Back issues

No 1245 24th May 2004

Lalkarites concoct the most delinquent degeneration yet in the whole rotten history of hypocritical Stalinist apostasy. Swallowing Scargill's abuse for 8 years, and covering up for his endless demagogic conceit and political ignorance, is pronounced healthy and useful. The duped working class will hardly see it as that as a result of being lied to for 8 years, as is now admitted, over what was the real political value and personal quality of the supposedly "great leader" in the SLP. The illusory worth of "personality" in politics is still the only rut that most of the fake-"left" know, — the Brarites dropping straight back in it. But ignoring polemics will not conceal the return to Stalinist theoretical idiocy.

A bunch of "left" opportunists, honourably booted out of Scargill's SLP guru-worship club for no longer showing enough deference, have dishonourably claimed the formation of a "new" revolutionary party" allegedly "different from all the other claimants to building communist parties in Britain".

It is not "different" at all. It is stuck in exactly the same rut of Revisionist opportunism where all the rival "communist party" Stalinist remnants have festered since the 1960s.

Worse than that, it is the wretched Stalin phenomenon all over again, ludicrously repeated by this group in staying loyally silent at Scargill's rear for 8 years of the SLP while all kinds of reactionary political and personal shite came bucketing out of the "great man".

Now there is a ludicrous "review" of this Brar group's modern history which is only notable for the huge and laughable silences over the long stretches of years, and major world issues, for which Brar has no answer.

The "new" pattern is immediately clear. It is the same old "guru" worship as before, — first era covering up all the questions Stalin could not answer; second period covering up all Scargill's howlers and ignorance; last phase, protecting Harpal Brar himself from his grotesque history of contradictions and evasions.

It is the same old sectarian hope in "personality politics" that has held sway on the "left" in Britain since Stalinist theoretical idiocy and personality cult first began to guarantee in the 1930s the ultimate future decay and collapse of Lenin's Third International.

A sectarian "brand loyalty" and a blind inability or unwillingness to re-examine difficult history is all that ever marked the various CPs which split off from the original CPGB, and it is the essence of this "new" CPGB-ML.

First, all the huge silences on major historical questions, still relevant to today and still not answered.

Life in the CPGB-ML begins with one giant cover-up.

To begin with, Stalin has disappeared from view.

It may be only a temporary tactic, and he may put in a reappearance at some future birthday or anniversary or other. But for the moment, this party of museum Stalinism has dumped its guru out of sight.

Which makes grasping things utterly impossible when the subject at issue is the post-war history of the Communist Movement and the way in which all the various factions and splits got into total confusion either with total pro-Stalinism or with ignorantly opportunist anti-Stalinism, — in the midst of which perch the barely half-explained "reasons" for the Brarites taking yet another "new" Stalinist-detritus path.

It gets worse. The CPB and the NCP breakaways from the old CPGB are lambasted for ditching the self-liquidating 'Eurocommunists' but for no better reason than continuing the same "infamous British Road to Socialism" reformist imbecility, and continuing the same subservient tailending of Labour Governments and "left" Labour MPs.

But these were prime CPGB policies precisely in the immediate postwar period when Stalinist Moscow was busybodily approving or disapproving EVERYTHING that all the 70 or so Communist Party members of the old Third International were doing or saying.

It has been authoritatively reported, and never denied, that Stalin personally gave the "British Road" reformist imbecility his full approval.

So what hypocritical gibberish will the CPGB-ML eventually come up with to skirt round this problem??

Doubtless, it will just do its usual trick of keeping silent, as Brarism has done on a hundred or more major historical/political challenges thrown up to it over the last 25 years by the EPSR.

It will keep as silent as it has done in this "new" launching over the REALLY outstanding political garbage in the NCP's record, — its often declared' willingness to sacrifice "EVERYTHING" just so as not to allow Western imperialism to provoke a nuclear war against the Soviet Union.

It was THIS policy above all others in the 'Eurocommunist' locker which finally led to the obvious logic of self-liquidation.

But it was THIS policy, above all others, which was the STALINIST policy par excellence. It was THIS policy which finally took Gorbachev's Kremlin on a direct route from Stalin's "peaceful coexistence" capitulatory idiocy eventually to the total self-liquidation of all remaining revolutionary-war ambitions for the world communist movement, and therefore to the self-liquidation of Revolutionary Russia itself, i.e. the abandonment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and of the Socialist Camp.

And why no denunciation or even mention of this major plank of NCP nuttiness???

Because it leads directly back to Stalinism itself, and to Brarism's own rotten political history of grotesque mistake after grotesque mistake, — all of which are only to be covered over and never acknowledged and debated.

The cover-up by keeping silent can fairly be said to be the defining characteristic of this degenerate "new" Stalinist opportunism, because the most astonishing silence of all is maintained by the Brarites over what their effective message to the working-class public was in their 8 years' loyal servitude, keeping quiet about Scargill's real political rottenness while showing to the public only "total loyalty to the greatest modern working class leader in Britain".

Was it really only after being expelled at the end of 8 years of silent servitude behind Scargill that these Brarites finally became aware of the need to denounce the opportunist majority of the SLP, led by Arthur Scargill, saturated through and through with the politics of trade unionism (i.e. bourgeois politics), — who have been busy trying to rid the SLP of all serious theoretical thought and turn it into yet another outfit completely characterised by eclecticism and lack of principle"????

