WeeklyWorker

Letters

Our struggle

In their letter, headed ‘Opportunist duo’ (February 9), Ryan Frost (CPGB) and Andries Stroper (Communist Platform) ask a number of questions that appear to mainly be directed at the CPGB’s PCC. We cannot answer these questions for them and will not aim to do so.

However, the comrades also have personally asked the board of Communist Platform to clarify some matters. Since the discussion with the CPGB started because of reports on our conference, they have asked us to elaborate on how we discussed the matter of Nato and war within de Socialisten. This elaboration is identical to the elaboration we gave to the PCC mentioned in the recent statement. We hope it can help clear things up for comrades with regards to our attitude so far in the de Socialisten project.

De Socialisten was not a unity project by design. Rather, as avid readers of this paper may know already, after six of our members were purged in the ongoing conflict within the Socialist Party and ties of the SP with their youth organisation, Rood, were severed, we came together with other left groups active in the party to start ‘Marxistisch Forum’ - a pole of attraction to unite Marxists within the SP, as well as the initiative ‘SP tegen de Heksenjacht’ (SP against the witch-hunt) to fight against bureaucratic attacks from the leadership. Both were initiated by CP, but were not limited to our members.

When candidates from the Marxistisch Forum threatened to be elected over candidates supported by the party bureaucracy, the SP classified both Rood and Marxistisch Forum as political parties to allow for a much larger purge. This led to a further exodus of frustrated members of the left wing of the SP and from this de Socialisten was born. The project in its current formation consists of purged SP members, members who left the SP because of the purge or who had previously left, as well as some individuals and groups who did not want to be active in the SP, but did want to join de Socialisten. CP does not have a majority of members in the project, but it is the largest organised faction. Other factions are much smaller or not very well organised at all, and many members are not part of any faction or organised tendency.

It should be noted that the Mandelites are far from the only ones within the project with an unprincipled line on the Ukraine war. Nor is the issue of social-imperialism the only instance of a sizable group of members having politics that are incompatible with class independence (eg, there are even members who think calling for the abolition of the monarchy is too much out there already). Because of this, as well as the general lack of organisation and political education on the Dutch left, CP has been making efforts to try and avoid any hasty party formation - to the annoyance of many others in the project. We do think that de Socialisten could potentially develop into a Communist Party in the long run, but that unity on principles and basic functioning of the project would need to be achieved first.

Therefore, during the first conference of de Socialisten, our focus was on going for cooperation, based on more limited unity, to be able to build from there. We wanted to avoid at all costs the formation of any opportunistic unity based on the lowest common denominator or to found a ‘party’ solely intended for participating in elections. This would only result in a Socialist Party mark two. We have emphasised throughout what we believe constitutes a party, as well as the need for a Communist Party. This discussion did not make us popular, but appeared necessary as a focus so as not to have the project dead on arrival.

The differences in principles on the Ukraine war were used repeatedly as an example by us in this context - although it was indeed not the core topic of this first conference, which set out to answer the party question, as well as agree on a ‘course document’.

In the period leading up to the conference we also put forward our position on the war - for example, at our educational weekend, where a session was held about the left and Ukraine (and at least one leading member of SAP/Grenzeloos was present) and where these politics were attacked. At the conference itself, we also proposed an amendment on the ‘Internationalism’ section of the course document to avoid vague language about self-determination being used later to excuse social-imperialism, which was accepted by the conference.

We did not compromise on internationalism or opposition to Nato at any point, but did reach a compromise text on the party question. This stated that de Socialisten would only become a party after agreeing on a programme, with the structures of the organisation functioning on a basic level: having at least 10 politically active local chapters with a full board (de Socialisten nationally did not manage to elect a secretary or treasurer); and its membership being active in an organised way in social and labour movements on the local and national level.

A separate decision was made by the conference to call the project a ‘party-in-formation’, which we opposed and voted against, but which sadly received a slim majority of the vote. We would argue that this compromise was mostly a compromise towards us, as it put a damper on the calls at the conference for immediate party unity (on an unprincipled basis).

