CWU snubs Johnson

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I know some of you are getting fed up with the Labour Deputy Leadership election, but it is a significant defeat for the leadership of the postal workers union that their support for the right winger, Alan Johnson, has been overturned by rank and file delegates at conference today. This underlines how the Deputy Leadership contest has allowed some debate in the unions about their future relationship with the Brown government. From what I gather support for continuing the link with the Labour Party is very weak within the CWU, and if there is a large scale strike this year - as seems likely - then pressure may grow to follow the FBU's example and disaffiliate.

This report is from the Morning Star:

CWU delegates in Bournemouth overwhelmingly voted to reconsider the union's decision to support Labour deputy leadership candidate Alan Johnson on Monday.

An emergency motion pointed out that Mr Johnson had failed to support the Trade Union Freedom Bill and the union's campaign against post office closures and had publicly supported Royal Mail's unpopular plans for employee share ownership.

Conference agreed to censure the NEC and instruct it to reconsider its decision to support Mr Johnston in line with the decisions taken at last year's conference and inform the membership of the decision prior to the ballot commencing on June 6th.

South London delegate Bob Cullen pointed out that deputy general secretary Dave Ward had said that he would rather "support a lamppost" than Mr Johnson, who was once the leader of the CWU.

"Let's support the lamppost," he urged delegates.

"If he can privatise what was his own industry, what would he do to others? He has no time for us working people. He should not be considered."

London Divisional representative delegate Martin Walsh branded Mr Johnson "the weakest" of all the candidates.

"He does not support the policies of this union, yet we still support him. That is wrong," he said.

"He walked away from this union, we did not drive him away."

London delegate Phil Walker added that Mr Johnson offered "little or nothing" to the union in his leadership manifesto.

"We have to look at the most acceptable candidate. Let's have another look at them," he said.

"Policy issues should be key to our judgment. Let us get what change we can out of this deputy leadership contest."
London Parcels delegate Paul O'Donnell said that Mr Johnson's nomination sent out the wrong message.


"It's like having a fry up for the bailiffs before they repossess your cooker," he said.

Kent Invicata delegate Sean Tait added: "We can't send divided messages to our own membership. We should make sure the people we support, support us."

Before the voting, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes urged delegates to reject the motion, insisting: "What you're saying is that the NEC is not entitled to an opinion. We are deciding the next Deputy Prime Minster."

The NEC will meet on Tuesday to decide who they will now support.

UPDATE: There is a good online report also in Socialist Worker . They make the point that: "It should be noted that not all the executive had supported Johnson at the executive meeting in question, with three supporting Jon Cruddas."

It is also worth saying that The Morning Star are wrong that Bob Cullen is from South London, he is from Oxford.

We are back

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Sorry for the interruption in posting recently.

The blog was temporarily blocked by Google because they decided it was a so-called "Spam blog".

It seems they have an automated tool that searches blogs and tries to identify automated blogs being used for nefarious purposes, and their algorithm is too aggressive, and there are loads of false positives.

It is illuminating to read the Google help group, which is a forum for people with blogger problems, as this issue affects loads of people using Google Blogger.

There was one poor guy blocked at the same time as us who makes his living out of his blog, and has 400000 hits per month (which is slightly more than we get) - he was blocked. And what is so frustrating is there is no way with Blogger to get to speak, or even e-mail a human being.

Anyway, we are back, and we have resolved to migrate to Wordpress soon.

Lecturers' union condemns Israel

The UCU Congress yesterday passed 2 resolutions:


Boycott of Israeli academic institutions
This requires the Union to

circulate of the full text of the Palestinian boycott call to all branches
encourage members to consider the moral implications of links with Israeli universities
organise a UK campus tour for Palestinian academic trade unionists
issue guidance to members on appropriate forms of action
actively encourage branches to create direct educational links with Palestinian educational institutions including nationally sponsored programmes for teacher exchanges etc.


European Union and Israel
This requires the Union to campaign for:

The restoration of all international aid to the PA and all its rightful revenues
No upgrade of Israel’s status with the EU while the occupation and human rights abuses continue
A moratorium on research and cultural collaborations with Israel via EU and European Science Foundation funding until Israel abides by UN resolutions


The Morning Star has the following report of the debate:

DANIEL COYSH writes:>.

DELEGATES at the newly formed university and lecturers' union defied their national executive on Wednesday evening and voted for a nationwide debate on whether to support a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

The debate on whether to hold a debate had always promised to be one of the more controversial aspects of the inaugural UCU congress and the hall was packed with speakers, delegates, observers and hacks, hungry for a juicy row.

In the event, most left disappointed. Strong opinions were voiced, but everyone managed to avoid the hysterical smears and name-calling that so often heralds the hijacking of discussion by hard-line Israel supporters.

Although many opposed any demand for a boycott, every speaker was insistent on their support for the Palestinian people and their condemnation of Israel's actions. Opponents of a boycott instead argued on the grounds that such a step was counterproductive, would divide the union or would stifle "academic freedom."

The boycott call was launched in April 2004 by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). It is supported by 60 Palestinian trade unions, NGOs and political and religious organisations.

UCU delegates discussed a motion calling on UCU to circulate the full text of the PACBI call to all branches.

The motion also condemned Israel's 40-year occupation of Palestine and its "denial of educational rights for Palestinians by invasions, closures, checkpoints, curfews and shootings and arrests of teachers, lecturers and students."

Opening the debate, University of Brighton delegate Tom Hickey welcomed growing international condemnation of Israel as an "apartheid state" and detailed the devastating effect of the occupation on the Palestinian people.

"If we do nothing and look away, we make ourselves complicit in it," he argued.

Executive member Mary Davis spoke against a boycott, calling the motion "divisive and disingenuous."

She said that, if the same principles were applied to Britain, then all British academia would be boycotted over Britain's shameful role in the attack on Iraq.

Instead, she proposed concentrating the union's efforts on pro-Palestinian activities, such as stopping arms sales to Israel and supporting the importation of goods produced in free Palestine, such as olive oil.

However, the final vote saw 158 delegates back the motion, with 99 against.

Speaking after the debate, Mr Hickey said that the next step would be to organise a series of regional debates over the next year, with as wide a range of speakers as possible, including academics from both Israel and Palestine.

He stressed that the form any potential boycott could take was up to the union, but he suggested that it could include such measures as a refusal to attend conferences organised by Israeli universities or a ban on joint grant applications with such institutions.

UCU general secretary Sally Hunt, who had spoken out against a boycott prior to the debate, commented: "Today's motion means all branches now have a responsibility to consult all of their members on the issue and I believe that every member should have the opportunity to have their say."

She also pointed out that a previous motion had endorsed an official policy on "greylisting and boycott" by the union's transitional arrangements committee, providing a series of "key tests" which would have to be passed before any boycott could be implemented.

Cannon on socialist legality

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The recent decision of the Venezuelan government not to renew the broadcast licence of the RCTV channel has raised quite a lot of interesting debate, that has thrown light on some of the underlying political assumptions and attitudes of those participating in the discussion.

I have already posted about the facts of the dispute, and explained why the Bolivarian government are justified .

But one point came up in the debate at the Red Squirrel blog that is worth pursuing further.

One of the “left” voices joining in the chorus of criticism of Chavez was TWP from the Shiraz Socialist blog, which is loosely aligned with the politics of the British AWL , an avowedly Marxist group but which takes some eccentric positions.

TWP wrote : “How many of us have “openly called” for the overthrow of capitalism? Well apparently Tariq Ali doesn’t see the irony in his statement about Chavez’s failure to renew a TV licence for the anti-government channel RCTV. By his logic most of the newspapers of the far left could be legitimately closed down in Britain.”

As Ken Macleod points out:
“There's another troubling aspect of the Shiraz Socialist's take on this. She seems to think that the far left 'calls for the overthrow of capitalism' in the sense of calling for the overthrow of democratically elected governments! Apart from the absurdity of making such a call at present, most of the far left does no such thing, and it's quite dangerous to concede that it does. Cannon's Socialism on Trial is … very much to the point here.”

From June to November 1941, leading members of the Socialist Workers Party in the USA (no relation to today’s SWP in Britain), were no trial in the Minneapolis, MN, District Court of the United States.

James P Cannon defended the party brilliantly from the witness stands, and the court transcripts are a very valuable resource, because they contain a clear and simple explanation of socialist politics.

Some of the issues raised are very relevant to the current debate, in particular relating to the attitude socialists take to violence and the constitution, and in particular the explanation that as democrats we will always try to achieve our aims through peaceful means – but reserving the right to defend democracy by any means necessary.

Of particular interest is Cannon’s very clear explanation that even the Russian revolution was constitutional and legal.