And if it isn't really possible that such a long view of Scargill's total political rottenness could only become clear to the Brarites at the moment of their expulsion at the end of 8 years loyal back-scratching for Scargill in public, then where is the CPGB-ML's explanation for the POLITICAL SILENCE of their total membership and leadership throughout that period on a matter of such crucial importance for the entire British working class???????

If Scargill is such a completely shallow opportunist rogue, than what has this CPGB-ML membership been up to deliberately hiding this fact from the British working class for the past 8 years??????

What manner of political animal are these Brarites that only after their sudden summary expulsion from the SLP's ranks (with an appeal for reinstatement turned down!) was the discovery made about

"Scargill's total ignorance of scientific socialism, his utter contempt for theory in the worst traditions of British trade unionism, his proclivity for Christian petty-bourgeois pacifism, his complete devotion to the bourgeois politics of trade unionism, his inability to get rid of the baggage of shallow lib-lab politics which he acquired through his membership of the imperialist Labour Party over a period of four decades, combined with his insufferable vanity."

(all quotes from issue No 1 of the "new" Stalinist gobshite newspaper)????

Another new charge now against Scargill by the CPGB-ML rings some even nastier bells about Brarite traditions of treacherous hypocrisy and rotten opportunism:

"Scargill did not confront our position by an open and honest debate,"

their "reborn Marxist openness" declares.

"Instead, he resorted to procedural manoeuvres, unconstitutional practices, abuse of authority, bluster, manipulation, threats, and attempts at intimidation, the only weapons known to him, in a desperate attempt to stifle all discussion of these most important issues, in the process making himself look more and more ridiculous and impotent."

At the end of 1998, the Heron-Sikorski Trots persuaded Scargill to effectively expel the EPSR from the SLP if it refused to stop attacking the Trotskyite anti-communist defeatism and opportunist imbecilities which were the most prominent shaming features of Socialist News and SLP activities at that time.

Issue 979 of the EPSR on Dec 15 1998 duly replied to this monstrous censorship/expulsion order by denouncing such anti-communist anti-debate backwardness more vehemently than ever, — the following giving a tiny flavour:

'Defeated Trot anti-communists around the SLP have staged a monstrous campaign of personal vilification and slander, including strike threats and other blackmail attempts, to try to rescue their factional positions within the party.

This factionalising had long been on the skids anyway inside the SLP because of its disruptiveness and its hopelessly wrong politics (see main-article), — but it decided to lash out with this farcical witch-hunt hysteria after losing out at the November Congress elections.

Their real hatred is the EPSR's uncompromising fight for full-blooded Marxist-Leninist communist philosophy for the past 20 years which has completely trounced Revisionist and Trotskyite nonsense on every major issue in the world (see main article and previous 978 issues).

At their London SLP Region strike meeting, Heron blurted it all out, going incandescent about "cranky Marxism" and adding "this trend was swept away by the collapse of the Berlin Wall and all those countries" in the most vicious McCarthyite manner, wanting the same thing to happen to the EPS Review (see main article and last week's EPSR).

The Heronites borrowed the "let's play the homophobe card" tactic from another group of defeated Trotskyite entryists at the CPGB whose Weekly Worker personal vilification campaign has run non-stop as a cover for the fact that the EPSR's Marxist-Leninist science has repeatedly trounced these Trots on every major world issue and philosophical question, — from their complete misunderstanding of the Irish national-liberation struggle, the disappearance of the USSR, the SLP phenomenon, etc (see main article and last 3 years EPS Reviews) to the reactionary influences of self-righteous bourgeois individualism which afflict much single-issue campaigning with reformist illusions.

It is the anti-revolutionary prejudice inherent in reformist illusions which persuades these anti-communist Trot opportunists to a giant posture for Gay Rights or feminism, e.g., as the way to try to regain ground by besmirching the EPS Review's name.

They previously peddled Black Nationalism for similarly manipulative reasons, denouncing the whole SLP as 'racist' when it refused to go along with their blatant opportunist manoeuvre for two extra seats for Trots on the SLP executive.

Because of its anti-communist and anti-revolutionary prejudices born inevitably out of the sour decades of all-round Cold War cynicism, much of the individualist and reformist-illusion philosophy of this single-issue campaigning era continues to breed nothing but cynicism towards the renewed perspectives now for the revolutionary overthrow of the whole capitalist system (the only real way that things will ever be properly reformed).

It is at this point of political anti-communist cynicism that the Trots develop such sudden enthusiasm for Gay Rights campaigning, falsely accusing the EPS Review of 'homophobia'.

But their real target is precisely the Review's unparalleled analysis (going back step-by-step for 20 years)of the inevitability of eventual catastrophic imperialist economic crisis which has obviously informed the entire Marxist-Leninist exposure and denunciation of Revisionism's and Trotskyism's miserable capitulation to imperialist 'New World Order' nonsense (see main story) and their cowardly treachery to the workers states.

The Trots hate the EPSR's crisis analysis (denounced by Heron as 'cranky Marxism', and 'pointlessly wanting to recreate a super-Bolshevik party' — see last week's EPSR) because it has been relentlessly stalking their anti-communist and anti-workers-state treachery.

