TUSC- Trade Union and Socialist Coalition - Election Time.

[tellyontellyon]

Would you or your organisation be interested in becoming part of this coalition?
http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/latest/8673

What are your thoughts on it?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No. For the following reasons, and by the following analysis:

Coalition forming at election times bows down to the hegemony of multi-party bourgeois elections.
Socialists operating under such conditions are doomed to failure. Thus, when the inevitable failure at the ballot box happens, the coalition will simply turn in on itself, sectarianism will follow.

We should be organising coalitions, united fronts and more with TUs and with the entirety of the left, where possible, at all times. Organising specifically for a 'liberal democratic' political election whose only end is entrance to a bourgeois assembly, is simply not going to enhance our cause, be it through the revolutionary method or through the education and raising class consciousness of the working class.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why not organize a spoiled ballot campaign?

[Holden Caulfield]

Why not organize a spoiled ballot campaign?

because when trying to win round the disenfrachised working classes, 'vote for us and nothing will change' is hardly the best slogan. We must actively engage the people elections are a way of doing this, a way of showing that we are fighting for something and that we are on the front lines as it were.

Not only that they are a platform, and a mechanism of building class consciousness.

[Die Neue Zeit]

because when trying to win round the disenfrachised working classes, 'vote for us and nothing will change' is hardly the best slogan. We must actively engage the people elections are a way of doing this, a way of showing that we are fighting for something and that we are on the front lines as it were.

Not only that they are a platform, and a mechanism of building class consciousness.

That's not the point. At this point, almost anything is better than abstention.

I am suggesting the simultaneously usage of the two tactics. There are leftists who just don't like voting, but if some party appeals to them to spoil, they may do so. There are disgruntled workers wary of voting for left parties, but the same appeal tactic to spoil may work.

Abstention is ultra-leftist and useless, as is the case with Congressional elections in the US (abysmally low turnouts):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout


***Only Congressional elections held the same year as presidential ones.
Turnout rates for midterm election are approximately 10–15 percentage
points lower than the general election immediately preceding it.

[Benjamin Hill]

This coalition comes from the No2EU platform, a coalition which at the very least had some nationalist tendencies. From the looks of it, this is a marked improvement. Yet I don't see a real program but instead the article talks of a "core policy statement" (where is that?) and "umbrella" structure in which all participating organisations can do their own thing. This is not a step towards a party, but a repeat of the failure that was Socialist Alliance and other such coalitions.

The SP seems to think of socialism in a rather economistic way. I quote:

The statement makes a clear socialist commitment to "bringing into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment".
That's it. No talk of the democratic deficiency of capitalism, no raising of the self-emancipation of the working class, no discrediting of the state, no vision for what should happen after the elections...

Instead of a genuine working class initiative, we have the same formula we saw at No2EU: A bunch of union bureaucrats and sect leaders of all sorts get together in secretive talks and come up with a grand new "step forwards" for the working class movement, without consulting or confirming with their rank and file at any time of course.

The idiocy of this is astounding and I doubt we'll hear much from it.

[Woyzeck]

because when trying to win round the disenfrachised working classes, 'vote for us and nothing will change' is hardly the best slogan.

But that will be the case so why lie about it?

[Woyzeck]

This coalition comes from the No2EU platform, a coalition which at the very least had some nationalist tendencies. From the looks of it, this is a marked improvement. Yet I don't see a real program but instead the article talks of a "core policy statement" (where is that?) and "umbrella" structure in which all participating organisations can do their own thing. This is not a step towards a party, but a repeat of the failure that was Socialist Alliance and other such coalitions.

The SP seems to think of socialism in a rather economistic way. I quote:

That's it. No talk of the democratic deficiency of capitalism, no raising of the self-emancipation of the working class, no discrediting of the state, no vision for what should happen after the elections...

Instead of a genuine working class initiative, we have the same formula we saw at No2EU: A bunch of union bureaucrats and sect leaders of all sorts get together in secretive talks and come up with a grand new "step forwards" for the working class movement, without consulting or confirming with their rank and file at any time of course.

The idiocy of this is astounding and I doubt we'll hear much from it.

Exactly. I thought by now would-be socialist revolutionaries would have grasped the fact that socialism cannot come through bourgeois elections to bourgeois parliaments.

[BobKKKindle$]

Exactly. I thought by now would-be socialist revolutionaries would have grasped the fact that socialism cannot come through bourgeois elections to bourgeois parliaments.

That is an integral part of the CWI tradition, though. When they were inside the Labour Party their plan was to introduce "socialism" through the mechanisms of the bourgeois state in the form of an enabling act that would result in the nationalization of the leading monopolies...nothing about Soviet democracy emerging in the course of struggle, nothing about the need for international revolution, nothing that has anything to do with what makes Marx's analysis of the state so radical and different from liberal analysis - and the problems with their semi-liberal analysis was one of the factors that led Militant to take reactionary positions, as when they backed the British state during the Malvinas War. Even today we can see the influences of this reactionary distortion of Marxism in that the CWI's sections in individual countries all have as their main goal the building of "workers parties", not the revolutionary party, and we also see that the SP is happy to accept the foremost representatives of state violence into their ranks, such as the leader of the POA, Caton, who they proudly promote as a supporter of this project.

[Woyzeck]

That is an integral part of the CWI tradition, though. When they were inside the Labour Party their plan was to introduce "socialism" through the mechanisms of the bourgeois state in the form of an enabling act that would result in the nationalization of the leading monopolies...nothing about Soviet democracy emerging in the course of struggle, nothing about the need for international revolution, nothing that has anything to do with what makes Marx's analysis of the state so radical and different from liberal analysis - and the problems with their semi-liberal analysis was one of the factors that led Militant to take reactionary positions, as when they backed the British state during the Malvinas War. Even today we can see the influences of this reactionary distortion of Marxism in that the CWI's sections in individual countries all have as their main goal the building of "workers parties", not the revolutionary party, and we also see that the SP is happy to accept the foremost representatives of state violence into their ranks, such as the leader of the POA, Caton, who they proudly promote as a supporter of this project.

I too was an advocate of this tradition (albeit in the form of support for the IMT, not the CWI) until relatively recently. Boy do I feel silly. :blink:

[Benjamin Hill]

Mike Macnair made a commentary on the TUSC. Broadly he makes the point that there are positive and negative aspects to this coalition.

Positive: The SWP is involved this time, which gives the real possibility of marxist unity in the long term (according to him, I'm more pessimistic), the second positive aspect is that it has an open structure to which others can participate, thirdly the name is definitely an improvement over No2EU.

Negative: There is no developed internationalist position, thus it falls back into left-nationalist utopianism. Secondly the lack of a serious democratic alternative, explaining what exactly is meant by "democratic control", is a real problem. Related to this is the fact that it was constructed by secretive talks, which pretty much defeats the whole point of democracy.

I'll quote the article (I cannot post links yet):


Accentuate the positive

At last the establishment of a left unity electoral coalition has been confirmed by the highly secretive ‘core group’. But, asks Mike Macnair, is this unity built on sand?

The name of the newly confirmed leftwing alliance to contest the election is ‘Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’ (Tusc) and a provisional programme has been issued. This resulted from secret talks between the Socialist Party in England and Wales, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain, the RMT union, Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity, the Alliance for Green Socialism and Indian Workers Association.

However, contrary to the hopes of its promoters, the RMT executive has decided not to back the project. Although general secretary Bob Crow will be at the forefront of the campaign and other union leaders, including Brian Caton of the Prison Officers Association, will also be centrally involved, the coalition, despite its name, will have no official union backing.

According to a statement on the website of SPEW’s Committee for a Workers’ International, “Places have been reserved on the committee for the core organisations which participated in No2EU, who will now decide on their involvement in the new coalition”.

In other words, it is by no means certain that all the “core organisations” will take part. In fact the AGS has for one pulled out, because the agreed name, which I understand has already been registered, does not contain the word ‘Green’ or ‘Environmental’. The IWA has not attended ‘core group’ meetings for months, and even the CPB did not attend the most recent meeting. Unlike ‘No to the EU, Yes to democracy’, which contested the June European Union elections, when the CPB called the shots and SPEW was forced to go along with the CPB’s dire Europhobic British nationalism in No2EU, it seems that comrade Crow has this time leant more towards SPEW, and this is reflected in the provisional programme. In turn, this could re-ignite divisions on the CPB leadership, which previously caused it to pull out of ‘core group’ meetings until the decision was overturned.

In the December 31 Morning Star CPB general secretary Robert Griffiths only mentioned a possible left coalition at the very end of his article on the prospects for 2010. Setting a Labour victory as a high priority, he added that “it will also be vital that a range of left candidates, including Communist Party, Greens, Respect and socialist coalition ones in carefully selected seats, ensure that progressive, working class and anti-imperialist policies are put before millions of electors” (emphasis added).
SPEW, by contrast, is expected to stand a couple of dozen candidates, and the Socialist Workers Party hopes to stand six, including two in London, as part of the coalition. Socialist Worker’s report of the SWP conference states: “The SWP is in negotiations with others on the left over the prospect of standing candidates in the election. In many places, the SWP will call for a vote for candidates to the left of Labour, including Solidarity in Scotland, Respect and individuals such as Dai Davies in Blaenau Gwent and the left Green Caroline Lucas. A debate developed over whether to call for a Labour vote where no other left candidate is standing. Conference agreed to arrange a longer discussion on the election at the next party council” (January 16).

The latest internal Party Notes is more specific, however: “Conference agreed that the SWP should be part of the new socialist and trade union coalition, backed by Bob Crow, Socialist Party, CPB and RMT branches that will stand in a few seats in the general election” (January 11).
It is quite clear then that the hopes of comrades like SPEW’s Dave Nellist for a contest on the scale of the 2001 Socialist Alliance campaign (98 candidates) have been dashed. What is more, as this paper has pointed out, and as George Galloway said at the Respect annual conference in November, the extraordinarily dilatory secret proceedings of the ‘core group’ - when the major parties are already launching their election campaigns - pretty much guarantee that the coalition will have negligible electoral impact.

Positive

There are both positive and negative aspects of this news, though it is a bit of a stretch to identify the positives. There are three of these. First is the involvement of the SWP. If the SWP and SPEW actually get involved in serious joint work around a coalition for the general election, that would have a significant ‘gravitational pull’ towards broader and longer-term united action of the Marxist left - that is, towards a Communist Party.

The second positive element is that, once again according to the CWI, “Candidates from community campaigns, and other socialist organisations that have not been involved in the discussions to date, will also be able to stand under the Tusc banner. The coalition has agreed a core policy statement which prospective candidates will be asked to endorse. As a federal ‘umbrella’ organisation, however, coalition candidates and participating organisations will also be able to produce their own supporting material.”

The CPGB wrote several weeks ago to the coalition asking to participate, but received no reply. Hopefully we will now receive a positive response to our proposal to finance our own candidates, who will stand on a communist platform, outlined in our “own supporting material”. This would go some way to recognising that the organised left has a responsibility to unite its own forces to put “working class and anti-imperialist policies” before the electorate (to borrow Rob Griffiths’ phrase); and that this responsibility is not dependent on the (illusory) possibility of creating a new ‘broad workers’ party’: ie, a new Labour Party based on the trade unions. This would be a real, if small, step forward.

The third positive element is that the name and provisional programme are better, or at least less bad, than the No2EU platform from which this coalition originated. No2EU presented itself, in effect, as a labour movement version or left wing of the United Kingdom Independence Party. It also appeared as a left version of the right-populist campaign against ‘parties’, based on the MPs’ expenses scandal, which was at its height at the time of the Euro elections. The name ‘Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition’ presents the alliance as an unambiguously working class and socialist choice; and the programme is a pretty standard leftwing wish list, though as muddled as these wish lists usually are.

We in the CPGB want to see the largest and most effective possible leftwing challenge to New Labour in the next general election. Such a challenge is made if anything more urgent by the cabinet Blairites’ use of the Hewitt-Hoon ‘stalking horse’ to extract concessions from Brown - namely promises of harder cuts and the presentation of Labour as a party of “aspiration”: ie, of the managerial middle class.

Negative

The biggest negative element is the fact that after months of secret talks and with campaigning effectively underway (everyone knows the last possible date for the election is in early June), it has taken so long for a left contest to be confirmed; and it is still not clear which groups will participate.

This is a symptom of the same phenomenon as the secret talks themselves and the complete silence - not even a negative response - in response to our letter. Top-down, bureaucratic control-freakery, relying on secrecy. It was a major factor in the failure of Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party; in SPEW’s walk out from the Socialist Alliance and the SWP’s subsequent destruction of it; and in the SWP’s astonishing blunders with the Respect project.

At the end of the day election campaigns depend on mobilising people on the ground to leaflet, canvass and so on. And election campaigns are - as No2EU half understood - about democracy and people getting some small degree of control over their own future. The bureaucratic method is precisely demobilising and paralysing. With Tusc its probable effect will be a stillborn project like No2EU itself and like the SWP’s Left Alternative.

The other negatives are in the provisional programme. Much of this is entirely worthy. Parts of it are utterly vague or incoherent: like “Invest to create and protect jobs, especially for young people.” But there are two really fundamental weaknesses.

Europe

The first is the question of Europe. As I said on the positive side, at least we are rid of the dominant Eurosceptic tone of No2EU. But this reduces the programme’s comments on Europe to two.

The first is on anti-union laws: “Repeal Thatcher’s and the EU’s anti-trade union laws.” This is perfectly supportable, though inadequate: the anti-union laws are not just Thatcher’s but were begun when the 1974-78 Wilson government incorporated large parts of Heath’s (1970-74) anti-union laws in its own legislation. But it is entirely correct to demand repeal of the EU’s anti-union laws. How? The answer is going to have to be common political action of the workers’ movement across Europe.

The second is under the heading ‘Solidarity, not war’: “An independent foreign policy based on international solidarity - no more US poodle, no moves to a capitalist, militarist United States of Europe, no Lisbon Treaty”. Opposition to the Lisbon Treaty is now politically meaningless; and the clearly anti-working class elements of the rejected ‘European constitution’ were, in fact, already in the Maastricht (1992) and Nice (2001) treaties and the original Treaty of Rome (1957). “No more US poodle, no moves to a capitalist, militarist United States of Europe” is purely negative but unobjectionable.

