In a recent debate between, Lars T Lih, Paul Le Blanc, and Pham Binh(1) there is confirmation of existing knowledge, that the Bolshevik party was not formally proclaimed, in Prague, at the conference of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1912; nor was it the formal aim of Lenin to create a separate Bolshevik party. Again the debate clarified, that in 1912 there was not a birth of a party of a new type, free of opportunism, but the birth of a myth of such a party. The main point is: for all intents and practical purposes, the RSDLP that emerged from Prague, in 1912, was a Bolshevik party, in all but name.

The methods Lenin used in creating an organisation, all those years ago, has had an important influence of the organised left in Britain today. So the question raised by Lars is: “if indeed Lenin wanted to create a Bolshevik party (in 1912 ) he set about it in a way that was deceptive, disloyal, destructive and not to be imitated“.(2) But in making these comments Lars Lih is fairly confident that it was not the explicit aim of Lenin to create a Bolshevik party independent of the RSDLP. But this begs the question: didn’t Lenin always act as if his faction was the party or the RSDLP? Lenin’s disingenuous and undemocratic splitting methods and factionalism culminating in the unrepresentative gathering of 16 Bolsheviks and two Mensheviks do not deserve to be influential.

As early as 1975, Marcel Liebman(3) drew the conclusion that during the period of reaction leading up to Lenin’s organisation of the Prague conference of the RSDLP, Leninist Bolshevism displayed intolerance and sectarianism to absurd lengths, leaving a Tradition which Stalinism (and Trotskyism) inherited and built on. Tony Cliff in his account of Lenin‘s party building(4) which Pham Binh correctly describes as a misleading and distorted account, uncritically followed and exaggerated every undemocratic twist and turn of the great helmsman which served to legitimise his own factionalism as party building. Alan Woods from the old Militant Tendency endorsed in his “Bolshevism”(5) Leninist political methods as an example of sorting out the revolutionaries from the opportunists, perpetuating the myth of 1912 as a party of a new type. But the Bolshevik organised Prague conference included supporters of the extreme right wing Menshevik, Plekhanov, who was in a block with Lenin at the time, despite opposing the 1905 revolution. The Bolshevik opportunists of 1917. Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin were also involved. The records of the 1912 conference were kept secret until recently, because the delegates were very unhappy with Lenin’s crude splitting tactics and the unrepresentative and factional nature of the conference.

Lenin operated with his faction as a party within a party or acted as if they were the party or the RSDLP. But in the period of reaction, factional rights which he had championed in the unity conference of 1906 when the Bolsheviks were in a minority, were not tolerated. Bolshevik factions were deemed to be not fully fledged factions, but minor groups. Lenin conducted a ruthless factional war using savage verbal abuse against those who would not accept his views, even on tactical issues. The word liquidator used very loosely outside of Lenin’s followers. Then there were Lenin’s critics inside the Bolshevik faction labelled deviators, recallists, ultimatists, god builders, and generally described as ultra left rascals of one kind or another. These labels often had a loose association with the individuals on which they were attached rather than creative and democratic debate, it was a case of defending orthodoxy by pinning the criminals badge on Lenin’s opponents. The Duma was an undemocratic unrepresentative parliament. Lenin even wrote the speeches of some of the RSDLP representatives; but the Bolshevik Utimatists who wanted the deputies to follow party policy were deviationists from the correct Leninist line. As Lars Lih describes it: an insanely complicated factional struggle. An illustration of the political madness was Lenin’s factional war against Bogdanov and his Bolshevik followers. Alexandra Bogdanov was one of the key Bolshevik leaders following the split of 1903. But in 1907 Bogdanov won a majority of Bolsheviks in an RSDLP conference for the tactic of a boycott of the Duma elections. Earlier in 1906 Lenin had been in favour of boycott, now 14 out of 15 Bolshevik delegates voted with Bogdanov. Lenin in violation of all the values of “democratic centralism” voted with the Mensheviks against a boycott. Tactical differences were anathema. The Bolshevik Leninists as the future of the RSDLP saw ideological homogeneity as essential for political effectiveness, So Bogdanov’s philosophy was deemed to have nothing in common with Bolshevism, despite years of unity around philosophical neutrality; Bogdanov himself was deemed to have nothing in common with Bolshevism. Although not formally expelled, a common theme emerged, because to all intents and practical purposes he was expelled, without democratic procedure, by an extended editorial board meeting, packed with Leninists, of a Bolshevik newspaper in 1909, not a Bolshevik conference.

In these years of reaction, following Lenin’s line became the revolutionary touchstone. This was the cult of the leader or Lenin, which was institutionalised after the 1917 revolution. Factional loyalty to the leader, hence “Bolshevik Leninists” was passed off as party patriotism. Paul Leblanc (6) claimed that Bolshevism could not have become the decisive revolutionary party that it became without this wrenching inner party struggle. Alan Woods and others also supportive of various forms of Trotskyism tend to agree that this factional struggle, these relentless splitting tactics, were essential to form the revolutionary leadership. But this group of Lenin loyalists including Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Molotov and Orzhonkidze, selected by extreme factionalism, were part of the leadership which transformed the Bolshevik party after the revolution of 1917 into a dictatorship over workers, substituting itself for the class and then the leaders substituting for the party. They helped to consolidate the top down centralism in the regime of bureaucratic centralism from 1919 to 1923. These old Bolsheviks brought up in the cult of the leader were important in the transition to Stalinism, as the hammer on critics within the party, expressing workers opposition from below. This culminated in the ban on party factions in 1921, which saw the consolidation of the Leninist faction as the party again.

When he joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, Trotsky famously declared that he had joined because the Bolsheviks had become de-Bolshevised. In 1917 Lenin discarded his democratic revolution two stage strategy which led his old Bolshevik followers to support the provisional government and relied heavily on Trotsky, Lunacharsky and the inter-district group in Petrograd for revolutionary agitation and propaganda. The very comrades he had split with as useless to the revolution became the public face of what the mass of workers called the Bolsheviks. In Moscow the revolutionary dynamic found expression in the comrades around the unorthodox Bolshevik Bukharin. Indeed the mass struggle for workers power from below shaped the Bolshevik party and its strategy. The “Bolshevik Party” became a genuine mass party from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands in 1917. The party was effective with a wide range of diverse views; ideological agreement was not on the agenda. That’s why there is no analogy with “anti-liquidator” struggle as Lars Lih claims. In a sense there was a grain of truth in Potresov’s claim that there was no party to liquidate. There were less than a hundred members at one point. The definition of liquidationism was also elastic with an element of false polemics. In terms of the inner Bolshevik struggle, to split on mass tactics when the masses are not in the party does demonstrate a strong political imagination.

