Earlier today an opponent of Socialism on the World Socialist Movement Discussion Forum (join here) stated that the class struggle is an illusion. We know otherwise. Read on!
With all the jingoistic talk about our masters' imperial battles it is easy to ignore the fact that there is a social war going on which will never cease as long as society is divided into two antagonistic classes. The class war turns humans into competing enemies and transforms society into a battlefield.
Under capitalism the means of wealth production and distribution are monopolised by a class which is legally entitled to defend its ownership and control by means of violent force. The facts of class possession are beyond dispute: in Britain, for example, the richest ten per cent of the population owns more of the accumulated wealth than the poorer ninety per cent put together. A society which is so fundamentally unequal can never be genuinely democratic.
The relationship between the two classes - capital and wage labour - is that of exploiter and exploited, robber and robbed. To understand this, one must consider the common source of wages and profits. It is sometimes claimed that workers should be grateful to their employers for giving them wages. It is implied that employment is a gift provided by the capitalists so as to support the workers. In fact, the opposite is the case: wages are the hallmark of legalised robbery; profits are a gift provided by the workers so as to support the capitalists. This closely-guarded secret may sound strange to workers ignorant of their own exploited position, but a little investigation into capitalist production soon demonstrates the truth of it.
The capitalists own and control the technology, means of production and resources which enable humanity to survive. In some countries they own them privately; in others they do so through their executive committee, the state. They are only in this privileged position because a majority of people allow thern to be. In Britain, workers regularly go to the polIs and vote for representatives of the system of class monopoly.
The majority of people are not capitalists: they possess very littie except their ability to work: labour power. So the workers possess mental and physical energies, but lack the ownership and control of the productive machinery; the capitalists have the productive machinery, but they need human labour to run it for them. The obvious conclusion must be for the two sides to form a "partnership ": the workers are employed to produce, but not possess and the capitalists are permitted to possess, but not produce.
A partnership between Haves and Have-Nots is bound to be an unequal one and this is the case under capitalism. The relationship of wage labour and capital is not that of equal partners, but of user and used. The capitalist employs - uses - the worker's labour power at a price which is called a wage or salary. When labour power is purchased it is the capitalist's to use for a period of time. Labour power is a commodity in that, like baked beans and electric toasters, it is produced for sale on the market. Why does the capitalist buy labour power? It is not that he or she feels sorry for propertyless workers and wants to give them money. Capitalists only pay workers to produce wealth if there is a likelihood that the value of the wealth produced will be greater than the wage or salary paid to the wealth producers. In short, unless workers create surplus value they are of no use to the capitalists.
Surplus value is that proportion of wealth produced by a worker which is over and above the reproduction of his own wage or salary (variable capital) plus the cost of machinery and raw materials, used during production (constant capital). So if a worker is paid £100 a week he must produce wealth which reproduces the value of £100, reproduces the cost of machinery and materials used, and in addition he must create a surplus which provides unearned income for the idle owner of capital. If a worker earning £100 only reproduces wealth to the value of £100 plus the cost of machinery and materials used, but not any surplus value, he or she will be considered unproductive.
The objective of capitalist production is the creation of surplus value. Out of surplus value comes rent, interest and profit. In short, profits arise from
unpaid labour of the working class. This is not simply a case of a few fraud capitalists robbing a few gullible workers; legalised exploitation is as necessary
the capitalist system as illegal robbery is to mugging - just as one cannot have a successful mugger who does not hit his victims over the head and rob them, so one cannot have a successful capitalist who does not exploit workers.
