Obituary: Chris Harman 1942–2009

by Alex Callinicos from www.socialistworker.co.uk Chris Harman, editor of International Socialism and before that for many years editor of Socialist Worker, died suddenly of a heart attack in Cairo on the night of 6-7 November, on the eve of his 67th birthday. Chris was the outstanding Marxist to emerge in Britain from the great political radicalisation of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He made fundamental intellectual contributions in an astonishing range of subjects. But, true to the tradition of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Luxemburg and Gramsci, he was a professional revolutionary who devoted his life to building the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Born in 1942, Chris joined the Socialist Review Group – predecessor to the International Socialists (IS), which became the SWP – as a schoolboy in Watford. After studying at Leeds University in 1962-5, he went on to pursue doctoral research at the London School of Economics (LSE). In the second half of the 1960s the LSE was the storm centre of the student movement in Britain. Chris became a leading LSE activist, and abandoned his academic career. For the rest of his life, he worked full-time for IS, initially as editor of International Socialism and journalist on Socialist Worker. Chris edited Socialist Worker in 1975-77 and then again between 1982 and 2004. Finally he returned to edit International Socialism for a last, very productive stint. Tens of thousands of young people made the same kind of choices as Chris did in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But far fewer stuck with them after the tide of revolt began to recede in the mid-1970s. Chris not only stuck, but, from his early 20s onwards, his writings developed revolutionary Marxism as a guide through the complexities and obscurities of the final decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. Tony Cliff, the founder of the IS tradition, provided Chris with his theoretical starting point. Cliff’s analysis of the Soviet Union and the other “socialist” countries as bureaucratic state capitalism made it possible to continue revolutionary Marxism as a living tradition. Only on this basis, Cliff demonstrated, could Marx’s conception of socialism as the self-emancipation of the working class continue to have meaning. Building on Cliff’s achievement, Chris greatly extended the range and depth of Marxist theory in many different areas. On all, he produced work of the highest quality, based on in-depth research and on rigorous and original analysis. What follows is the most inadequate summary. In the first place, Chris developed Cliff’s analysis of Stalinism. His first book, Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe (1974, republished as Class Struggles in Eastern Europe), explored the unstable and conflict-ridden history of the state capitalist regimes after 1945. Even before that Chris had exposed the dynamics through which attempts to reform the Stalinist regimes from above could open them up to revolutionary overthrow from below. It was this logic that eventually brought Stalinism down 20 years ago. Chris foreshadowed this outcome in “Poland: Crisis of State Capitalism” (1976-77). Here he analysed how the so-called “socialist” countries were being integrated into the global capitalist rhythms of trade and debt. He captured the fall itself as a “move sideways” from state to private capitalism in “The Storm Breaks” (1990). Chris’s skills as a historian were first fully revealed in the compelling narratives of workers’ revolts in Bureaucracy and Revolution. He went on to study the German Revolution of 1918-23 (The Lost Revolution, 1982), and then the upturn of the late 1960s and early 1970s (The Fire Last Time, 1988). Chris also wrote important essays on the Marxist theory of history. But his culminating achievement as a historian came in his magisterial People’s History of the World (1999), a great popular success especially after it was republished recently by Verso. One of the book’s strengths lay in the understanding it showed of so-called “primitive” societies. Chris began his detailed studies of the anthropological research into these societies during the intense debates about women’s liberation in the late 1970s. For him they demonstrated that men and women could live in equality once class exploitation was finally overthrown. This typified Chris’s intellectual approach. He was interested in particular problems usually not for their own sake but in order to address political arguments. Thus The Prophet and the Proletariat (1994) was a pioneering Marxist study of political Islam that helped to arm the SWP for the debates and struggles after 9/11. Some of Chris’s most important writings were directly devoted to problems of revolutionary strategy and tactics. An outstanding early essay, “Party and Class” (1968), originated as an internal document seeking to persuade the radicalised students who had rallied to IS of the necessity of building a Leninist vanguard party. In the mid-1970s, a moment of growing confusion on the European far left, Chris made several important interventions, notably during the Portuguese Revolution of 1974-5 and against the attempt to transform Antonio Gramsci into a theorist of reformism. The same preoccupation with offering political direction informed one last – and central – area of Chris’s writings: the analysis of capitalism itself. His deep and original understanding of Marxist political economy was already on display in a brilliant contribution to a debate in the late 1960s with Ernest Mandel, the leader of the Fourth International. The articles collected together as Explaining the Crisis (1983) built on the earlier work of Mike Kidron. Kidron had shown how very high levels of arms expenditure had temporarily stabilised capitalism after the Second World War. Chris now extended this analysis to explain the return of major crises to the system from the late 1960s onwards. At a time when Marxist economics was in disarray in the academy, he demonstrated the continuing relevance of Marx’s attempt to understand the laws of motion of capitalism. Chris continued to write about political economy in later decades, but it was in his last years that he returned to the subject in depth. In growing dialogue with other leading Marxist economists, he worked on Zombie Capitalism. Published earlier this year, this superb study places the present crisis in the context of the history and dynamics of capitalism as a whole. A fraction of this achievement would have made many an academic career. But Chris produced all this, and much more, not amid the easy comfort and prestige of the academy, but as an underpaid full-time worker for the SWP. His biggest single party role was as editor of Socialist Worker after he took it over again in the early 1980s, a time of great disorientation for the left. Chris steered the paper through the agonies of Thatcherism – above all, the great drama of the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike – and the doldrums of the 1990s, to the renewed radicalisation offered by the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements in the past decade. Chris concealed his immense abilities and achievements behind a shy exterior. He was completely without pretension of any kind. But he remained a model of revolutionary integrity and dedication. He punctured the self-congratulatory nostalgia of a recent meeting to commemorate the LSE struggles of the 1960s by announcing that becoming a pensioner left him more time as an activist. It is one of the cruelties of life that Chris has been robbed of the happy and productive old age he was entitled to expect. He will live on in his writings and in the political legacy he has left in the SWP and its sister organisations in the International Socialist Tendency. But this doesn’t diminish the terrible loss his death represents – above all for his partner Talat and his children Seth and Sinead, but also for the much wider circle whom he touched. Personally, I have lost my comrade, friend, and teacher of more than 35 years. This is a moment to mourn and to grieve, before – as Chris would expect – we resume the struggle.

Chris Harman, SWP leader dies

by David
I’m very sad to hear that Chris Harman, one of the leaders of the British Socialist Workers Party has recently died. Chris Harman has always been my favourite among the many fine authors in the SWP. His writing, as editor of the British Socialist Worker newspaper until 2004 and as the author of many books and longer articles have had a profound impact on my own political thought, and I’m sure that is true of many other Socialist Worker members and our organisation as a whole. For several years we reprinted and sold his How Marxism Works, a collection of short, accessible articles on the basics of Marxism. Economics of the Madhouse was a popular introduction to Marxist economics. We also turned his article ‘Anti-capitalism: theory and practice’, written in the wake of the 1999 Seattle protests, into a pamphlet which sold well. Harman’s best work, in my view was his histories, which brought alive key moments in history by explaining how the struggles of ordinary people to liberate themselves from oppression and exploitation arise from and clash with the contradictory developments of capitalism. The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918-23 (1997) showed just how close the German workers came to making a revolution that could have saved the USSR from isolation and Stalinist counter-revolution and stopped Hitler’s rise. The pamphlet Russia, how the revolution was lost (1969) offers a brief account of what went wrong in Russia. While Class Struggles in Eastern Europe, 1945-1983 (1988) detailed the struggle of workers against the Stalinist regimes. Best of all are The Fire Last Time, 1968 and After (1988), an inspiring classic, and has the honour of being recommended by Rage Against the Machine in their Evil Empire album. And A People’s History of the World (1999). Over the next month or so I’ll post links to some of Chris Harman’s work. An appropriate one to start with, given that he died on the 92nd anniversary of the October Revolution is ‘Russia: How the Revolution was Lost’.

Calls for British left to come together after electoral wins by British Nazi party

The breakthrough for the Nazi British National Party in the European elections held earlier this month has sparked a renewed push to bring Britain's radical Left together. Significant statements have come from three of the main groups – Respect (the party of George Galloway MP), the British Socialist Workers Party, and No2EU:Yes to Democracy (an electoral coalition backed by the Communist Party of Britain, the Socialist Party and the railway workers union). BNP victory shows the need for Broad Left to work together, by Councillor Salma Yaqoob, Respect Party leader. Left must unite to create an alternative: An open letter to the left from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Call for unity to Defeat BNP, press statement by No2EU: Yes to Democracy coalition convener Bob Crow.

UNITYblog EDITORIAL: Debate on broad left strategy continues within IST

The global debate about how Marxists should organise politically in the current epoch is continuing. The debate centres on the question of whether Marxists opt to maintain a narrow Marxist organisation or join together unreservedly with other leftists in broad left political formations. This crucial debate is intersecting with the question of how the left responds to the global economic crisis. Without a viable political force which mobilises masses of people the result of the crisis will be devastating for ordinary people. Socialist Worker-New Zealand supports the broad left strategy, which has been articulated in the articles and statements. See History calls for a broad left party and Organising to build a global broad left movement. Our ideas have been raised within the International Socialist Tendency (IST), to which we are affiliated. In the interests of furthering this important debate we are posting on UNITYblog an exchange of ideas between Alex Callinicos, leading British Socialist Worker Party member, and European activists Panos Garganas and François Sabado. In International Socialist Journal (ISJ) issue 121, (Winter 2008) Garganas and Sabado responded to Callinicos's original article Where is the Radical Left Going? (Issue 120, Autumn 2008). See:

• Panos Garganas, The Radical Left: A Richer Mix.
• François Sabado, Building the New Anticapitalist Party.