Here are some excerpts from the book: Socialism on Trial"

Marxism and violence

Q: Now, what is the opinion of Marxists with reference to the change in the social order, as far as its being accompanied or not accompanied by violence?
A: It is the opinion of all Marxists that it will be accompanied by violence.
Q: Why?
A: That is based, like all Marxist doctrine, on a study of history, the historical experiences of mankind in the numerous changes of society from one form to another, the revolutions which accompanied it, and the resistance which the outlived classes invariably put up against the new order. Their attempt to defend themselves against the new order, or to suppress by violence the movement for the new order, has resulted in every important social transformation up to now being accompanied by violence.
Q: Who, in the opinion of Marxists, initiated that violence?
A: Always the ruling class; always the outlived class that doesn’t want to leave the stage when the time has come. They want to hang on to their privileges, to reinforce them by violent measures, against the rising majority and they run up against the mass violence of the new class, which history has ordained shall come to power.
Q: What is the opinion of Marxists, as far as winning a majority of the people to socialist ideas?
A: Yes, that certainly is the aim of the party. That is the aim of the Marxist movement, has been from its inception.
Marx said the social revolution of the proletariat—I think I can quote his exact words from memory—“is a movement of the immense majority in the interests of the immense majority”[2] He said this in distinguishing it from previous revolutions which had been made in the interest of minorities, as was the case in France in 1789.
Q: What would you say is the opinion of Marxists as far as the desirability of a peaceful transition is concerned?
A: The position of the Marxists is that the most economical and preferable, the most desirable method of social transformation, by all means, is to have it done peacefully.
Q: And in the opinion of the Marxists, is that absolutely excluded?
A: Well, I wouldn’t say absolutely excluded. We say that the lessons of history don’t show any important examples in favor of the idea so that you can count upon it.
Q: Can you give us examples in American history of a minority refusing to submit to a majority?
A: I can give you a very important one. The conception of the Marxists is that even if the transfer of political power from the capitalists to the proletariat is accomplished peacefully—then the minority, the exploiting capitalist class, will revolt against the new regime, no matter how legally it is established.
I can give you an example in American history. The American Civil War resulted from the fact that the Southern slaveholders couldn’t reconcile themselves to the legal parliamentary victory of Northern capitalism, the election of President Lincoln.
Q: Can you give us an example outside of America where a reactionary minority revolted against a majority in office?
A: Yes, in Spain—the coalition of workers’ and liberal parties in Spain got an absolute majority in the elections and established the People’s Front government. This government was no sooner installed than it was confronted with an armed rebellion, led by the reactionary capitalists of Spain.
Q: Then the theory of Marxists and the theory of the Socialist Workers Party, as far as violence is concerned, is a prediction based upon a study of history, is that right?
A: Well, that is part of it. It is a prediction that the outlived class, which is put in a minority by the revolutionary growth in the country, will try by violent means to hold on to its privileges against the will of the majority. That is what we predict.
Of course, we don’t limit ourselves simply to that prediction. We go further, and advise the workers to bear this in mind and prepare themselves not to permit the reactionary outlived minority to frustrate the will of the majority.
Q: What role does the rise and existence of fascism play with reference to the possibility of violence?
A: That is really the nub of the whole question, because the reactionary violence of the capitalist class, expressed through fascism, is invoked against the workers. Long before the revolutionary movement of the workers gains the majority, fascist gangs are organised and subsidised by millions in funds from the biggest industrialists and financiers, as the example of Germany showed—and these fascist gangs undertake to break up the labor movement by force. They raid the halls, assassinate the leaders, break up the meetings, burn the printing plants, and destroy the possibility of functioning long before the labor movement has taken the road of revolution.
I say that is the nub of the whole question of violence. If the workers don’t recognise that, and do not begin to defend themselves against the fascists, they will never be given the possibility of voting on the question of revolution. They will face the fate of the German and Italian proletariat and they will be in the chains of fascist slavery before they have a chance of any kind of a fair vote on whether they want socialism or not.
It is a life and death question for the workers that they organise themselves to prevent fascism, the fascist gangs, from breaking up the workers’ organisations, and not to wait until it is too late. That is in the program of our party.

The Same way Lincoln did

Q: Now how do you expect the capitalists to abrogate the elections? How will they accomplish that purpose?
A: They can do it in various ways—by decree, by vote of Congress declaring there is a state of emergency which requires dispensing with election struggles, and handing the power over to the president or somebody to rule for this period, which may be long or short—but most likely it would be long.
That is precisely what was done to a legally constituted parliament elected by the suffrage of the French people, containing representatives of various parties—Socialists, Radical Socialist, Conservative, Communist and other parties. This parliament was dissolved, and a dictator appointed with power to rule the country at his will until further notice. That is what happened just like that (indicating).
Q: Supposing they don’t do those things that you anticipate, and you get yourself elected into control of the government, control of the Senate and the House, let us say, and you elect a president, too. Do you expect then that the army and navy are going to turn against you and try to resist your authority?
A: I anticipate that some of the officers would—those who are tied most closely to the upper circles of the ruling class. I would expect some of them to attempt to dispute the authority of the people’s government That happened in other instances.
Q: Yes, I know you are illustrating by that. I am talking about this country. You have got yourself elected into control of the government now. Now tell us how you expect the resistance against your authority is going to be made. Who is going to do it and how is it going to be done?
A: It would be done by the agents of the ruling class that is facing dispossession.
Q: Do you expect the army and navy of the United States government to turn its guns against you when you are in duly elected control of the government?
A: Yes, I would expect some of the officers to do it—not all of them. If all of the army and navy would be of such a mind, it would be manifestly impossible to be elected in the first place, because the army and navy are more or less in their ranks reflective of the general population, and if we are elected by a majority vote, you can be sure that our popularity in the masses of the people will be reflected in the military establishment That is always the case.
Q: Well, how would you resist this uprising against you?
A: The same way Lincoln did in 1861.
Q: Would you already have an army, or would you use the army that you find standing when you came into power?
A: We will just use what measures are possible. A good section of the American army and its best officers in 1861 revolted against the authority of the legally elected government of Lincoln. Lincoln took what he could and recruited some more and gave them a fight, and I always thought it was a wonderfully good idea.

The legality of the Russian revolution
Q: Now, can you tell us anything about the legality of that revolution?

A: Yes.

The Court: Judged by what standards?

Mr. Goldman: What I mean by that is to have him explain exactly how the revolution occurred, because counsel for the government tries to present it as a violent upheaval of the minority against the majority, and the facts are the very contrary. I want the witness to explain the nature of that revolution.

A: The czar and czarism were overthrown in March by an uprising of the masses, of the people in the big cities, and the peasants.

Q: Was the Bolshevik Party responsible for that uprising in any way?

A: No. The Bolshevik Party was a very infinitesimal group at the time of the March revolution.

Q: What is the meaning of “Bolshevism”?

A: The world Bolshevik is a Russian word meaning majority. It acquired a political meaning in the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. In the Congress of 1903 a controversy developed which divided the party into groups, the majority and the minority, the majority called the Bolsheviks and the minority called Mensheviks.

Q: Those are Russian words meaning minority and majority?

A: Yes. They split up and divided into parties. Each called itself the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party and in parentheses on the end “Bolsheviks” or “Mensheviks”, as the case might be.

Q: Now, will you proceed and tell the jury what happened during the October Revolution, or in our calendar in November 1917.

A: Well, to show the chronology: When czarism was overthrown by the masses of the people, the whole structure of that tyranny was destroyed. A new government was constituted, but the new government machinery was based on the Soviets, which sprang up spontaneously in the revolutionary upheaval. Soviets of workers and soldiers were established everywhere. In Petrograd, the workers and soldiers sent delegates—deputies—to the central council or, as they called it, the Soviet; similarly in Moscow and other places. This body was recognised as authoritative.

The government that was constituted after the overthrow of the czar was headed by Prince Lvov, with Miliukov as foreign minister; it derived its authority from the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies. In April they had a National All-Russian Conference of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets, and there they elected an All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets. In May, the peasant Soviets had an All-Russian Congress and elected an All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the peasants.

Q: What proportion of the population did those Soviets represent?

A: They represented the people, the great mass of the people. I think it was impossible even to speak in terms of majorities or minorities. They were the masses themselves. The peasants and the soldiers and the workers were the people; those two bodies, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviets and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Peasant Soviets, formed a joint body which was recognised as the most authoritative and representative body in Russia. It was by their consent that the government cabinet ruled.

The All-Russian Executive Committee of the Soviets repudiated Miliukov, who was the leader of the bourgeoisie. The Soviet body opposed him because of his foreign policy, involving secret treaties that had been exposed. He therefore had to resign, because without the support of the Soviets, authority was lacking; and I think that could be likened, as an analogy, to the French system of the resignation of the prime minister when there is a no-confidence vote in the Chamber.

