the actual national democratic struggles, which developed against the Tsarist and Hapsburg Empires. The effect was to leave the leadership of national democratic struggles to others, either bourgeois nationalists or social patriots, with dire consequences.

The majority of the Polish Left’s failure to champion the exercise of national self-determination left the issue in the hands of the social patriot, Pilsudski and the bourgeois nationalist, Damowski. Neither of these characters wanted to break external imperial control by Russia, Austria or Prussia-Germany through the mass action of workers and peasants. Instead they mainly looked for alternative imperial backers for Poland’s independence. Soon after state independence was achieved, with imperial backing, particularly from France, the infant Polish Communists mounted a challenge to the new state. However, having played little part in the previous national democratic struggle against imperial rule, they were soon isolated, repressed and marginalised.

In contrast, the Finnish Social Democrats made a more serious attempt to exercise Finnish self-determination. They became involved in a revolutionary war in late 1917 to early 1918. They faced the utterly brutal White Counter-revolution of the Finnish Right and the invading German forces. This was much worse than anything experienced by the Polish Left at the time.  Nevertheless, by the early 1920’s the Finnish Left was able to make a stronger recovery than the Polish Left. This was largely because of their recognised role in attempting to break away from the Russian imperialist state.

Lenin and the Bolsheviks failed to adopt an ‘internationalism from below’ approach, which actively championed the break-up of the Russian imperialist state.  He preferred to hide behind a promise to uphold the right of self-determination, but only to be exercised after a successfully completed workers’ and peasant revolution. This led to lost opportunities in Finland in July 1917, and in Ukraine in December 1917.  Perhaps, not surprisingly, no referenda on national self-determination were ever held, once the Bolsheviks had consolidated their control.

When the USSR was first constituted in 1922, there was no national designation in the state’s name, since the new government claimed that its initial few constituent soviet republics were merely the first building blocks in a future worldwide soviet federation. They also claimed that this new federation would eventually give way to a united, planned, world communist order, without nation-states, just as Marx and Engels had originally envisaged.

However, Marx and Engels, as adherents of an ‘internationalism from below’ approach, would not have been surprised to see the unfolding of a very different outcome. The ‘one-state/one party’ soon gave way to the one-party State. The glue for this new USSR was provided, not by the soviets (or communes) under workers’ control. They had already been crushed in 1921. Nor was the infant USSR under the direction of the Third International.

Instead, the ‘one-state/one-party’ CPSU, which controlled the USSR, increasingly acted as a threadbare cover for the specifically Russian nationalism, which lay not far beneath an official superficial ‘internationalism’.  The Chinese Communist Party under Mao, arguing from the same organisational principle, developed an even stronger nationalist character. Thus, it can be seen that parties based on the ‘one-state/one-party’ principle readily became transmission belts for the dominant nationality chauvinism and imperialism.

11. Marx and Engels abandon their unilinear model of progress

So, what would an ‘internationalism from below’ approach look like in today’s conditions? The case for a single unified world system – a global commune – is much stronger today than in the days of Marx and Engels, or even of Luxemburg and Lenin. However, this need doesn’t stem from any belief that capitalism has already performed a necessary progressive service for humankind in developing the productive forces to their present level. There never was a fore-ordained, progressive, capitalist course of necessary world development. Peasants, artisans, workers have always fought for ‘other possible worlds’ and the development of capitalism was contested at every stage, by people seeking other outcomes – not only by those looking back to some ‘lost golden era’, but also by those who struggled for a universal republic or for social republics.

Marx and Engels, themselves, departed from their earlier view of a necessary unilinear path of capitalist progress, when they first made a distinction between two paths of capitalist transition in Volume 3 of Capital “The transition from the feudal mode of production is twofold.  The producer becomes the merchant and capitalist, in contrast to the natural agricultural economy and the guild bound handicrafts of the medieval urban industries.  This is the really revolutionizing path.  Or else, the merchant establishes direct sway over production.  However much this serves historically as a stepping stone… it can not by itself contribute to the overthrow of the old mode of production, but rather tends to preserve and retain it as its precondition” (17).

This new understanding paved the way for Marx and Engels’ later dropping of their earlier support for ‘free trade’. They had originally argued in support of ‘free trade’ because it helped to create a worldwide market, and promote the capitalist socio-economic relations they saw as the necessary grounding for a future communist society. However, they later appreciated that British-promoted ‘free trade’ tended to reduce all other states to primary producing economic dependencies of ‘the workshop of the world’ (in an analogous fashion to the effect of US promoted ‘free markets’ today).  This insight also allowed them to see the regressive effects of externally imposed capitalism, i.e. imperialism, particularly in Ireland and India.

Indeed, they went further, and thought that it might be possible for some countries, which hadn’t yet fully committed themselves to the capitalist path, e.g. Russia (until 1894 in Engels’ case), and then the wider East, to be able to build upon the communal forms of agricultural production still existing, in cooperation with a socialist West.  In 1892, Engels even turned to Germany, now well and truly committed to the industrial capitalist path.  He called for “reviving the mark, not in its old outdated form, but in a rejuvenated form; by rejuvenating communal land ownership under which the latter would not only provide the small-peasant commune with all the prerogatives of big farming and the use of agricultural machinery, but it would also give them the means to organise, along with agriculture, major industries using steam and water power, and to organise them without capitalists by the community itself” (18).

12. ‘Internationalism from below’ in today’s conditions

Today, we have witnessed growing resistance to capitalist imposed modernisation, particularly amongst the indigenous Native Americans. It was the revolt of the Zapatistas in 1994, against the new North American Free Trade Agreement, which heralded the beginnings of today’s wider anti-globalisation and anti-capitalist movements. As it becomes even clearer that continued capitalist expansion threatens us with wholesale environmental degradation and the undermining of the very conditions for human survival, communists should see the real significance of such resistance. Also included in our vision, should be the present-day ‘Maroons’, those drop-outs from wage slavery.

This isn’t to argue for a return to some lost pre-capitalist utopia, in the manner of Zerzan and others. We live in a world largely moulded by capitalism, particularly under today’s conditions of corporate imperialism.  As well as the already mentioned environmental degradation, we also suffer from intensified exploitation and oppression (with short-term contract work, increasingly meaningless and boring labour punctuated by periods of unemployment and short-time working, declining real wages, and a rapidly diminishing social wage), and from wholesale alienation bringing about escalating mental health problems and anti-social crimes.

Yet, despite the capitalist imposed conditions of current production, (including the relentless and ultimately self-destructive drive for profit) most people in the world would want to continue with and improve upon the existing infrastructure of water supply, housing, power provision, transport connections, the wide range of essential products and cultural activities, bequeathed by capitalism, which all now depend on continued international linkages for their provision. Certainly, in many cases there is scope for major reform of this pattern of development, with huge cutbacks in the arms industry, the provision of free public transport and the downgrading of private transport, the lowering of dependence on fossil fuels, and the ending of the media and advertising industry’s promotion of a ‘shop till you drop’ philosophy with its monumentally wasteful production of superfluous commodities.

However, workers, peasants and artisans have created all the existing wealth, not already provided by nature.  We can either turn our backs on this legacy, and ‘retreat into the jungles’, or we can finally claim this wealth on behalf of the descendants of all these exploited people. And, just think of all the as yet unutilised opportunities provided by the new information technology. This would appear to be as a ‘natural’ a technology for a global commune, as steam power was for the national capitalism of the Industrial Revolution.

Such a global society would also have room for those peoples who, quite understandably, have no wish to be brought under corporate capitalism control, such as the Zapatistas.  The speed with which such resistance movements have adopted technologies such as the Internet demonstrates that they too would wish to be part of a new world order, only they would wish to enter it on their own terms, not those imposed by others. The same goes for many current ‘Maroons’ or drop-outs from wage slavery.

An ‘internationalism from below’ strategy is committed to the creation of a new unified and planned global commune. Dealing with the growing environmental degradation, and possible major catastrophes, demands nothing less. The only ‘alternative’ to global planning in such circumstances would appear to be a retreat to more local communities or regional federations with an accompanying neo-Malthusian population cull. This might lead to a world of less resource-demanding, smaller scale communities, but the resulting social disorientation would most likely produce ‘dog-eat-dog’ violent confrontations between the competing communities and mini-states.

By 2050, the world will already have probably reached ‘Peak Population’, but of course, if we remain subject to the ceaseless expansion of capitalist production for profit, this would still add to cumulative environmental degradation. It could still very likely lead the world to a catastrophic environmental tipping point.

One positive outcome which could lead to reaching ‘Peak Population’ before then, would be a massive expansion of women’s rights, especially with more effective control over their bodies, and an ending to male supremacism, currently reinforced by misogynistic religious beliefs. Today’s women’s struggles for more effective control over their lives may presently only constitute a partial fightback against the impact of capitalist oppression, but should be wholeheartedly supported by communists seeking support for a new humanised global commune.

13. Resistance in the here and now

An ‘internationalism from below’ strategy recognises that the exploited and oppressed are mainly brought into struggle by the immediate conditions we confront. Communists fight for increased wages, not because we want to bolster our conditions as wage slaves, but because we want an improvement in our living standards to undermine those in control of our labour who stultify of our full human potential. We fight for an increased social wage, not because we want a bureaucratic welfare state presiding over our lives, but because we need better housing, education, health and transport now, which meets our immediate needs, and which points the way to more extensive communally-controlled social provision in the future.  We fight for access to improved artistic and cultural provision, not because we want to become passive consumers of ‘reality TV’, lose ourselves in the ‘virtual world’ of the Internet, or follow lads’ (and ladettes’) lifestyles, but because we want active involvement in artistic and cultural creation to help us to overcome existing alienation and boredom, and to allow us to imagine alternative futures, which enhance our social and individual self-determination. We fight for increased democratic rights, not because we want to reinforce parliamentarianism or ‘representative’ democracy, or to create new oppressive states, but because we want to undermine those capitalist politicians who would set us against each other, and deny us the ability to bring about greater unity from below to more effectively challenge their rule.

We, in the RCN, fight for the democratic exercise of self-determination in Scotland, not because we think Scotland is ‘better’ or ‘lefter’, nor because we want to turn our backs on those in England, Wales and Ireland, but because we see this as an effective way to undermine the British state and its ruling class, the main buttress for US imperialism and corporate capital in the world today. Due to the fault lines in the UK state’s make-up – its bureaucratic unionism and its anti-democratic Crown Powers – the National Question has continued relevance here (as it does in Ireland and Wales).  We seek to extend this struggle to and unite with our neighbours through the active promotion of ‘internationalism from below’.

Abstaining from democratic struggles and leaving the opposition to the nationalist SNP won’t help our class. Most of the SNP leadership would settle for Devolution-Max but, whether or not they achieve formal political independence, would still act as local loyal agents for corporate capital in Scotland. They want to woo global capital to Scotland by making the country a low-tax haven.  However, ignoring or denying the importance of the National Question, just leaves its ‘solution’ once more in the hands of bourgeois nationalists and their social patriotic cheerleaders (Left nationalists).

Furthermore, historically there have been specific local democratic and socialist/communist manifestations in Scotland of the universal human struggle for another possible world  – e.g. the radical wing of the Covenanters, the United Scotsmen, the Chartists, the Highland Land League, the Scottish Socialist Federation, and the legacy of John Maclean. We want to develop this further in alliance with those from other countries. They too have their own local manifestations of the universal struggle – the Levellers, the United Irishmen and London Corresponding Society, the Chartists (especially their most advanced contingent in Wales) the Irish Land League, and the infant Socialist movement (which also included Anarchists).  ‘Internationalism from below’ is the best way to achieve this alliance.

There is a common thread, through all the initial and still partial forms of resistance to exploitation and oppression we find today. This is the need to create and support independent organisations of our class. Social Democratic/Labour and official Communist Parties (as well as their dissident emulators) have long passed over to the side of capital, and those few ‘last Mohicans’ still fighting within their ranks, want to rebuild something that, with the benefit of bitter experience and hindsight, was always flawed. Many trade unions, wedded to ‘social partnership’, have become little more than a free personnel management service for the employers. However, the building of independent trade union organisation – within or outside existing unions, or through a combination of the two – still looks possible.  The commune has become a focus of debates on how we organise in the workplace, and how we can best develop a strategy of worker’s control or management, in the here and now.

Communists have the role of uniting the independent organisations of our class around a clear vision of a future global commune, which can develop out of the conditions and the struggles of today. After recognising the futility of trying to build a world with many still isolated or competing units (confederalism) when our very existence depends on global solutions; and after experiencing the brutal rule of those imposing their  ‘one-state/one party’ principle (cosmopolitans), it is time to return to the once marginalised, but now increasingly relevant ‘internationalism from below’ approach.

Allan Armstrong, Republican Communist Network, 23.5.10

References

• 1. Allan Armstrong, contributions dated 26.2.10 and 16.4.10, on http://republicancommunist.org/blog/
• 2. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (TCM) in Penguin Classics, edited by Gareth Stedman Jones, p. 241 (Penguin Books, 2002, London)
• 3. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works, Volume 4, p. 280, cited in Michael Lowy, Marx and Engels Cosmopolites in Fatherland or Mother Earth? pp. 5-15 (Pluto Press, 1998, London)
• 4. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, CW4, quoted in Roman Szporluk, in Communism & Nationalism, Karl Marx versus Freidrich List, p. 32 (Oxford University Press, 1988, New York)op. 32.
• 5. David Broder, The Earth Is Not Flat
• 6. Salvo Mastellone, Mazzini’s International League and the Politics of the London Democratic Manifestoes, 1838-50 (MIL) in Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalisation of Democratic Nationalism, 1830-1920, edited by C. B. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biazini, p. 33 (The British Academy, Oxford University Press, 2008, Oxford)
• 7. Harold B. Davis, Nationalism and Socialism – Marxist and Labor Theories of Nationalism to 1917 (MTN), p.40 (Monthly Review Press, 1973, New York)
• 8. Ian Cummins, Marx and Engels on Nationalism, (MEN) p. 84 (Crook Helm, 1980, London)
• 9. Salvo Mastellone, MIL, op. cit., p. 98.
• 10. Frederick Engels in Marx and Engels, Collected Works Volume 20, 1864-68, p. 158.
• 11. Ian Cummins, MEN, op. cit., p. 94.
• 12. Karl Marx, letter to Frederick Engels, 20.6.1866, in CW 21, pp. 288-9.
• 13. Sean Daly, Ireland and the First International (IatFI) p. 142 (Tower Books of Cork, 1984, Cork)
• 14. Frederick Engels, Relations between the Irish Sections and the British Federal Council in Ireland and the Irish Question, p. 419 (Lawrence & Wishart, 1978, London)
• 15. ibid., p. 420.
• 16. ibid., p. 420.
• 17. Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3, p. 334 (Lawrence & Wishart, 1972, London)
• 18. Frederick Engels, The Mark in The Peasant War in Germany, p. 181 (Progress Publishers, 1969, Moscow)

On Alan’s first point, that what socialists should do in 2010 does not depend on what Marx and Engels may or may not have done in the nineteenth century, I am in agreement. I had already made the case for socialists/communists adopting an of an ‘internationalism from below’ approach in these islands on the basis of an analysis of the current political situation.

Nevertheless, I still think there is something to be gained by learning from historical experience. Of course, you have to be aware of the different contexts. Yet, I think a very strong case can be made for Marx and Engels’ adoption of an ‘internationalism from below’ stance. Alan maintains that Marx’s support for certain independence movements stemmed from Marx’s opposition to the three great feudal powers _ Russia, Austria and Prussia. Certainly Marx and Engels’s support for the Polish and Hungarian national democratic movements in 1848 can be attributed to such strategic thinking.

However, the founding conference of the First International in 1864 declared that, It is imperative to annihilate the invading influence of Russia in Europe by applying to Poland, ‘the right of every people to dispose of itself’ and re-establishing that country on a social and democratic basis. Quite clearly, Marx and Engels were already beginning to move towards a more general democratic principle, in giving their support to Poland.

Furthermore, if Alan reads Marx and Engels’ quite substantial writings on Ireland, particularly from the period of the First International, he would realise that their support for Irish self-determination – sometimes advocating a confederal relationship with Britain, other times complete independence – amounted to much more than a desire to weaken the position of the English landed aristocracy, although this was certainly a consideration. Alan’s attempt to equate this landed aristocracy with the remnants of feudalism, to justify his own interpretation, is frankly wrong. The landlord class in Ireland may have been a strong supporter of Tory reaction (by the end of the century, the same could be said of the industrialists of north east Ulster), but they were very definitely capitalist landlords, as was demonstrated by their actions during the Great Famine.

If Alan’s argument is sound, then by the 1880’s, when Marx and Engels no longer saw Tsarist Russia as the ‘reactionary strong man of Europe’, they should have abandoned even their tactical support for Polish independence. Instead, in a letter to Kautsky, in 1882, Engels wrote that,

So long as Poland is partitioned and subjugated, therefore neither a strong socialist party can develop in the country itself… Polish socialists who do not place the liberation of their country at the head of their programme appear to me as would German socialists who do not demand first and foremost repeal of the {anti-} socialist law, freedom of the press, association and assembly. In order to be able to fight one needs first a soil to stand on, air, light and space. Otherwise all is idle chatter.

Furthermore, Alan highlights the fact that Marx and Engels denounced many other nationalist movements such as the Slavs. This was certainly their earlier attitude, accentuated by the defeat of the 1847-9 International Revolutionary Wave. However, in 1888, Engels wrote to the Romanian Social Democrat, Ion Nadejde, that, Once Tsarism is overthrown… Austria will disintegrate… Poland will come to life again… the Romanians, Hungarians and Southern Slavs will be able to regulate their affairs and their border questions free from foreign interference.

So, far from Marx and Engels’ support for national democratic movements being confined to a select few countries for particular strategic reasons (undoubtedly their earlier stance), from the 1860’s onwards, they gave their support to he right of every people to dispose of itself. Furthermore, as I showed in Engels’ response to Hales, a British Left unionist, Marx and Engels fought for the organisational principle of ‘internationalism from below’ within the First International.

I too like Eugene Debs quote, but I note that after 106 years of the SPGB’s existence, the World Socialist Movement, of which it forms a part, seems confined to the richer English-speaking countries of the world. How can this be explained?

That Marx and Engels supported certain independence movements (yet also denounced many other nationalist movements such as that of the Slavs) is sometimes used to try to justify socialists today supporting the demands for independence.

Two points can be made. Firstly, what socialists should do in 2010 does not depend on what Marx or Engels may or may not have done in the 19th century. But, secondly and more importantly, the circumstances which led Marx to support some independence movements of his time no longer exist in today’s world.

After the failures of 1848, Marx pretty much dropped out of active politics and devoted more of his time to his studies. However, he later began actively to participate in political struggle within the First International. His strategy was the long-term one of preparing the working class to win political power for socialism. This involved Marx advocating various democratic and social reforms. This process was continually threatened by the three great feudal powers – Russia, Austria and Prussia. The bourgeois democratic victory over feudalism was far from complete, even in a rapidly industrialising Britain.

In these circumstances, Marx considered it necessary to support not only direct moves to extend political democracy, but also moves which he felt would weaken the feudal powers of Europe. He supported Polish independence as a means of weakening tsarist Russia. His support for Irish independence was for a similar reason. It would, he thought, weaken the position of the English landed aristocracy.

World War I destroyed the three great European feudal powers, making it no longer necessary for socialists to support moves to weaken them. Once industrial capitalist powers had come to dominate the world, and once a workable political democracy had been established in those states, then the task of socialists was to advocate socialism rather than democratic and social reforms. That is the position of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Marx’s strategy was concerned with furthering the establishment of political democracy. It was not, as some think, an anticipation of Lenin’s theory of imperialism, according to which independence for colonies will help precipitate a socialist revolution in the imperialist countries. Nor was it, as Allan Armstrong would like us to believe, an early endorsement of ‘internationalism from below’. Marx clearly wrote of the independence movements helping to overthrow the remnants of feudalism, but not capitalism itself.
With regard to all nationalisms generally, I suggest that socialists heed Eugene Debs when he said: I have no country to fight for; my country is the Earth, and I am a citizen of the world.

Independent Action Required to Achieve Genuine Workers’ Unity

First, I would like to thank Nick for the tenor of his contribution to the debate about communist strategy in the states of the UK and the 26 county Irish republic. After our initial sparring in earlier issues of Weekly Worker and on the RCN website Nick’s contribution develops further his own case for a British approach and a British party. (I am still not sure to what extent the alternative and logically more consistent one state/one party stance of having an all-UK party is supported in the CPGB.) Nick also usefully clears up some points himself (e.g. over his attitude to Luxemburgism) and asks a question which is designed to advance the debate. Before going on to the other issues Nick raises, I will therefore answer this question on whether I support breakaway unions in Scotland.

How to win effective union solidarity

I have consistently argued that the struggle to attain effective union organisation can not be reduced to which national flag flies over a union HQ. Most of the Left, in practice, uphold the sovereignty of the union officials located in their existing union HQs, hoping to replace these some day. This is why many of their union campaigns amount to electoral attempts to replace existing union leaderships with Broad Left leaderships. In more and more cases, the latest Broad Left challenges are being mounted against old Broad Left leaderships, suggesting a serious flaw in this strategy!

Of course, many on the Left would say – ‘No’, we champion the sovereignty of the union conference. However, the relationship between most union conferences and their union bureaucracies is very similar to that between Westminster and the government of the day. In both cases, executives only implement what they wish to, whilst systematically undermining any conference/election policies they, or the employers/ruling class, oppose. In the case of unions, this division is accentuated by elected-for-life and appointed officials, who enjoy pay and perks way beyond those of their members – a bit like Cabinet ministers.

Therefore, I uphold the sovereignty of the membership in their workplaces – a republican rank and file industrial strategy, if you like. From this viewpoint ‘unofficial’ action, the term used by bureaucrats to undermine members and to reassert their control, is rejected in favour of the term independent action. Action undertaken by branches can be extended by picketing, and by wider delegate or mass meetings. Certainly, this places a considerable responsibility upon the membership in the branches concerned, necessitating their active involvement in strategic and tactical discussion over the possibilities for extending effective action. Furthermore, instead of politics being largely confined to the select few – union bureaucrats and conference attenders – as when unions are affiliated to the Labour Party – politics becomes a vital necessity in workplace branches.

Nick asks, how can the SSP effectively support action by, for example, civil servants who are organised on an all-British union basis, when we are organised on a Scottish political basis? Actually, it is quite easy. The SSP has members on the executives of all-Britain trade unions, and we seek wider unity for effective action with officers and delegates from England and Wales. Indeed, we can go further and state that we would seek cooperation with union members in Northern Ireland, when action involves all-UK unions, such as the FBU. Yet, in the latter case, support for joint action over economic issues should not prevent socialists raising the political issue of Ireland’s breakaway from the UK state. There is an obvious analogy here for the SSP.

Indeed, there are three other territorial union forms in these islands, – Northern Irish unions (e.g. Northern Ireland Public Services Alliance), Irish unions which organise in the North (e.g. Irish National Teachers Union and the Independent Workers Union) and all-islands unions (e.g. UCATT). Nick’s attempt to equate more effective action with all-Britain unions would in no way help socialists to bring about unity in such varied circumstances. Championing the sovereignty of the union branch, and the forging of unity from below in expanding action, offer the best way of achieving this.

Nick mentions the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS) – the major teaching union in Scotland, and one of the last unions organised on a Scottish basis. The EIS is affiliated, not only to the STUC, but to the TUC and, although not affiliated to the Labour Party, its leadership has, since the mid 1970’s, been as loyal to Labour as any. The EIS is one of the strongest adherents of ‘social partnership’, with large chunks of its official journal indistinguishable from government/management spin – especially its articles on governmental education initiatives.

Until I retired, I was a member of the EIS, a union rep (shop steward) for 34 years, and served on the union’s Edinburgh Local Executive and National Council. I was also a member of Scottish Rank & File Teachers (until they were sabotaged by the SWP) and later the Scottish Federation of Socialist Teachers. I always upheld the sovereignty of the membership in their branches. Furthermore, I was also centrally involved in the largest campaign that rocked the Scottish educational world and the EIS, in 1973. Here, for the first time, I came up against the sort of arguments Nick raises.

The 1973 strike action was organised unofficially/independently. It took place over more than three months, with huge weekly, school delegate-based meetings. We also argued within the official structures of the EIS (whilst even drawing in some members of the two other small unions). It was here that the old CPGB, Labour Party and Militant supporters told us we should end our independent action and confine ourselves to getting motions passed calling on the union leadership to take a national lead.

If we had done this, it is likely there would have been no industrial action at all. As it was, the massive independent action forced the official leadership to move. And it was the independent rank and file movement, which sent delegates to schools in England to try and widen the challenge to the Tory government over pay. Labour Party and CPGB union officers, all stalwart Left British unionists, confined official union activity to Scotland!

There is a definite parallel between Nick’s advocacy that the SSP should abandon its own independent organisation and join with the British Left, planning for the ‘big bang’ British/UK revolution they hope for in the future, and those old CPGB, Left Labour and Militant arguments I first faced back in 1973.

The anti-poll tax campaign – ‘internationalism from below’ in action

Some years later, in 1988, I became chair of the first Anti-Poll Tax Federation (Lothians) and co-chair of the conference of the Scottish Anti-Poll Tax Federation. The campaign against the poll tax started a year earlier in Scotland, due to Thatcher’s propensity to impose her own form of devolution here – testing out reactionary legislation in Scotland first.

Militant emerged as the largest political organisation in the Federations. Militant became torn between those who wanted to maintain an all-Britain Labour Party orientation, continuing to prioritise activities inside the party’s official structures, and those who saw the necessity to become involved in independent action through the anti-poll tax unions. Fortunately, it was the latter view that won out.

The negative effect of pursuing a tacitly British unionist strategy was demonstrated by the SWP. Their slogan was – Kinnock and Willis {then TUC General Secretary}- get off your knees and fight (i.e. pushing for others to lead). They argued that only a Britain-wide campaign backed by the official trade union movement could win. When a special Labour Party conference in Glasgow voted against non-payment, the SWP declared the game was over, and some Scottish members went on to pay their poll tax.

The majority in the Federations stuck to their guns and built the independent action first in Scotland, e.g. through non-payment, confronting sheriff officers (bailiffs), etc, and by sending delegations to England and Wales, to prepare people for widened action the following year. Spreading such action from below contributed to the Trafalgar Square riots of March 31st 1990, which put finally paid to the poll tax and to Thatcher.

‘Internationalism from below’, which the SSP International Committee has advocated at the two Republican Socialist Conventions, represents a wider and more politicised development of such actions by our class. Any reading of our documents will show that our ‘internationalism from below’ stance flows from an analysis the concrete political situation, and unlike Nick’s and the CPGB’s stance, does not stem from some abstract attempt to extend a ‘one state/one party’ (or trade union) organisational form over all British/UK socialists; or from a belief in the efficacy of the top-down bureaucratic ‘internationalism’, which is intrinsic to such attempts.

Although rather belated in its formation, the Scottish Socialist Alliance, set up in 1996, directly stemmed from the lessons learned in the anti-poll tax campaign. (Socialist republicans in the Scottish Federation had argued for the setting up of such organisations from 1990.) Furthermore, contrary to what Nick maintains, far from having a purely Scottish orientation, SSA/SSP members took an active part, providing speakers, to help set up the Socialist Alliances in England, Wales and the Irish Socialist Network. The main obstacles we faced in helping to form new democratic united front organisations came from the British Left!

Perhaps it is also significant that, after addressing large meetings in Scotland, some of the striking Liverpool dockers (1995-8) and their partners said that support here was often wider than in England. The response received from the SNP trade union group in Dundee was compared very favourably with the coolness of many Labour Party members closer to home! The SSA was particularly prominent in trying to win solidarity for the dockers in Scotland.

Comparing records in trying to build socialist/communist unity

Now, Nick goes on to make some valid criticisms of the SSA’s successor organisation, the SSP, particularly over its handling of the Tommy Sheridan affair. However, here it is necessary to compare like with like. The CPGB is only a small political organisation with very few connections to the wider working class. In reality it is a socialist/communist propaganda organisation. The SSP, at its height in 2003, united the vast majority of the Left in Scotland, had over a thousand members, won 128,026 votes in the Holyrood election, gained six MSPs and had 2 councillors. It was a party of socialist unity, unlike today when it is an organisation for socialist unity.

When you attempt to organise amongst the wider working class you come under all the immediate political pressures, as well as having to face up to the legacies of past Left traditions. We live in a UK state with a deep-seated imperialist legacy, and where our class has been in retreat in the face of a Capitalist Offensive since 1975.

So, if we are to engage meaningfully amongst the wider class, we have to acknowledge this, and develop a strategy to prevent socialists/communists being dragged back, and to find new openings that enable us to advance both the case and the struggle for a genuine socialist/communist alternative. This means forming definite political platforms. The RCN is a platform in the SSP; the CPGB was part of a platform (Workers Unity) in the SSP. So let’s compare our roles in trying to build wider principled socialist unity.

Now, just as Nick points out that the CPGB has already made many of the criticisms of the SWP and Socialist Party that I raised in my critique, so I will point out that the RCN publicly raised criticisms of the SSP Executive’s handling of the Tommy Sheridan affair, which he quite rightly criticises. The RCN was the only political organisation to oppose, in principle, socialists’ resort to the bourgeois courts to get legal rulings on how they conduct themselves.

The split, which eventually emerged on the SSP Executive, was about the tactical advisability of a resort to the courts, not against the principle. The Executive, having unanimously warned against such a course of action in this particular case, came to an agreement with Sheridan, who insisted on ignoring this advice. In this agreement, he was allowed to stand down as SSP Convenor in order to pursue his court case as an individual. The Executive hoped this would remove the pressure upon the SSP itself.

This was extremely naïve, showing little understanding of how the state operates. In the case of the CWI/SP, they still haven’t learned this lesson, as their misguided resort to the courts to defend four victimised activists in UNISON has recently highlighted. Back in 2006, the Scottish courts made it quite clear that they made no distinction between the SSP and the activities of its most prominent member. It jailed Alan McCombes for refusing to hand over party minutes covering the Executive decisions on the handling of the Sheridan affair.

This led to a public split on the SSP’s Executive Committee, between those who wanted to continue with Sheridan’s case in the bourgeois courts, and those who could now see that the state held the whip hand. Sheridan was asked to abandon this particularly flawed and potentially disastrous course of action. Unfortunately, with the encouragement of the SWP and the CWI/IS – Sheridan went on regardless, resulting in a split in the SSP. They refused to attend the post-trial Conference organised to address the deep-seated differences, which had emerged in the SSP. Solidarity has been little more than a political ‘marriage of convenience’. You only have to look at the SWP and SP’s continued organisational separation in England, Wales (and Ireland/Northern Ireland) to understand this.

Certainly, mistakes had also been be made by the SSP Executive majority, but these could have been rectified. Indeed, the RCN initiated motion to condemn the resort to bourgeois courts and newspapers to deal with differences amongst socialists was passed at the post-split SSP Conference in 2006.

Ironically, the one issue, which played no part in the split, was the territorial organisational basis of the SSP. The left nationalist Sheridanistas (now the Democratic Green Socialist platform) joined with the Left unionist SWP and CWI/IS in Solidarity. The Left nationalist influenced (now former) ISM, along with the Left unionist and carelessly named Solidarity platform (!) (AWL), and the republican socialist RCN stayed with the SSP. The left nationalist Scottish Republican Socialist Movement left the SSP to urge support for the SNP, whilst the Left unionist CPGB ended up telling people to vote New Labour in the recent Euro-elections. Yes, a sorry mess!

Now, if ever there was an opportunity for the British Left to make some headway in Scotland, the SSP split this should have been it. However, the CWI/SP had already sabotaged the Socialist Alliances in England and Wales, whilst the final coup-de-grace was administered by the SWP, when it decided to move over to pastures green in Respect. Losing support there to Galloway and his allies (the SWP seemed to have learned nothing about cultivating celebrity politics in Solidarity) they then sabotaged Respect. Perhaps, the one thing Nick and I could agree on, is that a particular organisational form – Scottish or British – provides no guarantee of principled socialist unity! That has to be fought out on the basis of principled politics and democratic methods.

Now, some time after the CPGB’s advocacy of giving no support to either the SSP or Solidarity (to my knowledge it no longer had any members involved at this stage), it came up with its own Campaign for a Marxist Party (CMP). Here surely, given the balance of political forces (much more favourable to the CPGB, than say to the SP or SWP in the old Socialist Alliance, the SWP in Respect, or the SP in No2EU) it should have been able to make some real headway in advancing its own brand of socialist/communist unity politics – the organisational unity of self-declared Marxists in an all-Britain (UK?) party.

However, as every non-CPGB report on the CMP has shown (see New Interventions), the CPGB played an analogous role to the SWP in its front organisations. And, just as in the case of the SWP, there has been no honest attempt to account politically for the demise of the CPGB project in this respect. Instead, we have been given personalised attacks – once again shades of the SWP. From the outside, it looks as if the CPGB was just attempting a new recruiting manoeuvre – much like the SWP.

Now the CMP certainly organised on an all-Britain basis, including the Critique/Marxist Forum group in Glasgow. Yet, far from bringing about greater unity, the CMP experience has only resulted in greater disunity! Nick I’m sure witnessed much of this, and I would think it unlikely that he was entirely happy with the way the CPGB conducted itself. However, this wasn’t an accidental one-off.

Before Nick became involved in the CPGB, there had been an all-Britain RCN, which included the Red Republicans (including myself), the Campaign for a Federal Republic, the CPGB and the RDG. The CPGB, in alliance with the RDG, decided to marginalise those who disagreed with their own ‘federal British republican’ position. In Scotland, federal British republicans were a minority in the RCN, but were still well represented on our Scottish Committee. In England, federal republicans were in a majority, but the CPGB and RDG acted to ensure there were no non-federal republicans on the ‘organising committee’ there (in reality very little organising had gone on).

Their idea was to refashion the RCN into an organisation, which would intervene with the ‘federal British republican’ line in the SSP. The CPGB and RDG had no wider role for the RCN in England. They saw their job as conducting Left British unionist ‘missionary work’ in Scotland only.

A rather unpleasant all-Britain RCN meeting was held in London, and through the votes of CPGB and RDG members, the majority of whom had never lifted a finger for the RCN, they won the day. The RCN in Scotland decided it had had enough of the bureaucratic manoeuvring and withdrew. Even the Scottish members of the Campaign for a Federal Republic members joined with the RCN majority in Scotland, and together we constituted ourselves as the RCN (Scotland).

It is not even necessary to accept my interpretation of these particular events to make a political assessment of the consequences of the split. The RCN now only existed in Scotland. The CPGB and RDG were attempting to link up with the very Left unionist (and social imperialist) AWL, and the Glasgow Critique group which still had members in Scotland, to build a new Left unionist platform within the SSP. An additional advantage was the support they had in England (and Wales).

So, which of the two platforms was able to advance in the SSP? Using Nick’s argument about the obvious superiority of all-Britain political organisations it should have been the CPGB and its allies. Yet this wasn’t the case, despite the CPGB’s hope of also winning the support of other Left unionist organisations in the SSP, such as the SWP (Weekly Worker assiduously tried to court Neil Davidson, the SWP’s leading theoretician in Scotland, then advancing a strong Left unionist politics.)

Now, it could possibly be argued, from a CPGB viewpoint, that the task of winning over the SSP to ‘principled’ British Left organisational unity was just too big a task in the face of the opposition. However, then the fight conducted by the CPGB and its allies should have at least solidified a more united pro-British tendency in Scotland. However, the CPGB soon fell out with the AWL and, after the CMP debacle, with the RDG, also leaving members of the Glasgow Critique/Marxist Forum split! And Nick wonders why I think supporters of British Left unity tend to mirror the bureaucratic methods utilised by the British state!

The historical basis for ‘internationalism from below’

The UK is not just any old state. It was once at the centre of the world’s largest empire upon which the sun never set. Today, it forms the principle ally of US imperialism, the dominant power in the world. Today, the UK is ‘Hapsburg Austria’ to the USA’s ‘Tsarist Russia’.

For the greater part of their political lives, Marx and Engels argued that socialists should make opposition to the Romanov/Hapsburg counter-revolutionary alliance fundamental to their revolutionary project. Support for the Polish struggle to gain political independence, particularly from the Russian and Austrian Empires, was central to Marx and Engels’ strategy. Engels held on to this perspective until the end of his life, opposing the young Rosa Luxemburg on Polish independence, in the process. Socialists need to adopt a similar strategy today towards the US/UK imperial alliance.

It took some time before Marx and Engels came to an understanding of the best method needed to unite socialists organisationally to promote revolution and struggle against reaction and counter-revolution. However, they outlined their most developed position within the First International, when, significantly, they had to confront the British Left of their day. This tendency tried to uphold a ‘one-state/one-party’ stance, when they denied the Irish the right to form their own national organisation within the International. In arguing against a prominent British First International member, Engels argued that:-

The position of Ireland with regard to England was not that of an equal, but that of Poland with regard to Russia… What would be said if the Council called upon Polish sections to acknowledge the supremacy of a Council sitting in Petersburg, or upon Prussian Polish, North Schleswig {Danish} and Alsatian sections to submit to a Federal Council in Berlin… that was not Internationalism, but simply preaching to them submission to the yoke… and attempting to justify and perpetuate the dominion of the conqueror under the cloak of Internationalism. It was sanctioning the belief, only too common amongst English {British} working men, that they were superior beings compared to the Irish, and as much an aristocracy as the mean whites of the Slave States considered themselves to be with regard to the Negroes.

The Second International was formed as the High Imperialism of European dominant-nationality states (German, French and Russian) and top-down imperial national identity sates (British and Belgian) were in the ascendancy. The Second International abandoned Marx and Engels’ ‘internationalism from below’ principle. They adopted a ‘one state/one party’ organisational principle instead, which soon became the conduit for social chauvinist and social imperialist thinking within the social democratic movement.

Luxemburg and Lenin both accepted this new organisational principle. Luxemburg thought, though, that dominant nation chauvinism, which she still recognised, could be combatted by pushing for all-round democratic reforms, without regard to the specific nationalities in any particular state (albeit, as Lenin noticed, with the inconsistent qualification that, after the revolution, Poles should enjoy political autonomy).

Lenin also recognised the dominant nation social chauvinism and social imperialism found in the Second International, but thought this could best be combated through the 1896, Second International Congress decision to uphold ‘the right of nations to self determination’. Lenin thought, though, that any need to actually fight to implement this right was constantly being undermined by ongoing capitalist development, which he thought led to greater working class unity. Furthermore, after any future revolution, national self-determination would not be required, since workers would then want to unite together, initially within the existing state territorial frameworks, after these had been suitably transformed.

However, mainstream Second International figures, as well as Lenin, went on to consider various exceptions to both these organisational and political principles. In the case of some of the major constituent Second International parties, support was sometimes given to non-state parties in other states (often ones in competition with their own imperial bourgeoisies!). In this way the PPS (Poland) and IRSP (Ireland) were able to gain official recognition as Second International Congress delegates.

Lenin, in contrast, tended to support the exercise of self-determination retrospectively, only after he had recognised its political significance, e.g. Norway in 1905, Ireland in 1916. Lenin’s refusal to recognise the real political significance of Left-led national movements within the Russian Empire from 1917 (e.g. Finland and Ukraine), contributed to the isolation of the Revolution, and also to the burgeoning Great Russian bureaucratic character of the new USSR.

Luxemburg’s refusal to get socialists to fight for the leadership of national democratic movements contributed even more to the particular political marginalisation of socialists in Poland, compared say to those ostensibly less revolutionary Finnish socialists. They had been much more brutally crushed in the 1918 White counter-revolution in Finland, than the Polish socialists had been in the imperial backed nationalist revolution there. One reason why Finnish socialists and communists were able to rise from the ashes, is that were still remembered as leaders in the national struggle against Tsarist Russian and German occupation.

The role of an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy in combating the current US/UK imperial alliance

Fast forward to today, and we can see the leading role of US/UK imperialism in the world, promoting the interests of the global corporations. The UK state has been awarded the North Atlantic franchise by the US. Here it operates as spoiler within the EU to prevent it emerging as an imperial competitor to the US. It can even designate Iceland a terrorist state! Through the Peace (or more accurately pacification) Process, UK governments, in alliance with their own junior partners, successive Irish governments, have rolled back the challenge represented by the revolutionary nationalist challenge of the Republican Movement.

Sinn Fein is now a major partner in upholding British rule in ‘the Six Counties’ through their coalition with the reactionary unionist DUP. The ‘Peace Process’ was designed to create the best political environment to ensure that the global corporations can maximise their profits in Ireland. This political strategy has been extended throughout these islands, by the policy of ‘Devolution-all-round’ – Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

This strategy has easily tamed such constitutional nationalist parties as the SNP and Plaid Cymru. The SNP, for example, is pursuing a Devolution-Max policy to uphold Scottish business interests in an accepted global corporate dominated world. The UK state strategy has the full support of the USA, the EU, and trade union leaderships locked in ‘social partnerships’ with their governments and the employers.

The constitutionally unionist form of the UK state places the National Question at the heart of the democratic struggle. Middle class nationalism is continually forced into compromises with unionism and imperialism. (At the height of British imperial world domination, the overwhelming majority of the Scottish and Welsh, and a significant section of the Irish middle classes, could be won over to acceptance of various hyphenated British identities – Scottish-British, Welsh-British and Irish-British – in their shared pursuit of imperial spoils). However, today’s SNP support for the monarchy, and for Scottish regiments in the British imperial army, show that unionist/imperialist pressure can still have an impact. Even the ‘independent’ Irish state has given Shannon Airport over to US imperial forces, particularly for ‘rendition’ flights.

Unfortunately, the CPGB has only the most abstract understanding of the British unionist state. As yet, it doesn’t even fully comprehend the difference between a nation and a nationality. During the 1997 Devolution Referendum campaign, Weekly Workerdenied there was such a thing as a Scottish nation, claiming there was only a British nation, in which there lives a Scottish nationality. The existence of a wider Scottish nation, and not just a narrower ethnic Scots nationality, can easily be demonstrated in the well-known Scottish names of Sean Connery, Tom Conti, Shireen Nanjiani and Omar Saeed.

The logic of the CPGB’s position, if it had upheld its own particular version of national self-determination, should have been to argue for the 1997 referendum ballot to be confined to (ethnic) Scots. This would of course brought it into line with the far right nationalist, Siol nan Gaidheal! The CPGB also got itself into so many knots through promoting its own particular sect-front, ‘The Campaign for Genuine Self Determination’, that it buried any report of its end-of-campaign public meeting and rally in Glasgow. This meeting was certainly entertaining, but hardly a triumph for CPGB politics!

Indeed the beginnings of the CPGB’s political decline in Scotland can be identified with this particular meeting, which it was so reluctant to report on. I made an extended political assessment, which was sent to Weekly Worker to review. It declined to do so.

However, the confusion between nation and nationality has been taken to greater lengths in ‘the Six Counties’. Here Jack Conrad has identified a 75% Irish-British nation (!), scoring somewhat higher in the nation stakes than Scotland. The fact that Irish-British nationality identification went into rapid retreat after the Irish War of Independence is just ignored.

What undoubtedly exists in the ‘Six Counties’ today is an Ulster-British identity, buttressed by official Unionism and unofficial Loyalism alike. However, this relatively new nationality identification isn’t fixed either. There are a minority of Ulster-British who would happily become fully integrated into the British unionist and imperial state. The majority in the UUP, DUP and TUV, still want to maintain Stormont and other Northern Irish statelet institutions to hopefully ensure continued Protestant Unionist ascendancy. An ultra-reactionary minority has contemplated declaring UDI (Rhodesia style) to form an independent Ulster state, through ethnic cleansing (or, as the relevant UDA document puts it – ‘nullification’). They all, of course, proudly champion the British imperial legacy.

Ironically, there has been a limited rise of British-Irishness in ‘the 26 counties’, particularly in ‘Dublin 4’, amongst former Official Republicans and a new wave if ‘revisionist historians’. Significantly, this usually goes along with support for the UK and the USA in its current ‘anti-terrorist’ (i.e. imperial) adventures. These people represent a similar phenomenon to the Euston Manifesto group, formed in 2006 along with others, by former AWL member, Alan Johnson. The AWL, of course, has gone further even than the CWI in its apologetics for working class Loyalist organisations (anticipating its similar attitude to Zionist Labour organisations), so it is not surprising that it has given birth to strong social unionist and imperialist tendencies. Therefore, as long as the CPGB champions the ‘nation’ rights of this particularly reactionary nationality, it is in danger of following the path of the AWL and the CWI.

Now, the majority of the real Irish-British in ‘the 26 counties’ did eventually become Irish themselves, despite the undoubted barriers posed by the Catholic confessional nature of the state there. This development shows the possibilities of creating Irish national unity, especially if full nationality and religious equality is promoted.

The RCN appreciates the real nature of the UK state, and the strategy being pursued by its ruling class to contain potentially threatening national democratic movements. These can take on a republican form in their opposition to the anti-democratic Crown Powers soon wielded against any effective opposition. The RCN also recognises the need to supplement this by engagement with major social issues. This social republicanism (which needs to be developed by communists into conscious socialist republicanism) isn’t just an added-on extra. The fight against jobs and housing discrimination in the Civil Right Movement, and against the poll tax in Scotland, soon became linked with the national and (latent) republican movements in their respective countries.

When the RCN argues for a challenge to the UK state and to its anti-democratic Crown Powers in Scotland, this stems from a recognition that republican political consciousness is currently higher here (itself a reflection of the importance of the National Question). By way of analogy, in the 1980’s, the wider working class appreciated the more advanced class consciousness of the NUM and recognised they were in the vanguard of the fight, not just to save pits, but against the Thatcher government. The Great Miners’ Strike was itself triggered off by independent action. The job of socialists soon became to organise effective wider solidarity, and generalise this into a wider political struggle against Thatcher.

If socialist republicans in Scotland can take the lead in the political struggle against the UK state, the task of socialists in these islands becomes something similar – to build solidarity and to extend the challenge by breaking each link in the unionist chain. Whether we end up with independent democratic republics (and only weaken imperialism – nevertheless a better basis for future progress than the UK imperial state which exists at present), or are able to move forward to a federation of European socialist republics, depends on the ability of socialists/communists to build ever widening independent class organisation, culminating in workers’ councils.

Abstention from the democratic struggle on the grounds it isn’t specifically ‘socialist’ would be equivalent to abstention in supporting workers fighting for increased wages, on the grounds that they weren’t fighting against the wages system. Socialists/communists can only gain a wider audience by participating in all the economic, social, cultural and political (democratic) struggles facing our class. To do this effectively, socialists throughout these islands need to build on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’

The very first point I made at the February 13 Republican Socialist Convention in London was that the most pressing task for communists was to build an international working class movement that could challenge the capitalist class globally.

In the letters column of last week’s Weekly Worker I argued that it was necessary to build pan-European workers’ organisations (Blind alley, March 4). The masthead of the Weekly Worker carries the slogan, Towards a Communist Party of the European Union. Yet Allan Armstrong of the Scottish Socialist Party’s international committee characterises my position as Brit left (Left mirror of the UK state Weekly Worker March 4). In this reply I want to explore Allan’s revealing conclusion.

In my original report I criticised the SSP, represented at the February 13 meeting by co-convenor Colin Fox, for refusing to unite in an all-British party to combat the actually existing British state (‘Debating with left nationalists’ Weekly Worker February 18). Granted, Allan advocates united action across the British Isles, but, as he puts it, on the basis of the same kind of relations that Hands Off the People of Iran has established between British and Iranian workers. He asks, Does the CPGB secretly think that joint work cannot be effective because British and Iranian socialist do not live in the same state?

I applaud the work of Hopi, but everyone in that organisation – Iranian, British or whatever – recognises that workers in the two countries face quite different political environments that, for the time being, make unity in one centralised party both undesirable and unrealistic.

The difference between the kind of internationalism that Hopi encourages the British and Iranian workers to engage in and the level of unity workers in Scotland and England require can be illustrated quite simply by considering the nature of their respective struggles.

When Iranian bus, car or oil workers take industrial action, their grievances will generally be very specific to conditions in Iran – albeit sharing common characteristics with workers anywhere, given the drive by capitalist regimes all round the world to step up the neo-liberal assault on workers’ rights. Generous financial support, logistical support where practical, solidarity messages, pickets of the Iranian embassy, etc – actions such as these are what it is feasible for British workers to do. Of course, we also place direct pressure on the British state by opposing sanctions against Iran and any preparations for war. These are the tasks that Hopi has set itself.

If Iranian workers in struggle were facing a western transnational, other types of action become possible, from workers’ sanctions to solidarity industrial action. Since the mullahs and revolutionary guards dominate profit-making activities in Iran, these opportunities are relatively rare.

British workers, by contrast, face capitalist companies that do not respect national boundaries within Britain (and increasingly the boundaries separating European countries). Effective industrial action also has to take place across these boundaries and requires close British and pan-European organisation by workers. In Britain workers confront laws made by the capitalist state – and also laws laid down by the European Union. For many workers the capitalist state is their employer. Defensive actions such as last week’s two-day strike by the Public and Commercial Services union inevitably assume an all-Britain character.

Allan affects to believe that the nature of the joint action by workers in Britain and the solidarity British and Iranian workers can achieve is essentially no different. In that case, what about British-wide unions? Does Allan believe that the struggles of civil servants (or any other group of workers) would be more or less effective if they were split into separate English and Scottish bodies? I honestly do not know Allan’s position on this. Some left nationalists, such as the Scottish Socialist Republican Movement, do advocate forming separate Scottish unions. I have observed that quite often it is the teachers in the SSP – organised, as it happens, in a Scottish union, the Educational Institute of Scotland – who least grasp the merits of Britain-wide industrial organisation. The majority in the SSP has, though, always cautioned against industrial separatism and argued that even Scottish independence would not undermine the rationale for all-Britain unions.

We are some way off a situation where we can contemplate signing up workers in Britain and Iran to the same unions. So it seems we agree that the existence of a British state – and the shared political, social and economic environment that goes along with it – makes the closest possible cooperation between workers in some types of organisation essential.

That leaves us with the rather extraordinary conundrum of explaining why communists – supposedly the most advanced militants of the working class – should unite on a less ambitious scale than workers seeking to defend their immediate economic interests.

For most it is self-evident that civil servants defending their redundancy terms need to organise in the same union against the British state in its role as an employer. How far would civil servants get if the PCS were to be split into separate Scottish, Welsh and English unions and leave the coordination of joint industrial actions to their respective ‘international departments’? I suggest that we would not be expecting anything very dynamic or effective to come of it.

But for the left nationalists in the SSP the proposal that revolutionary socialists need to achieve the same degree of unity in seeking to overthrow that capitalist state and replace it with a workers’ democracy draws forth accusations of ‘unionism’. For them, building joint activities with communists in England and Wales must be left to the SSP’s international committee in case we were to inadvertently imply that a closer form of unity just might be appropriate.

An observation. Allan points to the SSP’s participation in European Anti-Capitalist Alliance in last year’s European elections and the speaker tour they organised for a member of the French New Anti-Capitalist Party. I would say that was a principled stance as far as it went. But when has the SSP ever stood as part of a Britain-wide electoral front in a British general election? What principle allows the SSP to collaborate with European socialists to the extent of forming a common platform, but prohibits a similar step with socialists across Britain?

Allan takes me to task for using the word ‘foreign’ to describe the SSP’s attitude to English communists. He thinks the word carries inherent connotations of xenophobia. What nonsense. The capitalist international system of states is a reality communists are obliged to acknowledge, even while they strive to overcome it. Allan, however, in his refusal to accept that the existence of a British state requires a united struggle by workers against it, departs from reality.

‘Brit left’

So what is the ‘Brit left’? According to Allan the epithet is aimed at those socialists who seek to build party organisations throughout Britain – who try to mirror the UK state in its organisational set-up. Allan admits that this is to apply an old Second and Third International orthodoxy: ie, one party for each state. Within the SSP it struck me as an insult hurled most fiercely at fellow Scots – a jibe implying deficient Scottish patriotism.

Allan sketches out a litany of the failings of ‘Brit left’ organisations: the Socialist Workers Party’s opposition to Hopi, the British nationalism of last year’s ‘No to the European Union, Yes to Democracy’ electoral front, the cowardice of Respect and the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party over migrant workers.

What is he driving at? Is he saying that the sectarian failings of the left in Britain are intrinsic to all Britain-wide ventures? The political project of the CPGB could be summed up as advocacy of left unity on the basis of principled politics. The examples of unprincipled left politics that Allan cites could very well be drawn from exposés in the Weekly Worker.

Certainly, the sectarian fragmentation of the left makes a nonsense of attempts to present an effective challenge to capitalism in Britain. Not much of an excuse, though, for the SSP to add a nationalist twist to that fragmentation.

Does the fact that the SSP operates only north of the border really make it immune to much the same failings as ‘London-based’ organisations? What about the whole Tommy Sheridan debacle? It was the leadership of the SSP that built up Tommy as a political superstar. That carried his picture on the masthead of most issues of Scottish Socialist Voice. That incorporated a message from Tommy and his portrait on every election leaflet. That added his name to that of the party on ballot papers. That ran a prominent story about his wedding.

Most in the SSP now accept that the hero-worship of Sheridan was a mistake – a re-evaluation that is rather a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted. Today the whole organisation pretty much reviles him. I can understand the anger at Tommy Sheridan, but that in its turn does not excuse what is effectively collaboration with state authorities (a British state, moreover) and News International to put the man in prison. A perjury trial, whatever the outcome, is not going to place the SSP back in the big time. It is not even going to remove a martyred Tommy Sheridan from the Scottish political scene.

The fact of the matter is that such get-rich-quick schemes distort the priorities of most of the left in Britain – and internationally for that matter. You could argue that it is Trotsky’s transitional demands – a concept built into the DNA of most so-called revolutionary groups – that provides the excuse to describe any campaign for however modest a reform as a coherent aspect of a revolutionary strategy. I think the tendency towards political opportunism is more deep-rooted than that, but a lack of seriousness about programme is certainly a feature of virtually the whole left, including the revolutionaries in the SSP.

Republicanism

An understanding of the importance of demands around democracy and the part these should play in the strategy for achieving working class power should be at the heart of the programme of a communist party. That programme must take seriously the national question. I think that is a position I have always taken – and certainly before I joined the CPGB. I do not remember ever saying I was a ‘Luxemburgist’ – not that association with Rosa Luxemburg counts as a very severe insult in my book.

Like the rest of the CPGB, I have always maintained as a fundamental principle the right of the Scottish and Welsh people to choose independence. A right which a federal republic would enshrine with Scottish and Welsh parliaments having full powers to decide their future. What Allan has difficulty with is the dialectical subtlety of an approach that defends the right to self-determination, while advocating that the option for separation should not be exercised. Allan describes that as “condescending”.

In fact, paradoxical though it may appear to some, upholding the rights of nations is the only practical strategy for superseding the existing system of states. This is the task that will confront the working class as it seeks to build a world socialist order. What does Allan think this will entail? Would Allan either force nationalities against their will into broader federations or accept indefinitely as a fact of ‘human nature’ the national fragmentation bequeathed by capitalism?

The principle that any nation can choose to withdraw from a larger entity must hold, even after the working class has taken power. It is the only way of assuring all nations that their national and democratic rights will be respected and that they have nothing to fear from the construction of a socialist world.

Of course, there are national situations that pose particular problems. The CPGB supports the right of the Irish people to choose the unity of their island. This is the position we set out in our current Draft programme, as well as in the redrafted version proposed by the Provisional Central Committee. In addition, the majority within our organisation argues that the best way of assuaging the fears of the ‘British-Irish’ is to establish a federal Ireland with the right of self-determination for a British-Irish province covering a smaller geographical area than the current six counties.

I acknowledge the majority’s attempt to apply political principle consistently. However, I think there are problems with a formulation the leaves open the possibility of a repartitioned Ireland in which the rights of an Irish minority in a new Protestant statelet might not be guaranteed. As always, we will continue to debate our differences with the objective of achieving greater clarity.

The national rights of Scotland and Wales pose no problems of this kind. Their national boundaries are not in question. People in Scotland or Wales who regard themselves as English are unlikely to suffer any oppression – although grievances around the division of state resources might well exacerbate national tensions in the short term.

But what is the prospect for independence in Scotland? We were told at the convention that the most recent polls report support at levels of 37%. This is where support for independence has plateaued for the last decade or two. Occasionally, polls show support for independence spiking higher, but usually it oscillates around the mid-30s.

Clearly, there is a national question, but as things stand the Scottish people do not want separation. Yet left nationalists such as Allan argue that the key task for socialists north of the border – a task which justifies splitting the organisations of revolutionary socialists in the face of a very united British state – must be to win a majority of Scots to see the benefits of breaking with England.

This strategy is dressed up as an assault on British imperialism. Allan at least has the honesty to acknowledge that independence under the Scottish National Party would not involve a break with the circuits of international capitalism. But that is precisely the form in which independence is most likely to be delivered. According to Colin Fox, even an independent capitalist Scotland would be more progressive than the current British state.

Even if that were true (it is not), a communist programme must be more ambitious than that. Allan talks in terms of taking “the leadership of the national movement here from the SNP”. How about taking the leadership of the working class movement throughout Britain and Europe?

Allan criticises the tactics of the CPGB during last year’s European elections. However, contrary to his assertion, the CPGB did raise the question of migration. It is simply that the sticking point with the Socialist Party candidates in No2EU was around the right to bear arms. I was critical of making that the key issue in those elections, when it was the nationalism of No2EU that should have retained the focus of our tactics (‘Against sectarianism’ Weekly Worker June 18 2009).

But raising the demand that the British state’s monopoly of armed force should be broken is key to a republican agenda. It exposes the undemocratic nature of the rule of the capitalist class and, therefore, has far more radical potential than the separatism to which Allan aspires. It is the kind of republican politics that can lead the working class to challenge for state power. That is the prize for which all communists should strive.

Issue 19 Cover

If you would like to buy this issue or subscribe, contact us. This will be available at the Dunblane Conference.

Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section.

• Editorial, RCN
• Global Commune day school report, Mary McGregor
• RCN extends its platform points, RCN
• 2nd Republican Socialist Convention, Allan Armstrong
• Militant anti-fascism: the achievements of Scotland’s Anti-Fascist Alliances, YK
• British nationalism and fascism, Chris Ford
• The new Hillsborough Agreement, John McAnulty
• Independence Referendum, RCN
• Revive the Declaration of Calton Hill for the Diamond Jubilee, Angela Gorrie
• Iceland joins the ‘Arc of Resistance’, Mimir Kristjansson
• Business as usual for Israeli Apartheid, David Landy
• Tibet – A country suffering from Chinese imperial repression, Rod MacGregor
• The Alberto Durango Campaign, David Broder
• Campaign to fight the Blacklist and to support Brian Higgins
• John Venables – The lynch mob and our ‘broken society’, Adam Ford
• The North must have its own inquiry into child sex abuse, Bernadette McAliskey
• Notes from Copenhagen, Eric Chester
• Book review: The Lost Revolution: The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party, Colm Breatnach
• White Pete, Jim Aitken
• Word Power – an interview with Elaine Henry, Allan Armstrong

Issue 18 will start to go online soon.

Allan Armstrong (SSP) welcomed the participation of the veteran campaigner, Peter Tatchell, a ‘republican in spirit’, to the Republican Socialist Convention. However, there was a formalism about the republican principles Peter advocated. This was because Peter had not analysed the real nature of the British unionist and imperialist state we were up against, and the anti-democratic Crown Powers it had its disposal to crush any serious opposition. Nor did Peter outline where the social and political forces existed to bring about his new republic.

Back in the late 1960’s, socialists (e.g. Desmond Greaves of the CP and those involved in Peoples Democracy) had been to the forefront of the campaign for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland – equal access to housing and jobs, and a reformed Stormont. The particular Unionist/Loyalist nature of this local statelet, and its relationship with the UK state, was largely ignored or downplayed, in an otherwise militant and vibrant campaign. Every repressive institution used by the UK state is prefixed by ‘royal’, e.g. the RUC, ‘her majesty’s, e.g. the prisons, whilst ‘loyalists’ is the name given to those prepared to undertake the more unsavoury tasks the UK state doesn’t want to own up to in public.

Socialists paid a high price for this negligence, when 14 people were gunned down in Derry by British paratroopers on January 30th, 1972. The socialist republicanism, which should have informed the struggle had been absent, and the Civil Rights Movement gave way to the combined physical force and political republicanism of the Provisionals. When Irish socialist republicanism did emerge, the leadership of the struggle had already largely passed to others.

Some of those earlier socialists, such as Bernadette Devlin/McAliskey, recognised the need for a new socialist republican approach. However, the Provisionals were adroitly able to widen their political base, and keep genuine socialist republicanism marginalised by a resort to populism, through addressing some social and economic issues. Now that the Provisional leadership has made its deal with the UK state, under the Good Friday and St. Andrews Agreements, these populist social and economic policies are being jettisoned.

There is a strong lesson in this for socialists in Scotland and the UK today. Scotland, with its valuable oil resources, and key British military bases, is far more central to British ruling class interests, than Northern Ireland was in the 1960’s. There is a growing National Movement in Scotland. Many supporters link the idea of an independent Scotland to an anti-imperialist vision (opposition to participation in British wars and to NATO) and to defence of social provision in the face of ongoing privatisation. This National Movement is wider than the SNP. Meanwhile, the SNP is taking the road of parties like Catalan Convergence, PNV (Euskadi) and Parti Quebecois. Its leadership is seeking a privileged role for the Scottish business within the existing corporate imperialist order. The SNP is tied both to the ‘Scottish’ banks and to cowboy capitalists like Donald Trump.

The SNP’s election manifesto pledged support for an ‘independence referendum’ to address the issue of Scottish self-determination. Although, the SNP leadership has been in full retreat over this issue, it will not go away, since there is a wider National Movement, and the probable election of the Tories at Westminster will once more raise the political stakes.

The SNP has no way of achieving Scottish independence. It is too tied to Scottish business interests, which want no more than increased powers for themselves – Devolution-Max. Recently, Salmond has come out in favour of the British monarchy. What this means is that the SNP accepts that any future referendum will be played by Westminster rules.

In the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, when the British ruling class was split over the best strategy to maintain their Union, the non-political Queen was wheeled out to make an anti-nationalist Christmas speech, civil servants were told to bury inconvenient documents, mock military exercises were launched against putative nationalist forces, whilst the intelligence services conducted agent provocateur work on the nationalist fringe. Compared to the role of the British state against Irish republicans, this was small beer. However, given the timid constitutionalism of the SNP, a further resort to Crown Powers was not needed at this time.
Furthermore, the taming of the once much more militant Provisional Republican Movement, so that it now acts as key partner in British rule in Ireland, shows that the British ruling class has little to fear in the SNP.

Today, the British, American and EU ruling classes are united against any move towards Scottish independence, so will be even more determined in their opposition than in 1979. This is why any movement to win Scottish self-determination must be republican from the start. It must be prepared, in advance, to confront the Crown Powers that will be inevitably utilised against us. Because genuine and democratic Scottish independence represents such a challenge to British imperialism and the UK state, we need allies in England, Ireland and Wales too. We need to be committed to a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’. We are socialist republicans and link our political demands with social and economic campaigns. This was the course advocated by two great Scottish socialist republicans – James Connolly and John Maclean. This is why the SSP is in London today seeking wider support.

A reply to Allan Armstrong’s arguments from Nick Rogers, CPGB (Weekly Worker 805, 18 02 2010)

Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network and the SSP turned to the national question in Scotland. He thought Peter Tatchell’s rather abstract republicanism was exactly what was not needed.
The Scottish National Party had shown that it was prepared to play the parliamentary game to prove that it did not pose a disruptive challenge to the corporate status quo. It was now in favour of retaining the monarchy – not even offering a referendum to the Scottish people on the issue.

A Scottish republic, on the other hand, would ditch the monarchy, throw out USA and British military bases, and reverse the cuts and privatisation. The British state would use all the resources at its disposal to resist the loss of North Sea oil and the Trident bases. Scottish republicanism was a strategy to strike a blow against the imperialist UK state, break the link with the US and build internationalism from below.

Toby Abse declared he took a Luxemburgist position on the national question. Far from believing the break-up of existing national states to be progressive, he thought the creation of a European state would provide better opportunities for socialists.

I said… we should encourage a class-based identity that encompassed migrants and the working class internationally.

However, in Scotland and Wales there clearly was a strong sense of national identity and national questions existed. The demand for a federal republic was the way to relate to the question, both in England and in Scotland and Wales.

The English must make clear that they had no wish to retain either nation within a broader state against the will of their people, but neither would they force them to separate. As for socialists in Scotland, comrade Armstrong’s argument hardly provided a ringing endorsement of the case for independence, since it would be precisely the conciliatory SNP that would lead moves to split Scotland from Britain, making every attempt in the process to avoid rocking the establishment boat.

The strongest possible challenge to the British state was to be made by the working class across Britain – and preferably across Europe, raising the demand for a European republic.

David Broder and Chris Ford of Commune spoke after me and expressed support for the RCN’s internationalism from below and the perspective of breaking up the UK. Comrade Broder did not see why unity with Europeans was more important than, say, with Bolivia, where British multinationals were just as involved as in many European countries.

Comrade Ford spoke about the opportunities the national question created for socialists. The break-up of the UK would strike a blow against a major imperialist state. For his part, comrade Healey thought that the break-up of the UK was as inevitable as the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Time was now fast running out and in a short reply comrade Armstrong commended the arguments of the Commune comrades, while telling comrade Abse and me that our arguments were typical of the “Brit left”, without actually replying to them…

Comrades Colin Fox (SSP Co-convenor) and Allan Armstrong attended as representatives of the SSP’s international committee. Treating England as a foreign country is bad working class politics and fails to recognise the reality of the British state.

A reply from Allan Armstrong (24 02 2010)

As Nick points out in his reply, I believe his comments are indeed typical of the ‘Brit Left’. The reason I didn’t reply to him at the second Republican Socialist Convention, but stated that Chris Ford and David Broder of The Commune had made some of the points I would have used, was that I wasn’t given the time.

The preference of the SSP International Committee would have been for the second Republican Socialist Convention to have devoted far more time to the discussion of the relationship between the National Question and Republican Socialism.

The non-attendance of many from the British Left, invited by Steve Freeman of the Socialist Alliance (Convention organiser), still did not create anything like enough time for this debate. The first session contributions by Peter Tatchell and Colin Fox usefully highlighted the debate between bourgeois and socialist republicanism, whilst Mehdi Kia (Middle East Left Forum and HOPI) was most informative about the current situation in Iran.

However, personally, I thought the last session could have been sacrificed in order to enable the broader discussion on the National Question to be aired. The ignorance and lack of comprehension of much of the British Left over this issue needs to be addressed.

If, as I had hoped, there were also to be speakers from Ireland and Wales, then time for discussion would have been even more curtailed. Neither Dan Finn of the Irish Socialist Network, nor Marc Jones of Plaid Cymru/Celyn were able to make it. I thought that any republican socialists in England would have made contacts amongst the quite extensive Irish republican and socialist republican community in London, but this turned out not to be the case. I then suggested to Steve that Ann McShane (Ireland) and Bob Davies (Wales), both of the CPGB, be invited instead to fill the gap and enable the debate between Left Unionism and Internationalism from Below to be more fully aired.

So, let’s examine Nick’s points. I’ll start at the end of his contribution. Treating England as a foreign country is bad working class politics and fails to recognise the reality of the British state.

The first point I would make is that Nick must hardly have been listening. The whole thrust of my contribution (see above), taking on Peter Tatchell’s abstract republicanism, was exactly to highlight the imperial and unionist nature of the British state, and the formidable anti-democratic powers the British ruling class has under the UK’s Crown Powers.

Nick, somewhat revealingly, talks of me treating England as a foreign country. Now England certainly is another country. This is even recognised under the terms of the Union – which recognizes England, Scotland, Wales and part of Ireland (officially Northern Ireland, but colloquially and wrongly, Ulster) as separate entities. However, I have never used the word foreign to describe England. Is that how Nick describes Ireland, France, or any other country in the world? There are some words and phrases, such as social dumping and foreign which I think form part of the language of hostile nationalist forces and should be rejected in socialist discourse.

Now, the CPGB takes some pride in the solidarity work of HOPI, a united front organisation it initiated. Do CPGB members consider Iranian socialists to be foreign? Does the CPGB secretly think that joint work can not be effective because British and Iranian socialists don’t live in the same state? Nick invokes a mythical international unity provided by the British Left. However, a great deal of the CPGB’s work has been trying to combat the opposition of the largest ‘Brit Left’ organisation, the SWP, to HOPI. The largest socialist organisation in Scotland, the SSP, voted to support HOPI at its 2008 Conference.

The SSP is more than willing to go to meetings in England, Wales and Ireland, organised by others, to argue the case for united action across these islands. Internationalism from below is a hallmark of how the SSP tries to organise. Our International Committee organised the first Republican Socialist Convention in Edinburgh, with socialists from all four nations. The SSP has subsequently sent speakers to both England and Ireland.
Whatever reservations we may have had about the limited time for discussion of the National Question, Socialist Republicanism and Internationalism from Below, provided by Steve at this Convention, we engaged fully, providing two platform speakers and another three members in the audience.

So let’s now look at the second largest ‘Brit Left’ organization, which was invited to participate, the Socialist Party. I will quote Nick’s explanation for their failure to turn up at a meeting with representatives of the largest socialist organisation in Scotland. Quite possibly SPEW deliberately avoided a potentially embarrassing meeting. Embarrassing for who? Certainly not the SSP.

Nick also says, We should encourage a class-based identity that encompassed migrants and the working class internationally. So how does the British Left, which Nick champions, match up to this? Last year we saw the EU electoral challenge by the Left British chauvinist ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ campaign (with its notorious opposition to ‘social dumping’), bureaucratically cobbled together by trade union officials, the SPEW and CPB. It also had the somewhat incongruous Left Scottish nationalist bolt-on provided by Solidarity (although to their credit, many of its members refused to engage, and one prominent member advised people to vote SSP).

In contrast the SSP stood as part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance EU-wide electoral challenge, bringing Joaquim Roland, a car worker member of the New Anti-Capitalist Party to address meetings in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee.

So, given the choice of ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ and the EACA, where did the CPGB stand? Quite frankly it made itself look foolish. It never raised the idea that ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ should form part of the EACA’s international campaign. It placed nearly all emphasis on demanding that ‘No2EU/Yes2D’ put support for citizen militias in its manifesto (support for migrant workers facing combined state, employer and union official attacks would have been far more appropriate). Then, failing to get support for citizen militias, told people to vote instead for the Labour Party and hence the very non-citizen militia, British imperial troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere! Even the SWP and SPEW didn’t stoop this low.

When Nick mentions his support for a class-based identity that encompassed migrants, he also fails to mention the woeful record of the ‘Brit Left’, in Respect or the Campaign for a New Workers Party over this issue. The SSP voted at its 2008 Conference to give its support to ‘No One Is Illegal’.

Chris Ford made the valuable point that the UK state, far from uniting the working class on these islands, divides it. The ongoing partition of Ireland is only the most striking case. The bureaucratic institutions of the British Labour Party, and the trade unions (TUC, STUC, WTUC, and the Northern Committee of the ICTU) frequently divide workers and play one national group against another.

Nick takes up the argument made by Toby Abse, to elaborate his own position. Toby had argued that the successive acts of Union {1535-42, 1707 and 1801} had had the effect of creating a united British nation, and that the British working class and its institutions were now organized on an all-British basis. Therefore, following Luxemburg, he believed that attempts to address the National Question in Scotland or Wales were either irrelevant or divisive. To be consistent, Toby should have argued that all UK state institutions, currently devolved on a ‘national’ basis, should be abolished, since they must, from his viewpoint, promote disunity.

However, Nick, who has certainly also called himself a Luxemburgist in the past, is now a member of the CPGB, so in opposing Toby, he has to make some contorted arguments. The CPGB believes there is a British nation and a British-Irish nation (the Protestants of the ‘Six Counties’) but only Scottish and Welsh nationalities. So Nick goes on to say that. In Scotland and Wales there clearly was a strong sense of national identity and national questions existed. First, you would wonder, if the historical thrust of the creation of the UK has been to bring about a united British nation (for most of the ‘Brit Left’, Ireland quickly drops from view!) and a united British working class, why you should consider it at all worthwhile to make any concessions to what could only then be reactionary national identities.

The reality, however, is that the UK state was formed as part of a wider British imperial project, which tried to subsume Welsh, Scots and Irish as subordinate identities. Whilst the British Empire ruled the roost, there was a definite thrust towards a British nation, but this was partly thwarted by the unionist form of the UK state. Once, the British Empire went into decline, those still remaining hybrid imperial identities, Irish-British, Scottish-British and Welsh-British have gone into decline too, as more people have asserted their Irish, Scottish and Welsh identities. This decline in British identification has been most rapid amongst workers and small farmers, whilst support has been clung to most fiercely by the ruling class and sections of the upper middle class.

Only amongst in the Unionist and Loyalist section of the people living in the Six Counties has a more widespread British identity been retained (although this has moved from Irish-British to Ulster-British). Indeed, it is in the Six Counties that the true nature of British ‘national’ identity is shown most starkly. It is here, amongst the Loyalists, that fascist death squads and other forms of coercion have created the worst repression, way beyond anything achieved by their ‘mainland’ British admirers, in the National Front or British National Party. The British Conservatives have just linked up with those more ‘genteel’ Ulster Unionists, but still sectarian and reactionary.

The moves to break-up the UK have their origins in wider ‘lower orders’ movements, such as the Land League in Michael Davitt’s days, the independent Irish trade union movement of James Connolly (founder of the Irish Socialist Republican Party) and Jim Larkin’s days. It was John Maclean (founder of the Scottish Workers Republican Party), with his support, particularly amongst Clydeside workers, who offered the most consistent challenge, from 1919 onwards, based upon active campaigning for the ‘Russian Revolution’ and the ongoing Irish republican struggle. He adopted a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire’ strategy (was sharply marginalized as the post-war international revolutionary wave came to an end between 1921-3, allowing a Left British and reformist perspective to strongly reassert itself.)

In other words it has been the National Question, which has been to the forefront of the democratic and republican struggle in these islands. Without seeing this, you are left, like Peter Tatchell, supporting a rather formal republic, with no real idea where the support is coming from. Nick conjures up The demand for a federal republic… both in England and in Scotland and Wales. This is but a left cover for the last-ditch mechanism used by the British ruling class, from the American to the Irish War of Independence, to hold their Empire and Union together. The Lib-Dems keep the Federal option in their locker, to be dragged out whenever other mechanisms such as Home Rule or Devolution fail to hold the line.

Colin Fox also made clear in his contribution that the British ruling class could even accommodate a formal republic, if it felt it was necessary. So Nick’s republican suffix to his proposed federalism provides another paper cover. We saw the nature of such republicanism in the Rupert Murdoch-backed campaign for a republic in Australia. What it amounted to was a repatriation of the current Crown Powers, and their investiture in the Presidency. Not surprisingly, this proved not to be a winning formula!

Middle class nationalist attempts to renegotiate the Union have also emerged as the British Empire went into decline. The Irish Home Rule Party, Cumann na nGaedhael, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, SDLP, and (I would argue) the post-Good Friday Sinn Fein have all fitted this mould. Whatever, their formal political position (e.g. an independent Scotland, or a united Ireland), as these parties have become the vehicles for local business and middle class interests, this has been matched by a retreat from their original stated goals, and new compromises with the UK state.

Just as I would argue that the CPGB’s blanket support for the British unionist and imperialist Labour Party candidates, at the last Euro-election, provides a classic example of left British nationalism in action, I would also argue that any socialists pursuing a strategy which tail ends their local nationalist party, e.g, the SNP, act as Left nationalists.

The strategy behind the SSP’s republican socialism, exemplified in the Calton Hill Declaration, is to take the leadership of the National Movement here from the SNP. To counter the SNP’s own ‘international’ strategy – support for the global corporate order, for the use of Scottish troops in imperial ventures, for the British queen, and acceptance of a Privy Councillorship (Alex Salmond), the SSP’s International Committee counters with a genuinely international strategy based on anti-imperialism, anti-unionism, and internationalism from below.

The British Left tries to mirror the UK state in its organisational set-up. This attempt to apply an old Second and Third International orthodoxy was always contradictory. Applied to the UK it just seems to confuse the ‘Brit Left’. Occasionally debates emerge within the CPGB about, whether to be a consistent Leninist, it should not reconstitute itself as the CPUK, and in the process, add its own twist to Irish partition. Both the SWP and SPEW operate essentially partitionist organisations in Ireland, highlighted by their failure to raise the issue of continued British rule (with its southern Irish government support) in elections there.

The UK currently acts as a junior partner to USA imperialism. It has been awarded the USA license to police the corporate imperial order in the North East Atlantic, and to ensure that the EU fails to emerge as an imperial challenger. Apart from its membership of NATO, the provision of military bases, and such ‘police’ actions as bringing the ‘terrorist state’(!) of Iceland into line to bail-out the banks, the UK performs this wider role, with the 26 county Irish state acting as its own junior partner.

Politically, the ‘Peace Process’ (with the Good Friday, St. Andrews and now the latest Hillsborough agreements) and Devolution-all-round (Scotland, Wales and ‘the Six Counties’) represents the British and Irish ruling class strategy to provide the political framework to most effectively maintain profitability for corporate capital in these islands. In this, these two states can draw upon the support of the EU and the USA, as well of course, their ‘social partnerships’ with the official trade union leaders.

The SSP has realized that the British and Irish ruling classes have a political strategy, which covers the whole of these islands. You could be forgiven for thinking that much of the ‘Brit Left’ finds it difficult to see beyond Potters Bar, or where its members do live further afield, thinking their politics just depends on the latest dispatches sent out from their London office.

Nick somewhat condescendingly says that, The English must make clear that they had no wish to retain either nation {Scotland, or Wales} within a broader state against the will of their people (that’s very good of you Nick!), but then bizarrely adds neither would they force them to separate. Well Nick, we all know the ‘Brit Left’ have no intention of forcing us out of the British unionist and imperial state and its alliance with USA imperialism. That is the problem.

The SSP, though, is quite prepared to take the lead in making this decision ourselves. However, we will continue to insist that the break-up of the UK and ending of British imperialism are something that workers throughout these islands have an immediate interest in achieving, and will continue to argue our case to socialists in England, Wales and Ireland. We do want unity, but not the ‘Brit Left’ imposed bureaucratic unity from above, rather a democratic ‘internationalism from below’.

UCATT General Secretary, Alan Ritchie, was quoted extensively regarding his horror at these developments and his opposition to the employers behind them. The Blacklist had been discovered by Information Commissioners Office (ICO), so he called on UCATT members write to them to see if their name was on this Blacklist. If anyone found their name was on this list, they were to send the files to UCATT, which would then do something about this scandal.

Brian Higgins is Secretary of the construction workers union, UCATT branch in Northampton. He felt that his name must be on the Blacklist and sent off to the ICO asking if this was the case. After providing proof of his identity, the ICO sent him a copy of a 49 page file, which TCA had on him. It dates back to 1976 and goes on till December 2006. As well as personal, industrial and political details about Brian’s life and activities, there are also a few vile smears which must be libellous.

On 10th January, Brian took up Alan Ritchie’s call to send his file to UCATT, along with other related documents and a covering letter. He awaited a swift response and an expression of sympathy and understanding, along with a condemnation of the employers operating the blacklist. To date all he has received from the General Secretary is a 25 word letter, dated 26th January, with absolutely no mention of the Blacklist.

It is abundantly clear that the UCATT General Secretary is seriously dragging his feet over this. If a campaign to combat the Blacklist is left to full time officials and supporters then nothing effective will be done.

We have decided to print an edited version of Brian’s letter of 10th January to address a general trade union and political audience in the form of an open letter.

Open Letter To The Trade Union And Workers Movement

Dear Brothers, Sisters and Comrades,

When the Information Commissioners Office sent copy of the 49 page file held on me by The Consulting Association (TCA), I have to admit, even I, as a very experienced, case-hardened old trade union militant, was taken aback to see how much information they had on me, and the extent to which I was spied upon. Furthermore, I have a feeling they have not sent me everything. It certainly looks as if the state had a hand in providing information for TCA’s database.

Serious anger is one of the main emotions I’m experiencing at present. However, I’m also very concerned, although not surprised, at the comment in Phil Chamberlain’s excellent Guardian article, Boys from the Blacklist (21st November, 2009). One effect of the release of files has been to question how far some union officials were involved in supplying details to The Consulting Association.

In 1996, the full-time UCATTofficial, Dominic Hehir, took me to the High Court in an attempt to silence me and those I represent in UCATT. He was unsuccessful because my supporters and I refused to be silenced. At the time, the then General Secretary did not try to stop, or even to oppose Hehir.

Furthermore, an ex-UCATT Executive Council member, John Flavin, set up a company to advise building employers not long after he was voted off the EC in 1995. Despite this, he continued to be a member of UCATT, and still is to my knowledge. Quite a few UCATT members, including the Northampton branch, protested to the General Secretary and the EC about this. Not so much a building employers’ mole as a big bloody big elephant in the room!

Therefore, it would be no surprise to learn that some UCATT officials could have been supplying information on me and others to the building employers, blacklisters, and who knows to who else. It is absolutely loathsome and repugnant in the extreme that there could be people in UCATT, and perhaps other unions, who could resort to such treachery and sink to the depths alluded to in the Guardian article.

It looks as if the names of one, two or more of these beings could be among the many names blacked out by the ICO on my file. Perhaps I should apply for the names of any union officials amongst these to be revealed using the civil laws on Discovery. I’d also like to see the file the state has on me.

Whatever happens there should be an investigation into this case. This should involve blacklisted construction worker trade unionists, and MPs, academics and investigative journalists with records of sympathy for the trade union and workers’ movement. If anybody is found guilty they should be named, rooted and drummed out of our movement in disgrace, If such an investigation does not take place, then the name of trade unionism will be tainted and sullied.

The Blacklist is an economic, social and political prison. I have served a life sentence and other workers continue to be imprisoned. In cases like my own, the Blacklist effectively takes the form of house arrest because of its effect on a person’s social life. My wife was also deeply affected and badly scarred. More often that not, she was forced to financially support me, and our two children, on her low wage as a care worker. This has had a devastating effect on our standard of living. To her great credit my wife supported me and our family unstintingly. She held us together when things got really tough – which it did quite often. We kept our dignity intact and just managed to keep our heads above water by almost completely sacrificing our social life. My wife had to take out loans, which we could not afford, since my credit rating was zero due to very long spells of unemployment. All of this is the direct result of the building employers deliberately using the Blacklist, time and again, to deny me the right to work and to earn a living.

Not content to kill (some would say murder) and maim on unsafe construction sites; and to super-exploit site workers through subcontracting on low wages, they blacklist those who dare to try to do something about this through the trade unions on the sites – mainly UCATT in my case. Through the Blacklist, the employers deny us the right to organise. As a punishment and a warning to other workers they rob us of the right to earn a wage and to provide for ourselves and our families. This is criminal behaviour and the employers responsible should be treated as criminals. The heads of the blacklisting construction companies named in the ICO’s exposure of the TCA should be jailed – no ifs, no buts.