In turn, Callinicos replies in ISJ issue 122: Revolutionary paths: a reply to Panos Garganas and François Sabado In his reply Callinicos appears to make concessions to the idea of building broad left parties where Marxists do not organise as a "party within a party" and block vote. Something which the British SWP did with disastrous consequences in Respect. The shift in position is noted by current Respect activist Liam MacUaid in his blog post A shift of position (8 April 2009). Socialist Worker-New Zealand (SW-NZ) is very interested in this unfolding debate, reflecting as it does the crucial question of how Marxists work cooperatively in broad left political formations. As an organisation SW-NZ is continuing to work alongside other leftists in RAM - Residents Action Movement. We want to see a mass-based broad left political alternative built in New Zealand that can win the respect of masses of people. A task which today is only in its infancy. At the same SW-NZ maintains its own organisational structures, organises Marxist Forums for political discussion, and produces independent Marxist publications, UNITYblog and UNITY Journal. We retain our ability to represent Marxist ideas through these forums and publications at the same time as we are committed as individual members to the political outreach work of RAM. Please forward any new contributions (short or long) on the broad left debate or responses to any of the above articles to UNITYblog editor

British left debates whether wildcat strikes are "racist"

The left in Britain has been debating whether the wildcat strike action by construction workers in Britain (see Lessons for NZ left in UK wildcat strike wave) is "racist". The crux of the debate is the attitude that left organisations shoud take to the struggle of these workers, particularly as it's workers' own self activity (not union officials or anyone else) that's driving the strikes. Compare the articles posted on Socialist Unity blog, British socialist Jerry Hicks on refinery disputes and George Galloway backs wildcat strikes, with the statement issued by the British Socialist Workers Party British SWP statement: Why British jobs for British workers is not the solution to the crisis. See also What’s really behind the Lindsey Oil Refinery strike, a statement by a socialist elected onto a strike committee.

A shift of position

by Liam MacUaid 8 April 2009 It’s not often that a leading figure on the far left sets out to “express my disagreements in some humility” and admits to having “shifted my own position”. Alex Callinicos may be starting a welcome fashion in the current issue of International Socialism. As part of an ongoing discussion with Panos Garganas and François Sabado about the connection between broad parties and revolutionaries he says that the evolution of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA) in France altered some of his views. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed and hope that this rethink eventually leads him to appreciate the difference between the united front and the wholly owned party subsidiary (Unite against Fascism, Globalise Resistance…). The near universal malady of the Anglophone left. In a certain sense the details of the discussion are not as important as the fact that it is happening. All the formations which have emerged to the left of Social Democracy in recent years have been very distinct and comparing one with another can be as productive as comparing apples with shoes. The LCR has been able to launch the NPA on the crest of a wave of struggles with an explicitly anti-capitalist programme. On the other hand Die Linke has a large group of members from the PDS tradition who are likely to be less receptive to a message of not sharing power with Social Democracy. One of the things that gives this debate in Britain a real urgency is the response of the unions to the loss of 4500 jobs at the Royal Bank of Scotland. It’s “truly devastating” was how they summed it up. There is no hint that they can do anything about it, no suggestion of the workers taking charge of the bank. The absence of an authoritative combative political leadership is taking a heavy toll on the British working class and while it is right that much of the left is building solidarity with struggles such as the one at Visteon that is insufficient. A political response which transcends selling a couple of papers and maybe recruiting a striker for three months is what is required. Some faltering steps are being taken. The No 2 EU campaign has its deficits. Wilfully excluding the SWP because of the Lindsey dispute; a tenuous commitment to internal democracy and some infelicitous phrasing in its propaganda among them. Nonetheless a major union with a record of fighting is contesting an election in opposition to Labour. That’s a big positive and maybe it will be a catalyst for a realignment after the elections. Add to this the fact that Respect still has an electoral base in some parts of the country and the Socialist Party have a habit of getting people elected and the outlines of a new formation appear. That is the significance of Alex Callinicos’ article. It reminds us that the discussion may have been muted recently but that it is still necessary. Under much more favourable circumstances a new party is emerging in France but it has been demonstrated that it is possible to launch a modestly successful project in Britain too. If one were to take a single aspect of the NPA that can be transplanted across the Channel it is its inflexible approach to internal democracy born from an understanding of the necessity of meaningful political pluralism. That is the one thing that is absolutely universally transferable.