It is difficult to know what evidence Lars Lih would accept to find Lenin guilty of deception – even self deception. He finds Lenin less than tactful, but not deceitful. But false polemics had been a feature of Lenin’s politics from the beginning. The politics of the Credo (economism) private written correspondence between two socialists with no organised following, were projected onto Akimov and other political opponents. Akimov did not teach workers to concern themselves only with economics. To present the factional gathering of the Bolsheviks in Prague as the party or to presume the Bolsheviks were the RSDLP is giving a false impression or was disingenuous. To say, as Le Blanc does, that Lenin knew his factional enemies would not go to Prague, so this somehow justified holding the Bolshevik organised conference under the RSDLP banner is far to uncritical. Why did the Bolshevik faction not hold the meeting under their own banner? Lenin also gave a misleading impression, to a socialist international gathering, of what Prague represented. Nor were the false labels simply a product of the poverty and difficulties of émigré life since this political method resumed after 1918. Krupskaya wrote in retrospect that “Ilyich did not want a faction, but a party that pursued a Bolshevik line” .(7 ) To all intents and practical purposes this was the party as a faction.

Notes

1

(a) Lars T Lih, A faction is not a Party, Weekly Worker, May 3rd 2012

(b) Paul Le Blanc, Convergence and Questions, Weekly Worker, May 10th 2012

(c) Pham Binh, Mangling the Party, Tony Cliffs Lenin, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, January 24th 2012.

2 Lars T Lih, The Faction is not a Party, Weekly Worker, May 3rd,2012.

3 Marcel Liebman, Leninism under Lenin, Merlin Press ,London 1975

4 Tony Cliff, Lenin : Building the Party, Bookmarks. London 1986.

5 Alan Woods, Bolshevism, Well Red Publications, London 1999

6 Paul le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (p146) Humanities Press, London 1990.

7 N.K. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin (p179) Lawrence and Wishart London 1970.

Dave Spencer was my dearest friend and comrade for many years. We were at University together in both Leeds and Leicester, and were thereafter immersed in socialist politics for the rest of our lives. But he was also the most friendly and dedicated person you could possibly meet. We even went to Paris together when we had almost nothing, and still had a great time.

But, as with these things, we both got married and went where the jobs were, and gradually lost touch. Dave was a true socialist, and this meant that he joined and left various organisations as soon as it was evident they were not as dedicated as he was to the working class. And this was demonstrated in the years we worked together when we achieved some worthwhile gains. We broke a protection racket on immigrant workers in Leicester, and recruited previously warring mods and rockers into the Young Socialists in a small town in Northamptonshire, and within a very short period our tendency provided the national secretary of that organisation (Dave’s lifetime friend, also from Coventry – Dave Ashby) I cannot relate what he did in the years that we lost touch because, for a while we were in different countries and even different continents, but surprisingly our subsequent careers mirrored one another in a surprisingly resonant way.

And when I found him again via The Commune, we immediately met, and it was as if we had only been
apart a few days. He was still the same, dear friend and comrade, and it was revealed that in those years before our reunion he did some great things.
The work he did setting up arrangements for the mature education with working class women was
exemplary, and his research in that area earned him a doctorate. The women who he worked for knew who they could trust and went to him with many different problems, only recently he organised an action to provide a play area for their children when one of his women students asked him to help, which was successful.

One raised eyebrow from Dave was all I ever needed to “think again”. And one look at Dave’s surprised reactions always caused me to look again, and see what I had evidently missed. And Dave was still writing significant stuff to the end.

It has to be said that the many organisations we participated in did not develop theory as was absolutely necessary, and when I think back many of the very best people I knew were used up in activism, without any perceivable development in the methods of analysing situations and organising appropriate actions.

Dave Spencer is without any doubt a great loss to us all, and my heartfelt sympathy is for his wife Corinne, his son and his grandson, who he delighted in.

He will be greatly missed. We could certainly do with more like him

Hollande has spoken of his admiration for Greek destroyer-in-chief Papandreou

The financial markets went into a petulant sulk today, in response to the election results in France – where incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by his ‘centre-left’ challenger – and in Greece, where two thirds of the electorate voted against avowedly anti-austerity candidates. It seems likely that we will now see some attempt at rebranding austerity – ‘neoliberalism with a human face’ – but this will be nothing more than ‘lipstick on a pig’. The international financial gamblers will allow no let-up in the transfer of wealth from the overwhelming majority to their own decadent and diseased milieu.

The French election saw Socialist Party candidate François Hollande beat current president Sarkozy of the ‘centre-right’ Union for a Popular Movement. Like all candidates of the ‘centre-left’, Hollande played a double game throughout, combining rhetoric about “giving European construction a dimension of growth, jobs, prosperity, and future” for the consumption of working class audiences with hard talk about wiping out the deficit just one year later than Sarkozy for the banking elite.

When Hollande was nominated as Socialist Party candidate in October (replacing former International Monetary Fund boss Dominique Strauss Kahn after allegations of rape), he immediately held a huge 24-point opinion poll lead over Sarkozy – the most despised French President in modern times, who is absolutely identified with policies favouring the super-rich. But the more voters found out about Hollande’s actual policies, the more his star fell, culminating in yesterday’s narrow two point margin.

The markets could definitely live with a Hollande presidency – there is widespread confidence amongst elites that this ‘social democrat’ will emulate the former Greek PM Georgios Papandreou and implement the biggest post-war assault on working class living standards. After all, in a vital signal to the new aristocracy, Hollande eulogised Papandreou in the televised debate with Sarkozy.

What the banksters couldn’t handle is an anti-austerity government in Greece, where huge street protests and repeated general strikes against living standards cuts of up to two thirds have demonstrated a willingness to resist.