There is some talk of court cases and compensation. Building employers must owe me hundreds of thousands for wages I lost, whilst they kept me in their economic and social prison. I am in favour of using the Industrial Tribunals to get some compensation. However, this on its own will NOT put a stop to blacklisting in construction. Surely the main objective of any campaign against the Blacklist must be to get rid of this vile anti-democratic and inhuman practice one and for all.

The campaign for justice must be taken all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. I ask UCATT to get myself and other blacklisted construction workers the best civil and human rights lawyer to help us to do this. I also ask that UCATT sponsored MPs, and others known to be sympathetic, are made aware of my case, and bring it up in the House of Commons, to show just how bad blacklisting can get.

Given the severity and lifelong nature of my blacklisting, now proven beyond doubt, I am willing to participate in a campaign by UCATT against the Blacklist and all that this entails. Perhaps brother Ritchie and I could share a platform speaking out against this. I could explain what it is like to be on the receiving end of this blatant and sinister denial and violation of human and trade union rights for so long.

We have all known and spoken of the Blacklist for many years. However, this is the first time its existence and practice has been proven. The blacklisting companies and those they blacklisted have been named and made public by the ICO. We must not fritter away this unique opportunity to tackle and stop the Blacklist. It can not just be left to those who will weep copious tears and make sweeping statements of opposition in public, but in reality will do nothing effective to get real justice, or stop the Blacklist being imposed on other site workers and trade unionists in the future.

We call on blacklisted workers in UCATT and other construction trade unions, as well as sympathisers in other unions, as well as sympathetic political organisations and MPs, to form a united front campaign to outlaw the Blacklist once and for all. We must use every means at our disposal, especially calling upon construction union members and site workers to take industrial action wherever the Blacklist is in operation.

How can we possibly succeed with anti-trade union laws and everything else arraigned against us? In February 1986, five UCATT members, who formed an organisation called the Laings Lock Out Committee, of which I was the chairperson, were issued with a High Court Injunction, under the 1982 Anti-Trade Union Laws (Tory then, Labour now) by the huge construction company, John Laing. This was to stop us picketing, meeting and even talking about the dispute we had with Laing over their use of the Blacklist to sack us, when they found out that we worked on one of their sites. With the help of thousands of workers and their shop stewards, who threatened to take what would have been political strike action if we were jailed, we successfully defied Laing and their High Court Injunction, anti-Trade Union Laws and all. So, if we, with the support of thousands of our brother and sister trade unionists could do that then, why can’t we do that now? It’s time for us all to take a stand once more!

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A Contribution To The Discussions Arising From The Glasgow North East By-Election

1. How did the SSP publicly assess the by-election result?

The Republican Communist Network (RCN) welcomes the decision of the SSP Executive Committee (EC) to open up the discussion to members about the lessons we can draw for future electoral work from the Glasgow North East by-election.

All party members recognise that any assessment of this (and other) recent elections must take on board the serious damage done to the SSP as a result of the split caused by Tommy Sheridan, and the sectarian antics of the CWI and SWP. This means that not only does the SSP have far fewer members to get involved in campaigns, but also that a considerable section of the remaining membership still lacks confidence. Sometimes, they do not get involved in the SSP’s prioritised campaigns, or else they confine their activities to other spheres, where SSP leadership political support is slight or non-existent. This meant that, in the Glasgow North East by-election, a huge burden of work fell upon a few members’ shoulders, particularly those of Kevin McVey.

Kevin was a good candidate with considerable political experience. He has the ability to communicate and to deal with the ‘rough and tumble’ of what would almost certainly prove to be a difficult campaign. However, there is probably another quality of Kevin’s, which probably made him an ideal candidate. Given the low expectations that Glasgow SSP held about the final vote in the by-election, Kevin is resilient, can take any hard knocks, and is not easily disillusioned by poor results.

Nevertheless, many members outside Glasgow, who were only minimally involved in the by-election campaign, probably wonder if the very low vote (a drop from 1402 in 2005 to 152 in 2009) will not further deepen some Glasgow comrades’ sense of the SSP’s political marginalisation, leading them to further political retreats (see section 6).

A special issue of Scottish Socialist Voice was produced for the by-election, to be distributed throughout the constituency. Indeed, as far as the Voice went, Glasgow North East became the only national priority, with the suspension and non-distribution of national papers outside of Glasgow. So, SSP members and new contacts in Glasgow North East, as well as members outside Glasgow, would have looked to the post by-election national Voice, issue 350, for an account and analysis of the results and the party’s work in the by-election.

In this issue, we were able to read that, Labour triumph, SNP are rebuffed {and} BNP advance halted – but absolutely nothing about theSSP or the other socialist candidates. This suggests a feeling of embarrassment, instead of providing an honest explanation to our 152 voters, the other 841 ostensibly socialist voters in the constituency, those who came across the SSP in the campaign but are not registered to vote, and our regular readers elsewhere. It was left to Kevin to give his account to the party at the November 28th National Council (NC).

2.A New Labour victory for the politics of despair, and the marginalisation of the politics of misplaced hope in the SNP

If we look at the overall political picture of the Glasgow North East by-election, the results represent the triumph of despair over hope (see Appendix 1). Labour showed no concern over the historic low turnout (33.2%). The vast majority of those who abstained come from those people whose needs can not even be minimally met when capitalism is in deep crisis. The mainstream parties know this. They are quite happy for such people to remain voiceless and to quietly ‘disappear’ in elections.

Therefore, for Labour, battling only for the electoral support of those who do vote, in a constituency they had long held, the over-riding task was to uphold the status-quo. This was done through a campaign of utter negativity and fear-mongering, and saying that ‘things can only get worse’ if any other party won, but especially their greatest immediate threat in Scotland, the SNP.

In the 2007 Holyrood General Election, the SNP was successfully able to counter New Labour’s incessant ‘doom and gloom’-mongering by offering voters some prospect of hope. In effect, the SNP said to the electorate that they would implement some of the social democratic policies which people once expected from Labour, but which New Labour has now abandoned. Independence would be put on a back burner, until an SNP government had shown its competence in office. Then provision would be made for the people to make their choice for Scotland’s future constitutional arrangements in a referendum.

However, the SNP leaders also ensured that, despite their declared support for more radical constitutional reform than the British mainstream parties, this would not be linked to any very radical economic or social changes. Overtures to prominent Scottish and US business figures showed that the SNP accept the constraints of the existing economic order. Promises of low corporate taxes highlight the SNP’s subordination to big business.

The underlying flaw in the SNP’s economic strategy is that the money for their social democratic-type reforms was supposed to come from a Scottish economy buoyed by the successes of its financial sector. The Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland were meant to offer “neo-liberalism with a heart”. There is hope and there is misplaced hope!

The SNP’s response to US and British opposition to its proposed ‘independence’ referendum is to further accommodate to these forces, whilst lowering workers’ immediate economic and social expectations. Perhaps the most spectacular indication of this has been the suggestion by former Left, Jim Sillars, that SNP current opposition to NATO bases and nuclear weapons should be dropped. Sillars may be a fairly marginal figure within the SNP today, but his words will give some encouragement to more influential Right wing figures in the party, such as Michael Russell and Angus Robertson who want to make the SNP into the main representative of Scottish business interests within the existing global economic order, following in the footsteps of the Parti Quebecois (and its offshoot Action Democratique), Catalan Convergence and the PNV in Euskadi.

The SNP hints at some cosmetic changes that could be made to the current global imperial order, with a greater political role given to the UN. Yet the totally undemocratic UN remains a plaything of the major imperial powers, and only provides cover for decisions they have already agreed upon. The SNP’s opposition to NATO remains only a paper policy, with leading figures contemplating a new Scottish deal for British/English and US armed forces, possibly in return for Scotland being removed from NATO’s nuclear frontline to a secondary supporting role in NATO’s Orwellian-named, ‘Partnership for Peace’. This means making military bases in Scotland available for imperial use, when called upon, like the Irish government has done at Shannon Airport. Furthermore, the SNP has been quite prepared to support the use of Scottish regiments in imperial (and unionist) conflicts from Crossmaglen in the recent past, to Helmand Province today. Therefore, the SNP wants to the ‘rebrand’ imperialism, not join any anti-imperialist opposition.

The SNP has taken a similar accommodationist role with regard to the continuation of the UK state. This has been highlighted by the SNP’s new found open support for the British monarchy. They accept the Union of the Crowns and ask people to vote in 2010 for a constitutional ‘return’ to the years between 1603 and 1707! In effect, the SNP wants to renegotiate the Union not to overthrow it. Any possible future ‘independence’ referendum campaign will be conducted under ‘Westminster rules’. However, the UK state only plays by these rules when it suits them. The Crown Powers, which the SNP has no desire to challenge, provide the British ruling class with a whole host of additional anti-democratic powers to be utilised when they feel there is any threat to their continued rule.

In the late 1960’s and early 70’s, the implementation of thoroughgoing Civil Rights within Northern Ireland (yet still within the UK and under the Crown) was seen to be too great a concession, not only by the local Ulster Unionists (no surprise there) but also by the leaders of the UK state. Today’s British ruling class, fixated with maintaining its imperial role in the world, and its control of NATO military bases and North Sea oil resources in Scotland, is not going to confine its opposition to the SNP’s constitutional reforms to ‘gentlemanly’ democratic procedures.

The SNP has also ended up tail-ending the other mainstream parties at Westminster in its support for banking bailouts at our expense. Then, following from this, they are imposing the devolved financial cuts through Holyrood. Meanwhile, SNP-run (or jointly-run) councils press on with school closures, massive attacks on workers’ conditions (Edinburgh street cleaners and home helps), because they meekly accept Holyrood’s transmitted expenditure cuts.

Furthermore, the SNP government has been kowtowing to overtly reactionary social pressure, such as the Roman Catholic hierarchy’s opposition to gay rights and abortion. And, just for good measure, the SNP government is contemplating the clearance of some Aberdeenshire residents to make way for US tycoon, Donald Trump’s golf course complex.

However, for the wider electorate, it has been the ‘Credit Crunch’ that has really blown the SNP strategy apart, first in Glenrothes and now in Glasgow North East. So, instead of maintaining their early confidence in office, the SNP government is now stumbling from one ‘cock-up’ after another (e.g. over school class sizes).

In other words, the SNP behave in office much like New Labour. The SNP’s poor vote in Glasgow North East (especially given the political background to Michael Martin’s resignation) represented a further abandonment of hope – only in this case the hope had been misplaced to begin with, given the SNP’s subordination to financial and corporate capital, or ‘neo-liberalism with a swag bag’.

With the prime battle in Glasgow North East being fought out between New Labour and the SNP, even the other mainstream parties – the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems – were marginalised. Why change to untried Tory or Lib-Dem cuts, when the more familiar Labour Party promised its cuts would hurt less?

Voters’ feelings of despair have been greatly increased by inability of the massive Anti-War Movement to stop the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Blair got away with acting as Bush’s tame poodle. Today, we have Brown taking on the same subordinate role with regard to Obama in Afghanistan. Only now he is buttressed by the support of the Right wing SNP Defence Spokesperson, Angus Robertson.

Some thought that the ‘Credit Crunch’ might push New Labour to the Left and force them to introduce some neo-Keynesian economic regulation, supplemented by social democratic policies to increase workers’ incomes. Instead, New Labour at Westminster government has intervened to restore the fortunes and profits of the City, with the costs being offloaded on to workers’ shoulders. This has been highlighted by the return of obscene bankers’ bonuses, and the judicial upholding of banks’ right to set arbitrary and punitive fines upon those who have fallen behind with their payments. And the SNP has meekly accepted this too.

Furthermore, when politicians were exposed at Westminster with ‘their fingers in the till’, some SNP MPs were found to be amongst their number. Meanwhile, Labour-supporting trade union leaders, locked in social partnership, have declared the ‘willingness’ of their members to shoulder ‘their’ share of the burden. They just beg the corporate bosses to do the same! No wonder the politics of despair dominated this by-election, highlighted by the massive abstention rate.

3. Despair and the retreat to populism

Now, of course, in the not so distant past, a united SSP could enter elections in Glasgow expecting to be to the forefront of the second tier of contestants (after the top tier of New Labour and the SNP). In Glasgow, this next tier also included the Conservatives, Lib-Dems and Greens. The Holyrood election of 2003 was the highpoint (15.2% for the SSP in the additional member vote), coinciding not only with the massive anti-war movement but the widest socialist unity achieved by any European socialist party at the time.

However, the Left’s failure in the UK to stop the Iraq war, led to the denting of all non-mainstream party support (e.g. for the SSP and the Greens in the 2007 Holyrood elections in Scotland). Nevertheless, the ‘Credit Crunch’ should have provided socialists with new opportunities. The unfolding economic crisis demonstrated the failures of the neo-liberal economics long pushed by all the mainstream parties. A worried ruling class began to adopt some neo-Keynesian measures to save capitalism from itself. This opened up splits in their ranks.

A short-sighted and opportunist ‘opposition’ could act as cheerleaders for that section of the ruling class won over to neo-Keynesian state intervention. A genuinely socialist opposition, however, would take advantage of such ruling class divisions to demonstrate the need and viability of a socialist alternative, and build its own independent support for such a vision amongst those workers and others prepared to fight back against austerity cuts, attacks on ethnic minorities, curtailment of civil rights and never ending war.

The possibilities this offered can be seen on the continent with the formation and growth of the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, and the successes of the Left Bloc in Portugal, both our fellow partners in the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. The recent impressive vote for Die Linke in Germany is also an indicator of greater public support for the Left. (However, the fact that a powerful section of their leadership would willingly enter a coalition with the Social Democrats means that Die Linke’s current electoral successes could be transformed into an Italian Rifondazioni Comunista-like meltdown, if they ever pursued this particular course of action nationally.)

Back in 2005, in Glasgow North East, socialist candidates received 5438 votes (19.1%) in Glasgow North East, in the Westminster General Election. Now, certainly a lot of the votes going to the SLP in 2005 were confused with the Labour Party (in the absence of an official Labour candidate, and with Michael Martin standing only as the Speaker). This made the full extent of genuine support for socialism more difficult to determine. However, by the 2009 by-election, the ostensibly socialist vote fell back to 993 votes (4.8%).

What makes this even worse is that any specifically socialist message virtually disappeared. Those parties competing to be in the political mainstream (New Labour, Conservative, Lib-Dem and the SNP) all want to promote their neo-neo-liberal credentials. The extra ‘neo’ prefix is because the ruling class now accept limited state regulation. However, this takes the form of banking bailouts and the imposition of the ‘necessary’ cuts to restore the old neo-liberal status quo. In contrast the parties outside this mainstream consensus, whether on the Right or the Left, want to project themselves as populist, and hide their underlying politics – fascism on the Right, socialism on the Left.

Populism is a form of politics, which stretches from the Right to the Left. It tries to appeal to the broadest swathe of people, by denying or downplaying the central contradictions of capitalism – the conflict between labour and capital – and looking instead for scapegoats, e.g. ethnic minorities (particularly by the Right), or by targeting the (replaceable) agents of our current woes (e.g. greedy bankers), rather than questioning the capitalist system itself, and highlighting the need for workers to take their own independent action. This latter approach is the only option, if there is to be any longer term hope for the working class living in a crisis-ridden capitalism, or even for humanity itself, given the additional threats from ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and the possibility of growing environmental catastrophe, as the capitalist crisis widens and deepens.

4. The BNP and Right populism

The one party that feels at home wallowing in the politics of despair is, of course, the BNP. They offer scapegoats to divert people from the real source of their woes –capitalism. There is very little ruling class or public support for their underlying fascist aims. This is why Nick Griffin has pushed through a change of image for the BNP – “from boots to suits”. This means adopting, not swastika-waving, German Nazi, anti-Semitic colours, but Right populist, Union Jack-waving, Islamophobic, British nationalism. Churchill (and not without reason) rather than Hitler is their new idol. Glasgow, with a still quite extensive loyalist sub-culture, is obviously a good place to try and establish a foothold for militant British nationalism in a Scotland where British identity is otherwise on the decline.

However, there is no immediate prospect of a fascist march to take power, either on Edinburgh, or on London. The Left is too weak at present to make the ruling class seriously support such a course of action. Yet the BNP is pushing at an open door when it comes to influencing the mainstream parties’ policies and the state’s actions directed against migrants and particular ethnic or religious minorities. These parties are also looking for scapegoats, and are quite prepared to ‘mainstream’ anti-migrant or anti-Islamic policies, whilst publicly distancing themselves from some of their more unsavoury sources.

Furthermore, whilst still unable to offer any serious physical challenge to organised labour, or even to well-established immigrant communities, BNP electoral advances can provide cover for those fascists wanting to ‘keep their hand in’ by picking on more vulnerable targets, e.g. asylum seekers, individual migrant workers and Roma/Travellers. In order to maintain a ‘respectable image’, this may necessitate a certain division of labour, e.g. between the suit wearing BNP and the boot boys of the EDL/SDL.

The BNP, as well as attacking their expected scapegoats in the by-election – ‘feather-bedded asylum seekers’, and ‘Islamic terrorists’- also targeted the bankers, hedge fund traders, Tory and Labour “morons” (see Appendix 2). This shows populism in action, because it appears to address some of the same targets as the Left.

The reason for this should be quite clear when reading the following statement from the BNP’s Scottish Secretary about their objectives in the Glasgow North East by-election. Our first aim {is} to beat all the extreme left-wing parties …the combined vote of Solidarity, SSP and Socialist Labour, added together. (http://scotland.bnp.org.uk/category/scottish-secretary/)

In the face of this challenge, the RCN believes that far more serious attention should have been paid by the SSP to putting up a united socialist unity candidate. Whilst the sectarianism of the SLP is hard-wired, failure to get their support would hardly have been crucial (as highlighted by the spectacular collapse of their vote from 4036 in 2005 to 47 in 2009). The possibilities, however, from sections of a splintering Solidarity should have been followed up assiduously. These growing divisions can be utilised to win over sections of Solidarity increasingly annoyed with the dead-end politics of ‘celebrity socialism’ and the Trotskyist sects, whilst seriously looking for new ways to re-establish socialist unity (see section 5).

So, in the absence of any effective united challenge, and with some in Glasgow SSP and in Solidarity (Tommy and the CWI in particular) seemingly more concerned about presiding over ‘a grudge match’ than seriously addressing the wider political issues – the Afghanistan occupation and the danger of the growth in fascist support – how did the BNP assess their result in light of opportunity provided to them by the Left? “Our first aim, to beat all the extreme left-wing parties was achieved, in spades”. Scottish Secretary, BNP (http://scotland.bnp.org.uk/category/scottish-secretary/). If that was the whole story, the Left should be hanging its head in shame.

Fortunately, though, there were SSP comrades in Glasgow, especially those involved in SSY, who played a major part in preventing fascists capitalising on the BNP’s electoral advance when they hoped to take over the streets on the Saturday, 14th November, following the by-election two days before. They helped to organise effective opposition to the SDL. This also meant providing a political challenge to the SWP’s accommodationist party front, ‘United Against Fascism’, initially more concerned with chasing after Labour/STUC’s ‘Scotland United’ and Annabel Goldie, than chasing the fascists. In the event, the SDL was seen off and humiliated. However, until the BNP and other fascists are marginalised at all levels by socialists, including the electoral, there is still no room for complacency.

5. Solidarity, the Left populism of ‘celebrity socialism’, and the widening divisions in its ranks

Solidarity’s adoption of celebrity politics in the person of Tommy Sheridan is an obvious manifestation of populism. ‘Celebrity socialism’ was never effectively challenged in the old SSP. This much everybody in the SSP now accepts. However, the politics of ‘celebrity socialism’ are far from being unique to the old SSP. In the 1980’s, Militant succumbed to the ‘charms’ of Derek Hatton in Liverpool. (The CWI still don’t seem to have learned any lessons from this in Scotland.) Since then, we have seen both Arthur Scargill’s SLP, now reduced to one man’s vanity party (and after their Glasgow North East by-election result, hopefully an early retirement), and George Galloway’s Respect, as divided by the antics of a ‘celebrity socialist’ and the SWP, as the SSP has ever been.

In the by-election, Tommy threw himself into the battle of the celebrities, against John Smeaton and Mikey Hughes. In this battle, he won hands down (794 to 258 and 54). However, celebrity populist politics may be able to create a fan base, but it leaves no effective campaigning organisation behind it. Despite Tommy’s ‘triumph’ in Glasgow, his campaign has not left a stronger Solidarity on the ground. Their recent all-members’ conference was much smaller than their earlier ones. Furthermore, dependence on a celebrity usually works against building up an organisation of independent-thinkers, since it is the chosen ‘saviour’ who is meant to ‘deliver’ the people from their woes.

The fact that Tommy Sheridan, the celebrity politician, easily beat the SSP in Glasgow North East has fuelled the sectarian antics of the CWI in particular. They claim a big ‘Solidarity’ victory and they wallow in the lowest vote an SSP candidate has achieved in a parliamentary by-election. This posturing is just a repeat of their empty triumphalism after Tommy/Solidarity beat the SSP in the 2007 Holyrood elections by a large margin.

In 2007, Solidarity’s celebration of Tommy’s ‘victory’ over the SSP was so much bravado to disguise the fact that he failed to retain his Holyrood seat; and the fact there was a wipe-out of socialist representation (a fall from 6 to 0 MSPs). Since then, Solidarity has been unable to build a united party – with the sectarian attitudes of the SWP and CWI massively contributing to this failure. Solidarity has lost its only councillor (defected to Labour) and several prominent members. In subsequent by-elections, where celebrity Tommy wasn’t standing, Solidarity has been unable to overtake the SSP (although, there is no room for any SSP triumphalism here, for, as Colin Fox has said, to any outsider, the electoral contest between the SSP and Solidarity looks like two bald men fighting over a comb). Tommy and his immediate acolytes, along with the CWI and the SWP, put strict limits on any honest appraisals of Solidarity’s work, or any real accountancy for their actions.

After the Glasgow North East by-election result was declared on October 12th, the CWI once more hailed Tommy’s ‘success’. Again, mired in their purely sectarian concerns, they completely failed to learn the real lessons for the Left. The 794 votes in 2009 for a well-known celebrity candidate today must be compared with the 1402 votes the SSP received in Glasgow North East in 2005, when we put forward a much less well-known black socialist candidate. Also, Sheridan’s 794 votes today do not compare well with the non-celebrity BNP candidate’s 1075 votes.

Back in 2005, a united SSP, with 1402 votes, was easily able to see off, not only the BNP’s 904 votes, but also the (Orange) Scottish Unionist Party’s 1206 votes. And, of course, the possibilities for a united Left should have been even greater today, in view of the ongoing capitalist crisis, as continental socialists’ experience shows.

If the CWI continues to be in denial about what is actually happening, the SWP, the other main Trotskyist sect in Solidarity, has experienced a number of setbacks recently, which may encourage some more critical thought amongst its members. The SWP has been badly burned after its attempts in Respect (England and Wales) to tail-end another celebrity socialist, George Galloway. This must be making many SWP members in Scotland doubt the value of building up a new socialist organisation around Sheridan. With the ‘Stop the War’ coalition strategy of endless demonstrations attracting decreasing numbers (despite growing opposition to the Afghanistan occupation) another central plank of the SWP’s own populist politics is being undermined, and recent internal party divisions may lead to a downgrading of such work. The SWP has been focussing on ‘Unite Against Fascism’ (UAF), another party front, which it hopes will bring in new party recruits.

In this context, it is interesting that leading SWP member, Neil Davidson, has recently come out in support of a ‘Yes’ vote in any future Scottish independence referendum. Since the 1990’s, the Left in Scotland has seen the SWP as the most prominent advocate of left unionism. Those former members of the CWI still in the SSP should recognise the significance of this. In the 1980’s, most socialists outside CWI/Militant ranks saw it as being the most British unionist organisation on the Left. However, their ‘Scottish Turn’ opened up a period of internal questioning that led Scottish Militant Labour to initiate the Scottish Socialist Alliance. Other political organisations were encouraged to participate.

Thus began the break with the CWI’s own sectarian methods. True, not all in the CWI/SML, nor later the ISM, accepted the ‘new enlightenment’, but such doubts are inevitable when members are forced to face up to their ‘old certainties’. They would also be a feature of any moves by SWP members towards an acceptance of fuller democracy on the Left.

Given the SWP’s own long tradition of sectarianism (particularly its addiction to party-front organisations), they undoubtedly still have a long way to go. However, those of us now in the RCN, coming from the Anti-Poll Tax campaign, had also been subjected to CWI/Militant sectarian methods in the past. Nevertheless, we recognised the importance of Militant’s ‘Scottish Turn’ and encouraged others to join the SSA. From our point of view, we still had to argue against some deep-seated ideas and methods still unconsciously retained by former CWI members. Yet, we very much welcomed SML’s, and then ISM’s key role in promoting wider socialist unity. We also learned new lessons from these comrades in the process of the unfolding discussions and debates.

So today, in relation to the latest developments within the SWP, we think that the SSP needs to be bold and take the opportunity to engage with those with whom we may have very much disagreed with in the past, but who are now questioning important aspects of their long held politics.

There are also independents in Solidarity, who have not been taken in by their leadership’s empty posturing. John Dennis, who has been challenging Solidarity’s sectarian trajectory for some time, published his resignation letter after the election. However, he has been unable to see any serious attempt to re-establish socialist unity by the SSP, so he has formed a local organisation in Dumfries and Galloway, called Socialist Resistance (see Appendix 3), not to be confused with the British USFI Trotskyist section of the same name. Socialist Resistance in Dumfries and Galloway involves both former Solidarity and other past and current SSP members. In some ways the model taken up is that of the Barrow People’s Alliance, with an emphasis on local unity in the face of the fascist challenge. John and other socialists have been working closely with socialists over the border in combating the rise of the BNP in the area.

We have to accept that the SSP is no longer ‘the party of socialist unity’, though this is overwhelmingly the responsibility of those now in Solidarity. The 2006 split in the SSP, and the consequent dismissive response of the working class demonstrated in subsequent elections, including Glasgow North East, means that the SSP can not just cling nostalgically to a vision of past triumphs, or hope that ‘things can only get better’ in the future. Things will not automatically improve once the current court case is over. The state hasn’t involved itself in the affairs of the SSP to clear our name, but to leave a political legacy, which will divide socialists for the foreseeable future.

The last thing we can afford to do, is sit and wait for the outcome of the ever-delayed trial. We need to be seen very publicly and actively promoting the socialist unity, which the state and the sectarians are doing their utmost to prevent. Therefore, the SSP must still be ‘the party for socialist unity’. This means publicly upholding the SSP policy agreed at the post-split Conference of 20th October, 2006 in Glasgow (see Appendix 3).

6. The SSP election campaign and the Left populism of ‘Make Greed History’

Left populism doesn’t just take the shape of ‘celebrity socialism’. It can also take the form of socialists dropping specifically socialist arguments and retreating behind populist slogans – such as ‘Make Greed History’. A slogan, which may be quite appropriate for a particular newspaper headline, is not at all suitable as the banner beneath which we subordinate nearly all our politics.

Before the politics of despair, caused by the split, began to affect own our members, the SSP was quite clear about the need to uphold socialism against populism. Whilst the (short-lived) Socialist Alliances in England and Wales campaigned behind the populist, ‘People before Profit’ (i.e. for a ‘nicer’, ‘friendlier’ capitalism), the SSP argued for the socialist, ‘People not Profit’.

However, today’s ‘Make Greed History’ SSP slogan quite clearly draws upon the same populist politics as the pious ‘Make Poverty History’. This was promoted by the liberal alliance of NGOs and churches for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles in 2005. Like Father Gapon’s people’s march and its forelock-tugging appeal to the Tsar in 1905; the ‘Make Poverty History’ coalition pleaded, on its huge July 2005 Edinburgh demo, asking Gordon Brown to champion their cause. This fawning approach has also been adopted by those similar organisations, which hoped that Brown would seriously take up their concerns about climate change at the Copenhagen summit in December.

Back in 2005, though, the SSP countered the populist, ‘Make Poverty History’ with our own ‘Make Capitalism History – Make Socialism the Future’- an excellent slogan and rallying call. In the context of today’s ever-deepening economic crisis, this approach is even more important.

In contrast, there are many practical problems with ‘Make Greed History’. First, it in no way differentiates us, even from the mainstream parties. Initially, when panicked by the ‘Credit Crunch’, these parties also wanted to blame it all upon the greed of the bankers, and divert attention from the underlying crisis of capitalism itself.

Following this, when exposed as having their own noses in the trough, politicians initially claimed they would sort out their previous greedy behaviour and turn over a new leaf! Once again, instead of calls for a root and branch reform, with the abolition of the grossly expensive Crown, the pampered House of Lords, the overpayment of MPs and their funding by big business, the problem was all reduced to personal greed.

We can get a hint of these politicians’ ‘solution’ to such greed by looking at the way they dealt with the misdemeanour’s of the previous Glasgow North East incumbent MP, Michael Martin. He has been given a half salary pension (MP’s + Speaker’s) for life, supplemented by all the perks of a Lordship. This is a good indication of the type of ‘punishment’ politicians will accept for their earlier greed!

The populist nature of ‘Make Greed History’ is further highlighted by a comparison with the BNP’s own slogan used in the Glasgow by-election – ‘Punish the Pigs, Smash the Bankers’. Such a slogan is indistinguishable from one used by some on the populist Left. Once again it focuses on replacing capitalism’s nastier agents not the system.

Furthermore, all those trade union leaders, locked into ‘social partnerships’, have also used the notion of ‘greed’ to tell workers we shouldn’t behave like the ‘greedy bankers’, but should show our responsibility through accepting ‘our’ share of the cuts, and by showing restraint or making sacrifices, when advancing pay claims.

The one attempt by Glasgow SSP to conjure up a local campaign under the ‘Make Greed History’ slogan was the ‘Jobs for Youth’ campaign, launched to coincide with the by-election. If this was organised on a united front basis and supported by such bodies as the Glasgow Trades Council, local trade union branches and community organisations, then the following criticisms may be misplaced.

SSP members outside Glasgow were only made aware of the Springburn ‘Jobs for Youth’ march being held on November 7th by means of a late e-mail. This called for members to turn up on a march on the same day that East Coast SSP members had decided to go to a protest against the G20 Finance Ministers at St. Andrews. This latter event has been covered in the latest Voice. However, the same Voice makes no mention of the ‘Jobs for Youth’ march, or any follow-up work and activity. This suggests it was more an SSP election stunt and didn’t take root in the local community or the trade unions.

In the wake of the emerging superpower and corporate consensus over climate change we can also expect a lot more calls for an end to ordinary people’s ‘greed’, both at home and especially from all those ‘greedy’ Third World people, wanting to increase their living standards.

There are undoubted dangers posed by climate change. Corporate capital, responsible for promoting resource-wasteful and environmentally destructive methods of production, and for the arms companies that profit from murderous wars which bring their own environmental devastation, can make no positive contribution in the unfolding environmental crisis. ‘Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism’ helps to show where the real responsibility for this lies – and it is not a question of individuals’ greed, but of the failings of a capitalist system fuelled by a thirst for profit.

We need to ‘make socialism’ so that everybody’s basic needs – clean water, nutritious food, decent shelter, education and health care – can be met in an environmentally sustainable socialist society. After addressing these particular needs, we can look once more to the old communist maxim, “from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs”. However, today this means placing a much greater emphasis on meeting people’s non-material needs. These can offer us a more environmentally sustainable human future than a society built upon capitalism’s ‘shop-until-you-drop’ philosophy (remembering, of course, that many in the world today ‘drop’ before they ever get to ‘shop’).

In the face of the current capitalist crisis, we do need to go beyond the propaganda for socialism that the slogan, ‘Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism the Future’, represents, and show how, through agitation, we can work together to protect and advance workers’ immediate interests. When the 2009 Conference voted for the SSP to become part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance, the RCN thought that the SSP leadership would take up the New Anti-Capitalist Party’s (NPA) excellent slogan, ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’.

In contrast to ‘Make Greed History’, the NPA’s slogan (which could have been modified to ‘Make the Bosses and their paid Politicians pay’, when the ‘Expenses Scandal’ broke out in the UK) points to a class solution to the current crisis. This also offers workers a vista, showing the way we can struggle with other exploited and oppressed people for socialism.

7.Alternative options for SSP participation in elections.

When examining some of the reasons why the SSP stands in elections, it might be useful to consider the following analogy. A comparison could be made between governments and their associated methods of election with a block of flats.

Thus, the mainstream parties live at the top of the block, with the penthouse occupied by the winning party. The other mainstream parties are usually found in the apartments immediately below. The penthouse provides its occupants with undoubted privileges, not least the opportunity to use patronage to fill strategic posts and the use of official facilities to ensure the current resident’s continued occupancy. Sometimes, long-term occupation of the penthouse suite can lead its residents to believe that they alone have the right to live there. They then use all their accumulated powers to deny others any access. However, other penthouse residents appreciate that occupancy is only meant to be on a limited lease. In electoral terms this means accepting the possibility of replacement by other mainstream parties, and ‘fair play’ in the arrangements to allow for new occupants.

Continuing with this analogy, the penthouse occupants are currently the New Labour MPs at Westminster (including its Glasgow North East seat), whilst the other residents of the upper floor consist of MPs from those mainstream parties who have a chance of moving into the penthouse. They have formed the ruling group in the past at Westminster, have been parts of coalitions at Holyrood, or at various council levels – the SNP, Tories and Lib-Dems. They can depend on certain rights of occupancy at this level, as well as some publicity stemming from their more elevated position.

Below this are the middle levels in the block of flats. These are occupied by down-at-heel mainstream parties, and by up-and-coming parties. The normal function of occupancy in this level is to console the down-at-heel and to tame any new aspiring upstarts. The established rules of residence are designed to ensure this.

Occasionally, however, an occupant appears who is not prepared to play by these rules. They don’t believe that the block of flats should be an exclusive residence, with privileged levels, but should form part of a wider democratic community. They believe many of the privileges enjoyed by some of the current occupants should be terminated, or become equitably distributed (i.e. democratised). Such thinking, though, usually brings the upstarts into major conflict with the other residents living on the same level, as well as those above. They might resort to special measures to try to evict the upstarts (e.g. SSP councillor, Jim Bollan’s suspension in West Dunbartonshire)

Below the middle level lie the block’s lower levels. Here live those hopeful that their fortunes may change. They are divided between those who have devised a viable strategy to get up to the next level, and those who repeat their continuous old pleading to be moved up, but without success (usually coupled with gratuitous mudslinging at others perceived to be blocking their advance). However, the lower levels also have a basement with cold baths. The occupants thrown down to this level either drown largely unnoticed; or are brought to their senses by their sudden immersion in freezing cold water.

In section 3 it was argued that the SSP in Glasgow had attained the second tier (or the middle level of the block of flats) between 2003 and the split in 2006. This position they shared with the locally down-at-heel Tories and Lib-Dems, and another aspiring, recent newcomer, the Greens.

However, by 2009, as a result of the split, Glasgow SSP members, in considering their approach to the Glasgow North East election, accurately judged that the party had fallen to the lower level. Whilst this fact was recognised in the low voting expectations, the RCN would argue that those responsible for the campaign in Glasgow did not come up with an electoral strategy appropriate to the level the party now found itself at.

Unless a socialist unity candidate could be found, there was never any possibility of re-entering the second level in this by-election. The choice therefore lay between two options. One, which in the circumstances might seriously have been considered, was not to stand at all. A section of the Glasgow membership has been arguing for such a course in elections for some time.

Sometimes, this suggested abandonment of the electoral terrain is coupled to other notions of retreat. The idea has been aired of the SSP downgrading itself to a network of activists involved in various campaigns, or joining the campaigns of others (e.g. those SNP activists still campaigning for independence in ‘Independence First’, or the ‘Scottish Independence Convention’ – although active campaigning is not a marked feature of the latter!) Nicky McKerral has argued for another version of tactical retreat. He has suggested that the SSP withdraws from election contests, for a period of reflection, theoretical development and an updating of our programme.

The RCN would see both these courses of action as over-reactions to some bad practices and experiences on the Left, which SSP members have undoubtedly had to endure. Certainly, given our small size at present, the SSP should not be trying to act as if we are the only Left party around, dreaming up front organisations to give this impression. We should be taking part in wider campaigns, insisting they are organised on a genuine united front basis; but where we can also put forward our own distinctive politics (through our members’ contributions, the Voice and leaflets). For example, in relation to the simmering question of the ‘independence referendum’, this would mean reviving the ‘Calton Hill Declaration’ on a united front basis.

We would agree with Nicky’s upholding of the necessity for theoretical and programmatic reflection. However, we would see this being integrated with continued wider public work, including involvement in selected electoral contests. But this would indeed necessitate another way of organising SSP electoral work, to match our requirements in the current situation (see section 8).

Given the fact that the SSP had occupied the second floor in the recent past, the RCN thinks Glasgow SSP comrades were right in taking the decision to stand in the by-election. However, that meant facing up to the fact that we are now indeed on the lower level, a position shared with some still hostile and other more rueful neighbours.

We could choose the “tired old pleading” through puffing ourselves up in populist campaigns under the rubric of ‘Make Greed History’, to disguise our weakness. Or, being honest, and fully acknowledging our lower level position, we could have adopted another course of action, designed not so much to attract the votes to get back to the middle level, but to try and gain new active members, so that together we could break through the lower level ceiling (we should never confine ourselves to purely official ‘stairway’!) the next time round.

8. Campaigning for socialism by educating and organising new socialists

Therefore, instead of chasing passive voters, we should have been trying to make new socialists. Adopting a ‘making socialists’ approach would have meant organising in a different way in the by-election. Stalls, leafleting, fly posting and other activities would have been mainly undertaken to make contacts and to get them to Glasgow North East branch meetings, say twice a month. Branch meetings could have had both outside and local speakers on such key issues as, ‘The Occupation of Afghanistan’, ‘The New Fascist Challenge’, and ‘Capitalism and Climate Change’. In each of these cases the possibility of follow-up action suggests itself.

If enough people had attended a meeting on Afghanistan, then an anti-recruitment picket could have been organised later at an army recruiting office, involving new contacts, with an attempt to gain media attention. The Glasgow ‘Stop the War’ campaign could have been invited to participate. Now most SSP members hold a pretty jaundiced view of the SWP’s role in the ‘Stop the War’ campaign, but even some of their members have begun to realise that a change of direction is needed. The tired old calls for the next demonstration are no longer being answered.

The follow up activities for a meeting on ‘The New Fascist Challenge’ would certainly have involved organising to counter the SDL provocation on November 14th. Furthermore, the struggle against fascism can not be divorced from the struggle against racism, including the attacks made by fascists upon isolated individuals and those state-organised raids upon asylum seekers and economic migrants. An attempt could have been made to meet up with residents of the Red Road Flats, and with those local organisations, which have been campaigning to support migrants. This would have followed from 2007 SSP Conference support for the ‘No One Is Illegal’ campaign.

In the case of any ‘Capitalism and the Climate Change’ meeting, the follow-up activity could have been preparing a specifically socialist contingent on the ‘Climate Change’ demo on December 5th (such as the SSP did on the Edinburgh G8 demo in Edinburgh on July 2nd, 2005).

Furthermore, SSP educational material could have been prepared on these three topics for use on the stalls and at the branch meetings. Socialist education is very much a weak spot in the SSP’s current work. We don’t have the resources at present to produce the attractive glossy pamphlet, Two Worlds Collide, which Alan McCombes wrote for the Gleneagles G8 summit. However, newer technology allows us to produce short runs of pamphlets (repeated as required) like that Raphie de Santos produced, Coming to a Neighbourhood Near You, about the ‘Credit Crunch’.

There may well be some differences held by new and current members over such issues, but then that is in the nature of the SSP. One of our party’s attractive features should be its ability to incorporate a variety of views, and to have mechanisms where proper debates can take place around these. For example, RCN members sold Alan’s G8 pamphlet, encouraging others to read it, as well as writing a fraternal critique in Emancipation & Liberation no. 11.

There were also other public meeting opportunities for the SSP during the by-election. There were over ten weeks available for campaigning, after Kevin’s adoption as candidate on August 31st. One opportunity was provided by the possibility of a national post office workers’ strike. Our Industrial Organiser, Richie Venton, produced some excellent material for this, and it is certainly no fault of Richie’s that a Labour-supporting, Broad Left, CWU leadership backed down. Quite clearly, Lord Mandelson wanted to do to the CWU (prior to plans for Post Office privatisation) what Thatcher did to the NUM.

For those who think that Labour will turn Left (other than in empty rhetoric) after an almost certain forthcoming drubbing in the Westminster General Election, the role of Mandelson, Johnston and others on the Labour Right is most instructive. They know Brown is ‘going down’, but they still are fighting ‘tooth and nail’ to remind the bosses that New Labour can be depended on, when the Tories trip up in office. Compared with what passes for the Left ‘fightback’ inside the Labour Party, the Right fights on even when their backs are against the wall. The very much shrunken Left seems to believe that after the General Election, “Things can only get better”! Now, where have we heard that before?

As well as arguing for wider support actions for the post office workers, an SSP public meeting could have drawn out the full political implications of New Labour’s actions, the failures of the Labour Left, and the dangers posed by trade union leaderships which continue to subordinate their actions (or lack of them) to the needs of the Labour Party.

The SNP’s proposed ‘independence’ referendum was another issue around which a branch/public meeting could have been organised, possibly under the title ‘Can the SNP bring Independence?’ This might also have drawn back some SNP members/supporters, who were once attracted to the SSP, but who had drifted away after the split. They can now see, though, that the SNP is not offering any sort of alternative to neo-liberalism or the Afghan occupation, and has no strategy to link up its campaign for an ‘independence’ referendum with popular economic and social reforms. Furthermore, the SNP is so wedded to Westminster constitutionalism, that the UK state may not even need to resort to its reserve anti-democratic Crown Powers to see it off any referendum challenge.

The RCN considers the Left nationalist course advocated by John McAllion, in the Voice, for the ‘independence’ referendum campaign, to be the wrong approach. Instead, the SNP’s recent wholesale retreat would allow the SSP to revive the republican approach first organised around the Calton Hill Declaration in October 2004. This could now be linked to the wider anti-imperialist, ‘break-up of the UK’, ‘internationalism from below’ strategy developed in the SSP-initiated Republican Socialist Convention held on November 29th 2008. Perhaps the political passivity underlying the Left nationalist approach of ‘waiting for the SNP’ explains why there was no clear SSP message presented to the electorate on the SNP’s ‘independence’ referendum during the by-election.

Does this mean that local issues should have been ignored in the by-election? No, but the RCN isn’t in a position to suggest the best local issues that could have been the subject of other meetings in Glasgow. However, a meeting involving local participants in the ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign, linked with a teacher trade union speaker on the campaign to reduce class sizes (a long-standing campaign taken by Scottish Federation of Socialist Teacher members to successive EIS AGMs) would appear to have been a possibility.

Lastly, the RCN questions the postponement of events like ‘Socialism 2009’ to make time for street campaigning. ‘Socialism 2009’ could have provided an SSP showcase for those contacts already attracted to branch/public meetings around these suggested and other topics. New contacts could have been introduced to our national work and met members from Scotland, as well as our international contacts. Now, ‘Socialism 2009’ might have had to be postponed for other reasons, but making time for street campaigning, in a probably forlorn attempt to get more passive votes, is not the best one.

These criticisms and alternative suggestions are not being put forward as the ‘correct’ course of action, which should have been taken. Whilst, the RCN is suggesting a different orientation could have been taken – making socialists rather than winning votes – quite clearly, any campaign, informed by a wide range of SSP members’ contributions, would also take up their ideas and suggestions. Nevertheless, the RCN believes it has some valid points to make.

9. The need to uphold a confident a democratically unified SSP

Perhaps, the most worrying aspect of the by-election for the SSP nationally was the fact that it became a local Glasgow issue, which nevertheless commanded national resources to the detriment of our work elsewhere. The RCN would argue, that if the ‘make socialists’ approach had been adopted, with leaflets and fly posters targeted at getting people to branch meetings and follow-up activities, then there was no need for a Voice election special. The national Voice could have done the job, as well as provided other regions with a paper for their ongoing work.

The issues that we have suggested that the SSP could have campaigned on – ‘The Occupation of Afghanistan’, ‘The New Fascist Challenge’, ‘Capitalism and Climate Change’ and ‘Can the SNP deliver Independence’ were all national issues, that the whole party should have been united in campaigning for. However, a section of any national Voice could have been devoted specifically to the Glasgow North East by-election campaign and local issues, such as the suggested follow-up to the ‘Save Our Schools’ campaign.

Furthermore, there undoubtedly would have had to be some tactical flexibility (this luckily emerged in practice) when a clash of events occurred, beyond the SSP’s ability to influence – the ‘Stop the Fascist SDL’ demo in Glasgow and the ‘Stop the War’ demo in Edinburgh, both held on November 14th. However, if there had been effective overall SSP national political guidance, a bigger presence on the G20 Demo in St. Andrews on November 7th could have been organised; whilst there should have been a major SSP national presence on ‘Climate Change’ demo in Glasgow on December 5th, backed by a stall with a specially produced SSP pamphlet.

What, we seem to have now, though, is almost a confederal SSP, where different areas and different sections are allowed to get on with their own thing, either competing for national resources, or paying for their own. Thus we had the official Glasgow SSP campaign in the Glasgow North East by-election, which managed to corner the Voice. The SSP on the East Coast has been campaigning around the Afghan occupation, with several public meetings, attracting new members and re-establishing a branch in Aberdeen. Meanwhile, other SSP members have been involved in their own work, e.g. the SSY’s work around confronting the SDL, and some, mainly Glasgow, comrades’ organising around the issue of climate change.

All of these issues should have been fully discussed by the EC (and by those NCs which met during the by-election period). EC members should be given particular responsibilities, for which they are accountable at the next EC/NC meeting. We have no effective way of monitoring and assessing the overall work of the SSP. Of the working committees, only the International Committee seems to meet regularly and provide minutes of its activities. There are no regular written reports at the ECs nor the NCs of SSP branch meetings, the political issues discussed there, and the numbers in attendance. Without such reports our local strengths and weaknesses can not be properly measured.

The SSP largely depends for political guidance upon the training of members who received their schooling long ago in other organisations. We have no proper education system in place. The Regions should provide regular monthly education sessions, perhaps, on the same day, straight after Regional Committee meetings, so as not to overstretch the leading comrades. These education sessions could be followed by social activity – food, drink and music.

There are members, who for various reasons (distance being one) can not attend twice monthly SSP branch meetings, but who could be actively encouraged to become involved at such monthly Regional educational/social events. The SSP’s annual ‘Socialism’ should be seen both as the culmination of this educational work, and another event to which we can attract non-members to showcase our politics and activities.

10. Conclusion

The Glasgow North East by-election has highlighted the need to re-establish socialist unity, but this time on a completely principled basis. We need a thoroughly democratic organisation, which has not only jettisoned ‘celebrity socialism’, but is able to meet all the challenges the state and the sectarian splitters throw up, with both confidence and tactical acumen.

Now that we are living in the worst economic crisis in living memory, probably with even worse to follow, the SSP needs to be much more assertive about the need to put forward a convincing socialist alternative. Populist politics wants ‘a nicer capitalism’, which has made ‘poverty’, ‘greed’, or ‘climate change’ history. This is a utopian delusion whilst living under the rule of corporate imperialism in crisis, with its threats of massive falls in living standards, continued environmental degradation, and continuing wars that could bring the major imperialist powers into direct conflict.

Whilst the useful agitational slogan, ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’, directs workers’ anger both at those directly responsible and their capitalist system itself, we do need to go further still and develop a viable socialist alternative, and show the active steps needed to achieve this.

This means that the SSP will have to debate exactly what we mean by socialism/communism. We can not depend on stale old left social democratic, or orthodox and dissident communist ideas, which see Keynesian state intervention within, or Party-control over, the economy as the vehicles for socialist transformation. Neither does the semi-anarchist/semi-small scale capitalist notion of loosely networked local self-sufficient communities offer global humanity a viable future. The RCN does not claim to provide definitive answers on the vital issue of what constitutes socialism. We are only beginning to debate what is meant by socialism and communism ourselves. We would be more than happy to involve others in our discussions, whilst also being prepared to take part in initiatives organised by others.

Given the SSP’s current quite small size and support, the over-riding job we face today is creating active socialists, not winning passive votes. This RCN contribution has mainly shown how this could be done in the context of those elections the SSP may choose to stand in. This approach depends on the SSP having a fully functioning branch structure with political topics at every meeting, an organised system of more developed education probably provided at Regional level, culminating in ‘Socialism’ as an annual showcase of our national and international work. It also means producing regular (initially short-run) pamphlets on the key issues we face.

The SSP must be more than an alliance of single-issue campaigners, whether locally, nationally, or even internationally. We must avoid collapsing into a loose federal organisation, where different branches or regions are largely left to do their own thing, whilst competing for national SSP resources. This can only build up local resentments. The EC should take responsibility for the key national political priorities and initiatives between NCs and Conferences. This means upholding the SSP as a democratically unified organisation. It means having a much more task oriented EC, which monitors and reports to NCs and Conference on the progress of branches, regional committees, and national working committees, as well as any specific campaigns we are involved in.

Furthermore, we must continue to develop the SSP as a component of the international Left, including the Republican Socialist Convention and the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. Our participation in the latter was perhaps the highlight of the SSP’s work in 2009. We opposed the Brit Left chauvinism (and its Left Scottish nationalist Solidarity bolt on) of ‘No2EU’, when we stood in the Euro-elections alongside socialists throughout Europe. We were able to take the same pride in the gains made by others (particularly the Portuguese Left Bloc, but also the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France), which they took from the SSP’s great advances in 2003.

Appendix 1

Glasgow North East Election Results

Appendix 2

Note: this is here purely as a reference, we clearly do not endorse the content of material distributed by fascists

Welfare for the Bankers – cuts for the Poor

Is there anything more sickening than seeing both Tories and Labour each seeing how much they can cut from the poor whilst each of them support the giving of tens of billions of pounds of welfare payments to the banks and bankers.

These policies are designed to gain the support of the most selfish bastards in the country – the sanctimonious, selfish, hypocritical 0.5 % of middle class swing voters whose loyalty is not to this country or the British people but solely their own selfish interests.

The fact that the parties are both seeking to gain the support of these people shows how they dont run this country for the benefit of the British people but simply for their own shallow political interests.

The fact is that if the labour government, the tory supporting economists and banks, the bankers, hedge fund traders that fund the tory party and Labour party and the rest of the morons who caused the economic crash, then the money would not need to be stolen from the poor.

Instead the rich get billions in welfare payments when they fucked up our country and the poor get benefit cuts.

If we werent also in the idiotic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan then we would have billions spare and not need to cut public spending.

The fact is that cutting public spending for the poor whilst paying billions for two illegal and unneccasery wars and giving billions to the banks is a sign we live in a sick society.

The tories are scum.

Labour are scum.

Only political party speaks for the working class and the patriotic middle class – the BNP.

We will cut public spending by ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and save billions.

We will end the welfare for banks and bankers and save billions.

We will cut taxes that the patriotic middle class are paying to subsidise the bankers and wars.

Only the BNP will do these things.

The other sum will attack the poor, the disabled and the unemployed – all those who are the victims of the scum that caused the economic crisis.

BNP, 5.10.09

Appendix 3

Perspectives for Socialist Resistance in Dumfries

I’ve decided to leave Solidarity.

The news that Tommy Sheridan was to stand against an SSP candidate in the Glasgow North-East by-election finally convinced me. Both of these competing wee socialist parties are more concerned with opposing each other than fighting for socialism.

Irrespective of the eventual outcome of the perjury trial next year, I believe that the disastrous decisions by leading members of both parties will be mercilessly exposed in the media.

On the one hand you have Tommy’s senseless determination to pursue Murdoch’s sleazy News of the World through the courts. On the other there’s the SSP leadership deciding to keep a detailed secret minute of a meeting discussing an individual’s private life.

The split caused by the disastrous combination of both of these political failings has hamstrung the socialist movement in Scotland since 2006.

In the 2003 Holyrood election the (then united) SSP got 6 MSPs and inspired socialists elsewhere in Europe.

Then in 2006 the pro big business parties were gifted an own goal when Tommy Sheridan took Murdoch’s empire to court – and another when the SSP leaders attempted to conceal their indefensible minutes.

Since 2006 the legal establishment has played out time with their endlessly protracted investigations. Now they’ve scheduled Tommy’s perjury trial with dozens of witnesses just before the General Election (though the further postponement means it may yet impact on the Scottish Elections the following year). In the meantime the divided socialist parties have effectively been banished to the fringes of society.

This persistent pathetic squabble between the 2 factions has let down working people, pensioners, students and minority communities. They should be looking to a united socialist party to lead a fight against the cuts, the war in Afghanistan, the BNP racists and the corruption of the established political parties.

Socialists operating outwith the 2 wee feuding parties can still effectively put forward convincing arguments for resisting the cuts and making the rich pay for the crisis that
their greed has caused.

The effect of Tommy’s perjury trial will prevent socialists making any impact in the General Election (which being 1st past the post is difficult territory anyway as the poor results for the [united] SSP in 2005 in Dumfries as elsewhere showed).

The immediate focus in Dumfries has to be support for any groups of workers that are fighting back. We can support them through solidarity collections in workplaces called for by Dumfries TUC. We’ve shown already by mass leafleting of the town centre by 40 anti-racists and by target- leafleting the streets where the few local BNPers live that we can mobilise effectively against the BNP when they appear.

If any council by-elections occur in Dumfries, we should aim to stand as “Socialist Resistance” with anti-cuts & anti-big business policies. By producing appropriately targeted leaflets against the cuts which focus on the pro tartan capitalism ideas of Salmond’s SNP as well as the unholy Thatcherite Trinity of Brown,Cameron & Clegg, we can start to make an impact.

We should be greatly encouraged by the German Election results. The United Left (“die Linke”) beat the Greens overall getting 12% of the vote and having 76 seats in the Reichstag (out of 622) – and the neo-nazis were nowhere!

With the goal of the socialist transformation of society, we in Dumfries must aim to be part of a wider united socialist electoral alliance throughout the South of Scotland (and hopefully all of Scotland) well before May 2011.

John Dennis 9th November 2009

PS. Please get in touch with your thoughts about what I’ve written. I’m consulting you and other socialists in Dumfries before I consult anyone further afield. I’d appreciate your ideas and I’d be keen to chat with as many people as possible before the Glasgow North East by-election on 12th November (after which I intend resigning from Solidarity).

Appendix 4

Section of motion put forward by the Executive Committee and passed at October 20th, post-split SSP Conference in Glasgow

We resolve to build the SSP as a pluralist party that respects different shades of socialist opinion within its ranks, with open democratic debate but which then aims for public unity in action around democratically agreed policies and campaigns.

This conference notes with regret the formation of an alternative socialist organisation in Scotland, with a political platform indistinguishable from that of the SSP.

Conference further notes that this organisation appears to be founded not on the basis of political difference with the SSP, but rather as the culmination of recent attacks on the SSP.

Conference further notes that some of the comrades have left the SSP for this new formation for different reasons, such as personal loyalty to individuals or platforms.

Conference believes that the interests of the working class in Scotland and internationally are best served by a united movement,

Conference therefore affirms that, despite the misguided actions of some, any individual who has left the SSP will, at any time in the future, be welcomed back as full members of the party without recriminations.

Principled unity is our strength. We have a duty to the working class and the cause of socialism to maintain socialist unity and to conduct ourselves in a combative, determined, confident, but friendly manner aimed at convincing thousands that the SSP’s principles and policies coincide with their interests. The future is ours, provided we collectively seize it.

Allan Armstrong, 29.12.09

It is now 20 years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall. For most people this signalled the end of communism. However, there has always been another view, which understands that the USSR and its satellites and emulators were never communist, socialist or workers’ states. They represented the negation of communism. The socialist transition is not based upon ‘The State’ taking over the functions of private capital, nor ‘The Party’ taking over the functions of a self-organised working class.

Today we face the worst economic crisis for nearly eighty years, accompanied by growing environmental deterioration, and increased powerlessness and loss of hope. Yet the majority of socialists today are not prepared to make the case for a viable alternative social order to get us beyond the ever-deepening capitalist crisis. Often we get little more than vague populist sloganeering – ‘Make Poverty History’ or ‘Make Greed History’. To most workers these sound as hollow as the world of ‘virtual reality’ pushed by the corporate media to divert our attention from the very mundane, or sometimes, desperate reality, we face in our everyday lives. Furthermore, calls for people’s largely passive support through five minutes spent at the polling station can seem a poor alternative, even compared to the promise of ‘five minutes of fame’ in the corporate media spotlight.

Pushing for more state intervention (never asking whose state they seeking to further strengthen), or opting for purely local initiatives (which may be desirable, but limited in their impact) can never break the overall control of corporate capital and the even bleaker future its continued rule will bring to our world. We need to highlight the impasse their corporate imperialism has brought us to, and the grave threats involved in all attempts to bolster their capitalist order. We need to think internationally.

Rosa Luxemburg once said that if we fail to overturn capitalism, we would face ‘Socialism or Barbarism’. Ever worsening exploitation and oppression, two devastating world wars, countless brutal imperial interventions and recurrent economic crises, mean we should update this to say ‘Genuine Communism, or Barbarism – if you are lucky’.

Genuine communism means complete human emancipation and liberation, where society is organised on the basis of ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’, and ‘Where the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all.’ The socialist transition involves workers creating this new society using new forms of association in a global commune. We need to build upon workers’, peasants’ and indigenous people’s current resistance and outline a communist vision which develops their independent class struggles and offers humanity a real alternative.

This is why, the RCN, with the support of The Commune, has organised The Global Commune day school so that socialists today can lift their sights higher, and begin to seriously discuss how we can break free of the legacy of ‘official’ and ‘dissident’ Communism, and begin to create the type of society that we wish to live in, if humanity is to have a real future. Come and join us. Register your intention to take part on:-

globalcommune@republicancommunist.org

The Global Commune

Day School organised by the Republican Communist Network and supported by The Commune

Saturday, January 16th, 2010
11.00 – 17.00

Out of the Blue Centre
Dalmeny Street (off Leith Walk)
Edinburgh

1. Opening session – 11:00 am – 13:00 – Platform speakers from the RCN and The Commune followed by an open session.
2. Lunch – 13:.00 – 14:00
3. Workshops – 14:00 – 14:45
   1. The Legacy of Official and Dissident Communism – or What Communism Isn’t
   2. How Do Communists organise and operate?
   3. What Would Real Communism Look Like?
4. Break – 15 minutes
5. Workshops repeated – 15:00 – 15:45
6. Report Back and Plenary Session – 15:45 – 16:45
7. Summing up by platform speakers – 16:45 – 17:00.

Republican Communist Network
The Commune

Issue 18 Cover

If you would like to buy this issue or subscribe, contact us.

Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section.

• Editorial: Can the SNP deliver Independence?, RCN
• Lisbon Treaty passed in second referendum, JM Thorn
• August 1969, Patricia Campbell
• Migrant Workers are at the heart of our fightback, The Commune
• Highland migrant workers, Bill Scott
• History and Resistance: The rise of Latin America’s indigenous movements, Ewan Robertson
• Portugal’s Left Bloc consolidates its gains, Raphie de Santos
• Afghan women bear the brunt of the hypocritical war on terror, RAWA
• Iran after the elections – an interview with Yassamine Mather, Anne McShane
• Solidarity with Scottish PSC action, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
• It was the worst of times, it was the best of us!, Rod MacGregor
• Book review: A Celebration of the Life & Times of Robert Burns and What Burns means to me, Mary McGregor
• Book review: Out of Eden – the Peopling of the World, Richard Abernethy
• Savings in the Down-Turn, Jim Aitken
• An unrepentant revolutionist, Jim Slaven
• The Legacy of James Connolly – an interview with Jim Slaven, Allan Armstrong

A contribution from Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network. This is immediately followed by a supplement analysing the European election results, which assesses the current balance of political forces in the EU.

In Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales the main lesson of the 2009 European elections is clear – we need Socialist unity. In Ireland, this is needed to take some of the impressive gains just made to an altogether higher level – especially those of the Socialist Party (SP), but also by People before Profit (SWP) and the Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG).

This will not be easy, given past political sectarian divisions, the continued pull towards Left populism, and the usually unacknowledged political significance of the partition of Ireland, which both the SP and the SWP downplay. Thus, for example, despite the electoral successes in ‘The 26 Counties’, Socialists vacated the electoral terrain altogether in ‘The Six Counties’.

There are independent Socialist groups beyond the SP and SWP in Ireland, such as the Irish Socialist Network, as well as journals to promote debate between Socialists and with Republicans – Red Banner and Fourthwrite. They may find some difficulty being heard in the face of the likely triumphalist clamour coming from the SP and SWP after their recent electoral successes. Nevertheless, the job of promoting principled unity needs to be undertaken now, even if it does not bear fruit until sometime later.

Very soon, the Irish ruling class is likely to want to organise a rerun of the Lisbon Treaty referendum. Given that Eurosceptic Libertas leader, Declan Ganley, seems to have thrown in the towel, after failing to win a Euro-seat in North West Ireland, the responsibility for opposing this neo-liberal treaty falls much more squarely upon Socialists. The reactions of Sinn Fein (previously opposed to the Treaty) and Labour (previously supportive) will be interesting. This could provide Socialists with real opportunities to make their mark on Irish national politics.

However, this will mean striving for real Socialist unity, if the whole of Ireland, not just Dublin, is to be covered properly. The ability of the WUAG to organise effectively in small town Ireland (in County Tipperary) shows the possibilities. Furthermore, it is to be hoped that Irish Socialists can take a leaf out of the French NPA, and organise an internationalist campaign against the neo-liberal Lisbon Treaty.

In England, Respect, which provided the main Socialist Euro-election challenge in England in 2004, albeit in Left populist colours, had already split and then dropped out , before the 2009 Euro-election. There is also a warning here for the SWP’s ‘People before Profit’ in Ireland, which is still following the Left populist strategy now abandoned by their comrades in Britain, at least for elections, after the fiasco involving Respect councillors in Tower Hamlets, and the tail-ending of George Galloway.

Furthermore, in the context of more direct action by workers and communities facing draconian service cuts (e.g. the Glasgow Save Our Schools campaign), there is an increasing possibility that the Mainstream parties, holding council office, will victimise Socialist councillors, who identify strongly with such actions. The SSP has already had this experience with Jim Bollan, suspended for nine months by SNP-controlled West Dumbarton Council. So the pressures on Socialist councillors (and trade union activists) will be considerable.

The demise of a once more united Respect allowed their now vacated 2004 electoral space to be contested by others in the recent Euro-election. Scargill’s SLP made a pitch for the Left celebrity vote, whilst the openly Europhobic, Left nationalist and populist No2EU, tried to appeal to some of the same chauvinist sentiments as the Right populists.

Wales Forward provided the main Socialist challenge in Wales in 2004; the Left unionist, Respect came a poor second. Both presented themselves in Left populist colours. There was debate in Wales Forward over how Socialists should address the national issue. After Wales Forward’s demise, members split between its Left nationalist component, most going into Plaid Cymru, and its Left unionist, mainly former Labour component. The two Socialist slates in the 2009 Euro-election in Wales, the SLP and No2EU, had nothing to say on the Welsh national issue, and confined their appeals to largely English-speaking South Wales.

The resurgence of British Right nationalism, represented by the Conservatives becoming the first party in Wales, UKIP taking their first seat, and the BNP taking their largest % increase in the vote, highlights the need for Welsh Socialists to unite to more effectively to counter British chauvinism. The recent production of a Celyn, a magazine emulating Scottish Left Review, and involving debate between Welsh Socialists from different backgrounds and in different political organisations, represents a tentative first step.

Unfortunately, the current dire political situation, throughout the UK, could well lead to a further retreat into Left populism amongst the existing divided Socialists here. The SWP looks as if it wants to draw others into another Left unity campaign against the BNP, shifting the focus away from the Mainstream parties. However, it is these parties, especially New Labour, which have largely been responsible for creating the economic and social crisis that has allowed the Fascists to emerge into the limelight in the first place.

In the late 1970’s, the old Anti-Nazi League (ANL) adopted this same Left populist approach, invoking Second World War, British opposition to the German Nazi menace. Whilst making some contribution to the demise of the National Front (NF), the ANL completely failed to mobilise to defend those Irish victims of the very British, Union Jack-waving Fascism of the loyalist paramilitaries and their ‘mainland’ supporters. Furthermore, this very British Fascism had the behind-the-scenes support of the British state. Irish Republicanism then represented a real threat to the British ruling class.

The ANL also failed to offer any political challenge to the sitting Callaghan Labour government, which had inflicted pay restraints and cuts under the Social Contract, thus creating the situation in which the Fascist NF could thrive. It was the Thatcher’s incoming Conservative government that finally halted the rise of the NF, after she resorted to Right populist, racist rhetoric about being “swamped by people of a different culture”. The prospect of rolling back the current BNP electoral advance, by means of another Conservative, or a returned New Labour (unlikely it is true) government, is hardly a very reassuring prospect.

The Socialist Party (SP) in England and Wales, and its International Socialist (IS) outrider inside Solidarity in Scotland, offer another road to Left unity, which also needs to be questioned. They do want to build a political alternative to New Labour, but by further developing the bureaucratic, Left British nationalist, European electoral front, No2EU. They want to merge it with the SP’s own Campaign for a New Workers Party to form a new party based on the existing undemocratic, bureaucrat-dominated trade unions – in other words, an Old Labour Party mark 2. They also hope to win over whatever sections of the Labour Left still show any life. This is the current French Left Front and the German Die Linke approach. Rifondazione Comunista and Left Unity in Spain have already made similar attempts, with predictable results.

There may be critical analyses going on amongst members inside the bureaucratically centralised SWP and SP. How has the SWP become so marginalised and how did the Socialist Party end up inside the politically suspect No2EU project? These parties’ internal regimes do not encourage much independent thinking. Nevertheless, there is also a good number of Socialists outside the two largest British Socialist organisations, some of whom gathered last September as the Convention of the Left. So, it is to be hoped that together with any critical voices there may be inside the SWP and SP, independent voices advocating principled Socialist Unity can yet emerge. Any ‘red’ shoots need to be encouraged.

The need for Socialist unity is most starkly demonstrated in Scotland, where the Socialist vote fell from 5.2% in 2004 to 3.8% (on the most optimistic interpretation, which includes the SLP vote) or 1.8% (if the Scottish Socialist Party and Solidarity votes alone are considered).

Furthermore, despite the SSP’s considerable achievement in winning Socialist unity in Scotland in 2003, attempts to recreate this unity today may prove very hard, given the impact of the past, and likely future court case (involving Tommy Sheridan, and both SSP and Solidarity members) and the acrimonious split.

The political decline of Solidarity was demonstrated, by a section of its members’ involvement in the Left British nationalist bureaucratic, Europhobic, No2EU campaign (with its ill-fitting, Left Scottish nationalist, Sheridan bolt-on). However, it is a good sign that sections of the Solidarity membership refused to go along with this. Socialist unity was discussed at Solidarity’s first post Euro-election Scottish Council meeting. It remains to be seen how much this mirrors the political manoeuvrings of the SWP and SP HQs in England, and how much this represents genuine new thinking.

The SSP still remains divided between a more outward looking wing, which wants to get involved at all levels of politics, and understands the need for wider Socialist unity, involving other political groups; and those, mainly, but not exclusively from Glasgow, who are still suffering from the traumas of the previous court case and the split. They believe that the SSP can ignore other political groups, particularly Solidarity, and build itself as the dominant force in Scotland, mainly by working in local campaigns. Some appear to see the SSP as little more than a political and social network for Socialists in Scotland, with most of their contributions made on the electronic media – a sort of virtual party.

Therefore, when the decision was finally, if belatedly, taken, to stand in the 2009 Euro-election, in the face of this internal opposition, this represented a real advance for the SSP. Even better was the fact that, despite the differences between those for and against standing, this debate was conducted in a comradely manner in all public party arenas (let’s leave aside website discussions dominated by the virtual Socialists!).

Furthermore, the biggest gain, agreed by Conference, after the decision to stand was won, was the unanimous vote to campaign as part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance. This motion was presented by the RCN and backed by Frontline, who also invited a French NPA speaker, Virginia de la Siega, to address Conference. During the Euro-election campaign itself, the SSP then brought over another NPA speaker, Joaquin Reymond, to address public meetings in Dundee and Edinburgh and Glasgow.

However, Left populism also surfaced during the SSP’s election campaign. This came about due to the decision, taken after the Conference, to launch a ‘Make Greed History’ campaign. Originally conceived as a way to attack the bankers and others responsible for the economic crisis, this perhaps had greater purchase when the Westminster MPs’ expenses scandal broke out. However, the essentially populist nature of this slogan was highlighted when even Gordon Brown and David Cameron (hypocritically) promised to deal with their own greedy MPs.

The overall focus of the SSP election campaign, should have been the ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’, put forward by our alliance partners, the French NPA. It could then have been supplemented by the much more specific, ‘A Workers’ MEP on a Workers Wage’, once the expenses scandal broke. Given that our former SSP MSPs actually implemented this policy, when they were in the devolved Holyrood parliament between 1999 and 2007, this could have made a lot more impact.

The SSP’s back up materials and meetings should have drawn potential supporters to our full politics, summed up by, ‘Make Capitalism History, Make Socialism the Future’. However, one problem here is that there is no unified understanding within the SSP of what constitutes socialism, or even capitalism for that matter! Developing our theory and furthering this debate is a no. 1 priority. The RCN, for example, is beginning this very necessary work, hoping to work with others, such as The Commune group, which has members in England and Wales.

Now, although 10,404 people do not represent many votes, they do represent a lot of Socialists whom the SSP needs to actively draw to the party. Unlike the SLP or Solidarity, the SSP still has meaningful regularly meeting organisation on the ground, a vibrant website, and a paper to build for the future. The main task is to create a new generation of committed, knowledgeable and engaged Socialists, who can show the way through this serious and developing, economic, social and political crisis. This means an ability to highlight, not only the dead end represented by neo-liberalism, but that other weapon in capitalism’s armoury – neo-Keynesianism. The current crisis is likely to deepen, even when governments are reluctantly forced to make further interventions in the economy. We should be preparing now for this eventuality, so that Socialists can make real advances in the future.

The ‘Make Greed History’ campaign might only have been a temporary feature of the Euro-election, but it appears to have taken on new legs. It seems to have provided a definite Left populist focus inside the party. This would appear to go along with a totally dismissive attitude towards everyone in Solidarity. This is not helpful when key sections of the wider working class appreciate the need for Socialist unity.

The SSP needs to welcome moves made by others to promote greater Socialist unity, even if some of these people have sometimes previously promoted disunity. People can learn from their mistakes. Each unity initiative needs to properly discussed and assessed. We need to show patience and diplomacy, whilst also ensuring that any Socialist unity is established on a principled basis. This unity does not mean an unprincipled stitch-up, pretending that nothing has happened in the past.

Dire though the consequences of the split have been, there have been important lessons we have learned. First, Socialists can only make permanent gains by abandoning celebrity politics. The evidence for this comes, not only from the attempted promotion of Solidarity as the Tommy Sheridan Party, but of Respect as the George Galloway Party and the SLP as the Arthur Scargill Party. Any united socialist organisation needs to be thoroughly democratic and treat all members as equals.

Future Socialist unity must be thoroughly internationalist, offering support to all workers (or would-be workers) living here – not just those deemed to be ‘subjects of the Crown’. International working class unity is central to principled Socialist unity at this time. This means opposing both Left British and Left Scottish nationalism. The SSPhas become increasingly Scottish internationalist and republican socialist in its politics. These gains also need to be defended in a wider political context.

When it comes to proposals for joint action, we should avoid being panicked by the SWP into pretended threats of a Fascist takeover. There will be no BNP ‘March on London’, far less Edinburgh or Glasgow. Those at the sharp end of BNP/loyalist attacks will mainly be individual migrant workers. This is why it was so important to oppose No2EU, with its thinly disguised racist opposition to ‘social dumping’. Support for ‘No One Is Illegal’ allows us to come to the help of all those migrant workers, legal or illegal, who face either BNP attacks or state persecution.

Furthermore, there could be a rise in loyalist sectarian/racist attacks in Scotland, in the future, following recent attacks in Northern Ireland, and the new Mainstream political alliance on the Conservative and Unionist Right. The SWP’s equation of Fascism with German Nazism, and the SP/IS ‘a plague on both your camps’ stances, are not the ways to confront this particular prospect. The loyalist paramilitaries are very British Fascists. They are the active upholders of the British state and promoters of racism and sectarianism. Their victims need defended and any non-sectarian Republican opposition supported.

Socialists do need to make more active links with trade unions, but unlike the SP/IS, this does not mean making concessions to union bureaucrats, no matter how Left-talking. Alongside a ‘Workers’ MP on a Workers’ Wage’, we also need to see ‘Trade Union Representatives on a Workers’ Wage’, and subject to regular election. Just as important is the building of a new rank and file movement in the unions that sees sovereignty lying amongst the members in their workplaces, not in the bureaucrat-controlled head offices, or Broad Left-dominated Executives. Workers need to be able to take independent action whenever needed, with the aim of building enough support to defy the anti-democratic anti-trade union laws.

Given the difficulties of uniting Socialists within each of their respective nations – Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland – we face considerable difficulties uniting Socialists from all these countries. Yet, the British and Irish ruling classes are united in promoting the interests of corporate capital in these islands. Their agreed political strategy involves the continued promotion of the ‘Peace Process’ in ‘The Six Counties’, closer cooperation between the UK and Irish governments, and developing ‘Devolution-all-round’, all to create the optimum conditions for capitalist profitability. It also involves them giving open (British government) and tacit (Irish government) support for continued US imperialist war drives.

Nor, is it surprising that much of this strategy has the open or tacit support of the British, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh trade union bureaucrats, through ‘social partnerships’. These have rendered trade unions almost completely ineffective as a means to defend their members. Trade union leaders now ask, as a way to counter the current economic crisis, that bosses accept their share of the pain too, in return for workers being prepared to accept massive job losses, pay cuts and reduced social spending. No wonder the bosses are ‘laughing all the way to the banks’ (now, of course, protected at our expense, by their political friends in government).

The British and Irish ruling class strategy can not be opposed successfully by means of the organisational model – one state/one party – supported by the parties of the British Left (and their Irish satellites) – the SP, SWP, CPB, CPGB and AWL, etc.. Although in Britain this usually means forgetting that the UK state does not consist solely of Britain, but also includes ‘The Six Counties’ of Ireland.

Clearly this model is useless, when the nation itself is divided, as in the case of Ireland. This tends to lead to the acceptance of partitionist politics, which plays into the hands of both the British and Irish ruling classes. Furthermore, even in its attenuated ‘one British state’ version, one-state/one party advocates have been unable to consistently counter British chauvinism, or to appreciate the democratic aspect of the emergence of national movements in Scotland and Wales.

Both the CWI affiliated SP, and the SWP, formally exist as a single party in Ireland but, in practice, follow partitionist politics, especially in their accommodation to continued British rule in ‘The Six Counties’. The CWI in Britain has provided different degrees of autonomy for their members in Scotland (Scottish Militant Labour, the International Socialist Movement – which then left the CWI – then the International Socialists-Scotland), but nothing equivalent in Wales. The SWP appears to have no autonomous organisation in Scotland, merely expecting its resident members to implement the British line. The CPGB has flirted with the notion of constituting itself as the CPUK to cover Northern Ireland. It is also prepared to contemplate repartition of ‘The Six Counties’. The AWL share similar pro-British ideas, but as yet have not suggested reorganising themselves on an all-UK basis.

This organisational problem is merely an aspect of a wider political problem. This can be seen by the British and Irish SPs’ inability to offer a coordinated strategy to confront both the shared British and Irish ruling class political strategy for these islands. These two SPs have a record of adapting to local circumstances in a way that produces glaring contradictions. Thus in Britain, they support an ‘independent socialist Scotland’, but merely a Welsh Assembly with more powers. In Ireland, they virtually ignore partition in their everyday politics and election material in ‘The 26 Counties’, whilst in ‘The Six Counties’ they have flirted with working class loyalists. The SWP also have no overall strategy to confront the British and Irish ruling class alliance.

Neither, though, is the largely ‘go-it-alone’ Left nationalism, which emerged in sections of both the SSP and Solidarity, the answer. Any democratic and republican advance in Scotland can only be secured by similar advances in Ireland, Wales and England; just as a future socialism needs to spread internationally, if it is to survive.

The SSP made the first small steps towards an alternative ‘internationalism from below’ approach, when it organised the Republican Socialist Convention last November. This involved socialists from Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales. The SSP will need to vigorously defend this ‘internationalism from below’ principle in any future, wider, Socialist unity discussions, both against any Left Scottish nationalist isolationists in our own (and Solidarity’s) ranks and, against the Left British nationalists who also figure prominently in Solidarity, especially the SWP and SP. These two organisations have already brought about so much disunity with their top down bureaucratic attempts at imposing ‘unity’, which just mirror the methods of the British state. The UK remains an imperial state, albeit a junior partner with the USA. There can be no ‘British road to socialism’, only a ‘break-up of the UK state and British Empire road to communism’.

However, genuine communism, following from an international socialist transition, means not total state control, but the end of wage slavery, in a society based on the principle of from each according to their abilities; to each according to their needs and where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Supplement

The 2009 European Elections – a political assessment.

The European elections provide us with a snapshot view of the current state of politics. The following analysis looks at the election results in Europe, the UK & Ireland and, in a bit more detail, in Scotland, in order to identify some significant political trends.

A) Europe

1) The Mainstream

a) Mainstream Right

Despite the ongoing unresolved economic crisis, following the ‘Credit Crunch’, the main beneficiaries in the Euro-election have been those Mainstream Right parties belonging to the wider European Peoples Party (EPP).

Right Centrists have traditionally been pro-business, drawing their support from the middle class, and upholding conservative values. At times, in the past, these parties have accepted pragmatic state intervention in the economy and social welfare measures. This phase of Right Centre politics was most associated with overlapping Butskellite Conservative/Labour and Christian Democratic/Social Democratic support for social market or mixed economy policies, from the late 1940’s to the mid 1970’s in the UK, and later in mainland Europe.

In response to capitalism’s crisis of profitability in the mid-1970’s, Mainstream Right parties, beginning with the British Conservatives, have moved to the neo-liberal economic policies aggressively pushed by corporate capital, sometimes supplemented by Right populist appeals to social conservatism, defending ‘family values’ and ‘national traditions’.

The parties of the EPP, which made the biggest electoral gains in the Euro-election, currently hold office, either with other Mainstream Right parties or, in Merkel’s case, in a coalition with the Social Democrats. They gained 20 seats overall (1). Today, the dominant politics of this grouping stretches from the Right Centrism of parties like Merkel’s CDU/CSU to the Right populism of Berlusconi’s PdL. In between lies Sarkozy’s (2) UDM.

Until the ‘Credit Crunch’, these Mainstream Right governments were avidly pushing neo-liberal measures to further deregulate their economies and to roll back their own state’s social-market welfare provisions.

Nevertheless, despite a strongly shared commitment to the European Union and further political integration, coupled to neo-liberal economic measures, these Mainstream Right-led governments quickly took action in breach of EU rules and neo-liberal orthodoxy. As Sarkozy shamelessly argued, The idea that markets were always right was mad… Laissez-faire is finished. The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished (EU Observer, 26.9.08). It is difficult to imagine Brown, Darling or Mandelson being able to come out with such words.

Thus, faced with the possibility that the unfolding ‘Credit Crunch’ could undermine capitalism itself, Mainstream Right governing parties moved quickly to protect their countries’ perceived immediate national interests. They reassured domestic voters that they were prepared to intervene in the economy to ward off the economic chaos brought about by the previous deregulated ‘free market’ they had recently advocated.

Government intervention by such Mainstream Right parties is largely seen as a pragmatic response to the current economic crisis. It does not raise any unwanted spectres of creeping state control in business circles. So most Mainstream Right-led governments have been able to make their economic policy adjustments in response to the economic crisis relatively easily, without having to look over their shoulders. Thus, for all those voters, especially the majority of the middle class still in reasonably secure jobs (for the present), but with some nagging doubts (for the future), a vote for this pragmatic Mainstream Right appeared to be a safe option.

Berlusconi’s PdL and Sarkozy’s UDM made substantial gains in this Euro-election – 16 and 11 seats respectively. Merkel’s CDU/CSU did lose 7 seats (its Social Democratic government coalition partners managed to hold on to theirs), but 5 of these were picked up by the pro-business FDP. Whilst currently benefiting from being in opposition, the FDP has often formed a coalition partner with the other Mainstream parties in the past.

However, a further deepening of the economic crisis could undermine the current complacency of the middle class, which, at present, leads them to look to minimal changes and for a ‘safe pair of hands on the tiller’. Italy provides us with an example of the likely trajectory of the Right, if the Right Centrist policies, currently being pursued by Merkel and others, are unable to hold the line.

Despite, the poor economic situation in Italy, Berlusconi’s Right populist PdL-led government has extended its hold, both in the 2008 Italian general election and the 2009 Euro-election. It has done this by increasing the big business hold on the state (most obviously by Berlusconi’s media companies), and by a barrage of public attacks on migrants. Berlusconi’s Right populist allies, the anti-migrant (and anti-Southern Italian) Northern League also made big gains in the election (+5 seats). Together, these parties have created a political climate that allows physical attacks (including murders), particularly upon Roma and African immigrants to occur, without much official challenge.

In this particular election, Italy has gone further Right than any other western European country, eliminating not only any official Communist/Socialist Left (3) opposition but also any independent Social Democratic and Green electoral presence in the European Parliament. The corporate capitalist ‘Americanisation’ of politics, (where the Republicans and Democrats form two wings of the ‘Business Party’) is now quite far advanced in Italy.

b) Social Democratic/Labour Centre

Many commentators thought that Social Democrat/Labour parties should do well in this first post-‘Credit Crunch’ election, now that neo-liberalism is discredited. A return to the pre-1980’s mixed economy, based on the Keynesian economics, very much associated with earlier Social Democratic/Labour parties, and maybe even a recommitment to social welfare, was briefly touted. The neo-Keynesian (i.e. capitalist) case for government intervention in the economy is so widely acknowledged (4), that it has even been adopted in the USA – first, very shame-facedly by Bush’s Republican government, now with more enthusiasm by Obama’s new Democrat government.

However, both the new US Democrat government, and the long standing British Labour government, have been quick to claim that those nationalisations, which they have reluctantly been forced to adopt, are merely temporary expedients. Those new nationalised companies have been left under their previous bosses’ control, with promises to reprivatise later, no doubt on very favourable terms. Most bosses can hardly believe their luck, and are rapidly returning to awarding themselves big bonus payments and other perks.