The alternative offered is “an independent foreign policy based on international solidarity”. This is, of course, a contradiction in terms: solidarity and independent policy are counterposed. But the larger question is: solidarity with whom? The Blairites, of course, claim to pursue a foreign policy “based on solidarity” - that is, the solidarity of the ‘international community’ or of ‘the west’. Perhaps, like Andy Newman of the Socialist Unity website, our foreign policy should be based on solidarity of the ‘anti-imperialists’: ie, solidarity with the theocratic regime in Iran against the Iranian workers and students; or solidarity with the emergent proto-imperialism of the Chinese Stalinist regime against Chinese strikers, or Tibetan or East Turkestani protesters.

The real alternative is a foreign policy based on the solidarity of the international working class as a class. And this policy has positive implications for Europe. Yes, repeal the EU’s anti-union laws - through common political action of the workers’ movement across Europe. But the implications are much more extensive. Just imagine for a moment that Tusc actually stood in all seats and won the general election. To attempt to implement the left wish list of the provisional programme in Britain alone would merely crash the economy, bring in sanctions from other capitalist countries, and open the road to a far-right coup. But common action of the working class on the scale of Europe, in contrast, really could win the cherished goals of the left - and more.

Here the residual ‘socialism in one country’ of the programme - the heart of the CPB’s ideas, of course - renders it wildly implausible. A programme based on the aim of common international political action of the working class could transform the wish list into real aspirations.

Democracy

The second fundamental weakness of the provisional programme is the question of democracy - despite the fact that the word ‘democratic’ is scattered throughout it. Thus the programme talks of public ownership of services and utilities “under democratic control”, of education “under democratic local control” and of public ownership of the financial sector “under democratic control”.

But when it comes to the issue of democracy as such, the heading ‘Democracy, diversity and justice’ says nothing about what the idea of “democratic control” implies. After commitments to anti-racism and to gender equality, we get “Defend our liberties and make police and security democratically accountable.” - which Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Grayling could agree to. And then: “For a democratic socialist society run in the interests of people, not millionaires. For bringing into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment.”

The British state claims to be a ‘democracy’ and to be ‘democratic’. The reality is, of course, that it is not: it is “run in the interests of ... millionaires” (more exactly, of corporate capital). But how does this mechanism work? The answer, in part, is that Britain has a mercenary media (funded by advertising), a mercenary political class (career politicians dependent on large donations to keep their parties funded), a mercenary judicial system (through the ‘free market’ in lawyers’ fees giving success in lawsuits, on average, to the parties who spend more on lawyers), a mercenary senior civil service (overpaid and expecting to retire early and take up jobs in business) - and a mercenary army. Hardly surprising, then, that the corporations can pay for the policies they want.

Going alongside this system of corruption and back-stopping it are the ‘checks and balances’ of the constitution: the judicial power on the one side, and autonomy of the ‘executive power’ on the other. The executive is headed by the plutocrat queen, head of state and holder of loyalty oaths from MPs, ministers, judges and army officers. It is generally entitled to act in private: Tony Blair is reported to have said the Freedom of Information Act was “the worst mistake his government had made” (The Guardian December 31 2005). Behind the screen of government privacy and official secrets lie the lobbying efforts of business and its representatives and the reminders of favours past and possible favours future.

Conversely, there are positive needs of democracy, if working people are to win the final say in social decision-making. We need far more information about decision-making processes. We need more freedom of speech and the press, now subject to the dominance of the corporate media monopolies. We need more frequent and freer elections - without the undemocratic system of party registration and the big parties’ access to state funds and to media - on the basis of a more proportional system of representation. We need to restore power to local government, taking it away both from ministers and from judges. And so on.

Why has the Tusc provisional programme so little to say about the substance of democracy? The answer takes us back to the beginning of these negatives: the bureaucratic, top-down approach of the creators of this initiative itself. They may say they are for democratic control - but when they themselves are asked to act democratically, they think like leftwing versions of Sir Humphrey Appleby from Yes minister.

No2EU meant by ‘democracy’ the restoration of the British ancien régime before ‘we’ joined the Common Market in 1972. It is hardly surprising that its successor coalition has little to say about what democracy actually means.
Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. If Tusc actually gets a serious election campaign underway in which SPEW, the SWP and CPGB actually work together, it will have a real, positive dynamic, however bad the core politics. At present, however, it looks as though the bad politics - especially around democracy and bureaucracy - will make Tusc yet another stillborn election-only initiative.

[Revy]

Until this so-called core policy statement becomes public, I will withhold the inevitable criticisms I am likely to feel about this.

Apparently this new TUSC coalition doesn't even take a stand on whether to build a new party, or to reclaim Labour. If the issue couldn't even keep the IMT and CWI together, well...you can see where I'm going with this...

edit: good article above. I liked this part.



The real alternative is a foreign policy based on the solidarity of the international working class as a class. And this policy has positive implications for Europe. Yes, repeal the EU’s anti-union laws - through common political action of the workers’ movement across Europe. But the implications are much more extensive. Just imagine for a moment that Tusc actually stood in all seats and won the general election. To attempt to implement the left wish list of the provisional programme in Britain alone would merely crash the economy, bring in sanctions from other capitalist countries, and open the road to a far-right coup. But common action of the working class on the scale of Europe, in contrast, really could win the cherished goals of the left - and more.

Here the residual ‘socialism in one country’ of the programme - the heart of the CPB’s ideas, of course - renders it wildly implausible. A programme based on the aim of common international political action of the working class could transform the wish list into real aspirations.

[redrobbo]

That is an integral part of the CWI tradition, though. When they were inside the Labour Party their plan was to introduce "socialism" through the mechanisms of the bourgeois state in the form of an enabling act that would result in the nationalization of the leading monopolies...nothing about Soviet democracy emerging in the course of struggle, nothing about the need for international revolution, nothing that has anything to do with what makes Marx's analysis of the state so radical and different from liberal analysis - and the problems with their semi-liberal analysis was one of the factors that led Militant to take reactionary positions, as when they backed the British state during the Malvinas War. Even today we can see the influences of this reactionary distortion of Marxism in that the CWI's sections in individual countries all have as their main goal the building of "workers parties", not the revolutionary party, and we also see that the SP is happy to accept the foremost representatives of state violence into their ranks, such as the leader of the POA, Caton, who they proudly promote as a supporter of this project.


Just not true, though. Re: the Falklands/Malvinas war, this is what Militant said on 5 April 1982:


Workers can give no support whatsoever to the lunatic adventure now being prepared by the Thatcher government... the Labour Party and the trade union movement could stop Thatcher dead in her tracks. The labour movement must declare that it has no confidence whatsoever in the policies or methods of the British government... Labour must demand a general election in order that a Labour government can support and encourage workers’ opposition in Argentina.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Just not true, though. Re: the Falklands/Malvinas war, this is what Militant said on 5 April 1982:


Workers can give no support whatsoever to the lunatic adventure now being prepared by the Thatcher government... the Labour Party and the trade union movement could stop Thatcher dead in her tracks. The labour movement must declare that it has no confidence whatsoever in the policies or methods of the British government... Labour must demand a general election in order that a Labour government can support and encourage workers’ opposition in Argentina.
beat me to it -

As for the rest of that post - the ultra-leftism is what is astounding.

[Crux]

That is an integral part of the CWI tradition, though. When they were inside the Labour Party their plan was to introduce "socialism" through the mechanisms of the bourgeois state in the form of an enabling act that would result in the nationalization of the leading monopolies...nothing about Soviet democracy emerging in the course of struggle, nothing about the need for international revolution, nothing that has anything to do with what makes Marx's analysis of the state so radical and different from liberal analysis - and the problems with their semi-liberal analysis was one of the factors that led Militant to take reactionary positions, as when they backed the British state during the Malvinas War. Even today we can see the influences of this reactionary distortion of Marxism in that the CWI's sections in individual countries all have as their main goal the building of "workers parties", not the revolutionary party, and we also see that the SP is happy to accept the foremost representatives of state violence into their ranks, such as the leader of the POA, Caton, who they proudly promote as a supporter of this project.
1. We did not back the brittish state during the Malvinas war. I am hardly the most knowledgable on this issue, but if that's the best you can come up with you obviously haven't got much. oh and I do wonder how it relates to the election campaing, but anything for a little mud slinging I suppose, eh comrade?

2. And again, either you are willfully ignorant or lying. In all our calls for nationalisation have included the demand for worker's control. And as a revolutionary, marxist organisation, yes we calls for the establishment of genuine worker's parties. Unfortunatly for you our program does not stop there, as one would assume you were aware. But I assume a little distortion hasn't bothered you before.

And now I wonder how am I to read this insightfull input in regards to this new election alliance? Because, to be quite frank, it all seems like a bunch of irrelevant mudslininging.

[Revy]

hmm.


The attitude of the Marxists towards this war is decided by all these considerations, and above all by the fact that it is two imperialist powers which are at war, even though the Argentine may in the past have been, like the United States, a colonial country. Therefore we oppose the capitalist war of Argentina against Britain, and we oppose the capitalist war of Britain against Argentina. - Ted Grant, The Falklands Crisis - A Socialist Answer
However, he goes on to write this in the same article.




We must demand a general election now, as a way of bringing down the Tories and returning the Labour Party to power with a socialist programme. The capitalist government has landed us in a mess at home and abroad. This involves advancing our general programme: for the nationalisation of the 200 monopolies with compensation on the basis of proven need; for workers' control and management of industry, and for a socialist plan of production. If necessary, British workers and the Marxists will be willing to wage a war against the Argentine Junta, to help the Argentine workers to take power into their own hands. But only a democratic socialist Britain would have clean hands. A Labour government committed to socialist policies would probably not need to wage war, but could issue a socialist appeal to the Argentine workers to overthrow the monstrous Junta, take power, and then organise a socialist federation of Britain and the Argentine, in conjunction with the Falkland Islands. The fears of the Falkland Islanders could be laid to rest by a socialist Argentine, which would give them full autonomy with democratic control in the hands of the Falkland workers themselves.

[Crux]

This coalition comes from the No2EU platform, a coalition which at the very least had some nationalist tendencies.
Some people like to make this claim, yet when challenged I haven't found anyone being able to back it up with much.


From the looks of it, this is a marked improvement. Yet I don't see a real program but instead the article talks of a "core policy statement" (where is that?) and "umbrella" structure in which all participating organisations can do their own thing. This is not a step towards a party, but a repeat of the failure that was Socialist Alliance and other such coalitions.You've got to walk before you can run, you know. What structure would you propose?



That's it. No talk of the democratic deficiency of capitalism, no raising of the self-emancipation of the working class, no discrediting of the state, no vision for what should happen after the elections...Yes?


Instead of a genuine working class initiative, we have the same formula we saw at No2EU: A bunch of union bureaucrats and sect leaders of all sorts get together in secretive talks and come up with a grand new "step forwards" for the working class movement, without consulting or confirming with their rank and file at any time of course.
Secretive? Secretive towards whom? This is an electoral alliance, a step forward surely, but not a new worker's party. Seriously your critique is just swing and miss.



The idiocy of this is astounding and I doubt we'll hear much from it.
Ok. I suppose you have some brilliant alternative rolled up there in your sleeve. Because so far you seem pretty clueless not only what the TUSC is about, but how political parties are built in general.

[Crux]

hmm.


However, he goes on to write this in the same article.
Uhm Yes, Argentine Junta = Bad. Not that hard to understand at all.

[Revy]

Uhm Yes, Argentine Junta = Bad. Not that hard to understand at all. that was a great response.:rolleyes:

[Crux]

that was a great response.:rolleyes:
Well, you didn't exactly specify your implied criticism either, so. Anyway I still don't see what the Malvinas conflict has to do with TUSC.

[Revy]

Well, you didn't exactly specify your implied criticism either, so. Anyway I still don't see what the Malvinas conflict has to do with TUSC.

It doesn't have anything to do with it, I agree.

[The Idler]

Exactly. I thought by now would-be socialist revolutionaries would have grasped the fact that socialism cannot come through bourgeois elections to bourgeois parliaments.
Leftists can and do win "bourgeois" elections to "bourgeois" parliaments, Venezuela (2000, 2004 and 2006), Bolivia (2005 and 2009) are a couple of examples.

Will the Call for a New Anti-capitalist Party (Workers Power) be involved in the TUSC?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Since Macnair's article is already posted, I'll say that I hope Workers Power will be involved, too.

[ls]

Well, you didn't exactly specify your implied criticism either, so. Anyway I still don't see what the Malvinas conflict has to do with TUSC.

"If necessary, British workers and the Marxists will be willing to wage a war against the Argentine Junta, to help the Argentine workers to take power into their own hands. But only a democratic socialist Britain would have clean hands."

If you switched "Argentine workers" with "British workers" you could just as easily be describing what Thatcher did as "heroic". :rolleyes: The writing really makes me question the mentality here, I really do not like it at all.

[Benjamin Hill]

As for the rest of that post - the ultra-leftism is what is astounding.
Not to say that I agree with BobKKKindle$, which I don't, but resorting to namecalling is hardly an adequate reply.


Some people like to make this claim, yet when challenged I haven't found anyone being able to back it up with much.
That is probably because the SP didn't feature the nationalist content, understandably (an upside of being able to feature your own material in coalitions: you can ignore the "less fortunate" parts). The Weekly Worker has spent much time covering the problems though, I'll quote some bits:

From the article "Nationalist common sense" in Weekly Worker 793:

To present European integration in itself as the problem - which No2EU had done - was a nationalist response. Even SPEW’s own slogan of ‘No to a bosses’ Europe’ implied that the bosses somehow held less sway in the individual nation-states than within the EU. It was particularly bizarre for British socialists to raise the spectre of the EU as the main enemy when successive British governments have implemented the most neoliberal policies in Europe and the New Labour government was manoeuvring within EU institutions to impose a neoliberal course on other countries.And:

Interestingly, some SPEW comrades also expressed reservations about No2EU, suggesting that ‘No to a bosses’ Europe’ should have been part of the platform. The Derby comrade explained that SPEW had won some of the argument in No2EU, but lost others. The election broadcast in particular had conveyed nationalist undertones. There should have been a call to unite workers from across Europe.And:

Comrade Heemskerk’s concluding argument was his weakest. It followed the usual SPEW template about the way to head off a swing towards nationalist politics within the working class as being “clear and unambiguous” in what can only be described as aping the politics of the nationalists. Hence in Scotland SPEW’s Committee for a Workers’ International claims to be opposed to Scottish nationalism, but expresses this by saying that it would call for a ‘yes’ vote in a referendum on independence.


