Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx 
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
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No 0990 March 16th 1999                                                                                                                                      25p

EU farce warns workers to prepare to overthrow imperialist system before its crooked mayhem of slump & trade-war gets worse, not to prepare nationalist import controls as part of the imperialist trade war. British imperialist corruption just as bad, or worse, than Brussels. The fight for Marxist-Leninist science would be utterly destroyed by any 'tactical' silence towards any SLP social chauvinism. Single-issue reformist cover for anti-communism needs philosophically routing at once.

The worst outcome of the European Union resignation debacle would be a new surge of anti-EU English nationalism, such as clouds the SLP's vision.

It is monopoly imperialism which is corrupt, — ALL of it, and not just the multi-billion pound frauds around the Brussels bureaucracy.

Big business rackets are just as rampant throughout the running of Britain whose 'parliamentary government' is just as uselessly unaccountable as the condemned EU Commission incompetence. Fortunes have been siphoned off via crooked privatisation deals; colonial arms sales subsidised by the ECGD (Export Credit Guarantee Department); commissions on government-to-government official arms deals where private companies have been involved; and nonstop City frauds which treat all pretend government 'regulation' as just another huge tax avoidance scheme to be worked out.

The SLP line:

"Even capitalist economists are warning that if ever nations in Europe needed to be able to manage their own economies, that time is now"

is nationalist twaddle. Which 'own' economy do the people of Britain have? None. It belongs just as much to a bosses club as the EU.

"Vote us in to get us out" is a nationalist tease which would be meaningless applied to Westminster elections. "Vote us in to bring capitalism down" is the issue.

The whole imperialist system is heading for trade war & slump. Nationalism is fatal.

Attempts to minimalise the significance of Scargillism's import controls policy are no service to the working class.

Ideas that such a populist measure is closer to ordinary workers' spontaneous reaction to tradewar difficulties (bankruptcies, closures, unemployment, etc) and is therefore not a big issue, could not be further from the truth.

Just rowing in with "how everyone thinks about foreign competition" represents a total absence of leadership, and laughable philistinism on two counts.

Such unserious anti-theory in the first place challenges the very concept of Marxist-Leninist science having ever established a single truth, programmatic, strategic, or tactical, about class struggle history.

Secondly, such couldn't-care-less opportunism declares that it doesn't matter whether or not all the efforts to analyse this modern imperialist crisis as imminently more devastating than even those which caused World Wars I & II, are proving their worth or not.

Scargillism is not just tail-ending widespread popular complacency that "nothing ever changes much" and "nothing too disastrous can happen" which is the normal, routine, everyday thoughtlessness of masses of ordinary people whose non-stop personal survival worries exclude them from ever usually seeing anything of the big picture. Scargillism is positively taking the lead in this mindlessness.

The longest and most prosperous boom in all world history is still taking its worst toll by utterly disarming people about the grotesque contradiction that is to come as the deepest ever slump wipes out the unbelievable quantities of credit-created 'surplus' capital now just beginning to choke the system.

Whatever brief lip-service Scargillism pays occasionally to acceptance of 'the crisis', the full implications of this phenomenon, which Marxist science ALONE is responsible for ever having identified, analysed, and prepared for, — are in reality still being totally ignored.

Apologists for Scargillism maybe need to make up their own minds about how literally they take their own Marxist-Leninist analysis.

If Marxism is merely valued for adding sexy catastrophist propaganda to the fight for socialism, then it might still be possible to regard Scargillism as mildly behaving thoughtlessly or unguardedly but with every capability of rising to the required levels of alert defiant anti-imperialist action as soon as the situation really demands it, if and when. But if, however, Marxist crisis analysis is taken at its scientific word, then all the perspectives suddenly look totally and hair-raisingly different.

And all the historical precedents are exactly to do with the most profound questions of all that could face mankind, — to face the inevitable barbaric destruction which the existing capitalist society will impose everywhere in order to secure its own market-cycle revival in due course; or to take the boldest action that has ever had to be considered by humanity, and consciously organise the deliberate mass revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order.

The 1914-1918 World War I crisis of civilisation was decades in the build up, and filled, just as now, with trade-war alarms, retaliatory measures, and calculations about the advisability of various imperialist bloc-formations.

But having formally denounced the inter-imperialist arms race and having vowed never to get sucked into class-collaboration with one's 'own' imperialist-bourgeois predators in this disgraceful struggle for world political and economic domination, - every one of more than 40 parties in the 'Marxist' Second International, - bar the Bolsheviks, of course, and small groupings in Serbia and Bulgaria, - slipped nonchalantly, in a couldn't care-less manner, into petty nationalism of the "obvious, mass-spontaneous kind" which no-one thought harmful because everyone was doing it, - as soon as the actual war broke out. It took more than 3 years of utter barbarism (of mass gassing and trench warfare bombardment and suicide attacks) before Marxist-Leninist scientific wisdom at last began to assert itself, culminating in the Bolshevik Revolution, the spread of whose influence alone quickly forced all the imperialist warmongers to urgently think about finishing the war one way or another as soon as possible.