Many workers thank the capitalists for exploiting them; they think that being exploited is the greatest piece of luck that could happen to them. Some misguided workers, who call themselves socialists, but are in fact the most backward of social thinkers, actually organise processions demanding the right to be exploited. Yet despite the political acquiescence of the working class to its own inferior status, there are frequent and inevitable battles between the two classes. This struggle is inevitable because of the fundamental antagonisrn of interests between those who receive wages and those who receive profits. At its most primitive level the class struggle is a series of minor battles between sections of the two cIasses over the rate of exploitation, or how much of the wealth prooduced shall go to the workers as wages and how much will go to the capitalists as profits. Because the capitalist class own the productive and distributive machinery they always have the upper hand in these battles over the conditions of exploitation. Trade unions are a feature of this defensive struggle by workers to obtain a few more precious crumbs from the capitalist-owned, worker-baked cake. The class war never ceases under capitalism because there can never be a reconciliation of interests between capitalists and workers.
Victory in the class war can only be won by the exploited class, consciously, politically and democratically defeating the exploiting class. The workers must have no sympathy for the professed needs of the capitalists: they are our class enemies, they possess what we want and every effort must be made to take it from them. The political objective of socialists is to dispossess the capitalist class of its ownership and control of the means of life. Once we have done that society will be able to produce wealth for use rather than for profit. Socialists will not waste time engaging in diversionary and ultimately utopian attempts to reform the capitalist system. The revolutionary task is to end the system, not to amend it, for until the wages system has been abolished the majority of humankind will continue to be exploited.
S. COLEMAN
Socialist Standard July 1982
13 comments:
THE WORLD SOCIALISM PARTY IS A SECT AND WRONG!!
READ THIS LETTER FROM A WORLD-SOCIALIST WEBSITE SUPPORTER TO A MEMBER OF THE WORLD SOCIALIST PARTY
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/oct2000/lett-o30.shtml
Chris Talbot replies on the behalf of the World Socialist Web Site
Dear Karla,
Thank you for the praise for the World Socialist Web Site. You can find out more about our history and principles from the links “About the WSWS” (http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/about/ about.shtml) and “About the ICFI” (http://www.wsws.org/sections/category/icfi/ icfi.shtml) on our home page.
As you will see there, the history of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) goes back to the 1920s when Leon Trotsky founded the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy, and later founded the Fourth International in 1938. We defended the heritage of Trotskyism in the post war period against those who wanted to adapt to Stalinism or reformism. Unfortunately your own party's website does not list us under “other organisations” or “Trotskyists”.
I think that if you study what we are saying more deeply, you will realise that we are not, as you put it, “on the same wavelength” as the World Socialist Movement. There are fundamental differences between us. There are many aspects to this, but the most basic is in relation to the scientific conception of socialism developed by Karl Marx. The World Socialist Movement (WSM)-World Socialist Party of the US, Socialist Party of Great Britain, etc.—call themselves Marxist but have a fundamental misunderstanding of Marx's approach to socialism. That is why they have continued for nearly 100 years as an organisation that can only be described as a sect—in the sense that they refuse on principle to get involved in the political struggles of the working class.
Very briefly, Marx developed a scientific understanding of historical change based on the struggle between classes, the conflict of material interests between these different social strata arising from their relationship to production, the economic basis of society. The working class, who own no property, have interests that are completely irreconcilable with the capitalist property owners. Socialism was thus no longer just a utopian idea, an ideal system of society, but must be seen as a higher level of social relations based on common ownership arising out of the contradictions within capitalist society. Socialism can only be established when the working class overthrows capitalist rule in a social revolution.
The task of socialists was no longer that of preaching socialism as a “good idea” but giving the working class a political direction in the class struggle, raising their level of understanding of society to a scientific level. A socialist political party was needed which would give the working class revolutionary leadership.
Looking at the WSM website reveals instead an organisation which hangs on to pre-Marxian conceptions of socialism, despite claiming adherence to Marx. WSM says, for example, that it doesn't get involved in "social activism", because it is necessarily "reformism".
This means that the WSM abstains from the class struggle entirely, on the grounds that when workers demonstrate, go on strike, etc., their ideas are still reformist—i.e. they still hope to reform capitalism. But this is hardly surprising since the dominant ideas in capitalist society are ideas that support capitalism. Instead of engaging in a struggle against these existing ideas in the working class, the WSM leaves workers to their fate.