When it comes to Europe, the dangers of inter-imperialist divisions re-emerging on the continent and workers blaming workers of a different nationality for their problems is to be combated by advocating withdrawal from the EU. Apparently, this will pre-empt a swing to the nationalist right. The size of the UK Independence Party and British National Party vote in the European elections indicates that No2EU failed to siphon off much support from these formations back in June. SPEW comrades need to learn the lesson that the last thing the British working class needs is a renewed attempt to build a leftwing Ukip.
From the article "New vision for Europe wanted" in Weekly Worker 788 there is a quote I think is crucial for understanding the issue here:

The first political consequence for the left is that simple, unreconstructed opposition to the EU is a false, economistic position. It fails to acknowledge that the unity of nations is a progressive phenomenon that in the long run makes our tasks easier, and that we should seek to preserve and extend such unity where it is not travestied by national oppression.


The bourgeoisie is manifestly incapable of uniting Europe on any secure basis. Its lash-up treaties, agreed in conference rooms behind our backs, come with guaranteed unpopularity. The frequent declarations of intent on the part of British politicians to ‘make the case for Europe’ belie the fact that these people cannot make the case for Europe - that their vision of unity is not even really unity at all, but simply a rag-tag jumble of treaties in the service of capital.


Those who oppose this by counterposing ‘democratic’ national parliaments to EU administrators are also misconceived. It is simply not the case that an all-powerful Brussels bureaucracy is hoarding political power; the EU is run by the member-states for the member-states (some member-states being more equal than others). This fallacy reached a nadir of absurdity with the CPB-Bob Crow ‘No to the EU, Yes to Democracy’ platform in the June EU elections, which cited the malign influence of certain European court decisions on domestic workers’ struggles. The fact is that the strategy of the British state in Europe has been to zealously pull it in the direction of more brazen and ruthless bourgeois power.


Instead of retreating into nationalism, communists must outline our own vision for a united Europe - under the rule of the working class. Such an entity would provide a key bulwark against global imperialism and must be an essential element in any communist programme.

You've got to walk before you can run, you know. What structure would you propose?My problem is not so much that it is a coalition at this stage, but that the same failed formula that was used in the Socialist Alliance, SLP and other places is being used again. This will never lead to a working class party on a revolutionary programme.


Yes?Yes. All the basic political positions that communists should be emphasizing are lacking. Or are you telling me that "bringing into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment" is all there is to socialism? This is economism of the worst kind and feeds illusions in the state being a neutral device that could act in favor of working class interests.

This is simply wrong.


Secretive? Secretive towards whom? This is an electoral alliance, a step forward surely, but not a new worker's party. Seriously your critique is just swing and miss.Secretive to the working class movement, obviously. If you want to build a mass working class party, then you don't start out as a cooked up platform by union bureaucrats and leaders of the different small organisations. You try and involve the masses on every level at every stage of development. How else would you want to build a class organisation which sole duty is to facilitate the self-emancipation and self-organisation of the proletariat?

Of course, such a vision for a working class party lacks completely. The aim, of the SP anyway, seems to be to form some kind of Labour Party mark 2: A party whose primary activity is inside parliament.


Ok. I suppose you have some brilliant alternative rolled up there in your sleeve. Because so far you seem pretty clueless not only what the TUSC is about, but how political parties are built in general.I think I have a pretty good idea what TUSC is all about, based on previous projects of a similar kind.

Political parties, not sects, of the working class are build by the widest form of democracy possible. This vital elemant seems to lack in TUSC thusfar and I'm pessimistic for the future. If we don't fight for radical democracy inside our ranks, then there is no hope for a united working class alternative and TUSC will fall apart at the slightest bit of pressure.

[Tower of Bebel]

Some people like to make this claim, yet when challenged I haven't found anyone being able to back it up with much.
At the time this was my point:

Nation states with the right to self-determination and their governments are the only institutions that can control the movement of big capital and clip the wings of the trans-national corporations and banks. This means democratic control of the major banks, including the Bank of England, and full public ownership and democratic accountability of railways, postal services, NHS, and the energy industry.From no2eu (http://www.no2eu.com/economiccrisis.html).

We want to see a Europe of independent, democratic states that value its public services and does not offer them to profiteers; a Europe that guarantees the rights of workers and does not put the interests of big business above that of ordinary people. We believe the current structures of the EU makes this impossible.

We say...


Reject the Lisbon Treaty
No to EU directives that privatise our public services
Defend and develop manufacturing, agriculture and fishing industries in Britain
Repeal anti-trade union ECJ rulings and EU rules promoting social dumping
No to racism and fascism, Yes to international solidarity of working people
No to EU militarisation
Repatriate democratic powers to EU member states
Replace unequal EU trade deals with fair trade that benefits developing nations
Scrap EU rules designed to stop member states from implementing independent economic policies
Keep Britain out of the eurozone

From no2eu (http://www.no2eu.com/aboutus.html)

Democracy and socialism serve as mere fig leaves. There seems to be almost no problem with bourgeois democracy in Britain. The problem is the EU. The SP didn't need no2eu to promote a "no bosses eu", because they were the only ones fighting for it.

[Devrim]

1. We did not back the brittish state during the Malvinas war. I am hardly the most knowledgable on this issue, but if that's the best you can come up with you obviously haven't got much. oh and I do wonder how it relates to the election campaing, but anything for a little mud slinging I suppose, eh comrade?

The Militant did back the British state during the Falklands war.


The labour movement should be mobilised to force a general election to open the way for the return of a Labour government to implement socialist policies at home and abroad. Victory of a socialist government in Britain would immediately transform the situation in relation to the Falklands. The junta would no longer be able to claim to be fighting British imperialism.
A socialist government would make a class appeal to the Argentinean workers. A Labour government could not just abandon the Falklanders and let Galtieri get on with it. But it would continue the war on socialist lines.

All they did was call for a general election after which they wanted to continue the war on 'socialist lines'. One has to wonder whether these are the same 'socialist lines' that the Labour Party fought later wars on such as the one in Iraq.

The idea that a Labour victory in a general election would have changed the class character of the British state is of course patently absurd.

It also has to be remembered that this article appeared in the Militant's 'theoretical' journal. I was living in the UK at the time, actually in a Militant stronghold, and how it generally came across on the ground was as a completly chauvinist support for 'our boys'.

What this has to do with the subject at hand is a different question, but the Militant certainly did not oppose the war.

Devrim

[BobKKKindle$]

We did not back the brittish state during the Malvinas war

I think others have dealt with this in my absence.


I do wonder how it relates to the election campaingn

It's entirely relevant. The stance of Militant during the Malvinas War, their support for an enabling act in parliament when they were at the height of their popularity, and their contemporary willingness to accept people like Caton as leading members of their organization and this electoral initiative are all interlnked with one another insofar as they all demonstrate a wrong orientation towards the British state, and the bourgeois state in general. The Marxist position on the bourgeois state is that it cannot be used as a tool of emancipation, because it is structurally geared to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie, and to deny meaningful participation to the working majority, and as such a socialist revolution must involve the smashing of the bourgeois state, and the development of a state geared to the interests of the working class and mass democracy, based on Soviet power. Now, you may claim that Militant wanted an enabling act to be passed along with the extension of workers control on the ground, but the basic notion of the enabling act presupposes that parliament would still be in existence in a situation where the majority of society was voting for a Labour Party that had been thoroughly taken over by Militant and transformed into something much more radical than what it is currently - a dubious notion to say the least in light of the historical experience of fascism and anti-democratic coups whenever workers have threatened to use existing institutions to further their interests - and the enabling act, as a piece of legislation passed by parliament, also infers that the bourgeois state is compatible with a socialist society, and that there is no need to overthrow that state as part of the struggle to bring socialism about. It is a completely muddled analysis which led Militant to fire thousands of workers when they attempted to capture part of the bourgeois executive at a local level, in Liverpool.

My own organization holds no such illusions. We call for the total overthrow of the British state.


Unfortunatly for you our program does not stop there

Why don't you explain it for me then, point to where your sections call for revolutionary parties, and so on. Based on my own experience the CNWP is a major part of the SP's activity and propaganda in the UK, and the campaign involves appeals to leading members of the trade union bureaucracy and a nostalgic view of old Labour.


As for the rest of that post - the ultra-leftism is what is astounding

Coming from the SP, this is a compliment.

[Woyzeck]

Leftists can and do win "bourgeois" elections to "bourgeois" parliaments, Venezuela (2000, 2004 and 2006), Bolivia (2005 and 2009) are a couple of examples.

I said "socialist revolutionaries".

[Devrim]

because when trying to win round the disenfrachised working classes, 'vote for us and nothing will change' is hardly the best slogan. We must actively engage the people elections are a way of doing this, a way of showing that we are fighting for something and that we are on the front lines as it were.

Not only that they are a platform, and a mechanism of building class consciousness.

That's not the point. At this point, almost anything is better than abstention.

I am suggesting the simultaneously usage of the two tactics. There are leftists who just don't like voting, but if some party appeals to them to spoil, they may do so. There are disgruntled workers wary of voting for left parties, but the same appeal tactic to spoil may work.

Abstention is ultra-leftist and useless, as is the case with Congressional elections in the US (abysmally low turnouts):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout

I can understand Holden's point though I disagree with it. I don't think that participation in elections has anything to offer revolutionaries.

Personally, I don't vote and advocate abstensionism. I don't think that we should be having campaigns over it though. Basically, I see that the different parties offer no difference.

The idea of a spoit ballot campaign is completely bizarre. People don't vote because they don't feel that doing it will make any significant change in their life large enough to make the effort of going to the polling station for.

Why should they go out and make an effort not to vote, and still change nothing.

Devrim

[The Idler]

I said "socialist revolutionaries".
I take it you don't think TUSC are "socialist revolutionaries"?

[ls]

They think the peasantry are the revolutionary class see. There are many peasants especially in south London, quite a counterrevolutionary place in general.

Anyway, continue.

[Jolly Red Giant]

What this has to do with the subject at hand is a different question, but the Militant certainly did not oppose the war.


From 'The Rise of Miliant'