It must also be noted that there was some confusion on the nature of the course document of de Socialisten. The CPGB comrades seemed to be under the impression that only the ‘general line’ of the document was discussed and no vote was taken on concrete matters. This would indeed have been very problematic and a path towards fudging differences and unclear unity. However, this was not the case at the conference. There was a concrete proposed text and votes were taken on concrete amendments, as well as the complete document.

This brings us to the ‘real political differences’ with the PCC. As far as we are aware, there have never been differences on principles in this regard: the political line set out in our joint statement is very similar to the one the CP board published immediately after the war broke out, as well as what we said afterwards. The main difference we perceived from the exchanges leading up to our meeting with the PCC is one of timing. Although we see the Ukraine war as a central issue, we think that there are various other important discussions to be had within the Socialisten project - mostly with regard to class independence, democratic republicanism and coalitions with bourgeois parties. Because of this, we believe that the extent to which we went into the discussion at the first conference was sufficient, mainly because the discussion did not end there.

During the second conference in May of this year, a draft programme will be on the agenda. We have four out of the 10 members on the programme committee and are trying to argue for a communist programme for de Socialisten. Like the document discussed at the first conference, this is a document for the long term. This means it is a good place for general internationalist principles, but not so much for de Socialisten taking a stance on the Ukraine war.

What we have seen from the Mandelites so far (one of whom is also on the programme committee) is that they have no issue with such general statements, taking the mind-boggling stance of being anti-Nato, but for “the right of Ukraine to obtain weapons, wherever they may be able to find them”. In effect they have pledged to suspend their criticisms of Nato and the military industry until after the war (and to start a campaign for disarmament then). This to us is at odds with the politics of ‘The main enemy is at home’ and has more than a whiff of Burgfriedenspolitik. Because of this, we intend to also propose a separate motion on the Ukraine question to force everyone to be open about their politics and have a genuine discussion about it.

Our position from the start has been that unity cannot be declared on an unprincipled basis, but instead has to be forged through open debate about our differences and principles. It should be clear that this struggle is far from over.

Communist Platform board
Netherlands-Belgium

Opportunist duo

Comrades Andries Stroper and Ryan Frost call for openness (Letters, February 9 2023). Good, a step forward for comrade Stroper - previously he had been urging private emails and cosy chats instead of open polemics. Frankly, not our method. We prefer considered letters, articles, motions, resolutions, etc.

No less to the point, he has made the claim that we had got the facts wrong, that we were badly misinformed, that we just did not understand the situation in the Netherlands (Letters, October 27). But the facts are perfectly clear. The Communist Platform did not upfront the Ukraine war at the founding conference of De Socialisten. Indeed, comrade Stroper boasted of pliability, avoiding so-called sectarianism and showing a willingness to compromise with the Netherlands section of the Mandelite ‘Fourth International’, the SAP-Grenzeloos (‘Uniting a motley band’, October 13).

Note, in the name of national self-determination and defending Ukraine from Russian aggression, SAP-Grenzeloos calls for yet more arms supplies to fuel what is a Nato proxy war. In other words, SAP-Grenzeloos has crossed class lines: it is a social-imperialist organisation and should be treated for what it is - a scab outfit.

Comrade Stroper got very upset about my characterisation of the Communist Platform’s conciliatory approach at the De Socialisten conference being a “headlong collapse into the most abject centrism”. Yet, having begun by dismissing the charge as “silly” and accusing me of “acting in bad faith”, he actually went on, in spite of himself, to accept that the Communist Platform did not upfront Ukraine. In fact, it did quite the opposite. True, comrade Stroper attempts to cover tracks with reference to Ukraine being indirectly debated, hinted at, argued about beforehand, afterwards, etc. But, despite the wrigglings, the evasion, facts are facts.

Now we have his latest missive implying dodgy dealing and unprincipled shifts. We are told that the Weekly Worker letter from the CPGB’s Ollie Hughes called for a “defensive purge” in De Socialisten and promised a “biting polemic” (November 24 2022). Then, apparently, “the discussion went silent” and “relations grew cold”. There were “no more publications on the matter, pending an official talk between the boards of the CPGB and the CP”.