Ultimately, the tragically spontaneous tendency for class-collaboration on one's 'own' side had to be posed in its starkest option, - continued bloody war-slaughter 'with' one's 'own' side, or revolutionary war AGAINST it, so as to end the degenerate slaughter.

Until the Soviet workers state was dragged into the war, WWII at the end of the 1930s trade war and slump was shaping to pose exactly the same challenge again to workers in every capitalist state, - to fall for participating alongside one's 'own' ruling class in renewed inter-imperialist slaughter for world political and economic domination, or to wage revolutionary civil war to overthrow the bourgeoisie and take mankind out of this incurable capitalist-market lethalness once and for all. Once more, petty-nationalist leadership of the workers movements mostly went 'patriotic' (with a few honourable exceptions), - following earlier trade-war class-collaboration with enthusiasm for the fake notion of 'good' imperialist states versus 'bad' imperialist states.

But for the Soviet workers state becoming involved (which gave workers everywhere in the 'allied' imperialist camp full justification for fighting the war on their 'own' imperialist side), virtually the entire workers international movement would once again in World War II have been conned into mutual slaughter on behalf of their 'own' rival bourgeois-imperialist ruling classes.

Now the same catastrophe of self-inflicted social-chauvinism threatens the whole workers movement worldwide once again. And if Scargillism turns out to have not yet fallen into this nationalist trap, and is now prepared vigorously to say so and correct any misunderstandings its Euro-election propaganda (Socialist News 16) has given rise to, then the EPSR will have performed a priceless service in forcing such clarification out of the SLP leadership.

It is the workers states ALONE which have demonstrated to civilisation the ONLY POSSIBLE way of avoiding ever-worsening conflicts and wars for world financial and political domination.

It is possible that people who doubt the EPSR's line on politics currently have never really convinced themselves of this.

It is certainly the case that the vast mass of spontaneous SLP support (and of spontaneous thinking in the labour movement in general) does not simply remain naïvely ignorant of this historical reality. Brain-washed working class opinion generally, worldwide, remains aggressively contemptuous of such a notion, and hostile to it.

It is Soviet Communism and Communist China which are still relentlessly peddled, — and believed, - as the CAUSE of modern-day warmongering militarism and threats to mankind's freedom and peace. Few see 'our Western way of life' as the imminent (relatively speaking) INEVITABLE cause of new holocausts for mankind, worldwide; and even fewer can grasp how the workers states, as they once existed and as some exist still, are the ONLY areas of the planet which cannot possibly have a sustained interest in waging wars of conquest against other countries, or wiping out their economies, or forcing them to accept unequal trade domination or colonial exploitation. Few can accept that the communist record is one of unprecedented altruistic international aid to the anti-colonial movement and to the Third World, and defence only of areas (such as Tibet and East Europe after World War II) which needed to be kept out of imperialism's fascist counter-revolutionary clutches from where provocations could be further launched against the workers states.

Scargill personally may have taken a stand or two against some of imperialism's more outrageous anti-communist stunts in the past, but he has never made a full anti-imperialist analysis in terms of the workers states' role in history, and has originated little or no propaganda at all on the subject in recent years.

But Scargillism, of course, is a million times worse. It is the open embrace and defence of convinced anti-communists like the IMG, plus total sympathy for ALL of modern ideology (all single-issue protests and alternative lifestyles, etc) which in terms of history's great class war are essentially nothing but various diversionary forms of anti-communism. (Feminists, ecologists, black nationalists, gay right-ers, etc, are not so inclined IN ORDER TO be anti-communists, necessarily, but they end up being more or less tolerated by bourgeois society (and even encouraged in parts, in some cases) BECAUSE their subjectivism and individualism tends to make them all safely anti-communist and certainly permanently susceptible to all the anti-communist brainwashing that the non-stop imperialist propaganda war cares to put out.)

But Scargillism did open the door to communists too, which made it worthwhile supporting as a potential centrist project which could provide an enlarged mass struggle for socialism, broadly speaking.

And hopefully it still can, in spite of the obvious deliberate censorship attempt against the EPS Review in pursuit of total bureaucratic control and fear of political theory, typical aspects of syndicalism which have to be constantly countered as much as possible.

