Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the touchstone on which the real understanding and recognition of Marxism is to be tested.—V.I.Lenin
I.L.W.P. BULLETIN
Weekly newspaper of the International Leninist Workers Party (P&P Bulletin Publications, PO Box 50, London SW17 9NL)((GPO Regd.)   
No 644 Tuesday April 14 1992                                                                                                                       10p 
Capitalism's phony 'democratic opposition' game ending in chaos

The humiliation for Labour and Liberals in failing to defeat this disastrous ruling class government indicates that 150 years of 'modern' parliamentary posturing could be nearly played out.

The 'democratic' racket of capitalist dictatorship has crucially depended on the petty-bourgeois hordes and the workers aristocracy being capable of carrying off their pretence of providing an 'alternative' to domination of the country's interests by the monopoly bourgeoisie.

For more than a century when British imperialism had a lion's share of world control, the super-profits from colonial exploitation made possible periodic 'reformist' Liberal or Labour governments to alternate with the 1st-team Tory management of the capitalist state to keep going the delusion that the anarchic crudities of private enterprise could one day be tamed by parliament, and by local councils. 

But Britain is now one of the weakest and most decrepit links in the imperialist chain with scant leeway for periodic free-spending parliaments to sugar for the proletariat the pill of class-collaboration with a fundamentally unjust system.

Thatcherism was a necessary ruling-class offensive to try to start dismantling the welfare state, and to wipe out notions of public ownership of the economy and wealth, and replace them with the primitive ideas of every man for himself once again.

And having eliminated the modern Tory tradition of 'one nation' Butskellism, the serious crisis facing British imperialism also obviously makes it necessary to paralyse the 'reformist alternatives' to monopoly-capitalism too.

There can be no argument about how degenerate the ruling class in Britain has become with endless City corruption being exposed, crass mismanagement of economic affairs openly admitted by the Tories, and the far more serious underlying weakening of Britain's industrial base accepted by all.

Add in the bungled moves of the Poll Tax debacle, and Thatcher's messy removal to be replaced by a dalek, and 'logic' would point to one of the most catastrophic Conservative defeats ever.

In trying to unravel layer upon layer of fascinating complexities as to why it did not happen, the first basic reality to grasp is the point the Bulletin made last week for the election, - namely that the dire economic crisis of British and world imperialism means that the people of Britain are in for a terrible clobbering whoever the polls recorded as the least unpopular (i.e. the 'winning') party.

It is very revealing about the class conflict in Britain to try to explain why the Tory government survived, but it must always be done to the accompaniment of the understanding that in the long run, it would have made very little difference to the fate awaiting British capitalism if Labour had got in.

These attacks on working class living standards will happen anyway because the new relative weakness of British monopoly capitalism will henceforth coincide with the greatest slump-crisis the imperialist world has ever known.

The bourgeois press itself has been unable to conceal the disastrous potential implications for the international economy (and for Britain in particular) arising from the loss of profitability for the vast Japanese bank loans which have recently played such a huge part in keeping the worldwide credit boom going:

JAPANESE share prices yesterday tumbled to their lowest for more than six years, seriously weakening the country's banking system and threatening to hinder economic  recovery elsewhere.

It was the sharpest one-day fall for five months. The Japanese government, which last week unveiled a package of state spending and cut interest rates in an attempt to end the country's economic decline, is now likely to be forced into making further rate cuts.

The value of several Japanese banks fell by more than 10 per cent. Their difficulties reduce the amount of money available to finance the US budget deficit and to lend to companies in Europe, particularly Britain, where nearly one quarter of "financial assets" are reckoned to come from Japan.

IF the fall in the Tokyo stock market had happened on Wall Street the folk memories of 1929 are still alive enough for us to realise the potential implications. But Tokyo is far away — and somehow it seems hardly likely that its stock market was once the equal of Wall Street; or that the ramifications of its subsequent collapse could ever reach the UK.
Yet Britain has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the boom in Tokyo share prices, even if few understand the linkages. Mrs Thatcher's success in persuading private bankers to finance the Channel Tunnel, for example, rested on the Japanese banks finding more than £1.5 billion of the £6.8 billion overall loan total — and their capacity to do that rested on their capital base being inflated by the Tokyo stock market boom.

In fact, the OECD, based in Paris, reckons that 24 per cent of British financial assets — loans and shares alike — are held by Japanese banks; so that for every £100 of the country's financial assets held by British banks the Japanese hold £60. Whether it is funding new Japanese car plants, commercial property development or underwriting bond issues, in the London capital markets, the Japanese have become essential participants. Or rather they had become essential participants. The Tokyo crash threatens their ability to continue — and may even imply their retreat.

Which would be an untimely and potentially dangerous withdrawal. Only a month ago Alexandre Lamfalussy, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, said in London that nobody fully understood how financial difficulties in one part of the globe might be transmitted to another in today's deregulated markets. "The hard fact is that the resilience of our new financial environment has not yet been tested by a genuine worldwide recession." And when the cautious custodians of the world financial order sound warnings, we are wise to take heed.