Let’s be clear: comrade Hughes speaks for no-one apart from comrade Hughes. But what about things going silent? This is untrue - an oversight surely, not dishonesty. Mike Macnair, a member of the CPGB’s PCC, did intervene with a long letter (January 12). There he welcomed comrade Hughes’s change of mind over our criticisms of the Communist Platform. At the CPGB’s November 12 aggregate he was in a minority of one. Comrade Macnair explained the problem with Heath Robinson schemes for a “defensive purge” … and how it was unprincipled not to present members of De Socialisten with a clear political choice, when it comes to the Ukraine war.

Throughout, the CPGB had been seeking to engage with the Communist Platform. We debated the De Socialisten dispute at our December 8 2022 membership aggregate. Naturally the CP was given an invitation to attend. We also sought leadership-to-leadership discussions.

This was readily agreed by the Communist Platform board, but was repeatedly delayed because of other commitments, including a family bereavement. However, it finally happened on January 18. Yes, the meeting was, naturally enough, good-natured and comradely. Both sides agreed about the necessity of combating social-imperialism and the need for “open and honest debate” (ie, what the CPGB initiated on October 20 with my Weekly Worker letter). It was also agreed to issue a joint statement and meet on a regular basis to exchange views and information.

We now come to the nub of the matter. According to the duo’s thoroughly jaundiced version of events, “suddenly” - we are actually talking about two weeks - there was the publication of the joint statement, and the conflict had apparently been resolved, but supposedly this “left British and Dutch comrades alike puzzled”. Nameless “onlookers” are wondering: What about the allegations of ‘abject centrism’, ‘opportunism’, ‘dropping principle’, etc?

Doubtless there are more than a few sneering sects of one on the social media. Frankly, though, we should not give such elements the time of day. But, no, what we are really dealing with here is a series of objections from comrade Stroper himself. Objections, which I shall deal with one by one.

Firstly, we are asked: “Which new arguments arose in the talk between the boards that convinced the PCC to drop its attack on the CP?” Answer: the CPGB’s PCC has not dropped its criticisms of the Communist Platform at the De Socialisten conference. Ukraine should have been upfronted and a principled position presented. Nor has the CPGB dropped criticisms of comrade Stroper’s ‘Uniting a motley band’ article.

Secondly, we are asked, given that the “minutes of the talk indicate that there are still unspecified ‘real political differences’ - what are they?” Answer: well, I know nothing about any minutes. The preamble to the joint statement, drafted by myself, reads that it is “important” not to “hush over and hide … differences”. But, apart from the De Socialisten dispute, I am unaware of “real political differences” with the Communist Platform. Maybe this is not the case with comrade Stroper. If so, he should come clean about his differences, starting with the joint CP-CPGB statement.

Thirdly, we are asked: “what caused the shift in the CPGB’s position, as indicated by the phrase, ‘While it is a tactical question whether or not to work in the same organisations as the social-imperialists …’” Answer: there has been no shift. We have not altered our position one iota. The idea was suggested by myself in discussion and introduced in written form by the CP comrades. Obviously, we wholeheartedly agree. Historically the CPGB has fought to affiliate to the social-imperialist Labour Party. Today we have members who work in the social-imperialist Labour Party.

The CP found itself in unity with SAP-Grenzeloos by happenstance - because of the slash-and-burn purge conducted by the former Maoist leadership of the Netherlands Socialist Party, not out of some strategic choice. Unity is not the problem, though. It is seeking unity by minimising differences, brushing them aside, concocting diplomatic formulas, proposing implied, not upfront, criticisms for the sake of unity. That is the problem.

Finally, that the board of the Communist Platform has rebelled against centrism is excellent. Here is a rood salute!

Jack Conrad
London

Constitution

The demand for a new constitution is not inherently bourgeois, as Torab Saleth has explained (‘Whose constituent assembly?’, February 9). Nor should it be a demand limited to states with a particular kind of bourgeois rule.

As far as any change is imagined here in Britain, the mechanism proposed is usually the existing legislature, or perhaps a referendum. But a separate institution must be established to write a new constitution - it cannot be left to those governing to determine the limits to their power. This is a specific problem for the UK: our rulers have never been bound on paper to a single document we can wave in their faces when they rip up our rights.