In the same way, the WSM derides those who fight to build a socialist party to give a lead to workers because "leaders are inherently undemocratic and socialists oppose leadership".
After the tragic experiences made by the working class with Stalinism it is easy to attack “leadership”—but this simplistic idea that all leaders are corrupt takes us nowhere and is not a substitute for scientific analysis. Again, it leaves working people defenceless in the face of a ruling class, which has its own political parties and leaders. Politics for the WSM is reduced to the rather scholastic defence of unchanging dogma, with the hope that at some future date the masses will be convinced and “see the light”.
The WSM's view of the history of the last century is that it was entirely dominated by capitalism. They regard the 1917 Russian revolution as merely a capitalist revolution overthrowing feudalism. Lenin and Trotsky are presented as undemocratic advocates of "Bolshevik ideology" which inevitably led to the Stalinist "state capitalist" regime in Russia, etc., etc.
This interpretation-which fits in nicely with the superficial distortions of the truth put out by right wing historians, not to mention the distortions of Stalinist hacks-does not meet up to a serious examination of history. I would recommend that you study Leon Trotsky and the Fate of Socialism in the 20th Century by David North (http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/trotsky/trlect.htm ) as well as the other material in the “About the ICFI” section of our site.
I hope that this brief explanation will lead you to a further study of our material on our Web Site and convince you of the necessity of developing revolutionary Marxism, i.e. Trotskyism, for the revival of the working class movement.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Talbot
PS: A book that is well worth reading on the history of the Fourth International is David North's The Heritage We Defend, available from Mehring Books.
Hi!
This reply should be of interest:
http://tinyurl.com/csqrvg
Yours for a world of free access,
Robert
MS,
Thanks for the cut and paste.
'Hallblithe' posted a link to a reply from a World Socialist Party of the United States member to Chris Talbot of the WSWS original piece but, just in case readers don't follow the link, I've cut and pasted the reply in its entirety below.
Hope you find it of interest.
On wsws.org: the “World Socialist” Web Site
Submitted by FN Brill on Thursday, 18 September 2003
The World Socialist Party (WSPUS) and the World Socialist Movement (WSM) would like to make clear our lack of involvement with the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) the public news web site of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP).
What’s in a Name?
The WSP(US) has been in existence since 1916, using the present World Socialist Party name since 1948. It should be obvious that the Socialist Equity Party/wsws.org are perfectly aware of our existence and have dishonestly used the term “world socialist”.
In response to a query from a WSP supporter confused by their use of “World Socialism”, the SEP/wsws.org published a screed against the World Socialist Movement. For the most part the SEP’s ‘critique’ is laughable, as we shall see.
Who are the SEP?
The SEP is a faction within the Trotskyist movement founded in the mid-1980s. The SEP was formed during a power struggle in a larger body called the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ICFI).
As Trotskyists, they stand for what World Socialism calls “State-Capitalism”. While calling themselves socialists, they objectively support the continuation of the existing capitalist society with the only difference being society will be under their leadership. In plain english, they aren’t socialists at all.
Normally we ignore leftist groups like SEP/wsws.org But given their desire to use our name, we must clarify our differences.
What do Socialists want?
The SEP collapses our methods into a characterture: “Politics for the WSM is reduced to the rather scholastic defense of unchanging dogma, with the hope that at some future date the masses will be convinced and “see the light”.1 Thus the SEP paints us as “pre-Marxist” socialists, idealists and probably Paleolithic oddities.
Unchanging dogma? Of course, we must make the observation that Socialists are here, according to Marx, to “Abolish the Wage System”. Socialists are here to overthrow the one unchanging aspect of capitalism, its fundamental social relation, that of between the Employer and the Worker. Perhaps the lack of understanding that unchanging aspect of the socialist ‘dogma’ is what confuses them.