Q: So that the Soviets constituted the authority of the people of Russia?

A: That is right.

Q: In what way did the Bolsheviks progress to power?

A: I wish to go on with the chronology, if you will permit me. Following the fall of Miliukov, Kerensky rose—there is a popular impression in this country that he became premier with the fall of the czar. That is not so. Kerensky became premier in July. He was made a minister and eventually premier because he was a member of the Social Revolutionary Party. That was the peasant party, which then lead the Soviets. He was also supported by the worker element, because he had been a labor lawyer. That was the basis of Kerensky’s office; that is, his authority was derived directly from the Soviets.

Now in this period the Bolsheviks were a small minority. They did not create the Soviets. The Soviets were created by the masses; they were initiated by the masses. Neither the Bolshevik Party nor any other party could do anything without the support of the Soviets. In the midst of the revolution of 1905 and again in the overthrow of the czar in 1917, the Soviets sprang up simultaneously.

The most influential one naturally was in Petrograd, which was the seat of government. The Bolsheviks were a small minority in this Soviet at the time of the overthrow of the czar. When Kerensky became premier, the combination of his Social Revolutionary Party and the Menshevik Socialist Party—those two parties together had an overwhelming majority in the Soviets, and ruled by virtue of that. The Bolsheviks were an opposing faction.

During that time Lenin, as the spokesman for the Bolsheviks, said over and over again, “As long as we are in the minority in the Soviets, all we can do is patiently explain.” The Bolshevik Party opposed any attempt to seize power by a putsch.

Q: What is a “putsch”?

A: An armed action of a small group. The Bolshevik Party demanded, with Lenin as their spokesman, that the Social Revolutionary Party and the Menshevik Party take complete control of the government by removing the bourgeois ministers and make it a completely labor and peasant government, and they issued the promise that, “If you do that we promise that as long as we are in the minority, we will not try to overthrow you. We will not support you politically, we will criticise you, but we will not undertake to overthrow the government as long as we are in the minority.” That was the policy of the Bolsheviks in the March days of the revolution against the czar, and into July.

In July the workers in Petrograd staged a demonstration with arms, against the advice of the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks advised against it on the ground that it might unduly provoke the situation, and tried to persuade the workers in Petrograd not to go into that action. It was not a rebellion; it was simply a parade with arms. This action, carried out by the Petrograd workers against the advice of the Bolsheviks, brought repressions against the workers on the part of the Kerensky government.

Then the Kerensky government undertook to discredit and frame up the Bolshevik Party. They accused Lenin and Trotsky of being German spies. This was the predecessor of Stalin’s Moscow trials. They accused Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks of being German spies. Trotsky was thrown into jail, Lenin was forced into hiding, and repressions continued against the Bolsheviks, but it did not do any good, because the policy and slogans of the Bolsheviks were growing in popularity. One by one the great factories and soldiers’ regiments began to vote in favor of the Bolshevik program.

In September an attempt at counterrevolution was made under the leadership of General Kornilov, who could be properly described as a Russian monarchist-fascist. He organised an army and undertook to overthrow the Kerensky government in Petrograd, with the idea of restoring the old regime.

The Kerensky government, that had put Trotsky in jail, had to release him from prison to get the support of his party to fight down the counterrevolutionary army of Kornilov.

Trotsky was brought from prison and went directly to the Military Revolutionary Committee, in which government men also sat, and there drew up with them plans for a joint fight against Kornilov. Kornilov was crushed; the counterrevolution was crushed primarily by the workers under the inspiration of the Bolshevik Party. They tied up his railroad trains, he could not move his troops; his best troops were induced to fight against him, and his counterrevolution was crushed.

As this was going on, the Bolsheviks became more popular all the time, as the genuine representatives of the revolution. They gained the majority in the Petrograd Soviet, the most influential Soviet in the country, and in Moscow and others. The Kerensky government was losing ground because it was not solving any of the problems of the people. The Bolsheviks’ slogans of “Bread”, “Peace”, “Land”, and other slogans—those were the slogans that the masses wanted.

On November 7 was held the Congress of the All-Russian Soviets of Workers and Soldiers. The Bolsheviks had a majority there, and simultaneously with the meeting of the Soviets, where the Bolsheviks had a majority, they took the governmental power.

... ...
Q: When you were tracing the history of the Russian Revolution, you said this: “The Kerensky government was losing ground because it was not solving any problems of the people. The Bolsheviks’ slogans of ‘Bread’ and other slogans—those were the slogans that the masses wanted. The Bolsheviks got a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. On November 7 was held the Congress of the All-Russian Soviets. The Bolsheviks had a majority there, and simultaneously with the meeting of the All-Russian Soviet, where the Bolsheviks had a majority, they took the power from the government.” Now, do you want us to understand from that, that the Bolsheviks took power by virtue of a majority vote of the Congress of the Soviets?
A: That is right.
Q: Do you not mean that the contrary was true?
A: No, I do not.
Q: Don’t you know that there was a planned insurrection before the Congress, and that the insurrection actually took place before the Congress met?
A: No. The Congress met the morning after the struggle had begun, and confirmed the new government.
Q: The fact is that the insurrection was started and was completed before the Congress ever met, isn’t it?
A: No, the power was in the Congress, and the Congress was the real power.
Q: Well, just answer my question, please. Isn’t it a fact that the insurrection had been planned and actually carried out before the Congress ever met?
A: No. The question was submitted to the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets on November 7. That is why they call it the November 7 Revolution.
Q: Don’t you know, further, that Lenin persistently warned against waiting for the Congress and doing it in a legal way?
A: Oh, that was one time that Lenin was overruled.
Q: And who won?
A: Trotsky won.
Q: Isn’t it also a fact that Trotsky ridiculed the notion that it was done legally?
A: No, on the contrary, Trotsky commented on the legal sanction of the action by the Soviets. That was why it was delayed to November 7.
Q: Isn’t it also true that he lulled Kerensky into inaction by pretending to wait until the Congress met, so that it could be decided legally who was to take power?
A: He did not pretend to wait. He waited.
Q: I submit that the contrary is true, in that Mr. Trotsky said so, and I would like to read to you about ten pages or so from the Lessons of October, and then you can tell me whether I am right or wrong.
(Mr. Scheweinhaut reads from pages 74 and 80 of Trotsky’s Lessons of October.)
Mr. Goldman: I submit Your Honour, that this book was ruled out of evidence. I have no objection if he wants to read one or two or perhaps three sentences, but to take advantage of cross-examination and put into evidence what the Court has ruled out, I think is going a little too far.
The Court: Well, this has to do, I suppose, with the dispute between counsel and witness, as to the facts with reference to which the witness takes one position and counsel takes an other. Now this is an attempt to impeach the statements of the witness by the means indicated. I assume he has a right to do that. He may continue to read it.
Mr. Goldman: Exception.
(Mr. Schweinhaut reads pages 80-91 from Trotsky’s Lessons of October.)
Mr. Schweinhaut: Now, am I right or wrong, Mr. Cannon, that the insurrection actually started and was concluded before the Soviet Congress put its seal of legality on it?
A: If you will permit me, I will show you where you are wrong. You misunderstood the whole thing; my authority for the evidence I gave here was Trotsky. He wrote the most authoritative and authentic history of the revolution. Perhaps I should mention several things to show where you are wrong:
First those pages you have read show that there were three different opinions in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Lenin said they had a majority, and they should take the power without waiting. There was the opinion of Zinoviev and Kamenev who thought the Bolsheviks did not have a majority and should not take the power. And the third opinion was Trotsky’s that they could base the assumption of power on the legality of the Soviets.
Second, those pages you read prove that both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks derived their authority from the Soviets. In November it became clear that the Bolsheviks had won the majority in the Soviets. Kerensky, who formerly had the majority in the Soviets, prepared to move troops from the capital. What did the troops do? The troops refused to go until ordered by the Congress of Soviets. The Congress of the Soviets convened on November 7. It was revealed that the Bolsheviks had the majority, and their assumption of power was confirmed.
In this All-Russian Congress of Soviets were present the other parties who had been the majority of yesterday. They spoke and debated there. When the vote was taken, the Bolsheviks had the majority. The Bolsheviks offered to give proportionate places in the government to the other parties. They refused and walked off. The Bolsheviks did, as a matter of fact incorporate into the government, a section of Kerensky’s party, the left wing of the Social Revolutionary Party.
It seems to me that here is an excellent illustration of how a revolutionary party, after long propagandistic work, succeeded in a political crisis in winning over to its side a majority of the population represented in the most authoritative body, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. And the Bolsheviks, adapting themselves to the legality of this authoritative body —
Q: Now, just a minute. Are you still telling us how it occurred, or are you just telling us now that you think it was a mighty fine thing?
A: No, I am explaining the legality of the development as against your interpretation that it was illegal. And it seems to me —
Q: I don’t want your opinion on that. If you want to go on and tell us what happened, all right. Don’t characterise it.
A: I don’t think you will ever get a more legal revolution than that.