If it has always been known (to Marxism) that imperialism was inevitably heading for the most destructive, devastating, and degenerate slump and fascist warmongering crisis in all history, making the degradation of World Wars I and II (the results of the previous great imperialist crises) look like child's play, — then the vicious Trot and Revisionist cynicism (towards the now obviously heroic achievements of the workers states) is at last fully seen for the disgusting opportunist philistinism that it always was.

The venom which superficially they seem to be putting into their Gay Rights defence against non-existent 'homophobia' in the EPSR's fight for a complete Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, (not reformist) philosophy, — is really fuelled by this hate-filled demoralised panic among the Trots that their whole life's fake-'left' anti-communist manoeuvring is suddenly turning to dust, — just when they had been thinking about triumphant careerist political ambitions in the aftermath of the supposed 'collapse' (a completely phony analysis, — it was sabotaged; see past EPSRs and many, many forthcoming Reviews) of the Soviet Union, which they assumed had proved Trotskyism right after all. Not so. Just the opposite, in fact.

But far from weakening the EPSR, this hysterical campaign of personal vilification and attempted censorship (trying to get the EPSR closed down is closer to fascist book-burning than to the Marxist tradition of written polemics against philosophical positions thought to be incorrect or disagreeable) will quickly discover that the Review's 20-year fight for Marxist-Leninist science has produced a theoretically-competent communist cadre—strength which will continue to slaughter Trotskyite nonsense both inside and outside the SLP.

They tried physical violence outside the Manchester Congress hall,and aggressive threats at the London Region meeting, and now they have had a shameful mini-success in joining the SLP's name to anti-Marxist censorship temporarily.

But as this Review issue explains, the attempt to stop discussion of every aspect of capitalist society and bourgeois ideology facing the working class is both sterile and futile.

The galloping fascist hysteria which now feels free to express political pique at losing office by hurling slanderous vilification at opponents — (anti-semite; gas-chamber-Nazi; gay-basher; misogynist; racist; and even paedophile, has been just the milder abuse from Heron supporters) may have been got away with temporarily, in the ideological confusion not yet clarified by stronger and more widespread Marxist-Leninist revolutionary understanding. But the new spirit of communism within the working class will eventually know how to deal with this crap and it will not be by swallowing it.

The Review's position is for TOTAL class war on the enemies of the working class and, unlike the bourgeois press (Trot muddleheads included), was for kicking the POLITICALLY odious reactionary Ron Davies AND his rotten government as hard as possible on every issue.

That included "his totally bogus 'family man' opportunist self-presentation, and the government's monstrous LIES (for whatever reason) about "a sudden lapse of judgement". Just not true, as the EPSR alone pointed out from the detailed police and MI5 records of Davison's lavatorial cruising.

And shouting 'homophobe' at all this, on Davison's behalf, must be some kind of congenital insanity, but certainly can have nothing to do with a class-war wish to utterly destroy the ruling class and their New Labour stooge government.

Now by all means let the EPSR's view on this question be a matter for broader discussion in the workers movement. It was front-page news for nearly 10 days in the mass-audience capitalist press and television.

But just assuming the fake-'left' swamp must all be right in their 'defend Ron Davies' attitude, keeping the faith with all Gay Rights campaigning regardless of its political orientation, — is capitulation to 'reformist' political hysteria.

Fake-'left' solidarity with Clinton, the head fascist of US imperialist aggression (Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Palestine (via endless Zionist-imperialist tyranny)), etc, etc, because of his slick 'progressive' posturing domestically, — — is equally naïve treachery to the basic class-war requirements of anti-imperialism.

Overthrow him for his creepy sexual opportunism and exploitation, and split and humiliate the American ruling establishment at the same time. The whole world of poverty is laughing at Clinton. It is class-treachery to defend him and not to join in the ridicule.

The fake-'left' has never been right on anything else. Why is their self-righteous defence of petty-bourgeois 'individual rights' so sacrosanct now??

A workers party should try to give a lead to the working class over all such politically-prominent moralising upheavals, not let fascist hysteria from defeated Trot anti-communists try to use single-issue 'reformist' fanaticism to close down the EPS Review for trying to start a Marxist debate on such emotive issues.

But the SLP has responded by totally ignoring the moral controversy in its own paper; by spiking an article on the American ruling-class moral and political crisis over Clinton; by giving no other lead to the working class as to what attitude the working-class party takes to such moralising upheavals; and by letting fascist hysteria try to close down the EPS Review for publishing a Marxist attitude to such matters.

A more enlightened communist spirit is gradually gaining ground, however. The EPSR, which has published independently for nearly 20 years and will carry on doing so, will continue to promote and spread that communist spirit as far and wide as possible throughout the whole international working class.

It has its own remit for commenting on the whole British labour movement (as part of its commentary on the whole world political and philosophical scene), as it has been doing for nearly 20-years in the interests of Marxist scientific understanding in general, and as it is doing in this article.

It has an unmatched record for combative communist analysis of every world event for the last 20 years from a position of support for world revolutionary (anti-imperialist) struggle, — as shown for example in its massive contributions in understanding the Irish struggle (see main story), — and must continue this work no matter what outrageous censorial political pressure is put on past prominent contributors.