Social chauvinism's emergence, however, would seriously alter the perspectives, such an early clear clarification of Scargillism's centrist limitations would require not just longterm countering, but longterm opposition which almost certainly would have to be regarded as likely to lead to a make-or-break situation eventually, and it is hard to envisage circumstances in which communists would not wish to make that clear publicly.

The evolution of Scargillism will need constant analysis and will provide a priceless experience of virtually all the different tendencies, endless in variety, which make up the labour movement, and which alone can help to provide the information about where the overall class struggle is heading next.

But it is a living fight rather than a living study, and any amount of dirty tricks and reactionary surprises should be routinely anticipated. It would be naïve to engage in a centrist project with illusions long after the time had been clearly signalled for putting the gloves on.

In reining in communist participation, Scargillism has drawn attention to one peculiarly harmful limitation in its fear of debate and discussion. Scargillism’s philistine ignorance of theory is one thing. Its bureaucratic syndicalist wish to discourage anyone from discussing anything, at any time, is control-freakery bordering on paranoia.

The fake 'left' are all the same in this.

A bit of demagogic platform speechifying plus a few philistine put-downs is what passes for 'debate' in anti-Leninist circles. The idea of deliberately encouraging full statements or contributions from opposed tendencies in order to thoroughly destroy them philosophically and politically is totally alien to these left-opportunist class tendencies which draw all of their inspiration from institutional elitism (inevitably, bourgeois elitism in an overwhelmingly bourgeois society).

To this, NUMism adds a less attractive quality of workerism which sees mobilised mass industrial strength as the answer to everything but in a class-collaborative framework and precisely not in a revolutionary sense which is where it would really mean everything.

It is a half-cocked concept of revolutionary leadership, believing in total defiance of everyone and everything when pushed to defiance, but challenging the authorities always only in order to make more concessions for re-levelling the playing field so that a new and better challenge to the authorities can be made by the NUM next time, and the next time, and the next time, etc. It is reformism’s inevitability of gradualism but wearing the confident militant boots of a whole epoch spent defying an imperialism which is proudly seen as unbeatable by anyone else. It suggests a permanent condition of society (of indeterminate character) where another devastating NUM strike is waiting just around the corner always, to sort things out. The Europe vaguely foreseen in the SLP's latest dodgy Euro-elections propaganda (Socialist News 16) suggests this too.

But this 'left' elitist fear of debate could not come at a more crippling time from the point of view of the needs of the working class political fate as a whole.

Discussion, discussion, and more discussion is the order of the day. Scargillism could not have got it more wrong.

All revolutionary epochs are periods of great debate. This final great crisis of the imperialist system will unleash more fervent far-reaching discussion, - about everything, - than any previous time in all history.

Never have so many billions been so brainwashed by such mountains of anti-communist philosophical claptrap, political stunt and distortion, and historical garbage, in such a short space of time. Great waves of new-age reformist nonsense about feminism; ecologism; single-issue 'human rights' of all kinds; alternative lifestyles by the hippy busload; new religious gurus every five minutes; health freakery unlimited; popstar and filmstar worship-cultures of obscene fanaticism; drug cultures; sexual liberation of every conceivable variety; etc, etc, etc, have relentlessly flooded human consciousness to distraction just so as to guarantee that the one necessary understanding of society for the modern era, - the Marxist-Leninist science of the class-war basis of all contemporary development and problems, - should remain completely ignored.

Every scrap of this brainwashing nonsense will have to be discussed and argued out of the way before the necessary Marxist understanding of the only future for civilisation (anti-imperialist revolution) can get a look in. Mass proletarian revolutions by their peculiar historical nature of being by people of no property, uniquely require mass consciousness like no other revolutions before them. And the coming wave of proletarian revolutions, arriving after a 55-year period of relentless international saturation brainwashing such as the world has never seen before, will demand a vaster transformation of mass consciousness than has ever been dreamed of. Endless debate and discussion about everything is an essential part of the revolutionary future.

Scargillism's limitations will cripple the SLP unless challenged. Blairism is an empty kettle, but what a phenomenal amount of noise it makes while maintaining the capitalist status quo, effectively.

It is precisely BECAUSE Blairism is in fact only keeping the same old capitalist racketeering society going, and addressing the world imperialist crisis NOT AT ALL, -that New Labour HAS TO make so much noise about nothing, - vast new swathes of social analysis every week, - about the work ethic and incentives; about social welfare and incentives; about the family and morality; about care in the community and social responsibility; about justice and racism; about youth and drug culture; about housing and the community; about wealth creation and fairness at work and about education, education, education almost non-stop.