The cheek by Jowell

Tessa Jowell has responded to an e-petition about money being siphoned off from voluntary organisations to fund the Olympics.
Jowell reiterates that, “The amount going to the VCS (voluntary and community sector) will therefore continue at the levels planned. Given your concerns, we hope that you will welcome this approach.”

But……don't get too excited, ”The remaining £250 million will come from the other Lottery distributors, with the exception of UK Sport, between 2009 and 2012. The other distributors have said that this need not impact on any existing commitments. The impact on future commitments will be assessed in due course..”

In other words areas such as arts and heritage will be hit for cash. It may not have an impact in the short-term but on future commitments. It seems to me there will be inevitable cuts.

Central government will be contributing a staggering £6billion to this 2-week jamboree. This London based elitist event will inevitably deny the majority to participate.
Jowell again argues, “We hope that you consider that this represents a fair approach to funding such an important national event” …

Hmmmm. Fair? An important national event? Who is she trying to kid? Jowell would prefer to see countless voluntary orgs fall by the wayside due to a slashed budget and no matter how much she promises that cash won’t be diverted it won’t be the case. They continuously have to raid various public purses to bale themselves out of the mire.

Btw: There is a debate in Parliament planned for the 6th June to discuss the impact on arts and heritage of the diversion of lottery funding to the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Where Next for McDonnell supporters?

A good outcome from the McDonnell leadership campaign is that it has put a lot of the Labour Party left into active contact with each other, and I recommend the new collective blog, Labour Left Forum , that has got off to a good start. In particular I found the post Which Way Forward for the Left quite realistic and sensible.

But how it strikes me as an outsider is that the Labour Left seems to organise around Labour Left Briefing, and through the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) and the McDonnell campaign, which are structures that are actually OUTWITH and independent from the Labour Party, but as a peculiarity they require LP membership to participate in them.

To really operate as a Labour Party left they have to organise WITHIN the Labour Party structures, seeking to control wards and CLPs, getting union branches to send left delegates to the CLP, get on the council, forming a left caucus of councillors in town halls, having a left block on the NEC (which means breaking from the Brownites in the Grassroots Alliance). Have a clear left slate for the National Policy Forum elections, with alternative policies that they want to pursue. Forcing their issues onto the conference floor.

I think the argument about whether socialists should or should not be in the Labour Party is a futile one: comrades are going to come to their own conclusions one way another based upon their own experience. However much hot air and ink is expended on the issue, we are not going to convince each other. The approach of the Socialist party and Respect to say McDonnell’s defeat shows you are wasting your time come and join us, is unhelpful in the extreme, But similarly the approach from some of the Labour left, that all of those who have decided not to be in the party are incorrigible sectarians and ultra-lefts is equally unhelpful.

If the Labour Left is going to build on the McDonnell campaign they need to build practical activity. They must work to develop specific left policies and campaigns, sometimes in cooperation with the socialist left outside the Labour party: then these can be promoted through the movement, the unions and the single issue campaigns.

But they also need to promote them through the Party. Only if they can demonstrate success in winning commitment to left policies from the Labour Party, and then implementing left policies in local councils under left control, can they demonstrate that work in the Labour Party is effective. I see that John McDonnell is writing a position paper to discuss where next for his supporters, I will be interested to see what practical strategic steps this spells out.

To be frank comrades, the rhetoric of “its hard but we just have to keep beavering away till it gets better” is wearing thin.

Psychiatric ASBOs coming to you very soon...

“Ensure that people with full decision making ability cannot be forced to have treatment imposed upon them against their will”. (One of the six amendments from the Lords scuppered by the Government)

I wrote recently about the Mental Health Bill specifically Community Treatment Orders. The Government and the Lords were locked in a battle over safeguards. Patricia Hewitt and Rosie Winterton were hostile to the proposals made by the Minister for Health Services).

The Bill has been going through committee stage and unfortunately every single amendment proposed by the Lords has been overturned. But what is more surreal is this latest research commissioned by the Dept of Health states:

"This review has found very little evidence of positive effects of CTOs in the areas where they might have been anticipated. None of the nine experimental studies found evidence suggesting that CTOs reduce either hospital readmission or length of stay, or that they improve compliance." (Rachel Churchill – International Experiences of Community Treatment Orders)

Even New Labour’s mental health Tsar, Louis Appleby, admitted that the review had “not reliably demonstrated the effectiveness of CTOs”…

And many others aren't too keen either on this Bill most recently the psychiatrist Suman Fernando has stated he will not accept the OBE in protest to this Bill.

"It seems most strange that the Government say they want to recognise my services to BME Mental Healthcare at a time when they are trying to push through legislation that would make things worse for black people caught up in the mental health system, in spite of strong objections by many people (including myself) expressed both publicly and in private to Government ministers."
“Failure of mental health services to meet the needs of BME communities results from institutional racism and injustices are evidently mostly in the experiences of black Caribbean people who are disproportionately sectioned and subjected to inappropriate – often damaging ‘care’”

New Labour is rushing this draconian Bill through at break-neck speed, wilfully ignoring and junking academic research and professionals. The Bill will be coming up for its 3rd reading but if it gets Royal Assent in its current state it will mean compulsion and containment. The Manic Depression Fellowship (MDF) carried out research in the late 1990s and found that 1 in 5 of respondents said that if CTOs were introduced they would be too frightened of the consequences to seek help from professionals. And who can blame them as trust and support will be replaced by coercion.

The Government will get their psychiatric “ASBO” which will revolve around that great panacea, “medication”, “medication, “medication”. Nowhere in this Bill is there any attempt to focus on alternatives to medication instead New Labour panders to the populist belief that people need to be “protected” from the “mad, bad and dangerous” to know by dosing them with a chemical cosh to make them compliant.

Hewitt has the audacity to argue that this Bill strikes a balance between the user and public safety. The rights of the user have diminished to nothing added to the continued stigmatisation, victimisation and oppression but as long as the public are “protected”…

New Labour believes it should be beyond legal restraint. The Mental Health Bill lacks safeguards, rights and principles. Who will make the decisions? Will someone on a CTO be allowed to appeal? How will the CTOs be monitored? Who will do the monitoring? Where is the accountability and transparency? It is one continuous attack on civil liberties, self-determination and autonomy. A trend and pattern is emerging with various measures introduced by this authoritarian Government such as the raft of anti-terrorism laws, ASBOs, and the latest attack on civil liberties from Reid arguing for a 'sus' law.

Unfortunately, come late June one ex-PM desperate for a legacy won’t be having his freedom curtailed charged as a war criminal and doing a stretch in Belmarsh.

BNP - Griffin faces leadership challenge

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This month’s Searchlight contains the fascinating story that BNP Führer Nick Griffin is facing a leadership challenge from hardline Nazi Chris Jackson, formerly the party’s North West regional organiser (pictured)

The local elections in May were pretty disastrous for the BNP. Despite standing many more candidates their share of the vote fell, in many places dramatically. In the East Midland in 2006 their candidates got 28% of the vote, one year later this fell to 18.5%; in the North West the vote fell from 20.6% to 14.9%. In every region the vote was down. The national average vote fell from 19.2% for 363 candidates last year to 14.7% this year, for 742 candidates.

The won 9 seats, but lost eight they were defending, and one BNP councillor in Stoke has left the party since the election.

Had they been predicting just holding on, they might have been philosophical, but they were confident of doubling their number of elected councillors from 49 to 100.

Of course the BNP vote is still troublingly large, but they are cherry picking favourable seats, and their ability to get a reasonable protest vote at local council level does not translate into sustained and stable electoral support.

Jackson’s leadership challenge would probably not have happened if Griffin’s strategy was paying off. As I wrote last year : “Knowing that the BNP is decades away from forming a government, Griffin is hoping to play the long game. It must seem very galling that a post-fascist like Gianfranco Fini can be deputy Prime Minister in Italy, while Cambridge educated Griffin is talking to 20 numbskulls in a pub skittle-alley in Keighley. In the medium term if the BNP could win a swathe of councillors across the country, it might be able to shift the political agenda so that race and immigration are part of mainstream debate. If it could distance itself from its fascist past it might be able to join coalition administrations in councils, it might get MEPs, and members of the London Assembly elected. With this higher profile it might become a permanent part of the political landscape, a much better foundation for launching a future openly fascist party.”

But why should hardline nationalists put up with Griffin’s attempt to water down their message of race hate in order to position the BNP as a post-fascist party like Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale, if it isn’t even working?