What worries Mr Lamfalussy is that we do not know enough about banks' exposure to risk, and if banks are forced to withdraw from one market because of problems in another, there may not be flexibility to make up for their absence. To give a concrete example: if the Japanese cannot carry on funding the Channel Tunnel, could the British clearing banks, battered by write-offs on property lending, fill the gap?

If not, the recession could spiral downwards — a mirror image of the way the last upturn spiralled upwards. Banks cannot lend; activity contracts and property values fall; that causes more loan losses and still more caution — and so the process continues into a vortex of recession. This was the process triggered by the Wall Street Crash in 1929, and which Tokyo might repeat.

And with Japan there is another twist, as a recent IMF paper assessing the internationalisation of the yen pointed out. When they lend in other countries they tend to lend in the local currency rather than their own — and then hedge against the currency risk by buying the local currency with yen. One of the reasons it has been so easy for Britain to finance its current account deficit is that Japanese hanks have been expanding their operations here and buying sterling. If they contract, the reverse will hold — so that the trade deficit will be harder to finance. That means higher interest rates, and one more recessionary influence. 

The parallels with the US in the early 1930s are eerie. Because of the American banks' losses on Wall Street they could not support lending elsewhere. Similarly, the ability of Japanese hanks to lend is tied to the fortunes of the Tokyo stock market.

For every £100 of lending, it is now internationally agreed that hanks must have £8 of their own capital to support it. Half has to be the banks' own cash raised through share issues; but half can come from other sources. What has been negotiated is that banks can count 45 per cent of any unrealised profits of their share portfolio — and because Japanese banks own shares in the companies to which they lend, historically that second component of their capital has been partially made up of unrealised profits. Until this year, that is.

The international bank analysts, IBCA, calculate that with the Nikkei at 17,000 those share profits have been so reduced that three of the largest 15 banks in Japan would be breaking the legal minimum capital requirement. And if the market falls to 15,000, that would rise to 10. In other words, banks which lend close to $500 billion a year abroad might have to contract.

If the Nikkei recovers quickly, the impact may be small. But if there is further to fall, which may have to happen to bring dividend yields into line with the international average, the potential fall-out is incalculable. The Japanese used to finance the huge US budget deficit. No more. They have been responsible for 14 per cent of EC direct inward investment. No more. And their pivotal role in Britain will come to a halt. Far from a little difficulty many miles away, Tokyo's collapse may soon come to be the most important feature of the international economy.

Japan's mounting financial crisis saw the Nikkei close on Thursday at 16,598.15, back to levels last seen in 1986. The cause was a combination of ongoing scandal and mounting pessimism about the fragility of Japanese banks.

While the Nikkei has fallen from 23,801.18 since 6 January, bank shares, reflecting concern about the scale of bad debts, have fallen in value by almost 30 per cent in just 10 days.

Jesper Koll of SG Warburg says: 'Property companies are falling like flies and we estimate the 11 Japanese retail banks have total non-performing loans of Y23,000 billion (£100 billion), close to 1 per cent of GNP.'

The slump in bank stocks gathered pace as bank stock registration certificates were deposited at the beginning of the month.

'The cascade in sales of bank shares began when registration was completed on 1 April,' says Alan Bell of Baring Securities.

Crisis in the banking sector is having a knock-on effect on the Japanese economy, which faces a further downturn if the banks respond by cutting back on lending. 

Property prices are now a third below their peak values and despite the underlying strength of the economy, capital spending by industry in the next few years is forecast to grow at less than half its recent rate.

The Japanese government has sought to prime the economy with a series of cuts in the official discount rate. Last summer the rate stood at 6 per cent. But the latest 0.75 per cent cut bringing the rate down to 3.75 per cent at the beginning of this month was given a lacklustre welcome.

Meanwhile, moves to bring forward some Y2,600 billion of public spending and capital expenditure by utility companies were derided as too little, too late.

Finance minister Tsutomu Hata has reckoned without a downturn in sentiment in equities.

The speed of the share price collapse prompted a flurry of scare stories that Tokyo's, decline may turn into a global depression. If unchecked the Nikkei could fall to an 'unimaginable level', according to senior Japanese stockbrokers.

With considerable pressure on their own balance sheets, Japanese banks are unwilling to make loans, and analysts expect a credit squeeze on industry.

Omens look poor for recovery, and strategist Peter Tasker of Kleinwort Benson says: 'I am reserving my judgment. One can expect great volatility and it is clearly premature to consider the fall definitely finished. People will look again this summer and could be surprised at how depressed corporate earnings are.'

It is tempting to say that the long postwar reconstruction boom is finally over. But whether or not a collapse really is imminent for even the strongest competitors in the inter-imperialist trade war, - two things are certain.

One is that when the crash and all-out trade war do finally arrive, they will have results even more alarming than those the capitalist media itself is now describing, - namely, inter-imperialist war, or World War III to give it its proper historical perspective.

The other is that the weaker economies in the imperialist trade-war system, e.g. Britain, will early on begin to suffer permanently all of the very worst consequences of worldwide depression such as crippling budget and balance-of-payments deficits, debilitating mass unemployment, appalling civil disorder of various kinds, and chronic political paralysis.

Fleet Street itself has already admitted much of this pending reality, as the Bulletin has recorded, - even though there is obviously a continuing wilful philistinism to make sure that not a word is mentioned about Marxist-Leninist theory having precisely predicted exactly these circumstances for the climax of the imperialist system's incurable crises.