Revolutionary paths: a reply to Panos Garganas and François Sabado

by Alex Callinicos from International Socialist Journal, Issue: 122 31 March 2009 The responses in the previous issue of International Socialism by Panos Garganas and by François Sabado to my article “Where is the Radical Left Going?” are very welcome.1 As their articles bear witness, the condition of the radical left in Europe is quite diverse. Though I have disagreements with some of the things that both have to say, these differences are quite minor. We in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) are enthusiasts for the New Anticapitalist Party (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, NPA) that Sabado and his comrades in the now dissolved Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR) have played a key role in launching. I also recognise the significance of the realignment that is bringing together the Greek Socialist Workers Party (SEK) and the other far-left organisations allied in the Anti-Capitalist Front (Enantia) with the New Left Current (NAR), the most important recent breakaway from the Communist Party. I also express my disagreements in some humility: the disastrous recent experiences of the radical left in Britain do not exactly set up any of the participants in these catastrophes to preach to their comrades elsewhere in Europe. As will become clear, the debate, and the concrete development of the NPA have shifted my own position. A new model party? The most important point to emerge from the discussion is that the general term “radical left formations” encapsulates two quite different types of organisation, even though they are both a product of the radicalisation of the past decade. There are those cases where the level of class struggle and the political traditions of the left make it possible for revolutionary Marxists to unite with others who regard themselves as revolutionaries in new, bigger formations. So far the only example where this has come to fruition is the NPA, whose founding principles, as we shall see below, are in a broad sense revolutionary. Then there are other cases in which the most important break is by forces that reject social liberalism but have not broken with overt reformism—Die Linke in Germany, the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) in Italy under both its old and its new leadership, Synaspismos in Greece and some elements in the Left Bloc in Portugal. Both Garganas and Sabado argue that radical left projects should follow the first model, basing themselves on a clearly anti-capitalist platform, rather than on an “anti-liberal” platform that targets neoliberalism and not the capitalist system itself. They justify this partly by pointing to the negative experiences of centre-left coalitions such as the plural left government in France in 1997-2001 and the Prodi government in Italy in 2006-8. Garganas also argues that significant sections of workers and young people are not attracted to “the traditional reformism of the past”.2 What seems to me valid in these arguments arises from the different paths taken by the class struggle and by the workers’ movement in various parts of Europe. France and Greece are the European states that have seen the most intense social struggles in recent decades. Indeed, in Greece these have been so sustained and so fierce (think of the huge wave of rioting by young people that swept the country in December 2008) as to create, in relative terms, the largest radical left in Europe. Moreover, these are both societies with strong Communist traditions where social democracy has only succeeded in establishing itself as the dominant force on the left in recent decades and on a fragile and contested basis. In these conditions, seeking to build parties of the radical left on an anti-capitalist programme makes perfect sense. It remains the case, however, that these parties will still have to grapple with the problem of reformism. One of the main lessons of the history of the workers’ movement is that the development of the class struggle, by drawing new layers of workers into class-conscious activity, will tend to expand the base of reformist politics, since seeking to change the existing system seems, initially at least, an attractive halfway house between passive acquiescence in the status quo and outright revolution. Thus if we consider the great revolutionary experiences of the past century, the Russian working class, after the overthrow of Tsarism, gravitated first to the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, not the Bolsheviks. In Germany, thanks to the ingrained experience of reformism and the relative weakness of the far left, it was the Social Democrats and the Independent Socialists who were the first main beneficiaries of the revolution of November 1918. Nor are these experiences confined to the imperialist countries. Consider how the Brazilian Workers Party, which Sabado’s comrades in the Fourth International helped to build in the belief that it was a non-reformist organisation, has become, under the Lula presidency, a pillar of social liberalism. The implication of these historical experiences is not the fatalistic conclusion that the mass of workers will never break with reformism: on the contrary, the Bolsheviks achieved, within the space of a few months, majority support in the Russian working class, and the German Communists were able to win over the bulk of the Independent Socialists and build a mass workers’ party. Nevertheless, these cases show how reformism remains a strategic problem for revolutionary parties far bigger and better socially implanted than the NPA, SEK or the SWP. A major driving force in the development of the new radical left parties is the experience of social liberalism. After Tony Blair, Lionel Jospin, Gerhard Schröder and Romano Prodi large numbers of workers and young people are looking beyond the “old house” of social democracy. But it doesn’t follow that they have broken with reformism as such. Indeed, so tight has been the embrace between recent centre-left governments and neoliberalism that some tendencies on the far left (the Committee for a Workers’ International, for example) argue that the British Labour Party, the German Social Democratic Party, the French Socialist Party and their like can no longer be regarded as reformist parties. I think this view is mistaken—apart from anything else it ignores the fact that large sections of the working class continue to vote for these parties, partly out of habit, partly for fear of the even harder neoliberal policies of the traditional bourgeois parties. But the sharp shift to the right by mainstream social democracy that gives this view whatever plausibility it possesses creates a large space to the left of these parties that is ideologically diverse and open to various political currents.3 It should be added that the revolutionary Marxist tradition, which both the Fourth International and the International Socialist Tendency have tried to continue, is not exactly a mass force at this precise moment in time. Sabado says this is because it “is more than 30 years since the advanced capitalist countries experienced revolutionary or pre-revolutionary situations”.4 That’s true. It is also true that, whatever achievements the LCR or the SWP can claim, we have not led mass workers’ struggles of any kind, let alone (as the Bolsheviks did) a successful socialist revolution. Moreover, we have to struggle with the incubus of Stalinism. None of this is a reason for liquidating the revolutionary Marxist tradition, but it does imply that we cannot hope in the short term to regroup the radical left on a platform that simply reproduces the strategic conceptions developed by revolutionary Marxists. That does not mean that these conceptions are simply irrelevant—a point that I return to below. What does this mean concretely? The situation in France has allowed Sabado and his comrades to launch a party three times the size of the LCR whose programme, while in some respects remaining strategically open, nevertheless explicitly calls for a revolutionary break with capitalism. Conditions differ elsewhere. Thus in Britain and Germany we confront workers’ movements in which social democracy has been deeply entrenched to the extent that it is often assumed that the two are identical. This is why the emergence of Die Linke in Germany is such a historic development. Sabado acknowledges that it is “a step forward for the workers’ movement” in Germany,5 but this recognition is rather grudging and he prefers to accentuate the negative, stressing the “left reformist” character of the project, the weight within Die Linke of the ex-Stalinist PDS and so on. All of this is true enough, but it ignores the fundamental fact that, for the first time in decades, the decay of social democracy has produced a serious breakaway to the left. Of course, Die Linke’s politics is left reformist: what else could it be given the balance of forces in Germany? Elsewhere the process of decomposition is so far advanced that such major splits are unlikely. As I noted in my original article, this is the problem that we are grappling with in Britain. The chronic, historic weakness of the Labour left would not matter so much if their ideas were not still supported by millions of people (as is indicated by the immense popularity Tony Benn enjoys well into his eighties). The continuing influence of reformism constrains us in different ways. Respect was doomed ultimately by its failure to bring about a major split in the Labour Party. But, even so, Labourism continued to make itself felt. If the SWP had, in the negotiations that led to the formation of Respect in 2003-4, insisted on the kind of anti-capitalist platform championed by Garganas and Sabado, the project would have been stillborn (or would have gone ahead without us). As it was, it was hard enough to have the word “socialism” included in the coalition’s title (via the acronym forming the name “Respect”). Were we wrong to have gone ahead on a weaker platform of opposition to neoliberalism, racism and war? Absolutely not: despite the ultimate outcome, it was right to have tried. But human beings make history not in circumstances of their own choosing, and an explicitly anti-capitalist party was not on the agenda in Britain then. Similarly it is not on the agenda in Germany today. Does that mean that our comrades in Marx21 are wrong to throw themselves enthusiastically into building Die Linke? Again, absolutely not. They are right to seek to try to develop Die Linke in the most militant and dynamic way possible. Sabado takes a cheap shot at Marx21, accusing it of “a relativisation of the critique of the policies of the leadership of Die Linke on the question of participation in governments with the SPD”.6 Fortunately, this misrepresents the real situation. Our comrades take a principled position of opposition to participation in centre-left governments. But what they refused to do, before the formation of Die Linke, was to allow the wrong policy of the PDS in participating in social-liberal state governments in Berlin and elsewhere to be used as a pretext, as it was, for example, by the local Committee for a Workers’ International group, for attempting to prevent the creation of the new party. Were they wrong about that? Would it have been better if what Sabado recognises as “a step forward” hadn’t taken place? Once again the question answers itself. Even where circumstances permit the formation of a party on a stronger programmatic basis, this does not mean the problem of reformism goes away. Sabado mentions the case of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a leader of the French Socialist Party (PS) left and a key figure in the campaign against the European Constitutional Treaty in the 2005 referendum, who has now broken away from the PS with the aim of creating a “French Die Linke”. Sabado asks, ‘Should we support him and join with him in his proposals and projects for alliances with the French Communist Party, which maintains the perspective of governing tomorrow—with the PS?”7 Of course not. The balance of forces in France allows the anti-capitalist left to relate to Mélenchon from a position of relative strength. But nevertheless his break with the PS is a significant one, which exposes the disarray of the reformist left in France in the face of Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in the 2007 presidential elections and the attractive power of the NPA embodied in the person of Olivier Besancenot. The development of the NPA may generate more breaks, not just in the PS but in the Communist Party as well. The NPA will have to know how to relate to such openings in a way that involves more than just offering the choice of joining the party or engaging in “classic” united fronts on specific issues. For all the excitement it has generated, the NPA will be quite a small force (albeit significantly larger than the LCR) on the French political scene and in the workers’ movement. This will limit its capacity to lead in any real upsurge of social struggles. Realising the NPA’s very great potential will require a willingness to intervene in the broader political field and sometimes to make alliances with other political forces, some of which, in the nature of things, will be reformist. Having said that, I think the NPA’s founding congress was probably right to have rejected an electoral pact with Mélenchon in the European parliamentary elections in June 2009. The NPA is the stronger force and it is important that it demonstrates and builds up its independent electoral force as quickly as possible. There is nevertheless a danger implicit in Sabado’s argument and sometimes explicit in what other comrades in the ex-LCR and in Fourth International sections when they say that the NPA should serve as a general model. This is encouraged by Sabado’s dismissive attitude towards what the forces immediately to his right do. Thus he pours cold water on the defeat of the forces allied to Fausto Bertinotti, the former general secretary of the PRC and architect of its disastrous participation in the Prodi government, at the last party congress. I wonder if this is helpful to Sinistra Critica, the left breakaway from the PRC that is led by Fourth International members. It might be if the correct perspective for Sinistra Critica were to build a hard revolutionary propaganda group that needed to inoculate itself against pressure from bigger, more right wing forces. But if Sinistra Critica is to act as a catalyst to the development of a stronger radical left in Italy, it needs to attend carefully and relate to what is going on inside the PRC. It is surprising that Sabado barely mentions the Left Bloc in Portugal, which (despite the prominence of Fourth International members in its leadership) is plainly pursuing a different approach from that of the NPA, as is reflected in its membership of the European Left Party, founded by Bertinotti and now dominated by Die Linke. The variety of circumstances we face in Europe make it a mistake to treat any party as a general model. It was a mistake for the leadership of the Scottish Socialist Party to offer themselves as a model and a mistake to the extent that we offered Respect as an alternative model. The NPA has, I believe, a much more promising future ahead of it, but it would be a mistake to make it a general model either. In stressing the importance of the specific circumstances I am not relapsing into a kind of national pragmatism. No, we operate in the context of a common field of problems that allows us to draw comparisons and learn from each other. Moreover, we share the aim of building large revolutionary parties. But it is still necessary to engage in a concrete analysis of the concrete situation in different countries. Revolutionaries and the radical left This brings us to the famous formula, coined by John Rees, that radical left parties should be seen as “united fronts of a particular kind”. Sabado attacks the formula at length, and