Again, as I wrote last year: “Any sustained organisation requires a cadre of activists that are motivated by an ideology. The current leadership and cadre of the BNP come from fascist backgrounds, and have the criminal records to prove it. This creates a complex difficulty for Griffin. To turn out the existing cadre to work in elections requires sufficient concessions to them that the BNP is not just a racist, but an active race-hate organisation, which is an obstacle to gaining greater respectability. What is more, the party is unable to have a truly candid debate about the need for a shift without revealing the Nazi ideology of many of its supporters, and even exposing them to prosecutions for incitement to racial hatred. The fascist core of BNP supporters are correct to fear the possibility that the BNP could become what it is pretending to be. If Griffin could get elected to the European parliament he would be mainly interested in sustaining his own electoral career.”

So Jackson’s leadership bid is significant. He is standing on behalf of the Reform Group, a small network of Tyndall supporters, and he is seeking to reach out to those fascists that have been excluded by the Griffin regime and are now huddled in the National Front, England First, and other miniscule groups.

As such, his base within the BNP is very limited, but he may tap into a wider discontent with the arbitrary and capricious way Griffin runs the party. Searchlight speculates that the BNP's cultural officer, Jonathan Bowden and elections officer, Eddy Butler, may back Jackson. Anything less than a convincing victory for Griffin, with 80% or more of the membership vote, would seriously damage his authority.

Certainly Griffin’s strategic choice to steer the party towards the political mainstream is problematic. As I argued before: “It is important to understand that the BNP are an openly racist not an openly fascist organisation. The interplay between its fascist and populist elements is a source of weakness for it.”

If Griffin fares poorly in the leadership election this will strengthen the open fascists in the party, weakening the electoral strategy, and increasing the party’s image problem. On the other hand, if Griffin wins a convincing victory, then the fascist cadre of the party may walk out, strengthening the mood that the party has lost momentum, and reducing the number of committed activists prepared to do the donkey work.

What a feat for the British!

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The Morning Star has printed a really interesting article by FIDEL CASTRO, president of Cuba, about Britain's new Astute class submarines. The cost of these terrible weapons would have been sufficient to train doctors to care for 150 million people


FIDEL CASTRO writes:>

THE press dispatches brought the news. The new nuclear submarine belongs to the Astute Class, the first of its kind to be constructed in Britain in more than two decades.

"A nuclear reactor will allow it to navigate without refuelling during its 25 year of service. Since it makes its own oxygen and drinking water, it can circumnavigate the globe without needing to surface," was what shipyard boss Nigel Ward told the BBC.

"It's a mean-looking beast," said another.

"Looming above us is a construction shed 12 storeys high. Within it are three nuclear-powered submarines at different stages of construction," reported yet another.

Someone said that "it can observe the movements of cruisers in New York harbour right from the English Channel, drawing close to the coast without being detected and listen to conversations on mobile phones."

"In addition, it can transport special troops in minisubs that, at the same time, will be able to fire lethal Tomahawk missiles for distances of 1,400 miles," a fourth person declares.

The Chilean newspaper El Mercurio emphatically spread the news.

The Royal Navy declares that it will be one of the most advanced in the world. The first of them will be launched on June 8 and will go into service in January 2009.

It can transport up to 38 Tomahawk cruise missiles and Spearfish torpedoes capable of destroying a large warship. It will possess a permanent crew of 98 sailors who will even be able to watch movies on giant plasma screens.

The new Astute will carry the latest generation of Block 4 Tomahawk torpedoes which can be reprogrammed in flight. It will be the first one not having a system of conventional periscopes and, instead, will be using fibre optics, infrared waves and thermal imaging.

"BAE Systems, the armaments manufacturer, will build two other submarines of the same class," AP reported.

The total cost of the three submarines, according to calculations that will certainly be below the mark, is £4 billion.

What a feat for the British! The intelligent and tenacious people of Britain will surely not feel any sense of pride. What is most amazing is that, with such an amount of money, 75,000 doctors could be trained to care for 150 million people, assuming that the cost of training a doctor would be one-third of what it costs in the United States. You could build 3,000 clinics fitted with sophisticated equipment, 10 times what our country possesses.

Cuba is currently training thousands of young people from other countries as medical doctors.

In any remote African village, a Cuban doctor can impart medical knowledge to any youth from the village or from the surrounding municipality who has the equivalent of an A-Level education.

Using videos and computers powered by a small solar panel, the youth does not even have to leave his home town, nor does he need to be contaminated with the consumer habits of a large city.

The important thing is the patients who are suffering from malaria or any other of the typical and unmistakable diseases that the student will be seeing together the doctor.

The method has been tested with surprising results. The knowledge and practical experience accumulated for years have no possible comparison.

The non-lucrative practice of medicine is capable of winning over all noble hearts.

Since the beginning of the revolution, Cuba has been engaged in training doctors, teachers and other professionals. With a population of less than 12 million inhabitants, today we have more comprehensive general medicine specialists than all the doctors in sub-Saharan Africa, where the population exceeds 700 million people.

We must bow our heads in awe after reading the news about the English submarine. It teaches us, among other things, about the sophisticated weapons that are needed to maintain the untenable order developed by the United States imperial system.

We cannot forget that for centuries and until recently, England was called the Queen of the Seas.

Today, what remains of that privileged position is merely a fraction of the hegemonic power of her ally and leader the US.

Churchill said: "Sink the Bismarck!" Today, Blair says: "Sink whatever remains of Great Britain's prestige!"

For that purpose - or for the holocaust of the species - is what his "marvellous submarine" will be good for.

Dear John

John McDonnell failed to get sufficient nominations to get on the ballot for Labour Leader. His campaign was not a personal vehicle but a challenge to the neo-liberal programme of the government. Where does it go now? John is producing a consultation paper. Here is an email I sent him dealing with the question of how socialists inside and outside the Party might continue to work together.

Dear John

I will be interested to read you consultation paper referred to on your latest blog entry. I think there have been two types of response to the fact that you failed to get on the ballot paper. On the Labour Left we have heard something along the lines of ‘we did all right, keep on keeping on’. Outside the Labour Party it has been seen as confirmation that you should all leave, e.g. the letter in the Guardian from Dave Nellist and the CNWP.

As somebody who is not about to rejoin the Labour Party, I still believe that a socialist alternative to Labour is necessary. However, such an alternative is not a prospect in the short term, owing to the sectarianism of the main socialist groups (such as the SWP and the SP) and as a result of the collapse of the electoral base of the Scottish Socialist Party. That is a discussion which no doubt will continue.

However, I think the most productive approach in the current situation, is to examine ways that socialists inside and outside the Labour Party can work together to build resistance to the attacks of the government on the working class.At the same time the fact that the overwhelming majority of union sponsored MPs nominated Gordon Brown, the author of the government’s neo-liberal ‘reforms’ of the public sector, raises the question of why they are sponsored, and what the unions get in return.

This surely highlights the need to be more selective in sponsoring MPs and candidates. The GMB policy for instance, even if not yet vigorously applied, is that the union will not automatically sponsor Labour candidates, but only those who support the broad outline of union policy; above all, opposition to privatisation. I believe that this is a key issue on which socialists in the unions (be they Labour Party members or not) can collaborate. What is the point of our members’ money being handed over to MPs/candidates who do nothing to further their interests, but support job cuts, privatisation, and refuse to support even the not very radical Trade Union Freedom Bill? We require a major campaign across the affiliated unions on this. Let's only support candidates and MPs who support our members.

What framework is there for socialists inside and outside the Labour Party in which to work together? I’m not sure that the Labour Representation Committee is the vehicle for the simple reason that you have to be a Labour Party member to join it. OK, you can have associate membership (but no vote). This presents an obstacle probably to some thousands of socialists who are not members of the groups, would like to work with you, but will not join/rejoin the Labour Party, especially since most local parties are empty shells. Ironically, the RMT and FBU, both of which are affiliates of the LRC have supported candidates standing against Labour, yet they remain as participants. If this is no obstacle to these unions why present an obstacle to individuals? It does not make sense.

To attract such people you would either have to turn the LRC into an organisation which was not an internal Labour Party group, or consider another organisational vehicle.

Ironically, within the Labour Left there does exist some sectarianism in which acceptance of the ‘correct’ position on the Labour Party (to ‘reclaim’ it, or turn it into a vehicle for socialism) is seen as the key test for socialists. Those who ‘fail’ this test are seen as hopeless people who tend to be lectured.Real life is different. You said in your last blog posting, assessing your campaign:

“More importantly the vast majority have expressed real determination to continue the campaign for socialist advance within and beyond our movement.”