A party that wants to earn the trust of all working people as the future party of leadership, to be followed all the way to the very bold confident step of abolishing capitalism and building a workers state in Britain, the only way a socialist society can be constructed, — — must be able to demonstrate that it can handle EVERY question of life and the community and philosophy BETTER THAN all the spokesmen and women of a thousand brands of bourgeois ideology (including fake-'left' petty-bourgeois ideology like Trotskyism) all combined.

A workers party will never prove that by just running away from discussing difficult questions just because Trot counter-revolutionaries and other single-issue 'reformist' fanatics are out stirring up censorship lynch-mobs.

It will never prove it by allowing endless reactionary disruption by anti-communist factionalists who want to totally mislead the WHOLE-CLASS struggle (to jointly overthrow capitalism) into the sterile and racist divisiveness of separate schools for black children and separate schools for white children, separate sections in the party for black workers, etc, etc. Debate is necessary, but once a debate has been comprehensively won by, a majority of the party, then the party has to decide what is the CORRECT line, and then move on.

It will never prove itself the total answer to ALL bourgeois ideology unless it constantly encourages the continuous developments required in the party's original (and inevitably time-dated) tactics & programmatic starting points. The immediate political composition of capitalist society and the broadest workers movement are changing all the time. Workers need constantly to be able to analyse everything that is going on around them, including in the labour movement around fake-'left' or anarchist trends.

It will never convincingly demonstrate its seriousness until it is prepared to accept its own mistakes, or mistakes committed in its name (over Ireland, e.g., or the extent of the economic crisis, etc), and correct then publicly.

Trotskyite articles on Ireland, e.g. have appeared in Socialist News which simply ignore, slightingly, one of the most colossal triumphs of anti-imperialist national-liberation struggle of all time.

Negative references to the joke imperialist 'New World Order' supposedly imposing a settlement on Ireland in favour of the Union-Jack waving colonial fascists and one which IRA/Sinn Féin did not want but were powerless to prevent (SN 12) are just hopelessly WRONG and have the effect of the supposedly anti-imperialist SLP actually HARMING the anti-imperialist struggle there by spreading this biased anti-Irish propaganda to demoralise the heroic fight by Sinn Féin/IRA and demoralise its supporters in Britain.

And even though one strongly pro-Sinn Féin article was printed, nothing has been done in a tiny party like the SLP to keep this debate alive and ongoing so that the party is up-to-date on this issue and cementing better relations with Sinn Féin all the time, one of the most outstanding anti-imperialist parties on earth at the present time, and one with some of the greatest potential for becoming a ruling party (in all-Ireland) with more socialist content and intentions than any current ruling party in the West.

Now all of this may still be some distance away, but the May/June 1998 SN stance was entirely in the wrong direction. It lazily adopted the widespread Trot-defeatist cynicism which has insisted (Weekly Worker and elsewhere) that the imperialist order was imposing a settlement on IRA/Sinn Féin which the Republicans hated but were capitulating to, — abandoning the armed struggle and allowing Adams & Co to pursue opportunist bourgeois political careers.

For the gist of this defeatist nonsense to have appeared in Socialist News is a tragedy, especially if it remains uncorrected.

And if it is to lead the working class in Britain, the SLP must become a party which can reach conclusions and take a stand in the further interests of the international defeat of the imperialist system, of which Blair's is the stooge representative government in Britain.

The Trots are wrong. Only the EPS Review has come remotely near the truth, and has printed it loudly and clearly throughout. The national-liberation struggle has not remotely been abandoned, and the IRA is nowhere near capitulating.

It has offered a peace ceasefire so that a completely new Ireland can be put in place, — the Good Friday agreement for cross-border bodies to begin adopting most of the government of all-Ireland.

When that de-facto obliteration of the old colonial 'Northern Ireland' tyranny is complete, including a completely new police force, etc, not run by anti-Irish colonial fascists, — the national-liberation movement will begin to stand down its armed struggle, simultaneously with all non-Irish arms being taken out of the struggle, meaning the British Army, the sectarian RUC, and the criminal gangs of 'loyalist' fascist gunmen.

But the IRA has made it clear this week that there will be no de-commissioning until the British imperialist Unionists who wish to remain Ireland-dwellers (Trimble & Co) have started to actually implement and accept the new all-Ireland structure for that much-wronged land.

It is British imperialism which has been defeated, — by an undefeatable armed national-liberation struggle, — NOT the IRA/Sinn Féin.

So far, the EPS Review has been astonishingly accurate in its Marxist analysis going back 20 years, even being far more farsighted (and at book length) in 1982 and 1985 in seeing imperialism's DEFEAT (longterm political defeat) in the outcome of the hunger strikes and the Anglo-Irish Treaty than Sinn Féin itself which initially could only see both events as a setback for the national-liberation struggle (only much later changing its mind, to some extent).

Now, — to repeat once again (and it will be repeated a million times in the future),— none of this is related in order to prove who were the clever-dicks and who were the duffers around the British labour movement or the SLP.

The point is to argue that without a deliberate struggle for Marxist theory, any workers party will be immeasurably poorer.