However, it is an inescapable necessity for the struggle to emerge for a complete scientific understanding of the entire pattern of imperialist world breakdown. Part of that process will be a widespread startled debate throughout all sections of workers, - beginning with the whole petty-bourgeoisie and labour aristocracy, - about such phenomena as the apparent permanent Tory elective dictatorship now facing the people of Britain.

The shattered delusions of the 'reformist' and 'liberal' intelligentsia over failing to oust the hated Tories could become a powerful stimulus towards such an upheaval of discussion.

In that sense, the election outcome was the best result possible. Capitalist slump nastiness would have continued anyway, whoever had got in. And this way, with the Tories 'winning' again, the ridiculous illusion about 'reforming' capitalism (instead of overthrowing it) might be instantly far further down the road of final discrediting.

'Reformism' never did work, - even when there was still some elasticity in the international position of British imperialism to allow an impression to be created from time to time that the capitalist state could be persuaded to 'give' a little when the masses were really up against it.

Thus the two (bourgeois) party electoral system was obliged to let Labour in on the act progressively from the 1920s onwards, replacing the discredited 'Liberals'.

But those early Labour minority governments of 1924 and 1929 could nevertheless not possibly buck the trend of the bigger pattern developing beyond them in the real world economy, - which necessitated that whatever government was in power in Britain from 1929-31 during the transition from the Great Crash to the Great Depression, unemployment benefit would have to be slashed regardless, wages curbed, and the riot act read against protesting workers.

The incoming British government of 1992 will be obliged to savage working-class living standards even more viciously than in the 1920s, - regardless of who had got in. But the fact that British imperialism in 1992 is in a far worse position than even 1929 suggests that there is no longer even the possibility of allowing 'reformist' postures around the capitalist state government, - the situation being far too serious.

This is not a question, of course, of the election being 'fixed' to guarantee that Labour did not win, although the overwhelming Tory (anti-socialist) domination of the bogus 'free' press and the even more bogus 'impartial' radio and television, might be said to virtually amount to the same thing.

But the real interest is in how the imperatives of the ruling-class state made themselves felt via the phony 'two-party democracy' electoral system.

Labour still might have won, of course, it must be said, - even while examining this (with hindsight) apparently irresistible pressure to guarantee that Kinnock (and Ashdown) didn't win.

And Labour might yet win a majority government one more time in the twilight of the imperialist 'democracy' system (or possibly a few times if a period of rapidly collapsing emergency governments eventually breaks out).

But the real point is that the historical period is fast approaching when the old party game of 'official Opposition' democracy, - the two-party government system offering alleged 'alternative' rule, - will have broken down completely.

This latest 'democracy' farce re-emphasised some of the more obvious symptoms of this breakdown, - such as the Tories' failing to win the support of two-thirds (66%) of the total electorate in their request for a vote of confidence, and even having 59% of those who did bother going to the polls vote against their government record and against their continued rule, but still being declared the 'elected' government. Major & Co clearly have not been 'elected' (chosen).They have been turned down by a huge 58 to 42 majority of votes cast, and by an even more massive 66 to 33 of the total electorate. But under capitalism's well-crafted elective dictatorship, the Tories rule on.

However, the fake-'left' argument for proportional representation (PR) remains a deluded irrelevance, of course. Under the racket of big bourgeois parties within a TV-dominated culture of 'star' personalities-worship, the bourgeoisie's firm capitalist or establishment control of the mass media will always ensure that in such a shallow philistine political system as once-every-five-years ''popularity' contests, despised minorities and outsiders can be kept in their place, whether there is PR or not.

The point to make is the Leninist one (see last week's Bulletin) that all bourgeois elections are a fraud, - otherwise the bourgeoisie would not hold them. All that can be said against the first-past-the-post system is that it makes it harder to notice (than PR does) when the electorate has in effect voted against all the major parties, which to some extent is clearly what has just happened in Britain's farcical proceedings.

The Tories were booted out in over 40 constituencies, or one in every 15 of the total, all over the country. But the appalling Labour opportunists inspired even less confidence, overall, than the Tories did. And the despicable Liberal carpet-baggers actually lost nearly a quarter of their support, despite vomiting forth the largest quantities of moralising hypocrisy of all about being the 'clean', 'honest', and 'positive' candidates, etc.

But the first-past-the-post swindle effectively conceals the best essence of all this, - namely that the electorate gave a collective raspberry to all of the major parties, and portrayed very sound judgement in doing so.

It is not necessarily the case that such an interpretation could only be really made if there had been mass abstentionism at the polls. Elections can be a notable phenomenon of life under capitalism; and while the Marxist strategy has been sometimes to call for a deliberate boycott of the vote in certain countries at certain times, and while there have been some spontaneous mass boycotts of elections, a more frequent revolutionary tactic has been to accept that the offer of a 'vote' might draw the masses, and to try to turn the election hustings into a tribune for revolutionary agitation instead.