The parties of the last banker-dictated coalition were punished more or less in proportion to the responsibility their hold for austerity measures. The ‘centre-right’ New Democracy – who had feigned opposition to austerity before the bankers required them for a coalition last autumn – suffered a 14.6% swing, but became the largest party, enabling them to pick up fifty bonus seats under the anti-democratic Greek system. ‘Centre-left’ party PASOK – who enforced the vast majority of cuts alone until they could no longer hold the streets – saw their vote plunge by more than a third. In the new parliament, the former coalition partners will now hold 149 seats out of 300 – two shy of a majority.

Second place went to the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), with a plus swing of nearly 17%. The rest of the nominally anti-austerity vote was shared between the Democratic Left (a right-wing split from SYRIZA), the Stalinist Communist Party, and the openly fascist Golden Dawn – who demanded journalists stand when their leader entered the room at their post-election press conference.

The markets would certainly have preferred a situation where New Democracy and PASOK were able to piece together a coalition, but at the time of writing it seems that ND leader Antonis Samaras believes such a union is “impossible”. In the next few days, the representatives of high finance – Germany’s Angela Merkel chief among them – will do all they can before the cameras and behind the scenes to stress the “utmost importance” of continuing to sacrifice the lives of workers on the altar of Mammon. If a pro-austerity majority cannot be cobbled together, another election seems to be on the horizon. The possibility of a sell-out from SYRIZA and/or the Communist Party cannot be ruled out however, as both helped contain demonstrations and strikes under Papandreou, and both are strongly linked to the reactionary union bureaucracy. Moreover, the Greek military could be making its own plans to step in.

In short, though the working people of France, Greece and all Europe want an end to austerity, there can be no electoral shortcut to building rank and file control of workplaces and neighbourhoods. On the contrary, the urgency of that task grows greater with every passing day.

As the From The Greek Streetsblog commented this afternoon:

“Society in the greek territory is polarising rapidly. The one pole, the pole of the far-right, the misanthropic facade of the current system of capitalist exploitation, is forming quickly. The crucial task ahead is for our pole to form faster even; for us to understand that the times (not so far) ahead will involve a fight to shift society as a whole in an emancipatory direction. A struggle to keep our cities, our streets, our spaces clean from misanthropic nazi scum. But also, and most importantly, a struggle and a race to occupy the space left behind by a crumbling, retreating system of order; we’d better get going.”

This year’s May Day demonstration was more enjoyable than usual, with a relatively large turn out of around 200 people and pleasant weather for a majority of the day. A ‘carnival bloc’ had been arranged by local autonomists and included a sound system playing traditional workers anthems such as Bella ciao as well as more modern tunes. A large samba band and a couple of demonstrators on stilts kept our spirits high as we marched from the site of the large unemployed workers’ demonstration of 1931 that was ambushed by police, towards the modern Urbis development.

Speeches were made by trade unionists but as the rain began to pour members of the Anarchist Federation took to the stage. Frank Ellis, secretary of Manchester TUC, tried to physically prevent them but was unable to. The AF speaker spoke of the history of the Haymarket Massacre and of the need to organise beyond trade unions and one day token actions. As Ellis told the AF member that they had ‘no right’ to speak, a member of the audience shouted that they had more right than Salford’s new Labour Party Mayor Ian Stewart, an ex-MP who had voted for war. (Scroll down to see footage)

Maclean – For a Scottish Workers’ Republic

In their own words, Bob Goupillot and Allan Armstrong of the Republican Communist Network (RCN), “are not in the business of trying to create an economically independent Scottish state, either under capitalism or socialism.” They want to create a new global order. Yet their starting point for a communist transition is a national territorial framework in general, as they acknowledge, and Scotland in particular. But they argue that they are not nationalists, but internationalists with a strategy of internationalism from below, in which small nation nationalism can be transformed into internationalism. This is a rhetorical paradox. What is their tactical and strategic standpoint?

Bob and Allan locate themselves, not directly in capitalist crisis and class antagonism, but indirectly and strategically on the fault lines of anti imperialism. To prepare for revolution directly would be simply propaganda for the comrades, so the RCN look for political weaknesses to undermine the British State. Scottish independence would break up the British state and weaken the USA, the major imperialist power; since Britain is its main political ally. This tactical stance is based on an analogy with the political support of Marx and Engels for various national movements against reactionary Russia in the mid Nineteenth century. Another influence is John Maclean’s politics of breaking up Britain and its empire shortly after the first world war. This shows the RCN that nationalism can be progressive, even proletarian, without having any illusions that it can overthrow capitalism, just like trade unions can be progressive and undermine capitalism, short of revolution. But in any case, they have a conviction in the right of Scotland as a nation to self determination.

Firstly, for the RCN to tactically stand on the ground of anti imperialism begs the question of what do they really stand for? Anti imperialism is not sufficient in itself for communists. What do the RCN support? In Allan’s view, outlined recently in a response to Eric Chester, to restrict oneself to communist principles would be abstract propagandism. That’s Allan’s maximum programme. But in the here and now the RCN seek real leverage in high politics. Any kind of Scottish state would be a step forward, even independence lite with the Scottish state sharing the monarchy, Stirling, a banking sector and the British army. Why would it be a real step forward? It would be anti unionist and weaken the labour party, lib dems and the BNP. This is a lesser evil argument. But there is a conviction that independence for Scotland would be a gain for the working class, in its own right and begin to democratise the capitalist state in Scotland. While Scottish independence is considered strong, the working class is considered to be weak, so Allan considers the only realistic battle can be on the terrain of SNP constitutionalism. This does reveal the narrow focus on democraticing the state in the RCN’S practical politics .

But in the context of the great recession or one of the longest and deepest capitalist crisis why would class struggle be refracted through constitutionalism? Most of the RCN theorising appears to have elaborated prior to the crisis or do not make the crisis central to their politics. But an independent Scottish state would not be independent of global capitalism. Its independence would be nominal, especialy if there is a shared currency and banking sector. If Scotland applied for membership of the EU, again the state would have to toe the neo liberal line. Scottish nationalists can no longer point to an arc of properous small nations such as Iceland and Ireland. The powerlessness of the Greek government for its finances shows the hollowness of national independence. What will be the effects on the working class in Scotland of a small capitalist state fighting for economic survival. It will be a race to the bottom for working class living standards as corporation tax is cut. In any case there is no abstract right to self determination and Scotland has not been an oppressed nation as any comparison with the history of Ireland demonstrates.