The same happened over the world capitalist economic crisis which the December 1997 Congress was told "may not come to Britain" solely because Trotspeak wished to undermine "cranky Marxism" and is also philosophically confused by imperialism's collapse because it puts Trot treachery to the Soviet workers state in such a bad light. (If the entire consumer glitz and high wage-earning 'democracy' of the 'free world' collapses in fascist-slump degradation, what then becomes of all the Revisionist and Trot imbecilities about the workers states "being on the wrong path"? Basically, they were on the correct planned development path of slow-but-steady growth and product-innovation (hampered by the need to meet colossal armed-defence bills) and 'bureaucratic-but-equitable distribution and justice.) '

Scargill started expulsion proceedings immediately because "issue 979 was in complete conflict with NEC Dec 12 instruction that contributors of the EPSR cease publication of that journal or alternatively give an undertaking that it will not comment on affairs of the SLP", etc, etc.

Not only did the Brarites sit out this effective expulsion of the EPSR from the SLP; — one of Lalkar's most prominent supporters, Amanda Rose, actually formed 33% of the NEC's expulsion committee, and actually chaired it!

Yet now the CPGB-MLers complain that they were booted out "in a farce that would make the worst bourgeois kangaroo court look like a bastion of even-handed justice".

But the extent to which the whole SLP in 1998-1999, including its Lalkarites, were hypocritically complicit in the Alice-in-Wonderland "legal" stitch-up of the EPSR is obvious from the final Leninist denunciation of Scargill which the Review transmitted over the laughable bureaucratic muddle which terminated the EPSR's "disciplinary" farce:

'Your attempts to justify your manipulativeness are as dishonest as your original manoeuvres to expel me.

You were asked why you failed to inform me first that the March 20 NEC had not confirmed my expulsion (on some technicality or other which you have still not explained) before proceeding to expel me on April 2 for "non-payment of dues" (to a party I assumed I was no longer a member of).

Your 'explanation' for that failure to communicate that March 20 NEC decision is that "as you were no longer a member, there was no reason for me to write to you."

It will be obvious to even a tree stump that to say you did not communicate the NEC decision to me on March 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, or April 1 "as you were no longer a member" (which was not true until April 2), — is just senseless gibberish.

In response to my challenge, you boast at the end of your letter: "I certainly will 'explain' my conduct to the next Party Congress, and also inform that Congress that the Vice-President elected in November 1998 did not have a sufficient sense of discipline to pay his Party subscriptions thereafter," and you add no less than three further paragraphs to hammer home your pretence that "strict adherence to rules" is the real issue here.

Your 'Rules and Constitution' proudly boast "a Complaints Procedure, drafted by John Hendy, QC, for the SLP" and adopted by the NEC in 1997. Rule 19 clearly instructs the General Secretary to "inform the respondent within seven days" what the NEC has decided to do about the Complaints Committee recommendation (for immediate expulsion with effect from March 20).

Only now, in your letter of May 11, have I at last been "informed" that "As the result of another case, unconnected with yours, the NEC meeting held on 20 March could not consider the report on your case by the Complaints Committee, and consequently could take no decision".

Clearly I should have been informed of this "WITHIN SEVEN DAYS" of March 20. But your letter of May 11 is the first communication I have received from the SLP on this not unimportant matter.

So who is it who really lacks "a sufficient sense of discipline"??

Even on the dues-paying question itself you are a complete fraud. "You know perfectly well that you automatically ceased to be a member of SLP on April 2"(under Clause V(4) 13-week rule) you pompously declare.

But you know, and everyone in the party knows, that long after April 2, SLP meetings were being held where not only many of those selecting the candidates for elections were way past the 13-week rule for 1999 contributions, but a large number of the candidates themselves which you scraped together were out-of-benefit too.

Maybe no-one will have the nerve to stand up and tell you at your forthcoming Congress what a bare-faced hypocrite you are with you small-minded 'constitutional' rackets, but you are and will remain a trade-union bureaucracy political crook of the nastiest kind.

And what about Rule 18 of the Complaints Procedure? This orders that "a written report of the Complaints Committee decision, summarising briefly the reasons for it" must be supplied to the Respondent (via the General Secretary)"within 14 days of the hearing". This was on Feb 12. To this day, as you well know, I have never received IN WRITING so much as the verdict of the Complaints Committee, let alone their reasons for reaching it, which were never supplied verbally either. In even the most wretched legal procedures on earth, it would be out-of-order to not supply the accused after the trial with the verdict and the sentence IN WRITING, — as your own rules instruct you to do. Did you "lack a sufficient sense of discipline" to carry out these important instructions as General Secretary?

And since you pretend to be so 'rule conscious', can you explain what happened to your 'constitutional discipline' in never having yet replied, — neither at the Complaints Committee, or in letters to me, or anywhere else, — to the SINGLE constitutional point I put back to you in reply to the avalanche of 'constitutional transgressions' you raised against me, — namely, the quite vital legal point spelt out in rule 4 of the Complaints Procedure, and wisely thought important enough by your legal adviser to be stressed again in the short preamble to the full 5-page 37-paragraph document to avoid the SLP falling foul of the law and being sued for discrimination or persecution.

This obvious sensible safeguard declares that the Complaints Procedure "is only applicable to conduct by a member of the SLP IN THAT CAPACITY" or relating to the conduct by "an SLP member IN THAT CAPACITY".

As you repeat in your latest (May 11) letter, you brought your complaint against me over what the EPSR does because I was "deeply involved in the publication of the EPSR".