In 1982 the Falklands War broke out, seemingly as a bolt from the blue which was to have a decisive effect on events in Britain. From the outset Militant posed the question:
"Whose class interest is served by the Argentine invasion and whose class interest is served by the British military expedition?"
The seizure of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands arose from the desperate attempts of the Galtieri dictatorship to ward off the threat of revolution in Argentina. Not for the first time a military dictatorship had engaged in a foreign adventure as a means of reinforcing its grip on power.
Prior to the invasion, Argentina had witnessed an upsurge of working-class opposition to a brutal regime which had engaged in kidnappings, assassinations and torture. 20,000 people had ‘disappeared’. Only in 1995 was it revealed by a military whistleblower just how this was done.
Officers took it in turns to throw naked prisoners out of aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean. This was a military police dictatorship which had used fascist methods against its opponents but was now facing judgement day after a six-year bloody reign of terror. It was for this reason that Galtieri had reactivated the 150-year old claim to the Malvinas.
Just a few days before the invasion on 30 March tens of thousands of youth and workers had defied the military on the streets of Buenos Aires, protesting against impoverishment, unemployment and the suppression of trade union and democratic rights. 1,500 political and trade union opponents of the regime had been arrested just prior to the invasion.
A series of general strikes had also broken out. What would the working class in Argentina have gained from the taking of the Falklands/Malvinas? If the junta had succeeded this would have prolonged the life of the military dictatorship and worsened the conditions of the Argentine workers. On the other hand, argued Militant, "the real motive for the belligerent attitude of the British capitalists is simply their enormous loss of face."
The British capitalists, like any ruling class, ultimately base their position on their income, but also on their power and prestige. Thatcher on behalf of British capitalism, invoked the rights of the Falkland Islanders.
Britain was allegedly defending democracy against ‘fascist’ Argentina. Yet, asked, Militant why had the Tories been quite happy to sanction massive arms sales to this ‘fascist’ junta and to remain completely silent about the repression of the Argentine working class?
Moreover, they had very little regard for the Falkland Islanders themselves, refusing to develop the island’s services. The Financial Times commented when the conflict broke out:
"It is precisely because no substantial British interest was involved that the crisis was allowed to arise in such a careless way."
Rather than the Falkland Islands being a paragon of democracy, as Thatcher tried to pretend, it was in effect little more than a benevolent dictatorship with its fate being decided by one firm, the Falkland Islands Company. Nevertheless, for British capitalism to simply have allowed the Argentine junta to seize the islands without any response would have struck a massive blow to its already diminished power and prestige.
Militant opposed the class collaborationist position of Labour’s front bench, which not only supported Thatcher but demanded war against Argentina. In fact Labour support for the Tories was a vital ingredient in the steps leading to the sending of the Task Force. Militant declared:
Workers can give no support whatsoever to the lunatic adventure now being prepared by the Thatcher government... the Labour Party and the trade union movement could stop Thatcher dead in her tracks. The labour movement must declare that it has no confidence whatsoever in the policies or methods of the British government... Labour must demand a general election in order that a Labour government can support and encourage workers’ opposition in Argentina.
Notwithstanding this a legend has grown up around Militant’s alleged position at the time of the Falklands/Malvinas War. Ultra-left critics give the impression that Militant did not oppose the war. The above statement and those in the theoretical journal Militant International Review in June 1982 makes the position absolutely clear: "We are against this capitalist war."
But Militant’s position was at odds with those lefts like Tony Benn. There was common ground on opposing the war. Differences arose on just how this was to be done and what slogans to raise within the British Labour and trade union movement. How to appeal to the majority of workers in order to mobilise effective mass opposition?
It was not sufficient merely to denounce the war or just to call for the Task Force to be withdrawn. The capitalists would be impervious to such an appeal and Militant estimated that the working class, because of the issues involved, would also remain deaf to such calls. The consciousness of the British workers over the Falklands/Malvinas and, for instance, at the time of the Gulf War were entirely different. The latter was quite clearly seen as a ‘war for oil’.
To force the withdrawal of the Task Force would have involved the organisation of a general strike, which itself would have posed the question of the coming to power of a socialist government. Yet at the outset of the war, such a demand would have received no support from the British workers. We pointed out:
The Falkland Islanders were quite understandably opposed to Argentine sovereignty if that meant the same ‘rights’ for them that it meant for ordinary workers in Argentina itself.
The democratic rights of the 1,800 Falklanders, including the right to self-determination, if they so desired, was a key question in the consciousness of British workers.
A socialist solution to the problem of the Falklands/Malvinas posed the need for a socialist Argentina, and perhaps a socialist, democratic, federation of Argentina and the Falklands/Malvinas with full autonomous rights for the Islanders. However, a forcible annexation by the Argentine dictatorship of the Falkland Islands was an entirely different matter.
Although the population of the Falklands had dwindled to 1,800, hardly a nation in the classical sense of the term, they nevertheless have the right to enjoy their own language, culture and if they so desire their own form of government. Marxists could not be indifferent to the fate of the Falklanders, particularly given the consciousness of the British working class as it developed over this issue.
Militant could not condone the Islands’ subjugation by the dictatorship, represented on the Islands by the newly established military government of General Mendes. This creature was a veteran of the Junta’s ‘dirty war’, the extermination campaign against socialists and workers as well as the guerrilla groups, who had taken up arms against the Argentine military regime.
At the same time, socialists and Marxists had no confidence in the Tory government and its attempts to resolve the crisis by arms. The Task Force was sent to the Falkland Islands, not to defend the Islanders’ rights and conditions, nor was it a question of British ‘democracy’ against ‘fascist’ Argentina.
While the capitalists retained their power they would use it to defend their class interest at home and abroad. But the demand for a general strike, particularly at the outset of the war, it was clear, would have received no support, even from the advanced section of the working class. Even those who declared in favour of "stopping the war" drew back from calling for a general strike. Nor would the call to stop the war or to withdraw the fleet have provided a basis even for a mass campaign of demonstrations, meetings and agitation.
This was because it left unanswered, in the eyes of workers, the vital question of the rights of the Falkland Islanders and the question of opposing the vicious military police dictatorship in Argentina.
The only way to stop the war was to bring down the Tory government. But Thatcher had the support of the Labour Party and trade unions. Without this Thatcher could not have gone to war. Michael Foot supported sending the Task Force but, on the eve of the first engagement, also argued that it should not be used. This was a completely inconsistent and ineffectual stance. As if the Tories had sent the Fleet 8,000 miles across the Atlantic simply as a ‘show’ of force.
Militant argued that the Falklands/Malvinas conflict was not a reason for calling off the struggle against the Tories. On the contrary, the looming conflict would drain the resources of British capitalism. Big business would attempt to make the workers pay. This underlined the urgency of stepping up the struggle to bring down the Tory government.
In contrast to Militant, many so-called Marxists in Britain and internationally, gave either tacit or open support to the Argentine dictatorship. This could only play into the hands of the Tories and British imperialism.
These groups reasoned that the only consistent way to oppose the British ruling class was to support the enemy of British capitalism. They ended up by giving support to the Argentine military-police dictatorship. Thus from the correct starting point of opposition to this capitalist war these groups ended in a political cul-de-sac.
Their analysis allegedly drew on Lenin and Trotsky’s attitude toward the first world war. Lenin’s idea of 1914 - ‘Revolutionary Defeatism’ - was invoked. This was done without bothering to examine the circumstances and without understanding Lenin’s method. There were enormous differences between the circumstances of the first world war and the clash almost 70 years later between British imperialism and Argentina over the Falklands/Malvinas.
On an historical point: Lenin himself explained in 1921 that the slogan of "a civil war of revolutionary defeatism" was a slogan for the core of party activists to draw a clear line of distinction between traitors who had supported the war in 1914 and genuine Marxism. It was not a ‘slogan’ for winning the mass of the workers in Russia or elsewhere.
Trotsky also pointed out on the eve of the second world war that the slogan of "revolutionary defeatism" could not "win the masses", who did not want a "foreign conqueror". He went on to point out that the decisive role in the conquest of power by the working class in Russia in October 1917 was played not by the refusal to defend the "bourgeois fatherland" but by the slogan of "All Power to the Soviets" and only by this revolutionary slogan. The Bolsheviks’ criticism of imperialism and militarism could never have won the overwhelmingly majority of the people to the side of the Bolsheviks. The argument that in the Falklands/Malvinas War it was simply a case of ‘imperialist’ Britain against a colonial country, Argentina, did not hold water.
This was used by some as justification for supporting the Junta. The Argentine regime’s invasion was not a war of ‘national liberation’ against imperialism. On the contrary, in seizing the Falklands/Malvinas the Argentine Junta was pursuing the ‘imperialist’ aims of Argentine capitalism.
Galtieri had invaded the Islands for political reasons - to head off revolution and to save his regime. Behind Galtieri stood the Argentine financiers and capitalists, eager to get their hands on the economic potential of Antarctic oil and other natural resources in the region.
Militant pointed out that it was ludicrous to describe Argentine capitalism as a completely dependent, ‘comprador’ capitalist regime dominated by the agents of foreign capital. Statistics showed that Argentina, despite its neo-colonialist subservience to US imperialism as well as West European and Japanese big business, nevertheless had all the characteristics of a semi-industrialised capitalist economy.
The situation would have been different if British imperialism had decided to invade Argentina itself. This was a scenario which Trotsky clearly had in mind when commenting on a hypothetical situation involving Brazil in the 1930s:
In Brazil there now reigns a semi-fascist regime that every revolutionary can only view with hatred. Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally - in this case I will be on the side of the ‘fascist’ Brazil against the ‘democratic’ Great Britain.
Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship.
The defeat of England will at the same time deliver a blow to British imperialism and will give an impulse to the revolutionary movement of the British proletariat.
Merely repeating Trotsky’s words, without grasping his method, the sects seized on this as justification for their "critical support".
If there were an Argentine population on the Islands, subject to British rule against their will, the situation would also have been different. Then there would have been a case for a national liberation war to free the Islands. Even then the Marxists would advocate class independence from the Argentine dictatorship. But this was not the case in 1982. Apart from one or two Argentines married to Islanders, there had been no Argentineans on the Islands for 150 years. "Galtieri’s war" was a classic case of a crumbling military dictatorship seeking salvation in a foreign adventure.
While Militant defended the analysis and main slogans which we put forward in Britain in the course of the conflict, at the same time it recognised that a different emphasis would have been needed to be adopted by Argentine Marxists.
While they would be duty bound to oppose the war, pointing to the real aims of the Junta, at the same time once the war had begun the Argentine Marxists would have stood for the full mobilisation of the working class on a clear anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist programme.
This would have necessitated calling for the expropriation of all ‘imperialist assets’ in Argentina, starting with those of British imperialism. At the same time they would have called for the arming of the working class, and by implication the overthrow of the military dictatorship, as a means of winning the war.
In contrast to the Junta Argentine Marxism would have offered full autonomy to the Islanders in the context of a socialist federation with Argentina as a step towards a Socialist United States of Latin America.

[Woyzeck]

The democratic rights of the 1,800 Falklanders, including the right to self-determination, if they so desired, was a key question in the consciousness of British workers.

A socialist solution to the problem of the Falklands/Malvinas posed the need for a socialist Argentina, and perhaps a socialist, democratic, federation of Argentina and the Falklands/Malvinas with full autonomous rights for the Islanders. However, a forcible annexation by the Argentine dictatorship of the Falkland Islands was an entirely different matter.
Although the population of the Falklands had dwindled to 1,800, hardly a nation in the classical sense of the term, they nevertheless have the right to enjoy their own language, culture and if they so desire their own form of government. Marxists could not be indifferent to the fate of the Falklanders, particularly given the consciousness of the British working class as it developed over this issue.

Militant could not condone the Islands’ subjugation by the dictatorship, represented on the Islands by the newly established military government of General Mendes. This creature was a veteran of the Junta’s ‘dirty war’, the extermination campaign against socialists and workers as well as the guerrilla groups, who had taken up arms against the Argentine military regime.

At the same time, socialists and Marxists had no confidence in the Tory government and its attempts to resolve the crisis by arms. The Task Force was sent to the Falkland Islands, not to defend the Islanders’ rights and conditions, nor was it a question of British ‘democracy’ against ‘fascist’ Argentina.

Is this meant to disprove Militant's/CWI's support for British imperialist wars of aggression (I'm sorry, I mean British imperialist wars of aggression "along socialist lines") or to validate such claims? If it's the former you must be having a laugh. You might as well talk about loyalist "islanders" in Ireland's right to self-determination...oh wait…you already do…

[Jolly Red Giant]

Is this meant to disprove Militant's/CWI's support for British imperialist wars of aggression (I'm sorry, I mean British imperialist wars of aggression "along socialist lines") or to validate such claims? If it's the former you must be having a laugh. You might as well talk about loyalist "islanders" in Ireland's right to self-determination...oh wait…you already do…
Are you suggesting that and Argentinian junta's claim on a lump of rock in the middle of the south atlantic that has not had an Argentinian presence and has been an issue for 150 years and that was populated by 1500 people who regarded themselves as British - means that the Argentinian junta should be supported and the democratic rights of the 1500 islanders should be dismissed with a wave of the hand and a comment along the lines of 'you shouldn't be there in the first place'?

[Die Neue Zeit]

By that same logic, why not side with the big coalition that won the Persian Gulf War?

[Woyzeck]

Are you suggesting that and Argentinian junta's claim on a lump of rock in the middle of the south atlantic that has not had an Argentinian presence and has been an issue for 150 years and that was populated by 1500 people who regarded themselves as British - means that the Argentinian junta should be supported and the democratic rights of the 1500 islanders should be dismissed with a wave of the hand and a comment along the lines of 'you shouldn't be there in the first place'?

Do I think even a reactionary state like Argentina in this case should be (militarily) supported or defended against an imperialist power like Britain and its supporters within the region? Most definitely yes.

Let me ask you this: if Iran were to be attacked by Israel or the United States what would your position be?

[Woyzeck]

By that same logic, why not side with the big coalition that won the Persian Gulf War?

In some respects they did. For instance; if conscription had been introduced in the UK Militant would have supported workers entering the military and converting the imperialist war into a 'revolutionary war'. :laugh:

[bricolage]

The idea of a spoit ballot campaign is completely bizarre. People don't vote because they don't feel that doing it will make any significant change in their life large enough to make the effort of going to the polling station for.

Why should they go out and make an effort not to vote, and still change nothing.

This is an interesting piece that illustrates the potential benefit of spoilt ballots, http://spgb.blogspot.com/2008/05/day-at-count.html

[Crux]

I think others have dealt with this in my absence.



It's entirely relevant. The stance of Militant during the Malvinas War, their support for an enabling act in parliament when they were at the height of their popularity, and their contemporary willingness to accept people like Caton as leading members of their organization and this electoral initiative are all interlnked with one another insofar as they all demonstrate a wrong orientation towards the British state, and the bourgeois state in general. The Marxist position on the bourgeois state is that it cannot be used as a tool of emancipation, because it is structurally geared to protect the interests of the bourgeoisie, and to deny meaningful participation to the working majority, and as such a socialist revolution must involve the smashing of the bourgeois state, and the development of a state geared to the interests of the working class and mass democracy, based on Soviet power. Now, you may claim that Militant wanted an enabling act to be passed along with the extension of workers control on the ground, but the basic notion of the enabling act presupposes that parliament would still be in existence in a situation where the majority of society was voting for a Labour Party that had been thoroughly taken over by Militant and transformed into something much more radical than what it is currently - a dubious notion to say the least in light of the historical experience of fascism and anti-democratic coups whenever workers have threatened to use existing institutions to further their interests - and the enabling act, as a piece of legislation passed by parliament, also infers that the bourgeois state is compatible with a socialist society, and that there is no need to overthrow that state as part of the struggle to bring socialism about.
Stop strawmanning. Abstentionism never overthrew any states, I am sorry to say. And even with a majority in parliament, even with governmental power, yes the state will have to be combated, and yes in such a situation there will be a threat of counter-revolution. If you are interested in reading old issues of Militant, perhaps you should look into what we wrote on Pinochets coup in Chile and the Popular front government. I do not mean to be rude, but if you don't know our position don't make a long argument based on the wrong presumptions just ask. Otherwise you'll end up strawmanning.


It is a completely muddled analysis which led Militant to fire thousands of workers when they attempted to capture part of the bourgeois executive at a local level, in Liverpool.
Substantiate. I hardly take your claims at face value given your obvious extreme bias against my organisation.


My own organization holds no such illusions. We call for the total overthrow of the British state.
I am glad to have you onboard with the TUSC.


Why don't you explain it for me then, point to where your sections call for revolutionary parties, and so on. Based on my own experience the CNWP is a major part of the SP's activity and propaganda in the UK, and the campaign involves appeals to leading members of the trade union bureaucracy and a nostalgic view of old Labour.

Making the unions break from the ex-worker's parties is an important step, as I am sure you would agree. We call for new worker's parties that are of the worker's for the worker's, and that does not offer priviligies for it's represesentatives and leading members. To that end we have many different transistionary demands, different in different countries, but we do not wish to build a "Labour mark 2" as some has claimed, as revolutionaries we point to thefailur and capitulation of reformism, looking at the old worker's parties this is apparent. But we put this forward in a way that does not alienate people, in the end the working class have to learn from their own experiences, no revolutionary party is created all fix and ready from the beginning. Actually I doubt you disagree with this, so your posturing is really...I mean what do you wish to achieve? I certainly have some serious critique of the SWP's policies both past and present but I don't use every thread somehow related to the SWP to bring it up, and even if I would I'd try and avoid your "style" so tos peak. If i'd want the argument to go anywhere. But anyway i hope you are satisfied with my response.