Analogy is a weak form of theorising; but the analogy comparing American and British imperialism with the empires of the Habsburgs and the Romanovs and the tactics of Marx and Engels, does not stand up. The lesson of the 1848 springtime of peoples was that the bourgeois were not revolutionary and the future was not national democratic revolution led by Bourgeois modernisers. Marx was in favour of German unity, but that unity was imposed by counter revolution from above by Bismark under the hegmony of Prussia. Marx tactically focused on the threat of semi feudal Russia to capitalist development and the embryo of a workers movement in Europe, not states that embody the most advanced forms of capitalism. This focus missed the growing antagonism between German and British capitalist imperialism which resulted in world war. Marx’s tactics on national movements are debatable. They rapidly became dated and were used out of a specific context – something Allan is also guilty of – by the leaders of German Social Democracy to justify Germany’s so called civilising mission in the first world war. There was no argument by Marx for a general right to self determination, even for Poland. And Marx and Engels generally supported large units not small breakaways. Again, some of the arguments of Engels particularly on non historic nations were to say the least – dubious.

The analogy with John Maclean’s break up of Britain is no better. John Maclean stood for a Scottish Workers Republic and nothing less. Any strategy of phases or a constitutional road to a classless society would have been anathema to him. While the future leaders of the CPGB focused on the practical politics of trade unionism or calling for peace, John Maclean was the only significant workers leader preparing for international revolution during the first world war. This cannot be dismissed as abstract propagandism. Rather than look for changes in the state, or focus on a narrow view of what might be possible, John Maclean looked to street meetings and economic classes to prepare for a Petrograd in Scotland. But Maclean was marginalised by Theodore Rothsein during the formation of the CPGB. But in any case, even though Willie Gallagher, Harry Pollitt and Rothsein proclaimed themselves revolutionary, Maclean knew from personal experience their tactics and strategy were far from revolutionary. Even if he joined he would have been expelled for independence of mind, like Sylvia Pankhurst. So Scotland must lead itself in the context of what he expected to be a war between Britain and the USA over economic competition. With Scottish workers considered to be in advance of their English comrades, Scotland could follow the example of Ireland and fight to break away from Britain and help bring down the Empire.

Lenin also thought that the break down of empires by nationalism and nationalists would clear the way to socialism and communism. Historicaly his critics have been proved correct. Attempting to link the national struggle with the workers’ cause resulted in historical defeats for workers movements. But Maclean did not theoretically link nationalism with the workers’ cause, unlike James Connolly, who did conflate labour’s cause with nationalism. He considered the origins and rise of private property in Ireland was caused by an English invasion of Ireland; contrary to Marx and more importantly modern research. But Maclean did seem to uncritically absorb aspects of Scottish identity. There were scattered comments such as : “don’t let Scottish lads fight for john Bull”; “We are justified in utilising our Scottish sentiments”; “the primitive communism of the clans must be re-established on a modern basis”. And so on. But the clans were more primitive feudalism. Although national sentiments in Scotland were growing in Maclean’s time, Scottish workers joined their English and Welsh comrades in the British trade union movement and the Labour Party, which CPGB helped to establish at a local level. Maclean tried, but failed to break this reformist mold.

Today, Scottish nationalism is on the rise again, with the decline of British imperialism and capitalism and the dismantling of the “welfare state”. Although polls suggest that support for Scottish independence is still minority politics. And the failure to win Glasgow in the recent local elections shows the high tide of nationalism might be ebbing. To criticise the SNP for not arousing the workers for Scottish independence, as the RCN do, or vote for Scottish independence even on a capitalist basis, seems to be more than engaging with nationalism. Voting for independence or critical support for a SNP referendum can only serve to help tie the working class to nationalism and the future of a capitalist state. Alex Salmond in alliance with Rupert Murdoch. It would weaken the working class not capitalism. Scottish identity was formed at the same time as Britishness. Scottish upper class people were at the heart of the British Empire as troops and politicians and at the top of the British Parliament in London. To say Scotland is oppressed because there is not a constitutional right to seced from the British state, as Allan does, is a utopian or constitutional view of revolution. To echo a critic of Karl Kautsky: a high politics road will not be a different route to the same destination- communism, but a track to a different destination.

To better understand our approach to this issue it is useful, by way of a preamble, to provide a thumbnail sketch of our understanding of the international context.

The modern form of capitalism is a developed imperialism dominated by the United States. US imperialism relies on a series of local allies at strategic locations around the world. In western Europe the USA’s main ally is the UK state, which thereby provides a linchpin for the whole system.

In this context we see our role as communists to work towards the transformation of the existing states on these islands into becoming part of a federation of European socialist republics in a transition to a stateless world – a global commune.

At present we perceive a series of fault lines that run through the multinational, but unionist, UK state, especially the issue of a united Ireland and self-determination for Scotland. We have developed a strategy of ‘internationalism from below’ to link the situation we face in Scotland, the UK and Ireland with the global struggle for emancipation and liberation. We promote the ‘break-up of the UK state’ as a key tactic in pursuing this. It is from this perspective, as communists, republicans and internationalists that we support the struggle for an independent Scotland. We are not Scottish nationalists, but Scottish internationalists seeking new forms of unity, which are not a mere reflection of how the ruling class or the British left organises itself. We need to be able to take our own initiatives, not just react to those of others.

Independence-Lite or Devo-Max?

So how does the Republican Communist Network view the SNP and the forthcoming referendum? Well, we summarise their relationship to the struggle for independence as analogous to that between the old Labour party and Socialism, i.e. opportunist. The SNP reflects a small business, petty bourgeoisie outlook that seeks greater influence for its class backers within the existing corporate imperial order, i.e. ‘Independence-Lite’. Such a state, very unlikely to come about in the current political climate, would be a ‘Scottish Free State’, with a similar character to the Irish Free State, formed after the defeat of Irish Republicans in the British-promoted Irish Civil War of 1922-3. At present, however, many of the SNP’s business backers, naturally cautious about any radical political change and understanding of their lowly position in the current imperial pecking order, would settle for a restructured UK state, i.e. Devo-Max.

The SNP’s left wing consists of advanced nationalists, republicans and some who would call themselves socialists, although the majority of their left wing decamped into the Scottish Socialist Party in its early days (though many have since returned). The SNP’s electoral base is politically broad ranging from social democrats seeking a home to the left of Labour to far right nationalists advocating some kind of Celtic purity.