But I don't edit the EPSR "in my capacity as an SLP member". My SLP membership has got nothing whatever to do with my being editor of the EPSR, which job I have done every week for 20 years in accordance with the instructions (of the Editorial Committee) for a Marxist commentary on the activities of the WHOLE labour and trade-union movement in the light of the changing requirements of the international class war against imperialism. Nothing the EPSR has ever done has been referred to the SLP or ever will be, or referred to the wishes of anyone acting "in their capacity as an SLP member". EPSR editing functions and SLP membership functions are completely separate activities.

Things I did "in my capacity as an SLP member" were to act as secretary for the Stockport Area CSLPs; act as agent in two SLP election campaigns; regularly sell huge numbers of Socialist News; write many articles for Socialist News; move motions at SLP Congress; get elected to regional and national SLP committee; etc, etc. For NONE of these activities "in my capacity as an SLP member" have I been charged, which are the only activities your own Constitution and Rules say that I can be taken to the Complaints Committee over.

For someone with such a self-proclaimed sense of 'constitutional discipline', why do you refuse to address this matter which is crucial to my case, crucial to your behaviour as General Secretary (especially with the emphasis you always put on how 'constitutionally' you always supposedly conduct yourself), and crucial to natural justice????

Your one attempt to justify your illegal treacherous victimisation to expel me, which was unleashed at the NEC meeting on Dec 12,was to try to pretend to the Complaints Committee that the contents of the Dec 15 EPSR* [*978-as above - ed] on which you based your complaint, referred to "internal SLP matters you could only have known about in your capacity as an SLP member".

Just not true. A complete lie, in fact.

As I patiently explained to the Complaints Committee (without getting one word of response from them on this matter, or on any other matter that I disputed in a 2-hour hearing), — the reference in EPSR 979 was to a London Region SLP meeting at which your Trotskyite close collaborators in the founding of the SLP, Heron & Co, had declared a strike on all future cooperation with the SLP in response to my election as vice president. But I learned about that meeting not because of "my capacity as an SLP member" but as a reader of the published press where a full report of that London regional SLP had been carried weeks earlier by the Weekly Worker.

Since your treacherous back-stabbing was unleashed on Dec 12, it is possible that I have referred to matters which I have only learned about because of my membership of the SLP, but this entire disciplinary racket you have cooked up tied itself to the Dec 15 issue of the EPSR. It is just gross deception on workers to circumvent your own constitution to pretend that my editing of that newspaper could be related to me "in my capacity as an SLP member". You are lying, and your whole complaint is a complete fraud.

And why have you never replied to this point, either in writing or in your lengthy submissions to the Complaints Committee, — a point which I spelt out fully in my own submission, and also put in writing in my final written submission to the Complaints Committee?

And why did the Complaints Committee not reply??

I will tell you why, further on in this letter.

It is for the same reason that you simply totally refused to consider my cooperative offer to resign my office as vice president in order to allow a serious DISCUSSION leading to a hoped-for UNDERSTANDING of each other's positions within such a small party. I openly acknowledged the potential influence that weekly publication of the EPSR could give to the Leninists in the SLP's ranks, and was prepared to creatively debate all manner of possibilities for turning such writing and publishing capacities to the advantage of party information and education, to be mutually agreed by the party leadership collectively.

You refused any such discussion from the start. You simply issued an increasingly bilious stream of letters containing various peremptory instructions, — (all of which I attempted to adapt to in a spirit of cooperation pending further serious party-leadership discussions (which in the end never once took place with the slightest scrap of sincerity on your part)), — concluding with your Dec 12 motion out of the blue (at the first NEC I ever attended, and the only one) to effectively have me expelled from the SLP for being the editor of the EPS Review, a job I had done for 20 years.

What all this registers is your utter syndicalist outlook on politics. You really do believe that the trade-union rule book is going to win socialism in Britain, and you have a profound philistine contempt for serious scientific theory about political class struggle (Marxism-Leninism).

The total vacuum on your part for collective leadership via constructive debate shows up in most areas of how the SLP is run. The newspaper is entirely devoid of polemics and does not even have a letters column. It panders to 'famous names' no matter what rubbish they write.

You loudly declare a near-pathological dread of "internecine warfare", banning all debate and expelling me for explaining mistaken Trotskyite contributions to the SLP (on Ireland; in going on strike because they did not like an election result; in resigning because they could not get their way on Black Sections; etc. etc, etc, etc, etc;) — — — and yet you then almost tie the party up in internal constitutional legal wrangles going on endlessly which basically need solving by POLITICAL confrontation followed by a quick split from anti-party factionalising.

Your philistinism is such that in my case, you simply refused to show to the NEC the 5,000-word letter I wrote to the NEC offering my resignation in return for debating a constructive way forward for EPSR supporters to continue actively backing the development of the SLP.

And coming from the tradition of 100 years of TUC-Labour Party class-collaborating 'reformism' and pro-imperialist chauvinism, — the rule-book you hope to lead Britain to 'socialism' by is, of course, completely bent.

You swamp people in constitutional flannel but you don't believe one word of it yourself and have not the slightest intention of being bound by it in reality. You are a demagogic bureaucrat through and through.