The call for the creation and election of a constituent assembly is a democratic demand which needs to be raised by Marxists.

Ansell Eade
Lincolnshire

Internationalism

Last week Moshé Machover railed against my article, ‘Barking at the moon’ (February 2), for presenting the Arab-Israeli conflict “in false symmetry as a clash between two nationalisms” (Letters, February 9). The article shows “bad faith”, he said, because “It makes no mention of colonisation, colonial oppression, resistance to colonisation or the struggle for national liberation. Instead, it uses the false language of equal suffering.”

Examples abound, apparently. They include my statement that the new Israeli “government is doing to a growing portion of the Jewish population what Zionists have been doing to Palestinians for generations on end”, that “ultra-right Zionism is targeting ordinary Israelis no less than Palestinians” and that “Tit-for-tat violence is exploding inside Israel and the occupied territories”. The last is particularly offensive, according to Machover, because it suggests that “the massive, brutal assaults of one of the world’s most powerful armies are the ‘tat’ equated with the ‘tit’ of pathetic acts of armed resistance”.

This is absurd. Of course, tit-for-tat violence is growing - what else would Machover call it? When a 21-year-old Palestinian kills seven Jews in response not only to the Israeli raid on Jenin, but to the murder of his own grandfather by Jewish extremists 25 years earlier, what is it other than a tit-for-tat revenge killing? This is how the killer’s neighbours saw it, one of whom told The New York Times: “When Palestinians are being killed daily, they see any attack that kills Israelis as something that redeems their dignity.” It’s how Hamas saw it too, which is why it set off fireworks in Gaza and handed out sweets in celebration. This is not to say that the Palestinian and Israeli sides are equal - they’re obviously not. But the logic that has seized hold of both camps is equal - and equally counterproductive from a socialist perspective. Killing seven civilians is not “resistance”, pathetic or otherwise, to use Machover’s terminology. Rather, it’s murder pure and simple - a crime that plays equally into the hands of Hamas and Netanyahu, both of whom benefit when fratricidal violence drives yet another wedge in between Arab and Jewish workers.

I’m hardly the first one to make this argument. The Revolutionary Communist League of Palestine, the local arm of the Fourth International, said the same in summing up the results of UN-imposed partition back in 1948: “Jews and Arabs are drowned in a seat of chauvinist enthusiasm,” the RCL wrote. “Triumph on the one hand, rage and exasperation on the other. Communists are being murdered. Pogroms among Jews instigated. A tit-for-tat [that dreaded word again!] of murder and provocation. The ‘strafing expeditions’ of the Haganah are oil for the propaganda machine of the Arab patriots in their campaign to enlist the masses for more bloodshed. The military conflict and the smashing to pieces of the workers’ movements are a boon to the chauvinist extremists in either camp.”

Similarly, the pro-Moscow Communist Party of Palestine declared in 1946: “Partition must needs be disastrous for Jew and Arab alike ... partition is an imperialist scheme intended to give the British rule a new lease on life” (‘Against the Stream’ Fourth International May 1948).

“Alike” is the key word here, because it underscores the symmetry that the RCL and CP both sought to emphasise, as they struggled to unite the working class against the dual nationalism of Arabs and Jews. Working class unity is elementary Marxism. If Machover bristles at the mere suggestion, it’s because his aim is plainly the opposite: to short-circuit joint struggle before it can get off the ground.

This is why his outlook is so bleak. “This is an escalating conflict without resolution,” he declared in his presentation in the February 5 Online Communist Forum. “One thing is sure: the situation is going to exacerbate and lead to further horrors, further bloodshed and further atrocities.” He sees no way out, because he’s painted himself into a corner, ideologically speaking, and is furious with anyone who refuses to do the same.