Given this character the SNP leadership is keen to placate and charm corporate business leaders, the Scottish Establishment, and British and US ruling class – hence the retention of the UK monarchy (and more importantly the Crown Powers), the pound sterling and cooperation with the UK state over defence, foreign policy etc. They are particularly proud of the role played by Scottish regiments in serving British imperial needs for centuries.

In contrast the SNP leadership is fearful of rousing the people of Scotland and in particular the working class, in which they have shallow roots, in any active independence campaign. With the Labour Party having moved so far to the right, they have found an electoral niche. To appeal to Scottish workers, they make election ‘promises’ of traditional social democratic-type reforms. But these promises quickly evaporate whenever the capitalist class, including its Scottish SNP supporters, e.g. Sir Tom Farmer, call for greater austerity. The SNP’s role in Scottish government, and in many local councils, shows that they are quite prepared to administer Westminster cuts. They are also willing to privatise services and enforce major pay cuts, as the case of the Edinburgh street cleaners has shown.

The role of communists, socialists and republicans

Our role, then, is to initiate or participate in campaigns that raise the issue of the social and political character of such an independent Scotland, specifically raising the issues listed in the Declaration of Calton Hill and developing these as part of a specifically republican socialist campaign to reshape Scotland and hence the UK, along with partitioned Ireland.

In order to do this we will need allies beyond the borders of Scotland, in the rest of the UK and Ireland in particular, but also in the EU and across the world. We have already started this process by initiating the Republican Socialist Convention, drawing together socialist republicans, and communists from Scotland, England, Wales and Ireland (North and South). We hope to organise another later this year.

Should an independent Scottish republic be torn out of the UK state we believe that this will weaken it, and the current US dominated imperial order, inspiring others to join us in delivering the fatal blow. Such an event would be celebrated by all those consciously active in the cause of suffering humanity across the world.

One cannot help but contrast the current, powerful student movement in Québec, Canada, to its counterpart in the UK. It was considered a big deal when in November 2010 we had roughly 100,000 (who came from around the country) on the streets of London, whose population proper is roughly 8 million. In comparison, 200,000 turned out for recent protests in Montréal, whose population proper is roughly 1.6 million (and only 3 million in the wider urban area).

Both events were provoked by a hiking of tuition fees – in the UK a 200% increase to a whopping £9,000 a year, in Québec a 75% increase to £2,400 a year. This is not to mention Québec’s tuition fees were, and with the increase, are still lower than the North American average. This is in contrast to the UK, whose fees of £3,000, before the trebling, were already much higher than the European average.

Unlike in the UK, in Québec, after the large demonstration, most of the students did not just head back to university. The movement is a full scale student strike, which has lasted so long now (nearly three months – since 13 February), that it’s likely most will have to retake the university year due to tuition time missed. This difference in tactics is important: those in Québec recognise a large demonstration showing how upset or ‘angry’ they are will not force a benevolent, democratic state to reconsider. What’s needed is a serious disruption to the status quo, the working day, the operation of capitalism: a prolonged strike, until the state and the capital interests that run it concede.

Disrupting the operation of capital is exactly what the students have attempted: radical students have four times succeeded in blocking the port of Montréal for a few hours (22 March, 28 March, 5 April, 10 April). This was done by blocking the roads to it, some activists using the same black-bloc tactics activists in Oakland used a few months ago. Hundreds blocked the entrances to the main office of the government-run corporation for the distribution of alcohol in the province. Activists unleashed a plague of locusts into classrooms of the city’s main business school which required professional exterminators to contain. Daily, students block major roads across the city. These actions have been limited to a select few militants, yet the fact they’ve even happened, and their persistence, is deeply encouraging. Activists have vowed to keep disrupting economic life until concessions are won. Solidarity with workers has been present: thousands of students joined a solidarity protest together with Rio Tinto steelworkers facing a lockout, while students joined fired Aveos airline workers in Montréal city centre protesting job cuts.

Activists have not shown any hesitancy to target the state, too. Back in January hundreds blockaded the entrance to the Ministry of Education’s building. A few weeks ago, hundreds blocked the entrances and occupied the offices of the CEGEP Federation (Québec’s equivalent of the Russell Group). Some, confident from the hitherto success of the strike, have even gone as far to tackle liberation issues: disrupting government meetings – one of the homophobic and racist Québecois immigration minister for those stances he holds, and another which was planning to sell off indigenous North American land to private energy companies.

Under Québecois law it is illegal for students to strike, yet it is legal for workers: hence what the student strike represents is a recognition students too are workers – people who have their labour exploited. We should pay attention to this – the efforts of the strike to link with the wider working class struggles against capital. It is indeed a pleasant surprise, given many students’ lack of interest in the UK anti-cuts movement, or even hiked tuition fees for future entrants, that will not affect their ability to get a degree and thus enter a high-pay job. (Of course, the current amount of graduate jobs is not infinite, but this is still the reason why many that go to university choose to do so, and certainly why they studied hard to get into ‘better’ universities – ones whose qualifications will open more doors).

However, it is also the apparent impossibility of successfully resisting cuts that drives apathy. Seeing no successful fight means people cannot even conceive of and hence consider engaging in anti-cuts activism. This issue is essential; for example, in my university, it was how (and thus why) many wealthy middle-class kids got into the anti-cuts movement: the occupation of a large, prominent space in the university gave a clear possibility to fight cuts, hence many who would otherwise be apolitical got involved. In Québec, the clear possibility of action, aided by the support of many of their teachers, got the kids involved, and the success of said action has meant the movement has not lost any significant momentum.

I don’t want to discredit the genuine hard work of many in the UK student movement. But it’s vital we look to Québec and see what a real struggle looks like. It’s vital we ditch the pathetic National Union of Students bureaucracy and any bourgeois fantasies about an accountable, democratic government. This call comes at the time when activists at the annual NUS conference are fighting just to get the NUS to call a(nother) national demonstration. Unfortunately, the only demonstration this may turn out to be is one showing that we cannot revive the movement we had in 2010; let’s hope the same will not be the case in Québec.

