WE HAVE NOT STOPPED THE CAPITALIST OFFENSIVE

 WE NEED TO LISTEN, LEARN, THEN MOVE ON

In our lifetime there has never been a greater need for unity of socialists and communists, nor has there been a greater fragmentation of the Left.

What we have had under capitalism is as good as it was going to get. Now employment protection, pensions, health services, housing provision and education are under sustained and organised attack with a disproportionate effect upon youth and women.

The post World War II gains are under attack by all the pro-capitalist parties, not just the Tories; yet still union representatives and various sects call on workers to oppose TORY or CON-DEM cuts.

Doesn’t it make you want to weep? It’s not just that these cuts are being implemented by all parties, it’s that all parties are doing so because capitalism requires it and they have no alternative to capitalism.

Capitalism is not in crisis in the sense that those who ‘run’ it have made mistakes; capitalism is doing what it has to do – subject economies to periodic painful depressions in order to survive.

This is the point. It is not possible in the long term to humanely manage or reform capital! Capitalism can be forced to grant limited concessions by organised militant action, but as soon as we let our guard down they will snatch them back as is currently happening.

We need to move beyond capital’s parasitic stranglehold on human society. We need to find a way to organise to that end.

PAST FAILURES

Many groups/organisations/parties on the Left point to achievements of which they are proud – recruitment, a prominent role in key struggles, electoral successes or producing quality publications are examples. Yet the Left is weaker and more fragmented than for many decades and, in Scotland, the once strong SSP is a shadow of its former self*. Self-proclaimed revolutionary ‘parties’ or proto-parties put most of their efforts into fighting each other. Why is this?

• Gurus, self appointed leaders and media attention seeking personalities have set up and controlled too many of our organisations. Democracy has not been open or even practised.

• Members and recruits are ‘given the line’ to repeat. They are told what to think instead of being encouraged how to think.

• Front organisations are set up with little if any democracy mainly in order to recruit.

• Broad Lefts share this same democratic deficit and limiting aspirations.

• New activists become disillusioned and misdirected – just think of some of the slogans (and weep again) ….

….Fight The Con-Dem Cuts.. it’s capitalism we are fighting against and all the parties supporting it and all the organisations supporting them, including the Labour Party, the TUC, STUC and the SNP.

…Make Poverty History… you mean, make capitalism history and all the parties and organisations supporting it.

We need to move beyond populism, reformism, electoralism and egotism.

CONDITIONS FOR REGROUPMENT

A fundamental issue is the democratic and interpersonal nature of how we interact. We won’t get far without open, comradely and non-sexist behaviour.

We need a framework that lays out rights and responsibilities of individuals, groups, platforms, networks and organisations that come together. We need a style of discussion and debate that allows us to listen, reflect, and question. We need to discourage the sectarian ‘We have our line and we will vote en-bloc’ behaviour.

We need to start from a few fundamental realities:-

It is the capitalist mode of production that constitutes the underlying problem. It is a system of exploitation with its wage slavery and domestic drudgery, and its denial to the majority of the guaranteed material means to provide a decent living. It is also a system of oppression with its patriarchy and consequent sexism, its competitive states, national chauvinism and racism, and its denial of real democracy and human dignity. It is a system of necessary and recurring crises, continuous wars and environmental degradation.

Capitalism promotes a selfish individualism based on ‘having’. We must offer an alternative, based on that aspect of being human which capitalism suppresses – our shared social existence. Then we can prioritise ‘being’ over ‘having’. Therefore, it is not enough to fight against capital. We must fight for a system of human emancipation and liberation – i.e. communism organised on the principles:-

1.  “From each according to their ability; to each according to their needs.”

2.  “Where the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.”

We need to develop an Immediate Programme based on meeting our real needs which, through the development of independent working class politics and organisation,  allows us to fundamentally break with capitalism and move towards the first phase of communism, i.e. socialism.

We should lead by example. We will be judged by the way we behave within our organisation.

 NEXT STEPS

We in the Republican Communist Network are joining in the call for a regroupment of the Left and will help to facilitate this.

We are NOT suggesting the setting up of another Party – that would be a decision for those who had come together under this regroupment, once a sufficient base of support had been won amongst the working class.

We ARE suggesting that the points within this leaflet should form part of the discussions for a regroupment. Others will certainly have additional points to discuss.