The last phrase recognises the need to reach out beyond the Labour Party. Just as many people outside the Labour Party supported your campaign, they would be happy to continue to work with you and the left in the Party. However, if they are presented with the ultimatum that they must agree on the Labour Party question, then all the Labour Left will succeed in doing is isolating itself. We must find a means and a framework for uniting socialists in campaigning activity in order to rebuild the labour movement and to challenge the neo-liberal policy of the Brown government, and most importantly developing policy alternatives to neo-liberalism.

Fraternally

Martin Wicks
Swindon

THE NHS – SAFE IN OUR HANDS

Margaret Thatcher:
"The NHS is safe in our hands. The elderly are safe in our hands. The sick are safe in our hands. The surgeons are safe in our hands. The nurses are safe in our hands. The doctors are safe in our hands. The dentists are safe in our hands.

David Cameron:
"it's not just a question of saying the NHS is safe in my hands. My family is so often in the hands of the NHS - so I want them to be safe there."

New Labour. UNISON, labour link news - june 2007
"THE NHS – SAFE IN OUR HANDS"

Thanks to John Nicholson, for bringing this to my attention

This is England

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My God yes, this is England: not the only England, but one England among many. It is certainly an England I have lived in.

What Shane Meadows does brilliantly is capture and express a specific time and place, and root his story in the real experiences of working class life. Skinheads rejoiced in how the English often see ourselves, as hard drinkers and fighters, brave men who “can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same.” It was a youth sub-culture born of cultural impoverishment, but also rebellious, exuberant and cheeky. Being a skinhead meant being part of a gang that approved of you, and the values of being a skinhead were generally ones celebrated in English culture (I am not saying that is a good thing!) This is underlined by the frequent references to the Falklands war.

Thomas Turgoose turns in a fantastic performance as Shaun, the troubled 12 year old brought into a local gang of skinheads, attracted by their camaraderie, and the way they boost his self esteem. What the film does very well is show how precarious and out of control life is when you are young, as the gang changes around Turgoose’s character, and the bond of loyalty to the gang becomes more sinister and explicitly racist.

Stephen Graham as Combo, the racist skin just out of nick is electrifying. The review in the Guardian described Combo as “deeply objectionable”, but that soooh misses the point. The truth is that anyone who has ever been in a youth sub-culture has had mates like Combo. Older men who, like Peter Pan, shelter from life’s disappointments by being the respected elder in the gang. He is objectionable from the point of view of a Guardian journalist, but from the point of view of a 12 year old on a council estate, Combo is quite glamorous.

The contradiction that Combo was both a violent racist, but also conscious of the multi-racial origins of Skin culture was convincing. Back in the 1970s I had friends very sympathetic to the NF who would listen to ska music, and thought Desmond Dekker was like unto a God. This is part of a very contradictory world view that understands class grievances, but articulates them through racism. So there is an ambivalence about black people who share the same class experience.

Indeed, in the late 1970s and early 1980s most (white) working class teenagers knew people in the NF. I found the NF meeting in a tatty pub completed convincing, and I liked the way the film showed the NF as reasonably attractive for these alienated lads, while at the same time most of the skins saw through it as a pile of shit.

There are some lovely touches in the film. The fact that combo only has a provisional driving licence is comically deflating in an understated way, and the indignity for Shaun, that DMs don’t come in children’s sizes!

There were some things I was not too sure about. I think the film tried too hard to explain why Combo was a loser, whereas I think the audience could have been trusted to work that out without the Oprah moments. I am also not entirely sure that skins in 1983 were listening to ska so much , as opposed to the Cockney Rejects and Angelic Upstarts. There was also a political problem, that in 1983 the NF would not have been talking about Englishness, but Britishness, and it would have been the Union Jack, not the Cross of St George behind the NF speaker.

But generally, this is a great, and very English, film.

More debate in SWP's international

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Back in March this year, I made a post on this blog asking where the SWP’s international group, the IST, was going, and pointing out that there had been a series of splits in most sections. This post caused a lot of debate, including contributions from Canada, France, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand from members of IST affiliates, and from the groups with similar politics but outside the IST.

The need for an open international debate about the IST is clear, given the fact that there seems to be little principled political difference between the groups within and without the IST, although there are differences of strategy and tactics, as you would expect in any living political tradition.

Earlier this month, the New Zealand affiliate of the IST, Socialist Worker(NZ), published a statement calling for the IST to have a more positive alignment towards the Venezuelan revolution, and querying some organisational changes proposed by the British SWP’s Alex Callinicos (pictured above reviewing the troops).

Today, the Socialist Worker(NZ) have issued the following call for a debate on their website, UNITYblog. They want “to start a debate among all serious socialists and revolutionaries, inside and outside the International Socialist Tendency, on how we should be responding to the Bolivarian revolutionary process in Venezuela. Please send your contributions to UNITYblog . All serious contributions to the debate will be published. Silly and/or sectarian stuff will be binned with a grin.”

This follows the reply by Alex Callinicos, which they have also published . In view of the fact that UNITYblog have issued this call for a debate about Venezuela, it seems much better that the debate is carried out there rather than here, so I will make no further comment about the specific issue of Venezuela.

However, one comment by Callinicos is especially illuminating:
“As we put it in our ‘International Perspectives 2005’ …the most important front in the struggle against US imperialism is in Iraq.’ It is the resistance in Iraq that is in the process of inflicting the most serious defeat American imperialism has suffered since the Vietnam War. By tying down the Pentagon’s military machine in Iraq, the resistance has made a decisive contribution to creating the space that has allowed the resistance in Latin America to develop and, in the cases of Venezuela and Bolivia, to develop a more explicitly anti-capitalist dynamic. Therefore we believe that the most important single internationalist task of revolutionaries today is to build the international movement against the ‘war on terrorism’. Defeating the Bush administration’s imperialist offensive is critical to the success of every struggle against neoliberalism and capitalism, including those in Venezuela and Bolivia. This is particularly important for revolutionaries in the advanced capitalist world since it gives a task that relates directly to the politics of our own societies rather than merely leave us to cheerlead for Latin American revolutions.” (My emphasis)

It is entirely characteristic of the SWP to overemphasise the significance of the Iraq war, and to overestimate the degree of political radicalism which opposition of the war engenders.

In fact, the war is not even the most important issue on domestic British politics, as housing and job insecurities are the biggest cause of friction between New Labour and its traditional electoral supporters; and pensions and privatisation are the biggest friction between the trade unions and New Labour. A correct strategic orientation in Britain on how to reverse the neo-liberal consensus would therefore be concentrating less on Iraq, and more on the issue of public ownership, and council housing. The victory of the right over these issues has largely been because of the idea, as Thatcher argued, that “there is no alternative”. The significance of Venezuelan solidarity work is of course that it demonstrates that there is an alternative. The Bolivarian revolution has started to turn the tide.

Callinicos’s comments about the IST itself are also illuminating.

He says: “The SWP in particular has argued that Seattle opened a new period of anti-capitalist struggle that has created major opportunities to renew the revolutionary and radical left. We have accordingly been pursuing dialogue with other currents and exploring the possibilities of regroupment on a very extensive scale.”

Seattle was a long time ago. What is more, the social forum movement is becoming increasingly attenuated. An Italian friend of mine who attends the European Social Forum meetings (ESF) observes that the SWP’s policy of opposing the Social Forums in Britain, while simultaneously attending the ESF meetings as the British delegates, has now given way to there being no participants from Britain.

Furthermore, within Britain the SWP wound down the regroupment exercise of the English Socialist Alliance, in favour of a creature that excluded the rest of the activist left, Respect. This process was described succinctly recently by Charlie Pottins : “As for the Left, having gathered some strength (including former Labour Party actvisists) around in the Socialist Alliance, the SWP was quick to liquidate it so they could form a local Respect, though so far it has been almost a non-runner, and at best an also-ran. The sad thing is that some of the local SWP actvists are old-campaigners, better known and respected in the area under their own flag, whereas people just scratch their heads or look away when they turn up as Respect.”

In contrast, Callinicos describes Respect thus: “Our domestic experience has demonstrated, positively with Respect and more negatively with the Socialist Alliance and the Scottish Socialist Party, this process involves opening out to more than the established revolutionary left.”

I was recently discussing Respect with anti-war activists from Bristol and Oxford, both non-members of the SWP, but positively inclined towards them. They told me that in Bristol, none of the former labour lefts who were active in the SA have joined Respect, and the comrade from Oxford resigned from Respect because all decisions for the local branch were taken in advance by the SWP caucus, and if the Respect branch reached a decision about something that the SWP had not previously worked out their position on, then it would be overturned by the SWP at the next meeting. This is not what we mean by regroupment!