The fact that the traditionally pro-business Mainstream Right was the main beneficiary in the European election will probably reinforce most sitting Social Democrat/Labour governments in seeing neo-Keynesian measures as being short lived. The enforced nationalisations are very definitely not being used to provide greater economic security for their workforce in the ongoing economic crisis. Their workforces are being subjected to redundancies, short-time working, pay, conditions and pension cuts for their workers, so these companies can be returned to private hands in a more profitable state (e.g. Chrysler in the USA and the Royal Bank of Scotland in the UK). Nor have these governments given any thought to using these nationalised companies’ existing production facilities and workforces to helping meet social needs in environmentally sustainable ways.

If, as is very likely, the current economic recession further deepens, governments may be forced to resort to much more comprehensive neo-Keynesian measures. However, any final abandonment of neo-liberalism, and more general acceptance of neo-Keynesianism, does not represent creeping socialism, as some Socialists still seem to believe. In today’s competitive global economy, such a strategy can only mean the state taking on even greater responsibility for implementing austerity measures, increased beggar-thy-neighbour protectionist policies and preparations for war – in other words not socialism – but state capitalism.

Ironically, Social Democratic/Labour governments have found it more difficult than the continental Mainstream Right to respond to the current economic crisis. Social Democratic/Labour leaders are now more cautious about moving away from neo-liberal non-interventionism. They fear the ending of their recently won big business and media backing, if seen to pursue neo-Keynesian interventionist policies too keenly. These leaders have also gained much better access to the spoils of office, as well as to very lucrative business patronage.

Furthermore, Social Democratic/Labour politicians not only call upon the working class to pay for ‘our share’ of the costs of the crisis, but actively pursue measures to ensure this happens. They use their links with the compliant trade unions to help them, e.g. through social partnerships in the UK and Ireland. In contrast, any pleas these same politicians make, which suggest that bosses should shoulder some share of the costs of the crisis, remain pious calls not backed by any effective measures of enforcement. Therefore, it is not surprising that many previous Social Democratic/Labour working class voters now think these parties have little to offer in the current crisis. So they either abstain or look elsewhere to register their protest.

Meanwhile, sensing the unpopularity of existing Social Democratic/Labour governments, and realising their decreased ability to deliver a ‘bound and gagged’ working class, big business backers are turning back to the Mainstream Right parties, which appear to hold more immediate electoral promise.

However, even when existing Social Democratic/Labour parties are ousted from office, big business will still continue to exert pressure on them to defend their interests, when called upon later. The neo-liberal Right wing of Social Democracy will regroup and not just disappear, as many on the Labour Left hope. The advantages to business of achieving an ‘Americanisation’ of politics are too great (5). Thus, despite the biggest crisis seen in the British Labour Party for 80 years, it is still the Right that calls the shots, with Lord Mandelson firmly in control. His programme for fighting the next general election is stepped-up ‘reform of the public sector’, i.e. further attacks on workers’ pay, pensions and conditions, further widening in the quality of provision in education, health, etc, and more privatisations (6). The parliamentary Left has been virtually silent over the current crisis in the party.

Thus, a striking trend in this Euro-election has been the very poor performance of Social Democratic and Labour Parties. Overall, the European Socialist Party (ESP) lost 35 members. Compared with the successes of incumbent Right governments in Italy and France, sitting Social Democratic/Labour governments (whether alone, or in coalition) fared particularly badly, losing seats in Austria (-3 seats), Belgium (-2 seats), Estonia (-2 seats), Hungary (-5 seats), Netherlands (-4 seats), Portugal (-5 seats), Slovenia (-1 seat), Spain (-3 seats) and the UK (-6 seats).

Social Democratic parties also did badly in Denmark (-1 seat) Finland (-1 seat), Poland (-1 seat), where they don’t hold office, but are also committed to neo-liberal policies. Two examples of Social Democratic parties doing spectacularly badly, despite not being in office, are to be found in France (-9 seats) and in Italy (7) (-12 seats). Again, these particular parties remain committed to the neo-liberalism, which has hit their own working class voters hardest. In Italy, the majority Social Democrats no longer even stand independently, but form part of the liberal Democratic Party (DP).

c) Liberal Centre

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) (which includes the British Liberal Democrats) also fell back 5 seats in the European Parliament (despite 5 gains by the affiliated oppositional FDP in Germany). Such parties often form parts of wider coalitions, and hence, with little different to offer, they have suffered electorally from a combined incumbency/irrelevancy factor during the current economic crisis. Most Liberal parties have largely abandoned their earlier social liberalism for neo-liberalism.

In Ireland, Fianna Fail also now forms part of ALDE. It leads the West European government responsible for the biggest attacks so far on workers in response to the current crisis. Although, it only lost 1 seat, this is significant, for it no longer has a Euro-seat in Dublin (Fine Gael 1, Labour Party, 1, Socialist Party 1).

2) Beyond the Mainstream Centre

For those most badly affected by the current economic crisis, the Euro-election provided an opportunity to show their disapproval. Many of the most disillusioned just abstained. This European election had the lowest overall turnout ever, down from 45.5% in 2004 to 43.1% in 2009 (8). The overall participation rate continued to decline in the majority of EU member countries. However, the striking feature of this election was the relatively limited political scope of the shifts in electoral choices made by most of those who did vote for non-Mainstream parties.

a) Nationalist parties

Indeed, in the case of Catalunya, Euskadi, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it could be argued that votes given to the following nationalist parties – CiU, PNV, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein – are now, in effect, being awarded to alternative but specific local Mainstream parties. All these parties are now well established in the machinery of their particular states, forming the leaderships of, or joining coalitions in devolved administrations (9). These parties all accept, either enthusiastically or pragmatically, the existing corporate capitalist order, whatever limited constitutional and social reforms they might put forward, which continue to upset the Mainstream unionist governments and parties in their particular states – Spain and the UK.

A resurgent Right British nationalism has been a strong feature of this election in Wales and Northern Ireland (see later UK and Ireland section). Something similar can be seen in Spain, where the ultra-unionist Union for Progress and Democracy (10), drawing support from both the Right and Left, has gained a seat. They want to abolish all the devolved national and regional administrations in Spain.

Whilst the long standing up-and-down political battles between unionism and nationalism in Wales and Euskadi may explain these particular resurgences of unionism, there is also perhaps a fear amongst many voters that solutions to deal with the ongoing economic crisis can not be met at a small nation level.

b) Populism

Populism is a politics that appeals to the more economically and politically marginalised, without situating itself firmly on the grounds of class. At one time this meant populism drew its main support from the petit-bourgeoisie – small farmers, small business owners (e.g. shopkeepers) and artisans, etc. However, where effective working class organisation has fallen apart, leaving many workers atomised and feeling unable to alter the course of events by their own actions, populism has been able to make inroads here too.

Thus, populism has both Right and Left variants. To its Right, populism merges with Fascism based on the petty bourgeoisie, the economically threatened sections of the middle class, and the atomised sections of the working class. To its Left it merges with Socialist (or Labour Left) politics based on the organised (or would-be organised) working class.

Populism has been the main overall winner of the votes of those wishing to express their political discontent with the Mainstream Centre in the current economic crisis. Many disenchanted people were prepared to vote for the populists’ eye-catching political, economic and social proposals, despite these being essentially minimalist or dangerously diversionary.

c) Right populism

In most cases, it has been Right populism that has benefited in these elections. It has already been pointed out that, despite being an Italian Mainstream party, and a constituent of the largely Centre Right EPP, Berlusconi’s PdL and its Northern League ally, have successfully made Right populist, anti-migrant appeals to the Italian electorate.

Another big electoral winner was the Right populist and national chauvinist UKIP in Britain (11) (+2 seats). UKIP emerged in this election with the second biggest number of votes after the Tories. UKIP’s electoral advance was all the more remarkable given the early defection of its most well known spokesperson, Kilroy-Silk, and the jailing of one of its first MEPs for corruption, after the 2004 Euro-election. In Austria (+2 seats), Finland (+1 seat), Greece (+1 seat), and particularly in the Netherlands (+4 seats), anti-migrant Right populists have all made considerable gains.

d) Fascist/Right populist alliances

However, to these constitutional Right populist parties, it is also necessary to add the votes and seats won by those former Fascist and those still Fascist parties, which have now either fully adopted Right populist politics (e.g. Fini’s National Alliance component of the PdL), or which use such politics to mask their own continuing support for a full-blown fascist project (e.g. the BNP). This is because where these parties have been electorally successful, it has been by making Right populist, and not openly Fascist appeals.

Ironically, the political compromises, which have led some Fascist organisations to adopt Right populist clothing (and an acceptance of constitutionalism), have produced parallel tensions amongst the Fascists, to those found amongst Socialists, where the pull of Left populism is just as strong.

One hallmark of a fully developed Socialist organisation is its readiness to use mass democratic action in defiance of the existing anti-democratic constitutional order to advance its aims. In today’s non-revolutionary situation, still largely marked by a continuing Capitalist Offensive, the Socialists can only to aspire to such levels of opposition and organisation. Instead, we try to build for such future action by promoting, for example, independent (‘unofficial’) strikes or occupations.

In the meantime, though, many on the Left get drawn into the central running of bodies, which by their very nature are involved in the day-to-day running of capitalism, e.g. trade unions, quangos, etc. This can lead many to accept gradualist Reformism and/or a resort to Left populism.

In comparison, the hallmark of fully developed Fascist organisations is the use of goon squads and/or paramilitary forces to win control of the streets, and to deny any political (or public) space for Socialists and others (e.g. ethnic minorities, gays, etc.). However, present day Fascists do not currently enjoy the support of their ruling classes, so such activities, when exposed, can lead to spells in jail. Therefore recently, such parties have tried to downplay this particular characteristic and appear ‘respectable’.

In the absence of concerted working class resistance, European ruling classes can still bring about the counter-reforms they need, by resort to legal attacks on workers’ livelihoods, rights and organisations (e.g, anti-trade union laws), with the help of the existing Mainstream parties. These all try to meet the needs of the existing corporate capitalist order, whatever other policy differences may divide them. Therefore, the extra-legal services of the Fascists are not yet required.In the meantime, Fascists get drawn into working on community and local councils, and parliaments. Some mellow in the process, becoming subordinate partners in wider Broad Right alliances, and pushing constitutional Right populist politics.

This means that those Fascists not just satisfied with just moving Mainstream politics further to the Right (which could lead to their co-option or marginalisation in the future), want to maintain their hardcore cadre through attacks on migrants, gays and others (these attacks can still be publicly disowned by the official leadership).

For these Fascists, new anti-migrant laws are not ends in themselves, but a means to create a wider climate of racism and chauvinism in which the Fascists can move ‘like fish in water’. Today, attacks on individuals, or upon small marginalised groups, particularly in areas where Fascists have some electoral support, are the main type of activity giving the initial training they require, for a time in the future, when they may yet be called upon by sections of the ruling class and the employers to physically crush workers’ organisations.

In the current political situation, Italy shows us the most likely political impact of the rise of Fascist and other xenophobic Far Right forces on the politics of other western European countries. There is not going to be any immediate ‘March on Rome’. Fascists have been able to move the Mainstream parties to the Right, by promoting anti-migrant and anti-sexual liberation policies. These help to keep the working class divided.

In the past, Thatcher contributed to the demise of the National Front by adopting some of their racist rhetoric, and Sarkozy has tried the same in France. Berlusconi’s Italy is also instructive. The Right populist PdL has absorbed two former fascist organisations, Fini’s National Alliance and Alessandra Mussolini’s Social Action.

Germany, like Italy, has its own fascist past. However, in marked contrast to the Italian Fascists, most present day German Fascists remain full-blooded Fascists, i.e. anti-Semitic Nazis, when most others have switched their hatred to Moslems or Roma (tacitly encouraged by many official state policies and the tabloid press). Consequently German Nazis have been unable to make any breakthrough into national politics (whilst still remaining a grave physical threat to migrant workers, particularly in the many of the depressed parts of former East Germany).

Parties spanning the Fascist/Right populist spectrum did well in Eastern Europe, where nearly all the Mainstream parties are to the right of their western equivalents, reflecting their continuing reaction to the legacy of Russian ‘Communist’ domination (12). In Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, seats have been won by the violently chauvinist, anti-Roma, anti-gay, Jobbik (+ 3 seats), Greater Romania (+ 3 seats) and Attak (+2 seats) parties. The current economic crisis has hit Eastern Europe particularly hard, and Socialism (at least in its genuine internationalist form) is still associated in many minds with old-style Stalinism, so the political situation here is looking increasingly grim.

e) Left populism and Socialism

The Greens are the best example of a populist politics that makes most (but not all of) of its appeal to left of centre voters. The Greens made small, but nevertheless significant advances in Belgium (+1 seat), Denmark (+1 seat), Finland (+1 seat), Germany (+1 seat) (where they have been out of coalition governments for long enough that many people have forgotten their past record in office). Overall, they gained 13 seats in the European Parliament, only losing seats in Italy and the Netherlands, where Right populism made significant advances. Elsewhere, the Greens increased their vote, except in Portugal (where they are in the same party – the CDU – as the official Communists) – and in Ireland, where they have paid the cost of being in an unpopular governmental coalition with Fianna Fail.

Furthermore, Greens have made serious inroads into the voting base of certain Socialist groups (whether ex-official Communist or Left Social Democrat/Labour), which also adopt Left populist politics. These inroads are apparent in the election results, for example, of France, Britain (including Scotland), but perhaps most spectacularly in Denmark, where the 2 MEPs of the Socialist Peoples Party (SPP) (+1 seat) now sit as observers in the Green Euro-group.

France has seen some of the biggest class struggles in Europe in recent years, with massive strikes and resistance by migrant workers. This has resulted in a willingness to vote left of the Mainstream Centre in the Euro-election. The Fascist/Right populist National Front lost 3 seats showing how class struggle can shift the terms of political debate.

However, despite some favourable opinion polls, the Trotskyist, LCR-initiated, New Anti-Capitalist Party, a very recent Socialist formation, just failed to get MEPs elected. This was partly because a major push was made by the French establishment to marginalise this latest challenge (just as it did, when the National Front’s Le Pen emerged as the main alternative when the Right Centrist Chirac in the 2007 French Presidential election).

Thus the Greens (13) in France were seen to be a relatively safe alternative, and they managed to corral the majority of the left of Centre protest votes. They won another 8 seats bringing them up to 14 (3 more than the British Labour Party!)

Furthermore, the Left Front, consisting of the French Communist Party (PCF), the Left Party (a breakaway from the French Socialist Party, which hopes to emulate Germany’s Die Linke) and the Unitarian Left (a rightist breakaway from the Trotskyist LCR, which did not join the NPA) formed another Left populist electoral alliance, united around Left nationalist politics (14).

The Left Front managed to gain 2 more seats (albeit on less than a 1% increase in the vote for the 2004 PCF-led Euro-slate). Therefore, although they contributed to just stopping the NPA from winning any seats, the overall 6.5% vote gained for this Left Front populist slate merely disguised the continued downward spiral of its main component, the PCF. It also highlighted the lack of support for those Left Social Democratic forces that joined them, whom the PCF and others have long sought to woo.

In Germany, as in France, most of the protest vote went not to the right but to the left, albeit more weakly, with one new seat won by the Greens and one by Die Linke (15) (which was expected to do better). Die Linke is an alliance of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) (successor to the Socialist Unity Party, the former official Communist Party in East Germany) and the Labour and Social Justice Electoral Campaign (WASG), Lafontaine’s Left breakaway from the German Social Democratic Party.

Where it holds offices in the local administrations (in the former East Germany), the SED behaves like other Social Democratic Parties, implementing cuts. The western-based WASG has opposed this course so far. However, the new Die Linke leadership supported the bail-out of German banks in the Reichstag, and tacitly supported Israel in its Gaza invasion, so, in the longer term, Die Linke looks fated to follow a similar path to Rifondazione Comunista in Italy and the United Left in Spain, where working class support slumped after these parties gave their support to cuts-implementing Social Democratic governments.

f) The long term decline of official Communism and the EUL/NGL

Any examination of the official Communist-led EUL/NGL Euro-group shows that, despite the current economic crisis, it is a largely declining force, mainly due to the Communist parties’ one-time links with the failed USSR, but also to their member parties’ willingness to join, or prop up Social Democratic Centre governments administering cuts or promoting imperial wars. Overall the EUL/NGL lost 5 of the Euro-seats that it held in 2004. In Italy, Rifondazione Comunista representation in the European Parliament was wiped out (following a similar setback in the Italian general election in 2008).

In Spain, the CP-led United Left also lost a seat. Even in Greece, despite the recent massive upheavals, the local Communist Party, the KKE, still lost a seat. The SYRIZA alliance, its newly formed rival, also fell back on the % vote won by its largest constituent organisation, Synaspismos, in the 2004 Euro-election (as well as that it gained in the 2007 Greek general election). In Greece, against the grain, the Social Democratic PASOK vote held up and emerged as the main winner in the Euro-election. This is probably due to a combination of being in opposition, and a longstanding ability to adopt Left populist (and Left nationalist) rhetoric when necessary.

Only in Cyprus has the local Communist Party, AKEL, really held its own, retaining its 2 seats. Uniquely for the EU, a Communist Party forms the elected government in Cyprus. However, this is more due to it being seen as the best bet for reuniting a country, still partly occupied by Turkish armed forces. Much of AKEL’s appeal is Cypriot nationalist.

In both Sweden and Denmark, Left nationalism is the declared principle of the two the Left populist EUL/NGL affiliates in these particular countries – the anti-EU Left Party and the Peoples Movement Against the EU, respectively. Both of these parties include former official Communists, now that their parties have dissolved.

The Left Party lost a seat in Sweden, where the party leading the current government, the Centre Right Moderate Party, and the libertarian populist Pirate Party, made the biggest advances. In Denmark, the parties forming the sitting Liberal/Right Centre/Right populist government all advanced, whilst the Social Democrats fell back sharply. The EUL/NGL affiliated Peoples Movement against the EU (principally backed by the Red Green Alliance in Denmark) was able to substantially increase its vote in these propitious circumstances, but without gaining an extra seat (16). A much bigger proportion of the Left vote in Denmark went to the non-EUL/NGL Socialist Peoples Party, which did gain an extra seat.

In the Czech Republic, the local Communist Party, KSCM, lost 2 seats. Here however, in one of the few exceptions to the trouncing of Social Democrats, the Czech SD party gained 5 seats. This was partly due to the continued decline of the KSCM, once of course, the ruling party in the whole of Czechslovakia. The KSCM is the last official Communist Party from Eastern Europe with European Parliament representation to remain in the EUL/NGL (17).

So, although in France and Denmark, official CP backed, Left populist alliances – the Left Front and the Peoples Movement against the EU – both increased their votes, as part of a general Left populist swing in these countries, in these countries other Left populist parties did better – the Greens and the SPP respectively.

g) An emerging Socialist alternative to official CP Left populism?

The two countries where local EUL/NGL affiliates did best are the Netherlands and Portugal. In the Netherlands, the Socialist Party’s vote largely held up, and it retained its 2 Euro-seats, despite the unnerving slide by most protesting voters to anti-migrant, anti-Islamic Right populists. However, the Socialist Party does not come from the official Communist tradition. It comes from a Maoist background, although now long abandoned, and stands on an openly Socialist platform, based on working class politics.

The Left Bloc’s results in results in Portugal were remarkable. The Left Bloc, like the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, has Maoist roots, which it has abandoned. However, it has opened itself to other Socialist forces, and unlike the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, it also forms part of the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance (EACL). Nor is the Left Bloc the only EUL/NGL affiliate in Portugal. There is also the Democratic Unity Coalition (CDU), the permanent Left populist alliance between the official Communists and the Greens, which stand together under this name in European, national and local elections.

In a situation where the incumbent Portuguese Socialist Party (Social Democratic) government lost spectacularly in the Euro-elections, most of the non-Mainstream vote went left. However, it was not the initially better placed CDU, which gained. Its vote fell back slightly, whilst retaining its 2 Euro-seats. It was the Left Bloc that hugely increased its vote and won 2 more seats. Thus, the Portuguese Left Bloc has picked up the lead baton for Socialists in Europe.

The failure of the NPA in France to win any Euro-seats is hopefully a temporary setback in the formation of an alternative, more clearly working class-based, Socialist alliance in Europe. Relating to the rising level of class struggle, the NPA stood on the basis of clear class politics – ‘Make the Bosses Pay for Their Crisis’. That is the way to give a political lead to workers involved in current class struggles, where the official trade union leaders and Social Democratic parties try to limit the purpose of any action to ‘sharing’ the costs around – i.e. workers should accept some cuts as an example for the bosses to follow!

It will be interesting to see the political direction taken another Socialist – Joe Higgins of the CWI-affiliated Socialist Party. He won the Dublin seat previously held by the Irish EUL/NGL affiliate, Sinn Fein (18). Will Higgins take an active part in the European Anti-Capitalist Left (EACL), and help contribute to the formation of a distinct international Socialist Left group within the EUL/NGL? Or, will he behave like another Trotskyist group, Lutte Ouvriere from France, which won 3 seats in the 1999 Euro-election (with another 2 going to its then electoral allies, the LCR), but then proceeded to try and advance its own group’s interests above those of the wider international socialist movement? It lost all of its seats in the 2004 Euro-election.

Many Socialists may be critical of the politically ambiguous names of the NPA or the Left Bloc. Nevertheless, so long as they remain democratic organisations, positively engaged in the class struggles in their countries, with an unwavering commitment to internationalism, those Socialists in these countries, who really want to influence events, should be participating, whilst Socialists elsewhere in Europe should be helping to build the EACL.

Footnotes

1. Until recently the EPP grouping also included Cameron’s British Conservatives, so the defection of their 26 MEPs, underestimates the real gains made by the Centre Right, since the 2004 Euro-election.

2. Sarkozy has a Right populist anti-migrant past, but more recently, after major social revolts, has been forced to adopt a more Right Centrist public position

3. Italy is a country where the CP was once a considerable force in politics. Furthermore, as in Spain, most of the Socialist Left worked inside the CP.

4. Unlike those on the Left who equate capitalism with anti-state economic interventionist neo-liberalism, genuine Socialists/Communists have long understood that capitalism is always prepared to resort to a more statist model, when in difficulty, without changing its essential nature. The essence of capitalism is not the promotion of unfettered market relations – neo-liberalism – but the promotion and defence of wage slavery by both economic and political means.

5. One indication that this pattern has been firmly established, will be when we hear of companies which fund both Conservatives and New Labour, just as some US businesses fund both Republicans and Democrats.

6. The next stage of Royal Mail privatisation has only been temporarily shelved.

7. Wikipedia lists 12 of the 25 MEPs in the Christian Democrat/Liberal/Social Democrat (including former Communists)/Green 2004 Olive Tree alliance as sitting with the Social Democratic ESP. After the 2009 election, it lists all 21 MEPs from its Democratic Party successor, as forming an independent Euro-group.

8. This can not just be put down by the accession of Bulgaria (39% turnout) and Romania (28% turnout), two new member states from eastern Europe, where there has been traditionally been a low turn-out rate.

9. The PNV recently lost control of the devolved Euskadi administration, after being in control for more than 2 decades.

10. An equivalent party in Scotland/UK might unite Tam Dayell and Michael Forsyth.

11. Despite its name, UKIP does not stand for elections in Northern Ireland, although the UUP would share quite a few of this party’s characteristics. However, in a not widely understood move by Cameron, the Conservatives have already linked up with the more genteely sectarian UUP (as opposed to the more openly sectarian DUP), as well as with Right populists from Poland and the Czech Republic to form a new Eurosceptic alliance in the European Parliament.

12. One example of this is the Social Democratic Party in Slovakia, which has even been thrown out of the ‘Socialist International’, because it formed a government coalition with an anti-Roma, hard Right party!

13. The Greens Left populist (and Left nationalist) credentials were helped by the participation of Jose Bove, a popular figure from the Anti-Globalisation Movement.

14. In many ways the Left Front is like the wider British electoral alliance, No2EU, hoped to create, being based on populist politics.Although in the case of the No2EU, it accommodated further right, ditching not only the word ‘Socialist’ but even the word ‘Left’ to dish the BNP.

15. Unlike the NPA, Die Linke is not opposed to joining coalitions with Social Democrats. Nevertheless, most of the political forces supporting the European Anti-Capitalist Left in Germany have joined Die Linke as distinct tendencies, just as many previously joined Rifondazione Comunista, in its earlier left-posing days.

16. However, in this case the actual MEP elected belongs to the Trotskyist. USFI. The Red Green Alliance was formed by members of the former official Communists, the USFI affiliated Trotskyists, former Maoists, and a section of the Left Social Democrats (most of whom went to the Socialist Peoples Party, however). Danish USFI supporters appear to be on the USFI’s more Left populist wing, compared with say those in the NPA in France. The Red Green Alliance has faced similar controversy in Denmark over alliances with Muslim politicians to that caused by Respect in the UK.

17. Elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the traditional Communist parties have reformed themselves into Social Democratic parties, joining the ‘Socialist International’. They are all very much on the ‘modernising’, ‘market reform’ accepting wing of European Social Democracy.

18. Sinn Fein, currently the only EUL/NGL affiliate in Ireland, is rather the odd party out in this Euro-group. It has no other past or present official or dissident Communist affiliations. Its connection dates from the time Sinn Fein was more keen to be seen as part of the international anti-imperialist movement, where association with official Communists brought about valuable links, e.g. with South Africa. Sinn Fein’s has maintained its seat in Northern Ireland, where politics is dominated by constitutionally enforced sectarian allegiances. Here, Sinn Fein has cornered the Catholic nationalist market.

Reply to socialist workers party’s open letter to the left

Comrades,

We write in reply to your Open Letter to the Left of 9 June, on behalf of The Commune, a small, relatively new group, which stands for communism from below and workers’ self-management. We publish a monthly paper of the same name and are mostly active in London, though we have comrades across England and Wales.

We welcome the spirit of the Open Letter, and would be interested to participate in discussions concerning left unity in general, or a conference in particular. Of course, you will understand, we have concerns – we are sure you do too.

We want to be sure that the lessons of the Socialist Alliance and Respect have been learnt. In particular, we want to know what has changed – and it cannot be simply this or that personality – since packing meetings with raw recruits to block vote against independents and other groups was considered an acceptable tactic during the days of the Socialist Alliance. And we want to know what has changed since the Socialist Alliance was wound down at your behest, in favour of the Respect project. You cannot, after all, expect those of us who were involved last time to go through such disappointment again; to be shut out, or to have a project we have built tossed aside when the leading faction finds something more interesting to do. If your perspectives have changed, we can accept that: but we need to be convinced of it.

We also want to be clear that when we talk about left unity, we do not mean simply left unity at elections, or anti-fascist mobilisations. What we are talking about, what we all need to talk about, is deep, thoroughgoing political work in communities, in which socialists join together locally, with trade unionists, community campaigners and across the political boundaries of the existing groups.

The political content of the project will also be a matter for discussion. This is not the place to set down ultimatums. But, clearly, there is a relation between the real breadth of a formation and the extent to which we are willing to make sacrifices in the content of its programme. If a formation begins with a real base in the labour movement, is organised on a thoroughly democratic and militant basis, there is a case for certain sorts of compromise. And if it does not have such a base, so be it, we cannot always wait for such things. But what there is not, and has never been, any point in, is socialists voting to establish policy different from their own beliefs on the hope that, at some point in the future, more moderate forces will be drawn in (using accessible language is necessary, diluting principles is not). We must start by being honest about what we are, and build from there: whether in a distinct organisation, or as a radical platform in a broader one.

Practically, we do not understand why, if you are serious about left unity, you sent no delegate to the meeting of the Left Unity Liaison Committee on 13 June to which you were invited. We were unable to attend ourselves, but as a group numbering fewer than 20, rather than in the thousands. We do want to believe your call is sincere, but we need to see evidence.

The proposal of a conference is not a bad one. But in our view, a conference will not solve the real problem we face: that on the streets, and in the estates, in the suburbs and small towns, socialists are divided in action by the groups of which they happen to be a member. A project founded by conference resolution will not be able to draw in a wider layer, constitute itself democratically, begin real political debate, and fight an election within eleven months. So another, complementary, proposal is this: that all the main socialist groups, as well as any unions that can be persuaded to participate, organise a programme of discussion at a local level. Let delegations from branches meet each other; draw lessons from the past, and make proposals for the future. Let those proposals focus not merely on the next election – which is too soon for us to have anything but a very insufficient impact given our current disorganisation – but on the sort of work that can be done to build community and workers’ resistance at a local level, not only in the next year, but in the next decade. Let these discussions draw in campaigners and independents, and give each an equal voice.

This is how the Socialist Alliance came together; steady local work in a number of areas. It is also the process which constituted the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste. We need to make that possible here again; and it is the groups with the largest numbers who have the greatest responsibility to do that, by freeing up their members to work with those of other groups, to find the forms of unity appropriate to local circumstances. To make gestures which erode the walls of mistrust built across the landscape of the left. Is a unified national perspective necessary? It is. But it must be based on something real; and to create that real something is the most immediate challenge.

What about the unions? The RMT has conference policy to:

• Convene a national conference on the crisis in working class political representation similar to those organised previously
• Encourage our regional councils to organise similar conferences on a regional basis
• Initiate and support the setting-up of local Workers’ Representation Committees which can identify and promote candidates in elections who deserve workers’ support.

This reflects a similar spirit to our proposal above. This work is the work of years, not of months. It is the work of the grass roots, not the central committees. Will you commit to this? Whether you do or do not, one thing is clear: the fascists have already committed to it, and will continue to commit to it, and that is why their support, if the recent elections are a barometer, was nearly three times that of the hard left.

For communism,
The Commune

• Do they enhance the political independence of our class?
• Do they promote greater democracy both in our own organisations and in wider society?
• Do they develop genuine internationalism?
• Do they oppose British unionism and Scottish nationalism and promote a republican socialist ‘internationalism from below’ approach
• Do they help us recognise that capitalism is based on both exploitation and oppression and develop democratic, secular and non-sectarian methods to promote greater socialist unity?
• Do they point the way towards distinctive socialist solutions to the current crisis of capitalism, and open up the prospect of creating a new society based on human emancipation and liberation?

We encourage comrades not just to buy and read our new Conference issue of Emancipation & Liberation, but to get your hands on other comrades’ material, and get involved in the debates both formally and informally.

We have highlighted just a few motions for delegates and visitors’ attention. There are other motions which also deserve your support, and motions where RCN members are keen to hear the arguments before deciding how to vote.

Section 2 – International

European elections

Support Motion 2 from Edinburgh South (with the Campsie amendment) and Motion 3 from the RCN platform (oppose the amendment from Glasgow North East)

These motions emphasise the importance of using the forthcoming Euro-election for the SSP. We should use the occasion to put forward an independent socialist voice to address the current crisis of capitalism. This would highlight the SSP’s active participation, alongside other European socialists, in promoting international solutions to counter the austerity and war-mongering drives being promoted by European capitalists and New Labour, especially Mandelson; the Union Jack chauvinism of the BNP, UKIP and the Tories; the British labour nationalism of the trade union bureaucrats behind No2EU; as well as showing those committed to genuine Scottish independence that this can not be achieved by the SNP hanging on to the coat-tails of the likes of Matthewson, Souter, Trump, et al.

Palestine

Support Motion 5 from Glasgow North East motion as amended by Dundee West, Motion 6 from Dundee West and Motion 7 from East Kilbride.

The recent invasion of Gaza has highlighted the continued racist and imperialist nature of the Israeli state. This has led to increased recognition of the apartheid features of Israel, and the growth of an international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions, which the SSP should throw its weight behind.

However, as socialists, we must go beyond active solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians and give our support to those socialist and democratic forces in Palestine and the wider Middle East, which alone can bring an end to all forms of oppression – national, religious, gender and sexual orientation.

This also means joining with those increasing numbers of Arabs and Jews who realize that the various attempts to promote a two state ‘solution’ have just led to continued ethnic cleansing. Such attempts at partition, always promoted by imperialist interests (e.g. in Ireland, India, Bosnia), can only lead to further bloodbaths. Real unity can only arise in a national democratic and secular movement, involving Arabs, Jews and others, for the whole of Palestine. Such a movement needs the active support of the other exploited and oppressed peoples of the Middle East, in a struggle against US, British and Euro imperialism and their allies – Israel and the corrupt semi-feudal and police Arab states.

Section 3 – Rebuilding the Left

(and Section 4, Motion 14)

This is an important issue at Conference and we urge all delegates to pay careful attention to the various proposals being advocated. If we had been allowed further amendments, we would have highlighted the importance of the successful Republican Socialist Convention, organised by the SSP’s International Committee, held on November 29th in Edinburgh, and emphasised the need for the SSP to build on this. This Convention brought together key activists from Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales and England. However, we feel confident that the incoming International Committee will continue the good work of building international solidarity on the basis of ‘internationalism from below’.

Motion 14 and its amendment from Edinburgh South make the constitutional changes necessary to set-up a John Maclean Association for SSP members and supporters living outside Scotland. This would help us develop the ‘internationalism from below’ alliances necessary to bring about the demise of the British unionist, capitalist and imperialist state.

Section 5 – Policy and Campaigns

Motion 21 from Glasgow Kelvin, Candidates religious beliefs

We hope this issue will be addressed at Conference in a mature and non-personalised manner. It has arisen as a result of Morag Balfour, our candidate in the Glenrothes by-election, describing herself as a Quaker in the election material. There is no SSP policy on such matters, so Morag was quite entitled to do this. However, the RCN thinks that SSP candidates should not use official campaign material to put forward their particular religious (or, for that matter, their platform) beliefs. We support the proposed rule change. Do we really want SSP candidates in Glasgow or the West, officially describing themselves as Protestants, Catholics or Atheists? We are a party open to people of both non-religious and religious persuasions, but we advocate secular methods to achieve wider unity.

What made you revive the Edinburgh Peoples Festival after almost 50 years?

We didn’t start off with the intention of reviving the Edinburgh Peoples Festival (EPF). At Hamish Henderson’s funeral in 2002, a group of us, including Bill Scott, Karen Douglas and Craig Maclean, started to discuss Hamish’s achievements. This was the man after all who had formally accepted the Italian surrender in the Second World War, first translated Gramsci into English, was the driving influence behind the Scottish folk revival, wrote Freedom Come All Ye and the John Maclean March, a working class intellectual and the man who founded the Edinburgh People’s Festival in 1951.

Years before I had come across an essay Hamish had written on the significance of the Edinburgh People’s Festival in Andrew Croft’s book Weapons in the Struggle, and it was a real eye-opener for me.

So, a group of us decided to organise a one-off event to commemorate Hamish and his contribution to our struggle. We opted to have it at the Jack Kane Centre in Craigmillar for several reasons. One, Councillor Jack Kane had been the original Chairman of the EPF back in the 1950’s. Two, Craigmillar, on the city’s southern outskirts is Edinburgh’s poorest district and the Edinburgh Festival itself never went beyond EH1. We also had good community activists in the area we could rely on to publicise and promote the show. Things just escalated from there.

I guess looking back we recognised the importance of the original People’s Festival in acting as a foil or critique of the Edinburgh Festival itself. It has never really been designed for the majority of the city’s people. Ticket prices are now disgracefully high. Local indigenous performers will find it difficult to find a stage or platform and are shunted away for the month.

Where does most of the support for the EPF come from?

We found our original support in Craigmillar where we quickly got the backing of lots of local community groups, like the Craigmillar Artspace. We also learned quick lessons. We put on Bill Douglas’s film, My Ain Folk in the Newcraighall Miners’ Welfare without realising that, although people dearly loved Bill, they felt his depiction of their village rather dismal. Nonetheless the area is proud to have produced such talented people. At the last count we have presented shows in 20 different communities throughout the city and Midlothian.

Beyond local support, the EPF has received backing from the organised active Left. Tommy Shepard, who runs The Stand Comedy Club has been a fantastic help. Support has also come from local playwrights Cecilia Grainger and Barry Fowler, and from many key artistic community development groups in Wester Hailes and North Edinburgh.

Local trade union branches have been key to our financial success. It has been their support that has enabled us to take performances to the local communities and always keep tickets at affordable prices. [We usually charge £2 when the performances and events are not entirely free]. We are indebted to Unison healthworkers, posties, railworkers, teachers, firefighters, railway workers and civil servants unions. They have been very generous, partly, as I remind them, because they haven’t been giving out much strike pay over the last eight years!

As a socialist, why do you see it important to promote popular culture?

Art and culture can be thoroughly inspiring and educational. In Gramsci’s writings you can see the blueprint which led the Italian Communist Party to have one million members in the early 1970’s.

My partner, Zillah and I, attended a festival in France in the late ‘80s organised by the French Trotskyist party Lutte Ouvrier (LO). We were amazed to see 30,000 people there in the grounds of a chateau just outside Paris being entertained and enjoying themselves on an array of attractions. Festivals like these are still common on the left in France, Italy and Spain, bringing together tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. It became clear to me that much of the mass support for socialism on the continent, came not so much through public and party meetings, but because of the wider cultural activities of the Communist Parties and groups like the LO.

The French Communist Party’s L’Humanite by all accounts attracts hundreds of thousands of people.

In Britain we have had Miners’ Galas, May Days, and more recently the Tolpuddle Martyrs celebration. In the 1980’s, when I was in the Militant we used to organise huge political and cultural events in the Royal Albert Hall, Alexandra Palace and the Wembley Arena with 8000 people. They were brilliant. I have to admit that I enjoyed those performances with groups like the Who, Billy Bragg, Red Wedge, Paul Weller and Skint Video more than the Conferences. Truth be told, I probably still do!

In your opinion, what have been the highlights of the EPF so far?

There are very many that spring to mind. Perhaps the earliest is the EPF’s ‘discovery’ of David Sneddon, who we found busking on Chambers Street. We got him to perform at the Jack Kane Centre that first year with his group, The Martians and people were really bowled over by him. A few weeks later, I remember, Alan McCombes phoned me and told me to switch on the TV. His daughters had been at the Jack Kane Centre and were telling him that David Sneddon had just won the BBC’s first Fame Academy! The press were all over us for photographs of him at his first public performance, in Craigmillar.

We also had Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson. We cheekily phoned her up and asked if she would perform at our show Bart Comes to the Simpsons. All the kids in Edinburgh are born at the Simpsons Maternity! She was terrific about the whole thing and the show was just a fantastic success.

We also took the comedian, Mark Thomas, and Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six into Saughton Prison for a show. Originally, it had been agreed that STV would film the event but the governor pulled the plug. The show went on without the cameras and the guys inside thought it was brilliant. They were all over Paddy Hill at the end. We have been back ‘inside’ just about every year since.

We had a line up in 2003 for a cultural debate, or ‘flyting’, which looking back was quite unequalled anywhere in Edinburgh since.

Whose Culture is it anyway? starred Paul Gudgeon, then Director of the Fringe, the irrepressible Richard Demarco, Tommy Shepard, actor Tam Dean Burn, Joy Hendry the publisher, Kevin Williamson, the late Angus Calder and Claire Fox from the Institute of Ideas. They were all going at it hell for leather with poor Sian Fiddimore from Wester Hailes desperately trying to keep it all in order.

Last year, we launched the first of what will become the Annual Hamish Henderson Memorial Talks. It was given by Hamish’s biographer, Timothy Neat. And that went very well, certainly one of our highlights – and I think our first sell out event!

The exhibition we mounted, in the Craigmillar Arts Space, telling the story of the Edinburgh People’s Festivals from 1951 is just excellent. It was subsequently shown last November at Wordpower’s Radical Book fair at the Out of the Blue Art Centre in Leith. It is currently on show at the Jack Kane Centre before it goes off on tour.

With trade union financial backing, we also organised a local Art Competition last year, with £1000 in prize money. This was a great success too and a foray into a new field for us.

Richard Demarco, one of the leading figures associated with the Edinburgh Fringe, has given the EPF considerable encouragement. Do you see this as a sign of wider recognition for the EPF?

Richard Demarco is the only person who has been to every Edinburgh Festival. He has been responsible for bringing over many artists to Edinburgh, including from Eastern Europe, when it was unfashionable to do so. Despite Demarco’s centrality to the Festival and the Fringe he has always been an outsider. He remains driven by a passion for the arts and his effervescence is infectious. He has given the EPF a helluva lot of encouragement. He made a typically passionate contribution to the debate we organised at Out of the Blue in August 2007, on the future of art in an independent Scotland. Elaine C. Smith also spoke in similar vein.

But the truth is the People’s Festival has been treated with complete disdain by the Edinburgh establishment and its media, including the local Evening News. Bourgeois commentators have turned their noses up at the popular culture we offer. Nevertheless, they have grudgingly been forced to recognise our innovative approach on a number of occasions.

The People’s Festival has begun to organise events outside the traditional Edinburgh Festival slot. Why did you decide to organise a celebration of the 90th Anniversary of the Russian Revolution for example?

People have often said that, even if with some exaggeration, that Edinburgh is a cultural desert outside the official Festival in August. The People’s Festival decided to ‘cash in’, if I dare utter the term, on the fact we are here the whole year round. And since we had grown considerably we felt that it was time to try and extend our activities beyond August.

The opportunity came then in 2007, with the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, an event I believe is the greatest of the twentieth century. Others in the People’s Festival saw the possibilities so I approached Trevor Griffiths, the scriptwriter for the film, Reds, and asked him to come up and celebrate the occasion with us. In the interview he did with me at the event in The Stand, Trevor explained that in fact he was the fifth person chosen by Warren Beattie to write the script. Beattie had bought the film rights to John Reed’s classic, Ten Days That Shook The World. Tommy Shepard offered us The Stand for the event on a night in October. The comedian, Paul Sneddon (aka Vladimir McTavish) and Alistair Hulett’s folk group, the Malkies, performed alongside the Oscar nominated Trevor Griffiths. It was quite a night!

We also worked with Edinburgh’s excellent Word Power bookshop to produce the pamphlet, What the Russian Revolution Means To Me. Word Power is are markable resource. Elaine Henry and Tarlochan Gupta-Aura do a great job in sustaining a radical bookshop, when most other left bookshops have disappeared.

The following January, the EPF took on the organisation of an alternative Burns Supper. For the previous decade, this responsibility had been successfully taken on by the SSA/SSP, but it was good to broaden it out. The radical and controversial Burns scholar, Patrick Scott Hogg, spoke, whilst comedian Bruce Morton performed. People even came from as far away as Dublin to attend that one – seeing it advertised on our website!

This January the EPF organised a very successful event to celebrate 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth. Tell us how the contributors were chosen and what else has been planned this year for this anniversary?

We wanted to offer an even better Burns event than that held the previous year. At first we hoped we could get the noted Marxist literary critic and writer Terry Eagleton to speak, but he could not make it. John McAllion stepped in and spoke tremendously well about the link between Burns’ art and his radical commitment in the 1790’s. The ever popular, Vladimir McTavish provided the comedy, whilst we had great musical sessions from the young black American jazz player, William Young, and from Edinburgh’s rising singer songwriter, David Ferrard.

We have also received money from the Lipman Milliband Foundation to produce a pamphlet later this year, What Robert Burns Means To Me.

You have a particular interest in the Scottish artist, Alexander Naysmith. What plans have you for the EPF to bring Naysmith to people’s attention?

Alexander Naysmith is known to everyone but they perhaps don’t realise it, he painted the most famous portrait of Burns. Like Burns, Naysmith was a radical and was blacklisted for his views. He began life as an apprentice coach painter in the Grassmarket before becoming a very successful portrait artist, possibly Scotland’s best, studying under Allan Ramsay, and working in Paris and Milan. But the big mystery about Naysmith is why he suddenly changed to landscape painting apparently at the height of his career. None of the art books will say why, but I know why and actually so do they. It was his politics. His wealthy patrons refused to give him any commissions because he made no secret of his radical republican views. He talked with great passion on the American and French Revolutions during the long portrait sittings. So, under advice from no less a figure than his close friend and ally Robert Burns he took up landscape painting instead. He rose to equal heights in this genre too.

Naysmith was a close friend and collaborator of Burns and out lived the poet by 40 years. He was one of us. And I want the People’s Festival to recognise one of Edinburgh’s people, to organise an exhibition, this August, in the Craigmillar Arts Space, with Naysmith’s portrait of Burns at its centre. We want to make Naysmith’s work and life more widely known. We display work by new artists inspired by him.

Angus Calder is another important writer, who has recently died, associated with Edinburgh. Are there any plans to organise an event celebrating Angus?

There was recently a memorial event for Angus, which I was unable to attend. Angus made many contributions to history and culture and was himself an award-winning poet. He was a member of the SSP and I got to know him quite well. He was a generous and strong supporter of the People’s Festival. I can still remember his contribution at The Flyting we organised in Wester Hailes in 2003. The idea was to revive the great Scottish tradition of cultural polemic, much associated with Hugh MacDiarmid and others, once again largely centred on this city.

The EPF would like to work with others to get more commemorative events organised. We don’t want to take responsibility for everything and I think that’s the best way forward with Angus’s work.

Recently Patrick Scott Hogg asked us if we could organise something to celebrate the great Scottish radical, Thomas Muir. The EPF thought it would be more appropriate that this was done in a West of Scotland setting.

One of Edinburgh’s most controversial figures has been James Connolly. Do you see the EPF trying to reclaim this great socialist republican for Edinburgh?

One of the members of our Committee is Jim Slaven who is well known in the city as organiser of the James Connolly Society. Jim played a key role, in the face of strong opposition, in trying to get Connolly’s legacy recognised in this city. Last August, we hoped to get Terry Eagleton up to speak. This may still happen.

However, in June, Jim was successful in getting the City of Edinburgh Council to organise a one-day event, to coincide with Connolly’s birthday. The event, Over the Water, had speakers from Ireland and Scotland. This June, the EPF hopes to organise a Connolly event in the evening, after the day’s official events. Connolly is very much one of our people and we feel he should be supported by all on the Left especially.

What else has the EPF got organised for this coming year.

We have worked with others, particularly on the Trades Council, in re-establishing May Day in this city. Last year we had Aida Avila from Colombia, Sean Milne, the radical journalist, and Pat Arrowsmith, veteran CND activist, amongst others, as speakers. This year we have Mark Lyons, convenor of the UNITE branch at Grangemouth Refinery, Hilary Wainright, editor of Red Pepper and Matt Wrack from the FBU joining us. We hope to give pride of place to Aleida Guevara, Che Guevara’s daugher, in celebrating 50 years of the Cuban Revolution.

We are also putting on a 20 years after the Poll Tax exhibition, which will concentrate on the role local people and communities played here in defeating this hated measure. The fightback started in Edinburgh, and included such veterans of the struggle as Sadie Rooney, one-time Labour councillor for Prestonfield – until she saw sense!

We also hope to bring a piece of theatre from London’s West End would you believe. The EPF’s producer Barry Fowler is going down to attend the London premiere of Maggie’s End written by Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood in the Shaw Theatre. The play is about the reaction of mining communities in the North East of England to the announcement of Thatcher’s death. Just the job, eh!

It would be great if we could put this on as our first full theatrical production. Even better, if our showing of Maggie’s End coincided with Thatcher’s actual demise!

What event would you like more than any other to put on the EPF?

Along with the photographer, Craig Maclean, I have often discussed the possibility of putting on some free ‘Outdoor Cinema’. Craig and Rob Hoon (from Out of the Blue) have already experimented with projecting huge images on prominent city landmarks. I certainly think the EPF should remain ‘dangerous and challenging’. I like the idea of guerrilla cinema as agitprop!

Edinburgh People’s Festival website

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

—Voltaire

The government of the United States had a major problem. It was April 1917, and on the sixth day of that month, eager to get into the First World War, they declared war on Germany.

Their big problem was this.

Although the American government was up for a fight, the American public was steadfastly pacifist. They saw the war in Europe as just that, a European war, nothing for them to get themselves involved in. Something clearly had to be done to get the population of the United States into a more warlike frame of mind.

On April 13, 1917, president Woodrow Wilson set up the Committee for Public Information, or the Creel Commission as it came to be known. The commission was headed by George Creel, a well-known muckraking journalist, the other formal members being the secretaries of war, state and the navy.

With the Creel Commission’s arrival, modern wartime propaganda in the media age was born. Its aim was to turn pacifist America into a society thirsty for war, to make patriotism and hatred of all things German the noblest aim of every American citizen.

In this the Creel Commission was spectacularly successful. Within months of its formation the American public’s mind was filled with hatred for Germany, German immigrants, anything at all German.

How did the Creel Commission manage to engineer such a remarkable turnaround in public opinion in such a short timeframe?

Quite simply, the Creel Commission understood how to use the media that was available to them (radio, telegraph, films, newspapers, &c.), and harnessed it to change public opinion, with appeals to patriotism and a huge disinformation campaign.

Blatant lies about German soldiers murdering babies and hoisting them up on their bayonets were spread, lies supplied by the British intelligence services, whose stated aim was to control the thoughts of the world (or more specifically at that time the thoughts of the influential intellectual and political classes of the United States). These lies were so powerful that they still persist to this day.

The Creel Commission distributed pamphlets, urging the public to keep an eye open for German spies and recruited the then fledgling Hollywood film industry to produce luridly titled films, such as To Hell with the Kaiser, The Claws of the Hun and The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin.

The Four Minute Men

Telegraphs, cables, radio, all were employed to turn the American population against Germany and all things German, but Creel’s real master stroke was the creation of a group of orators who came to be known as The Four Minute Men.

June 5, 1917, was the date set when all males would have to register for the draft. Many feared a repeat of the draft riots of the Civil War (one of the causes of those riots being a provision whereby those able to afford three hundred dollars could pay a substitute to go and fight for them).

One month before draft registration George Creel unleashed the Four Minute Men on the American public. Their first subject was Universal Service by Selective Draft. In movie theatres the length and breadth of the United States a slide was shown announcing the appearance of the local Four Minute Man.

He would deliver a speech which was never longer than four minutes, a speech designed to stir patriotism and anti-German feeling in the audience.

Four Minute Men were usually local professional men possessed of good public speaking skills, and from May 12 to May 21, cinema audiences were harangued by 75,000 orators, promoting the idea hat in honour of future draftees, registration day should be treated as a festival of honour.

The Four Minute Men were spectacularly successful. On draft registration day, ten million men signed up, where only two months previously no one had wanted anything to do with a European war.

The Four Minute Men went on from this triumph to address their audiences on such topics as Why We Are Fighting and What Our Enemy Really Is. They spoke at lodge and labour union meetings, lumber camps and on Indian reservations.

They operated in 153 universities, there were even junior Four Minute Men who spoke in high schools. By the time the war was over they had given 755,190 speeches to a total of over 314 million Americans. They reached more than 11 million people a month and were the First World War’s most effective form of propaganda.

With the United States finally in the war, and with ever-growing rumblings of discontent and fears of revolution on the home front, the writing was on the wall for the German war effort.

When Germany finally surrendered in 1918, many people on both sides came to realise the huge part that propaganda and the Creel Commission had played in the German’s ultimate defeat, not least among them an Austrian corporal with a funny toothbrush moustache who was to learn the lessons of the Creel Commission well, indeed he was to learn them to devastating, truly devastating, effect.

Right up to the present day the lessons of the Creel Commission are evident whenever states have to convince their populations of the correctness of their decision to go to war, or their support for one side over another in some conflict in which they are not directly militarily involved.

Ruthless

In the very recent past we have seen the Israeli propaganda machine at its ruthless best, defending the Zionist state’s armed wing, the IDF, as it behaved in a manner which would have drawn admiring looks from any playground school bully.

Whenever Israel was challenged or in any way criticised on the enormity of its actions in Gaza, the stock answer on our television screens from a string of literate, media trained Israeli spokespersons was that Israel had the right to protect itself from rockets fired from Gaza.

The lack of questioning of the Israeli government’s party line by a supposedly free media in so-called Western democracies shames those newspapers, radio and TV stations which failed to do so. No reporters were allowed into Gaza and in the hugely compliant mainstream western media, few even bothered to ask the questions, What have you got to hide? or even, But why are Hamas firing rockets into Israel?

Barely anyone connected to the mainstream media explored or attempted to explain the history of the Palestinian conflict, and there was very little mention of the fact that since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 they have mounted what in mediaeval times would have been called a siege of that city.

And while many may disagree with Hamas they are the democratically elected ruling party in Gaza.

Shamefully biased

While there was no chance of Israel losing militarily, there was even less chance of them losing the propaganda war in the west, thanks to the shamefully biased coverage that the savage attack on Gaza received from the compliant BBC and western news channels and newspapers. (I consciously use the word attack and not war, because war hints at some level of comparable military ability.)

No one, however, should really be surprised by the BBC’s compliance. Its attitude toward the Palestinians during the attack was augmented soon after by its shocking and disgusting refusal to broadcast the aid appeal for Gaza, which brought it condemnation from all sides. The BBC pleaded protection of its independence and impartiality, but the corporation is not now, and never has been, a neutral organisation.

Even in its early days, in 1926, during the general strike, it would not allow Ramsay MacDonald the right of reply to Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin. Lord Reith, the BBC’s first director, outwardly gave the impression that he was keen to defend the corporation’s independence and impartiality from the intrusion of the state, but in reality he was prepared to block any views being aired which did not chime with those of Baldwin’s Tory government.

Bearing this in mind, the shockingly biased reporting we viewed on our screens should not leave anyone open-mouthed with astonishment. If a crude rocket fired from Gaza fell on an empty school in Israel, this would receive equal or better coverage than the fact that weapons using the latest technology were falling on occupied buildings filled with real people in Gaza.

Propaganda, it would appear, is not just about stirring up patriotic feelings and creating hatred for the enemy, it can also work at a very effective level for the state by promoting one side’s view in a conflict while largely ignoring the other’s. It can also be a powerful manipulator of perception by what it chooses to omit to tell us.

Not that Gaza is the only example of state propaganda at work in recent times. In the build-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 we were assured that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; there were sexed up dossiers designed to scare us; the Iraqi people deserved democracy and not some tyrant ruling over them; and that we were just the people to deliver that democracy to them.

Of course Saddam Hussein was an evil tyrant, but he did not officially become so in the eyes of the West until he invaded Kuwait and threatened the flow of oil to the west. Up to that point he had been a puppet of the west, had even been armed by them, basically allowed to do what he wanted in his own little fiefdom.

When he gassed the Kurds at Halabja in 1988 it didn’t cause too much of a stir in the western media, but once he stepped out of his little box and into Kuwait he became the devil incarnate. Following the first Gulf War there followed a long period leading up to the second, in which sanctions and propaganda were the weapons of choice.

Fever pitch

In the year leading up to the invasion in 2003, the propaganda reached fever pitch. The gassing of the Kurds at Halabja went from an event which had been largely ignored and became a crime against humanity, and the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction was high on the agenda as a reason for invasion as Saddam was demonised by his former friends.

Sexed up dossiers flew in the face of the evidence of the weapons inspectors who had quietly but effectively been disarming Iraq since the end of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. The propaganda machine went into overdrive, and yet, it didn’t quite succeed, as millions took to the streets around the world to demonstrate against and oppose the planned invasion.

But they went and did it anyway (which is fair comment on the kind of democracy that we live in, and by extension also the one which was planned for Iraq). Of course, no weapons of mass destruction were found, but Saddam was overthrown and Iraq got its democratic government. Oh, yes, and western companies did rather well out of the reconstruction of Iraq.

However, the fact that so many people opposed the war in Iraq demonstrates that even the most vehement state propaganda cannot fool all of the people all of the time. And despite the age of the embedded war reporter being upon us, where reporters are given guided tours of the battlefield rather than roaming free to report what they see, still the truth of the horrors of war, and the things done in our name, occasionally seeps through.

Remember the pictures from Abu Graibh of the torture taking place there? Or the iconic picture of the little Vietnamese girl horribly burned by napalm fleeing her village? Or Seymour Hersh’s uncovering of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam?

Hersh was not actually in Vietnam, but uncovered the story by following a trail of rumour and stories around the United States. Which can only leave you wondering what the huge press corp actually in Vietnam were doing to fill in their time.

Even now, we are living through a time of war time propaganda, as our liberties are curtailed and the state places us all under increasing surveillance, all necessary, we are told, if we are to win the War on Terror.

As socialists, we understand that to win the current war on terror is actually quite easy, it’s just a matter of stopping invading other countries to plunder their resources. By making others feel more secure we thus increase our own security, it’s that simple. Resources thus saved could be used to fight the real wars on terror, such as the terror of the elderly, living on pittance pensions, having to choose between eating or heating their homes in winter.

However, I digress.

From the Creel Commission to the War on Terror, state wartime propaganda has tried, through various mechanisms and with varying degrees of success, to unite populations behind the state’s view.

Ironically, however, a side effect of the creation of the Creel Commission was to have devastating consequences for the left in the United States.

During the First World War, in the States, nearly nine million people worked in war industries and a further four million were in the armed forces. When the war ended, economic difficulties and labour unrest rose to the surface as war industries were left without contracts, leading to many being made redundant.

There were two main union/socialist groups in the United States at that time—The Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW or Wobblies), led by Bill Haywood, and the Socialist Party, led by Eugene Debs.

The Russian Revolution was still fresh in many minds and there was a widespread paranoia regarding anarchists, communists, socialists and dissidents. Following a string of bombings by anarchists, America was beset by fear, in what was to become known as the Red Scare.

Because the IWW and the Socialist Party had both been outspoken objectors to the war, this made them unpatriotic in the minds of much of the American population, and to be even loosely associated with them would arouse suspicion.

A shipyard strike followed by a general strike in Seattle in 1919 was wrongly attributed to the IWW. Charges that they were inciting revolution were levelled against them. Newspaper headlines across the country urged that the strike be put down. The mayor of Seattle guaranteed the city’s safety by announcing that 1500 police and the same number of troops were available to him to break the strike. The strikers, fearing they couldn’t succeed, and might damage the labour movement, called off the strike.

Demonised

All strikes in the next six months were demonised in the press as plots to establish communism, conspiracies against the government and crimes against society.

May Day rallies in 1919 in Boston, New York and Cleveland ended in riots and on June 2 another multi-state bomb plot was uncovered, all leading to an increase in tension, in which workers who went on strike were seen as enemies and fair game for persecution.

The Boston Police went on strike in September, as did the steel workers in a nationwide strike a few weeks later. The Boston police were sacked and replaced, and the steel strike ended without the workers getting any of their demands.

Strikers were branded red and unpatriotic as a general state of hysteria swept the nation. Colleges were seen as hotbeds of revolution and current or prior membership of a leftist organisation led to many secondary school teachers being dismissed.

The Justice Department formed the General Intelligence (or anti-radical) Division of the Bureau of Investigation. It compiled 200,000 cards in a filing system detailing radical organisations, individuals and case histories nationwide.

Thousands of alleged radicals were deported or imprisoned. Counsel was often denied, they were not allowed contact with the outside world and they were often beaten and held in inhumane conditions. (So, Guantanamo was nothing new in America’s history!)

On January 2, 1920, in 33 cities across the United States, more than 4000 supposed radicals were arrested. The New York legislature expelled five socialist assemblymen and 32 states passed laws making it illegal to fly the red flag.

Eventually, saner heads prevailed. Twelve eminent lawyers published a report detailing and condemning the Justice Department’s abuse of civil liberties. The decision to bar the socialist assemblymen was treated with disgust by newspapers and many prominent politicians of the day.

Newspapers came out against proposed anti-sedition bills, in which they saw the seeds of censorship, and business leaders realised that deporting immigrants (many of whom were wrongly branded communist) was leading to the loss of cheap labour. Finally, the Red Scare fizzled out.

Before it did so, however, the propaganda techniques created by the Creel Commission in wartime had extended its tentacles into peace time and dealt a major blow to the left in the United States.

It also gave birth to the modern day public relations business which, with its agenda of controlling the public mind, has never looked kindly on the left, neither in peace time nor in time of war. But it has never been able to quite kill the left off, either.

It should not be forgotten that around the time the Creel Commission was inciting a pacifist population to war that, on the other side of the Atlantic, John McLean stood in the dock of the High Court in Edinburgh on May 9, 1918, charged with incitement to mutiny and sedition, and uttered the unforgettable words, I stand here, then, not as the accused, but as the accuser of capitalism, dripping with blood from head to foot.

State propaganda may commit vast resources to induce their populations to approve of their military ventures, but by putting a socialist perspective on the facts we can always see through the lies and deceptions and shine a light on their darkness.

Why are Liberty’s breasts bared in Delacroix’s painting – Liberty Leading the People? A recent discussion in the SSP raged for a week or two whether Delacroix’s work of Liberty Leading the People was sexist. Is it revolutionary or sexist? Can it be both?

Eugene Delacroix’s Romantic painting of 1830 is probably Delacroix’s most famous work – the bare breasted and footed goddess warrior, triumphantly leading the Parisians with the tricolour in her hand to their ultimate goal for liberty, fraternity and equality! (Sisterhood was never mentioned).

Liberty Leading the People commemorates the July Revolution of 1830 in France, which toppled the Emperor Charles X, a generation or so after the French Revolution. In the painting, Liberty leads the people over the bodies of the fallen. Stridently and encouragingly she holds up the tricolour of the French Revolution in one hand and brandishes a bayonet in the other, the dead being her pedestal, her plinth to declare the revolution – they are victorious.

Why does Liberty in the painting have her breasts on show? Does it matter? Did her dress fall off her shoulders by accident or was she just tardy in her dress? Traditionally, in Romantic paintings, this meant that she was not like other bourgeois, proletariat or peasant women, but having her breasts on show indicated power and even supernatural strength. The bare breasted lady is indeed not a lady at all but a symbol personified by Marianne – a French goddess-like figure and “robust woman of the people”. She symbolises the French Republic. Liberty in Delacroix’s painting is no ordinary woman – she is a revolutionary goddess! She is a goddess-like warrior, who symbolises the Revolution and the Republic, and not a depiction of women’s status in society of the time. This painting pre-dates Impressionists, who recorded what they saw, rather than depicting symbols in a romantic way. Would it have been possible to paint a French mortal woman in this stance? At this time probably not. Only a symbolic woman could have such a role in a piece of historic propaganda rather than a real woman.

So is Delacroix sexist in his subject matter? Well, of course he is! In 1830, it would almost be impossible not to be sexist or patriarchal as the dominant society, even in revolutionary France, was sexist at this time, as was the rest of the Western World. However is the painting sexual and misogynistic? No, I don’t think it is. It’s subject matter is not about sex or sexuality but about the power of the revolution, the breasts are symbolic, not a pair of pneumatic boobs of a ‘page three stunna’.

But what does this painting stand for – is it a revolutionary painting, or an excuse just to see another pair of breasts in a gallery alongside hundreds, even thousands, of other pairs of breasts? As the Guerrilla Girls tell us, only 3% of the paintings in the Metropolitan Museum, in New York, are by women, and of the paintings of women, 83% of them are naked – this is replicated all over the world in art galleries. Women have been objectified over the centuries and so have their body parts, Delacroix is not a feminist but a bourgeois 19th century painter capturing the mood and propagandising the only way he knows how – through Romantic imagery.

Who was Delacroix and why did he paint this picture?

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798. He was the son of the ambassador of the French Republic to Holland. His father had been very active during the revolution. Despite his parents dying when he was a little boy, he would be very aware of the revolution and the terror that reigned afterwards.

He began to paint at age of 17. He was hugely influenced by the Romanticist period of painting and later went on to influence the Impressionist movement, particularly Cezanne and Picasso, who copied his paintings. Romantic paintings are paintings, depictions of fantasy, and an expression of feeling – of love, of fear, of desire and even, of revolution. They are emotional paintings not paintings of reason, or of fact.

In 1830, Delacroix watched the fighting in central Paris alongside his friend and fellow painter Eugene Lami. This fighting had erupted not far from their studio. Delacroix was not a participant but a spectator. He wrote to his brother, Since I have not fought and conquered for the fatherland I can at least paint on its behalf. That’s why he painted
Liberty Leading the People.

Liberty Leading the People is sort of a political poster, it’s the ‘No Poll Tax’ poster of its time. It marks the day when the people rose and dethroned the Bourbon King.

Delacroix made a number of sketches. They contained street fighters, individually and in groups. He decided to construct his artwork around the allegorical female representing Liberty. This was a daring concept – having the bloodstained victims of an actual battle, setting a high-flown symbolic figure in the middle of the dirt and triumphant on the bodies, not of our victims, but of her comrades.

Liberty Leading the People is a two-dimensional painting. Delacroix uses linear perspective to give the effect of 3-dimensional space. He uses aerial perspective with the city in the back being smaller and the sky is blue and grey. The battle of July Revolution of 1830 is the subject matter. The meaning of the image, the content, is the people wanting liberty, and the battle the people went through to gain liberty. Liberty leads the people on. Delacroix uses these images to tell the story – looking at the painting you know that there is a victory, a triumph – even if you are not aware of the situation.

The focal point of this work is Liberty. The emphasis is on Liberty because she is the most important figure in the work. Liberty stands out more than the other figures because she is carrying the flag with bright colours of red, blue and white. According to people who know things about fine art, Liberty Leading the People is very much in scale and proportion. The art is in proportion because of the relationship between the parts to each other. No figure is larger than any other figure. An example is the young man to the right of Liberty. He is not larger than the older men to the left of Liberty. The figures are in scale because the figures are the normal or expected size. The shape (hands, arms, feet, torso, head) is all in the right scale to the actual bodily parts of a person.

Delacroix’s spirit is fully involved in its implementation of Liberty Leading the People. He executes the work with the heroic poses of the people fighting for liberty, the outstretched figure of Liberty, the dead figures, and the attitudes of the people following Liberty. Delacroix has given this painting a sense of full participation, no one is passive in the painting. This work has been called the first overtly political work of modern painting.

Shown at the Salon of 1831, the painting was understood in various ways and caused quite an uproar. Working class, a fishwife, and a whore is what the figure of Liberty was called by Outraged of Paris. Critics said that the painting was a slander of the five glorious days, that Liberty was ignoble, and that the insurgents represented a rude class of people, urchins and workmen. The newly blossoming bourgeoisie was shocked by the painting – it was seen as crude and unnecessary.

Liberty’s breasts were seen as shocking, despite the fact the majority of Romantic paintings depicted naked women or semi-naked women, because she was active and not passive. Her breasts, on show with her bare feet, indicate her power and strength as opposed to her sexuality – naked or semi naked women are usually reclining or surrounded by other women – rather, she is in an active stance of defiance surrounded by mortal men.

Women in the first French Revolution

But was it so impossible to depict a real woman involved in the revolution other than a fantasy warrior goddess? Did women not play a role in the French Revolutions? Women – working class and peasant women – have always played a political role. They were responsible for putting food on the table, and during times of hardship, such as famine, when bread was unavailable or expensive, women had traditionally marched to the civic centre to beseech the local government to ameliorate their misery. During the first French Revolution, this tradition would be followed, but with one new development. Parisian women no longer marched to the civic centre to petition the local magistrates, but rather they marched first to the royal palace itself. They sent their petitions directly to the king then, later, they marched to the national legislature. It was the women who rattled the gates demanding bread!

Women in France formed clubs and organised. They met together to learn how to become citizens of a great nation, rather than subjects of a king, and to press for specific legislation. These women wanted equality of rights within marriage, the right to divorce, extended rights of widows over property and of widowed mothers over their children, publicly guaranteed educational opportunities for girls (including vocational training for poor girls), public training, licensing, and support for midwives in all provinces, guaranteed right to employment, and the exclusion of men from specific traditionally-female professions, like dress-making.

In August 1791 the Declaration to the Rights of Man was made known by the National Assembly. In September 1791, National Assembly was replaced by a newly elected body, the Legislative Assembly, a constitutional monarchy. This prompted Olympe de Gouge, female revolutionary, to write the Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizeness (1791), possibly the best known tract on the rights of women from the period, as a response to the Declaration to the Rights of Man and its silence regarding women.

But the revolution did not deliver male suffrage never mind female suffrage – only men who paid a certain amount of taxes had a say and unemployment was rife. War against foreign forces who wanted to restore King Louis XVI’s power, the return of political instability and the resulting economic hardship, and their desires for sexual equality, all mobilised women once again to act collectively on their own behalf. This resulted in even more marches, more clubs, more petitions, and the increased use of the taxation populaire.

In 1793, the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, created by sans-culotte women, lasted only six months, before it was shut down by authorities. These women were revolutionary, militant feminists! Advocating issues of interest to the radical middle class and the Parisian poor, such as penal reform, occupational training for girls, public morality, and economic reforms. At this time the Jacobins demanded, among other things, that all women wear the Revolutionary dress and cockade (a hat that indicated different factions). A law was duly passed to require all women to put on the proscribed articles and when the Républicaines-révolutionnaires tried to have the law enforced, market women rebelled and petitioned the Convention. The Convention seized their opportunity, dissolved the Society, and outlawed all women’s clubs and associations. The women were seen as anti-revolutionary and as traitors. A period of terror and barbarism reigned in France, but women still rebelled and organised. But by 1794, Olympe de Gouges had been guillotined. The people would not rise up again until 1830 (depicted by Delacroix – could Liberty be Olympe?).

Society of Revolutionary Republican Women Manifesto

The National Assembly, wishing to reform the greatest and most universal of abuses, and to repair the wrongs of a six-thousand-year-long injustice, has decreed and decrees as follows:

1. All the privileges of the male sex are entirely and irrevocably abolished throughout France;
2. The feminine sex will always enjoy the same liberty, advantages, rights, and honours as does the masculine sex;
3. The masculine gender [gendre masculine] will no longer be regarded, even grammatically, as the more noble gender, given that all genders, all sexes, and all beings should be and are equally noble;
4. That no one will henceforth insert in acts, contracts, obligations, etc., this clause, so common but so insulting for women: That the wife is authorized by her husband before those present, because in the household both parties should enjoy the same power and authority;
5. That wearing pants [la culotte] will no longer be the exclusive prerogative of the male sex, but each sex will have the right to wear them in turn;
6. When a soldier has, out of cowardice, compromised French honour, he will no longer be degraded as is the present custom, by making him wear women’s clothing; but as the two sexes are and must be equally honourable in the eyes of humanity, he will henceforth be punished by declaring his gender to be neuter;
7. All persons of the feminine sex must be admitted without exception to the district and departmental assemblies, elevated to municipal responsibilities and even as deputies to the National Assembly, when they fulfil the requirements set forth in the electoral laws. They will have both consultative and deliberative voices. . . .;
8. They can also be appointed as magistrates: there is no better way to reconcile the public with the courts of justice than to seat beauty and to see the graces presiding there;
9. The same applies to all positions, compensations, and military dignities. . .

We are told that Liberty is a symbol, however the women who in the 18th Century penned the above could easily have been Liberty. However they may have worn trousers and had their blousons tightly buttoned up (I would imagine).

For those worried about her breasts being on show forever or her catching cold, Liberty is properly attired by the time she appears as a giant statue guarding over Ellis Island in the US, this time her breasts are covered and instead of a tricolore she holds a torch of justice aloft her head.

Liberty has been printed on stamps and the 100 franc note, she remains a poster girl of the 20th and 21st century – featured on the front cover of the RCN’s Republican Communist magazine, Issue 1 and their pamphlet on republicanism, and on Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Revolution. It is on the front cover of the band, Coldplay’s Viva la Vida album. Liberty Leading the People has inspired many over the decades and centuries.

Long live Liberty!

She sat there beneath the sculpture
Of ‘The Emigrants’ at Helmsdale,
Moved by the woman looking back
To the strath that was once her home.

For she too had to leave here
To work in service or in shops;
She too, with some eighty years now,
Lived in the south and not the north

And these years have moved her to tears
And this woman brought them all back,
Yet she sits with son and daughter
Who marvel at her dignity.

Two highland ladies, one in bronze,
And the other in flesh that pains,
Bestow upon a changing world
Unchanging values that redeem.

This is taken from Jim’s latest book of poetry, Being Beneath the Moon. Available for £2.50 including. postage & packaging from Magdalene Press, 2, Carlton Street, Edinburgh, EH4 1NJ.

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter of intimate secrets,
a letter of memories of you,
of you
of your lips red as henna
of your hair black as mud
of your eyes sweet as honey
of your breasts hard as wild orange
of your lynx gait
and of your caresses
such that I can find no better here…
I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
that would recall the days in our haunts
our nights lost in the long grass
that would recall the shade falling on us from the plum
trees
the moon filtering through the endless palm trees
that would recall the madness
of our passion
and the bitterness
of our separation…

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
that you would not read without sighing
that you would hide from papa Bombo
that you would withhold from mama Kieza
that you would reread without the coldness
of forgetting
a letter to which in all Kilombo
no other would stand comparison…

I wanted to write you a letter
my love,
a letter that would be brought to you by the passing wind
a letter that the cashews and coffee trees
the hyenas and buffaloes
the alligators and grayling
could understand
so that if the wind should lose it on the way
the beasts and plants
with pity for our sharp suffering
from song to song
lament to lament
gabble to gabble
would bring you pure and hot
the burning words
the sorrowful words of the letter
I wanted to write to you my love…

I wanted to write you a letter…

But oh my love, I cannot understand
why it is, why it is, why it is, my dear
that you cannot read
and I – Oh the hopelessness! – cannot write!

In the spring of 2006, immigrant uprisings swept across the United States, sparked by a vicious bill to criminalize undocumented workers. In city after city, protesters held a sea of placards; one message recurred: ‘Today we march, Tomorrow we vote’.

On November 4th, that promise was kept – and it proved decisive.

Fast-changing demographics and massive voter mobilisation allowed Latinos to impact the US election as never before. Exit polls indicated that 3 million more Latinos took part than in 2004 – a leap from 7.6 to 10.5 million. Battleground states Colorado, Nevada, Florida and New Mexico were carried for Barack Obama by a surge of Latino votes; prominent anti-immigrant legislators were dumped.

This article traces the immigrant rights struggle from the marches to the ballot box and sketches the challenges it faces under the new administration.

From marching to voting

Latinos – interchangeably called Hispanics – represent the largest minority group in the United States at 46 million (15.4% of the population). History belies the stereotype: the border divided many Latinos following the seizure of huge tracts of Mexican territory by nineteenth century imperial war. Unwanted from the outset, Latino experience has long been one of persecution and expulsion.

Today, 60% of US Latinos are native-born citizens (a status conferred automatically to those born of immigrant parents). The rest, immigrants from Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and other countries of Central and Latin America, mainly have legal status as naturalised citizens or permanent residents. Of an estimated undocumented populace of 12 million, Latinos comprise 9.6 million – approximately one fifth of all Hispanics. Their numbers expanded markedly through the economic dislocation wrought by NAFTA – increasing by more than 40% since 2000.

Two additional trends fuel the fires of the anti-immigrant right – internal migration and higher birth rates. Latino populations have been dispersing markedly from their historic focus in the southwest and major urban centres, reaching smaller cities and towns across the nation; they also now contribute more than half of all US population growth, the majority from births rather than migration.

Latinos are no homogeneous group, but the experience for most has been bitter in the post-9/11 era. Recast as a ‘national security’ threat, undocumented workers were soon faced with a sharp increase in raids and deportations. States and localities began enacting experimental laws designed to squeeze those without papers. Nativist groups grew in numbers and vehemence. All Latinos felt the chill.

Many Republicans saw electoral advantage in stirring the pot. Others, more strategically, saw opportunity to fundamentally reshape immigration law to better suit capitalist profit. They looked to a cross-party compromise that would include large scale legalization: 2005’s McCain-Kennedy Bill. While it floundered in the Senate, anti-immigrant Republicans in the House rallied behind a very different plan. It would criminalize not just the undocumented but anyone deemed to be assisting their presence in the United States. Menacing, if deeply unrealistic, it threatened capital with massive dislocation. Yet, at the year’s end, the bill passed – and it sparked fully-fledged Latino revolt: huge marches in Washington DC, then Chicago, Milwaukee, Phoenix, next a million on the streets of Los Angeles, on and on, city after city; by April 10th, a National Day of Action spanned over 100 cities; for May 1st, another immense wave of marches. International Workers Day – all but moribund in the US – was spectacularly revived as the ‘Great American Boycott’ – no work, no school, no sales and no buying.

It was an unprecedented high point for immigrant struggles, yet the upsurge was already faltering. April had brought a new Senate bill, far less punitive, that rehashed a clumsy mix of increased border enforcement, a temporary worker programme and, for those resident over 5 years, a protracted path to legalisation. Corporate to its core, the evolving bill addressed some of the movement’s demands and spurred hopes, debate and division. DC policy groups, national organisations and key union figures clutched at a fragile compromise – and feared an escalating movement would jeopardise it. They saw those building for May 1st more as threats than allies with their unequivocal demand for amnesty and rejection of the temporary worker programme. Thus, even as bolder action was being built, leaders tried to stand it down with a competing message of caution. The grass-roots response was still dramatic and widely halted production, but it was greatly blunted. The moment was quickly lost; legislation stalled and mobilisations waned. Raids and deportations increased, while the outgoing Congress pledged billions to militarising the Mexican border.

These events bolstered a voter mobilisation strategy for November’s mid-term elections across the movement, spurred on by foundations willing to fund efforts to raise historically low Latino civic participation and citizenship rates. Thus, groups immersed themselves in registering and turning out new voters, scrupulously non-partisan efforts that nevertheless impacted several key House and Senate races and contributed to the return of a Democrat inclined Congress.

Fresh offensive

Within days came a fresh government offensive: massive raids on meatpacking plants across six states, with over 1,200 workers arrested. In a new move, 270 were slapped with criminal charges. The message was designed for Democrats as much as the movement.

As the new Congress began, President Bush urged a renewed reform effort, calling for a ‘Grand Bargain’ that embraced business demands for an expanded temporary worker program. The resulting bill required yet more border militarisation, and offered only highly punitive and costly legalisation. On top, it demanded 600,000 annual ‘guest worker’ visas. These would establish large-scale indentured servitude: immigrant workers tied firmly to a single employer, on non-renewable visas, with no hope of permanent status and ripe for grotesque abuse. Amid the shifting sands of negotiations, sweeteners were added and some Democrats attempted to remove or blunt guest worker provisions. The mass marches were renewed on May 1st, smaller but still powerful. Amid fevered lobbying, the bill progressively worsened. Two months later, it was dead.

Many states and cities responded with a renewed push to legislate their own anti-immigrant measures.

Meanwhile, the Administration ramped up its attrition: more workplace raids and new schemes to force employers to purge workers with ‘flagged’ Social Security numbers; pursuit of individuals with unexecuted deportation orders became de facto community sweeps. Despite the rhetoric, none of the tactics could reduce the undocumented population, nor did they seriously strive to. Instead, they aimed to further marginalise and subordinate immigrant workers, appease anti-immigrant voters and keep Democrats marshalled behind a strong ‘enforcement’ agenda.

Such was the backdrop as the lengthy presidential race began. Immigration ranked as a consistent ‘top three’ concern for voters. Yet, by the time Barack Obama was confirmed to contest John McCain, it had become the elephant in the room, all but exiled from the campaign trail. As a past sponsor of immigration reform, McCain was the one Republican with a coating of palatability for Latinos and, despite a platform dragged rightwards for the party’s nativist base, he rejected using immigration as a weapon. This owed little to principle and much to the electoral map. In crucial contests, McCain needed significant Latino votes. Instead, they rejected him emphatically.

Obama carried Latinos more than two to one; amongst immigrant voters, he polled 78%.

But while Democrats reaped the dividends, they owed much to a vast array of Latino and immigrant groups who again worked tirelessly to register voters, mobilise turnout and encourage legal residents to pursue citizenship. It was a massive, year-long effort powerfully backed by Spanish language media. Even against 2006, the pool of potential voters had increased dramatically: hundreds of thousands of young Latinos, many with immigrant parents, were now of voting age, while pro-active campaigns, anti-immigrant rhetoric and the prospect of a large fee hike had combined to spur a record number of naturalisations.

Yet even while the movement celebrated success, the all-consuming pursuit of these new voters, with its exclusive focus on citizens, drained many immigrant rights groups, pushing them to neglect their base or give it an ancillary role.

Immigration reform and the ‘First Hundred Days’

When communities are terrorised by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.

Barack Obama speaking to a pro-immigrant audience, July 2008

With the election concluded, and the Obama-era looming, the movement needed a rapid change of gear. Its first response was a mis-step. A coalition of national groups announced a march in Washington DC for the day after inauguration, aiming to draw 100,000 to the capital to remind Obama of his fine words and demand a moratorium on raids. This was rapidly scaled back and then diffused to small local actions, part caution, part logistics as the scale of attendance for the inauguration event became clear. Nevertheless, a strong humanitarian appeal to end raids has continued as the movement’s overriding theme, drawing considerable support from faith-based groups.

Yet this moral outrage squares off against a truly corporate monster. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is located at the very heart of the Department of Homeland Security, the Bush regime’s post 9/11 battering ram for a far-reaching assault on civil liberties and a domestic war on immigrants. It has constructed a massive immigration-industrial complex within its domain, recruiting thousands of well-paid, well-armed shock-troops to visit new forms of terror on immigrant communities; it received almost limitless budgets for immigration prisons and border fortifications, feeding obscene billions to Halliburton, Boeing and Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest private prison provider. Over a five-year period, CCA was handed federal largesse to detain almost a million people in deportation, rising to 33,000 beds per day, while moves to press criminal, not civil, charges against many detainees had begun to offer even higher profits from longer, more lucrative incarcerations. On the eve of Obama’s victory, Virginia investors planned a new $21 million private prison to reap burgeoning federal contracts. Clearly they did not expect the trough to run dry.

Thus, while Obama quickly pledged to empty Guantanamo on taking office, those who hoped for boldness on raids and detentions were disappointed. Incoming head of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, predictably ordered a departmental review. Early indications suggest it may bring a heightened focus on apprehending ‘criminal aliens’ (i.e. those with felony convictions), possibly relieving some pressure on the mass of the undocumented. Detention centres, the source of a growing catalogue of horrors and deaths, will be told to clean up their act. Tough gestures can also be expected, including the bolstering of some areas of enforcement. In short, the engine will be re-tuned, yet it may lose little of its familiar hum.

A similar outcome may await a second Bush legacy, E-Verify, an electronic system to check new hires and reject supposedly undocumented workers. Already in use in tens of thousands of workplaces, its ‘voluntary’ roll-out to businesses was increasingly turned into compulsion by both federal contracts and state laws. In February, Republicans demanded that businesses be required to adopt it as a condition for receiving funds from the stimulus package. Democrats rebuffed the attempt. But while the system is deeply flawed and notoriously metes out ‘collateral damage’ to many legal residents, it is far from clear that Democrats will halt funding for the pilot programme, due for renewal in March. Napolitano declares as a ‘strong supporter’ and well-organised anti-immigrant forces will mobilise their base to lobby Democrats, many of whom already believe it can be ‘improved’. Although union, civil rights and many business groups will join immigrant organisations in pressing for it to be scrapped, they will need to make a good fight.

Securing comprehensive immigration reform – including a path to legalisation for undocumented workers – remains the big goal of the immigrant movement. Before the economic crisis unfolded, Obama pledged a new attempt at major legislation during his first year in office. Immigrant advocates lobbying the administration believe that still holds good and hope for movement between September and March. They will contend that reform is inextricable from recovery and keep the administration mindful of the Latino vote. Although rising domestic job losses will disarm champions of a ‘guest worker’ programme, any emerging bill would likely be cut from similar cloth to past bi-partisan formulas and be deeply problematic for the movement.