As for long term educational work, well, let’s turn to what Engels said in 1895:
“The time is past for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of complete transformation of social organisation, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act. That much the history of the last fifty years has taught us. But so that the masses may understand what is to be done, long and persistent work is required . . .”
(Introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, 1848-50)
But maybe the SEP feels Engels is pre-Marxist too. But education is a long a tedious business and the SEP means business. So let’s discuss what happens when small groups who mean business take power for the masses.
Back to the USSR
It must be admitted that the SEP is more on target when they say; “The WSM’s view of the history of the last century is that it was entirely dominated by capitalism. They regard the 1917 Russian revolution as merely a capitalist revolution overthrowing feudalism. Lenin and Trotsky are presented as undemocratic advocates of “Bolshevik ideology” which inevitably led to the Stalinist “state capitalist” regime in Russia, etc., etc.”
True, the WSM says the Bolshevik revolution of Lenin and Trotsky established a capitalist state.
“We have always contended that the Bolsheviks could only maintain power by resorting to capitalist devices. History has shown us to be correct. The January 1920 Congress of the Executive Communists in Russia abolished the power of workers control in factories and installed officials instructed by Moscow and given controlling influence. Their resolutions printed in most of the Labour papers and the Manchester Guardian here show how economic backwardness has produced industrial conscription with heavy penalties for unpunctuality, etc. The abolition of democracy in the army was decreed long ago, but now that the army is being converted into a labour army it means rule from the top with an iron hand.
Russia has agreed to repay foreign property-owners their losses and allied Governments their “debts.” This means continued exploitation of Russian workers to pay foreign exploiters.
With all the enthusiasm of the Communists they find themselves faced with the actual conditions in Russia and the ignorance of the greater part of its population.
There is no easier road to Socialism than the education of the workers in Socialism and their organisation to establish it by democratic methods. Russia has to learn that.”
In other words, Lenin and Trotsky attempted to short cut a path to Socialism - a coup, a putsch. This adventurism landed Russia in a isolated situation which caused Lenin to call for “state-capitalism”.
Let’s let UK Trotskyist, Tariq Ali’s explain:
“Lenin defined the New Economic Policy as “State Capitalism” …Why ban factions (within the Bolshevik Party)? Because it seemed necessary to Lenin and Trotsky that the ‘liberal’ measures of NEP must be imposed even at the cost of silencing dissent within the Bolshevik Ranks.” In order to establish state capitalism, Lenin eliminated one of the last vestiges of democracy in the USSR. Lenin’s capitalist NEP led to the bureaucracy and Stalinism that the SEP says led the Bolsheviks astray.
Or as the SPGB put it at the time:
Bertrand Russell, who accompanied the Labour delegation to Russia in June, records his interview with Lenin in the Nation (July 10th and 17th), and Lenin there admits the opposition of the peasantry. Lenin in reply to Kautsky (The Dictatorship and the Betrayer Kautsky) does not attempt to deny Kautsky’s charge that the Menshevik and Social-Revolutionary delegates to the Soviets were suppressed in order to maintain Bolshevik majorities. Russell states the Soviets are moribund and that any other delegates than Bolshevik ones are denied railway passes and so cannot attend the Soviet meetings. He also says that the All Russian Soviet meets seldom, that the recall is exercised for minor offenses, such as drunkenness, and that the delegates continually ignore their constituents. We do not accept Russell as an authority, but much of his report agrees with Bolshevik writings.
The USSR as State-Capitalist Economy
In their critique of the WSPUS the SEP explains…
(T)o analyse in detail the mechanics of production in Russia and other such countries (but in particular Russia) is to show precisely how and why production, even under almost total state control, takes place - and indeed must take place - with a view to making profit and not to satisfying people’s needs. Not to concentrate on profit, they point out, would be to ignore the pressure arising from the international rivalry of competing capitals, the pressure to compete both militarily and commercially, and therefore to accumulate capital. And the penalty for such ignorance would be economic and political collapse.