But it is exactly through this endless spin-doctoring hype about nothing very much at all in substance that mass public—opinion continues to be dominated. Every scrap of it needs answering and exposing for the shallow bourgeois-ideological rubbish that it is, —  basically total subjective idealism which rests entirely on the philosophical premise that the individual must really fend for himself (- a notion now utterly bankrupt and outdated along with the capitalist free-enterprise system which spawned it, no longer a productive force for modern society because it simply cannot operate without leading to monopoly imperialism and thence to endlessly repeated trade-war conflict, slump, and inter-imperialist warmongering at regularly recurring historical intervals).

The party to restore mass socialist agitation must be able to answer all this spin-doctored New Labour tripe with Marxist-Leninist scientific understanding of society and its problems. Several aspects of Scargillism's limitations are currently driving the Socialist Labour Party diametrically in the wrong direction. Debate and discussion are ruled out totally; articles for Socialist News are either spiked or censored down to 'minimum offensiveness'; and the outstanding Marxist-Leninist record of the EPS Review is shown the door.

Lenin’s repeated specific scientific analysis, - (that without a full polemical debate and discussion of EVERYTHING right down to its philosophical roots, then nothing can ever be clarified about anything), - has been challenged on grounds that he also argued at the same time (turn of the century) for more mass work as well to build the labour movement in general, and that his remarks on theory-clarification specifically referred to building a revolutionary party at that moment.

Spelled out, the implication of these objections is that being convinced of necessary historical truths is suitable motivation for communists but not needed for anyone else. This won’t do. The polemical process of clarifying objective understanding of ANYTHING in life can never vary.

How deeply understood things can be or need to be can vary with different situations, but the need to be convinced (at whatever level required) and how to get there remain the same. Mass movements need to be built on understanding just as Bolshevik leadership does, and on the same understanding; and if possible that understanding should be taken to its most profound limits IN BOTH CASES. Let any practical limitations alone, if they exist, be the extent to which political education in the spirit of Marxist philosophy can be taken, - not some arbitrary bureaucratic benchmark along the lines of "this is suitable for mass-movement work" and "that is suitable for centrist party work", etc, etc. Such attitudes are precisely what has held Scargillism back from a better flourishing, crippled by bureaucratic philistinism.

These arguments echo the advice to the EPSR to "be more tactical" in writing about the SLP. What this really means is "stop telling the truth", or "avoid politics altogether". Naturally, every political remark, argument, or article ever uttered necessarily chooses a limited scope for the sake of convenient human interaction, - but only the most appalling historical consequences have ever been produced by deliberate political dumbing down for opportunistic reasons on the 'left', - culminating in the ultimate monstrous crime of Stalinist Revisionism which was the liquidation of the Soviet workers state (i.e. proletarian dictatorship), which two generations of just saying 'Yes, yes, yes' to Moscow eventually helped produce.

It is the balance of class forces which dictate historical outcomes, not mistaken tactics. Scargillism is 'left' Labourism and 'Left' trade-union syndicalism which the imperialist establishment’s New Labour reserve-team government decided to walk out on (not vice versa) due to the sharpened class-war requirements of 'parliamentary rule' during the forthcoming worldwide crash and slump in the international free-market economy. Unrestrained 'leftism' will be in the way of unrestrained attacks on working-class interests.

If Scargillism is immediately closing the door on communist participation, it is all the associated anti-communist class forces described above which dictate this outcome, not mere tactical mistakes here and there.

In the long run, the same would have to be assumed true about anti-EPSR hostility by the 'politically correct' lobbies. Nothing could be more hostile to Marxist-Leninist consciousness than this anti-communist single-issue self-righteousness which heaves with subjectivism and individualism, and cannot possibly avoid hating the very idea of dictatorship-of-the-proletariat discipline and materialist objectiveness being imposed on society. No matter how much longer the EPS Review had put off its eventual anticipated onslaught on feminism and all the other reactionary idealist philosophies, total class war against this bourgeois ideology was always inevitable in the end.

Becoming embroiled in so many different conflicts simultaneously could no doubt be dismissed as bad tactical management, but what really has to be decided is whether or not these fights were all inevitable anyway at some stage.

And unless it is being argued that the Review has been deliberately courting notoriety, it also has to be explained why all the attacks on the EPSR have been so viciously unique. What can be stirring such hatred and fear, - a mere bit of tactical bad-timing? And it could even be argued that as well as a lack of circumspection not being the real cause or even the sole occasion for the attacks on the EPSR, the coincidence of various factors (conflict with entryist Trots; conflict with FISC Trots; conflict with single-issue self-righteousness; conflict with Scargillism) at least helped bring home how significant and well-targeted was the EPSR's philosophical agitation. To increase its influence still further, build Leninism even better. Roy Bull

The very heart of Leninism is a non-stop battle for the truth about the latest and most complex developments in the class struggle, which means arguing at the level of all attempted working-class leadership. Diversion from this task betrays workers to opportunism - and tragic losses, like the revisionist liquidation of the USSR, Chile 1973 and Grenada 1983. EPSR right to stick tight, and defy any attempted censorship

Current critics of the EPSR's defiance of any censorship of its detailed battle for a Marxist grasp of developments in the international workers movement (in this country, of course, tracking the SLP) should consider what happens when attempted communist thinking does "dumb down".