More imminently, passage of the Employee Free Choice Act – the election payback sought by the US labour movement – would dramatically enhance immigrant rights, cutting loose a wave of new organising better shielded from union-busting attacks. Immigrant and Latino workers, already central to many recent union victories, would be both prominent leaders and major beneficiaries, while the push could also help re-energise the immigrant rights struggle at a crucial time. The bill’s champions include Obama’s pick for Labour Secretary, Hilda Solis, herself the daughter of Latino immigrants. However, at the time of writing, business interests were mobilising efforts to block her appointment – an opening shot in their determined fight against EFCA.

Obama’s ‘First Hundred Days’ end on May 1st. By then, the immigrant rights movement may have little to celebrate, but its activists are sure to be back, proud and determined, on streets across the United States.

Millions of working people across Britain are fearful and angry at the mounting economic crisis. Manufacturing industry is now shedding jobs at a rate of 30,000 a month.

This week 6,000 workers at drugs giant Glaxo Smith Kline will become the latest victims of the jobs massacre. In the car industry, Honda workers face a shut-down until June.

Now this fear and anger has exploded into unofficial strike action with thousands of workers in oil refineries and power plants walking out.

They are right to want to fight this recession. But the central slogan of the current wave of strike action, British jobs for British workers, targets the wrong people and points in a dangerous direction.

Any demand framed in terms of putting British workers first inevitably paints another set of workers – foreign workers – as the problem.

It pits British workers against Italian, Portuguese and Polish workers. It seeks gains for one group at the expense of the other.

But foreign workers are not to blame for mounting unemployment, rampant subcontracting or worsening pay and conditions on construction sites.

The blame for these things lies squarely with the bosses – of whatever nationality – aided and abetted by neoliberal politicians such as trade secretary Lord Mandelson, the high priest of the free market.

Bad track record

The slogan British jobs for British workers was used by Gordon Brown in his 2007 speech to New Labour’s conference. As many pointed out at the time, it has a bad track record.

It was used in the 1930s by Oswald Mosley’s fascist blackshirts to justify attacks on Jewish workers in east London and elsewhere. It was used by the National Front in the 1970s to try and force black and Asian workers out of their jobs.

These attempts to play the race card to divide workers have always been cheered on by the right, by successive governments and by the bosses. But they have been opposed by a powerful counter tradition of unity across the labour movement.

The working class of this country is multiracial and most people are proud of that fact. It is made up of people descended from migrants who came here seeking work – whether from Ireland, India, the West Indies or eastern Europe.

In recent years trade union activists in supermarket warehouses, on the buses and, indeed, in the power industry have fought hard to unionise migrant workers and ensure that everyone is paid the same and works under the same conditions – regardless of nationality.

The chorus of British jobs for British workers pulls the rug from under the feet of those who’ve fought to create such unity.

And it can only encourage those elements who want to echo filthy tabloid attacks on migrant workers. It’s no surprise that the Daily Star and Daily Express – papers that never miss a chance to attack workers or migrants – initially welcomed the walkouts.

The real issue is not the nationality of workers, but the imposition of neoliberal regulations across the European Union (EU) that reduced workers’ rights and aided employers in every member state.

Britain’s New Labour government has championed every such piece of neoliberal legislation. Yet it has also insisted on exempting Britain from the few pieces of EU legislation that could have benefited workers – such as caps on the number of hours we work.

Lord Mandelson is now advising British workers to go and get jobs in Europe – echoing Tory minister Norman Tebbit’s advice from the 1980s that the unemployed should get on your bike.

Of course British construction workers should be free to work in Germany or Saudi Arabia, just as workers from abroad should be free to work here. But when Mandelson talks of a “free market” in labour, what he wants is a race to the bottom. He wants Latvian workers to be employed here on Latvian wage rates, subject to Latvian health and safety laws.

That is why tens of thousands of trade unionists across Europe have held sustained and militant protests against the EU’s neoliberal attacks on workplace rights.

Workers from Italy and Portugal want decent jobs and a decent future, just like workers here. They are our brothers and sisters.

We should join their fight to ensure that all workers across Europe get the highest pay rates, the best conditions and the strongest health and safety laws. Focusing on “foreign workers” also lets Gordon Brown and New Labour off the hook. For the past 12 years they have continued Margaret Thatcher’s work.

They told us it did not matter that manufacturing jobs were disappearing, because Britain was becoming a global financial centre instead. That was before the banks went bust, of course.

They have kept Thatcher’s anti trade union laws intact and continued to privatise our public services. New Labour gave bosses the key to 10 Downing Street, but treated trade unions with contempt. And far too many in the trade union leadership have gone meekly along with this treatment – or even, shamefully, encouraged the British jobs for British workers slogan.

Mounting anger

Anger over how working people have been treated has been mounting and is now threatening to explode. The current walkouts are a symptom of that. And they have shown that unofficial strike action is an effective way to fight.

But think how effective it would have been if trade unions had led such walkouts over job cuts, subcontracting and factory closures, rather than over foreign workers. Such militant action could force Brown to act quickly.

On Friday of last week 400 members of the Unite trade union in Ireland occupied the Waterford Crystal factory to stop its closure. In the same week 2.5 million French workers struck over jobs, wages and pensions, refusing to pay the cost of the bosses’ crisis.

Every worker is facing the same horrors in the face of a global recession. We can’t let ourselves be divided by racism or nationalist sentiment.

We need a united fight that targets the real culprits – the bankers, the multinationals, the politicians. Let’s turn the anger on those truly responsible for this dreadful recession.

I remember hearing the report of Gordon Brown’s speech to the TUC in 2007 and the phrase British jobs for British workers. As someone who has tried to fight the rise of nationalism, chauvinism and fascism all my adult life, I recall a lurching in my stomach and a fearful yet undefined premonition of things to come.

I should not, of course, have been surprised. On the brink of recession and the worst crisis of capitalism seen by my generation, the phenomenon of Labour Nationalism was an inevitable reaction by an unprincipled party out to opportunistically save as much face as possible. A party with clearly no economic or political solutions to crisis, which is as inevitable as the rise of capitalism itself. You would think all these once-upon-a-time firebrands would remember some basic Marxist analysis?

I also remember being astounded by the irresponsibility of using such a phrase – at that time I was unaware that it had been used by Mosley but it was near enough BNP speak to make even the most wishy-washy, liberal, official, anti racist recoil in disgust. Brown was well aware that in the coming months, if he was to stay in power, he would have to keep the unions and organised workers on his side and he was prepared to appeal to latent chauvinism and racism in order to do so.

The fact that the phrase has come back to bite Brown on the bum is small consolation when we look at the wider ramifications of what has happened in the first weeks of 2009.

The background is now familiar to most people. Workers at the Lindsey refinery, when faced with a sub-contracted workforce, made up entirely of Italian labour threatening wages and conditions, was too much to thole. The walkout was followed by a series of militant wildcat strikes which spread across the country and which felt like the first real fight back to the so called credit crunch by organised workers. Normally the left would have been organising buses of supporters to join the picket lines and been urgingthe strikes and the focus of the strikes to spread beyond that of a dispute in a single industry on a single issue. But this was not ordinary because the uniting slogan – British Jobs for British Workers – Brown’s wee mantra from the past – had a real, practical and potentially malevolent connotation.

The strikers deserved our support. It was a dispute about conditions and wages. No one believes the lies that it was possible to bring in the workforce and put them up in a virtual prison ship, so they did not mix with their British counterparts, and at the same time stick to established wage agreements. It was embarrassing seeing the bosses try to dissemble and use ham fisted sophistry to try to convince the public otherwise.

But when you believe in no borders, the freedom of movement for all workers, an end to immigration controls, and the acceptance of all people as brothers and sisters in struggle, then the gap between the rhetoric of the left, and the slogan used so often by the right, represented a chasm for many on the left to bridge.

Impact on consciousness

The dispute showed once more just how weak the left in Britain is; and how we need to deepen our theoretical understanding of not just the nature of capitalism but the nature of people too. We constantly expect people to react as if they too had been reading Marx for years and are inherently socialist at heart. We delude ourselves about ‘the nature of the working class’ as if it is a homogeneous and consistently progressive force. We constantly fail to understand that if people are continually living in a state constructed climate of fear then it will have a material effect on their consciousness, whether the fear is about so called terror threats, or about the fact that their jobs, savings and pensions may go down the Swanney, at any moment. And although many strikers used the slogan ironically to get at Brown, we must realise that the impact on consciousness of campaigning under such a slogan is negative indeed.

The dispute was resolved, not on the basis of good wages and conditions for all workers, but on the basis of Half of the British Jobs for British Workers! and we will put up with poorer wages and conditions for the Italian workforce. Not the positive outcome anyone wanted and not the starting point for the fight against flailing capitalism that we hoped it would be.

The ramifications of this dispute go even further. As well as showing the weakness of the Left, the impotence of trade union officials and the opportunism of New Labour, who all but labelled the workers racist and told them to get back to work, it has given the BNP something extra to bite on.

The BNP are on a bit of a roll at the moment. Election victory in Swanley, Kent, and a close call in Thringstone, Leicestershire has the official anti fascist establishment reeling. Much wringing of hands and calls for broad fronts to stop the BNP getting a predicted 2 seats in the European elections. I can hear the unprincipled calling for an unprincipled lash up under the banner Anyone bar the BNP. Now I want to stop the BNP in its tracks but I know that this can only be done by offering political alternatives to chauvinism and racism, which divides the working class. It will not be done by the same people who coined the slogan “British Jobs For British Workers” now claiming when the going gets really tough they didn’t really mean it!

As Labour scrambles to revive capitalism by bailing out banks and financial institutions while workers face austerity and despair, why would anyone trust them when they say that the BNP is not the way?

It is much harder to defeat the BNP ideologically now than it was in the 70s and 80s, because the BNP is more sophisticated, populist and plausible. No more crude cartoons of black men who were allegedly out to rob and rape at any opportunity. No attacks on the Irish under the guise of being tough on terror and no more crude, up front demands to repatriate anyone who is not white.

Dangerous flirtations

Labour was never averse to resorting to cheap racism in the past, as their attacks on Kenyan and Ugandan Asians in the 1960’s showed. However, today’s New Labour, involved in five imperialist wars, and constantly attacking asylum seekers and ‘illegal’ migrant workers, has created a climate in which ‘polite’ racism is becoming more acceptable, and vulgar racism can thrive once more. When London dockers marched behind the racist anti-immigrantTory, Enoch Powell, in 1967, it took several years work by committed socialists to turn this legacy round; so that the ‘Pentonville Five’ dockers, jailed for their defiance of the Industrial Relations Act, rightly took their place in the forefront of the struggle against Heath’s Tory government in 1972.

When trade union leaders, like UNITE’s Derek Simpson, also flirt with dangerous slogans like “British jobs for British workers”, socialists have a much greater job on their hands. Simpson ‘earns’ £126, 939 annually, as well as having a virtually free house at union expense in London. It is not only the BNP and New Labour, we need to oppose, but all those hypocrites in our movement. This means winning the battle for democracy in our unions, alongside the development of real internationalism.

Since then, the campaign has been growing and gaining strength. As well as establishing local groups around Britain and Ireland, it has also won the affiliation of two major trade unions; the Public and Commercial Services union, and the train drivers’ union ASLEF. It has also reapplied for affiliation to the Stop the War coalition, after its earlier bid for affiliation was rejected by the STW Conference in 2007 on the (dubious) grounds that it was “entirely hostile” to STW’s work.

Hopi has been holding meetings up and down the country concerning the threat of war against Iran; considering what the election of Barack Obama will mean for US policy in the region; discussing how the brutal Israeli onslaught against the people of Gaza will affect the politics of the region; publicising the struggles of Iranian workers and students for democracy; and, most recently, debating the history and legacy of the Iranian Revolution, 30 years on.

Hopi does not believe the threat of war against Iran has lessened with the election of the new US president; however, it recognises that imperialist aggression can take more than one form. For that reason, at the Hopi national conference held in London in December, it was agreed to launch a new campaign Smash the Sanctions. This campaign, launched on 16th March by John McDonnell MP, will aim to provide solidarity with the Iranian masses which suffer from sanctions imposed by the West, sanctions whose effect is to target and disempower the poor rather than the ruling class, and which are in effect a form of soft war. I encourage all Emancipation & Liberation readers to get involved in the Hopi campaign.

Further information can be found at the website: www.hopoi.org

As the media spotlight on Israel’s latest re-invasion and brutal bombardment of Gaza begins to dim, the Israeli state’s punishment of the Palestinian people continues. The explicit aims of the new year invasion were to stop the sporadic missile launches against the southern Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon and to close the tunnels from Egypt that bring much needed supplies into Gaza. The primitive weaponry available to Palestinian forces in Gaza is no match for the high-tech, state-of-the-art hardware deployed by the Israeli state, supplied by their own weapons manufacturers or provided on generous terms by the US and Britain.

However, there was another agenda underlying these overt aims. Firstly, in October 2008, the ruling coalition government led by Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party had unravelled, hastened by the corruption charges facing the Prime Minister. A general election had been called and Tzipi Livni, replacing Olmert as leader of Kadima, found her party trailing Netanyahu’s Likud Party in the opinion polls, by some distance.

To give themselves a chance of beating Likud, Kadima turned to the Israeli state’s favoured scapegoats, the Palestinians. By launching the attack on Gaza, Kadima and its Labour Party partners pandered to the right by adopting Likud’s open hostility to the Palestinians and making it their own.

The fronting of this cynical offensive by Livni almost brought success as by polling day Kadima had eliminated Likud’s lead. However, it was not enough. While they won the most seats, Kadima’s electoral tactics backfired on them spectacularly. The IDF’s onslaught also increased the votes for the ultra right, in particular, Avigdor Lieberman’s party – Yisraeli Beiteinu. Lieberman’s party favours Israel abandoning territory on the West Bank inhabited by Arab families and annexing blocs of Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. He is also proposing a new loyalty test for Arab citizens of Israel. In other words, he is an open supporter of ethnic cleansing.

Whatever the differences between these Zionist parties as to tactics and policy, they are all committed to their fundamental support for Israel as a ‘Jewish state for a Jewish people’. Again the Palestinians are used and abused at the whim of Israeli electoral politics.

The second, unspoken agenda item was to clear the decks before the Obama presidency began in the US. Using the hiatus following his election but before his inauguration on 20th January, Israel knew that the final days of the Bush presidency would cause them little trouble over the Gaza bombardment and they were not disappointed. Bush’s response, or lack of it, was predictable. Israel wanted the crushing of Hamas and the pacification of Gaza to be complete before Bush left office. This would enable them to negotiate with the US from a position of strength just in case Obama had different ideas about how to handle the Israel/Palestine situation from his presidential predecessors.

Predictable response

They need not have worried. Obama’s response was as predictable as all the others. During June 2008 he made some very friendly noises to the Zionist American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), describing himself as a true friend of Israel and stating

Let me be clear. Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper — but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.

So the Palestinians should not expect any equitable treatment from the Obama presidency.

And what of the Middle East envoy of the EU, US, UN and Russia – a certain Tony Blair? He was appointed to this role 2 years ago due to his ‘success’ in ‘resolving’ the Irish War, no doubt accompanied by a healthy remuneration. How could he ever be seen as a credible negotiator in the Middle East following his illegal and enthusiastic part in bloodbath of Arabs that was the Iraqi invasion? This was further compounded by his refusal to condemn Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, while he was still Prime Minister.

In recent weeks Blair has been awarded the Dan David Prize, through Tel Aviv University for his leadership on the world stage and having shown exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership. Did it not occur to him how acceptance of this award might compromise his nominal role as ‘honest broker’? Presumably his vanity and the $1m prize outweighed this consideration.

Despite having his role as envoy for 2 years, it took Blair until 1st March 2009 to actually visit Gaza. On inspecting the devastation caused by the Israelis, his response was that it was shocking and enormous. That was obvious from the limited footage that came out of Gaza, despite Israeli censorship, during the bombardment in early January. As envoy for the EU, should he not be condemning the destruction by the IDF of projects funded by EU donations? It has taken him almost two months to call for the end of the blockade of Gaza. As with Obama, his silence in early January spoke volumes as to where his allegiance lies.

No imperialist solutions

So while the IDF’s military assault on Gaza has ceased for the time being, the siege being waged by the Israeli state against the Palestinian people has not. Gaza is a concentration camp. Israel still controls what goes in and out by land, sea and air (apart from that smuggled through the tunnels). They allow a drip of humanitarian aid to pass into Gaza. Convoys of food, medical supplies and other essentials such as fuel, including that being supplied by NGOs and the UN, are prevented from reaching the Palestinians who desperately need it.

The blockade, the Wall, the intimidation, the terror and deprivations imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza amount to an attempt to crush all resistance, eradicate all historical memory of Palestinian settlement and prevent a Palestinian nation from emerging. The continued second class status, the denial of equal political rights and the continued removal of Palestinians and Bedouin people living within Israel itself, highlights the apartheid nature of the Israeli state. This is reinforced by the banning, in the run up to the general election, of political parties traditionally supported by Arabs in Israel.

Political solutions to the conflict must not be based
on the interests of British/US imperialism or Israeli
expansionism. All bids at imperialist ‘peace’ settlements (Camp David, Oslo and the Road Map) have all failed because they have not addressed the aspirations of the Palestinian people for genuine self-determination, and accept the continuation of Israel as an apartheid-type state, with Jewish people remaining as the economically and socially privileged, dominant political force.

Likewise any attempts made to broker agreements made by the corrupt rulers of the undemocratic Arab police states have been designed to buttress their own positions and privileges. The only meaningful wider support in the Middle East will come from the oppressed peoples in these lands.

All Palestinian refugees who have been displaced since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 must have the right of return to their homeland. All forms of ethnic cleansing must be opposed and the only truly democratic solution is for a singular, secular, democratic state for all the people of historic Palestine. Such a state needs to guarantee the democratic rights of all minority groups, irrespective of religious beliefs, including the right to practice their religion of choice.

A few on the Left have opposed any effective support for the Palestinians in Gaza. They argue that Palestinians have given their electoral support to Hamas, an Islamicist party. Ironically, it was Netanyahu, who originally gave Israeli state backing to Hamas in Palestine, to undermine the then politically dominant, secular nationalist PLO. However, since the PLO has fallen in behind an imperially imposed two-state ‘solution’, it has become more and more mired in corruption, accepting political backing and money from Israel, the US and the EU. Many now see the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority as acting in much the same manner as those Judenrat officials who ran the Jewish ghettoes on behalf of the Nazis. It was the failure of the formerly politically dominant socialists in the Bund and communists in East European countries, to successfully defend Jews in the face of the Nazi onslaught, that led to the political victory of the Zionist Jewish supremacists amongst the surviving European Jews.

Hamas can, in some ways, be considered as Moslem ‘Zionists’, who want to create a state in which Moslems dominate. They can provide no just and democratic solution for the peoples of Palestine. However, just as the most committed socialists tried to defend all Jews persecuted by the Nazis, so today, we should provide active solidarity with the people of Palestine. As socialists we have to establish our political credentials amongst the Palestinians and other people in the Middle East. This means showing that the international solidarity we offer can be, not only more effective than any pan-Islamicist support, but also offer all the peoples living in historic Palestine an escape from the many forms of exploitation and oppression they face. Socialists also give their support to those Israeli Jews who defend Palestinian rights, especially those who refuse to perform military service.

Practical action, including occupations, has already been taken by students in some of Scotland’s universities, including Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Dundee. Students have demanded that the universities boycott Israeli goods, as well as get rid of any investment in weapons manufacturers, such as BAE Systems.

The political atmosphere must be created in which workers also have the confidence to directly implement solidarity actions. The Viva Palestina convoy, which left London in February, with more than 100 vehicles driven by volunteers, is one action which shows the potential to raise wider support, including trade unions. This convoy eventually crossed into Gaza at Rafah on 9th March with £1.5m worth of aid including medical supplies, clothes, food and toys as well as 20 ambulances, two buses, a fire engine and a fishing boat.

The campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli state must be supported. The instruments and methods of oppression used against the Palestinians, by Israel today, have echoes of those used against the black population in apartheid-era South Africa. This comparison was picked up by South African dock workers in Durban who in February refused to off-load an Israeli ship in solidarity with the Palestinians as part of a week of action against apartheid Israel.

We have a special duty, living as we do in the UK, given successive British governments’ support for the Israeli state. The role of socialists in Scotland must be to provide practical solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and to support an international campaign to isolate Israel – economically, politically, socially and culturally.

A small dark woman in her early thirties, dressed in a black three-quarter length coat: this was how Deirdre McCartin appeared first to the writer thirty years ago. That he noticed her was not because she was outstanding in physical appearance or dress, nor because she made any intervention in the meeting they were attending. However, though she was anonymous, still and silent, her immense vitality could be sensed very clearly.

Vitality was what Deirdre displayed throughout her career as painter, feminist, film-maker, revolutionary socialist, university lecturer, community activist, social worker and at the last, carer, as well as good friend. In whatever she did she applied herself 100 percent. Her approach could embarrass and enrage but usually it got things done.

The writer learnt from Deirdre’s own account of her life before he met her. Born in Glasgow, of Irishborn parents, she had attended art school where she met a fellow student whom she married. They emigrated to New Zealand where her husband’s inability to take her own career seriously led to their divorce. Without his encumbrance, she directed several feminist videos, which stood her in good stead when she decided to try to move to the land of her Irish ancestors and got a director’s post in the features department of Radio Telefis Eireann.

In New Zealand, she had acted as a feminist independently of political affiliations. She had made contact with that country’s section of the Fourth International, but had been unwilling to commit herself to it. Now, in the enclosed environment of Telefis Eireann, she found herself plunged in the middle of an internecine political struggle between the bourgeois establishmentarians and the economistic ‘socialism’ of Official (Sticky) Sinn Fein.

Wisely she rejected both. As a socialist, she opposed the conventional politics of the bourgeoisie, as well as the simplistic, essentially pro-imperialist and cultist approach of the Stickies (an approach that would lead many of their members in Telefis Eireann into the bourgeois politics they had denounced). The militarism of Provisional Sinn Fein did not attract her either. She found herself attracted to the politics of the Irish section of the Fourth International, People’s Democracy, which she joined in 1979.

In this organisation, she took a characteristically active role, concentrated particularly on the women’s struggle. Immediately, her work centred on Women Against H Block, a fight which climaxed with the hunger strikes of 1980-1. Subsequently, she helped organise a major conference of feminist activists and campaigned against the insertion of the anti-abortion clause into the Irish Constitution. The writer remembers how she drove to distribute leaflets on an unusually cold, wet, windy day in the wintry summer of 1983, clad only in a light summer dress, until his wife, Aine, insisted that she covered it with one of her own coats.

For all this activity, her membership of People’s Democracy coincided with a period of setbacks for the workers’ side of the anti-imperialist movement. The hunger strikes ended, though the prisoners’ demands were met clandestinely, with most of the prestige from them going to Sinn Fein. The Anti Abortion Amendment was carried. Economic crisis provoked the Government to operate deflationary policies leading to increased unemployment.

This created problems within People’s Democracy. There were bitter internal disputes as to its way forward. Deirdre participated in these, but her enthusiasm handicapped her in putting her case. She edited one particular document in terms more suitable to tabloid journalism than debate between a few dozen activists. This made her a particular butt for some among her opponents. It is worth stating that, by now some of the most hostile of these have been out of the revolutionary movement for years. She might have stayed to fight them, but she had developed a relationship with a comrade of the International’s Portuguese section and decided her future was in his country, where she moved in 1984.

Within a year, the relationship had collapsed in a bitter row in which her partner’s politically and socially unprincipled behaviour was condoned by the national leadership. She returned to Ireland to lecture on Media Studies in Dublin City University. She resumed membership of the Irish section, but its problems climaxed with a stampede of its less developedcomrades into Sinn Fein. Eventually increasing pressure ofwork caused by university cutbacks forced her to break finally with People’s Democracy in 1989.

She left Dublin for west Co. Cork where she played a leading role in the local community organisation. There, too, she met her ultimate life’s partner, and eventual husband, Charlie Rees. In the mid-nineties, they moved to Scotland. Eventually, she got a teaching job there. They became active members of the Scottish Socialist Party.

The writer had lost contact with Deirdre when she left Dublin. Then, in 1996, she wrote him from Ayr enclosing a contribution that she could ill afford towards a memorial to a dead comrade. A correspondence began and continued until her death. In 1997, when Aine was getting a university degree, Deirdre appeared unexpectedly and disheveled to present her with an enormous bouquet and a painting which she had executed to represent Aine’s soul.

In her usual fashion, she gave unstintingly to the Scottish Socialist Party but there were problems with accommodation and employment. In 2001, they forced Charlie and her to move out of Scotland to Scarborough, where they founded an active independent Socialist Group, selling literature and organising anti-war agitation.

New pressures of unemployment, Charlie’s illness and Deirdre’s sister’s death curtailed all this. In her last year, Deirdre had to concentrate on her work as domestic carer before the cancer that had killed her sister claimed her as well. In her communications, she put a brave face on her fate, organising her death and funeral and Charlie’s future without her. She died having begun a set of twelve new paintings.

After Christmas, 2008, the writer and his wife received from Deirdre a last picture postcard that she had prepared herself, containing a report of her current situation. It ended with the words ‘Pure Joy’. In sending his heartfelt condolences to Charlie, the writer and his wife hope that the spirit of the last words that they received from her remained with the fighter for Socialism in her very last days.

March 18th 2001

Comrades, friends, mates, pals
None of these words describe the way I feel
A bond between us all

They are my left hand

Pure chance we met, just taking any seat
A trick of fate
A show of hands and there we were

I bled today
I cut off my left hand

Charlie Rees

Deidre’s partner, Charlie, was inspired to write this poem in 2001 when, due to factors beyond their control, they had to move away from their home in Dunure, Scotland to northern England. This poem was originally printed in Republican Communist Issue 6 – the forerunner to Emancipation & Liberation.

Other obituaries for Deidre were printed in the Scottish Socialist Voice, The Herald, Scarborough Evening News and on the Socialist Democracy (Ireland) website.

UVF: The Endgame (Poolbeg, 2008) by Jim Cusack & Henry McDonald

Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald are well placed to tell the story of the UVF, having spent decades building up contacts inside the loyalist scene. If you want to know what happened over the last forty years in the North, this is a very useful book. If you want to know why it happened you may need to take the authors’ political analysis with a pinch of salt.

The two writers are keen to downplay evidence of collusion between the British state and loyalist paramilitaries. While they acknowledge that members of the RUC and UDR gave assistance to the loyalist groups, the authors deny that collusion was systematic. Cusack and McDonald give us a stark choice – either the loyalist paramilitaries were sock-puppets of the British state, or else they must have been completely autonomous. But there’s another way of looking at things which is far more convincing: the UVF and the UDA may have a life of their own, but their effectiveness during the Troubles would have been limited if the state forces had dealt with them as they dealt with the Provos. The spectrum of collusion could range from active support (of which there was plenty) to helpful neglect.

The authors also stress their view that loyalist opposition to a united Ireland would have been strong enough to block its realisation, even if the London authorities had been keen to withdraw. There is no way of proving this claim right or wrong, since London never had any intention of withdrawing and was prepared to commit vast resources to contain and defeat the IRA. Again, Cusack and McDonald are trying to lead us back to the false notion that Britain was a neutral player in the conflict. That said there can be no question that the strength of unionist belief in the North (often intensified by IRA attacks on Protestant civilians) is the most important prop for what remains of British rule in Ireland.

At one point the authors accuse Sinn Fein of taking a Jesuitical approach to the consent principle. But you need a bit of mental gymnastics to pick your way around the issue of partition. In principle, it’s wrong to suggest that partition of Ireland has a democratic basis (it was imposed by the crudest form of military aggression and based on sectarian gerrymandering – the Northern state has a unionist majority because it was designed that way, just like the Serb Republic in Bosnia or the Turkish enclave in northern Cyprus). In practice, however, its hard to imagine an end to partition before a large number of Ulster Protestants are convinced they have nothing to fear if British rule ends.

Some left-wingers would rather kick the national question into touch and concentrate on other matters. The experience of the UVF itself suggests why this approach is likely to founder. Cusack and McDonald describe the post-ceasefire attempt to build a working-class unionist force with a progressive line on social and economic issues that was spearheaded by David Ervine and Gusty Spence. They don’t spend much time, however, asking why that attempt failed. The majority of working-class Protestants have continued to vote for the DUP, despite its right-wing economic policies, while the Progressive Unionist Party {linked to the UVF} has failed.

The authors note that Ervine, Spence and Billy Hutchison never convinced the UVF rank-and-file to adopt their left-of-centre agenda. But talk of socialism and class politics was hardly going to blend with loyalty to a capitalist, imperialist state and its institutions. The British Labour Party has always been crippled by its submission to a political order shaped by ruling class interests. The PUP’s support for British nationalism is an even greater hindrance to any progressive ideas its leaders may have wanted to advance. You can cheer the troops returning home from the colonial occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as so many Protestant workers did before Christmas – but ultimately you are cheering a system that inflicts 40% unemployment on the people of West Belfast, regardless of their communal identity

There has been a united response by all the Irish and British political parties to the killing of British soldiers in Antrim and the later killing of a policeman in Craigavon. They all say that:

1. Republican militarists have nothing to offer.
2. The militarists have no support
3. The political process in the North of Ireland is secure.
4. Only one of these assertions is true.

It is true that the militarists offer absolutely no way forward for Irish workers. It is not true to assert that they have no support, nor that the political process is secure. In fact, it is precisely because the political settlement is failing that the militarists are gaining in support.

It is highly unlikely that any outside the most frantic of Sinn Fein supporters believed that that the end result of the peace process would be a united Ireland. What they all believed was that that the Northern statelet could be reformed to become a more equal society. Right from the beginning that proved too much. Democratic rights were mutated by the Good Friday Agreement into supposedly equal sectarian and communal rights. It was a settlement that didn’t give enough to Britain’s Unionist base and it was tweaked towards Unionist majority rule in the St. Andrews Agreement.

During St. Andrews the DUP agreed to devolve policing and justice and Sinn Fein were promised sops around a centre recording the hunger strike, a unified sports stadium and an Irish language act. It proved impossible to get the DUP administration to honour these promises and a Sinn Fein work-to-rule blocking the functioning of the Executive failed. The British gave substantial backhanders to compensate them. More recently, alongside the decision to block any full investigation of state terror came an offer of £12,000 to the relatives of those killed. Unionist outcry led to the withdrawal of the offer. Even the backhanders have dried up. On the economic front the shootings led the Sinn Fein and DUP leaders to cancel an investment tour of the USA – one of many such trips, all failures, serving to underline the absence of any real economic strategy for the North of Ireland.

This has not led to a mass nationalist rejection of the Northern settlement. The Irish capitalists will support any imperialist plan. The power of the Catholic Church has greatly increased under the sectarian setup. The middle class wallow in sectarian privilege marked by ‘equality’ positions in public service, earmarked for one confessional group or the other. Sinn Fein itself has a backbone of ‘community workers’ paid by the state.

A minority of republicans have rejected Sinn Fein and the partitionist settlement, aiming to revive a military campaign against British rule. They have been completely ineffective because of the demoralisation caused by decades of militarism and state repression,because of their fragmented and divided movement, and because of the absence of support. Above all, the total absence of any political program has fatally handicapped them.

Aroma of corruption

They are still not large, but they have now seen the exodus of the last of the militarists holding on in the Provos. More generally there is a growing revulsion at the aroma of corruption around Sinn Fein. A growing number of working class youth are unable to see the new world that the Shinners promised. The result of that growth is that state intelligence has degraded. They still know the old hands, but have only partial penetration of the new cells. There is also the growth of a new infrastructure of supporters willing to provide money, intelligence, safe houses and weapons dumps.

For all that, their opponents are right when they say that republican militarism offers no way forward. In the tradition of pure physical force republicanism, the Real IRA boast that they have no political organisation. Without a thought they include pizza delivery men as targets, apparently unaware of the extent to which the policy of the ‘soft target’ demoralised their own supporters and besmirched the name of republicanism in the past. They have no explanation, other than betrayal, for the abysmal failure of decades of military struggle and the relatively easy absorption of their compatriots into the structure of colonial rule. Above all they seemcompletely unaware that the southern capitalists are the most frantic supporters of the settlement and the chief mechanism through which the political dissolution of the Provos was obtained.

Yet within the narrow grounds of the physical force tradition, the republicans have a clear strategy. Their military capacity represents nothing in relation to British military might, but they believe that even a low level of activity will be enough to bring down the new Stormont regime. A major target is Sinn Fein. The dissident republicans calculate that the pressures of their campaign will collapse the organisation and win supporters to the RIRA. They also calculate that it will act as a recruiting sergeant, bringing disaffected nationalist youth into their ranks.

Speeding up a drive to the right

Politically their belief that armed action can bring down the northern statelet makes little sense. It is true that the Good Friday Agreement has been decaying since its inception, but it has been decaying to the right, into a more naked and reactionary expression of imperialist interest, driven by increasing unionist reaction and republican capitulation. Militarism can only play the traditional role of accelerating the political process – in this case speeding up a drive to the right.

A sign of that drive came quickly, with what one reporter called ‘Martin McGuinness’s ‘Michael Collins moment’. (Collins was a leading figure in the Irish War of Independence, who then led the Free State repression of the republicans). McGuinness called the dissident republicans “traitors to the island of Ireland”. He called on his supporters to inform on them and to support state repression. He claimed that the new dispensation guaranteed political progress, despite being unable to show any such progress other than the presence of themselves and their supporters within the state apparatus. Such was the determination of Sinn Fein to prove their worth that they did not stop with assurances to the British and DUP. A special meeting with representatives of the loyalist paramilitaries brought them in on the act. Apparently the fact that the loyalists retain a full arsenal of weapons aimed at Catholic workers is no longer a cause for censure.

Sinn Fein have little choice. They themselves are targets of the dissident republicans. Any suggestion that the Good Friday process failed would lead to the collapse of their organisation. They must support instant state repression in the hope that it quickly defeats the militarists. In any case, any hesitation on their part might well lead to their expulsion fromthe administration. British Tory leader, David Cameron, has already indicated that he wants to replace the current forced coalition of Sinn Fein and DUP with a ‘voluntary coalition’ – in other words, unionist majority rule. So already we have a step-change to the right. The Irish peace process has left behind any pretence that jaw-jaw will be enough to sustain it. There is to be war-war in the form of state repression. This new dispensation will be spearheaded by Sinn Fein and will enjoy widespread public support.

In the short term the militarists have strengthened the imperialist settlement. In the long run there are still many contradictions. Sinn Fein will be isolated from significant sections of the nationalist working class and will continue to decay. The state will want to target the repression so that the dissident republicans are isolated, but this will be difficult to do given the intelligence deficit. The DUP leadership has welcomed the Provos role in spearheading the reaction, but that does not mean they will reward them by supporting any reform. At the grass-roots the reaction of many members of the DUP to the attacks will be to look for Sinn Fein’s expulsion from the administration.

The Irish peace process will continue its march to the right. A military campaign offers no solution, but then neither does the position of their opponents, which offers frantic support to the British and denounces any political criticism of the settlement as a form of terrorism.

Trade union demonstrations on the days following the deaths illustrated this perfectly. They went well beyond protests about the shooting of the two workers, or more general protests about militarism, to hysterical calls by TU leader, Peter Bunting, for unconditional support for the sectarian status quo. In an even more extreme development, Patricia McKeown of UNISON claimed that the trade unions would act as ‘civic society’ in coordination with the state to make the repression successful.

The widespread hysteria from all sides is not aimed at the relative handful of militarists. The disquiet about the corrupt society that has been brought into existence is much wider. A consistent theme of the supporters of the current settlement has been to demonise the opposition and attempt toconvince workers that the only alternative to supporting the status quo is a sectarian bloodbath. It is this unconditional support for an imperialist settlement, rather than a criticism of militarism that makes this Sinn Fein’s ‘Michael Collins moment’ and makes the organisation an obstacle to the resolution of the Irish question.

The settlement in the North of Ireland is not a democratic settlement. It hardly pretends any longer to be one, depending on popular rejection of a failed militarism and on unconditional support for the state from the formerly anti-imperialist opposition. That’s not enough to prevent its eventual collapse. The former radicals bay their hatred of the militarists, but by blocking any political critique they are telling the disaffected and marginalised that only physical force remains as a response. It is for socialists and democrats to prove the former radicals wrong and build a political opposition.

As of January 2009, the British army in the Six Counties will no longer operate under its own control structures. From January, the occupation forces will take their orders directly from what is called High Headquarters in Edinburgh.

The move will leave around 30 British military personnel, including a brigadier general, surplus to Irish requirements.

For Irish republicans, the development is hardly of major significance – the removal of a brigadier general won’t leave Ireland much closer to liberation.

But in the terminology of normalisation – the tweaking of the British occupation for maximum optical effect – this was another major step on the road to harmony.

The standard bearers for normalisation, however, ignore one major problem when they claim that Ireland and Scotland are now two peas in a British pod.

The British government garrisons 5,000 armed troops in several locations across the Six Counties and introduced the Justice and Security Act in 2007 to give these troops specific permanent powers. The powers, which were previously only available under emergency legislation, include the right to stop, search, question and arrest, as well as the power to enter, search and seize property.

If the British government and its cheerleaders seriously viewed the role and presence of British troops in the Six Counties as being no different to those in Scotland, surely the question arises as to why it refuses to extend the same powers to its troops based there.

After all, by Britain’s own yardstick of what passes for normality in society, Scottish citizens should enjoy the same ‘protection’ given by British troops as Irish citizens in the Six Counties.

What could be more normal than British squaddies, under the control of High Headquarters in Edinburgh, being given powers to arrest and detain Scottish citizens without a warrant; to enter and search the homes of Scottish citizens; to have the power to search and stop the cars and other vehicles of Scottish citizens; to examine and record documents belonging to Scottish citizens; to take possession of lands, buildings and other property belonging to Scottish citizens or to destroy that property or take any action which interferes with a public right or a private right to that property; and to have the power to close Scottish roads and other rights of way?

Could it be that the ordinary Scottish citizen, if faced with armed troops with the legislative ability to exercise such powers at the behest of a government in London, might question the need for those powers?

Could it be that the ordinary Scottish citizen might well feel affronted if stopped by armed troops exercising such powers? Could it be that the ordinary Scottish citizen might consider how he or she could resist? Could that Scottish citizen’s thoughts, along with the thoughts of many others, rest on ways and means to re-assert and re-claim their national independence?

Such thoughts would be considered normal, unless, of course, your views were those of the British government towards Ireland.

Instead, the corporate media ran endless stories on the potential for trouble and clashes between those who supported the parade and those who did not. In focusing on this angle, journalists were only regurgitating the spin of the PSNI and the larger political parties. In the days running up to the parade, talk of “troublemakers” and “dissidents” planning every manner of mayhem filled the column inches. When that mayhem failed to materialise, the media quickly moved on, without ever questioning what the true purpose of the military parade actually was.

So what was the real agenda behind the military display of November 2nd?

The answer is simple. Those who invited the British military into Belfast city centre used the cover of a ‘homecoming parade’ to further the long-standing strategy of Normalisation in Ireland. What, after all, could be more normal than the British army marching the streets of a ‘British’ city? It should be remembered that the original plan for this parade would have seen hundreds of armed troops marching, while military aircraft performed a fly-over across the city. What more powerful image of ‘normality’ could there have been?

This is the context in which éirígí announced its intention to oppose the parade when the idea was first mooted in August of this year. Had it taken place without opposition it would have represented much more than the illusion of normality; it would in fact have demonstrated a high degree of actual normality.

Thankfully, this did not happen. The parade was opposed, and not only by éirígí. By the time the RIR and other British military units marched onto the streets of Belfast a number of political parties, anti-state violence groups and other progressives had come out in opposition to it. At four separate locations across the city, hundreds of republicans and socialists attended protests opposing the triumphalist display.

While the parade went ahead despite these protests, it only did so by mobilising the entire spectrum of unionism and, in doing so, demonstrated the fundamentally abnormal nature of the Six County state. In the weeks running up to the parade, mainstream unionism in the form of the DUP and UUP, ex-British soldiers’ associations and the unionist death squads all worked tirelessly to mobilise their respective supporters.

In many unionist areas, the literal writing on the wall encouraged people to demonstrate their support for the British army and its exploits in Afghanistan and Iraq. In cyber space, a virtual call to arms was issued across social networking websites.

On the morning of November 2nd, thousands of supporters of the RIR lined the route of the parade. Among the crowds, the city councillors who extended the invite to the British army stood shoulder to shoulder with members of Britain’s death squads.

Notorious sectarian killers from Britain’s unofficial militias were lauded as heroes as they sauntered down the street just minutes ahead of their comrades in the official militia passed by. Members of the PSNI stood nonchalantly by as hundreds of thugs chanted sectarian slogans and hurled the vilest of abuse, as well as actual missiles, at the victims of British state violence.

Hundreds, possibly thousands, of PSNI members manned a security ring around Belfast city centre to ensure that no protester could get close to the parade. Surveillance helicopters buzzed overhead, providing up to the minute information for the riot-gear clad paramilitary police on the ground.

While this show of combined strength was nominally in support of British soldiers returning from Afghanistan, it was actually intended to send a message to nationalist and republican Ireland. And the message was clear. Forty years after the civil rights movement was attacked by Stormont, the RUC, the B-Specials and the Paisleyite mobs, it was still business as usual.

Despite all of the superficial changes of the last forty years, it was clear on November 2nd that nothing has really changed. When faced with the prospect of peaceful protests against imperialism, Britain responded with the mobilisation of both its official and unofficial forces. The images of heavily armed PSNI members facing unarmed protesters while sectarian mobs howl in the background was reminiscent of the black and white footage of four decades ago.

In an ironic twist, those who hoped to further the Normalisation agenda have only succeeded in highlighting just how abnormal life in the Six Counties actually is. Those who planned a propaganda coup of ‘Ireland at peace’ instead got a propaganda disaster. The hoped for fly-by of the RAF was replaced by hovering surveillance helicopters. The hoped for television footage of crowds cheering the British army was replaced by footage of yobs jeering the relatives of that army’s Irish victims.

While the damage to Normalisation caused by November 2nd should not be overestimated, it would be equally wrong to underplay it. The events of that day clearly demonstrated how relatively small numbers of people can challenge the Normalisation strategy and, in the process, expose the continuing abnormality of the British occupation.

The challenge now facing republicanism is to follow November 2 with other initiatives to re-build popular opposition to British rule.

It has become unfashionable to speak of working class power. Asserting the power and potential of the working class provokes laughter or leads to the speaker being derided as a mindless doctrinaire.

Yet on Sunday 21st, on the streets of Dublin, we saw working class power – 120,000 working people marching in their own defence. Nor were these people a mindless mob. Working class power stood alongside working class organisation. The marchers stood together in occupations, in union branch and factory groups, as town and country groups. Given that they represent the sentiment of the majority of organised workers in the country, it would have been the work of an afternoon to displace the current government of capitalist crooks and take control of the state.

All that was needed was the will. That will was absent. It is that task – the task of convincing workers of the need to take state power – that is at the centre of socialist politics. It is that task that is so difficult.

It was clear from the demonstration that the majority were firmly behind the policy of the bureaucracy – accepting the need for cuts but looking for a fairer settlement. This was reflected in banners, placards and even T-shirts: ‘Can do our bit – can’t take the whole hit’, ‘Fair deal, not raw deal’, ‘Levy too heavy’ and ‘A better, fairer way’ (to cut wages and services). There was also a conviction that lobbying the government would lead to them changing direction – many marchers did not wait for speeches, but turned and walked away. Many were disinterested in the left publications

For their part, the bureaucracy were absolutely open about their aims. Their spokesperson announced that the purpose of the march was to get back around the table with government. ICTU had published its ten-point plan – a fairer way for the workers to support the bankers. At the rally, ICTU General Secretary, David Begg, announced that the bureaucracy’s plan was the best way to achieve the government aims. ‘It’s the best offer you’ll get,’ he said. There seems little doubt about that.

Yet things are not well, and the bureaucracy’s fear of self-organisation of the working class probably exceeds that of the government. What we saw in Dublin was the last gasp of the Irish Ferries strategy – mass demonstrations as bargaining chips to gain a place at the bosses’ table, followed by a sell-out.

The workers support a fair outcome, but what they mean by this is very different from the bureaucracy’s perspective. They expect that the cutting edge of the crisis will be blunted – that their jobs and pensions will be protected and public services protected. They believe that the capitalists can be forced into paying a large proportion of the bank bail out.

These expectations must fall. The workers are the source of wealth and across the world the strategy is to make them pay. The only way that capitalists can be made to pay is through a process of sequestration and expropriation – the first steps towards a socialist society.

In the coming period union leaders will either strike a deal and lead the offensive against the workers or they will be refused a place at the table and gradually defuse mass opposition. In any case it is the duty of socialists and class-conscious workers to build an independent movement around an alternative working class program.

Far too many of the current left organisations are simply acting as left supporters of the bureaucracy.

www.SocialistDemocracy.org

This year’s SSP Conference takes place against the background of an unprecedented crisis for capitalism. Every day it becomes clearer that the problems in the economy are not just confined to the over-inflated world of finance, but are having a major impact on the productive sector, as factories face closure or short-time working. Furthermore, the large drop in government revenues, due to the big decline in economic activity, threatens huge cuts in social expenditure and provision too. Brown and Darling officially concede that we are living in an economic recession. Other analysts and commentators openly talk of a new depression, perhaps even deeper than that of the 1930’s.

Marxists have long talked of the crisis of capitalism, albeit often only amongst themselves. What is new today is that so many economic commentators agree.The difference now lies in their proposed solutions to deal with the current economic situation. For the mainstream economists, in the various corporate funded think-tanks and university economics departments, the debate is confined to what is the best way to get the capitalist system fully up and running again. In other words how can capitalist accumulation and profitability be restored?

What has changed, in the thinking of business executives and politicians, is the sharp decline in their earlier belief that everything could be left to the market. When the global economy was ‘booming’, millions of workers could have their real wages and social benefits cut, whilst being offered seemingly ‘limitless’ credit as an alternative. Many more millions of peasants, throughout the world, could be uprooted and forced to seek a ‘better life’ as transient migrant labourers. However, whenever workers and peasants made any calls for government funding to address their immediate problems, they were brusquely told by neo-liberals that this would only stall the engines of economic growth. Now, in the face of the economic crisis, which threatens the rich and powerful too, recent advocates of neo-liberalism are on the defensive, as they shamefacedly look to governments to bail out their system.

Neo-liberalism and neo-Keynesianism – the two faces of capitalism

This helps to explain the rapid rise of neo-Keynesianism, with its calls for greater government spending and state regulation of the economy. Keynesianism originally developed in the 1930’s as the ideology of the capitalist system in crisis. It became economic orthodoxy after the experience of the Great Depression and the Second World War. In 1971, the then Republican US President, Richard Nixon, could say We are all Keynesians now.

By then, the majority of capitalists were in agreement over the economic mechanisms needed to keep any economic crisis at bay. However, just as an earlier Gold Standard, free market, economic orthodoxy was dealt a fatal blow by the Stock Market Crash of 1929; and just as the recent global corporate, neo-liberalism has faced its nemesis in the 2008 Credit Crunch; so too, capitalist confidence in Keynesian panaceas came to an end in the mid-1970’s.

It had then become obvious that the maintenance of profit rates was incompatible with steadily rising wages and an expanding welfare state. Furthermore, after 1968, workers’ rising expectations led to large numbers taking strike action, and even to some workers occupying their factories, to defend and advance their interests. Squeezed between declining profits and rising class struggle, capitalism was once more under threat.

This is why big business turned to the previously marginalised, ‘free market’ economists, such as von Hayek and Friedman, to help them overcome their latest problems. These neo-liberals opposed government intervention in the economy and believed that it could be left to ‘the invisible hand’ of the market. However, it was only with the backing of the very visible hand of the state, that the ‘full freedoms’ of the market were restored. Thousands of Chilean socialists and workers were killed after Pinochet’s military coup in 1973, whilst in 1980’s UK and USA, the Thatcher and Reagan led governments promoted mass unemployment and union-busting offensives to discipline the working class.

The Libertarian Right’s dream of a stateless society under the free market proved to be a utopian illusion built on the false notion that capitalism can thrive best without government interference. The application of neo-liberal policies certainly led to the cutting of government spending in the field of direct social expenditure. However, indirect taxes were increased and spending was diverted to the coercive arms of the state – the armed forces, police and judiciary – to undermine the power of the working class; or given directly to the corporations through military spending and other government contracts.

Imperialist interventions were stepped up once more, particularly in Latin America and the Middle East. Some of these had direct economic intent – to ensure corporate control over such vital assets as oil; others were demonstrations of raw ruling class power, to remind people just who was boss, and to promote favoured clients in the ‘Third World’. Eventhe elimination of the USSR-led ‘state socialist’ competition, after 1989, failed to reverse the rise in state expenditure in the West. ‘Free markets’ now depend on massive and continually increased government intervention and spending.

Thus, throughout the prolonged period of neo-liberal ascendancy, from 1979 to 2008, global corporations were benefiting from government promoted wars, and by military, police and security operations designed to break-up ‘communities of resistance’, thus creating pools of cheap flexible labour. Private capital also gained from the huge rip-offs of the tax-payer associated with PFI/PPP schemes; and from the state’s resort to the use of costly private agencies and overpaid consultants.

Far from renewing a ‘free market’ economy, with a much-reduced ‘night-watchman state’, the big corporations and their neo-liberal supporting politicians presided over the continued expansion of, and their dependency upon state power. ‘State capitalism’ was not confined to, nor did it end with the demise of the Soviet Union between 1989-91. It morphed into a new single global order with the definitive victory of the corporate executives over theparty bureaucrats. On a world scale, the global corporations were now the prime beneficiaries of state power.

Furthermore, the demise of the Soviet Union meant that, for a certain period, the US state, which fronted the largest collection of global corporations and had the most powerful armed forces in the world, could either pressure the ‘international’ UN to sanction wars in its interests (retrospectively, if necessary, as in Iraq), or just go it alone. After ‘9/11’, the US state also took upon itself the role of handing out ‘anti-terror licenses’ to supportive governments so they could crush their own troublesome oppositions, e.g. Israel and the Palestinians, Sri Lanka and the Tamils. Meanwhile the arms corporations in the USA, UK, Europe and Israel made billions.

Despite all their support from the state, super-confident and arrogant corporate executives opposed any public scrutiny of their activities. They pushed for the ending of all government regulation of the economy. They demanded the protection of private companies’ ‘commercial confidentiality’, even when undertaking publicly funded projects.

The net result of all this direct and indirect state assistance, combined with the lack of any meaningful public scrutiny and accountability, has been a massive switch of wealth to the ‘masters of the universe’. It also led to greatly increased incomes and perks for their supporters in the media, those they fund in various ‘educational’ institutions, and of course, for their apologists in government. So, by the 1990’s, Clinton’s Democrats and Blair’s New Labour Party could easily have said, We are all neo-liberals now.

However, the current economic crisis has shown that, even in the private, privatised and deregulated sectors of the economy, over which the corporate executives declared their complete competency, they have failed spectacularly. So now they openly demand, on top of all their earlier massive, if largely publicly unacknowledged, state support, mind-boggling financial government subventions – at our expense. This is not to be done for the wider benefit of the public, who have never figured in corporate executive concerns, but to ensure that their current staggering losses are socialised, and to restore their private profits in the future.

(Neo)-Keynesianism, national protectionism and the drive to inter-imperialist wars

As the current economic crisis deepens, even those publicly unaccountable transnational institutions, which corporate capital and its political backers have created or moulded to further their global interests – e.g. G8, IMF, World Bank, WTO, GATT, NATO and the EU – are being subjected to increased internal strains. An overstretched and badly bruised USA can no longer command automatic support for its imperial ventures – especially when they are unsuccessful. China and Russia, and possibly even the EU, or its bigger constituent states in the future, are pulling in different directions, opening up the even more dangerous prospect of inter-imperialist wars.

Faced with falling profits and the devaluation of their assets, competing national ruling classes are beginning to move away from their recent international capitalist cooperation and opt instead for ‘me first and devil take the hindmost’ policies. National neo-Keynesianism is linked to new protectionist drives, designed to uphold particular national capitalist interests, to set worker against worker, and to make future shooting wars between major imperialist powers more likely.

Furthermore, there is the chilling reality that, although several national governments pursued Keynesian policies in the 1930’s, these failed to end the Great Depression. Just prior to the First World War, Rosa Luxemburg had anticipated the choice facing humanity – Socialism or Barbarism. However, it took two world wars, with millions dead and the massive destruction of accumulated capital, to eventually give capitalism a new lease of life after 1945. Any future world war, however, brings the very real prospect of human annihilation, whilst the increased capitalist degradation of the environment adds another twist to Luxemburg’s warning. As the marxist philosopher, Istvan Mezsaros has said, the choice now lies between Socialism or Barbarism if we are lucky!

One worrying early example of the future likelihood of inter-imperialist wars has occurred since the last SSP Conference. The nasty little conflict, which emerged in South Ossetia, last August, highlighted the growing US/Russian antagonism. In this particular case, the US client government in Georgia, led by President Saakashvili, was unable to provoke the direct US intervention it sought on its behalf, despite the rapid Russian reaction to his bloody invasion of South Ossetia. The USA was too bogged down elsewhere to open up a new military front against such a dangerous adversary as Russia.

Saakashvili had to eat humble pie, as the Russian military took control of and guaranteed the ‘independence’ of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The notion that Medvedev and Putin did this for the benefit of two of the many oppressed peoples of the Caucasus would not impress many Chechenyans. Successive US governments, though, have had more success in promoting their imperial aims in the one-time Warsaw Pact countries, and even in the former Soviet Baltic states. These have been drawn into NATO.

US and Russian inter-imperial competition continues, and is now focused upon Ukraine. Its shaky coalition government has recently faced threats to Russian-supplied oil and gas deliveries. This represents a warning from the Russian state not to get any closer to the West. Yet, the lengthy Russian borderlands represent just one potential shatter zone, which could become the focus of a rapid escalation of inter-imperialist wars in the future.

Israel represents another US client state, only too eager to provoke wider wars, to provide cover for its leaders’ desire to ethnically cleanse the remaining Palestinians. During the dog days of the outgoing Bush administration, Barak Obama was keen to be seen to take initiatives to deal with the crisis-ridden American economy, but he remained silent over the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The likely formation of an even further Right Zionist government in Israel, under Netanyahu, seems only to have prompted the US government to attempt to further cripple the elected Hamas government in Gaza, under the guise of foreign aid, channelled through the US/EU/Israeli Palestinian Authority stooges.

President Obama’s new administration includes nobody even remotely connected to those misguided radicals so important to the success of his election campaign. This is because they were not so crucial to his future project – the re-branding of US imperialism – as those big business backers, who now determine the real direction of US state policy. Obama’s Cabinet now includes Republicans, Clintonites and avowed supporters of any Israel – no matter how belligerent and oppressive the government in power. He has, in effect, formed a national coalition. Obama wants to get wider international imperial assistance, after the disastrous gung-ho, go-it-alone record of Bush and his neo-liberal advisors.

After facing unforeseen resistance, Iraq is largely being given-up as bad job. Nevertheless, it has been left in a much weakened and balkanised state, unable any longer to play a role as a regional power. Where outright victory can not be achieved, then a legacy of massive destruction and dislocation has become the preferred US policy option. Israeli operations in Lebanon and Gaza follow the same pattern. This may still provide openings for non-state terrorist organisations to operate; but if they become troublesome, then massive all-out bombing offensives can be launched, with total disregard for the wider human consequences. Increased numbers of US troops are now being sent to a disunited Afghanistan to cause even more havoc and misery. Meanwhile preparations are being made for more draconian sanctions against Iran.

Thus, just as neo-liberalism was not merely an economic strategy, but was accompanied by massive US imperial interventions throughout the world; neither is neo-Keynesianism confined to purely economic measures. It can only lead to further imperialist wars and to increased inter-imperialist competition, with dire consequences for humanity.

Looking at the world through different SSP lenses

Our annual Conference is the time to take a close look at these latest developments, and to debate the policies needed to address the situation we face. The SSP is a broad-based socialist party, which includes different organised platforms as well as less clearly formed tendencies. Conference resolutions are a reflection of these different approaches. The fact that self-declared revolutionary socialists may often find themselves in a minority can easily be understood in today’s non-revolutionary conditions. However, as long as there is genuine democracy in the SSP, the possibility of winning members (and others) to consistent republican and communist politics remains open, in the changed circumstances of the future.

So, what are the political tendencies to be found in the SSP? After the split, overt Left nationalists have become a weaker force, with the departure of the SRSM and several former SNP members. Similarly, Left unionists are a diminished presence, with thedeparture of the CWI,/IS, SWP, and the apparent demise of the Left Unity Platform (although one of their constituents, the Left unionist and social imperialist AWL, still has members in the SSP).

The once dominant International Socialist Movement (ISM) has fragmented, leading to the rise of a variety of Left nationalist, Old Labourist, Green Left, socialist feminist, and pro-social movement, spontaneist ideas. Former ISM platform members still form the majority of the SSP leadership, but are less politically cohesive than they once were. This has allowed other politics, including republican socialist, to make headway in our party.

Although Frontline no longer considers itself to be organised platform of the SSP, in some respects this journal represents a kind of ‘Continuity ISM’, where debates between and beyond former ISM members continue. The former ISM’s international contacts were less extensive than those of the CWI, which they originally broke from, but are still valued by Frontline contributors. Perhaps the closest of these are to be found in the Australian Democratic Socialist Party/Green Left and those Fourth International members, some in the French LCR, and others grouped around the magazine Socialist Resistance in England and Wales. Socialist Resistance has replaced the SWP as the main organised grouping in the post-split Respect Renewal. Unfortunately, Respect’s leader, George Galloway, is a Left unionist. He used his Daily Record column to give support to New Labour in the Glasgow East and Glenrothes byelections. Worryingly, neither Frontline nor Socialist Resistance has publicly commented on this.

Orthodox Trotskyism claimed that nationalisation = socialism

Since the old ISM came out of the Trotskyist and CWI,/Militant traditions, it will be interesting to see how their view of the economic crisis develops. ‘Nationalisation of the top 200 companies’ was always a particular Militant shibboleth. There has been much loose talk in the media, following the effective nationalisation of several major banks by the US and UK governments. Some have even declared that, We are all socialists now.

This equation of ‘nationalisation’ with ‘socialism’ has been the hallmark, not only of neo-liberal economists, but also of official and dissident communists (or socialists as Trotskyists prefer to call themselves in the British Isles). The last vestiges of effective workers’ control of the Soviet economy had been eliminated in 1921, after the crushing of the Kronstadt Rising. After that, official and dissident communist claims that the USSR was still moving towards ‘socialism’, rested either upon the continuation of Communist Party rule, or the extension of nationalised property relations. The idea of socialism became separated from that of genuine democracy or effective workers’ control.

In the USSR, the reality was that the working class had no effective control over the economy, only the ability to passively resist top-down directives – They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work. Indeed, in the West, during the highpoint of class struggle between 1968-75, workers exerted more effective influence over the private companies they worked for, than did those workers in the East over ‘their own’ so-called ‘Workers’ States’. This was because of the relative strength of workers’ organisations in the West, at that time, compared to the situation workers faced in the East, where they had no independent class organisations of their own.

We have to be on guard against any notion of ‘socialism’ that separates state control from effective workers’ and popular democratic control. Any nationalisation or large-scale government funding measures under New Labour can only be aimed at meeting the needs of Brown, Darling and Mandelson’s real class backers – the global corporations.

Therefore, all those parties, which just voted for the government bail out of the banks, behaved in the same manner as those First World War Social Democrats who voted to provide war credits for their governments. For the decision to give trillions of dollars, pounds and euros to corporate capital amounts to a declaration of war upon the working class. We are going to be called on to pay for this through a massive austerity drive and further wars.

What is socialism and communism? – The need for a widened debate in the SSP

Nick McKerrall (Frontline) has been arguing for some time, that the SSP has not yet really developed a programme, which can address the situation we face. The RCN disagrees with Nick’s advocacy of a temporary retreat from public politics, in favour of a period of internal education. We believe, not only that you can do both, but that theoretical and programmatic development stems from political practice as well as from internal party education. However, we do agree with Nick that a new SSP programme is required. To do this though, the SSP needs to undertake a serious analysis of exactly what we mean by socialism (and/or communism) and, in particular, what role we see for the state, both today and in any revolutionary transition to a new society.

This is why, following on from our well-received pamphlet, Republicanism, Socialism and Democracy, we intend to produce another later this year, which addresses the issue of Communism and Socialism. Istvan Mezsaros’ challenging new book, with its essay, Socialism in the Twenty First Century, makes a major contribution to the wider ongoing international debate on this largely abandoned area of theory. The RCN has also been following the interesting ideas put forward in The Commune, a new website magazine, which is also beginning to re-examine earlier ideas about what constitutes socialism/communism.

There have always been some in the SSP who hanker after the days of ‘Old Labour’ (albeit within a Scottish national framework). This is not surprising, given the historical strength of Labourism in Scotland, and the spectacular betrayals of New Labour. The sudden revival of officially sponsored Keynesianism could give some sustenance to those who claim that state ownership is inherently better than private ownership, regardless of who controls the state.

However, the renewed debate between neo-liberals and (neo)-Keynesians should be used as an opportunity to put forward a distinctive socialist challenge to both these variants of capitalist thought. If all we do is become Left Keynesians, championing the role of the capitalist state over the capitalist corporation, then this can only contribute to the rebuilding of the discredited Labour Left, and to the possible demise of the SSP. Over a decade’s hard work to create an independent socialist organisation will have gone to waste.

The political dangers of national protectionism – ‘British jobs for British workers’

If the war in South Ossetia heralded possible new inter-imperialist wars, then the politically ambiguous legacy left by the recent strike at the Lindsey oil refinery, highlights the dangers of the shift to the politics of national protectionism. The defence of hard-won national contracts for all workers, whatever their nationality, is vitally important, especially since Lord Mandelson is the main promoter of ‘drive to the bottom’ in the EU. However, the reactionary demand of ‘British jobs for British workers’ can not be glibly dismissed. The BNP may have been seen off the picket lines, but you can bet it will be their support that grows in the forthcoming EU elections, and not those of some socialist parties hailing a great victory. Furthermore, the claim that such specifically ‘British’ appeals have little purchase in Scotland, are also worrying, given the undercurrent of unionism and loyalism, which can still be found here. Union Jack caps were to be seen amongst the Grangemouth strikers.

At present, the main danger to workers in Scotland is not the BNP, but the revived credibility of such Labour Party trade union leaders as UNITE’s Derek Simpson. He jumped on to the ‘British jobs for British workers’ bandwagon to cover up his opposition to any rank and file control in the union, and to smother the recent exposes of his privileged fat-cat lifestyle, paid for by union members. It was the Broad Left leaders of UNITE who undermined earlier militant strike action by Heathrow cleaners – but they were largely Asian women workers.

There has also been the attempt by Bob Crow of the Broad Left led RMT to play the ‘British workers’ card. He is trying to form a ‘No2EU’ electoral challenge in the forthcoming Euro-elections, with a platform defending ‘British democracy’ and opposing ‘social dumping’, i.e. migrant workers. Much of this could be accepted by the anti-EU UKIP.

The only significant strike in the last year in Scotland was that conducted by Grangemouth refinery workers to defend their pensions. Their success was linked to their key role in the economy, and has not been repeated by other workers whose pensions are under attack. Although there have been other strikes, involving civil servants and post office workers, these have been the token one day strikes used by trade union bureaucrats to let off steam. This perhaps explains the lack of motions this year to Conference addressing industrial struggle.

Broad Left versus Rank and File

Broad Leftism, however, remains the dominant industrial strategy pushed by the SSP leadership. In this there has been little movement from the old Militant tradition. Broad Leftism sees the main job of socialists in the unions as being to try and replace Rightwing leaders with Left wing leaders, through winning leading posts within the union bureaucracy. The underlying problem with this strategy is highlighted by the appearance of new Broad Left campaigns to replace old Broad Left leaders who have themselves become the new Right.

The alternative Rank and File approach, advocated by the RCN, represents an industrial republican approach. We see union sovereignty lying not in the union HQs, but in the collective memberships in their workplaces. Socialists should not accept the union bureaucrats’ right to dismiss workers’ own actions as ‘unofficial’. When such activity occurs, this amounts to independent workers’ action. When action is extended by means of mass picketing, it should still remain under the effective control of the workers involved. Elected officials, on the average pay of the members they represent, should service not control rank and file union members.

Furthermore, there are now large swathes of non-unionised workers in the country. A debate needs to be opened up in the SSP about the possibility of building additional, new, independent rank and file controlled unions. Too often, socialists can become mere recruiting sergeants for the existing cynical dues-pocketing bureaucrats, who offer no real support to their new members. Here, the experience of the Independent Workers Union in Ireland could be valuable. Ireland is a country where trade unionists have been hamstrung, since 1987, by the bureaucrats’ support for social partnerships with the government and employers.

As with Derek Simpson’s posturing, we should also be on the look-out for other moves to hoodwink workers, who are increasingly questioning union leaders’ near total commitment to New Labour and ‘social partnership’. We could well be told that, We are all in this crisis together, and that ‘our’ union leaders intend to push for more widely-based ‘worker participation schemes’, so that our concerns can be aired. Remember, the irregular conjugation of the verb ‘to participate’ in government/corporate speak – I participate; you participate; he and she participates; we participate; you participate, but – They decide.

The real importance of trade unions is that they are a key part of working class self-organisation – well, when they are not the playthings of privileged officials, or instruments in the hands of the governments and employers, that is. We can exert no meaningful control over the wider economy and society if we have no effective control over our own organisations. So the strengthening of independent working class organisations is the most pressing task of all in the current crisis. It will be necessary to return to the Broad Left versus Rank and File debate in the SSP.

Socialist unity can not be divorced from ‘internationalism from below’ in these islands

If motions addressing industrial struggle are absent from the Conference agenda, a call for socialist unity has come from Renfrewshire branch. This, however, is largely confined to Scotland, with a nod and a wink to certain developments in England and Wales – such as the Convention of the Left and the RMT initiative. However, the geographical scope of this motion doesn’t cover the full extent of the UK state, which also includes the ‘Six Counties’. Nor does it address the problem of the shared British and Irish governments’ promotion of the ‘Peace Process’ and ‘Devolution-all-round’. Together these policies are designed to maintain the best political framework for the corporations’ profitable operations in these islands. This common ruling class strategy has the backing of the British, Scottish and Welsh TUCs, and the Irish CTU. They are all locked into the ‘social partnerships’, which have turned union leaders into a free personnel management service for the employers.

Since 1992, the ‘Peace Process’, originally pioneered under Major’s government, has enjoyed shared Tory/Labour support. This reflects the widespread British (and Irish) ruling class agreement, in the face of their pressing need to pacify and reassert control over the republican ‘communities of resistance’ in the ‘Six Counties’. The disillusionment with the lack of any real ‘peace dividend’ has contributed to the re-emergence of physical force republicanism, with the killing of two British soldiers and a local PSNI officer by dissident republicans. In the absence of a wider political and social movement, such actions can only lead to further demoralisation and increased state repression.

It had already become clear that ‘British normality’had not been established in the ‘Six Counties’. Nevertheless, the UK government is now sufficiently in control that current Labour/Tory bipartisan support is fraying, as both parties develop their own strategies to preserve the Union in the face of the wider challenges.

Significantly, the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists have decided to form their own alliance to contest the next UK General Election. This represents the emergence of a new distinct and potentially dangerous Rightist strategy. The UUP is still heavily coloured by Protestant sectarianism, with many members active in the Orange Order. As yet, even after 87 years of the ‘Six County’ statelet and the UUP’s existence, it has not fielded even a single ‘Castle Catholic’ parliamentary candidate. This should be a wake-up call to the SSP, when Conservatives look for support in Scotland for their alliance with the UUP.

In the past, sections of the SSP, still influenced by the Militant’s old Left unionist traditions, were unable to make the distinction between the Irish republican struggle to end political and religious sectarianism, breaking the link with the UK, and the Ulster loyalists’ defence of Protestant privilege and the British Union. This was all dismissed as a ‘war between two tribes’. Gordon Brown’s call for ‘British jobs for British workers’ has been widely condemned for playing into the BNP’s hands. Now that the Conservatives want to give new life to Right Unionism in Scotland, it won’t only be the BNP who are given succour, but those supporters of the even more dangerous loyalist death squads, currently lying low over here.

Real headway has been made in the SSP over adopting a republican socialist strategy to break-up the UK and to end Irish partition, as opposed to a Left nationalist strategy for Scotland only. Nevertheless, the latter notion still enjoys some influential support in our party. The SSP initiated Calton Hill Declaration of October 9th, 2004, and the Republican Socialist Convention held last November 29th, were significant landmarks in the development of socialist republicanism. However, in the face of new reactionary pressures, we will need to stand firm in our commitment to democratic republicanism and to an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance with socialists in Ireland, Wales and England.

Such a strategy will be needed, not only to confront Unionism in all its forms, but to make any meaningful moves towards socialism in these islands. The failure of the ‘Peace Process’ to create ‘British normality’ in the ‘Six Counties’, along with the spectacular demise of the Irish ‘Celtic Tiger’ economic model, now offer socialists a real opportunity to put forward our alternative to both the unionists and the nationalists, if we can clearly see what is at stake.

The SNP retreats – the Republican Socialist Convention shows the way forward

The Republican Socialist Convention also drew the attention of visiting socialist republicans in England, Ireland and Wales to the political significance of the centrepiece policy of the SNP-led Scottish Executive – a referendum on Scotland’s independence. Although the various unionist parties have been quick to see the possible dangers this represents to the future of the UK, there has hardly been any discussion about this amongst the British Left. Their supporters in Scotland have probably put the issue to the very back of their minds, now that the economic crisis has taken the wind out of the SNP’s sails.

The SNP’s ‘independence’ project was based on the backing of key sectors of the Scottish business community, and tied to continued capitalist economic growth, led by a lightly-regulated Scottish-based finance sector. Indeed the Royal Bank of Scotland’s document, Wealth Creation in Scotland, provided the economic underpinning for the SNP’s proposed mild social democratic measures.

Alex Salmond, once keen to be seen in the company of the likes of Sir George Mathewson, now keeps his distance – at least in public. Whether all Donald Trump’s proposed new business venture in Aberdeenshire survives the crisis remains to be seen. However, other SNP big business backers such as Brian Souter, Sir Tom Farmer and Donald Macdonald recently demanded to meet Salmond. Soon afterwards, the SNP’s other flagship policy, the abolition of the council tax, was dropped. It probably won’t be long before the independence referendum is abandoned too, in favour of the more ‘realistic’ ‘Devolution-max’ proposals emanating from the British unionists’ Calman Commission, which the SNP once scorned.

The RCN has long predicted that the SNP would fall fully into line with other constitutional nationalist parties, such as the Parti Quebecois, Catalan Convergence, the Basque National Party (PNV) and now ‘New’ Sinn Fein too (after taking ministerial office in her majesty’s Stormont government and voting in the Dail for government bailout of the Irish banks). An SNP, now holding office, will follow these constitutional nationalist parties in opting for gradual political reforms acceptable to the major imperial powers, the global corporations, and in particular, to their respective national business communities. The SNP’s recent, openly declared support for the British monarchy is a clear indicator of the very cautious road they have adopted. It also shows us exactly whose support they are courting.

If the SSP is to make its policy of the break-up of the imperial and unionist UK a reality, this means an end to tail-ending the SNP in such organisations as Independence First and the Scottish Constitutional Convention. These organisations are completely tied to the SNP leadership’s rate of movement – which could very soon be in a reverse direction. The precedent of the successful Calton Hill Declaration, and the new links to Ireland, Wales and England, made through the Republican Socialist Convention, offer the best basis for a campaign of radical constitutional and social change.

There has been general agreement within the SSP that any intervention in an ‘independence referendum’ campaign would be accompanied by clearly articulated economic and social measures, which would point to the type of society that we would want to help create. The fact that a Scottish Executive launched referendum is looking more unlikely does not lessen our need to develop a programme with such policies. Indeed the current crisis of capitalism makes it even more imperative, since it will increase the strains upon the Union.

Two things should be clear though – any calls the SSP makes for government intervention should be coupled with the demand for increased democratic control. Indeed, it is the republican demand for greater democracy, and not the nationalist desire to paint more British unionist institutions tartan, that should inform our campaign for political independence. Secondly, we can’t afford to confine such a campaign to Scotland. The various unionist parties are quite capable of whipping up British chauvinist feeling within the various countries constituting the UK, whilst warning an Irish government, which will be only too keen to comply, to keep its nose out.

The need for wider international contacts and campaigns

The ongoing economic crisis has created divisions amongst the leaders of the EU. We can take some cheer from the massive students and workers’ struggles, which emerged in Greece, and the mass strike action in France. The ‘unofficial’/independentworkers’ occupation at Waterford Glass has also given the trade union bureaucrats such a nasty jolt, that it has even prodded the Irish CTU into action. They called the massive 120,000 strong, Dublin demonstration on February 21st. Significantly, the wildcat actions of those fighting for ‘British jobs for British workers’, has not been seen by the TUC torepresent a similar threat. The TUC and STUC remain bogged down in complacent inertia, pleased to hear a few sympathetic remarks from such government ministers as Alan Johnson and Peter Hain.

However, mounting resistance elsewhere will not stop European capitalists from trying to offload the cost of the current crisis on to workers’ shoulders. They are still trying to revive the neo-liberal Lisbon Treaty. Their attempt to browbeat the Irish into overturning their clear ‘No’ vote last year, should be met by an international campaign to back rejection once again. We hope that our Irish comrades in the Irish Socialist Network and Fourthwrite will consider seeking such support.

Unfortunately, the still divided European (and worldwide) Left is a long way from creating the new International we need to properly meet current challenges. This is one reason why the SSP must participate more fully in those wider international initiatives that do exist. To this end, the RCN has brought the formation of the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, along with the European Anti-Capitalist Alliance (EACA), to the attention of Conference. We also offer a suggestion on how to improve their election platform for the forthcoming Euro-election.

Hopefully, the South Edinburgh SSP motion, which also advocates being part of the joint EACA campaign in the forthcoming Euro-elections, will also be adopted by Conference. Support for such policies would highlight the SSP’s active participation, alongside other European socialists, in promoting international solutions to counter the austerity and war-mongering drives being promoted by European capitalists, and by the Union Jack chauvinists of the BNP, UKIP, the Tories and sections of the Labour Party, as well as showing those SNP supporters committed to genuine independence that this can not be achieved on the coat-tails of the likes of Matthewson, Souter, et al. The purpose of the SSP is not to represent the interests solely of Scottish workers, but to act as an organisation representing all workers living and working in Scotland, whatever their nationality. This can only be achieved successfully in an active international alliance with others.

Despite the depth of the current crisis, capitalism could still yet be given new life, in a more barbaric form, and at the expense of the vast majority of working people. However, we shouldn’t underestimate its capacity, though, to bring about our complete extinction through nuclear war or man-made environmental catastrophe. Only socialists can offer an alternative future for humanity and the Earth. This is the bold challenge the SSP has to face up to at its 2009 Annual Conference.

Issue 17 Cover

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Comments are open, so until articles are online, feel free to discuss the articles below. When they are online you can discuss the article in it’s comment section.

• Editorial: Well, the crisis of capitalism has arrived – so, what do we do now!, RCN
• The dual crisis of capital and labour, The Commune
• Dublin mobilisation – lions led by donkeys, John McAnulty
• Challenging normalisation on the streets of Belfast, Brian Leeson
• Normality? By whose standards?, Eirigi
• Sinn Fein’s ‘Michael Collins moment’, John McAnulty
• Inside Ulster Loyalism, Ed Walsh
• Deidre McCartin, D.R. O’Connor Lysaght
• March 18th 2001, Charlie Rees
• Isolate ‘apartheid’ Israel, Nick Clarke
• HOPI: campaign update, Andrew Weir
• Brown’s appeal to British chauvinism, Mary McGregor
• Blame the bosses not ‘foreign workers’, Socialist Worker
• Obamanos: Latinos, the US election and the immigrant rights struggle, Dave Moore
• Letter from a contract worker, Antonio Jacinto
• Clearances, Jim Aitken
• Delacroix’s Liberty leading the people – what does it stand for?, Catriona Grant
• Half truths, mistruths and anything but the truth, Rod MacGregor
• Edinburgh People’s Festival – an interview with Colin Fox, Allan Armstrong

We are experiencing, in the world and in Europe, the worst crisis capitalism has known since 1929; a crisis which is hitting head-on the banks and all the financial companies, but whose roots lie in the economic system itself. Capitalist globalisation has accelerated and concentrated the extortion of wealth and its introduction into the Stock Exchange, with the ceaseless search for ever greater financial profits. These profits are being made at the cost of increased exploitation of the populations of the countries dominated by imperialism, who have seen their natural wealth plundered by the imperialist trusts; and of increased exploitation of the workers of the entire world, driven to compete with each other so that the price of labour is the lowest possible. Today, one again, it is the workers and the poorest populations who are being expropriated and strangled by the credit crisis, laid off in their hundreds of thousands in order to restore the shareholders’ profits.

These profits are also being made with contempt for the need to safeguard the environment and the planet. Global warming is bearing witness to deforestation, dangerous industrial processes and the explosive growth of the circulation of goods which use forms of transport that pollute.

The crisis is revealing to the light of day that the thousands of billions extorted from wage-earners are being squandered on the Stock Exchanges of New York, London, Paris or Frankfurt. It is also showing that states can find in a few days hundreds of billions to save the banks and the capitalist system, while they refuse to give more money for public services, jobs and social protection, the protection of the environment or the cancellation of the debt of the countries dominated by imperialism: 20 billion dollars per year for 15 years would be enough to put an end to food insecurity in the world…

The responses of each of the European states converge: socialisation of losses and privatisation of profits, injection of public money to save finance, cutting back on funds for public services, increased pressure on the unemployed and those in work, mass lay-offs in order to safeguard profits. Their Europe is not our Europe! It is at the service of the trusts and of finance. It is this Europe that the peoples of the Netherlands and France, in 2005, and then of Ireland in 2008 have rejected, by massively voting no to the projected constitutional treaty.

We propose an emergency plan for Europe, which we will defend in struggles and in the 2009 elections. This crisis makes it more necessary than ever to put an end in Europe to policies that are opposed to the needs of the workers, policies that are dictated by the shareholders and those who own capital. The European Union was built by the capitalists and bankers precisely to aid this increasing circulation of goods and capital in the search for maximum profit.

We denounce the capitalist system and the policies of the European Union, and we put forward a series of proposals for a social and democratic Europe, which would impose a different sharing out of the wealth that exists, a Europe in the service of the workers and the peoples. The policies of the European Union, decided by the governments of the 27 Member States, constitute the framework for a series of social and democratic attacks against the interests of the popular classes.

The treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon are so many documents which aim to accentuate the pressure on the people, to adapt each country in Europe to the maximum search for profits for the capitalists and to disengagement from all public policies in the service of the population.

In the current phase of capitalist globalisation, competition is leading the ruling classes and the governments to call into question a whole series of previous social gains.

Labour laws, wage levels, working hours, public services, health and pensions systems are all today being deregulated.

One of the other dimensions of these neo-liberal policies leads to the building of a Fortress Europe against immigrants and the people of the global South. Their rights are swept aside in a general climate of security policies of which they are the prime target. Worse, the Schengen agreement leads the European police forces to pursue them and to expel them from the EU countries. The far Right wages increasingly xenophobic campaigns.

This Europe is the Europe of war: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in other countries in the world, the European Union, alongside the US government, backs a policy devoted to the interests of the multinationals, opposed to the rights of the peoples.

In Europe, the everyday life of millions of wage-workers, peasants, young people and unemployed is made worse by the practical consequences of all these neo-liberal capitalist policies and attacks on democratic freedoms. However the people do not accept them. They have been consulted, through referendums, in France, in the Netherlands, and again recently in Ireland. Each time the people said No! No to the antisocial and anti-democratic policies of the European Union. Most recent elections have seen the defeat of outgoing governments, whether of left or right, expressing the peoples’ rejection of all governmental polices.

We want, today, to put forward on the European level an alternative to all these capitalist policies which, in the sole search of profit, destroy employment and lives and make the conditions of the most deprived worse and worse. There is another solution for the workers and the peoples than the policies put into operation by the European social-democrats and their allies. These policies and the left governments which have implemented them, have only been a left version of liberalism, the policies implemented also corresponding to the agenda of European capitalists on questions of social deregulation and dismantling of social protection.

The proposals which we want to put forward start from daily struggles, are based on the criteria of social needs of the greatest number, those who live from their labour power, they go against the dictatorship of the market, against the free competition which crushes millions of people in Europe and throughout the world.

They aim to harmonise upward social rights, wages, working conditions, pensions and social legislation for the workers of the different European countries. Their goal is to defend the popular classes against the rescue plans for banks and financial groups set up by the European governments. Faced with the plans of the different European bourgeoisies and their governments, the workers’ movement must defend its own plan while calling into question the powers of speculative financial capital.

The satisfaction of social needs not only implies a new sharing out of wealth which gives priority to social needs before the law of profit, which is based on funding that taxes capitalist profits, but also poses the problem of a reorganization of the principal sectors of the economy within a public and social framework, under the control and with the participation of the workers and the citizens. Instead of pouring more and more money into a bottomless pit to save the capitalists from bankruptcy, what is needed is the coordination on the European level of a rescue plan for the economy so that it satisfies the needs of the population and not those of the possessing classes.

That means to be opposed to the policy of the European Union, not to turn in on ourselves on nationalist positions, but on the contrary to develop the idea of another Europe, a social and democratic Europe, an internationalist Europe, founded on the solidarity of the peoples of Europe and the whole world.

1. The right for all to stable, guaranteed employment with decent wages.

   Today, in Europe the bosses are closing down hundreds of workplaces, laying of tens of thousands of workers in order to maintain their profits. The right to employment must be guaranteed by the refusal of redundancies. The right to a job must be guaranteed by refusing lay-offs and short-time working. Unemployment must be abolished. The casualisation which manufactures millions of poor workers must be abolished. For equal work, equal wages and identical contracts. Collective bargaining agreements must be aligned on the best that has been won and apply to all companies and all employees in the same sector.

   This right to employment must be ensured by coordinated policies of reduction of working hours, without flexibility, precariousness and with workers’ control over working conditions and over hiring. The European Commission directive which allows flexibility of working hours up to 65 hours must be rejected.

   The fight against unemployment and for the creation of jobs must be based on the setting in motion, under public control and control by citizens, of plans of development of European infrastructures – rail networks, channels, the information society, renewable energies and activities that are socially useful and respectful of the environment and which make it possible to stop production that is useless and harmful to the environment, as well as war industries.

2. For a European minimum wage!

   Everyone, wage-workers, unemployed, pensioners and or young people receiving education and training, has a right to a minimum income that makes it possible to live correctly.

