WeeklyWorker

Letters

YP Durham

Judging by the launch of the ‘official’ Your Party branch in County Durham, the current Central Executive Committee is a midwife presiding over a stillbirth. The long-awaited inaugural meeting on June 27 was attended by eight Durham YP members - eight! There was also one of the two CEC members for the North-East (a member of Teesside branch) and a staff member (or should that be ‘minder?’), taking the grand total up to 10, brought together in a single Zoom meeting.

Because I was already taking notes, I was asked to take the minutes. There was no formal agenda circulated in advance - ostensibly to allow members present to decide on our priorities. The nominations for branch officers (chair, treasurer, secretary, organiser and workplace liaison officer) would open the next day, for five days, and we were urged to put ourselves forward, by self-nomination.

One of the first questions asked by one comrade was, ‘How many members have we got?’ We were told that would be revealed when the branch was properly constituted with our elected officers. But the questions kept coming. How can we organise an election if we don’t know who the members are? Are we quorate? How can the meeting decide on priorities for the North-East if we don’t even know how many members we have? It was getting embarrassing. The staffer went away, apparently to ask permission to tell us.

After a pause, we were told there were 421 members in County Durham. I’m not sure about anyone else, but it came as a surprise to me that there was still as many as that. However, that raised more questions. It meant that the quorum for a properly constituted meeting would be 84 (20%, as stipulated in standing orders). Is there a quorum for the election? Is it valid if less than 84 people vote? If the first meeting is inquorate (which seems likely) is the election null and void? I was urged to put the questions in an email and they would be answered.

It seems that elections for the branch officers would not entail hustings meetings, although local groups were at liberty to organise them, if they wished. Candidates would be able to write personal statements, but otherwise people could do their own research on candidates on social media.

We are assured that there will be a YP stall at the July 11 Durham Miners’ Gala to facilitate recruiting. What materials would we have? What money do we have to pay for leaflets? Apparently, until such time as the officers are elected, funding would remain “autonomous” (that is, we have to buy stuff ourselves and claim it back). We were assured that the new officers would be issued with a handbook. That’s a relief! (Funny though - the lack of a handbook never came up in any discussion in YP at any point to my knowledge.) Aside from the stall, there is to be a pre-gala meeting at the Radisson Blu Hotel Durham. That’ll cost a pretty penny, but there was no information on who would be there. I know Jeremy Corbyn is in town for the gala - there is a rumour that he will be signing copies of his new book - but there was no indication that he would be at the meeting.

We were also reminded of upcoming local elections next year and that would be a priority, which, considering how low a priority it was at the last elections, was another surprise.

Anyway, I have to feel sorry for anyone who puts themselves forward for the branch officers’ posts. From where I was sitting, it looked like their historic mission is to be the people to carry the can for the death of the branch. I won’t be among them!

Ian Spencer
Durham

Gregson’s ego

I was extremely surprised to see, out of the blue, a letter from Peter Gregson saying I had refused to speak alongside him at a Patrons for Peace event at Palestine House on May 30 and that my reasons for so doing was because I “could not speak alongside someone who said the holocaust was exaggerated”.

This, like much else Gregson says, is untrue. Although my exchanges with the organisers are and will remain private, the reasons for my refusing to speak alongside Gregson are contained in my blog, ‘Why the Palestine solidarity movement should have nothing to do with Peter Gregson’ (tinyurl.com/3z3d3dwr).

If Gregson’s only fault was to have misspoken or used the wrong word (‘exaggerate’), then, of course, I would not have boycotted him. The reasons why I suggested, nearly three years ago, that people should avoid having anything to do with him are contained in a petition signed by the founders of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, Mick Napier (chair of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign), Asa Winstanley, Leon Rosselson, Graham Bash and other labour movement, Palestine solidarity and Jewish activists.

The comments I and others objected to were statements such as:

Gregson was initially expelled by Labour Against the Witchhunt in 2019 for posting a petition with a link to an article by Ian Fantom that defended a holocaust denier, Nick Kollerstrom, who Gregson described as a “holocaust sceptic”. Fantom wrote that Kollerstrom “had been targeted in a witch-hunt for a literature review he wrote on The Auschwitz ‘gas chamber’ illusion and a … swimming pool at Auschwitz”.