it became clear in the debates that the SWP has had about the lessons of the Respect debacle that quite a lot of SWP members do not like it either. The formula is in fact an analogy, which involves comparing things that are different yet involve important similarities. A radical left party is unlike a “classic” united front in that it is based on a broad programme rather than a specific issue. The Stop the War Coalition is directed against the war on terrorism, not wars in general, let alone the capitalist system that generates them. Respect, by contrast, sought to connect that war with a range of other issues and to win electoral support on the basis of a political programme that sought to address them all. But a radical left party is like a united front of the classical kind in that it brings together politically heterogeneous forces. This is partly a consequence of the relatively open character of such parties’ programmes, which generally finesse the alternatives of reform or revolution (though this not true of the NPA). More profoundly, however, it reflects the character of a period in which it is possible to draw people from a reformist background into parties of the radical left where revolutionaries play an important role. The programmatic openness (what Sabado would call the “incomplete strategic delimitation”) of these parties reflects the recognition that it would be a mistake to make membership conditional on breaking with reformism. This stance is correct, but the price is a degree of political heterogeneity. Before considering the implications of this reality, let me say a couple of things about Sabado’s specific objections to the formula. He asks, “Didn’t this conception of ‘a united front of a particular kind around a minimum programme’ contribute to disarming the leadership of the SWP in its relationship with George Galloway, for whom Respect had to sustain ‘alliances with Muslim notables who could deliver votes’?”8 In the first place, “around a minimum programme” is Sabado’s own addition, presumably to highlight the contrast with the NPA. But in fact the degree of strategic delimitation (to put it more simply, of political hardness) in a party’s programme is a relatively open question. Whether or not it is anti-liberal, anti-capitalist, or indeed full-bloodedly revolutionary depends on the basis on which it is possible to unite real forces in an alliance that is both principled and sustainable. Did the fact that the SWP leadership saw Respect as a united front disarm us in dealing with Galloway? Not at all. Sabado’s suggestion doesn’t make much sense, since the united front conception is likely to make one attentive (over-attentive, he says elsewhere) to the tensions within the party. Moreover, as a matter of simple historical fact, growing tensions developed between the SWP and Galloway as early as the summer of 2005. The mistakes we made were arguably to compromise too much and certainly to conceal the seriousness of the conflict from all but a small minority of immediately affected comrades till much too late. But we were quite right not to follow the Scottish Socialist Party model of a unitary broad socialist party and liquidate the SWP. Had we done that it would have been much harder to salvage anything from the train wreck. To some degree, avoiding that catastrophic mistake was a consequence of using the united front formula, since a united front requires the existence of an organised revolutionary pole of attraction. Sabado also elaborates on a suggestion in his earlier piece that to “consider an anti-capitalist party in a united front framework can also lead to sectarian deviations. If the united front is realised, even in a particular form, might we not be tempted to make everything go through the channel of the party, precisely underestimating the real battles for unity of action?”9 Once again this suggestion does not make very obvious sense. Why should we imagine we are engaging in one united front at a given time? In the past decade the SWP has been engaged simultaneously in a range of united fronts—Respect, Stop the War, Unite against Fascism, Defend Council Housing, and Globalise Resistance. In the majority of these we work alongside people from a Labourist background. Having defended the formula of a united front of a particular kind, I must concede that it does not fit the NPA very well. The party’s founding principles declare, “It isn’t possible to put the state and its current institutions in the service of a social and political transformation. These institutions, geared to the defence of the interests of the bourgeoisie, must be overthrown to found new institutions at the service and under the control of the workers and the population.” The principles add: The logic of the system invalidates the pretensions to moralise, regulate or reform it, to humanise it, whether they are sincere or hypocritical. At the same time, the logic of the system helps to create the conditions of its overthrow, of a revolutionary transformation of society, by showing daily the extent to which it is true that wellbeing, democracy, and peace are incompatible with private ownership of the major means of production.10 So Sabado is right when he says that the NPA is a revolutionary party, in the broad sense of seeking the overthrow of capitalism from below, although he acknowledges that “this definition is more general than the strategic, even politico-military, hypotheses that provided the framework for the debates of the 1970s, which were at that time illuminated by the revolutionary crises of the 20th century”.11 In other words, the NPA has “a strategic programme and delimitations but these are not completed”.12 Sabado justifies this in the following terms: “The examples we can use are based on the revolutions of the past. But, once again, we do not know what the revolutions of the 21st century will be like. The new generations will learn much from experience and many questions remain open”.13 Now, of course, there is an important debate to be had about how much of the strategic inheritance of the revolutionary Marxist tradition remains relevant today.14 And it is also true that revolutions always comprise a decisive element of the unexpected and the novel. In that very general sense “we do not know what the revolutions of the 21st century will be like”. But it does not follow from this that we start at what Daniel Bensaïd has called a “strategic degree zero”.15 The “revolutionary crises of the 20th century” contain certain strategic lessons. They confirm that the overthrow of capitalism requires the forcible overthrow of the capitalist state, that this process presupposes the development of organs of workers’ and popular power into a challenge to the state, and that a revolutionary party must seek to win the majority of the workers and oppressed to this objective. Not simply do Sabado and his comrades agree about this, but much of its substance is affirmed in the NPA’s founding principles. There are also other subsidiary lessons that are important, for example, those developed particularly by Lenin in Left-Wing Communism, namely that the conquest of the majority requires revolutionaries to be active in the mass organisations of the working class, even though these are normally under (at best) reformist leadership, and in fights around partial demands, which require, among other things, pursuit of the united front tactic. And there is the complex set of issues related to the struggle against imperialism and national oppression to which the first four congresses of the Communist International devoted much valuable discussion. Then there are the lessons of the experience of Stalinism. These do not simply reaffirm the fundamental truth that socialist revolution can only succeed if it is based on a more advanced form of democracy than that offered by liberal capitalism. They also imply the rejection of what Leon Trotsky called “substitutionism”—in other words, strategies that seek to bypass the task of conquering the majority by, for example, relying on a guerrilla vanguard to seize power (here there may be a disagreement with Sabado and with Olivier Besancenot given the latter’s espousal of a 21st century Guevarism). And then, less a matter of strategy than of its analytical presuppositions, there is Marxist political economy, the whole body of analysis of the development of capitalism, its specific class structures and its interlacing with imperialism that is essential if we are to begin to comprehend what a socialist revolution means in the 21st century. It would be the worst kind of dogmatism to imagine that this body of strategic lessons and analyses begins to define exhaustively the nature of revolution today. Many questions do indeed remain open. Nevertheless, the strategic heritage of revolutionary Marxism remains in my view an indispensable reference point today. Sabado and I are agreed that it should not define the programmatic basis of the NPA and parties like it. But I think that, in reality, we also agree that this heritage should be available to the members of the NPA and should help shape their debates on its future strategy and tactics. The real problem is how practically to achieve this. In my original article I argued that it is necessary for revolutionary Marxists to form an organised current or to retain their own autonomous party organisation within radical left formations. Sabado agrees that this is sometimes the correct option but argues that it would be wrong in the case of the NPA for two reasons. First, “there is the anti-capitalist and revolutionary character of the NPA, in the broad sense, and the general identity of views between the positions of the LCR and those of the NPA”.16 Second, “in the present relation of forces, the separate organisation of the ex-LCR in the NPA would block the process of building the new party. It would install a system of Russian dolls which would only create distrust and dysfunction”.17 These are good arguments in the concrete context of the formation of the NPA. It is at once a qualitative expansion and transformation of the old LCR, and one that retains a substantial continuity at the level of both politics and leadership with the new organisation. Moreover, the relative weight of the ex-LCR within the new party means that if its members were constantly caucusing separately this could create a dangerous “them and us” climate. The problem of being a big fish in a small pond is something that the SWP grappled with inside Respect, and, though it was absolutely correct to maintain our independent organisation, this evidently was not a recipe that guaranteed success. Sabado is also probably right, at least in the short term, that “it is not very probable, with the present political delimitations of the NPA, that bureaucratic reformist currents will join or crystallise”.18 Nevertheless, the problems I set out in my original article remain. The more successful the NPA is, the more liable it will become to reformist pressures from within and without. Negotiating these pressures will often be difficult and will require a demanding combination of political clarity and tactical flexibility. More broadly, the whole experience of revolutionaries in the face of mass struggles since at least 1848 is that these can pull militants in different directions. Old arguments about ultra-leftism, the temptations of centrism, syndicalism and abstentionist purism of the Bordiga sort, the problems arising from the relationship between exploitation and oppression (for us the key issue in the debate about the veil), are bound to arise. This means that those who come from a revolutionary Marxist background have to be putting their own arguments within any anti-capitalist party. As Antonio Gramsci pointed out, spontaneity always involves diverse elements of leadership: the question for the new party is how these diverse elements will determine the party’s response as urgent strategic and tactical decisions have to be made. Of course, revolutionary Marxists have to avoid imposing their ideas in a top-down manner on others or turning every meeting of the NPA into a sectarian row. But they also have to find ways of organising themselves so as to articulate their arguments in a way that can win others in the new party to them. Hence Panos is right that “it is necessary to maintain revolutionary organisation as a source of education and political initiatives that pushes the rest of the left forward”.19 The complication is that the NPA has carried over much of the revolutionary substance of the old LCR. Nevertheless, at the very least, there is a pressing need for political education that makes available, in an open and critical way, to the non-LCR members of the NPA the theoretical and strategic heritage of revolutionary Marxism. The very welcome merger of the excellent Marxist theoretical journal ContreTemps with the LCR’s journal Critique Communiste is a recognition of this necessity, but a good journal cannot substitute for the much broader process of education and debate that is required.20 These reservations are secondary to my recognition of the importance of the venture on which Sabado and his comrades have embarked. We wish them good luck. Their success will be ours as well. Grappling with the same set of problems and discussing and working together, we can learn from each other. I regard these exchanges as a contribution to this process. Notes 1: Sabado, 2009; Garganas, 2009; responding to Callinicos, 2008. 2: Garganas, 2009, p154. 3: Garganas mentions one of these currents, autonomism, when he writes, “Young people may be more influenced by autonomists rather than ‘left Labour’ ideas”-Garganas, 2009, p154. This is plainly true in a number of European countries. But it is important to recognise that, precisely because of the autonomists’ evasion of the problem of political power, their ideas can often fit quite well with versions of reformism. This is shown by, for example, the collusion between autonomists and the right wing of the altermondialiste movement at the London and Athens European Social Forums, and the use of autonomist rhetoric by the PRC leader Fausto Bertinotti to conceal his shift to the right. See, for detailed discussion of this issue, Callinicos, 2004. 4: Sabado, 2009, p149. 5: Sabado, 2009, p144. 6: Sabado, 2009, p146. 7: Sabado, 2009, pp145-146. 8: Sabado, 2009, p146. 9: Sabado, 2009, pp146-147. 10: “Principles Fondateurs du Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste”, February 2009, http://tinyurl.com/NPA2009 11: Sabado, 2009, p148. 12: Sabado, 2009, p148. 13: Sabado, 2009, p149. 14: For two contributions to this debate, see Callinicos, 2006, and Callinicos, 2007. 15: Bensaïd, 2004, p463. 16: Sabado, 2009, p152. 17: Sabado, 2009, p152. 18: Sabado, 2009, p151. 19: Garganas, 2009, p155. 20: One implication is that the review Que faire?, initiated by IST supporters inside the LCR, which emerged as a valuable venue for discussion in the lead-up to the launch of the NPA, can still play a useful role in the new party, provided that it continues to conceive itself as a catalyst for wider debate open to militants of all and no tendency. References Bensaïd, Daniel, 2004, Une Lente Impatience (Stock). Callinicos, Alex, 2004, “The Future of the Anti-Capitalist Movement”, in Hannah Dee (ed), Anti-Capitalism: Where Now? (Bookmarks). Callinicos, Alex, 2006, “What Does Revolutionary Strategy Mean Today?”, IST International Discussion Bulletin 7, January 2006, www.istendency.net/pdf/ISTbulletin7.pdf Callinicos, Alex, 2007, “’Dual Power’ In Our Hands”, Socialist Worker, 6 January 2007, www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=10387 Callinicos, Alex, 2008, “Where is the Radical Left Going”, International Socialism 120 (autumn 2008), www.isj.org.uk/?id=484 Garganas, Panos, 2009, “The Radical Left: A Richer Mix”, International Socialism 121 (winter 2009), www.isj.org.uk/?id=513 Sabado, François, 2009, “Building the New Anticapitalist Party”, International Socialism 121 (winter 2009), www.isj.org.uk/?id=512