Callinicos then says: “The IST has a very simple structure. It consists of organizations sharing a common tradition and approach to revolutionary politics. Its meetings are devoted largely to political discussions, with very few decisions being made. These decisions are normally taken by consensus: the only real exception was the exclusion of the ISO (US) in 2001, which followed the ISO intervening to help to engineer a split in our Greek sister organization, SEK.”

We are entitled to ask, why was the ISO allegedly trying to cause a split in the SEK an offence requiring expulsion. Whereas Tony Cliff boasts in his autobiography that he split the German and French groups? And Callinicos himself sought to engineer a split in the ISO(USA). why is there one rule for the goose, and another for the gander?

We are also entitled to wonder whether this consensual model is true, given that Callinicos also says that one of the tasks of his proposed committee is “addressing problems in specific groups”. That is interfering in the internal lives of other affiliates, as Cliff used to do, and Callinicos did with the American ISO.

Callinicos claims that hitherto, the leadership of the IST has been run from London because “the British SWP … has far greater resources and partly because of the political authority its leadership has enjoyed in the Tendency.”

But on what basis has the SWP greater political authority? Surely not on the basis of achievement, as they are a fraction of their former size, with a much reduced influence in the unions and workplaces, and their activities in the Socialist Alliance, Respect and SSP have earned them enormous distrust from other socialist activists.

Indeed, the reduced authority of the SWP is one of the reasons why so many organisations that share their basic politics, such as the American ISO, the Socialist Alternative group in Australia, or the Socialisme Internationale Group in France are outside the IST.

The debate that is being opened up is an entirely welcome one.

Deputy leadership hustings

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Last Saturday six of us from Swindon joined the Stop the War Coalition protest outside the Labour Party deputy leadership hustings in Bristol. We were expecting Gordon Brown to be there, but I don’t think he turned up. It is always nice for me to go to Bristol and meet up with comrades who I worked with in the past.

There were about 40 people present outside, and unfortunately the policing was unnecessarily heavy (Peter Hain is Northern Ireland secretary). Although, I estimate only half were members of the SWP, the fact that there were too many Socialist Worker placards and paper sellers gave the impression that it was a SWP protest, which is a bit of a counter productive image to project if trying to have a relationship with the Labour Party, and more than one non-SWP member expressed discomfort about it to me.

The logic of standing against Labour in elections has also seemingly undermined the strategic understanding that SWP comrades had about the Labour Party. As one Asian labour councillor drove past he was castigated in hostile terms for the fact that he had stood on an anti-war ticket to get elected, but was not active in the anti-war movement. This seems exactly the wrong tack to take: he should be encouraged for standing as an anti-war candidate, which is in itself a form of participation in the peace movement, even if he doesn’t go on demonstrations.

According to the report in the Morning Star 250 trade unionists attended the hustings. This seems unlikely to me, I had a chat with one of the stewards from Amicus and had a look at his list, and from that I estimate attendance nearer the 100 mark.

The most unequivocally right-wing candidates, Alan Johnson and Hazel Blears, are both stressing their links with the trade unions, but not calling for any change in policy. Bizarrely, the Shop workers union, USDAW is backing Hazel Blears, seemingly simply on the basis that she is an USDAW member. But USADW also claims that: “Gordon Brown’s … brilliant management of the economy and undoubted leadership skills [show he] is the right choice to build on Labour's achievements since 1997 continuing to build a prosperous Britain and secure a fourth term Labour Government”. Britain’s fifth biggest union, with 360000 members, USDAW is clearly sending a message by backing Blears that there needs be no change of direction. Privatisation and PFI, growing inequality, no repeal of Tory anti trade-union laws, deregulation, attacks on civil liberties, wars of aggression, a housing crisis, and Labour’s vote falling to its lowest ever level are all signs of success for USDAW.

The other deputy leadership candidates are all to one degree or another wooing the activist vote. Hilary Benn has called for new legislation to bridge the pay gap, and improve flexible working rights, and has on that basis been backed by the tiny ceramics union, Unity, which has only 9000 members mainly in Stoke on Trent.

Peter Hain is being backed by ASLEF, BFAWU and UCATT. Hain himself is playing a funny game, both backing and opposing privatisation of the NHS for example. “As a very general principle I believe public services should be publicly provided unless there is a very good reason why not. For instance in Northern Ireland I used the private sector to clear a massive waiting list backlog, and that was absolutely the right thing to do”

Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas is backed by UNITE, the newly amalgamated T&G and Amicus. Unite joint general secretary, Derek Simpson said: "Jon Cruddas' stated policies mirror our members' desire for better job security, decent pensions, affordable housing and public services provided by the public sector. Jon is unlike any other candidate standing for the deputy leadership - he alone is calling for a change of direction in order to reconnect with the Labour party's core supporters."

There has been some criticism of UNITE for backing Gordon Brown, and interestingly I seems to have been a decision of only the GEC of the T&G and not Amicus who agreed to do so: “The Unite amicus section's political committee agreed .. that they would back Mr Cruddas, while the Unite T&G section's decision to nominate Cruddas and Brown was taken by its General Executive Council.”

Too much can be read into union leaderships supporting Brown, as I wrote back in February : “The union leaders want influence, and also want a change of direction. They will reason that backing Brown keeps them close to him, and they could maximise pressure on the new PM by backing a deputy leader closer to the unions’ agenda. As has been shown at the last two party conferences, the union leaders are very disciplined (or spineless, depending on your perspective) at sticking to their own agenda, and not supporting left initiatives over Iraq, etc. Cruddas himself has a good prospect of being not the “left candidate” but the “unions’ candidate”, in the same way that Callaghan was for leader. I think those union leaders wanting to pull Labour towards their own agenda may back Brown and Cruddas.”

Perjury investigation and the fragrant Mrs Sheridan...

And now the "fragrant" Mrs Gail Sheridan is being investigated by the police. Police are now said to want access to Mrs Sheridan's phone records.

Two Viceroys and a loyalist

The establishment, the best word to describe the individuals concerned, apologies for haters of clichés, has got together a commission to decide what should be done with Iraq. Apparently leaving this up to the Iraqi people is boring. The grandees who help to rule Britain and the southern area of Iraq are maybe feeling miffed that their opposite numbers in the US are enjoying cooking up “Iraq study groups” and “benchmarks” with which to dictate to the government of Iraq what they should be doing i.e. hurry up with the oil law to let the US/UK oil companies get their hands on the oil reserves that currently belong to the people of Iraq.

The commission is chaired by a Tory former viceroy of the statelet of Northern Ireland Tom King, Lib-Dem Lord Ashdown, former viceroy of Bosnia and Baroness Jay. Apart from voting against the Government on some votes on House of Lords reform the Baroness has loyally voted New Labour time and time again. This includes voting through the super draconian powers the government decided that it wanted for “fighting terrorism” and for bullying people through the mental health system.

Baroness Jay said that “The Iraq Commission aims to produce a long term strategy for Britain’s role in Iraq”. You can bet a month’s salary that this long term role will not include getting out and staying out. There are eight “Commissioners” who will help the barons and baroness. These are various luminaries of the foreign policy elite spiced up for the Guardian reading classes with Maeve Sherlock, Asim Siddiqui and Brian Brivati.

Sherlock is the former Chief Exec of the Refugee Council but is perhaps more notable as a New Labour apparatchik and former NUS president. Though she won’t feel too alone as another former NUS president will also be on the commission, Stephen Twigg…

Asim Siddiqui is a British Moslem who is allowed in as he is a City slicker. Brian Brivati is an academic from the Unversity of Kingston. Brivati seems to live in a particularly high ivory tower. He thinks that history will come to regard Tony Bliar as a truly great statesman (I am not joking) and that you can have such a thing as a humanitarian war.

No one from the Iraqi community in Britain.

No one from the anti-war movement.

No one with an ability to think for themselves.

NB: Paddy Ashdown in today's Observer about the Iraq Commission

California Green Party to split?

The train wreck that seems to be threatening the California Green Party has been very little discussed on the British left, but is of some significance. I have not been following events closely myself, and welcome corrections and clarification from those who know more, and understand better.
The following two blog articles give some background, here and here including some debate from all sides in the dispute.

Why does it matter? Well firstly the California Green Party is relatively large for a progressive party in the English speaking world, with some 40000 members, and has had modest but significant electoral success, despite the fact that the American political system discriminates against minor parties even more than the British system.

Secondly, some of the issues in dispute are relevant to debates in the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) about structure and accountability, and are also interesting for the left as showing both the opportunities and problems for the socialist left orienting on the Green Party.

At one level this appears to be a left/right conflict. The supporters of former Santa Monica councillor Michael Feinstein, are arguing for fusion with the Democrats, or allowing Democrats to be endorsed with the Green party ticket. On the other hand, Peter Camejo, a former member of the Socialist Workers Party (an organisation with a different political tradition from the British SWP) is seeking to rally the left. Camejo is a major player, and was the running mate of Ralph Nadar for the 2004 presidential elections. Itself somewhat confusing as Green party leader, David Cobb was himself running against Nadar.