It is because of this that the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the Scottish PSC and a host of other organisations and individuals refuse to work with Gregson.

I told those who invited me to the May 30 event that it was their decision whether or not to disinvite Gregson, but regardless I would not make their decision public. Gregson, because of his own ego, has decided that attacking me is more important than giving Zionists ammunition, hence this response.

Tony Greenstein
Brighton

RS21 network

The Revolutionary Socialists in the 21st Century’s Festival of the Oppressed 2026 (held from June 20-21 at London South Bank University), was a vibrant, stimulating and sober assessment of what our class has to overcome. It showed a revolutionary left trying to think beyond just reacting to events. But it also exposed a recurring, deeper problem within groups like RS21: a habit of letting everyone have their say without anyone having to commit to a clear position, effectively allowing curated discussion to replace real political debate.

A healthy communist culture needs open argument, votes, factions and accountability - not just a flat format, where a space is provided for everyone to speak, but disagreements are never properly aired or resolved. For anyone who thinks the left needs a proper, democratic Communist Party - rather than just loose network and various campaigns - this distinction matters.

The opening plenary, titled ‘What would it actually take? Revolutionary strategy for our times’, set a serious tone. Barnaby Raine argued that the right has adopted the language of civilisational decline, as seen in the Conservatives’ pro-oil rhetoric in the Aberdeen South by-election, Kemi Badenoch’s framing of green politics as an existential threat, and the anti-migrant rhetoric of Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick. Because today’s anti-racism is entirely negative, Raine argued that we need a hegemonic politics of “the good life”. However, without the working class organised around a concrete programme, such an alternative risks remaining mere rhetoric. Who, ultimately, is supposed to bring this “good life” about?

The necessity of class politics became clearer in the discussions on the global far right (‘Is it fascism yet?’). Rachel E provided a vital dose of reality regarding Jaywick, a village in the most deprived area in Britain. Marked by extreme food poverty, crumbling infrastructure and high flooding risks (set to worsen with climate change), it has become fertile ground for Reform UK. Rachel rightly argued that the left cannot abandon these areas, nor will we win anyone over by simply diagnosing the problem as racism.

To counter Reform, the answer is unyielding class politics - focusing on housing, public services and anti-war agitation - rather than echoing patriotism or accepting leftist figures like Eddie Dempsey, who are soft on nationalism. Jaywick has a radical history of housing and war resistance: an example of how the left beats the right by building that history, not by offering a more palatable version of patriotism.

The tensions between state-led geopolitics and genuine internationalism emerged across several panels. In ‘Imperialism and its breakdown’, Mau Baiocco spoke on Venezuela, noting that the lack of a popular counterweight to US intervention stems from a depoliticised youth and the contradictions of the Venezuelan state. Baiocco’s central thesis was vital: anti-imperialism means little unless it is rooted in the working class; it cannot be delegated to states or politicians. Indeed, an anti-imperialism that isn’t anchored in working class politics inevitably slides into nationalism or making excuses for other capitalist governments.

This links directly to the strategic dangers of ‘broad fronts’. In ‘The cost of war and the socialist alternative’, Ira Hybris (from the Spanish group, Anticapitalistas) noted that, while we must work within broad, non-revolutionary organisations, communists must maintain strict political independence. The risk, however, is assuming that every struggle against oppression automatically becomes a class struggle: without open communist argumentation, these movements can just as easily be co-opted by liberalism or NGO politics.

Similarly, Paul Murphy (a People Before Profit representative in the Irish parliament) highlighted local campaigns and the fight against Ireland’s integration into Nato following anti-migrant violence in Belfast and Ballymena. Yet, while opposing Nato is necessary, it must not be confused with independent working class politics. Left-nationalist constitutional manoeuvres are not a substitute for genuine internationalism.

The festival gave significant weight to the interpersonal and artistic dimensions of our movement through an art and photography exhibition, a walking tour and an ‘after-party’ with live DJs. In ‘Noise uprising’, panelists including Millie K discussed how neoliberalism damages the social commons and pressures art to produce profits. They affirmed that, while subcultures like jungle and rave scenes possess revolutionary potential, they are not automatically revolutionary.