   Whatever the level of activity of the workplace, full wages must be maintained.

   For an increase of 300 euros in all wages, all incomes in Europe. As the workers of Dacia in Romania demand, as many trade unions demand, the immediate demand for a wage increase of 300 euros responds to the urgency of the situation.

   We have to impose in all the countries of Europe the right to a wage and a minimum income which tend towards upward unification of European workers.

   We must also impose the sliding scale of wages, which is the principal weapon of workers against inflation and the fall in purchasing power that it implies.

3. For public services

   Against privatizations. For the return to the public sector of all privatised enterprises. For the defence and the extension of public services within the European framework. That must involve challenging all the treaties and all the directives which opened up to competition all the sectors dealing with fundamental social needs: health, pensions, education, postal services, transport, and telecommunications, energy, water, the pharmaceutical industry. In all these fields, it is necessary to maintain, restore or create national or European public services. The right to housing means considering as an economic priority the creation of a public housing service. The interdependence of all the sectors of the economy must lead the workers and their organizations to defend public and social ownership of the principal sectors of the economy.

4. The population must control the accounts of enterprises and the movements of capital, impose the closing-down of tax havens and the establishment of taxes on the movement of capital invested in financial operations. Economic urgency makes it necessary for the banks to be nationalised, not to socialise the losses, but to place them lastingly under public control and at the service of popular needs, in particular the European Central Bank so that savings can be used to finance socially useful works (housing, public transport).
5. Not to Fortress Europe of racism and discrimination

   Equal rights for all residents in Europe, “nationals” or originating in a foreign country; voting rights for foreigners, access to all social rights, an end to all security policies, in particular in relation to youth and immigrants. To Fortress Europe, we counterpose an open Europe that guarantees people freedom of movement and settlement.

6. For a democratic Europe guaranteeing equal rights between men and women

   For the right to abortion and to free and available contraception, for the right to divorce, for a struggle against sexual and marital violence, for the free choice of sexual orientation, refusal of all forms of discrimination in recruitment and employment because of colour, origin, sex or sexual orientation.

7. For a Europe of ecology

   The questions of global warming and renewable energies, and more generally all the environmental problems, constitute today one of the central dimensions of a social and democratic Europe. The demand for durable development in the service of a balance between humankind and nature conflicts with the logic of all the policies which remain within the framework of the market and the law of profit. The example of the biofuels which are used as a substitute for oil and lead to the aggravation of the food crisis and the impoverishment of millions of peasants is a good example of this market “ecology”. An environmental and development policy must be turned towards new forms of production and consumption which give priority to the public framework

8. No to war! For the right of peoples to decide for themselves!

   The explosive growth of military expenditure, the participation of European armies in Iraq or Afghanistan testifies to the remilitarization of Europe, testifies to the neo-imperialist policy carried out by European government in the interests of the multinationals which dominate the planet. The construction of a European defence integrated into NATO is one of the most dangerous signs of this new European military policy. The only answer to this growing danger of war is a policy of disarmament and peace, for the withdrawal of all Western troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, so that the Iraqi people can exercise full sovereignty, for the withdrawal of Zionist troops and settlers from the occupied Palestinian territories. Peace in the Middle-East involves the recognition of the national rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of the refugees to return and the constitution of a sovereign state.

All these ruptures will not take place without massive intervention by workers and peoples. Struggles co-ordinated at a European level have already taken place. We want to develop convergences between our struggles, to make or consolidate lasting links between social movements, between anti-capitalist parties, establish permanent frameworks for discussion and action so as to help bring to fruition common objectives.

Contents of forthcoming book

1. Introduction
2. The growing conflict between liberal and conservative unionism in the period of New Imperialism
3. Michael Davitt and the launching of the Irish Revolution in 1879
4. Davitt adopts an ‘internationalism from below’ strategy to spread the revolution
5. The struggle against coercion and for land triggers off a new movement in England and Scotland
6. Parnell’s ‘counter-revolution within the revolution’
7. Shifting the main focus of the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance to Scotland
8. The ending of the liberal consensus in the face of the rise of the New Imperialism
9. Davitt widens his ‘internationalism from below’ alliance, and brings in Wales
10. ‘Internationalism from below’ and the weaknesses of Irish nationalism and British Left radicalism
11. From land and labour struggles to the beginning of independent labour political organisation in Scotland
12. From land nationalisation to the eight hour day
13. Broadening the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance around the political demand for Home Rule
14. 1889-92 – the new industrial and political offensive
15. The rise and wider effects of New Unionism in Ireland
16. The limits of Davitt’s politics reached as the Irish Home Rule Movement splits
17. The thwarted hopes of New Unionism and the Home Rule Movement after the 1892 General Election
18. The employers’ offensive and the retreat of New Unionism
19. The final break-up of the ‘internationalism from below’ alliance
20. 1895 – High Imperialism triumphant and the emergence of Connolly’s Irish Socialist Republican Party

1. Introduction

Why should we spend time examining a period of history from over a hundred years ago? Perhaps the best reason is that, between 1879 and 1895, there are striking parallels to the situation we find ourselves in today. This was also a period of increasing inter-imperialist competition, as the previously dominant world power began to lose its leading position. In the late nineteenth century it was the UK that found itself in this new position in the world; today it is the USA, with the UK continuing to fall well down the global pecking order.

Furthermore, when we compare the situation in the UK, over the two periods, we can see the continuing significance of national democratic challenges to the unionist state. The Irish Revolution(1), which began in 1879, led to a questioning of the very existence of the UK, and to profound divisions amongst the British ruling class over how best to maintain its rule over these islands and their wider empire. The demands for national self-determination in Ireland, Scotland and Wales were linked to major social and economic struggles. Clearly, there are significant echoes of this situation today.

From 1875, under the impact of the New Imperialism(2), Disraeli’s Conservative government had begun to pursue increasingly aggressive colonial policies. These reflected the concerns of a British ruling class, now facing global competition from a larger number of European states. From 1879, however, a challenge developed to this recharged British imperialism. The new opposition drew its politics largely from the social republican tradition found in Ireland, and the radical tradition found in England, Scotland and Wales. It formed largely as result of the failure of traditional Gladstonian Liberals to uphold their earlier support for civil rights and opposition to colonial expansion.

Michael Davitt, migrant, former textile worker, Fenian and Irish Land League organiser, was the central figure involved. He attempted to unite land and labour struggles, across the four nations constituting the United Kingdom, and beyond into the British colonies and the USA. Davitt developed an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance to win wider support for the Irish National Land League (INLL), one of the biggest ‘lower orders’ movements in the nineteenth century UK. However, he deepened this alliance in England, Scotland and Wales, by contributing to the development of independent land and labour organisations in each of these nations.

The leader of the INLL, Charles Parnell, though, had other ideas. In 1882, he closed down the INLL in order to form a purely constitutional nationalist party, the National League, with the aim of winning Irish Home Rule. However, the first Irish Home Rule Bill, adopted by Gladstone’s Liberal government, was defeated in 1886, and a new government, led by the Conservative Lord Salisbury, took office.

Davitt now had to confront the thoroughly jingoist, racist and sectarian Unionist alliance. It would countenance no concession over Irish Home Rule, and revelled enthusiastically over every latest imperial exploit. This was the conservative unionist approach to maintaining British ruling class domination at home and abroad. It vehemently opposed the liberal unionist approach(3) with its support for home rule (devolution) for the constituent nations of the UK.

As New Imperialism increased its stranglehold on British politics, the Liberal Party, including many on its Radical wing, were drawn into its slipstream. A section of advanced Radicals, however, reacted against this and made the first tentative steps towards Socialism. Robert Cunningham-Graham and Keir Hardie were just two examples. However, many former Radicals (and Liberal Party members), who became Socialists, retained much of their earlier politics.

Furthermore, the Conservative Party, hitherto seen as a major impediment to any democratic advance, began to develop a Tory Democrat wing. Its supporters made appeals to the newly enfranchised workers. They were offered limited economic reforms in return for giving their support to British ruling class attempts to expand the Empire. Disraeli was one of the first to see the possibilities of harnessing the link between reform and Empire; but it was Randolph Churchill, who attempted to develop this further, by appealing directly to the working class. He also strongly linked expansion of the British Empire with the defence of the existing British Union. He looked to the local dignitary-led, Orange Order in Ulster, for inspiration in forming his pro-imperial, cross class alliance.

Many workers were drawn into Conservative Unionist and further Right populist organisations. They did hope to gain economically from the Empire, or to draw some psychological comfort by celebrating their racial or religious ‘superiority’. The growing number of wars directed against the peoples of the colonies took only a small number of British lives. The real cost was to come later, when the inevitable consequence of growing inter-imperialist competition led to the mass slaughter of the First World War. The leaders of the Conservative Unionists though, were then able to look with smug satisfaction as their Liberal, Irish constitutional nationalist, and some Labour and Socialist ‘opponents’, threw themselves into the promotion of the carnage.

However, back in the 1880’s, a few Tory Democrats, such as Henry Hyndman and Henry Champion, broke with the Conservative Party and became leading figures in the new Socialist movement. Like the former Radical Liberals, these individuals also retained aspects of their old politics, especially their lingering support for English/Anglo-Saxon/British supremacy and racism. Some of the clashes, which took place in the early Socialist movement, reflected this earlier division between Radical Liberals and Tory Democrats.

The infant Social Democratic Federation (SDF), formed in 1885, showed many of the characteristics which have plagued later attempts at Socialist agitation – whether to concentrate on direct action and socialist propaganda or to seek political office; and whether to seek constitutional change or economic reform. Failure to develop a coherent programme and an integrated strategy contributed to many of the setbacks and consequent splits amongst Socialists at the time, just as they continue to do today.

One of these breakaway organisations was the small but quite influential Socialist League (SL). It soon became divided between those who wanted to make propaganda for Socialism, and those, mainly in its affiliated Scottish Land and Labour League (SLLL), who wanted to orientate upon trade union, crofter and cottar struggles.

However, it was the launching of the Irish Land War, in 1879, and the formation of the INLL, which had largely inspired the formation of the SDF, as former advanced Radicals turned to Socialism. They joined the wider struggle against those forces, both Conservative and Liberal, either aggressively advancing the Empire and defending the Union, or meekly bowing before this new onslaught.

The social struggle was closely linked to the political battle for greater Irish self-determination. Furthermore, as new Land Leagues were formed in Scotland and Wales, the demand for Home Rule was taken up in these nations too. The majority of the independent Crofter candidates of 1885, and the new Scottish Labour Party, formed in 1888, supported both Irish and Scottish Home Rule.

Many key individuals, from the land and labour struggles of the 1880’s, contributed to the massive wave of ‘New (Trade) Unionism’, which burst out in 1889. They faced a similar situation to that faced by socialists and trade unionists today. Only then, socialists were up against the politics of Lib-Labism. Trade union leaders were still tied to an earlier Radical Liberal vision of a Free Trade Empire and a ‘fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work.

Today we are up against the politics of New Labour, with trade union leaders locked into ‘Social Partnership’. Sometimes these misleaders may still hanker back to the disappearing vision of the post-war, Welfare State Empire, when workers in the UK were looked after ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

Furthermore, prior to 1889, the vast majority of unskilled and casual workers lay outside the Old Unions. Today, union membership has shrunk back to a minority, mostly concentrated in the public sector. This has left vast numbers of private sector workers, particularly women, migrant and part-time workers unorganised.

Today, the majority of the British Left is tied to a Broad Left strategy of recapturing the ‘old’ unions by replacing their existing leaders with new Left leaders (many of whom are earlier Broad Left leaders!) In contrast, any contemporary ‘New Unionism’ would aim to thoroughly democratise existing unions and bring them under rank and file workers’ control; or, where necessary, build completely new unions to organise those workers now completely unorganised.

Nor is the Left nationalist notion of breakaway unions much use against the global corporations, which workers confront today. Yes, national (and sectoral) union sections need more autonomy, but unions should be as extensive as possible. The key issue is not the existence of union HQ flying a national flag (e.g. the tricolour or saltire), but the necessity for union sovereignty to reside with workers at the workplace level, not in the union HQs. The independent Scottish teachers’ union, the EIS, is one of the most fervent upholders of the embrace of government and employers, not so much in social partnership, more a morganatic marriage(4).

Today, some may take comfort from the fact that the majority of the British ruling class has opted for the liberal, and not the conservative unionist option, in order to maintain its rule over the UK, and its continued, albeit now indirect, influence over Ireland. New Labour promotes ‘Devolution-all-round’ (i.e. for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales) and the ‘Peace Process’ in Ireland, backed by the social partnerships of compliant trade union and demanding governments and employers.

Yet, the aims of today’s liberal unionists are the same as those of the conservative unionists of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They both want to create the best political environment for their principal class backers. Today this means allowing corporate capitalists to lower wages, attack working conditions and undermine pensions, through deregulation and privatisation. It means fawning before the requirements of finance capital.

The British ruling class may indeed have learned some political lessons from their one-time support for intransigent conservative unionism. When Conservative and Liberal Unionists tried to face down the rising demand for Irish Home Rule, in the 1880’s, ‘90s and first two decades of the twentieth century, this eventually proved to be a disastrous strategy for them. By 1922, direct rule over ‘the Twenty Six Counties’ had been ended, and the UK state had begun to break-up.

However, the post-1922 UK-Irish ‘settlement’, imposed after the threat of a renewed war on the Irish people, seemed so permanent, that this lesson appeared to be forgotten by the late 1960’s. This was when new national democratic movements confronted the British ruling class. Initially this ruling class did flirt with both liberal centralist(5) and devolution(6) measures to deal with these challenges, which coincided with major working class struggles. However, once the ruling class had reasserted its control, under the two post-1974 Labour governments, it returned to the old failed conservative unionist strategy of defence of the constitutional status quo, backed by threats and coercion. Meanwhile, anti-trade union laws soon tamed most union leaderships. The TUC and the Labour Party leaders left the miners isolated, when they defied these new laws. The NUM faced the full panoply of state power between 1984-5. The Labour/TUC’s acceptance of ‘New Realism’ was but the beginnings of the road back to the Lib-Lab ‘Old Unionism’ of the nineteenth century, and its complete acceptance of capitalist rule.

Thatcher’s British Unionist ‘No, No, No’ intransigence first began under Labour, in the late 70’s in Northern Ireland. The attempt by Labour Irish Secretary, Roy Mason, to criminalise any effective opposition had its parallels in Forster, Gladstone’s Liberal Irish Secretary, and his introduction of coercion to Ireland in 1881, long before Lord Salisbury’s Conservative Irish Secretary, ‘Bloody Balfour’ was given free rein in 1887.

The failure of the UK state to meet the constitutional and economic reform demands raised by the Civil Rights Movement in ‘the Six Counties’, produced another period of constitutional instability, lasting over a quarter of a century. An overt and determined republican challenge emerged within the UK’s frontiers. Thatcher’s later attempt to deny any political self-determination, for either Scotland or Wales, made the ‘National Question’ an even wider and more volatile political issue.

This is one reason why the majority of the British ruling class unceremoniously dumped Thatcher in 1990 and, under John Major’s government adopted The Downing Street Agreement. The Conservatives were now committed to a liberal unionist strategy to defend the Union. When this proved too limited to contain the wider challenge, the ruling class turned instead to New Labour’s policy of ‘Devolution-all-round’. This is, in effect, a return to the old nineteenth century Liberal Home Rule strategy.

However, as with the nineteenth century division between Conservatives and Liberals, there is little difference today in the real aims of the Tories and New Labour. Both are committed to maintaining a British imperial presence in the wider world. Both accept that the British ruling class can now only achieve this as a junior partner to US imperialism. This leads to continuous wars, attacks on civil rights, austerity welfare provision, and the scape-goating of migrant workers. There is now a tension between New Labour and the Tories’ liberal unionism and their increasingly conservative militaristic imperialism. And, under today’s prevailing political conditions it is the liberal unionism which is more likely to give.

New Labour soon falls back on the nastier traits, usually associated with conservative unionism and imperialism. Indeed, as international competition becomes more pronounced, in the wake of the current Credit Crunch and the deepening worldwide recession, New Labour is preparing the ground for even more jingoistic, racist and sectarian forces.

The Immigration Minister, Philip Woolas, has shown that it is not only conservatives, who will stoop to the gutter, when it comes to racist attacks to divert attention from the real causes of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, the rise of the BNP, and the continued presence of malevolent loyalist forces in ‘the Six Counties’, show that even more sinister forces are lurking not far below the surface in the UK. Events in Berlusconi’s Italy demonstrate that it is but a short step to government encouraged racist assaults and murders of migrants and ethnic minorities.

As we try to build a new socialist movement, an appreciation of the Left’s politics, between 1879 and 1895, provides us with useful insights. The Radicals were then the dominant force on the Left, from whom the infant socialist and labour movements inherited much of their politics. The Radicals wanted to return to the mid-century ‘glory days’ of free trade and international peace.

Today’s Left includes those ‘Marxist’ Radicals – the entrants and outriders of the British Labour Party – who hope to re-establish the welfare state and to prolong the long period since 1945 without a world war. This is often tied to their Broad Left strategy for reclaiming the trade unions for ‘real Labour’. However, just as the rise New Imperialism, at the end of the nineteenth century, spelled the end of the old international ‘free trade’ capitalist order, so the development of corporate capitalist imperialism today means that the post-1945 social democratic world has changed irrevocably. New answers and approaches are required.

‘Marxist’ Radicals in the SWP and Socialist Party(7), often defend the formation and continued existence of the UK as a ‘progressive’ achievement. They claim this historical gain needs to be defended against the attacks of the nationalists in Scotland and Wales, completely failing to see the wider democratic issues at stake. They take some consolation in the ‘Peace Process’ in ‘the Six Counties’, which appears, for the time being, to have reopened the road for ‘bread and butter’ issues, i.e. traditional labourist politics.

When ‘Marxist’ Radicals are forced to address the major democratic and constitutional issues, they tend to follow their nineteenth century Radical predecessors. They either see the ‘National Question’ as a diversion form the ‘real struggle’, or give support to liberal unionist options to defend the UK.

Some ‘Marxist’ Radicals go further, but still only end up tailing the more thoughtful sections of the British ruling class, when they call for more powers for the existing devolved assemblies. A few would go so far as to advocate a new federal arrangement between the constituent parts of the UK. This last ditch liberal option has a long pedigree, whenever the British union state is under threat from national democratic movements. Others, however, hide behind the formulation of support for the ‘right of national self-determination’. The political effect of this is to leave it to the various nationalist parties to take the lead formulating the politics of the national democratic movements.

By examining past history, we can see that the politics of those advocating various ‘British roads to socialism’ are but continuations of an older British Radical tradition, which dominated the Left in the UK, in the late nineteenth century. Radicals tended to leave the political initiative to the Liberal Party and their Irish nationalist allies. Today’s ‘Marxist’ Radicals also take their political lead over the UK constitution from the liberal wing of the British ruling class, or sometimes, if unwittingly, from the nationalist parties – Sinn Fein, SNP and Plaid Cymru.

Yet, between 1888 and 1894, an alternative tradition developed, which recognised some of the weaknesses of the ‘Marxist’ Radicals. The Scottish Socialist Federation (SSF) was formed, which brought together SDF and SL/SLLL members, as well as other socialists, to try and go beyond the politics of Radicalism and the subservience of Lib-Labism. In some respects the SSF anticipated the Scottish Socialist Alliance, (SSA) formed in 1996, in the aftermath of the Anti-Poll Tax Struggle, along with the continued failure of the Labour Party to meet workers’ needs.

In the end, just as Davitt’s social republicanism collapsed into populist nationalism in Ireland, so the SSF, along with the Scottish Labour Party, it had backed, collapsed into the hybrid Radical/Tory Democrat tradition of ‘the British road to socialism’ found in the Independent Labour Party or the SDF. Today, after a major internal crisis, the SSA’s successor organisation, the Scottish Socialist Party, faces powerful pulls, in the form of Left nationalism and Left unionism.

By 1895, the limitations of Davitt’s politics had become quite apparent, as the British ruling class regained the political initiative and derailed the Home Rule challenge. Furthermore, Socialists, at the time, were unable to take the vigorous post-1889 New (Trade) Unionism challenge forward. It also went into retreat, taking on some of the characteristics of ‘Old Unionism’ once more. A new politics was needed to unite the political and economic wings of a wider working class movement.

However, it was within the SSF milieu that a real alternative began to emerge, in the figure of James Connolly. Like Davitt, he was a member of an Irish migrant family. Connolly’s family had settled in Edinburgh. He received his initial political training within the Scottish Socialist Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. He was to make a quantum leap in his political approach, though, when he moved to Dublin and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896.

Connolly developed the socialist republican politics needed to take Davitt’s social republican and radical ‘internationalism from below’ alliance on to a higher level, during the heyday of High Imperialism from 1895. Connolly’s consistent anti-unionism and anti-imperialism offered a clear strategy, which opposed both the Irish constitutional nationalism and the ‘British road to socialism’, which was supported by most of the British Left of his day. Instead, Connolly promoted a ‘break-up of the UK and British Empire road to socialism’.

In today’s world, imperialism still calls the shots. The continued existence of the UK provides the British ruling class with a powerful bastion of support. This unionist and monarchist state is fundamentally undemocratic. It gives the British ruling class a whole host of draconian Crown Powers to maintain its rule. Even the formally independent Irish Republic has to bow to British ruling class needs. This was highlighted by Irish leaders’ recent reluctant acceptance of the liabilities of UK-owned banks in Ireland. Nor did the Irish government get many thanks for their pioneering bank rescue plan to save domestic capitalism, much of which Brown and Darling so quickly copied and took credit for.

However, the current financial crisis has also highlighted the close links between leading Scottish nationalists and the British banks. In panic, they have quietly rushed into the arms of the UK government to develop a common approach to address shared capitalist concerns. Meanwhile, in public, the SNP and New Labour continue their political squabbles, jockeying for position to gain relative advantages for their particular capitalist backers.

British politicians, whether they are Labour, Conservative or Liberal Democrat, continue to argue with SNP politicians over the extent of power to be awarded to the devolved Scottish Parliament at Holyrood. However, they all agree that the monarchy and the ruling class’s Crown Powers have to remain in place, that the Bank of England will control the economy through the continued use of sterling, and that suitable arrangements have to be made to accommodate NATO and to protect US imperial interests. All these parties are wedded to neo-liberalism and are in hock to corporate capital.

The nationalist parties represented in the various devolved assemblies, in Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont, make no attempt to mount a joint challenge to continued British rule, or to the all pervading corporate capitalist power over these islands. Whilst Plaid Cymru leaders may be envious of the powers already devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it is pretty clear that, if parity were to be achieved, this would merely signal their intention to compete more effectively for inward corporate investment. When Donald Trump threatened to abandon his golfing complex project in Aberdeenshire, in stepped the then DUP Minister, Ian Paisley Junior, to offer an alternative site on the Antrim Coast of Northern Ireland.

Just as Davitt and Connolly realised, in their day, that they faced the combined forces of British imperialism (whether it be Conservative or Liberal) and Irish nationalism (whether it be Parnell or his successors), so socialists face a similar combined opposition of Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem unionists and nationalists today. By studying our class’s history, we gain the advantages of hindsight. This is why we need to look once more to rebuild an ‘internationalism from below’ alliance of republican socialists in Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

Footnotes

• (1) ‘The Irish Revolution’ is the term given by Theodore Moody to describe the major period of social and political upheaval between 1879-82, initiated by the Irish National Land League and the ‘Land War’.
• (2) New Imperialism developed in Europe, the USA (and later Japan) in the 1870’s. This followed the defeats of the Paris Commune in 1871, and the overthrow of the Radical Reconstruction (the concerted state-backed attempt to bring about black emancipation in the USA, after the Civil War) by 1877.
• (3) Here, liberal unionism refers to one of the two overall approaches taken by the British ruling class to defend the Union. It is not to be confused with the Liberal Unionists, who were adherents of a conservative unionist strategy.
• (4) A morganatic marriage was an arrangement by which a king had a queen who was entitled to none of his property and whose children had no inheritance rights. In other words she only had the right to be screwed!
• (5) It was one of the ironies of history that Northern Ireland, ended up, in 1922, with the sole devolved parliament in the UK, in the form of Stormont, despite the Ulster Unionists’ earlier vehement opposition to Home Rule. This ‘Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’, far from being liberal in inspiration, more resembled the old reactionary, pre-1801, Irish Parliament, in its attempt to exclude Catholics (or Irish nationalists) from any share of power. Thus, the Conservatives’ closure of Stormont in 1972 and resort to Direct Rule was initially a very weak liberal centralising political measure. However, responsibility for much of this ‘direct rule’ was undertaken by the British armed and security forces, negating any liberal intentions.
• (6) The proposals for Scottish and Welsh devolution enjoyed wider support, both from liberal unionists and constitutional nationalists. However, political support for a liberalised and reformed Stormont was much more narrowly based, and found primarily amongst constitutionalist nationalists.
• (7) Whilst the tradition of the Tory Democrats has virtually no remaining political purchase upon Socialists today in the UK today, it still perhaps enjoys a kind of afterlife in the Labour Unionism still found in the Socialist Party in ‘the Six Counties’. Here the SP has been known to flirt with plebian loyalism, particularly the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force.

1. Israelis have the right to play on both sides of the court, whereas Palestinians can only play on their own side.
2. For security reasons, Palestinians do not have the right to pass the ball between players, the ball could hit an Israeli player.
3. There will be no basket on the Israeli side.
4. Israel is allowed to shoot at any time, even during time-outs.
5. Palestinians are not allowed to have supporters. Only Israelis should be supported.
6. Israel selects the press and what the press reports.
7. Israel encourages Palestinians to shoot into the Palestinian basket. Players who refuse will be nominated as terrorists and will not be allowed to play.
8. Palestinian players are allowed to leave the field but can not return. One exception: A Palestinian can be replaced by an Israeli.
9. Israel selects and instructs the referees, and tells them to look away.
10. Israel selects the captain of the Palestinian team.
11. Israeli faults and Palestinian good plays will not be shown on TV.
12. Israel takes the money sponsors pay to Palestinians.
13. Only Israeli players get refreshments.
14. Palestinians are required to play, when and where designated by Israel.
15. Rules only apply to Palestinians. Israelis may change the rules during the game and are not required to advice the Palestinians of the changes.

Written by Dror Feiler, an ex-Israeli para from kibbutz Yad Hanna, now living in Sweden. He is a member of European Jews for a Just Peace. Published in New Interventions, Volume 12, no.1, Spring 2005.

This wall between us slowly grows
slinking along the dusty earth
like some snake in the desert sands

Once in Jericho it fell down
by those who now do the building
the heirs of the trumpet blowers

Once Belshazzar saw the writing
on the wall, Daniel read the words
Mene, mene, tekel, parsin.

The days of your kingdom will end
for your acts have been found wanting
and your kingdom is divided

Jim Aitken

As well as an overview of events there are some comments and feedback from attendees. These are reproduced below, visit the report on the conference for more details.

Brian Garvey, Fourthwrite, Independent Workers Union:

The space given to democratic discussion, the planning and facilitation of the event was impressive and I’m fairly confident that it was because people felt valued theat the exchanges were so constructive.

The honesty and will to learn from recent experience and experiences of others is a great example to us. So to is the acknowledgement that it requires our working alongside many other individuals and organisations to create a new society and on the bus home we talked of the inegrity and earnest of our Scottish friends and look forward to welcoming you to Ireland as we get things moving.

go raibh maith agat

Dan Finn, Irish Socialist Network:

Last Saturday’s conference in Edinburgh was an excellent day, well done to the SSP for organising it.

I learned a lot from the discussions as I’m sure everyone there did.

It was very encouraging to see left activists from Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England who are all working towards similar goals and facing similar challenges come together to see where our work over-laps, what we can learn from eachother and how we can support each other’s efforts.

I hope this is just the beginning.

Tonight, at 9.30 (Greece time) a 15-16 year old boy was shot twice in the heart and was killed by a policeman in eksarxeia, a neighbourhood which is the basis of plenty left organisations and anarchists’ collectives.

A police car was patroling in Exarchia passing through Mesologgiou cobbled street (considered an alternative place with music, bars etc and lots of youth in the streets and an unofficial asylum for the police, so we can easily assume the police car was sent there to provoke and harass the youth). A few young people started shouting to the policemen to go away. There are a few reports that an empty bottle was thrown to the police car. The cops went out of the car provoking the youth by gestures and words. One policeman shot twice against a 15-16 year old boy, right on the heart, murdering him in cold blood. The name of the boy is Alexandros-Andreas Grigoropoulos. Anarchists (mostly), members of left organisations and residents gathered, but riot police forces circled the area.

The police tried to enter the hospital where the young boy was transferred, but the crowd did not allow it. There are hundreds of policemen in the streets around central Athens, while in every city a place is announced through the internet as meeting points. Left organisations have already organised a manifestation that will take place on Monday.

The mass media announced that a group of 50 anarchists attacked to a police car which was just protecting a building and that the policeman shot in order to defend himself. In the contrary, there were comrades that were there and said that the story is as I described it above.

The month of September is known in the Iranian exile calendar as the month to commemorate one of the biggest mass executions of political prisoners in the Islamic republic’s period of power. This year is the 20th anniversary of the massacre in 1988. The figures are very inaccurate, but I think the government admits that probably 15,000 socialists, communists and some from the Mujahedin were killed in prison. This was ayatollah Khomeini taking his revenge on the Iranian left following his defeat in the war against Saddam Hussein.

These were not the only working class partisans killed in the prisons of the Islamic republic, of course: thousands had already been executed since 1980 and many more died in Kurdistan. What is sad about this is not just that so many thousands gave their lives for socialism and Marxism, but there have been very few lessons learned from this whole experience. The commemorations are now almost non-political events – for many doing their duty of paying respect to ‘martyrs’ is the only political activity they now engage in.

Amongst the thousands who died were those who belonged to the Fedayeen, of which I was a member. What I am going to try to do is give a brief history of the Fedayeen, their theory and ideas, and also my own experience in two main areas – in the Kurdistan branch and on the foreign committee, first as a candidate member and later as a member.

Origins

The Fedayeen’s origins go back to 1971, to a forest in the north of Iran, where militants took up arms, having taken over a gendarmerie. They were rebelling not just against the shah’s regime, but also against the Tudeh Party, the traditional ‘official’ communist party in Iran, whose name had become synonymous with compromise and betrayal. It goes without saying that the Soviet Union did not support the Iranian revolutionary movement against the shah, and the Tudeh Party followed the USSR’s line. It was for broad alliances and the peaceful road to socialism. So there was a rebellion against the Tudeh Party amongst the revolutionary youth.

However, to take up arms against the regime in such a way was suicidal, because it was inevitable that a large number of those who did so would be killed – 13 out of the 19 of what is called the original cell of the Fedayeen died in the fighting and a number of members and supporters were executed later.

The Fedayeen was formed through the merging of two groups on the Iranian left, both opposed to Tudeh. One was led by Massoud Ahmadzadeh, who came from a guerilla family and had become very much influenced by Maoism. His politics were a combination of Maoism and guerilla warfare. One of his closest allies was Amir-Parviz Pouyan, again someone influenced by 1968, Maoism and armed struggle. Ahmadzadeh’s book Armed struggle: both strategy and tactics (!) was for many years the bible of the Fedayeen. Amir-Parviz Pouyan also wrote a book called The necessity of armed struggle against the theory of survival. The ‘theory of survival’ referred to the line of the Tudeh Party, against which the Fedayeen were rebelling.

However, Ahmadzadeh also destroyed the illusion that the ‘national bourgeoisie’ could have a revolutionary or progressive role. Describing the democratic character of the revolution, he wrote: Struggle against imperialist domination – ie, world capitalism – has some elements of the struggle with capitalism and therefore some elements of the socialist revolution are born in this struggle. On the role of proletariat he wrote: The proletariat [in Iran] is numerically weak, but its special qualities and capabilities to organise are stronger than any other class.

Bijan Jazani was another leading figure. He came from a different tendency – the youth organisation of the Tudeh Party, but he rebelled against Tudeh and agreed to bring his small forces into the new organisation.

To summarise the politics which  influenced the Fedayeen in that original period, one could say that a unique version of guerrillaism and Maoism dominated, but there was also a very simplistic attitude of ‘anti-revisionism’, which did not have much theory behind it. The founders were against the changes represented by the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and adopted a line claiming to be independent of both Russia and China. However, they remained very much influenced by Stalinism.

In debates, for example, with Communist Unity, which was more of a middle-of-the-road student organisation, the Fedayeen were very clear on where they stood on the Soviet Union. Their position was that until 1962 the USSR was 65% good and 35% bad, which, I think, is a Maoist view. However, as China adopted the theory of social-imperialism, and later the ‘three worlds’ theory, the Fedayeen and other Iranian left-wing groups distanced themselves from Maoism.

The people who lost their lives in the 1971 operation had considerable effect on the youth and student movement in Iran. Not quite what Ahmadzadeh had predicted – that the small motor would make the large motor move and the whole country would rebel. But the student movement became very sympathetic to this new, emerging left and were influenced by it, as were many young workers.

1971-79 shaped the political thought of the generation which came to the Iranian revolution as leaders of the Fedayeen. So it is an important period. We are talking about an organisation that was mainly underground, preparing for armed warfare and organising the occasional bank robberies.

Its activities were sporadic – the Fedayeen killed a couple of American military personnel in Tehran and a number of the shah’s generals. There were losses, particularly because, as an armed organisation, members of the Fedayeen could simply be killed on the street. This denied the Fedayeen a mass base and endangered anyone who supported them, such as university students, because supporters were regarded as part of the armed movement by association. Around 370 leftwingers were executed in this period, of which 60% were Fedayeen.

Many Fedayeen spent this period in prison, where a debate developed over the organisation’s line. Jazani moved away from some of the original positions. For example, in his book United front against dictatorship Jazani was clearly rejecting earlier positions taken by Ahmadzadeh and Pouyan. However, in another book, Capitalism and revolution in Iran, Jazani provided a valuable analysis of the shah’s regime.

Jazani was killed in Evin prison in 1975. It is therefore difficult to assess whether some of the writings and ideas attributed to him were truly his own opinions. The people around him became leaders of the Fedayeen on their release from prison. By 1979 there was a mass revolutionary movement in Iran and members of the Fedayeen were released from prison, some of them during the February uprising, when people broke down the doors of the jails.

During this period the Fedayeen had become a real force among students and young people, gaining popularity as a result of its past actions (although some of it was actually populist myth). However, it was now very divided, with Jazani’s supporters following one political line and Ahmadzadeh supporters another.

There were two debates going on and one was over the armed struggle. Jazani supporters contended that the armed struggle line, as both strategy and tactic, was mistaken, and in that they were right, because it had separated the Fedayeen from its potential mass base. But, on the other hand, some Jazani supporters were now excusing Soviet foreign policy and saw a positive role for the ‘national bourgeoisie’. That was a different issue.

What was quite clear was that throughout this period there was very little done in terms of theoretical work. The book that everyone read and which gave them “everything”, according to one of the Fedayeen elders I know, was Lenin’s What is to be done? That was their bible. It gave the Fedayeen their stance against sectarianism, economism, syndicalism and anarchism – their whole analysis was based on it. But they did not necessarily understand it properly, especially given the problematic translation into Farsi by the USSR Academy of Sciences, which emphasises centralism over democracy.

Throughout this period the Fedayeen had failed to make any headway in the working class or in Iranian society as a whole. In the universities, however, they had a great deal of support, as became obvious at the time of the revolution. Among the intellectuals – especially the poets, including some of the most famous – there was an amazing amount of praise for the Fedayeen. One thing is clear, though – they had no strategy about what to do, now that the revolutionary situation had arrived. That was the problem of February 1979.

While the clergy used the period of economic crisis (1974-79) to build their base, to make propaganda, taking advantage of their position in the mosque to organise and mobilise, the Fedayeen in prison were still debating in very abstract terms such questions as the united front against the dictatorship. In addition, the shah was far more lenient towards the religious groups than he was towards the left, for whom building a mass organisation was much more difficult. They attempted to go to the factories, but all they could do was distribute leaflets and then disappear.

It is not, therefore, a question of the February revolution being hijacked: more the fact that the left was simply not prepared for it. In a way it is a good job that the left did not come to power, because it had no plans, no politics, no strategy and definitely no theory about what to do.

The oil workers were crucial in the February revolution. It was their strikes that broke the back of the shah’s regime. The Fedayeen had some influence among them, but they were hampered by their lack of experience of working with the class. There was no plan about what to do with the strike, how to move it forward. Inevitably, the Tudeh Party, which did have a base in the working class, was better represented among the oil workers.

Nevertheless, the first rally called by the Fedayeen in Tehran in 1979 after the overthrow of the shah attracted 500,000 people. Despite reservations, they stood in the elections to what was a sort of constituent assembly and got a couple of million votes.

Splits

The splits in the Fedayeen started in 1979 and are still going on. I will not bore you with all the details, but the main ones should be mentioned. The first, immediately after the leaders’ release from prison, was between the supporters of armed struggle and those who said that armed struggle could not be both a strategy and a tactic, and that clearly it could not work.

The problem was that the myths surrounding Fedayeen guerilla struggle did influence the uprising of 1979. On the other hand, many Fedayeen were becoming aware of their organisation’s weaknesses – not least its total divorce from the mass movement.

The supporters of the armed struggle as tactic and strategy were in a small minority, but survived and still survive. To this day their slogan is: The shah was the running dog of imperialism and so is the Islamic republic. No theory, no analysis, but they still exist.

The main division, however, obviously came with the Minority-Majority split, revolving around the analysis of not only the Islamic republic, but a whole set of issues, such as the nature of the current era. The Majority held that it was one of imperialism versus socialism, as represented by the USA and the USSR. On Iran’s regime, they said that, although it was Islamic, the government was objectively moving Iran towards the socialist camp and therefore should be supported. The main questions in the Minority-Majority split concerned the nature of the Iranian government: was it progressive or counter-revolutionary?

The Majority consisted of those who claimed to have been close to Bijan Jazani in prison. They were called Fedayeen Majority only because they constituted a majority on the central committee, although it soon became clear that they did not have majority support in the country. They considered the regime as anti-imperialist and gave it at first conditional and later full support.

Things became much more tense after the spring of 1979, with the government strengthening itself and being in a position to impose repression on opposition forces. For that reason we see a number of specific events, not least the takeover of the US embassy by students. This was hailed by the Fedayeen Majority and most of the left outside Iran as an anti-imperialist act, but was seen by the radical left in Iran as a deliberate diversion to stop the wave of political strikes and opposition to the islamic regime.

It was this event that really brought the arguments within the Iranian left to a head. The Minority had walked out of the CC, but drew in support from thousands of left-wing students and youth who did not want to follow the islamic republic into the abyss. But it was also true that the Fedayeen Majority retained some support among the working class.

The embassy incident was also significant in that the government declared that anyone who did not support it must be a counter-revolutionary or a CIA agent. Counter-revolutionaries could be arrested and even executed – a situation that intensified once the Iran-Iraq war, which the government portrayed as a war against imperialism, started. Some on the left, including the Fedayeen Minority, adopted the line, originally put forward by ‘line three’ Maoists, that the Iran-Iraq war was a reactionary war.

That meant you could now be arrested for being a member of the Fedayeen Minority – you were part of the US aggression against Iran, you were a traitor and you could easily be killed. By contrast at this time the Fedayeen Majority might be invited into ayatollah Rafsanjani’s office for consultations over the organisation of this or that event. Obviously by this stage we are talking about revolution and counter-revolution.

Both the Majority and the Tudeh Party definitely supported the government in repressing the rest of the left. By now the Majority was totally following the Moscow line and was very close to the Tudeh Party. The Minority was telling workers that, while we defend Iran, we also have to fight the regime. But the Majority was saying, ‘Produce more – there is an anti-imperialist war and a war economy, and Iran is moving towards the socialist camp.’ Let me also say that Iranian Trotskyist groups were divided along very similar lines.

From this point on we are talking about two very different organisations. The Majority was able to operate openly until at least 1984, with offices in Tehran until 1982-83. The Minority, on the other hand, was considered a proscribed organisation, with their houses raided and a lot of deaths in those first two years.

The first congress of the Fedayeen Minority shows the diversity of forces that had taken a united position against the Fedayeen Majority. For example, there was another split in this congress, with those in favour of joining the Mujahedin in the National Council of Resistance leaving. There was also a Trotskyist Tendency and debates about entrism.

Apart from these political difficulties, it was a bad time generally for the Fedayeen Minority. Its secret printing press was raided by the government and a lot of people were killed. Political debate became confused with security issues and formed a terrible backdrop for what I would call militarism and centralism within the Fedayeen – some of the blame was put unjustly on the Trotskyist Tendency. This marked the beginning of what I call total centralism in the Fedayeen Minority – a complete disregard for democracy by people who were preserving the organisation for the sake of preserving the organisation.

The whole ideology of the Fedayeen had always been dominated by talk of professional revolutionaries, heroes, the elite – dedicated people who have no other life, no other concern (and never meet anybody else either, because they might become ‘confused’ and do something that is not in the interests of the organisation). My personal experience of the Fedayeen began at that time, in the middle of this difficult period. But for all its faults, the Fedayeen Minority remained for many years the main left organisation opposing the islamic republic.

The Majority also suffered when a CIA plant in the Soviet embassy in Tehran gave the names of many Tudeh Party members to the islamic government. Many leading members of the Majority were arrested too. It was the beginning of the end for those two organisations inside Iran – now what remains of them survive in exile. The workers who had illusions in the Majority had by then given up. By 1982 leading oil workers, who had gone with the Majority or Tudeh in the period of debate over whether the government was revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, had left these organisations.

Kurdistan base

As for the Fedayeen Minority, we were forced to move most of our leading members to Kurdistan. The central committee kept one person in Tehran and ironically, as a woman, she could not be recognised by the regime. Although the government posted her photo on every lamppost, showing her without a headscarf, in real life she was totally covered up! She managed to produce a left-wing paper in the middle of Tehran until 1985. Despite the fact that the paper featured mass work among the class more prominently, the image of the heroic guerrillas persisted as a strong element among certain figures in the Fedayeen Minority.

So basically the organisation as a whole moved to Kurdistan, leaving some key figures in various cities – people who had not been involved in the various security scares. Kurdistan was both a good and a bad time for the Fedayeen. It was a safer place than Iranian cities, but here was a Marxist organisation forced to work in the countryside amongst the peasantry, who hardly wanted to build socialism and to whom Fedayeen ideas were quite alien.

They were hospitable towards us, although I suspect this resulted from their hostility to the regime based on Kurdish nationalism rather than any understanding of what the Fedayeen actually stood for. Quite clearly they were not religious in the way that the Islamic republic was, and that is true of the peasantry all over Iran – they have their own ways of expressing their religion. I felt we were a bit like aliens there, especially we women Fedayeen, who wore men’s clothes and carried a gun. The peasant women did not really take to us and the peasant men thought us very strange.

In Kurdistan the organisation needed a lot of backbone to survive the real serious hardship. The winters were terribly cold and the summers very dry. Later, as the government mounted its offensive against us, we had to move from bases in villages to more mountainous areas, where the people were much more tribal and there was no real village.

I think the beginning of corruption within the Fedayeen Minority came during the Kurdish period, when everyone had pragmatic reasons for demanding the right of passage from Iraq. The way many of us travelled to Kurdistan originally was via the southern part of Turkey. In winter it was hell – cold, mountainous, terribly dangerous – and, of course, there was a much easier way through Iraq. All the political organisations of the Iranian left, not just the Fedayeen Minority, agreed to accept right of passage from Iraq – at a cost.

Later on there came the idea that in order to feed and clothe people it was necessary to accept financial aid, including from dubious sources. The Fedayeen were amongst the last to accept such aid, but it began in Kurdistan. So an organisation based on such high principles, whose heroes were supposed to be beyond criticism in the way they behaved, took the first small step of accepting money from Iraq, and so it went on. Today some organisations on the Iranian left see no contradiction in accepting US ‘regime change’ funds or money from certain Israeli institutions (I assume on the basis that the end justifies the means).

Debate in our Kurdish base was very limited. It was not that there was no debate at all, but most people had to ask questions in writing. As the situation became more difficult, the central committee became even more centralised, so that dissent from the political line was seen as equivalent to treachery. Dissidents were not expelled, but were treated less favourably.

For example, four months after a congress, we found out about a pamphlet written by the Trotskyist Tendency – but only thanks to a superficial book, Leninism or Trotskyism, written by a central committee member, who denounced the tendency mainly through insults. The book made a wonderful U-turn regarding one of the Fedayeen’s long-standing positions: “In a future revolutionary Iran the Soviet Union will help us build heavy industries in order to achieve socialism.”

When in a written question some of us asked the author what the difference was between this and the Tudeh Party’s ‘non-capitalist road to development’ – the line that our founders had rebelled against – his comment was: “We are not treacherous like Tudeh”! Of course, the majority of members did not share his opinions, but we were never given the chance of debating such issues or holding another congress.

Another corrupting influence was the interference of Jalal Talebani’s group in Kurdistan – Talebani is now president of Iraq, of course. His group was one of those that controlled not just Iranian Kurdistan, but bordering areas in Turkish Kurdistan and part of Iraqi Kurdistan. There is a place known as the ‘valley of the parties’, between Iran, Iraq and Turkey. With high mountains on all sides, it was a safe place to locate your base, training schools, radio stations and so on.

Talebani’s group was dominant there. He had already moved well beyond anything to do with the left and this was more than 25 years ago. He was a bourgeois politician with a tribal, feudal background even then. He would meddle in the affairs of political groups, supporting one faction of this or that group against its central committee. The whole situation was pretty bad.

However, amongst the positives was the fact that people who wanted to fight the government arrived in numbers in Kurdistan. They had no history of involvement with the Fedayeen, no theoretical background, but unfortunately there was no real attempt to give them a political education. Most members and cadres only read the works of Lenin or of ‘martyred’ Fedayeen comrades.

One of the worst events was the battle for control of the Fedayeen radio station. Ordinary members wanted a congress and the central committee refused to organise it, because it knew it would lose power. It had co-opted members who agreed with its line and there were many complaints about lack of democracy. The political line of the people who attacked the radio station in order to take control of it from the central committee was pretty dodgy and they moved gradually further to the right as time went by (now they are in discussions to rejoin the Fedayeen Majority, which gives you some indication of their trajectory even then).

However, the central committee delayed the congress and stopped everybody having a proper discussion about our strategy and tactics, and our current political theory. Where did we stand now? We were no longer guerrilaist or Maoist and the Trotskyist Tendency had been expelled. Clearly some in the central committee did not see anything wrong with the Soviet Union under Brezhnev. But none of this was discussed. This situation threw into relief the political decline of the Fedayeen Minority.

Even with all these disasters in Kurdistan, even with the fact that the Fedayeen had not managed to gain much support inside Iran, they remained a very powerful force outside the country. When I was sent to the foreign committee in 1984, we had about 1,000 supporters in the US and around 100 in several European countries.

These supporters were doing a lot of work for the Fedayeen – fund-raising, publicity, producing their own publications, including a student journal. But Fedayeen membership was totally different. Remember, this was an organisation of professional revolutionaries, and because recruitment had slowed to perhaps one a year and many had died, there were probably only around 40 Fedayeen Minority members left, compared with 60 at the first congress.

Supporters had few rights. They could elect their own representatives, but these representatives had no influence on the organisation. At the end of the 20th century this model – a body of professional revolutionaries aided by supporters – was alien to most people, but we still kept it.
Most importantly, the Fedayeen still worked on a ‘need to know’ basis, so supporters had a distorted view of both the theory and practice of the organisation. It was very hard to do much to change this, because members like myself were not allowed to divulge any secrets.

There was very little serious political discussion in the foreign committee. If in Kurdistan there was the excuse that we were fighting a war and did not want the enemy to take prisoners who knew too much and so on, in Europe that argument was really redundant.

Most of us were given so much to do and were literally so exhausted that we could not even read or study properly. It was not unusual to be sent to another continent at a few hours’ notice, so it was really a very disruptive time.

Many of us by 1985-86 had come to the conclusion that we just could not work effectively, but you cannot just leave such an organisation. I resigned three times and was told each time that my resignation was not accepted! The central committee discussed my resignation and threw it in the bin. Eventually I just stopped working and went into hiding.

Lessons

What are the main lessons? First of all, one has to remember that it is easy to criticise all of this in retrospect, just as it is easy to underestimate the repression of the shah and the islamic republic. The influence that the Fedayeen had in the birth of the new left and on the Iranian revolution is historic and cannot be taken away, though a very heavy price was paid for it.

But there were many mistakes – militarism, Stalinism, centralism, the culture of the heroic guerilla and the professional revolutionary. As the organisation disintegrated, not surprisingly heroes suddenly became villains in the eyes of many supporters.

A lesson that I personally learnt is that without debate, without democracy, without the ability to discuss every aspect of theory, your organisation will end up as a sect rather than a serious force capable of leading a revolution. I have also come to the conclusion that the end does not just justify the means. I know some people think I am very dogmatic and uncompromising, but my experience with the Fedayeen has made me very vigilant about the betrayal of principles. We started by being pragmatic on minor things and ended up compromising on very big issues.

At the end of my stay in Kurdistan I was in a base with about 40 people and, apart from one other person, I am the only survivor. That gives me a responsibility. I just cannot give up politics, because, whatever you think of the Fedayeen’s various leaders, the 38 people who died in that base were all Marxists; they all believed in and wanted to achieve socialism, though they knew they would not see it in their lifetime. Tens of thousands of Fedayeen died.

Our task is to ensure that their lives were not lost in vain.

Over the last few weeks French president Nicolas Sarkozy has publicly suggested on at least three occasions that an Israeli attack might be imminent – and acceptable – unless Iran quits enriching uranium, and implied that in such an event the international community should turn a blind eye. In early October French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said Israel was expected to launch a military strike on Iran before Tehran acquires a nuclear bomb.(2)

If we are to believe an unnamed European head of government, in May 2008 Israel considered attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, but was told by George Bush that he would not support it. According to this source, the US was anxious that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran’s nuclear facilities in a single assault even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war.(3)

Of course, in the meantime the US has sold bunker-buster bombs – 28,000 M72A7 66mm LAAW systems, as well as 60,000 M72AS 21mm sub-calibre training rockets – to Israel. The Pentagon was also preparing to sell the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb to Israel(4) and some analysts believe this does change the scenario compared to May 2008. In addition the next Israeli prime minister, whether Tzipi Livni or Binyamin Netanyahu, will be more hawkish than current premier Ehud Olmert.

No doubt Bush and the neo-conservatives will not be too concerned about leaving Barack Obama or John McCain with another messy war in the Middle East. In the short-term an Israeli attack and the expected Iranian retaliation might divert attention from the economic crisis and even create a temporary economic boom.

However, it is not just the US presidential elections that present thiswindow of opportunity for an Israeli-US attack. The next Iranian president will be elected in June 2009 and, given the current slump in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s popular ratings, a number of ‘reformist’ candidates have indicated their candidature (as in the case of former speaker Mehdi Kahroubi) or are negotiating terms under which they may stand (as in the case of ex-president Mohammad Khatami). If Iran elects a ‘reformist’ president, little will change internally. However, it would be difficult to convince the outside world that seyyed khandan (the smiling mullah) is as much of a threat as the lunatic Ahmadinejad.

Most Israeli leaders agree with comments made by former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy that Ahmadinejad is our greatest gift …We couldn’t carry out a better operation at the Mossad than to put a guy like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran.(5) No doubt some Israeli politicians calculate that in 2009 the current president’s loss of popular support might lead to the election of a ‘reformist’ candidate and in that case their best excuse for attacking Iran would be removed.

Contrary to the hysteria presented by pro-Zionist forces in the UK, including some on the ‘left’, Israel is not concerned about an Iranian attack. In the same interview Halevy added that an Iranian attack on Israel would probably have little impact, because Iranian missiles would largely be intercepted by Israel’s advanced anti-missile defence system. Another former senior Mossad official, who served under Olmert, told the American magazine Time that Iran’s achievement is creating an image of itself as a scary superpower when it’s really a paper tiger.(6) However, both Israel and the United States have been hoping to impose ‘regime change’ on Iran and a change of government might deprive Tel Aviv and Washington of the “gift” of Ahmadinejad.

Irrespective of what happens during this window of opportunity, Iran’s future seems bleak. Economic conditions are worsening and the sudden drop in the price of crude oil – and the effect of sanctions – have made a terrible situation worse. There is also the threat of new sanctions, irrespective of whether Obama or McCain wins next month. The Iranian regime had delusions that an Obama victory would reduce the pressure on it, but it is quite clear that Obama’s proposed petrol sanctions against Iran will be much more effective than McCain’s half-baked ideas.

Plans for a ‘coalition of the willing’ led by the US, Germany, France and the UK are being finalised, and discussions are taking place regarding targeting the export of engineering products for Iranian refineries, as well as refined oil itself(7). Given Tehran’s limited refining capacity, it is quite clear that this form of sanctions will have a devastating effect on the working class and the poor in Iran, where during the harsh winters the consumption of refined oil and gas shoots up, especially in the northern provinces.

Iranian exile groups

There is no doubt that war and the threat of war sharpen differences across the political spectrum, and the Iranian opposition in exile is no exception to this. As sanctions begin to bite and the threat of military attack increases, one can detect three irreconcilable divisions.

First we have ex-leftists and feminists, mainly in the United States, who, faced with the threat of war, have moved more and more towards a defencist position regarding the Islamic republic. A horrible example of this was displayed during Ahmadinejad’s recent visit to New York, when a number of Iranian ‘lefts’ tried to prove their ‘anti-imperialist’ credentials by dining with him and were duly photographed (the ex-feminists wearing headscarves).

The second group consists of open or secret advocates of ‘regime change from above’, together with those who have benefited directly or indirectly from the billions of dollars allocated by the US and Israeli governments for this purpose. Even if they do not admit it, these groups hope that an Israeli-US attack during the window of opportunity or, if that fails, oil sanctions this winter will overthrow the Islamic republic and that they will have a role to play under the subsequent ‘regime change’ administration.

In such a scenario, where both the Iranian working class and Iranian people as a whole are absent, the current repressive-religious capitalist regime would at best be replaced by a repressive-secular capitalist regime. But this is being championed by an unholy alliance of right-wing royalists, republicans and the small pro-US, pro-Israeli section of the Iranian exiled ‘left’ – reformist ex-trade unionists, who see nothing wrong in joining forces with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the CIA-sponsored Radio Free Iran in imperialist-inspired campaigns for ‘workers’ rights’. Members of some so-called workers’ parties and organisations in exile seem to have no problem tailing bourgeois secularism and bourgeois feminism.

Former activists of the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI) had gradually moved to the right under the influence of the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) – international labour organisations that are deeply compromised politically. They have been more or less silent on the role of imperialism in the Middle East and have acted as junior partners in implementing the reactionary agenda of the US and its allies(8).

So it was no surprise to see exiled Iranian IASWI activists issuing a leaflet in Farsi last year claiming that imperialism and war were not important to the issue of defending Iranian workers. It is ironic that inside Iran these forces encourage trade unionists not to challenge either capitalism or the regime. This statement led to major debates within the Iranian left both inside and outside Iran. Comrade Torab Saleth was one of the first to attack this unprincipled position in a number of articles and talks and later Iraj Azarin (a founder-member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran, who left it in the mid-1990s) and Reza Moghadam wrote a series of articles(9) attacking those who seek rightwing support for Iranian workers, condemning those who deny the role of imperialism and capitalism and denouncing campaigns that deal with Iran’s lack of ‘democracy’ as if an imperialist attack would not affect Iranian workers.

In the category of those soft on imperialism one should also place groups and parties that have accepted funding from, to say the least, dubious sources, enabling them to run, for example, 24-hour satellite TV stations. In exchange they agree to compromise basic principles in the following ways:

• 1. They do not mention the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, or the threat of war and the effects of sanctions against Iran.
• 2. They do not identify their TV stations as ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ – instead they hide behind ‘Kurdish’, ‘secular’ or ‘feminist’ names. It seems that the US-Israeli agencies funding such stations are also under the illusion that they are supporting rightwing national minority or secular groups.
• 3. They avoid any criticism of Iraqi occupation president Jalal Talebani.

There might be other conditions we are not aware of. It is, however, ironic that most of these ‘24-hour’ TV stations only broadcast programmes for one or two hours a day, showing scenery and playing kitsch Persian or Kurdish music for the other 22 hours. At around half a million dollars a year per station, the US and Israel are clearly not getting value for money.

Inside Iran, radical students and young workers are horrified by the antics of these so-called ‘socialists’. One leftwing student at Tehran University told us recently:

Clearly some of our exiled ‘comrades’ have lost their marbles if they think you can defend the social movements in Iran without mentioning the threat of war and the effects of the current sanctions. Have they learnt nothing from regime change US-style in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Young workers in Iran, many of whom follow internal and international events with intense interest, are also rejecting the reformist line of ex-labour activists in exile who argue that the ‘support’ given by rightwing, pro-US trade unions to Iranian workers is some kind of ‘international solidarity’. An article in Farsi published on many Iranian websites, including those of Rahe Kargar and Roshangari, denounces the position of sections of the British left, such as the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty – whose leadership has excused in advance an Israeli attack on Iran, while at the same time has delusions about building solidarity with Iranian students. One Iran Khodro car worker told me last week: We really don’t want this kind of support. It would be the kiss of death for us.

Fortunately, however, in addition to the Tehran apologists and those compromised by imperialism, there is a third group of Iranian exiles that has taken up a consistently principled position – one that firmly opposes imperialist war, while calling for the overthrow of the Islamic regime by a revolutionary movement led by workers. Inside Iran, this is by far the largest of the three. Those groups that fall into the first two categories should be well aware that history will judge them as harshly as it has judged the treachery of the Fedayeen Majority, Tudeh and many international Stalinist and Trotskyist groups which supported the repressive policies of the Islamic regime in 1979 and the early 1980s.

The same applies to British groups – on the one hand, the defenders of the Islamic regime such as the Socialist Workers Party, George Galloway and his followers (they are to the right of the Tudeh and Fedayeen Majority Stalinists!); on the other hand, those like the AWL leadership who are prepared to excuse and justify a possible Zionist military intervention against Iran. Let us hope these people will learn from history.

Notes

• (1) The Sunday Times October 12.
• (2) The Sunday Telegraph October 5.
• (3) The Guardian September 25.
• (4) World Tribune September 15.
• (5) Ha’aretz August 20
• (6) Ibid.
• (7) Article
• (8) See Article
• (9) Available at Workers Socialist Unity Iran site (In Arabic)

Frances Curran – Scottish Socialist Party
Mike Davies – member of former Welsh Socialist Alliance
Dan Finn – Irish Socialist Network
Tommy McKearmey – Fourthwrite
Declan O’ Neill – Convention of the Left

Speakers will lead off Introductory outlining struggles in their particular countries and the scope for joint work. The Introductory Session will be followed by Questions and Contributions. This will be followed by Workshops on a variety of topics (see below). There will be a Plenary Report back and Concluding Session with starting speakers.

Workshops

• i) The Scottish Independence Referendum – What it means for the Left
• ii) The irish ‘No’ vote and the Lisbon Treaty
• iii) Can the Good Friday Agreement unite Irish workers?
• iv) Scottish and Irish banks and the current economic crisis
• v) Internationalism from below – a new way of organising the Left

Social: Saturday, November 29th, 7. 30 p.m. on

Cuckoos Nest
Home Street
Tollcross (opposite Kings Theatre)
Music will be provided by
Chris and Paul from The Wakes

Organised by Scottish Socialist Party

Republicanism pamphlet cover

It is available for £1 including postage from the usual address.

A short extract follows.

For socialists republicanism in the United Kingdom describes the movement from below for a radical and militant democracy. Republicanism addresses those immediate democratic issues faced by the working class in the here and now. It seeks to develop a programme for expanding democracy under capitalism as far as it will go. It concerns itself with progressive and in some senses transitional demands. To the extent that we achieve these democratic demands, it will strengthen our class and will weaken the ruling class and its allies. It is a necessary and unavoidable part of the struggle for socialism.

This democratic struggle is called republicanism in the UK. It highlights the fact that we live in an undemocratic, constitutional monarchy. The ruling class has a whole host of Crown Powers at its disposal to thwart any real democratic progress, and hence hinder further economic and social advances for our class. The term republicanism also connects us to our own radical and revolutionary history.

Republican struggles in these islands provide a red thread going back to the Levellers in the English revolution in the late 1640’s, the Cameronians (radical Covenanters) here in Scotland in the 1680’s and ‘90s, the struggle of the United Irishmen, the United Scotsmen and the London Corresponding Society in the 1790’s, the Chartists in the 1830’s and 40’s, and the prospects of Workers Republics raised by James Connolly and John Maclean at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The rise of capitalism, and the struggle of the emerging bourgeoisie against the feudal state and church, led to a false association between capitalism and the spreading of democracy. In reality, wherever they have achieved power, the bourgeoisie have sought to narrow, limit and impoverish democracy, for the majority of the population. Consciously or unconsciously, they have recognised their future gravediggers in the proletariat. Hence they have sought to block any democratic path to a genuine republic because, in a truly democratic republic, the bourgeoisie and their system, capitalism, could not flourish.

Socialists see republicanism today as directly linked to the struggle for the socialist republic tomorrow. Just as socialists view industrial struggles for improved wages and conditions as a ‘school of struggle’, in which we strive to end our class’s continued exploitation as wage slaves, so we see the democratic struggle for a republic as a ‘school of struggle’, in which we strive to end our continued oppression.

Republicanism is not a sentimental attachment to yesterday’s struggles. It helps us develop a strategy and tactics to directly oppose today’s exploiters and oppressors. To declare for the democratic republic is to declare war against the existing bourgeois state.

Issue 16 Cover

• SSP – Learning the Lessons, RCN
• The role of platforms in the SSP, RCN
• Prospects For Socialists In Scotland, Allan Armstrong
• Respect Split, Ed Walsh
• Cartoon, Rod MacGregor
• Ken Livingstone: The End of Road, Gerry Fitzpatrick
• Paisley’s Legacy, Matt Siegfried
• ‘Celtic Tigers’ And ‘Celtic Lions’ Both Pussycats For Big Business, Allan Armstrong
• Socialists And The Republic, Allan Armstrong
• Motion passed at SSP Conference in October 2007
• Letter agreed (10.3.2008) at SSP International Committee to be sent out to organisations in Ireland, Wales and England
• The Defiance Of Science, Rod MacGregor
• Turkey: A Country At War With Itself
• Iran And The New Threat Of War, Steve Kaczynski
• Hands Off the People of Iran, Yassamine Mather
• The SSP Gives Its Support To The ‘No One Is Illegal’ Campaign, Allan Armstrong
• Workers, Serfs And Slaves: Managed Migration And Employment Rights, No One Is Illegal
• Punk, Politics and Perdition, Mary McGregor
• Democracy 2, Alan Graham
• Life With You, Mary McGregor
• Man’s Best Friend?, Rod MacGregor

For we, who politics inspire,
There is a time when we’re on fire.
Elections, they are always busy,
So much goes on we end up dizzy.
Hustings, meetings, stalls—all vital
But there’s a task which every night’ll
Turn each of us into a drudge,
Aye, leafleting’s a weary trudge!

There’s letter boxes, sharp it seems
As any shiny guillotine.
There’s stairs to climb that take your breath,
You puff, you pant, feel near to death.
Blasted by wind and soaked by rain,
You think to yourself, Never again!
But the biggest danger in the end
Comes always from a man’s best friend.

Some dogs keenly vent their wrath
The second that you’re on the path
That leads from garden gate to door,
They bark, they growl, they howl, they roar.
And from the noise they make you know
If up that path you should dare go.
Does it sound big? Does it sound small?
It’s up to you—your judgment call.

But there again, there is the hound
Which doesn’t make a single sound.
Behind the door he’ll silent sit,
Waiting for some dim half-wit
To put his hand through the front door.
What savage dog could ask for more?
He loves a fool who careless lingers,
And doesn’t, quick, withdraw his fingers.

The first you know’s when something slams
Against the door, it seems the jambs
Themselves, they must be near collapse
As Fido, furious, rabid, snaps
At your fingers, teeth bare, flashing,
To the bone incisors slashing.
And then, the bit that really narks,
The damage done it’s then he barks!

Your curses make the air turn blue,
It’s A & E next stop for you
As there you stand, your fingers bleeding,
An anti-tet and stitches needing.
Now here’s the thing that’s to be learned,
Like all good lessons it’s hard earned.
Leafleting that’s swift and brief
Keeps human flesh from canine teeth!

Like many people I have liked the Proclaimers for years. I really enjoy their love songs which have a Tom Leonard quality to them in terms of their ability to express profound emotions in the language of the working class. I was therefore really pleased to be given Life with you as a recent birthday present. Good to sing along to during my 40 minute drive to work I thought. And so it is – you find yourself drumming at the wheel while belting out the lyrics. This, however, is more than an album of memorable choruses. It is very angry, bitter, highly political and completely relevant.

Proclaimers album cover

In Recognition is a republican anthem for the 21st century as it viscerates the hypocrisy of those who buy into the honours system leaving no excuse open to those who, put the crown / before or after their name.

We could all name those so called champions of the working class who capitulate to patronage and monarchy and who leave us questioning their years of contribution to the labour movement when they eventually bend the knee to the crown for personal gain.

Celebrities too are singled out for scathing sarcasm when they take a gong for bravery upon the stage. The irony of their deed as they stand beside wounded squaddies is completely lost on them.

Blair has no hiding place as they demand an apology for the bloody carnage that is the war in Iraq. This theme is continued in The Long Haul which emphasises the consequences of the West’s current fight against evil empires which are now Islamic as opposed to those which were communist in the 20th century.

For me, by far the most refreshing tracks were those which hammered into religion in a way that was militantly secular. – New Religion and If there’s a god.

I love the clarity which expresses their disbelief that so many people will suspend their rational faculties in order to feel a sense of purpose through ridiculous nonsense. Give me a zip for the back of my head / I want to join in too sums up their contempt for those weakest seeds who need to find nourishment in the mystic and the supernatural.

Charlie and Craig are fearless in combining their popular art with the radical politics which is clearly so much a part of them. They throw in a great wee song about misogynist song lyrics which also shows their ability to stand against the ‘anything-goes’ liberal trend. They are confident enough, as they have always been, to dare to be different and not care if that is regarded as somehow homely and not hip. They are however far from playing it safe. Their lyrics are more dangerous than those of any gangsta’ rapper, who needs to call women bitches or whores.

They come through this album as really sound guys that you would want to have as your pals. They are sensitive men who are angry about huge issues. There is no narrow nationalism here. These are Scottish artists who are internationalists.

All this and sensitive love songs too. Whole wide world and Blood lying on snow are imbued with a sexy longing for physical and emotional fulfilment with someone you can love. And finally a cracking proclamation of love and commitment in Life with you. It hasn’ae been off my CD player for days. Windows down and giving it laldy – it makes going to work almost bearable.

Keynesian Economy Simulator
Format: PC
Publisher: Positech
Developer: Cliff Harris (probably in his bedroom)
Price: £15.28

Bourgeois Democracy: Another simulation

Following on from the original Democracy, Clif Harris has released a sequel: imaginatively titled Democracy 2. The game is a simulation of politics. You have been elected President of X country and have to choose which policies to implement or not and how to deal with dilemmas and problems.

The social model

Unlike its predecessor, Democracy 2 has fictional countries which are caricatures:

• Bananistan:Socialist and Agricultural
• Biblonia: Religious State
• Freedonia: Liberal and atheist
• Gaiatopia: Eco-aware state
• Gregaria: Wealthy and capitalist
• Koana: Capitalist Heaven
• Malaganga: debt ridden, compulsory voting
• Mexilando: military state, monarchy
• Zambeezia: Agricultural, poor

One nice addition is the party system, you choose who to be rather than just have opposition. There is a large list, and like all things in this game, can be modified by the player. If you wish to be the SSP with the Tories as opposition, go ahead and add them. Fancy being the Bolsheviks, just add the title to the list.

Balance

Like the first game there is a delicate balance to be maintained. I ran the socialist state, and had managed to get 55% of the population to be members of the Socialist Alliance. The only major problem I had was an Asthma epidemic. The only link I could see was Air Quality and the biggest effect on that was air travel. To cut air travel the only option I could see was a Carbon Tax. This was unpopular with the group everybody but I figured it wouldn’t be that much. Within 4 turns there were 0 members of the party and asthma epidemic was still rife. Further playing around would probably reveal the correct balance to maintain – maybe youth clubs and free school meals with an increase in funding to state hospitals with a very low carbon tax is the answer.

Virtual socialist

And that is the beauty of this series of games, it shows in simple terms how sloganeering and promises of policies which appear to solve problems actually work in the real world and not through the lens of sympathetic media assuring us that X policy is the answer.

The one major limitation of the game is the economic model. The worldwide market crashes and there’s a recession. You see GDP plummet so what do you do? There’s no option to fiddle with interest rates or model of inflation. It means the simulation limits itself to policies and their effect but not the economy.

On Income Tax, this game seems to have the same flaw as it’s predecessor: fraud. If there is welfare fraud you can crack down on it. It doesn’t have the option of cracking down on Tax Avoidance by the highest earners. Fair enough, this mirrors real life, and you can add it in yourself, but it means you have to play a reformist by lowering income tax to allow the middle class to be moderately happy.

Policies

There has been an increase in policies to over 100, including ID cards, hybrid cars and micro generation grants. The dilemmas and situations seem about the same, with a few added and removed.

What’s new?

There have been a number of additions, Ministers, political capital, opposition groups, voter detail and encyclopaedia are the most significance.

Ministers

You start off with 6 ministers, each of which have different loyalties and you can fire them and appoint new ones. Maybe it would be a good idea to replace that Tax minister who has sympathies to the Middle Class and Capitalists with John Doe who sympathiseswith Socialists and Trade Unionists? Each minister has different loyalty and experience (these generate Political Capital), the sympathies help influence those demographics to support you.

Political Capital

The major new addition to the model has been Political Capital. In the first game you could bin all the policies and add which ones you like. Now it takes political capital to raise, lower or cancel policies as well as introduce new ones. If each of the 7 ministers generate 3 political capital per turn then you get 21 each turn added to the pool. To raise income tax takes 34, to remove university grants takes 19 whilst introducing Micro-Generation grants takes 1. This reflects how much each change will cause people to support or oppose you.

Opposition Groups

The threat of a coup has been expanded with your intelligence services keeping tabs on everyone from The Army of God and the Socialist Army to the Secular Society. If you have no religious people then you probably don’t have to worry about the Army of God, if you are playing in the Theocracy and fund stem cell research whilst banning the teaching of creationism in schools, then you may have something to worry about from them although the Secular Society will probably back off a bit.

Voter Detail

Fat Cat

Previously, voter demographics were defined by number and how they support your policies. It seems to have been expanded, with focus groups showing how cross sections of society support you. There is likelihood of them to turnout to vote and to vote for you. Added to this is the party membership, although this is again simplified into two parties with most votes winning the election. Once you lose it’s game over too, perhaps the next in the series will introduce multiple parties and the FPTP system: choosing ministers from your pool. It would be more in depth but move the games from being simulations to explain basic politics to being a simulation of politics.

Flaws

There is still a flaw in the model however. At the start there are new options including the option to set the number of socialists in the country. Having dragged the slider to the end I was happy to see 100% socialists. Woo, I can finally try raising Income Tax and introducing Free School Meals to see my popularity grow. Unfortunately it went down. It turned out that 65% of the Socialists were also Capitalists. Each voting demographic is counted as separate and each individual voter can belong to multiple groups including contradictory ones. My carbon tax example earlier could have got the same result if 100% of people were Environmentalists but 60% were car users and 0% commuters.

Encyclopaedia

Lot’s of policies and voter groups now have some explanatory notes to help you understand what they mean. When choosing Income Tax levels you can see the top levels in various countries and the income scales in the US. Choose Socialists and you can see a page of pretty non-biased explanation and some key dates from the publication of The Communist Manifesto to the abandonment of Clause 4.

Verdict

There are a number of things which seem worse than Democracy: mouse scroll speed is frustratingly slow, lowering accessibility, the movement to caricature countries, the limitation on changing policies. Most of these can be addressed however through customisation. Change capital required to 0 and add your own countries.

Positive changes have included a UI update with new options and the Minister system adds a touch of realism. You can still customise it as much as you want and for a game it is very cheap with a real educational value. There is a demo available of both games which allow you to have a few turns and to get the feel of them. Overall if you don’t have Democracy, try this one, if you have Democracy then only get it if you really enjoyed it.

Tam Dean Burn, by Geraint Lewis

Tam Dean Burn is the most respected political actor in Scotland today. He was born in Leith and grew up in Clermiston, a west Edinburgh housing estate. He went to Queen Margaret College to study acting at a time when working class men were encouraged to take up the profession. Tam cites James Dean and his teacher, Ken Morley (Reg in Coronation Street) as his early influences on his acting.

I first met Tam in 1993 when he was in Dundee appearing in court for Breach of the Peace on the Timex picket line. He had famously jumped onto the front of one of the scab buses and earned the nickname ‘spider-man’. Tam introduced me to communist politics. When I spoke to him recently I found him, as ever, full of ideas and challenges to orthodox Marxist thinking.

So apart from Reg from Coronation Street and James Dean, are there any other artistic or political influences that were pivotal because I am interested in the point where the art and politics started to merge?

I got into punk at the very beginning. I was ready for it, because of the type of bands I was already listening to, like Dr Feelgood. It was the difference between those who were into Yes, prog rock and heavy metal – they were more middle class – and those of us that were into pub rock bands such as Dr Feelgood and Sensational Alex Harvey Band. When punk came along I was totally up for it. It was like a personal, social revolution that really got me going politically as well.

At my first show after leaving Queen Margaret’s, I had a chance to combine all the elements of politics and art. We did a play at the Edinburgh Festival with my wee brother’s band, Fire Engines, with some songs that had been written especially for the show that I was singing. It was initially a 2-hander called Workers of the world confess, looking at the relationship between the boss and the worker in the form of a confession. We developed a cantata it was called Why does the pope not come to Glasgow? As we were in rehearsals we got the news he was coming and we just thought – the power of theatre! It was a good strong political piece. We had discussions as an essential part of the show. The guy who wrote it George Byatt was an old anarchist. Immediately me and George started to tussle as I started to go down the communist road even though I saw myself as an anarchist punk at the time.

The Dirty Reds, our band, had a gig for Edinburgh University Communist Society who were trying to latch onto this punk thing going on. They had banners with Marx and Engels. I said, Fuck all this old fashioned shite! We are anarchists! People started jumping up and pulling them all down. I have often chuckled to myself as to what my comrades in years to come would have had to say about that.

I went to the Soviet Union in 1983 for a holiday with a friend. We thought we would be with old trade unionists, but it was geared towards young folk and we found ourselves there with a big posse from Liverpool including this post punk band called Echo and the Bunnymen, so we had a great time. I was very romantic about the Soviet Union.

What about big political events back at home?

It was really the miners’ strike in 1984 that made me realise I had to be in an organisation to have any real impact. I got involved in the Miners’ Support Group in Edinburgh so I was looking around the different left wing organisations. I wanted to be in the Communist Party but I could not really work out where they were in Edinburgh. They did not really seem to exist. I had an aversion to Trots because of their view of the Soviet Union. Although the Militant did seem to be the most dynamic organisation around. I did collect with them outside football grounds for the miners. I went through their induction programme but then found I could not go with them. Their main man was more trade union based. They did not believe in the dictatorship of the proletariat and they certainly did not support the Soviet Union. I then picked up on the paper The Leninist. What they were saying about the miners’ strike really gob smacked me. I was not able to put it into practice but I started communicating with them.

By the time of the Poll Tax I had moved to London and had got much more involved with the Leninist and was politically organised by them. This was a totally positive experience because what I had always been trying do was find a way to combine the politics with the culture. I was being encouraged to do that. Although it was a small organisation, there was a lot of time and resources put into what I was trying to do culturally.

I had picked up on the type of agit-prop that Ewan McColl had been doing with the YCL in the late 20s and early 30s, like street theatre on the issues of the day. We started by doing the original sketches and then developed our own versions of them with issues like the Poll Tax and Ireland.

There was a great sketch about Indian workers that had been banged up for being members of a trade union. It was done behind these six huge banner poles that you would have on a demonstration and they made the bars of the cell. At the end of the piece the bars would get smashed down through class struggle and international solidarity. In 1988 we adapted the sketch to Ireland and called it 20 years. This was because it was around 20 years since the start of the most recent troubles in Ireland. This was all done as part of the Workers’ Theatre Movement.

We also developed a political cabaret which was hard hitting, honouring the dead hunger strikers in Ireland. This was part of a polemic with left Labourites and their ‘Time to Go’ campaign. I remember performing 20 years before a big demo that they were organising. We were playing it and getting a great response from the marchers because invariably they were the best audiences; the most partisan. The organisers wanted to stop us and I remember a big guy wi’ his hand on my shoulder saying, You have to stop! You have to stop! but there was no way they could stop us because of the response we were getting from the crowd.

It was the same wi’ the dockers in 1989. We performed in support of the Tilbury dockers and their struggle to stop the privatisation of the docks. I remember their leader saying that what we had said in a 5 minute sketch is what he would have liked to say in a 20 minute speech. You could sense the value of what we were about and what we were trying to achieve. With the Poll Tax sketches we realised that we could get our message across by using mega phones. By having everybody ‘megaphoned up’ you could really blast across a message.

We also combined street theatre with a political cabaret called the Internationale where we could start doing things that worked more effectively indoors. We would invite people to come along and do themes like Ireland or International Women’s day. It was being able to be a sort of memory for the class as well of celebrating events like that. There was a real attempt to tie together as much as I could of the culture and the politics.

You have continued to do that. The last overtly political thing I saw you do was Perdition

(A play by Jim Allan that dealt with the collaboration between Hungarian Nazis and Zionists that led to Jews being killed.)

Yes, there have been differences when I have been able to pull together performances myself, like that, and those roles that I would do as a job. I am always looking for possibilities. Perdition was a special one. It had been 20 years since the play was originally going to be performed at the Royal Court theatre in London. Then they pulled the plugs on it at the last minute which is unheard of now.

The Zionist lobby now isn’t nearly so strong that they could pull off something like that. Our performance of it was still controversial. It was suggested by the SWP that it was ‘bad taste’ to do it in Holocaust Memorial week. Perdition was directly about the Holocaust and about the way that Jews were basically being sacrificed for the Zionist cause. The Holocaust Memorial week was exactly the right time that we should have been doing it. I think that says much more about the SWP than it did about us.

Doing it in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee and seeing too that you didn’t need a full production – the actors were doing it as a reading with the scripts in their hands but that made very little difference. It was theatre about ideas with good actors doing it and able to put it across. It’s a form of entertainment that is my favourite because it’s stimulating and you are a lot more engaged as an audience. It has an archetypal dramatic form of the courtroom. That form has been used so often. It works because people know they, the audience, become a jury. You are engaged in it in that way and you are implicated. It was a good strong piece.

Has it become easier or harder to express your communism through your art as you have become an established actor and moved away from street theatre?

It has become harder because I am less organised now. Unless you are a practising communist, you cann’ae really call yourself one. That is still of course where my heart lies but I have been open to a lot of other influences as well. I don’t get the opportunity to express myself in quite the same way which is mair to do with the times than me, so I have to find different ways of doing it.

But you made it happen with Perdition it was very much your baby?

Well, the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign in Scotland is very dynamic and it was through discussions wi’ them that I was able to make it happen. When you are encouraged and supported these things can take place. A lot of the time people are pretty shabbily organised politically so it is not like a great deal goes on. I didn’t find the same opportunities to go at things within the SSP. There would be the odd, little event and I know some people did some things but I felt culturally it lacked something. It settled for a lower common denominator for culture and that can be a great problem within politics.

What should the stance of a revolutionary socialist be towards art especially under capitalism? Should there be a more serious approach amongst revolutionary socialists towards the whole concept of art?

Absolutely, especially when I think of the influence of William Blake on me over the past few years. He has been with me through the last two years because I’ve been reading all his poems and prose on a radio programme every week. I have been reading a lot about him as well. His view is that the way we look at politics is too narrow. It is too materialist. He believes that unless you have a spiritual element to what you are going for and a sense of moving beyond the three dimensions that we accept, it’s worthless. His idea is that imagination is the most important thing of all.

In the past as far as materialists go, we look on it as labour that would define us that is what fired the mind. But for him the imagination and poetic vision is what we should laud and pay attention to. It’s a duty for all of us to build Jerusalem by that artistic, poetic vision and imagination. That’s given me some sense that we are looking on things far too narrowly. I know he would be looked on by some Marxists as completely idealistic – a radical idealist and even revolutionary but I just think who is to say you’re right. Blake says, To see a world in a grain of sand.

Even science now is looking on the tiniest particles as microcosms of the whole. I’ve thrown myself mair open to things. A big part of me is opening up to questioning. The most important thing is we need to be questioning for truths. The left is not willing to discuss what has become clear that the official theories of what happened on 9/11 and 7/7 just do not add up. People are scared. I see the left like that, they are scared to look at these type of questions. If these actions were state terrorism, if they were false flag operations, then that’s what we’ve got to take on board.

There was a point when the SSP was tied up with the anti capitalist/ anti globalisation movement. That was so important for the SSP – the way that the SSP opened itself up to a lot more people and that is what really gave it an impetus into becoming a force in Scotland. Then it narrowed itself back down into a typical left wing grouping. It is only now that we are seeing how important the anti capitalist movement was. Everybody was guilty of squandering that opportunity. That’s the type of thing we need again.

There’s only a few individuals on the left saying its a set up job and we’re not buying into this. If people recognised what our enemy was really up to, a lot more people could be galvanised. I think there is a sort of fear and cravenness and conservatism. Then you start to think who is actually being fingered here. Who has been stopping this getting out? Who is calling the shots and moving the organisations away from questioning this. We can’t let the official view dominate as it does. I ever so slightly raised my baldy heid above the parapet to put it into the letters column on the Weekly Worker. It was just so pathetic the response I got back. The same nonsense arguments – utterly unscientific – pathetic.

'Her Madge' at Claton Hill demo, Edinburgh, taken by Myra Armstrong

I’ve interviewed David Icke and he would be considered a lunatic and they have been able to put that across. I treat everything he says with a degree of caution but there is more of his stuff that I have heard him say that is coming true. What we are moving towards is a micro chipped population. If this happens, we are back to being slaves again when they have us under that control. They started with animals they are now talking about prisoners. That is the very foreseeable future when we are all micro chipped then we are really fucked.

Do you think that artists have a responsibility to highlight these dangers in society?

Yes in a sense but the responsibility even mair so is to try and find out what the positives are and to be able to encourage people. I think that culture generally is somewhere that the battle can be fought wi some degree of success. Where as other areas at the moment it just seems much harder. Obviously a lot goes on online with young people and the way they are able to communicate with each other and I think the dam will burst. I am always trying to find alliances and means to be able to put forward ideas.