Just based on common sentiment as well as the findings of one opinion poll, there was plenty of evidence to suggest during the election campaign that many workers were of a mind to deliberately go out and vote against some particularly nasty piece of brass-necked hypocrisy they had just seen on the news or a party political broadcast or something, - not especially minding who they voted for in the process just so that the despised humbug could get its comeuppance.

There is no need harping-on about how more than half the nation was driven to near apoplexy by the thick-skinned trampling of Thatcherism. But it is silly to ignore that almost as many were just as incensed at the appallingly glib shallowness and philistine opportunism of the Kinnock and Ashdown camps.

Bourgeois parliamentarism is notorious for its deceitful promises and outrageous half-truths, and great frankness would be unexpected from any section of capitalist 'democracy', especially at election times.

However, some modestly-pitched 'appeal' to voters to simply moderate the class-biased extremism of Thatcherism and elect a government 'more devoted to the interests of all of the people of the land, and to much greater harmony and pulling together in the country', etc, etc, etc, etc, might still have worked, in terms of slime-balling the Opposition's way to bourgeois parliamentary power.

But the frantic middle-class posturing around Kinnock and Ashdown just could not restrain itself. Paddy Pantsdown was literally caught without his trousers, cheating on his wife, and then lying about it to the press, threatening damaging gagging writs in all directions while at the same time still trying to sell to the electorate his solemn vow of 'straightforwardness in dealing with the people', etc, like some farcical quack-medicine huckster in a zany Mel Brooks movie. The demented logic of negatively putting down the other two bunches of reptiles for 'being negative' was more pure madhouse.

The Kinnock show was if anything even worse. The humble admission of past mistakes in embracing the politics of opportunism did not sit at all easily with the cocky 'Here we go' triumphalism of the Sheffield arena and other public appearances.

No one would worry too much about the shallowness of a meek offer to 'at least govern less fractiously and arrogantly than the Tories', etc. But when the cringe-making emptiness and egotism of the Kinnock-personality commercials (standing in for party political broadcasts) starts being aligned with the strutting of a turkey-cock who clearly believes he has great political gifts to offer, then voters' alarm-bells properly start ringing.

The suspicion is growing that personality politics might already be on the way out, in spite of the fact that it has yet to reach its most obscene climax in the triumph of neo-fascism (Le Pen, Schonhuber, Haider Tudjman, la Mussolini, etc) threatening again in Europe. It would be the last such triumph, and the deeper philosophical understanding of society's crisis in the twilight of the imperialist epoch might already have shown its first tentative shoots in this latest British election, voting against every brand of bombastic propaganda.

Even less palatable from Labour was its half-hearted 'economic programme', posturing mightily with just a few feeble cosmetic gimmicks about some marginal tax redistribution plus some vague industrial training promises, but never seriously addressing the world crisis of the capitalist system.

It is just knockabout nonsense to solemnly pretend that the slump is all the fault of some opportunist miscalculations by John Major & Co several years ago, etc. This kind of lightmindedness is offensive to serious workers, and again raises doubts about how far Kinnock & Co get carried away by their own 'great government' pretensions. Once more, it would have been smarter (if no less dishonest) to have simply promised not to repeat the mistakes of the Tory years, and to leave it at that.

Conceited posturing also seems to have got the better of Kinnock, Ashdown, & Co on other potentially complex and grave questions which did not fit in at all well with the generally lightminded shallowness of the Labour and Liberal approach to the economy (making all sorts of glib promises but without once uttering a serious thought about the real problems of world imperialist financial crisis). Casually being vague about the break-up of the United Kingdom, or the PR break-up of what people have been taught is a 'stable' British governmental system, when millions of electors are seriously worried about what is going to happen in the frightening economic warmongering international crises which clearly lie ahead, was possibly taking philistine emptiness too far.

Bourgeois delusions on these matters either need a complete Marxist scientific discussion, or else they are better left alone.

Despite being unwilling or incapable of debating the deeper long-term implications for the whole government of British imperialism touched upon by the raising of the devolution and PR questions, Kinnock & Co just could not stop wanting to appear cockily glib on this, just as on everything else in their shallow presentations.

Again it points towards a conclusion that the imperialist system's crisis is now becoming far too serious a matter for the old easygoing routines of alternating bourgeois-idealist manifestos to adequately cope with any more. A solid middle-class core at least still feels it knows where it stands in very difficult times with the blunt self-interest nationalism of an openly Tory-capitalist establishment, even if no longer confident or happy with it.

But why the Kinnock and Ashdown camps did not leave well alone merges in with other considerations in this age of glossy personal commercials about the leader and meaningless soundbites. Just what sort of monsters does it now require to become 'electable' bourgeois politicians who must posture endlessly for the cameras but without ever making the mistake of discussing fundamental economic or political philosophy too seriously, but also without getting too carried away with infatuation with their own egos? Ones with very thick skins, very brass necks, and the single-minded mentality of an assassin, ready as often as needed to stab as many 'colleagues' in the back as necessary, and willing to play the 'great leader' game for all it is worth, but with subtlety.

Even before the Colin Byrne outburst in the Guardian where Labour's back-stabbing former chief press officer turned his knives on one of his own former bosses, Shadow Chancellor John Smith, - it would have been necessary to explode the myth that Labour would have done better at the polls under the 'nicer' Smith as leader.