As a musician focused on traditional Irish music and choral composition, these discussions forced me to examine the ways I separate art from politics. Floor contributions rightly challenged the rigid, class-based separation of ‘low’ and ‘high’ culture. All art is the product of human experience and, while the ruling class attempts to capture certain art forms for itself, this can be resisted.

Joy James also contributed remotely to ‘Private property, public patriarchy’, offering a stark look at the structureless situation in the US and asking how the left can outwit a state apparatus that continuously studies and infiltrates its movements.

The structural weakness of the festival was that it stopped short of real debate. The format - panels of three or four speakers, five-minute breakouts, and brief floor contributions - stifled comradely polemic.

During the session on imperialism, two comrades from Workers Power intervened to argue that one can oppose Nato expansion, while supporting arms for Ukraine, and that Russia and China are imperialist states. Though I disagreed with their position, these were the most substantial remarks from the floor, raising serious disagreements that deserved a proper response. Instead, the panel brushed them aside. A speaker from Energy Embargo for Palestine dismissed the intervention entirely, arguing that defining which states are imperialist is a distraction from the threat of World War III - an unhelpful sentiment, given that Marxism requires us to define a system in order to challenge it.

Billy Clark
email

‘Partyists’ split

As a member of the Democratic Socialists (formerly DSYP), although not a particularly active or prominent one, I have been quite alarmed by the ongoing dispute between comrade Max Shanly and various members of the RS21 executive committee within the letters section of this newspaper recently.

Much of this dispute is about obscure events that I am sure most readers won’t be aware of: even as a member of DSYP, it seemed confusing and obscure to me at the time. A general timeline of the events being discussed seems to be:

n During the talks that led to the formation of the Grassroots Left slate during December 2025, some Marxist Unity Caucus-aligned members of the DSYP seem to have been critical of comrade Shanly’s personal connection to Zarah Sultana and deplored the nature of the discussions as being anti-democratic.

The ‘Shanly vs MUC’ debate has at times contained very real differences of political ideas (how democratic should the GL slate negotiations be, what should the strategy for the democratic socialists be) and also unfortunately personal arguments which seem to be accusation and counter-accusation of toxicity.

I generally understand why the political arguments transformed into personal arguments, especially during the frantic and difficult negotiations of December. Particularly for the DSYP - an organisation that had just been established and whose executive committee were not paid to be full-timers and had an immense task of trying to cohere an alliance capable of contesting power within Your Party against the people who controlled the party, and its main draw, Jeremy Corbyn.

It is understandable why these conditions meant that political disputes would transform into personal animosity, although that is not to condone either Shanly or the MUC. I honestly do not know enough about the details of the arguments to take a specific side. But really, as serious political activists we should not be dividing ourselves over petty personal arguments.

I personally don’t understand why comrade Shanly isn’t still part of the Democratic Socialists. His exact political line didn’t win the debates of April 2026, but neither did the MUC’s ideas and, if we are going to just quit or split organisations because of not winning a vote, then what is the purpose of a democratic socialist organisation? Isn’t the whole purpose to gather socialists within one organisation where we don’t endlessly quit or split, depending on which exact political line is voted for?

If the issue is the personal dispute that comrade Shanly does not want to join an organisation with people he has had personal issues with, then I really hope that there can be some sort of reconciliation between those involved in the argument, if people can apologise to each other and work together to build the Democratic Socialists. Perhaps it is not my place to say, and perhaps I don’t have the right to ask people to get along. However, as someone who has been inspired by comrade Shanly and the organisation he helped build, I cannot help but hope for this dispute to be resolved.

Comrade Shanly helped to found the DSYP and has always been an important figure for our organisation - the organisation that represents to a significant extent his ideas - and, except for the CPGB-PCC itself, the Democratic Socialists are the organisation that best represents the ideas that have been set out by the Weekly Worker. It’s not as if there’s going to be another major socialist MP founding a political party any time soon, so the Democratic Socialists is the organisation to join for ‘partyists’ and socialists that want to build a truly democratic socialist organisation.

I hope comrade Shanly rejoins the organisation. I hope that all those who were inspired by the idea of a party republic know that the Democratic Socialists is still fighting to build such a party.

Dovah
Oxfordshire

Bolshevik cancer?