I’m aware that certain leftists worship at the shrine of Moshé Machover. They listen raptly as he explains why nothing can be done and even make movies about his decades of struggle. But his misconceived anti-colonialism has led to an impasse, as he more or less concedes. After years of nationalist demagoguery, it should be crystal-clear that internationalism is the only way out and that the only way to achieve it is by both sides cleaning out their own camps - Israelis by getting rid of Netanyahu and co, and Palestinians by getting rid of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Daniel Lazare
New York

Cretinism

Last week, Fred Kingdom claimed to be an adherent of the ABCs of Marxism (Letters, February 9). I have news for Fred; he is actually an adherent of the ABCs of cretinism, for only a cretinist creed could ever put forward the idea that “you side with the oppressed against the oppressor, irrespective of the nature of the oppressor”.

In reality, anyone with half a brain will look more deeply than some kindergarten formulation and actually try to analyse the opposing factions - what interests are at play, what the competing forces are, etc. What anyone with half a brain will not do is say, ‘Hey, guys, let’s not think about this too deeply, because it’s the ABC of our movement to look at the oppressed and propagandise accordingly.’ So much for the scientific method!

The war in Ukraine is clearly a Nato proxy war aimed at Russia, and part of a wider and deranged conflict aimed at strangling the life out of China. Remember that the US empire and its client states could have:

They did none of the above. Everywhere the US empire has tried to escalate tensions.

If the Ukrainian war has taught us anything, it is who the real imperialists are. Russia has been subjected to an unprecedented level of sanctions in every field of life - from sport to culture, to economics. That shows who controls the major institutions in the world.

For example, when Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM - the three largest global container shipping companies - announced that they were suspending deliveries to Russia, with the exception of humanitarian supplies, it provided clear and irrefutable evidence that it is the US empire and its assorted lackeys who control the world’s shipping lanes.

You might have noticed that when the US and its lackeys invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc there were zero sanctions imposed on the USA and its lackeys. No shipping containers were stopped, no banking or financial transactions interrupted, no sports teams prevented from competing, no online media shut down.

But even if we follow Fred’s cretinist line, we still don’t arrive at the conclusions Fred does!

Who are the oppressed here? Clearly they are the people of eastern Ukraine, who have been subjected to a decade of artillery shelling, denial of basic democratic rights and right wing Ukrainian nationalist thuggery. Russia is actually protecting, not only its perfectly legitimate security concerns but also these oppressed people.

Fred talks about the people of Ukraine as if they are one unified mass and talks as if one half hasn’t been shelling the hell out of the other half for the past decade, with large swathes of Ukrainians consistently voting to leave Ukraine!

Missing the important and significant details is all part and parcel of his adherence to cretinism.

Steve Cousins
email

Proxy war

The war in Ukraine, as Fred Kingdom ought to know, is a proxy war between the US/Nato and Russia - even Tobias Ellwood stated this when interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on January 10. It is an extension of the economic war waged on Russia for the past two decades, the primary goal being to collapse the Russian economy, effect regime change, dismember Russia and permit the west - most specifically the USA - to plunder Russia’s vast resources.

Fred Kingdom declares: “It is the ABC of Marxism that you side with the oppressed against the oppressor ...” Absolutely correct. But in this instance, he does not appear to consider that it is the people of Donbass and other parts of east and south Ukraine, the majority of whom identify as Russian, who have been the oppressed and shelled for the last nine years by the fascist-infested Ukraine government and military. Does he not realise that under this regime, opposition parties and media are banned - a process which was set in motion before this current phase of the conflict - and workers’ rights have been eroded almost to extinction? Is he seriously suggesting that socialists and communists should support this and, by default, the imperialist designs on Russia?

As for the notion that anyone who doesn’t support Ukraine has crossed a class line, if there were any socialists and communists left in Ukraine (and I don’t mean the US-backed Social Movement and their ilk, so beloved of the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign and the wannabe - or actual - intelligence asset, Paul Mason), they were ‘disappeared’ some time ago.

I would also like Fred Kingdom to explain why he thinks Russia is an imperialist country. As far as I am aware, Russia does not have a central role globally in the dominance of monopolies and finance capital, its export of capital is insignificant compared to major capitalist nations and, most crucially, it has little part in the fundamental and essential activity of imperialism - which is the extraction of profit from developing countries.

John Preston
email