On the plus side, the American Greens have succeeded in a modest way in building a broadly progressive electoral base for a left of centre party, and also one that has been relatively open to allowing socialists to work within it. The British SWP’s former sister organisation, the ISO, also orients on the Greens now, but from what I gather in a way that is felt by other activists to be a bit of a raid.

However, the difficulties for the Greens have been compounded by a culture of seeking consensus and being seen as nice and woolly. Bizarrely every Green party meeting in California has a moderator, who shouts “Vibes!” if they sense that someone is becoming too passionate or committed to a non consensual point of view! I know that some people on the British left find the GPEW’s culture refreshing compared to the sometimes competitive culture of the far left groups. But Camejo points to Jo Freeman’s classic feminist text, The Tyranny of Structurelessness, to show how consensus doesn’t work.

As Freeman argues: “structurelessness becomes a way of masking power [and ] is usually most strongly advocated by those who are the most powerful (whether they are conscious of their power or not.) For everyone to have the opportunity to be involved in a given group and to participate in its activities the structure must be explicit, not implicit.”

Certainly anyone who ever had any dealings with Ian Bone’s Class War anarchist group in the 1980s will tell you how its lack of formal leadership structures was completely undemocratic.

The Consensual culture of the California Greens requires that if full consensus cannot be reached then an 80% majority is required, leading to paralysis of concerted action.

The tyranny of assuming that ideological and political differences can be subsumed into consensus also leads to lack of transparency and accountability of the leading bodies in the Party. In Los Angeles County, 20000 members were led by a single committee of six, five of whom were Feinstein supporters. What is more, there are serious allegations of financial impropriety of cheques made payable to the Green party being paid into Feinstein’s personal account, with an alleged embezzlement of some $30000.

Clearly there is no suggestion of financial or political impropriety with the GPEW, but I helped a friend recently who was standing as a local Green candidate, and I was shocked by the lack of democratic culture or structures in the party at local level, where democratically agreed leaflets were rewritten without consultation, and candidate selection does not seem to be through a transparent process. This would not be tolerated in, for example the Labour Party.

Voice goes fortnightly

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Due to the financial impact of losing representation in the Scottish parliamant, the SSP is reluctantly switching their excellent paper to fortnightly publication. SSV is one of the best English language socialist publications, often carrying articles that you wouldn't find elsewhere, for example in this week's issue there is a fascinating discussion of how Cuba has excelled at organic and sustainable agriculture since the fall of the USSR.

Above all the paper reflects the humanity and sense of humour that are always evident from the SSP. I would urge all socialists, and those in England and Wales in particular, to take out a subscription to support our Scottish comrades.

The editorial team has issued the following statement:

It’s only human to look for silver linings, but sometimes a cloud is just a cloud.
After a horrific two years of internal battles, centred on a shabby pantomime court case, and the splinter of socialism in Scotland, topped off with electoral wipe out for all the forces now representing the left - we found ourselves in a pretty dark and dreary place.
The financial impact of our heavy defeat in the elections sees the Scottish Socialist Party with little choice but to cut back on staff. All the party staff have discussed the situation along with the Executive Committee and agreed on redundancy.
There will be a reduced number of staff across the whole party, including the Voice, and that means, for now at least, we have to scale back to fortnightly production.
There’s no denying that’s a big setback. The Voice went weekly six years ago, in May 2001, having already established itself over four years as Scotland’s only socialist newspaper.
It was a huge achievement for the SSP - for the first time in 50 years a weekly socialist paper, printed and published in Scotland, was for sale on our streets.
It’s been a hard task maintaining that achievement over the last few years. The SSP’s star burnt brightly, a burst of light on the Scottish political scene so sudden that the party’s finances have sometimes struggled to fuel it.
At times, just three full time staff, with the sterling help of volunteer contributors, have pulled the Voice together and kept it coming out, week after week.
And the conditions haven’t been easy either. Everyone involved in the SSP has felt the stress and frustration of the tumultuous times the SSP has been dragged through.
The Voice, however, has remained dignified, political and focussed outward - on campaigning, on raising ideas to change the world.
Because all the time, struggle burnt on the streets of Scotland and the Scottish Socialist Party was involved, and the Voice was there to report. And that will remain just so.
In the current period, fortnightly production will still be a big challenge for the remaining staff - and they’ll need the support and help of everyone who values the Voice.
If you can contribute in any way, whether you’re up for writing stories, taking pictures, or just have some ideas you think the Voice should cover, please get in touch.
Or if you can offer to help out with any of the labour intensive administrative tasks, which make sure we’re not just talking to ourselves, you would be a proper hero.
Keeping the Voice coming out as regularly as possible is the driving force in maintaining our socialist campaigning presence in our communities.
The Voice won’t be changing its style or its content - it’ll still be your unmissable guide to the battles undertaken by people fighting against injustice, from Pollok to Peru. We’ll still be a space for the voices, ideas and aspirations of ordinary people, unmitigated by the whims of a millionaire owner or the pull of big business’ advertising budgets.
We need everyone to muck in, and we are sure you will.
The members of the Scottish Socialist Party have stood united through an appalling time and defended the integrity and principles of our party. New people have joined us too, inspired by our ideas, our actions and our downright temerity.
We have held together, and together now we face the future.
The thing about clouds is, they’re never permanent - the skies are always changing.

RCTV: Chavez defends the revolution

In 1992 the British government ended the licence of Thames Television, which since 1968 had broadcast to London. The government had changed the franchise rules in the 1990 Broadcasting Act, which minimised the requirement of a high quality of service, in favour of allowing bids to be decided by money alone.

There was widespread discussion at the time that the Thatcher government had been politically motivated in changing the rules specifically to enable them to end Thames's licence because of the award winning 1988 documentary, “Death on the Rock” where Thames TV exposed the British government’s murder of three Irish republican volunteers in Gibraltar in 1988.

The Thatcher government recognised that there is no such thing as free speech, and acted in their own class interests. Nevertheless, there was no international outcry about “censorship”, or claims that Thatcher was a dictator.

Thames TV’s licence had come to an end, and the government, who was responsible for issuing licences, had exercised its legal right to award the licence for the next period to a different broadcaster, Carlton.

The Venezuelan government has now decided not to renew the TV licence of the channel RCTV. It has not banned the channel; it did not even cancel their licence prematurely. They have simply exercised their right as a sovereign nation, as the British government did in 1992, not to renew a public broadcasting licence, through an entirely transparent process. Nor is this unusual, since 1969 the American Federal Communications Commission has closed three stations: WLBT-TV in Mississippi, CBS affiliate WLNS-TV in Michigan, and Trinity Broadcasting in Miami.

Nevertheless, despite acting legally, and within the international norms of a public broadcasting licensing body, the Venezuelan government are being accused of dictatorial conduct and censorship, an accusation being echoed by some of the more superficial voices on the “left”.

The question of free speech is being raised. However freedom of speech is not an abstract concept, but one rooted in social and political conditions.

Trade unions offer no right for management to speak at trade union meetings. It is even normal practice in British trade unions for management grades to be organised in different unions or at least different branches, because we seek to keep management out of meetings so that those they supervise are not intimidated by management’s point of view. These are both restrictions on an abstract freedom of speech, but are obviously unexceptional.

The RCTV channel not only encouraged and promoted a military coup in 2002 that briefly overthrew the government, but during the so-called oil strike of 2002-2003 (actually an employers' lock-out of employees who wanted to work) the station repeatedly called upon its viewers to come out into the street and help topple the government. As part of its continuing political campaign against the government, the station has also used false allegations, sometimes with gruesome and violent imagery, to convince its viewers that the government was responsible for such crimes as murders where there was no evidence of government involvement.

But RCTV has also been guilty of various financial irregularities under the Venezuelan criminal law, such as the withholding 0f six billion Bolivars of national insurance contributions.

Venezuela is a country in the middle of revolutionary change. Power is being disputed between on the one hand the radical popular movement, rooted in the workplaces and communities, and on the other hand the boss class, the corporations, and the imperialists. The Chavez government is a progressive one, that is helping to roll back the idea that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism, and is seeking to encourage and build the popular movement.

In these circumstances, the debate about freedom of speech is not an abstract one, it is a question of whether the state defends the interests of the popular movement and the working class, or whether it allows the boss class to undermine the revolution through their ownership of a tatty tabloid TV station. The question is in which class interest is the state acting, and in Venezuela the government has acted in the interests of the working class by revoking RCTV’s licence. Well done Chavez!

The following 25 minute documentary clarifies the issues very well (Spanish with English subtitles)