Thu, 13 Feb 1997 05:35:48 +0100 (MET) COCKROACH! #36 Part 3 A EZINE FOR POOR AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS. It is time that the poor and working class people have a voice on the Internet. Contributions can be sent to Subscribtions are free at Now on line! Check out the Home of COCKROACH! http://www.algonet.se/~malecki How often this zine will appear depends on you! -------------------------------------------------------- movement for a workers' revolutionary party around the slogan for a 'revolutionary constituent assembly' with some anti-capitalist demands. It could be correct to call for a constituent assembly but it would be wrong to try to transform a bourgeois parliament into a soviet-type body which could carry out the tasks of a proletarian dictatorship. There have also been a number of other smaller splits in Argentinian Trotskyism in the past few years, although we lack sufficient information to assess these properly. It is possible that there may be still more left CTOs in other parts of Latin America, and it is our duty to seek them out and engage them in political discussions. The family of Spartacism The Sparts are in severe crisis internationally having lost one third of their membership in the last few years and having suffered two splits - one to the LTT. The latest split, led by long-time editor of Workers Vanguard, Jan Norden, is a result of their acute disappointment at the failure of the Stalinist to fulfill the historic role ascribed to them by the Sparts and defend the nationalised property relations in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Their big international efforts over the past seven or eight years, in East Germany and the USSR have completely failed because of their completely incorrect line. Norden is ridiculously accused of all the past errors by Robertson who needs this scapegoat to change line. The new line in a little to the left on some questions, involving support for Quebec independence and a softer line on Irish nationalism, but there is no sign of any real understanding of the transitional method or united front emerging. Norden, who has formed his own international tendency, seems even less amenable to change on the question of Stalinism. However he did defend the attempts to engage in the class struggle in Brazil and Germany, which was a type of left turn. However his method of intervention is ultamatistic and constrained by the fact that he led the attack on the previous opposition of Yossi Rad and Marie Hayes and therefore he had rejected the transitional method. No progress is possible whilst he continues to hold these positions. At their last conference they proclaimed the US situation very bad but pledged to redouble their international commitment, concentrating on Brazil (they lost that section to Norden soon after) and South Africa. The International Bolshevik Tendency, a small grouping mainly composed of ex-Sparts, while it is less overtly sectarian and more prepared to carry out some forms of joint work, retains much of the ICL's Stalinophilia and anti-reformist hysteria. However in Britain it has now liquidated itself in the most 'Pabloite' fashion into the SLP and is acting as simply the best builders of Scargill's reformist project. The USFI The original reasons for our orientation to the USFI retains its validity. These are the relative size and geographical spread of the organisation and their internal democracy. This enables the left to get a world wide audience in a way not possible for a small independent Trotskyist organisation in a few metropolitan countries. Internal struggle is still possible as the USFI has the widest internal democracy of any pseudo Trotskyist grouping. Moreover their federalist structure and the perspectives being put forward by the USFI centre for the 14th World Congress mean that freedom for manoeuvre is likely to be extended still further. This must continue to be a priority for us, even though we are not fighting in there now. Those clearly to the right We must orient to those who are clearly to the right and when they are obliged to conduct common work with us, and set a course to influence their ranks. Short of an unlikely organic evolution to the left, the perspective must be for splitting such groups, by winning sections of their middle cadre and conducting a serious struggle against their leaderships. However, we must recognise that for those centrist groups who have little or no orientation to the Trotskyist programme, the possibilities for winning opposition factions (where they have the possibility of forming) to Trotskyism is correspondingly less. Fighting against their centrism is more likely to win individual recruits. The experience of the British WRP and the Bolivian POR seem to indicate that real leftist movements only occur in fragments of these groupings, once there has been a catastrophic explosion which blows the groups to pieces politically. An undemocratic internal regime, combined with dogmatic formalism and gross opportunism, and in some cases mixed with messianic ultra-leftism, characterises groups like the SWP (Britain), the SWP (US), the ICR (FI) (the Lambertists), Lutte Ouviere, the POR (Bolivia), Militant Labour and such WRP offshoots as the WRP/News Line, the Northite International Committee, the Marxist Party and their offspring, the Communist League. We must work for the political defeat of these groups, and attempt to win what is salvageable from their ranks. The Socialist Workers Party The largest of the CTO groups, with a claimed (although grossly inflated) membership 8,000 in Britain, the SWP is the biggest obstacle to the left of reformism in the struggle to construct a revolutionary party. Its international tendency, although disproportionately dominated by the SWP, grew steadily in the 1990s, and it is the largest grouping in several countries. More recently, however, there have been splits in a number of countries, including South Africa, Canada and Germany. The SWP's connections with Trotskyism are tenuous - it sees itself as 'Trotskyist derived'. Along with their size, their lack of internal democracy and the low theoretical level of much of their membership goes some way towards