[Crux]

Oh whatever

[Crux]

That is probably because the SP didn't feature the nationalist content, understandably (an upside of being able to feature your own material in coalitions: you can ignore the "less fortunate" parts). The Weekly Worker has spent much time covering the problems though, I'll quote some bits:

From the article "Nationalist common sense" in Weekly Worker 793:
And:
And:
From the article "New vision for Europe wanted" in Weekly Worker 788 there is a quote I think is crucial for understanding the issue here:

I am sorry but being totally opposed to the EU does not make you a nationalist, as that is the only argument trying to be run here. Being totally opposed to the EU does not equatesupporting your own national government. This is simply a false dillemma.



My problem is not so much that it is a coalition at this stage, but that the same failed formula that was used in the Socialist Alliance, SLP and other places is being used again. This will never lead to a working class party on a revolutionary programme.

I don't believe you are correct in that. To put it simply at this point the TUSC is an alliance between different organisations, different organisations talking among themself. Nothing "undemocratic" about that at all.



Yes. All the basic political positions that communists should be emphasizing are lacking. Or are you telling me that "bringing into democratic public ownership the major companies and banks that dominate the economy, so that production and services can be planned to meet the needs of all and to protect the environment" is all there is to socialism? This is economism of the worst kind and feeds illusions in the state being a neutral device that could act in favor of working class interests.
No it's not all there is to socialism, but you can't seriously say that any platform that calls for a planned economy under worker's control is "economism"?



Of course, such a vision for a working class party lacks completely. The aim, of the SP anyway, seems to be to form some kind of Labour Party mark 2: A party whose primary activity is inside parliament.

Uhm, you are simply wrong so maybe you should get off your high horses for a while. Countering your claim is superflous, because it is simply slander that has nothing whatsoever to do with our policies.


Political parties, not sects, of the working class are build by the widest form of democracy possible. This vital elemant seems to lack in TUSC thusfar and I'm pessimistic for the future. If we don't fight for radical democracy inside our ranks, then there is no hope for a united working class alternative and TUSC will fall apart at the slightest bit of pressure.
Yes and a federative strcuture is in my opinion the best outset for such a campaign. You know we can't just snap our fingers and "make" a worker's party with mass participation.

[Jolly Red Giant]

Do I think even a reactionary state like Argentina in this case should be (militarily) supported or defended against an imperialist power like Britain and its supporters within the region? Most definitely yes.
Glad you clarified the fact that you would support a fascist military junta, that was systematically executing class activists, that was engaging in a military adventure to divert rising opposition to the regime and was willing to subjugate the small population of a rock in the south Atlantic.


Let me ask you this: if Iran were to be attacked by Israel or the United States what would your position be?
I would support the right of the Iranian working class and poor to defend themselves and would oppose the the Iranian regime. In the same way as opposing the current war in the gulf and Afghanistan while opposing the dictatorships of Saddam and the Taliban.


In some respects they did. For instance; if conscription had been introduced in the UK Militant would have supported workers entering the military and converting the imperialist war into a 'revolutionary war'. :laugh:
Interesting that you bring this up - as this was one of the issues that caused the split with Grant's IMT. Ted Grant adopted the position that you outline - the CWI opposed it.

[Woyzeck]

Glad you clarified the fact that you would support a fascist military junta, that was systematically executing class activists, that was engaging in a military adventure to divert rising opposition to the regime and was willing to subjugate the small population of a rock in the south Atlantic.

I'm glad to see you clarify that you consider internationalist anti-imperialism to be tantamount to support for fascism. The British state was doing the same thing in Ireland at that time yet Militant/CWI opposed armed opposition to the British state for fear it would alienate reactionaries. If only the British military's war against the nationalist working class population had been transformed into a 'revolutionary war' against Irish Republicanism, to preserve the democratic gains of Ulster Unionism and assist a Labour government in achieving 'socialism' by decree. :rolleyes:


I would support the right of the Iranian working class and poor to defend themselves and would oppose the the Iranian regime. In the same way as opposing the current war in the gulf and Afghanistan while opposing the dictatorships of Saddam and the Taliban. But since nationalists and Islamic militants are doing the lion's share of the fighting in these conflicts would you not defend their 'right', militarily, to resist imperialism while at the same time condemning their reactionary political program and class collaborationism? I think I already know the answer to that.


Interesting that you bring this up - as this was one of the issues that caused the split with Grant's IMT. Ted Grant adopted the position that you outline - the CWI opposed it. I was aware that it was Grant that advocated this position but I wasn't sure whether CWI opposed it or not.

[Jolly Red Giant]

I'm glad to see you clarify that you consider internationalist anti-imperialism to be tantamount to support for fascism.
If you support a fascist military junta in a war - no matter who it is against - then it is support for that regime. A victory for the Argentinian regime in the Falklands War would not have benefitted the Argentinian working class one iota - in fact it would have probably have had a seriously detrimental effect through strengthening the Junta and facilitating further moves against the working class and its organisations.


The British state was doing the same thing in Ireland at that time yet Militant/CWI opposed armed opposition to the British state for fear it would alienate reactionaries.
The CWI opposed the 'armed struggle' for one simple reason - it was never going to work (as has been amply confirmed by the events of the past 40 years) - even more so it was going to strengthen British Imperialism, strengthen repression and drive the Protestant working class into the arms of loyalist bigots.


If only the British military's war against the nationalist working class population had been transformed into a 'revolutionary war' against Irish Republicanism, to preserve the democratic gains of Ulster Unionism and assist a Labour government in achieving 'socialism' by decree. :rolleyes:
You are being facetious here


But since nationalists and Islamic militants are doing the lion's share of the fighting in these conflicts would you not defend their 'right', militarily, to resist imperialism while at the same time condemning their reactionary political program and class collaborationism? I think I already know the answer to that.
As I said - I would defend the right of any people to oppose imperialism with arms if necessary. It is irrelevent if nationalists and islamic militants are doing the lions share of the fighting - they cannot win (at least in terms of creating any progressive society if they do). There is a massive difference, for example, in critically supporting the Viet Cong against imperialism - and supporting Hamas - who are little better than the imperialist forces they are fighting. If Hamas were to successfully defeat Imperialism they would attempt to impose a theocratic feudal dictatorship that would not advance the cause of the working class in any way shape or form.


I was aware that it was Grant that advocated this position but I wasn't sure whether CWI opposed it or not.
Well you learn something new every day. Might be no harm to read some more of the stuff from the CWI with an open mind - rather than with the red tinted glasses

[Woyzeck]

If you support a fascist military junta in a war - no matter who it is against - then it is support for that regime. A victory for the Argentinian regime in the Falklands War would not have benefitted the Argentinian working class one iota - in fact it would have probably have had a seriously detrimental effect through strengthening the Junta and facilitating further moves against the working class and its organisations.

So you would support an imperialist attack on a weaker capitalist power because it would lead to a strengthening of the worker's movement within that country? That's definitely been the outcome historically.


The CWI opposed the 'armed struggle' for one simple reason - it was never going to work (as has been amply confirmed by the events of the past 40 years) - even more so it was going to strengthen British Imperialism, strengthen repression and drive the Protestant working class into the arms of loyalist bigots. The "armed struggle" developed momentum because of the brutal crushing by the British state and loyalists (the majority of whom were of course 'workers') of a popular movement that had as its program only basic democratic demands. I doubt you need a history lesson on this topic but the success of the Provisional IRA in garnering support from the oppressed nationalist community only occurred because of the ineptitude and failure of the 'left' to take a principled internationalist stand, instead of equating the oppressed with their oppressors.


You are being facetious hereNever...


There is a massive difference, for example, in critically supporting the Viet Cong against imperialism - and supporting Hamas - who are little better than the imperialist forces they are fighting. If Hamas were to successfully defeat Imperialism they would attempt to impose a theocratic feudal dictatorship that would not advance the cause of the working class in any way shape or form. There you go again; equating the oppressed with their oppressors. Hamas are a lot "better" than the imperialist forces they are fighting chiefly because they aren't these imperialists, they're an (albeit reactionary) organ of resistance of an oppressed people living under the jackboot of Zionism. The Stalinist, class-collaborationist NVA/Viet Cong, eyeball deep as they were in Trotskyist blood, could no more deliver a worker's state than could Hamas, but then we've already established the fact that CWI confuses reformism with genuine revolution.

[Crux]

It seems like the main left organisations have joined the TUSC which is a positive step indeed. I know there are some here that are not so I excited but i for on am pretty hopefull. A sahme that that the RMT hasn't officially endorsed the campaignn but there's some time yet I suppose.

[ls]

It seems like the main left organisations have joined the TUSC which is a positive step indeed. I know there are some here that are not so I excited but i for on am pretty hopefull. A sahme that that the RMT hasn't officially endorsed the campaignn but there's some time yet I suppose.

So do you support Arthur Scargill and his SLP, CPGB-ML, CPGB-PCC and every other "left party" of the UK joining into one whole coalition? Would you support PUP joining it too over in Ulster? Honest questions here.

[Crux]

So do you support Arthur Scargill and his SLP, CPGB-ML, CPGB-PCC and every other "left party" of the UK joining into one whole coalition? Would you support PUP joining it too over in Ulster? Honest questions here.
Not necessarily no. And the PUP swing is, quite honestly, pretty irrelevant. SLP is a lost cause and one man band. CPGB-PCC apparantly have applied to join or so wikipedia says. But it's not primarily about joining every little left organisation into one coalition but moreso raising the need for a new worker's party and getting that out to the working class as best as we can.

I am trying to be reasonable here, why does everyone go into shit slinging mode?

[Jolly Red Giant]

So you would support an imperialist attack on a weaker capitalist power because it would lead to a strengthening of the worker's movement within that country? That's definitely been the outcome historically.
And there you go making assumptions again - please quote where I said I would support an imperialist attack?

The CWI opposed the British State's war in the Falklands - and also opposed the Argentinian Junta and its attempt to use the invasion of the Falklands to whip up Argentinian nationalism - The CWI supported the right of the British working class, the Argentinian working class and the working people on the Falklands Islands not to be drawn into a war between two capitalist powers and not to become pawns in their power game that was designed specifically to strengthen their own regimes at home and campaigned for an independent international class movement to oppose both these capitalist regimes.


The "armed struggle" developed momentum because of the brutal crushing by the British state and loyalists (the majority of whom were of course 'workers') of a popular movement that had as its program only basic democratic demands. I doubt you need a history lesson on this topic but the success of the Provisional IRA in garnering support from the oppressed nationalist community only occurred because of the ineptitude and failure of the 'left' to take a principled internationalist stand, instead of equating the oppressed with their oppressors.
Not for the first time someone on the far left suggests that the Protestant working class were responsible for assisting in the suppression of the civil rights movement - despite the fact that Protestant working class people participated in it - and in groups like the People's Democracy (before the coat-tailed the republican paramilitaries) - the so-called internationalist left who had a significant base in Northern society - and the Northern Ireland Labour Party (before it capitulated to the Unionist state). Included in this myth that the Protestant working class played a reactionary role is the ignoring of the fact that many Protestant workers actually assisted in the defence of Catholic communities.

The 'success' of the Provisional IRA was to a large degree another myth than lack much of the substance later attributed to it. The PIRA were promoted and assisted, with funds, weapons and political clout by elements within the southern Irish state - primarily to split the then left moving republican movement along class lines. Much of the defence of the Catholic community that has been attributed to the PIRA was in fact carried out by the OIRA. I suggest you read a rather insightful book (in historic rather than political terms) recently published by Brian Hanley and Scott Miller entitled 'The Lost Revolution' which is a history of the OIRA and the Official Republican movement (not that I would have any truck with this organisation either). Interestingly enough - when the British Army were sent to the North the CWI was among the few voices who opposed it - unlike many republicans who were to support the 'armed struggle' at a later stage.



There you go again; equating the oppressed with their oppressors. Hamas are a lot "better" than the imperialist forces they are fighting chiefly because they aren't these imperialists, they're an (albeit reactionary) organ of resistance of an oppressed people living under the jackboot of Zionism. The Stalinist, class-collaborationist NVA/Viet Cong, eyeball deep as they were in Trotskyist blood, could no more deliver a worker's state than could Hamas, but then we've already established the fact that CWI confuses reformism with genuine revolution.
Okay - even I struggle to comprehend the warped understanding that suggests that Hamas are the same as the Viet Cong - and their struggle could be equated on similar lines - would you also support the Taliban given that they are opposing imperialism? You clearly have a complete lack of understanding of the nature of nationalism, imperialism, stalinism, reaction, theocratism, guerrillaism etc. if you believe the comments you have made above.

[ls]

Not necessarily no. And the PUP swing is, quite honestly, pretty irrelevant. SLP is a lost cause and one man band. CPGB-PCC apparantly have applied to join or so wikipedia says. But it's not primarily about joining every little left organisation into one coalition but moreso raising the need for a new worker's party and getting that out to the working class as best as we can.

I am trying to be reasonable here, why does everyone go into shit slinging mode?

Do you think that a new worker's party can emerge out of undynamic, dust-gathering old "worker's parties" who rarely engage in the actual bulk of the working-class movement. Do you truly believe that the SLP is any more of a one man band than any of the other parties that are currently part of the coalition?

As far as trade unions are concerned, I hope you are aware that the power of the RMT does not come from the "hardmanship" of Bob Crow, but from the unionised workers and some shop stewards forming independent worker's committees that push dynamically for their own demands. They are not always successful and you might be surprised to understand, that the times when they aren't successful are when the union 'officially' takes control of the dispute, in at least 3/4 of all cases. One example of this, was a worker fired completely unfairly in Essex for physically confronting a dangerous man and successfully protecting the public from him.

[Crux]

Do you think that a new worker's party can emerge out of undynamic, dust-gathering old "worker's parties" who rarely engage in the actual bulk of the working-class movement. Do you truly believe that the SLP is any more of a one man band than any of the other parties that are currently part of the coalition?
Yes, I truly and genuinly believe that. I believe that the comrades in the Socialist Party have and are taking part in the working clas movement in an effective way, whil I am not in britain myself, I believe I know enough to say so none the less. And no, a new worker's party does not magically evolve out of the old organizations, it evolves when the workingclass itself moves into struggle. Thus far our purpose is more agitation oriented, but this is also evident by our material.