It was with great sadness that we learnt of the death of our comrade Dave Spencer on the night of Tuesday 24, less than a week short of his 72nd birthday. Many shocked friends and comrades have written to us remembering his personal warmth and good humour, even when debating passionate issues, as he did so recently, he did so in a composed and relaxed manner that forced you to think more clearly and raise the level of your own argument. Dave’s life touched many outside traditional left wing circles, as an exponent of radical pedagogy he put his ideas into action in Coventry by running an adult education course, going out in the council estates of Coventry to teach parents in primary schools English, Maths, Psychology, cooking etc.

In Dave’s own words during a recent debate “My way of teaching English was to discuss a controversial topic for an hour or so to get everybody thinking. The women would then go home and write down their thoughts or experiences. Grammar could come later. One of the favourite topics was “All men are bastards. Discuss”. One day the women of my class in Bell Green came in to discuss the proposed closure of their local Primary School. What to do? I seem to remember suggesting in an abstract way occupation and joining the local Labour Party to get rid of their councillors. Three days later, on the front page of the local paper there was an article “Parents occupy Bell Green Primary School” and there in the picture were the smiling faces of my students!”

As Dave would say, truly ‘communism from below’.

In later life Dave became chair of his local residents’ group and managed to secure national lottery funding to build a play area for the children in the park. He told a recent aggregate of the commune that this felt like the biggest achievement he was ever a part of in politics and was very moved by the experience.

Dave was a revolutionary for over 50 years, in which time he was a constant champion of the rank-and-file ‘from below’ through factory bulletins and organising local discos but was also prepared to stand up to petty bureaucrats.

One of the final unity campaigns Dave was involved in was the Campaign for a Marxist Party, where he saw that the CPGB wanted to wreck the initiative after they had gained all they could from it, as the SWP did in the Socialist Alliance.

As one comrade remembers, “At one conference of the campaign the CPGB brought a hand raising mob, some of whom had joined days before and some who were not even members. Jack Conrad of the CPGB ignored the chair (Dave) and signalled that the verbal abuse and nonsense could begin. Dave raised himself to his full height and stature and put courtesy aside as inappropriate and bellowed ‘sit down and shut up you silly boy!’ This caused the self-styled hard Bolshevik to look rather upset and one of his supporters called for the chair to show some respect. In response, Dave, in his best headmasterly voice explained that first he would have to have respect for others….

On another occasion during a national committee meeting, two comrades drank two pints of beer each over four hours. The next issue of the Weekly Worker had a very large pint of Guinness next to an article on the committee, that implied the committee were all drunks. I wrote hundreds of words denouncing the CPGB. But Dave simply said, ‘A cult creates its own reality’. Exactly”

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We in the commune hope to republish some of David’s articles in memory of him. Below is a message from David on the failure of the left.

“On the SWP’s “Left Unity” initiative, I don’t see why we can’t afford to ignore it – the electorate certainly will. The main reason for the vacuum on the Left is the behaviour of the SWP and SP. They destroyed both the Socialist Alliance which had over 90 candidates in the 2001 general election and the Scottish Socialist Party which had over 70 candidates in 2001. Neither group can stand any rivals or any form of democracy. The SWP could not keep Respect together and the SP were too frightened to launch the Campaign for a New Workers’ Party as a membership organisation in case they got outnumbered. I can’t believe they have changed their approach unless for tactical reasons.

The only way to beat the BNP is by consistent political work in working class communities – that is by building from below. In the recent County Council elections 3 comrades in Northampton put up as Save Our Public Services candidates. Dave Green got the best result in New Duston with 950 votes, 39.6% of the vote and 61 votes short of the incumbent Tory councillor. Harry Tuttle in Lumbertubs ward got 277 votes, 16.5% of the vote and Norman Adams in Delapre got 219 votes, 10.2% of the total. These are good results compared to the pitiful 0.9% for the NO2EU candidates in the European elections, all of whom must have lost their £5,000 deposits in each region.

The Northampton votes are the result of week by week campaigning to defend council housing, open public spaces and opposing the PFI building of schools.

Because of the economic recession there will be attacks on the living standards of the working class and certainly cuts in public services. There will be a need to build more community campaigns. This is where the Left should be. As I understand it the BNP’s tactics are to be visible and active in working class areas. That’s where we should defeat them not in some last minute unity scheme for the general election which will cost a lot of money and get nowhere.

Dave S”

On democratic practice

“Dear Comrades

CPGB comrades have complained quite rightly about the physical abuse and attack on their comrade at Marxism 2007. Such methods should be declared out of order in the working class movement.

Jack Conrad however thinks that verbal abuse and attacks are well in order and part of the free expression of his human rights.

In the CMP Committee’s opinion — which is widely held by others in society and based on scientific evidence — there is a direct link between verbal and physical, racial, sexual, homophobic and other forms of abuse on the person. It is the inappropriate expression of uncontrolled anger. It is also a form of bullying and intimidation in order to obtain or retain power.

With emails it is easy to dash off a reply to a person on the spur of the moment and write something abusive. What the Committee is saying is that comrades should think before they write and avoid verbal abuse. This recommendation is quite normal on elists. In developing the Campaign it is particularly important. We want to build a democratic and comradely culture where comrades can develop their ideas and their activities in dialogue with others and make a contribution.

Some comrades may not agree with trying to build this culture. They may prefer a series of arm-wrestling contests and hostile macho shouting matches where the development of their own ego is the object. Let them argue for that type of culture.

The Chair of an organisation should represent the principles and aims of that organisation as a whole and balance that against the rights of individual members. This role can of course be abused in a bureaucratic fashion. On the other hand without a chair you can have total anarchy.

In the case of chairing this email list I would see it that a comrade or comrades could complain that so and so’s behaviour was abusive or out of order. I would then put it to the members of the email list to vote on the issue and to propose what should happen. The whole process would be democratic. There is no question of me dictating or policing or throwing ASBOs about as mischieviously suggested by JC. If JC wants to show his Leninist credentials by calling people twerps because Lenin called Trotsky a twerp in 1907, that’s harmless enough as far as I’m concerned. Others may disagree.

The question is comrades of deciding and putting into practice what sort of culture we want to build in the Campaign.

Fraternally

Dave S”

We welcome all those who knew Dave to share their memories and recollections of our comrade.

A funeral and wake will be held in Coventry on May 10.

Andrew Kliman: The Great Recession was waiting to happen. There were unresolved problems in the system of capitalist production that had been building up over a third of a century. The rate of profit fell and never recovered in a sustained manner, which resulted in persistently sluggish investment and economic growth, which in turn resulted in rising debt burdens. And these problems induced governments to solve them or paper them over with policies that made the debt build-up even bigger.