British SWP statement: Why British jobs for British workers is not the solution to the crisis

British Socialist Workers Party statement from Socialist Worker online 30 January 2009 Thousands of workers at around 20 construction sites and refineries across Britain have walked out on unofficial strike. At the centre of the strikes is the claim that foreign workers are taking the jobs of British workers. Economic crisis is threatening the jobs and living standards of every worker. Just last week giant multinationals announced 76,000 job losses across the US, Britain and Europe. The world is in the deepest crisis since the 1930s with spreading mass unemployment, pay cuts and poverty. This government, which has so utterly failed working people, showers billions on the bankers to shore up the profit system. But workers are ordered to the dole queue. As a steel worker at Corus said last week, “If you’ve got a bowler hat you get billions, if you’re in a hard hat you get turned away”. We need a fightback, with strikes and protests, and the unions have been scandalously slow to offer any sort of resistance to the jobs massacre. But these strikes are based around the wrong slogans and target the wrong people. It’s right to fight for jobs and against wage-cutting. It’s right to take on the poisonous system of sub-contracting that is used to make workers compete against each other. It’s right to demand that everyone is paid the proper rate for the job and that there’s no undercutting of national agreements. And we need militant action, including unofficial action, to win these demands. But these strikes are not doing that – whatever some of those involved believe. The slogan accepted by many of the strikers is “British jobs for British workers”. That comes directly from Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference in 2007. And it has been encouraged by many in the higher levels of the Unite union. Derek Simpson and others at the top of Unite have done nothing to encourage resistance to job losses, or a fightback against repossessions or against the anti-union laws. Instead they go along with a campaign that can divide workers. But it lets the bosses off the hook and it threatens murderous division at a time when we need unity in action to fight back. It’s not Italians or Poles or Portuguese workers who are to blame for the attacks on British workers’ conditions. Construction workers have always been forced to move far from home for jobs, whether inside a country or between countries. How many British workers (or their fathers or brothers) have been forced to work abroad from Dubai to Dusseldorf? When workers are divided it’s the bosses who gain. Total Oil, who manage the Immingham refinery, make £5 billion every three months! Jacobs, the main contractor which has then sub-contracted to an Italian firm, made £250 million in 2007. These are the people workers should be hitting, not turning on one another. Those who urge on these strikes are playing with fire. Once the argument is raised it can open the door to racism against individuals. Already in some supermarket warehouses the racists are calling for action against workers from abroad. We all know what will happen if the idea spreads that it’s foreigners, or immigrants or black or Asian people who are to blame for the crisis. It will be a disaster for the whole working class, will encourage every racist and fascist and make it easier for the bosses to ram through pay and job cuts. Already the BNP are pumping out racist propaganda supporting the strikes. Everyone should ask themselves why Tory papers like the Express and the Sun and Mail – which hate union power and urge on privatisation – are sympathetic to the strikes Right wing ideas gain a hold among workers when they see their lives being torn apart and the unions offer no lead. No doubt some in Unite think it’s easier to get a fight around a slogan like “British jobs for British workers” which sets people apart than one that brings people together like “Workers should not pay for the bosses’ crisis”. That’s a doomed strategy. Instead of turning against workers from abroad, everyone should be organising in a united way to pressure the union leaders to fight. And if the union leaders won’t fight then workers will have to organise the resistance themselves. Let’s demand an end to the system where foreign workers are housed separately from the British workforce. Let’s bring workers from abroad into the unions and link arms against the bosses and their system. Workers across Europe are under attack. Out unions should learn from the general strikes in Greece and France that we need mass, militant action directed at the bosses and the government to win.

• Fight all job cuts
• No deals that cut wages or accept lay-offs
• Smash privatisation and sub-contracting
• Unity against the bosses, no to racism and the BNP.

Broad parties and narrow visions in Britain

Broad parties and narrow visions: the SWP and Respect By Murray Smith Part 1 ; Part 2 Extract:

In spite of their tradition of political resistance to Stalinism, many Trotskyist groups developed internal regimes based on what can only be called bureaucratic centralism. There are particular reasons in the history of British Marxism for the sectarian and bureaucratic character of many Trotskyist groups. It is not a question of putting the three organisations cited above in the same basket, neither Tony Cliff nor Ted Grant deserves to be compared to Gerry Healy. But they share one thing in common, the inability to accept democratic debate, the confrontation between different platforms, for any length of time. It is not considered normal. This is not however a purely British phenomenon, it is common to, for example, Lutte Ouvriere and the Lambertist PT in France. The Trotskyist movement as a whole, some of its components more than others, has paid a heavy price for decades of persecution and the pervasive influence of Stalinism, even on those who opposed it. It would be more correct to characterise these organisations and the international regroupments around them as factions rather than the parties they usually consider themselves to be.