Nor is it any good saying, "well, not dumb down - just avoid upsetting worthwhile socialist forces or leaders in the world, for the sake of unity and the immediate fight against reaction".

These same critics claim, and can sometimes muster, a formal support for the dictatorship of the proletariat as the objective, and can sometimes string a few sensible paragraphs together about developing world-imperialist crisis. BUT THEN they tend to stop.

But the heart of Marxism-Leninism is the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat IN PRACTICE (rather than the abstract never-never).

Revisionists (and Trots), of all stripes, can sometimes present some academic history lesson about the October revolution adequately, e.g. a talk on Lenin’s Two Tactics in the Democratic Revolution, or recite Lenin’s axioms for proletarian dictatorship - but can never apply this to the real world, instead falling down into hopeless reformism (out of lack of confidence in the working class or pure petty bourgeois backwardness).

For example, a speech by the leader of the Belgian Workers Party, who could give a presentation of The State and Revolution as a piece of dogma, but not vividly tackle - or even mention - how this related to the crisis in confidence in the Belgian capitalist state at that time of the enormous upswell of disgust at the state’s corrupt failings in the child-murder scandal. This 'leader' actually didn’t know how to give any leadership!

Instead, the critics ought to immerse themselves in how Lenin - in what are now textbooks of communist struggle, e.g. Left-wing Communism - an Infantile Disorder and The State and Revolution, lays into wrong understanding among ALL working-class leaders, whether those he despises as renegades like Kautsky or those he’s trying to put straight, like Rosa Luxemburg.

The EPS Review HAS to comment on the very sharpest, trickiest, most complex aspects of the unfolding struggle of the international workers movement - meaning the perspectives of its leaders - or it will totally FAIL to do what it EXISTS to do.

Cadres in the SLP, for example, on their way to their own (self-)education as Marxist-Leninists need to follow the highest level developments in the movement, and this understanding can only be developed by grappling with the issues of the nature of centrism, and the balance of class forces as expressed by the acceptance or the rejection of the role of Marxist theory in the SLP.

They also deserve to have all their misgivings with centrism’s weaknesses explored, and get the chance to see themselves the value of Marxist theory.

Right now a battle is raging at the highest level of the SLP, and throughout its ranks, as to whether the SLP workers party should drive Trot anti-communists out of the movement with an open POLITICAL battle or whether their continuous sabotage and poisonous fake-'leftism' can be dealt with (or even lived with) by backroom manoeuvring.

Leninism can surely have no doubts at all about this conflict: as explained in the past two Reviews, the working class is going to get nowhere in the ideological battle against world and British imperialism unless it can break free from 50 years of total ClA-led anti-communist, anti-Soviet brainwashing (as on full twisted and vile display in the Cold War documentary series, where Soviet "oppression" in the form of telling a few Russian youth in the 1960s to "get their hair cut" (a cry that was, incidentally, heard all round the world at that time) is given a more emotive and sinister treatment than Western imperialism’s genocidal bombing of Vietnam).

The Trots are the most insidious 'left' cover for this Western 'democratic' ideological onslaught, utterly Orwellian in their feigned support for "socialism", whilst lining up in ferocious sectarian hatred of the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam, etc, - anything that smacks of the KGB, one-party proletarian rule, crackdowns against 'pure' 'workers' democracy etc (see Marx, Engels and Lenin on such nonsense and what they saw as the correct response to attempts at destroying WORKERS STATE rule).

So what’s the use in avoiding a fight with the Trots? What’s the use of making it a secret committee room fight? This IS the fight: perhaps the greatest ideological fight of the century.

SLP leader Arthur Scargill is just wrong to even attempt to handle this problem without an OPEN POLITICAL struggle; and an upsurge of the working class in Britain behind centrism is impossible if the SLP is permanently crippled by Trot anti-communism, disdain for the fight for genuinely socialist politics, and fear of hard-hitting arguments against New Labour 'lefts'.

Imperialism is now only able to continue to bamboozle workers by having as its last line of defence, and pumping it out continuously via every media outlet, twisted history "documentary", political pop song etc, that "socialism might have been a good idea, but in practice it was a totalitarian nightmare".