As far as trade unions are concerned, I hope you are aware that the power of the RMT does not come from the "hardmanship" of Bob Crow, but from the unionised workers and some shop stewards forming independent worker's committees that push dynamically for their own demands. They are not always successful and you might be surprised to understand, that the times when they aren't successful are when the union 'officially' takes control of the dispute, in at least 3/4 of all cases. One example of this, was a worker fired completely unfairly in Essex for physically confronting a dangerous man and successfully protecting the public from him.
Have I claimed anything to the contrary? While I wouldn't say that the national leadership would mess up conflicts I certainly do believe that local organization is where the power must come from. All the more shame that the RMT hasn't moved to endorse the campaign. Again, I don't see why you would have such a confrontative attitude here.

[ls]

Yes, I truly and genuinly believe that. I believe that the comrades in the Socialist Party have and are taking part in the working clas movement in an effective way, whil I am not in britain myself, I believe I know enough to say so none the less. And no, a new worker's party does not magically evolve out of the old organizations, it evolves when the workingclass itself moves into struggle. Thus far our purpose is more agitation oriented, but this is also evident by our material.

But it's always the same. Where has this led to a revolution in any country that your international has "agitated" in? Don't you think that a new worker's party can't come out of the old dust gathering left, the same old left that has tried the same tactics endlessly for decades to no avail. Perhaps some of the people from the old left will come into the new worker's party when it forms, but it will not happen thanks to coalitions of the same old parties coming together for an opportunistic voting bloc come election time, has it ever done so historically in any country? A left, where no party has mass support of any kind.


Have I claimed anything to the contrary? While I wouldn't say that the national leadership would mess up conflicts I certainly do believe that local organization is where the power must come from. All the more shame that the RMT hasn't moved to endorse the campaign. Again, I don't see why you would have such a confrontative attitude here.

With the disappointing result that No2EU produced last time, I would imagine that the RMT is kind of sceptical of this bloc.

[Crux]

But it's always the same. Where has this led to a revolution in any country that your international has "agitated" in? Don't you think that a new worker's party can't come out of the old dust gathering left, the same old left that has tried the same tactics endlessly for decades to no avail. Perhaps some of the people from the old left will come into the new worker's party when it forms, but it will not happen thanks to coalitions of the same old parties coming together for an opportunistic voting bloc come election time, has it ever done so historically in any country? A left, where no party has mass support of any kind.
Well, as I said, this is a coalition made primarily for agitational purposes, as a way to bring the message out the most effective way come election time. So I don't really disagree with you, but you asked for examples, well in germany we took part in the WASG, the leftwing and trade unionist alliance created in protest of the rightwing policis of the socdems msot primarily Hartz IV, this later bacame Die Linke, which while certainly with it's share of problems, has drawn some significant support. We are active as a marxist opposition inside die linke. Another example would be PSOL in Brazil which has also made some headway, organizing it's own unions and in other ways trying to dig roots in the workingclass to build the resistance. And lastly there's the NPA as I am sure you know of. Neither of these organisations are of course ideal, they all have their shares of problems and are vacilliating on soem issues, but I would say that they have potential.




With the disappointing result that No2EU produced last time, I would imagine that the RMT is kind of sceptical of this bloc.
Result shouldn't merely be counted in votes, hopefully we can make some real impact in the long run. Primarily the idea of a new worker's party is not just about being an electoral alternative but a fighting alternative out in the communites. That's the work I try to do every day, taking part in differnt campigns and protests.

[FSL]

But it's always the same. Where has this led to a revolution in any country that your international has "agitated" in? Don't you think that a new worker's party can't come out of the old dust gathering left, the same old left that has tried the same tactics endlessly for decades to no avail. Perhaps some of the people from the old left will come into the new worker's party when it forms, but it will not happen thanks to coalitions of the same old parties coming together for an opportunistic voting bloc come election time, has it ever done so historically in any country? A left, where no party has mass support of any kind.


What's the new workers' party and how will it be different from the dust-gathering old ones?

[Crux]

What's the new workers' party and how will it be different from the dust-gathering old ones?
It will be an active organization in worker's struggle? A bit of a cliché maybe, but what would you like to know? ALthough I would be interested in ls's response as well.

[tellyontellyon]

SP/CWI is an an organisation that believes that the working class must organise internationally.

But capitalism is also organised internationally, and as it stands the EU is an organisation that strengthens the stranglehold of global capitalism.

The EU is an internationalist, but Capitalist, business-mans club.

The SP is in favour of international organisations when they represent workers rather than bosses.... The EU is not that sort of an organisation!

[Crux]

SP/CWI is an an organisation that believes that the working class must organise internationally.

But capitalism is also organised internationally, and as it stands the EU is an organisation that strengthens the stranglehold of global capitalism.

The EU is an internationalist, but Capitalist, business-mans club.

The SP is in favour of international organisations when they represent workers rather than bosses.... The EU is not that sort of an organisation!
Even this could be disputed though with the apparent dominance of some national governments in the EU.

[FSL]

It will be an active organization in worker's struggle? A bit of a cliché maybe, but what would you like to know? ALthough I would be interested in ls's response as well.


I'd like to know its politics and its form, structure, rules set etc

[Crux]

I'd like to know its politics and its form, structure, rules set etc No priviliges and the right to recall representatives, elected representatives on a worker's wage and an active ememebrship base. The Bolshevik principles you know, comrade.

[ls]

What's the new workers' party and how will it be different from the dust-gathering old ones?

It must for a start have mass support, can you tell me that any party here in the UK has mass support? Not even the labour party itself has mass support anymore, even if you believed entryism was possible, it would be utterly pointless.

[Crux]

It must for a start have mass support, can you tell me that any party here in the UK has mass support? Not even the labour party itself has mass support anymore, even if you believed entryism was possible, it would be utterly pointless.
Well mass support doesn't come from nowhere.

[ls]

Well mass support doesn't come from nowhere.

We have no Italian communist party, RSDLP or anything like that at all. You can be smug from your country, which has a higher amount of class-consciousness here but it means absolutely nothing in real terms. Being real here, this trade union and socialist coalition is nothing more than an opportunistic electoral coalition which might even serve to demoralise all factions involved further, no2eu did fail last time really and perhaps the one good thing to come out of it might be showing that attempting electoral opportunism is pointless..

[Crux]

We have no Italian communist party, RSDLP or anything like that at all. You can be smug from your country, which has a higher amount of class-consciousness here but it means absolutely nothing in real terms. Being real here, this trade union and socialist coalition is nothing more than an opportunistic electoral coalition which might even serve to demoralise all factions involved further, no2eu did fail last time really and perhaps the one good thing to come out of it might be showing that attempting electoral opportunism is pointless..
It's not about smugness. I wouldn't say sweden has a higher classconsciousness and no, I don't see why TUSC would be "opportunistic", it's not the new worker's party, of course, but it is an possibility to agitate during the election.

[Revy]

The Labour Party started a lot like this TUSC. Certainly if Labour feels threatened by it, if it ever grows, then Labour will start to take notice and rally about socialism again. Who knows what the opportunists in the left will do at that point or what TUSC could do. Would they disband and merge into Labour, feeling their moment to take it over near? That is the IMT's dream and the CPB is close enough behind them.

Even the SWP, whose members are getting so self-righteous in this thread, called for a vote for Labour in 1997. Which is not to make SPEW look better. I wouldn't support either sect.

[Jolly Red Giant]

The Labour Party started a lot like this TUSC. Certainly if Labour feels threatened by it, if it ever grows, then Labour will start to take notice and rally about socialism again. Who knows what the opportunists in the left will do at that point or what TUSC could do. Would they disband and merge into Labour, feeling their moment to take it over near? That is the IMT's dream

And the emphasis should be on the word 'dream'

[FSL]

No priviliges and the right to recall representatives, elected representatives on a worker's wage and an active ememebrship base. The Bolshevik principles you know, comrade.


So a party that calls for a revolution and a new state, obviously. A marxist-leninist party too, complete with democratic centralism? What would its stance be on modern matters, say when it comes to EU or a possible collaboration with Labour? It gets elected, what does it do in its first 3 months in power?



It must for a start have mass support, can you tell me that any party here in the UK has mass support? Not even the labour party itself has mass support anymore, even if you believed entryism was possible, it would be utterly pointless.


Ok, I thought that would be a significant thing for people. Are we talking about a workers' party simply -or mainly- in terms of asking it to have mass support among the working class or for the revolutionary party of the working class?
I'm not interested at all in building a party like the first one and I don't see its point in the UK or elsewhere. But the party that could become the worker's party is a completely different story. However, as you say, at this time in England the majority of the workers aren't by no means "revolutionary". A revolutionary party would need to be very small to be comprised of those workers who are, it couldn't exist otherwise.

Of course, I think that even if a party that has a revolutionary character is now small, it has the potential to build trust with the masses, grow and play a decisive role in bringing a new "October 25th"again. That potential would be guaranteed by its character.

[Woyzeck]

And there you go making assumptions again - please quote where I said I would support an imperialist attack?

The CWI opposed the British State's war in the Falklands - and also opposed the Argentinian Junta and its attempt to use the invasion of the Falklands to whip up Argentinian nationalism - The CWI supported the right of the British working class, the Argentinian working class and the working people on the Falklands Islands not to be drawn into a war between two capitalist powers and not to become pawns in their power game that was designed specifically to strengthen their own regimes at home and campaigned for an independent international class movement to oppose both these capitalist regimes.

If that's the case then explain this:


The labour movement should be mobilised to force a general election to open the way for the return of a Labour government to implement socialist policies at home and abroad. Victory of a socialist government in Britain would immediately transform the situation in relation to the Falklands. The junta would no longer be able to claim to be fighting British imperialism. A socialist government would make a class appeal to the Argentinean workers. A Labour government could not just abandon the Falklanders and let Galtieri get on with it. But it would continue the war on socialist lines.
Not for the first time someone on the far left suggests that the Protestant working class were responsible for assisting in the suppression of the civil rights movement - despite the fact that Protestant working class people participated in it

And Ronnie Bunting, a Protestant, was a member of the INLA. So what? Loyalist workers did actively participate in the crushing of the civil rights movement and contributed more to the mass bloodletting which flowed from that than any Republican organisation.


Included in this myth that the Protestant working class played a reactionary role is the ignoring of the fact that many Protestant workers actually assisted in the defence of Catholic communities. But many more played a role in the anti-Catholic pogroms.



The 'success' of the Provisional IRA was to a large degree another myth than lack much of the substance later attributed to it. The PIRA were promoted and assisted, with funds, weapons and political clout by elements within the southern Irish state - primarily to split the then left moving republican movement along class lines.I'm aware of that.


Much of the defence of the Catholic community that has been attributed to the PIRA was in fact carried out by the OIRA. I suggest you read a rather insightful book (in historic rather than political terms) recently published by Brian Hanley and Scott Miller entitled 'The Lost Revolution' which is a history of the OIRA and the Official Republican movement (not that I would have any truck with this organisation either). I have read it. Rather than being groundbreaking - the IRSP, for their part, have been dispelling such myths about the Provisionals for many years - it more or less confirms what an utterly degenerate organisation the WPI are. Personally I got the impression that the authors have some sort of reverence for the Officials. I'm not exactly sure what's so interesting about a bunch of pro-Unionist Stalinists and criminals. May they continue to wither and be confined to the dustbin of history!


Interestingly enough - when the British Army were sent to the North the CWI was among the few voices who opposed it - unlike many republicans who were to support the 'armed struggle' at a later stage.Or what became the SWP. This was of course the correct position to take.


Okay - even I struggle to comprehend the warped understanding that suggests that Hamas are the same as the Viet Cong - and their struggle could be equated on similar lines - would you also support the Taliban given that they are opposing imperialism? You clearly have a complete lack of understanding of the nature of nationalism, imperialism, stalinism, reaction, theocratism, guerrillaism etc. if you believe the comments you have made above. No, I just don't subscribe to your "understanding" of these terms. Please explain to me why one set of nationalists, who happen to wrap themselves in 'communist' red rather than Islamic green, are more 'progressive' than the other? Have the Vietnamese Stalinists proven themselves to be champions of the working class in some manner that I am unaware of? I'm talking purely at the level of politics here and which class interests they truly serve, not the comparable viability or necessity of their respective "armed struggles" i.e. guerrillaism may have been called for and been successful against US imperialism but perhaps not against Zionism.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

So a party that calls for a revolution and a new state, obviously. A marxist-leninist party too, complete with democratic centralism? What would its stance be on modern matters, say when it comes to EU or a possible collaboration with Labour? It gets elected, what does it do in its first 3 months in power?





Ok, I thought that would be a significant thing for people. Are we talking about a workers' party simply -or mainly- in terms of asking it to have mass support among the working class or for the revolutionary party of the working class?
I'm not interested at all in building a party like the first one and I don't see its point in the UK or elsewhere. But the party that could become the worker's party is a completely different story. However, as you say, at this time in England the majority of the workers aren't by no means "revolutionary". A revolutionary party would need to be very small to be comprised of those workers who are, it couldn't exist otherwise.

Of course, I think that even if a party that has a revolutionary character is now small, it has the potential to build trust with the masses, grow and play a decisive role in bringing a new "October 25th"again. That potential would be guaranteed by its character.

This post shows that you have little understanding of the quite unique socio-economic conditions that have prevailed in Britain since the Industrial Revolution., and in particular since the 1830s, indeed as recognised by Engels, for one.

There is no way that a small group of ideologically advanced and wholly committed, class conscious revolutionaries will succeed, in any way. You only have to look at the myriad of small sects in this country, with more revolutionary experience than you've had hot dinners, who simply fail spectacularly to raise the working class out of their current reactionary stupor.

[Jolly Red Giant]

If that's the case then explain this:
You are taking one short quote - completely out of context - and lacking completely in an understanding of the balance of class forces and the nature of the British LP at the time.


And Ronnie Bunting, a Protestant, was a member of the INLA. So what? Loyalist workers did actively participate in the crushing of the civil rights movement and contributed more to the mass bloodletting which flowed from that than any Republican organisation.
There is a big difference between a couple of ultra left Protestants joining the INLA and Protestant workers from nearby housing estates actively participating in the defence of neighbouring Catholic communities.