He could never have become the chief bullshitter that 'modern' parties are deemed to need if he had been genuinely 'nice' and had tried to stay that way. How could any sane civilised person tolerate the humiliating indignities of being the 'star' of a Hugh Hudson-filmed 'leader' commercial or Sheffield hysteria rally? But if such gimmicks were rejected, what could an anti-Tory political campaign do but start to talk seriously about the great crisis of the worldwide imperialist system? And that would never do, no matter how 'honest' the politician was supposed to be. 'Reformism' could not posture on for one second longer once the real capitalist slump and international trade-war had to be discussed in circumstances where there is simply no room left for any more welfare-state hand-outs to pacify the masses with.

And whether Smith is not so appalling as Kinnock must be thought highly debatable in view of the party company he chooses to keep, even if these bitchy comments by a former close colleague are only half believed:

John Smith may be a very nice man. His smile may not frighten the voters (though his insistence on playing Labour's tax changes his way during the campaign, brushing aside his Leader's view and three years of policy that talked of tax changes being phased in and on the £22,000 figure itself cost the Party dear). But what is his record, or that of the handful of centrally-placed Right-wing Shadow Cabinet members and trade union leaders who are about to emerge as his campaign managers and backers, on the radical reforms Labour has made to its policies and practices — and must go on making if it is not to tread water, sink and die?

What did the Right ever do about Militant during the bitter years up to Neil Kinnock taking over? What did they do about reforming the Party's relationship with the trades unions and its industrial relations policies? What did they do about Europe?

The answer, as I saw myself during those years of crucial policy review and national executive committee meetings, was usually to sit on their hands and let the Kinnocks and the Blairs take the flak.
In the argument about support for the principle of a single currency, John Smith effectively opted out of the debate — on one occasion when I contacted him to do an interview on the matter, he told me that he, the Shadow Chancellor, did not want to get involved. In Europe and the ERM!

During the Gulf war, the Shadow Cabinet held an all-day strategy meeting. It was an issue that, without Kinnock's tough leadership, could have split the party. The only member present, not to put forward a view in the long and heated discussion, was John Smith. Hattersley, a pacifist, at least made his view evident — he walked out. What is Smith's view on trade union reform?   What is his view on electoral, reform? After years of intense internal debate in the Party, ask yourself why we don't know these things.

Last Autumn, after three years as head of Labour's press office, I quit my job at Walworth Road. Until now I have not publicly commented on why. The truth is simple: I refused to be part of what I believed to be a conspiracy which for over a year had been manoeuvring John Smith into position to walk into the leadership should Labour lose and had orchestrated the ruthless undermining and behind-the-hand rubbishing of perceived rivals in a future contest. Another feature of their campaign was the — ultimately frustrated — attempt to downgrade Neil Kinnock's own role in Labour's economic campaigning and even off the record attacks on Kinnock's economic competence as recently as the aftermath of the Luigi's dinner earlier this year. I have seen the way these people operate and abuse their position and then call it politics. In short, it stinks.

Kinnock himself, not surprisingly, threw in another mouldy red herring in his resignation announcement by claiming resentfully that "the Conservative-supporting press has enabled the Tories to win again", but then scuttling off to sulk without answering questions on this bombshell.

Of course the Tory press backs the Tories. So what else is new? The real question is: Why has no Labour government out of the six which have held office since 1924 ever tried to do anything about this blatant barrier to the remotest idea of 'justice' under so-called capitalist 'democracy'?

And more to the point, why did Kinnock scuttle off with the challenge that it was the intolerable Tory press bias which won the election, not a fair democratic contest, but then not stick around to propose, what he would do about it if in power, or what he would recommend other succeeding Labourites to do if they ever get into power??

The reason is obvious, - that these wretched petty-bourgeois opportunists pretending to run the Labour 'alternative' to the mainstream capitalist government of Britain under the Tories, know full well that they would never have the guts to face the ruling class ever again after threatening to take their criminal capitalist press monopoly off them.

These 'reformist' worms are stooges of the British ruling class first, last, and always, and parliamentary 'democracy' would never be allowed to be such, if they were not such reliable stooges.

Kinnock's last bombastic 'act of leadership' (to resign) was as posturing and pretence-filled a mess as all that went before it in his wretched opportunist career. Good riddance to him and the entire 'reformist' fraud.

Will they ever get back?

Or anyone else? Can the up-against-it British imperialist ruling class allow parliamentary office out of its hands ever again?

This could become clear with hindsight, but if so it will not be because of such incidentals as forthcoming boundary changes in the Tories favour, or the general ageing of the population towards conservatism, or just because Labour's welfare promises are superficially in conflict with its acceptance of Common Market imperialist monetary disciplines, as true as that is.

The deeper issues are that British monopoly capitalism is in terminal crisis and the ruling class will have to insist on people showing loyalty to the chosen Tory (or worse) government whether they want to or not. That is how bad things are becoming.

This is not some barmy matter of predestination, nor just a conspiracy question, although such bullying and rigging methods would be used to the full if necessary. It is the case that the 'democratic choice' was always essentially a fraud, and now a million and one factors will combine to make it an empty fraud in practice as well.