Mike Macnair seems increasingly openly a disciple of western European late 19th century social democracy and Karl Kautsky (with his fondness for constitutionalism, legalism and arithmetical majorities). The German SPD is apparently a model (despite the fact it was a broad formation, encompassing a range of both reformist and revolutionary currents), but what about the vital contribution of Lenin in updating and applying scientific Marxism to the imperialism of the early 20th century, or the whole experience, theory and practice of Bolshevism?

Macnair contemptuously dismisses virtually the whole experience and practice of the Bolsheviks actually holding state power in Soviet Russia and, it almost goes without saying, is completely opposed to the theory and practice of Soviet socialism. As a western social democrat, Macnair denies any significant contribution of Russian Marxism to worldwide revolutionary Marxism: “they were just trying to copy Kautsky and the SPD in Russian conditions ...”

Macnair has very recently admitted that one of the basic arguments made about the successful building of socialism in the USSR was that this was never ‘socialism in one country’, but about trying to build socialism in a virtually continental-sized country with a vast amount of human, mineral, land and other resources. Of course, Macnair in his great sectarian wisdom would not dream of describing Soviet socialism as socialism, despite the obvious and factual reality, but he has quietly dumped one of the main arguments used by the ultra-left against the construction of a complete socialist society in the USSR. Good.

In his latest article, ‘Time is on our side’ (June 25), Macnair now sides with Trotsky and “the Bolshevik leadership majority” and against Lenin on the vital question of the timing of the October insurrection. This is really interesting and revealing. No wonder Macnair has described these as personal articles and not on behalf of the Weekly Worker group (WWG).

Trotsky, of course, argued they should wait until the Congress of Soviets had actually opened (very revolutionary), and abstained (very principled) on two key votes on the matter in the central committee in October. I am aware of the two traitors, Kamenev and Zinoviev, voting against - and then scabbing - but I am pretty clear the “Bolshevik majority” (including Sverdlov, Stalin, Dzerzhinsky, Bubnov, Uritsky, who were elected to form the “practical centre” for the uprising) were very much with Lenin: ie, they voted with Lenin and formed the majority on both occasions.

It was really obvious by the way events were unfolding in those latter days, as Kerensky mobilised the government’s armed forces to seize strong points in the city, that the Bolsheviks had almost left it too late. Trotsky’s delay would have resulted in disaster - not only the defeat of the Bolshevik forces, but a rightwing military seizure of power, and waves of massacres and destruction being waged against the socialist and working class forces.

It is astonishing that Macnair and some other writers have no comprehension of how literally oxymoronic is their call for “a multi-tendency Communist Party with full factional rights”. Factions are antithetical to how a real Communist Party should operate and antithetical to inner-party democracy.

I have the right to raise and discuss matters and issues in my Communist Party of Britain branch (does the WWG have local branches?). I can raise any issue I like with the elected leadership of the party and expect a decent reply. We have a national congress every two years and district congress the other year. I may want to influence decisions taken at either and I can seek to persuade members of my branch of my view on a particular matter. I might not succeed, but I might. We are free to elect who we like as delegates to congress. The choice of delegates will almost certainly be influenced by views expressed in the party branch and by the candidates for delegates. The number of delegates from each branch is roughly proportional to the paid-up membership in each.

Delegates to congress are obliged to use three sources to decide how to vote: the views of their branch, the discussion and points made by fellow delegates at congress, and their own judgement and experience.

Why would I want to form links or a faction with like-minded members in other branches? I have more than adequate opportunity to put forward my own point of view in my own branch and to try and persuade others. I may in fact be persuaded to a different view by the arguments put forward by fellow comrades.

Surely, the only reason to form links with other members, to form a faction, is to try and unduly magnify and maximise the influence to be exerted by those in that faction. A faction will have their own, usually secret, meetings and decide their own tactics and coordinate their efforts to maximise their impact.

But at whose expense would be this maximised impact and increased influence to the faction? It has to be at someone’s expense! It is at the expense of the majority of all other members who are not members of factions. Factions therefore serve to reduce the democracy of the majority of the membership. That is one reason why they are antithetical to communist democracy.

I could half understand the argument that in an unhealthy (Communist) Party factions may become necessary or inevitable. But never that they are desirable or useful in principle, let alone essential.