Totally gripped and blinded by this Western 'democratic' brainwashing, the Trots are not going to stop spreading their poison through the SLP if they can, and hence their disruption will never stop unless it is POLITICALLY exposed and confronted as a menace to the working class. The struggle can’t be sidestepped; it won’t go away; and it won’t come out in the wash, through all being "comrades" together.

The Western working class has to see the entire history of the USSR for its enormous contribution to working class emancipation (despite all the CPSU’s weaknesses and mistakes) on the way to imposing its own proletarian dictatorship; the petty bourgeois Trots will never cease despising and fearing this prospect (and if one or two individuals break with the Trot standpoint, it will be by argument with them, not by backing down on the politics).

Dumbing down, avoiding tricky issues, and shutting up if there’s the slightest fear that a desired ally in the fight for socialism would have his nose put out of joint, has a very bad track record.

For example, no purpose would be served by avoiding blunt polemics with Fidel Castro over his failings in Marxist-Leninist understanding.

Castro, great leader of the Cuban socialist revolution that he is, nevertheless blundered horribly over both Allendeism and Grenada, and could well be making a pig’s ear of any advice he’s giving to the Colombian FARC communist revolutionary armed struggle now. Hopefully not.

But doubts about his involvement when it comes to offering advice must persist, because he has never corrected his mistaken 'left' populist view of Allendeism (making the fake 'Marxist' president a hero of socialism, rather than an anti-Leninist Kerensky-type betrayer of the Chilean revolution) - and because of Castro’s inability to apply his valuable understanding of capitalist trade-war crisis to the battle for proletarian dictatorship, as opposed to 'left' anti-monopoly governments (which will always be dangerously open doors to fascist coups, because they refuse to lead the working class to smash the capitalist state).

Allendeism or other varieties of bogus "left-wing" governments - that are declared unimpeachably "right-on" by all manner of opportunists or gullible non-Leninists - are a major feature of the class struggle this century.

Popular parliamentary "left" governments like Allende’s in 1970-73 that nevertheless run CAPITALISM and tell the working class to "trust" their own (capitalist) state armed forces, are a DEATHTRAP to the working class.

There is no choice for Leninists here but to warn workers all the time that they must have no such confidence (as per Lenin’s tactics in 1917, tackling the Kerensky government, ESPECIALLY when facing fascist counter-revolution, and even when fighting alongside the 'left'-populist forces).

In the recent TV biography, Castro says to the camera that "the tactics of the new socialist movements won’t be like Cuba’s or those of Lenin..." which is complete anti-Leninism. If Castro is trying to avoid saying anything inflammatory to the Western media, then the answer is not to talk nonsense instead. If he really believes what he says, he will constantly be made a fool of by Western fascist counter-revolution, CIA subverting and death-squadding, or US imperialist firepower blitzing any workers revolt that shows anti-Leninist naïvety in whether it falls for fake-'left' populism or not.

Similarly, in Grenada in 1983, Castro demonised the New Jewel Movement majority for "murdering" his friend Maurice Bishop, when it was Bishop who had betrayed the Grenadan revolution by his indiscipline and hostility to Marxism. Sixteen years on, the NJM leaders Bernard Coard and Hudson Austin are still in prison, while hero-worship of Bishop is permitted by Grenada’s current US puppet government as part of its anti-communist psy-ops war against a new revolution.

Castro has shown no indication of thinking about this again; what’s his problem? Revisionist stupidity or personal vanity? And what revolutionary purpose would be served by not saying this?

The worst that can happen to Castro from these words is that his ears can turn red; but the worst that can happen to the South American and international working class if it doesn’t grasp a Leninist view of the capitalist state, and break with reformism, is that its ears will get chopped off.

The route to the self-liquidation of the USSR and the enormous damage that inflicted on both the Soviet working class, and the global struggle for socialism, lay along the path of avoiding difficult issues, out of a worsening inability to study problems scientifically.

Those who want to absolve Stalin and his group from this revisionist calamity ought to look at the record here again, too. Lenin: volume after volume of Collected Works on all issues, on all aspects of the class struggle without fear or favour. Stalin: two or three books, containing a (ponderous) demolition of the Trots and much sense about the steady and determined struggle to build socialism in the USSR, BUT precious little to write home about when it comes to strategy and tactics for the international workers movement; and his legacy - CPs around the world confused into peaceful roadism, out of a revisionist insistence on the primacy of "defending the USSR", when Leninism demands "the battle for revolution in one’s own country" (also, of course, the best and ultimately the only defence of the USSR, - its propagation).

No matter how you slice it, the EPS Review has to stick to its point, and analyse even the most tortuous and galling aspects of the battle for Marxism in the workers movement - especially when it is told to keep quiet.

In a sense, the EPS Review is always writing for all time, as a record of the working class’s titanic struggle for supremacy over imperialism, and to finally run the world for all humanity in a rational way.