You send this reply without an ounce of sincerity because that is what bureaucrats do. You and your Complaints Committee stonewall on the question of the complete 'disciplinary' illegality (of charging me over conduct "in my capacity as an SLP member" for my regular political-journalism activities which have roughly followed the same pattern for all of 20 years now, and which have not the slightest relationship to my behaviour "in my capacity as an SLP member"), — — for the same bureaucratic reasons.

You even bother going to all the bureaucratic trouble of denying that you initiated the expulsion procedure against me, — purely in order to be the complete bureaucrat. "I did not seek your expulsion from the SLP," you write, "and whatever decision the Complaints Commit too reached was a matter for them, not for me."

Who do you think you are kidding with this stuff? And why do you bother?

The truth is that bureaucratic posturing is ALL you've got, — your syndicalist demagogy. You don't have any politics other than to be a weathervane for 'left Labourism', the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on the working class in this country; and your 'break' from the Labour Party was in name only, — a significant historical development in itself but the understanding of which was something way beyond the interest of its main protagonist, (and which will be analysed elsewhere in the EPSR now that this development has apparently exhausted its immediate potential). '

It's just a bit late to be complaining now about Scargill's "unconstitutional practices, manipulation, and abuse of authority", as the newly victimised CPGB-ML are doing, — six years too late.

In view of what the Brarites NOW at last tell us about the constant abuse they suffered inside the SLP, for 8 years or more, — putting up with "Scargill and his cronies" and "with his insufferable vanity" as

"it became clear to all of us who worked closely with him that all he wanted was a fan club, just 'old' Labour remade in his image",

— — — one major puzzle is the statement by the CPBG-ML:

"It is worth noting that not one of us feels our time in the SLP was wasted".

This is either a confession of very unhealthy masochism, or else of extremely slow learning, — or else of utterly unprincipled opportunism by out-and-out careerists in the Labour Movement who calculated on eating Scargill's shit for 8 years in order to rise up on the "great man's" coat-tails and eventually make a name for themselves like a Beria or a Kaganovitch.

On any explanation, the prospect of working class leadership from such gutless tripehounds seems not just unappetising but distinctly ludicrous.

An even more substantial problem is the age-old Lalkar flaw of always posturing hard with "Marxist" self-importance, but never actually saying very much, or committing to anything substantial.

For 25 years the EPSR has been challenging Lalkar and others to state what their real perspective is on imperialist crisis.

Lalkar has in practice worked Scargill's "left-reformist" coat-tails for the last 8 years, just throwing in the odd "revolutionary" word in their own Lalkar propaganda, but never saying when, where, how, or why this "revolution" would come.

There are no perspectives for a World War III inter-imperialist breakdown; or a world "free market" economic collapse break down; or for an extended Third World national liberation revolutionary breakdown leading towards a return back to communist revolutionary inspirations.

The Brarites have a brand new communist party now, but we are still none the wiser.

After endless months of EPSR polemical battering, these intellectually-cowardly opportunists have moved on from Scargill's "condemn terrorism" at last (though never openly challenging Scargill's reactionary class-collaborationism while inside the SLP), and have accepted (though with no acknowledgement of past leaden-footedness) that the historical evaluation of Western imperialist warmongering escalation from Serbia onwards maybe deeper than "just about oil".

But despite a huge new summary of "facts" about Iraq, there is still a conscious avoidance of any discussion about how deep is the American imperialist warmongering crisis in historical terms, about how significant might the Middle East resistance be in world socialist revolutionary terms, and about what role the insoluble economic crisis might play in driving the warmongering imperialist rivals against each other as this turn to belligerent "solutions" gets more and more into its stride, — all of which possibilities are frequently eagerly discussed around the EPSR's struggle for Marxist-Leninist scientific perspectives.

In another huge litany of "facts" about the insoluble Palestinian end of the incurable imperialist warmongering crisis, the Brarites once again fail to disown the lunatic, treacherous, disorienting, and impossible "two-state solution" which they have previously clung to, both around the SLP and independently.

And since they won't disown it, and since they keep total silence as usual about the long detailed and frequent attacks on them (and others) by the EPSR over this issue, it must be assumed that the CPGB-ML is still part of the filthy Stalinist-Revisionist counter-revolutionary plot to "peacefully coexistingly" join with the West in conning the Palestinian people to accept the utterly disastrous, utterly treacherous, and utterly impossible nonsense too, that they must accept the post-1945 colonisation of their country by Western imperialist Zionist Jews, and delude their nation for all time that "one day, a state of Palestine will be yours".

It is utter garbage. It will never happen. There is no possible room for any other
truly "independent" state on the old Palestine territory now so dominated by the Zionist imperialist-state monstrosity (the world's fourth most powerful military might and the gigantic American Empire's No 1 stooge and ally); and that Zionist fascist-military tyranny will never allow anything but joke "independence" anyway, and on nothing but a patchwork of pocket-handkerchief-sized Bantustan reservations, something closer to a permanent refugee camp or exile prison than a state.

It is never going to work and it has never been going to work from the start, ever since capitulatory Stalinist-Revisionism surrendered to this genocidal imposition.

By not denouncing this disgusting historical fraud now, these CPGB-ML Brarites declare their total class-collaborating willingness to compromise forever with the Western imperialist "new world order".