I experienced the factionalism in the Communist Party of Great Britain (the real one) in the mid to late 1980s. Clearly, the party had been badly affected by reformist and revisionist ideas over time. While I had considerable sympathy for those who felt they had no choice but to form loose networks of like-minded comrades, in my view it was extensive factionalism which helped destroy the previous cohesion and discipline of the party, which massively demoralised the membership, and ultimately led to liquidation in 1991.

Whether factionalism was initially the symptom of the reformist/revisionist ‘disease’ in the CPGB, it certainly became the problem itself, and the very formation of comrades into rival sides and sometimes factions actively served to prevent any democratic resolution within the party. I strongly believed that without organised factionalism it should have been possible to unite the great majority of CPGB members, with a new elected leadership, on the bases on which most communists in Britain had believed in until relatively recently.

Macnair has tried to explain the constant splitting tendency of ultra-leftist groups, but gets it wrong, probably being part of the milieu and problem. I think it’s fundamentally about one of the key principles of collective working class democracy: ie, that when a decision is taken (and it may not necessarily be taken in the purest and most democratic manner possible), all are required to abide by it and implement it in practice. That, in fact, is a fairly good definition of democratic centralism.

The ultra-left are largely based in the petty bourgeoisie and academia in western countries. Whether it’s a class thing, petty bourgeois, academic arrogance and individualism, these people do not like losing votes or office and think they have some inherent right to blatantly defy democratic decisions and to continue to do their own thing.

Whether they then split away or are ultimately forced out by the leadership due to their defying decisions matters little: the result is the same. They seem to have the personal arrogance to think they alone are right, and everyone else is wrong, so it’s not surprising we end up with smaller and smaller groups - even sects of single figures.

On programme, I actually agree with the WWG’s stance that members should “accept” the party programme rather than necessarily agree with every single statement within it. However, I do note that both Jack Conrad and Macnair chose to go ‘hammer and tongs’ precisely over details of the existing WWG programme, when they were engaged in unity talks with the Talking About Socialism comrades.

A party programme worked up democratically by the party membership and endorsed by congress is very important in defining the Communist Party itself, its role and contribution, and, importantly, stating publicly its position on a wide range of issues, to attract new members and engage in struggle with competing parties, tendencies and groups.

Communist Party democracy, as expressed in the principles and mechanisms of democratic centralism, provides every member with ample opportunity to contribute to discussion and decision-making. It also provides the solution to the Trot sect conundrum, where every disagreement leads to splits, etc. Members have full and adequate opportunity to engage in democratic debate and, in turn, they accept the basic working class discipline and principle that majority decisions are abided by and implemented.

Factions are a cancer in any Communist Party. They are destructive of communist democracy and undermine the rights and influence of the greater number of those who are not in the faction. At worst, and often inevitably, factions become parties within the party, and a split just waiting to happen.

Andrew Northall
Kettering

Long downturn

Seven theses on ‘American politics’ - a provisional and hastily composed response to the 2022 US mid-term elections - touched off, somewhat to our surprise, an extensive debate, stimulating and strongly argued, in the pages of New Left Review (and beyond).

We’re grateful to all who engaged with the text, in many cases critically elaborating upon its implications in ways that helped us to clarify our own ideas. Before diving into the substance of the debate, we should consider what provoked the unexpected intensity of the response. In our view, this has much to do with the broader political conjuncture. The historical matrix in which ‘seven theses’ appeared was defined by the continuing incapacity of governments to revitalise the economy amid growing heartland discontent; the clear electoral advantage of the far-right forces over the radical new lefts, as protest vehicles for this (‘MAGA’ over Sanders, Farage over Corbyn, Le Pen over Mélenchon, the AfD over Die Linke); and rising geopolitical tensions, with the stand-off between the US and China and the Russian invasion of Ukraine; within a year, the Middle East would be on fire under a new round of Israeli expansionism.

Within this fraught situation - constituting a multi-front crisis for the left, even before Trump’s second win - political discourse had become centred on narrow, electoralist questions. Our piece - perhaps precisely because of its aphoristic, fragmentary character - brought these larger strategic problems to the fore. Rather than look to the culture wars to explain America’s polarisations, we argued that these expressed the material interests of different working class fractions within the zero-sum conditions of a stagnant economy; this had now mutated into a form of ‘political capitalism’, wherein low returns on productive investment were compensated by politically engineered upward redistribution on a systemic scale.