But many more played a role in the anti-Catholic pogroms.
This is actually a questionable point - but remember this - Northern Ireland is a sectarian state - over the past 200 years sectarian attacks by Protestant against Catholic and Catholic against Protestant have been a feature of this society - It is hardly surprising if some Protestants engage in sectarian attacks against Catholics and some Catholics engage in sectarian attacks against Protestants. The number of Protestants who participated in actions against Catholics at the begining of the troubles was very small in number - most of the activity was carried out by the state forces (in particular the B-Specials).



Personally I got the impression that the authors have some sort of reverence for the Officials.
If you seriously think that then you don't know the people who wrote the book - I do (one of whom I have know for well over 20 years) - and I also know their political affiliation and it most certainly was not pro-OIRA/OSF (nor CWI in case you think that).


I'm not exactly sure what's so interesting about a bunch of pro-Unionist Stalinists and criminals. May they continue to wither and be confined to the dustbin of history!
The WP is a dead duck - the interesting part of the book is more about what it tells us about PIRA and the INLA than anything else.


This was of course the correct position to take.
Okay - you are arguing here that it was correct for the left to support the entry of the British troops into Northern Ireland in 1969 and then it was correct to engage in 'armed struggle' to remove them.

I have read few more astounding comments - even the lefts who supported the introduction of the troops keep quiet about it today - rather than defend it.


Please explain to me why one set of nationalists, who happen to wrap themselves in 'communist' red rather than Islamic green, are more 'progressive' than the other?
For one reason and one reason only - the Stalinists introduced a planned economy which was significantly more beneficial to the working class and peasants in Vietnam than a reactionary capitalist regime.


Have the Vietnamese Stalinists proven themselves to be champions of the working class in some manner that I am unaware of?
You may have missed it so I will give you the quote again - 'critical' support - unlike yourself who gives 'uncritical' support to every rag-tag force that launches terror attacsk against imperialist forces.


I'm talking purely at the level of politics here and which class interests they truly serve,
The class base of the Viet Cong was among the working class and the oppressed peasantry - unlike groups like the PIRA and even more so the INLA (who never had a similar base in the Catholic working class). Also the Viet Cong at the time did not discriminate against any oppressed section of Vietnam society (although the bureaucracy do now) unlike the situation in the North.


guerrillaism may have been called for and been successful against US imperialism but perhaps not against Zionism.
Guerrillaism is only a useful tactic (and a tactic is all it is) in a society that is overwhelmingly peasant based - and even then the working class will play a key role. There are now only a handful of countries in the world where it would even be remotely likely to lead to the overthrow of a reactionary capitalist regime.

What was happening in Northern Ireland was not guerrillaism - it was individual terror - it was not a mass guerrilla army - it was a small number of unaccountable individuals intending to replace the working class as the revolutionary force - it was not progressive force - it was reactionary and played into the hands of the state, the loyalist parties and the loyalist paramilitaries.

[Woyzeck]

and lacking completely in an understanding of the balance of class forces and the nature of the British LP at the time.

Is that supposed to explain away that horrendous quote?


This is actually a questionable point - but remember this - Northern Ireland is a sectarian state - over the past 200 years sectarian attacks by Protestant against Catholic and Catholic against Protestant have been a feature of this society - It is hardly surprising if some Protestants engage in sectarian attacks against Catholics and some Catholics engage in sectarian attacks against Protestants. The number of Protestants who participated in actions against Catholics at the begining of the troubles was very small in number - most of the activity was carried out by the state forces (in particular the B-Specials). Who were of course largely drawn from the Protestant community. The level of sectarian violence is completely lobbed-sided towards loyalism. It was a sectarian state that discriminated in favour of Protestants against Catholics, and while Catholics have of course committed horrible crimes against Protestants too, claiming they were on an equal footing is to once again equate oppressed with oppressor.


If you seriously think that then you don't know the people who wrote the book Never claimed to, but relax, it was just an impression I got from reading their book.


I do (one of whom I have know for well over 20 years) - and I also know their political affiliation and it most certainly was not pro-OIRA/OSF (nor CWI in case you think that).What was/is it then?


The WP is a dead duck - the interesting part of the book is more about what it tells us about PIRA and the INLA than anything else. And the OIRA post-'disappearing' off the scene.


Okay - you are arguing here that it was correct for the left to support the entry of the British troops into Northern Ireland in 1969 and then it was correct to engage in 'armed struggle' to remove them.

I have read few more astounding comments - even the lefts who supported the introduction of the troops keep quiet about it today - rather than defend it. What are you on about? I meant CWI's position of opposing troop deployments was the correct one. Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly but I would have thought it was obvious by now that I wouldn't support the further militarisation of Britain's occupation of Ireland.


For one reason and one reason only - the Stalinists introduced a planned economy which was significantly more beneficial to the working class and peasants in Vietnam than a reactionary capitalist regime.So nothing to do with socialism then.


You may have missed it so I will give you the quote again - 'critical' support - unlike yourself who gives 'uncritical' support to every rag-tag force that launches terror attacsk against imperialist forces.Where have I advocated "uncritical support" for "every rag-tag force that launches terror attacks against imperialist forces"?


The class base of the Viet Cong was among the working class and the oppressed peasantry - unlike groups like the PIRA and even more so the INLA (who never had a similar base in the Catholic working class). Also the Viet Cong at the time did not discriminate against any oppressed section of Vietnam society (although the bureaucracy do now) unlike the situation in the North. What "oppressed section" of the North did/do the PIRA and INLA discriminate against?


Guerrillaism is only a useful tactic (and a tactic is all it is) in a society that is overwhelmingly peasant based - and even then the working class will play a key role. There are now only a handful of countries in the world where it would even be remotely likely to lead to the overthrow of a reactionary capitalist regime.Agreed.


What was happening in Northern Ireland was not guerrillaism - it was individual terror - it was not a mass guerrilla army - it was a small number of unaccountable individuals intending to replace the working class as the revolutionary force - it was not progressive force - it was reactionary and played into the hands of the state, the loyalist parties and the loyalist paramilitaries.On the whole I agree but what was the alternative?

[Jolly Red Giant]

It was a sectarian state that discriminated in favour of Protestants against Catholics, and while Catholics have of course committed horrible crimes against Protestants too, claiming they were on an equal footing is to once again equate oppressed with oppressor.
putting words in my mouth again -

The Northern Iriash state IS a sectarian state - and the discrimination you are talking about iss overwhelmingly in favour of the capitalist class (both Catholic and Protestant) and against the working class (both Catholic and Protestant) - British Imerialism used sectarianism (and not just in Northern Ireland) to protect the interests of capitalism by fostering a religious divide. And created a monster that it can no longer control. They primarily leaned on sections of the Protestant community through loyalist parties and paramilitaries - and were facilitated by Nationalist/Republican parties and paramilitaries.



What was/is it then?
That would be telling - I will however say that they are left-wing in outlook.



Perhaps I didn't phrase that properly
Most certainly didn't


So nothing to do with socialism then. The planned economy is an integral part of socialism and a progression over capitalism by virtue of the removal of the private ownership of property is an advance on the current situation.


Where have I advocated "uncritical support" for "every rag-tag force that launches terror attacks against imperialist forces"?
So what are you criticisms of hamas and the Taliban? - you actually seem to be more critical of left-wing forces like the Viet Cong than reactionary forces - maybe you expect more of them - but if that is the case then it is not a particularly marxist approach.

What "oppressed section" of the North did/do the PIRA and INLA discriminate against?



On the whole I agree but what was the alternative?
Working class unity - built on a class basis around class issues - paramilitarism is regressive and reactionary - it divides the working class and re-inforces the capitalist state apparatus and their manipulation of working class people. It hasn't worked, it can't work and it won't work at any stage in the future. Indeed unless a class alternative to sectarian politics is built it is inevitable that paramilitary activity (complemented by activity by the state forces) will once again become the dominant feature in Northern Ireland - but most likely on an even more intense scale than has been seen for a long time. The end result will be intensified and ongoing suffering among the working class (both Catholic and Protestant) and a likely regression to an even more reactionary state in the South and Britain.

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Stop strawmanning. Abstentionism never overthrew any states, I am sorry to say.
Care to name any states that were overthrown by voting?


I am sorry but being totally opposed to the EU does not make you a nationalist, as that is the only argument trying to be run here. Being totally opposed to the EU does not equatesupporting your own national government. This is simply a false dillemma.
No, but a lot depends on the way you phrase it. Being totally opposed to Hamas does not equate supporting Israel, but if someone only criticised Hamas and never mentioned Israel they'd be treated with suspicion - rightly so, IMO. Equally, the way No2EU framed themselves as being against the EU without having a critique of the British state meant they looked like nationalists by default.

[Woyzeck]

That would be telling - I will however say that they are left-wing in outlook.

That could mean anything. Why not just tell me?


So what are you criticisms of hamas and the Taliban? - you actually seem to be more critical of left-wing forces like the Viet Cong than reactionary forces - maybe you expect more of them - but if that is the case then it is not a particularly marxist approach. My criticisms of Hamas and the Taliban? Horrible reactionaries who will betray the workers and poor of their respective countries the first chance they get. I'm not "more critical" of Stalinists. I simply have no illusions about their 'progressiveness' because they use leftist-sounding rhetoric and nationalise everything under the sun.


Working class unity - built on a class basis around class issues - paramilitarism is regressive and reactionary - it divides the working class and re-inforces the capitalist state apparatus and their manipulation of working class people. It hasn't worked, it can't work and it won't work at any stage in the future. Indeed unless a class alternative to sectarian politics is built it is inevitable that paramilitary activity (complemented by activity by the state forces) will once again become the dominant feature in Northern Ireland - but most likely on an even more intense scale than has been seen for a long time. The end result will be intensified and ongoing suffering among the working class (both Catholic and Protestant) and a likely regression to an even more reactionary state in the South and Britain. Working class unity is naturally desirable but impossible while so many workers in Northern Ireland remain wedded to what is in essence fascism. Loyalism must be confronted and the national oppression of Ireland dealt with as part of a wider program that will lead the workers' movement down the revolutionary path. I agree that the situation in Northern Ireland remains unstable and it is so because it is built on the sand of sectarianism and Britain's efforts to remain in Ireland and, above all, preserve the capitalist order.

[FSL]

This post shows that you have little understanding of the quite unique socio-economic conditions that have prevailed in Britain since the Industrial Revolution., and in particular since the 1830s, indeed as recognised by Engels, for one.

There is no way that a small group of ideologically advanced and wholly committed, class conscious revolutionaries will succeed, in any way. You only have to look at the myriad of small sects in this country, with more revolutionary experience than you've had hot dinners, who simply fail spectacularly to raise the working class out of their current reactionary stupor.


Your argument is "it hasn't happenned, therefore impossible"? Impressive.

The Tories are a mass party, let's see if they can help the country advance to socialism.

[Revy]

There is no way that a small group of ideologically advanced and wholly committed, class conscious revolutionaries will succeed, in any way. You only have to look at the myriad of small sects in this country, with more revolutionary experience than you've had hot dinners, who simply fail spectacularly to raise the working class out of their current reactionary stupor.

That's assuming that the "myriad of small sects" is made up on "ideologically advanced and wholly committed, class conscious revolutionaries".;)

[Jolly Red Giant]

Working class unity is naturally desirable but impossible while so many workers in Northern Ireland remain wedded to what is in essence fascism.
Wow - massive leap there - so many (you forgot to put in 'Protestant') workers wedded to fascism - talk about dismissing the potential of the working class!!! -

Actually what it does show is that you have absolutely no understanding of the Protestant working class - they are simple dismissed as 'wedded to what is in essence fascism'


Loyalism must be confronted and the national oppression of Ireland dealt with as part of a wider program that will lead the workers' movement down the revolutionary path.
How has that worked out for you so far? - I haven't seen any positive results for it - in fact, I have seen the opposite - confronting 'loyalism' and 'the national oppression of Ireland' with guns has been a spectacular failure. You are not going to lead Protestant workers anywhere by claimed that they are wedded to fascism and then trying to bomb and shoot them into changing their minds.


I agree that the situation in Northern Ireland remains unstable and it is so because it is built on the sand of sectarianism and Britain's efforts to remain in Ireland and, above all, preserve the capitalist order.
And this shows the lack of understanding of imperialism - British imperialism has no strategic interest in remaining in Northern Ireland. It is a massive economic and political drain on the British state. Unfortunately for them the sectarian monster they created will not allow them to leave. The only way of getting British Imperialism off the island is through socialist revolution (not national liberation) and that will only occur when the majority of the working class (Catholic and Protestant) have developed a class consciousness to move in that direction - and that will only happen by building class unity on the basis of class issues (rather than nationalist ones).

[Benjamin Hill]

Could all off topic posts be, like on the Falklands/Malvinas War and Ireland, be splitted off in a separate discussion? That would be very helpful.

[Benjamin Hill]

This post was made on 5 January on the blog "Though cowards flinch" (so, just before TUSC was announced), it's links have been cut out as I can't post those yet: thoughcowardsflinch (dot) com/2010/01/05/prospects-for-son-of-no2eu/


Prospects for Son of No2EU?
January 5, 2010

According to an article published by the AWL, and re-posted at Socialist Unity, the Railway, Martime and Transport workers’ union (RMT) has voted not to support the Socialist Party-Communist Party of Britain-Alliance for Green Socialism lash-up on a national level at the incoming General Election. The AWL article assumes that this means the prospects for the performance of a son of No2EU are poor.

Before one renders judgment, there’s a fair amount of information to gather in – information which the Socialist Party and its erstwhile partners have not published. In how many seats, for example, any Son of No2EU would plan to stand in. Dave Nellist standing for his old seat in Coventry is almost a given, and I hope he wins it. Plus there are other areas where struggles have recently forged new activists and leaders of the working class – which any potential Left electoral coalition should seek to support.