So Russian “planning” is not aimed at satisfying the needs of consumers but at extracting surplus value from Russian workers as effectively as possible - making them produce greater value by their labour than they receive in wages or salaries, just like workers in the West….
As we stated in our article State Capitalism:
So the state has to devise mechanisms of a market kind and “the pressures which act on the state and its economic planners in the state capitalist countries are identical to the pressures which act on their private capitalist counterparts via the market”. And these pressures, the need to make financial calculations in order to realise profit and accumulate capital indicate, over and above any differences of detail, the essential similarity of the economic systems of East and West. Nor does “planning” remove the element of competition from Russian production. Competition remains an essential and ever-present feature. There is competition between enterprises producing different goods where financially accountable enterprise managers are anxious to achieve their targets ahead of other enterprises. There is competition between enterprises which produce the same goods, with planning specifications, which are necessarily vague and approximate to allow individual managers latitude to adapt to rises and falls in spare capacity and consumer demand, have brought about a situation where a number of different enterprises may be producing, say, refrigerators at the same time in competition with one another. There is, above all, because of the pressure on managers to reach production targets, competition among enterprises for the skilled labour power available.
Such is the intensity of competition for scarce grades of labour power that even the Russian authorities admit that almost one-third of labour recruitment by-passes official channels, while many Western scholars believe that, with certain exceptions, “the immense majority of workers and employees is recruited at the factory or office gates”.
Socialist Activity?
When the SEP describes the WSM’s practice, again they stoop to falsehood:
“That is why they have continued for nearly 100 years as an organisation that can only be described as a sect— in the sense that they refuse on principle to get involved in the political struggles of the working class.
Looking at the WSM web site reveals instead an organisation which hangs on to pre-Marxian conceptions of socialism, despite claiming adherence to Marx. WSM says, for example, that it doesn’t get involved in “social activism”, because it is necessarily ‘reformism’.
“This means that the WSM abstains from the class struggle entirely, on the grounds that when workers demonstrate, go on strike, etc., their ideas are still reformist—i.e. they still hope to reform capitalism. But this is hardly surprising since the dominant ideas in capitalist society are ideas that support capitalism. Instead of engaging in a struggle against these existing ideas in the working class, the WSM leaves workers to their fate.”
But this is far from the fact, World Socialists are involved in “day to day” struggles, but with a vastly different perspective of what the Party is needed for. This is well described in an article from 1947: A Socialist Looks At Unions.
“Another duty of socialists in the union is to wage an unceasing fight against the trend towards bureaucracy, urging the workers to be eternally vigilant in the defense of their democratic rights, opposing high salaries for the officials , proposing limited tenure of office, insisting that all major decisions be ratified by the membership - in a Word demanding that the the unions be conducted of, for and by its members in fact as well as theory. To the extent that a union gets settled with dictatorship, free expression is restricted, the rights of the membership are treated with contempt, major policies are formed at the top, and the bureaucracy tends to increasingly to act as a disciplinary agents for the employers, using such devices as the check-off and no-strike provisions to hold the workers in line. Socialists should consistently impress upon the workers the urgency of restoring the union to the membership, in whose democratic control it belongs.
The leadership fetishism propagated by certain so-called left wing groups who would have the workers believe that everything depends on the “right kind of leaders” must be vigorously combatted.. Blaming union officials and yelling “labor fakirs” when incorrect policies are followed will solve nothing, a union is no better than the members who form it. The character of the leadership is to a large degree a reflection of the maturity or lack of maturity of the rank and file. For this reason socialists should seek to raise the understanding of the rank and file, to imbue them with an awareness that their elected representatives should be the servants, not the masters, of the membership.