There will be no revolutionary practice without revolutionary theory, and there’ll be no revolutionary theory without Leninists getting their teeth into every scrap of red meat.
                                                                                                                               Chris Barratt

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

Republican News gets closer to the class-war truth about the Lawrence Inquiry Report than fake-'lefts' have done.

JONATHAN MclVOR, formally of the Metropolitan police, presently of the RUC and undergoing a public relations makeover, provides a perfect illustration of the seamless connection between racism and sectarianism. McIvor, who was singled out for particularly scathing criticism by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, has moved effortlessly from the racist canteen culture of the Met to the sectarian canteen culture of the RUC.

In the aftermath of the inquiry, however, two further aspects of this racism/ sectarianism nexus have emerged which also have significant ramifications for nationalists in the Six Counties.
 
Firstly, language. The use and misuse of language for political purposes is an old trick of the British and one which was employed to good effect by Sir Paul Condon in the days immediately after the publication of the Inquiry’s findings. In response to, now famously, being accused of running a force guilty of 'pernicious and institutionalised racism' Condon simply redefined the term. Now, rather than meaning conscious racism which informs and affects the policies and practices of an organisation — which can be held accountable and punished accordingly — it simply means 'unconscious or unwitting'  racism which is identified as a psychological failing of the individual concerned. This adroit re-definition neatly exonerates the organisation — in this case the Met — whilst simultaneously making it difficult to hold individuals to account since they can claim their actions were 'unconscious’ and thus beyond their control.

This is precisely the process by which the term 'sectarianism' was re-defined by those in power in order to fulfil a political agenda; to make it a matter of personal psychology not a governmental policy and thus to get the real culprits off the hook. To you, me and most especially to Catholics living on the so-called 'sectarian interfaces' around the Six Counties or to those unfortunate enough to come into contact with the RUC, sectarianism has almost invariably meant Catholics being on the receiving end of institutionalised fundamentalist religious hatred, violence, harassment, crude discrimination, and in being Irish, treated as racially inferior to those who consider themselves to be British. In short, racism by another name.

But as re-defined by the British, sectarianism means the two cursed tribes laying into one another in equal measure and generally behaving like ill-disciplined children. Mo Mowlem’s claim to have "knocked heads together" to get the Good Friday Agreement has been uncontested in respect of it’s underlying ideological implications. As is the case with the Metropolitan police, the unsavoury term has been redefined in order to diminish the state’s culpability and to mask its deep-seated racist approach to Irish people (it was the British state which, after all, fostered and then indulged the ugly feeling of racial and religious superiority still manifest in unionists) and to its handling of the conflict.

Secondly, there is still within the British establishment a version of the Victorian notion of the deserving poor (obedient, deferential, willing to work for poverty-line wages) and undeserving poor (disobedient, anarchic, unemployed), ah ideology which has been adapted for use as an instrument of judgement against both ethnic minorities in the UK and to Catholics living in the North. The current version relates to the politicised and non-politicised. Doreen and Neville Lawrence, for example, once they were adjudged as having conventional middle-class values, and not, initially at least, being politically radical, they were championed by the establishment and media as deserving victims. Had they been more subversive, unemployed or non-Christian then one suspects that the reaction would have been rather different.

In the same way, the notion of deserving and undeserving Catholics appertains in the Six Counties, Catholics are generally acceptable to Unionists only when they remember their place in the God-given order and do not harbour dangerous ideas about equality or Irish unity. Equally notoriously, the term 'innocent Catholic' has been appropriated to mean murdered Catholics who were not involved in politics, or — better still — did not have a political opinion.

Equally depressing is that this ideology has filtered through to wider British public opinion, reaching its apotheosis in the reaction to the execution of Diarmuid O’Neill. It was telling that the police did not feel compelled to 'lose' the tape recordings on which an order to “shoot the fucker” could be clearly heard. The recording was played in open court without any fear of backlash from either the press or the public. O’Neill was, after all, an IRA man fighting a 'sectarian' war and therefore self-evidently undeserving and without any entitlement to due process. In cases where victims of police shootings have not been politically motivated (for example, such as the case of the convicted murderer James Ashley, a notoriously violent gangster recently killed by police as he lay in his bed) then there are virtually always suspensions and criminal charges, it is being a political or politicised victim which ultimately makes one ineligible for redress.

IN THE WAKE of allegations of widespread racism within the ranks of the British police and army, MI5 has arrested two serving British soldiers who have been charged with public order offences in connection with their active involvement in Combat 18, a neo-Nazi organisation closely associated with Loyalist groups.