Contrasting articles on Chavez's actions post-referendum defeat

Green Left Weekly correspondant in Caracas, Federico Fuentes, has written a good article on the actions of Chavez in response to the referendum defeat and the real problems facing the revolution. It differs in tone and argument from Alex Callinicos writing in the British Socialist Worker. Alex's article is framed by a negative attitude towards the leadership of Chavez and prospects for the revolutionary fighters within the PSUV. Venezuela's Chavez: Socialism still our goal by Federico Fuentes, Caracas 19 January 2008 A collective discussion is occurring throughout the revolutionary movement led by President Hugo Chavez following the defeat of the proposed constitutional reforms — that were intended to deepen the revolution to help open the way towards socialism — in the December 2 referendum. Defeated by the narrowest of margins, the result took both sides by surprise. A cocky Chavista camp that had won 11 straight election victories was sent into a tailspin. The US-backed pro-capitalist opposition was forced to think up a new strategy, as the next stage in its well-orchestrated destabilisation campaign — taking to the streets against supposed electoral fraud — had to be postponed after Chavez graciously accepted defeat. "For now we couldn't do it!" explained Chavez in his concession speech. Discussion and debate has exploded as the battalions of the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — initiated by Chavez to unite the grassroots leaders of the process of change — convened to debrief. State television has hosted wide-ranging discussion. Left-wing websites such as Aporrea.org were flooded with opinion pieces. Chavez gave his first sign of things to come on New Year's Eve, announcing a decree giving amnesty to the 400 people who had signed the infamous "Carmona decree" that dissolved all public powers during the April 2002 right-wing coup against Chavez. A few days later, speaking on state television, he noted: "We need to improve our strategy in regards to alliances. We cannot allow ourselves to be dragged along by extremist currents … No! We have to seek out alliances with the middle classes, even with the national bourgeois." Chavez explained on his first Alo Presidente TV show for the year on January 6 that "I am obliged to slow down the pace of the march. I've been imposing on it a speed that's beyond the collective capacities or possibilities; I accept that, it is one of my mistakes." U-turn on socialism? A "u-turn on socialism" is how Stephanie Blankenburg described it, writing in the January 8 New Statesman. Chavez "had decided to abandon his socialist agenda 'for now'" because the country was not "ready for" for "his socialist project". Yet, argued Blankenburg, the December 2 vote "was essentially a protest vote by the 'Chavista street' against the 'Chavista elite'". Chavez's "strategy of a shift to the 'right'" — which she argues gives a "free reign to the 'Chavista elites'" — was "unlikely to boost [his support] with the popular base". Alex Callinicos, a central leader of the British Socialist WorkersParty wrote in the January 19 Socialist Worker that these moves were"cause for alarm" and "dangerously reminiscent" of those taken by the left-wing Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 when he "sought to make a deal with the right" while the right-wing were preparing to violently overthrow him and place General Augusto Pinochet in power. Callinicos writes Chavez's shift is based on acknowledging popular discontent with food shortages, inflation and corruption, but argues that dealing with these problems involves "not slowing down the revolutionary process, but accelerating it — breaking the hold of private capital on the economy." Corruption can only be rooted out by dismantling the existing state apparatus and replacing it with institutions of popular power. But Chavez is moving in the opposite direction." However, how accurate is this analysis of Chavez's change of tact? Self-criticism It is clear that Chavez has listened intently to the wide-ranging criticisms of his government in order to formulate his response. His most thorough statement on the situation was his speech to the National Assembly on January 11. He pointed to a number of issues confronting the revolution: the weight of the corporate media and lack of strategy to counter it; crime; food shortages; and especially the crippling problem of bureaucratism, inefficiency and corruption. The latter has led to a weakening over 2007 of the social missions —which represent significant gains for the poor majority — and in particular the healthcare Mission Barrio Adentro and the cheap food distribution Mission Mercal. Chavez raised the "harm done to the confidence of the people … being done everyday with a certain type of publicity, coming as much from local governments as the national government over which I preside; deceitful publicity, demagogic publicity, which many times contradicts the reality that the people live everyday …" Part of the problem is presenting inflated figures that give an exaggerated view of the gains being made. For instance, at the end of 2007, the government claimed there were 30,000 communal councils (grassroots bodies of popular power), but at the start of this year revised the figure to 18,000. Attempting to meet the arbitrary target of 50,000 councils in one year led to many problems as the process was rushed, rather than focusing on ensuring the councils were being formed correctly and at a pace appropriate to people's ability to ensure they function properly. Similar problems were associated with the PSUV — which signed up 5.7 million people last year, with more people listed as joining in some states than had voted for Chavez in the previous election. Official figures for ongoing participation in PSUV brigades were put at 1.5 million, which was clearly inflated and probably at least double the real figure. Chavez pointed to the "contradictions between the discourse of the leader and the reality of bad management or bad political practices …The revolution needs to strengthen the confidence of the people … We have to convince and demonstrate at the same time." Chavez insisted: "This year, which I want to declare the year of 'revolutionary impulsion', must be a year of solutions of the small problems, the concrete problems of the people." It is partially true, as Blankenburg argues, that one factor in the referendum defeat was a protest vote against the bad management by different tiers of government. Also there is no doubt a section of the Chavista camp and the state bureaucracy whose privileges have been threatened by the push for socialism, worked to sabotage the campaign. How else can you explain the fact that problems such as the food shortages were allowed to continue for several months without serious action by government or state institutions to tackle it? This suggests that rather than attempting a rapid deepening of the process while confidence of the people has been undermined on one hand and serious political weaknesses exist within the Chavista camp on the other, the correct course is to prioritise overcoming these twin problems in order to lay the ground work for the necessary significant advances. This appears to be the essence of the plans set out by Chavez for 2008. Strategic error The strategic error, Chavez said he took full responsibility for, was that "it was not the moment to launch this new attack … we needed to have consolidated, we needed to have launched, relaunched, government projects, sought more efficiency …" Chavez described the referendum defeat as like a boxer being dealt a blow but not knocked out. The boxer remains on his feet. The revolution did not advance but nor did it go backwards. Reaffirming "that the only and true road to the definitive liberation of our homeland is the path of socialism", Chavez said: "I call on everyone to make this a year of more advances." Chavez has set plans to bridge the gap that grew between him and the people, leading to the loss of nearly 3 million voters who backed him in the presidential elections, but abstained in the referendum. The aim is to find the ways to combine measures to solve the problems facing the mass of people with ways to raise the level of organisation and consciousness. Doing this will inevitably bring the process into conflict with capitalist interests, as it already has. However, it doesn't mean a forced march into a decisive battle without allowing for the necessary preparation of the working people. New cabinet Rather than giving free range to the "Chavista elite", Chavez sent a clear message in his recent cabinet reshuffle: ministers have to be effective. The clearest example of this is the new vice president, Ramon Carrizales, who is known for the fact that more houses were constructed last year with him as housing minister than in any previous year under the Chavez government. He is also known for having led the successful project to rebuild the vital bridge between Caracas and the international airport in record time while he was infrastructure minister. In a sign that the cabinet reshuffle doesn't represent a fundamental political shift, the former vice president, Jorge Rodriguez, who was seen as a radical has been freed up to focus full time on heading up the PSUV — the key political instrument to take the revolution forward. On the January 13 Alo Presidente a number of ministers came under fire for not moving fast enough on projects, sending a further signal to them and the people that the government is intent on making real changes. The call for seeking agreements with middle class opposition supporters and national capitalists is partly due to a common complaint among the poor that Chavez's rhetoric is often too confrontational and risks unnecessary conflict. The amnesty for some of those involved in the coup was in response to the campaign by the opposition around supposed "political prisoners"and does not include those involved in crimes against humanity or those who fled the country to escape responsibility — in other words the key coup leaders are excluded from the amnesty. In this way, Chavez has undercut the opposition campaign — leaving them defending those who cannot be defended. Popular power and political organisation In the same speech that Chavez mentioned an alliance with the national bourgeoisie he also called on people to read V. I. Lenin, emphasising that the central priority has to be deepening the social and political organisation of the people — principally through the communal councils and the PSUV. Declaring the promotion of communal power a central task, Chavez said:"The issue of the communal councils cannot limit itself to the transfer of resources … The most important thing is that you organise yourselves, become conscious of the social battle and go forward in consolidating the community …"" In order that December 2 never happens again", Chavez said at the opening speech for the PSUV founding congress on January 12, it is necessary to go on the offensive with the PSUV "as the spearhead and vanguard" of the revolution. "We have arrived here to make a real revolution or die trying." Venezuela: the street vs the elite by ALEX CALLINICOS From British Socialist Worker, 19 January 2008 “Fatherland, socialism, or death.” With these words, Hugo Chavez just over a year ago took the oath as president of Venezuela following a triumphant re-election campaign. By the logic of this oath, Chavez’s announcement last week that he was slowing the pace of his “Bolivarian revolution” is cause for alarm. “I’m forced to reduce the speed of march,” he said. This move follows the government’s defeat in the referendum of 2 December on its proposed new constitution. Chavez captured the imagination of all those around the world opposed to neoliberalism and imperialism with his defiance of George Bush’s administration and his championing of alternatives to capitalism. His call for “21st century socialism” seemed to mark the end of the period since the collapse of the Soviet Union when capitalism seemed to be the only game in town. But Chavez’s position has always been based on a contradiction. It was the poor of Caracas who saved him from overthrow at the hands of the right wing in April 2002. They surrounded the presidential palace and forced the plotters to release him. But Chavez remains the head of a bureaucratic state riddled with corruption and repression that presides over an economy in which capitalist social relations still predominate. So his policies pull in different directions. He has sought to sustain his popular base by using Venezuela’s swollen oil revenues to push through social reforms. Institutions such as the Bolivarian circles and the social missions were intended to bind together grassroots activists and mobilise them in support of presidential initiatives. But, faced with the hostility of Washington and the Venezuelan oligarchy, Chavez and his allies have also been tempted to concentrate on strengthening their control over the state apparatus. Thus the creation of a mass pro-government party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), was a top-down initiative intended to channel popular support. The proposed constitution contained worthwhile reforms, but also allowed Chavez to stand for re-election indefinitely. Corruption The referendum result wasn’t really a triumph for the right. The No vote was only 200,000 votes more than those received by their defeated candidate in the last presidential election. The real problem was that the Yes vote was three million lower than Chavez had won in those elections. Stephanie Blankenburg, an adviser to the Venezuelan government, writes in the New Statesman, “The result of 2 December was essentially a protest vote by the ‘Chavista street’ against the ‘Chavista elite’.” Discontent at food shortages, inflation, and corruption led a large section of Chavez’s base to stay away from the polls. His U-turn is intended to acknowledge this discontent. Chavez promised to address crime and food shortages. The trouble is that really dealing with these problems would involve, not slowing down the revolutionary process, but accelerating it – breaking the hold of private capital on the economy. Corruption can only be rooted out by dismantling the existing state apparatus and replacing it with institutions of popular power. But Chavez is moving in the opposite direction. He has amnestied the perpetrators of the 2002 coup and appointed as vice-president Ramon Carrizales, a military officer with links to big business. This is dangerously reminiscent of what happened under the left wing Popular Unity Coalition in Chile in 1972-3. As the right, backed by president Richard Nixon’s US administration, became more open in its attacks, workers reacted by building their own defence organisations, the cordones. But president Salvador Allende restrained these initiatives and sought to make a deal with the right. The resulting demobilisation gave the right the confidence to mount the military coup of 11 September 1973, in which Allende and thousands of other left wing militants perished. This point hasn’t been reached yet in Venezuela, but Chavez’s retreat marks the most dangerous moment yet for the revolutionary process.