There is one thing that socialists should avoid like the plague in their union activity, namely, the unfortunate practice practiced resorted to by avoid bolshevik groups of maneuvering and conniving to use unions as their vehicle for carrying out their political “line”. Unions are first last and all the time economic organizations operating within the framework of capitalism. Attempts to use them for purposes other than this can only react to the detriment of the unions and their members. The tragic consequence that follows when communist s gain control of a union is a matter of sorry record. The unions should belong to the members, and not be dominated by any clique, political or otherwise. Sometimes such cliques rationalize their drive to worm their way into key union posts on the grounds that once in top positions they will be better able to advance the cause of socialism. Actually the only thing they advance is their party “line” or else themselves. Such “vanguard” outfits care not a whit about educating the workers, but are only interested in indoctrinating them and mobilizing them in accordance with the latest party shibboleths. They are not concerned wit making the workers class conscious but only slogan conscious.
The socialist does not sloganize workers, nor do we use the union simply as a soapbox from which to harangue the membership. We participate in the union, seek to give good account of our actions, and when issues arise we offer a class conscious interpretation of them. Fortified by the socialist outlook, we do not succumb to opportunism, and never cease to do what we can to make socialists out of trade unionists, instead of allowing he union to water down our socialism. By keeping clear of underhanded deals and political shenanigans, by taking a principled stand on controversial questions, however unpopular such a stand may be at the moment, by fearlessly opposing proposals inimical to the workers interests, and, finally, by judiciously presenting the socialist analysis of day-to-day problems confronting labor - this constitutes socialist activity in the union.
When workers are lock in combat with their employer, through strike action, socialists as an organized group should assist their fellow workers in whatever way they can, such as writing articles and leaflets from the workers point of view, speaking on pertinent working class issues when invited to do so at union meetings; offering the party headquarters to strike committees, etc.”
If you explore the history of our movement you will find examples of how the WSP acted within unions, participated in strikes, protested censorship and conducted educational work within the military in war time.
Both the SEP and WSP involve themselves in the class struggle. But in very different ways. I ask, who would workers prefer to work with? The WSP member who acts like a fellow worker, or the SEP, who wishes to lead you?
[2009 Update] Also be aware that the SEP/wsws.org does not support unions. This position might be explained by the fact the SEP leadership are the owners/managers of a 25 million dollar a year printing company in Michigan. Non-union of course.
If you choose the SEP, read on to where their leaders leads…
Leadership
What really upsets the SEP isn’t the WSM’s purported “lack of participation in social movements”, that’s a red herring. What bothers the SEP is that the WSM disagrees with taking a leadership role as a party, within reform movements. World Socialism has always (since 1904) argued that the working class doesn’t need leaders in the traditional sense of the word. The SEP disagrees:
“…the WSM derides those who fight to build a socialist party to give a lead to workers because “leaders are inherently undemocratic and socialists oppose leadership”.
After the tragic experiences made by the working class with Stalinism it is easy to attack “leadership”— but this simplistic idea that all leaders are corrupt takes us nowhere and is not a substitute for scientific analysis. Again, it leaves working people defenseless in the face of a ruling class, which has its own political parties and leaders…
The task of socialists (is) no longer that of preaching socialism as a “good idea” but giving the working class a political direction in the class struggle, raising their level of understanding of society to a scientific level. A socialist political party was needed which would give the working class revolutionary leadership.”
But the WSM was against leadership 20 years before Stalin took power. It wasn’t in reaction to Stalinism at all, another false argument by the SEP. Our critique of leadership was developed in 1904 after decades of participation in the class struggle, it isn’t simply a knee-jerk reaction to the Lenin’s right hand man, the old Bolshevik Stalin.
What the WSM says about leadership makes sense. Yes, working class people need to struggle to defend their interests within the capitalist framework. Socialists participate in these struggles because we are members of the working class. As members of the World Socialist Movement we propagate Socialist ideas.
But to reiterate the World Socialist Party, SPGB, etc. do not participate in social struggles as a party. We believe that struggles within capitalism don’t lead the working class out of capitalism. When parties participate in social struggles, fighting for organizational or ideological control, eventually the party winds up only working for reforms. The need for the Party is to remain as a beacon for Socialism, an educational and propaganda organization that gives workers the tools to understand and overthrow capitalism.