You mentioned young people and how they get involved. How do you view YouTube and things like that?

Its how its used. It can be turned on itself. Things can be turned into their opposites. So they can be used in a positive or a reactionary way. It can be used to dazzle and occupy and control. With something like Facebook; the political motivations behind that were really pretty apparent. It is a further degree of surveillance. Even with the internet itself. It was the American military that introduced it initially. What are you telling me that they had the benefit of humanity in mind? It has been a means of control from the start but at the same time, they have to allow it to develop. They have to hope it doesnae turn against them. But you know it can be used in all sorts of ways. It was the anniversary of Rachel Corrie’s death (US peace activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Palestine) and through the net we saw they were encouraging people to speak her words at events. We recorded on a mobile phone outside parliament where it is illegal and outside the American embassy and banged it up on Youtube and its there to be seen. That becomes world wide. As with everybody, we are just waiting for things to rupture and explode in a positive fashion.

With Emancipation and Liberation, it is criminal that you do not have your website more up to date which could be a real benefit to people [Website Ed - rectifying that now, we fell behind]. You can see the way the Weekly Worker has given people an opportunity to express themselves. You have got to offer encouragement to people, via the internet and show that there are people attempting to provide answers. It is our duty to try to encourage that.

Republicanism? You participated in the Calton Hill Declaration. What does being a republican mean to you?

It was there from the very roots of my political organisation. Both in terms of being a Hibs supporter because we supported Irish republicanism, from the terraces and from my understanding of Punk. We had complete disdain for the monarchy and the desire for a republic. These type of things are crucial. Once you get your eyes opened to these questions you can accept no compromise on them. Republicanism is an absolute bottom line of democracy, particularly in this country. I have always been wary about nationalism. I’ve never been drawn to that in any way apart from when it is revolutionary which I saw wi Ireland. But republicanism is a total line for me so I was happy to play the queen at the Carlton Hill event. Always happy to get a frock on.

Whatever the merits of Tony Blair’s recent retrospective apology for Britain’s leading role in the slave trade it would be less hypocritical if his government was not developing a modern system of slavery and the reintroduction of sweated labour through the reshaping of immigration controls.

The mechanisms of immigration control are changing. They are locating themselves in the workplace and on the factory floor. The agents and enforcers of controls are becoming employers. They are the managers of New Labours managed migration.

Managing managed migration

In fact this role began with the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act which imposed criminal sanctions on bosses who employed those without the correct documentation. The real targets of these sanctions were never intended to be the employers but rather the undocumented, the sans papiers, the illegals, whose immigration status they were expected to police. The intent was to transform bosses into partners in control through the fear of criminalisation.

The statistics speak for themselves. For example in 2004 there were 1098 successful operations (i.e. raids) by the immigration service, which resulted in the arrest of 3,332 workers – but the successful prosecution of only eight employers! In the previous year only one boss was successfully prosecuted but 1,779 workers arrested, removed from the workplace and presumably deported.

The 2006 Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act introduced civil penalties against employers as a deterrent against hiring those without status or without the correct status. Bosses will now have to check an employee’s papers at regular intervals to avoid employing an irregular worker. Most immigration documents are time-limited. Yesterday’s lawful entrant can become tomorrow’s sans papiers.

And it gets worse. Under the law regulating gangmasters – the Gangmasters Licensing Act introduced in 2004 after the drowning of Chinese cockle pickers – gangmasters will only preserve their registration if they show they are policing and refusing to employ undocumented workers.

There has been considerable publicity given to the new points system controlling the entry of migrant workers as detailed in the government’s white paper, A Points-Based System: Making Migration Work For Britain. Virtually nil publicity has been given to the requirement that employers will have to register before they are able to recruit overseas labour, and may jeopardise that registration if they are connected with employees who breach immigration law. Furthermore employers will have to report their employee(s) to the Home Office for absenteeism.

According to the White Paper:

Sponsors will be required to inform us if a sponsored migrant fails to turn up for their first day of work, or does not enrol on their course. Similarly they will be expected to report any prolonged absence from work or discontinuation of studies, or if their contract is being terminated, the migrant is leaving their employment, or is changing educational institution. Sponsors will also need to notify us if their circumstances alter, for example if they are subject to a merger or takeover.

Unprecedented surveillance

This level of surveillance is unprecedented in peacetime. Except today there is a new war – a war against workers. This primarily presents itself as a war on the undocumented. However the war extends even to the documented given the tenuous and circumscribed nature of immigration papers. It also extends to European Union workers. Workers from the new EU East European accession states are restricted in obtaining benefits and are bound by employment restrictions such as the need to register for work with the Home Office, a requirement which in itself may drive such workers into the underground economy of sweated labour (and it now seems there is an intention to restrict entry for Romanian and Bulgarian workers). It is a war on all imported workers.

Shifting the focus

The new factory floor mechanisms of control reflect the shift in the focus of immigration controls themselves.

For the last decade the focus, the demons, of control were asylum-seekers. In the 1970s and 1980s it was husbands from the Indian sub-continent who were accused of contracting marriages of convenience – along with children seeking to join parents here – and were accused of not being genuine as claimed. In the late 1960s it was Asians from East Africa… and it can go back in time to communists in the 1920s to Jews fleeing Tsarism at the turn of the century (leading to the first controls – the 1905 Aliens Act). Immigration controls always have their latest demons, real or imagined. Today it is “economic migrants” – whose labour is needed but whose presence is unwanted.

When it comes to migrant workers then, like every other construct tainted by immigration law, the very use of the term rights is an abuse of vocabulary. What rights the documented – those migrants with permission to enter and work – possess are usually impossible to enforce. The ability to bring a case for unfair dismissal requires having been in employment for a year – an impossibility for short-term, temporary labour. The right to a written statement of employment terms is pointless for those not literate in English.

And not all employment rights apply even to the documented. Parental rights under the Working Time Regulations – parental leave, time off in a family emergency, flexible working conditions to care for children – none of these appear to apply to the documented migrant at least where the child does not reside in the UK.

The undocumented, those without leave to be here and/or work, are simply non-persons. They are literally illegal – they live outside of the law, hunted and harassed by the law and without the protection of the law. For instance they cannot enforce their contracts of employment, secure payment of the minimum wage, claim unfair dismissal, demand not to have unlawful deduction from wages, indeed claim to have wages at all. The Court of Appeal in one case, [name removed on request of worker] has in essence confirmed all the above in deciding that an undocumented worker cannot bring a case against a boss under the Race Relations Act. Even attempting to join a union where the employer attempts to impose a non-union shop becomes a major obstacle as undocumented workers cannot assert a breach of trade union rights – as they have no trade union rights.

One of the suggestions made in a recent book showing the relationship between immigration status and employment rights (Labour, Migration and Employment Rights published by the Institute of Employment Rights) is that the laws against discrimination should extend to immigration status. As a practising lawyer I once thought this as well. However I now think this is as utopian – i.e. conceptually impossible – as is the demand in some quarters for fair control. Fair controls are utopian because by definition controls are both discriminatory and unfair. Just so, the issue is not one of achieving equality of immigration status. The issue is one of getting rid of immigration controls and indeed of status altogether. This might well require a revolution. Fair or non-discriminatory controls would require a miracle.

It is hardly possible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation. The economic rank of the documented, of those with papers, is at its best often equivalent to the villein or serf under feudal law – just as the villein was tied to the land and could not move elsewhere so the documented, other than the most skilled, is tied to the job and therefore the master. The sans papier is akin to that of a slave. It is true that the s/he does have one essential feature in common with the supposed free labourer under capitalism. So Marx in the – did not define slavery in terms of economic relations but as a relation of domination – with domination being direct under slavery and indirect under capitalism. However the undocumented in all other ways is quite distinct from all others under capitalism. The sans papier is entirely at the mercy of his/her master/mistress.

Slave-like conditions

The precariousness of even the documented means they can easily slide into the world of those without papers. And those without papers and not already in detention are driven into the slave-like conditions of the underground economy where they service the rag trade, fast-food joints, garages, nursing homes and sex joints of our metropolitan centres. Then when their work is no longer required, or when they are so exhausted by work that they have no energy to fight to stay, they are transported (deported) in accordance with the economic needs and national prejudices of their masters in the UK – often to be returned into the hands of the masters from which they escaped in their country of origin.

In British immigration law recent statutory measures have judicially sanctioned these slavery analogies even further. Under the latest 2006 legislation those about to be deported and incarcerated in removal centres will now be allowed to work. But this work will not attract the rewards of a free labourer but rather those of the prisoner. Section 59 of the Act specifically provides that the law relating to the national minimum wage shall not apply.

However Section 10 of the 2004 Asylum and Immigration Act represents an even more vivid example of the statutory confirmation of a slave like existence. This makes provision of housing and other poor-law support for certain refugees to be conditional on their undertaking community services. These are refugees whose claim has been rejected by the Home Office but are unable to return home because of circumstances beyond their control – because they are stateless or ill or (paradoxically in the case of a rejected asylum application) the country of return is too dangerous. Section 10 transforms asylum-seekers into slaves. It makes their labour compulsory, as refusal to participate will result in deprivation of housing and other support. When the Act was being debated in its committee stage in the House of Lords (15 June 2004), Lord Rooker encouraged voluntary sector groups to get involved in tendering for this slave labour. He also suggested that this compulsory refugee labour could be used for the maintenance of the refugee’s own accommodation – which is a way local authorities and private companies can get otherwise run-down unlettable properties updated for free.

Successful resistance

There has been successful resistance to the implementation of section 10. In Liverpool the YMCA tendered for the scheme. But after outrage was expressed by the undocumented and their supporters the tender was withdrawn.

It is these slave-like conditions enforced and reinforced by immigration controls that indicate the impossibility of such controls being sanitised by reform or other legal mechanisms. The only options are abolition or further repression. Likewise classical slavery was incapable of reform – it had to be abolished. One writer (William Fisher) in describing forced labour has said In most contexts they were treated as things – objects or assets to be bought and sold, mortgaged and wagered, devised and condemned. He might as well be referring to today’s sans papiers. In fact he was describing the ideology behind the institution of ante-bellum American slavery. The 1696 Slave Code of South Carolina began by proclaiming Whereas the plantations and estates of the Province cannot be well and sufficiently managed and brought into use, without the labor and service of negroes and other slaves…

Substitute “economic migrants” for negroes and this well expresses the rationale, and uses the same language, as New Labour’s managed migration. It is not so new after all.

If anybody had any illusions that Gordon Brown was going to be a better and more principled Labour leader than Tony Blair, they were soon rudely shattered. When Brown declared his support for British jobs for British workers, at the Labour Party Conference, he lifted a slogan straight from the BNP and National Front. His intervention made racist scaremongering respectable again. Both the TV and ‘quality’ press launched a media frenzy about the numbers of immigrants in the country, and the projected growth of the UK’s population by 2016.

If Brown was to make any attempt to implement his sound-bite policy, he would have to withdraw the UK from the EU. Tens of thousands of British workers, working abroad, would have to return home. Following the same logic, foreign-owned firms should be asked to close down their UK operations, and British firms be asked to confine their operations to the UK. Calls for repatriation (and worse) of all foreign-born workers would soon follow.

Racist posturing

It doesn’t take any imagination to see who benefits most from such racist posturing. Brown isn’t stupid, so why does he stoop to the gutter and imply support for a policy he has no intention of implementing? Attempts to hold on to the support of embittered and demoralised Labour supporters can’t be the whole answer. Such calls can only buy time. When they are not honoured, support will drift elsewhere, with the BNP being the most likely to benefit. They will be to the forefront of those pointing to yet another New Labour ‘pledge’ not honoured. They will play to the growing cynicism of an electorate that is losing sympathy for the mainstream parties.

There are two main purposes behind Brown’s call. Business, both big and small, wants to take advantage of cheap labour. The best way to do this is to have a two-tier workforce. New Labour’s drive to marginalise and outlaw immigrant workers is not so much designed to remove them permanently from the country, as to create a pool of workers who can be super-exploited. They have little or no recourse to legal protection. Furthermore, when such division is promoted between the two sections of the workforce – those with, and those without, rights – it becomes easier to fuel racist resentment and set worker against worker.

Dawn raids

Every now and again, there can be televised dawn raids, broken down doors, terrified children, police escorted removals and deportations, to show the government is acting ‘tough’. These activities are designed to whip up racist resentment amongst the legal workforce. They also push other outlawed migrant workers even further underground and hence make them even more vulnerable, in the face of a whole host of would-be exploiters.

Eastern European farm workers contribute to British society

A good example is the furore raised over all those eastern European workers who have arrived, particularly in England’s eastern counties. They mainly do menial work on farms, in food processing plants, and a whole host of service industries. The press has pointed out that these migrant workers are putting pressures on services such as schools. As it happens, the majority of these people are legal EU migrant workers, who pay tax. Nobody is asking why the large amounts of tax, which have been collected from these workers (with relatively few claims), have not been used to provide new services for the benefit of both indigenous and migrant workers and their families. No, their taxes, like those of other workers, are increasingly diverted to paying for endless wars, and to line the pockets of big business through PFI contracts. Instead, the government wants to divert attention from this shared reality, the better to divide workers and to set us against each other.

Those illegal workers, who don’t pay tax, are super-exploited by companies which make massive profits. These companies evade taxes on their profits. This situation could simply be ended by giving legal status to all workers, and by enforcing the minimum wage.

It is interesting to compare the treatment of commodities and profits, in the global corporate economy, with the treatment of migrant workers. Countless products, manufactured directly, or subcontracted, by global corporations, such as Nike, are made in semi-slave working conditions in Asia and elsewhere. These corporations ensure that the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation enforce policies, which ensure the free movement of both their products and their profits. When it comes to the workers making these products and profits for companies, it is a very different story.

‘Deserving’ and ‘undeserving’

A misleading division is often made between asylum seekers and economic migrants. This suggests there is a split between ‘deserving’ victims of repressive political regimes and ‘natural’ disasters, and the merely economic and ‘undeserving’ job-seekers. The reality is that both movements of people are mainly a consequence of the political operations of global corporate capital, and of US/UK (and other state) sponsored imperialism.

Structural Adjustment Programmes have been imposed upon the ‘Third World’ to ensure that any government subsidies for health, education, fuel or basic foodstuffs are removed. State-owned companies have to be sold off, usually to global corporations. People are forcibly removed from their land. Agribusiness is promoting a ruthless policy of enforcing GM products to outlaw non-patented food production, leaving small producers at the mercies of hostile courts. Water is being privatised and access denied to non-payers.

Morecambe Bay, where 23 Chinese cocklepickers drowned in 2004

As a consequence of all these policies, massively increased poverty is leading to more social tensions. These create the mayhem associated with inter-ethnic and inter-religious in-fighting. Warlords and gangsters make their own direct deals with the global companies. Where people actively resist, as in Colombia, corporations (backed by the US and UK) resort to death squads. Otherwise, imperial armies simply invade. Not surprisingly, millions of people are uprooted in the process and take, often desperate, measures to ensure their families are safe(r) and have some form of livelihood. These conditions explain why millions are forced to move around the world looking for work.

There is no problem for the rich and powerful when it comes to their international travel. Every country offers them motorway connections from the airports, luxury hotels and entertainment (including ‘cheap sex’). For the poor and outcast it is another story. They have to make tortuous journeys across the world, paying private people traffickers and bribing government and local officials. When (or if) they arrive at their destination, they are often employed by ruthless gangmasters. Women and children can end up as sex-slaves. The horrible deaths of ‘illegal’ migrants, found suffocated in a truck at Dover, or of the cockle-pickers drowned in Morecambe Bay, are but the tip of the iceberg. Unknown thousands die each year, drowned at sea, dehydrated when crossing deserts, or frozen to death, without adequate shelter. The fact that the conditions, and the abuse such migrants face, when they finally arrive, are so bad, just lets us know just how terrible the conditions are, from whence they have fled.

‘Naturalising’ the profits

Big business has no problem ‘naturalising’ the profits it makes from ‘illegal’ workers. The banks make no distinction between the differing origins – legal or illegal – of the money deposited with them. Once it has passed into their vaults or electronic accounts, it doesn’t matter whether it has its origins in profiteering from underpaid workers, drug dealing, prostitution, extortion, terrorism, or arms trafficking. Recycled, this money then becomes available to all ‘respectable’ and legal commercial borrowers. The Royal Bank of Scotland doesn’t want to know about the conditions workers face in the Burmese oil industry it helps to finance.

Big business asks no questions when it comes to the source of their profits. So we, in the SSP, should make no distinction between native-born and other workers, living in Scotland, when it comes to fighting for rights, or to winning support for a socialist future. We see ourselves as the representatives and organisers of that section of the international working class living and working in Scotland. We only recognise ‘illegal’ worker status in order to combat it. The fight to unite our class internationally, and to oppose all attempts to divide us, is as important today, as past heroic struggles to emancipate chattel slaves, to liberate women and to enforce workers’ rights. Indeed, the fight, to prevent the imposition of outlaw status on millions of workers, shows us that all three of these great campaigns still need to be re-fought.

When Marx raised the slogan, Workers of the World Unite, he did not insert a prefix ‘Legal’ before ‘Workers’. This is why the SSP gives its full support to the ‘No One Is Illegal’ Campaign.

No One Is Illegal
c/o Bolton Socialist Club
16, Wood Street
Bolton
BL1 1DY
Website: http://www.noii.org.uk

E-mail: No One Is Illegal

Motion passed at October 2007 SSP Conference

The Scottish Socialist Party recognises that the global corporations, and the national state governments at their beck and call, are pursuing a vicious strategy to divide the international working class. Immigration controls are being used to force millions of people into illegal status. i.e. outlaws.

This is being done to promote two tier workforces with illegal workers being subjected to super-exploitation, constant harassment and demonisation. This strategy is also designed to promote fear and racism amongst those workers enjoying legal status and to force legal workers’ organisations, whether political or economic, to pursue sectional protective measures (e.g. increased tariffs on imports, migrant worker quotas) instead of upholding genuine working class international solidarity.

To counter this strategy of dividing the working class through immigration controls, this Conference agrees to support the No One Is Illegal Group, which campaigns:-

• i) in opposition to all immigration controls
• ii) for internationalism and global links
• iii) for the self-organisation of those affected by controls
• iv) for work within the labour movement

On 8th December 2007, over 80 people gathered in central London for the Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI) founding conference.

HOPI was started early in 2007 by Iranian activists in the UK and UK left groups, to oppose imperialist war with Iran whilst supporting the struggles of the Iranian people. It has grown into a group with a diverse range of support, and the conference reflected this – there were people from several UK and Iranian left groups as well as trade unionists and non-affiliated individuals.

HOPI activists in Glasgow demonstrating against the Iraq war

One of HOPI’s most essential aims is stopping imperialist war with Iran – an effective form of solidarity and perhaps the one we can do most for. The US National Intelligence Report, which had been a bit of a shock in stating that Iran had no nuclear weapons after Bush’s repeated claims that it did, was published less than a week before the conference. In their opening briefing papers, Mike Macnair (CPGB) and Israeli socialist Moshe Machover said that we couldn’t be lulled into a false sense of security by this – Bush and his allies had already stated that Iran is still a threat, and the possibility of war is still very real.

The conference resolved to build a network of local branches that can respond quickly to international political developments, and to campaign for trade unions to commit to protests in the event of war. Links will be built with other, similar groups nationally and internationally.

However, in late 2007, HOPI tried to affiliate with the Stop the War Coalition (StWC), and were refused, for rather spurious reasons (including that HOPI is “entirely hostile” to the aims of Stop the War – perhaps because of the ambiguity of StWC’s stance on the Iranian regime, or perhaps because of sheer factionalism). The conference firmly agreed that it was essential to keep on trying to work with StWC, and HOPI will not give up despite the determination of the StWC leadership to exclude us. There were members of StWC at the conference, and, on the ground, there is considerable support for HOPI within StWC. A motion on the subject, passed overwhelmingly, urged HOPI members to join StWC and support its activities, as well as arguing for the unity that is so badly needed in the movement.

Motions were passed to focus HOPI’s other activities on solidarity with women, students and trade unionists over the coming year. The issues surrounding lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender people in Iran were brought up, as the founding statement did not mentionthem. Homosexuals are liable for the death penalty in Iran, and it is obviously important to acknowledge and support their struggles against the regime – the conference readily gave them equal precedence with the struggles of the women’s, workers’ and students’ movements.

David Mather (HOPI Glasgow) emphasised, in his briefing paper, the need to think about sanctions. He pointed out that sanctions ultimately affect the people more than the government, and that, in fact, the Iranian regime is already using threats such as sanctions as an excuse to crack down on dissidents in the name of national security. An amendment to the founding statement, from HOPI North West, was passed, cementing HOPI’s opposition to sanctions.

Permanent Revolution proposed an amendment to the founding statement cutting out the line For a nuclear free Middle East in a nuclear free world. This was hotly debated, several comrades arguing that Iran should have the right to nuclear weapons while its main enemies have them. This argument was not directed towards getting that view into the statement; it was used to argue for HOPI to take no line on it. However, other comrades felt strongly that we should be directly opposing the idea of nuclear weapons, as in the event of any nuclear attack – instigated by the ruling class – would affect the working class the most, and for socialists to take a neutral stance was not an option. The amendment wasn’t passed, but the emphasis was changed to call more obviously for the nuclear disarmament of the US, Britain and Israel.

The conference allowed plenty of time for the discussion of all these issues and showed all motions and amendments on a screen which was updated as amendments were put forward, which meant that all the proceedings were clear. All this led to lively debate and a sense of optimism at the diversity and democracy of the campaign, which bodes well for the future of HOPI as a new and promising force in the anti-war movement.

The six reasons can be summarized as follows:

• 1. Fallon’s resignation: he had recently been quoted ruling out any military attacks against Iran.
• 2. Cheney’s peace trip: his trip to a number of Middle East capitals is seen as possible preparation before military action, it is thought Cheney will ask Saudi Arabia to increase oil supplies if Iran’s oil is cut off.
• 3. Israeli air strike on Syria – it is now reported that
  

  the real purpose of the strike was to force Syria to switch on the targeting electronics for newly received Russian anti-aircraft defenses. The location of the strike is seen as on a likely flight path to Iran (also crossing the friendly Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq), and knowing the electronic signatures of the defensive systems is necessary to reduce the risks for warplanes heading to targets in Iran.

• 4. Warships off Lebanon: Two US warships have taken up positions off Lebanon since early March.
• 5. Israeli comments: Israeli President Shimon Peres said earlier this month that Israel will not consider unilateral action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.
• 6. Israel’s continued war with Hezbollah.

One would have thought given the seriousness of the current threats, Iran’s Islamic regime would seek less controversy at home and concentrate on the external enemy, yet the reactionary clerical rulers are adamant to continue their attacks on the most basic rights of Iranian workers, women and students.

Protests continue

As workers in many factories and plants continued their protests against the government’s neo liberal economic policies, Iranian Hezbollah and the religious police were used to attack the demonstration. Workers in Gavehsan dam, Minoo sweet factory in Tehran, textile workers in Poushine Baf factory in Ghazvin, railway workers in Tabss and cement workers in Nahvand were amongst the thousands of workers who protested against the job losses, privatisation and non payment of wages in the last week alone.

At the same time Iranians went to the polls on the 14th March. Even by the standards of the Iranian regime these elections were considered a sham by the majority of the population and the very low turnout reflected dissatisfaction with the government and the fact that no one has any illusions with ‘reformist’ factions of the Islamic Republic party.

Boycott

Before the election, the unelected Guardian Council used its powers to disqualify 1,700 candidates on grounds of insufficient loyalty to Islam (even though most of them were candidates of the Islamic Republic party!). In the working class areas of south Tehran, most people were proud that they boycotted the elections and mocked the regime’s claims of high participation in the elections. Hundreds of ‘reformist’ candidates were banned from participation, however given the abysmal failure of this faction when it wasin power for 8 years, many inside Iran doubt the effect of the ban on the outcome of these elections.

The reality is 29 years after the Islamic regime came to power, very few Iranians, except the devoted paid supporters of the Shia regime, have any illusions about the various factions of Shia Islam in power. The young who constitute 70% of the population are getting increasingly impatient with middle age and older Iranians who according to the young ‘are more willing to make compromises with the current regime’.

All of these prove once more the correctness of HOPI’s positions against imperialist war , against Iran’s Islamic regime and in solidarity with social movement inside Iran. It is time the antiwar movement took up positive action in supporting the struggles of Iranian workers against war , against neo liberal capitalism.

Join HOPI at the HOPI website

SSP Policy

(Agreed at Oct. 2007 Conference)

The SSP supports the Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI) campaign which aims to build and organise practical solidarity with the growing movement against war and oppression in Iran. We encourage SSP members to participate in the campaign’s activities.

Recently, two issues involving Turkey have received wide coverage in the international media. The first is Islamic head scarves, the second is the Turkish army incursion into northern Iraq. I will look at these matters in turn.

In February 2008, the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), the ruling party in parliament, put forward a constitutional amendment allowing Islamic headscarves to be worn in universities. This was passed – the AKP has a clear majority and in any case the amendment was supported by the deputies of the far right MHP (Nationalist Movement Party), an opposition party in parliament.

Before, during and after the vote, there were protests by people and parties who think the secular order of Turkey is being overturned gradually. Another opposition party, the CHP (Republican People’s Party), has been heavily involved in these protests, claiming, as is common in mainstream Turkish politics, to be defending the principles of the Republic founded by Kemal Ataturk in 1923.

Turkey is not the only country in the world where Islamic head scarves and clothing have been controversial, subject to bans now or in the past. To look at the issue specifically in that country, it is necessary to delve into its past.

Westernisation

The Republic and its predecessor the Ottoman Empire are predominantly inhabited by Muslims, the majority Sunni. The Ottoman Empire was heavily influenced by Islam in every area of life, with this permeating everyday life, including how people dressed. On the other hand, the Empire’s decline caused its rulers to attempt to Westernise, notably with the Tanzimat reform in the 19th century. This included changes in clothing – the fez worn by Ottoman men in the latter stages of the Empire was actually an attempt to adopt clothing more Western than what went before (men wore a turban earlier).

When the Republic was founded by Ataturk, a major attempt was made to continue to Westernise. The fez was banned, and even today, especially in the countryside, men can be seen wearing the kind of flat caps popular in Western Europe in the 1930s. These were meant to replace the fez.

Ataturk also encouraged women to wear Western-style clothes, and bans on wearing Islamic headgear in public buildings such as universities were introduced, though not always strictly enforced. However, these kinds of reforms never really penetrated the countryside – many Turkish women continued to wear headscarves in everyday life.

Powerful servant, dangerous master

While Turkey is often described as a secular state, this picture needs some qualification. The socialist weekly magazine Yuruyus (‘March’) noted (February 10, 2008 edition, page 9) that the state in Turkey has always been a religious one. Its religion is Sunni Islam. The government’s Office Of Religious Affairs is a powerful department and the state carefully supervises Islam, often using it for its own purposes. After the 1980 military coup, Islam was encouraged by the allegedly secular generals, partly to turn people away from more suspect ideologies like socialism. The attitude of the generals and secular politicians seems to have been that Islam was a powerful servant but a dangerous master, and they acted accordingly.

The worldwide surge in political Islam in the later 20th century also affected Turkey (Iran, which had an Islamic Revolution, is a neighbour). The controversies over headgear and related issues really boil down to Islam ceasing to be the servant of the state, and becoming its master instead. It is against this background that moves to rescind the ban on head scarves should be seen, as well as resistance to lifting the ban.

The controversy was graphically illustrated in the Turkish satirical magazine Le Man in October 2007. A cartoon strip was published describing a young Turkish woman going to a fancy dress ball at a university wearing her headscarf and an eye mask. She gets into an argument with a man dressed as Jesus Christ, and others at the party notice that she is wearing Islamic clothing. People dressed up as clowns or as Dracula berate her, saying they are children of the Republic and demanding that she leave the premises. She flees down the stairs past a bust of Kemal Ataturk, looks at it and reflects, I am very alone, my father (referring to Ataturk).

How does the left react? Some oppose the lifting of the ban, worried about creeping Islamism. Others see no side to choose between the secularists and the Islamists, noting that the AKP does not defend freedoms that have no tinge of Islam about them, such as the right to be a socialist or the right to strike. It is good that women who feel so inclined can wear the headscarf in university. But it is bad if it is a step towards making women wear one in public, as happens in Iran.

So far, the army generals seem to accept the lifting of the head scarves ban. This may be because they have been given a free hand by the AKP with the other major matter on the agenda, the Kurdish question.

The guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have long had bases in northern Iraq, where Kurds live on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi state frontier. After their leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999, the PKK insurgency, which has gone on since 1984, entered a relative lull (the PKK has repeatedly declared cease-fires but the Turkish state has never accepted them). However, recently the PKK has stepped up its armed activity. It is not clear why. Using Islamism, the AKP has made some inroads into the PKK’s support base (many Turkish Kurds are devout Sunni Muslims and thus a key AKP target constituency) and it may be that the PKK is trying to arrest this process. Few real concessions have been gained from the government, whose resistance is futile mentality and general’s epaulettes prevent it from coming up with a Turkish equivalent of the Good Friday Agreement, and frustration might also be a factor in the PKK attacks. And last but not least, the autonomous region in northern Iraq has given a major boost to Kurdish nationalism.

Threatening noises

The Turkish state has made increasingly threatening noises about the PKK guerrillas in Iraq. In fact, many PKK guerrillas are based well inside Turkey and have not crossed from Iraq, but this was overlooked. After the PKK sprang a particularly successful ambush near the Iraq border in October 2007, killing and capturing a number of Turkish soldiers, the Turkish authorities began beating the war drums. A huge wave of chauvinism was encouraged in Turkey (I was there at the time), with Kurdish and left-wing institutions and individuals being attacked by patriots amid a lynch-mob atmosphere. (The far-right lynch mob is a recurring feature of late Ottoman and Republican Turkish history.) A certain amount of anti-American feeling was generated by the apparent refusal of the Americans to let Turkish forces pour into northern Iraq. However, behind the scenes terms and conditions were being negotiated. Also, the AKP government passed a resolution permitting the Turkish armed forces to cross into Iraq if they felt the need to do so.

In December, the Turkish air force carried out air raids on northern Iraq which were apparently aided by intelligence from American sources. It was claimed in the Turkish media that hundreds of PKK guerrillas were killed. This was apparently not enough, even if it is assumed that the figure was anything other than propaganda. It was generally thought that the Turkish army would carry out land operations after the spring thaw, since the region is like an icebox in the winter and movement is difficult. However, presumably with the aim of taking the PKK by surprise, the Turkish army suddenly attacked on February 21, 2008.

Claims and counter claims

There was heavy fighting for about a week inside northern Iraq, then the Turkish army announced its withdrawal, claiming to have achieved its goals. It claimed to have killed over 200 PKK guerrillas, saying it had lost 24 soldiers and three village guards (a kind of militia recruited by the Turkish state from villagers, often under duress). The PKK claimed to have killed over 100 soldiers, admitting to losing nine guerrillas at the time of writing. The Turkish attacks seem to have been massive and aided by American intelligence information. There has been controversy in Turkey about the operation ending the day after US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, called on the Turkish armed forces to pull back. However, the Turkish state has too many links to the Americans to seriously contradict US wishes.

Many Kurds in Iraq suspect their autonomous region was as much a target of the attack as the PKK, and was perhaps the real target. The operation was a kind of warning to them. Iraq President, Jalal Talabani, has been invited to Turkey. It was claimed in the Turkish media that he approved of the Turkish attack in private while condemning it in public. This is possible, though the Turkish media capacity for engaging in psychological warfare should never be underestimated.

The Turkish state has said it will invade the north of Iraq again if it feels it is necessary. Certainly the pro-system opposition parties think not enough has been done. The leader of the CHP, Deniz Baykal, complained in parliament on March 4 that the operation’s work had not been completed and MHP leader, Devlet Bahceli, said the way had been paved for deep disappointment. More fighting is almost certain, and possibly also another large cross-border incursion into Iraq by Turkey when the snows melt.

Internal repression is on the increase in Turkey, with the quest for enemies within (and without) being renewed. “Terrorists”, a very flexible term in Turkey, are a favourite target and have long been so, but there have also been murders and serious assaults on Christians in recent years, and while there is no sign the AKP government actually approves of them, it must be said that these things are as much a part of Turkey’s political Islam as the AKP’s election results. Turkey is a country at war with itself, and on more than one front.

In his book about oil depletion, Half Gone, Jeremy Leggett, one-time oil company high flier and former chief scientist with Greenpeace, tells of a particularly bizarre conversation he had with a lobbyist from the Ford Motor Company at a conference on climate change.

The man from Ford tried (unsuccessfully) to convince Leggett that, far from being four and a half billion years old, the world was, in fact, only 10,000 years old. Not only did he sincerely believe this, he also accused Leggett of being a disciple of the anti-Christ, then further informing him that pouring ever increasing amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere did not really matter, as Leggett and all his fellow followers of the anti-Christ would be vanquished in the battle of Armageddon by the forces of God, after which they would ascend to heaven.

One thing that this outlandish dialogue between Leggett and the man from Ford does demonstrate is the resilience of religious fundamentalism.

Although the power of religion over the masses in western advanced societies has been seriously diminished since its mediaeval high point it would be foolish to think that it is no longer a relevant and powerful force in today’s world. In the United States, any politician with desires for high office ignores the Religious Right at their peril.

As science advanced and factual observation and calculation challenged faith based religion, the churches themselves did not just meekly accept that the game was up with the dawning of the age of reason. In fact, they fought tooth and nail in the face of the advance of scientific discovery and theory.

One of the most famous battles took place between Galileo Galilei and the Catholic Church in the 17th century. This particular fight had its roots in the previous century, when the Polish astronomer Copernicus had theorised that the Earth and all the planets revolved around the sun, opposing the then orthodox view that the Earth was at the centre and everything revolved around it.

Galileo

This view was taken up by Galileo, an Italian physicist, astronomer and mathematician, who, among other things, invented the astronomical telescope. His invention allowed him to see the appearance of the planet Venus going through phases, thus proving that it was orbiting the Sun and confirming Copernicus to be correct.

Scientifically this was what we would nowadays call a breakthrough. But personally for Galileo, in his own time, it was a discovery which would cost him dearly, as it brought him into conflict with the Catholic Church and the Inquisition in the 17th century.

An explanatory word about the inquisition. Originally established in 1233, it was a tribunal, the purpose of which was to suppress heresy, originally by excommunication. It operated in Italy, Spain, France and the Holy Roman Empire, and later extended its reach to the Americas. Following the Reformation, it was particularly active. Trials were held in secret, often under threat of torture, and punishments ranged from fines and flogging, through to imprisonment and death by burning.

In 1616 the Inquisition had heard from a committee of consultants that the Sun being the centre of the Universe and the Earth having an annual motion were absurd in philosophy, at least erroneous in theory, and formally a heresy. This was bad news for Galileo.

He was summoned before the Inquisition on several occasions, including one in 1633 when he was formally interrogated for eighteen days regarding his book Dialogue Concerning The Two Chief World Systems.

To cut a long story short Galileo’s clash with the Catholic Church and the Inquisition saw him endure house arrest, despite failing health, until his death in 1642. The Catholic Church did, however, eventually, and somewhat reluctantly and belatedly almost come round to his way of thinking when it finally conceded that he might, he might be right. This magnanimous partial acceptance took place in 1983!

Now, lest anyone thinks that this is an anti-Catholic rant, in the interests of balance it should be pointed out that the Protestants were actually on the ball regarding Copernican theory nearly eighty years before the Catholic Church let the Inquisition loose on Galileo.

Luther himself said of Copernicus that The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside down, and he considered the words how and why to be dangerous and infectious questions.

We can see from this that in the hundreds of years from Galileo and the Inquisition right up to today with neo-cons in America and, till recently, Blair in this country, religion is by no means an irrelevance.

What, then, should our attitude, as secular socialists, be towards religion?

Consenting adults

Personally, in my own ideal socialist world, I would treat religion like sex. That is, let those of a religious persuasion do what they like, but let them do it in the privacy of their own homes among consenting adults. If they want to have prayer meetings or whatever with fellow believers of whatever faith, fine. And if they behaved themselves and their priests/imams/rabbis, &c., were not too meddlesome, I would even let them out once a year at Christmas/Ramadan/whatever for a bit of public worship.

The link with church and state would have to go, though. I wouldn’t go for an outright ban on religion as it has proved itself a stubborn beast where its eradication has been attempted, and an outright ban would give it a power that benign tolerance and state indifference would not. So, the question arises, does religion have any radical role to play in today’s world?

One thing springs to mind. Quite often, where there is political repression, populations will gather round a religion to express dissent. There are numerous examples of this, most recently the Buddhist monks of Burma, who took to the streets in protest at their own government in the absence of a political opposition. Other examples could include the Catholic Church in El Salvador in the 1980’s, and even the Islamic fundamentalism which replaced the Shah in Iran in the 1970’s.

But as socialists we should be careful about siding with any religion just because it opposes things which we as socialists, too, may oppose. Many religions come with baggage that should be unacceptable to anyone on the left. Should we have supported the ayatollahs of Iran simply because they were opposed to the Shah, a despotic and particularly vile puppet of American imperialism? How could we square away giving unqualified support to Ayatollah Khomeni with Islam’s approach to women, gays or the death penalty?

Or in El Salvador, how could we have unquestioningly backed the Catholic Church, given its views on abortion, homosexuality or birth control. While we may detest the autocratic, undemocratic regimes that these religions opposed, we could at best offer only limited support to them, given the power structures that are at their core.

These are, indeed, classic examples of why we should be careful about siding with our enemies’ enemies. They are not necessarily our friends.

But I believe that there is at least one very good and important lesson that secular socialists can learn from religious fundamentalism, albeit what could, perhaps, be described as a negative one. It is this. We, too, as socialists, have our fundamental beliefs; we, too, have our tracts that our (hugely) godless faith holds sacred. But we must be prepared to add to those tracts, taking into account changing times and different circumstances.

Different people in different areas of the world may respond differently to situations that they find themselves in. What works in a relatively wealthy first world country may be quite different in character to what will energise and attract people to socialist values in a third world country or in a country which, once relatively wealthy, has fallen on hard times.

In this context I would like to point up two examples.

In his book Heroes John Pilger describes, in an article written in 1985, the struggles of the Eritrean people for independence from Ethiopia. Since 1961 the Eritreans had, while at war with Ethiopia and in isolation, despite appalling poverty, built a society which was, of stark necessity, self-reliant, but one which also placed essential value on literacy and humanity.

No young Eritrean was allowed to become a fighter in their armed struggle until they could read, write and understand what they might very well have to die for one day. And though in a permanent state of shortage, any prisoners taken were treated according to the Geneva Convention. The Eritreans’ belief was that the young Ethiopians they were fighting against were themselves victims of the same system which was trying to obliterate them.

In the years from 1961 to 1985 Eritrea’s enemies defied ideology. Both imperial and revolutionary Ethiopia had waged war on Eritrea, which had been a pawn in a superpower chess game, with America and the Soviet Union, with their client states, Israel and Cuba, weighing in for good measure.

Pilger points out that even their dogma, which he describes as a mish-mash of basic Marxism, had been reshaped by years of war and betrayal. A teacher who had studied in Britain explained it to him thus,

It may sound preposterous to you, but we have no left-wing and no right-wing. These are European concepts which have no application in Eritrea, or probably anywhere in Africa. How can we possibly use these stupid terms? We have been let down too often. We are ourselves: and we have no political debts.

For the record, Eritrea achieved independence from Ethiopia in May 1993.

The second example is that of Argentina. In December 2001, the Argentinian economy collapsed, throwing a quarter of the workforce out of work.

Movement of Recovered Companies poster

Movement of Recovered Companies

Out of this industrial holocaust something remarkable emerged, known as the Movement of Recovered Companies. It is still not huge, six years on it covers only 170 companies and 10,000 workers, but what these workers have achieved is quite astonishing.

There existed a legal framework whereby the workers could, through time, expropriate ownership of the companies. This they achieved by occupying the shut-down factories and bringing them back into production.

Put like that it sounds quite simple, but the Recovered Companies movement is a tale of occupation, eviction and re-occupation, most of the time with intimidation and violence from the former owners and police always lurking in the background.

By far the most common form of control is by setting up a co-operative, where decisions are made by assembly, with everyone having their say. In one factory, in the middle of the floor are forty school desks, so that workers who have to keep the machinery working, can have their say as they do so.

But the interesting thing is that the people who occupied these factories and brought them back to life did not start from a political viewpoint. Their sole aim in the beginning was to earn money to feed their families. Many, however, become politicised by their struggles.

The left, when they turned up to offer their support, were quite often viewed with something approaching suspicion and the workers themselves did not want to be co-opted on to anyone’s political agenda. Indeed, in one factory they were eventually asked if they would mind supporting them from outside the factory gates!

As one worker put it,

We formed the cooperative with the criteria of equal wages and making basic decisions by assembly; we are against the separation of manual and intellectual work; we want a rotation of positions and; above all, the ability to recall our elected leaders.

Some on the left feel that the co-operatives fit too comfortably into what is still a capitalist system, and call for nationalisation of the co-operatives. As one worker pointed out, however, while not theoretically opposed to nationalisation at some time in the future to do so currently would mean having a right-wing capitalist as their ultimate boss.

An interesting argument.

Though different in nature, what happened in Eritrea and Argentina (one a war, the other an economic catastrophe) had a common thread running through them and that thread’s name was necessity, as people rallied to a common cause and left the political theorists either stranded on the sidelines or chasing events as they happened.

We must keep our minds open to new ideas, to new variations on familiar themes. Not to do so will leave us with nothing but rigid dogma. If we do not embrace change which enhances our core beliefs, however unexpected its origin, then two millenia from now (though, hopefully the revolution will have occurred by then) we would find future socialists quoting from ancient texts and Marxist tracts from the 19th century.

They will preach to an audience which will regard them with every bit as much incredulity as Jeremy Leggett could ever muster in the twenty-first century when conversing with an executive of the Ford motor company, quoting from tracts which were themselves written 2000 years and more before.

Adapt, adopt, evolve—these are the things which socialism must do (with integrity) if it is to stay relevant to the citizens of the future.

SSP Policy

(Agreed at Oct. 2007 Conference)

Conference resolves that:

• 1. While religious schools continue to receive state funding, all suitably qualified teachers should be eligible to apply for all posts within them.
• 2. Religious or denominational schools should be phased out as they result in separating children on the grounds of faith, which can only serve to alienate them from one another.
• 3. That we wish to end the practice of collective worship in school assemblies.

Our last Conference agreed to arrange a meeting of socialists in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England. It is clear that the ruling classes of the UK and Ireland have come to a shared understanding of the need to adopt a common strategy to promote global corporate interests and profit maximisation (e.g. tax cutting, privatisation and deregulation).

The political framework for this strategy is provided by the UK and Irish governments’ promotion of ‘Devolution-all-round’ and a ‘Peace Process’, which together cover the whole of these islands. Furthermore, this political partnership is supplemented by the current ‘social partnership’ between trade unions, government and business. Trade union leaders are wheeled out to hail the benefits of both partnerships. Meanwhile they organise no effective action to protect their members, subject to constant attack.

Furthermore, this political strategy enjoys the backing of successive US governments. Both UK and Irish governments have accepted their role as agents of US imperial domination. British troops form a prominent part of the occupying armies in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Military bases in the UK and Ireland are being used by US troops and for rendition flights. Irish constitutional neutrality is under threat.

In the aftermath of the 2007 elections to Holyrood, Cardiff Bay, Stormont and the Dublin Dail, we now see regular meetings, involving Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, Welsh First and Depute Ministers, Rhodri Morgan and Ieuan Wyn Jones, and Northern Ireland First and Depute Ministers, Iain Paisley and Martin McGuinness. One of their aims is to further cut business taxation to make their countries are attractive to the big corporations. Meanwhile Salmond and Paisley compete for Donald Trump’s golfing/ gated residential complex in Aberdeenshire and Antrim.

Socialists have suffered a number of setbacks recently. Nevertheless, we feel that when our political adversaries are clearly organising their activities across the whole of these islands, should begin the process of countering their activities. The SSP believes that we could all benefit by greater cooperation.

A first step would be for us to come to some shared understanding of the political strategy being used by our class enemies, so that we can more effectively resist this. We can also share our experiences in acting as socialists in the new political situation we face. Therefore, we hope you will consider sending a speaker to Socialism 2008.
Yours,
Scottish Socialist Party

The SSP suggests the following discussion points (to which others could add):-

• a) A socialist republican strategy to challenge US/UK imperial plans & to advance the break-up the UK state.
• b) Opposition to NATO and the ‘Partnership for Peace’.
• c) Opposition to the British state’s Crown Powers and plans to reform the UK constitution to stabilise imperial control of these islands.
• d) Opposition to moves by the nationalist parties, SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein, and the Irish government, to collaborate with US/UK imperial plans.
• e) Support for the socialist principle of ‘People not Profits’ and opposition to ‘Social Partnerships’.
• f) Support for the republican principle of ‘Citizens not Subjects’.
• g) International support for the principles of the Calton Hill Declaration.
• h) Support for republican socialist advance in these islands based on the principles of democracy and secularism.

If the SSP organises a conference in 2008 to discuss a republican socialist strategy then the International Committee should decide on a full list of organisations and individuals who are to be invited to participate.

Soon to be included in a forthcoming RCN pamphlet.

When people are asked what is meant by the word ‘republic’ they usually answer, A country without a monarch. In today’s world this covers a great variety of states, including the USA, France, Germany, Russia, Israel, China, South Africa and Cuba.

At first glance, then, ‘republic’ would not appear to be a very helpful term for socialists, who want to distinguish between more or less progressive social and political systems.

The pursuit of ‘honours’

Therefore, despite the fact that we, in the UK, live in one of the few remaining monarchies in the world, what significant difference could the ending of the monarchy bring about? Certainly, the existence of the Royal Family helps to buttress a more rigid class system here, where class is understood in its older sense of hierarchical privilege, with upper, middle and lower classes. The desperation with which some Labour politicians and trade union leaders pursue ‘honours’ is one indication of the hold of this oldstyle class privilege within the UK.

Nevertheless, a quick examination of the world’s most powerful republic, the USA, shows us that the lack of a monarchy is not necessarily a barrier to the promotion of huge income differentials between an obscenely wealthy elite and the downtrodden poor. So, why should socialists consider themselves republicans at all, rather than just ignoring the monarchy until we have achieved our real aim, the creation of a socialist republic? Answering this question means taking a closer look at the political nature of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The UK is a constitutional monarchy, which means, in effect, that the Queen exerts little power in her own right. Yes, the Royal Family enjoys massive privileges in terms of property, income and status, but these are rewards given for its role in supporting and promoting the interests of a wider British ruling class. The fragility of royal political influence was shown over the Windsors’ inept handling of the ‘Princess Di Affair’. Diana was seen by the public to be much more in tune with the modern day, neo-liberal requirements of a celebrity monarchy. Tony Blair saw this ruling class need for a ‘New Monarchy’, and quickly labelled the late Diana, the ‘People’s Princess’. The Windsors, however, were still seen by most to be an extremely dysfunctional family, out Socialists And The Republic of touch with the present-day world. Since then, they have had to put a lot of effort into trying to repackage the monarchy.

So, does this mean that the long-standing infatuation of the British public with the Royal Family, which long prevented even the old Labour Party from challenging royal privilege, is at last waning? It probably does, but that does not get to the root of the problem. Far more important than the Royal Family itself, is the political system it fronts. Despite the existence of a parliamentary democracy centred on Westminster, with its new devolved offspring at Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont, it still has very real limitations. These lie in the state’s Crown Powers, which are wielded, not by the Queen, but by the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister has a wider circle of advisers, from the world of finance, industry and the media, who help him adopt strategies and form policies to promote their needs, without too much democratic scrutiny. We can see some of those pressures in Gordon Brown’s handling of the Northern Rock collapse, where defence of City interests has been paramount. If anyone thinks that defence of small investors is Brown’s first interest, just ask the victims of the collapse of the Farepack Fund, run by Halifax/Bank of Scotland.

Beyond public accountability

Business leaders have also ensured that the bidding for the government’s many lucrative PFI contracts, amounting to billions of pounds of public money, is conducted in secret. This means that whole swathes of the UK economy, ostensibly under the control or supervision of Parliament, in reality lie way beyondany effective public accountability.

All this unaccountable economic influence has to be supplemented by other anti-democratic political means. This is why senior civil servants, judges, and officers and ranks in the armed forces, all swear their allegiance to the Queen, not to Parliament, and certainly not to the people. The ruling class may require their services, acting, when necessary, against the interests of the people, or even Parliament. Of course, it is not the Queen herself, who wields this power, but the Prime Minister, acting on behalf of the ruling class. This is all done under the Crown Powers.

The UK’s constitution even has provision for the suspension of Parliament in ‘extreme situations’, with resort instead to direct rule by the Privy Council. This very select band of former and existing senior government ministers is chosen for its reliability in upholding ruling class interests. Its members all enjoy close contact with the world of business, whilst some have had direct dealings with military officers, MI5 and MI6.

It was no surprise that Ian Paisley was recently made a Privy Councillor, nor that his deputy, Martin McGuiness was not asked! The fact that Alex Salmond is now a Privy Councillor too, shows that, beyond the inflamed public histrionics, through which party political competition normally takes place in the UK, the British ruling class inner circle still consider him reliable enough. Indeed, Salmond enjoys his own close links with the Scottish finance sector, which has wider British interests to defend. More importantly, Salmond’s acceptance of a Privy Councillorship indicates that he will play the political game by Westminster rules, in the developing struggle for Scottish self-determination.

Way back in the late 1970’s, before the British ruling class came to the conclusion that ‘Devolution-all-round’ (for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) was the best strategy to defend its interests in these islands and the wider world, key sections were still bitterly opposed even to the very mild devolutionary proposals put forward by the then Labour government. In the lead-up to the 1979 Devolution Referendum, the ‘non-political’ Queen was wheeled out to make a Christmas broadcast attacking Scottish nationalism. Senior civil servants were told to ‘bury’ any documents, which could help the Scottish nationalists. Military training exercises were conducted, targeting putative armed Scottish guerrilla forces. The security forces became involved on the nationalist fringe, encouraging anti-English diatribes and actions, to discredit any notion of real Scottish self-determination.

The long arm of Crown Powers

However, unlike Ireland or Australia, Scottish nationalists did not then have to face the full panoply of Crown Powers. It was not necessary, since the SNP opposition was so mild and constitutionalist in nature. In the ‘Six Counties’, the Republicans, and the wider nationalist community, felt the force of her majesty’s regiments, including the SAS, the UDR (with its royal patronage) and the RUC, and the Loyalist death squads, all backed up by juryless Diplock Courts, manned by Unionist judges, and by detention, as required, in ‘her majesty’s special prisons. Those sections of the state, which provide the ruling class with legal sanction to pursue its own ends, are prefixed ‘her majesty’s’ or ‘royal’. Self-styled Loyalists include those who prepared to undertake certain illegal tasks when called upon by the security services.

Back in 1975, Gough Whitlam fronted a mildly reforming Labour government, which wanted to keep US nuclear warships out of Australian ports. He felt the long arm of the Crown Powers when the British Governor-General removed him from his elected office. More recently the Crown Powers have been used to deny the right of the Diego Garcia islanders to return to their Indian Ocean home, when they won their case in the British High Court. Unfortunately for them, Diego Garcia is now the site of a major US military base. Current British governments are even more subservient to US imperial interests than they were in the 1970’s. We should take seriously the warning from Lisa Vickers, the new US consul in Edinburgh, when she attacked the SNP’s formal anti-NATO policy. I don’t think you just wake up one morning and say ‘we are going to pull out of NATO’. It doesn’t work like that – a not so veiled threat!

SNP: pro-monarchy

Alex Salmond has finally come out and declared that the SNP is a pro-monarchy party. As Colin Fox has said, Salmond wants the ending of the outdated 1707 Union of the Parliaments, only to return to the even more antiquated, 1603 Union of the Crowns. Of course, there are still Scottish republicans to be found in the SNP. However, they are a bit like those ‘Clause 4 socialists’, once found in the old Labour Party. For them socialism was a sentimental ideal for the future but, in the meantime, a Labour government had to be elected to run capitalism efficiently, in order to provide enough crumbs to finance some reforms for the working class.

Today’s SNP ‘independistas’ passionately believe in a future independent Scotland, but believe the road is opened up, in the here and now, by an SNP government managing the local UK state in the interests of big business. They are going to be disappointed as the old SNP turns into an ‘independence-lite’ ‘New SNP’, just like its counterparts in Quebec, Euskadi and Catalunya. The SNP leadership is not going to challenge US or British imperial power, so it will not be able to deliver genuine independence. This political measure will be strongly opposed by resort to whatever Crown Powers are seen to be necessary. Being prepared to counter those Crown Powers has to be central to any socialist strategy, which opens up a prospect of real democratic advance, in the struggle for Scottish selfdetermination.

The Crown Powers have also been used by Prime Ministers to declare wars without parliamentary sanction, and to mobilise troops to break strikes when necessary. Therefore, it should be clear why socialists have an interest in promoting republicanism – it increases people’s democratic rights, whilst undermining the anti-democratic powers in the hands of the ruling class. Socialists living under fascist dictatorships, or in countries with major restrictions on trade union rights, don’t say life would be no better under parliamentary rule, or with legally independent trade unions, because the ruling class would still run things. Socialists place themselves at the head of the struggle for greater democratic rights, but don’t stop at the more limited forms compatible with capitalist rule. Socialists see republicanism today as a part of the struggle for the socialist republic tomorrow.

I have come to Dublin to set our aspirations for Scotland’s future.
Alex Salmond, speaking at Trinity College, Dublin, 13.2.2008

There two official economic visions currently being offered to the electorates of these islands. The first has been promoted by Blair, Brown and New Labour. Their British imperial vision involves bowing and scraping before the rich and powerful, and subordination to the interests of big business, whilst flying the union jack.

The second vision initially had a more limited appeal – to the electorate of the 26 counties of the Irish Republic. Successive Fianna Fail governments have bowed and scraped before the rich and powerful, and have subordinated themselves to the interests of big business, whilst flying the Irish tricolour. This ‘alternative’ vision has been labelled the ‘Celtic Tiger’.

The night before St. Valentine’s Day, Alex Salmond declared his love for the ‘Celtic Tiger’, when he made a keynote speech to politicians, businessmen and union leaders, at Trinity College, Dublin. Only in Scotland’s case this vision is to be marketed as the ‘Celtic Lion’, and is to be labelled with a saltire. Salmond hopes to build a wider alliance, bringing in the new administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland, to promote a common front of ‘Celtic Tigers’, ‘Lions’ ‘Dragons’, and perhaps, ‘Red Hands’, against the beleaguered British New Labour vision, now clouding over after the collapse of Northern Rock.

So, what can we expect in Scotland, if we go down Salmond’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ road? Scotland’s right wing Policy Institute has highlighted what it sees as the key policies in Ireland’s economic success story. Ever since the launching of the 1987 National Economic Plan, Irish governments have pursued a policy of slashing corporate taxes, so that they now lie at 12%. It has very low inheritance tax. It has encouraged a huge speculative property boom, mightily helped by some of the loosest planning regulations to be found anywhere. New infrastructure projects are done under PFI schemes. In other words, Irish governments do whatever big business wants. A series of corruption charges, going to the very highest levels of the Irish government, have underlined this.

A key feature of this pattern of development has been the neglect of social investment in housing, education and health. The private sector has been given responsibility for dealing with this and, as usual, is highly selective in its approach. Increasing swathes of society are left trapped in poor quality peripheral housing schemes. The labour shortfall is made up by importing migrant labour, forced to live on low wages in sub-standard, overcrowded accommodation.

Poor shape

A decade ago, Ireland’s outdated physical infrastructure was in a very poor shape. Now, with business interests demanding change, new motorways are being rapidly built. This is being done with total disregard for Ireland’s historical heritage, particularly in the case of the new M3 near the ancient Celtic site of Tara. The Irish government now allows National Monuments to be destroyed, if they interfere with the plans of big business. Where people need new infrastructure, however, there is no such haste, as the scandal of Galway’s contaminated public water supply has highlighted.

However, perhaps the starkest example of the ‘Celtic Tiger’s subordination to big business, has been Shell’s development of the Corrib gasfield, located off the coast of north Mayo. Ray Burke, former Minister of Communication and Energy, now facing corruption charges, made the following deal, when in office. The Irish state undertook to pay Shell’s exploration and development costs. Shell would pay no royalties to the Irish government. Shell was given executive powers to undertake compulsory access and purchase orders for the land it wanted at Rossport to build a new refinery. Irish citizens became, in effect, Shell’s corporate subjects.

A North Mayo mural pf Ken Saro-Wiwia, campaigner against Shell, executed by Nigerian government.

Mike Cunningham, former director of the Irish Statoil, said that, No country in the world gives as favourable terms to the oil companies as Ireland. The World Bank considered Ireland to be a softer touch than even Nigeria. It was here that Shell had brought about devastation to the Niger Delta lands occupied by the Ogoni people. Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Ogoni’s best-known public advocate, was executed by the Nigerian military government in 1995.

In 2005, the Rossport Five were imprisoned for 94 days by the Irish government, at the behest of Shell. They had protested against Shell’s proposed seizure of their land in Mayo, and the construction of a dangerous high pressure gas pipeline, near to their homes and community. They were only released after massive protests. Nevertheless, Shell got their way and are proceeding to build an onshore refinery, against the wishes of the local community, who campaigned for one built offshore – ‘Shell to Sea’.

Hey Mac - just do as you're told!

Policy Scotland and Scotsman writer, Bill Jamieson, made the following observation, when comparing Ireland and Scotland. The loose planning system… is in marked contrast to attitudes in Scotland. The planning regime is much stricter. Well, that is until the US property tycoon, Donald Trump, made his demands. Then, the SNP administration, and fawning local media, went into hyper drive to bulldoze local objections to Trump’s proposed development of the environmentally sensitive, Balmedie Beach, on the Aberdeenshire coast.

Trump wants to build 2 championship golf courses, a 5 star luxury hotel, 1000 holiday homes, and 36 luxury villas. He even has the nerve to invoke his one-time, croft dwelling, Lewis mother, as an inspiration for a development that will amount to a new ‘clearance’, as far as public access goes. ‘Mactrump Towers’ has all the hallmarks of yet another exclusive gated development for the very rich. Trump has also pushed for the cancellation of the proposed offshore wind farm, important for the development of renewable energy. It might offend his ‘guests’. And, just like Ireland’s National Monuments, so Scotland’s Special Sites of Scientific Interest, may well prove expendable too, if Trump gets the final go-ahead.

Of course, Jack McConnell, when he was Scottish First Minister, personally lobbied Donald Trump in New York. Under the new SNP administration, any ‘McTrump Towers’ reception centre may have to fly the saltire instead of the union jack. But whether its New Labour, SNP, or Fianna Fail, ‘It’s business as usual’.

After 45 Years as Northern Ireland’s leading demagogue the 82 year old sectarian preacher, Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley, has exited the political stage. He has resigned, as of May, his position as Stormont’s First Minister as well as Leader of his Democratic Unionist Party.

He is Reverend of the Free Presbyterian Church, which can only be described as a shrill caricature of fundamentalist hokum and evangelical brimstone. He will hold on to his honorary Doctorate in Divinity bestowed upon him by the racist Bob Jones University.

Since his rival, David Trimble, and the Ulster Unionists, along with the Good Friday Agreement fell, in large part, to his opposition, Paisley reconstructed the GFA with the pliant agreement of Sinn Fein into an even more sectarian and unionist agreement. Through the provisions of the October, 2006 Saint Andrew’s Agreement Ian Paisley became First Minister in a devolved Stormont regime. The structures of this regime are premised on a sectarian division. To create positions to fill it has more ministers, more members and more expenses than any other political entity its size. This large bureaucracy is perfect for handing out positions and sweetening pots. The Welsh and Scottish Assemblies have much more self rule than the one that sits in Ireland. Northern Ireland’s union with Britain is guaranteed by the Agreement and the Assembly itself carries a dual Unionist/British veto. It’s always potentially only a phone call away from collapsing if the Fenians ever get out of line.

Knee slap with George Bush

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has taken the job of Ian Paisley’s Deputy. Together they have become known as the Chuckle Brothers as they knee slap with George Bush and cut the opening ribbon to tacky shopping developments in Belfast. McGuinness’s lack of dignity not withstanding, the former IRA Commander sits as a Minister of the British Crown. This erstwhile revolutionary who once was at war with the very idea of a Stormont administers its rule. Sinn Fein still have the shamelessness to claim to be socialists as they partner with Ian Paisley, who believes the world is four thousand years old, the pope is the anti-Christ and who once led a Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign. The DUP is the most right-wing party in power in Western Europe and Sinn Fein chuckle as they administer the rule of a thoroughly capitalist British state with them.

Ireland of today, North and South, is vastly different than it was even ten years ago. The war the IRA waged against British rule is clearly over. Southern Ireland’s integration into the European Union has seen it grow economically. This once economic basket case now has one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Immigration trends have reversed, and instead of Ireland being a point of departure for the New World or Australia, it has become a place of arrival for hundreds of thousands of workers from the newly EU countries of the east like Poland and Lithuania.

Rebalancing sectarian privilege

But Ireland remains partitioned and Northern Ireland remains firmly British. Northern Ireland cannot help but be based on sectarianism because partition, British rule, requires it. What has been achieved in the North is a rebalancing of sectarian privilege not its destruction. Sinn Fein has readily accepted this formula, which necessitated their abandonment of all but the title of Irish Republicanism. But the problem with basing solutions on sectarian privilege is that it requires consensus and in the Stormont context that means a reactionary neo-liberal policy with no opposition.

It is also the nature of sectarian division to be unequal, otherwise there is no justification for the division. The unionist will always have the veto and the British state to back them up on whatever question should arise. The use of that veto to scuttle the attempt at an Irish Language Act late last year proves the point. If even the Irish language isn’t to be recognized how can Irish speakers? Sectarian benefits are doled out with precision. EU funds in particular are apportioned out to any number of projects defined by community or intercommunity, which can amount to the same thing since it is also premised on sectarian division. More than a few former guerillas now man these well funded community centres. Foreign investment and economic growth have not led to a single integrated school in Ireland or a single one of the Peace Walls to come down.

As I watched BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight on Tuesday as the substance of Paisley resignation began to seep in I was struck at the tone of the Unionists about Paisley’s legacy. Nigel Dodds of Paisley’s DUP and potential successor as party leader made it perfectly clear that from his perspective what was to celebrate about Paisley’s life was Paisley’s commitment to the Union and Unionist dominance within that Union. Far from a surrender to Sinn Fein, Dodds said, Paisley and the DUP had got them to not only drop their opposition to British rule but to be junior partners in its administration thus tying them politically to the fate of the union. Ironically, this is the same critique that many Republicans who disagree with the strategy Adams and McGuinness would invoke. His tone was one of bigoted triumphalism over the defeated nationalists. They would never see a united Ireland he said, and their leaders had even agreed to it.

Who's laughing now?

Worst kind of divisions

There is nothing to celebrate in the life or politics of Ian Paisley. He has represented the worst kinds of divisions wrought by imperialism on Ireland. And no attempt to stand on the St. Andrews Agreement as history’s vindication will work. The agreement institutionalized a state that is a labyrinth of sectarianism and meaningless dispensations. It closes hospitals, cuts funding to education and pursues all of the devastating policies of neo-liberalism. Paisley’s gift to Ireland was almost 50 years of fighting for Protestant supremacy and Unionist rejection. That he became First Minister in his old age of a state with his former enemies that enshrined supremacy and rejection is no sign of change.

Though the war is over and I can’t imagine the circumstances that could reignite it, the state in the North is unstable. The pressures from within one side or the other could break down the consensus required to the balancing act. Due in large part to Sinn Fein’s malleability the balancing act may continue to work for a time. No balancing act lasts forever.

Unlike another Ian in another British colony Paisley wouldn’t go down like Rhodesia’s Ian Smith. Whatever clouds he may leave under and whatever may befall his party and their government one thing is clear after thirty-five years of strife; Ian Paisley won the war.

Some years ago in the early 1970s – it seems a very long time indeed now – a new police chief was appointed head of London’s Metropolitan Police. This was Sir Robert Mack and the job he was appointed to do was to clean up the Met after its links with organised crime had been exposed.

A left wing cartoon at the time portrayed him as a dustman collecting the ill-gotten gains in a small barrow. Mack’s ‘clean up’ operation was mostly for public consumption; very few police officers were prosecuted. Most were allowed to leave the force on full pensions and to keep their spoils through a ‘lack of evidence’. The political payoff for the police was an agreement that they would get the power and equipment they needed to deal with the political and industrial unrest.

‘I’m not racist but….’

This new political generosity produced the Special Patrol Group and its role in policing political and industrial disputes. It is also produced the story of the ‘SUS’ laws (if an officer suspected that an individual was about to commit a crime he could make an arrest on that basis) which helped the police dealing out more ‘heavy manners’ to the Black Community.

Not much explanation was needed to justify ‘heavy manners’ for the black community, for the simple reason that public discourse on the subject of the black community was completely dominated by the ‘concerned citizen’ – the self appointed ‘I’m not racist but….’ bigot, who wanted to punish black people for changing London and for producing more black people. They wanted especially to collectively punish black young people, for being proud of who they were and for being politically aware (most of that generations fathers and mothers had come to England with genuine love for the country, only to be sadly disappointed at the reception they received).

Only there was a problem, those who had been marked out for victim-hood did not respond as they were expected to. First, in reaction to the huge increase in the amount of police arrests and brutalisation of young black people under the SUS laws, a new radical militant sub culture was born involving both black and white working class people. Part of this sub culture was the setting up of ‘law centres’ to help black and working class people with the new aggressive policing. This produced people like Lee Jasper, a brilliant south London based lawyer who destroyed many a police case that should never have been brought to court. He was part of the political culture of the time that supported broadly Trotskyist politics. This milieu ultimately produced Ken Livingstone who cut his political teeth also in working class South London in bitter fights with the police and the traditional time servers in his own party.

Banning The Carnival

In the summer of 1976 all these aspects came together with the campaign to have London’s Noting Hill Carnival banned. Leading the fight against the Carnival were Tory residents of Kensington and Chelsea. Their very large petition was publicly endorsed by the local police commander. The police however did not support an outright ban for two reasons; first, being that it would have been extremely difficult to contain the subsequent angry demonstrations against the ban; second, they did not wish to loose the opportunity to practice their new methods of crowd control. The method of control they did opt for was a form of strangulation. This writer witnessed the effects of that strangulation as practised on the Children’s Carnival before the main event where the children’s steel bands – alone on the virtually empty streets – were tightly enveloped by police cordons. The top of each one of these police cordons there was gap for a police inspector with a clipboard announcing and pointing out where the children should be going.

It is now a matter of history what happened when these tactics were practiced on the main carnival. Out of the ashes of that year Ken Livingstone was able to build and maintain an original political alliance between black and Irish voters (his campaign for peace talks with SF was extremely effective with Irish electors who until that point had not been a radical force in Labour Party Politics). Another of his movement’s achievements was to give some support to the black communities’ insistence that the police, when using the SUS laws – were out of control. The SUS laws were eventually scraped after a number of high profile cases were thrown out, such as the Mangrove case were all the members of a community café were collectively charged effectively with conspiracy. A large number of these cases were won by Lee Jasper with important follow up campaigning by black labour politician Bernie Grant. Grant Like many of Livingstone’s London supporters successfully carried on their campaigns as Labour MPs after the GLC and the other labour controlled metropolitan boroughs were abolished by the Tories in 1986.

Red Ken falls back into Labour embrace

The Return of Ken

When out of power Livingstone never lost the opportunity to remind his critics that it was his policy to talk peace with Sinn Fein. He also reminded the Irish community that he opposed the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the anti Irish hysteria that caused miscarriages of justice. Letting the Irish of London know they had a champion in Ken Livingstone was, and remains, a decisive part of Ken’s political strategy. And it proved successful in returning Livingstone to power as London mayor in 2000 when he stood as an Independent against the Labour Party candidate. He repeated that success in 2004, though he was then back within the party.

The Return of SUS

For a period of ten years beginning in late 1990s armed police units were involved in number of ‘extra judicial’ killings in British cities. In each case the police revived the ‘SUS’ defence. Two of these were simply SAS style assassinations of unarmed republicans. One was of a recently released prisoner (not a republican) shot and killed by police in 1998 while sitting in a car. The most notorious being the Hackney shooting, also in 1998, where a man – Harry Stanley – was shot dead on suspicion of being Irish and armed (he was in fact Scottish and the ‘gun’ was a chair leg in a plastic bag). After a very long fight the Stanley’s family got the coroners ‘open’ verdict overturned and ‘unlawful killing’ was entered as the cause of death. Two police officers were charged, yet later released due to ‘insufficient evidence’. Other cases of shoot to kill were a schizophrenic in Liverpool who was shot dead by police for wielding a sword and the infamous Bennet case where a black man was shot dead in Brixton for holding (then dropping) a lighter shaped like a gun. Lee Jasper, in his official capacity as senior policy adviser on policing to Livingstone, said in 2000 of the Bennett case, ‘Given the explosion of black gun crime within the black community our message to people is that if you are carrying a toy gun as a fashion accessory then that is a very dangerous thing to do.’ And actually shooting and killing someone on suspicion they were armed is also a very dangerous thing to do.

There were two factors driving these killings. First was the deployment prior to 9/11 of RUC special branch ‘shot-to-kill’ tactics and two, the new prejudice and impunity that accompanied the new ‘war on terror’ on London’s streets, where someone could be killed on suspicion of being a Muslim terrorist. That is what happened in the summer of 2005 when Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, who was suspected of being a suicide bomber, was killed by armed police. Much was made of the fact that he had to be surprised and could not be alerted to what was happening to him. This was later shown to be part of the police’s media management strategy after the event as was shown later when it was leaked that Mr Menezes was actually being held by another member of the police unit while he was being shot.

Since the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes his family like the Stanley family have fought for justice and even went further and sued the police on the grounds that police ‘suspicion’ of who Jean Charles de Menezes was – was not cause enough for the police to publicly execute him. They eventually won that case. Not among their supporters was the mayor of London Ken Livingstone who instead insisted on backing Ian Blair, the now beleaguered metropolitan police commissioner.

Part of Ken Livingstone’s appeal was that he survived the many attempts to defeat and ‘abolish’ him. In the end the only person who succeeded in defeating and abolishing Ken Livingstone was Ken Livingstone himself.

by Rod MacGregor

Originally printed at http://www.irishsocialist.net

The British Left has now experienced two acrimonious splits in the space of eighteen months. After the grim transformation of the Scottish Socialist Party into two bitterly-divided camps (The SSP split has been covered in back issues of E&L including an article by the Irish Solidarity Network entitled Crisis in the SSP, Emancipation & Liberation No. 14, Spring 2007), their comrades south of the border now have their own feud to manage.

Whatever else happens, it seems clear that the two factions emerging from within the Respect coalition will not be working together in the same organisation for a long, long time.

57 varieties – still unfit for human consumption

If you listen to the Socialist Workers Party, it would appear that the vitriolic parting of the ways between themselves and virtually every other prominent figure in Respect is the result of a left/right divide. The SWP are the left wing, while George Galloway and his allies represent a rightwards-moving, communalist, electoralist tendency that had to instigate a witch-hunt against Britain’s largest Trotskyist grouping in order to smooth the path for their own march towards the centre ground.

Unfortunately for the SWP, very few people outside their own ranks give this theory the least bit of credence. It’s quite true that there are notable political differences between George Galloway and the SWP, and you’d expect that any group chiefly shaped by the thinking of Galloway would be quite distinct from one in which the ideas of the SWP played a dominant role. But that doesn’t seem to have been what provoked the falling-out.

Rather, the immediate cause of the split was organisational. Questions of organisation are themselves deeply political, of course, but not always in the sense that one faction is more radical, less given to compromise in the pursuit of left-wing goals than the other. In this case, former allies of the SWP in Respect have levelled accusations of authoritarian control-freakery against the organisation – they claim that the SWP would have preferred to destroy Respect rather than give up total control over its structures. Previous experience with the Socialist Alliance in the UK counts against the furious denials of the SWP leadership (as does the track record of numerous campaigns in Ireland).

This article is not going to waste much time on SWP-bashing (you can find plenty of it in the community of leftist bloggers if that’s what you’re looking for). It’s more useful to ask what political conclusions might be drawn from a trail of broken alliances and wrecked campaigning fronts. It doesn’t seem very plausible to assume that the SWP (or any other far-left group with a similar record) does this sort of thing for the craic, because they really enjoy sabotaging political initiatives.

The root cause appears to be the lack of democracy in the ranks of so many Trotskyist organisations. All too often, we find radical groups to be dominated by a permanent leadership faction which marginalises or co-opts dissenting figures within the ranks. Without a healthy culture of debate and disagreement inside the party, it’s going to be very hard to establish a good working relationship with non-members – chances are, the leadership is going to import the same high-handed, autocratic methods and try to establish its own hegemony through manipulation. This sort of behaviour is made all the easier when the average member is unable to challenge the approach of the leadership without exposing themselves to the threat of expulsion.

Theoretical arrogance

Along with this democratic deficit, you would have to include as a factor an odd kind of theoretical arrogance – the belief that one group (be it the SWP or anyone else) represents the vanguard-in-waiting, already armed with the correct ideas to lead the working class to victory. It can’t be said often enough – nobody active on the Left today has worked out the perfect strategy, otherwise they would have settled accounts with capitalism long ago. We all have an awful lot to learn, the best we can manage is to set out with a fairly solid set of guide-lines based on the experience of the past and keep our eyes and ears open for new trends as they emerge.

Anyone who believes they know all the answers already and can trace the path to be followed in advance is going to be sorely tempted to take authoritarian short-cuts – if we know what conclusions people should end up drawing, why not save the time and trouble and do the job for them? The best safeguard against this tendency is the firm conviction that all the bother of thrashing out political differences and contending with views you consider mistaken is not a tiresome distraction from the real business of socialist politics – on the contrary, it is a vital and indispensable part of the socialist project, which requires that millions of people learn to think for themselves and shed the passivity nurtured by the power structures of capitalism. Any project of radical change which is steered to victory by a handful of infallible leaders will simply replace one system of elite rule with another.

Wrong direction

If you’re familiar with socialist history, and appreciate how closely the modern day Trotskyist groupings model themselves on the Bolshevik party of Lenin and Trotsky, you’ll find it very hard not to think of the critical points made against Bolshevism by Rosa Luxemburg and other socialists of her day so many years ago. The evidence that far-left authoritarianism can be traced back to its roots in the Leninist tradition appears very strong. This is not to say that every group which comes out of that tradition is bound to be authoritarian – the French LCR, for example, practices genuine pluralism, and many sincere opponents of undemocratic chicanery in Respect and the Socialist Alliance come from a similar background. But more often than not, the influence of Bolshevik theory and practice has pushed radical socialists in the wrong direction.

Some readers may be starting to groan at the prospect of yet another discussion of 1917 and all that, so don’t worry, this is not the time. It’s frustrating that we still have to spend time debating issues that appear very remote from contemporary politics – there’s so much in the modern world that demands hard thinking from socialists, and it seems more useful to spend our time discussing recent events in France, Bolivia or Palestine than rehearsing old arguments about Red October and its aftermath. Leninism still casts a powerful shadow over the organised radical left, though, and can’t just be ignored.

New directions

It’s far too early to say what will emerge from the fracturing of Respect. The SWP has pledged to carry on with its own version of Respect, despite having lost all its significant allies – how long they will persist is anyone’s guess, but it doesn’t seem as if the modus operandi of the party will change. Its top-down, ultra centralised style of organisation will continue to frustrate its own potential and antagonise its would be allies. Ken Loach’s remark that the SWP leadership want subjects, not comrades cut right to the heart of the matter.

Unpredictable

The Respect Renewal current, which gathers together the likes of Galloway, Loach, Salma Yaqoob and the Socialist Resistance group, is more unpredictable. A lot will depend on George Galloway himself. Galloway does not have a good track record when it comes to matters of democracy and accountability. He has been saying the right things on this score since the faction fight exploded over the summer, but it’s not at all clear if he means it, or if he’s just saying what he thinks people want to hear. As the best-known public face of Respect, he can do a lot of good or a lot of harm.

To be very cynical, the socialists in Respect who have lined up with the Scotsman had a simple choice. They could trade off the very real possibility of being shafted by Galloway at some point in the future, against the certainty of being shafted by the SWP right now. The choice they made was understandable, and they can reasonably argue that Respect minus the SWP is not just a Galloway vehicle – it includes other figures like Yaqoob and Loach with a high public profile, and might now be able to reach out to left activists unwilling to work with the SWP.

One common denominator between the left-wing crises in Scotland and the rest of Britain was the involvement of a leader who became a media personality and ended up making a complete arse of themselves in the public eye. While Tommy Sheridan appears well-set for a career of undignified but lucrative clowning-around (reports of his stand-up show left people gasping in disbelief), Galloway has gone some way towards repairing the damage inflicted by his turn on Celebrity Big Brother. It’s not clear though if he’s really acknowledged what a disaster it was.

Tabloid fodder

The experience of Sheridan and Galloway shows the dangers for the Left inherent in a heavily mediatised society. Not only do we have to worry about the hostile propaganda of right-wing newspapers, we also have to reckon with the possibility that prominent left-wingers will end up becoming tabloid fodder if they don’t watch themselves. The record of Joe Higgins as a TD suggested one way to avoid this peril – he earned plenty of column inches by coming out with great quotes in the Dáil, while projecting a rather austere, puritanical image that seemed to protect him from being lampooned. The lack of a permanent tan did Higgins no harm either.

While clearly not as radical as Sheridan, Galloway or Higgins, Ken Livingstone is another left-winger who has learned to handle the media in his own way, after finding himself one of the tabloid hate-figures of the 1980s. Ironically for someone who earned himself the undying hatred of New Labour, Livingstone’s media image has endured better in the long run than the spin-obsessed Tony Blair. The Left needs to spend time studying examples like this, and figure out the best (or the least worst) way to use the mainstream media as a platform without allowing it to suffocate our movements in a haze of glib, personality-driven nonsense.

As long as Galloway remains the best-known figure in the re-organised party, we can expect to hear plenty more talk about his notorious visit to Baghdad. It’s only fair to point out that much of this criticism has come from hypocritical pro-war commentators – their own champion Tony Blair has a much grosser record of cosying up to tyrants, from Suharto of Indonesia to Karimov of Uzbekistan, yet that doesn’t appear to bother them.

Nor is Galloway the only progressive figure who has demeaned himself in such a manner. The Sandinistas supported the Polish military dictatorship of Jaruzelksi, while Nelson Mandela offered a fawning tribute to General Suharto during a visit to Jakarta while the murderous occupation of East Timor was still in progress. More recently, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales have done their reputations no favours by exchanging compliments with unsavoury figures like Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

But there’s only so far you can go with qualifications and caveats of that sort before acknowledging that Galloway’s Iraqi performance will always be a black mark against his name. The key point, surely, is that his current position and reputation owes so much to his role in the anti-war movement. Arthur Scargill supported the invasion of Czechoslovakia, which was shameful, but it wasn’t directly relevant to his leadership of the miners’ union during its titanic battle with Thatcher. Galloway has opposed the Iraq war all along and put himself on the line to do so – it’s bloody tragic that he has tainted that creditable record of activism by a compromising appearance in pre-war Iraq.

The best hope for Respect Renewal seems to be that Galloway will take a step back and allow other figures to take a leading role. His behaviour in the past encourages scepticism – but Galloway does have strengths as well as weaknesses, so it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that his better side will win out. Only time will tell.

Islamophobia and the Left

One of the most striking things about Respect’s development to date has been its ability to win support from a significant layer of British Muslims – both in terms of its voting base and its activist cadre. This has also been the source of much criticism. In the more ludicrously over-charged rantings of some journalists, Respect has been presented as an alliance between Islamo-fascists and the far left, akin to the BNP. More restrained critics have spoken of communalism, or accused Respect of watering down left-wing principles and forming dubious alliances.

There is more than a grain of truth in such criticism (at least in the more balanced stuff, not the hysterical diatribes). Socialists who have always opposed imperialism and the war on terror, and who recognise the need to combat Islamophobia, have been critical of the approach taken by Respect in its efforts to win Muslim support – Gilbert Achcar and Tariq Ali being two notable examples.

But critical comments need to be qualified by recognition that left-wingers can make even more damaging mistakes in the opposite direction. The French radical left has totally failed to mobilise support from Muslims in France who are at the sharp end of racist discrimination, harassed by the state and demonised by the far right. It sat on the fence while the Chirac government introduced its hijab ban with hypocritical calls for Muslims to “integrate” into a society that largely treats them as second-class citizens. The LCR section in Saint-Denis even turned down an application for membership from a young Muslim woman, because she wore the hijab and that would have been bad for the party’s image…

So while it’s important not to compromise with conservative and reactionary tendencies that undoubtedly exist in Muslim communities, it’s equally vital that the Left doesn’t adopt its own version of mainstream prejudice and see all practising Muslims as fundamentalist bigots. Christianity has more than its fair share of bigotry, but that hasn’t stopped leftists from embracing Christians in all kinds of progressive struggles. The same principle should apply to Muslims.

The achievements of Respect deserve to be stressed as well as its errors. British society is saturated with anti-Muslim racism. The recent controversy involving Martin Amis, one of Britain’s best-known novelists, showed how bad things have got. Amis made a number of explicitly racist comments directed against Muslims, advocating their persecution by the British state. He treated his audience to smug lectures on the superiority of western civilisation of the sort that should have died with Rudyard Kipling. When left-wing academic Terry Eagleton tackled Amis for his racism, he was booed and hissed by a large section of Britain’s literary intelligentsia, who were quite happy to let the novelist off the hook after he slithered his way out of responsibility for his comments and responded to Eagleton with vulgar abuse.

From the high-falutin’ literati to the dregs of the tabloid press, it’s become acceptable to say things about Muslims that would never be tolerated if Jews, black people or homosexuals were in the verbal firing line. A study commissioned by Ken Livingstone recently established that over 90% of references to Islam in the UK media were negative. Muslims in Britain and other European countries form one of the most impoverished and down-trodden sections of the working class, and the Left badly needs to connect with their experience. Nor should it be a question of enlightened socialists bringing their ideas to the benighted Muslims – we have at least as much to learn as we have to teach.

Alan McCombes

How do you assess the current situation with the new SNP government?

In the short term this creates problems for the SSP. I saw this recently when canvassing for our council candidate in Cambuslang. As socialists we often look from on high and see the whole terrain. The people on the ground don’t have the same perspective.

There is still a fairly positive perception of the SNP Government. It has abolished graduate endowments, begun to reverse the centralisation of hospitals, extended free school meals, started the process of scrapping prescription charges, abolished bridge tolls, and it opposes nuclear power. The SNP are doing the sort of things that Labour once did. However, Scotland’s last Labour administration, under McConnell, was too frightened to upset their puppet masters at Westminster, and take advantage of the devolved powers at its disposal. The Labour Government in Wales (and it called itself that) did more, despite the Welsh Assembly having fewer powers.