And it is virtually guaranteed that the Brarites will preserve total silence on this polemical issue, just as they have always sought to defuse EPSR criticism over the past two decades by just ignoring it.

But the world will not go away, even if critics can be blanked out.

And it is developments themselves which will finally show up the utter bankruptcy of the intellectually-cowardly non-perspectives of the CPGB-ML, — just as they ultimately made clear Stalinism's theoretical bankruptcy at the heart of the Revisionist catastrophe, and eventually brought out the essential rottenness and pointless self-damage of the Brarites' 8-year cover-up for all of Scargill's unpleasant imbecilities.

Build Leninism. EPSR.

EPSR joining box

Return to top

Imperialism's warmongering crisis may force the issue in Najaf but is more poised to lose the longterm war than ever before to total Third World revolt, driven beyond control by insoluble "free world" economic disasters and injustices.

This age of global control by the American Empire continues to look sicker and sicker every day.

Battles can still be won in Iraq by the sheer brutal force of firepower superiority, but nightly F-16 air bombardment blitzkriegs on utterly defenceless Iraqi residential areas is hardly going to reconcile the Arab and Muslim world to the US imperialist intervention into their region.

The joke "handover" to Washington's stooge Iyad Allawi still hangs in the balance.

This brutal new pro-imperialist Baghdad regime may yet work for a while, but surely the historical trend is all against this type of colonialism-by-proxy.

All of the USA's best "bastards" have been toppled one by one,-Marcos in the Philippines; Somoza in Nicaragua; Suharto in Indonesia; the Shah in Iran; Saddam Hussein in Iraq; Noriega in Panama (the last two downed by the US itself when they "got out of hand"); etc, etc.

Allawi's longterm chances seem zero, and there is no guarantee that he can survive even a short term yet.

Total humiliation still awaits this out-of-date warmongering explosion by would-be neo-colonial world rulers trying to save the monopoly-imperialist global economic system from "overproduction" collapse (see EPSR box), — an impossible task.

The enormous difficulties Western imperialism is already having in trying to pacify Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq, — having used them to claim the "virtues" and "advantages" of total military subjugation to begin with, — will be as nothing when it is Iran, or a rebellious Egypt, or an even more terrifyingly rebellious Pakistan, or a TOTALLY terrifyingly rebellious Russia that has to be taken on to keep the American writ still functioning for its joke "new world order" neo-colonial tyranny.

The Palestinian debate in particular has fermented rapidly over the recent weeks towards the EPSR's longstanding scientific understanding that a "two-state solution" has never been anything but a cruel joke on the dispossessed Palestinian nation; that the dismantling of the evil post-1945 imperialist outrage of allowing armed Jewish-Zionist genocidal colonisation of the land of Palestine is the only proper issue facing the Middle East; and that the gathering forces of world socialist revolution will eventually see to it that this utterly anachronistic colonial land-grab of Palestine by Western imperialist Jews is totally dismantled.

Not only is the number of places US imperialism needs to invade to maintain its "new world order" (world control) growing all the time, but the urgency with which they need sorting out is escalating rapidly too.

Nepal is currently paralysed by the Maoist rebel guerrillas laying siege to the capital Katmandu, having already taken total control of the countryside.

American helicopter gunship support for the besieged Nepal army is achieving little so far. A total imperialist blitzkrieg seems the only counter-revolutionary guarantee now.

The disaster for the American Empire in Venezuela was even worse. There, all the top-drawer CIA intervention tricks were employed, costly in finances and even more costly in lost American prestige, in several major bids to oust Hugo Chávez, the populist president who refuses to toe Washington's line, — and they have all now failed.

The military coup failed; the general strike by Big Business failed; and now the joke "recall referendum" has failed. Even the Western capitalist press is jeering this monster humiliation for the Bush counter-revolutionary White House:

Juan Gonzalez Daily News, New York, August 16

"Hugo Chavez, the south-of-the-border president the Bush White House most despises these days, didn't just survive Latin America's first-ever recall referendum — he steamrolled his way to a stunning landslide victory ... It was a resounding defeat for the Venezuelan upper-class elite...

"His triumph was an equally embarrassing defeat for the Bush administration... They have repeatedly claimed to other nations that the Venezuelan leader is a dictator in the making ... The Chavez victory margin of more than a million votes should make clear that he has enormous support among Venezuela's poor, and they are the vast majority of the population ... We'll see now if the Bush people only accept democratic election results where their guy wins."

Guillermo García Ponce La Nación, Venezuela, August 17

"The Venezuelan people have expressed their indisputable, democratic and peaceful will in a clear and convincing way. In a massive demonstration of profound civic conviction, millions of Venezuelans turned up to decide if Mr Chavez's mandate would or would not be revoked. The results have been open and conclusive. The majority decided in favour of keeping Mr Chavez...

"Mr Chavez called on the opposition for peace and reconciliation but [they] have rejected the president's offer. They do not want peace nor reconciliation, not just because they lack democratic spirit but because Washington does not accept Venezuela's verdict of sovereignty."

Toronto Star Editorial, August 17 "

The country's conservative elite is loath to accept the result... This is a repudiation of democracy;

With the world economy sicker by the day, and with revolts spreading everywhere, the stage is setting for World War III and the world socialist revolution. Build Leninism. EPSR

 

Back to the top