As example, a friend of mine is involved in a leftist political grouping well known in the US for its activity in Trade Union reform. Evidently long time members have complained to him that they spend so much time in the unions, they don’t ever get to talk “socialism”.
Our position is a sensible and historically valid position.
SEP Leadership = Spying for Capitalist Dictators
The SEP argues for the WSM to be scientific socialists. So let’s put the SEP under the microscope. Let’s see their leadership in action. Proofs in the eating.
However this short history of the leadership the SEP has given the working class gives more than a good example of why World Socialism’s view of leadership doesn’t just make sense, they’re absolutely necessary.
SEP was birthed from the Gerry Healy faction of Trotskyism, the Interntional Committee of the Fourth International, whose sections were, until the mid-1980s, the Workers’ League in Canada and the US, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party in UK, etc. At that time the “International” imploded in a series of splits involving political back stabbing for leadership and sordid scandal. To make a long story short, the leader-for-life of the ICFI, Gerry Healy, was corrupt and womanizing. He was also old. Two younger members of the International Board, David North and Mike Banda, attempted a “palace coup”.
The internal life of the ICFI declined to a degree that the London Times reported on October 30, 1985 that ‘‘Mr. Banda’s supporters… were yesterday said to be guilty of precipitating a financial crisis in the party by fabricating the accounts.’’ Banda is alleged to have charged that Healy kept a 20,000 pound slush fund and to have purchased a 15,000 pound BMW for himself out of WRP money.” When a number of longtime members brought charges that Healy coerced their daughters to have sex with him, the WRP and the ICFI eventually splintered into perhaps 10 different parties and groups.
In its articles on its genesis, the SEP nowhere discusses these scandals, only presenting itself as a principled political opponent to Healy from 1982 on. That means they agree with the following fund raising activity by the ICFI:
Solidarity (UK) magazine reports in its Spring 1986 issue that Newsline (the WRP newspaper) photographers delivered pictures of Iraqi Communist Party members to the Iraqi Embassy, and when a motion came before the WRP Central Committee to approve the execution in March 1979 of Iraqi dissidents, including one (Talib Sowailh) who had been a ‘fraternal delegate’ to a WRP front organisation five months earlier, only one member dissented.
David North’s Workers League (now the wsws.org/Socialist Equality Party) denies supporting these actions. However this is what their newspaper, the Bulletin said about the executions at the time:
“This is a straight case of Moscow trying to set up cells in Iraqi armed forces for the purpose of undermining the regime. It must accept the consequences.” Bulletin, 16 March 1979
The widely held assumption on the left has always been that the WRP/ICFI sold the names and photos of Iraqi dissidents to Saddan Hussein’s regime. While the SEP will no doubt deny this allegation, their former partner, Banda admitted the WRP worked for a number of Arab dictatorships.
And here are the numbers, straight from the Banda’s accounting:
Funds received by the ICFI from various Arab Dictatorships (in UK Pounds):
542,267 Libya
156,500 Kuwait
50,000 Qatar
25,000 Abu Dhabi
19,997 PLO
19,697 Iraq
261,702 Unidentified “and Other”
And what did they do for the Libyian money?
According to one critic of the ICFI: “The ICFI undertook spying for Libya against “Zionists” in exchange for Libyan government purchase of a 50,000 UK Pound web offset press. They agreed in exchange to provide intelligence on “activities, names, and positions held in finance, politics, business, the communications media and elsewhere” by “Zionists”. According to the Control Commission, “Zionist could actually include every Jew in a leading position.”
Of course other leftists- especially Leninists, will just excuse this as an example of corruption not applicable to all cases. But there are plenty of articles out on the internet discussing the corruption and patronage in many Leninist groups. Party leaders bought homes and cars, gambled the party funds, sexual harrasment of comrades, etc. etc.