In struggling for a Marxist scientific view of these late decades of international class war, the ILWP has frequently theorised that there might be enough gullibility left in the imperialist system for one more good Labour majority, pretending to act as a serious 'alternative' to the nastiness which the Tories are obliged to impose, but not many more than one.

The astonishing embarrassment for the 'reformists' (and the Liberals) in 1992 indicates that more than a century of parliamentary posturing could already be nearly on its last legs.

In a million and one molecular ways, the 'life' of temporarily-poised class-collaboration 'stability' of British imperialist ascendancy (in the form of the two-party system of bourgeois parliamentary democracy) is just dying away.

The fine pattern of its decline is not fixed. Labour might have won if it had been even slimier about its tax proposals (in the light of the fact that the 'reformists' have not the slightest intention to seriously attack the indefensible wealth-privilege of the inherited ruling class). The Tories might have been beaten if Kinnock's Sheffield cockiness had been slightly less obnoxious. There might have been a hung parliament if Paddy had kept his trousers on, etc,etc.

But none of these possibilities would have made the slightest difference in the longer run to the eventual fate of the fraudulent 'democratic opposition' system of capitalist 'parliamentary' government. Nothing will stop the capitalist reality of permanent ruling-class dictatorship ultimately emerging openly throughout the crisis-ridden imperialist 'free' world.

It is not a problem that despite the seriousness of the slump, millions of workers went out to cast fairly lightminded votes for that party programme which might have made their personal family circumstances £300 or so better off a year. It was as good a use of a vote as any.

The Leninist point cannot be stressed often enough that although revolutionary tactics will frequently recommend using elections as an agitational tribune, including asking workers to vote Bolshevik, the point in bourgeois elections is not that the anti-imperialist damage is done by the number of ballots cast for Leninism but by the political education imparted during the campaign. People don't receive political agitation in the course of voting; they may vote in the course of receiving political agitation. The Bolshevik experience on the skilled use of the boycott still remains valid at the right time and place.

If a worker is clear on basic class orientation in the main anti-imperialist thrust of history, then a money-making vote or two while bourgeois parliamentarism is dwindling away is neither here nor there.

It is more important for workers to avoid being conned by any renewed 'independent socialist' posturing to the 'left' of the Labour Party by expelled Militant-ites or other revisionists of a Trotskyite/opportunist character.

Denouncing Labour's abandonment of 'socialism' as the 'greatest treachery', etc, playing into the Tories' hands, etc, is a daft perspective which really only seeks to restore the old two-party 'democratic opposition' status quo which the working class will in fact be well rid of.

Demands for Labour now to 'return to socialism' after having failed to get elected 'by apeing the Tories' prolong an appalling deception on workers. There was never the slightest chance of 'socialism' under Labour parliamentarism of even the 'leftest' kind. It will be a monstrous fraud for Labour to pretend to 'return to socialism'.

The debate arising out of the petty-bourgeoisie as a whole because of the humiliation at the election for all 'reformist', 'protest' and 'opposition' politics in general, - is likely to be far more valuable than this renewed 'left' posturing around Labour.

It is not the right wing which has betrayed the 'lefts' by abandoning 'socialism' but the whole 47 years of counter-revolutionary Cold War propaganda about the 'free' West since 1945 which has consolidated the entire Labour Party as indistinguishable from any other petty-bourgeois opportunists, 'left' or right alike.

All of 'reformism', right and 'left', believes that the 'valuable achievements' of municipal socialism, trade-union struggles, and parliamentary reforms, are some priceless continuity to be held onto for dear life and out of which socialism must in the end effortlessly grow.

This is a truly disarming philosophy, believed in by the 'left' and right of the labour movement alike, and badly obstructing the socialist education of the working class.

The anti-capitalist revolution will never come that way, via the corrupting class-collaborating placebos of parliamentary reforms and so-called 'municipal socialism' welfare which could never seriously challenge the capitalist system, and have never even pretended to challenge the bourgeoisie for state power.

Socialism will only arrive via the revolutionary breakdown of the trade-war imperialist world order at the point where the paralysed bourgeoisie can rule no longer, and the proletarian masses can put up with the burdens of capitalist exploitation no longer.

Ahead, first of all, lies a whole period of mounting chaos, confusion, and frustration in all directions - and an ever-sharpening debate about the real purpose of human society and the real values of civilised existence.

That debate must revolve around the potential importance of conscious mass revolutionary action by the proletariat, - the only social force which can put a stop to the ever-increasing stupidities of cut-throat monopoly-capitalist competition and profiteering greed which threaten endless civil war and inter-imperialist war, - and the building of a party of revolutionary theory alone able to lead it.

Historical analogies are always partly false, and the circumstances of world-wide imperialist crisis in the 1990s are certainly unprecedented. But some useful comparisons might be made with the pre-1914 period when equally cocky assurance about the triumphalism of the imperialist system last reigned, but similarly undermined by nagging doubts over the stormy confrontations about to break out.

Revisionism had just destroyed the international revolutionary movement at that time too. But the sneers at the 'death of Marxism' as the turncoat leaderships of the Second International all, bar the Leninists, capitulated to class-collaboration behind their 'own' national war efforts, could not have been worse timed. Bolshevism had come from nowhere to storm to power within three years. Build Leninism. 