A fuller description of our current thinking can be found at:- http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2011/12/23/beyond-the-ssp-and-solidarity-forgive-and-forget-or-listen-learn-and-then-move-on/

Please contact us if you are interested in joining the call for a new regroupment at RCN, c/o PO Box 6773, Dundee, DD1 1YL or www.republicacommunist.org/blog. This is NOT a recruitment tactic (although we would like to hear from you if you are interested).

Please add your voice to the call for a regroupment at whatever meetings/demos/strikes you participate in.

UNITED WE STAND A CHANCE OF A BETTER FUTURE

 DIVIDED WE FACE INCREASING BARBARISM UNDER CAPITALISM

 WE MUST LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES AND MOVE ON

* see http://republicancommunist.org/blog/2012/02/11/the-rcn-platform-and-the-ssp/

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.

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

Issue 17 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: 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

Issue 5-6 Cover

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• Blair, Bush and the Iraqi occupation: reality bites, Nick Clarke
• Leadership and the anti-war movement, Phil Sharpe
• Ireland’s Good Friday Agreement the end and no perhaps, John McAnulty
• Beyond Broadswords and Bayonets, Bob Goupillot
• Beyond Broadswords and Bayonets, Allan Armstrong

Issue 4 Cover

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• Fight the imperialist drive to permanent war, RCN
• The oil and military Industries behind Bush, Matt Siegfried
• Official Anti Racism – sanitised and useless, Mary Ward
• David the detainee, Jim Aitken
• SSP & Socialist Unity, RCN
• If You’re Happy And You Know It – Bomb Iraq
• Goodbye to the Good Friday Agreement, John McAnulty
• The Great Land Grab, Iain Robertson
• Red on Green, Green on Red, Alan Boylan
• From attack to defence: questions of leadership raised by the FBU dispute, Chris Jones
• Rank and File or Broad Left, Brian Higgins
• Prisoners of Social Partnership, Joe Craig
• Letters

Issue 3 Cover

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• Unfinished Business: 11 September 1 Year on, Nick Clarke
• Columbia, the IRA, the US and Manifest Destiny, Matt Siegfried
• Which route for political, working class unity in Britain, Bob Goupillot
• Cymru Goch’s Resignation Letter, Cymru Goch
• Irish Socialists appeal for support in stand against sectarianism, Belfast International Socialists and Socialist Democracy
• Republicans celebrate” the jubilee, Allan Armstrong
• Successful republican festival and victory at free speech trial, Y Faner Goch
• Northern Ireland – Is the peace process under threat? No, but the working class is!, Class Struggle
• British Nationalism and the rise of Fascism, Chris Ford
• Juvenilization, the family, and the capitalist state, Kathy Perlo
• Equal partners in the struggle, Catriona Grant
• Oceans Apart, Jim Aitken
• A Healthy Constitution?, Duncan Rowan
• You are the weakest link! The SSP Special Conference, the Left & the No to the Euro Campaign, Allan Armstrong
• Bookshop Libel Fund
• No nationalist road to socialism in Scotland, Phil Sharpe
• Letters

Issue 2 Cover

Comments are open, so feel free to discuss the articles.

• The Euro Referendum: The case for an active boycott, Allan Armstrong
• Statement from the Conference of the European Anti-Capitalist Left, European Anti-Capitalist Left
• Another World Is Possible, World Social Forum
• Resolution passed at Scottish Socialist Party Conference March 2002
• Palestine: After Jenin – Ethnic Cleansing?, Hanna Khamis
• How the civilised US treats prisoners of war, Matt Siegfried
• Hooray for Hollywood, Steve Kaczynski
• Jenin, Jim Aitken
• Socialist Alliances in England, Socialist Alliance
• Jubilee: Ireland, John McAnulty
• Freedom Come All Ye, Hamish Henderson
• Jubilee: Wales, Mike Davies
• Linking republicanism and socialism in Scotland, Allan Armstrong
• Empress Brown’s Jingo Jubilee, Terry Liddle
• Republican Forum: A way forward for republicanism, Irish Republican Socialist Party
• The Socialist Alliance in England, Dave Spencer
• Women’s Liberation and Socialism, Mary Ward
• Roads to Freedom or did Marx change his mind?, Bob Goupillot
• Correspondence Red