explaining why the rest of the left has had little impact on the SWP since the 1970s. However, the SWP, despite their lack of influence in the class, has sufficient forces to dominate - or more often destroy - many campaigns, and play a significant role in some white collar unions. For these reasons, Trotskyists are obliged to pay it some attention, at least in Britain. It is vulnerable to attacks on their sectarian anti racist and anti-fascist work. It's Irish politics also make it vulnerable, although disgust at their workerist refusal to defend the IRA against British imperialism has generally come from Irish nationalists and republicans. If we apply our criteria: (a) Is it moving left or right? Rightward (b) What is their level of commitment to the Transitional Programme? None (c) Does it have any internal democracy or any real democratic centralism? Permanent factions are not allowed though temporary ones may form in pre conference discussions. However they must dissolve after conference. Eighty signatures are necessary to get recognised. Given there is no facility to campaign for these signatures, factions are practically impossible to organise. No democratic centralism as a consequence. Conclusion: despite these observations, close attention needs to be paid to the SWP. There are persistent rumours of discontent among SWP activists - usually with the regime, sometimes with the politics - and if the SWP's international tendency is anything to go by, it is not impossible to imagine significant splits taking place. This would appear to be the precondition for any significant grouping to advance towards Trotskyism. The SWP, given their unscrupulous and minimalist recruitment methods, and their populism, will also be vulnerable to any significant growth on the part of the Socialist Labour Party. Militant Labour and the CWI Despite their open party turn in 1992-3, a generally less sectarian approach to others on the left, and a reversal of their former reactionary positions on women and gays, Militant retains most of semi-reformist baggage. An open party is no guarantee of a leftward evolution, as previously demonstrated by the WRP and the SWP. Indeed, Militant's position on Ireland is, if anything, more pro-imperialist than ever. Which other group on the left would have the front to argue, as leading members of Militant did at the founding conference of the YRE, that it could not be seen to call for troops out of Ireland for fear of disrupting their work among protestant youth in Scotland! Militant's Irish group is a perfect mirror of British partition, with the northern paper trimmed to the prejudices of loyalist workers and youth in their 'even-handed' condemnations of 'sectarianism'. Most disgustingly, Militant has given 'socialist' credentials to Billy Hutchinson's PUP - the political arm of the UVF death squads. The equation of reactionary Loyalism with progressive nationalism - while simultaneously leaning towards the former - is a measure of Militant's relationship to the trade union bureaucracy in both Ireland and Britain, and ultimately to the British capitalist state. Similarly their support for objectively pro imperialist 'peace movements' and the Major-Reynolds proposals - they argue that it is they and not the imperialists who really want peace - capitulates to imperialism's ideological offensive, and fails to provide any genuine socialist alternative to republicanism. Nor is it accidental that Joe Higgins, the Militant candidate in the Dublin West by-election in April this year, devoted the longest section of his programme to the 'struggle' against crime. Their support for the anti-drugs vigilantes leads to dangerous flirtations with extreme right-wing ideology. Militant has never renounced their peaceful, parliamentarist perspective for the overthrow of capitalism, complete with enabling acts and unionised 'workers in uniform', and no amount of populist community politicking can obscure the fact that it is fundamentally opposed to revolutionary Trotskyism. Whatever the historical correctness of Ted Grant's criticisms of the Fourth International in the 1940s and 50s, Militant's long term deep entrist project in the Labour Party has left a deep impression, particularly in their attitude to the capitalist state. All their areas of work are still fundamentally marked by this revisionism. Militant bureaucratically dominated the All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation It determinedly kept the form of struggle within the bounds of parliamentary democratic protest. It displayed an attitude of open hostility to those left groups who attempted to use mass workers action to defeat the hated tax. This was the reason Tommy Sheridan and Steve Nally threatened to 'name names' to the police after Trafalgar Square riot - the most politically significant movement since the miners' strike of 1984 85. It feared that revolutionary- minded anarchists and Trotskyists would take the open confrontation with the capitalist state too far. The split with Grant and the future Socialist Appeal group in 1992 was based on a fundamentally false perspective of quick growth and an upward class struggle. As a result, much of Militant's middle cadre has left, and there is a noticeable absence even of the kind of 'Marxist theory' which Ted Grant and Alan Woods used to purvey. Militant's strongest trade union base has been for many years in the civil service union, the CPSA. Here again, there are few signs of a leftward evolution. If anything, Militant has moved much closer to their longtime adversary, BL84. Militant and their fellow travellers dominate two important sections of the union, the Benefits Agency and the Employment Service. Militant leadership of the 3-month ES strike (Dec 9-Feb 96) was routine and uninspired. Militant activists opposed mass pickets and failed to issue a single campaigning leaflet through the section executive on the grounds that it would have to be approved by the union leadership. As for the campaign of defiance against the Jobseekers' Allowance passed at last year's CPSA conference, it barely exists. In the BA section, Militant supporters even voted down strike action against market testing. In CPSA, as in other