Spread the ILWP Bulletin.

Jack Bradshaw

World Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

International 'democracy' being used to stab Cuba's socialist revolution in the back

Our integral view of human rights is radically different from that of the countries with a bourgeois ideology and other ideologies prevailing in the Third World which are based on bourgeois ideology.

When speaking about human rights on a theoretical level, we mustn't forget that the most widely accepted concept is the one corresponding to the bourgeois social and political order. Although there is a socialist praxis of human rights, the corresponding theory has not yet been developed.

In today's world — and even more so in the unipolar world that is now emerging — they want to impose on us "Western" concepts and standards of human rights, ignoring the world's political and social diversity and even the huge cultural and traditional differences deriving therefrom or, what is worse, trying to wipe out such diversities and differences.

Cuba, whose social reality is completely different from what characterizes the so-called bourgeois "representative democracies," can't be judged with the same yardstick used by the capitalist countries to determine whether or not human rights are exercised fully. The trap consists, precisely, in the fact that those countries pretend that their values are "universal" and that therefore the resulting patterns of behavior must be accepted as norms that are generally applicable and valid.

But this planet is full of huge contradictions. Absolute and constitutional monarchies coexist with republics, more or less democratic regimes coexist with military dictatorships, capitalist states coexist with socialist states and some systems are based on the exploitation of man by man, while others have abolished all forms of exploitation.

In the so-called Western democracies, the concept of freedom has precise limits, namely, freedom for anything that benefits the development of capital and the bourgeoisie, its dominant class, even though this brings about the alienation of the working masses and depersonalization. 

In our society, freedom also has its limits, but these limits are imposed by the need to guarantee the pre-eminence of the right of the absolute majority of the people, who have chosen socialism, and to prevent a tiny minority allied to U.S. imperialism from reintroducing the system of exploitation destroyed in 1959.

It could be said that a narrow concept of human rights prevails in the UN Human Rights Commission, pot only because it concentrates exclusively on political and civil rights without paying any attention to collective rights but also because they are examined from a purely bourgeois point of view, ignoring the relevance of the exercise of these rights in other social systems like ours, where socialist democracy has a broad popular bases, unlike U.S. "democracy," Saudi absolutism or military dictatorships in the Third World.

To what do you attribute the systematic campaign by U.S. administrations against Cuba, at the same time as they have maintained close alliances with governments that have been proven guilty of torture, assassinations, disappearances, and responsible for poor education, unsanitary conditions, social insecurity and poverty among their peoples? And meanwhile, in the United States itself, the human rights of blacks, Puerto Ricans and minorities are being violated every day.

Ever since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the various U.S. administrations have used the spectre of supposed violations of human rights to attack us. Remember the slander campaigns in 1959 and in the '60s; the base accusations in the State Department's "white book" preceding the mercenary invasion at the Bay of Pigs, and you will see that they contain the same lies that later on would be parroted by Ronald Reagan and George Bush and their spokesmen on the Human Rights Commission.

None of them contains one ounce of truth, as was confirmed by the mission of the Human Rights Commission that visited our country in 1988 and the 1991 report by the UN secretary-general.

Of course the United States — whose human rights record is stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Panamanians, Vietnamese and Iraqis massacred by U.S. bombs, and the blemish of the abuses against Indians, blacks and Hispanics in the United States — isn't really concerned about the human rights situation here or anywhere else in the world. A former ally of Batista, Trujillo and Pérez Jiménez, today it is the ally of Israel, South Africa and the Salvadoran military, among other violators of human rights.

Its anti-Cuba campaign is thus part of its animal hatred for socialism and progress, but also of our people's irrevocable decision to defend our sovereignty and independence at any price.

Human rights, a multiparty system, free elections supervised by international observers and representative democracy are today its Trojan horse to subvert the socialist or simply independent regimes. This is the real aim — no matter how futile — of its intentions against Cuba, in the Human Rights Commission.

How do you assess the human rights situation in Cuba? Are there or have there been deficiencies?

From our point of view, respect for human rights is measured by the quality of life of the overwhelming majority, its right to a healthy, educated and socially useful existence. This presupposes equal access to education, health care, paid work, housing, physical and spiritual recreation; in short, it requires being able to "think and talk without hypocrisy" and participate fully in guiding the country's destiny.

We don't pretend to have achieved a perfect society, free of errors or injustice; they can occur. Nevertheless, there are mechanisms for correcting some and righting others. In capitalism, however, injustice is not only inherent to the system but, together with exploitation, it is its main feature.

We have had — and still have limits on some rights, like the right to freely enter and leave the country, but those limitations are about to disappear. On the other hand, this restriction was the result of the hostile U.S. policy toward the new Cuba, of its attempts to infiltrate saboteurs and assassins, which they succeeded in doing many times, although these were almost always neutralized by the people and their revolutionary organizations.

There were and still are limitations for religious people, such as access to certain university studies, certain state posts and the Party. But that, too, is subject to review and rectification, without forgetting the causes that forced us to establish them, when especially the Catholic Church joined the ranks of our enemies.

