Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Two Letters to Workers Liberty

Martin Thomas (Right and left on Iraq, 25 June) criticises "the core of [Socialist Worker's] case is only that bombs are (always) bad." The reader might wonder then, whether Workers' Liberty think bombs are (always) bad. I found the answer from Sacha Ismail (North Korea and nuclear weapons, 22 October 2006, Solidarity). "The first workers’ states to be established after a socialist revolution will have to defend themselves with armed force, both against internal counter-revolution and assaults from the capitalist world. This will, clearly, require weapons. It will almost certainly require the killing of human beings. But nuclear weapons are a different order of things. By their very nature, they are instruments of mass murder and terror, wiping out whole cities and causing lasting damage..." So opposition to a workers' nuclear bomb but in favour of a workers' bomb, this is not a consistent socialist position but then neither is "[working] within the campaign to win a Labour government." (Planning for May 2015, 18 June 2014, Solidarity)

Jon D. White
SPGB

To Solidarity on 13/06/14 and they did not print it

"Martin Thomas and Omar Rai write (AWL at Lutte Ouvriere fete 2014, 9 June) ' In a manner that would be unusual to come across in Britain, French socialists from different groups such as the NPA (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) debated and discussed ideas and strategy with others.' The Socialist Party of Great Britain have held many hundreds of debates in an existence celebrating its 110 year anniversary last week.  This includes several against left groups such as the Alliance for Workers Liberty in the 1980s and 90s and against Peter Tatchell and a UKIP candidate in the last couple of months. The audio of the 1983 debate with the AWL is available on our website http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/debate-looking-forward-way-ahead-socialists
As stated 'to argue for more discussion between Marxist revolutionaries', 'Socialists must debate ideas as much as possible'.

Jon D White
SPGB

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