DVR: Your book is full of statistics and as we know interpretations of statistics can be very different. It would appear that your choice of historical cost as opposed to current cost is crucial. Please can you explain the difference?

Accountants can value assets at their current cost or at their original cost when they were acquired. The latter is usually called their “historical cost.” Both methods have their place. But one thing you can’t do is compute the rate of profit, i.e., the rate of return on investment, by dividing profit by the current cost of the capital assets. It’s not wrong to do this; it’s impossible. What you wind up with just isn’t a rate of return on investment. What the assets are currently worth is simply not the same thing as the amount of money that has actually been invested in them. To measure the latter, you have to take their historical cost and subtract depreciation.

DVR: You only look at US data, does this mean you can’t be sure that profit rates have fallen worldwide?

AK: Well, research I’ve done on rates of profit of U.S. multinationals’ foreign subsidiaries, only some of which is reported in the book, has led me to conclude that the worldwide rate of profit of all corporations, not just U.S. corporations and their subsidiaries, probably trended downward between the early 1980s and the Great Recession. U.S. subsidiaries’ rates of profit fell in the great majority of the 20 countries in which at least 1% of U.S. foreign investment is located. Also, the fall was very broad-based in terms of industrial composition—it wasn’t the case that subsidiaries’ rates of profit fell because, for instance, the manufacturing sector took an especially hard hit. I also found evidence that globally-operative forces, not only country-specific ones, tended to depress the rate of profit in a large majority of cases. When you put these facts together, it’s not easy to believe that there was something unusual about U.S. subsidiaries and corporations in the U.S. that caused their rates of profit to fall while the worldwide rate of profit was rising.

DVR: Is it your argument that the growth in debt is a consequence of the falling rate of profit?

AK: Some of it clearly is. For instance, the U.S. Treasury’s debt ratio––its debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), rose by about two-thirds between 1970 and the Great Recession. I found that all of the increase is attributable to the fact that corporate income tax revenue fell as a share of GDP. It fell partly because their rates of profit fell and partly because the government reduced corporate income tax rates. But the reductions in corporate income tax rates are also a consequence of the falling rate of profit; the government tried to boost their after-tax rates of profit and thereby stimulate productive investment and economic growth. On the other hand, some of the debt build-up, particularly the explosion of home-mortgage debt during the decade, is not connected to the fall in the rate of profit in such a direct manner. I don’t think it would be fruitful to argue that it is ultimately all due to the fall in the rate of profit, or to try to attribute 29% of it or whatever to the fall in the rate of profit. I prefer to think of the debt build-up as the combined result of the fall in the rate of profit, sluggish investment and growth, and a variety of government policies that tried to stimulate the economy artificially in the face of these problems.

DVR: Could it not also be the case that a fiat money regime was a consequence of the US flooding the world with dollars and then finding that they didn’t have enough gold to maintain the value of the dollar at $35 per ounce?

AK: This seems to suggest that there couldn’t have been a massive debt build-up in the U.S. prior to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But the Treasury’s debt rose more than fivefold during World War II, and more than 40-fold during and after the Civil War. There is also evidence that private debt rose rapidly in the years preceding the Great Depression. Moreover, the inflation-adjusted growth rate of private debt of U.S. households and nonfinancial businesses fell pretty consistently from the start of the postwar period through 1983, and even after that point, it was still only about half as great as it was in the late 1940s. In nominal terms, the growth rate of this debt hasn’t changed much throughout the whole postwar period, except for the first half of the 1990s, when it fell a lot. So the rise in the private sector’s debt ratio isn’t due to debt rising more quickly in the post-Bretton Woods period. It’s due to a falling rate of economic growth, and thus a falling rate of growth of income. Recall that the debt ratio is debt as a percentage of income.

DVR: The underconsumptionists argue that there is a realisation problem. That the circuit of capital (M-C-M’) requires not only more labour time, but more effective monetary demand. Some, such as Rosa Luxemburg, say that this can come about through imperialism, which creates new markets in the non-capitalist parts of the world. But now that capitalism is so pervasive, the underconsumptionists claim that this realisation problem is being temporarily solved by debt, and that this is what really lies behind the mountain of debts. What do you think of the unconsumptionist argument?

AK: It’s going to take a good deal of unpacking for me to deal with all of the problems here. Let me say, first, that the solution to the alleged sales problem actually can’t come from sales to non-capitalist parts of the world. You can only sell to them if you buy from them; if you don’t buy from them, they don’t have the funds to buy from you. The notion that the alleged sales problem is solved by an outside group continually buying more than it sells is absurd.

I want to divide the expression “monetary demand” in two. The question of “where does the extra demand come from that allows the increase in capital, the difference between M’ and M, to be sold?” is important and interesting. But the question of “where does the extra money come from that allows the increase in capital to take the form of extra money?” is boring and unimportant.

First of all, you don’t necessarily need extra money; it’s often possible to have a bigger volume of sales with the same stock of money; the money just needs to change hands more rapidly. But if you actually need more money, Marx solved the problem of where it comes from in volume 2 of Capital, under the assumption that there’s a money commodity, gold. Where does the extra gold come from? The ground. It enters circulation when the gold producers exchange it for stuff. End of story. You don’t need a genius like Marx to figure it out. But you need someone like him to realize that “where does the extra money come from” has nothing whatever to do with the question of “where does the extra value (profit) come from?,” which he solves in volume 1, or “where does the extra demand come from?,” which he solves elsewhere in volume 2.

In our day, the extra money comes from sales of securities. But isn’t the amount of money in circulation after securities are exchanged with money just the same as it was before? Generally, yes, but not when central banks or depository institutions buy securities. They buy them with “reserves,” cash that wasn’t in circulation before.

As for the alleged sales problem, i.e., the alleged demand problem, Marx’s schemes of reproduction solved it. Let’s assume that there’s no borrowing or tapping into savings, because the solution doesn’t rely on such things, and because I want to show that the answer to your question is no. It’s not the case that this alleged problem is solved by increasing the volume of debt, and so it’s not the case that this alleged problem is what really lies behind the mountain of debt.