Regarding access to mass media, the prevailing conditions and the undeclared war waged by the United States against Cuba make it suicidal and stupid to think that the enemies of the Revolution could use the media in the name of "freedom of the press" which we are systematically denied by the United States, even though it claims the right to make counter-revolutionary radio and TV broadcasts to our country.

Despite these situations, which affect a small portion of the population, it is hard to find in the world today a society in which human rights are more respected than in Cuba. Never before in our history — nor in that of our continent — has human dignity been so fully respected, nor has so much been done to guarantee it to all.

The modern notion in the historical sense of the phrase "human rights" derives from 18th-century revolutionary democratic thought, preceded by the rationalism of the preceding century, particularly in England. It took root in bourgeois humanism embodied In the U.S. Bill of Rights (approved in 1791) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man during the French Revolution of 1789.

These concepts were incorporated, following the defeat of Nazism and fascism in 1945 and bearing in mind the horrendous crimes committed by Hitler s forces during World War II, into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948.

Notwithstanding the ecumenical intentions of its authors, the UN Declaration omitted fundamental rights like that of self-determination of peoples and other no less important ones which were later included in the International Pacts on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The latter group of rights, including the right to development, called by some "collective rights," allegedly in opposition to "individual rights," have gone unrecognized by certain "paladins" like the United States and Britain which view them as mere aspirations.

To Cuba civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, as well as the right to self-determination and development, are all equal and interdependent. The right to life is indeed inconceivable unless it is accompanied by the right to work, to housing, to health, to education and to culture.

• THE LAST two U.S. administrations have used economic, diplomatic and political pressures on Third World-governments that belong to the UN Human Rights Commission to force them to join in the aggressive policy against Cuba on the subject of human rights. 

The Human Rights Commission in Geneva approved a U.S recommendation to appoint a representative of the UN secretary-general to investigate human rights violations in Cuba. Now the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) has just ratified that decision, in violation of UN procedure.

Eighteen countries in addition to the United States, voted in favor of the slanderous and aggressive proposal, 23 abstained and 11 voted against. Of the Latin American and the Caribbean countries, only Argentina again sided with that large country to the north.

Human rights in Cuba are measured according to the quality of life enjoyed by the great majority, said Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Raul Roa Kourí, former Cuban ambassador to the United Nations and Cuba's principal representative at the Human Rights Commission.

The U.S. government lacks the necessary moral authority to judge Cuba because, according to Roa Kourí, its human rights record is stained with the blood of thousands of innocent Panamanians, Vietnamese, and Iraqis slaughtered from the air; with the blood shed by the Cubans who died during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion; and with the repression and exploitation caused by its social system. •

World Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

Feeble 'democratic' struggle against capitalist-state dictatorship

• SANTIAGO DE CHILE. — A total of 90 000 Latin Americans, one-third of whom are Argentine, are classified as detained or disappeared, a category which has risen dramatically over the last 20 years.

The forced disappearance of individuals is the cruelest crime that can be conceived, declared lawyer and parliamentarian Andrés Aylwin Azocar, who was given the honor of inaugurating FEDEFAM's meeting in the Chilean Congress' former hall of honor.

'I am profoundly impressed by the difficult struggle being carried out by these mothers, children, wives. They are unwavering in their search for the truth, calm in their demand for justice, always dignified and strong, full of a deep love that defeats oblivion and solitude," said the orator, who has defended political prisoners and victims of repression in Chile for many years.

"Among the testimonies shared here during the last few days is that of Nélida Navajas of Argentina, head of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who explained, simply but movingly, how she is searching for her grandchildren."

"The people themselves help us," Nélida Navajas said. "We publish notices in the newspapers, and often the people who have our grandchildren respond. In other cases, a letter arrives saying: 'We know of a couple who couldn't have children but now have one, although it doesn't seem as though they went through adoption procedures....'We investigate those reports, and sometimes we get to the truth."

This matter was debated at length in the Chilean capital during the 11th Congress of the Federation of Associations of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared (FEDEFAM), attended by delegations from 15 countries and observers from non-governmental human rights organizations in the region.

Sola Sierra, president of the Chilean delegation, told the press that the Congress had received the tacit support of the Chilean government, but emphasized the completely independent nature of FEDEFAM's activities.

One of the most important aspects examined during the sessions was the changes that have occurred during the last few years in countries recently liberated from long-term authoritarian regimes.

In the case of Chile in particular, where an official investigative commission declared approximately 1000 people disappeared during the period from 1973 to 1990, Sola Sierra said there is a lot of skepticism on the part of relatives who are getting no answers from the present authorities.

Without denying the attention being paid to this problem at official and social levels, including draft legislation concerning material and moral reparations for the victims' families, "the fact is," Sierra noted, "we still don't know where the bodies of our loved ones are."

The Chilean delegation's opinion was categorical: "In practice, for the sake of guaranteeing democracy, relatives of the detained and disappeared have been treated with impunity. Under various names, laws have been used to erase human rights violations throughout Latin America."

FEDEFAM took the opportunity to revive a long-standing goal it has been lobbying for since 1984, that of getting a draft convention approved in the United Nations which would declare all acts related to the forced disappearance of individuals crimes against humanity.

Due to differences of opinion among member nations, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, which met in Geneva last February, was unable to approve a declaration on crimes against humanity. •