The two are believed to be the tip of a much larger iceberg of Combat 18 sympathisers within the British Army after a concerted recruitment campaign over the past two years. At least 12 other serving soldiers have also been questioned in connection with Combat 18 membership.

The soldiers were named as Darren Theron a member of the Parachute Regiment who has served a tour of duty in the Six Counties, and Carl Wilson of the 1st Batt, The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment who was allegedly part of the gang of fascists who attacked the Bloody Sunday march in London in January. Also questioned was Gary Deathridge a member of the Territorial Army, who is known to have attended UVF rallies in the past and has been a member of the Combat 18 'security' for the London Apprentice Boys rally.

Combat 18 is a violent, openly fascist wannabe paramilitary organisation (the numbers 1 and 8 refer to the initials of Adolf Hitler's name) which advocates the persecution and murder of black and Jewish people, homosexuals and other minority groups including Catholics. It has in the past published hitlists containing the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of those it considers "enemies of the white race". Anti-fascist campaigners had believed the group to be on the verge of collapse in recent years, but are now warning of a resurgence of its campaign. •

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

Irish victims of British colonial terror foreshadow Rosemary Nelson's killing with warning that the completed Agreement for a new Ireland will make possible the only worthwhile and reliable decommissioning

SPEAKING after meeting General John de Chastelain on Monday morning in Belfast to outline their fears at how the decommissioning issue has been elevated to the point where it threatens to destroy the peace process, a delegation from Relatives for Justice told AP/RN, “as a group representing those who have suffered at the hands of loyalists, the RUC and the British Army, we have watched the peace process developing but we share the concern, particularly as those who have shouldered the coffins of murdered relatives, that the peace process is too important to be sacrificed over the decommissioning issue".

The delegation including Terry Enright (snr), Clara Reilly, Martin Finucane and Mark Thompson also challenged the narrow definition of de Chastelain's remit which only covers 'illegal' weapons.

Terry Enright's son was murdered by loyalists with a weapon 'stolen' from a member of the crown forces, a fact that only become known at the inquest into Terry junior’s death almost a year later.

Clara Reilly’s son was shot dead by a plastic bullet. "These have led to the deaths of 18 people and not only are the guidelines on plastic bullet use ignored but when the RUC don’t keep proper records, it means there is no accountability and RUC officers who fire and possibly kill with this weapon cannot be linked to its use.”

Mark Thompson's brother was murdered in a British Army/RUC shoot-to-kill policy.

And Martin Finucane’s brother, Pat, was murdered by loyalists.

“This narrow definition, a unionist definition, is informing the whole decommissioning debate. A debate that can only successfully be dealt with inside the peace process,” Mark Thompson said.

Added Thompson: "Of course we understand the concerns people have about illegal weapons but they need to be discussed within the peace process and not elevated outside of it, in fact we also share those concerns."

The group however were surprised, when they asked de Chastelain if he knew exactly how many legally-held guns had gone missing and were, presumably, in the hands of loyalists, that he didn’t know.

“He had absolutely no information on this and with his claim that he is working in close proximity with the RUC and Ronnie Flanagan the fact he has no information suggests that the decommissioning argument is being narrowed and the RUC have no interest in informing De Chastelain about how many legal weapons have gone 'missing' or used illegally to murder and terrorise nationalists", concluded Thompson.

Meanwhile, last Friday 5 March in Dublin a delegation from Relatives for Justice met with Foreign Minister David Andrews. They raised the need for a pro-active Dublin government role in supporting the victims of state and state-sponsored violence in the North.

Roisín Kelly, whose brother Patrick was one of nine men killed in Loughgall, eight IRA Volunteers and a civilian, by the SAS raised the need for Ronnie Flanagan to publicly confirm his role in the May 1987 ambush.

It has been documented that Flanagan was promoted to Detective Superintendent in 1987 when he also took over Special Branch command of the Tasking and Co-ordinating Group (TCG) -Southern Region — in Gough Barracks in Armagh. The TCG were the central information collating unit that took the decisions and initiated the activities of RUC and British Army units. Essentially the TCGs via informers and surveillance called the shots while the SAS fired them.

Speaking to AP/RN Ms Keely stated: “Flanagan’s role needs to clarified. On what date did he take over command of the TCG (Southern Region)? What units did he have specific responsibility for? Was Flanagan responsible for SAS actions in the region? What was his role in relation to a number of incidents in the area at that time, including the Loughall killings? Was Flanagan present at Loughall or was he in radio contact at Gough barracks?

“The need for clarification comes from the linked arguments about legal guns getting into loyalists stockpiles, arms shipments arranged through crown force agents and the use of legally held weapons by the RUC and British Army; and which individual people were culpable for directing a campaign which marked out nationalists, republicans and Catholics as targets?” concluded Ms Kelly. •