Given our assumption, the demand for the output of this period comes––or, more precisely, can come––from the sales of the output of this period. If the total value of the output is $30 trillion, and it’s all sold for $30 trillion, it’s also all bought for $30 trillion. End of story. In this particular sense, it’s completely correct to say that every sale is a purchase and every purchase is a sale. Additional debt isn’t ever needed in order to sell everything that’s been produced. Additional debt is generally needed in order to boost economic growth, i.e., to make the amount that gets produced grow faster in the future––and U.S. government policies encouraged the debt build-up in order to try to achieve faster growth––but that’s a completely different matter. What we’re dealing with here is a single period.

Of course, the output might not all be bought and sold. So we have a temporary slump, a recession. What generally happens is that, at first, there’s a decline in investment demand, demand for additional means of production, not a decline in personal consumption demand. So there’s a slump in the equipment-producing and construction industries. But if businesses are investing less, and stuff isn’t selling, workers get laid off and so personal consumption may eventually decline as well. This isn’t that common, though. In the U.S. between 1943 and 2007, there were only two years, 1974 and 1980, in which inflation-adjusted personal consumption demand was less than in the year before.

In any case, these shortfalls in demand are always temporary, despite what underconsumptionists of the Monthly Review school claim. They say that there would have been a chronic lack of demand if there hadn’t been a debt build-up. Why? Because there are limits to personal consumption demand in capitalism (wages are low, etc.), and because investment demand supposedly can’t grow faster than personal consumption demand in the long run. I demonstrate in my book, on both factual and theoretical grounds, that this last part is simply false. Investment demand can grow a whole lot faster, and it has in fact grown a whole lot faster in the U.S.––about four or five times as fast––for three-quarters of a century. (I invite anyone who doesn’t accept these demonstrations to try and disprove them.) So there doesn’t need to be a debt build-up to solve a chronic problem of insufficient demand, because no such chronic problem exists.

DVR: Is it possible that there is an element of both, excessive debt to deal with the fall in profit rates and growing debt due to gold production falling behind commodity production?

AK: No, because gold doesn’t serve as a means of payment or means of circulation nowadays. The need for additional money, if there is such a need, is a need for extra amounts of instruments that can be used to settle debts and to buy commodities and assets.  It has nothing to do with what things, if any, adequately measure value or what things act as stores of value.

DVR: On page 130 of your book you produce a chart that shows how increases in the value composition of capital reflect the falls in profit rates, and that although the rate of exploitation can account for short-term variations in profit rates, the rate of exploitation hasn’t changed much over the post-war period. Given that the data used is based upon exchange-values (prices) [my assumption] and so includes debt (claims on future labour time), how different do you think the chart would look based upon values (labour time, but without claims on future labour time)?

AK: The most important result shown in that graph is that 89% of the fall in U.S. corporations’ rate of profit between 1947 and 2007 is attributable to a rise in what you call the value composition of capital. Only a little bit of the fall in the rate of profit is attributable to a decline (almost all of it between 1965 and 1970) in what you call the rate of exploitation. Using my proxy for the monetary expression of labor-time to convert nominal figures into labor-time figures, I obtained a similar result: 97% of the fall in the labor-time rate of profit is attributable to a rise in the labor-time measure of the value composition of capital. But the percentage decline in the rate of is much greater, as is the percentage increase in the value composition of capital, after the conversion than before, while what you call the rate of exploitation isn’t affected by the conversion. I can explain why all this is the case, if you wish, but the explanation is very technical.

DVR: What do you expect to happen to capitalism in the next decade or so?

AK: First, let me stress that anything anyone says about this is no more than an educated guess. Lots of economists provide forecasts, because they are paid good money to do so, but nothing in the whole body of economic theory, or anything else, gives anyone the ability to forecast reliably beyond a few months, maybe a year or so. Theory can allow us to speak knowledgeably about trends and about how various things interrelate, but not about things like what will happen to capitalism in the next decade.

My educated guess is that the world economy will not start expanding rapidly. There’s too much uncollectable debt, and there’s little prospect that profitability will rebound in a sustainable way, because accumulated investment is too great in relation to the profit it can generate. And artificial government stimulus of the economy has basically reached its limits. So we’re likely to have more of the same: high unemployment, foreclosed homes, bankruptcies, debt and banking crises, etc. I don’t think there will be a new boom under capitalism without large-scale destruction of value (including write-downs of uncollectable debt and other forms of fictitious value) that sets the stage for a restoration of profitability.

The main question is then whether policymakers in the major countries will be able to engineer a very long soft landing, in which the destruction of value occurs gradually, without truly major crises and/or social upheavals and/or wars. They’ve been pretty successful for decades, and recently, at kicking the can down the road by papering over bad debt with even more debt. But this strategy might well be approaching its limit as government debt ratios mount. And the persistent economic malaise, rising debt, and the 70%-plus “haircut” that some of Greece’s creditors recently had to take have  to be eroding creditors’ confidence that monies owed to them will in fact be repaid. This makes financial crises on the scale of the 2007–2008 crisis, or even worse ones, more likely.

The most hopeful things happening are the acceleration of class struggles taking place in various forms throughout the world, and the fact that they’re learning from and solidarizing with one another. I think a socialist way out of the crisis is a real historical possibility now, but only if these struggles are met halfway with a very sober, very rationalist politics that says, “the solutions that have been tried to fix capitalism aren’t working, but we don’t really know yet what must be changed in order to transcend the system. So the only solution is you. It’s up to you to take control of the process of figuring this out. Once you know what you’re doing, you’ll be able to do more than express your anger and appeal to leaders to help you. You can take charge.”

The people massively voted for a candidate to the left of Labour even with a Tory-FibDem coalition. This has got Labour nervous and inspired the Left. However, as much as Galloway appears to be on the side of ordinary people as opposed to the rich, he is another political ego on another stage of his trip. The whole parliamentary system is full of them, all dreaming about one day being Prime Minister. Today more and more people are fed up with the egos. Not just the political variety but the corporate whores as well. Increasingly people are realizing that they don’t need to put up with them. That society can be run without structures promoting power and control. That society is one of direct democracy. That is, communism. All over the world people have got a taste of direct democracy through the Occupy movement & their General Assemblies. Tahir Square has spawned workers’ councils. We can organize society to meet our needs rather than just being used to generate profit for an elite.

Out with the professional political egos ruling; in with delegates & assemblies!