Whether or not that means endorsing some Respect candidates, or some Green Party candidates is irrelevant to the fortunes of No2EU, as I doubt very much if the organisation was planning to stand additional Left challengers in seats such as Brighton Pavillion or in Birmingham. On that basis, I’ll pass on without stating precisely which organisations I would or would not endorse (though it’s well known that my desire to see John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and Katy Clarke re-elected is nigh unconditional).
It is with the re-election of these, and other members of the RMT Parliamentary Group (of Labour MPs), that the RMT is most concerned. However that doesn’t mean that local RMT branches won’t have their say. In Scotland, some may still work with the Scottish Socialist Party. In Wales, some are reported to be working with a rather odd group called Forward Wales. Thus in England, outside of the constituencies like Hayes and Harlington, which Left-Labour MPs are defending, local RMT groups might still back a Son of NO2EU.

Some local RMT branches, such as in Portsmouth, have already decided to stand candidates on the basis of the People’s Charter. Personally I’m all for this; it could lead to powerful local networks of activists, provided it is pursued democratically and with a view to bringing in new people, not just Union full timers and members. In such instances, pulling in support from groups like the FBU shouldn’t be difficult either, and SP should have internal discussions about committing local activists to such campaigns if they live too far away from areas the SP will be contesting.

On the other hand, however, the People’s Charter doesn’t have any concrete national organisation that I can see – and for the purposes of managing the platform and democratic accountability, this makes things difficult. The Son of No2EU idea, as explained by Dave Nellist at the 3rd RMT Conference on the future of working class political representation, was to be federally organised, with decisions taken consensually, as befits what would be a short-lived alliance between different groups, each of which appeals to people to the Left of, and fed up with, Labour.

There was some talk about the creation of a People’s Charter steering committee, to arrange to stand or endorse candidates all around the country, with the idea supposed to go before the RMT national executive, but no news has yet emerged on the subject. This leaves Son of NO2EU in a rather difficult position, ahead of a general election that is not six months away. If it is reduced to its core areas, then it will have little trouble getting local support. Voting for Dave Nellist is pretty uncontroversial in socialist circles.

Yet the ambiguity with what is being done on behalf of the People’s Charter makes moving beyond this strategy a bit risky, and more lilkely to lead to conflict between the groups in question. On the other hand, restriction to the core constituencies reduces the chance of making contact with new votes, which potentially represent new activists.

If there is to be a Son of No2EU, and it decides only to stand in the constituencies the SP would contest anyway, then personally I would prefer if the SP stood under its own name, with smaller partners in support, as part of a broader attempt to shore up and gain working class socialist representation. It at least has a decent profile thanks to its activist work, and the name has socialism in the title. Everywhere else, it would then be free to endorse any candidates standing on behalf of the People’s Charter, as well as the de rigeur endorsement of Left-Labour MPs.

[Benjamin Hill]

This post was posted yesterday on the blog "A very public sociologist" (links have been cut out again):

averypublicsociologist.blogspot (dot) com/2010/01/trade-union-socialist-coalition.html


Trade Union & Socialist Coalition: Prospects

This week's issue of The Socialist carries an article on the official launch of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC, or 'tusk'). This is basically No2EU without the embarrassing euroscepticism, the Alliance for Green Socialism (if you accept this Weekly Worker piece as good coin) and, more significantly, the Rail Maritime and Transport union. To try and dampen anticipated disappointment some comrades (not least Socialist Party members themselves) will have with the RMT executive's decision not to support TUSC, the article goes on to note that it still retains the support of Bob Crow, the Prison Officers' Association general secretary (and SP member) Brian Caton, and various national officers of the Public and Commercial Services union (i.e. in all probability, leading SP members in the union). It argues "While there is no formal involvement of a national trade union, this is still an important coalescing on the political plane of the most fighting trade union leaders in Britain today."

What prospects for the new formation? Leaving aside questions of electoral performance (which will surely be very modest outside 'star' candidates), there are two interrelated points against which it should be measured: can TUSC can break down the awful sectarian culture of the far left, and does it constitute a step toward a new left alternative.

On the first count, its potential is very mixed. Like No2EU and very much in line with the SP's favoured structure for alliances, TUSC has a federal character in the sense that a core series of policy positions exist but each participant is free to produce their own supplementary material. No one group rules the roost. This approach can provide a context for comradely relations across different organisations to grow "organically". But equally it can lock in the existing 'ourselves, alone' practice of the revolutionary left. With complete freedom for TUSC's components, would Communist Party comrades, for example, help out a SWP TUSC candidate (yes, they're sort of on board too) or concentrate their time and resources at a CPB challenge 20 miles up the road?

What about the role of independents? Again the federal structure is a double-edged sword. TUSC is operating a relatively open policy when it comes to candidatures. If left-inclined independents want to use its name for the general election, it's doubtful the steering committee would object (the cpgb's desire to use the name for their election campaign will probably be a different matter). But there's not a lot on offer for independents in areas where candidates are drawn from one of the core groups. Some might ask themselves if it's worth bothering participating in a campaign they have no say over.

Then there's the steering group itself. There are seats reserved for each of No2EU's core supporters, plus "stars" like brothers Crow and Caton. I imagine new "affiliates" would be co-opted - such as the SWP or localised groups like Wigan's Community Action Party - but, unfortunately, democracy is lacking. And where there is no accountability, the deliberations of the steering group are likely to remain opaque, just as it was in the secretive lead up to TUSC's appearance.

The next question to be asked of TUSC is what is it for? No2EU was very far from perfect, but at least for SP comrades there was a sense it was part of a process. Regular readers might want to cast their minds back to the European elections where I argued No2EU was worthwhile because the RMT's involvement might have paved the way for other trade union-backed challenges in the future. As far as the SP was concerned, it offered an opening to advance its strategic perspective of founding a new workers' party. TUSC is viewed through the same prism. The article concludes it "is a modest but important step in the development of a movement of resistance".
The problem is, compared with preceding alliances in England and Wales, TUSC proceeds on a lower level than No2EU (i.e. lack of RMT), Respect (with its deep roots in a handful of communities) and the Socialist Alliance (which, despite its faults, developed its own relatively independent dynamic). It is more like the Socialist Green Unity Coalition - the skeletal electoral umbrella/non-aggression pact between several left groups during the 2005 elections - than its predecessors. It does possess more weight than the SGUC, but one shouldn't overstate the presence of comrades Crow and Caton. They will not deliver very many extra votes, nor is there any evidence they will attract union support from elsewhere (a point underlined by the No2EU experience). If the RMT were still officially involved (rather than its settled position of letting local branches determine who they wish to support, while the national union organises to make sure its sponsored Labour MPs are returned) it might be a different kettle of fish. But as it stands, regrettably, there's every danger TUSC could be less than the sum of its parts.

What makes this really frustrating is that after 15 years of regroupment projects, this is where the far left is at. Opportunities to lay the foundations for something lasting and with wider support has been squandered by sectarian interests, egos and petty control freakery, and each and every principal organisation of the far left shoulders a share of the blame. The lasting feature of our procession of unity initiatives has been the sinking of new wells of resentment - so much for the Marxist left being the socialist society of the future in embryo.

The window of opportunity the far left has had to make an impact outside its ghetto is closing. The Labour party is, once again, starting to look like the place where the issue of working class representation will be debated and contested in the coming years - despite the stranglehold of the apparatus and lack of meaningful democracy. This means TUSC's prospects, even if it becomes something more than an alliance of convenience, are probably very limited.

[Revy]

I think there should be critical support to this. But don't have illusions in this being a "revolutionary" project at this moment in time. That's what it should become, though I think the current leadership of the coalition would have to be overthrown.

[ls]

So a party that calls for a revolution and a new state, obviously. A marxist-leninist party too, complete with democratic centralism? What would its stance be on modern matters, say when it comes to EU or a possible collaboration with Labour? It gets elected, what does it do in its first 3 months in power?

If it gets elected? You even think an openly revolutionary socialist party in this country - has the ability to get elected with a majority in parliament? Nevermind the other obvious 'ultra-leftist' factors in play.


Ok, I thought that would be a significant thing for people. Are we talking about a workers' party simply -or mainly- in terms of asking it to have mass support among the working class or for the revolutionary party of the working class?

Quite simply, I'd forgive a party for certain reactionary traits provided they have a chance of ridding themselves of the traits in question, this doesn't just go for parties, I personally support federations and perhaps, syndicalist unions provided they again have mass support. My personal preference though, is for a mass workers' party that's building mass support among the working-class and has an active section of workers, working to eventually establish a revolutionary party of the working-class, a left faction of the party.


I'm not interested at all in building a party like the first one and I don't see its point in the UK or elsewhere. But the party that could become the worker's party is a completely different story. However, as you say, at this time in England the majority of the workers aren't by no means "revolutionary". A revolutionary party would need to be very small to be comprised of those workers who are, it couldn't exist otherwise.

Of course, I think that even if a party that has a revolutionary character is now small, it has the potential to build trust with the masses, grow and play a decisive role in bringing a new "October 25th"again. That potential would be guaranteed by its character.

There seems little point in building yet another dead end sect party, when there seems little chance of revolution. But that's just my opinion apparently.

[FSL]

If it gets elected? You even think an openly revolutionary socialist party in this country - has the ability to get elected with a majority in parliament? Nevermind the other obvious 'ultra-leftist' factors in play.



Quite simply, I'd forgive a party for certain reactionary traits provided they have a chance of ridding themselves of the traits in question, this doesn't just go for parties, I personally support federations and perhaps, syndicalist unions provided they again have mass support. My personal preference though, is for a mass workers' party that's building mass support among the working-class and has an active section of workers, working to eventually establish a revolutionary party of the working-class, a left faction of the party.



There seems little point in building yet another dead end sect party, when there seems little chance of revolution. But that's just my opinion apparently.


"If it gets elected?" Well if it got power anyway, I thought it was pretty clear what I meant. It was also a hypothesis just to see what someone considers revolutionary, not a real prospect.


And yes, there are apparently different approaches. In my daily life I see PaSoK governing, it has strong ties with the working class going back to its anti-imperialist, independent socialism days. It also has a left faction. Some MPs in the past few months have been saying the funniest things like "It's not the markets that rule Greece, but its people!". There were some entryist Trotskyists as well there until the early 90s when they got expelled. I can't see any hope in these people, they obviously made their choise on where they stand. A bolshevick-style party, even if it's small enough to be considered a sect at the beginning, is the only thing I can see with any chance of helping bring forth change.

[tellyontellyon]

Re: the Socialist Party/Militant position on British troops in NI.

http://www.socialistparty.net/index.php/news/northern-ireland/216-august-1969-when-british-troops-went-in-to-northern-ireland.html

"Militant – the forerunner of the Socialist Party – was alone on the left in taking a clear class position. Then a four page black and white monthly, the headline of the September 1969 issue of Militant demanded the withdrawal of the troops. It called instead for an armed trade union defence force. An article analysing the situation warned: ‘The call made for the entry of British troops will turn to vinegar in the mouths of some of the civil rights leaders. The troops have been sent to impose a solution in the interests of British and Ulster big business’."

[ls]

"If it gets elected?" Well if it got power anyway, I thought it was pretty clear what I meant. It was also a hypothesis just to see what someone considers revolutionary, not a real prospect.

Fair enough.


And yes, there are apparently different approaches. In my daily life I see PaSoK governing, it has strong ties with the working class going back to its anti-imperialist, independent socialism days. It also has a left faction. Some MPs in the past few months have been saying the funniest things like "It's not the markets that rule Greece, but its people!".

And the old Labour MP Bernie Grant from Tottenham a constituency near me, cheered on rioters who hacked a deserving policeman to death, in fact Bernie said "what they [the police] got was a bloody good hiding"; did that make him revolutionary too? London's mayor Ken Livingstone described himself as an "anarcho-syndicalist", Sweden's government said they were looking into nationalising most of the economy and did to an extent.. what does it amount to really? From these people, we'll only ever hear words and actions that get contradicted by others.


There were some entryist Trotskyists as well there until the early 90s when they got expelled. I can't see any hope in these people, they obviously made their choise on where they stand. A bolshevick-style party, even if it's small enough to be considered a sect at the beginning, is the only thing I can see with any chance of helping bring forth change.

There's a clear difference between a sect and a small, but developing party. Also, if you want to support a party like the one you describe, then why not support the CPGB-ML? They are pretty much everything you would want I imagine. Harpal predictably professing some support for Scargill, they are your run of the mill MLs I suppose.

[FSL]

There's a clear difference between a sect and a small, but developing party. Also, if you want to support a party like the one you describe, then why not support the CPGB-ML? They are pretty much everything you would want I imagine. Harpal predictably professing some support for Scargill, they are your run of the mill MLs I suppose.


It's not their small membership that would stop me but some of their positions/attitudes. But were I in the UK, I'd see me in one of the currently "sect-like" parties, 60% chance CPB 40% chance the MLs.

The UK would need a better party but better in terms of politics, not popularity. I think this comes naturally -even at a slow pace- when you get your head straight.

[Woyzeck]

Wow - massive leap there - so many (you forgot to put in 'Protestant') workers wedded to fascism - talk about dismissing the potential of the working class!!! -

How am I "dismissing the potential of the working class"? I'm not the one who thinks that Stalinist "planned economies" have something to do with working class revolution and socialism but then derides paramilitaries for going over the heads of the workers.


Actually what it does show is that you have absolutely no understanding of the Protestant working class - they are simple dismissed as 'wedded to what is in essence fascism'Enlighten me so.


How has that worked out for you so far? - I haven't seen any positive results for it - in fact, I have seen the opposite - confronting 'loyalism' and 'the national oppression of Ireland' with guns has been a spectacular failure. You are not going to lead Protestant workers anywhere by claimed that they are wedded to fascism and then trying to bomb and shoot them into changing their minds.When have I advocated using terrorism to combat loyalism?


And this shows the lack of understanding of imperialism - British imperialism has no strategic interest in remaining in Northern Ireland. It is a massive economic and political drain on the British state. Unfortunately for them the sectarian monster they created will not allow them to leave. Imperialist ventures such as Iraq and Afghanistan are a colossal drain on the countries involved if you take it at face value. The fact that Britain's continued occupation of Ireland costs the British taxpayer is irrelevant. It's not like Joe Bloggs the taxpayer has a say in the matter.


The only way of getting British Imperialism off the island is through socialist revolution (not national liberation) and that will only occur when the majority of the working class (Catholic and Protestant) have developed a class consciousness to move in that direction - and that will only happen by building class unity on the basis of class issues (rather than nationalist ones).Don't see much wrong with any of that.