How Clean is the SEP’s Hands?
On the rare occasion the SEP does discuss the corruption in their past organization, they blame it all on Gerry Healy and the WRP. However as the Solidarity article points out:
In addition to the £1,075,163 identified by the document as having come from the Middle East and Libya between 1977 and 1983, the report gives, in a section dealing with the WRP’s internal finances which we do not print, breakdowns of a further £496,773 received between 1975 and 1985 from other sections of the International Committee, almost entirely from North America, Australia and Germany. This raises further questions about how additional Middle Eastern money may have been recycled to the WRP via other IC sections; it is known, for example, that the Australian section received at least one substantial payment from Libya. (Our emphasis)
What is important is the North American, Australian and German sections of the old ICFI are the ones which make up the SEP today. And many in the leadership then are leaders in the SEP/ICFI today.
Conclusion
It’s up to the working class to decide what kind of world they wish to live in. A WSP member who also did educational work for his union said: “If you have a political line to sell and you twist the truth to fit that line - that’s indoctrination. When you tell workers the truth about things that affect their lives - that’s education.”
For all it’s weaknesses, the WSP is attempting to offer the working class an education which it can use to liberate itself. Leninists like the SEP, twist their political line, their facts and the truth.
We have seen the SEP’s predicessor defend Saddam Hussein. Their International spied and took money from capitalist dictators and absolutist monarchs. But now - their line’s been changed again - we are to believe them. Does this sound like the kind of democracy you want in a new society? Or the leadership to lead you there?
Quite a long post, struggled a bit with it.
Has the SPGB debated with the WRP before? They (the WRP) still seem wedded to the idea of leadership. Didn't realise SEP and WRP are out of the same stable.
Hi, CoOl your title, I got a good ideas about socialism.
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comments re "Class verus Class" ???
this has been taken over by the members of another grouop of left wing capitalism.......why?
so what is your point, Paul?
Is this a "limited" public blog?
Jock,
to the best of my knowledge, the SPGB never debated with the WRP, though they might have debated with its predecessor, the Socialist Labour League, in the 1960s.
Though there still exists to this day a 'WRP', which continues to publish the daily newspaper, Newsline, to all intents and purposes the WRP imploded in the mid-80s following the fall out from the Gerry Healy revelations.
One of the groups from the WRP tradition which set up anew in Britain was the International Communist Party - now known as the Socialist Equality Party - and which continues to be affiliated to the SEP/WSWS based in the States.
jock I'm not a party member!
I recently had trouble with a supporter of the wsws(the guy said he's not an member?) on another forum, I was blocked by this member/supporter along with other forum members who tried to engage with him in the forums.
He then went onto claim I and others were "CLOWNS & PSYCHIATRIC CASES"
He seems to have left the forum? or someone has hacked his profile?
The Socialist Party has said to a poster that post attacking the party in the forums is not allowed?
I asked the Socialist Party about the wsws and posted the facts about the wsws much as they are have had some good responses.
Darren , that was of interest.
Paul, I dont know what the SPGB policy is on the forum but it does seem to be open to all interested individuals, a good thing I would say.
It is interesting to read what the wsws/wrp etc are all about, in contrast to the clearer socialist point of view of the SPGB
jock
the party forums are moderated.
The point I was making is the wsws non member/supporter moderated his threads by blocking people for not agreeing with him, then attacked me/them in the his forums knowing people could not respond.
I was recently banned from a website after posting 'party material' "Labour Party 100 years of reformism" because it upset a number of people in the forums,
they used flowery language against me, to abuse me, it was mostly Labour Party members! so much for free speech!
paul
some Labour party activists have very closed minds, I would not let it get to you too much. I think there is a bit of a "gang" mentality among the establishment political parties, many of their supporters are unthinkingly loyal.
More background on the SEP/WSWS and its sordid history:
http://anti-sep-tic.blogspot.com/
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