unions, Militant takes up a position just to the left of the bureaucracy. Electoralism, rather than building rank and file opposition, dominate their work. The left movement in the YRE and on women's oppression, on lesbian and gay liberation and on racism are therefore of a liberal democratic character, though they can take correct positions at times. The relatively democratic character of their campaigns on these issues and the contradictions within the politics of their ranks make these a vital area for intervention. However their reformist position on the state leads them to rely overmuch on the police to protect battered women, to call on Tory led Bexley Council to close down the fascist BNP HQ and to put forward a prospect of reforming and democratising the police in the YRE. Their front group Panther UK has recently split with the majority of black members of that organisation simply becoming a black separatist group outside of Militant control. It is politically almost identical to the old Militant controlled group, which shamelessly fostered these illusions. These very bad positions undermine and will eventually destroy the left movement. Militant UK now has three tendencies, one is an opposition on Ireland led by former Outlook leader Phil Hearse, one wants to change Militant's name (and orientation) to The Socialist Party and the other wants to keep the present set-up. Scotland is opposed to the name-change and is now refusing to send any more money into the centre and similar objections to the bloated central apparatus in Hepscott Road is developing in other regions. If Tommy Sheridan really has declared UDI for Scotland then this is not a good omen for Militant's future. Sheridan sounded very like Derek Hatton in the 'If I were Prime Minister' programme on TV. They have had a number of splits internationally, including two in Sweden. The burning fuse may ignite a political catherine wheel. (a) The direction of their evolution; is it moving left or right? To the left on social oppression though this is counterbalanced by right movements on Ireland and trade union work. This necessarily short term contradiction calls for a dual approach, with the building of united front work in the Campaign against Domestic Violence, for example, and the breaking of united front alliances in the CPSA, supporting the standing of Socialist Caucus candidates against Militant dominated Broad Left in certain circumstances. (b) They have only a formalistic commitment to the transitional method but they do not attempt any practical application. (c) They have very little internal democracy and no real culture of democratic centralism - see for instance the page in their recent IB which tells us the CC is basically appointed by the centre from full-time workers. Factions are not formally tolerated. Conclusion: An orientation to Militant internationally is necessary wherever we can intervene with their ranks on practical issues of social oppression. We can make no political concession to their capitulation to the capitalist state and bourgeois democracy. We must take every opportunity to break up and destroy this centrist road block to building revolutionary leadership. Other groups There are some non Trotskyist and openly anti Trotskyist centrist groups internationally like the CPGB in Britain (formerly The Leninists), the Bordigists in Italy the ICC and some Maoist groups. These are opposed in various degrees to many central tenets of Marxism, e.g. the Transitional Method, the class struggle, the united front etc. Co operation on practical question does not mean that we can make any political accommodation to their centrist or/and Stalinist prejudices. However we should display the utmost sensitivity to any left-moving current that may emerge within them in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the semi-collapse of Stalinism (we should not, for example, bandy about the term 'Stalinists' simply as a term of abuse) both as an ideology and as a pole of attraction for left- moving militants. There are no mass centrist movements at present. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! TO ANTI-DEATH PENALTY ACTIVISTS, ANTI-RACIST ACTIVISTS, SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND ALL OTHERS INTERESTED IN SOCIAL JUSTICE: **** SAVE THIS DATE: MAY 3, 1997 **** AD-HOC COMMITTEE WORKS TO BROADEN COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND MOBILIZE GRASSROOTS ACTION ******************************************************** The Ad Hoc Coalition Against Racism and the Death Penalty is sponsoring an exciting media event and conference on Saturday, May 3, 1997 in Philadelphia, PA to increase the level of community consciousness and mobilize grassroots participation around issues of the death penalty including, but not limited to: 1. Education regarding the need to end the death penalty, including the roots of racism and class disparity in determining who is executed, and discussion on a national mobilization for a Moratorium on the Death Penalty. 2. Increasing and consolidating campaigns to free Political Prisoners/ Prisoners of War through community education and support; 3. Organizing to build a strong community-based movement to stop police beatings, frame-ups and murder. WHAT CAN YOU DO: Individuals and organizations who are eager to work with the Organizing Committee to insure maximum community participation by sharing mailing lists, hosting pre-conference meetings, organizing transportation to help get folks to the conference, donating educational and other materials, broadcasting live from the event, videotaping the event to use for future grassroots organizing, and offering your ideas, experience and concrete support should contact ASAP: Sis. Marpessa Kupendua - nattyreb@ix.netcom.com Bro. Komboa Ervin - komboa@mindspring.com !! SPEAK TRUTH TO THE PEOPLE !! ALL OUT FOR MAY 3RD! MORE INFORMATION FORTHCOMING. ================================================== Check Out My HomePage where you can, Read the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! Or Get The Latest Issue of, COCKROACH, a zine for poor and workingclass people http://www.algonet.se/~malecki --------------------------------------------------------