However, we have to look beyond this to assess the overall political situation. When I was a member of Scottish Militant Labour, in the early ‘90s, there was real class anger. The Tories under Forsyth were hated. Labour were just seen as collaborators, afterthe poll tax. SML was able to win council seats in first-past-the-post elections in the housing schemes, and get up to 25% of the vote elsewhere. There was a strong consciousness of class even if it wasn’t always socialist.

In 2003 the situation was different from today. The SNP was in a mess, and there was the mass movement against the war in Iraq. The SSP made its big electoral breakthrough.

Now there is a certain passivity. Even the change from Blair to Brown has encouraged some to think that the worst excesses of New Labour in Westminster are over, and there will be a gradual pull-out from Iraq. Economic changes have also had their effects. Poverty and inequality has been mitigated by the prolonged upswing in the economy. Cheaper consumer goods and easy credit have given the illusion of prosperity.

All these things make things more difficult for us in the short term. This isn’t any endorsement of the SNP, just a recognition that socialists face a different situation today. That will change in the future, maybe in a quite accelerated timetable given the global credit crunch, rising food and energy prices and galloping climate chaos.

How do socialists deal with this situation?

Well obviously we have faced a major setback after the split. Even without the split, the SSP would still have faced problems, but the split has magnified these problems many times over.

This means we have to return to politics and a period of introspection. We cannot artificially create big national campaigns, although these may emerge. There will be local campaigns SSP branches can relate to. However, in this period we have to seriously address, discuss and debate the big issues, such as the Environment, Civil Liberties and Democratic Rights.

The Eco-socialist argument is vital. With global warming and potential environmental catastrophe, the issue of ownership and control of resources is more relevant than ever. In a recent interview, the environmental guru of the past James Lovelock claimed that it is too late to reverse global warming. Instead we have to concentrate on survival in the face of inevitable climate change. Its likely that the ruling classes internationally go more and more down that road – damage limitation and the survival of capitalism on its own terms. It’s a potential nightmare scenario. They will be prepared to write-off millions of people in the Third World. There will be mass movements of population and a proliferation of wars over land, food and water as whole tracts of the planet become uninhabitable desert. I think we need some kind of a red-green alliance that will be antibig business, anti-capitalist– not in the sense of an electoral pact between the Green Party and the SSP – but on a broad campaigning basis. More and more people around green movement are going to come to the conclusion that its not enough just ask people to change their lifestyles or appeal to big business and governments to be kinder to the environment.

Before the split, the SSP could legitimately claim to be the party of socialist unity. Now we back to being the party for socialist unity. How do we rebuild that lost unity?

The project to build a specifically anti-capitalist party cannot be abandoned. The SSP represents a real gain in Scotland. A good example of a successful anti-capitalist – and not merely anti-neo-liberal – organisation today is the Portuguese Left Bloc. It is, in effect, a party, like the Danish Red/Greens and the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (LCR) in France. The Portuguese Left Bloc has 350 councillors and 10 MPs and is a real political force to be reckoned with.

In Germany and Greece new left formations such as Die Linke and Syriza have made big electoral gains, which is big advance for the left. They have helped to change the political atmosphere in their countries in a positive way. But the ideological basis of these parties,is less clear-cut – they’re not so much parties as electoral alliances.

In some countries, such an electoral alliance may be a step forward.

In very broad terms you can divide politics into three main trends:-

• The dominant neo-liberals, whether it be Tories or New Labour, Blair or Brown, Republicans or Democrats, Clinton or Obama. They want to reduce public expenditure and taxation, and to create a more favourable environment for the global corporations.
• The reformists who want a fairer capitalism.
• The anti-capitalist bloc, which includes socialist parties, anarchists, sections of the Greens, Castro and Chavez. The weakness is, that although we all oppose capitalism, we have no shared agreement about what should replace it.

However, some political parties can straddle these particular trends. The Greens, for example, have a largely reformist leadership. However, they include some genuinely anti-capitalist elements, more so in England, with Derek Walls using Marxist arguments, and Carolyn Lucas being on the Left. This is different from the situation in Scotland, where the reformists appear to dominate the Green Party.

The SNP straddles neo-liberalism and reformism. There are some anti-capitalist individuals, but they are marginalised at this stage because of the euphoria surrounding the SNP government which has affected not just the SNP left, but even some socialists who in the past were critical of the SNP. Right now it seems the pull of the SNP on the Left is currently greater than the pull of the Left on the SNP – although I would expect that to change in the future because of the state of the economy. It was a different story in 2003, when the SNP appeared to be in disarray and some SNP members joined the SSP.

We need a wide discussion on how we relate to reformist groupings. We can work with people who are not necessarily socialist, or anti-capitalist, but who are prepared to challenge neo-liberalism on a kind of social democratic basis – in other words all those who are to the left of the four main parties. That doesn’t mean we have to unite in the same party – there can be co-operation on specific campaigns and policies, and possibly even electoral pacts or alliances on agreed terms.

In any election where the SSP does not put up a candidate, what would be your advice be to members on how to vote, particularly in a contest between Labour and the SNP?

I believe that when we aren’t standing, there doesn’t need to be a party line. Local factors come into play. Sometimes you might give your support to a Left Labour candidate with a fighting record against a right wing SNP candidate. Concretely, if I had been in Coatbridge during the last Holyrood election, I’d probably have voted for Labour’s Elaine Smith, a member of the Campaign for Socialism who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opposes nuclear weapons and has supported SSP bills to for free school meals, and to scrap warrant sales and prescription charges. I can’t think of any others though.

Where do you see the SSP’s potential support coming from if we are to rebuild principled socialist unity?

Well first we still have a big cloud hanging over us, as long as the police investigation is continuing. We don’t know what will happen to Solidarity. We still don’t fully know how damaged the SSP project is. Is it recoverable? The split did more than damage the SSP (and Solidarity too). Splits discredit the whole Left. This is equally true of the recent split in Respect in England, whatever its political basis. Splits lead to demotivation, demobilisation, and ultimately apathy.

However, the SSP has to look to those 200,000 people who gave us their vote over 10 years, as well as to the young people who didn’t have the vote, but were drawn into activity, particularly over the War. This is still a potentially big constituency. Despite my earlier assessment of the overall political situation, the economy now looks like it is about to take a nosedive. We have to address this too. How we do these things remains an open question.

Looking to the existing political parties, there are elements in the Labour Party, Solidarity, the Greens and the SNP which could contribute to a new united socialist party.

The Labour Party

I recently attended a Campaign for Socialism meeting addressed by John McDonnell. He said that Marxism, far from being redundant, is now more relevant than ever, with the problems of the Third World, the credit crash and global warming. He said that the space in the Labour Party for debate between anti-capitalists and reformists had now gone. The neo-liberal agenda dominated everything, so there was no opportunity for the Left to influence the Labour Party.

However, some of the Scottish Labour members present at this meeting claimed there was still some democratic space here, although they weren’t that optimistic. Sooner or later I expect a break. It’s not the numbers that will be significant, but the possible impact on the trade union movement. Will the Morning Star make a break with Labourism at last? The next Holyrood election or local government elections may concentrate minds. I expect some discussions to start next year.

Solidarity

First of all there needs to be open discussion on this issue in the SSP. People mustn’t get over-excited. There are elements in Solidarity whom I could work with. Some people joined Solidarity because of where they lived and who they knew rather than because they had thought through and understood all the issues.

However, with the benefit of hindsight, the experience of the SWP and the CWI was negative. We needed to go through that experience to learnthe hard way. The problem with these two organisations is that they operate on the basis of Democratic Centralism, or more accurately, Bureaucratic Centralism. I know from my direct experience in the CWI. The imposed centralised line isn’t just applied nationally, but within their wider international sections too.

This means their members didn’t engage in the internal debates of the SSP in an open and constructive way. They arrived with a predetermined line, which others couldn’t influence. This led to the loss of a number of new, more inexperienced SSP members, who found an atmosphere of sectarian point scoring in some branches unappealing.

In the SSP’s 50:50 debate on women’s representation, the SWP argued and voted as a block, despite some internal disagreement. Now, in this case, I agreed with many of their arguments. But, you know that the line was handed down from the SWP Central Committee. If the line changed next week, all their members would just vote the opposite way!

The CWI is little better, it’s just that it is smaller. This doesn’t mean of course that there weren’t times when I also agreed with some of their positions, – but that’s the point. You consider all the arguments, and don’t just arrive determined to force through your point of view, without considering other arguments. Don’t misunderstand me. I believe in robust political debate, but we must get beyond their failed way of operating.

When it comes to a question of Solidarity members being readmitted to the SSP, I have no problems with many of the individuals concerned. However, it would be a different matter with those who vociferously called for a split and led a malicious public campaign against many good comrades in the SSP.

The Greens

The Greens are a very small party. A report of their recent conference suggests no more than 50 members were present. However, the Green Party represents the political wing of a much wider movement, including the likes of Friends of the Earth.This is where the Greens get their wider electoral support. The SSP has more members, more branches, and more vibrant conferences, but we don’t have this wider periphery. The old Labour Party used to have a periphery of active trade union branches; we don’t.

The current Green leadership in Scotland, especially Robin Harper, wouldn’t touch the Left with a barge pole. They believe a Red/Green alliance would cost them votes, and undermine their project of joining mainstream government coalitions. However, comrades in Glasgow tell me there are a number of excellent Eco-socialist Greens they have come into contact with, over the old M77 and the new M74 campaigns.

I don’t have enough experience in this particular political arena. Once again though I believe the SSP should initiate a wider discussion on our relationship with the Green Party/Movement. I’m sure splits will emerge amongst the Greens, and that the Eco-socialist argument will develop much greater purchase in the future, challenging the Eco-capitalism of the Green’s leaders.

The SNP

There is a Left, but it is marginalised at present. Four things are working in favour of the SNP leadership. First, Salmond is a highly skilled political operator. Secondly, they have become the beneficiaries of the soft protest vote in Scotland, in a similar manner to Centre or supposed Centre parties elsewhere, e.g. in Italy and the USA. Thirdly, the unresolved National Question colours most politics in Scotland. A wide range of issues are viewed through the distorting lenses of Unionism and Independence. Fourthly, Holyrood doesn’t enjoy substantial power, so a lot of politics just involves making gestures.

This all aids Salmond’s populist approach to politics, with the SNP Government promoting policies both for big business and the people of Scotland. In as far as anyone can see into the future, I believe the SNP will strengthen its position in the next election. An SNP majority government could well emerge. This is one reason why I am so pro-independence. Only when we have Independence will a more clearly ideological differentiation occur.

The 1st Calron Hill demonstration, by Myra Armstrong

What is your assessment of the various projects the SSP has been involved in to have a say in the resolution of the National Question?

I was strongly in favour of the republican Calton Hill Declaration. We faced two sorts of opposition within the party. First, the CWI opposed it because the Declaration didn’t specifically mention socialism. Secondly, I remember some SSP members were unhappy about the Declaration dealing with social issues, wanting it to concentrate on Scottish self-determination on the grounds that it would exclude people. I disagreed with both criticisms.

I think the first Calton Hill demonstration was a major success. We were given a real opportunity with the official state opening of Holyrood by the queen. We related to a deep-seated anti-monarchist sentiment in Scotland. However, right after this, the crisis hit the party. It was this, rather than deliberate negligence by the executive and national council that led to the lack of follow-through activity.

I share with the RCN a strong identification with republicanism. It emphasises the SSP’s democratic approach to politics. I think Salmond misjudged the feeling in Scotland, when he declared the SNP’s support for the monarchy. A recent survey in the Daily Express showed that, if Scotland were to become independent, then over 50% would want it to become a republic.

Where I disagree with the RCN is that I believe we should support independence without any preconditions. I think, although that’s not what Blair wanted, devolution has undermined rather than strengthened the union. Similarly, whatever Salmond thinks, Independence will open up the road to both a Republic, and provide an opportunity for socialists to make a real impact again. There is an underlying dynamic to all this. That’s not to impose a rigid stages theory which a priori excludes moving directly to a republic, which would certainly be my preference, but to recognise that even if an independent Scotland didn’t start off a republic from day one, there would be a momentum in the direction of a republic. It would be certainly open up a mass debate around republicanism or monarchism – a debate which is unlikely to happen on that scale while the United Kingdom appears secure and permanent. If not in the run-up to an independent Scotland, then at least immediately after an independence referendum is victorious, the momentum towards a republic could be unstoppable – especially if republicans and socialists prove their credentials by being seen to fight for independence in a non-sectarian way, rather than cutting ourselves off with an ‘all-or nothing, our way or no way’ approach.

Now looking to the Scottish Independence Convention and Independence First, I believe these still have a positive role to play. When the SIC was formed, support for Independence was greater than support for the SNP, and this was represented in Holyrood by the SSP, the Greens and some Independents as well.

Today, with a new confident SNP Government, the situation has changed. The SIC experienced a splinter, with the formation of the more moderate Scottish Constitutional Convention. This tension amongst Independence supporters mirrors that which split devolutionists, when faced with the rising strength of the Labour Party in the run-up to the 1997 General Election. Only now it’s the SNP leadership calling the shots, but over independence.

However, Elaine C. Smith is now convenor of the SIC – in the past she’s voted SSP as well as SNP, and has a reputation as an outspoken working class left wing feminist. It’s positive that the figurehead of the broad independence movement represents progress and equality rather than conservative middle class nationalism.

Without MSPs it’s more difficult for the SSP to play a decisive role in the broad independence movement; if we had even a small foothold in the parliament we would now have much more clout than in the past given the precarious balance of forces in Holyrood.

I agree with you that the SNP leadership aren’t that keen to press forward with an IndependenceReferendum, for fear of losing – that’s why it’ important we have organisations like Independence First and the Independence Convention – to keep up external pressure.

The SSP should not dilute its republican socialist message. I hope we can build something positive around the Calton Hill Declaration. However, I think that party members need to take more of their own initiatives and not expect the leadership to deliver everything. An example of a good initiative from below is the SSY’s latest film on knife crime. This can be taken to community centres, etc, and then we can really begin to engage people in debate.

The mainstream parties, whether unionist or nationalist, are now cooperating within the current devolved UK framework. For example Alex Salmond meets with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. How do you think socialists in these islands should coordinate their activities?

The SSP is now committed to the RCN-initiated motion, which calls for coordination. This is policy so we will act upon it. My reasons for opposing this at the last Conference were practical. I support the principle.

The problem is the fragmentation of the Left. Taking England, you now have two Respects, the Socialist Party, the SLP, the Labour Coordinating Committee, and a trade union opposition focussed mainly on the RMT. In Ireland things are more confused with the problem of the North. In Wales the situation has changed. The SSP related in turn to Cymru Goch, the Socialist Alliance, and then Forward Wales, which has now disappeared.

The SSP is not in as strong a position to influence and shape things as it was a few years ago. If we were in a stronger position then things might well be different. Therefore I see the issue of such coordination as being a question of timing.

What do you think are the important issues at the forthcoming SSP Conference?

I haven’t yet had much time to go through the agenda, the motions etc.. I also believe that we have to look wider than our own internal affairs and discuss how we communicate with the people out there.

One motion to Conferences says that the SSP should drop its provision for Trade Union affiliations. This seems to reflect a certain tension between whether the SSP should be a socialist or a labourist party. What is your view?

I don’t have a fixed position. We need to have an open debate. There are those who argue that trade unions should be independent of all political parties. However, there is also a growing realisation that trade unions no longer enjoy any real political representation. The politics of this is complex, with people politically split a number of ways.

Another key debate, after our party’s previous experience, is whether or not we need a single leader. What is your opinion?

Again I have no fixed view, but I would want to encourage real debate. In the English Green Party, which has had a more collective leadership, Carolyn Lucas now wants a single leader. In a world where getting media attention is important, we have to recognise that they will focus on individuals. Even as socialists, we tend to celebrate key individuals, like Che Guevara or James Connolly. This doesn’t mean we need to depend on a charismatic superhero figure. Both the Portuguese Left Bloc party, and the Greek Syriza alliance have performed well without such a leader.

There is also a motion to end Platform rights in the SSP. Do you support this?

No, I don’t agree. The old Communist Party banned platforms, but was awash with factions. If platforms were abolished, this would represent a political step backwards. It would then be a short step to a more repressive internal regime and probably lead to expulsions. It would represent a move back to the discredited old-style parties. When a party grows, different political groupings are bound to arise. I think it would be a step forward if the CPS or CPB joined the SSP as platforms. The rights we had in the pre-split SSP were healthy, but were abused by certain Platforms. It may be necessary to define those rights and duties more clearly.

This article argues that not only are platforms inevitable, but that they are necessary for the healthy development of an open, democratic party. To illustrate the points, we will use our own platform, the Republican Communist Network (RCN), as a case study.

Differences of opinion are inevitable

In our opinion a genuine socialist party would welcome all shades of socialist opinion into its ranks (otherwise it remains a sect rather than a party). This openness and the uneven political consciousness within the working class means that differences of opinion within a socialist party are inevitable.

Platforms can be thought of as seeking to express these differences in a coherent and organised manner in much the same way as a socialist party seeks to organise socialists in a coherent manner within capitalist society (as opposed to remaining as isolated individual community and work place activists, or voters).

It goes without saying that if platforms are a necessary feature of any open, democratic party then those platforms themselves must operate in an open and democratic manner. For example, platform members should declare themselves as such when operating within the SSP, in debates and in seeking election to any position. This is standard practice among RCN platform members.

Testing ideas in open debate

There is no need for anonymity within the SSP with its relatively democratic culture: on the contrary, the RCN advocates open debate among and between platforms and individual party members as being the strategy most likely to develop effective policies for the party. Each platform naturally hopes (and, perhaps, believes) that its ideas and theories are the ones best suited to the challenges the party faces. Testing each other’s ideas out in open debate is an excellent way for us all to learn and develop.

One reason that platforms are suppressed is that they may present a threat to the controlling faction, ie, they are seen as a ‘leadership in waiting’. This is not a role the RCN has any desire to pursue. There is a further role which platforms fulfil – a role the RCN is deeply involved in – the generation of ideas, theory and tactics. A party whose ideas ossify is doomed. A party which loses the capacity to be self critical has no business asking our class to entrust its fate to that party. Mistakes will be made and these must be learned from – quickly if events are moving rapidly. Herein lies the strength of having several platforms with variations in theory and recommendations for practice.

All species contain within their gene pools various subsets of genes which do not appear to have any current use but which come into play during changes in the environment and allow the species to evolve. Just as the competing genes are tested out in the real world of upheavals in terrain and climate, so our party should have a number of ideas that are constantly being tested against real world events. Not only do we need to have a variety of ideas but we need to know what these ideas are and we need a mechanism for evaluating these ideas as events unfold. This is why the RCN concerns itself with constitutional matters relating to platforms and democratic rights and with building links internationally at a rank and file level. A party of thinkers, with a democratic culture, is a party best placed to negotiate the ebbs and flows of the class struggle, to learn and grow.

How to think, not what to think

Another role the RCN seeks to fulfil is an educational role. A hallmark of some organisations/groups, not only of the Left, is the tendency to train new members in What to Think. Educationals are presented as, ‘Here is the script – go and learn it’. We believe it is much more important to train members How to Think. This means exposing members to controversy and debate; encouraging rather than discouraging debate; and seeking out alternative styles of discourse.

Of course, to get the best out of such exercises it helps to know as much as possible about what participants mean by certain words and phrases and this relates back to an earlier point about the need to be upfront in relation to membership of platforms.

Some platforms measure their success in terms of recruitment. It is perfectly natural to want to recruit but aggressive recruitment as a tactic tends to go hand in hand with the What to Think educationals closely related to the What Way to Vote performances at Conference. There are obvious long term dangers for the party where any platform, especially the dominant platform, adopts the Winning the Vote rather than the Winning the Argument philosophy.

So many factions see debate as a continuous bludgeoning exercise to assert the superiority of their particular line. Yes, sometimes there are real differences that need to be aired and real principles that need to be upheld. However there is also the possibility of a new higher level of understanding arising from debates which involve a number of different points of view or experiences. This is what the RCN wants to achieve in the SSP.

The RCN starts from the position that all SSP members are comrades, brothers and sisters. There may be particular actions, or lack of actions, which we will criticise individuals for quite strongly, but we do not enter into the debate on ideas with a disparaging dismissal of other party members, just because we disagree with some of their politics.

The reality is whatever the outcome of any future court case, the fight for socialism has not been made any easier. However, whatever those conditions, it is imperative for socialists to stay organised and to continue to raise the red banner and to champion working class causes in Scotland, across these islands and internationally.

Stick to the task

The SSP has stuck to this task despite those unfavourable conditions. In recent months we have been on picket lines with striking civil servants, campaigned against Post Office closures, commemorated the 5th anniversary since the invasion of Iraq, stood in council by-elections and continued to discuss and debate the key political issues of the day.

Another vital task is to learn the organisational lessons of the previous two years. In the wake of the split by Sheridan and his supporters, the SSP set up a commission to precisely address these issues. The commission has conducted an exhaustive and extensive consultation with the SSP membership.

The main business of the March conference will be for the democratic structures of the party to decide what changes should be made to the Party’s constitution to ensure history does not repeat itself. This process, whilst time consuming and laborious, is necessary for us to lay the foundations, to re-build our party into a mass socialist party of the working class in Scotland.

However, we will be trying to do this in a situation where the SSP can no longer claim to be the party of socialist unity, uniting all the major forces of the socialist Left in Scotland; but is now having to campaign for socialist unity. This means we have to behave in a manner, which recognises that we are not, at present, the only force on the Left, and have to consider, how we can remain open to others, whilst maintaining our democratic structures and socialist principles.

Therefore, a key debate at conference will be whether the SSP upholds the principle of trade union affiliations. At heart this is a debate over whether the SSP builds as a labourist or a socialist party. Trade union affiliations allow many passive, indeed sometimes unknowing, workers to be seen as party members. In reality, trade union bureaucrats usually use these members’ passive support to wield ‘sledge hammer’ block votes at conferences to get their way.

Instead, we want the SSP to be a socialist party which is active within the trade unions, either by supporting Left (usually) opposition groupings, or when the political climate permits, branches of active party members within workplaces. This, of course, does not prevent any trade union supporting particular SSP campaigns. Indeed, we should be encouraging trade union members’ active participation in the use of their unions’ political funds, as an alternative to automatic support for Labour.

The main focus of this conference and the purpose of any changes to the constitution of the party must be to enhance party democracy from the bottom upwards and to extend accountability, building, in the process, a mass democratic party of action. If conference is to have a theme or a slogan then it must be politics over personality. This is reflected in the various proposals around the post of Convenor.

Accountability and democracy

Accountability and democracy must be central to the debates around the role of the Executive, party committees and the elected leadership. A crucial part to achieving this is through a network of healthy, active branches which should be the foundations on which the party is built. Among other things, there has to be assurances that any motion passed at conference is not quietly kicked into the long grass, but is instead acted upon. There needs to be a tightening up of how party committees operate: timetabled meetings, available minutes and bound by conference decisions.

Finally, the issue of platforms. There has been a call for the abolition of platforms. This right of members to organise in open platforms has been in the party constitution from day one. That, in and of itself, does not make it correct. However, without this right it is unlikely that the SSP would have been created in the first place. As a pluralist socialist party, we should recognise that a range of political viewpoints is a source of healthy debate and new ideas. Banning platforms would also further isolate us from the wider European Left. All the major organisations, such as the Portuguese Left Bloc and the French LCR have this provision, and consider it an essential component of socialist unity. Platforms or tendencies should be welcomed by the party as a way of promoting political discussion.

We do recognise that a couple of the platforms that have recently left the SSP did have a negative side to their involvement in our party. Often, they put their narrow, sectarian interests above the interests of the SSP and the working class as a whole. In our view, platforms should not just have rights but also have responsibilities. They must put the interests of the party first and not try to promote their own front organisations over the democratic decisions of the party as a whole. Below we re-print an extract from our editorial in Emancipation & Liberation No. 8 (Autumn 2004) explaining in more detail why we fight for the right ‘to platform’ in our party.

The agenda is still to be confirmed so watch that page for details. The page also contains links to the motion which led to the convention taking place and an article on it.

Link is now dead and does not appear to be archived

We currently have live issues 11, 12 and 14. 15 is being worked on now. We will then probably start from issue 1, this is due to the number of articles which reference previously published ones making the process slightly easier.

The most current issue available is issue 16. To purchase this or any other issue go to the Contact/Subscribe page.

Issue 17 will be published soon. We aim to have an issue go live on the site no more than 1 issue behind publishing schedule and will occasionally publish other articles. Real life can interfere in this schedule though.

Issue 15 Cover

• Setback or disaster: Can the SSP survive?, Mary McGregor
• The SNP’s ‘National Conversation’ prepares the ground for reform of the Union, Allan Armstrong
• Consensus politics or an unprincipled lash-up?, Bob Davies
• Past mustn’t stand in way of future
• Irish election: Downturn in workers struggle means Teflon Bertie rides again, John McAnulty
• When the fighting is over, Rod MacGregor
• Beslan, Jim Aitken
• From Operation Banner to Operation Helvetica, John McAnulty
• Iranian workers face two enemies, Yassamine Mather
• Elections in Greece: Positive results for the left, YK
• The Highland Midge, Rod MacGregor
• Homelessness- who really cares?, Republican Worker
• Beggar, Jim Aitken
• No One Is Illegal, No One Is Illegal
• May Day: Marching in the footsteps of immigrant workers, Sharat G Lin
• It’s a Free World, Corinna Lotz
• What Socialists Stand For, Andrew Weir
• Internationalist spirit, Allan Armstrong
• To tame the city, Grgorz Rybak
• Lyrical Delicacy and Political Toughness, Allan Armstrong

Jim Aitken: socialist activist and poet

Could you please give us some background information about your life?

I was born and raised in Edinburgh. My mother was from Wick, one of a family of six. She left Wick to work in service in London. She never saw the city because she was working all the time. She met my father in North Berwick. He was one of eight children raised in Edinburgh. His family originally came from Dublin. I consider myself a mongrel. I feel Celtic, it is part of my roots.

My mother was a member of the Labour Party, whilst my father was chair of the local branch of the old UPW, the posties’ union for 27 years. Uncles and aunts were members of the Communist Party. My aunt, Gertie McManus, was a stalwart of the Edinburgh Trades Council, as a delegate from USDAW, the shopworkers’ union. She was behind the moves to get the James Connolly plaque put up in the Cowgate.

I was brought up in a wider, literate, working class, socialist culture, which has largely disappeared today. It seemed natural to be a socialist and republican. When I rebelled as a teenager, it just pushed me further Left.

How did your interest in literature come about?

There were plenty of books in the house. There was also an atlas and I collected stamps. These all helped to arouse my interest in the wider world. This all contributed to my internationalism. I went to Portobello High School. I was fortunate that this was the period when comprehensive schools provided a real opportunity for working class kids. The teachers were committed to the comprehensive ideal, and some of my English teachers, in particular, provided me with good leads. I read Beckett in my sixth year. This led me to a whole lot of interesting existentialist writing, for example, Sartre, Camus and Kafka.

When I left school I worked for two years. I began to write poetry. I met Norman McCaig, along with Michael MacDairmid and Deidre Chapman in Milnes Bar. I became a friend of Norman’s and read my poetry to him at his flat. He did a lot to encourage me. When Norman got the readership at Stirling University I decided I would go there to study. I studied literature, fine art, philosophy and religious studies. I had some of my poetry published in the university magazine and did some readings there.

Somebody else who has had a great and continuing influence on me is Hugh MacDairmid. I recently read Revolutionary Art of the Future produced by John Manson, who was interviewed in your last issue.

How were your politics developing at this time?

I didn’t join any political party, although I went to some meetings organised by the Communist Party at the University. John Reid was the President of Stirling NUS at the time! I was more interested in particular campaigns and issues like Vietnam, Anti-Apartheid and CND.

Why did you decide to become an English teacher?

I decided that since I had personally benefited from the comprehensive system, I wanted to offer something to working class kids from a similar background. My love of English is tied up with the openings on the world which literature provides.

I taught briefly in Stirling, but since then, I have been teaching in Edinburgh. The English department I joined was a really good place, where, once again the teachers were committed to the comprehensive ideal. However, there was still the authoritarianism symbolised by the use of the belt.

Things really changed for the worse under Thatcher. She was a class warrior determined that her class should win out. She was vicious. Mass unemployment was used to discipline the working class. The schooling system was remoulded to better fit the economic system. There were fewer and fewer possibilities for real education, as everything was subordinated to continuous assessments. O grades became Standard Grades; Highers became Revised Highers (revised again and again) as more finely graded assessment procedures were imposed, to control both student and teacher.

English teachers were at the centre of the resistance to all this. I became a member of Scottish Association of Teachers of Language and Literature (SATOLL). The late Tony McManus was the inspiration behind this. Many of those involved, like Tony, were themselves writers and artists. We had a considerable impact. I had articles published in The Scotsman and The Herald.

I was also quite heavily involved in the Edinburgh Local Association of the EIS. I was on the Local Executive, alongside other left-wingers from Rank & File Teachers. I chaired the English subject section. The Edinburgh LA was to give its support to various initiatives, like SATOLL’s Sense and Worth and, more recently, the pamphlet of anti-war poetry, Magistri Pro Pace, written by Scottish Federation of Socialist Teacher members, Allan Crosbie, Annie McCrae, Andrew McGeever, Linda Richardson and myself.

How did your politics develop through this period?

When Thatcher came to power I joined the Communist Party. This is where I believed I would find the best criticism of capitalism. Somewhat mistakenly, this is where I also thought the fightback against Thatcher would begin, because of the CP’s strength in the big industrial unions. But the big debate, which was taking place inside the CP, was which way forward – the working class or the new social movements. I was with the industrial working class-based wing. However, just when the wider labour movement needed the CP, it was tearing itself apart.

Since internationalism was so important to me I continued to be active in a number of campaigns. These included Liberation (originally set up by Fenner Brockway), the Britain-Vietnam Association, Anti-Apartheid and Latin America Solidarity.

When the CP folded, I became a member of the Midlothian Peace Forum (I was living in Penicuik at the time), which combined CND, Peace groups and Anti-Apartheid. The leading figure was David Smith, a local Labour councillor, and also a committed socialist. We invited Canon Kenyon Wright of the Scottish Constitutional Convention to address one of our Burns Suppers. Scottish self-determination was becoming an important issue, under the hammer blows of Thatcher. Scottish devolution eventually came about as a response to Thatcher’s attacks.

This was also a great period of Scottish cultural renaissance. When political options run out, cultural renaissance can reach the parts that politics can not reach. World class writers such as Alistair Gray and James Kelman came to the fore. The artists, Ken Currie, Steven Conroy and Steven Campbell had a major impact.

When the EIS leadership accommodated to the Tories, and then to New Labour, they slowly strangled the teachers’ union as a vehicle of resistance, I dropped out of LA activity. I used the time to do a two year course at Edinburgh University, on Scottish Cultural Studies, led by Murdo Macdonald, followed by a two year course on European Studies. I also took a considerable interest in Latin American writers, particularly Jorge Luis Borges (despite his right wing politics) and Pablo Neruda, Gabriel Garcia Marques, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes. When I finally published my book of poetry, Glory, in 2001, I included an essay on Borges.

So let’s go on to your books of poetry. Was Glory your first to be published?

No, back in 1993, I had published Twelve Poems for Mikolaj. Mikolaj Januszewicz was a close friend of mine, when I lived in Midlothian. He had just died. Mikolaj was a remarkable person and a Communist in several European parties. As a Belorussian Communist he had fought with the Partisans in the Second World War, before moving to France to fight with the Maquis. After the war he moved to London, then Midlothian, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was a member of the old CPGB.

Glory was published in 2001. It was dedicated to my children and to the Irish granny I had never met. It included poetry I had written over many years. It deals with major political events in the world, but also with my own internal life and cultural interests, My most recent book, Neptunes’s Staff & Other Formations, follows this format too. It has been the most successful in terms of sales. This book has gone to a second edition and raised money for CND.

The book launch was very successful too. Sixth year students produced a musical accompaniment to the poem, Leroy’s Rapping Lament, which links events in Baghdad and Falluja with New Orleans. Teachers and students also made a film with images from these places.

I have always tried to have my work sponsored through wider labour movement bodies and campaigns. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led to my writing of From the Front Line of Terror in 2002, and Another Line of Terror in 2003, and my contributions to Magistri Pro Pace in 2006. This was also dedicated to Tony McManus. The Herald printed a double page selection. My other recent book of poetry, Celta Arabica, 2004, was written with the Palestinian writer Ghazi Hussein. These were all written under the auspices of the Anti-War Movement.

Palestine is obviously very important to you. How did you become involved?

Palestine is the Left’s ‘Vietnam’ for today. Palestinians are the conscience of the world today, as the Jews once were. When I met Ghazi, who originally lived in Syria, as part of the Palestinian diaspora, he said that the Palestinians were at the bottom of the barrel in the Arab countries too. This is why they are at the forefront of all the struggles against injustice.

The idea of organising poetry readings came in response to the fire-bombing of the Annandale Street mosque by racists in 2001. It was decided to hold a solidarity meeting in the damaged mosque. Tom Leonard, Liz Lochead, Aonghas MacNeacail, and others, all agreed to read their poetry. It was so successful over 40 people had to be turned away. When ever have you heard of people being turned away from poetry readings!

This led to further events being held annually as an alternative Remembrance Day. It was at one of these events that I first met Ghazi. He had written the play One Hour Before Sunrise, about imprisonment and torture in Syria. We agreed to write and publish Celt Arabica. We have become close friends.

How did your politics develop during this period?

If Thatcher’s 1979 election victory prompted me to join the CP, then the Iraq war prompted me to join the SSP. The Scottish dimension of politics is important. However, I also joined the SWP, for the same reason I had earlier joined the CP. It provided the best critique of capitalism, especially in its new virulent imperialist phase. The anti-war, anti imperialist movement is very important to me.

Now that there has been an SNP victory in the election to the Scottish Parliament, I believe it is the job of the Left in Scotland to take on the same job, pushing the SNP, that the old CP once did, pushing the Labour Party. I’m involved in Solidarity and the SWP. We believe such pressure can influence events.

People voted SNP to punish Labour over the war, privatisation and social neglect. So far, Salmond hasn’t really put a foot wrong. When, however, the SNP members, in the Edinburgh City Council coalition, initially backed the 22 school closures, Left pressure, organising the strike and other protests, was able to force them to back down. Salmond probably also pressured them, since his eyes are on the next election, so he wants to remain popular.

My main political activity, though, remains with the anti-war movement and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. Back in the 1970’s I had supported Palestinian Medical Aid, when it was the only organisation of any sort providing support for the Palestinians. Edinburgh now has a very active Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, which has brought prominent speakers from all over the world. They have done a great deal to raise the level of debate in this city.

The Palestinian issue prompted your first foray into play writing. How did this come about?

This arose because of the opportunity provided by the Edinburgh Festival in 2006. There is a close link between Scotland and Palestine. Arthur Balfour, the UK Foreign Secretary who wrote the original Declaration in 1917, promising Palestine to the Jewish people, lived at Whittinghame, outside Haddington, in East Lothian. Scotland has to know of its participation in British imperialism.

Due to the considerable confusion surrounding present day events in Palestine, many people just see the conflict as a war between two tribes. I wanted to get back to the source. This was British imperial sponsorship of Zionism, which then represented a small minority in the worldwide Jewish community.

This is why I wrote From Haddington to Palestine. The play imagines the ghost of Balfour confronting a present day Palestinian at Whittinghame. The actors were all activists from the Edinburgh branch of the Palestinian Soldarity campaign. The Theatre Workshop helped with the direction. It was well received by the Palestinians living in Scotland.

Your most recent book of poetry draws from your trips to Ireland and the Highlands.

This reflects my love of these two places. I visit both regularly. Joyce and Beckett are my favourite authors. One contemporary author whose writings I enjoy is Niall Williams – a sort of Irish magic-realism. I also enjoy Seamus Heaney’s poetry. The Highlander, Neil Gunn, is one of my favourite Scottish authors, whilst Sorley Maclean’s poetry is up there with Macdairmid’s. I support anything to keep the Gaelic language going.

My poem, A Drink in Doolin, is set in Gus O’Connors Bar in County Clare. It is a cultural magnet for Celts from all over the world. The Leith-born singer, Dick Gaughan, another socialist, also with Irish and Highland parents, has produced a TV programme, set in the same pub, showcasing folk music with common Irish and Scottish roots.

Since my regular visits to Skye, I have also made friends with, of all people, an Edinburgh banker, who originally hails from Uig. The Uig Banker shows the redemptive capabilities of the awesome scenery of Skye, away from crazy, crowded Liverpool Street.

The cover of your book has a plug by the well-known Marxist literary critic, Terry Eagleton. How do you know him?

I don’t know Terry Eagleton well, but I wrote to him. I was taken with Eagleton’s idea of extending the language of the Left. This does not mean a return to religion, but a turn to ontology, or our reason to exist. He points out that the “Left is at home with imperial power and guerrilla warfare, but embarrassed on the whole by the thought of death, evil, sacrifice or the sublime.” Even if you have a socialist revolution tomorrow, people will still have to confront the ontological and existential situation. You can’t ignore religion. It has been part of all human cultures. I am interested in Buddhism and Islam because I am interested in the world. This interest comes from my socialism.

Jim Aitken’s poems are a delightful combination of lyrical delicacy and political toughness, Terry Eagleton

Review by Andrew Weir

Available from: scottishsocialistyouth@hotmail.co.uk for

What Socialist Stand For

The Scottish Socialist Youth (SSY) have put together the pamphlet What Socialists Stand For, adapted from a similar pamphlet published by the Democratic Socialist Perspective in Australia, to serve as an introduction to socialist politics. The idea is a very good one; a pamphlet-length exposition of the socialist position provides exactly the right sort of introduction to potential readers, particularly young people, who may be interested in changing the world but are not yet aware of socialist ideas and perspectives on the world.

The pamphlet is written in plain language with minimal jargon throughout. When writing material of this sort, there is always a tightrope to walk between oversimplifying our ideas – or worse, coming over as patronising – and writing in a way that will mystify (or simply bore) the casual reader. Anyone who has ever listened to the frequent debates in SSY around the style of the writing in our magazine Leftfield will know that the SSY often has to approach this problem. The SSY’s publication of a simplified, modernised version of Lenin’s The State was an excellent example of getting this balance right; and What Socialists Stand For also hits the right note in its language.

Good political health

The good political health of the SSY is reflected in the pamphlet’s contents, which are generally excellent. The pamphlet functions in the same way as an abridged version of Alan McCombes’s Imagine; but unlike Imagine, What Socialists Stand For puts forward a consistently revolutionary stance, with no illusions in the power of parliaments to change our world. I don’t intend to summarise the whole pamphlet – you should buy it for that! – but I’ll take a trip through some particular highlights below.

After a brief introduction, the pamphlet opens with a discussion of the environment. As green issues are one of the areas which most frequently radicalise politically interested youth, this is a good place to start; and the pamphlet explicitly links the destruction of the environment and wasteful over-production with the capitalist system and its need to create markets for its products, and the need to turn a profit being considered more important than the long-term future of humanity.

In a section entitled Making poverty history?, the hypocrisy of first world governments and liberal/reformist illusions in the willingness of first world governments to end poverty throughout the world are attacked. However, importantly, the notion of imperialism is also briefly but pertinently presented. For those who are disillusioned with the failure of first world governments to address global poverty, it is important to point out that the system actually requires that this be so, and that other solutions are required.

The section on unemployment addresses why capitalism needs unemployment to function and focuses on the growth of McJobs and casual/precarious labour, as well as the particularly strong alienation that comes along with these; again very pertinent issues for young people. The following section develops the idea of the socialisation of production over history and very clearly explains the socialist conception of class.

The explanation of bourgeois democracy – the Democratic Show, as the pamphlet refers to it – and the function of the state in capitalist society, which could have drifted into very abstract theoretical writing, instead remains pointed and clear throughout, without either oversimplifying the ideas or accommodating illusions in bourgeois politics.

The section on Scottish independence focuses on the republican and anti-imperialist aspects of breaking up the UK state, rather than relying on arguments about the supposedly further left-wing political centre of gravity in Scotland.

The SSY is proud of its principled feminist politics, so it is no surprise that the section on How capitalism oppresses women is particularly well-written, with a clear explanation on why capitalism actively encourages sexist ideas; this then develops into a discussion of the role of the family in capitalist society with an emphasis on LGBT oppression.

The last third of the pamphlet is dedicated to a view of the socialist alternative. It does not go into heavy details about a potential socialist system, although there are some brief suggestions about what a socialist democracy and planned economy might (not definitely will) look like in practice; but on the issue of how we get from here to there it presents a revolutionary perspective, drawing on examples such as the events of May 1968 in France to demonstrate our conception of people’s power. The pamphlet also emphasises the need for socialists and working people to organise to achieve this, consistently and persistently, whether we’re going through good times or bad; and the fact that such a revolution cannot be held in Scotland alone (and survive), but must challenge capitalism on a global level.

Youth protest

Highlights

The highlights of the pamphlet certainly comprise the majority of it; but there are a couple of points where the pamphlet could perhaps have been sharper. For example, although the discussion of casual labour explicitly makes the point that precarious working practices make it difficult to organise workers in these industries, the suggestion offered is essentially simply that young workers should join a union. Now although any emphasis on organising young workers is welcome, the pamphlet has perhaps missed an opportunity to point out that, in a situation where workers are changing job and workplace very frequently, structures other than the traditional trade union will be required in order to organise. It is also curious that, despite the fact that the pamphlet in general does not uncritically accept the existing order in any other area, the role of trade union bureaucrats in stifling or managing genuine rank-and-file action escapes criticism in this section.

Also, the section on racism is good as far as it goes, but does not include the principled socialist attitude towards immigration controls – i.e. total opposition. It also uses the argument that Scotland, with a shrinking population, needs workers to immigrate – true enough, and it is important to counter the swamped by immigrants standard media line, but as the No One Is Illegal campaign points out, we need to point out that we are against controls under any circumstances, not just when it would be economically beneficial for our nation-state. Knowing the SSY’s politics, I suspect that this is an oversight rather than a real political fault, but it is an important point all the same.

However these are very small quibbles when put in the context of the whole pamphlet, which consistently hits all the right notes both politically and stylistically. It will be a very useful tool for the SSY and it will be a good read for new activists – and any non-youth comrades interested to know about the SSY’s political thinking should buy it too!

SSP election leaflet in Polish

To tame the city

Sitting on a bicycle
With the speed of the wind
I wend my way through the city
Trying to tame the new city space.
New closes, and new bends in roads
New monuments, bridges, houses of stone,
New bus stops and brand new human faces
I tame them like I would tame an animal.
May the city quickly remember me!
I only recognise its habits with difficulty.
I stretch out my hand and try
To stroke the barriers along the road
Shaking with trepidation.
Soon I will tame it – I know this without modesty
Or with modesty, it will tame me.
Grzgorz (Greg) Rybak, Edinburgh

Road of Tears

The Road of Tears

Battlefield Band, £9.50

Battlefield Band released their 26th album, The Road of Tears, last year. The theme is emigration and immigration. The album makes the link between the experience of the dispossessed from Scotland and Ireland, in the face of clearance and famine, and the plight of the world’s migrant workers today. The band’s line-up highlights Scotland’s multi-ethnic character, with the Scots, Alan Reid and Alistair White, the Irish, Sean O’Donnell and Jewish American, Mike Katz (Highland pipe player!)

The title track, written and sung by Alan Reid, sets the scene by focusing on the Highland Clearances, the Irish Famine and the Trail of Tears. This refers to the Cherokees’ march to Oklahoma, in 1838. They were forcibly, removed by US President Jackson, to the Indian Territories (Oklahoma). Four thousand, mainly women and children, died on the trail. The survivors sent money to the Irish Famine Relief Fund in 1847.

The album includes fine versions of two of Burns’ poems, sung by Alan Reid, The Slaves Lament and To A Mouse. Woody Guthrie’s Plane Wreck At Los Gatos is sung by Sean O’Donnell. Many will already know this song as Deportees from Christy Moore’s Spirit of Freedom album. Battlefield’s sleeve notes link the death of 28 illegal Mexican migrant workers in 1948 with the fate of the 18 cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay in 2004.

The first instrumental set includes the piece dedicated to Mr. Galloway Goes To Washington. This celebrates George Galloway’s triumph in the face of the US Senate sub-committee. There are another four instrumental sets which also show off Battlefield’s musical skills. The album finishes with The Green and The Blue, written and sung by Alan Reid, calling upon Irish migrants from Antrim and Fermanagh, arriving in Scotland to:-

Look onwards to Glasgow and all your tomorrows The future lies there, and its still waiting for you As the green crosses over to meet with the blue.

Its great to see that that some of Scotland’s leading musicians can fully live up to that Scottish internationalist spirit, so well demonstrated in Hamish Henderson’s Freedom Come All Ye.

La Radiolina

Manu Chau
Nacional Records

Manu Chau

Manu Chao first came to international fame for his Clandestino album, which sold three million copies worldwide, putting it just behind Bueno Vista Social Club as the best-selling world-music album of all-time. Not a lot of people know that – well not in the English-speaking world that is. Hopefully, things will change here with the recent release of Manu’s third album, La Radiolina.

Manu grew up in Paris, because his Galician father and Basque mother had to escape from Franco’s fascist Spain. Manu’s current home base is the Catalan capital of Barcelona, but he spends a lot of time in Buenos Aires, another city with a strong oppositional culture. He also visits Bamako in Mali, a major centre of world music.

La Radiolina includes songs in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and English. It has a much rockier feel compared to his first album. This is because he uses Radio Bemba Sound System for backing. ‘Radio Bemba’ is the word-of-mouth system used by the Cuban revolutionaries, led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, to communicate with each other in the forest of the Sierra Maestra.

When Manu recently toured the USA, he played to a 90,000 strong audience, at the Coachela Festival in California. They were waiting to hear their idols, Rage Against the Machine, but he won over the mainly non-Latin audience. His band performed with a banner draped across the stage – Immigrants are not Criminals. This followed the major protests organised mainly by Latin American immigrants, throughout the USA, on May Day, 2006.

The lyrics from one of Manu’s English-worded songs give an indication of Manu’s politics and highlight the reason why so many people are forced to emigrate worldwide. After verses about the appalling conditions in war-torn Zaire and Liberia, Manu finishes Rainin in Paradize with the following verse:-

In Bagdad
Its no democracy
That’s just because
It’s a US country!
In Fallouja
Too much calamity
This world go crazy
Its no fatality

Let’s get Manu’s new album up there to equal the sales of the justly famed Bueno Vista Social Club.

Battlefield Band
Battlefield Band (Wikipedia)
Manu Chau
Manu Chau Biography

It’s a Free World follows the director’s earlier feature about the Irish war of independence, The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Producer Rebecca O’Brian and writer Paul Laverty agreed that rather than another big budget effort, they wanted to make a smaller film, more of a chamber piece about the migrants’ working conditions. After The Wind that Shakes the Barley we were keen to do something that was of the moment, with a real contemporary smack to it, explains Laverty.

Somehow the character Angie just popped into my head. She was totally fictional and from the very beginning I could smell trouble. Angie is a larger-than-life peroxide-blonde Essex girl who decides to strike out to run her own recruitment agency for migrant workers in east London after being sacked by her sexist bosses.

She and her flatmate/business partner Rose operate from an old pub near a ring road in Leyton, east London, hiring out migrant workers on a casual basis. She selects the lucky ones from clusters of Poles, Ukrainians, Spanish, near Eastern men and women who turn up at dawn each morning to be shoved into shambolic white vans, their doors hanging open as they rumble off.

When her father Geoff, played by former stevedore Colin Caughlin, turns up one morning to watch, he finds the sight disgraceful, saying, I thought those days were all over.

As Angie devises ever more exploitative ways of raising cash, she moves from legality to illegality, tax evasion, and even grassing up a group of the most vulnerable migrants forced to live in caravan camps.

The film refrains from moralising, instead showing her as a contradictory personality, drawn into in vicious spiral of debt to her workers, and unable, in the end, to protect the son she believes she is providing for.

Behind the story of Angie’s opportunism and cruel exploitation of her workforce lies meticulous research by Nina Lowe, backing up Paul Laverty’s own investigations. While the characters are all fictitious, the story is underpinned by a mountain of facts including first hand research, government and TUC reports, studies by university departments including Exeter, Queen Mary College, and work by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.

Reality is more dramatic and stranger than fiction, Laverty says.

Mafia activity in the underworld around migrant labour is more violent than what appears in the film. I heard Mafioso stories about people having their legs broken and worse. But we wanted to show something closer to the norm, not a shock-horror expose.

Loach insists that they wanted Angie to be a likeable person and that the world she inhabits is widespread, not an aberration. It is central to the functioning of today’s economy. Angie is actually a cog in a bigger wheel. We wanted to show the logic of the system, not just a victim of it.

The film achieves a fierce sense of excitement through dramatic twists in the plot. Angie’s hot temper and naked ambition are set against the more thoughtful personality of Rose, played by Julie Ellis. The clashes between them are amongst the most dramatic moments in the story.

With It’s a Free World, Loach and his team take their political film making on to a new level. Rather than simply highlighting the scandal of how migrant workers are exploited, they challenge the prevailing wisdom

that ruthless entrepreneurship is the way that this society should develop – that everything is a deal, everything is competitive, acquisitive, market orientated and that’s the way we should live. It seeks out exploitation. It produces monsters.

At the media screening, Loach called for the repeal of all anti-union legislation and said the unions should be much tougher and stronger so they could take action together. People are sacked for even proposing to join a trade union. If unions were free, British Airways stewards could have supported Gate Gourmet catering staff, he said.

It’s a Free World has succeeded in showing – through the conflict and unexpected actions of flesh and blood characters – the skeleton beneath the surface of society.

May Day 1886

Over 1.5 million people took part in May Day demonstrations in 2006 in what amounted to one of the single largest days of protest in US history. Many also participated in a general strike by refusing to conduct business, go to work, or attend school. The protests were called by immigrants groups and immigrant solidarity groups as a national day of action against House Resolution 4437, which would have criminalized those assisting undocumented immigrants as alien smugglers and turned undocumented status from a civil violation to a federal aggravated felony.

The importance of May Day for immigrant communities in the US is not only of demanding fundamental constitutional rights for immigrants, but for economic rights as immigrant workers. It was chosen because May Day is a living tradition in the Latin American countries from which most of the undocumented immigrants in the US come. May Day is also an international day of labor solidarity.

May Day itself was born, in part, out of fear of police raids on immigrant workers. In 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, predecessor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), called for an eight-hour workday. When implementation appeared unlikely, a general strike was called in Chicago on May 1, 1886. On that day, some 80,000 workers marched down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in what is generally recognized as the first May Day parade. In the succeeding days, supporting strikes broke out in other cities, such as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and New York City.

On May 3, four striking workers were killed by police at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago. At an evening rally on May 4 in Haymarket Square, called to protest the killings, police moved in to disperse the crowd when a bomb went off, killing seven policemen. Police retaliated by firing into the crowd of workers, killing and wounding an unknown number of civilians.

Determined to crush the labor agitations, police interrogations and arrests went on through the night and the ensuing days. Homes of workers, most of whom were immigrants from Europe , were raided in the middle of the night. Hundreds of immigrants were rounded up without charges. A police reign of terror descended on the organized workers of Chicago and their families.

Eight people, including five German immigrants, were eventually charged and convicted for the deaths of the policemen, even though no evidence was ever presented directly linking them to the bombing in Haymarket Square. Four of the defendants were publicly hanged in 1887.

In Paris in 1889, the International Workingmen’s Association (Second International) called for worldwide demonstrations on May 1, 1890, commemorating the struggle of Chicago workers. The international tradition of May Day was born.

No immigration controls in the workplace!

The well known phrase workers of the world unite does not mean only workers with the correct immigration status unite. It means all workers both here and internationally. The function of immigration controls is to ensure the absolute reversal of this principal. It is to ensure the global division and antagonism between workers. This is divide and rule based on the crudest nationalism and racism. Workers’ unity means getting rid of controls. This may seem unrealistic, fantastic and utopian. It would certainly require an enormous political upheaval.

Some unions have indeed at some times adopted resolutions in opposition to controls in principle and in so doing have effectively accepted the slogan No One Is Illegal. This has been the result of the self organisation of those threatened by controls – organising either within the unions or through anti deportation campaigns.

The programme that dare not speak its name

However opposition to controls in their totality has with rare exceptions become the programme that dare not speak its name. Instead another and opposite orthodoxy is dominant in the labour movement. This is the demand for fair or benign or compassionate controls. And meeting this demand would not require a political upheaval. It would require a miracle. By their very definition controls are inevitably, unjust and malign. It is the idea that controls can be non-racist or fair that is unrealistic. There cannot be equal opportunities immigration control.

Most of the reasons why there cannot be fair controls are really transparent and don’t require much reflection. First, the initial legislative controls, the 1905 Aliens Act, were based on that most primitive of racisms, anti-Semitism, and were directed against Jewish refugees fleeing Tsarist Russia. Second, the next wave of controls, starting with the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, were directed at black people (this itself being in some ways anticipated as early as 1925 in a Coloured Alien Seamen Order requiring the enforced registration with the police of coloured seafarers). None of this is much of an advert for the idea that controls can be turned inside out and rendered non-racist. Third, controls are anyhow based on the vilest nationalism – the idea that the right to come to or stay in the UK should be a reserved only for members of a privileged club who somehow have managed to acquire the franchise. This is why they should be opposed to both the present work permit scheme and also the proposed new scheme based on a points system for workers. Fourth, controls can never, by any definition or redefinition, be fair to those excluded by them. Fifth, the very first control on peoples’ global movement prior to legislation was slavery out of Africa – which again was hardly susceptible of being rendered benign or compassionate.

All this is obvious. What is less obvious, because it is less known, is that controls are in fact a result of successful fascistic agitation. The 1905 Act was largely the result of agitation by an organisation now lost (suppressed) to history – the British Brothers League. The 1962 Act followed quickly on the so called Notting Hill riots (actually racist white riots) of 1958 which were organised by fascist groups such as Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement. The idea that a political construct such as immigration restrictions which are a product of fascistic activity can somehow be sanitised and rendered harmless simply does not make sense. It is equivalent to arguing that all that is wrong with fascist groups like the British National Party is that they are unfair and we ought to fight to make them non-racist. As the saying goes – a leopard can’t change its spots.

Workplace immigration controls

The fact that the destruction of controls would require a huge political movement – maybe even a revolution – is not a statement of pessimism. It does not imply any acceptance of controls until the day of complete deliverance. Rather it is a statement that all criticisms of control, all demands made against particular controls, should be on the basis of opposition to restrictions in principle – on the basis that No One Is Illegal! Within this political framework trade union agitation becomes crucial.

This is because of something often ignored – namely immigration controls come into conflict with union organisation on a daily basis at the workplace. Immigration laws are a total system – they are about internal controls as well as exclusion and deportation. In particular most welfare entitlements (social housing, non-contributory benefits, hospital treatment) are dependent on immigration status as is the right to work itself. As a consequence of this total system it is inevitable that controls regularly and directly impinge upon workers in the course of their employment or their union activities. Of course trade unionists should oppose controls in every context in which they arise – such as detentions and deportations – because in every context in which they arise they are a manifestation of racism. However the need for trade union involvement goes well beyond this and extends into the heart of the employment relationship itself.

A danger to all workers

Immigration controls are a danger to all trade unionists – including those workers with full immigration status. One of the functions of immigration control is to undercut the wages and conditions of all workers by transforming migrant labour and labour without any immigration status into a non-unionised low-waged workforce unprotected by labour legislation. Which is why there is a need to fight for the regularisation of immigration status, for full unionisation and for equality of wages and conditions for all. In the past the trade union movement has, unfortunately, often been in the forefront of agitating for controls. For instance the very first controls –the 1905 Aliens Act aimed at Jewish refugees – was preceded by the TUC demanding controls. Again in the 1950s and 1960s the TUC supported controls against black commonwealth workers.

Today the labour movement has once again begun to change its position, to begin to take a critical position towards the present laws –and again this is due to a great extent to the resistance and anti deportation campaigns of those threatened by controls. Today it is possible to once again open up the whole debate. It is possible to start to challenge the very existence of controls.

Published by ‘No One Is Illegal’, on May Day, 2006
NO One Is Illegal
c/o Bolton Socialist Club
16, Wood Street
Bolton
BL1 1DY
Web: http://www.noii.org.uk
E-mail: Info@noii.org.uk

We are not alone!

‘No One Is Illegal’ is a phrase first used by Elie Weisel, a Jewish survivor from Nazi Germany, a refugee and a Nobel prize winner. He was speaking in 1985 in Tuscon, Arizona at a national sanctuary conference in the USA in defence of the rights of refugees to live in the USA. The sanctuary movement undertaken by religious communities in the USA (and to a far lesser extent in the UK) in support of those threatened by immigration controls is one of many pieces of resistance to controls. Over the last few years ‘No One Is Illegal’ groups have been formed throughout Europe and North America — for instance in Germany (‘Kein Mensch Ist Illegal’), Spain (‘Ninguna Persona Es Ilegal’), Sweden (‘Ingen Manniska Ar Illegal’), Poland (‘Zaden Czlowiek Nie Jest Nielegalny’) and Holland (‘Geen Mens Is Illegaal’). In August 1999 anarchists organised a demonstration in Lvov Poland against the deportation of Ukrainian workers under the banner of No One Is Illegal. In France the ‘sans papiers’ campaign under the slogan personne n’est illegal/e. There have been ‘No One Is Illegal’/’No Border’ camps at the joint borders of Germany, Czech Republic and Poland, and No Border camps at Frankfurt, southern Spain and Salzburg. In June 2002 there was a demonstration against war, globalisation and in defence of refugees under the same slogan in Ottawa, Canada. In England groups are emerging calling themselves ‘No Borders’. The demand for no controls, rather than being seen as extreme, operates as a rallying call to the undocumented and their supporters. Our aim is to encourage the formation of ‘No One Is Illegal’/’No Border’ groups throughout this country — groups specifically and unreservedly committed to the destruction of all immigration controls.

And in those greying eyes
that have seen far too much
I can still sense the child
whose world went upside down.

But this lad has moved on,
now dreams of survival
on the harsh, concrete street
where he must never sleep
must never sleep
never sleep.

The city of origin and writer’s name have been withheld because of the likelihood that the writer will lose their job if identified.

For the last 2 years I have been a support worker in a Homeless Hostel, and I have observed first hand the struggle of dedicated staff trying to provide a service for homeless people, often with chaotic lifestyles in a capitalist system. I wish to highlight some key areas of concern and some ideas to improve things for those who find themselves homeless.

Jack of all Trades

Firstly, I have to say that my colleagues are caring professional workers who – despite a huge case-load – work tirelessly to move residents into supported accommodation or mainstream housing or access professional services in addiction or debt. In short you have to be a jack of all trades quite literally, because service users may have drink / drug or learning disabilities or all three . This, plus the daily risk of assault from service users, means that this job is not for the faint hearted. The staff range from out and out Christians to a humble republican communist like myself. There is a great camaraderie amongst us and we support one another through thick and thin. In fact it is one of the best groups of people I have ever worked with. As support workers we are at the bottom of the heap. We are encouraged to think of our job as a vocation (where have we heard that before) – therefore we accept all the crap that management throw at us such as shift changes at the drop of a hat or double shifts when colleagues are of sick (usually with stress). Recently immense moral and emotional pressure was put on me, whilst on leave, to cover a shift in place of a sick colleague.

Normally, when a member of staff is off we use relief staff who may be untrained individuals. This puts further pressure on the staff on duty as we are now responsible for someone we have never worked with bumbling about an unfamiliar building. Training for these individuals is generally done whilst on the job and I am very uncomfortable with this added responsibility particularly if things kick off (I wonder, how are they going to react when I need help?). Butwe do our best to get them up to speed and hope that we get through the shift without harm to them or ourselves. Occasionally, we can count on trained and regular bank staff that have been with the organisation for some time but we have difficultly in retaining these individuals.

Battered and bruised

Many of these bank staff use the experience gained as a springboard into other jobs – such as social work students beefing up their CVs or simply people wanting to change careers giving something new a go. What then of staff training? In theory we should have an SVQ3 in Care. However, for the last 14 months I have been asking when my training will commence- all to no avail. It appears that they will only train 3 staff members at a time (we employ 100 personnel, company wide, but this is enough training to comply with statutory legislation). The limited training is because the company has learned that staff leave after completing this course. Nothing to do with our poor wages or working conditions or the total lack of self worth that the company engenders of course! It is a wonder that staff manage to help any one, but we do, and of course the residents are unaware of this situation. In fact they are in a worse position than us and that is a key motivating factor for me and my colleagues to stay at our post. Battered and bruised the vast majority turn up at work with a smile on their face and hope that the day will be uneventful and we can all go home with our own teeth.

Speaking of teeth, health care for the homeless is a great concern for me, and one that is ever so slowly being tackled on a piecemeal basis by the NHS and the Scottish Executive. We now have a GP (hurrah) who visits all the city’s homeless units regularly, but we recently lost funding for the Homeless Health Outreach Team (being reduced from 5 nurses to 2 nurses) which was an essential and valuable resource. The Outreach Team filled a huge gap in service provision that we could not offer. With 33 residents and usually 2 staff on duty at one time staff accompanying a resident to an appointment to ensure attendance is virtually impossible. Nor are we qualified to give on the spot treatment and advice to people who traditionally don’t use NHS Services. The Outreach Team had a profound affect on uptake of health services by our residents. In particular the psychiatric nurse who would give us and the residents the best way of dealing with a condition. We could use this team to short cut waiting lists for professional services for potentially dangerous residents. Clearly, you would assume, such a valuable and necessary resource which saved money to the NHS would be protected – but no. Short termism is the rule of thumb in dealing with homelessness. They are willing to fund pilot schemes that are beneficial and have proved themselves many times over but won’t commit to funding these projects on a full time basis.

Criminal shortfall

Add to this the criminal shortfall of addiction after-care. I can get someone to dry out fairly easily but where can I put them after the treatment? Straight back into the hostel with the same peer group of drinkers or drug users they left. Even when they are clean, I can’t keep them away from the dealers in the Hostel, the staff have a standing joke – the only thing you can’t buy in the unit is a paracetamol, they come to us for that. This lunacy means that we have residents that need a ‘wet’ hostel in a ‘dry’ hostel and clean ex-users, exposed to temptation from the minute they walk in the door. During interviews for a room, in fact, I often explain to excusers what they are letting themselves in for in the Hostel – and that if possible they should stay with family or friends rather than stay here. Sadly, despite their confidence in their ability in saying no and staying clean only about 2 to 3% manage to stay drug free. But perhaps saddest of all is those with no habit that suddenly develop one whilst staying with us. They quote boredom as a contributing factor in doing drugs. This is why all our staff try very hard to get residents to fill their day with activity. If they are occupied, preferably out of the building, then they have less involvement with the general hostel population and therefore, more chance of staying drug free.

Why don’t you stop the drugs coming in? I hear you cry. Well folks this is their home and they have rights. We cannot search an individual coming into the unit. I can ask to see in a bag or I can take an obvious item from resident such as a three litre bottle of cider (hidden down a trouser leg) – but their human rights would be infringed if I searched them. Clearly, I don’t want to have to stick my hands into another person’s pocket – they may have exposed needles or blood traces. Some residents have Hepatitis A, B or C and I am not willing to risk my life for someone who will not and cannot give a toss for my safety or that of the other residents.

We find needles hidden every where. Recently, the environmental health came round our building and removed over 200 syringes many of which were uncapped and therefore dangerous. This, despite residents having a ‘sharps’ container in every room, and a guarantee that no action will be taken against residents who ask for a fresh sharps container when theirs is full. It is particularly dangerous for staff when we clear out residents rooms. We are under pressure from management to free up the room quickly so another homeless person can join the magic roundabout. Speaking of roundabouts, this is a phrase used for someone who has been through the system several times, homeless hostel to supported accommodation to mainstream housing and back to being homeless (perhaps because of rent arrears or drug/ alcohol addiction or just an inability to cope).

Out of sight

Homelessness can happen to any one but why should society care? After all the residents are out of sight and away from general society. At least they have a roof over their heads. Yes that’s right, but what is life really like in a hostel? It is very much like prison. We have the strong and the weak, with staff enforcing rules. The strong intimidate and bully the weak and steal their benefits or beat them up under a claim that they owe them money. Most staff only deal with the after effects, the bruises, the cuts or the tearful resident at their wits end because someone is chasing them for money. Despite having cameras everywhere we cannot protect them (unless they tell us but that makes them a grass in the other residents’ eyes).

In addition, we have the vultures that hang around outside who make a living from protection of the weak. We know what they are and what they do; but have no direct evidence – ergo we can do nothing. We have the pimps that hang around looking for females that need to feed habits. One striking thing about homeless females is that within a hour of them entering the unit they have paired up with someone for protection. This is sad to see. When we have a high level of females in the unit, it is a sign that the unit is considered safe. This side of the Hostel is difficult to deal with as a republican communist and a human being – seeing young women going out to sell themselves for a boyfriend’s, or their own, drug habit. Truly it is a sad sight and one that society should not tolerate. Further, we need a change in attitude by the general public to make buying sex unacceptable in today’s society. I welcome the steps taken by the SSP towards ending this culture of tolerance in Scottish society.

So lastly, let’s speak about toleration. Why do we tolerate this situation? Because we don’t know or understand the situation that residents find themselves in. We need to build 100,000 new homes in Scotland, but we also need an immediate raft of measures. These include:

• All female hostels – No woman should feel the need to pair up with a male for her own protection. An all female hostel would be more beneficial, for reasons of safety and help can be targeted more effectively for their specific needs.
• A general debt amnesty for rent arrears and council tax arrears – this is one of the greatest barriers to moving someone into mainstream housing. Councils can be draconian in how they deal with debt. It is very common that paying off huge amounts of debt mean that eventually most people lose their mainstream tenancies. In some cases we have residents that have lost housing – because their benefits do not keep pace with their debt levels. This means is that the longer you are on benefits, the more chance you have of falling into debt.
• Smaller units – no more than six residents with similar problems, wet hostels for drinkers etc. The days of the large Hostels must be numbered, for the safety of the residents.
• Housing people with like problems together – this allows for more effective staff intervention.
• Youth hostels for Under 25s, and full entitlement of benefits such as Housing Benefit and JSA. Under 25s tend to ‘sofa surf’ their mates. They don’t get full benefits until they are 25 years old. Equally, when they move into a hostel they do not get full housing benefits – meaning they have to pay the shortfall. I once had a resident who was left with 50p a week to his name, after paying £32.55p (the set rent charge for full board, including breakfast and an evening meal) and his Housing Benefit shortfall.
• Old style hostel for those that cannot access these smaller units immediately. Many released from prison for go straight on the streets. This despite the fact that they must be released to a bed – councils get round this by stating they offer 28 days accommodation for everyone by Law. The only problem is that they can take a week a month or a year to fulfil this statutory obligation – because the Law states when practical. Bed and Breakfast is no longer supposed to be an option but it is still used for families – at least that means no children are removed into Care or on the Streets because of the parent’s misfortune.
• Units must be dispersed in the community and after care support must be for as long as the resident needs it. Generally outreach support is only for six months. All too often residents moved into mainstream housing lose their homes after 6 months, just when most outreach services withdraw. This area needs more innovative support.
• More positive police involvement around the Hostel to prevent intimidation, drug dealers and pimps. This needs to happen without criminalising the residents. This is vital. When we have problems at the unit it is generally from those outside the unit, those that I have mentioned before. But it is usually the residents that get lifted and Police often start with our unit when something happens in the area. Many residents get several visits from the Police during their stay with us. Although they are no angels it strikes me as offensive that we are the first port of call in any inquiry. Whenever there is a mugging or street robbery in our vicinity. Don’t get me wrong when we call for help the Police respond well and I have been glad to see them – on many an occasion, it is just I think they could deal better with our residents and not see us as another holding cell for them.

If we only achieve a small fraction of these measures then we will achieve something significant. We can show the homeless that society really cares; hopefully this will be the start of a debate on this subject. Try not to think to ill of the support workers who pick up the pieces of the shattered lives of the homeless day in and day out – it is a thankless job but a worthwhile one.

‘Neath oceans glides the great white shark,
In Africa, best fear the dark,
Where night is torn with eerie howls,
Where prides of lions, hungry, prowl.
There’s crocs from Oz, there’s snakes there, too,
They’ll bite, they’ll tear, they’ll feed on you.
But the greatest bloodfest of them all
Takes place ‘tween Scotland’s spring and fall.

By loch, in glen, on rocky ridge,
There lurks the evil Highland midge.
As sun descends this fearsome pack
In squadrons, moves in to attack.
With anguished yelps and flailing arms
Unwary tourists learn the charms
Of this fierce demon of the night,
Which doesn’t bark, it only bites.

The Romans came, they saw, they conquered,
Then thought, “Who lives here must be bonkers!’
History books, they don’t point out,
But I know it was the midge, no doubt,
That made them leave, and southbound haul
To build the dyke called Hadrian’s Wall.
Clans, battles, kings—all come and gone,
But the midge, it just goes on and on.

Old Scotland’s remote north and west,
Ruled by this savage, tiny pest,
Has stores that sell sprays, potions, lotions
All geared to the quite absurd notion
That if you buy them, then all day
They’ll keep the hellish hordes at bay!
Believe that, then you’re not too bright,
They still get through, and still they bite.

How horrid, awful, bad, it feels
Your face a mass of crimson weals.
The fat, the thin, the poor, the rich,
They all fall prey and how they itch!
The midge cares naught for class nor creed
It just sees all as one more feed!
To miss this slaughter just don’t roam,
Stay safe inside, stay safe at home.

That the Greek parliament would be significantly different, as a result of the 16th September elections, was more or less common knowledge in Greece. There had been three and a half years of extreme government incompetence and quite shocking scandals. These included the telephone surveillance case(1), and the abduction of Pakistani men by British agents(2), both having serious implications on national sovereignty; as well as increasing incidents of police brutality, especially during the student protests against the proposed educational reform. All this ensured that support for the conservative government of Nea Demokratia (ND, New Democracy), would retreat significantly from the 45.36% of the vote tallied in 2004 and the strong absolute majority of 165 out 300 parliamentary seats this guaranteed. Moreover, the fact that the whole of the rather short campaigning period took place under the shadow, or better, under the eerie glare of a large part of the country being ravaged by wild fires, which were anything but accidental, made certain that there would be a significant protest vote gained by the far left and, to a lesser extent, the far right.

This happened more or less as expected, with ND suffering a loss of 3.52% and 13 seats, which significantly decreased their parliamentary power, leaving them with a very slight majority of only 152 seats. Meanwhile, the combined far left vote increased by 4.04% to 13.19%. KKE (the Communist Party) gathered an impressive 8.15% (+2.26) of the vote returning 22 MPs (+10), while SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), with 5.04% (+1.78) returned 14 MPs (+8). In large cities, the gains made by the left were significantly higher, with, for example, KKE reaching 14.55% in the V’ Peiraios district and SYRIZA 9.27% in A’ Athinon. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the far right LAOS (Popular Orthodox Rally) entered Parliament for the first time, tallying 3.80% (+1.61) and winning 10 seats.

What was more surprising is the serious setback suffered by PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement, the Greek equivalent of the Labour Party). Support for the SPD-style Social Democrats retreated below the level of the 2004 election to 38.10 % (102 MPs, -2.45%), the lowest in more than 20 years(3).

The emerging picture is that of a clear shift of popular support away from the two large bourgeois parties towards radical smaller forces. Whether this is just an isolated protest vote, or the beginning of a more long term trend pointing to an intensification of class struggle, remains to be seen. What is certain however is that Greek society has become far more receptive to more radical politics. This means that an increasing amount of space will be opening up for the far left to organise in the near future. Before going into what the immediate tasks of the Greek left are, it would be useful to provide some background on the parties currently in Parliament, which it would be fair to say, will be the prime forces shaping Greek politics in the next four years (unless of course a revolution happens, workers’ councils spontaneously spring up and the dictatorship of the proletariat is established, but I wouldn’t be getting my hopes up for that).

The Parties

Nea Demokratia

Nea Demokratia was founded by Konstadinos Karamanlis, the first post-dictatorship Prime Minister of Greece. It is the traditional party of Greek capital and its satellite strata. Unlike most centre-right parties, it is not a group of right wing liberals, but on the contrary, includes a variety of rightists from David Cameron-like modern fluffy conservatives, to intensely ideological, ultra religious xenophobic cavemen like the former Minister of Public Order. He used to refer to riot police as the praetorian guard of the country. The party is currently led by Kostas Karamanlis, the founder’s nephew, who seems to have been placed at the helm more for his name than his political skills.

Right after emerging victorious, Karamanlis restructured the government, removing extremely unpopular ministers, like the aforementioned Public Order brute from their posts (in fact, the Public Order ministry was abolished), in an obvious effort to rebuild the party’s citizen friendly image. However, this does not in any way mean that there will be any large scale retreat from the aggressive neo-liberal policies ND has been pursuing against the exploited working people of Greek society with the tacit support of PASOK. Nevertheless, its significantly weakened position in Parliament is bound to make the party far more responsive to social movement pressure.

PASOK

Above, I described PASOK as SPD-style socialdemocrats. The reason I did so is that, like the SPD, PASOK has been on an increasingly right wing trajectory without however having been transformed (yet) into a fully fledged neo-Thatcherite party like New Labour. The similarities however, end here. Unlike both Labour and SPD, PASOK did not arise organically out of the struggle of the working class, it did not emerge as the political wing of the trade union movement and was definitely never a radical socialist political force.

The party, or movement as they style themselves, was founded, following the collapse of the Colonels’ Dictatorship in late 1974, by Andreas Papandreou, son of the prominent classical liberal politician Georgios Papandreou. From the very beginning, the social basis of PASOK lay in the radical wings of the petty and national bourgeoisie. Its early policy platform was clearly populist left nationalist, and in that manner, they share a lot with the SNP, although Greece’s independent status makes it difficult to draw further parallels. However, like the SNP, precisely because PASOK lacks a deep, organic working class basis, it has been able to engage in a series of political u-turns, like dropping withdrawal from both NATO and EU as a policy immediately upon winning the 1981 elections. For this same reason however, it is also far easier for the working class sections that do support PASOK to abandon it.

The current leader of the movement is Giorgos Papandreou, son of the founder, who acceded to the presidency shortly before the 2004 elections. He became leader in an effort to rebuild party popularity after 8 years of neo-liberal modernisation, under Costas Simitis, had severely eroded its support basis. Despite employing populist rhetoric and conjuring his father’s ghost on every opportunity, Papandreou has failed to stop PASOK’s bleeding of support to the left. After defeat in the latest elections had become evident, he announced that he would be seeking re-election as president. However, shortly after that, Evagelos Venizelos, who while popular within PASOK, is considered to be on the conservative wing of the party, also announced his candidacy. Elections are to be held sometime in November.

LAOS

LAOS is a strange case. While it would be fair to say that it is a far right wing party, its perception by many as fascist is rather mistaken. LAOS was founded by former ND member and MP, Giorgos Karatzaferis, following his expulsion in 2000. Since then, LAOS has engaged in a number of extremely haphazard political maneuvers, adopting policies in what seems to be an entirely random manner. Its contradictions are evident on a daily basis, with prominent members promoting books that supposedly debunk the “myth” that there was any homosexuality in ancient Greece, while Karatzaferis himself has stated that homophobia must be fought and voted in favour of the European Parliament resolution on homophobia in Europe. Furthermore, while LAOS maintains that there are too many immigrants in Greece, Karatzaferis has often rejected nationalism as an idea, describing himself as a patriot and an enemy of globalization instead. Further, while members of LAOS have often made anti-semitic comments, Karatzaferis has signed the EU motion on anti-semitism(4) while official party literature denounces marginalisation on any grounds and makes it clear that LAOS respects all nations and religions. If anything, LAOS has only diluted the far right in Greece, pulling it towards a more moderate direction.

There is definitely a difference between what LAOS as a party puts forward, and what its members actually believe. LAOS includes former members of extreme right organizations that have often been involved in violent attacks against immigrants and left activists.

However, the percentage of the electorate that was attracted to LAOS is almost certainly not made up of potential fascists and virulent nationalists, but by less conscious exploited strata, as well as disgruntled ND voters. Its electoral campaigning was a classical example of patriotic populism, attacking globalisation, irresponsible bankers, foreign interests etc. while also criticising the government on its handling of national matters like the FYROM(5) name question.

KKE

Communist Party

The Communist Party is the oldest party in Greece, founded in 1918. It has a very rich history of both outstanding heroism and shameful class treachery. Unlike most European CPs, it did not turn to reformism and social-democracy after the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead, the hardliners who marginally dominated the Central Committee purged the party of “revisionist”, or “renewing”, depending on which side you are on, elements which formed a large part of the apparatus. The expelled members went on to form Synaspismos or Syn. Then, KKE also suffered a split in its youth wing, with the majority of the membership leaving to form another party, which has now become completely marginal.

Despite these major setbacks, KKE managed to rebuild itself and its youth, becoming the largest far left political force, with more than 10,000 members. Its success is largely based on its insistence on explicitly class based politics, its focus on staunch opposition to all imperialist projects, both NATO and EU inspired as well as its diligent participation in all workers’ struggles.

On the downside, KKE is extremely bureaucratic, leaving little, if any room for initiative to its grass roots activists. It is extremely sectarian, refusing to cooperate with other left wing groups and parties despite the fact that it could use its political muscle to become the driving force behind left regroupment in Greece. However, it does show some signs that it could be moving towards a healthier political path, with its official rejection of stage theory some time ago being the prime example. Unfortunately, the very strict model of democratic centralism the party adheres to makes it extremely difficult to discern its internal political developments.

SYRIZA

Coalition of the Radical Left

The Coalition of the Radical Left, is, as its name implies, not an actual party but an electoral coalition. It is quite peculiar however in that it is not composed of groups of roughly equal political weight, but is instead dominated by one party, Syn, around which a few marginal organisations have grouped. These are: the Communist Organisation of Greece (Maoist), International Workers’ Left (a split from the Greek SWP), Red (a split from the latter), Movement for the United Action of the Left, Active Citizens, Ecological Intervention, Renewing Ecological Communist Left, Popular Unions of Bipartisan Left Groups, and the Democratic Social Movement.

Apart from the latter, it would be fair to say that no one, other than left wing activists, has ever heard of these groups. It is thus very unlikely that anyone, apart from their members, intended to vote SYRIZA in order to support them. It would be safe therefore to regard the growth of support for SYRIZA as a coalition, as a growth of support of Syn as a party. In fact, Synaspismos is Greek for coalition, suggesting that many of SYRIZA’s voters are not aware of the distinction between the party and the coalition. Thus, the politics of Syn form the core of all SYRIZA policies, even if the smaller groups maintain some influence on their content.

Syn itself was formed in the early 90s after the aforementioned expulsions from the Communist Party. The expelled members joined up with the Euro-communists that had split from the party in the late 60s. As is the case with most Euro-communist and reformed CP formations, Syn’s social basis was far less proletarian in composition, with the party being strongest amongst the more privileged strata of the working class as well as the radicalised elements of the middle classes. Naturally then, Syn conducts its politics with little, if any reference to class as the fundamental cleavage in society, while socialism is rarely mentioned as the party’s ultimate political goal, with abstract references to a “more just society” being made instead. This movementist, RESPECT-like approach is entirely in line with Syn’s leadership plan to construct a broad, left of PASOK alliance, as opposed to an explicitly socialist political force. In the context of a society that is obviously receptive to open class politics as is shown by the growth of KKE, this is nothing short of reactionary.

In its defense, Syn has a far healthier internal political structure/culture than that of the KKE, which, allowing the formation of platforms, is fairly similar to that of the SSP. However, the ideological cohesion of Syn is far weaker than the SSP’s even before the split. The SSP suffered from including socialists with very contradictory ideas of how socialists should conduct their struggle, but the idea of socialism as a society that is a complete negation of capitalism was never disputed. Syn on the other hand includes in its ranks anyone from orthodox Marxists to radical social-democrats. This is a rather insoluble contradiction that has often led to embarrassing incidents of Syn members from different factions opposing each other on TV panels.

Prospects and Tasks

While both the retreat of the main bourgeois parties, and the growth of the radical left were substantial, it is important to remember that they were not nearly as great as you would expect after the scale of the destruction wrought by the summer fires. It is important however to realise that, if the left does not remain persistent in its resolute opposition to neo-liberal offensives, as well as organise effective resistance against them, this breakthrough might very well be for naught. While a collapse of the scale of the SSP vote is extremely unlikely, simply for reasons of historic loyalty to KKE by a sizeable portion of the left, a retreat to the levels of 2004 would still be very disappointing.

In the immediate future, there will be a number of issues that will require swift action to be taken by both KKE and Syn-SYRIZA. First, the attitude of the government towards the communities destroyed by the fires will surely cause much disillusionment and aid will most definitely be insufficient, inefficient and tokenistic. Further, it is certain that a large part of the burned areas will be given to land developers to build on. In fact, this has already started in some areas. There will definitely be significant local opposition to this and it is imperative for both left organizations to be visibly present. Unfortunately, given the rural nature of said areas and their long conservative tradition, it is unlikely that a strong left current will be established there. It is however important that the left is present, if only to help raise its national profile, as the destruction of the Peloponnese is regarded as a serious matter by the whole of Greek society.

Second, after having restructured itself, the government of Karamanlis will surely embark on an offensive of modernising reforms that will be directed against the working class. The one that is bound to have the highest profile, at least in the immediate future, is the proposed revision of the constitution to amend article 16, guaranteeing the public and universal character of education in the country. The student movement that shook Greece last year, although bound to be significantly demobilised and weakened after a whole summer of catch up classes and exam periods, will surely reconstitute itself once again. The movement suffered from the lack of a correct political orientation, being led by corrupt elements of the student union and professor bureaucracy. They saw the framework-law reforms – which has since been passed – as an attack against their privileges (which they were). However, there is little doubt as to the need to fight against the proposed constitutional revision, which would almost certainly destroy what little quality public education in Greece still has. The student movement therefore will offer a good chance for the left to build and organise.

Finally, the succession struggle in PASOK will inevitably cause much upheaval within the working masses that still support them. If the populist Papandreou was unable to stop PASOK’s bleeding of support despite his overtures to the left, then Venizelos, the likely winner of the contest, who is a far more thoroughly bourgeois politician will only increase the rate of decline. It is thus more likely that PASOK will soon start to fight ND on its own ground. Bizarrely, this might actually work for them, as ND will most likely move to the right on token issues as pressure from LAOS increases and since the difference between PASOK and ND is almost entirely tokenistic, it is not improbable that the more centre oriented ND support base will move towards PASOK.