Our critics addressed these propositions from multiple angles. Tim Barker raised some acute questions about our analysis of secular stagnation. Aaron Benanav set the long downturn in the context of supply-chain globalisation, the shift to services and financial-sector ‘over-accumulation’. Matthew Karp disputed our definition of class and our characterisation of the party coalitions, suggesting that we elided the extent to which the liberal Democratic elite signified a self-satisfied ruling class for many American workers. Alyssa Battistoni and Geoff Mann took us to task for neglecting any substantive discussion of Biden’s Green New Deal.

Many critics took issue with our conception of ‘political capitalism’: notably, for Lola Seaton, we didn’t differentiate its mode of upward redistribution from the normal operations of the capitalist state, nor explain its relation to neoliberal capitalism, as generally understood. Both Barker and Carmen Parmense - writing in SS African Mercury - pointed out that Brenner had previously rejected the idea of distinct ‘regimes of accumulation’. Seaton, Barker, Parmense and others asked how political capitalism related to the highly charged international situation.

‘What is the connection between the evolution of capitalism since the 1980s and the structure of politics that has emerged in the rich world, particularly in the US, since the financial crisis of 2007-08?’ This was the question we wanted to answer. In responding to the myriad issues raised in the debate, we aim first to tackle the economic questions - the problems of declining profit rates, low investment, sluggish growth - and then to discuss the political issues of class and party alignment in relation to capitalism’s changing parameters.

Full replies to the questions of class definition, environmental strategy and geopolitical competition require a degree of theoretical elaboration that would exceed the bounds of this letter; we hope to return to them on another occasion. Here, however, we need to start by acknowledging that many of the responses to ‘seven theses’ pointed out real weaknesses or omissions in our analysis; in some cases, the confusion and misunderstandings that arose were a result of our own lack of clarity. We begin, therefore, by attempting to rectify this through an initial examination of secular stagnation as a feature of mature capitalism, expanding the historical frame to compare the two ‘long downturns’ of the 1930s and the 1970s, with the aim of illuminating their contrasted outcomes.

Our point of departure in ‘seven theses’ was the observation that the long downturn that has gripped the world economy since the early 1970s has proved more persistent than many commentators expected. As Benanav notes, however, there is now a widening consensus among economic historians on the reality of stagnation. Robert Gordon has documented the mediocre performance of American ‘total factor productivity’ (TFP) since the 1970s, while Bradford DeLong highlights the “significant drop” in worker-productivity growth for the 1973-2010 period. Ruchir Sharma notes that “productivity growth has slowed sharply since 1980”. In a similar vein Thomas Philippon argues that the slowdown in TFP growth “started in 2000 and is now widespread among rich countries”, adding that the great recession of 2008-09 “has probably reinforced this negative trend, but it has not created it”.

In The crisis of democratic capitalism, the Financial Times’s Martin Wolf avers: “Average productivity growth in the 2010s (between 2010 and 2019) became dismal in all high-income countries. This is important and depressing.” Meanwhile, the secular trend of declining investment in Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is, as Cédric Durand notes, “one of the least contested features of the advanced-capitalist economies”. Recent OECD data confirms the decline in net business investment, with the corporate sector ‘saving’ - or paying out to shareholders - significantly more than it invested.

Long-term gross domestic product per capita growth rates bear this out. Average GDP per capita growth for the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Japan from the mid-1940s to around 1970 was often well above four percent, after the lower levels of the 1890s to 1930s. Following the severe depression of the mid-70s, such rates were never reached again. Since the early 2000s, growth rates have struggled to reach two percent and have often been closer to zero.

How should we explain these developments? The bleak aftermath of the 2008 crisis brought a revival of the concept of ‘secular stagnation’ - first advanced by Alvin Hansen to describe the crisis of the 1930s. Hansen (1887-1975) was an early advocate of Keynes’s perspective in the US, whose initial research focused on the business cycle. Summarising the work of Cassel, Schumpeter, Spiethoff and others, Hansen’s Business cycle theory suggested this dynamic was set off by a sudden spurt of capital accumulation, which brought about the overproduction of capital stock, dragging down the rate of profit and ultimately issuing in the collapse of investment.

Dylan Riley, Robert Brenner
New Left Review