Organising to build a global broad left movement

Statement by the central committee of Socialist Worker-New Zealand on the occasion of the two separate Respect conferences taking place in London on 17 November 2007. The political crisis in Respect that has led to a split is a setback for the movement in Britain. Many activists involved with Respect must be incredibly frustrated and disappointed that this happened at this time and in this manner. Some of that frustration and disappointment is shared by Socialist Worker-New Zealand. As an organisation we have watched closely the development of Respect, as an example of a broad left political formation. That this split has occurred, however, should not detract from the urgent necessity of building broad left alternatives. It’s not inevitable that a coalition that brings together people from a range of political traditions and experiences should fracture in this way. And there’s hope that out of the split, and the important political lessons it contains, a viable broad left project which maintains the original vision of Respect can emerge. For us in New Zealand, building a mass-based broad left alternative is central to the political strategy of our organisation. It is a strategy that we believe has global reach. Why broad left formations are necessary To many activists, workers and other grassroots people it’s apparent that the world’s becoming more dangerous, unequal, and at risk of environmental catastrophe. Corporate imperialism is driving the US ruling class to pursue a global war, currently centred on the Middle East. The same forces of corporate domination and control are marching the world headlong towards irreversible climate change. While the wealth gap between the world’s elite and the vast majority of humanity continues to grow. Grassroots people in every country are deeply concerned and angry at the twisted world that’s been created by three decades of neo-liberalism. In recent years – though globally uneven – there have been signs that anger is being combined with a growing willingness to fight back. Internationally, a layer of younger anti-capitalist activists has emerged. In some countries there’s increased militancy by unionised workers. And in Latin America, led by the revolutionary process in Venezuela, millions of people are now in revolt against corporate rule. So while the world faces the most urgent problems which threaten the lives of billions of people, there are also opportunities for building a political challenge to the corporate imperialists and the political parties that represent them. This is being recognised by activists in many countries, who are forming broad left networks, coalitions and parties. There’s a growing realisation that mass-based political alternatives to formerly social democratic parties that have embraced neo-liberalism have got to be built. For Socialist Worker-New Zealand such broad left formations are necessary for raising the confidence of working class people, because they begin to establish the prospect of an alternative society with different norms of collective behaviour and social responsibility. A programme of general and specific demands Central to many broad left initiatives is a common strategy: which is, the vital importance of presenting a programme of general and specific demands out to the wider movement. Such demands include free healthcare, free education, the nationalisation of wealth for the people, measures to protect the environment, rights for workers, rights for indigenous people, and so on. These demands can mobilise people in the struggle, uniting them into a potentially powerful force for social change. This is an essential strategy for advancing the movement after years of neo-liberal attacks and often severe defeats for workers and other grassroots people. Creating a viable electoral platform to present progressive demands out to masses of people is a necessity. Achieving legitimacy and authority in the eyes of grassroots people requires committed efforts to mount serious electoral campaigns. This is one part of building organic links with people who have been politically marginalised for so long. This electoral work must, of course, go hand-in-hand with grassroots campaigning in communities and workplaces. Mass outreach publications are needed which aim to bring broad layers of people into common activity. Such publications are important for maintaining an outwards focus and encouraging participants in broad left formations, both individuals and groups, to regard this work as a political priority. New Zealand’s Workers Charter Our organisation has worked with other radical leftists in New Zealand to establish the Workers Charter, a document which includes a ten-point list of human rights (see Appendix). At the beginning of 2006 the Workers Charter paper was set-up to promote the charter and to connect with workers and other grassroots people beginning to radicalise. The paper is distributed at protests and through union networks. The aim has been to bring socialist, leftists and other activists closer together, where debates can take place in the context of an orientation to the wider movement. The ten-point Workers Charter is also part of the manifesto of the Residents Action Movement (RAM). RAM was formed in 2003 by leading members of Socialist Worker-New Zealand in coalition with other grassroots activists on the back of a rates revolt in Auckland, New Zealand’s biggest city. In the 2007 local body elections RAM stood candidates across Greater Auckland (population: 1.4 million) and received over 100,000 votes campaigning on a clear anti-corporate, pro-people, pro-environment platform. Key policies were free and frequent public transport and shifting the rates burden off residents and onto big corporations. We see RAM and the Workers Charter as part of the struggle to build a serious challenge to the increasingly neo-liberal and reactionary New Zealand Labour Party. Breaking the hold that social liberal parties still maintain over workers and the wider movement will remove a crucial barrier to advancing the confidence of grassroots people. This is going to be a difficult struggle, but one which Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes must be embarked on with total commitment. Free debate and open democracy Broad left formations are by their very nature going to bring people with a range of views and experiences together. This is to be celebrated. Different ideas, shades of socialist and left politics, will generate much needed political creativity as broad left formations strive to connect with working class people. Any broad left network, coalition or party that is to have a long term future must foster a spirit of trust and equality based on free debate and open democracy. And certainly no one group can claim ownership and control. But because this is the real world of politics, there will be differences and often quite intense debates at every stage of the struggle, but all individuals and groups must make every effort to avoid behaviour that destroys long term political relationships between activists. Further, uncomradely argument and bureaucratic pettiness simply alienates ordinary grassroots people, particularly those new to political activity. Who are the very people that any broad left coalition or party must seek to attract. An outwards focus, where the goal is always to relate to grassroots people who are becoming radicalised in the current political context, is crucial to maintaining a political culture which encourages the free exchange of ideas. The significance of the Venezuelan revolution Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes the question of building broad left alternatives should be considered in relation to the Venezuelan revolution and its global impact. The revolutionary process in Venezuela involves millions of people, it is democratic, it is anti-imperialist, and it is empowering grassroots Venezuelans. A whole society is being transformed. These historic events provide all of us who hope for social change an opportunity to point to a real life alternative. This must be utilised by any broad left formation serious about advancing the movement in their own country. In addition, it is our opinion that the Venezuelan revolution holds some important lessons for broad left formations looking to build a mass movement. Socialism for the 21st century is being achieved by a strategically and tactically astute leadership putting in front of grassroots Venezuelans inspiring but attainable goals that have then been acted upon by millions of people. Through this process the struggle has pressed on towards socialist goals. We can look to advancing the movement in this way inside our own countries through broad left formations presenting well considered demands and policies out to masses of ordinary people. A new mass socialist international Recently, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez proposed a new International of socialist parties and the left for Latin America and the Caribbean. An international forum is being planned for 2008. It’s our belief that the Venezuelan revolution and the wider Latin American uprisings are indeed providing the essential material foundations for a new socialist international of the type that Chávez is proposing. A new International would be a hugely significant development for a grassroots, inclusive and democratic struggle against corporate imperialism. A mass socialist international that links the inspiring example of the Venezuelan revolution with radical forces in other countries would have moral and political authority in the eyes of millions. It could give real leadership and coordination to the global struggle against poverty, eco-destruction and war. As a step towards creating a new International, Socialist Worker-New Zealand is proposing to comrades in Venezuela and international socialists the urgent formation of an International Editorial Committee to facilitate a multi-language international discussion on the global significance of the Venezuelan revolution. A global programme for a living world The formation of a new mass socialist international would expand prospects for building a global broad left movement. It is Socialist Worker-New Zealand’s belief that the broad left strategy being pursued within individual countries can be supplemented and enhanced by a global broad left programme. A global programme for a living world, founded on the rights of humans to dignity, prosperity and peace, would electrify and unite the international struggle. Especially if it was promoted by an International that included the newly formed United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), set to be the biggest mass party of the left in the world. A global programme that includes general and specific demands generated by the movement would build practical solidarity between peoples in different countries. A common programme that has mass buy-in from left and socialist forces on every continent would be a truly powerful force for social change. Such a bold international strategy would provide a massive lift to the struggle in every country, potentially acting as a force to overcome unevenness in the global movement. By forging bonds of international solidarity we strengthen the struggle in our own countries. Relating to the struggle here and now The political focus of socialists and the radical left has to be on relating to the problems and opportunities in front of the movement now. To miss the opportunities that are present, through a lack of vision or through sectarian political practices, could bring grave consequences for humanity and the struggle to achieve a just society. In the absence of broad left coalitions or parties with a mass following it will be the right that stands to benefit in a situation of intensified capitalist crisis. It was not predetermined that the activists who have worked in and alongside Respect since 2004 would come to see the project arrive at its present point. Given the correct political outlook, commitment and vision, socialists and radical leftists can work cooperatively in broad left formations. Socialist Worker-New Zealand believes this is possible and absolutely necessary in the current political context. Organising to achieve increased confidence and political involvement of grassroots people in a progressive movement for social change should be the immediate priority of the international movement. We would like to establish links with all activists who are interested in our thoughts on building a global broad left movement. Contact socialist-worker@pl.net In solidarity, Central committee of Socialist Worker-New Zealand SIGNED BY Don Archer Grant Brookes Vaughan Gunson Bernie Hornfeck Peter Hughes Daphne Lawless Grant Morgan Len Parker Tony Snelling-Berg Appendix New Zealand's 10-point Workers Charter has been endorsed by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and is included in the manifesto of RAM (Residents Action Movement). The 10 points of the Workers Charter are: 1. The right to a job that pays a living wage and gives us time with our families and communities. 2. The right to pay equity for women, youth and casual workers. 3. The right to free public healthcare and education, and to liveable superannuation and welfare. 4. The right to decent housing without crippling mortgages and rents. 5. The right to public control of assets vital to community well-being. 6. The right to protect our environment from corporate greed. 7. The right to express our personal identity free from discrimination. 8. The right to strike in defence of our interests. 9. The right to organise for the transfer of wealth and power from the haves to the have-nots. 10. The right to unite with workers in other lands against corporate globalisation and war.

Two views of the RESPECT split

From the Socialist Workers Party (Britain) Central Committee:

George Galloway has launched a series of attacks on the Socialist Workers Party in recent documents and interventions at meetings. He has been trying to win people to sign a document claiming “Respect is in danger of being completely undermined by the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party” . It alleges that the SWP is trying to fix the outcome of the Respect conference by “blocking delegates” in Birmingham on the one hand and voting for delegates “at completely unrepresentative meetings” in Tower Hamlets on the other... Such allegations are false. They can be refuted simply by talking to many non-SWP members in Respect, as well as the SWP members against whom they are directed. The aim of these allegations is not simply to destroy opposition to a particular course on which Galloway wants to direct Respect — a course markedly to the right in some areas to that at the time Respect was launched four years ago. It is also to besmirch the name of the Socialist Workers Party, thereby damaging our capacity to play a part in any united campaign of the left... (more)

From Alan Thornett of Socialist Resistance:

The SWP leadership has managed to alienate virtually all of the active non-SWP members of the National council. Among them are Linda Smith National Chair, Salma Yaqoob National Vice-Chair, Victoria Brittain writer and playwright, George Galloway the Respect MP, Jerry Hicks leading industrial militant and member of the SWP at he start of this, Ken Loach, Abjol Miah the leader of Respect on Tower Hamlets Council, Yvonne Ridley journalist, and Nick Wrack - the first national chair of Respect and a member of the SWP when this debate started. No other organisation or nationally-known individual has remained with the SWP side in this. Faced with a Respect conference on November 17 and 18 which is organised on a totally undemocratic basis and which will have a built-in SWP majority after a campaign by the SWP to pack the conference with its own delegates, 12 members of the National Council have called an alternative conference on November 17th on the theme of “Renew Respect”... (more)

The crisis in RESPECT: a letter to the British SWP

A letter to all members of the SWP (Britain)

30 October 2007

Dear comrades,

Your comrades in the International Socialist Tendency in Socialist Worker - New Zealand have watched what appears to be the unfolding disengagement of the Socialist Workers Party (Britain) from RESPECT - the Unity Coalition with gradually mounting concern, anxiety and frustration.