In any case, a huge space will be opened to the left of PASOK that the left should move to occupy. In this respect, the president of Syn and SYRIZA, Alekos Alavanos is entirely correct in remarking that radical social democracy should be approached by anti capitalist forces(6). However, the Syn leadership is wrong in trying to achieve this by means of finding common ground, when it clearly has the political weight to pull the left of PASOK elements towards an anti-capitalist direction, meaningfully different to the dead end of anti-neoliberalism. Any alliance of Syn with the radical social democracy, on their grounds, will only strengthen its internal social democratic factions and increase pressure for entering a coalition government with PASOK, a possibility which has never been rejected in principle by the Syn leadership.

Greek fires bring profits to land developers

Conclusion: The problem of left bipolarity and the KKE or Syn dilemma

As long as this division within the radical left persists, any resistance against the increasing aggressiveness of the bourgeoisie will be severely fettered by sectarianism, while any hope of it turning into an actual working class offensive will remain just that, a hope. While it is true that responsibility for kicking off the project of meaningful left unity lies with KKE as both the larger and the more radical force of the two (but unfortunately, the most sectarian), Syn-SYRIZA should be criticised on the basis that it does not engage in any action that might make the KKE Central Committee more open towards the prospect of rapprochement.

Specifically, Syn’s complete lack of principled opposition to the European Union’s directives (in fact, the nature of its opposition amounts to critical support), must be abandoned in favour of a more clear cut rejection of the whole project like its position on NATO. Further, the radical wing of Syn should try to pull the party towards a more class oriented approach to politics, away from its current new left movementism, which is a sure recipe for dilution of principles. It is Syn that must provide the initiative for left regroupment on a radical socialist basis, even in the form of an electoral pact, as any such unity move is unlikely to come from KKE.

This situation creates an almost insoluble dilemma for non aligned Greek leftists. Electorally, one has to choose between a mass party with explicit class, socialist politics which is however totally bureaucratic and sectarian, and a smaller loose coalition of vaguely radical left forces without a clear political orientation which could in the future possibly enter a bourgeois coalition. There is no easy solution to this problem and one’s choice is based as much on personal convictions and feelings as on objective political analysis. We can only hope that the self-activity of the working masses will at some point force their vanguard groups to get their act together.

(Endnotes)

• (1) For a fairly good piece on this, see the wikipedia entry
• (2) Greek society was in the dark about this, until it was uncovered by the BBC
• (3) http://www.ekloges.ypes.gr/pages_en/index.html See the Ministry of Interior, Public Administration and Decentralisation website for an analytical breakdown of electoral results.
• (4) The content of the motion can be found here
  
• (5)The Greek government opposed the EU’s recognition of the ex-Yugoslav breakaway state of Macedonia, on the grounds that Macedonia is the name of the northern province of Greece. Greek nationalists are very concerned about any prospect of Macedonian nationalism reappearing within its own borders. The Greek government reluctantly acceded to the EU after the new state was officially named the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM).
• (6) Interview of Alekos Alavanos on net (in Greek)

The threat of military air strikes against Iran is today probably stronger than ever before.

Many commentators are speculating about possible ‘shock and awe’ attacks by Israel and the United States on Iran’s nuclear installations and other strategic targets. The US, this time supported and encouraged by the French and other European governments, has succeeded in imposing sanctions against Iran, persuading European and Japanese banks to join their American counterparts in blocking any transactions for Iranian clients.

True victims of sanctions

As a consequence of this, Iran finds it increasingly difficult to raise loans, obtain foreign currency or hold any assets offshore, as it cannot obtain dollars, euros or yen. Inside the country inevitably there is a shortage of many essential items, because the state and the private sector cannot afford to import many goods. Other items have become scarce, as the monopolies importing food and medicines are targeted by sanctions, mainly because they are owned by senior clerics and their relatives. Of course these Islamic capitalists have already found new ways of profiting from sanctions by increasing their involvement in other sections of the economy and in the black market. The true victims of the sanctions against Iran are the workers, the poor and the underclass.

As far as the US is concerned, there are many reasons why air strikes against Iran appear an attractive option. At a time when the US military and the administration announced the withdrawal of over 30,000 troops from Iraq, at a time of major economic upheaval, what better way to divert attention from military, political and economic crises but the start of a new adventure? However, on the surface it seems difficult to understand the logic behind the determination of a section of Iran’s leadership to encourage such a conflict. The reality is that, faced with dissent at home, anxiety at rising prices and fear of shortages caused by declared and unannounced sanctions, the Iranian government is as eager as the US administration to divert attention from its economic failures – branding all opposition to its medieval Islamic laws as part of Bush’s plan for regime change from above.

Contrary to the regime’s intentions, attempts at silencing all opposition using the threat of war have backfired. Most Iranians are becoming increasingly impatient with the regime, blaming its ‘adventurist’ policies for sanctions, shortages and the threat of war. In fact, despite severe repression, the number of public protests has increased over the last few months, with many Iranians blaming the regime, as much as the US, for the hardships they face in their daily life.

Iranian workers act

Over the last two weeks, thousands of unpaid Haft Tapeh sugar cane factory workers in Shoush in the Khuzestan province in Iran have been on strike. The government sent security forces to repress the workers but the strike continues. In early October, three thousand workers from this Company held demonstrations outside the Khuzestan provincial governor’s office in Shoush city (Susa) demanding their wages.

Worker demands at the sugar company include:

• the payment of all salaries in arrears
• an end to the sale of foreign sugar on the Iranian market by “mafia” groups
• the right to labour representation
• a rise in salaries to reflect the rising cost of living brought about by poor weather
• right for workers to participate in the election of workers’ representatives
• retirement of those workers who have reached retirement age
• provision of adequate safety equipment
• dismissing the company’s board of directors
• ending threats to workers.

Iranian students protest at Ahmadinejad's visit to Tehran University

Students demonstrate

On Monday 8th October, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed a gathering of pro regime militia at Tehran University, hundreds of students scuffled with police and chanted Death to the dictator outside a hall where the Iranian president spoke.

Students on Monday shouted: Detained students should be released and Fascist president, the university is not a place for you, as they marched towards the campus gates.

In a leaflet published in late September, a group of workers in Iran Khodro, the country’s largest car plant wrote:

Sharivar 22 [September 13] is the anniversary of the death of our fellow worker, Peyman Razilou. On that day in 2002 he died from exhaustion during the afternoon shift.

His death was four years ago and we haven’t forgotten that tragedy – or the untimely death of our colleague, Mahmood Khayami, who died from stress. And this year we have witnessed another death – this time it was Ali Akbar Shourgashti who was killed because Iranian capitalists pay no attention to health and safety regulations.

While the government is shouting from the rooftops that working hours will be reduced during Ramadan, we have not only failed to see any such reduction, but by cutting out our meal break, management has seen to it our working day is actually longer. According to the latest announcements from Iran Khodro, the production shops will start up at 6.45am instead of 6.55am and the early shift will end at 5.45pm. As you can see, the shift is longer, especially as the morning breakfast break is also abolished. Friends, why is it that we have to work with no breaks during Ramadan?

Many of our fellow workers cannot tolerate these conditions. Some are ill, while others will become ill if they don’t eat regularly. What are they supposed to do? The forces of the harassat [factory religious police] watch us like hawks. Even if we avoid them, members of the islamic council don’t allow us any peace.

Contract companies have expanded, full-time employment does not exist any more, work environments are not only more dangerous, but tens of workers have lost their lives at work, while tens of others have been incapacitated because of accidents.

As inflation is rising every day, our real wages are falling, while many benefits are being cut. Production is rising, but we do not benefit from what is exported. Today full-time employment in this factory is just a dream.

Iranians face two enemies, an external imperialist force threatening them with air strikes, further sanctions… and an internal one, determined to maintain power at all costs, defending the privileges and the wealth of the few at the expense of poverty/hunger and destitution for the majority of the population. Genuine solidarity with the people of Iran requires, not only an end to the policies of the war mongers outside Iran, but also against the theocracy in power inside Iran.

In their usual astounding display of chutzpah Sinn Fein have produced a T-shirt depicting the IRA expelling a Brit soldier, claiming that the ending of ‘Operation Banner’ (the deployment of troops and the armed suppression of the civil population during the years of the troubles) amounts to British defeat and republican victory.

Republicans have not been slow to put them right, pointing out that Operation Banner has been replaced by Operation Helvetica, involving a permanent garrison of 5000 troops, that MI5 have built a massive base to monitor opposition to the new state, that new laws far exceed the emergency legislation of the past, that a large paramilitary police force remains armed and in place, with many of the structures and individuals who ran the death squads still in senior positions, and that loyalist groups are armed and sponsored by the state.

The republicans are perfectly correct in the substance of their attacks on Sinn Fein. But this is not the whole story. The fact is that the 5000 strong British garrison is significant mainly in that it defines the colonial nature of the state. If the current settlement is to succeed then the troops will remain in barracks. The police and special laws will be successful only if aimed at a small minority in an otherwise ordered society. The struggle for the British is not about unleashing loyalist violence, but about containing it while incorporating the loyalist groups into civil society.

There are three important questions that need to be studied:

• How did the Old Stormont regime maintain stability?
• How will the new society envisaged in Operation Helvetica remain stable?
• What are the internal contradictions that will lead to its collapse?

Perpetual seige

The physical base of stability in the pre 1968 Orange state was the Protestant militia. The A, B and C special constables all had scraps of uniform and weapons and very little control over their actions or accountability (the British had no record of how many guns had been given out). The sweeping Special Powers Act ensured that almost all forms of political activity that the government disapproved of were illegal, while at the same time providing effective immunity for crown forces for example the ability to ban inquests. Blatant and sweeping discrimination in employment marginalised Catholic workers, while a whole network of loyal orders around the workplace both kept bigotry alive and policed the Protestant workers for disloyal ‘Lundys’. Although Catholics were excluded from political power, a nationalist middle class and the Catholic Church had relative privileges and helped police the nationalist workers. This atmosphere of perpetual siege was effective against the small militarist republican groups, but broke apart when faced with mass mobilisation.

Today the official Orange militia of old have gone, to be replaced by a much more sophisticated network of repression. Intelligence has been taken from local hands and will remain forever in the central organs of the British state, represented by MI5. The change from RUC to PSNI has been accompanied by the preservation of major structures such as the special branch and the place of the militia taken by carefully cosseted paramilitary groups, fully armed and closely linked to the state forces. A curtain of silence is now being thrown around those structures and investigation of collusion is increasingly being ruled impermissible.

The armed police force will be much larger than the old RUC, will have the enormous surveillance apparatus of MI5, and will have the new powers of the strong state, effectively unrestricted powers of seizure, internment and detention as well as a host of new laws that will make many acts of political opposition crimes of subversion, incitement or conspiracy. These are now the norms of everyday civil law in the British state. If not enough, extra emergency powers lurk in the background.

In the new society Catholics have their own share of sectarian privilege and sectional political rights, This much increased privilege, shared by Sinn Fein, the Catholic middle class and the Catholic church, carries with it a much greater responsibility to defend the state and police Catholic workers, with state funded organisations that will extend into every street in working-class districts.

The watchtowers have been replaced with a more sophisticated network of repression

The lynch pin of the new state is sectarian division. The loyalists are to be used as assassins only in the last resort. Their primary role is to be inserted into civic society so that policing, health and education will be a patchwork of sectarian rivalries and the working class atomised and fragmented.

There are three weak points to the new dispensation:

• 1. The sectarian division is not equal.
• 2. The DUP have been given a limited primacy that they urgently want to expand and they need to constantly demonstrate that they are the top dog by attacking Sinn Fein and nationalist rights in general.
• 3. Sinn Fein maintain stability by constantly giving way, but this is not a process that can continue forever.

The settlement involves a far right economic policy. The mild form, advanced by the British, calls for a lowering of the basic wage, mass sackings, cutbacks in public service and wholesale privatisation and deregulation. Sinn Fein, the DUP in fact all the capitalist parties, backed by the intervention of the Catholic church, cry salt tears about some aspects of this while also advocating a stronger far right policy turning capitalist heaven into paradise with the lowering of corporation tax and massively switching the tax burden further in the direction of the working class.

Silence of the grave

The settlement depends on the silence of the grave falling over the North while a corresponding 26 county nationalism runs rampant in the South. This is possible only as long as there is no mass working class opposition on either side of the border.

Operation Helvetica is not Operation Banner. One depended on the troops actively fighting to preserve the Northern colony. The other depends on the troops remaining in barracks. Under Helvetica the main policing mechanism for ensuring stability will be an unholy triumvirate of Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and the Catholic Church assuring us that the partitionist, colonial and sectarian settlement is a suitable end point for Irish history and a suitable vehicle for the emancipation of the Irish working class.

Eliot said the game was up
after the First World War. How wrong!
For after the Second we fell
into a state of disbelief
that still must make us shake our heads.

And on then to Hiroshima,
To Korea down to Vietnam,
And all the other names we call-
Cambodia, Timor, Iraq.

The list a litany of grief,
and what now to say about this
except Beckett may have the words
to sum it up: ‘No matter, Try
Again, Fail again, Fail better.’

He’s five feet tall and he’s six feet four,
He fights with missiles and with spears,
He’s all of thirty-one and he’s only seventeen,
He’s been a soldier for a thousand years.

Universal Soldier (Buffy St Marie)

In Dundee’s Eastern Necropolis there is a headstone-free area known as the Poor Ground. As the name would imply, this is where the poor of Dundee’s past lie in unmarked graves, in stark contrast to the imposing headstones and memorials of Dundee’s Victorian industrial barons and merchant class.

Even in death, it would seem, equality can be an elusive concept—the prosperous proclaiming their earthly greatness for all to see, while many of those whose sweat and toil created for them their fabulous riches lie unmarked, unknown, forgotten.

The Poor Ground is possessed of the solemn tranquillity common to graveyards, and on a pleasant day it is a calm and peaceful place to sit on one of the three benches that form a row on the northern edge of the area. Each of the benches has a plaque on it, and the inscriptions on the two westernmost make for an eye-catching and interesting read. They are as follows:

Peter Grant

In memory of PRIVATE PETER GRANT VC Born 1824
He was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in India 16 November 1857.
He died 10 January 1868 and was buried near here.

And, on the other bench,

Thomas Beach

In memory of PRIVATE THOMAS BEACH VC Born 1824
He was awarded the Victoria Cross for bravery in The Crimea 5 November 1854.
He died 24 August 1864 and was buried near here.

Neither Beach nor Grant fared well after their brief flirtation with fame, and both were dead in their early 40’s, almost within a decade of receiving their VC’s. Thomas Beach left the army in 1863. He returned to Dundee, where he died in the Royal Infirmary on August 24, 1864, aged 40. The cause of death is believed to have been severe alcoholism.

According to a report in the Dundee Advertiser, dated January 11, 1868, Private Peter Grant (who at the time was still a serving soldier of the 93rd Regiment, stationed in Aberdeen) had been missing from where he lived since Friday, December 27, and had not been seen again till the previous morning. His body was removed from the river, near Craig Harbour, by a Constable Bremner.

Still pinned to his uniform coat was his Victoria Cross and his campaign medals. In the pockets of the coat were a fourpenny piece, a penny and a knife. He had been on a visit to friends in Dundee. The last sighting of Private Peter Grant had been in Wheatley’s Public House in the Overgate.

What the inscriptions on the benches at the Poor Ground tell us is instructive.

Despite being feted by the state, their country bestowing upon them its highest award for valour on the field of battle, that same state which honoured their courage so, in death abandoned them, not even caring enough to provide a simple headstone to mark the last resting places of those it had so recently proclaimed heroes, one of whom was, at the time, still a serving member of the army.

Indifference and callousness

Fast forward now from the mid-to-late nineteenth century to the first decade of the twenty-first century. On August 26, 2007, I am reading an article in the Independent on Sunday, the headline of which reads Our boys deserve better treatment than this.

I am habitually and instinctively wary of articles containing the words our boys. Usually, they are flag waving, shallow pieces of jingoism, designed to inculcate in the population the belief that all British foreign military adventures are benign, and to make us feel that there is something wrong with us if we do not support our troops.

Many thousands of us have, of course, been supporting our boys in the best way possible, urging prior to March 2003 that we should not attack Iraq, and calling for the withdrawal of the troops ever since the launching of that ill-thought-out foreign misadventure.

But the article in the Independent is highlighting the plight that our boys face when they are wounded, either mentally or physically. Two cases in particular are highlighted, each in its own way a shocking indictment of the indifference and callousness of the state which would send our young people into combat on a mixture of half-truths and downright lies.

On the Military Families Support Group website, one mother tells of her son, who is home on two weeks’ leave from Afghanistan. She discovered that he was suffering from a double fracture to the jaw, caused by a faulty rocket launcher, which recoiled into his face. Other than pain relief he had received no treatment at all for the injury.

It was not till his mother sent him to her dentist that the true extent of the injury was discovered. He was told at Selly Oak Hospital that as the fractures were, by that time, four weeks old, there was nothing they could do and he was sent back to Afghanistan after being told to eat only soft food.

The second case is, if anything, even more harrowing.

A mother tells how her 19-year-old son, an infantry soldier who served in Iraq, is haunted by witnessing a child sliced in two by a British bullet which was fired into a crowd in Basra. The memory of the boy’s father gathering up the pieces of his child, sitting on the curb and hugging them, torments him.

When the nightmares come he has to climb into bed with his mother and her husband. Before he can sleep she has to cuddle him and rub his nose as she did when he was a baby. Clearly, his mother says, he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but this young soldier has received no counselling.

Many who leave the armed forces fare no better. An article in The Scotsman on August 8, 2007, stated that as many as one in ten homeless people are ex-forces’ members. To put that figure into perspective, if it was proportionate to the size of the armed forces, Britain would have six million serving members in the army, navy and air force.

It is feared that the traumatised of Iraq and Afghanistan will begin to swell the number of homeless ex-service personnel in the not-too-distant future. Many will leave with alcohol related problems and find it hard to adjust to civilian life after traumatic experiences in the forces.

War crimes

At least, unlike during the First World War, we no longer execute those suffering from PTSD. In that most terrible of conflicts three hundred and six disturbed young men, many only boys really, were executed on the orders of military top brass and senior officers. Their sole crime was to have become mentally unwell due to the unspeakable horrors they had witnessed in the human slaughter house that was trench warfare.

Most of those who were executed were vulnerable, defenceless teenagers who had actually volunteered for duty, deliberately selected and found guilty as a lesson to others. Their heinous crimes included desertion (ambling around in a confused and dazed state, suffering from PTSD), cowardice (the same symptoms) and insubordination (some trivial incident that could be twisted into an excuse for trial, conviction and execution).

Regularly, these trials would take place one day (the accused would often have no defence), they would be convicted and found guilty on some specious charge, and they would then be shot at dawn the day after the trial.

The British commander-in-chief, General Haig, himself signed the death warrants of all those killed by their own side for the crime of being human, for the crime of being able only to take so much before becoming ill.

It is a war crime to execute the sick and the wounded.

Following allied victory, in 1919 Haig received the thanks of both houses of parliament, was given a grant of £100,000, and rewarded by a grateful state with an earldom.

Just over a decade after the end of the war, in 1929, the world’s stock markets crashed in capitalism’s great crisis.

For many who had escaped with their lives from Europe’s killing fields of 1914-18, who had endured the unendurable in places which were to become forever synonymous with savage slaughter on an industrial scale—The Somme, Paschendale, Ypres et al—a good day for them would be one when they and their families went to bed at night with full stomachs. Not for nothing were those times known as the Hungry Thirties.

From Victorian England, to the dark days of the First World War, to the present day, a pattern of neglect, and at times, sheer bloody-minded vindictiveness, emerges concerning the treatment and after-care of military personnel. Some might say, I believe harshly, that they knew what they were signing up for and take a hell mend them attitude towards them.

Economic conscription

Instead, it should be contended that, as in most things, prevention is better than cure, that these young men and women should never have been put in harm’s way in the first place.

Many of the troops now doing tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan will be young, working class, economic conscripts, lured into the armed forces with the promise of a trade and regular paid employment. They will see it as an escape from low paid, slave wage, short term employment, they will see it as a career.

But it is a career which, just as much now as it ever has been, can come with a lethal price. They are the young men and women denied a fair chancein civilian life by the market forces of capitalism, as well-paid jobs are shipped abroad, where labour is cheaper and health and safety not really much of an issue at all.

How ironic it is, then, that the youth of this country who take the queen’s shilling will, almost inevitably, end up shipped abroad themselves to places like Iraq and Afghanistan, where, too, health and safety willbe perilous issues.

What, then, of the future? It does not bode well. Recently, to much rejoicing among the mainstream political parties and shipyard workers, the government announced that it was placing orders for two giant aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever to be built for the Royal Navy. The deal was touted as securing thousands of jobs.

But the implications of this alleged good news have a darker side. The building of these two giant warships tells us much about the government’s long-term perception of what Britain’s role in international affairs should be.

The military purpose of an aircraft carrier is not a defensive one. They are the long arm of imperialism, designed to facilitate the ability to strike anywhere on earth that their political masters deem necessary for the furtherance of imperial wars and ambitions, the chastisement of undemocratic dictators or any of the other familiar, oft-used excuses needed to unleash the dogs of war.

However powerful these ships are, the aircraft carrier is only one tool in the armed wing of imperialism. The chosen target’s population, having been suitably shocked and awed by aerial bombardment, and we from the comfort of our armchairs treated to video game TV news items showing surgical strikes by smart bombs, the dirty work still has to be done.

The task of enforcement and occupation, thinly disguised and euphemistically described as liberation, the bringing of democracy, etc., etc., will fall, as always, to the troops on the ground. It is they who will have to live with the day-to-day horrors of any occupation.

Some will be driven slowly mad by what they witness; others, tragically, will die amid those horrors.

In a letter home from Iraq a young nineteen-year old soldier wrote, I do not see why our lads have to die for something that will not make an iota of difference. Despite his tender years he had come to understand how rotten, how bankrupt his country’s policy in Iraq had become, had always been, how wasteful of young lives it was.

That young soldier was killed while on sentry duty in Basra.

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung;
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth,
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!

Rudyard Kipling

The Irish election of 24th May astounded all the political observers commenting on it. The election was called unexpectedly at a rushed early morning press conference in a transparent attempt to head off a judicial enquiry into suspect financial dealings by the Taoiseach , Bertie Ahern. The enquiry was immediately postponed. On the campaign trail Ahern was struck dumb when questioned about his finances. When he did make a statement a poll showed that over half the electorate did not believe him. In the background behind the corruption allegations was a major strike by nurses, a crisis in the health service, the repression of women’s reproductive rights, major incidents of pollution and a mass privatisation campaign.

The confident prediction was that Fianna Fail would be forced out of office and replaced with a ‘rainbow coalition’ of the right-wing Fine Gael party with the Irish Labour party as junior partners. The Green party and Sinn Fein were expected to substantially increase their share of the vote and the smaller socialist and local independent candidates expected to do well.

The actual result was that the Fianna Fail vote fell slightly, but they were returned as the major party, ready to form a new coalition government. The opposition was concentrated in a major swing to the right-wing Fine Gael vote, but Labour performed poorly and were not in a position to form a coalition. The Green vote was below expectation, but their six seats may put them in coalition government. For Sinn Fein and the small socialist organisations the vote was a disaster. Ironically the Fianna Fail partners in the last election, the far right Progressive Democrats, who always claimed to be watchdog over the probity of their coalition partners, were wiped out in the election. The best news of the election was the defeat of minister for justice, the Progressive Democrat leader, Michael McDowell, well hated for his ultra-right views, lost his seat and has said he will resign from politics

In the 30th Irish Dáil the final state of the parties
is:

• Fianna Fáil 78,
• Fine Gael 51,
• Labour 20,
• Progressive Democrats 2,
• Green Party 6,
• Sinn Féin 4,
• Independents 5.

In the 29th Dail Fianna Fail had 81 seats, Fine Gael had 31, Labour 21, PDs 8, Greens 6, Sinn Fein 5, Socialist Party 1 and independents 13

Life in a ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy

There were many issues in the election that spoke volumes about the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. A major strike by nurses was defeated at the hands of the Irish trade union bureaucracy, locked in partnership with the bosses to prevent strikes like the nurses succeeding. The partnership deal is now leading to workers working harder for what is effectively a pay cut. The major issue of the collapse of the existing health service loomed in the background. In housing, the majority of workers cannot afford homes and there is no real programme of social housing. Parents pay over 30% of the direct running costs of schools. Water privatisation is on the agenda, while at the same time uncontrolled pollution is making water undrinkable. Housing costs that force workers to satellite towns and lack of public transport mean hours added to the working day. In the ‘D’ Case attempts were made to force a young woman to carry a nonviable foetus to term. Shannon airport continues to play a major role in the Iraq war despite Ireland’s status as a neutral country. Shell to Sea documents a campaign where the state is crushing the rights of its citizens in the interests of a major oil company. A new partitionist settlement pushed Irish unity further away than ever.

These were issues, but they were not election issues because there was no-one to present them. Sinn Fein’s populist pretence of social democracy evaporated within days of the election being launched. The small socialist movement lost its electoral voice in this election. It had lost its political voice long ago.

Nurses in Ireland defeated at the hands of the Irish trade union bureaucracy

The political retreat of the working class had become a rout following the Irish Ferries struggle of 2005. A mass mobilisation of workers followed deregulation, casualisation and outsourcing of jobs – a ‘race to the bottom’ that saw mass redundancies and the employment of migrant workers on starvation wages. The mobilisation was firmly under the control of the trade union bureaucracy who used it, not to oppose this process, but to draft a new 10-year agreement with the bosses called ‘towards 2016’.

This offered flexibility and wage restraint in return for promises that the government and employers would manage the offensive on employment rights by, for example halting wage cuts when they reached the legal minimum. The outcome of this policy was that the trade union leadership and sections of the working class began to actively support the privatisation process. The privatisation of the national airline Aer Lingus, was accompanied by the issue of shares to the workforce at the urging of the union.

The privatisation was immediately followed by a predatory bid by Ryanair and the ludicrous situation of workers and unions collaborating in speedups and jobs cuts – tearing up their rights as workers in order to defend their rights as shareholders!

Aer Lingus: victim of provatisation

The downturn in class struggle was apparent in the national action by nurses during the election. There were a number of statements of support by left groups, but no solidarity action. The government’s counter-attack – that social partnership with the unions prevented them meeting the nurses demands – went unremarked, as did the active participation of the union bureaucracy, through the partnership ‘National Implementation Body’ in forcing the defeat of the Nurses. Their demands will now be addressed through the partnership ‘benchmarking’ process, that exchanges concessions on wages and hours for speed-up and redundancies that will see the workers pay for the so-called concessions.

The outcome in electoral terms was that the small socialist movement fought small local and community-based campaigns that adapted to the retreat of workers. A good example was the demand for ‘affordable housing’. This reflected the widespread view that public housing or any general right to be housed is utopian. In the absence of thispossibility many workers want their own chance to get on the ‘property ladder’ and join in the speculative bubble based on housing stock which made homes for workers unavailable in the first place!

Corruption

With no challenge from the left the election became a battle between right and ultra-right. (The Irish Labour party can be included among the ultra right. One of its key complaints was that the middle class were being taxed too heavily). The main ground – the corruption of the government – could not be fought too closely. Only the incurably naïve would imagine that corruption was restricted to one section of the Irish capitalist class. As a result the campaign became a presidential one, with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern himself becoming the main issue.

Bertie was far from defenceless. In the campaign he was able to balance the negative reports of his financial irregularity against pictures of himself posing with the bigot Paisley as the man who had finally resolved the Irish question and images of Bertie as world statesman addressing the British House of Commons. The hidden sub-text of corruption played in his favour also. The right critique of corruption in Ireland is similar to American critiques of corruption in Africa, a mechanism for promoting further privatisation and deregulation. The right believe that the flip side of corruption – the patronage and populist clientelism that define Fianna Fail – is too inefficient and concedes too much to the working class. Social partnership, which grew out of Fianna Fail patronage of the trade union bureaucracy, is seen as an unnecessary concession. In fact during the election the Irish small business federation launched a bitter attack on social partnership from the right, complaining that the basic conditions in public service forced them to provide a basic wage in the private sector.

In fact the Irish expect corruption from their politicians. Bertie Ahern got over 30% of the votes cast – a figure reduced from over 50% by his parties voting advice in a multi-seat constituency. One figure in the top ten of voter preferences who may well support the new government as an independent is Michael Lowry, forced to resign as a government minister for breathtaking public corruption. Another figure is Beverly Cooper-Flynn. Elected on a high turnout and willing to support the new government, she may well lose her seat by being declared bankrupt. The bankruptcy would arise from legal attempts to contest media reports of corruption – attempts which failed. The Dublin working class vote for Fianna Fail indicates that, after two decades of partnership and following the collapse of republicanism as any kind of radical force, they are now looking to the populist wing of capitalism to defend them from the worst of the coming offensive.

An important footnote in the campaign was the weakness of Sinn Fein. Expecting to double their seats and have a good chance of positions in a coalition government, their vote and number of seats fell. There were a number of reasons for this. Their expectation of reward for delivering the imperialist settlement in the North was misplaced. Irish capital is grateful – but not that grateful. The 26-county state already has a Fianna Fail and has no need for Fianna Fail Óg. The party, having carefully crafted a mild social democratic taxation policy, abandoned it at the start of the election campaign to adopt the economic policy of the right. Finally, the party has not developed the skills of ‘normal’ bourgeois parties.

Adams, put face to face with other politicians found that his grasp of political and economic issues was not sufficient. Years of cosseting by politicians and media urging on the republican surrender disguised the fact that the organisation is still run on regimented and military lines and its pool of political ability is very small.

Sinn Fein’s difficulty will not end there. In the North they will hold on desperately to the parliamentary positions that they already have and will be easy prey for further demands from the Paisleyites. In the South they will be very welcome to hold up the Fianna Fail minority government without reward, giving them all the disadvantages of openly supporting the capitalist offensive without any of the advantages of office.

Localism and electoralism

Despite the loss of the one seat held by Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party, the small socialist movement’s vote was not insignificant in numerical terms (one candidate, Richard Boyd Barrett of the Socialist Workers Party, did come close to election, but not around any socialist demands). What did render it insignificant was the politics of the candidates. Localism and electoralism meant that what we got was a left gloss on the dominant capitalist programme. A few thousand votes for the workers republic would have meant incomparably more in terms of organising the fightback against the offensive that will follow this election.

The one distinct gain from the election was the defeat of the Progressive Democrats and the obliteration of their leader, the ultra-right former minister of justice, Michael McDowell. The fate of the PDs was both defeat and victory. It was victory in the sense that they party was formed to force on Fianna Fail the need for a Thatcherite deconstruction of Irish society. In this they were supremely successful. However, when Fianna Fail did adopt their programme their reason for existence changed. They declared they were in government to act as watchdog on government corruption!

In fact the PD’s played a unique role in coalition – as heatshield for Fianna Fail. The PD demise indicates how unpopular their programme is, but Fianna Fail have been able to escape blame for implementing it by regretfully explaining that the rules of coalition tied their hands. Bertie Ahern understands how useful this role has been and is now trying to construct an informal alliance of the PD rump and independents which would again deflect blame for the government.

This is unlikely to work. The populist and clientelist cover over a full-scale offensive on Irish workers is unlikely to last for long. Fianna Fail will face choppy water long before the 30th Dail runs its course. Just how difficult its task will be will depend to the extent that the working class can begin to build independent structures for its own defence.

No matter what happened yesterday, Peter Hain had planned to be the winner. If the Assembly had met and a First and Deputy First Minister had been appointed, he would have graced the world’s media as politics’ true Houdini.

The deputy leadership of the Labour Party and, as a result, the country would have been in reach and all would hail his momentous or even historic feat as the final solution to an age-old problem. Only his ‘natural’ tan could have masked the glow of success.

If, on the other hand, his master plan had crashed and burned, he would have displayed his mettle as the man who means business by proceeding to implement his dissolution consequences like a vindictive dictator.

Water bills would have been delivered, the abolition of academic selection would be confirmed and the Irish Language Act would have progressed through parliament.

Thankfully, none of that has happened or indeed will happen. Stormont has not closed; further Dublin involvement will not occur and water bills won’t arrive.

But more importantly, the arbitrary deadline set by the Government has not been enforced. The leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party secured what many others said was politically and realistically impossible.

They have found a third way. They have defied illogical deadlines and ensured that when full devolution does occur in May, it happens because it is right for unionists and it happens, for the first time, on unionist terms. And while what occurred yesterday may have been a surprise, it is important to remember just what progress has been made.

Sinn Fein has locked itself into the Assembly and, in doing so, helped to imbed Northern Ireland as an integral part of the UK.

They have agreed to participate in an Executive within a British institution and, as a result of legislative changes, are required to endorse our Royal Courts of Justice and support the forces of the Crown within their own communities. But it doesn’t just stop there.

While progress has been made on an economic package that will ensure an Executive has the best chance of survival, commitments have been made to increase efforts to broaden that package and get the best deal for this Province.

On the transformation of Sinn Fein, great strides have also been made.

The decommissioning of weapons may not have happened in the most transparent way, but it did happen and the ending of paramilitary and criminal activity as outlined by the IMC is borne out by the media, security analysts and others.

That is something that we have to accept, but there is nothing stopping us taking action if the situation changes. Confidence, however, can be found in procedures that will ensure that, if Sinn Fein was to resort to old tricks, they would be the only party to suffer.

Only a fool would think the DUP and Sinn Fein could work together on the basis of trust but, as Ian Paisley said yesterday,

we must not allow our justified loathing of the horrors and tragedies of the past to become a barrier to creating a better and more stable future.

Cross party, consensus politics currently appears in vogue at the moment. As I write, and perhaps encouraged by recent developments in Welsh politics, Gordon Brown has announced that Patrick Mercer and John Bercow, both Tory MPs, will be joined by Lib. Dem MP, Matthew Taylor to advise the government on certain policy matters with their expertise. It seems the Labour/Plaid coalition administration in Wales could yet provide the basis for thenew politics Brown hankers for – all in the interests of the country as a whole, of course.

One Wales

Somehow, I think not. The Welsh electorate experienced the same sort of empty, meaningless rhetoric following Welsh Labour’s predicament when it failed to secure an overall majority in y Senedd during elections to its’ Assembly on May 3rd this year. The eventual outcome of that were a Labour First Minister and a Plaid Cymru deputy First Minister with ‘One Wales’ being ratified as the policy document that now forms the basis for the country’s political direction until 2011. It is worth giving the period in question a quick résumé.

Events in the weeks subsequent to One Wales being approved may have bordered on the farcical, but they were hardly surprising. The Welsh Assembly has a very limited remit and this found its reflection in the nature of the election campaign generally leading up to May 3rd – the politics being exhibited by all mainstream parties were high on platitudes and low on concrete proposals. The battle for the ‘greenest’ politics and who could best manage the NHS took centre stage. Evidently, how each party imaged itself was more important than its politics.

As soon as it became clear that no single party had secured an overall majority in the Assembly, which of the party leaders could get their grubby hands on first ministerial power became the issue. Talk of deals, pacts and horse – trading in order that each of their respective parties could govern in the ‘best possible way for the people of Wales’ became the norm. Indeed, the Welsh First Minister, Rhodri Morgan’s repeated call to reach out to those in other parties with similar ideas typified the narrow political agenda on offer. Each party leader seemed prepared to make a deal with any of the others but, initially at least, could not quite pull it off.

All Wales Accord

Take the manoeuvrings around the ‘All Wales Accord’ – the first policy document being sold by the proposed coalition of Plaid, Liberal Democrats and Tory Assembly Members, the then infamously named Rainbow Alliance. That document contained such things as a commitment to work towards the improvement of transport links, the piloting of a laptop scheme for all schoolchildren, a trial of NHS walk-in centres and a vague promise to improve social housing. It also carried a commitment to hold a referendum on further powers for the Welsh assembly, bringing it in line with the Scottish parliament. Measures to bring about real democratic change or improve workers’ social and economic rights were absent.

One Wales hardly provides a substantial principled political shift from its predecessor – despite Morgan speaking about it as a new beginning or Plaid’s deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, (who had only recently been praising the All-Welsh accord when One Wales was introduced), bleating about it as a historical moment for the people of Wales.

True, but hardly inspiring, whilst One Wales contains anti-privatisation sound-bites about moving purposefully to end the internal market in the NHS, general commitments on, for example, education are hazy and range from providing extra assistance with student debt to initiating a pilot scheme for laptops for children. Indeed, ‘One Wales’ contains the platitudes people may expect from politics that are characterised by backroom deals between mainstream parties. As with the All Wales accord, principled proposals for real change were, unsurprisingly, not to be found.

The Left in Wales

So what of the Left in Wales during the period in question? Leaving aside the fact that there was a wide array of organisations contesting the five regional lists, at least two and as many as five left slates were vying for the same vote in every region. Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party and the Morning Star‘s Communist Party of Britain contested each one, while the Socialist Party (standing as Socialist Alternative) and Respect were also on the ballot in South Wales West and South Wales Central. In addition, one of the fragments of the former Workers Revolutionary Party, the Socialist Equality Party, stood in the last named region.

Thankfully, Forward Wales did not add to the confusion by contesting the regions, although its two most well known members at the time, Ron Davies and John Marek, were standing as independents in Caerphilly and Wrexham constituency seats. The average percentage vote for all of these groups combined was around a meagre 0.5%.

The campaigning efforts of those organisations hardly set the world alight either. Take Respect. This organisation in Wales had not conducted any public activities in the run-up to May 3 – thus personifying some of the criticisms George Galloway MP has recently raised about it. Indeed, the most up to date Respect national members’ bulletin at the time, whilst commenting on the 2008 mayoral election in London and the local council elections in England on May 3, had chosen not to even mention Wales in any shape or form.

The SLP too, lying dormant and unseen in the previous few years had done its best to let us know it still existed – if only on paper. Although its party political broadcast had already been screened, its manifesto was launched only on April 22, a little over a week before the election date. Meanwhile, the Socialist Equality Party parachuted its politics and candidates into South Wales Central (each of its candidates lived outside of the country).

Only the CPB and the SP seemed to be putting some effort into campaigning. No doubt buoyed by the first communist broadcast since the 1970s, the CPB had been holding a series of public meetings across Wales. The SP organised a smattering of events in south Wales and its website at least gave the impression of up-to-date campaigning activity.

But what were the political differences that separated all these groups and prevented them even discussing an electoral pact, not to mention a common campaign? For the most part, there was not that much. A look at the material available on their respective websites at the time and the literature handed out at public meetings said it all.

One Wales?: Rhodri Morgan (Labour) * Ieuan Wyn Jones (Plaid Cymru)

True, the SEP’s broader manifesto specifically questioned the nature of UK democracy, but the common themes promoted were defence of public services (particularly the NHS) and opposition to imperialist war. Of course, both of these are essential demands, but the question of how we are ruled, including the national question and the constitutional monarchy system, were, by and large, absent. The brand of politics being offered to the electorate, including in relation to imperialist war, was economism – albeit with a particular Trotskyist, Labourite, reformist or populist twist.

Furthermore, the fact that the electorate in South Wales Central region, for example, had a choice of five very similar slates typified the problem: that the organised left (particularly in Wales but in Britain generally) is, in fact, splintered and, actually, highly disorganised. The question of party is not considered. The glimpses of left unity seen in previous elections in Wales (the United Left in 1999 and the Welsh Socialist Alliance in the 2001 general election) has now long gone. The whole situation would have been amusing if it wasn’t so tragic.

Plaid Cymru’s left

The response by Plaid Cymru’s left to the twists and turns post May 3rd were more interesting and worth a mention.

From the onset, the prospect of the Rainbow Coalition sparked something of a minor rebellion amongst a small number of Plaid’s left Assembly Members, amongst whom Leanne Wood, AM for South Wales Central, was prominent.

Yet the effectiveness of that rebellion was always questionable. Triban Coch, the now inactive, if not defunct, left-wing grouping in Plaid, did not write a word about that Alliance since it was first mooted by Plaid’s leadership before elections to the Assembly even took place. Indeed, the reason why the Rainbow Alliance failed to become a living entity was actually due to the fact that the Liberal Democrats scuppered the idea – it had very little to do with Plaid’s left rebels.

The politics of that opposition too was always questionable. Speaking at the time of the proposed Rainbow Alliance, Wood stated

There is a clash of values and principles between Plaid and the Conservatives. That is why we believe an arrangement between us would be unsustainable in the long run and not deliver the stable government for which we all strive … We fought this election on a platform to deliver a proper parliament for our nation. A deal with the Conservatives would undermine the chance of delivering that goal.

The other left rebel AMs within Plaid also echoed
that idea. For example, Helen Mary Jones stated that she was against the Alliance because her Llanelli electorate did not want a real Welsh government called into question. Similar comments came from the other two Plaid AMs involved in the rebellion, Nerys Evans AM and Bethan Jenkins AM.

It is, of course, correct and fundamental to demand a parliament for Wales with full powers. But partisans of the working class place such a demand not within the context of Independence but within the context of workers unity on an all-Britain level by raising the importance of the need for a federal republic of Wales, England and Scotland. Fundamentally for Plaid’s left therefore it was not the interests of the working class, but those of a classless Welsh “nation”, which had to be protected from a lash-up with the Tories. On that question, Plaid’s rebels differed little from its leadership.

Indeed, having fought within their party to reject the ‘All-Welsh accord’ only three weeks earlier, it is unclear what precisely Plaid’s five AMs had initially seen when they voted to accept One Wales. For while they are yet to voice publicly their reasons for backing the document, we can only speculate that their thought processes may not be too dissimilar to those of their Westminster colleague, Plaid MP Adam Price (also formally a member of Triban Coch). From the onset, he sold the deal as a progressive political development. On June 28 – two days after Labour and Plaid AMs had formally agreed the new policy document – Price’s blog spoke of ‘One Wales’ in positive terms:

If we are what we say we are, a socialist party, a party of the left, then, all things being equal, when presented with a progressive programme in alliance with another party of the left or an alternative programme in alliance with the political right, then our natural tendency should be to choose left. If we embraced the rainbow under these circumstances, then the message we would send to the people of Wales is that our adoption of socialism in our party’s aims for 26 years was just for show. We would have appeared unprincipled, opportunistic and ideologically rudderless. In other words, we would have looked like the Liberal Democrats. And none of us would have wanted that

(Source).

Price’s socialism is revealed in some further comments. It seems that the programme contained in ‘One Wales’ will not only make Welsh-medium education a right at every level from the nursery to university, but will bring the right to a decent home within the grasp of every citizen too. To finance this, the Welsh government will cut business taxes to boost the economy, wrote the MP the following day. In other words, administering capitalism is, first and foremost, the priority.

Referendum

Whatever. Although the coalition government is now up and running, the fact remains that tensions between Plaid and Labour as well as amongst members of each party are very likely to be tested at some point in the near future. Indeed, there is already some ambiguity around the question of a referendum on the introduction of further powers for the Assembly – both parties will need to assess the levels of support for full law making powers necessary to trigger the referendum. Thus it appears that Plaid may yet find itself at the mercy of a Labour veto on the question – a fate which will cause political chaos between the two organisations.

So, despite the fact that, in June, each party conference overwhelmingly endorsed One Wales, it would be safe to say that the coalition can be described as anything but secure. Recent spats about identity and Britishness between Adam Price MP and Labour’s Huw Lewis AM for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney via their respective websites during July and August highlighted the underlying tension and fragility of what some see as an unlikely alliance. It must be noted that some Labour activists continue to feel uneasy about entering into government with the nationalists, while many Plaid members hate the thought of cosying up to British unionists.

For the Left in Wales (and Britain), whatever the outcome of the Labour/Plaid administration, the question of left unity, the need for a genuine working class party organised around the fight for a principled and radical working class programme must remain at the forefront of the political agenda.

New Unionism and the reform of the UK constitution

On May 3rd New Labour lost its control of both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Scotland now has a minority SNP/Green Scottish Government, whilst Wales now has a Labour/Plaid Cymru Welsh Assembly Government. This was followed by the replacement of a Ulster Unionist/SDLP-led Northern Ireland Executive by one run by the DUP and Sinn Fein-led Executive on May 7th. What does this all mean for the future of the UK and for socialists throughout these islands?

The current constitutional settlement to maintain the unity of the United Kingdom was implemented by the incoming New Labour government, in 1998, following upon successful referenda results in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This New Unionist deal involved Devolution-all-round for these countries, and replaced the Tories’ preferred UK constitutional order, represented by Westminster Direct Rule and administrative devolution through the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh Offices. New Labour’s political devolution measures are now so well embedded, they have become the new UK constitutional status quo. The Tories no longer seek to overthrow these – only the marginal, intransigent unionists of UKIP.

Constitutional settlements do not exist in a political or economic vacuum. The whole purpose of the New Unionism, initially developed by the Tories in the Anglo-Irish and the Downing Street Agreements, and brought to its rounded form by New Labour with Devolution-all-round, is to create the political environment in which the global corporations can maximise their profits. UK and Irish governments have cut business taxation, promoted privatisations and deregulation and undermined civil rights and effective trade union organisation.

Before we arrived at the latest constitutional settlement, the Tories had faced rising national democratic opposition, most obviously from the Republican Movement in the ‘Six Counties’, but also in Scotland and, to a lesser extent, in Wales. The election of Bobby Sands MP, during the Hunger Strike, in 1981, was the beginning of the end of attempts to break national challenges by head-on conflict.

Thatcher did manage to break much of the power of the organised trade union movement, when she defeated the Miners’ Strike in 1985. However, her continued attempts to break the whole working class, through direct confrontation, came unstuck with her attempt to impose the poll tax. Her efforts only contributed to further destabilisation of the UK, but this time in Scotland.

The British ruling class decided that subtler methods of control were needed. Thatcher, and then the Tories, were ditched in favour of New Labour. They also had a new way of dealing with working class unease. Get the trade union leaderships to act as a personnel management service for the employers through ‘social partnerships’. New Labour borrowed this model from Fianna Fail in Ireland. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement has brought these two partners closer together. The STUC, Wales TUC and the Northern Irish Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions have all given their public support to the New Unionist constitutional arrangements.

The mechanisms holding the New Unionist settlement together and the new challenges

The key mechanisms to keep the New Unionist, Devolution-all-round settlement in place have been:-

• i) supine New Labour-led administrations in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, willing to take orders from New Labour in Westminster.
• ii) the ‘cooperation’ of the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
• iii) the support of the Irish government.
• iv) the support of trade union leaders locked into ‘social partnerships’ both in the UK and 26 County Ireland.
• v) the backing of successive US administrations and the EU.

The elections to the Scottish Parliament, and to the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, have undermined the first two of these mechanisms. At first glance this sounds like a sure recipe for conflict between Westminster and these three devolved bodies. However, there are wider factors at work, which could lead to a further refinement of the New Unionist project. The most radical form this could take would be ‘Federalism-all-round’, where the Westminster Parliament is maintained for imperial, defence and certain domestic purposes, whilst parliaments, with more powers, are put in place in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England. A less radical form would be the further devolution of powers from Westminster, to the existing Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies, on an ad hoc basis, thus continuing the asymmetrical devolution model currently in place.

There would, of course, be opposition to these measures. There are significant Labour figures, such as George Foulkes, who would join with the Tories, to mount an intransigent unionist defence of the new UK devolutionary status quo. However, this approach did not go down too well for Labour, when they recently launched their way-over-the-top attack on the SNP, equating their taking office with ‘the end of civilisation as we know it’! Partly as a result of such attacks, New Labour lost control of Holyrood, when the electorate turned its back on such negative campaigning.

However, it is necessary to look to the global context to see that the wider balance of forces is shifting towards acceptance of the need for further constitutional change in the UK. The years of Bush/Blair gung-ho imperialism are coming to an end in the sands of Iraq. The Enron and Halliburton scandals, and the collapse of the housing market in the USA, are leading to increased questioning of neo-liberalism and a finance capital-dominated economy.

The rip-offs, at the expense of the state, taxpayers and employees, represented by equity capital and PPP deals in the UK, are also being increasingly questioned. If US imperialism and corporate capital, in cooperation with the UK’s political leaders, are to maintain their position then gung-ho imperialist, neo-liberal turbo-capitalism may have to be sidelined for a more consumer-friendly, cuddly capitalist alternative. George Soros, global speculator and Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist to the World Bank, have both said so. Retired generals and former CIA spokesmen have added their voices too.

Political adjustments will be necessary in the UK. When Gordon Brown became new Labour leader and PM, he was quick to outline new constitutional proposals for the UK. New Scottish Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, is tentatively looking to the possibility of increased powers for the Scottish Parliament too.

The ‘National Conversation’ in the wider UK context

This issue of Emancipation & Liberation has a special supplement which shows that the election of an SNP-led Scottish Government is unlikely to lead to a successful referendum on independence. Salmond’s ‘National Conversation’ is really designed to build a wider coalition for further reform of the Union – ‘Devolution-max’. The appeal is to Labour nationalists like Henry McLeish.

We have also included a very interesting report from Bob Davies, of the CPGB, on the situation in Wales. Bob comes from a Left unionist tradition. From this perspective, he is well able to see the continued retreats being made, not only by the very mild constitutional nationalist, Plaid Cymru, but also by Left nationalists in Wales.

Forward Wales took its inspiration from the SSP. It has now dissolved, with ex-Labour MPs, John Marek and Ron Davies, becoming Independents, but still (unsuccessfully) pursuing Old Labour-style politics. Marek has lost the Welsh Assembly seat he had won in the 2003 election. Others, including members of the former Welsh Republican Socialist Movement, have now joined Plaid Cymru, and its Left nationalist, Triban Coch grouping. Bob chronicles the Left nationalists’ continued retreats.

There is dire warning for the SSP in all of this. One of our former affiliated platforms, the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement, has also raised the prospect of socialists joining the SNP. Others, particularly from the ex-ISM platform, continue to pursue a Left nationalist strategy, which, when it comes to constitutional issues, makes the SSP, in effect, a pressure group on the SNP. Our special supplement offers a critique of this approach from the RCN’s socialist republican, internationalism from below viewpoint.

We have also included a most unlikely piece – an editorial from the Belfast Newsletter, the DUP supporting newspaper for Northern Ireland. Many, including some in the SSP, have argued that Sinn Fein has ‘got one over’ on the Unionists, by ‘forcing’ the DUP into a new coalition with them, on May 8th. Now, if Ian Paisley had made any significant concessions to nationalists, which undermined the position of Unionists, he would soon have been called a ‘Lundy’. He would face the same future as David Trimble, a one-time unionist intransigent, originally in the semi-fascist, Vanguard Party, but later leader of the Ulster Unionists, until his party’s electoral demise.

Paisley signed-up to the St. Andrews Agreement, in October 2006, when it removed the concessions to nationalists/Catholics, which hard-line Unionists found most unacceptable in the Good Friday Agreement. There was indeed some internal intransigent DUP opposition. Paisley also faced a challenge from Robert McCartney, former intransigent, UK Unionist MP for North Down. McCartney stood for six seats, in the new Stormont elections, on March 7th, challenging Paisley’s St. Andrews Agreement. He was soundly beaten in all of them. The Belfast Newsletter editorial shows us why.

It also helps to explain, just why it is that Northern Ireland currently represents the least of the challenges to the existing constitutional set-up in the UK. Not having local New Labour stooges in place, the UK government has had to follow a different strategy to win the cooperation of the Northern Ireland Assembly. This involves the Westminster government manoeuvring itself into a position of being the ‘neutral’ arbiter between the main local parties either the UUP and SDLP in the past, or the DUP and Sinn Fein now. These parties squabble amongst themselves, over the distribution of the Westminster block grant to the Assembly, and over other concessions, either to nationalists and unionists, whilst making appeals to the UK government for its support. The government must be quite satisfied at the success of its strategy.

The UK government is therefore, for the time being, in a better situation in ‘the Six Counties’ than it has been for a long time. Not only did the intransigent Unionists receive a trouncing in the Northern Ireland elections, so also did the intransigent Republican Sinn Fein. Meanwhile the former ‘intransigents’ Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness get down to the business of running the province in the interests of big business.

Water privatisation looms, reform of secondary education has been dropped, whilst the only ‘challenge’ to Westminster being actively pursued, is the demand to cut corporate taxation in the province! It is even possible that, as with the possibility of the devolution of more its powers, Westminster may agree to differential business tax regimes for Scotland and Northern Ireland (and perhaps elsewhere). This would represent a neo-liberal replacement for earlier differential regional grants and subsidies, originally inspired by social democratic economic thinking.

The elections to the Irish Dail reinforce the British government’s hand

The 24th May election to the Irish Dail also strengthens the hand of the UK government. John McAnulty’s article shows why it was that apparently discredited Bertie Ahern has been able to remain in office. Fianna Fail has now formed an administration with the Greens as new Coalition partners. Here too, two ‘oppositions’ were seen off. One of these was the widely hated Michael McDowell, Progressive Democrat (PD), Minister for Justice in the last Fianna Fail/PD Coalition government. He is as anti-Republican as Paisley (only he would not have joined any coalition government involving Sinn Fein!), and he is also against any concessions to trade union leaders.

Although suffering a personal defeat, McDowell could take some consolation from the fact that the new Fianna Fail government is not in the position of depending on Sinn Fein TD support as some predicted (and Sinn Fein leaders hoped). The PDs were originally a split from Fianna Fail. They were the original Irish flag-bearers for neo-liberalism and accepted Ireland’s allotted place in the New World Order. Their reason to exist has largely disappeared. All the mainstream Irish parties largely accept their neo-liberal economic policies. Irish neutrality has been effectively ditched. Even McDowell must be surprised at just how far Irish trade union leaders are prepared to stoop in ‘the race to the bottom’. This is why most Irish bosses still give their support to ‘social partnership’.

However, if Fianna Fail has largely eliminated any threat from the neo-liberal Right, by occupying much of the Right’s own ground, the opposition to its left, has suffered a much bigger setback. Sinn Fein spent the pre-election period ditching radical policies, which might have caused it trouble in trying to gain a place in a post-election coalition. Gerry Adams hoped that by adopting the role of the national statesman, who delivered peace in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein could substantially increase its vote in ‘the 26 counties’. However, Gerry was upstaged by Bertie. Bertie shook hands with ‘Big Ian’ in Dublin on May 4th, and was then invited by Blair to speak to a joint meeting of the Houses of Commons and Lords on May 15th.

Sinn Fein was unable to ride two horses at the same time – appearing both as a statesman-like voice in the international establishment and the radical voice of local community concerns. It lost a seat and its vote fell badly in Dublin. The Socialist Party also lost its TD, Joe Higgins, and other independent Left TDs were defeated.

New Labour’s New Unionist strategy is designed to reassert the UK’s political and economic influence over ‘the 26 Counties’, as well as reforming the Union, which had received such a battering, when the Tories pursued their old-style intransigent Unionism. The May 24th Irish election result will reinforce the position of the British government. While Sinn Fein licks its wounds in the South, there are less likely to be nasty surprises in the North, when Brown begins negotiations to update the current Devolution-all-round settlement.

Building on the principles of socialist republicanism and internationalism from below

As long as the Left remains in a weak position, throughout these islands, the way is clear for future New Labour-nationalist reconciliation. The likely political basis for this is further reform of the Union and cleaning up the ‘excesses’ of gung-ho imperialism and neo-liberalism. However, in order that the Left can make a recovery, we must have a clear analysis of what is actually happening; not have any illusions that the SNP can deliver independence, nor Sinn Fein, a united Ireland. As a start, this means rejecting the Left nationalism currently being pursued by the SSP leadership and turning to the principles of socialist republicanism and ‘internationalism from below’ pioneered by John Maclean and James Connolly.

It is also a good reason why the SSP Conference should agree to sponsor a Conference for socialist republicans throughout these islands. The UK and Irish governments work hand-in-glove to maintain the current political order. Alex Salmond seeks cooperation with the anti-nationalist, London Labour mayor, Ken Livingstone, and with Stormont’s new First Minister, Ian ‘No Surrender’ Paisley. We need to organise internationally too, which is why the Republican Communist Network has presented its motion to Conference.

Mary McGregor

We all knew the Scottish parliamentary results in May would be bad for the SSP. You could not go through the damaging Sheridan trial, the split in the party, the fall out from both these events and not expect an electoral disaster. But none of us really took in how bad it would be. Both Gregor Gall and Pam Currie cover this well in their articles and one would hope that it would provide a wake up call for socialists to realise once and for all, that here is no room for two socialist parties, fighting on virtually the same policies in Scotland today.

As I stood at the North East of Scotland count in Aberdeen, watching BNP supporters smile, the Solidarity supporters groan and our own supporters become more demoralised, the urge to get back home to Dundee and leave the night behind, became overwhelming.

Obvious target

Driving back down the A90 in the small hours, we were overcome with the need to blame someone. Disgust and horror at the unfavourable comparisons between our vote and Solidarity’s vote made Tommy Sheridan an easy and obvious target. There is no doubt in my mind that the political crime committed by Sheridan, the SWP and CWI of splitting the left in Scotland is a set back which will be regretted by generations to come. Even if we had no MSPs but still had the party intact, we would have been disappointed but we would have had a strong and dynamic force with which to rebuild and to focus on extra parliamentary activity. The SSP is now much weaker, much worse off financially and has substantially fewer activists than before the split.

The SSP is fragile and fractured but it does have a core of cadre and a democratic structure. Solidarity consists of two parties who hate each other (SWP and CWI), a number of individuals and a cult figure as leader. The credibility of the left in Scotland has been decimated and the only winner in the Sheridan libel trial was the British state, which has consequently had quite unprecedented access to both parties as it has carried out its investigations first into the libel case and subsequently into the perjury accusations.

Grotesque caricature

Gregor and others are right to point out that the objective political conditions were different in 2007 from our zenith electorally in 2003. But we did, as he says, Take a hit for allegedly ‘doing Tommy in. The Tommy Sheridan brand turned out to be much more powerful than the SSP brand. In today’s celebrity-obsessed media, this is hardly surprising given Sheridan’s profile. With his name on every ballot paper, it also appeared as if Tommy himself was standing in every council and list seat the length and breadth of Scotland; quite a grotesque caricature of I’m Spartacus!

Frighteningly, the prospect of the perjury trial and or News of the World (NotW) appeal may in fact enhance Tommy’s image of everybody’s favourite socialist that ‘they’ are all out to get.

The courts are seldom places for socialists to fight their battles. Everyone in Solidarity’s leadership knows that Tommy was wrong to take the NotW to court. The leadership of the CWI tried to talk him out of it. This has been no victory for the working class of Scotland. The repercussions go way beyond appeasing one man’s ego. It is indeed in question whether either Solidarity or the SSP can ever regain credibility as a political force across Scotland and our position of being the most successful socialist party in the British Isles has gone.

Having no MSPs means that our access to the media is limited. We no longer get the headlines when we attack the hypocrisy of the SNP from a republican perspective or the imperialism of New Labour. At the moment, the only time Solidarity gets any press is when Tommy has notorious underworld figures like Paul Ferris on his Fringe talk show or the Sunday Herald speculates on the perjury trial. The SSP is getting very little coverage at all. This is all a far cry from front pages on Free School Meals bill or Faslane protests!

Gregor Gall (left), picture by Eddie Truman, www.scottishsocialistparty.org

What happens next?

The most important question as Gregor suggests is what happens next? It is not clear how, or indeed whether, the SSP or Solidarity will survive the perjury trial but honest, hard-working committed socialists in both organisations will. How will we organise and take the fight for socialism forward when so many comrades feel profound disappointment and in some cases despair?

It must be so much worse for those comrades who thought, or still think that the SSP is the ultimate organisational form and will take us to socialism. In the RCN we have always believed that the SSP is the best organisational form so far, but we have always been conscious that as objective conditions change, then the form of socialist organisation may also need to change. We have been loyal SSP members but we have not been blind to its shortcomings or limitations.

The split has made the fight for socialist ideas more difficult in the coming period yet reunification in some form – ultimately the only way forward – is not on the cards in the short-term future. We cannot dismiss the profoundly painful and damaging experiences of some comrades over the last few years and demand they just have to get over it and reunite for the good of the class. This is naive in the extreme. For one thing, it’s not over yet! There may be even worse to come if the perjury trial takes place.

On the other hand, those at the centre of the case cannot demand that those who have been less damaged do not consider how to move us collectively forward. There seems to be near hysteria in some quarters at the suggestion that SSP comrades even speak to others in Solidarity. But the experience of comrades across the country pre and post split has not been uniform. There are SSP members who are friends with others in Solidarity and those friendships have survived. There are others who have already found themselves in meetings with Solidarity members where the same hatred and bitterness which exists between the two leaderships has not prevailed.

The Solidarity candidate in the North East of Scotland publicly commended the SSP candidate and other SSP representatives as good socialists with whom he had no quarrel. I believe that disagreement with the isolationist approach of some leading SSP members should not be conflated with disloyalty.

Consequently, Gregor’s call for a new left unity party should not be dismissed out of hand but should be considered premature. The process by which this could happen is at a very early embryonic stage. Sadly both the SSP and Solidarity have to play out the perjury case and appeal. More people will be damaged and some people may go to jail – something no socialist should relish the thought of. The fall out from this next phase then has to be dealt with and only after all of that will we be able to work towards genuine growth and the prospect of principled work with former comrades can become a reality.

If both parties survive, I imagine all of us having to go through a pre alliance phase working in a principled united front basis with perhaps electoral accommodation being the next step. Surely everyone bar the most sectarian can see the folly of us standing against one another. Only after that long process will the prospect of a new party be on the cards. We have a long way to go.

Parochialism

Even though there are very hard times ahead, this does not mean that the SSP and especially those of us who have not been at the heart of the Sheridan case, should be paralysed. Gregor is right when he says we need to focus on getting involved in our communities and in the need for robust party education but I fear what he is arguing is a form of parochialism which will do nothing to give comrades the much needed credibility we agree is required.

So while I agree with him that comrades must be grounded, I do not see this in opposition to espousing the high ideals of socialism. The real skill of respected, socialist politicians is the ability to do both. We have to build our cadre in order to dig those deep roots that Gregor talks of and I do not see that happening without articulating a socialist vision. The starting point for this needs to be real political education and discussion within the party on what our vision of socialism should be in the 21st century.

This does not mean just taking the lead from current political thinkers within the party but by doing what I know is an anathema to some comrades and reading the texts of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, MacLean, Connolly and others. We need to study new progressive movements like the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Bolivarists in Venezuela, and to develop our Marxism to take account of the events of the last 150 years.

Neither can the SSP be content with putting all its effort into community and trade union work, vital though these are. In Scotland, this would leave ‘high politics’ to the SNP. The SNP’s current diet of populist and consensual politics can not last. Wider events, such as the political fall-out from US and British imperialism’s wars, access to North Sea oil in the context of the rising oil prices, and the forthcoming Westminster imposed budget cuts, will form part of the ‘national conversation’, whether Alex Salmond likes it or not. When choices have to be made, the rightwards moving SNP will come down on the side of its business backers. It will also avoid any head on collisions with either the UK state or NATO.

When it comes to the constitutional issues there are strong pressures, within both the SSP and amongst the ‘Tommy can do no wrong’ supporters in Solidarity, to tail-end the SNPs political project of seeking an ‘Independence Referendum’. This isn’t likely to happen soon; nor is it likely to achieve what it seeks.

Real opposition needed

The SSP lost the political initiative when it abandoned the movement to build upon the Calton Hill Declaration. Instead the leadership opted to fall in first, behind the SNP leadership-policed Scottish Constitutional Convention and then, Independence First, run mainly by the political groups on the Scottish nationalist fringe. Neither of these bodies can lead the fight against either the British state’s Crown Powers, or Scotland’s continued involvement in NATO. Real opposition to both is needed, if moves to greater political independence are to open up better prospects for the Left and the working class.

Therefore, it is also vital that the SSP articulates a clear Scottish internationalist vision, based on sound democratic, secular and republican principles. Fortunately there is more chance of this happening within a democratic SSP, than in the political
‘marriage of convenience’ of left unionists and nationalists which constitutes Solidarity.

Nevertheless, we cannot live in a vacuum where Solidarity does not exist. Where we engage with them – and we must or we cut ourselves off from the anti war movement, the Palestine struggle, and any industrial dispute which occurs – we must act and be seen to act in a principled, non sectarian manner. If sectarianism occurs then it must not come from us. If Sheridan refuses to share a campaigning platform with us, then we must question his motives and whether he puts his personal animosity above the cause. We must not indulge in tit for tat retaliation.

I think Gregor is wrong in suggesting that we do not recruit to the party via united front work. We should not go on raiding missions but we should be open and honest about who we are, what we stand for and encourage people to join us. We can do that without resorting to sectarian lies or abuse. This will enhance credibility and put us on stronger ground for any future negotiations with former comrades.

Gregor is right when he says that the business as usual approach is wrong but so is the politics of retreat. Weekly stalls are a façade if that is the only party work which is going on but they are a way for hundreds of people weekly to get the message that the SSP and socialist ideas are still here.

Democratic bedrock

Most worrying about Gregor’s contribution was his dismissal of party branches. I see the branches as the democratic bedrock of the SSP. I know hat since the split, some individual members are isolated but the way to respond to that is not to turn us into a party of isolated individual members but to link vibrant branches with those who need support. I know that in some areas even where there are members, branches have not been functioning and a priority should be to engage those members who have had the courage and strength to stay with the SSP in a functioning and enjoyable party branch.

Many people out with the Central Belt fear that the party has long been dominated by Glasgow and Edinburgh in an insensitive way. Those in the other regions have felt, not without some justification, that we are second class party members in terms of the service we have received from party centre. I hope the Commission into Party structures will take account of this in its recommendations and will ensure that the party branch remains the basis of party building and democracy.

I am fearful of what would replace the branch. Would it be a party of self selecting Networks? How would representation be ensured at all levels? Yes we would get rid of the cult of the leader – all in favour of that – but we could be replacing it with the cult of the clique or a non elected leadership – not in favour of that one. I am sure that the commission will look to preserve and enhance what is best in ourdemocratic structures and I see the branch as fundamental to that.

Pam Currie, picture by Eddie Truman, www.scottishsocialistparty.org

Defensive

But Gregor is to be commended for opening up the ‘Where next?’ debate. Pam’s response reflects, Ithink, a defensive and at times unrealistic position.

Pam is doing a brilliant job as party secretary and is part of a group of dedicated comrades who are holding things together in the eye of a hurricane. She correctly raises the issue of sexism within the SSP and its role in Tommygate. Issues around gender ran right through the court case and the subsequent split. Tommy’s public attitude to family life promoted a bourgeois stereotype with his wife Gail as the loyal partner whose main interests are fashion and the wean. However, Pam’s experiences over the Tommygate period colour her vision of the present and the future. Pam extols the virtues of the United Left organisation which I am sure was a terrific support to Pam and others at a very difficult time but she needs to see the negative effects of such a defensive grouping.

The UL assumed all pro party forces would join the UL – this was far from true. The UL assumed that their experiences and conclusions reflected those of party members across the country. This was also untrue. If the UL was to be seen as more than a support group for those being attacked by Tommy and Co, or more than a group of Tommy haters, then they should have become a bona fide platform within the SSP. Many outwith the eye of the storm were left saying, What was the point of that? rather than, What a brilliant model for future democracy within the party.

The future is unpredictable and precarious for socialists in Scotland. We all individually do make a difference but the need to work as part of a collective is essential for anyone who understands what socialism means. We need to build the SSP and look beyond our current boundaries. We need to prioritise socialist education and party democracy. We must seek to build a culture where the cult of the individual is recognised as anti socialist. Most importantly we must see that sectarianism is futile and unproductive. Let’s hope the lessons of these last few tumultuous years have been learnt – we have a responsibility to ensure a socialist party, with credibility exists to articulate the aspirations of all those who suffer under capitalism.

Issue 14 Cover

• Offering a Socialist vision, RCN
• Peak Oil, Oil Depletion, & Alternative Energies, Rod MacGregor
• One year on, Jim Aitken
• Against Imperialist war, for Iran’s workers, Yassamine Mather
• No War On Iran!, Hands Off People of Iran
• Naming women’s oppression, Catriona Grant
• The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and the collapse of Republicanism, Joe Craig
• Footprints on the face, Rod MacGregor
• Secularism, Socialism and Religion, Bob Goupillot
• Bono finally finds what he’s been looking for – a knighthood, JM Thorn
• Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought, Benjamin Zephaniah
• Bought and Sold, Benjamin Zephaniah
• Parecon: participatory economics and socialism for the 21st century, Neil Bennett
• The Republic of the Imagination, Allan Armstrong interviews John Manson

In August 2006, Allan Armstrong interviewed the literary critic and poet John Manson about his life and works

Could you please give us some background information about your life?

John Manson

I was born on a croft on the coast of the Pentland Firth in 1932. My mother was widowed in 1941. Within that year, 1941-2, she lost her husband, my father, and his brother, who lived with us (both to pneumonia), and her own brother, a wireless operator, whose ship was torpedoed. She worked until 1968 with no pension, except the old age pension at 60.

In 1950 I went to Aberdeen University to study English Literature and Language and completed the first three years. In the winter term of 1952-3, I attended David Murison’s Extra-Mural lectures on Scottish Literature and must have heard of Hugh MacDiarmid’s work there for the first time. At the same time I became interested in Franz Kafka and have followed the two strands of Scottish and European (and World) literature ever since. At the same time, or perhaps a little later, I began to read articles from a Marxist point of view, although I wasn’t living in class-conscious circumstances. I started to do some writing. This was the period of the Korean War, the colonial repression in Malaya and Kenya, and the suspension of the constitution in British Guiana.

At home in the summer of 1953 I began to have a partial breakdown of health (psychosomatic) – no hospitalization – and this went on for a few years. In 1955 my mother and I moved to a smaller place in Sutherland and I recovered my health there to a large extent. For the first time, I felt free from pressure. Later I qualified as a primary teacher and taught in Fife, Edinburgh and Dumfries and Galloway.

I began to read widely in literature. Of the novels I read at that time, I expect the works of Maxim Gorky and Mikhail Sholokhov would most stand rereading. I also read the trilogies of Konstantin Fedin and Alexei Tolstoy. When Dr. Zhivago, Lolita and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich were published I read these as well. MacDiarmid published some of the Zhivago lyrics in The Voice of Scotland and introduced a selection of Pasternak’s work in a translation by his sister, Lydia Pasternak Slater (she moved to Britain before the Second World War).

The poets I read at that time were Christo Botev, the national poet of Bulgaria, in Paul Eluard’s French translation; Nicola Vaptsarov, also Bulgarian, who was shot by the Fascists; Martin Carter of (then) British Guiana, whose Collected Poems and Selected Prose, University of Hunger, was published in early 2006; and Nazim Hikmet, who is now regarded as the major poet of Turkey in the last century. I also became aware of Louis Aragon’s poetry in 1956, through his weekly paper, Les Lettres Francaises; and then read two of his 6 volume series, Les Communistes, and other novels in French. I still have a copy of a letter from Collet’s, listing eight volumes of Antonio Gramsci in Italian. Some of the other writers in whom I became interested at this time will emerge during my answers. I read the early works of Alan Sillitoe and Arnold Wesker, nearly all Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, and at least one each of John Steinbeck, Sinclair Lewis, Erskine Caldwell and James T. Farrell.

How would you describe yourself in political terms?

A non-Party Socialist, since the dissolution of the CPGB

What do you see as the significance of the literary side of politics?

Politics is part of the public life of the times and it should be recreated as an important aspect of culture.

You see 1991 as forming a break in a certain period of literary politics. Why is this?

1991 witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Communist Party of Great Britain. It’s the end of an era in that sense, but not the end of other Communist Parties. It’s much more difficult to say how this affects the literary side of politics. The Portuguese Communist, Jose Saramago, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, for example.

You see Hugh MacDiarmid as the most important literary figure in Scotland in the 20th century. Why is this?

MacDiarmid was a great lyrical and satirical poet and he was also a national regenerator through his anti-imperialist writing. He had enormous influence on other people, mostly when they were young and this influence extended to the worlds of art, music, history, language, philosophy, politics and economics as well as imaginative literature. He made the greatest single-handed contribution to ensure that Scotland would not be, as in the line from Tom Buchan’s poem, a one-way street to the coup of the mind. He wrote instead:

For freedom means that a lad or lass
In Cupar or elsewhaur yet
May alter the haill o’ human thocht
Mair than Christ’s altered it

I never set een on a lad or a lass
But I wonder gin he or she
Wi’ a word or deed’ll suddenly dae
An impossibility.

(Complete Poems, 1, pp. 257-8, Hugh MacDairmid, Manchester, 1993.)

MacDiarmid was at the centre of a number of political and literary controversies:

• a. His alleged Scottish fascist past
• b. The ‘bomb London’ poem from the Second World War(On the Imminent Destruction of London, in The Revolutionary Art of the Future – Rediscovered poems by Hugh MacDairmid, edited by John Manson, DorianGrieve and Alan Riach, Manchester, 2003.)
• c. His ‘flytings’ with Hamish Henderson and Ewan MacColl.

What are your views on these particular issues?

• MacDiarmid was never a Fascist in the sense of a supporter of a right-wing dictatorship; he didn’t belong to a Fascist group, for example. A study of his article in The Scottish Nation (1923), Programme for a Scottish Fascism, shows that he saw ‘a Scottish Fascism’ as Nationalist –
  

  ‘Scotland First’ for us as it was ‘Italy First’ for them’ – and Socialist – ‘… a Scottish Nationalist Socialism … will restore an atmosphere in which the fine, distinctive traits and tendencies of Scottish character which have withered in the foul air of our contemporary chaos, will once more revive.’

  He thought that …Fascism in Italy must incline to the Left. He also quoted The Fascist Movement in Italian Life where Pietro Gorgolini says that,

  Fascism understands the immense social importance of land, hence it condemns absentee and unproductive possession, which leaves vast tracts of land uncultivated that could be highly productive.

  (Hugh MacDiarmid: Selected Prose, pp. 34-8, Alan Riach, editor, Manchester, 2000.)

  Obviously, MacDiarmid thought this kind of ‘fascism’ could be applied to the Scottish Highlands but he failed to give weight to the fact that the Peasant Leagues were being broken up in Italy at this time. At the time MacDiarmid wrote the article he was a member of the Scottish Home Rule Association, the ILP and the No-More-War Movement through the League of Nations. He was also becoming interested in Social Credit.

  Similarly, MacDiarmid took ideas from Wyndham Lewis’s book on Hitler (1931) which seemed to chime with his own.

  Hitler’s ‘Nazis’ wear their socialism with precisely the difference which post-socialist Scottish nationalists must adopt. Class-consciousness is anathema to them, and in contradistinction to it they set up the principle of race consciousness.

  (The Caledonian Antisyzygy and the Gaelic Idea in Essays of Hugh MacDiarmid, Duncan Glen, editor, London, 1969.)

  He takes over the concept of ‘Blutsgefuhl’ or ‘blood feeling’. He equates Hitler’s attacks on ‘Leihkapital’ (loan capital) with Major Douglas’s (the main advocate of Social Credit). MacDiarmid was very impulsive and often wrote reviews and articles in great haste. MacDiarmid was certainly deceived by Hitler as a man in 1932-3.

  Here are some quotations from his Free Man articles At the Sign of the Thistle:

  In view of the recent discussion in Scotland of the necessity of militant action, readers should carefully weigh what [the poet] Mr [John] Gawsworth says:-[Hitler] is as much a prophet as Mahomet, Mussolini, or Lenin, but he is an armed prophet’.
  (23/6/32)

  Compare the mental calibre of the members of the Scottish Development Council with men like De Valera in Ireland, Hitler in Germany, Gandhi in India.
  (9/7/32) The SDC had been formed in 1931.

  … it is just this vital force, this resourcefulness and colour which attracts me in Hitler as, say, against the utter nullity of Sir Robert Horne or the horrible local preacherism, writ large, of Ramsay MacDonald.
  (3/9/32)

  I agree with Hitler in one thing – probably the only thing in which I do agree with him at all – and that is his doctrine that action must not negate propaganda.
  (4/11/33)

• b. MacDiarmid saw London as metropolitan city, the centre of empire.
• c. MacDiarmids ‘flytings’ with Hamish Henderson were public. Ewan MacColl records his private discussions in his autobiography, Journeyman. MacColl writes:

  So why had he chosen to single out the folk revival as a special target for his venom? Because of the kailyard, the nineteenth century parochialism which had poisoned Scots literature and condemned it to a debilitated existence in the cabbage patch. MacDiarmid had rescued it and, with the help of a talented band of devotees, restored it to its proper role. And now it was being threatened again by vandals calling themselves folk-singers, by a movement which had within it seeds which, if allowed to germinate, would produce such a crop of weeds that the kailyard would triumph again. MacDiarmid’s fears were not entirely unfounded.
  (Journeyman, an autobiography by Ewan MacColl, pp. 284-5, Ewan MacColl, London, 1990.)

  Macdiarmid had positives as well as negatives. He drew attention to modern epics such as Pablo Neruda’s Canto General and Hikmet’s Human Landscapes.

Could you explain how you came to persuade MacDiarmid to fully publish his Third Hymn to Lenin?

On my first visit to Macdiarmid’s house, Brownsbank, in February 1955 I asked him if it had been published in full (one-third had already been published in Lucky Poet). I saw he made a mental note and he published it in the next issue of The Voice of Scotland in April. Almost fifty years later I discovered that it was originally written as part of The Red Lion project (in the mid-Thirties) and that he then realised that it could be regarded as a ‘third hymn’ – but it wasn’t directly conceived as a ‘hymn to Lenin’ like the first and second hymns. Although it does address Lenin in parts of the poem it is more of a ferocious attack on the housing conditions in Glasgow and on the modes of thought which allowed these conditions to exist.

MacDairmid: a great lyrical & satirical poet

How did you discover the material which formed the basis for The Revolutionary Art of the Future – rediscovered poems by Hugh MacDiarmid?

In 1990 the National Library of Scotland purchased (for £250,000) the archive of material which Kulgin Duval and Colin Hamilton had been buying from him in his lifetime. An American University would have paid double. This has been classified into 246 folders and notebooks. As soon as I opened one of these I realised that some important poems had remained unpublished through lack of opportunities at particular times.

Other people had realised this before but perhaps I made a more thorough search than they did and recorded them in typescript. I had made several (more limited) discoveries of uncollected and unpublished poetry and prose on previous occasions, e.g. From Work in Progress in Penguin (1970), now retitled Kinsfolk, and the eight stories in Annals of the Five Senses(1999).

Your house contains many photographs and maps of places associated with MacDiarmid. Do you see ‘place’ as being important in his work?

Yes. Langholm, his birthplace; Whalsay, where he lived in the 1930’s; and also Liverpool and London. In Liverpool he wrote the poems in the abcbdd stanza (with the truncated sixth line) which he didn’t use before or after, when he was thinking back to Langholm; and in London he began The Red Lion project perhaps because he joined the CP there in August 1934 and had also just read Allen Hutt’s pamphlet Crisis on Clydeside.

Scott Lyall’s book, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Poetry of Politics and Place was published last year by Edinburgh University Press.

You have also located unpublished Lewis Grassic Gibbon writings in your researches.

Gibbon signed a contract with Faber to write a biography of William Wallace. He never completed it, but I found the first ten pages in the National Library of Scotland. Gibbon presents Wallace, At the head of a force that bore the significant title of the ‘Army of the Commons of Scotland’ and that after his defeat at Falkirk, not again, tell on tale, did the Commons of Scotland gather to battle under their ain folk till the Covenanting times.(William Wallace – Knight of Scotland, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, with introduction Braveheart in Kinraddie by John Manson, in Cencrastus, no. 61.)

In an important literary/political debate in the 1930’s Lewis Grassic Gibbon and James Barke seemed to reject a Scottish national identity. Yet MacDairmid later claimed that Gibbon had become a supporter of a Scottish Workers Republic. What is your view of this?

MacDiarmid may have drawn this impression from his last meeting with Gibbon in Welwyn Garden City in September 1934 but there is no evidence for it in Gibbon’s writing. Less than five months later he was dead.

You have spent some time recently working on James Barke. What do you see his significance was/is in the literary side of politics?

I think The Land of the Leal remains an important popular novel. Major Operation should also be republished though it is spoiled a bit by speeches like MacKelvie’s on materialism (in the context of the novel).

Jim White, a long time member of the Communist Party, has claimed James Barke was a Party member. Why do you dispute this?

Jim only had Bill Cowe’s word for it. I’ve rehearsed the evidence in my essay, Did James Barke join the Communist Party? (Communist History Network Newsletter, 19, 2006, published by Politics section, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, M13 9PL, website)

Why do you think James Barke was a member of the Freemasons?

I’ve no evidence here. Maybe it was the Burns connection? He was also a member of the Boys Brigade 1920-22 and spoke warmly of the Brigade in an article in 1956 (among other organisations).

Sorley MacLean doesn’t appear to have figured as much as MacDiarmid, Barke or Gibbon in your work on the literary side of politics. Is there a reason for this?

The reason is that I have no Gaelic and am therefore dependent on translations of his work. I’ve read his poems and his prose collection Ris a’ Bhruthaich (1985) and Joy Hendry and Raymond Ross’s Critical Essays (1986), the interviews he gave, and I’ve also heard him reading.

You have translated several European writers, particularly from the ‘God That Failed’ tradition, e.g. the Italian, Ignazio Silone; from dissident communists, like Victor Serge; and you have been interested in and sympathetic to non-Communists like the Icelander, Halldor Laxness. Why do you draw from these traditions?

A misunderstanding here. I’ve only translated one letter of Silone from Italian and though I’ve translated two books and a number of articles by Victor Serge I only became aware of him in the 1970s. But I’ve certainly been reading and rereading Silone from time to time since the late Fifties initially because he recreated the life of peasant societies and later because he reveals the debates within the minds of some of his leading characters with regard to the Communist Party.

The poets from whom I have translated the most are Pablo Neruda (Chile), Louis Aragon (France), and Paul Eluard (France)- Communists, though Eluard wasout of the Party for a decade,roughly 1932 to 1942. They had lifelong careers as authors and wrote intensely personal as well as political poetry – Resistance poetry in the case of Aragon and Eluard, anti-Franco and anti- Yankee poetry in the case of Neruda. Another poet I have translated, Cesar Vallejo (Peru), was also a Communist. But I’ve also translated from poets whose political positions cannot be so easily identified, e.g., Eugenio Montale (Italian), Constantine Cavafy (Greek), Manuel Bandeira (Brazilian), Henri Michaux (Belgian), whose work appears in my pamphlets.

Again I’ve read and reread Laxness since the late fifties, initially Independent People, about Icelandic crofters, and Salka Valka, about fishing communities (along with the Latvian, Vilis Lacis’s A Fisherman’s Son). I have read Max Frisch (Swiss), whose novels deal with questions of identity and who was also a great dramatist; Elias Canetti, Nobel prize-winner (1981), for his threevolume autobiography; Andre Malraux (France), for his novels of the political life of the Thirties; Albert Camus (France), for his stories and his posthumously published novel, The First Man, involving the search for his roots (Nobel prize-winner 1957); many of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir (France), and more recently, the novels of the recently deceased Pramoeda Ananta Toer, who spent many years in the Indonesian gulag.