SW-NZ’s perspective since 2002 has been that building new broad forces to the left of the social liberal (formerly social democratic) parties is an essential step towards the rebirth of a serious anti-capitalist worker’s movement. The work carried out by the SWP and its allies to build a broad coalition of the left which could compete with Blairite/Brownite New Labour on equal terms has been an inspiration to us, and, we believe, to all serious socialists throughout the world.

In the last two months, to our distress, all the good work that has been carried out in England and Wales seems on the verge of going down the tubes. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the specific organizational proposals put to the Respect National Council by George Galloway MP in August, an outright civil war has broken out between the SWP leadership and other forces in Respect. This, as far as we can see, could - and should - have been avoided.

It seems to us that your party’s leadership has decided to draw “battle lines” between itself and the rest of Respect - a stance, we believe, guaranteed to destroy the trust and working relationships on which any broad political coalition stands. Of particular concern to us is the expulsion of three respected cadre from the SWP - Kevin Ovenden, Rob Hoveman and Nick Wrack - for refusing to cut working relationships with those seen as being opposed to the SWP. To draw hard lines against other forces within a united front (even of a “special type”) and to expel members who refuse to accept those hard lines is behaviour you would usually see from a sectarian organization, not a party of serious socialists looking to build a new left alternative. It is perhaps in this context that Galloway’s reported comments about “Leninists” should be understood, rather than as an attempt to exclude revolutionary politics from Respect.

What distresses us particularly is that the above mentioned comrades were expelled after submitting what seem to us to be thoughtful and critical contributions to your pre-conference Internal Bulletin. If these three comrades are not being victimized for raising a political alternative to the line of the Central Committee, it certainly gives the appearance of such victimization - or even, to use a word which has become common currency recently, witch-hunting.

The opening contribution of the SWP CC to the Internal Bulletin makes a couple of points which seem to us to be particularly problematic in this context. Firstly, the CC state that:

The critics of the SWP’s position have organised themselves under the slogan “firm in principles, flexible in tactics”. But separating principles and tactics in this way is completely un-Marxist. Tactics derive from principles. Indeed the only way that principles can become effective is if they are embodied in day-to-day tactics.

It seems to us an uncontroversial statement that tactics must be based on much more than principles - a lesson which Lenin himself explained clearly in his famous “Left-Wing” Communism. Revolutionary tactics must be based on the objective realities of the time - the level of class consciousness, the balance of forces in society at any given moment, the resources and cadre available to a revolutionary organization. To derive tactics from principles is not the method of scientific socialism, but of a dogmatic or even sectarian approach, that the party is “schoolteacher to the class”.

As we see it, the disaster overtaking Respect has been exacerbated by the SWP deriving tactics from principles. The principle is that “the revolutionary party” embodies the correct programme, that it must work as a disciplined unit to win its position, and that there is nothing to learn from reformist or other forces. This feeds into a tactical approach that any threat to the organizational leadership of “the revolutionary party” must be fought using all means at the party’s disposal, and those forces who oppose the strategy of the party must be eliminated if they do not accept defeat.

According to the information we have, your party chose not to debate Galloway’s proposals openly within Respect first, and tease out the politics behind them. Rather, the SWP leadership first moved to neutralize internal dissent, before coming out fighting in Respect with accusations of “witch-hunting”. Instead of leading with the political arguments and winning leadership among the broad left forces in Respect, your leadership seems to have mobilized the party for a civil war waged primarily by organizational or administrative means. Inherent in this drive to defeat Galloway and his allies appears a “for us or against us” approach which seems to leave no room for any possible reconciliation - in effect, ensuring the death of Respect in its current form as a coalition of the broad left and a nascent transitional formation of working-class politics.

An attempt by the SWP to establish dominance by sheer force of numbers at the upcoming Respect conference would, it seems to us, result in a Pyrrhic victory at best. Such a course of action, even if successful, would simply drive out those forces who are opposed to your party’s current line and leadership, and reconstitute Respect as a front for SWP electoral activities. We can not see this as encouraging class consciousness or political consciousness, among the SWP, Respect or broader left forces. On the contrary, it seems almost designed to harden the boundaries of organizational loyalty and the divisions between “the revolutionary party” and other forces - almost the definition of sectarianism. Again, if these stories are true, then Galloway’s comments about “Russian dolls” would seem to us - as revolutionary Leninists ourselves - to be fair comment.

Another quotation from your Central Committee’s IB contribution which struck us runs as follows:

Of all the claims made against the SWP’s position the argument that Respect must be our “over-arching strategic priority” must be the most ill considered. Firstly, it ignores the fact that the building of a revolutionary party is the over-arching priority for any revolutionary Marxist. All other strategic decisions are subordinate to this goal.

Six years ago, the American International Socialist Organisation was criticized by the SWP (Britain) for a sectarian refusal to engage with the anti-capitalist movement. Alex Callinicos’ own article on the split with the ISO-US includes the following statement:

In an extraordinary speech at the ISO’s convention in December 2000, the group’s National Organizer, Sharon Smith, attacked the idea that the ISO could, by systematically focusing on this minority, “leapfrog” over the rest of the left, and insisted that methods of party-building forged in the downturn were necessary irrespective of the changing objective conditions. “Branches are now and will always be the measure of the size of the organization,” she said.

The ISO-US was criticized for failing to see to that the gains from a revolutionary organization engaging properly in a broad movement, for both the organization and the class struggle, could not be simply quantified by how many members the organization gained. A sect with many members is of far less consequence in the class struggle than a smaller group of revolutionaries playing an organic leadership role in promoting political consciousness among the working classes and oppressed layers. We feel that the SWP may repeat the ISO-US’s mistakes - with the much greater consequences, this time, of the wreck of the biggest advance for the British left-of-Labour since the Second World War - if it lets Respect, as “only or primarily an electoral project”, crumble at this point.

In contrast, Socialist Worker - New Zealand sees Respect - and other “broad left” formations, such as Die Linke in Germany, the Left Bloc in Portugal, the PSUV in Venezuela and RAM in New Zealand - as transitional formations, in the sense that Trotsky would have understood. In programme and organization, they must “meet the class half-way” - to provide a dialectical unity between revolutionary principle and reformist mass consciousness. If they have an electoral orientation, we must face the fact that this cannot be avoided at this historical point. Lenin said in “Left-Wing” Communism that parliamentary politics are not yet obsolete as far as the mass of the class are concerned - this is not less true in 2007 than it was in 1921. The question is not whether Respect should go in a “socialist” or “electoralist” direction, but in how Respect’s electoral programme and strategy can embody a set of transitional demands which intersect with the existing electoralist consciousness of the working class.

The personality of George Galloway MP and the links with Muslim communities in London and Birmingham, seen in this light, are surely assets to be worked with, not embarrassments to be minimized. When Galloway came to New Zealand in July to support our campaign against Islamophobia, he electrified audiences with frankly some of the best political oratory that we have ever heard. No-one is claiming that he is a saint, or that he has not made some questionable political choices, but we refuse to believe that somehow over the space of a few months he has become a “communalist, electoralist” devil.

The latest news that comes to us is that John Rees, a SWP CC member and the National Secretary of Respect, has publicly supported the four Respect councilors in Tower Hamlets who have resigned the Respect whip. If this is true, then the “civil war” in Respect has escalated to the point where the two factions are virtually functioning as separate parties - a “de facto” split much more harmful in practice than a clean divorce. This course of action is not only causing a serious haemorraging of cadre, but destroying the credibility which your party has built up as the most consistent and hard-working advocate of a new broad left in England and Wales. If the SWP appears to be attempting to permanently factionalise Respect, then it will be no wonder that other forces are trying to exclude them - not because of a “witch-hunt against socialists” (are you seriously claiming that Alan Thornett and Jerry Hicks are witch-hunting socialists?) but for reasons of simple self-preservation.

Socialist Worker - New Zealand comrades see this course of action from our IST comrades in the SWP as potentially suicidal. We see uncomfortable parallels with the self-destruction of the Alliance in New Zealand in 2001-2, where one faction deliberately escalated an inner-party conflict to the point where a peaceable resolution became impossible. Both sides of that struggle were permanently crippled in the aftermath. If you comrades are serious about trying to salvage the potential of Respect, I would urge your party to adopt the following measures:

· Lower the temperature of the internal struggle in Respect, by agreeing to a postponement of the Respect conference until at least after the SWP conference in January;

· recommit to building Respect as an active, campaigning organization in the unions and the movements, rather than a formation solely concerned with fighting elections, and to combining the SWP’s work as an independent revolutionary organization with this goal;

· put up proposals for more comprehensive institutions of democratic debate and political education within Respect;

· retreat from the current course of factionalist brinkmanship in the current debate, and take whatever steps are necessary to repair the working relationship between yourselves and other leaders and tendencies within Respect; and

· retract the expulsions of Kevin Ovenden, Nick Wrack and Rob Hoveman, at least pending debate at your party conference.

If, on the other hand, Respect is finished as a united political force, it would surely be better for the two sides in this debate to approach the question of “divorce” amicably and calmly, rather than forcing the issue to a final conflict in the next few weeks and destroying the trust between the SWP and other forces on the left for perhaps a long time.

I would also encourage your party to, as a matter of urgency, write a report for the information of your fellow members of the International Socialist Tendency, giving your analysis of the crisis within Respect and your long-term strategy for building a broad-left political alternative in Britain.

In solidarity,

Daphne Lawless

Editor, UNITY magazine

Socialist Worker - New Zealand